What Israel Should Have Done? Fuck You Larry.

In the wake of Larry Johnson's decidedly biased, and often inaccurate coverage of the situation in Gaza, I emailed him to express my concern that he was fanning flames, and failing to address the most important issue in the conflict: how do we get past this bullshit. Larry wrote back a very short response that I will not publish here as it was private correspondence and I'm not an Obamabot. He said he would write in more detail, which he did not do. Instead he wrote the following post at No Quarter. The language of the opening sentence was a message to me that this was his full response to my email (in a post of his the previous day I commented that he was beating a dead horse on the issue and avoiding posting regarding solutions). I suspect that his solution is that Hamas succeeds, which is perhaps why he won't discuss it. In response to his assessment of how Israel should have handled this situation, all with the purpose of making sure that Israel had "the moral highground" (apparently there is no morality in defending your citizens against 7 years of rocket fire directed at civilian targets, in violation of international law). I wrote the following comment. For the purpose of the thread I edited it as this is very long. But it was my intention to publish it at No Quarter as a post. But my comment went into spam, and I found that the last post I submitted was deleted so I decided not to waste my time. No Quarter is to be a place of biased Gaza reporting as far as Larry Johnson is concerned. Bravo Larry; there will be no quarter for journalistic integrity. Bravo.

So, before you read what follows, please read Larry's post. And read the comments there too so you'll have an idea as to what it going on there, if you don't already. This will probably be my last post on Larry's bullshit as there are far more important things going on in the world than the wingnut bullshit at NQ. But as a former writer for No Quarter silence was not an option.

******************************************************

Larry, I find only one flaw in your argument; the evidence clearly shows that regardless of whatever action Israel takes it is condemned by one international body or another.

When Israel launched it's targeted killings campaign against Hamas leaders it was condemned. When Israel used Apache helicopters to do what you suggested and fire at launch sites, it was condemned. Israel has been losing the PR war since it invaded Lebanon in 1982, and has been hated by the Arab boys club that is the UN since partition, so let's not pretend the world would join hands and buy Israel a Coke and keep it company if it did what you suggest. That's crap. And the statements of condemnation from the UN prove me right.

http://www.unwire.org/unwire/20010706/15860_story.asp

And the United States would still be seen as enabling Israeli aggression.

File complaints to the UN? Israel has done that now, and in the past...here are just a handful of examples:

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3491957,00.html

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3642236,00.html

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/157860

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign+Relations/Israel+and+the+UN/Issues/Israel_files_second_protest_UN_24-Dec-2008.htm

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3344490,00.html

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/952535.html

http://www.lebanonwire.com/0505/05051206AFP.asp

A lot of good that does...got any other suggestions?

We might as well put Olmert and Mashaal in a ring together. When Mashaal slaps Olmert, Olmert gets to slap him back...

What is the moral high ground exactly? I find it interesting that only Israel need be condemned here for not holding it. Certainly Israel had a unique opportunity to be a source of enlightenment, a model for how a country should behave. There were many moments through her history that Israel has been that example, and in many ways continues to do so, it's just not widely reported.

I remember speaking to our local Chabad Rabbi (the same community as the Rabbi and his wife that were tortured and killed in Mumbai) on this a few years back. He said something that I hadn't really thought about. Throughout the ages Jews have been condemned for supposedly holding themselves to a standard that was different than Christians/gentiles. The perception being that we felt we were better because of it, and the misinterpretation of the meaning of "the chosen people." But what pisses people off even more (my language, not his) is when we fail to live up to the standard that the rest of the world sets on us. It's a Catch-22 that no non-Jew is ever going fully comprehend, or at least hasn't yet.

Morality is something that has been sorely lacking throughout human history. In the 20th century, the most organized act of genocide in history was carried out against my people (I will not say largest as the United States' extermination of North America's indigenous peoples is greater in terms of numbers). And the evidence clearly shows that the world community was complicit, including the United States and Great Britain. It was out sheer guilt that the United Nations created Israel. Having been reborn into the world, the modern State of Israel had a unique opportunity to show the world what being a Jewish state meant. And it did time and again. One of the two most notable examples came when Mossad captured and tried Adolph Eichmann, It would have been very easy for Mossad to assassinate him in Buenos Aires and parade his dead body before the media, but they did not. He was tried in front of the world, forced to face his accusers, and under the weight of overwhelming evidence, was executed.

