PrintOurs is an age when the moral authority of accusers is at its height. Also the moral authority of accusations. There was a time when accusations had to be proven. That requirement has long since passed. After all, why would anyone bear false witness? So everybody is a witness, especially those with phantasmagoric tales to tell, especially those who yearn to testify against liberal societies which have established and proven processes to alert their own demos about evil. There are many of these foul witnesses: some ideologues, some ideological liars, some resentful, some haters. Like haters of Jews, of which in the arrested world of Islam there are more and more. As there are more and more among philo-Islamists, a cultural sickness in the West not yet fully gauged.
1. The Fall of Human Rights Watch
Robert L. Bernstein is of the best of American liberalism, of the best of American intellectual liberalism. He was chairman for a full quarter century of Random House, a distinguished New York publishing house. He was also the founder of Human Rights Watch. That was roughly 30 years ago, and he was the working chairman for two decades. Subsequently, he was the organization's chairman emeritus, watching--I would guess--with horror as the institution he established lost track of the defining distinctions between democratic societies and tyrannies.
Human Rights Watch was a light for those actually or spiritually imprisoned in the many real-life gulags spread throughout the world. But human rights are violated in both closed and open societies, and HRW didn't ignore the abuses of milder despotisms or, for that matter, of vaguely progressive commonwealths. There are such.
Still, there is, Bernstein writes, the "important distinction between open and closed societies," nowhere more evident than in the Middle East, which has been the central locus of the work of Human Rights Watch. And, within that focus, Israel is the polity it seeks to penetrate, expose and defame. It has been doing that for years. I am no naif. Israel is far from perfect, and the Israel Defense Forces are far from perfect. But I know many soldiers in the IDF, and when they and their comrades go to battle they try to present themselves with "purity of arms." Frankly, I don't believe a single Arab soldier would recognize the concept, and certainly not the fanatic warriors of Islamic Jihad, Hamas or Hezbollah.
Bernstein is very light on the rhetoric and very strong on the reasoning. But let me make the point: there is some meaning to the fact that not a single Muslim community in the orbit of conflict has a modern conception of human rights, their protestations against Israel to the contrary. Bernstein, however, does quote Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, saying that the I.D.F. in Gaza "did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare."
I don't care a fig about what Mr. Kenneth Roth, the, yes, "Jewish," Human Rights Watch chief apparatchik, says about this. And, frankly, I don't care a fig either what Judge Goldstone--yes, also Jewish--says about this since he consented to sit on a juridical panel with a South African lady who had judged Israel guilty before she had heard or read a word of testimony, testimony that is intrinsically suspect.
Human Rights Watch has turned out to be the prosecutor and aspirant-hangman of free societies, basically indifferent to the fate of democracy and liberal ideals. A good idea when it was born, an important idea. No one will miss it save the enemies of truth.
2. The J Street Circle Jerk
I have kept away from J Street. I don't like cranks, and I especially don't like cranks who exaggerate their own importance. (Cranks who grasp their own insignificance are kind of sweet and honest. J Street is neither.) Still, J Street with its fakery gives the world a bad name, and especially the Jewish world.
Its latest trick was to paste together a list of congressmen and senators who would be "hosts" at the first Washington confab of the organization. Maybe J Street doesn't understand that these men and women routinely sign on as "sponsors" of legislation for which they have no intention of voting. I'd be flabbergasted if more than two handfuls will show up, even counting two of the three Arab members of the House and the most ideologically left from the Black Caucus.
I am, however, especially disappointed that my now senior senator (and my friend after an honest and touching patch-up, at least touching to me) is an invited keynote speaker. If he does what he says he will do, which is to speak the tough truth, J Street will rue his invite. Of course, the great hope of the J Streeters is James Jones, who is to give the main oration. If he satisfies J Street, which I hardly believe he can given the existential similarities between administration policy and realistic Zionists, Obama and company will be in deep trouble, especially coming on the heels of all his palpable foreign policy failures experienced in recent weeks.
Of the so-called Jewish dignitaries, I'm afraid, I hardly recognized one. I was told I was wrong when I tried to identify two. There is no one on the lists from Hollywood, another deadly sign that J Street is a pariah, no, not important enough to be a pariah. Believe me: there are plenty of Israeli intellectuals who cleave to something like (though not quite) J Street politics. Not a one will be in Washington. One Israeli, who actually now works for J Street, had a reputation for being a security risk a long time ago. Who knows?
J Street is a circle jerk. A bit tawdry, a bit showy. The exhibitionism started with the New York Times Magazine's own James Traub, who cast a bit of respectability over J Street by trashing J Street's designated enemy, AIPAC, no one from whose entourage he ever asked a question, not a single one. And it isn't as if Traub knows much about the Jewish people or Jewish communal politics or, for that matter, the State of the Jews. On these issues, he is an am oretz. This means a "man of the earth." Not a peasant with its dignities, mind you. But a grubber yung, a coarse young man.
Traub, like J Street and Human Rights Watch, have chosen their friends. They are not civilized.
PS: Oops! John Kerry has dropped out of the line-up, too. Calendar conflict, his office reports. And my dog ate my homework. There will be many other drop-outs once more of the guests realize who are their hosts.
COMMENTS (108)
I had hopes for a pro-Israel and Jewish organization that could be something other than a wing of the George W. Bush version of the Republican Party and Yitzhak Shamir's Likud. What I did not hope for was a collective of Jews ashamed of themselves and their brothers and sisters who have the nerve to defend themselves. J Street is not all bad— it is raising money for Steve Cohen's campaign to stay in Congress in the face of a racist opponent. But, casually scrolling and linking through the "issues" section of its website reveals, for example, it counsels "patience" with Iran (meaning don't impose sanctions yet from a country that J Street seems to think secretly reveres dialog and frank ... view full comment
I had hopes for a pro-Israel and Jewish organization that could be something other than a wing of the George W. Bush version of the Republican Party and Yitzhak Shamir's Likud. What I did not hope for was a collective of Jews ashamed of themselves and their brothers and sisters who have the nerve to defend themselves. J Street is not all bad— it is raising money for Steve Cohen's campaign to stay in Congress in the face of a racist opponent. But, casually scrolling and linking through the "issues" section of its website reveals, for example, it counsels "patience" with Iran (meaning don't impose sanctions yet from a country that J Street seems to think secretly reveres dialog and frank and honest exchange of ideas of jailing and shooting dissidents) and calls Israel's response to the years long bombardment from Gaza "disproportionate" (a judgment I don't think any Jew not living within range of those missiles and the better ones reportedly on the way has a right to make). While I understand why Michael Oren is not going to speak there, I do wish someone of his stature, gravitas and eloquence would go there and give them what for.
According to the estimable Lenny Ben-David (dare I sound like MP?) a fellow Efratian with whom I am rather friendly (we sometimes have interesting political discussions after synagogue on Shabbat) a number of certified Israeli lefties who at first were attracted to a lefty organization purporting to be pro-Israel, have pulled back from the J Street Jokers upon learning of their extreme left-wing positions advocated, particularly as it relates to Iran (see Item 3, here: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/showdown-on-j-street/). Even far-left Meretz advocates imposing s ... view full comment
According to the estimable Lenny Ben-David (dare I sound like MP?) a fellow Efratian with whom I am rather friendly (we sometimes have interesting political discussions after synagogue on Shabbat) a number of certified Israeli lefties who at first were attracted to a lefty organization purporting to be pro-Israel, have pulled back from the J Street Jokers upon learning of their extreme left-wing positions advocated, particularly as it relates to Iran (see Item 3, here: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/showdown-on-j-street/). Even far-left Meretz advocates imposing sanctions on Iran, a position which J Street eschews.
I will give the J's the benefit of extreme doubt and attribute their position on Iran to chronic incurable naivete.
Jerusalem Post blogger Gil Troy, a self-described "passionate centrist", asks J some questions (to date, unanswered) including, most insightfully, why the word Zionism or any of its variants cannot be found on the J Street web site (here:http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/troy/entry/an_open_letter_in_response).
WRT HRW & Goldstone, MP (and others) seem to have missed the most critical observation by Robert Bernstein -- HRW's "battle tested" (HRW head Ken Roth's hubristic term) epistemology is based on interviews of Gazans or Lebanese for that matter. Given that Hamas & Hezbollah run the ultimate fear-based totalitarian society, where those who don't tow the line risk being tossed off roofs or otherwise disposed of, of what value is their testimony?
I would also add that I suspect that they use locals as translators who not only make sure that the translation is "correct" or edited to be "correct" (this has been documented with some radical Israeli Arabs working as "fixers" among the Palestinians, but also act as "minders" to report those who don't say the right things to the gullible Western reporters or representatives of the human rights industry. (Roger Cohen's stories on his visit to the Iranian Jewish community is an excellent, documented example of this technique.)
The Goldstone report suffers from the same flawed methodology; indeed NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg has noted that at least some passages in the Goldstone Report seem to have been copy-pasted from HRW documents.
