Cohen, like Chomsky, is a

Cohen, like Chomsky, is a gatekeeper. The mental gymnastics serve to divert attention away from the simple truth: our planet is being raped and pillaged by a fascist elite whose power is centred in the banking system.

The people want peace, the warmongers don't. Nothing will change until the people wake up to elite rule and stop them. Until then, more of the same.

Ideologies are dead and if

Ideologies are dead and if they aren't yet, they should be killed today.

The political spectrum is not on the horizontal, but on the vertical scale, like the F and C on the thermometer, brothers under the skin, shouting obscenities at each other, divided by a thin line.

The problem is not ideological, but the unlimited powers given to a special interest sector with the free money creation by deregulated banks.

"With deregulation money ceased to exist and became a licence for the control of energy, issued by a spcial interest sector for its own benefit."

With these powers the ruling sector can warp all theories and enslave anybody's mind and body.

Such books and articles, while well meaning, are nothing more than threading water, without going anywhere.

Ed Deak.

Solidarity whenever

I guess that the US media and George Bush want to control all the world's resources for our own good. Who put Saddam Hussien in power in the first place? Oh, yeah right, it was the Americans. I think it was Ronald Regan who sold Saddam all that nerve gas that killed the Kurds. When the US invaded Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction they thought they would find them because they sold them. Blame the left I guess. Another supposed leftist writing a book about the downfall of the left. I hear that pays well. I guess the analysis doesn't quite cover Latin America. I think one of the most underreported stories of the last five or so years is the revolution that is been taking place there. That is also the product of people being fed up with over a century of American imperialism. American Imperialism does not offer the promise of a brighter future for the world or more democracy. It offers a corrupt system of puppet dictators supported by US capital in exchange for looting resources. The result is best illustrated in such shining examples of American democracy in countries like the Phillipines and Guetemala. I do, however, agree with the author's premise that the left in most western democracies tends to be elitist and as intolerant of dissent as the right can be. We in the west are so controlled by the system of free money by the well connected and corporate media that it's hard to find a coherent way forward through all the noise. The rise of right wing movements always end in disaster because they are unsustainable. It is for this reason that I do not fear for the future of the left as much as I fear for the future of this planet and it's people. The problem with waiting for the pendulum to swing back is so many people end up dead along the way. But it's always been like this. Every time the lesson's learned it's soon forgotten to be learned again, always with the same predictable tragic results.

Can anyone explain what

Can anyone explain what Terry Glavin stands for?
Where is this mythical left that he claims supported Saddam Hussein? Does he support the neo-con aggressive policies of Bush and Blair while blaming the left for their failures? Does he support Istael's expansion into Palestinian land while blaming the left for anti-semitism?
On one hand:
"there is scant evidence that the left is shaping events", on the other hand: "All you can do is to put your twopenny worth in the argument." Well thanks for the helpful suggestions. Is that the best he can do?
And thanks for letting us know that "there's certainly no shame in being furious about the way the Iraqi occupation has been handled."
After all, the "decent people of the left who actively supported" the invasion of Iraq are allowed to make mistakes, unlike those on the left who opposed the war and were really, according to Glavin, supporters of Saddam Hussein.
One would have to laugh it it was not so sad.

It does not...

It does not exist, save in the minds of the pro-Israel Zionist Lobby and all those US Empire Loyalists in this country who support the US Empire and global predacious neo-conservative capitalism.

It is an example of the classic delusional thinking to which they are prone, as their cause in the Middle East and across the globe, itself goes down in flames. They are just lashing out.in their resentment.

The Basic Principles of Solidarity

This is the key phrase of Cohen's interview (haven't read the book).

I think that many of us who supported the Iraq invasion, or at least did not vigorously object, were seduced not only by lies (the once-respected Colin Powell describing mushroom clouds over America) but by this very solidarity to basic principles of the Left -- specifically, to the rights-based secular governance model that has spread throughout modern liberal democracies. Since Iraq, like Afghanistan, was governed by both fascism and theocracy, and because fascism and theocracy are the fundamental opposites of what I believe in, it seemed like a not bad idea to get rid of those leaderships.

Now that it has all gone to shite, I wonder where I, or Nick Cohen or Christopher Hitchens (not to put myself on their level as writers) got it wrong.

Hindsight tells me this:

1. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.
I've always thought that the Bush 43 regime was never plausible and arguably illegal from the get-go. Religious fanatics and oil-company pillagers, captained by a druggy dimwit. Somehow, I convinced myself that this lot could be capable of doing the right things (standing up to fascism) even if for the wrong reasons (coveting oil and seaports). Bzzzzt! Evil only does evil.

2. Removing bad leadership does not necessarily lead to good leadership. This really should have been obvious from the retreat of the colonial powers in Indochina and Africa. Where there is no tradition of moderate, liberal politicians (having all been killed or driven into exile), it would be folly to imagine that they will suddenly manifest in droves once the dictator is pulled from his spiderhole. Instead you will see the ascendancy of the canny, ruthless, clannish survivors of the dictator.

3. If you're going to do an ideological overthrow, don't contradict yourself. The neocons want to universalize the the "Anglo-American" lifestyle which is supposed to include moderation, reasonableness, the rule of law, social justice, economic prosperity. Sounds good. But how do you get there? The invasion betrayed every ideal, starting with "Shock and Awe" (i.e. terrorism), the installation of an imperial regent, Paul Bremner, in Saddam's palace, the dismantling of the police force, reconstruction contracts handed out to American rather than Iraqi firms, and on and on. In retrospect, it is much more humane, and dare I say quintessentially American, to make the changeover gradually and through an appeal to peoples' natural sensibilities, as is happening in the People's Republic of China. The PRC is far too large (and resource-poor) to consider conquering, yet America, Japan, and Hong Kong have, through investment and the foreign education of their young people, achieved significant Westernization of this once-pariah communist state; real democratization has happened at the village level and should spread upwards.

I think that's how you treat people with respect, not by bombing them and sucking in every chanting maniac who dreams of martyrdom.

Another Glavin performance!

Glavin knows exactly why we protested the war in Iraq: because we figured it would turn out exactly as it has.

These guys are not deluded, Coyote. They're doing a job.
They're gatekeepers for the mob that inspires Bush and keeps him doing its bidding.

Nothing New Here Except ...

... that actually in my mind the very title of Cohen's book raises different questions and herein lies some confusion. Having lived in several countries and speaking 6 languages at various levels of fluency I am at first glance disturbed by the ethnocentric notion of Left and Right in the english speaking world. "What" exactly constitutes "the Left"? Are the Social Democrats in Sweden still "on the Left" although they introduced vouchers for education, an idea commonly associated with Milton Friedman? What does one make of Left and Right in Russia? Are proponents of the free market on the Right or the Left in Moscow?
Moreover, and apart from the ethnocentric critique, the defining of some on "the Left" as having been too cosy with the extremists does not preclude Tony Blair as in my view he fits this category when he defends, as I would put it, a clerical fascist regime - "Islamofascism with a Human Face" - if you will but otherwise known as Saudi Arabia, as a strategically important client of British Aerospace.
Blair's recent statement on the importance of the defense industry suggests that historically politicians rarely act on principle despite all the lovely rhetoric. This is because our "friends" will surely morph into enemies if our strategic interests are at risk - and vice versa. Glavin's harkening back to the thirties as an example of a Left backflip is just part of the historical equation. Everyone is guilty. That's why in the thirties some on the Right were cosy with Hitler as he crushed democratic Czechoslovakia while some on the left - the otherwise laudable maverick GB Shaw as one example - were cosy with an intolerant Stalin. They decided, despite their domestic ideological differences, that Britain's long term interests trumped principle if the latter contradicts the former. In this respect I am dubious of anyone who takes the high moral ground of Righteousness ... they usually come up wanting in political life and merely fuel an all apparent cynicism both here and abroad.

Central Point

One of the responses to The Guardian screed by John Harris asks:

"That's all very well Mr. Harris, but where do you stand on Cohen's central point? You're anti the war; great, so am I, but are you also anti the homophobic, racist, and mysogenistic extremists who want to destroy democracy the world over? To avoid that central issue is to give Cohen just another example of how 'confused', or worse, the Left really is."

A trenchant review by Mr. Glavin of a timely book by Mr. Cohen, its flaws notwithstanding ...

"And no one, not even Noam Chomsky, would claim such clairvoyance as to know where the world would be now if Iraq had been left to stew in its own Baathist juices."

This is hardly a justification for the aerial bombardment of the Iraqi civilian population, the destruction of its economic infrastructure, the theft and embezzlement of its natural and cultural resources, and its subjection to an unlawful and incompetent occupation. The invasion of Iraq by the American administration has generated a tsunami of instability in the Middle East that will last for decades if not longer: which is, I suspect, precisely what Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld hoped would happen, since political instability abroad has always served American interests at home. There must always be an enemy at the gates; it's good for profits, and war is just the price of doing business.

I stopped believing in the

I stopped believing in the horizintal political spectrum was when Stalinist communism hunted down, jailed and executed many thousands of social democrats in their occupied countries. I've lost many friends who disappeared in the night, without a trace.

Now, the Bushite "conservatives" are heading in the same direction, when they arrest people and don't tell them the charges because of "national security", now also spreading to Canada under the same ideological gang.

I've been fiighting against all forms of dictatorships for 63 years, with everything I could. However, as a WW2 vet and a long time student of history, it was obvious to me that both Afghanistan and Iraq will end up as huge failures.

They would need 500,000 footsoldiers, occupying every village in Afgh. alone. It took the Soviets 10 years , 12,000 dead and half million other casualties to figure out that you can't conquer and hold a country like Afgh. with motorized troops. But Harper and Hillier know otherwise.

Ed Deak.

mjf, Glavin stands for Glavin

mjf, Glavin is the strangest man writing and getting published today. He doesn't stand for anything, not even the manifesto he signed, I bet. (The old Terry Glavin--a rather sensible fellow--I used to read years ago in the Straight wouldn't have written any of this crap. This is the new Terry with his shiny new allegiance.) See Coyote's posts above.

If this seems harsh, just look at the claims he's making here and continues to make in all of his columns: The left loved and cherished Saddam, which can be proven by the fact that we thought the war might turn out to be a bad idea.

Is this a serious concept or merely the ravings of a very strange man?

I can't decide if the Tyee discredits itself--or not--by publishing this kind of dishonest writing. Maybe it's important to show what depths some writers will sink to--so the Tyee is doing us all a service. Maybe.

With the emphasis....

With the emphasis on, "Maybe...". :-)

yeah the euston manifesto

yeah the euston manifesto just seems like the same mushy politically correct bs that is already out there - respect for all cultures - fuck off with that bullshit.

I love Glavin's stuff

because it is so wierd and convoluted and obviously written by someone having a brain fart.

I love it because it makes my jaw drop!....and very little does these days because the lies of the crooks in charge are so obvious and predictable.

Somebody above called Saddam's Iraq a theocracy. Not so, it was a very secular state Stalin was one of Saddam's heros. Health and education were high on the priority list and Iraq before the sanctions had quite a high standard of living.

The late Sherman Skolnick reported that Saddam was in business with the senior Bush in what was essentialy a protection racket. They were partners in a company which provided oil field "security" to the UAR in return for 5% of the gross! JHW Bush and SH were suing each other in Chicago.

It's a gang war and jackass disinfo jerks like Cohen
and Glavin want us to think it's all our fault!

this comment section is all over the map

What I see Glavin being blamed for is asking questions related to Cohen's book..

Most of the posters here, including myself, are sometimes accused of being "leftist". Now I don't know about you but reading the comments above I gotta say that Cohen has a point:
"we" come across as dysfunctional, squabbly, confused persons dedicated to in fighting.

And no wonder

since any group perceived to be a threat to the elite gets loaded down with moles and agent provacateurs.

Many organizations have been taken over by 5th columnists, destroyed from within and either disolved or supporting
the establishment legislatively .

I understand Coyote has been banned from Tyee

Been busy most of this week and particularly today. Does anyone have any insight as to what the reason is behind this action?

Coyote Banned?

Coyote banned ?

I hope not !!!

I know comrade Coyote and I differ in views and opinion the "odd " time , but I think we all agree to the basic principle of free speech.

Hope its not true !

why coyote

Maybe his computer crashed.
We do need to know, though, what ever the reason.
I read his stuff and I see nothing to justify removal from the site.
Maybe I have not seen all of it

As if!

The mere fact that these people use "left" and "Liberal/liberal" interchangeably just shows you they don't understand that first thing about leftism.

Liberalism, Big L, is not a left wing ideology, number one. It never was, it never will be. Small L liberalism is merely it's entirely social-issues-concerned offspring that doesn't address the real question of economics.

Left-wing politics is rooted, if nothing else, in skepticism (if not out right rejection) of free market economics, and understand that freedom and equality can only be derived from opposition to the same.

The state of the left today is pathetic, and it needs to be addressed openly. But not by people like Cohen and Glavin who appear to be little more than moderate Republicans.

Hmmm..... I disagree with

Hmmm.....

I disagree with three "principles" (and the logic behind) of the Euston Manifesto, which are actually conclusions. #2 and #9 are red herrings, and #6 is a straw man that only finds voice in some of the rags that pass for print media these days. The rest of the manifesto is progressive and humanist and deserves no identification whatsoever with the liberal left, as most or all of its principles have been espoused at various times by both left, right, libertarian and socialist, and God help us, fascist.

But by Glavin's thinking, leaving out those three principles should make me a neocon.

Watch out, y'all! Zalm's a fascist!

I'm finding myself identifying more and more with an instructor I chanced to meet years ago who said "On some social issues, I am very liberal, because I take the Bible seriously. That is a very conservative position"

Labels. Cohen (and Glavin) have slagged everyone with the label loony left. This cloth is not cut to my fit. I decline to wear it.

glavin

Correction: I've not read Cohen's book, so I'll be honest and say its Glavin only who has slagged everyone with the label loony left. Cohen may actually have said nothing of the sort.

Not sure what's happened to Glavin - the way words and views are twisted in his articles makes me suspicious.

Coyote what...??

Coyote to get banned would be sad for all of us, and also it would fly in the face of free speach... I love his wit, and passion, as well believe him to be a huge contribution to the Tyee Blog-site. I do hope it is not true that he is not longer a poster of the Tyee...

Peace,

Bear

Coyote Banned. Utterr tyranny!

I just found out that Coyote was banned from the Tyee comments on some specious grounds. This is outrageous! Coyote is banned while we have to read Glavins hateful neocon propaganda against the peace movement.

How do we know?

G. West's post was the first mention of it. How did he find out?

solidarity is key

I can’t agree that

I don’t remember anyone wanting to support Saddam Hussein, but I do remember many people protesting a war that would inflict massive violence on civilian Iraqis. Sanctions were hurting the population more than SH, but many anti-war protestors doubted that bombing was the only way to get rid of him. (I’m not sure what or who “left orthodoxy” refers to, unless it’s the leadership of some of the large peace coalitions.)

I also think northyorker is right in saying

However, I believe Terry Glavin is onto something when he identifies the unraveling of solidarity as a key malaise in segments of today’s “left” (whoever this encompasses). The days of the Latin American solidarity movements, let alone the international brigades in Spain, seem far, far away.

Not that it was ever straightforward, as Ed Deak points out, and as Orwell documented in his Homage to Catalonia. But there was a time when mobilizing meant more than it seems to now. Chartering some buses to protest at the legislature for a day doesn’t get beyond sound bites in terms of real impact.

These days, when small groups do venture forth into the world, there are plenty of lefties (along with a few yahoos) who scoff and scorn. Just reread this Tyee thread: http://thetyee.ca/News/2005/11/30/HostagesInIraq/

Let’s not forget what happened in BC with the Solidarity coalition and the mass pickets against Campbell’s first round of cuts. The masses roused and ready; leadership quavering; the masses go home. Did we give up too easily? If so, why? Lots of lessons to learn in order to revitalize any dynamic movement for change.

Certainly didn't hear about it from Tyee

I just happened to get an email from a mutual acquaintance, mopled.

When I have more information, I'll post it.

Unless, in the interim, the editors decide that the way this was done doesn't meet even the minimum standard of appropriate notice and civilized behavior.

I'll hope that someone in management will decide that the posters who give this site its life and verisimilitude deserve something a little better than the arbitrary way Coyote has been treated in this case.

yeah but...biscotti, re. solidarity

Regarding solidarity, biscotti, is it worthy of belief that Glavin and Cohen would be sincerely criticizing the 'left' because it is comprised of people with varying opinions? This is just a transparent rhetorical trick and silly charade. These guys would be just as critical of anti-war protesters if they could have gotten millions of people on the streets in complete agreement about how to stop the war.

Is it possible that the war protest was really against the overthrow of Saddam, as Glavin pretends that he and Cohen believe? Is it possible that Cohen and Glavin honestly believe that the 'left' had some affection or respect for Saddam and didn't want him removed? Or is it more likely that the protest was, and remains, about the wisdom of destroying Iraq and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people--and American soldiers who have no choice in the matter?

Or is it true that Cohen and Glavin are being dishonest about this?

The solidarity factor is just a ruse. Is it really possible that Cohen and Glavin are sorry that the left wasn't cohesive enough to stop the war? This would be like me criticizing the neocons for not being able to convince Bush to attack Iran.

Yeah, G. West, how did you find out that Coyote has been banned--if it's true? As far as we know he had a post deleted, but without editorial comment. So why do you say he was banned? Maybe he's just gone on a road trip.

Solidarity is still an key value

Truman, as I said above, I don't agree with Glavin and Cohen about their assessment of many people's reasons for opposing the war in Iraq.

When the Sandinistas lost the Nicaraguan election in 1990, some NGOs and internationalists stayed, but many pulled out. I guess these people just wanted the glamour of working for a revolution that was winning.

When things got tougher after the election and more confusing (dissent within the FSLN caused some Sandinistas to form a new reform party), they went home, leaving lots of Nicaraguans confused and resentful. So much for solidarity, and so much for inspiring people around the world with courage and conviction.

Regardless of whether or not you think the issue of solidarity is a ruse on the part of Cohen and Glavin, I think it remains an important value to reclaim, uphold and explore.

Truman Re Coyote

As I said above, I got an email from an acquaintance and I can confirm that Coyote has been banned. As far as I know, it is permanent. It was, I believe, because of something he wrote near the top of this thread but the editors have expunged it completely - not even leaving the evidence that such a post ever existed. Which is, in itself, rather strange.

I saw the post yesterday morning - briefly - but have been too busy for the last week to 10 days to spend more than a few minutes a day here so I didn't read it.

I hope Coyote has a copy.

And, if you want more details - considering I may not be able to post them for obvious reasons - send me an email if you like.

garthwest@hotmail.com

Coyote will be broadcasting on U. Vic Radio

Yeah, Truman, the Coyote has gone on a road trip. In a manner of speaking.

He'll be on University of Victoria Radio sometime soon. Maybe even tonight.

They want to do an interview with the Coyote about being banned from Tyee. To which he has agreed.

Should be interesting, eh?

...exactly anarcho.

.

Exactly anarcho..... Inconceivable eh??

Bear

Intellectual Blackmail

The problem I have with the critiques of the critiques (often people like Cohen, etc) is there is often this "intellectual blackmail" that is held against other intellectuals.

Looking at Iraq and the invasion of it is clearly a difficult issue, I don't think anybody on the left or right supported Saddam Hussein leading up to the war. At the same time, supporting an American invasion that was clearly going to involve many deaths, perhaps much more than died under Saddam, meant that supporting the invasion is also difficult.

So we have a situation which is constructed, unfortunately into two options, which is the first problem. Everything else is not considered. And then, people from whatever side inside you pick. This is the intellectual blackmail because no true intellectual could pick a side on a ridiculous scenario like that and yet Cohen seems to step right in and ridicule those that chose to accurately envision how the war turned out instead of challenging why it was constructed as an "either / or" option and why options such as assassination of Hussein, policing Iraq (with Hussein in power), funding ground-up democratic initiatives, etc. were not even debated.

To be honest, I think works like Cohen are part of the very trouble of splitting the left that he is supposedly critiquing. And buying into the with us or against us mentality is whats led us down this road.

Sorry, but Cohen really bothers me...

Furthermore, this statement:

"Still, one criticism Cohen won't accept is the proposition that decent people of the left who actively supported military intervention to overthrow the Baathist tyranny -- also for all the right reasons -- should bear some burden of blame for what's gone wrong."

Really annoys me.

People shouldn't bear the responsibility for their decisions. That seems like a sure-fire way of resolving issues. Good intentions is not enough. The way Iraq turned out wasn't a grand surprise to most who were intellectually-able. This sort of Michael Ignatieff idealism isn't reflective enough to see that agendas like human rights which can be very positive on the surface often contain and are premised upon their very contradictions (torture, etc.). Thus, those lefties that thought the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqs was great for the abstract notion of "freedom" are responsible for those lives.

One more time....

Furthermore, to address some points raised (correclty) above, Cohen has spun the Iraq war into the issue of for or against Saddam Hussein, intellectual blackmail certainly as I wrote above but also revisionist.

The war, as we all remember, was not about Saddam. There wasn't a dialogue between nations and in the UN about his murdering of his civilians. It was about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda and WMDs (both patently false and observable before-hand).

I like to think that if a known murder is on trial in Canada and the prosecution is clearly planting evidence on him to convict him of a crime he didn't commit, we as Canadians would hold fast to our notion of justice and acquit. Cohen's advises the opposite.

For Cohen, he just re-writes history a bit to make it look like the Left acquitted a murderer of a murder trial and then criticizes that. Its completely ahistorical and revisionist.

Too be honest, I could keep posting but I'll calm down now. I don't see too much of value in Cohen from what has be re-published here. The holier than thou art attitude of being lefter than the left, more critical than the critiquers is well worn out. I'd like to see something a bit more affirmative than sour grapes.

Not really Yammer...

Yammer wrote something like this: "I think most of us who supported the war... were suduced by..."

Not really, Yammer. You supported the war because you're not very bright.

There was probably nothing so obvious as that the invasion was going to turn out exactly as it has. I had a running argument with the editor of one of our local Surrey papers within days of 'shock and awe' in 2003. He thought the whole thing was over even before George Bush declared, 'mission accomplished,' on that ship.

