I just got off the phone with an Israeli friend, and we had some fun joking with each other about the timing of the call. I was reading this post from a very strong Obama supporter, and I complimented the author on his honesty and willingness to say what needs to be said. Short version: it’s not “anti-semitic” to point out that in critical, large, expensive media states like NY and FL, the people raising a lot of money for Dem candidates in those states, as well as pulling state-level political strings (think backroom superdelagate type games) are also “Jewish,” whatever that is supposed to mean*. Nor it is anything less than fact to say many of these fundraising powerhouses really think Israel can do no wrong, and that because of their great influence on the political process here at critical moments, overall American ME and I/P policies are warped. I’m very proud of Boo for reminding us that it’s virtually no different with Cubans in FL; I’d add other single/special interests like the so-called ’farm lobby’ in the plains states, or even the so-called gay lobby in small Eastern states in which some gays have both money and overrepresentation/overempowerment in local political circles. That’s just how politics works right now here. If you’ve got money/friends with money, and you play your cards right in your state, when the Presidential candidates come to your ’hood, you make them say what you want to hear: in Spanish, Yiddish, or flatland drawl.

But then I thought more and more about Boo’s confidence that Obama wants to do more, and better things for the Palestinians even as he takes the standard, ironclad, pro-Likudnik hardline. (Way not to impress your own people, Obama. Tone deaf much? Or do you just think they don’t matter?) Still, I think Boo could be right.  Read more 

Steven D speaks for me. We don’t do much Israel/Palestine posting here, not for lack of interest so much as the need to write about things happening right here and not enough time to cover all of it. Let this story be an example to all those who believe that walling up America will help anything or anyone other than the wall-builders.

I found the story of the “breakout” particularly tragic and heartbreaking. Women and children, desperate for food and water…a real “Wailing Wall,” no? How they “deserved” this “collective punishment” is beyond the comprehension of decent people. I imagine good people in Israel are as ashamed of their government today as I have been of mine. But I will only reserve contempt and anger for American politicians too cowardly to stand up to the Likudnik lobby. Israel is our friend, and funding this kind of oppression to the tune of billions annually is not the act of a friend. There is no freedom for anyone, not on any side of any Ghetto wall.

Is it time to part company with Israel? Do we really want a war with Iran?  Read more 

In a preview of corps coverage for 2008, we get this from Murdoch’s Times of London:

Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’
Secret raid on Korean shipment

Gee, I guess Bush must have butchered the negotations with Dear Leader after all. Incredible.

Anyhow, that’s the headline. But if you read the details, there are a lot of questions about the crucial details that would lend substance to the headline. Which I imagine the self-correcting wankosphere is busy filling in right now. Gee, it’s almost like they’re trying to keep us in a constant state of shock, isn’t it?

The Israeli government was not saying…. The Syrians were also keeping mum…. Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country. … But intelligence sources suggested it was a highly successful Israeli raid on nuclear material supplied by North Korea.

Of course, from Whitewater and Iraq onward, we’ve seen plenty of disinformation take root in Fleet Street, and then spread to WaPo and the Times, so color me skeptical. (And the 101st Fighting Keyboards are, naturally, creaming themselves.)

The Observer’s coverage is a little less breathless:  Read more 

Guardian:

“Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact,” said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

“The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action,” Mr Cronin said. “The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself.”

So, if Cheney thinks Israel is “adamant,” our guys go in?

Splendid. Outsource our war and peace decision making to another country—one that, needless to say, has its own interests at heart, and not ours.  Read more 

And says that Israel is the model for success in Iraq:

President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq, saying Thursday the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.

Er, laudable sentiments on democracy _{[MR. SUBLIMINAL: voter caging; USA firings; Bush v. Gore… ]}, but I’m not entirely certain how the Arab world is going to react to that idea.

No, I take that back: I am certain:  Read more 

OK, having tied the tomato plants onto stakes to prevent the cold wind from the North from flattening them, I will now proceed to touch the third rail of progressive politics:

Israel.

Let’s leave aside that some of the neo-cons talk like they put Israel’s interest ahead of their own country’s; for all I know, in good Straussian fashion, they’re trying to make their imperial policies slide more easily down the gullets of the ignorant and credulous, especially in the Beltway Spoonful of sugar, and all that.

And let’s leave aside that some of the Christianists loons talk like they put the End Times, and Israel’s putative role, ahead of their own country; heck, maybe they’re just in it for the money, whether through the collection plate, or from the best sellers, or in all the other ways you can get funding from winger billionaires for trying to destroy reason.

Let’s talk about Israel. Were the fruits of the Six Day War sweet, bitter, or both?  Read more 

“To the east there is the Resistance in Iraq, to the west there is the Resistance in Lebanon and to the south there is the Resistance of the Palestinian people. We, in Syria, are at the heart of all these events!” -Basher Al-Assad, 10th President of Syria (April 30, 2007) Full

I won’t write much just thought I’d get everyone ready for the Syrian conflict.  Read more 

The Amazing Froomkin, quoting Steve Clemons:

Clemons writes: “Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney’s national security team has been … explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support Bush’s tack towards Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

“This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an ’end run strategy’ around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

“The thinking on Cheney’s team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran’s nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles)… .

“The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice [and others] have sculpted.

“According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the ’right decision’ when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie Bush’s hands.”

Well, splendid.  Read more 

The Holocaust is no laughing matter, but I can’t help but giggle at the religious leaders of the groups most invested in popular mythologies who can’t seem to agree that it was a bad thing. Popes are never wrong it seems.