Prof. Richard Landes, whose claim to fame is the debunking of the Mohammed al-Dura blood libel (aside from being a professor of medieval history), a debunking that has stood up in French court. Landes has started a new blog dedicated to dissecting the Goldstone report, here: http://www.goldstonereport.org/ and has recruited an interesting crew of fellow bloggers. Here is one analysis of interest (there are more there).
A chronic problem both of HRW, Goldstone & the rest is that they accept whatever they Palestinians say as Divine Revelation, not to be questioned (remember the Jenin "massacre"?). Naturally the Pals take full advantage of their extreme gullibility. So Goldstone claims that Israel has imprisoned more than 750,000 Palestinians since 1967, "... according to Palestinian human rights organizations." (emphasis added). A little bit of checking and analysis reveals that the number is preposterous; read about it here: http://www.goldstonereport.org/view-all-blogs/viewpost/236.
This is but the tip of the iceberg.
The take-home message is that the irreparably flawed reports of human rights NGOs and now Goldstone have formed and informed the de rigueur negative view of Israel that is the sine qua none of "progressivism". Arguably this attitude is a major motivation underlying the founding of J Street (I am giving them the benefit of the doubt).
Given that it is now become more and more evident that these reports should be classified under historical fiction, that at best they exxagerate Israel's culpability, do these "enlightened" lefties have the intestinal fortitude and intellectual honesty to admit that the emperor has no clothes?
I would love to be proven wrong but methinks not.
Hershel Ginsburg
Jerusalem / Efrata
In general:
There are literally thousands of creeds out there [moral, political, religious] all claiming that THEIR Moral Authority is THE moral authority.
They can't all be right, can they? And yet every single one of them insist they are.
This is so clearly a manifestation of human psychology [the need to ground the "self" ontologically and teleologically] it takes only a relatively short period of time to think it through and discover the subjunctive nature of the True Believer.
And so consequently, almost no one does. It's just too unsettling to discover how problematic a sense of reality can be.
But for the more intellectually adventuresome I'll be more than happy to recapitulate it here:
1 ... view full comment
In general:
There are literally thousands of creeds out there [moral, political, religious] all claiming that THEIR Moral Authority is THE moral authority.
They can't all be right, can they? And yet every single one of them insist they are.
This is so clearly a manifestation of human psychology [the need to ground the "self" ontologically and teleologically] it takes only a relatively short period of time to think it through and discover the subjunctive nature of the True Believer.
And so consequently, almost no one does. It's just too unsettling to discover how problematic a sense of reality can be.
But for the more intellectually adventuresome I'll be more than happy to recapitulate it here:
1]
Again, for one reason or another, you are taught or come into contact with [through a friend, a book, an experience, an epiphany etc] a worldview that starts to wrap everything up into on or another rendition of The Whole Truth
Sometimes it is religious, sometimes political, and sometimes it is idiosyncratic to a particular individual.
2]
Gradually, over time, you begin to embrace The Whole Truth more formally.
3]
More time passes and the The Whole Truth becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is Right and Good and True
4]
That's when you start making a more proactive effort to either share The Whole Truth with others, or to proselytize those who are not yet saved.
5]
At this point The Whole Truth becomes more and more intertwined in your relationships with others...it binds you emotionally and psychologically to them
finally...
6]
The Whole Truth becomes increasingly more difficult to separate from a metaphysical sense of Reality itself. An attack on your values is then construed to be an attack on you personally.
george walton
mp:
There was a time when accusations had to be proven.
george:
How exactly do you go about "proving" or "disproving" the existence of war crimes if you refuse to abandon your own all consuming moral and political prejudices?
Marty pontificates here as though he were a physicist debating, say, the killing power of the weapons used in the conflict---as a manifestation of the laws of nature, perhaps?
He pretends he is the chemist dissecting the slaughter of children "objectively" while all those who criticize the extent of Israel's invasion are merely alchemists plucking "facts" out of thin air.
Instead he is just one more emotional coil in The Spine flailing out at all who refuse him his moral fa ... view full comment
mp:
There was a time when accusations had to be proven.
george:
How exactly do you go about "proving" or "disproving" the existence of war crimes if you refuse to abandon your own all consuming moral and political prejudices?
Marty pontificates here as though he were a physicist debating, say, the killing power of the weapons used in the conflict---as a manifestation of the laws of nature, perhaps?
He pretends he is the chemist dissecting the slaughter of children "objectively" while all those who criticize the extent of Israel's invasion are merely alchemists plucking "facts" out of thin air.
Instead he is just one more emotional coil in The Spine flailing out at all who refuse him his moral fantasies lock, stock and barrel. That both sides are guilty of war crimes seems obvious. But only Israel had the massive military capability to inflict the far, far greater destruction. Or is this just a "fact" plucked from thin air by me?
Bingo: The "haters of Jews". That, of course, explains everything. Except it doesn't. Instead it cheapens this as an accusation against those who truly are haters of Jews. When everyone [including Obama!] becomes Ahmadinejad [because they don't embrace your own rendition of HRW and the Goldstone report], it makes those who really are followers of thugs like him just part of some vast left-wing conspiracy against The Whole Truth About Israel.
Go to HRW home page on the Internet.
Items reported on today:
1] the "disappeared" detainees in China
2] U.S. policy in Sudan
3] broken policies in Sri Lanka
4] FBIs rape news not good enough
Along with reports on Burundi, Uganda, ICC hearings on Darfur, Vietnam, Nepal, Syria, Libya
About what one would expect from such an organization. And not an indication of witch hunters hell bent on unfairly ganging up on Israel.
The only report involving Israel is one that demands that HAMAS investigate war crimes committed against Israel.
george walton
ginzy:
A chronic problem both of HRW, Goldstone & the rest is that they accept whatever they Palestinians say as Divine Revelation, not to be questioned
george:
From a report at HRW today:
Hamas: Investigate Attacks on Israeli Civilians
Gaza Authorities Should Carry Out Goldstone Recommendations
October 20, 2009
Related Materials:
Letter to Prime Minister Haniya
Hamas, just like Israel, needs to make clear to its forces that unlawful attacks on civilians will not be ignored. Acting on Goldstone's call for investigations would be a crucial step toward justice for all the civilian victims of the war.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch
(Jerusalem) - Ha ... view full comment
ginzy:
A chronic problem both of HRW, Goldstone & the rest is that they accept whatever they Palestinians say as Divine Revelation, not to be questioned
george:
From a report at HRW today:
Hamas: Investigate Attacks on Israeli Civilians
Gaza Authorities Should Carry Out Goldstone Recommendations
October 20, 2009
Related Materials:
Letter to Prime Minister Haniya
Hamas, just like Israel, needs to make clear to its forces that unlawful attacks on civilians will not be ignored. Acting on Goldstone's call for investigations would be a crucial step toward justice for all the civilian victims of the war.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch
(Jerusalem) - Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip should promptly implement the recommendations of the Goldstone report on Gaza by conducting credible investigations into serious laws-of-war violations by Palestinian forces, Human Rights Watch said in a letter sent October 20, 2009, to Prime Minister Ismail Haniya.
The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, led by Justice Richard Goldstone, called on Hamas and Israel to investigate within six months alleged violations of the laws of war by their respective forces. The report said that Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli population centers should be investigated as war crimes. The UN Human Rights Council voted on October 16 to endorse the recommendations of the Gaza report.
"Hamas, just like Israel, needs to make clear to its forces that unlawful attacks on civilians will not be ignored," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Acting on Goldstone's call for investigations would be a crucial step toward justice for all the civilian victims of the war."
Hamas authorities said on October 15 that they will investigate the allegations against them. "Although we do not agree with certain aspects of his report, we intend to act on his recommendation and to carry out our own investigation into any alleged crimes committed by members of the resistance movements in Gaza," the Hamas-run Foreign Ministry said about the Goldstone report.
In the past, Hamas has failed to investigate its fighters and commanders who violated the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said.
The Goldstone report found "no evidence of any system of public monitoring or accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law set up by the Gaza authorities."
Hamas cooperated with the Goldstone mission, and authorities in Gaza say they are preparing responses to its findings.
Hamas vigorously criticized the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority for withdrawing, under heavy pressure by the United States, a UN Human Rights Council resolution that endorsed the findings and recommendations of the Goldstone report. The Palestinian Authority subsequently requested a special session of the Human Rights Council, which endorsed the report's recommendations.
Prior to the vote, a Hamas Foreign Ministry adviser, Ahmad Yusuf, had said that Hamas "will try to do our best" to investigate rocket attacks against Israeli population centers. Yusuf also claimed that Hamas had only intended its rocket attacks to hit Israeli "military targets," rather than Israeli civilians, and that "maybe some of these rockets missed their targets" because they were "primitive weapons."
In its letter to Haniya, Human Rights Watch recalled repeated statements by Hamas officials and fighters indicating an intent to direct the rockets toward civilian targets and asked Hamas to clarify its stance on the issue. A June 11, 2006 statement from the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas armed wing, for example, said that in response to an Israeli attack that targeted Palestinian fighters, the group had carried out a rocket attack against the Israeli town of Sderot and would continue attacking Sderot "until its residents flee in horror. We will turn Sderot into a ghost town."