And the legacy of that execution continues to be a lesson that Israel teaches. Capital punishment has been illegal in Israel since 1954. Only convictions for crimes against humanity, acts of genocide, and war crimes are punishable by death in Israel. Many have been convicted and sentenced to death in Israel but they all had their sentences overturned on appeal. Eichmann is the one exception; the only convict ever executed in the State of Israel.

How many men and women have been electrocuted, hung, and injected in the United States based on circumstantial evidence, no evidence, or based on race? Let's not sit here and judge the morality of Israel. America, with more innocent blood on its hands than Israel could ever hope to shed, is in no position to judge based on any kind of moral authority. And if Americans need Israel to be their Jimminy Cricket, guess what? Jews are human too and fuck up as bad as everyone else. One need only look at the bible to see that.

Weeks after the exodus from Egypt, where the Torah says that God set a pillar of fire by night, and a column of smoke by day to lead the people, where the sea was split and the Pharoah's army was drowned in it, the Israelites assemble at Mount Sinai. There, the midrash teaches, God raised the mountain above the people and demanded that they audibly accept the law that He brought before them, as a moment to seal the choice the Israelites made to enter into the covenant with God. The Divine Presence appears before the entire Israelite nation in this moment. They accept and Moses is bidden to climb the mountain to receive the law so that it could be tranmitted to the people. This is why we call ourselves the "chosen people." It is not that God chose us because we were so righteous. It is because when God offered the covenant to us, we chose to accept it. According to the midrash we were in fact at the bottom of the list, and we happened to be the people that said yes.

In typical fashion, while Moses is gone, everyone gets antsy and they build the golden calf. You don't fuck up much bigger than that. But then the Israelites fuck up again. It is because of their kvetching that Moses was forbidden to enter the Promised Land. The people had been without water. God instructs Moses to speak to a rock and water would issue from it. But the people kept bitching and bitching until he lost it and struck the rock, in defiance of God's command, which he did in front of the entire nation. This really pissed God off and so Moses was banned.

The history of our people is not one where we are this holy, morally right people. We sin, we fuck up, we do wrong, like any other people on this earth. Both Temples were destroyed because of our fuck ups. Perhaps the difference is how we wrestle with that, how we attempt to work on fixing it. That is why the code of Jewish law is called Halachah. It literally means, "the walk." It is a journey. It is a struggle. The conflict with the Palestinians is no different.

Israel fucks it up left and right. Israel has also done the right thing in many instances. Just look at the Israeli Supreme Court record. The fact that Israeli governments often operate in the wrong, despite the rulings of the courts is one of the bizarre matters of their government that I do not comprehend, but no doubt is in part a product of there being no constitution in Israel, something that needs to be corrected (something I've been advocating for years), and of the fact that if you put two Israelis together you have a new political party. Add a third and that party has factions. You think I'm kidding? Walk down Ben Yehuda street sometime. Every 3 feet is a group of Jews arguing politics, and pissing nails over the same issues we are on this blog [No Quarter].

It took a long time for me, being raised a Jew in a family that has supported the creation, birth, and life of modern Israel for 4 generations, including having family that fought against the British in the Hagannah, to understand that the asshats running the Palestinian political machine are not representative of the Palestinian people in their totality. The terrorists don't speak for all the people, just as the Israeli government does not speak for all Israelis, or all Jews for that matter. But with the blind hate I have seen on this blog and elsewhere, that doesn't matter much, especially when you are so busy dousing the flames with gasoline with your morally superior stance.