This stupid editor did an editorial claiming those of us who opposed the invasion (wondering how many innocents would be slaughtered), were (as he said), "chicken littles."

He is a very stupid man. There's no other reason anyone who's ever heard of the Viet Nam War wouldn't know exactly what was going to happen.

Stupidity!

appollyon, these guys aren't serious.

appollyon, I think what's pissing you off about Cohen is that you're giving him and Glavin the benefit of the doubt as sincere journalists. So, I think, you're sort of being punked a bit by these guys.

These guys are gatekeepers working for the neocons and other warlovers. They not dummies. They're doing a job, which is to try to discredit the left and neocon opposition.

They know exactly why people were against the invasion, and they know 79.78% (approximately) of people who protested had no admiration for Saddam, but were afraid of the upcoming needless slaughter and exponentially increasing jihadism in the middle east-- (Duh!) when containment of Rumsfeld et al's old friend would have worked just as well.

And we know a faker like Colin Powell when we see one.

Why the Goebbels- like lies?

My take on people like Cohen and Glavin is that what we are seeing is part of the on-going attempt to destroy any real opposition to the corporate state and its drive for permanent domination of the world. The idea is to globalize the sort of semi-totalitarianism such as they have in then US with the Democrats and Republicans as two faces of the same system. (Neocon and Neo-con lite) Any consistent opposition to war and the corporate order must be rooted out, demonized and marginalized. An endless barrage of Der Sturmer type lies (Anti-war people as friends of or tools of Saddam etc.) is part of this process.

What time will Coyotebe on?

http://cfuv.uvic.ca/
you need itunes or winamp to listen online. Both are downloadable from the site.

101.9FM

left support for Islamists?

When this piece came out last April: http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?sh_itm=d54f92d21aad1845367a72a38b6b21be&rXn=1 I asked a friend of mine about it. She said, "I'm with Rushdie". (http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/manifesto)

I wasn't surprised by her response. She had taken part in the Iranian revolution as a student, then was imprisoned under Khomeini, put in solitary, tortured, and sentenced to death before managing to get out. She is very happy to be a Canadian citizen now. Still very active, but also concerned about some of the ways political correctness can affect some people's judgment.

As long as we're not talking bombing

Condemn attitudes...just fine with me. Education and time take care of whatever needs to go. I bet Little Mosque on the Prairie will be more helpful than an arms race.

The total insanity and greed that pushed the US to attack Iraq cannot be dismissed so easily. The push to bomb Iran is on and the only hope for stopping it is to impeach Cheney .
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_allen_l__070131_cheney_being_targete.htm

Coyote on the Radio

Can't answer that question, sorry. When and if I hear I'll post the info.

In the meantime, here's the exchange between David Beers and Coyote, if you can call it that:

Yours,

David Beers

And Coyote responded:

Demonstrate to me where I have been "sexist" and/or "derogatory towards Jews", please. If true I will acknowledge and apologize for it.

And women on Tyee, by and large, I would tell you, have been amongst my stoutest allies, as you should bloody well know. Certainly they are better able to give and take than you are.

Sexist and derogatory towards Jews? I should really sue your bloody ass for slander, you goddamn bigot.

By the by, I just got an email from University of Victoria Radio this morning. They want to do an interview with me about my being banned from Tyee. To which I have agreed. You might want to watch for it.

Jerry/Coyote

Dear Mr. Beers

Dear Mr. Beers,

You should be able to criticize Israel harshly without being called anti -Semitic ...and as far as Coyote being sexist, that is really truly laughable. Ask any woman who writes on this site.

I have always enjoyed reading his pieces. They are astute, intelligent, perceptive and often funny. He isn't fooled by much, which is probably at the heart of the matter here...he is much too much a straight shooter for editors who really don't want to brave the choppier seas.

The Tyee's loss, I think.

But then The Tyee can always boast of Glavin and Rupp...that should keep things mediocre enough..and at the same time placate those Tyee backers who defend Israel's every move as mid-east water-boy for the US...no matter what the tragic consequences to the world.

L.

President Carter

Mr. Jimmy Carter helped start this whole middle east thing by taking advise from a group of liberal advisers who somehow pointed him towards Iran, and this Shah guy who was a dictator who had a 'secret police'.
This Shah guy was pro WEST. He was working on human rights based on the American model, as well as Democracy.
The result of this screw up was the Ayatollah Khomeini.
The first leader to call the USA a Satan.
Great move Jimmy.
This misstep allowed radical Muslim ( who were largely a marginalized sect ( Wahhabi ) , holding seminars, suddenly given power). To be given control of a country.
Now we got Iran going nuclear.
Liberalism isn't going to make it now. And it's all the fault of the past actions by liberals to decay our fruit.
Liberals hate themselves and their country, in the case of North America.

The Shah was a human rights supporter?

This is even crazier that usual from you Ron.

You might want to do a little research into an agency called the SAVAK.

Here's a little head start for your education:

Formed under the guidance of United States and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957, SAVAK developed into an effective secret agency. General Teymur Bakhtiar was appointed its first director, only to be dismissed in 1961, allegedly for organizing a coup; he was assassinated in 1970 under mysterious circumstances, probably on the shah's direct order. His successor, General Hosain Pakravan, was dismissed in 1966, allegedly for having failed to crush the clerical opposition in the early 1960s. The shah turned to his childhood friend and classmate, General Nematollah Nassiri, to rebuild SAVAK and properly "serve" the monarch. Mansur Rafizadeh, the SAVAK director in the United States throughout the 1970s, claimed that General Nassiri's telephone was tapped by SAVAK agents reporting directly to the shah, an example of the level of mistrust pervading the government on the eve of the Revolution.

In 1987 accurate information concerning SAVAK remained publicly unavailable. A flurry of pamphlets issued by the revolutionary regime after 1979 indicated that SAVAK had been a full-scale intelligence agency with more than 15,000 full-time personnel and thousands of part-time informants. SAVAK was attached to the Office of the Prime Minister, and its director assumed the title of deputy to the prime minister for national security affairs. Although officially a civilian agency, SAVAK had close ties to the military; many of its officers served simultaneously in branches of the armed forces. Another childhood friend and close confidant of the shah, Major General Hosain Fardust, was deputy director of SAVAK until the early 1970s, when the shah promoted him to the directorship of the Special Intelligence Bureau, which operated inside Niavaran Palace, independently of SAVAK.

Founded to round up members of the outlawed Tudeh, SAVAK expanded its activities to include gathering intelligence and neutralizing the regime's opponents. An elaborate system was created to monitor all facets of political life. For example, a censorship office was established to monitor journalists, literary figures, and academics throughout the country; it took appropriate measures against those who fell out of line. Universities, labor unions, and peasant organizations, among others, were all subjected to intense surveillance by SAVAK agents and paid informants. The agency was also active abroad, especially in monitoring Iranian students who publicly opposed Pahlavi rule.

Over the years, SAVAK became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest and detain suspected persons indefinitely. SAVAK operated its own prisons in Tehran (the Komiteh and Evin facilities) and, many suspected, throughout the country as well. Many of these activities were carried out without any institutional checks. Thus, it came as no surprise when, in 1979, SAVAK was singled out as a primary target for reprisals, its headquarters overrun, and prominent leaders tried and executed by komiteh representatives. High-ranking SAVAK agents were purged between 1979 and 1981; there were 61 SAVAK officials among 248 military personnel executed between February and September 1979. The organization was officially dissolved by Khomeini shortly after he came to power in 1979.

Nice guys you support.

Still on the blame Jimmy Carter kick I see.

Is that what Rush has been reduced to in the waning days of the Bush dictatorship?

Oh by the way Ron

That information - the stuff I quoted - it didn't come from a left wing site or some liberal college. It was from the US Library of Congress.

Jimmy Carter

Upon suffering 29% interest tares on mortgages, high inflation, an OPEC ripoff, hostages, all of this upon himself. Jimmy was a disaster.
He should have avoided his hatred of Jews, and embraced his love of America.
America still is the only place to hang our hat.
After all they invented almost everything we use.
Jimmy is in trouble right now with the Jews. He claims they control the Main Stream Media ( MSM ).
Rush calls them the drive by media. They are truly useless. By and large liberal snobs who were educated in left wing universities ( See front page magazine . com )
I am so happy that we have alternative sources of information to that lot.

Ah your other 'source'

David Horowitz. And surely you're not throwing over your girlfriend Ann Coulter are you Ron?

Unfortunately, there aren't any progressive mainstream journals in the west any more. Even the New Republic is now 25% owned by Canwest Global. But you wouldn't even know what it is do you Ron?

Jimmy Carter doesn't hate Jews and furthermore, even making that statement about him puts you Ron, in violation of the Tyee's posting rules.

Remember?

Is Rush still on Occicontin by the way? Or has he switched entirely to Viagra?

Clueless is OK, Coyote Not!

It is OK to slander Carter as an Anti-Semite, but not criticize Isreal for its treatment of the Palestinians, or criticize the craven attitudes of Cohen and Glavin. When did Canwest buy shares in Tyee?

Lest we forget

No president of the US has anything to do with interest rates.
They are set (and manipulated) by a private banking consortium called the Federal Reserve.

I agree, IAMC should be banned...mostly for his stupidity.

Everone knows that when ever the Americans need real brains they call on Canada. Then we devious Canucks sabotage the by sending them jerkoffs like David Frum.

Lynn said: Quote:Coyote

Lynn said:

Coyote, is a absolute gentleman. Everything I have seen tells me he has a great respect for women in general. To suggest otherwise is a pathetic and desperate attempt to color him different than he is, and to slot him in a catagory he does not belong... It was a big mistake to ban this gentleman from The Tyee, as it flies in the face of his freedoms of speech imo...

Bear

...(cont. from last post) It

...(cont. from last post) It was a big mistake to ban this gentleman from The Tyee, as it flies in the face of his Freedoms of Speech imo...(cont.) and therefore in the face of our Freedom of Speech as well...

Bear

What you CAN say

From another article (by the author, not a forum poster)

Age-ism apparently is still OK. :-)

rules of conduct

Beers said:

I did a search of the site for that phrase "rules of conduct" and came up blank.

I'm wondering if these rules are actually codified so that one would know whether or not one is crossing the line or not?

I know another site where I post (vul.bc.ca) has very clear guidelines posted for submitters to view.

The power of the press... belongs to those who own one.

Readers should have a say about banning commentors, eh?

Shouldn't the readers of The Tyee have something to say about who gets banned (or even curbed) during our discussions?

As well as something to say about who gets an apology complete with an invitation to be re-instated?

Looks to me as if there's a general feeling that banning our Coyote was not a good idea. Not smart. Not justifiable. Simply not necessary.

What's the word I'm searching for ... outrageous? Yep, that's it. Banning Coyote from commenting on these pages is absolutely outrageous.

It's also anti-Canadian. But more of that later. That is, if I'm not banned. Again.

rules of conduct

OMG, the Tyee enforces its commenting agreement and all hell breaks loose.

Stump, here’s what is posted in the Commenting FAQs:

Registration to this forum is free! We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below.

Although The Tyee will attempt to keep all objectionable messages out of the comments, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and The Tyee will not be held responsible for the content of any message.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

The Tyee reserves the right to remove, edit, move or close the comments on a story for any reason.

When someone is unable or unwilling to distinguish between criticism of Israeli government policy and Jewish people, I find it as abhorrent as those who fail to differentiate between Muslims and Islamists.

Those who don’t agree with the Tyee’s commenting rules should start their own unmoderated online news service or blog. See how many readers or commentators you can attract when you let name-calling, insults and prejudice go unchallenged. Ranters from anywhere on the political spectrum bore me. I’ll stick with the Tyee.

Is it possible to get back to the thread now?

We don't know that

"When someone is unable or unwilling to distinguish between criticism of Israeli government policy and Jewish people, I find it as abhorrent as those who fail to differentiate between Muslims and Islamists."

Coyote did make that distinction-- often.

I think what is more relevant is :
"The Tyee reserves the right to remove, edit, move or close the comments on a story for any reason."

Coyote the... gentleman?

Gee, wouldn't he object to that as being reverent to old-fashioned social elitism, and therefore imperialism, capitalism, and AmeriKKKa?

I enjoyed many of Coyote's rants and learned from them. But he was also extremely long-winded, intensely vehement, and quick to make disputes personal -- as I can say, being one of his supposedly "neo con" "Nazi" catamites for Bush and Blair. He also bragged about drinking scotch in the middle of the afternoon.

Then again, maybe he *was* wearing an ascot and drinking with his pinkie finger well out, so, who knows.

He also bragged about drinking scotch in the middle of the after

I'm doing something illegal (don't worry, merely a misdemeanor) this very second. How does either have a bearing on the principles of free speech?

Biscotti:
The rules are all well and good, but how does one define vulgar and obscene w/out relying on either personal taste or the law?

If we rely on personal taste, then free speech is just a sham. Reserving the right (last clause of the posters' rules), is a legal necessity I suppose, but also potentially damaging to the principle of free speech.

These are my thoughts. Please show me where there's holes in my ideas.

Glavin and Cohen stuff and nonsense

Brzezinski is on side and always was against the Iraq invasion.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/brze-f02_prn.shtml

the rules set limits to free speech

The Tyee commenting rules don’t offer us free speech; they offer a moderated forum for the exchange of views. Seems rather obvious to me.

From Terry Glavin’s blog:

http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/

How would you react if a poster accused Glavin of having a “female attitude” or a “Muslim attitude” or (fill in the blank with the ethnicity, religion or identity of your choice) attitude?

Nice to see the same double standards apply.

I thought I'd check in on how the debate is evolving. It's nice to see that The Tyee has so much devotion to political debate that they would permanently ban someone for criticizing Israel. I mean, how can you criticize Israel? All they do is run an Aparthied, APARTHIED, yes I said it because that's what it is, state and completely deny the rights of the Palestinian population. And everyone knows that critic of Israel=anti-semite and holocaust denier. Ever notice that all these neocons claim to support democracy then the first hint of criticism against the brutality of the Israeli state they start yammering about defending American values. I guess American values really are support the rich at the expense of the weak. I saw the interview with Carter on CNN about his new book and all they could do was talk about how he could have included the word 'Aparthied' in the title. Could it be because 'Aparthied' actually describes what the state of Israel, with all it's pretense of American values and commitment to democracy really is? Pathetic. The Iraq war has taught America nothing.

Oh, just another note on Terry Glavin. Assuming being against the war automatically makes one a Saddam supporter, I guess I can also automatically assume that Glavin supports the indiscriminate daily slaughter of Palestinians in order to "protect Israel's right to exist and to spread democracy. Just a little observation there.

PS-I do not believe Israel or any other country in the world has a "right" to exist.

'Shouldn't the readers of

'Shouldn't the readers of The Tyee have something to say about who gets banned (or even curbed) during our discussions? '
oh yes, they are so entitlted on the left.

That was fun

I just went over to Glavins site and it got a chucle from a comment which quoted Monty Python & The Holy Grail.

It was a stupid illegal war and Cohen&Glavin are trying to justify it on humanitarian grounds. That is so perverse. It is so blind to human values. that the result is breathtaking.

So you have to ask yourselves are these guys involved in life? The disconnect is so blatant.

So Where is Coyote's Comment?

Since there is so much opposition to the banning of Coyote it should be up to us to decide whether his comment is "anti-Jewish" or not. Let's see the friggin' comment! The problem with all of this is that the Isreal Is Right No Matter What crowd always deliberately confuse criticism of Isreal with Anti-semitism. This is of course, a tactic of authoritarians of all stripes, not just neocon apologists. Thus we cannot take Glavin's word for it, nor now it seems Beers either, who is protecting this little jerk-off. (I am also glad to say that some of my comments have made it into the JO's blog. Truth hurts, eh?)

Glavin, on his own blog

It appears Terry Glavin feels little constrained to cry the blues but, when confronted with a critical comment (which was neither libelous, racist nor rude) immediately erases it. It would appear Beers is adopting the same tactics. You’ll remember the incident I’m talking about anarcho.

This is not an honest open way to do business. I think Truman has the man dead to rights.

Terry Glavin will certainly use that forum (and this one) to preen and fluff his own feathers while studiously avoiding any sense of obligation to respond to critical comments either here or there.

Not free speech and civil discourse by any means. The fact that Coyote used hyperbole notwithstanding, this has not been one of Tyee's better days.

glad glavin got my words right!

Hot damn!

I'm so happy that Glavin got my words correct when I claimed he and Cohen are "gatekeepers for neocons and warlovers," as any fairly bright person will immediately recognize as the truth.

Why else would any writer pretend that the anti-Iraq war movement is comprised of those who wish to protest against the overthrow of Saddam Hussein?

This is a lie!

I consider myself a fairly typical lefty peacenik, but there's not a single Middle East potentate that I don't think should be in prison for encouraging and allowing massive sexism, torture and false imprisonment of dissidents.

Even Glavin knows that the peace movement is acting out of sadness that so much unnecessary slaughter and mutilation is taking place--and an understanding that the war has accomplished exactly nothing of benefit to the West, or to democratize the Muslim nations, as the Bush administration claimed as its motivation.

Which, of course, Glavin knows perfectly well.

Fear of flaming

Maybe IAMC and Eliot are in that crowd, but I'll let them speak for themselves. I don't know what I've said that would make someone think I support Israeli govt policy. Reread my posts.

fyi I am a long time supporter of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue groups, Women in Black, the Middle East Peace Quilt (http://www.vcn.bc.ca/quilt/), direct activists like the late Rachel Corrie, and so on. By supporter I mean donating money, helping organize events, writing articles, etc.

Careless use of the word “Jewish” instead of “Israeli govt policy” is one rather blatant way anti-semitism reveals itself. Unfortunately, many people in the left continue to betray their bias this way. And when someone calls them on it, they’re often accused of being pro-Israeli, or a “Ziocon”.

I hope that with some of the long-winded arrogance and prejudice at long last called to task on the Tyee threads, some space might open for new people to post comments. Some more women would be nice. I know there are more than a few who've been reluctant to join the fray for fear of flaming by men who enjoy taking up more than their share of space.

Rusty hinges , I hear ya a-comin'

I have a strong suspicion a door may swing shut soon, its happened before...sooner than later on "some" versus "others"...

Jump in anytime

The space isn't limited on the thread. Anybody can join the conversation at anytime. The people who identify themselves as female don't seem to have any trouble flaming right back. Do I count you as old fashioned, chivalrous or sexist Biscuit my friend?

Pot calling the kettle, I think

That's always the trouble with free speech isn't it? It's fine and dandy for you, but not such a big deal for those you don't agree with.

I

I don't think that's a real argument, biscotti

I don't think your 'fear of flaming' argument is correct, biscotti. Because if it was I think the editors would have quietly emailed some of us and recommended that we give others a chance to comment.

What do you mean: "Some space might open up?" Are we short of space around here?

This is not like a line up at a bank where you have to wait your turn. If you write a comment it will show up. So anyone can join, whether some posters are long winded or not.

I don't believe this banning incident is about drinking scotch or being long winded or 'fear of flaming,' or being resented by Yammer for being (supposedly) referred to by Coyote as a 'catamite,' or whether we need more women commentors. I think it's about whether one poster went over the line regarding criticism of a specific ethnic group.

Not a single poster has been more critical of Israeli foreign policy than I have, so I believe that it is not true that the Tyee will not tolerate extremely harsh criticism of Israel. See my posts after Rafe Mair's last critique of Israel in which I accused Israel of everything (including 9/11) except being singularly responsible for global warming. The comments are still there, and I've been neither deleted nor banned for them.

Excellent point Truman

Certain other posters - mentioned elsewhere - who have been far more critical and, I would assert actually were anti-Semitic have never, to my knowledge, been called for it by anyone other than myself.

This incident with Coyote, particularly the secret and clandestine nature of the banishment, is quite another thing entirely.

Moreover, it certainly is not free speech. Beers' words and Coyote's response are all we can go on if we haven't actually read the piece in question. In my view, the preponderance of evidence - including biscotti's - is not persuasive at all.

Glad that Cohen and Euston are making Coyote Howl

Thanks Terry for yet another great article and for being brave in your valiant attempt to adopt the Euston Manifesto.

For years I too have been tortured to see that "progressives" are parroting (or is it goose stepping to) the same mantras as the far right. All one has to do is venture onto www.davidduke.com and you can find the usual scripted articles such as :"The “Wipe Israel Off The Map” Hoax (lost in translation), Revealed: The Biggest Political Contributor in America is an Israeli Extremist!,Hillary the Favourite in Race for Jewish Donations, The Israel Lobby Trips and Tilts (in support of Jimmy Carter's book),What Really Happened In Iran . . .(in defence of the Holocaust Convention), Zionism is the Political Expression of Judaism (by the Duke himself)
Proof: the Media Lies About the Holocaust Conference in Tehran, etc etc". In fact here's aquote from Duke at eh Iranian Conference:
"“The Holocaust is now being used as a benchmark by which all other atrocities are judged, such that when the full horror of the devastation in Iraq was exposed, the international media contemptuously dismissed the war crimes committed against the Iraqi people as the price of establishing democracy. The same goes for the Palestinians." Sound familiar? It should because all progressives and "anti_war" movements have been spewing this for years.
No wonder Coyote is howling. Because usually he can post his drivel on anti-Zionist "progressive" boards like Babble where terrorism is an "understandable" response to occupation. Ironically on Babble and other "progressive" groups, pro-Zionists posters are banned routinely as "racist." I understand that Coyote is a member of that Terrorist cheer leading group aka the ISM. What a surprise.

naddude that's nonsense

If you actually took the time to read some of the comments around here you'd find that Duke and his henchmen are frequently called for their hate; as is Phil Rushton and apologists for Ernst Zundel and company...not to mention attendees at the recent conference in Iran and others.

What you're posting is just plain baloney, and, furthermore, I don't think Coyote himself has done any howling at all about this. Apart from his reply to Beers - which I posted above - he hasn't been involved in this at all.
In fact, I asked him for the information - he did not volunteer it - although he did give me permission to post it.

In short, you don't know what you're talking about. But you certainly do know how to use the same inappropriate and dishonest techniques that Glavin employs.