In the past, leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have sought to justify attacks against Israeli civilians as legitimate reprisals for Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians. In other cases, Hamas leaders seemed to acknowledge that rocket attacks targeted Israeli civilians but claimed the attacks were justified as part of their resistance tactics against Israeli occupation.
Human Rights Watch noted in the letter to Haniya that Israeli forces harmed many civilians in Gaza during apparently unlawful attacks, but that the laws of war prohibit reprisals against civilians, and serious violations by one party to a conflict do not justify violations by another. While Israel's armed forces were vastly superior to those in Gaza and caused far greater harm to civilians in Gaza than Palestinian armed groups caused to Israelis, Palestinian armed groups remain responsible for firing rockets indiscriminately or deliberately at Israeli civilian objects, the letter said.
"In the past Hamas tried to justify the unjustifiable by defending unlawful rocket attacks," Whitson said. "Having now promised to follow the Goldstone report's recommendations, Hamas has no excuse for not carrying out serious war crimes investigations."
Israel refused to cooperate with the UN Fact Finding Mission and has rejected the findings and recommendations in the report, although it says it is conducting investigations into some allegations. To date, Israel's record of conducting investigations into the conduct of its military forces has been poor.
Palestinian armed groups have launched thousands of rockets since 2001, killing 15 civilians inside Israel. During the 22-day Gaza conflict in December, 2008 and January, 2009, rocket attacks killed three Israeli civilians and placed up to 800,000 people within range of attack. On their website, the Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attacks that killed the three Israeli civilians.
Armed groups, including the Qassam Brigades, also put Palestinian civilians at risk of Israeli counter-attacks by launching rockets from populated areas.
george:
Hell, Hamas could easily have written this themselves.
Uh, right?
But one thing it does not change is that Israel had many, many, many times over the military capacity to inflict horrendous damage on Palestinian civilians than Hamas had on Israeli civilians.
But that is completely irrelevant, isn't it? Just as the fact that Tel Aviv made these decisions just before a crucial national election is completely irrelevant.
george walton
george offers an astounding insight: "But one thing it does not change is that Israel had many, many, many times over the military capacity to inflict horrendous damage on Palestinian civilians than Hamas had on Israeli civilians. "
Indeed.
"Even the Palestinian Center for Human Rights only puts the total number of fatal casualties at 1,284. Pretty bad going when we note that the population of Gaza is 1.5 million. Think of how much better those dumb Jews ought to have been able to do when one considers the time and means to do some serious killing that they had at their disposal.
Perhaps simple-minded goyim such as myself strain to appreciate the subtlety of the maneuverings of the Zionists. T ... view full comment
george offers an astounding insight: "But one thing it does not change is that Israel had many, many, many times over the military capacity to inflict horrendous damage on Palestinian civilians than Hamas had on Israeli civilians. "
Indeed.
"Even the Palestinian Center for Human Rights only puts the total number of fatal casualties at 1,284. Pretty bad going when we note that the population of Gaza is 1.5 million. Think of how much better those dumb Jews ought to have been able to do when one considers the time and means to do some serious killing that they had at their disposal.
Perhaps simple-minded goyim such as myself strain to appreciate the subtlety of the maneuverings of the Zionists. They killed an infinitesimally smaller number of Palestinians than was within their means to do and needlessly put their own infantry at risk in the process and that only proves that it was their intention to go after civilians all along.
At the rate things are going, the next time the IDF arrest a suspected terrorist on the West Bank without firing a shot or inflicting a scratch on the detainee, the UN, through the mouth of its Falk or Goldstone of the moment will start talking about an attempt at genocide.
There are just so many people who are made so, so unhappy by Jews refusing to take their medicine with resignation, humility and a tug at the forelock. Long may it continue to be so."
http://blog.z-word.com/2009/09/gaza-landau-on-goldstone/#more-1410
george does his homework:
"About what one would expect from such an organization. And not an indication of witch hunters hell bent on unfairly ganging up on Israel.
The only report involving Israel is one that demands that HAMAS investigate war crimes committed against Israel. "
_________
"So what does HRW do? It tries to prove its even-handedness. It has announced that, in its opinion, Hamas — the universally reviled terror organization that has never found an anti-civilian tactic too crude to embrace, the jihadist group that made suicide bombing a form of martyrdom, that lobbed thousands of rockets at Israeli civilian centers and brought on the entire 2009 military operation in Gaza — tha ... view full comment
george does his homework:
"About what one would expect from such an organization. And not an indication of witch hunters hell bent on unfairly ganging up on Israel.
The only report involving Israel is one that demands that HAMAS investigate war crimes committed against Israel. "
_________
"So what does HRW do? It tries to prove its even-handedness. It has announced that, in its opinion, Hamas — the universally reviled terror organization that has never found an anti-civilian tactic too crude to embrace, the jihadist group that made suicide bombing a form of martyrdom, that lobbed thousands of rockets at Israeli civilian centers and brought on the entire 2009 military operation in Gaza — that this Hamas ought to conduct a “credible investigation” into accusations that it, too, committed war crimes. In a letter penned by the organization’s Middle East and North Africa division head, Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW applauds Hamas’s recent acceptance of the Goldstone Report. ”In the past, Hamas tried to justify the unjustifiable by defending unlawful rocket attacks,” Whitson said. “Having now promised to follow the Goldstone Report’s recommendations, Hamas has no excuse for not carrying out serious war crimes investigations.”
Like it did before? Hamas has, of course, promised it will do so right away, and we’re all very glad to hear it. But of greater interest is what such a letter says about HRW. I remember that great scene in The Treasure of Sierra Madre when Walter Huston, the older prospector, yells at his younger and less stalwart fellows, “You’re so dumb, there’s nothing to compare you with!” It’s one of my favorite movie lines because it captures the fact that sometimes something is so outrageous that the mind gropes in vain for an effective metaphor. Asking Hamas, a recognized terrorist group, to conduct an investigation into its war crimes is like, like … what? Is it like asking a Mob family to investigate charges of racketeering in its ranks? Or like asking a congenital liar to go to confession? How about asking a convicted mass murderer to investigate reports about his violent tendencies? Around the free world, people are imprisoned just for membership in Hamas. What could such a letter mean?
Maybe we should let Human Rights Watch just keep opening its mouth."
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/hazony/135792
"A moral atrocityJudge Goldstone has been suckered into letting war criminals use his name to pillory Israel"
Harold Evans The Guardian, Tuesday 20 October 2009
"Aren't the British sickened by the moral confusions of their government? First, we have the weasel words to justify the unjustifiable release of the Lockerbie bomber. Now we have the sickening spectacle of Britain failing to stand by Israel, the only democracy with an independent judiciary in the entire region.
It was to be expected that the usual suspects of the risible UN human rights council would be eager to condemn Israel for war crimes in defending itself against Hamas. If you treat people as the Chinese do the Tibetans or Uighu ... view full comment
"A moral atrocityJudge Goldstone has been suckered into letting war criminals use his name to pillory Israel"
Harold Evans The Guardian, Tuesday 20 October 2009
"Aren't the British sickened by the moral confusions of their government? First, we have the weasel words to justify the unjustifiable release of the Lockerbie bomber. Now we have the sickening spectacle of Britain failing to stand by Israel, the only democracy with an independent judiciary in the entire region.
It was to be expected that the usual suspects of the risible UN human rights council would be eager to condemn Israel for war crimes in defending itself against Hamas. If you treat people as the Chinese do the Tibetans or Uighurs ("Off with their heads!"); or as the Russians eliminate Chechen dissidents; or as the Nigerians tolerate extrajudicial killings, the evictions of 800,000, rape and cruel treatment of prisoners; or as the Egyptians get prisoners to talk (torture) and the Saudis suppress half their population … well, go through the practices of all 25 states voting to refer Israel to the security council for the Gaza war, and you have to acknowledge they know a lot about the abuse of humans. Anything to divert attention from their own atrocities.
Only six refused to join the farce – Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine and the US. Britain didn't just abstain. It shirked voting at all (along with those beacons of civilisation Angola, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, and surprisingly, France).
Of course, here the fig leaf for being scared of dictators, especially oil-rich abusers, is the report by the South African judge Richard Goldstone. Poor Judge Goldstone now regrets how his good name has been used to single out Israel. The Swiss paper Le Temps reports him complaining that "This draft [UN human rights council] resolution saddens me … there is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report. I hope the council can modify the text." Fat hope.
The truth is he was suckered into lending his good name to a half-baked report – read its 575 pages and see. He said that, as a Jew himself, he was surprised to be invited. He shouldn't have been, and should never have accepted leadership of a commission whose terms of reference were designed to excuse the aggressor, Hamas, and punish the defender, Israel. The council's decision was to "dispatch an urgent, independent, international fact-finding mission … to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and [it] calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully co-operate with the mission".
Israel is not an "occupying power" in Gaza in either fact or international law. Four years ago it voluntarily pulled out all its soldiers and uprooted all its settlers. Here was a wonderful chance for Gaza to be the building block of a Palestinian state, and for Hamas to do what the Israelis did – take a piece of land and build a model state. They didn't. Instead of helping the desperate Palestinians, they conducted a religious war.
