Israel to World: "Suck It."

Andrew Exum:

http://cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2010/06/two-thoughts-israel.html

Last fall, I was in Israel for a two-week visit and conducted a few formal interviews with various Israeli officers, journalists and scholars. I met for coffee one morning with a retired Israeli general officer to discuss the fighting in southern Lebanon during the 1990s, and before too long, the two of us were engrossed in conversation about guerrilla warfare, Lebanon, the learning process that militaries go through in combat, and a host of related subjects. One hour became two, and two hours became three. The two of us must have downed three cups of coffee apiece, and my hand cramped from all the notes I was taking. At the end of the conversation, though, this retired officer took my hand, squeezed it hard, and said, "Andrew, just remember one thing: the Muslims are like shit. They stink, and there are plenty of them for all of us."

hell of a week for spencer ackerman to go on vacation, but he's got a post up too

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2010/06/03/the-lost-decade-strategy-for-an-illiberal-israel/

4 close-range shots to the head and one to the chest.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Media/american-killed-gaza-aid-flotilla/story?id=10814848
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/03/american-reportedly-killed-gaza-flotilla-raid/

"They [Israeli commandos] were trying to land on the boat. So obviously there was this hand-to-hand combat and during that process the people on the boat were basically able to disarm some of the soldiers because they did have guns with them," Burney told Reuters. "So they basically took the guns away from them and took the cartridges out and threw them away."

Asked if anyone had used the guns against the Israeli commandos, Burney said, "No, not at all."

"Yes, we took their guns. It would be self defence even if we fired their guns," Bulent Yildirim, chairman of the IHH, said.

"We told our friends on board we will die, become martyrs, but never let us be shown... as the ones who used guns," he said, adding that people shouted that the weapons should not be used.

"By this decision, our friends accepted death, and we threw all the guns we took from them into the sea," Yildirim said.

Part of me wonders why, if this was "self defense," nothing happened on the other five boats that soldiers landed on. But I guess the soldiers on this boat could also have done something differently than the soldiers on the other five boats? Who the fuck knows - the competing narratives will be shaped to their respective agendas and few people will care much about getting a fully accurate picture.

Last fall, I was in Israel for a two-week visit and conducted a few formal interviews with various Israeli officers, journalists and scholars. I met for coffee one morning with a retired Israeli general officer to discuss the fighting in southern Lebanon during the 1990s, and before too long, the two of us were engrossed in conversation about guerrilla warfare, Lebanon, the learning process that militaries go through in combat, and a host of related subjects. One hour became two, and two hours became three. The two of us must have downed three cups of coffee apiece, and my hand cramped from all the notes I was taking. At the end of the conversation, though, this retired officer took my hand, squeezed it hard, and said, "Andrew, just remember one thing: the Muslims are like shit. They stink, and there are plenty of them for all of us."

What was the point of this?

From the same piece:

This flip side to these stories would be the many conversations I have had with Israeli officers -- including some very impressive public affairs and combat arms officers -- who managed not to go off on anti-Muslim or anti-Arab riffs during their conversations with me, even after several rounds of beer or wine.

So I guess the point is that there are assholes everywhere.

I can think of another flip side.

the point was pretty banal -- exum has run into a significant amount of basic anti-arab racism in the israeli military. it's just a common feature of any military -- i'm sure, for all our humanitarian intent in afghanistan, if you talked to any US officer for more than half an hour you'll hear things about afghans that are less than humanitarian.

this was the key sentence really:

I left my most recent research trip to Israel, though, openly wondering a) whether or not anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiment was widespread within the officer corps and whether that might have an effect on Israeli operations in the territories and b) whether or not a) was true, whether or not Israel would ever be able to effectively carry out information operations with officers so willing to say crazy stuff to a researcher with an open notebook and a tape recorder.

and yeah that's to say nothing of what your average captain in the palestinian security services thinks of jews.

a) whether or not anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiment was widespread within the officer corps and whether that might have an effect on Israeli operations in the territories

how stupid do you have to be to not guess the answer to this question

I think that might just be an example of him not making assumptions about a likely, but still touchy, subject. It's a way of politely making the point without stating it crudely.