Nooooooo not Duke again!

As Bertand Russell once said, or I may be paraphrasing here "The trouble with being right, is the sometimes unfortunate company one finds oneself in".

Elementary logic aside even a clock is right 2x a day.

Duke serves the purpose of discrediting ideas when he champions them. That's why he gets the publicity he gets.
He is another fake.

Please don't try that guilt by association trick again. It is too puerile.

making space

mopled

Truman Green

I’m simply sharing what several women put off by rancorous Tyee threads have told me. One has taken to deleting her Tyee news feeds, saying, “I just haven't had the stomach for it.” (We met 25 yrs ago in an anti-nuke direct action group.)

I do like “Biscuit” – French for “cookie” I think ;-)
“Biscotti” is just a crunchier cookie, often better appreciated when dunked in coffee or wine :-o

Alcibiades

As I said above, I don’t think we’re in a total free speech zone here. It’s a moderated forum.

Truman Green

Well said, Truman.

Time to go chop some wood. It’s cold here up north.

I'm sorry, biscotti, you missed the point

What you see as long winded arrogance and prejudice may be, in the eyes of others, exactly the kind of thing others read on your own posts.

That's the point about free speech. It gets up other peoples' noses, if makes them think.

Your words sound to me as though you're actually happy that someone else's thoughts (which don't happen to accord with yours) have been silenced.

I think that's appalling and judgmental and the exact opposite of true free speech.

Fish flops

.

Truman replied:

Truman is right. Those like Glavin, Cohen et al who supported the war supported the war because they're not very bright. They seem unable to connect the interconnections of history, so now instead of being man or woman enough to admit how wrong they really were...they are going to blame those on the left who opposed the war from the start...and saw what they were unable to see.

So guys and gals, yeah you... the ones who believed the US coalition was bringing democracy to Iraq...you should now have to go live in Iraq (almost 700,000 Iraqis killed)... in the kind of "democracy " your kind of thinking has created. ...as community service workers....doing reparation work - if Iraq will have you. You get to go home when Iraq says so.... it decides when it has been fully compensated and all amends made.

The same kind of thinking is going on in the banning of Coyote, this time by the editor of this site. As mopled observed, Coyote has over and over made the distinction between the policies of the Israeli government and the Jewish people themselves.

If you cannot separate the two I would think that reflects more on your thinking capabilities than it does on any comments attempting to articulate the precarious position created for all sides when a state is based on religion alone.

When there is need for criticism of a religious-based state it becomes very dangerous for those who dare to do so... just as we see presently being demonstrated here on The Tyee. Talk about minefields to traverse. And Israel needs to be criticized... especially as the US continues to use and manipulate Israel's strategic position in the mid-east for its own imperialistic benefit...and a policy based on endless war.

Mr. Beers, the women who post here - BC Mary, Right to Bear, myself, and I'm sure many others... ( I don't think Avicenna would mind me including her) we strongly disagree with your banning of Coyote for supposed sexism. Instead all of us regard him warmly...because he doesn't try to fake what he feels...he's real ....and he values and responds to the ideas behind our comments.

In fact, I usually think guys who fawn over feminism, "Hilary " or women politicians as if that somehow impresses us... are much more suspect to be sexist. They say what they consider to be all "the right things" ....but no true genuine feeling for women comes through.

You really don't get it do you, Mr. Beers?

Right on Lynn!

I think you have made the best comment so far on the subject of Coyote's purge from the Tyee.

Brilliant lynn

I love the idea of community service for the thought criminals who advocated war for "human rights" as a cover for another Anglo-American resource grab.

The problem is sorting our which is the tail and which is the dog with Israel's involvement in the mix. There is no doubt that Israel is in charge of the Bush Whitehouse and Sharon is quoted from reliable sources to have said publicly that Israel had the American's in its back pocket.

So what does one call those in power who are in thrall to a foreign government anyway? Suggestions?

Not You Biscuits!

I was referring to Glavin and Cohen (Clueless is to stupid even to mention) NOT you, Biscotti. I know your position is more nuanced than that, which is why I don't understand why you give any credability to those Neocon-lites.

Nanadudes totalitarian technique.

By trying to smear the peace movement with Dukiedung, you have given us a perfect example of the Nazi propaganda technique in action. eg the Nazis cry of "Jewish Bolshevism" . Well, the Stalinists were good at it too. Remember "Trotskyite Gestapo Agents" and "anarcho-fascists." All of these examples bear as much resemblance to the truth as your supposed "anti-semitic pacifists". The only person you have descredited fella, is yourself by stooping to such slimey, dispicable, low life scumbag tactics. Hope you enjoy swimming in your cess pool!

Israel

mopled wrote:

The American and the Israeli governments have many common goals, but that doesn't mean the Israelis are in charge. That takes responsibility away from Bush for the crimes he has committed all on his own. The Christian fundamentalists (Bush being one of them) in the U.S, and the American Enterprise Institute had more to do with Bush's middle-east policy than any Israeli did.

You missed my point.

As i said, it's hard to tell who is in charge. Sharon's own words point to the Israelis thinking they are.

Bush is a just the flack catcher. I read a piece by a German woman who was in her 20 's when Hitler came into powe,r that most Germans thought Hitler was a clown and discounted him. Well, the people who backed him weren't and by the time they realized what it meant, it was too late to do anything.

As to the Fundies, their leaders are sex obsessed whores to power.

One of the clues as to who in the US power stucture might put Israel's needs first would be to check out how many holders of Israeli passports there are in both parties.

The personable Rahm Emanuel is one such. He was in charge of doling out campaign money to Democratic candidates. Nobody who advocated pulling out of Iraq got any. Hmmm!

Michael Chertoff anyone? Wolfowitz, Perle....name a neocon.

?

They're Israelis? What about Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice?

When people start listing the names of Jews, alarm bells start to go off in my head. I guess it's a history-thing.

You said it best lynn...

When it comes to the intention and the character of Coyote, you said it best lynn... Thanks.

Bear

Taken out of context

Remember, I said it was a mix. Rice worked for an oil company getting a tanker named after her and Cheney refuses to deliver the goods on what was said in his powwow with the oil companies. Rumsfield is a gun for hire, he worked under Cheney with Wolfowitz in the Nixon admin.

Take a look at what has been put together on Israeli spying.
Clinton warns Monica their conversations are being recorded and guess what the country of origin is for the outfits which run telecomunications for government.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring.html

Blackmail goes a long way toward owning a politician.

The left in Canada are like

The left in Canada are like a bunch of dogs in the park smelling each other's butts. Why try anything different when everything smells so good? It is a situation hopeless.

I just looked up

the American Enterprise Institute. Check out the membership and the endowments. The Kristols and Perle meet the Scaife Foundation. What a a cauldron.

I also ran across the promo video for the America Israel Public Affairs Committee. Snakes on a plane!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae5t_55OWbo&mode=related&search=

Remember this lobbying group for a foreign country's interests enjoys tax free status. Imagine that! How do you suppose that happened?

PS On Coyote

I did not mean to leave the impression that Coyote is a bigot. He is not.

I have to wonder what it was that precipitated his being banned because clearly there are plenty of posts above by others that range from exactly the same ignorant head-in-the sand thinking that Cohen criticizes, all the way to down right bigotry (the usual Zionist-Jewish conspiracy horseshit). They deserve to voice their freedom of speech in a garbage can, where they belong.

Quote: mopled 1 hour

the American Enterprise Institute. Check out the membership and the endowments. The Kristols and Perle meet the Scaife Foundation. What a a cauldron.

I also ran across the promo video for the America Israel Public Affairs Committee. Snakes on a plane!
(hate video link removed)

Remember this lobbying group for a foreign country's interests enjoys tax free status. Imagine that! How do you suppose that happened?

This "individual" belongs in the garbage can. Of all the usual racist/ conspiracy theories etc. Please remove this filth from this site!!!

More Nazi-type propaganda

While mopled may be wrong about who is the dog and who is the tail, suggesting that the right-wing faction that controls Isreal has undue influence on the US government is hardly racist. Jews are heavily involved in the left and the peace movement. There is also a strong Isreali peace movement and a group of true heros, the Refusniks. Are these Jewish people "racists" and "Anti-Semites" too? Get your head out of Bushes arsehole and breath the clean air of truth, for once!

That wasn't a hate video

It was the promotional video for this years AIPAC conference.

When one is presented with facts that one then calls theory, that is dishonest.

I have posted nothing except pure unadulterated fact.

Because you are having problems digesting or accepting those factst doesn't make me racist..

The fact that the Scaife Foundation is a major funder of the AEI can be found here along with the names of famous neocons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

Richard Mellon Scaife
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaifemain050299.htm

Yo Truman

I'll cop to some stupidity. Although I can't recall ever saying that the invasion was a *good* idea, I certainly posted rebuttals to some of the anti-invasion commentary. For example, when people said that the US had killed x thousands of peoples, I pointed to Iraqbodycount.com noting that which deaths came from US activity and which from improvised explosives -- hairsplitting.

Before the invasion, I bought the hype that Colin Powell was a credible, "moderate" individual, and that, therefore, there were WMDs pointed at western targets as he'd said. I guess that was stupid.

I will say, since the US had sold Saddam technology to fight the Iranians, it made perfect sense that the US was in a better position than weapons inspectors to know what Saddam possessed.

In addition to being stupid, I'll also cop to ethnocentrism and vicarious revenge. I truly fear and loath Talibanization, from reading Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other such sources over a decade of refugee work. I thought it was an excellent idea to shoot these people in Afghanisan, Iraq, and wherever else the US was interested in shooting them, particularly as they have zero hesitation in using deadly force against, say, rape victims -- not to mention large towers. I envisioned an effective culling of their fighters, a sort of sweeping garbage removal, not this endless campaign of destroying civilian towns and actually lowering the quality of life.

I'm not sure why I thought that Bush had a plan, or that it would be a good one.

Remember Madeleine Albright

who when asked if the deaths of an estimated 600,00 Iraqi children during the period of the sanctions was "worth it", said "yes"? I understand she's sorry she said it...not sorry she presided over it.

Scott Ritter kept telling us everything given by the Americans was accounted for, but he didn't get much press. so, if one didn't read outside the box, there was no way of knowing that.

The media are complicit in the ongoing genocides in the Middle East.

naddude

What exactly are you talking about?

If you're going to make such accusations, I think it is contingent upon you to be much more precise.
a) Do you deny that the 'idea' of full citizenship for Arab Israelis is a contentious one?
b) Do you deny that Palestinians have been treated abominably since the establishment of the state of Israel?
c) Do you deny the kind of military and financial support that the US provides to Israel is out of all proportion to what it gives the Palestinian people?
d) Do you deny that an Israeli state which guarantees citizenship for Jews from anywhere in the world and at the same time refuses the right of return to Palestinians to their homeland in anachronistic and inequitable?

I certainly don't mind decrying Palestinian terrorism in all its forms but I also am not afraid to acknowledge that the IDF used illegal cluster bombs in the Lebanese war last summer. Nor am I afraid to accuse the IDF of many criminal actions toward Palestinians in the occupied territories. From witholding medical care and preventing freedom on movement to contributing to a lack of decent education, housing and working conditions.

Such treatment creates and exacerbates violence - no matter who practices it.

I fully support the many Jews who also call the government of Israel to task for these crimes. Honesty and truth requires it – something you seem to have forgotten while you call people nasty names. How come?

defend thyself

Israel and the USA take a lot of heat when they don't deserve it. It;s not them that are a threat to our present existence and STANDARD OF LIVING. It's the duty of both of these countries to look after the security of their citizens.
We don't want our people killed. We want them to live a peaceful prosperous life.
The right to the pursuit of happiness, isn't written into law anywhere but the USA.
I am sick of taking flack from the liberals who seem to take the side of anyone but America.
America is our only hope to stave off forces that want to take away everything we rightly deserve.
I know who my friends are.
And I don't have many friends on this site.

Mr. Beers, please reconsider

I want to add my voice to the protest over Coyote's expulsion from this forum.

Coyote is a plain talker, it can't be denied. And clearly someone who doesn't suffer fools gladly. When the passion is on him, sometimes he bites. Just like his totem. But to call him sexist or racist is just not right.

For years we have soaked ourselves in his unmistakable genuine opinions. He never fails to rise to a challenge. but always with rigorous, well supported argument. When he resorts to intemperate response, my sympathies are usually with him. Coyote baiting is a sport with some of the people who come here.

No other regular contributor is more vehemently attacked by the poor arguments and weak thinking of those whose who clearly don't tolerate well being called on their prejuduces. No other regular contributor makes more interesting conversation.

This will be a much thinner place without Coyote.

Mr. Beers, I would ask you to reconsider. This should be a safe place for unpopular opinion. Even for provocative opinion. If not, then what's the point? Please bring Coyote back.

As I have understood it, your editorial policy has pretty much been to censor only comment which might be actually actionable or illegal. I've thought this a wise, even inspired policy. Even in cases where comment has slipped over the line, you seem to have permitted backtracking. Has something happened to change this tolerant and well thought policy? By and large the commentors you attract seem pretty strong, able to stick up for themselves. Don't you think?

I really want him back. This is no troll, no meanspirited cheapshot artist such as have sometimes been disappeared in the past here. This is a real thinker, with willingness to research and reason and argue. I think you'll miss him.

I know I will.

You have friends?

Then maybe you should just leave.

America has lost its way, confusing self-interest for morality. With a little luck it may have a small chance to save itself if the legislative bodies can put the brakes on Bush’s foolish megalomania before it’s too late.

It's pretty easy to see from your post Ron that your standard of living is more important to you than the lives of people who are victimized by a system that ignores 4/5ths of the people in the world for the comfort of the other fifth and thinks it's fine to continue stealing from them.

It can't last. Bullies always lose out in the end and the American economy is in such bad shape it won't be able to continue the insanity much longer.

The fact you get your ideas from an Occicontin addict should have been a warning to you, don't you think?

It's nearly all over Ron. In addition, that's too bad because a lot of good and innocent people are going to be hurt when the whole jerry-built structure of greed and selfishness falls down around our ears. In fact, a whole lot of good innocent people have already been murdered in Iraq for nothing more than that little man’s ego. If there is any justice in the world George Bush should have to answer for his lies and his crimes…but of course he won’t.

Might doesn’t make right Ron, but it does make for selfish, mean, greedy bullies: Bullies who never seem to learn before they’ve done a lot of damage to real people who actually do deserve a decent life. People from all over the world – not just from North America.

G West:

G West:

I guess that means you'll be down in Miami this weekend to watch the Super Bowl .

BTW Cuba is not that far away...about a 36 hour swim depending on tides,hurricanes and Great Whites (.....sharks that is).

Tough to call....Grossman ( at times a semetic name, depending ) may suprise......Manning ( not Preston ) may fold...Maybe FG kicker Vinateri will be the difference.

Have a good trip...bring some Cubans (cigars)back...

PS is Spelling and Grammar Po-lice goin wit ya ???

Well, let's see. The

Well, let's see. The majority of the left in Canada is calling for an immediate withdrawal of ISAF troops from Afghanistan, despite the fact this would lead to the slaughter and enslavement of Aghans, particularly women. Can anyone name a more obscene betrayal of everything the left used to stand for? What has happened to the left? Is Glavin not correct? Have not identity politics, political correctness, cultural and moral relativism produced a childish inability to see reality on the Canadian left? How else to explain the immoral and hypocritical and deluded NDP position on Afghanistan? Future historians, if we are so lucky, will undoubtedly discover the roots of unreason that have polluted clear thinking on the left. Roots of confusion that allow so many to map the Iraq situation onto Afghanistan, and ignore the differences. This is ideological blindness, and thank God for minds like those of Terry Glavin that represent an awakening of the left from folly and irrelevancy. But I miss Coyote too.

Sick Joke

As though the troops were in Afganistan to protect Afganis, particularily women. What a sick joke you have made. Bulgoose. I guess you also believe in the tooth fairy! Troops are there for the American government's geopoltical reasons. The plight of the people is just a smoke screen to fool rubes like you. The US cares nothing about people as has been proven a hundred times over in Latin America, VietNam, Cambodia, Timor, Indonesia etc. Even the slightest familiarity with the history of the last 100 years would show you that wars are always couched in such language in order to sell them to the public.

Realistic clearness

Both wars, Iran and Afghanistan were based on lies.

Iraq had no WMDs and Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. The Afghan government just asked for some proof that OBL did it before they turned him over. The rest of the world got conned into standing by while bombs dropped.

Canadians are not dying in Afghanistan to save the natives but to subdue them to make the place safe for a pipeline.

We've been over this endlessly. You might want to go to the Pacific Cinamatec tomorrow to see Terror Storm. at 11:30AM or 2:30 PM. You might then understand the conjob we've been subjected to by false flag ops..

Not much "left" even Coyote

For the record, I am a big fan of Terry Glavin, Nick Cohen and the Euston Manifesto. It's clear the "Left" has indeed lost its way as extensively discussed in Nick Cohen's book. I find it ironic that most here have clearly not even read Cohen's book (as it is not out yet) but are quick to dismiss it because it's not PC. Anyone interested can find excerpts from his book on http://www.nickcohen.net/ or here http://tinyurl.com/2eocsw

As for Coyote: I have had numerous exchanges with Coyote and although I disagree with his politics he is not a racist. He is sincere and dedicated in his quest for peace in the Middle East. I differ with him as to how that will be achieved and with his allegiances but he should be permitted to have a voice. Too often opposition has been silenced (i.e. at Concordia University for example.)

Unless I am missing something: let him speak.

Cohn not reliable

He again uses Saddams supposed gassing of the Kurds to justify the "humanitarian" invasion of Iraq in the piece at the tinyurl link provided above..

It doesn't matter how many times one shows that the Kurds died from cyanide gas drift from the Iranians and that the US had provided different poison gas to Iraq. That Saddam was a US tool is forgotten and the history of Britain in Iraq totally ignored.

We need to know how the Israel Lobby operates here in Canada and stop paying attention to shills like G&C..

http://www.canpalnet.ca/events.html
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10485

Mopled

Your post above (and most of them for that matter) are exactly what Glavin (and Cohen) are talking about:

Terry Galvin's Chronicles:
http://www.straight.com/article/chronicling-a-year-s-offences

They're Proving you right Terry!

From Above article:

naddude indeed!

The anti-semitism canard has outlived its usefullness.

Fewer and fewer people are being cowed by it every day, especially when so many Jews have been shocked by Israel's mad rampage in Lebanon. The cat's out of the bag
and can not be put back. Israel's policies towards not only Palestinians, but also its neighbors are genocidal and racist.

And that's the truth!

naddude

I don't know if you've actually read Jeffrey Goldberg's two lenthy New Yorker articles on Hezbollah and its history. I suspect you haven't. At least you're not so disingenuous as to suggest that Goldberg's pieces have anything to do with the current situation between Lebanon/Hezbollah and Israel.

Because, of course, if you had, you'd also have to acknowledge the fact that the situation between Lebanon and Israel TODAY is a very different one from what it was in 2002 and prior.

You, Cohen and Glavin would like to have it that political situations are somehow unrelated to actual events and are not part of a continuum of bad behavior and misguided actions, not to say irresponsible statements and lies, made by both sides. To suggest that Hezbollah is not at least partially a creation of a series of reprehensible actions (or inactions) by the government of Israel and particularly the actions of then-defence minister Ariel Sharon is both irresponsible and dishonest.

If you know anything at all about the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and the findings of the Israeli commission of inquiry into the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla (the Kahane commission) then you couldn't possibly imply that this is merely a case of Nazrallah's irresponsibility and Israeli victimization.

As for criminal complicity and outlandish statements of hate, I would refer you to an article from the New York Times by Thomas Friedman from August 5, 1985. I'll only quote a few paragraphs of it because I'm not in the business of trying to smear anyone. That's your department, naddude; yours, Cohen's and Glavin's - and, it seems, David Beers' too. Anyway, you'll get the point - hate is not just an article of faith on one side of this unholy conflict.

Today, nobody is dismissing Rabbi Kahane, who advocates ousting all Arabs from Israel and the occupied territories and turning the country into a purely Jewish state that would be run according to Jewish law. He is the most talked-about political figure in Israel, and by all indications his popularity is soaring.

'He Is an Epidemic'

Political commentators here say the appeal of his ideas, which is especially strong among young voters, has several roots: Arabs and Jews are treated differently under the law in the occupied territories, nationalism has become increasingly acceptable, personal violence between Jews and Arabs has increased and confidence in the leadership provided by Israel's major parties has weakened. Rabbi Kahane's election, the commentators add, appears to have made his ideas more respectable in the eyes of many Israelis.

''Before his election a year ago, Kahane was just an illness; now he is an epidemic,'' said Alouph Hareven, associate director of the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation, a private research organization that sponsors education programs to promote tolerance.

''Kahane is beginning to be acceptable in centrist Israeli society,'' said Gerald Cromer, a professor of criminology at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv who has been studying Rabbi Kahane's rising popularity. Rabbi Kahane, who moved to Israel 14 years ago after founding the Jewish Defense League in New York City, concedes that the enormous rise in his popularity is a recent phenomenon. He believes it is based on the mounting fears that Israelis have of Arabs, and on a desire by some Israelis to end what they call the ''Arab problem'' once and for all.

''I have touched a simple and honest nerve on the part of the people,'' Rabbi Kahane said in soft, measured tones in an interview at his office in Parliament. ''Not all of these people out on the streets are fools. Obviously, when parents come to me and say that they are afraid to let their children play in the streets, something is bothering them.

''I have spoken about this for the last 14 years,'' he said. ''I have not changed. It is the situation that has changed. Everything in Israel has a time, and this is an idea whose time has come.''

If you're still not convinced, I'll post a little something from Tikkun next.

Here's one from the Forward

written by Yossi Beilin, a member of the Knesset, about Jimmy Carter, that well-known anti-Semite someone referred to above here.

Looking at the controversy that has erupted over former President Jimmy Carter’s book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” I have to say I am a little envious — envious of a national culture in which a book, or just a book title, can stir such a debate.