In signing on for the UN mission – with others who had already condemned Israel – it seems to have escaped the judge that Hamas is committed not just to fight Israeli soldiers; it is a terrorist organisation hellbent on the destruction of the state of Israel. The terms of reference he accepted validate the torment of Israeli civilians. Hamas launched 7,000 rockets – every one intended to kill as many people as possible – then contemptuously dismissed repeated warnings from Israel to stop or face the consequences.
The rockets were war crimes and ought to have been universally condemned as such. While new rockets hit Israel over many months there was no rush by the world's moralisers – including Britain – to censure Hamas, no urgency as there was in "world opinion" when Israel finally responded. Then Israel was immediately accused of a "disproportionate" response without anyone thinking: "What is a 'proportionate' attack against an enemy dedicated to exterminating your people?" A dedication to exterminating all of his?
Israel risked its own forces by imposing unprecedented restraint. In testimony volunteered to the human rights council (and ignored), Colonel Richard Kemp, a British commander in Bosnia and Afghanistan, stated: "The Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare." The "collateral damage" was less than the Nato allies inflicted on the Bosnians in the conflict with Yugoslavia.
No doubt there were blunders. A defensive war is still a war with all its suffering and destruction. But Hamas compounded its original war crime with another. It held its own people hostage. It used them as human shields. It regarded every (accidental) death as another bullet in the propaganda war. The Goldstone report won the gold standard of moral equivalence between the killer and the victim. Now Britain wins the silver. Who's cheering?"
Read it all here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/20/israel-goldstone-pal...
Somewhere on another thread I posted the key paragraph of the Goldstone report on Hamas's rocket campaign against southern Israel. It's somewhat stronger in its language than people have implied. Nevertheless, whether or not Hamas investigates anything, or can indeed "investigate" anything, or whether Goldstone's report is relentlessly biased against Israel or not, one thing is clear: the Hamas rocket campaign is not a mysterious incident that needs a probing investigation to clear up. It's a policy that someone, somewhere, is in charge of. And thus Hamas could simply stop firing rockets onto Israeli territory. Normally firing missiles into someone else's territory is an act o ... view full comment
Somewhere on another thread I posted the key paragraph of the Goldstone report on Hamas's rocket campaign against southern Israel. It's somewhat stronger in its language than people have implied. Nevertheless, whether or not Hamas investigates anything, or can indeed "investigate" anything, or whether Goldstone's report is relentlessly biased against Israel or not, one thing is clear: the Hamas rocket campaign is not a mysterious incident that needs a probing investigation to clear up. It's a policy that someone, somewhere, is in charge of. And thus Hamas could simply stop firing rockets onto Israeli territory. Normally firing missiles into someone else's territory is an act of war, and if you engage in an act of war, gambling on proportionality of response seems like an oddly dumb risk to take.
Unless of course you want the enemy to kill or injure as many of your own people as possible. Then of course it makes sense.
noga:
Hamas has, of course, promised it will do so right away, and we’re all very glad to hear it.
george:
Few will argue that Hamas sets a moral benchmark here that Israel should strive to equal. They deliberately fired rockets into a populated civilian area in order to kill innocent men, women and children. That's a war crime. Whether they acknowledge it or not doesn't change this. But it also reflects how woefully weak and ineffectual their "military" forces are vis a vis Israel. They do these things precisely because they are humilated over and again by this vastly superior armed opponent and they lash out against anything they can to garner some sense that they can inflict pain too.
It's ... view full comment
noga:
Hamas has, of course, promised it will do so right away, and we’re all very glad to hear it.
george:
Few will argue that Hamas sets a moral benchmark here that Israel should strive to equal. They deliberately fired rockets into a populated civilian area in order to kill innocent men, women and children. That's a war crime. Whether they acknowledge it or not doesn't change this. But it also reflects how woefully weak and ineffectual their "military" forces are vis a vis Israel. They do these things precisely because they are humilated over and again by this vastly superior armed opponent and they lash out against anything they can to garner some sense that they can inflict pain too.
It's pathetic, true. But no more so then the retaliatory repsonse from Israel. It resulted in a bloodbath in which hundreds of children were slaughtered. And slaughtered is precisely what they were.
And if you don't think those children and their helpless mothers and fathers don't see the IDF as a terrorist organization, you are hopelessly impaled on your own blind devotion to defending Israel virtually without exception.
You just can't bring yourself to admit how barbaric it was. Israel abandoned all that is supposed to separate it from the heartless terrorist states. It chose to become a monster itself.
Listening to apologists rationalize it is like listening to Iraqi war apologists dismiss the total devastation wrought on vast swaths of that nation as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died and millions were made homeless or refugees.
george walton
george's moral compass:
"They deliberately fired rockets into a populated civilian area in order to kill innocent men, women and children... precisely because they are humilated over and again by this vastly superior armed opponent"
george's moral compass:
"They deliberately fired rockets into a populated civilian area in order to kill innocent men, women and children... precisely because they are humilated over and again by this vastly superior armed opponent"
I'm a simple guy, one of the slower fellas and not a fancy, subtle thinker
But what if the Hamasians and the Fatahs said, "Look you live here and we'll live here. Let's cooperate. Help us build our economies. Maybe you could tell us a thing or two about democratic institutions, separating church and mosque and the rule of law"? What if they said, "We recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, we renouce terrorism, we will negotiate out the right of return in deciding where the lines of here and here run. We will give up victimhood and turn our energy to what's materially and economically best for us?
Wouldn't that be a good thing? Wouldn't that solve necessarily the problem of th ... view full comment
I'm a simple guy, one of the slower fellas and not a fancy, subtle thinker
But what if the Hamasians and the Fatahs said, "Look you live here and we'll live here. Let's cooperate. Help us build our economies. Maybe you could tell us a thing or two about democratic institutions, separating church and mosque and the rule of law"? What if they said, "We recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, we renouce terrorism, we will negotiate out the right of return in deciding where the lines of here and here run. We will give up victimhood and turn our energy to what's materially and economically best for us?
Wouldn't that be a good thing? Wouldn't that solve necessarily the problem of the settlements? Wouldn't that be, as the psycho babblers say, "win win"?
Of course there is this:
"...I think Irving himself was a realist and cautious on these matters, in the style of Walter Lippmann, whom he admired. We did not often speak of foreign affairs, but I recall a discussion about Israel, in the days when I was active in a dovish group that argued in favor of giving up the territories for peace. Irving was skeptical about Arab hostility: It would never be reduced. But that means war forever, I said. And Irving responded, Yup, it’s war forever...."
Of course there is this:
"...I think Irving himself was a realist and cautious on these matters, in the style of Walter Lippmann, whom he admired. We did not often speak of foreign affairs, but I recall a discussion about Israel, in the days when I was active in a dovish group that argued in favor of giving up the territories for peace. Irving was skeptical about Arab hostility: It would never be reduced. But that means war forever, I said. And Irving responded, Yup, it’s war forever...."
The criticism of Human Rights Watch by its former founder has so discombobulated our resident loony George Walton that he came up with four at bottom incoherent messages on this topic.
Noga’s unfortunate reply gave him an excuse for posting one of the messages.
Loony and bigoted Walty is merely repeating what other antisemites on the web say about this topic. He knows next to nothing about its history and it is hard to believe that a confirmed hater of religion would side with one of the most fanatical religious Muslims States if it weren’t for his dyed in the wool antisemitism.
Walty has stated elsewhere by way of excusing antisemitism that he doesn’t believe that Jews are a people and ... view full comment
The criticism of Human Rights Watch by its former founder has so discombobulated our resident loony George Walton that he came up with four at bottom incoherent messages on this topic.
Noga’s unfortunate reply gave him an excuse for posting one of the messages.
Loony and bigoted Walty is merely repeating what other antisemites on the web say about this topic. He knows next to nothing about its history and it is hard to believe that a confirmed hater of religion would side with one of the most fanatical religious Muslims States if it weren’t for his dyed in the wool antisemitism.
Walty has stated elsewhere by way of excusing antisemitism that he doesn’t believe that Jews are a people and hence that there is no such thing as antisemitism. Is it any wonder he hates the Jewish State?
All of his incoherent and obsessive messages about Israel should be read with this in mind.
"Noga’s unfortunate reply"??
"Noga’s unfortunate reply"??
It was unfortunate, Noga, because you gave him an excuse to post again and not because there was anything wrong with what you said.
It was unfortunate, Noga, because you gave him an excuse to post again and not because there was anything wrong with what you said.
Well, I did think those two pieces I linked to were very relevant and their arguments well-made and persuasive and george provided just the right opening for posting them.
A moral illiteratus of george's ilk can serve a useful purpose, from time to time.
Well, I did think those two pieces I linked to were very relevant and their arguments well-made and persuasive and george provided just the right opening for posting them.
A moral illiteratus of george's ilk can serve a useful purpose, from time to time.
[via Andrew Sullivan]
The Economist's Democracy in America blog rips the guts out of Bernstein's "argument:"
[via Andrew Sullivan]
The Economist's Democracy in America blog rips the guts out of Bernstein's "argument:"
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/10/a_note_on_jewi...