Has Israel maintained the morality it displayed in 1961 and 1962? It certainly did in 1967, after driving the Jordanians out of the West Bank (territory that was supposed to be the new Arab state, which was rejected by the Arab nations, and which Jordan occupied in 1948 and held until 1967). After capturing East Jerusalem from Jordan, Muslims feared what would happen to the Temple Mount. Would the Israelis level the mosques and build a new Temple, would Muslims be banned from having access to the their holiest site outside of the Arabian peninsula? Israel could have done those things I suppose. But instead they gave the administration of the Temple Mount, our holiest site, to the Muslims, who control it to this day. And what thanks has Israel gotten in exchange? The Palestinian Authority has been excavating beneath the Temple Mount in an attempt to erase any other archeological evidence that the Jewish people ever had any presence there. And in their overwhelming desire to do this, they have potentially caused serious damage to the foundations of their own holy sites. That's what blind hatred does.

And speaking of blind hatred, let's look at Benyamin Netanyahu. This was a former shoe salesman from Cheltenham Pennsylvania. He made aliyah to Israel. Never served in the army. But this man, this man would leave morality in any form behind in order to justify actions he might take against the Palestinians, and if Ehud Olmert does not find a way to turn this mess into a truce with international inspectors consisting of a multinational force that I described on another thread here earlier today, that is exactly what the world is going to get from the next Knesset. So if you think shit is fucked up now, just wait until that fascist gets elected. Instead of, by your own admission, beating the dead horse, and protesting against those that fail to understand your position, you might start leading the dialogue here to how are we going to salvage this mess so that Palestinian children and Israeli children can grow up without fear. Still waiting on that one Larry. Should I start holding my breath?

What can be said about Israel after Eichmann could be said about the United States after the Nuremberg trials. What can be said about a world community that was complicit in the deaths of 6 million Jews and another 5 million homosexuals, Roma (gypsies), Catholics, disabled, and prisoners of war? The hypocrisy is astounding. The Nuremberg trials were not about justice. They were about the world expunging their guilt (a sham as the allies allowed Nazi war criminals to escape from Europe, including Eichmann),

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-446324/How-British-allowed-mass-murderer-Adolf-Eichmann-escape.html

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/05/nara050802.html

an exercise completed by the UN creating the State of Israel. And one of the great shames is the millions of American lives that were laid down because the governments of the United States and Great Britain did not stand up to Hitler, when they knew damn well what was going to happen. So let's stop talking about moral high ground. There are only two morally sound governments on this planet to my knowledge, Bhutan, and the Tibetan government in exile under the Dalai Lama. All are guilty. All have committed crimes. All are complicit in the deaths of innocents. You want to be angry at the asshats who keep fucking this up over and over again? Great, let's get shitfaced and smash some things together. But this exercise of yours is not accomplishing a thing.

Me, I assume Israel is going to fuck up. I also assume Hamas and Fatah are going to fuck up. So far no one's let me down yet.

This is not an attempt on my part to expatiate Israel for its sins. Quite the contrary, let's gather the leaders of every fucked up nation on this planet and try them all together for crimes against humanity. What I am saying is that when the UN created Israel, it was not done with the understanding that it could only continue to exist if it maintained the moral high ground. If that were the standard by which all nations were held then perhaps we wouldn't have Saudis cutting people's hands and heads off, perhaps we wouldn't have the government of Sudan allowed to commit genocide in Darfur because of their oil (and anyone who doesn't think that's why it is still being allowed to happen is a dumb shit).

Where is the righteous indignation over Africa, an entire continent far more fucked that the Palestinians could ever hope to be, another instance where the whole planet has blood on its hands.

Where is that post of the day condemning Sudan Larry?

What has the world community done since 1948? Allowed genocide in Cambodia, Ruwanda, Darfur, Yugoslavia...again and again the world has blood on its hands. Only Israel is repeatedly condemned, and has committed no act even remotely comparable. What act of genocide has Israel committed? If genocide were the policy in Gaza and the West Bank, as some commenters at No Quarter, and other blogs, have suggested, we would not be having this argument. It would be moot. Every last man, woman, and child would be dead. No country on this earth is held to such a standard as is Israel. The United States will not even allow its own military and leaders to be subject to an international war crimes tribunal. Israel has committed no crime above and beyond any other nation. That doesn't mean it should be allowed to, but it also means that every nation that does should be as loudly, as vehemently, as publicly condemned as Israel.