I cannot recall when the publication of a book has generated such a debate in Israel. And even though we are talking here about a book that was published in the United States and has yet to be translated into Hebrew, the quiet way in which “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” has been received in Israel is nevertheless noteworthy, not least because it is Israel itself that is the object of Carter’s opprobrium.

Part of the explanation for why Carter’s book did not set off any public outcry in Israel lies in the difference in literary culture. For better or worse — and I, for one, certainly think that it is for worse — books just don’t matter here in the way they still do elsewhere. Yet perhaps a larger part of the explanation lies with the difference in political culture, and with local sensitivities (or perhaps insensitivities) to language and moral tone.

It is not that Israelis are indifferent to what is said about them, but the threshold of what passes as acceptable here is apparently much higher than it is with Israel’s friends in the United States. In the case of this particular book, the harsh words that Carter reserves for Israel are simply not as jarring to Israeli ears, which have grown used to such language, especially with respect to the occupation.

In other words, what Carter says in his book about the Israeli occupation and our treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories — and perhaps no less important, how he says it — is entirely harmonious with the kind of criticism that Israelis themselves voice about their own country. There is nothing in the criticism that Carter has for Israel that has not been said by Israelis themselves.

Of course, Carter is not just another media pundit or a leftist Israeli. A former president of the United States and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, he has been one of the world’s most accomplished statesmen in the past three decades, a public figure of enormous moral clout. His words weigh heavier than those of others, and his actions make a difference in the real sense of the term.

In the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, moreover, Carter has secured his place in history as the man who brokered the first peace agreement between Israel and an Arab nation. The Camp David summit he convened in September 1978, which resulted in the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, was a historical watershed for the entire region. It inaugurated the Arab-Israeli peace process, without which the Oslo peace process would not have been possible, nor the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan.

In light of the failure of the second Camp David summit of July 2000, Carter’s successful mediation between such starkly different leaders as Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat is all the more impressive, and his achievement — which was a truly personal achievement — all the more remarkable.

Every Israeli, and every Jew to whom the destiny of Israel is important, is indebted to Carter for breaking the ring of hostility that had choked Israel for more than 30 years. No American president before him had dedicated himself so fully to the cause of Israel’s peace and security, and, with the exception of Bill Clinton, no American president has done so since.

This is why the publication of Carter’s recent book, and perhaps more than anything else, the title it bears, has pained so many people. And I must admit that, on some deeply felt level, the title of the book has strained my heart, too. Harsh and awful as the conditions are in the West Bank, the suggestion that Israel is conducting a policy of apartheid in the occupied territories is simply unacceptable to me.

But is this what Carter is saying? I have read his book, and I could not help but agree — however agonizingly so — with most if its contents. Where I disagreed was mostly with the choice of language, including his choice of the word “apartheid.”

But if we are to be fair, and as any reading of the book makes clear, Carter’s use of the word “apartheid” is first and foremost metaphorical. Underlying Israel’s policy in the West Bank, he argues, is not a racist ideology but rather a nationalist drive for the acquisition of land. The resulting violence, and the segregationist policies that shape life in the West Bank, are the ill-intended consequences of that drive.

Of course, there is no appropriate term in the political lexicon for what we in Israel are doing in the occupied territories. “Occupation” is too antiseptic a term, and does not capture the social, cultural and humanitarian dimensions of our actions. Given the Palestinians’ role in the impasse at which we have arrived, to say nothing of Arab states and, historically speaking, of the superpowers themselves, I would describe the reality of occupation as a march of folly — an Israeli one, certainly, but not exclusively so.

But if we are to read Carter’s book for what it is, I think we would find in it an impassioned personal narrative of an American former president who is reflecting on the direction in which Israel and Palestine may be going if they fail to reach agreement soon. Somewhere down the line — and symbolically speaking, that line may be crossed the day that a minority of Jews will rule a majority of Palestinians west of the Jordan River — the destructive nature of occupation will turn Israel into a pariah state, not unlike South Africa under apartheid.

In this sense, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” is a stark warning to both Israelis and Palestinians of the choice they must make. That choice is between peace and apartheid, for the absence of one may well mean the other. Carter’s choice is clearly peace, and, for all its disquieting language, the book he has written is sustained by the hope that we choose peace, as well.

Yossi Beilin, a member of the Knesset, is chairman of the Meretz-Yahad Party.

I don't suppose that's the kind of thing Glavin, Cohen and naddude want to hear about is it?

Thanks for that Alci

One of the things that has been obscured by the above debate are the long roots of of it. We tend to forget the British style has always been, "Let's you and him fight.", giving an excuse to begin or continue occupation...all for the good of humanity.

Here's an interesting factoid:
Prime Minister Lord Palmerston , 1840 first mentioned a Jewish homeland in Palestine., 67 years before the Balfour Declaration.

Another:The Queen is a major shareholder in British Petroleum., perhaps as much as 1/2 the shares.

In the question of which tail wags which dog, Israel and the US are both second level players.

The people who ran things didn't go away, they just put up a curtain and called it democracy.

Another Stalin-like Lie

The anti-war movement DOES NOT support Hezobollah. To say we do is a viscious slander. The IS Trots do give CRITICAL support, but they only represent a few hundred people out of the hundreds of thousands who make up the movement.

For Glavin and his followers, PLEASE join the Conservative Party. That is where you belong

Carter full of beans (or is it peanuts?)

Ken Stein co-author with Carter finds Carter's latest "treatise" dishonest.

Carter is often wrong. Throughout Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, he allows his premises to supplant the facts. His book contains no footnotes, citations, or sources. It contains an appendix and a series of maps, some of which he seems to have mislabeled and taken from Clinton-era negotiator Dennis Ross' The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace.[22] The maps are reconfigured to support Carter's statement that Israel's best offer in the final months of Clinton's presidency was to divide the West Bank into three non-contiguous areas, thus reinforcing Carter's claim of apartheid.[23] Carter dismissed the allegation that he appropriated the maps, saying that he had never seen Ross's book.[24] If true, Carter ignored the most important and detailed memoir yet published on 1990s-era Arab-Israeli negotiations.

http://www.meforum.org/article/1633

correct link to Stein's article

http://www.meforum.org/article/1633

I'm so tired

of going over the same ground time and again. Carter's biggest bomb was not that he used the term apartheit, but that he recognized that Israel had never bargained in good faith. Just look up Eretz Israel and look at what "the settlers" have been allowed to get away with and how they are protected by the IDF.. Enough piffle!

The spin of off the story. I doubt whether it will work anymore.

As to Hizbullah, George Galoway says it is not its not a terrorist org., 87% of Lebanon supported it, so who does one believe....and why wouldn't anybody support Hizbullah.
Want to compare their record to the IDF?

As for where posters here stand, myself included, maybe we're just a bit irrlevant in the scheme of things....maybe
but check this out:
http://www.debianhelp.org/node/1181

Tags: Political Economy

Dear friends,

Many of us recognize the importance of the Internet as the new battleground for Israel’s image. It’s time to do it better, and coordinate our on-line efforts on behalf of Israel. An Israeli software company have developed a free, safe and useful tool for us - the Internet Megaphone.
Please go to www.giyus.org, download the Megaphone, and you will receive daily updates with instant links to important internet polls, problematic articles that require a talk back, etc.
We need 100,000 Megaphone users to make a difference. So, please distribute this mail to all Israel’s supporters.
Do it now. For Israel.
Amir Gissin
Director
Public Affairs (Hasbara) Department
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem

Tired of Fascists

On George Galloway:

Your Excellency, Mr. President, I greet you in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq. … I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.

Now, you can be a flatterer of dictators and murderers and still—just about—be a pacifist, or "anti-war." But here is what Galloway said about the car bombers and beheaders and suicide fanatics of Iraq, again this July 30 at the Al-Assad Library, as broadcast by Syrian state TV and by Al Jazeera the following day. He informed the Arab world:

Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners—Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. Some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters …

http://www.slate.com/id/2126121/

hate is hate

Anarcho wrote:

RIGHT ON!

About those British soldiers caught in

Arab drag with explosives in the car.

http://www.sa.org.au/9710.htm

What does George Galloway have to do with this

DO I need to post a little more contextual information about how Israel got itself into this mess?

From the same 1985 article by Thomas Friedman:

''Since the 1967 war Israel has been a state with a double message,'' said Mr. Hareven, a retired senior military officer. ''Children born since 1967 don't know what the border is between Israel and the occupied territories. For them all Arabs are the same. And for them part of Israel is democratic and part is not. Four and a quarter million Israelis live in a democracy and 1.25 million Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under military rule. They don't have elections. They don't have the right to organize politically. They are ruled by military governors.''

When Rabbi Kahane calls for ousting the Arabs from Israel, Mr. Hareven noted, it no longer strikes some Israeli youngsters as so shocking or so out of the question, given the differences in treatment they have grown accustomed to observing in the daily lives of Arabs and Jews for the last 18 years.

''I have said it a million times,'' Rabbi Kahane explains, ''Western democracy as we know it is incompatible with Zionism. Zionism came into being to create a Jewish state. Zionism declares that there is going to be a Jewish state with a majority of Jews come what may. Democracy says, 'No, if the Arabs are the majority then they have the right to decide their own fate.' So Zionism and democracy are at odds. I say clearly that I stand with Zionism. I want a Jewish state, not a Hebrew-speaking Portugal.''

Rise of Nationalism

The second factor contributing to Rabbi Kahane's rise, the Israeli analysts say, is that the ground was prepared for him by the right-wing, ultranatonalist Likud Government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin between 1977 and 1983.

''The increase in right-wing nationalist ideology under Begin, which gave primacy to one's nation over another, which limited the Arabs' rights in the West Bank compared to the Jews' rights, only laid the groundwork for Kahane,'' said Mr. Hareven. ''Kahanism is the ultranationalist logic played out to its final conclusion.''

In addition, the Israeli commentators say, the language of politics -what it is acceptable to say in public -was reshaped during the Begin years, and particularly during the internal battles during the Lebanon war. This, the commentators say, created an atmosphere in which Mr. Kahane's voice no longer sounded so distant from the context of Israeli politics.

''When Begin called the Palestinians in Lebanon 'two-legged animals' and Eytan referred to them as 'cockroaches in a bottle,' it was a short step from there to the language of Kahane,'' said Mr. Hareven. His reference was to Rafael Eytan, a former military Chief of Staff.

''The Likud made legitimate things that were never legitimate before,'' said Rivka Ben-Aharon, who teaches in a religious high school in Jerusalem and has seen Rabbi Kahane's popularity rise among her students. ''The heroism, the romanticism, the belief in guns and militarism, not the kibbutzim, all of that came with Begin and prepared the way for Kahane,'' she said.

Jewish-Arab Violence

The third factor that the Israeli commentators say they believe has contributed to the rise of Rabbi Kahane is the marked increase in personal violence between Jews and Arabs inside Israel. After the Israeli Army crushed the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon and left it incapable of launching cross-border raids, Palestinian attacks on Israel took on a new form.

Apparently acting in most cases on their own initiative and using crude homemade weapons or pistols stolen from Israelis, Arabs living inside Israel and the occupied territories in the last two years have been blamed for killing 13 Jews.

As a result, the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to have become more personalized, making individual Arabs much more frightening to individual Israelis.

It is in this new atmosphere that Rabbi Kahane's simple, longstanding solution - just get rid of the Arabs -suddenly found its audience.

What Rabbi Kahane has done according to Aviezer Ravitzky, professor of Jewish philosphy at the Hebrew University and a leader of the religious peace movement, is to create an ideological justification for the deep-rooted fears that every Israeli holds of the Arab by telling Israelis it is all right to be afraid of Arabs and to want to rid the country of them.

Something tells me you don't want to deal with that side of the question, do you?

Puts Nasrallah's remarks in a slightly different context though, doesn't it?

Try spreading a little honesty and a little less poison.

I'd say the higlighted materials are every bit as offensive as anything that Nasrallah's said or written, wouldn't you?

The point is, despite all the nonsense spouted by folks like Cohen and Glavin, it is only the LEFT that's actually willing to look at the WHOLE situation in the Middle East. And much of that truth is, thank heaven, coming from Israel.

Look guys

Running around with your hair on fire about whether or not "the left" or whatever supports Hizbullah ...or George Galloway for that matter is a bleedin' diversion. from the real problem.

Are we going to allow ourselfves to be constantly manipulated into doing things inimical to our own interests.

Wars are not fought for humanitarian reasons or anything else the sob's use as a cover.

Re-read good ol' Smedley Butler.
War's a racket.

don't disagree mopled

Somehow or other these things have to be addressed and telling the whole story is the only way. Too long the left has set silent and allowed people to misinterpret, misconstrue and misrepresent the facts. Especially since 9/11 it’s just been too easy to let these liars have their own way. It has to stop.

It's just too easy to let people like Terry Glavin and Nick Cohen and naddude throw around false accusations of anti-Semitism and walk away Scot free without coming to grips with the mess in their own backyard. The situation in the Middle East, if it's going to be solved so that Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims and others, can all live in relative peace and happiness together, requires that everyone start telling the whole truth about what has gone on there since the middle of the last century. Just as in Northern Ireland - eventually the lies and the payoffs and the violence – all the violence - have to stop and real dialogue must begin.

That means that folks like us have to contend with people like Glavin who, for whatever reason, seems to have forgotten that it isn't enough to just tell one side of this story.

The Israeli people are coming to this realization - even in the face of some terrible consequences for themselves - how can we fail to do as much?

my appeal

was not meant for you Alci because you are absolutly right about the need for refutation, especially in light of the net propaganda campaign run out of Israel.

One statistic gives me hope, that only 25% of children of Jewish boomers support Israel although it was up around 60% for their parents before last summers events.

About Iran

http://www.newstatesman.com/200702050030
Pilger

The "threat" from Iran is entirely manufactured, aided and abetted by familiar, compliant media language that refers to Iran's "nuclear ambitions", just as the vocabulary of Saddam's non-existent WMD arsenal became common usage. Accompanying this is a demonising that has become standard practice. As Edward Herman has pointed out, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "has done yeoman service in facilitating [this]"; yet a close examination of his notorious remark about Israel in October 2005 reveals how it has been distorted. According to Juan Cole, American professor of modern Middle East and south Asian history at the University of Michigan, and other Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad did not call for Israel to be "wiped off the map". He said: "The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." This, says Cole, "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all". Ahmadinejad compared the demise of the Israeli regime to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Iranian regime is repressive, but its power is diffuse and exercised by the mullahs, with whom Ahmadinejad is often at odds. An attack would surely unite them.

More Anti-Semites!

Hey, Glavin, Cohen and nanadude. Here are some more anti-Semites for you! Quick, quick, accuse them of being Saddam-lovers, Hezbollah- high-fivers and Dukies!

You're in good company

Commentary by David Duke — Every day print and broadcast media around the world repeats the lie that the President of Iran threatens to “wipe Israel off the map.” Most of the time when there is any article or media discussion concerning Iran and its President, Ahmadinejad, you will be exposed to this supposed quotation. Bogus claims of Iran building nuclear weapons (Iran is allowing IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency) added to the “wipe Israel off the map” lie creates an image of impeding genocide to justify massive destruction of lives and property in Iran. These blatant lies are being used to justify a murderous war against Iran, a war that will be catastrophic not only the Iranian people but for the people of America, Europe and the World.

http://www.davidduke.com/

If the shoe fits....

Stop the j-off games

Dukes a strawman. It doesn't matter that he repeats what
reputable people have been saying for at least a year.;

The US has a fleet sitting on Iran's tail and Israel is itching to drop nukes.

Israel will be destoyed too. There is no getting rid of DU once its out there. It spread in the air and winds up all over the world. Ultimately every human population will be affected.

Do you understand how dangerous this assininity is?

From Rabbi Michael Lerner

There is no New Anti-Semitism
by Rabbi Michael Lerner

The Anti-Defamation League sponsored a conference on this same topic in San Francisco on Jan.28, conspicuously failing to invite Tikkun, Jewish Voices for Peace and Brit Tzedeck ve Shalom, the three major Jewish voices critiquing Israeli policy yet also strong supporters of Israel's security.

Meanwhile, the media has been abuzz with stories of Jews denouncing former President Jimmy Carter for his book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid. The same charges of anti-Semitism that have consistently been launched against anyone who criticizes Israeli policy is now being launched against the one American leader who managed to create a lasting (albeit cold) peace between Israel and a major Arab state (Egypt). Instead of seriously engaging with the issues raised (e.g. to what extent are Israel's current policies similar to those of apartehid and to what extent are they not?) the Jewish establishment and media responds by attacking the people who raise these or any other critiques--shifting the discourse to the legitimacy of the messenger and thus avoiding the substance of the criticisms. Knowing this, many people become fearful that they too will be labeled "anti-Semitic" if they question the wisdom of Israeli policies or if they seek to organize politically to challenge those policies.

Yet there is nothing "new" about this or about this alleged anti-Semitism that these mainstream Jewish voices seek to reveal. From the moment I started Tikkun Magazine twenty years ago as "the liberal alternative to Commentary and the voices of Jewish conservatism and spiritual deadness in the organized Jewish community" our magazine has been attacked in much of the organized Jewish community as "self-hating Jews" (though our editorial advisory board contains some of the most creative Jewish theologians, rabbis, Israeli peace activist and committed fighters for social justice). The reason? We believe that Israeli policy toward Palestinians, manifested most dramatically in the Occupation of the West Bank for what will soon be forty years and in the refusal of Israel to take any moral responsibility for its part in the creation of the Arab refugee problem, is immoral, irrational, self-destructive, a violation of the highest values of the Jewish people, and a serious impediment to world peace.

What the Jewish establishment organizations have done is to make invisible the strong roots in Judaism for a different kind of policy. The most frequently repeated injunction in Torah are variations of the following command: "Do not oppress the stranger (the 'other'). Remember that you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Instead, the Jewish establishment has turned Judaism into a cheer-leading religion for a particular national state that has a lot of Jews, but has seriously lost site of the Jewish values which early Zionists hoped would find realization there.

The impact of the silencing of debate about Israeli policy on Jewish life has been devastating. We at Tikkun are constantly encountering young Jews who say that they can no longer identify with their Jewishness, because they have been told that their own intuitive revulsion at watching the Israeli settlers with IDF support violate the human rights of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank or their own questioning of Israel's right to occupy the West Bank are proof that they are "self-hating Jews." The Jewish world is driving away its own young.

But the most destructive impact of this new Jewish Political Correctness is on American foreign policy debates. We at Tikkun have been involved in trying to create a liberal alternative to AIPAC and the other Israel-can-do-no-wrong voices in American politics. When we talk to Congressional representatives who are liberal or even extremely progressive on every other issue, they tell us privately that they are afraid to speak out about the way Israeli policies are destructive to the best interests of the United States or the best interests of world peace—lest they too be labeled anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. If it can happen to Jimmy Carter, some of them told me recently, a man with impeccable moral credentials, then no one is really politically safe.

When this bubble of repression of dialogue explodes into open resentment at the way Jewish Political correctness has been imposed, it may really yield a "new" anti-Semitism. To prevent that, the voices of dissent on Israeli policy must be given the same national exposure in the media and American politics that the voices of the Jewish establishment have been given.
We hope that the creation of our INTEFAITH Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP at www.spiritualprogressives.org) can provide a safe context for this kind of discussion among the many Christians, Muslims, Unitarians, Hindus, Buddhists and secular-but-not-religious people who share some of the criticisms of Israel and who will eventually try to challenge the kind of anti-Semitism that might be released against Jews once the resentment about Jewish Political Correctness on Israel does explode. Even better if we could succeed in creating a powerful alternative to AIPAC. Unfortunately, that path is not so easy. When we approached some of the Israel peace groups to form an alliance with us to build the alternative to AIPAC we found that the hold of the Jewish Establishment was so powerful that it had managed to seep into the brains of people in organizations like Americans for Peace Now (NOT the Israeli group Peace Now which has been very courageous), Brit Tzedeck ve'Shalom and the Israel Policy Forum or the Religious Action Center of the Reform movement--and as a result these peace voices are continually fearful that they will be "discredited" if they align with each other and with us to create this alternative to AIPAC. Meanwhile, while they look over their right shoulders fearfully, the very people that they fear will "discredit" them for aligning with each other and with us are ALREADY discrediting them as much as they possibly can.

If all you have left is David Duke, naddude, I'd say it's time to quit.

You can find more from Tikkun at :
http://www.tikkun.org/

Why the "left" is Morally Bankrupt

How the left went beserk

When a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein came, the liberals had two choices. The first was to oppose the war, remain hypercritical of aspects of the Bush administration's policy, but support Iraqis as they struggled to establish a democracy.

The policy of not leaving Iraqis stranded was so clearly the only moral option, it never occurred to me that there could be another choice. I did have an eminent liberal specialist on foreign policy tell me that 'we're just going to have to forget about Saddam's victims', but I thought he was shooting his mouth off in the heat of the moment. From the point of view of the liberals, the only grounds they would have had to concede if they had stuck by their principles in Iraq would have been an acknowledgement that the war had a degree of legitimacy. They would still have been able to say it was catastrophically mismanaged, a provocation to al-Qaeda and all the rest of it. They would still have been able to condemn atrocities by American troops, Guantanamo Bay, and Bush's pushing of the boundaries on torture. They might usefully have linked up with like-minded Iraqis, who wanted international support to fight against the American insistence on privatisation of industries, for instance. All they would have had to accept was that the attempt to build a better Iraq was worthwhile and one to which they could and should make a positive commitment.

A small price to pay; a price all their liberal principles insisted they had a duty to pay. Or so it seemed.

The second choice for the liberals was to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. To look at the Iraqi civilians and the British and American troops who were dying in a war whose central premise had proved to be false, and to go berserk; to allow justifi able anger to propel them into 'binges of posturing and ultra-radicalism' as the Sixties liberals had done when they went off the rails. As one critic characterised the position, they would have to pretend that 'the United States was the problem and Iraq was its problem'. They would have to maintain that the war was not an attempt to break the power of tyranny in a benighted region, but the bloody result of a 'financially driven mania to control Middle Eastern oil, and the faith-driven crusade to batter the crescent with the cross'.

They chose to go berserk.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1995122,00.html

How quaint

Use Nick Cohen to defend Nick Cohen.

I can't think of a clearer example of intellectual bankruptcy naddude.