"But what if the Hamasians and the Fatahs said, "Look you live here and we'll live here. Let's cooperate. Help us build our economies.
"Wouldn't that be a good thing?"
george:
Yes, I agree. That would be a good thing. Israel is indeed all the things noted above---if you want to sugarcoat the hypocrisies that infect all nations, democracies or not.
I've never argued the Palestininians would not be better off abandoning both Islamism and dreams of going back to the 6th century.
But that doesn't change how many of them continue to hold a grudge against what they lost as a result of the "birth of Israel".
Again: It would be like outsiders coming into your town and taking over the part your family ... view full comment
"But what if the Hamasians and the Fatahs said, "Look you live here and we'll live here. Let's cooperate. Help us build our economies.
"Wouldn't that be a good thing?"
george:
Yes, I agree. That would be a good thing. Israel is indeed all the things noted above---if you want to sugarcoat the hypocrisies that infect all nations, democracies or not.
I've never argued the Palestininians would not be better off abandoning both Islamism and dreams of going back to the 6th century.
But that doesn't change how many of them continue to hold a grudge against what they lost as a result of the "birth of Israel".
Again: It would be like outsiders coming into your town and taking over the part your family and your community lived in and forcing you to go elsewhere. Then years later they insist, "hey, let's work together now and become good neighbors".
What you pretend is that were the situation reversed in 1948 and the Palestinians came to you magnamimously to smoke the peace pipe, you'd say, "yeah, you're right. The past is the past. Let's move on."
Also, it doesn't in the slightest change the barbarities committed by Israel in invading a nation with a barely existing defense capability and pulverizing it. Killing hundreds of babies, infants, toddlers and children....and hundreds more additional civilians.
That's a war crime. And if you weren't so deeply enscounced in your own blind prejudices about Israel you might even have the intellectual integrity and courage to admit it.
But you can't. Human psychology kicks in. If any one of you even hinted that maybe the Goldstone Report, while failing to hold Hamas as clearly responsible as Israel, had spoken the truth about Israel's conduct of the war, the rest of The Desciples would swoop down on you like chickenhawks. You would be cast out of the clique and the claque that is MartyWorld and shunned until you abjectly repented your sin.
george walton
ND: I just watched Col. Kemp on video speaking at the UN and he gave lots of examples of Israeli restraint.
As for Bernstein's NYT op-ed, the replies from HRW itself were intentionally misleading about Bernstein. If you have to lie to make your point, then you don't have much of a point. Furthermore, you fail to mention the their middle-East representatives to Saudi Arabia (a bastion of freedom!) to suck up to their elites at the expense of Israel--essentially by taking the Arab position at this meeting of like minds.
Whether Israel committed war crimes, I'll leave that for Israel to decide. They have an excellent history of self-examination (and their courts have often ruled in favor o ... view full comment
ND: I just watched Col. Kemp on video speaking at the UN and he gave lots of examples of Israeli restraint.
As for Bernstein's NYT op-ed, the replies from HRW itself were intentionally misleading about Bernstein. If you have to lie to make your point, then you don't have much of a point. Furthermore, you fail to mention the their middle-East representatives to Saudi Arabia (a bastion of freedom!) to suck up to their elites at the expense of Israel--essentially by taking the Arab position at this meeting of like minds.
Whether Israel committed war crimes, I'll leave that for Israel to decide. They have an excellent history of self-examination (and their courts have often ruled in favor of Palestinian rights) while the UN has a deplorable history of demonizing Israel. Given the UN's record, it would have been stupidity itself for Israel to have cooperated with them.
N&D (Anne&Dan?) Mackenzie show up to bolster george's flagging amour-propre.
"Neither in Mr Kemp's presentation to the UNHRC nor in a longer address he made at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in June did he make any serious effort to substantiate this claim. "
From Kemp's testimony:
"The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your ... view full comment
N&D (Anne&Dan?) Mackenzie show up to bolster george's flagging amour-propre.
"Neither in Mr Kemp's presentation to the UNHRC nor in a longer address he made at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in June did he make any serious effort to substantiate this claim. "
From Kemp's testimony:
"The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy’s hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.
Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.
More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians."
http://blog.unwatch.org/?p=488#more-488
And then, there is this from Z-word blog's Eamon McDonagh, about the consequences of the "disproportionate" response by the IDF:
"Note that while the article as a whole is scrupulously fair to Hamas and contains much information that ought to give Israel pause for thought about the consequences of its policies for ordinary Gazans, it provides no support for the view that the use of force by Israel against its enemies will always end up strengthening them and weakening it.
Now it might be argued that that relative quiet in the south of Israel and, for that matter, the north, is only a transient phenomenon and that as the root cause, as it’s called, of the conflict hasn’t been addressed then things could turn bad again at some point. This is true. It’s not possible to predict the future with much accuracy. What does seem to be the case is that Israel’s deterrent power is, at least for the time being, in pretty good shape. So, long live the Dahiya doctrine, a doctrine of deterrence and, therefore, a peace doctrine."
http://blog.z-word.com/2009/10/long-live-the-dahiya-doctrine/
For the likes of N&D&george the achievement of a period of calm and safety for Jewish kids is never good enough justification for making war on Gaza's murderous rulers and their supporters. What is that "justice" they are longing for? How could their hatred for Jewish toddlers be somewhat diminished? Would the sight of more, many more, dead Jews do the trick? Can that rapacity for Jewish blood implicit in N&D&G ever be appeased?
And how come the only posters responding to this naked hatred are only a handful of mostly Jewish posters on this blog? What is the meaning of this silence?
This is the nonsense that Nazi Mackenzie thinks “demolishes” Bernstein’s argument:
“Two crucial statements in this paragraph raise red flags. First, leaders of Human Rights Watch do not "know" that the militancy of Hamas deprives Palestinians of any chance for peaceful and productive lives. No one can credibly claim to know this. If Hamas were to lay down its arms, would Palestinians be able to lead peaceful and productive lives? The evidence of 42 years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory suggests that they would not.”
The claim is historically species given that Gaza is not under Israeli occupation and that Hamas has been repressing Gazans opposed to their rule.
Moreover ... view full comment
This is the nonsense that Nazi Mackenzie thinks “demolishes” Bernstein’s argument:
“Two crucial statements in this paragraph raise red flags. First, leaders of Human Rights Watch do not "know" that the militancy of Hamas deprives Palestinians of any chance for peaceful and productive lives. No one can credibly claim to know this. If Hamas were to lay down its arms, would Palestinians be able to lead peaceful and productive lives? The evidence of 42 years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory suggests that they would not.”
The claim is historically species given that Gaza is not under Israeli occupation and that Hamas has been repressing Gazans opposed to their rule.
Moreover the article is posted anonymously and only shows the Economist’s contemptuous anti Israel bias. Note the title of this sorry piece:
“A note on Jewish literary style”
This says it all.
Andrew Sullivan has beocme a morally obnoxius hypocrtitical bigtot, btw.
Andrew Sullivan has beocme a morally obnoxius hypocrtitical bigtot, btw.
Here is Jeff Goldberg at the Atlantic on Bernstein's article and the hysterical antisemitic reactions from HRW (which by the way, like the Nazis, doesn't consider Jews fully "human"):
"I read the Bernstein op-ed, and I know his opinions on a range of subjects. I don't recall him ever saying that Israel should be judged by a different human rights standard than the rest of the world. What he has said is that democracies and open societies should be treated differently by Human Rights Watch than dictatorships. It's an argument worthy of debate, but Human Rights Watch will brook no debate, not a good example for societies struggling to be free, by the way. And it's particularly sad that Human R ... view full comment
Here is Jeff Goldberg at the Atlantic on Bernstein's article and the hysterical antisemitic reactions from HRW (which by the way, like the Nazis, doesn't consider Jews fully "human"):
"I read the Bernstein op-ed, and I know his opinions on a range of subjects. I don't recall him ever saying that Israel should be judged by a different human rights standard than the rest of the world. What he has said is that democracies and open societies should be treated differently by Human Rights Watch than dictatorships. It's an argument worthy of debate, but Human Rights Watch will brook no debate, not a good example for societies struggling to be free, by the way. And it's particularly sad that Human Rights Watch would distort the record of its founder."
molly:
Whether Israel committed war crimes, I'll leave that for Israel to decide.
george:
Perfect. Thanks at least for owning up to it. We let the Defense Department investigate Abu Ghraib to determine if it was or was not official government policy and they swooped down on Charles Graner and Lynndie England like a predator hunting down civilians in Afghanistan.
Smacked them upside the head, tossed them in jail....and then moved on to rendition, torture and black sites.
Well, sort of.
george
molly:
Whether Israel committed war crimes, I'll leave that for Israel to decide.
george:
Perfect. Thanks at least for owning up to it. We let the Defense Department investigate Abu Ghraib to determine if it was or was not official government policy and they swooped down on Charles Graner and Lynndie England like a predator hunting down civilians in Afghanistan.
Smacked them upside the head, tossed them in jail....and then moved on to rendition, torture and black sites.
Well, sort of.
george
One of the more interesting pieces on Bernstein is here:
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/10/20/hrws-founder-denounces-the-or...
