Israel to World: "Suck It."

Obsessive anti-Israel commentators have done a splendid job of making me more sympathetic towards Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/culture/jethro-tull-won-t-be-pressured-into-canceling-planned-israel-show-1.303802?localLinksEnabled=false

In his letter, Jethro Tull's Anderson said that his decision to keep the band's August 7 Israel performance does not mean that he is "about to tell the rest of the musicians or crew what views they should hold or what to do with their remuneration."

"Nor do I feel pressured by human rights groups, national interests or any individuals to perform or not to perform in Israel or anywhere else," Anderson said, adding that he would make up his "own mind in light of available facts, with my own experience and a sense of personal ethics."

"To 'those who tell me I should 'boycott' Israel (or, for that matter, Turkey or Lebanon)," Anderson wrote, "I can only point out that on my travels around the world I am continually reminded of atrocities carried out historically by many nations who are now our friends, and it serves to strengthen my resolve that some degree of peace and better understanding may result from my and other artists' professional and humble efforts in such places."

"If I had the opportunity to perform today in Iran or North Korea, hell - I'd be there if I thought it would make a tiny positive net contribution to better relations," he added.

fuck yeah

love jethro tull

<3

"High Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein said a conviction of rape should be imposed any time a "person does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman, and as a result of misrepresentation she has sexual relations with him."

Rubinstein said the question was also whether an ordinary person would expect such a woman to have sex with a man without the false identity he created."

This is such such crazy talk. Also, in the thoughts I probably shouldn't post department, did anyone else expect Mr. Kashur to be more attractive?

Exhibit number one for why anti-Israel commentators in the United States often freak me the fuck out: http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/the-new-mixed-jewish-establishment.html

― Mordy, Monday, July 26, 2010 8:44 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

would bet the author's jewish? obsessing about who is and isn't jewish is such a typical jewish parlor game (at least in my mishpacha). It's not just the anti-semites who do it.

he might be, but the author is also a well-known outspoken critic of Israel and he was writing that post in the context of American support for Israel. so he was simultaneously linking being jewish to automatic lobbying for israel and hunting through wedding announcements to create lists of the jews who are secretly in power and running the show. both are super creepy things to do, whether you're jewish or a gentile.

like if you want to play jewish geography, play it in your private social circles, not on a vehemently anti-Israel blog where people routinely comment with things like:

Mooser July 25, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Richard, you are watching the anti-Zionist, or Israel-critical narrative develop. A lot of it is unpleasant in certain ways.
Some of it may not even be true. Some of it may be anti-Semitic.
But if it works, it may save many, many lives, perhaps even prevent a people from being wiped out. And just think how much the Palestinians will benefit, too!

lol @ jethro tull

agreed that was a pretty inane post regardless of dude's background

About Mondoweiss
Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective.

It has four principal aims:

1. To publish important developments touching on Israel/Palestine, the American Jewish community and the shifting debate over US foreign policy in a timely fashion;

2. To publish a diversity of voices to promote dialogue on these important issues;

3. To foster the movement for greater fairness and justice for Palestinians in American foreign policy;

4. To offer alternatives to pro-Zionist ideology as a basis for American Jewish identity.

Biography

This blog is maintained by Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz. Weiss is 54 and lives in New York state. Horowitz is 36 and lives in New York City.

We maintain this blog because of 9/11, Iraq, Gaza, the Nakba, the struggling people of Israel and Palestine, and our Jewish background.

http://palmgoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/the_more_you_know2.jpg

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnpilMYsR0I

this isn't really israel telling the world to suck it, and who am i to talk because lol america, but this is depressing

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/world/middleeast/03children.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=israel%20400%20children&st=cse

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala was detained and interrogated for two hours at Ben-Gurion Airport last month, according to The Chronicle for Higher Education’s blog The Ticker.

Shalala is currently serving as president of the University of Miami; she was on her way back to the U.S. following a visit to Israel as part of a delegation of U.S. university presidents. An Israeli media report stated that she was subjected to a “humiliating” security debriefing and asked “invasive” personal questions because of her last name.

Shalala, 69 years old, is of Lebanese decent.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/06/donna-shalala-detained-interrogated-at-israeli-airport/

good lord

Seminar: Wikipedia Editing for Zionists (you can win a prize!)