Give it up

where's the logic here , naddude

Nice trick, Naddude. Blame the left.

Okay, let's see... the war was a mistake but the left went beserk because they opposed it; not only that but they opposed it because they hated to see the overthrow of a fascist regime.

And the choice the left should have taken was to oppose the Bush administration, but "support Iraqis as they struggled to establish a democracy."

How sensible is this, Naddude?

God save us all

from lunitics who can turn a pretty phrase.

Looking at the destruction wrought on the Iraqi people Cohn can write such nonsense....and be taken seriously. Who could have believed it.

A war to "break the power of tyranny," eh.

So you really think the war was about breaking the power of tyranny, eh Naddude.

Not really!

But it is a really funny line. I bet you could sell it to some comedian trying to put together a nightclub act.

Incidentally, nobody knows what the war was all about. Bush hasn't told anybody, and the press doesn't have the guts to ask him.

You're absolutely right

In fact, I have copies of a whole series of emails I sent to Richard Gwyn at the time which show precisely the basis upon which the left opposed the war - and did not ever - very clearly, support Saddam Hussein.

The lies and obfuscations of Glavin, Cohen and Hitchens, among others, are so obvious that it hardly seems possible we still have to be having these conversations.

Although you and I may disagree about some things Truman, I think we try to do it honestly and respectfully. This happens to be one of the areas upon which we agree completely.

But why do we have to keep up this phony dance here at Tyee. Whose agenda, exactly, is being served. I know David Beers doesn't see himself as a creature of the left but I wonder precisely what he does believe, if anything. Is this fascination with dissent simply a way to stir up dust?

I wish these apologists for neocon lies and fascist revisionism were as honest about what they're up to. Personally, if they ever were a part of the responsible left - I'm glad they've deserted.

Since very few people today

Since very few people today would disagree with the opinion that Israel has become the very thing the idealists who initially supported it despised, i've found this discussion unproductive, however interesting its twists and turns.

Similarly, who did what and why in Iraq is no longer debated by those whose opinions do not require taking "sides". For me, the only problem remaining is whether or not a bloodbath can be avoided following the inevitable US retreat.

It seems to me that the posters here have avoided discussion of Cohen/Glavin's central premise, that the Left, as we usually think of it, has become impotent, vitiated through deserting long-held basic principles in the seeking of short-term, feel-good objectives.

This was much-discussed in the Nineties- and studiously ignored by Lefties, as commentators wondered what had happened to the much-heralded "New Left".

And so Cohen notes that today the syndrome lingers on, and in my opinion, rather than taking sides, Glavin has only noted the confusion in the Left which led to its failure to develop a consistent approach to its anti-war stance, the result of failing to examine that approach through an appeal to First Principles.Thus:. :

Here is Jeffrey St Claire's commentary on the similar ineffectiveness of environmentalists, which in my opinion describes the same syndrome. The problem, as always, shows up after the attainment of "success" - as posters on the Anarchism thread also noted.

From Counterpunch:

http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair02032007.html

I'd like to add my voice to those who decry the banning of Coyote. That's VERY bad news, Tyee, and we shouldn't have to point out to you why.

Me3

I don't believe the left has succumbed to cultural relativism and identity politics. In fact, if anything, that's what has happened to 'conservative' values as they’ve morphed into a neo-liberal or neo-conservative paradigm.

The confusion arises, in my view, only out of an unwillingness to acknowledge that people like Cohen and Glavin are really only about power.

Let's look, for example, at the nominal claim that Cohen makes relative to Iraq. He and Christopher Hitchens and people like Glavin and, I suspect, David Beers as well, have all bought into an idea that the only way to oppose Saddam Hussein was to overthrow his government directly and by overt force. Instead of being committed to actions governed by a modicum of international consensus through sanctions, sanctions which were, though imperfectly, functioning effectively.

They failed to understand that operating within that 'conservative' consensus framework was what succeeded in both South Africa and Libya. In a world - post Cold War - the idea that precipitate action could succeed in remaking local issues was not a valid conclusion. What may have worked temporarily in the Balkans (and the news from there lately makes one underline the word 'temporarily' at least three times) seemed to imply that it could work in Iraq as well. That some nominal leftists were persuaded that this was the case is hardly the fault of those who had the good sense to oppose the invasion. Why should we now apologize for ‘their’ mistakes – mistakes they are content to continue to make and to compound?

Progressives, at least the ones I identify with, have been entirely consistent about Iraq and supported continued sanctions and pressure of the kind that eventually brought Libya and South Africa back into the international family of nations.

What's inconsistent is the stand of faux leftists like Glavin and Cohen who cannot bear to admit that, for the sake of hanging an inconsequential bastard like Saddam Hussein, they agreed to buy into power politics and neocon principles. They are the ones who have to live with the fact that hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died in Iraq since 2003 and that their actions (in acquiescing to forego THEIR principles) have further permitted the world to evolve forcefully into a much more dangerous place than it was four years ago. This consensus even exists now in Israel – surely one ought to acknowledge the fact that it should long ago have dawned even dimly in their own thick heads. But no, Glavin and Cohen and Hitchens and their ‘fellow travellers’ from the politburo of power still seem fascinated by the idea that killing people is an effective way to change their minds. Some progressives!

This whole thing is based on a series of lies - exactly the same kind of power dynamics that ruled the world before the second world war - we'll be lucky, in the event, if we get out of this mess without consequences equally dire.

Credit, surely, where credit is due. This has never been the left's war and blaming the left for the disaster it has entrained is both dishonest and foolish.

As for the notion that there is or ever has been any kind of hard consensus on the left about anything, I'm sorry, but that's dreaming in Technicolor and it's what's so annoying about Glavin, Cohen and others. It's as impossible to attain that among progressive people now as it ever has been. In addition, that too is why Coyote belongs - far more than Terry Glavin ever can be - as part of this discourse. The conversation, the debate, the ideal of true free speech - the kind of thing that Cohen and Glavin and apparently David Beers pay only lip service to - is far more closely connected to him than almost anyone else around here.

Glavin, Beers and Cohen really ARE the ones who fear that conversations may stray beyond the margins and in that, they have become what they detest - neocons. I don't believe the left has succumbed to cultural relativism and identity politics. In fact, if anything, that's what has happened to many 'conservatives'. They've lost their way.

I share the belief that the

I share the belief that the left has lost its way, but not supporting the Iraq invasion is the worst possible example to use to try and make this point. At a very minimum, the US invasion weakened the rule of international law significantly. Other tryrants in the world inflicted worse miseries on their people than did Saddam. Gulf War 1 was an indiscriminate slaughter house and the killing continues in the form of depeleted uranium poison. Supporting the Iraq war to topple Saddam would have meant overlooking these facts, and much more.

But Glavin is making another point, aside from his particular views on Israel and Iraq. He is saying that discourse on international events generally on the left has become infected with a "cartoonish" simplicity, and on this he is absolutely right. Now the majority of posters on this board are far more astute and informed than that, of course, but let's admit that there are many on the left who are not. There are people who do buy into the "enemy of my enemy" thinking and simplistically locate the source of all evil in the US, overlooking the vileness and danger of Islamic extremism.

There are times when military force is necessary and justified. To be "against war" is to be so simple minded as to impede, rather than further the cause of peace.

Looking backward

G West, I think you give these shills for the power structure far too much credit. Cohen's slick rant is meant to divert what he calls "the Left" from paying attention to the Israeli prompted destruction of Iran.

Hell, even Grover Norquist gets it ""Everything the advocates of war said would happen hasn't happened," says the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, an influential conservative who backed the Iraq invasion. "And all the things the critics said would happen have happened. [The president's neoconservative advisers] are effectively saying, 'Invade Iran. Then everyone will see how smart we are.' But after you've lost x number of times at the roulette wheel, do you double-down?"
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/whitehouse200703

At least Frum and Perle blamed the Whitehouse for the disaster in Iraq saying essentially," We gave them such a good idea, but these people are soooo dysfunctional."
Real class, those guys.

Now Glavin and Cohen want those of us with functioning hearts and brains to take the rap.

Cartoonish - you think that's funny?

Could we have a compare and contrast essay on that topic Bullgoose?

I think not. The only person who's spouted that 'enemy of my enemy' nonsense is George W Bush...I can certainly show you many cartoons of him.

Of course, there are cases where military force in necessary and justified. Rwanda was one of them - and it sure as hell wasn't the Left that looked stupid on that file was it?

Who overlooks the vileness and danger of any kind of extremism?- Only people like Glavin and Cohen and Trots like Hitchens who are simply looking for ways to cover their own soiled trail by stirring up a lot of dust and pretending that the regime in Israel isn’t, relative to its Palestianian ‘chattels’ an apartheid regime. And it’s not the left who plays ostrich on that file either, is it. You can see the evidence just above you here in the comments of a creature called naddude

As I wrote above, even the Israelis, (and not just the left wing ones like Uri Avnery) who were in the vanguard of those who whipped George Bush's dogs of war into a froth, now recognize that this whole failed exercise in hubris and denial has been a complete moral, social and geopolitical nightmare.

Whatever moderate Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere might have been willing to accede to the west and to each other prior to 2003 - in terms of believing that there was a chance for reasonable collegiality with western values - is even now being squandered in the thrall of internecine violence between Shia and Sunni on the streets of American cities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/us/04muslim.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

It’s gallows humour all right, but it’s not a story the left has anything to do with.

My Problem

wrote bullgoose

My problem is this, I am a member of the anti-war movement, personally know hundreds of people, spend several hours a day reading left and pro-peace writings, go to all the demos etc. and do't find those kind of people. The people I do find are as nuanced as I am. Yes, there are the Trots, a tiny minority, who give CRITICAL support to Hezbollah etc, but that is all. Cohen and Glavin are using one of the oldest forms of logical fallacy to push their pro-imperialist ideology, the straw man.

I think you have to counter them on every front

Of course it's a blame exercise mopled. I don't know how far up their fundament these people have shoved the lies they believe in - it's just not possible to tell. Once people with access to the media decide that there are 'necessary' lies that the public needs to 'believe' in then we are in big trouble.

As Ed posted on another thread the other day, until the day of his death, Goebbels was telling everyone who'd listen that the Nazi’s war was being won. Of course Norquist wants to make the best of things...he's been at the core of the lies since the very start. These people, Frum and Harper among the vanguard of them, are not democrats - they are cheats and liars...and, as Coyote always did - (though I'll do it in a slightly different style) - I'll continue to call a spade a shovel every chance I get.

I know the Iranian question is the next domino.

Will Cohen and Glavin be so compromised that they support that too? One can only hope it doesn't fall because the death and degradation from Iraq will be multiplied a thousand fold in Iran if it does.

No more blue sky dream then. And no damn way can they hang it on progressives – around here at least.

of course they support nuking Iran

Glavin posted this little gem
.http://www.aish.com/iran/

Same old scenario...demonize a strawman leader ,this time by deliberate mistranslation so you can destroy an oil producing country's infrastructure thus restricting the oil supply driving the price upward.

I'm going off to see Alex Jones "Terror Storm" and hear Connie Fogel talk about the coming loss of whatever sovereignty left to Canada
'TERRORSTORM' - Sunday, February 4 at 11:30am & 2:15pm
Pacific Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St. Van.
Adults : $10 Seniors/Students: $8

Glavin and Cohen shift blame.

Same old demagogues' and propagandists' trick: shift the blame from the real perpetrators to those who oppose them.

I bet these two shape shifters are already busy doing pencil practise on catch phrases with which to blame the Left for an invasion of Iran.

How about this one, you guys:

"Left goes beserk again; forces Bush to invade Iran."

Worlld Blitzcrieg

We worry about trivia when the world slips into slavery by steath. Just think of all the deals made lately like the SSP and TILMA.

This came in the mail.

WAKE UP PEOPLE. THOSE OF YOU WHO STILL VALUE WHAT LITTLE FREEDOM YOU HAVE LEFT, MUST READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION AND PASS THIS EMAIL ON, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE UK! THIS IS PART OF THE MOVE TOWARDS ONE WORLD ORDER WHICH WILL INVOLVE ALL NATIONS, WE ARE SLEEP WALKING INTO A BRUTAL POLICE STATE!!

Please let the sender know you have received this message as emails are now being filtered.

http://eutruth.org.uk/
Third Action Now! meeting:
How to get mobilised
against the EU.
Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square Holborn, Central London, WC1R 4RL. Tuesday 30th January 2007 6.15pm: Call 07974 437097 for an invitation.
The abolition of Britain is now set for May 2009
The Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, has persuaded President Barroso of Europe to present her "Declaration of Berlin" for all EU nations to sign on the 25th March 2007.
This declaration will commit all nations to sign the sixth and final EU treaty. This sidesteps a vote of the people - the other five treaties were signed by the Queen without the consent of the people.
This final treaty will adopt the EU Constitution. Frau Merkel wants this signed before the European elections in June 2009.
The EU constitution in turn will abolish the nations of Britain, England, our 48 counties, our monarchy, common law, and the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties (clause I-46-4).
We will then be sealed inside the nation of the European Union, a dictatorship with a soviet style constitution, and the laws of a police state. The 111,000 EU regulations will then turn the former nation of Britain into a soviet style command economy, bringing unemployment and poverty to us all.
Full article from German Parliament -.pdf for download
Where we are now:

1. Since 1972 The Queen has illegally signed five of the six EU Treaties.

2. The five treaties define and build the EU as an unelected dictatorship.

3. The EU's laws, passed by Westminster, give it the powers of a police state.

4. The sixth EU treaty will complete the abolition of Britain as a nation
- the Queen could sign it in as little as two years.

A foreign power, the EU, will then rule us, and enforce the laws of a police state.

Shouldn't we repeal the 1972 European Communities Act now
before we are imprisoned permanently inside? We've only got till May 2009.

more at the website
http://eutruth.org.uk/

That was err, BlitzKrieg

The syncronicity of having recieved the above after viewing Terror Storm again and hearing Connie Fogel speak I guess just overwhelmed my ability to spell.

I have a question for anarcho. Why are you so vehement in your denial of support for Hizballah. By the way, dogpile (not google, they censorl) the various spellings and you get different info. I'm naive on this, truly. I get the impression that they are more like the Black Panthers than the media will let us understand.

mopled

I think I have the full text of the two 2002 New Yorker articles on Hezbollah by jeffrey Goldberg in my files. I'd have to send them as a word attachment if you're interested.

Let me know - I'd need your email -

It's online

Thanks, I just found it and I also found an interview done in 03 before the invasion of Iraq for NPR in Feb. 03.

He tries to spin a connection between the fictional Al Qaeda and Saddam. He drags in Zarqaui who we know was dead by that time, as the eminense grise

I think I'll look for a more reliable source or at least another point of view.

Hezbollah rocks

Hezbullah’s Shia traditions of self-sacrifice, fearlessness, and heroism in battle play a key role. So, too, the concept of noble martyrdom in righteous battle.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has suffered grave casualties in southern Lebanon, notably near the strategic hilltop town of Marjayoun. Hezbullah claims to have knocked out nearly 20 of Israel’s superbly armored Merkava tanks. Nearby Bint Jebil, which changed hands numerous times, is being hailed as “Hezbullagrad,” after the legendary World War II battle at Stalingrad.

Many Hezbullah officers are highly skilled veterans of the 80’s war. By contrast, IDF ground forces seems to have forgotten almost all the bitter lessons previously learned in Lebanon. The 1980’s occupation cost Israel nearly 800 soldiers and billions of dollars.

Eric Margolis

I'd forgotten Margolis - he's quite good

I thought a lot of what Goldberg said is open to other interpretations but, in the main, these things don't spring from nothing and they have to be considered in context. As Hezbollah's critics would seldom suggest. Certainly, I didn't think that Nazrallah - subsequent to last summer's little war with the IDF - came across as much of a monster. Not many Israeli commentators ever mention the beginnings of terrorism in the area and they certainly don't talk about the role of Irgun or Mossad in anything like the terms they use for Hezbollah.

Coyote banned

OMG ...missed it all it seems!!

I just want it on the record how completely and totally ridiculous it is to have banned one of the most intelligent posters here. Then to accuse him of bigotry and being sexist....ridiculous!!!

As one of the contributing and regular reading females I would like the record to show that I strongly object to the decisions of the editiors in this matter.

Interesting that the application of the "rules" are making this place more and more 'mainstream' and not much of a fiesty fish anymore. I guess we can no longer depend on this site as a place for honest reporting either.

Too bad.

Missed you OMG

Hope all is well with you.

Too bad free speech is no longer a priority - nor is openness, apparently..

But we can have Cappy telling people to 'piss off' though.

Strange, isn't it?

Quote:I have a question for

1. Because it is a lie that the Peace Movement supports them
2. Only the Trots and I assume MLs do, then only as critical support, furthermore, these groups make up a tiny fraction of the Peace Movement.
3. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Though it is agood thing they defeated the Isreali invaders, they are nonetheless an authoritarian grouping, and given the chance would eliminate people such as myself. Look at it this way, I am glad the USSR under Stalin defeated Hitler, but I would never in a million years admire or support "The Little Father"
It is, of course, a position far too subtle for the Cohens and Glavins of the world, not to mention the Trots.

This article a waste of our time

One last thought. I think articles such as this are a waste of our time, and may well be put here for that purpose. Here we have spent days refuting arguments that are ridiculous and serve only to divide our ranks. Folks, lets consider abandoning such articles - and maybe the Tyee as well. There is a really good site with hundreds of blogs where you can have an intelligent discussion . It is called the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy at
http://vastleftwingconspiracy.net/?lang=en

Banning

Let me add my voice to the chorus. It appears that harsh criticism of Israel will now get you banned from here. It's bad enough that we get people like Glavin caricaturing, in the crudest fashion imaginable, what "the Left" supposedly believes, whom "the Left" supposedly supports, and how "the Left" supposedly behaves. There's so many strawmen around Glavin these days that I hope no one lights a match.

But now someone gets bounced out of here for alleged anti-Semitism, and sexism to boot. No evidence of either, judging from the commenters here, although we don't have the original from which to judge, and the banned person (shades of South Africa) isn't permitted to defend himself.

However, one thing's for sure: I wouldn't trust Glavin on this matter at all. He's a conservative posing as a maverick leftist--unlike Nick Cohen, who, while I don't always agree with his caricatures and binaries, still raises uncomfortable questions that need to be raised. I blogged on this a couple of years back, if anyone is interest.

In the meantime, I hope the editor reconsiders. He's set what could be a very damaging precedent.

I like that Dr Dawg

Especially this: (considering cohen)
What he evidently lacks, however, is the ability to understand that the world of Realpolitik is not a moral world, and that we must salvage what morality we can as we navigate it. I'm not here arguing for cynicism, although simplistic universal moral schemes arouse my suspicion: instead, I'm advocating for realism.

Thanks.

One hopes Beers reconsiders. It'll have to be his move next though - I can't imagine Coyote asking.

The place is poorer without the Coyote.

Unfortunately, Beers's formative years in ths shadow of Disneyland ill equip him for this kind of debate and role. It's hard for Americans, and former Americans, to forego that forelock tugging, hand on the heart stuff that seems as thick in the atmosphere down there as growth hormones in the chicken.

What's that quote under the masthead of the Globe and Mail? You know, the one from Junius : "The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures"

Although in fairness, I'm not sure it's really appropriate for the Globe to make that statment about itself any longer.

One more thing

Perhaps, since this article is written by a critic of the left about a British Critic of the left and has dealt with, as much as anything, the idea that it is somehow wrong or even anti-Semitic for 'anyone' to criticize Israel and Israeli policy, that one more piece of strong testimony from another British critic - a British Jew writing today in the Guardian - might also be apposite with respect to this continuing discussion.

I could edit it, but, since it appears that the Tyee no longer has word limits, I won't bother.

The Guardian Monday February 5, 2007

No one has the right to speak for British Jews on Israel and Zionism

We will not accept the vilification of those who protest at injustices carried out in the name of the Jewish people
By Brian Klug

If there is one thing on which Jews can agree, it is this: it's good to argue. Jewish culture has thrived on argument - frank, sincere disagreement - ever since Moses disputed with God. But today an oppressive and unhealthy
atmosphere is leading many Jews to feel uncertain about speaking out on Israel and Zionism. People are anxious about contravening an unwritten law on what you can and cannot discuss, may or may not assert.

It is a climate that raises fundamental questions: about freedom of expression, Jewish identity, representation, and the part that concerned Jews in Britain can play in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to find their way to a better future.

As the situation in the Middle East deteriorates yearly, more and more Jews watch with dismay from afar. Dismay turns to anguish when innocent civilians
- Palestinians and Israelis - suffer injury and death because of the continuing conflict. Anguish turns to outrage when the human rights of a population under occupation are repeatedly violated in the name of the
Jewish people.

No one has the authority to speak for the Jewish people. Yet during Israel's war with Lebanon last summer, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, told an American audience: "I believe that this is a war that is fought by all the Jews." His belief is not based on evidence: it is an article of faith, a corollary of the doctrine that Israel represents Jewry as a whole - in Britain included.

This is a fallacy; and, moreover, a dangerous one, since it tars all Jews with the same brush. Yet this misconception is reinforced here by those who, claiming to speak for British Jews collectively or allowing that impression
to go unchallenged, only ever reflect one position on the Middle East. On its own account, the Board of Deputies of British Jews (which calls itself "the voice of British Jewry") devotes much of the time and resources of its
international division to "the defence of Israel". When a "solidarity rally" was held in London last July in the midst of the conflict with Lebanon, it was the board that organised it.

All of which suggests that British Jewry, speaking with one voice, stands solidly behind the Israeli government and its military operations.

Two things are wrong with this suggestion. First, it's false. Jews were deeply divided over Israel's campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon last year. Certainly, there were those who shared the sentiment of the chief rabbi, Sir
Jonathan Sacks, who, addressing the rally, said: "Israel, you make us proud." Others felt roughly the opposite emotion.

Second, the board has no business taking a partisan position on the Middle East. Let groups such as the Zionist Federation or perhaps the Israeli embassy organise solidarity rallies. The role of the board is to promote the welfare of British Jews in all their variety, not to defend Israel.