"Robert L. Bernstein, the former president and chief executive of Random House, was the chairman of Human Rights Watch from 1978 to 1998. Here, on the op-ed pages of the NYT he comes out on the side of HRW’s nemesis, NGO Monitor. This is big, very big.
Let’s see how HRW responds. They’ve always dismissed NGO Monitor and their ... view full comment
One of the more interesting pieces on Bernstein is here:
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/10/20/hrws-founder-denounces-the-or...
"Robert L. Bernstein, the former president and chief executive of Random House, was the chairman of Human Rights Watch from 1978 to 1998. Here, on the op-ed pages of the NYT he comes out on the side of HRW’s nemesis, NGO Monitor. This is big, very big.
Let’s see how HRW responds. They’ve always dismissed NGO Monitor and their other critics as over-zealous Zionists who object to any criticism of Israel. Now they’ve got big trouble and that line won’t work… which doesn’t mean they won’t try it."
It goes on:
"Here’s an interesting way to illustrate the problem. Here’s what I call the “Casualty footprint” of two conflicts over the last 20 years (i.e., since the fall of the USSR). Taken from Stealth Conflicts, by Virgil Hawkins."
http://books.google.com/books?id=C98wjmRllAcC&dq=stealth+conflicts+virgi...
'Democratic Republic” of Congo, 5.4 million dead; Israeli-Palestinian conflict (including two intifadas), less than 10,000 dead.
Now take that and reverse the names and you have not only the MSNM footprint, but the NGO footprint. At HRW, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, over 300 reports; DRC, 6.
Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.
Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.'
Do they know? Do they suppress the awareness, just like journalists suppress the awareness that they are systematically intimidated? Do they substitute an ideology and advocacy that considers the Palestinians victims and therefore justified in using the “weapons of the weak” like suicide bombers in real warfare and lethal narratives in cognitive warfare, and even if they weakly denounce them, their heart is not in it?"
Not that any of this will make any difference to Jew haters like mackenzie and walty. Their hatred of the Jewish State is independent of any supposed wrong done to the Palestinians. If there were no Pals they would still be attacking Israel.
George walty to Molly:
“Thanks at least for owning up to it. We let the Defense Department investigate Abu Ghraib to determine if it was or was not official government policy and they swooped down on Charles Graner and Lynndie England like a predator hunting down civilians in Afghanistan.”
All you need if you are Walty is some self serving analogy which has nothing to do with the topic.
And of course Walty knows what was and was not government policy at Abu Ghraib?
In any case, Israel has done a more thorough job investigating itself historically than did the US and Britain or the UN in Rwanda.
George walty to Molly:
“Thanks at least for owning up to it. We let the Defense Department investigate Abu Ghraib to determine if it was or was not official government policy and they swooped down on Charles Graner and Lynndie England like a predator hunting down civilians in Afghanistan.”
All you need if you are Walty is some self serving analogy which has nothing to do with the topic.
And of course Walty knows what was and was not government policy at Abu Ghraib?
In any case, Israel has done a more thorough job investigating itself historically than did the US and Britain or the UN in Rwanda.
Itzig, I just answered your post on the other thread.
Itzig, I just answered your post on the other thread.
Speaking of refugees:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR200910...
Europe's future, tangled by its past
"Czech leader refuses to sign E.U. treaty without clause on postwar Sudetenland expulsions"
By Edward Cody
Friday, October 23, 2009
"PARIS -- Europe's latest step toward a more united future, which seemed at hand after long delays, has become bogged down over a forgotten chapter from the continent's bloody past: the expulsion of Germans from Cz ... view full comment
Speaking of refugees:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR200910...
Europe's future, tangled by its past
"Czech leader refuses to sign E.U. treaty without clause on postwar Sudetenland expulsions"
By Edward Cody
Friday, October 23, 2009
"PARIS -- Europe's latest step toward a more united future, which seemed at hand after long delays, has become bogged down over a forgotten chapter from the continent's bloody past: the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II.
The unexpected hitch has provided a vivid reminder that the nations that gave birth to the European Union are only one generation away from the World War II and Cold War horrors during which the lives of millions were sacrificed to ideology or nationalism.
The man most responsible for tripping the memory switch on those stormy days is the president of what is now the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, who is known as a Czech nationalist skeptical of giving the European Union supranational powers.
Although the Czech Parliament has voted favorably, Klaus has refused to sign off on ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, a two-year-old pact that would grant greater powers to the E.U. leadership in Brussels and create a European president for the first time.
Before he signs, Klaus said, he wants a special provision added to the Lisbon Treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights. The last-minute add-on, officials said, would exempt the Czech Republic from paying reparations or returning land to the estimated 2.5 million ethnic Germans who were expelled from the Sudeten areas under the 1945 Benes decrees, named after the Czech president at the time.
The expulsions were among a number of ethnic cleansings carried out in Central Europe after World War II to undo -- and take revenge for -- what happened when the regions were occupied or annexed by Hitler's Third Reich. Although largely relegated to history books, the issue still has the power to arouse concern in the Czech Republic's western border areas where most of the expulsions took place.
"This may strike a chord in the Sudetenland, where this issue is very sensitive for all the obvious reasons," said Oldrich Cerny, who was national security adviser under President Vaclav Havel and now heads the Prague Security Studies Institute.
Slovakia also objects
Most legal specialists maintain that, even without a special opt-out, the Charter of Fundamental Rights would not endanger the status of Sudeten property owners after all these years, Cerny said. The expelled Germans have not mounted legal challenges, and German officials have said their government is not interested in pursuing claims.
But Klaus has seized on the issue as a "last-ditch" instrument to further delay his signature on the ratification document, which he actually opposes, Cerny added.
Tomas Valasek, director of the foreign policy and defense section of the Center for European Reform in London, said Klaus probably realizes he cannot hold out much longer and is insisting on the treaty change as a way to save face when he finally relents. "Basically, this is a way for him to sign on to the Lisbon Treaty and claim victory at the same time," Valasek said.
In that vein, Klaus told an interviewer last week that, once Sudeten landowners are protected, he probably will sign the treaty despite his reservations. "The train is going so fast and it has gone so far that I think it is impossible to stop it, whatever our desire might be," he said.
But further complicating the situation, Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia said Sunday that he, too, wants an opt-out to protect Slovakia from any problems over the expulsion of ethnic Germans. Slovakia, which was part of the single country of Czechoslovakia at the time, was also covered by the Benes decrees, although a much smaller number of Germans were expelled from its territory.
In part, Fico may be motivated by the prospect of elections next year, positioning himself as a defender of national interests to boost his popularity, Valasek said. But the move also reflects genuine concern that if the problem is serious enough for the Czech Republic to worry about, then Slovakia should make sure the interests of landowners in its border areas are protected as well, he added.
European leaders vexed
The Lisbon Treaty, a watered-down version of earlier unification attempts, was long delayed because of hesitations over sovereignty in several nations. But those have since been overcome, largely by scaling back the pact's ambitions. Since Ireland approved the treaty in a referendum this month, the Czech Republic has been the lone holdout for ratification among the 27 nations that make up the E.U.
Klaus's stand has irritated European leaders, who thought after the Irish vote that they were at last on their way -- and were already angling to see who would be the E.U.'s first president and which countries would get how many slots in an enhanced European diplomatic service.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a strong unification advocate, called Klaus's refusal to sign "unacceptable" and warned that there would be "consequences" for the Czech Republic if he continued to hold out.
Slovakia's demand also annoyed European officials, particularly because it had fully ratified the treaty. Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden, which holds the E.U.'s rotating presidency, resorted to irony at Fico's announcement. "I was under the impression that Slovakia was finished with its ratification process," he cracked.
E.U. officials said, however, that Bildt's Foreign Ministry was negotiating with the Czech Republic over Klaus's demand and would be able to expand the talks to cover Slovakia as well. The hope, they said, is for the treaty to be ratified by all E.U. governments and take effect by early next year.
Slovakia and the Czech Republic are not the first countries to demand opt-outs. After a first vote in which the treaty was rejected, Ireland negotiated provisions to guarantee respect for its traditional neutrality and a law against abortions, opening the way for approval in this month's vote.
Similarly, Britain and Poland insisted during negotiations on exceptions guaranteeing that nothing in the Charter of Fundamental Rights would add to the rights enjoyed by citizens under their own constitutions. Denmark insisted on an opt-out from any E.U. defense obligations.
"The difference with the Czech Republic and Slovakia is that now we are going back to it after two years," complained an E.U. official who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the delays."
Okay, I admit I am rather uninformed about all the instances in the past whereby Israel invested charges of its own possible involvement in war crimes.
Please list some historical examples of this. What actions were deemed wrong or excessive? What was done to correct them?
george
Okay, I admit I am rather uninformed about all the instances in the past whereby Israel invested charges of its own possible involvement in war crimes.
Please list some historical examples of this. What actions were deemed wrong or excessive? What was done to correct them?
george
"Please list some historical examples of this. "
Shouldn't this information have been assimilated into the earwax that passes for your bank of knowledge before you come here to demonize Israel and her supporters?
george is the very model of a modern antisemite.
an insufferable putz.