As a Jew, I am ashamed and angered by the crimes committed by the Israeli government. I am also angered by the crimes committed by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and every other fucking nation on this planet.

As a Jew who was raised to put the needs of others on the same level as my own. I was taught that a Jew holds life, any life, as being the most sacred thing on this earth. Any Jewish law is to be broken if it means saving a life. So when I started to come out of the biased haze I had regarding the Palestinians, it was painful to see how the government of Israel was conducting itself in certain aspects of its handling of the territories, etc. It also pains me that almost every time Israel lifts restrictions, curfews, opens borders so people can go back to work (Israel having been the largest employer of Palestinians until the second intifada), Israelis die and have their bits scraped off walls, buses, school buildings... It pains me every time I hear a Palestinian child, an innocent child is killed. It also pains me to know that innocent Palestinian children are being raised to blindly hate Jews, by the very people who are launching the rockets. These kids aren't just fucked by Israel if they are killed. Even if they were to live they'd be fucked by Hamas who is raising them to love martyrdom, raising them to take their place in the rituals of hate. What comforts me is that I know there are families in Gaza, and the West Bank who are not raising their children that way, in spite of the bombs that are falling as I write this. Just as children in Israel are being raised to continue to hold the dream of peace in their hearts, even if their classmates had to have their body parts scraped off the sidewalk so their family had something to bury.

In the end Larry, what fucking good is your righteous indignation going to do for Israel and the Palestinians? Not a goddamn thing. But it certainly is fueling people's hate here, on both sides of this argument. Whether that is your intention or not (it is becoming unavoidably obvious that this is your agenda) it keeps happening, and you keep fanning the flames. Where does that fall on your morality scale?

So listen Zahal, you better remember, no civilians must die, or else the world will hate you. After all, everyone knows that the rest of the world manages to fight wars without doing that. Just like the miracle that was Dresden, not a single civilian casualty.

When civilians die at the hands of American bombs it's called collateral damage. When Israel does it's called a war crime. Astounding hypocrisy, and why? Because if a Jew does it, if a Jew, who the world has set up as living under some abstract moral standard that the gentile world doesn't even take the time to comprehend (when you have studied all the tractates of the Talmud you drop me an email), a standard it presupposes, then that is some great moral failure on our part. The rest of the world can kill indiscriminately, can kill Jews indiscriminately, and who gives a fuck? Who in the end gave a fuck about what happened to the Jews in Mumbai? Who's still talking about that now? They got a video clip on No Quarter, well slap my ass and call me Charles!

Israel targets the organization that has sworn to destroy her, the right of any sovereign nation under international law, and civilians die as a result of what every nation on this planet would call collateral damage, and it loses the "moral highground." That's crap. A mosque got bombed? Israel says there were weapons being stockpiled there. Insurgents did the same in Iraq. So now I'm sure I'll hear how we didn't bomb the mosque, we captured it. Too bad Israel couldn't launch a ground offensive into Gaza to do the same without violating everyone's sense of morality. Everyone just admit to the double standard. I promise you'll feel better.

By the way, here's a little IDF video of the mosque. Is it inflammatory to blow up a mosque? You bet your ass. Is it an afront against God to to store weapons in a house of worship? Where I come from it is. I know Hamas worships an angry, vengeful Allah whom they believe commands them to kill infidels, but really, don't you think you could have stored those rockets in a hospital or a school or something, or are they full?



The loss of human life is tragic, and could have been avoided, if anyone, anyone showed enough valor to do the real work that needed to be done. But everyone has failed. The Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the UN, the Quartet, the Arab League, every political body has failed, and not because Israel is some bastion of hate and committers of war crimes. But because, in the end, the governments of this world don't give a fuck if we live or die. It's always, always about the money. The sooner people wake the fuck up and realize that, the sooner this senseless killing will end. Or maybe some industrious and right thinking people at No Quarter could petition the UN to just turn the whole region to a nuclear sheet of glass. That'll show 'em.