Similarly, the chief rabbi is entitled, ex officio, to bring a religious perspective to political matters, but it is not his role to act as political spokesman for his flock.

Faced with this state of affairs, a group of Jews in Britain has come together to launch Independent Jewish Voices (IJV). We come from a variety of backgrounds and walks of life. Some of us are religious, some not. A number feel a strong attachment to Israel as Jews, others feel none. We do not all share the same vision for the Middle East. We are a network of individuals, not a movement or political party.

But we are united by certain fundamental commitments. These are set out in our launch statement, published today on the Guardian's Comment is Free website and in advertisements placed in the Jewish Chronicle and the Times. They include: putting human rights first; giving equal priority to Palestinians and Israelis in their quest for a peaceful and secure future; and repudiating all forms of racism aimed at Jews, Arabs, Muslims or whomever.

We believe that these commitments - not ethnic or group loyalties - define the limits of legitimate debate. We invite like-minded Jews in Britain to add their names to the list of IJV signatories.

Jews abroad who are confronted with the same climate are taking similar steps to make their voices heard. The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians has been formed to promote "an alternative public Jewish voice" on Israeli policies. Last July "concerned South African Jews" appealed to "all who share our commitment to a common humanity" to call for Israel to stop its bombardment of Lebanon. In the past few years, Jewish groups speaking out against Israel's violations of human rights have proliferated, notably in the United States, but especially in Israel itself.

We are not setting ourselves up as an alternative to the Board of Deputies or any other body. But we challenge the standard concept of "the Jewish community" as a collective entity for which the board is the secular voice
and the chief rabbi the religious voice. This system was developed in another era - though it is being used today as a template for other minorities. It pictures "the Jewish community" as a single bloc that, whatever its internal complexity, presents a common face to the outside
world via its ambassadors.

There is an affinity between our initiative and the New Generation Network, which was launched in the Guardian last November. A diverse group of Britons questioned the idea that the pie of British society (or that portion
consisting of "minorities") can be divided into neat ethnic or religious slices: discrete "communities" with authoritative "leaders". For many of us, this model is suffocating and goes against the grain of our experience.

Among other things, it places a premium on keeping disagreement "in the family". For Jews, this ethos is especially stifling if the subject is Zionism or Israel. Some people, rightly condemning demonisation of the
Jewish state, do not hesitate to demonise fellow Jews who, when expressing their views on these subjects in public, cross an invisible line of acceptability. We reject any attempt to suppress legitimate public debate
and we abhor the culture of vilification.

The slur of "traitor" or "self-hating Jew" is especially noxious. For, if we feel compelled to protest against injustice to Palestinians, this is partly because of the lessons of our own history: the Jewish experience of
marginalisation and persecution. Furthermore, when the language of human rights is spoken, many of us (secular and religious) hear the voices of those Hebrew prophets, rabbis, writers, activists and other Jewish figures
down the centuries for whom Judaism means nothing if it does not mean social justice.

So, when we speak out against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, or the bombing of Lebanon, or discrimination against Palestinians within Israel itself, we are not turning against our Jewish identity; we are
turning to it. Some of us, recalling that nearly 40 years have passed since Israel's occupation began, hear a resonance. This was the length of time the
Israelites wandered in the wilderness, near the end of which Moses gave them a directive: "Justice, justice shall you pursue" (Deuteronomy 16:20). It is a compass bearing for all humanity, especially when we are trying to find our way - or help others to find theirs - to a better future.

· Brian Klug is senior research fellow in philosophy at St Benet's Hall, Oxford, and associate editor of Patterns of Prejudice

I'm sure Brian Klug's a nice guy and all, but

Nice dreamworld Brian Klug lives in. Israelis and the Jewish people who want to protect their homeland are doing exactly what it takes to defend it. That's truly what is so sad about the state of affairs. Israelis, who wish to have a Jewish State in the middle of historical Palestine have condemned themselves to perpetual warfare which began with the eviction of the Palestinians from their historical home (see ethnic cleansing in Jaffa), and continues today with bullying and occupation, and wall building--with the result that possibly 90% of the people in neighbouring countries consider Israel to be the enemy and wish that Israel would just somehow cease to exist.

Until the idea of a homeland for a specific religious affiliation (instead of just a homeland for human beings, like Canada or the United States) is seen to be an impossible and stupid dream nothing will change because it can't be allowed to change.

If Israel ever starts treating its neighbours with fairness and justice, including an equal right to be an Israeli citizen, the whole game is over.

It's the math, dummy.

Sadly, Israel was a mistake from day one. The British had no right to give Palestine to the Jewish people for their new homeland, because it didn't belong to the British, but rather to the people who lived there.

(Who could really blame the Jewish people for wanting a homeland?)

The entire affair is a disgusting tragedy.

Does the name, "Palestine" ring a bell?

Go look on some pre-1947 maps.

And so we've got wars on terror (mostly fake) until the mistake is corrected.

You can't steal peoples' land and then make nice with them, unless you're the Europeans dealing with the native people on this continent. (Notice the military discrepancy)

You've got to have refugee camps and hundreds of state of the art military aircraft and nuclear weapons. And, of course, if your enemies try to match your military capability, you've got to figure out ways to get your big brother to invade their countries in the name of something called 'democratization"--which, incidentally, would be the last thing you would ever truly want. (It would tend to jeopardize your moral high ground as the only democratic state in the area.)

So there's no good people or bad people here. Everybody's just doing what they've been trapped into doing.

But we still don't have to take the fake 'dissenters' and propagandists like Glavin and Cohen seriously..

I don't agree Truman

In 1975 no one predicted that the Soviet Union would be wound up by 1989.

No one, 20 years ago, thought that there was a chance that Northern Irish Protestants and Catholics could ever live together in peace; hardly anyone ever suggested that the apartheid regime in South Africa would roll over without a horrendous blood bath.

Brian Klug and hundreds of thousands of Jews like him are proof to me that the last thing we should give up on is hope itself.

The dream world is the one with no hope. Moreover, it's not a dream - it's a nightmare.

coyote

i see that this has been gone over ad infinitum, but i just want to say that i think its disgraceful that coyote was banned from posting.
his posts are usually interesting and amusing if long winded. coyote is one of those people i am proud to share this land with. he seems like a real thinking human... not like the usual urban or suburban yuppie (modern usage) drones that sometimes rear their pretty heads around here.

Until Beers apologizes and Coyote writes the next Tyee article

inkioko ... G ... everybody (which seems to be everybody) who abhors the concept of shunning, stoning, bullying, blocking, or banning ...

I'm feeling kinda proud that this discussion has gone on, on, and on so quietly, thoughtfully, rationally, and democratically.

In one way or another, I think the discussion will continue to go on for a long time unless there's a positive decision made -- and made soon.

If the discussion continues to centre upon an honourable citizen being struck off for contributing his opinions to a public forum in Canada, then the inevitable fall-out will function to strengthen some of us, while eroding something in The Tyee itself.

For those who like to see a conclusion in such matters, I think that closure won't come until David Beers just as swiftly and quietly apologizes for his wrong-headed action against Coyote ... and more:

We could all climb back onto the high road, if Beers decides to apologize AND to invite Coyote to write the next article for this site.

That could turn my feelings around 180. Yours?

You nailed it, Dr. Dawg

I think you really nailed it on Glavin, Dr. Dawg.

As you say: "He's a conservative posing as a maverick leftist..."

My half-baked theory on reason.

G.West, I think you probably remember me alluding to my half-baked theory on reason: that you never get the right answers unless you can isolate the one or two best questions. (eg. ice core samples-C02-temperature-snow accumulation fluctuation correlation lag in GW controversy)

So here's my question regarding Israel and its hostile neighbours:

What the hell is Israel, a tiny nation of seven million, doing with all that military capability, especially nuclear missiles?

Can you provide an answer, G.West?

Simple question Truman

Old west theory of ownership, Truman, easy peasey - once you've managed to steal something, you need a big gun to hang onto it. Since 1967 that - and crazy religious fundamentalism on both sides - has been the only game in town. A lot like Northern Ireland really. You'll recall that much of the IRA's financing also came from the U.S. of A too.

Thoughtful Israelis are gradually realizing that the walls they're constructing around themselves don't give them any real freedom and peace of mind either. I hope.

Even the Americans can't be totally blamed for this of course. I think, if memory serves, that much of Israel's nuclear technology came from the French and the 'apartheid' South Africans.

BC Mary, I'm with you...

I would thoroughly enjoy seeing and reading an article written by Coyote on this site. I cannot imagine, tho, that Beers has the humility required to not only apologize but also ask Coyote to submit an article...hopefully we will all be pleasantly surprised.

Good answer, G., I didn't think...

Okay, I admit it, G.West, I didn't think you were going to admit that modern Israel was basically stolen from the Palestinians.

I'm impressed! Good on you, G. West.

Next question: when does an exclusivist state become a racist state? Could it be when a certain ethnic group gets a permanent invitation to come and be a citizen with special rights, while the people from whom the state was stolen are shoved into refugee camps or made to stand in line for hand-outs and are refused the same privileges as the other folks? (Bush always says 'folks' when he's pretending not to be provocative and I kinda like it.)

And speaking of South Africa, how does this tie into the title of President Carter's new book?

I don't think Carter's ignorant of the resonance

Well, basically, I agree with what you're saying. I'm not sure exactly when it started but one can't ignore the evidence from the late 30s and the 40s - Avram Stern actually went so far as to try and set up a concordat with the Nazis against the British...they ignored him... but anyone who tries to ignore such things - or the role of racist idiots like Rabbi Kahane and huge parts of the Likud - not to mention Ariel Sharon and Bibi Netanyahu in creating the atmosphere of hate and intolerance isn't worth talking to.

But that doesn't mean, just as was the case in Northern Ireland, that there isn't lots of blame to go around. The PLO was a terrorist organization and there are lots of idiots in Hezbollah and in Ahmedinejad's Iran as well.

What's positive (and we've seen a lot more that is positive since the Lebanon debacle of last summer - though certainly not from our Prime Minister) is the increasing evidence from individuals like some of the ones quoted above both in Israel itself and in the wider Jewish community that things are slowly changing.

There's to be a fresh analysis of Carter's book in tomorrow's NYTimes (behind the firewall) It'll be interesting to see how fair it will be.

I’ll keep you posted.

Glavin now.

"Can anyone explain what Terry Glavin stands for?"

Aspernazi whore.

I don't think Cohen will sign

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2237707.ece

What ever Glavin is, he's not you, kjc

If anyone needed banning for posting anti-Semitic rot, kjc, it's you.

Attacking Coyote, instead of addressing the real rot, is what's wrong with the editorial discipline of this place.

You know who's guilty of being a racist Anti-Semite Mr. Beers, and it's not the Coyote.

Time to get it right. Once and for all.

How often is it necessary to have the obvious pointed out to you?

Hello Alci?

You are going too far. You make the connection.

The Asper Empire is a fact. That it pushes a point of view is a fact. So, is it anyone or anything using the term nazi to underline what they percieve the actions.thoughts, MO etc to be or to be leading to...off the scale, out of line VERBOTEN?

Just asking.

With pleasure mopled

This is what kjc wrote:

There's history here.

kjc has, more than several times, posted blatantly Anti-Semitic and especially anti-Ashkenazi references here at Tyee.

Here's the most recent example - though far from the worst -

Taken from this thread:
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/01/24/GreenMirage/
I have not corrected his syntax or grammar and you can find the post I took this from in exactly the same condition as it is above.

If you're really interested I can dig up more of this - all of which Beers has consistently ignored - including references to the Protocols of the elders of Zion.

You asked a fair question and I hope this answers it - and brings Beers' attention to what he really ought to be doing - if he feels it's necessary (which I'd suggest it isn't since the commenters here are adults who can handle this on their own) to do anything.

I am, as it were, using kjc to make a point.

Hard to forget...

kjc said:"

Aspernazi whore.

Unbelievable!! Now THAT sweeping statement is anti-Semitism sprinkled with a derogatory sour note towards all women as well... Pathetic comment but worse is how pathetic it is that kjc got away with that here at the Tyee…

BC Mary said:

Hi Mary :-) ,back on the high road indeed, as you said, as long as Coyote is apologized to and invited back, maybe we could get past all this, maybe... And as you sister, I would also want Coyote to be invited to do an article for The Tyee, but that would once again be his call... If not, this incident will be hard to forget…

inkioko said:

I absolutely agree my friend. :-)

Peace,

Bear

Some of the Elite are

intermarried. That it involves couples from different religious backgrounds has always been true. Think of Catholic Spain and France wooing Elizabeth the First..

Money has no religion Alci!

And frankly, I wouldn't have known about Gore's interesting connection...kind of like Chretien's to Power Corp....which clarifies something for me about his movie....if you hadn't posted kjc's posting from another thread.

I

I checked the dictionary

Yes Bear. Whores are defined as female, but anyone who has seen boys out on the streets knows whoredom is not exclusivly female. I think it sexist to use it exclusively for females.

...come on. Look up

...come on. Look up something that matters dude. You get the idea :-\ yesh......

Bear

Free Speech is here!

For all the folks who believe in freedom of expression and are unhappy with the Tyee's authoritarianism as well as pandering to the Neocon-lites, our old bufddy Coyote has a new blog set up called Freedom of Speeech.ca. Come one, come all to
http://freespeechca.blogspot.com/

mopled

As I said, kjc has posted much worse - which I'll not bring forward unless someone really wants it. I know money has no religion mopled - and I also know what kjc was implying about money and the Jews - it's not that sophisticated - hatred seldom is. I'm sure kjc has what he considers a valid reason for his prejudices; so did Adolph Hitler.

It is no excuse.

If we’re not going to render ourselves vulnerable to accusations like the ones Glavin and Cohen and Shannon Rupp and even, perhaps, David Beers – among others – are always leveling at us (as progressives) we have to be extremely careful not to give them targets for their slings and arrows. And we have to make certain that their accusations of hate and prejudice are not true.

I think I made it clear that, in the end, were it nor for what's happened to Coyote - whose contributions here a great many people appreciate - I would not be bringing this up. In fact, I've dealt with kjc directly several times.

But that's not the point.

I think what's happened to Coyote was unnecessary, unfair and arbitrary. When another poster here (Nana) was attacked by Shannon Rupp for what Rupp took (wrongly) to be Anti-Jewish references and comments, I spoke up in her defence.

Later, when Nana herself posted something that was blatantly anti-Semitic, I spoke up again this time in opposition to what she’d said.

This is a question of principle. It's a matter of dealing with situations that are admittedly difficult, in an open and fair way. Since Mr. Beers has only communicated with Coyote privately and has not provided either an explanation or evidence for what he has done in an attempt to satisfy readers and contributors like you and me, I don't know what other course of action is available.

I trust you’ll understand.

Sure, but the problem is

like that of members of organized crime with Italian names. Over 50 years, less than 5% of the FBI's most wanted had Italian surnames. Every group has a criminal element.

How does one handle this? http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Sarkozy: Another neo-con politician linked to Russian-Israeli mob money.

Sarkozy, a committed neo-con who favors a hard line towards Arabs domestically and internationally, is reported to have received funds from Switzerland-based Marc Rich, via Menatep's Clearstream accounts, prior to and after Menatep's collapse in 1998. Menatep has been linked to a number of Russian-Israeli mafiosi figures, including Semyon Mogilevich, considered to be the most dangerous Russian-Israeli Mafia leader in the world. Rich's former attorney, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is on trial in Washington, DC for perjury and obstruction of justice in the outing of a covert CIA officer.

French tax police are honing in on off-shore accounts operated by former Yukos Oil and Menatep official Alexei Golubovich, who was under house arrest in Italy before he returned to Russia. Golubovich agreed to testify against Khodorkovsky in return for Russian prosecutors dropping charges against him. In what may be related to the money laundering scandal, Yuri Golubev, a Yukos co-founder, died in London last month under what Russian prosecutors believe are suspicious circumstances.

In December, WMR reported, "Sarkozy has been accused of receiving illegal funds through dubious bank accounts in Luxembourg and some of those funds have Russian-Israeli mafia fingerprints all over them."

Sarkozy is in a tight race with French Socialist Party candidate Segolene Royal. The taint of money and bribery scandals continue to cling to Sarkozy.

From what I remember of Coyote's post, he did use Jewish or Jew, which may have been the line he crossed

That there is a mob based in Israel cannot be denied, but the odds are your next door neighbor who planted a tree in Israel in memory of his grandparents, has no connection to it..

Welll........

First, as I said above - quoting from kjc's post - I find the reference -

No matter how the story is told, the King of Kings gets crucified.

to be far more offensive and objectionable than if Coyote said - which he may well have done (I didn’t read the post before it was expunged) - that some Jewish-Americans are supporting Israel's unfair policies in the Middle East (to construct some sort of analogy).

Second. The point here is to read the material from an analytical view and appreciate the point that's being made.

I agree that Coyote is blunt and hyperbolic at times, and although I wouldn't say precisely the kinds of things he does - or put them the way he does - that doesn't mean, in my view, that he ought to be banned. More importantly, I believe that the 'owner' of this site behaved in a way which makes him appear, to me at least, to be far more of a threat to openness and civil discourse and the free exploration of ideas, than the Coyote has ever been.

Third. There are numerous other examples of rude and frankly, vile, remarks made between anonymous commenters on this site about political allegiances, sexuality, gender, truthfulness, thrift, greed, wastefulness, religion and other characteristics too numerous and imaginative to mention every day and no one is banned or banished. These things are also in clear violation of Mr. Beers' rules. There are some individuals who stop in here once a day to do nothing more than drop, to use a crude reference, a pile of crap and then leave. Anyone who’s been around here for more than a few minutes knows this to be true.

I can only assume there is some other reason why Coyote has been singled out and ostracized while these other characters - including an editor called Shannon Rupp - are left to their own devices – free to be as disrespectful and profane as they please.

If you have a clarification, I'd appreciate hearing it, but the person I really think owes his readers some sort of explanation is David Beers. Moreover, reading back over this thread and others, I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way.

Without the comments - this would be a very dead place. A quick look at the threads that don't generate spit will confirm that too.

Coyote's ban

I wasn't saying I liked or agreed with it, just mentioning
what I think might have been the trigger.

One of the things that makes censorship inevitable is the law which makes it a crime to single out a group of unrelated people, except for religion or ethnicity, as being bad or criminal. If Coyote unwittingly crossed that line, Beers had to remove what he said, or be perhaps be held responsible under the law.

Unfortunately, the same rule doesn't seem to apply to those who use the term Islamo-fascist.

I miss Coyote, and wish I knew more about the rationale
of the banning

This is terrific news

http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2007/02/its-official-jewish-progressive-criticism-of-israel-is-now-a.htm

There are many imbedded links in the original.

As promised.

Here's Roger Cohen's commentary on Jimmy Carter's book, from the NYTimes and the International Herald Tribune.

February 7, 2007
Globalist
Jimmy Carter Attempts to Provoke, and Succeeds
By ROGER COHEN
International Herald Tribune

NEW YORK It's hard not to have a soft spot for Jimmy Carter. Candor and integrity are written into the former president's face to the point that the question arises how such a man strayed into the bare-knuckled arena of politics. Speaking of which, a number of knuckles have been applied to that decent visage of late.

"This is the first time that I've ever been called a liar and a bigot and an anti-Semite and a coward and a plagiarist," Carter said last month. He added that he could take it, but conceded: "This has hurt me."

Carter's offense has been to take aim at Israel for the "confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories"; for applying a "a system of oppression, apartheid, and sustained violence" against Palestinians; for "depriving their unwilling subjects of basic human rights"; and for building a wall "designed to complete the enclosure of a severely truncated Palestine."

These accusations are contained in Carter's best-selling "Palestine Peace not Apartheid," published last year as a summation of the former president's involvement in Middle Eastern politics. Carter, who orchestrated the 1979 peace between Egypt and Israel, is disappointed. His disappointment lies chiefly with the Jewish state.

To state the obvious, Carter's severe criticism of Israel is of a kind unimaginable from any senior member of the Bush administration. Nor would it be likely to come from any member of Congress with even a half-formed instinct for self-preservation. That, Carter suggests, was the point.

"The Palestinians are horribly treated and their treatment is not known at all or minimally in this country," Carter said Jan. 23, speaking at Brandeis University. "So I chose that title knowing that it would be provocative."

He has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Several members of the community board at his Carter Center in Atlanta have quit. Former aides have disputed his recollections of meetings with Arab leaders.

Alan Dershowitz, the prominent Harvard law professor, has referred to "an indecent book." Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, are disavowing the former Democratic president at a furious pace.

Here is what Pelosi had to say in a recent statement: "With all due respect to former President Carter, he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." On the contrary, she continued, "We stand with Israel now and we stand with Israel forever."

A few things need to be said here. All the huffing and puffing speak to Carter's point: Blunt criticism of Israel is not a paying proposition in the United States. There's just no constituency for it. That reality is unhelpful to balanced debate and to any honest American brokering in the region.

A powerful Jewish community has now been joined by a resurgent evangelical movement in the expression of strong - if differing - attachment to Israel. A post 9/11 fear of the undifferentiated Arab terrorist, stoked by the Bush administration, has cast the Palestinian national struggle and its suicide bombers into the same basket as Al Qaeda.

Pelosi knows she'd be shooting herself in the foot to back Carter. So would any other un-retired politician of whatever stripe. The Democrats are weary of shooting themselves in the foot. They want what all politicians want: power.

Carter, having known power, seeks peace on the basis espoused by most reasonable people: a two-state solution involving Israel's withdrawal to something very close to the 1967 borders, with any changes to those borders reached by mutual agreement. A clever fudge is needed for Jerusalem and refugees.

But he does his case no good through strange omissions and poor wording that undermine his work. The internal divisions, corruption and disastrous leadership of the Palestinian people - especially disastrous in the long twilight of Yasser Arafat's rule - get short shrift.

The self-serving manipulation of the conflict by Arab states is similarly glossed over, as is its growing religious overlay. And, in a passage for which he has apologized, Carter says Palestinians should stop suicide bombings and terrorism "when international laws and the ultimate goals for the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel."

As with President Jacques Chirac's recent gaffe on Iran, this little lapse - to be excised from future editions - seems to suggest a certain, perhaps subliminal alignment of sympathy.