"Please list some historical examples of this. "
Shouldn't this information have been assimilated into the earwax that passes for your bank of knowledge before you come here to demonize Israel and her supporters?
george is the very model of a modern antisemite.
an insufferable putz.
Noga,
By chance, are you now in the vicinity of the eastern end of the Mediterranean? From the timing of your postings it seems that way. If you are, please give me a call (not on Shabbat). Perhaps we could meet in J'lem and discuss strategy for dealing with ostensibly Curious George.
hg
Noga,
By chance, are you now in the vicinity of the eastern end of the Mediterranean? From the timing of your postings it seems that way. If you are, please give me a call (not on Shabbat). Perhaps we could meet in J'lem and discuss strategy for dealing with ostensibly Curious George.
hg
I wish! How I miss Israeli made Latte! Ever since I came back expensive Starbucks coffee tastes as if it were brewed by Tim Horton's, overburnt and languishing for too long in a thermos.
I wish! How I miss Israeli made Latte! Ever since I came back expensive Starbucks coffee tastes as if it were brewed by Tim Horton's, overburnt and languishing for too long in a thermos.
Loony tunes George:
"Okay, I admit I am rather uninformed about all the instances in the past whereby Israel invested charges of its own possible involvement in war crimes."
As if obsessed Walty was informed about much of anything else dealing with Israel.
Loony tunes George:
"Okay, I admit I am rather uninformed about all the instances in the past whereby Israel invested charges of its own possible involvement in war crimes."
As if obsessed Walty was informed about much of anything else dealing with Israel.
George is a fraudulent coward.
George is a fraudulent coward.
ginzy:
If you are, please give me a call (not on Shabbat). Perhaps we could meet in J'lem and discuss strategy for dealing with ostensibly Curious George.
george:
Uh, you guys don't moonlight for Mossad, do you?
And in the interim please address my question above about Israeli internal investigations of aberrant behavior on the battlefield. What have they found over the years?
george
ginzy:
If you are, please give me a call (not on Shabbat). Perhaps we could meet in J'lem and discuss strategy for dealing with ostensibly Curious George.
george:
Uh, you guys don't moonlight for Mossad, do you?
And in the interim please address my question above about Israeli internal investigations of aberrant behavior on the battlefield. What have they found over the years?
george
jacko:
George is a fraudulent coward.
gw:
Unbelievable. I come in here virtually the only point of view that is not at one with MartyWorld. Indeed, in The Spine of late it's me against the world for all intents and purposes. And this is all you guys can come up with---the intellectual equivalent of farts?
A challenge:
You must have friends and colleagues better able to "deal" with someone like me. Please, by all means, invite them in. All I ever wanted was a vigourous debate with minds able to weave in and out of the tight spots complex issues like this always precipitate.
You guys are great when all the arguments are inside the box. The box that encompasses the mainstream media approach to "the ... view full comment
jacko:
George is a fraudulent coward.
gw:
Unbelievable. I come in here virtually the only point of view that is not at one with MartyWorld. Indeed, in The Spine of late it's me against the world for all intents and purposes. And this is all you guys can come up with---the intellectual equivalent of farts?
A challenge:
You must have friends and colleagues better able to "deal" with someone like me. Please, by all means, invite them in. All I ever wanted was a vigourous debate with minds able to weave in and out of the tight spots complex issues like this always precipitate.
You guys are great when all the arguments are inside the box. The box that encompasses the mainstream media approach to "the news".
But venture outside it into the realm of philosophy, psychology, identity, deontology, epistemology, language, political economy, contingency, chance and change etc. and you flounder about like the proverbial fish out of water. Your only effective parry then is to pretend these things have nothing to do with "the news".
Please. Don't make me go back to the Cartoon Rooms. And you are already at dire risk of turning The Spine into one.
; o )
gw
gw: All I ever wanted was a vigourous debate with minds able to weave in and out of the tight spots complex issues like this always precipitate.
That's a lie.
gw: All I ever wanted was a vigourous debate with minds able to weave in and out of the tight spots complex issues like this always precipitate.
That's a lie.
"That's a lie."
george:
Alas, the sound of passing gas in The Spine.
And to think I once regaled Ire-ony as a possible contender....
Of COURSE it's a lie. But I'm a political cartoon. There is always a kernal of truth down there somewhere.
Unless, of course, you're too pissed off at me to search for it.
Sure, reduce me down to your own indignation. But you'll never stop being the least whackable to me. I respect much of what you say, alas. Until you get to me, of course. Then, as with the others, you really haven't got a clue. And I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt for months now.
I have important, fundamental points to make about what we think we know [and cannot know] about these issue ... view full comment
"That's a lie."
george:
Alas, the sound of passing gas in The Spine.
And to think I once regaled Ire-ony as a possible contender....
Of COURSE it's a lie. But I'm a political cartoon. There is always a kernal of truth down there somewhere.
Unless, of course, you're too pissed off at me to search for it.
Sure, reduce me down to your own indignation. But you'll never stop being the least whackable to me. I respect much of what you say, alas. Until you get to me, of course. Then, as with the others, you really haven't got a clue. And I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt for months now.
I have important, fundamental points to make about what we think we know [and cannot know] about these issues. About the nature of political and moral value judgments.
Work with me occasionally, okay?
george
Sorry, but you're the one who fell for it: a commitment to minimal mutual respect and agreement (if only implicit) on terms is crucial for almost any kind of communication worth the name.
Thus when I write "government" and you claim I said "the snow is packed hard for skiing," it's hopeless. When you say "vigorous debate" but mean "hey, search for what I mean -- if anything!" it's equally useless. "Work with me" could, by your own declaration, mean "plate of spaghetti bolognese." So it's hopeless.
As I told you around nine/ten months ago now. We've all been and left where you are, george, like when we were 19 or something. That you don't even understand this is the most terrifying thing, ... view full comment
Sorry, but you're the one who fell for it: a commitment to minimal mutual respect and agreement (if only implicit) on terms is crucial for almost any kind of communication worth the name.
Thus when I write "government" and you claim I said "the snow is packed hard for skiing," it's hopeless. When you say "vigorous debate" but mean "hey, search for what I mean -- if anything!" it's equally useless. "Work with me" could, by your own declaration, mean "plate of spaghetti bolognese." So it's hopeless.
As I told you around nine/ten months ago now. We've all been and left where you are, george, like when we were 19 or something. That you don't even understand this is the most terrifying thing, in a way.
Irony, the loony autodidact is desperate.
Irony, the loony autodidact is desperate.
Speaking of "human rights" watch:
http://www.wiesenthal.com/atf/cf/%7B54d385e6-f1b9-4e9f-8e94-890c3e6dd277...
"TELLER: Hello... this is an emergency!!! I’m calling from the United Nations
Bank. Two terrorists are in the Bank threatening to kill us if we don’t give
them our money. Please send help!
POLICE DISPATCHER: Let me repeat that. Two terrorists, did you say United
Nations Bank on 42nd Street?
TELLER: Yes!
POLICE DISPATCHER: I’ll dispatch two policemen immedi ... view full comment
Speaking of "human rights" watch:
http://www.wiesenthal.com/atf/cf/%7B54d385e6-f1b9-4e9f-8e94-890c3e6dd277...
"TELLER: Hello... this is an emergency!!! I’m calling from the United Nations
Bank. Two terrorists are in the Bank threatening to kill us if we don’t give
them our money. Please send help!
POLICE DISPATCHER: Let me repeat that. Two terrorists, did you say United
Nations Bank on 42nd Street?
TELLER: Yes!
POLICE DISPATCHER: I’ll dispatch two policemen immediately.
TELLER: Did you say TWO policemen?!?!
POLICE DISPATCHER: I’m sorry, that’s the law, you guys should know it’s UN
document A/HRC/12/48 – the Goldstone Report about using Disproportionate
Force – since there are two terrorists we can only send two policemen! GOOD LUCK!
"Thus when I write "government" and you claim I said "the snow is packed hard for skiing," it's hopeless. When you say "vigorous debate" but mean "hey, search for what I mean -- if anything!" it's equally useless. "Work with me" could, by your own declaration, mean "plate of spaghetti bolognese." So it's hopeless."
This is a wonderful satirical illustration of what Anne Carson expressed in one of the tangos in her book: "The beauty of the husband":
"What really connects words and things?
Not much, decided my husband
and proceeded to use language
in the way that Homer says the gods do.
All human words are known to the gods but have for them entirely other meanings
alongside o ... view full comment
"Thus when I write "government" and you claim I said "the snow is packed hard for skiing," it's hopeless. When you say "vigorous debate" but mean "hey, search for what I mean -- if anything!" it's equally useless. "Work with me" could, by your own declaration, mean "plate of spaghetti bolognese." So it's hopeless."
This is a wonderful satirical illustration of what Anne Carson expressed in one of the tangos in her book: "The beauty of the husband":
"What really connects words and things?
Not much, decided my husband
and proceeded to use language
in the way that Homer says the gods do.
All human words are known to the gods but have for them entirely other meanings
alongside our meanings.
They flip the switch at will.
My husband lied about everything.