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/wikipedia-editing-for-zionists/

OMG OLIVER STONE WAS RIGHT

(octopus not pictured)

"I’ve personally tried to edit things in Wikipedia that were against Israel, small things, and my changes were erased or undone and I didn’t understand why."

There's only one logical explanation: everyone in the world is wrong except you.

This whole situation is making me rethink my opinion that negotiating with Hamas is a worthwhile strategy. Dudes are just fucking assholes.

they aren't negotiating w. hamas

or at least, not as part of this DC summit

(That said, it's making me respect Abbas more and more everyday.)

I'm aware, but I've held the opinion that they should negotiate with Hamas. Except that Hamas decided that rather than let Abbas negotiate out a state in the West Bank that would improve quality of life and give agency and political representation to Palestinians in that area, they'll do their best to derail talks by killing Israelis and demanding the Old City. They're asshole.

Hamassholes.

it's definitely a credit to Abbas + Netanyahu that they haven't already cancelled talks. it makes me feel like this restarted process won't be a total disaster. and maybe if they can hammer out a deal, Gaza will vote out Hamas in favor of Fatah.

in fairness, demanding the Old City is not a position unique to Hamas, but I take your point. The attacks on the Hebron settlers do seem more in the mould of going "look everybody, we're still here" than anything calculated to actually advance the interests of the Palestinian people.

dudes should just put the guns down and settle this with a game of counterstrike

The administration of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas lashed out at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday, a day after Ahmadinejad criticized Abbas for renewing direct peace talks with Israel.

"He who does not represent the Iranian people, who forged elections and who suppresses the Iranian people and stole the authority, is not entitled to talk about Palestine, or the President of Palestine," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority's news agency.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/09/04/west.bank.abbas.ahmadinejad/index.html

that's sort of rad

Sort of? Abbas FTW!

It's super rad.

damn he totally went there

awesome

Some might say that this is big talk coming from someone still occupying the PA presidency ages after his term of office expired. But yeah, it's not really for Iranians to tell Palestinians whether or not they should enter into negotiations.

I can't help LOL'ing every time someone uses the words "peace process" and I've never been proven wrong.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11199709 <- settlements freeze won't be extended, Avigdor Lieberman says

Lieberman doesn't want to extend the settlement freeze? Shocking!

yeah liebermans playing games

i hope

I don't know if he's playing or not, and he's right that he has the power to dissolve the coalition if he decides he wants to. But this isn't some tiny issue that Netanyahu can compromise on and just a few leftists will be upset. It's a hugely divisive issue that has been poisoning Israeli politics and culture for years, and that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians want a resolution too. Not to mention the severe consequences of no action (primarily the eventual dissolution of the Israeli state as a Jewish state because of demographic issues). Basically if Netanyahu does nothing, it's hard to see this coalition surviving into the distant future, and without Yisroel Beitanu, a new Likud party would have to work with Kadima. And if Lieberman won't compromise on this, Livni certainly will, which basically means that he can fuck shit up but he'd be a moron too. (And he has plenty of reason to want to compromise. Yes, his party represents very right-wing parties politically, but he's also very left-wing politically and his voters benefit a lot by having him in power. It might be worth giving up the ideology for the practical consequences -- something that never happens in the US, but is less knee-jerk in Israeli politics in my experience.)

too = to, way toooooo early in the morning for me

Ugh, that last bit in the parenthetical I totally fucked up. The people he represents are right-wing politically (esp on the issue of land) but left-wing economically and get a lot of benefit from government social programs, etc.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/09/22/israel.flotilla.report/

"The United Nations' Human Rights Council concluded Wednesday that Israeli forces committed serious violations of international law when they conducted a mid-sea interception of a humanitarian aid flotilla in an incident that left nine people dead."

"The report published today is as biased and as one-sided as the body that has produced it," the Israeli government said.

I'm gonna issue a report as biased and one-sided as the body that produced it...right in your fuckin' eye, Israeli government!

I'm sorry...that doesn't even mean anything.

so tired of the UN HRC's biased and one-sided persecutions of human rights violators

xp: Shooting something in their eye? That's antisemenitic :-(

idgi