The harshest debate has centered on Carter's choice of the word "apartheid," the system of institutionalized racial discrimination and persecution once used by South Africa's white minority to dominate the black majority.

Carter has defended his choice of words, saying it's meant to convey the forced separation and domination of Palestinians rather than Israeli racism. He has insisted that using "apartheid" to describe Israeli West Bank policies "should give no aid or comfort to any of those who have attempted to equate racism with Zionism."

Nice try, Jimmy. Trying to take race out of the word "apartheid" is as far- fetched as trying to take Jew out of the word "Zionism." It doesn't work.

That said, Carter is not wrong to see analogies with aspects of apartheid. Anyone visiting the West Bank, with its garrison-like Jewish settlements on hilltops connected by modern highways barred or inaccessible to donkey-riding Palestinians, can only be struck by how humiliation is now built into the very terrain.

"The West Bank has been fragmented into three areas - north (Jenin and Nablus), center (Ramallah) and south (Hebron) - which increasingly resemble the Bantustans of South Africa," John Dugard, a South African law professor who has examined conditions there for the United Nations Human Rights Council, wrote recently.

On balance, even with its failings, Carter's analysis amounts to a useful provocation to an America in which Iraq, domestic political shifts, weariness and post-9/11 taboos have all dimmed debate of Palestine. The result is what Carter calls an "immoral outcome."

In the long term, that is bad for Israel, bad for the United States and bad for Palestinians, who need to think hard about what actions and decisions would make it more feasible for America to alter course and help them.

Added emphasis is mine.

Great article, G., at last the truth.

So now the cats out of the bag.

Finally!

Jimmy Carter explains that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians since it ethnically cleansed them from their own homes and lands, and created the new nation of Israel, has been similar in every way to the European's treatment of blacks in South Africa during the apartheid era.

Which, I think lends credence to my 'isolate the right question' theory, that being:

Why does a tiny country like Israel, with a population of seven million need all of that military capability, including nuclear weapons?

Chirac and the French Left

http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone02062007.html

Chirac questioned that Iran would nuke anybody, and then had to say he had thought it was off the record. The bold sentence may help to explain why the left is so paralysed .

definitely worth reading the whole thing

And speaking of banning....

I've been banned from Glavin's site for squeaking too loudly about his anti-Left slurs.

That's OK; it's his site. But the gutless wonder expunged my posts while leaving other posts critical of mine. Reminds me of Osip Mandelstam: "And when there are just enough people for half a dialogue...."

All this banning seems like a poor substitute for argument to me, but I'm kinda new around here.

Yeh, I stopped in there a while back

Dr Dawg,

I found the disjunction between what Beers wrote to Coyote and what Glavin wrote about the 'banning' was illuminating as well.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that Beers and Glavin cooked this up together. What I especially liked - for its inherent contradiction between what Glavin says he represents - and the way he actually behaves when anyone has the temerity to question him - which you did - was this little gem of prejudice and elitism. I thought I'd just post a copy here:

In fact, as I recall, you questioned the postulate that things might have been better if Saddam Hussein had never been attacked and were - in some undefined form - still in power.

Didn't seem like a bad question to me.

In fact, I read an editorial in the Jewish periodical Forward a few weeks ago which essentially argued that, at least from the Israeli point of view (I think we can take it as a given that the 600,000 odd dead Iraqis would be onside), there was a growing consensus that this is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Funny eh, but, instead of engaging, he calls your comment stupid and deletes your post.

I think one might possibly be able to call Glavin a few names on the basis of this little vignette. If one were so inclined. However, I won’t. I think the labels Glavin invokes hang pretty comfortably on his own compromised frame as it is.

errata

Should be, suggested the postulate, obviously. Galvin was the one who called the suggestion stupid.

But then, as Tuman Green would probably say

There is no point in reasoning with people like that. They don't own up to what they've actually said, and they are so enamoured of their own egos that they'd rather erase the comments of anyone who questions them.

Oh and Terry, now that I have your attention

I'd like to politely point out that your action of accusing anyone and everyone - on this particular story ( and the other ones you've written for David) - who criticizes Israeli policy as being involved in , how did you put it? Oh that's right - Jew bashing.

Here's the exact quote.

this material is from Terry Glavin's blog:
http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/

Yeh, well you're starting to get to me too Terry.

Now you might not think that phrase 'filling up the comments here' and the rest of that statement is monolithic; but I'd say it is. Especially if you take a look at the actual evidence.

If you'd taken the time to carefully read all the stuff above me here, which I wish you'd actually do because I have friends who know you quite well and they keep telling me you're really a fair-minded individual, well then, I don't think you'd be able to sustain the attitude that appears to be inducing behaviour in you that wouldn't be out of place in a rant from George Galloway.

Next move is yours Terry.

Glavin said he'd like to see evidence

of " some Jews who attack the slightest criticism of the Israeli government as being anti-Semitic."

How about Deborah Lauter of the ADL dismissing Journalist Christopher Bollyn's statement of " I'm accused of being an anti-semite because I'm critical of Israels's policies. " with "that's a very common technique with anti-semites."

Bollyn was interviewed for 2 hours for the soundbites that were used on Pauls Zahn's CNN show on Jan 23.

Granted, it was not the slightest of criticisms because he was talking about evidence linking Mossad to 9/11.
See it @
http://www.iamthewitness.com/Bollyn-CNN-interview.html

Me too

Yeh!

The first clue that he might have some kind of perception problem was that fawning profile of Ignatieff that billed him as a Leftist, and said he was 57 - Ig was 59 at the time.

Terry Glavin wouldn't have made those mistakes a decade ago. And then he gets himself into this situation here at Tyee where he totally ignores anything that doesn't fit his model declares everyone else is blind and biased, deletes any comment from his own blog that doesn't conform to his version of reality and suggests that leftists and progressives should have rushed into Baghdad to 'help' the Iraqis during a period when the US Army couldn’t venture out of the Green Zone and the UN had to pull out because its headquarters are blown to smithereens.

Very strange. And yet, reading his blog, it seems clear that he's monitoring this stuff here and it is eating him up inside. I just can't figure it. Even that remark which implies it's stupid (his word) to suggest that a situation with Saddam in power without the destruction of a lie-based war is automatically a terrible thing and incapable of providing a better situation than the one the Iraqi people experience today. It’s as if he’s been asleep and completely missed the history of the world since the end of the 80s – particularly the example of Libya, among others.

I mean, talk about marginalizing the lives of almost 700,000 people. Can't moral progressives have enough imagination to believe that those people might have an interest in the equation? That their lives mean something – or are they just grist for Terry’s mill?

Nevertheless, in the end, if one actually thought he was secure enough to discuss these issues instead of pronounce on them, ex cathedra so to speak, even that could be overlooked.

It's a puzzle.

A sample Glavin column, with commentary

I was going to withdraw from this, but Glavin called me a liar when I protested about his tendency to paint in such large brushstrokes about the left and the anti-war movement. I am of the left and supportive of the anti-war movement, and his continual sub (and not so sub)-terranean New McCarthyist suggestions of left anti-Semitism have irritated me for a while now.

So does Glavin indulge in this kind of smear, or not? You be the judge.
***********************************
***********************************
Source:
http://www.straight.com/article/stopwars-peace-is-about-opposing-israel

(My comments separated by asterisks.)

Things started at a July 18 demonstration in Montreal, when a small group of young Lebanese showed up with a sign that read “Peace for Lebanon and Israel”. They were shouted at and shoved around and driven off. Their sign was torn up. The event then proceeded, with people carrying placards that bore the flag of the fascist organization Hezbollah and pictures of Hezbollah's rabidly anti-Semitic leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

*********
COMMENT: 1)A more balanced view of the give-and-take between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators may be found here:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/07/73342.html
Note that one of the counter-demonstrators adds a comment in the Comments section. There was no organized attempt to shove around or drive off counter-demonstrators. The peace demo was not monolithic: note the references to the “triumph of Islam” demonstrator, who at least one peace demonstrator figured was a plant (Comments section).
2) One should be careful of applying Western concepts like “fascist” too loosely. It ::obfuscates, rather than clarifies. And one should also be wary of calling any Arab leader “anti-Semitic” without proof (see below).
***************

Before the month was out, you could fairly mark July 2006 as one of the most squalid months in the history of the “left” in Canada.

********
COMMENT: Empty, insulting language.
********

On July 22, at a Toronto rally sponsored by the Canadian Peace Alliance, there were Hezbollah flags, strapping young men in Hezbollah T-shirts, Nasrallah's fat, stupid face in placard-sized photographs, and pictures of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier and lyncher of homosexuals.

************
COMMENT: 1) “fat, stupid face” – pointless namecalling. Does Glavin actually have anything to say?
2) Without holding a brief for Ahmadinejad, and his latest antics, did pictures of him “represent” the CPA, or only the people who carried them? As noted, the demonstration was hardly monolithic.
**************

To be clear about the depths of this squalor: Hezbollah glorifies death and war to the point of making pornography out of it,

***********
COMMENT: “Pornography?” Examples? Or is this simply a “snarl-word” used for rhetorical effect?
**********

calls Jews the descendants of “apes and pigs”

********
COMMENT: A reference to a 1998 speech by Nesrallah where he is alleged to have said this has some currency in anti-Hezbollah circles, but quotes like this prove elusive to track down. They seem to erupt exclusively in pro-Israel publications and websites; one has to ask why such things would not be proudly reported in certain Muslim ones. I am not stating that Nasrallah has never uttered such words, or harbours such sentiments; only that they appear to be reported only by his enemies. (Incidentally, Sura 5:60 of the Qur’an, whence all this “apes and pigs” talk keeps arising, does not refer to “the Jews.”
**************

, and happily disseminates such fascist classics as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

**********
COMMENT: Nasrallah “happily disseminates” this rot (which certainly has some currency in some Muslim countries)? Do we have proof here, or simply more allegation?
************

Nasrallah himself is helpfully unambiguous about his hatred of Jews: “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak, and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology, and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say 'the Israeli.'?”

************
COMMENT: This oft-quoted statement has a somewhat mysterious origin. Its “primary” source may be found here: Saad-Ghorayeb, Amal (2001), Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion, Pluto Press, p.170. But it appears from her footnote that she got the quote second-hand, from a Hezbollah ally, Mohammed Fnaysh. This is pretty shaky stuff, but it doesn’t stop pro-Israel groups from using it. CAMERA sources the quote to an article in the New Yorker: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=11&x_article=1158.
The article quotes Saad-Ghorayeb, quoting Nasrallah, a quote that had been, as indicated, quoted from somebody else.
None of this, as noted, is to argue that Nasrallah might indeed have all of the opinions and attitudes attributed to him. I just would have wanted stronger proof before joining in the demonizing.
**************

To be clearer: while the Canadian Peace Alliance has been busy with its “Don't Attack Iran” campaign, Ahmadinejad's regime, which is explicit about wanting Israel obliterated, has been busy funding and arming Hezbollah and trying to assemble a nuclear arsenal for itself.

**********
COMMENT: 1)“wants Israel obliterated.” This, too, has received wide circulation, although Ahmadinejad clarified this a little by stating recently that he expected Israel to go the way of the USSR. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/] Whether we approve of this sentiment or not, it’s a far cry from calling for nuclear obliteration, which is the usual interpretation given in the Western media.

2)“trying to assemble a nuclear arsenal for itself.” This is a common charge, but where is the proof?
****************

Meanwhile, in Vancouver, on the same day that trade unionists and “peace” activists

********
COMMENT: Note the shudder-quotes. Another cheap rhetorical trick.
********

were marching under Hezbollah banners in Toronto,

********
COMMENT: “Under” them? They didn’t have their own banners? This would be a first for the labour movement.
********

about 300 people gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery for a rally cosponsored by Vancouver's StopWar Coalition. The rally's main speaker was Rafeh Hulays, who has openly declared in a letter to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers””the event that set off all the bloodletting in Lebanon””was “legal, moral, and necessary”.

*********
COMMENT: Is this all Glavin has got? A speaker at a rally once said something somewhere else, something that could not remotely be deemed anti-Semitic? In fact, the kidnapping of the soldiers occurred after a kidnapping the day before by the IDF, in Gaza, of two Palestinians thought to be members of Hamas, Osama Muamar and his brother Mustafa Muamar. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Shalit]
**********

Shortly after his July 22 address to the Vancouver peace rally, Hulays was again writing to Haaretz, admitting that he didn't believe in peace anyway. “I no longer do,” he wrote. “There are many monsters that need to be dealt with. Israel happens to be the biggest, ugliest, and most dangerous.”

*********
COMMENT: By this time, Israeli forces had bottled up the entire population of Gaza, with the threat of massive civilian deaths looming (http://counterpunch.org/tilley06302006.html), and had killed more than 300 Lebanese civilians [http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/2]. One can understand Hulays’ emotional state at that point. But in any case, this has little to do with the CPA rally.
*********

A week later, the StopWar Coalition held another demonstration on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, this one to protest “Canadian complicity in Israeli war crimes”. This time the featured speaker was Hanna Kawas, who openly campaigned against Ottawa's 2003 decision to ban three notorious Palestinian terrorist groups. The StopWar Coalition joined him in that effort.

*********
COMMENT: Here is the full story (both sides):
http://www.cpavancouver.org/letter_to_solicitor_general.html
*********

Odd thing for an antiwar group to do, you might say, since war is the reason these terrorist groups exist.

*********
COMMENT: Unpacking the assumptions in that sentence is a waste of time. Suffice it to say that many so-called “terrorist” groups exist to defend against the terror imposed by states, e.g., the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, termed “apartheid” by Nobel Laureates Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter.
**********

But this isn't about peace at all. “Peace” is just code for opposing Israel. This is about war.

**********
COMMENT: No, “peace” is code for “peace.” Which will never be achieved so long as Israel continues to occupy Palestine.
**********

Actually, two wars.
One is the just struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, for their own state, and for peaceful coexistence with Israel.

**********
COMMENT: Ah. A ray of light?
**********

The other is an Islamist war against modernity, against liberalism, and, as always, against the Jews. In that larger war, the Palestinian cause is a cover, the Palestinian poor are fodder, and there is no shortage of useful idiots to make light work of it all.

**********
COMMENT: Back to bluster, assertion and insult. Glavin has no arguments, it appears.
**********

Take the famous British demagogue George Galloway, for instance. While Nasrallah's face was being paraded around downtown Toronto on July 22, Galloway, at a similar rally in London, fairly screamed these words: “I am here to glorify the leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.”

**********
COMMENT: Was that pompous idiot at the CPA rally? I must have missed something.
**********

Then there are Galloway's friends in the Socialist Workers Party, whose Canadian affiliates provide the key staff positions for the Canadian Peace Alliance, the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, and the War Resisters Support Group. And on it goes.

**********
COMMENT: Well, don’t stop now. First we got second or third-hand quotes attributed to Nasrallah. Now we get “key staff positions” in the peace movement, staffed by “affiliates” of the Socialist Workers Party, some of whom are apparently “friends” of Galloway (who is not a member of the SWP, in case anyone needs reminding). That’s a pretty tenuous set of linkages.
***********

Still, StopWar is perfectly entitled to argue that pro-war, fascist Jew-killers should be allowed to raise money, propagandize, and otherwise operate freely in Canada. Argue away, you might say to StopWar. Just not in my name.

***********
COMMENT: Emotive language like this is always a good substitute for thought and facts when you have neither of the latter. Has StopWar ever argued any such thing? Or is “pro-war, fascist Jew-killers” just code for “anyone Glavin doesn’t happen to like?”
***********

But that won't quite do if you're a member of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, or the Hospital Employees Union, or the Vancouver Green party, or the New Democratic Party, or the United Church of Canada. If you belong to any one of about 160 organizations that StopWar lists as endorsing members, or if you simply happen to live in Vancouver or Burnaby, then StopWar is speaking in your name.

*********
COMMENT: In its own words, too, not in Glavin-speak. But Glavin doesn’t actually quote StopWar; he’s too busy slandering it.
*********

And don't you dare try to speak for yourself about these things. You will be told you don't know what you're talking about, or that you've “bought into” something called the neoconservative agenda, or, worse still, that you're a Zionist.

*********
COMMENT: By “speaking for yourself,” could Glavin mean supporting Israel to the point of calling its murderous Lebanon adventure a “measured response?” Do supporters of the Palestinian people never speak for themselves? These assertions raise far more questions than they answer. Who will be told such things, and by whom, and on the basis of what?
*********

So, in July 2006, while Israel was fighting for her very life,

*********
COMMENT: At this point Glavin is simply hallucinating. Anyone checking out the Lebanese civilian casualty count, the infrastructural damage, the sealing off of Gaza, must wonder what planet Glavin inhabits. Israel massively attacked Lebanon and Gaza, and caused enormous carnage, suffering and destruction--not the other way around.
*********

and Lebanon and Palestine were being ground to bits,

********
COMMENT: By a country “fighting for its life,” I presume.
********

and Iraq was descending deeper into a hell of throat-slitting and suicide bombing, Canada's “antiwar” left had openly opted for war.

********
COMMENT: Not proven by a single part of this florid polemic.
********

And the words on the placards left no doubt about which side it was on: “We Are All Hezbollah”.

*********
COMMENT: Ah. Was this on all the placards? Or is this a not-so-subtle attempt to suggest that the anti-war movement is "all Hezbollah?"
*********

***********************************
***********************************
In sum: this shabby polemic, the like of which one can read in FrontPage Magazine anytime, is a slanderous, neo-McCarthyite attack on the Canadian peace movement. Glavin (or is it really Christopher Hitchens?) needs to be called on it. He has, in any case, forfeited his right to be taken seriously on Middle East questions. He’s essentially a polemicist who lacks arguments, and instead assembles assertion, slander, a collection of factoids, and dubious quotations, in some of the sloppiest journalism I've encountered for some time. He has no credibility whatsoever, and shouldn’t be granted any. Anyone reading his material with a critical eye can soon discern the liar in the crowd.

Good work!

Good work Dawg, People should encourage both the Straight and Tyee to dump this Goebbels-like liar and hate-monger

Oh, Terry!

That comment on your blog about my reference to your 'monolithic' views about the situation in the Middle East...the one you said you left up for its humour...

It's not so funny now, as the little narrative above shows, it's absolutely and demonstrably true.

So I hope you'll keep it there for ironic impact. Because a lot more people are going to be stopping in over the next few days. You may even get quite a handful of interested potential commenters too.

Instead of the handful of true believers you now tend to chuckle and snort with after each of your preening articles. I notice many of them use 'handles' too by the way. What's with that?

Some Journalist.

And no, I don't know Dr Dawg. Till he posted his first message to this thread a couple days ago, I had no idea he even existed. I haven't read much of his stuff but he at least sounds like an honest man.

There are a lot of nasty people in the Middle East, on both sides of that 'security' wall. But there are also a lot of good people who are trying to find a way out that will mean a better life for all. We shouldn't forget, in our passion for peace, to pay something more than lip service to the way we characterize the situation. I think you've forgotten.

MY suppressed response to Terry Glavin

Just so people can see the other "half of a dialogue," here is a post that the brave Terry Glavin suppressed over at his echo-chamber. It should be noted that this tower of intellectual honesty actually removed my second post (which I did not retain, unfortunately), but kept his own response to it; and then removed my reply to that response. The man's cowardice is simply without parallel in my recent experience.

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

Terry:

I don't do abject, so I imagine that's that; but I will offer one of those tiresome conditional apologies. If the post at hand was just about conspiracy-nuttery generally, and not yet another swipe at alleged left anti-Semitism, then I apologize. Perhaps I became hypersensitive after reading some of your other material, already referenced.

That isn't likely to be enough to satisfy you, though, so delete this post by all means, but I'll at least have the pleasure of knowing that you read it, and it's directed to you anyway.

Some of on the left--a great number of us--are profoundly offended by being called anti-Semitic. This used to be an oh-so-clever right-wing smear. Now it's appearing from self-styled critical leftists. Like you. Like Nick Cohen, for that matter, for whom I have a good deal more respect.

Of course I wasn't personally insulted, as in, "You, John Baglow (aka "Dr.Dawg" --I'm not that anonymous) are an anti-Semite." Instead, I am just being included, by virtue of being critical of Israel and supportive of the anti-war movement, in a broad-brush denunciation. Funny--it still feels like a personal insult. I despise anti-Semites, and I'm fed up with being included in their number by propagandists who pretend that they don't know the difference between the real thing and opposition to expansionist Israeli policies.

That one sentence in your screed was an immense provocation. No wonder it attracted a chain-reaction of comment. Don't pretend to be surprised. The suggestion is once again clear--the left has degenerated into a bunch of anti-Semitic kooks. Shame on you, and, frankly, shame on Nick Cohen as well.

As noted earlier, I haven't had the opportunity to see Coyote's offending comments. But I think it's fair to point out that blatantly anti-Semitic comments are beginning to appear over at The Tyee at the moment, which are being named as such by other commenters who are also adamantly of the opinion that Coyote is not an offender in this respect.

As for "bookmistress," who likely won't see this response, all I can say is that I quoted the Ha'aretz paragraph simply to indicate that it's possible to make observations of this nature without being an anti-Semite. Or, for that matter, a conspiracy-nutter.

Glavin's no friend of Israel!

Glavin must know that he's not really doing Israel or the Jewish people any favours with his middle east apartheid denialism. So who knows what his real motives are?

Whether he understands or not, his brand of "Israel, my country--right or wrong" journalism merely tends to postpone the day when Israel--and Jewish people worldwide--will have to confront how they have behaved towards the Palestinians in their quest for a homeland--as many Jewish people in Israel and abroad are attempting to do now.

Terry, you reached some very low points in your denialism, but I think your lowest is accusing the peace movement of being a cover for anti-Israel sentiment. Even Alan Dershowitz would blush at this--although probably not visibly.

Harper goes far too far

Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians Condemns Creation of pro-Israel Caucus
Wednesday, 07 February 2007
By Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians

The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians, a national umbrella organization of progressive Jewish groups and individuals, has condemned the creation of a parliamentary "Israel Allies Caucus" by the Harper Conservative government.