Money, meetings, mistresses,
The birthplace of his parents,
The store where he bought shirts, the spelling of his own name.
He lied when it was not necessary to lie.
He lied when it wasn’t even convenient.
He lied when he knew they knew he was lying."
And I'm glad we managed to defeat Japan in 1945 by using only the exact number of planes involved in the Pearl Harbor attack.
And I'm glad we managed to defeat Japan in 1945 by using only the exact number of planes involved in the Pearl Harbor attack.
irony:
Sorry, but you're the one who fell for it: a commitment to minimal mutual respect and agreement (if only implicit) on terms is crucial for almost any kind of communication worth the name.
george:
Fell for what? Are you making the assumption we are talking about the same things here? Have the same goals? Approach them in the same way?
irony:
Thus when I write "government" and you claim I said "the snow is packed hard for skiing," it's hopeless. When you say "vigorous debate" but mean "hey, search for what I mean -- if anything!" it's equally useless. "Work with me" could, by your own declaration, mean "plate of spaghetti bolognese." So it's hopeless.
george:
Ah, now it's clearer. When Marty b ... view full comment
irony:
Sorry, but you're the one who fell for it: a commitment to minimal mutual respect and agreement (if only implicit) on terms is crucial for almost any kind of communication worth the name.
george:
Fell for what? Are you making the assumption we are talking about the same things here? Have the same goals? Approach them in the same way?
irony:
Thus when I write "government" and you claim I said "the snow is packed hard for skiing," it's hopeless. When you say "vigorous debate" but mean "hey, search for what I mean -- if anything!" it's equally useless. "Work with me" could, by your own declaration, mean "plate of spaghetti bolognese." So it's hopeless.
george:
Ah, now it's clearer. When Marty broached the "moral authority of the accusers" above and I rejoined with...
"There are literally thousands of creeds out there [moral, political, religious] all claiming that THEIR Moral Authority is THE moral authority.
"They can't all be right, can they? And yet every single one of them insist they are.
"This is so clearly a manifestation of human psychology [the need to ground the "self" ontologically and teleologically] it takes only a relatively short period of time to think it through and discover the subjunctive nature of the True Believer." etc.
....I may as well have been asking him about motorcycle maintenance or harvesting grapes.
And then when Marty notes...
"There was a time when accusations had to be proven."
...and I respond....
"How exactly do you go about "proving" or "disproving" the existence of war crimes if you refuse to abandon your own all consuming moral and political prejudices?" etc.
....I was about as far removed from the substantive point Marty was making as one can be. I may as well have accused him of snubbing hip hop music, right?
We're now approaching the terrifying, eh? Funny, I must have missed all the steps leading up to that.
george
And btw, I don't think "lying" is a fitting description of george's skill. As another George once famously said:
"Jerry: So George, how do I beat this lie detector?
George: I'm sorry, Jerry I can't help you.
Jerry: Come on, you've got the gift. You're the only one that can help me.
George: Jerry, I can't. It's like saying to Pavorotti, "Teach me to sing like you."
Jerry: All right, well I've got to go take this test. I can't believe I'm doing this.
George: Jerry, just remember. It's not a lie... if you believe it."
And btw, I don't think "lying" is a fitting description of george's skill. As another George once famously said:
"Jerry: So George, how do I beat this lie detector?
George: I'm sorry, Jerry I can't help you.
Jerry: Come on, you've got the gift. You're the only one that can help me.
George: Jerry, I can't. It's like saying to Pavorotti, "Teach me to sing like you."
Jerry: All right, well I've got to go take this test. I can't believe I'm doing this.
George: Jerry, just remember. It's not a lie... if you believe it."
Are you making the assumption we are talking about the same things here?
Not at all. On the basis of your own statements, george, the above post of yours could mean "The west of Ireland is a nice place to visit in September or October, with some remarkable landscapes (especially around Lough Corrib), but the weather is so unpredictable that the wise traveller will bring a thick sweater and some type of rainproof jacket. Otherwise, prepare to be damp!"
Funny, I must have missed all the steps leading up to that.
I guess so. It happens.
Are you making the assumption we are talking about the same things here?
Not at all. On the basis of your own statements, george, the above post of yours could mean "The west of Ireland is a nice place to visit in September or October, with some remarkable landscapes (especially around Lough Corrib), but the weather is so unpredictable that the wise traveller will bring a thick sweater and some type of rainproof jacket. Otherwise, prepare to be damp!"
Funny, I must have missed all the steps leading up to that.
I guess so. It happens.
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/10/22/we-have-found-kafkas-judge-an...
“The Wolf and the Lamb
WOLF, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf's right to eat him. He thus addressed him: "Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me." "Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not then born." Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture." "No, good sir," replie ... view full comment
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/10/22/we-have-found-kafkas-judge-an...
“The Wolf and the Lamb
WOLF, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf's right to eat him. He thus addressed him: "Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me." "Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not then born." Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture." "No, good sir," replied the Lamb, "I have not yet tasted grass." Again said the Wolf, "You drink of my well." "No," exclaimed the Lamb, "I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both food and drink to me." Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, "Well! I won't remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations."
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.”
„A modern, pomo variant of Aesop’s fables:“
The Frustrated Wolf, the Lamb with the Black Belt, and Kafka’s Judge (additional or variant text in bold, original from Aesop)
WOLF, meeting with a Lamb astray from the democratic fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him. He thus addressed him: “Sirrah, just now you grossly insulted me by trying to pray at my third most sacred site.” “Indeed,” bleated the Lamb in a mournful, apologetic tone of voice, “That was French tourists.” Then said the Wolf, “You starve and impoverish my people.” “No, good sir,” replied the Lamb, “We send them food, but Hamas steals it, and we can’t let them have cement because they use it to build tunnels to smuggle weapons.” Again said the Wolf, “You poison my wells and sell my people shampoo that makes us bald and chewing gum that turns our daughters into sex-pots.” “No,” exclaimed the Lamb, “We actually purify the water and our shampoos and chewing gum do not have secret ingredients.”
Upon which the Wolf, frustrated at his ability to convince the Lamb that he was guilty and deserved to be eaten, and unable to seize him and eat him up, began to snap at him. The Lamb, whose martial arts training was unequaled, fought back and hit the wolf repeatedly. The battered wolf, who repeatedly put his cubs in the path of the lambs blows, responded, saying, “Well! I won’t remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.” So he turned to Judge Goldstone and said, “Condemn this Lamb for his effrontery and his crimes against my poor victimized brothers.”
And Judge who had not read the fable, but felt strongly that the strong should not beat up on the weak under any circumstance, and who had not read the rabbis warning that he who is merciful to the cruel will be cruel to the merciful, took up the cudgels for the poor wolf and hammered away at the martial-arts lamb. How dare you, sir, attack these poor baby wolf cubs. Have you no decency!
Aesop’s Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.
Pomo Moral: When people who believe in “I’m with whoever is right, my side or not” begin to embrace “I’m with the other side, right or wrong,” they destroy justice.“
noga:
It's not a lie... if you believe it.
george:
Thus your God really, really, really does exist because, well, you believe He does. Thus your rendition of MartyWorld's rendition of Israel is true because, well, you believe it is.
In other words, I suspect the "believing a lie" charge is applicable only to those you don't swallow your own hook, line and sinker.
Something like that?
Alas, your hypocrisy is rather transparent, my friend. At the very least try to get beyond that, okay? Mean me EARN my insufferable putz awards.
george
noga:
It's not a lie... if you believe it.
george:
Thus your God really, really, really does exist because, well, you believe He does. Thus your rendition of MartyWorld's rendition of Israel is true because, well, you believe it is.
In other words, I suspect the "believing a lie" charge is applicable only to those you don't swallow your own hook, line and sinker.
Something like that?
Alas, your hypocrisy is rather transparent, my friend. At the very least try to get beyond that, okay? Mean me EARN my insufferable putz awards.
george
irony:
On the basis of your own statements, george, the above post of yours could mean....etc etc etc
george:
What in the world does that have to do with my initial reaction to Marty's post? What "statement above"?
Yes, sometimes I respond to posts by going in an altogether different direction. But, again, that transcends The Spine. It is aimed instead at friends who know precisely how the dots are being connected. If you find that annoying don't read them.
Or sometimes my aim is parody. Or I'm playing the devil's advocate to provoke a reaction. Or I'm just joking or poking around.
You seem to be making the assumption there are hard and fast rules as to how these posts are supposed to unfold. The ... view full comment
irony:
On the basis of your own statements, george, the above post of yours could mean....etc etc etc
george:
What in the world does that have to do with my initial reaction to Marty's post? What "statement above"?
Yes, sometimes I respond to posts by going in an altogether different direction. But, again, that transcends The Spine. It is aimed instead at friends who know precisely how the dots are being connected. If you find that annoying don't read them.
Or sometimes my aim is parody. Or I'm playing the devil's advocate to provoke a reaction. Or I'm just joking or poking around.
You seem to be making the assumption there are hard and fast rules as to how these posts are supposed to unfold. There apparently is a right way to respond to you and others and I don't follow the accepted rules.
If so, you've got that right!
But I would never do us if folks were required to read my stuff before moving on to others.
george