The Vatican ambassador to Israel has sparked a row after refusing to attend tomorrow’s annual Holocaust memorial service in Jerusalem in protest at a description of the wartime role of Pope Pius XII.
Monsignor Antonio Franco, who arrived in Jerusalem last year, has called on Israel’s official Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, to change a picture caption that criticises the pontiff for failing to condemn the deportation and mass killing of Jews under the Nazis. Earlier this month he turned down a formal invitation to Sunday’s torch-lighting remembrance ceremony.  Read more 

Everyone once in a while you come across a blog post that totally belies the notion that we’re a bunch of amateur diddlers who are good for nothing but cussing and joking. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I won’t even try to summarize this diary that is rather a tour de force of links and connections on the international right wing. Three paragraphs really caught my eye:  Read more 

(Not, I hasten to add, all Israeli citizens, let alone all Jews. But Israelis are just as responsible for the government that speaks for them as we, alas, are for ours.) This takes the cake:  Read more 

[UPDATE below: Israeli denials]

Eesh:

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.

Oh. “Low-yield.” I guess that’s OK then.  Read more 

Color me not surprised. Off the top of my head, I can think of plenty of things Israel has done to make itself less and less defensible; shooting photographers, bombing civilian homes, locking up whistleblowers. So I suppose denying a visa to one nigger with some silly “peace” prize is par for the course:

Israel Blocks Desmond Tutu From Fact-finding Mission in Gaza
In other news from the region, Israel has blocked a United Nations fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip that was supposed to have been led by Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Tutu was scheduled to investigate the killings of 19 civilians in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Israel refused to grant Tutu the necessary travel clearance.  Read more 

Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker via Susie:

The Administration’s planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House’s assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The C.I.A. declined to comment on this story.)

Well, let’s be reasonable here, people. It’s not like our fundamentally serious administration could ever be wrong about a program to develop weapons of mass destruction in a middle eastern country whose name begins with the letter “I,” right?  Read more 

Grey goo, here we come. (Not that “grey goo” might not be an improvement on the current Middle East situation Bush has created. (Joke. Irony, OK?)). Sidney Morning Herald:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has given the green light for Israel to set up a special office to develop a nanotechnology arsenal.

Yediot Aharonot said that Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres had been told to choose 15 top thinkers to focus on developing futuristic weaponry. The 15 would be selected from within the security establishment, the world of hi-tech and academia.

But don’t worry! There’s at least one obvious peace dividend:  Read more 

Didn’t hear about it? I guess our SCLM was too busy deciding if Clinton was “angry” or “unhinged.” A report from someone who was there. Go read the whole thing, it’s very good.  Read more 

Qata, Lebanon: Image courtesy of AFP & the BBC, Israel, the Bush administration, and to some extent, Hizbollah

Amazing!

It’s taking a shorter and shorter time for the Bush/Cheney/Kristol foreign policy to crash and burn.

George Stephanoupolos and friends spent the morning spelling out the administration’s greatest failure thus far, excepting Iraq, of course, although North Korea is certainly a close third, then again, there’s Syria, and ohmygosh, Iran, but hey, those last two are part of the Lebanon disaster…

Hard to keep track, isn’t it?  Read more 

Because this woman isn’t.

Harsh?

Yes.

Unfair?

Perhaps. I could have featured other smiling men:

This one, for instance.

Or this one.

Or other smiling women.

Let me tell you about the woman in the picture first, and then you be the judge.  Read more 

This Sunday in Tyre Lebanon
Image courtesy of Tyler Hicks, NYTimes
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No, not the Bolton with the big, bushy mustache.

Josh Bolton is George Bush’s clean-shaven, intelligent, softly-spoken chief-of-staff, but like all members of this administration, however intelligent, however conversant with facts, he is all talking points, all the time, which makes him boring to listen to, of course, but far worse, dangerously deficient in the area of reality-testing.

Thus, quite a perfect spokesperson for this administration. BTW, this was Bolton’s first network interview since taking over for Andrew Card, an exclusive for Timmeh.

Nothing exclusive about the topics up for discussion, and God knows, nothing exclusive about what the Bush administration has to say on any of them - damn those talking points.  Read more 

Just asking.

And doesn’t that question remind you of another question?  Read more 

Disaters Of War

Condi Rice was everywhere this morning. And everwhere that Condi went, her devotion to George Bush was never far behind.

Speaking from the G-8 conference, Condi was robotic, repetitious, unspontaneous, and unconvincing, perhaps because her discussion and explanations were studded with talking points.

She didn’t sound like a Secretary of State, she sounded like a low-level spokesperson spouting propoganda.

I found her performance appalling and embarrassing  Read more 

Can Israel Survive?
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Russert sets the context - Crises in the Middle East, what should the US do about the Axis of Evil, (gee, I thought we were doing the Axis of Evil since 9/11, that would make it about five years of doing, Tim)…

Before Biden and Gingrich, (author of yet another new book, “Winning the Future”), are allowed to go at it and each other, we are informed via Richard Engel, from Beirut, and Martin Fletcher, from Haifa, of what happened overnight; suffice to say it’s all bad news, except if you are William Kristol, or, as it turns out, Newt Gingrich.  Read more 

This is so neat! They don’t have a free image so you have to go watch the video; it’s almost enough to make me finally install RealPlayer. Five million years is a long time, and the next time some wingnut says evolution is ’just a theory,’ ask them about the blind, white shrimp. Seems they didn’t need that ark-ride so much.  Read more