LOL @ today's headline in one of the Belgian papers: ISRAEL ENTERS IRISH SHIP WITHOUT VIOLENCE

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=F2ktAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9YkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2900%2C1556272

Just came across this old article from the Schenectady Gazette. The terrorist is pretty cute - plus she was for women's lib!

so, Chomsky barred from entering the West Bank to give a lecture; E. Costello cancels summer shows in Israel.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0519/Elvis-Costello-Noam-Chomsky-and-Israel-Who-s-in-Who-s-out

i would love to hear the reason chomsky wasn't allowed to speak

Here's the NY Times piece about it, from a few weeks ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/world/middleeast/18chomsky.html

Serious answer, probably has to do with his meetings with Hezbollah.

“There were two basic points,” Professor Chomsky told the interviewer. “One was that the government of Israel does not like the kinds of things I say — which puts them into the category of I suppose every other government in the world. The second was that they seemed upset about the fact that I was just taking an invitation from Birzeit and I had no plans to go on to speak in Israeli universities, as I have done many times in the past, but not this time.”

This is kinda dishonest, and sounds a lot like Bush saying that they hate our freedom. There are lots of Jews living in Israel just as critical of Israel as Chomsky. He's giving himself way too much credit if he thinks the only problem is that the government "does not like the kinds of things I say," and has nothing to do with the people he fraternizes with. (Note: Not making any judgement about whether meeting with Hezbollah should or shouldn't exclude you from entering Israel, but clearly that has more to do with it than he gave a lecture someone didn't like.)

i'm not familiar with chomsky's relationship with hezbollah but yeah like you said it's obv not a legitimate reason to not allow him to speak

“This is a decision of principle between the democratic ideal — and we all want freedom of speech and movement — and the need to protect our existence,” said Otniel Schneller, of the centrist Kadima party, on Israel Radio. “Let’s say he came to lecture at Birzeit. What would he say? That Israel kills Arabs, that Israel is an apartheid state?”

wtf at mordy's whole post.

k3v asked why he's not being allowed into Israel. I'm speculating that the reason isn't some vague 'they didn't like what I said,' but probably had to do with the multiple times he's met with Hezbollah leadership. I guess that's kinda confusing tho. It's probably just because Chomsky is too righteous to be let into Israel.

like, since you obv. read the article in order to pull the quote, i don't know where to start. he's recounting what he was told, no one seems even to dispute it, (Netanyahu: "This was a mishap. A guy at the border overstepped his authority."), ppl have been discussing it in Israel as controversial, & some conservatives are a-okay with it.

He's disagreeing with Bibi afaict. Bibi says some dude overstepped his boundaries, Chomsky says he overheard dude talking to superiors. Also, they kept Finkelstein out for the same reason, so I find it hard to imagine that has nothing to do with it. Also! Lots of people says things controversial about Israel and are still allowed in. So I'm just speculating that Chomsky is leaving shit out. So he-said, she-said tho. Who knows what the real real reason was? Maybe some dude was just cranky that day.

Also interesting note that the conservative quoted as liking him being kept out is a member of Kadima. (Don't know the particular guy tho, he might be a particularly conservative Kadima.)

Btw zvookster, from Haaretz:

The official asked him whether he would speak on Israel and Chomsky said that because he would talk of U.S. policy he would also comment on Israel and its policies.

He was then told by the official: "You have spoken with [Hassan] Nasrallah."

"True," Chomsky told him. "When I was in Lebanon [prior to the war in 2006] I spoke with people from the entire political spectrum there, as in Israel I also spoke with people on the right."

Tada!

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/after-denied-entry-to-west-bank-chomsky-likens-israel-to-stalinist-regime-1.290736

mordy what do you think about that reason

Mordy: chomksy said “There were two basic points,” If you think there was one basic point, then you think chomsky was was lying, not "being kinda dishonest". you'd also be saying he was lying just out of nowhere. your post was nonsense.

Tbh, zvookster, I hadn't seen the Haaretz story when I wrote that. So it seemed kinda weird to me that he wasn't mentioning what seemed like an obvious reason. He obv mentioned it to Haaretz. I have no idea if NY Times just didn't bother mentioning it, or he didn't bother mentioning it to them.

k3v: I don't really care who he meets with. He's a respected enough linguist that I'm okay with him going wherever he wants. I happen to find a lot of his political analysis really superficial (tho he's consistent, at least. he's not pro boycotting Israeli universities because he feels that if you boycott Bar Ilan you should boycott American universities too), but my judgement on his political prowess should have nothing to do with where he goes. That said, I would expect Israel to not let him in for meeting with Hezbollah -- that just seems like the kind of thing that they do. If they end up letting him in, I'll be pretty impressed. It seems to me that if you meet with Hezbollah, you should expect some resistance from places like Israel. The whole wide-eyed "I can't believe it!" kinda blows my mind, but I guess I expected less of Israeli border than Chomsky did.

Like there are people who aren't allowed in El Al all the time because they don't answer the boarding questions sufficiently (on my last trip to Israel they asked people all kinds of questions -- did you have a bar mitzvah? name three jewish holidays, stuff like that). Plenty of people aren't allowed to visit for much, much less than meeting with Hezbollah.

the "i can't believe it" is imo not fake surprise, but just that he expects to have free speech in a place like israel, which supposedly supports speech, and he's trying to draw attention to that. obv the fact that it's somewhat expected for the country to deny him entry based on political views or who he's met with is problematic xp

i was pro Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia, so a fortiori i'm totally cool with Chomsky speaking in Israel. i trust audiences can figure out for themselves whether someone is full of shit

otm

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200809/r289233_1235533.jpg

iirc abbas kiarostami was de-wait for it-nied entry to the US, among other iranians, so getting high-horsey about this, like it's s0 obvious that chomsky should be allowed in, is some faux-naive guff.

Not making any judgement about whether meeting with Hezbollah should or shouldn't exclude you from entering Israel

Read carefully: was allowed into Israel, was not allowed into Ramallah.

I admit I'm not a heavy follower of this aspect of things, but surely Israel not admitting a Jewish person who is critical of policy is a bit weirder than US not letting Kiarostami in because of just being Iranian? Not that I agree with the US gov't on this BTW.

Like there are people who aren't allowed in El Al all the time because they don't answer the boarding questions sufficiently (on my last trip to Israel they asked people all kinds of questions -- did you have a bar mitzvah? name three jewish holidays, stuff like that). Plenty of people aren't allowed to visit for much, much less than meeting with Hezbollah.

― Mordy, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 04:39 (7 hours ago)

TBF, I thought the point of this was to see if your story is consistent rather than to see if you are Jewish. It's a security thing. They obviously let non-Jews come into the country.

What this has to do with Chomsky not being allowed into the West Bank - I'm just at a loss here. There's no security threat. And fuck the US for not letting in Kiarostami as well - what does that have to do with anything?

I mean if you want to talk about a faux-naive guff, how about acting like this is all about Hezbollah. So what, Israel is really just concerned that an 81-year-old world famous linguist is going to smuggle, I don't know, secret battle plans in his pants or something?

they're doing it out of spite/pique/whatever, not because he's a material threat, yes, and they shouldn't

kiarostami comes into it because when israel makes a dick move of this kind, it's used as proof that it isn't really a democracy/doesn't really have free speech, etc. -- part of the usual delegitimation thing other countries don't face

I think the US and to a lesser extent some of the Western European countries do face that shit on the regular from certain quarters.

it's used as proof that it isn't really a democracy/doesn't really have free speech, etc. -- part of the usual delegitimation thing other countries don't face

Other countries don't make such a song and dance about it and strut about looking smug about it

... LOL USA

On Tuesday Costello canceled two concerts in Israel this summer, due to what he calls the "grave and complex" sensitivities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Weren't there any grave and complex sensitivities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he scheduled the concerts?

Phew, close call for Israelis there

I think it's awesome that - no sarcasm - that people around ILX generally believe that individuals have an inherent right to go to whatever country they want, no matter what they've said or who they've met with, and I hope that going into the future more and more human being start to believe that. That said, it's definitely not the common thing in the world, and I'm not surprised to hear any country keep someone out.

Strawman argument. No one is saying that.

It definitely feels like people expect a country like Israel to let whoever wants to come in, come in. Surely Chomsky is less likely to be let in (because of the things he has said, the people he has met with) than some random shmuck without any political persuasions. And like I said, no sarcasm. I really think it's great, and I think it's great that Israeli media is having a big argument about it. But I have to imagine there are few countries in the world that would let the appropriate similar figure in. God, there are few countries that will let anyone in at all. If you have a US passport, there are countries you can't go to. If you have an Israeli passport, there are countries you can't go to. I know the US keeps people from coming in every day for far worse reasons than Israel kept Chomsky out. I don't think that makes it right, but I think it makes it par for the course.

this is kinda awesome imo: http://www.slate.com/id/2255903/