02/07/06 "ICHBlog" -- - The establishment of the new pro-Israel lobby will be officially announced in Ottawa on Tuesday in the presence of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canadian and Israeli parliamentarians, including MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party) [who calls for expulsion of all Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea - see Jewish Forward article below], MK Orit Noked (Labor) and MK Ran Cohen (Meretz), as well as members of the Canadian-Israel Friendship League.

"This move is just another sign of the Harper government's complete contempt for the Canadian public," said Jason Kunin. "It is not in the interest of most Canadians, and certainly not in the interest of most Jews."

Indeed, a recent Globe and Mail Strategic Counsel poll, showed an overwhelming majority of Canadians - 77 percent - favoured a neutral foreign policy in the Middle East, and a plurality of Canadians - 45 percent - disagreed with the Harper government's favouring of Israel . In Québec, 61 percent disagreed with Canada 's recent foreign policy tilt towards Israel. Jewish interests both in Israel and Canada are best served by peace and the Canadian government throws away its opportunity to be part of any peace process when it portrays itself as a pro-Israel lobbyist on the international scene."

"The creation of this caucus will only further discredit Canada in the eyes of the international community," Jason Kunin insists. "It means condoning a brutal forty-year occupation of Palestinian civilians. It means condoning the illegal wall that is imprisoning them in enclosed ghettos. It means condoning the seizure of their land and water, the strangulation of their economy, and the daily military assaults against innocent civilians and makes life in the occupied territories a living hell."

The ACJC believes it speaks for most Canadians, and for most Jews, in calling for a return to diplomacy and peacemaking. Many of the Israeli policies that would be uncritically supported by the creation of this new pro-Israel caucus are not even supported by many Israelis.

The ACJC calls for the Canadian government to demand the dismantling of Israel 's illegal "security wall," the end to military occupation of Palestinian lands, and a just resolution of the Palestinian refugee crisis.

" Canada should support international law, period" said Jason Kunin.
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/423/2/

The comments are worth reading too.

Truth...

Awesome work Dr.Dawg. Thanks for exposing some Truth my friend...

Bear

Another strange feature of Terry Glavin's extreme self regard

Spending time at Terry's blog has been an interesting exercise. First of all, he writes there - in one of the comments attached to his 'Monbiot 9/11 piece' that it has been his 'policy' to "...keep(ing) Tyee posters off this page..." but that he has decided to make an exception in the case of G West's remarks for their "...humour value."

Now I see from some of the material posted above that G West appears to have turned the alleged 'humour value' of those remarks back on Mr. Glavin himself; but, be that as it may, the simple fact that Glavin has a 'policy' about whom he permits to post on his site (irrespective of what they may have to say) merely because they also comment somewhere else rather begs the question about his own openness to dialogue and persuasion. In fact, he sounds like a man who's already made up his mind. And this is a man billed, again by David Beers, as "one of British Columbia's best writers of non-fiction..."

The image of this avatar of 'dissent', reading through the comments to his articles here at Tyee, noting down the names and handles of the posters with consummate care so that he can later blackball each and every one of them by 'policy' seems strangely at odds with the description, from editor Beers, that accompanied Mr. Glavin's first and much heralded offering on the Tyee.

Do you remember what it said?

In fact, I found the contrast between what that introduction promised - and what Mr. Glavin's childish pique has actually delivered - to be so discordant that I went back and checked.

David Beers wrote this headline about Terry Glavin when he published his first offering on October 18, 2006:
Terry Glavin Brings His Dissent to the Tyee: Is the left too smug? New column aims to stoke debate.

Well, I'm certain he has stoked debate - unfortunately a very great deal of that debate is, and has justifiably been, about Terry Glavin and his own irresponsible behavior.

Whatever Coyote wrote in his deleted remark, it could not, in my view, have reflected as badly upon his reputation as has Mr. Glavin's compromised behavior here and on his own website. Whether or not the ‘left’ is smug is a legitimate question and a subject of reasonable debate among reasonable people. The question about whether or not Mr. Glavin is ‘smug’ is no longer debatable – it has been clearly decided in the affirmative.

I hope enough people of good will have been paying attention to what has gone on here in the past week and I have no doubt that they'll draw the appropriate conclusions. The evidence, after all, is there for all to see. Unlike the evidence for Coyote's alleged crime.

One wonders if the irony of this rather sordid affair is sufficently piquant that David Beers will reconsider what he has done?

In conclusion, Mr. Glavin also mentions - in another of his comments at his blog, that he is ‘not aware of Jews who attack other Jews for their criticism of Israel to the point of accusing them too of anti-Semitism’.

Well, as it happens there is an article, just published in The New Republic, that discusses this phenomenon in some detail. I think it's an interesting read and entirely in keeping with the general flavour and tenor of much of the commentary I've read above here - but not at all like the kind of thing I have read at transmontanus.blogspot.com

I'll post it here. Knowing that Mr. Glavin reads all these comments, I'll be watching his blog to see what he thinks of it.

The New Republic February 8 2007
The New Anti-Anti-Semites.
Split Personality
by John B. Judis
Post date: 02.08.07

Is there a growing trend among American intellectuals (and former presidents) toward anti-Semitism? That is what a number of recent articles, essays, and speeches--the latest on "The Poisoning of America" from Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at the Herzilya conference--would suggest. Some of these statements stop short of saying that Tony Judt, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, Tony Kushner, and Jimmy Carter (to name some of the best-known targets) are anti-Semites. Instead, they say that what they have written is anti-Semitic or encourages anti-Semitism. In The Wall Street Journal last year, Bret Stephens, a member of the editorial board, suggested that Walt and Mearsheimer's essay on the Israel lobby "may not be anti-Semitic in intent [but] may yet be anti-Semitic in effect."

What these charges are meant to do is to raise the warning flag of anti-Semitism over certain opinions, placing them beyond argument--in a realm consigned to social pathologies. Who would argue, for instance, over the "history" contained within The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? In "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism," a paper published by the American Jewish Committee, Alvin H. Rosenfeld writes of the critics of Israel interviewed for Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel, "[They are] not driven by anything remotely like reasoned historical analysis, but rather by a complex range of psychological as well as political motives that subvert reason and replace it with something akin to hysteria."

My intention in broaching this controversy is not to argue on behalf of Walt, Mearsheimer, or Judt. I think Walt and Mearsheimer do exaggerate the influence of the Israel lobby and define the lobby in such an inclusive way as to beg the question of its influence. I also don't share Judt's hopes for a secular democratic state on what is now Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. But I think that, in characterizing these views as anti-Semitic, or as contributing to anti-Semitism, Rosenfeld and other critics are attempting to suppress an important debate on American foreign policy toward Israel and the Middle East. And they have also fallen prey to a contradiction within their own thinking.

Anti-Semitism has appeared in many guises--from the religious anti-Judaism of Medieval times to the racial and conspiracy theories of twentieth-century Europe. (For a recent discussion, see Walter Laqueur, The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism). The term itself dates from the late nineteenth century, and it could be seen to include the imputation to Jews of certain undesirable traits and practices and the imputation to Jewish leaders of international designs that would undermine the societies in which they lived. The classic anti-Semitic text is the Protocols, which describes a fictional conspiracy by Jewish leaders to take over the world. In the United States, anti-Semitism generally took a less malignant form than in Europe, but, in the 1890s, some Populist Party members believed that Jewish bankers were secretly in charge of the economy, and, in the late 1930s, some isolationists believed Jews put their loyalty to their own people above their loyalty to the United States.

The critics of the new anti-Semitism label two kinds of views to be anti-Semitic. First, they argue that, by attributing inordinate influence to the Israel lobby--and therefore to American Jews--and by describing that influence as being contrary to (or not necessarily consistent with) the American national interest, Walt and Mearsheimer and their supporters are dredging up older anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. "Accusations of powerful Jews behind the scenes are part of the most dangerous traditions of modern anti-semitism," wrote historian Jeffrey Herf and political scientist Andrei Markovits in a response to Walt and Mearsheimer.

Second, the critics argue that, by voicing overly negative views of Israel itself--or by calling for Israel's replacement by a secular democratic state--Judt and others are contributing to anti-Semitism. The critics are not deterred by the fact that some of these authors, including Judt, are Jewish. Brandeis sociology professor Shulamit Reinharz, writes that many of these authors "would say that they are simply anti-Zionists, not anti-Semites. But I disagree, because in a world where there is only one Jewish state, to oppose it vehemently is to endanger Jews."

What of these charges? Walt and Mearsheimer do suggest significant influence by some Jewish leaders over American foreign policy. That certainly recalls the accusations of the Protocols. But the Protocols were a pure fabrication, while Walt and Mearsheimer's case is based upon a reality that most people who study Washington concede: The "pro-Israel" lobby, led by AIPAC, exerts enormous influence over U.S. policy toward Israel. Walt and Mearsheimer extend that influence to policy toward the entire Middle East and to the decision to invade and occupy Iraq. That's a mistake, in my opinion, but it's an arguable case. What would make their argument similar to the older anti-Semitism would be a claim that the Israel lobby controls, rather than influences, foreign policy and that its reach extends to all regions and not merely the Middle East.

Walt and Mearsheimer's critics also draw an analogy between their views and older charges of "dual loyalty." But what distinguished these older charges was the large element of pure fantasy. Jewish bankers getting together secretly to plot the future of the world? International socialism as a Jewish plot? Walt and Mearsheimer take the argument beyond where I would do so by tossing Jewish neoconservative intellectuals and policy-makers into the same "lobby" as AIPAC, but there is no question that there is a powerful lobby, run and funded by American Jews, that looks out for the interests of Israel.

AIPAC's staff and officials claim there is no contradiction between representing the interests of Israel and those of the United States, but that's at best an arguable point. Certainly, AIPAC has found itself defending Israeli policies--such as the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the rapid expansion of settlements in the West Bank in the late 1980s, or the 1993 Oslo Accords, or even the most recent Israeli offensive in Lebanon--that, in the opinion of many Americans and Jewish-Americans, were not in the interest of the United States. I am not arguing that any of them necessarily were, merely that there are bound to have been differences. American and Israeli interests are not linked together in a logical equation; they are real-world entities whose priorities have sometimes diverged. And when they do, any organizations or individuals that want to represent the best interests of Israel, or the policies of the Israel government, will be torn by the problem of dual loyalty.

Rosenfeld, Harris, and others are on firmer ground in arguing that some criticisms of Israel itself are anti-Semitic. Some European and Middle Eastern commentators simply identify Jews with Israelis and ascribe to "Israelis" the same kinds of evil conspiracies that they would have earlier attributed to "Jews"--for instance, secretly blowing up the World Trade Center while letting the blame for the deed fall on Islamic radicals, or infecting Arabs with AIDS. But what also bothers the critics of the new anti-Semitism are Jewish intellectuals like Judt, Kushner, or poet Adrienne Rich, all of whom harshly criticize the Israeli state, compare its policies in the occupied territories to South Africa's in the Bantustans or even Hitler's in Germany, call for a secular democratic state, or criticize Zionism itself. These kinds of views, Rosenfeld writes, "recall older versions of anti-Semitism."

But the harsh denunciation of Israeli policies can be offensive without being anti-Semitic. It's not uncommon in political argument to dredge up past evils to dramatize what are believed to be present ones. American administrations constantly evoke Hitler and the Nazis to characterize their current enemies. Indeed, Rosenfeld et al. are engaged in the same kind of hyped rhetoric when they identify Walt and Mearsheimer with David Duke or with Nazis, or when, like the American Jewish Committee's David Harris, they equate Walt and Mearsheimer's views with those of people who imagine "Jews as inoculators of AIDS in the Arab world or contaminators of Palestinian water sources."

The same can be said of Judt's argument for a democratic secular state or for arguments against Zionism itself. These have been, and should remain, arguable subjects among Jews as well as non-Jews. As Rosenfeld acknowledges, many of these arguments can be found in Israel itself. For instance, in Bernard Avishai's important book, The Tragedy of Zionism, published in 2002, he argued that the "romance of Zionism harmed--and may yet wreck--[Israel's] chances to survive as a democracy." If anything, Judt's position for a secular democratic state is utopian. It hopes for too much. But, in its folly, it also reflects the same universalist tradition in Jewish thought that contributed to American Jewish support for civil rights. In other words, it might be foolish to think that Jews and Palestinians could coexist in the same state, but it's not anti-Semitic.

There is a paradox that haunts these charges of anti-Semitism. On the one hand, Rosenfeld, Harris, and others want to deny that American Jews and American Jewish organizations like AIPAC suffer from dual loyalty in trying to influence U.S. foreign policy. It's anti-Semitic or contributes to anti-Semitism, they say, to make that charge. On the other hand, they want to demand of American Jewish intellectuals a certain loyalty to Israel, Israeli policies, and to Zionism as part of their being Jewish. They make dual loyalty an inescapable part of being Jewish in a world in which a Jewish state exists. And that's probably the case. Many Jews now suffer from dual loyalty--the same way that Cuban-Americans or Mexican-Americans do. By ignoring this dilemma--and, worse still, by charging those who acknowledge its existence with anti-Semitism--the critics of the new anti-Semitism are engaged in a flight from their own political selves. They are guilty of a certain kind of bad faith.

These controversies over anti-Semitism come, too, at a predictable and particularly unfortunate time in the discussion of U.S. foreign policy. The last time a similar brouhaha arose was in the 1970s, when Jewish peace organizations in the United States challenged Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. At the urging of the Israeli government, organizations like Breira were run out of town by their traditional, and more subservient, brethren. Partly as a result, the United States acquiesced in Israeli policies that, in the long run, have benefited neither the United States nor Israel. The same thing could happen again. A debate has already begun over U.S. policy toward Iran in which AIPAC and the Israeli government have expressed interest in the United States stopping at nothing to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Fears of a new Holocaust--made more plausible by the very real anti-Semitism of Iran's president--have been sounded. What policies are in the interest of the United States? And of Israel? These are difficult questions, but they are not made easier to answer when critics of Israel and of the Israel lobby in the United States are charged with anti-Semitism.

John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Interesting article, G West

But let's not forget, the main thesis of Glavin's work here has been to tar the left (I'm still not sure what that is, given I've agreed with Capitalism's libertarian streak on occasion) with a broad brush that addresses only the weakest and most sinister positions held by a few of its members whose positions are clearly not well thought out.

Contradicting reasoned thought is not what his articles have addressed, except as an aside to playing bully to these weaker intellects. He's only after conspiracy theorists. I'm happy to demolish them too (as I have done on occasion to mopled when he/she steps out of line) but mostly they're so far out I ignore them.

To spend more than a paragraph on them when they clearly constitute a minority opinion, especially on the intellectual left, is a waste.

For Glavin or the Tyee to devote whole articles to them is also a waste. He's much better addressing local issues, like this week's TILMA. In mainstream media, most commentators make a habit of expecting the best of their readers. McKnight, Willcocks, Hume, Bramham and McMartin locally do this (Willcocks very well), Ibbitson and others nationally. The few who talk down to their readers from lofty heights (Wente, Yaffe, Mihlar) come off like low-forehead ranters, especially when the straw-man argument is used, as it often is.

I hope we can expect change, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, don't be so silly, zalm

Not being in your favour doesn't make anyone a "low forehead ranter."

Absolutely true Zalm

It is exactly that sort of broad brush treatment of all the posters at this site, which today he refers to as "...and online newspaper which shall remain nameless" that I find so unfair and exasperating.

He's been billed here, as I pointed out above, as 'one of British Columbia's best writers of non-fiction,' and also as a man who's interested in honest and open debate. Nothing, on the basis of every aspect of his public behavior – and especially as this is reflected in his own words on his own website – could be more off the mark. His attitude toward Coyote’s banishment is the most egregious of these things but his dismissal of perfectly fair and reasonable comments by ‘Dr Dawg’, especially as regards Glavin’s facile demand for an apology, is the kind of childish behavior one would expect from a grade ten student in a very poor school.

My point is not to defend the critics of Israel who've resorted to over the top rhetoric and nominal or actual hatred of Jews; in fact, quite the contrary. My task here has been, as you well know, to confront such people every single time I've encountered their pathological opinions. This does me absolutely no good from a popularity or self-promotion point of view because I post anonymously. I expect no credit even though I’ll give no quarter to abhorrent attitudes when they crop up here. To be lumped with other individuals possessing attitudes I abhor simple because Terry Glavin lacks the discernment to understand what he is doing and is permitted, even encouraged in this by David Beers’ tacit approval, is intolerable and it needs to be pointed out.

Terry Glavin, who's billed as a hero of free and critical speech and even, in his own conception (as reflected in statements on his website) as the moral conscience of the left, does gain kudos for himself, in my view dishonestly, because he:
a. charges for his work;
b. promotes himself slavishly on his own website; and
c. slanders 'everyone' who posts to this site (relative to any and all of the essays he has published here at Tyee) with the same tarry brush;
d even while, at the same time, he fairly chortles in his self regard relative to his stance of refusing to even permit - with one exception - anyone who disagrees or would suggest he needs to qualify his stand – or to even enter into a civil debate on the subject.

I read his piece on the Tilma agreement as well.
Although it's not overtly offensive, it is very thin gruel.
The agreement, which he's right has not been presented to the Legislature, is several dozens of pages in length. I would have thought that at least a cursory overview of the areas it will affect, and the possibility (which is very real) that it may well, once proclaimed, be subject to legal challenge on a number of levels (not least of which that it may be ultra vires of federal jurisdiction) would have been worthy of some small mention.

Alcibiades-G.West I noticed...

Alci-G.West, I noticed you said: "My TASK here is to confront such people, as you well know, every time I've considered their pathological opinions."

Besides the one obvious 'over the line' comment of kjc (in which he referred to Glavin as an 'aspernazi whore,' I don't recall you doing much confronting of pathological opinions.

And can you please be more specific. Whose opinions on this thread would you consider to be pathological?

And last, but not least, does your use of the word 'task' mean that you have a job here at the Tyee, G. West-Alci, or are you just self-appointed? (I recall you saying that grouping the crazies together made your "job that much easier," or something to that effect. (on another thread)

Oh, and also, why do you insist on raving against David Beers regarding the Coyote affair, when you know perfectly well that Coyote was nudging up against the line of acceptability regarding criticism of an identifiable ethnic group, and it was, in truth, only a matter of opinion on whether he indeed crossed it. My opinion at the time of Coyote's last comment was that it was so close that one could assess it as either unacceptable or borderline.

Are your condemnations of Beers really sincere?

As you'll recall, you did agree with me that Beers has allowed extremely harsh criticism of Israel--notably mine, and many others--without censoring it.

So what exactly is your game here, G.West?

Have you been to Glavin's blog?

All I've condemned David Beers for is not being open about what he's doing. If he has a persuasive case against Coyote then present it. Otherwise back off and admit you’ve made a mistake. I’ve only come across one person who says they read the offending post and their recollection did not accord with Beers’ assessment. I won’t name the person but I wouldn’t be surprised if the individual in question will weigh in if he/she reads this.

I discovered last night that's it's not just Coyote's posts which have vanished into thin air without explanation or communication from an editor.

Posts from both Zalm and straightshooter about Greg Felton also disappeared from one of Rafe's articles. And, don’t you find it strange that we haven't seen a single post from Nana lately? Has she been shut up on the quiet as well?

I'm completely in favour of free speech - short of libel and slander - and let the chips fall where they may. Some kind of a secret censor operating in the background -especially when the paid avatar of frankness and dissent won't - by policy (his words) - leave up any comments on his own blog from people who post here doesn't qualify as free speech and it needed to be pointed out.

C'mon Truman this is nuts. My game is no game at all. Just all the cards on the table and that's what I wrote in my letter to David Beers. You must have seen it by now.

If you're going to have rules, and I do sympathize with someone who's trying to do the written equivalent of herding cats, they have to be enforced fairly and openly. I got an email from a friend who had heard from Coyote about his being black balled - otherwise no one would have known. What would you have done in my position?

And further, Glavin's charaterization of everyone who posts to this site as idiots, Jew haters and apologists for terrorism just pisses me off.

Clear!

Conspiracy fact

Zalm, I've got to admit to not ever having felt "demolished" by you, so I don't know what you refer to. I repeat, the official 9/11story is a conspiracy theory that doesn't fit the facts. I suggest you start looking at those facts instead of spouting the official line. You could start with http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wrh_9-11_index.html
http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php

Then you might look at the fact that firefighters and NYPD at the WTC heard and experienced explosions which have either been ignored or covered up. How do you get pulverization of people and contents without explosions? How do you get explosions without prior planning?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/100207heardbombs.htm

Truman

I don't always agree with McKnight, Hume et al, but in a well-written style, they take me throught the situation, expose both points of view and give their take on it, lett me make up my own mind. I appreciate that.

I rarely feel that way from Wente or Yaffe - usually I get only one side, and the other is a straw man, and I rarely feel satisfied, never mind edified.

I feel twice as queasy about Glavin's work so far on Tyee. All I feel is that I've been lumped in with the conspiracy-mongers when I don't even agree with half the points he makes about me or anyone else who thinks the war with Iraq was a bad idea and one with Iran a worse one.

So why shouldn't I feel like some redneck from Surrey has been haranguing me? Glavin's insulted that some have accused him of being a Canwest flack, and he plainly isn't.

But what is he? Just an iconoclast? For its own sake? Gets pretty lonely out there all alone, when you can't even find a friend to agree with you

Further

I read Coyote's post - it was up for about 3 hours before being removed - and it contained the usual Coyote perspective about the state of the world, the US administration and the Jewish lobby, but it was absent any mention of Jewish conspiracy or Jewish historical revisionism, for which Beers has spanked Coyote before.

It was also brief, for Coyote.

Why it was removed, I have no idea. I don't hold truck with removal of any posts, but this is Beers' forum, not mine, so he can do what he wants. In this case he's (loosely - I understand there are a few editors with delete privileges) been inconsistent. But I think this conversation is getting to Beers too, because just the other day he removed IAMC's post about the whole Western world "hating the French", which I think spoke volumes to IAMC's view of the world and the short-circuit from his brain to his mouth, and none at all about the actually state of affairs betwee France and the rest of the West.

Bogus revisionism and conspiracy theories must be actively combatted, but first they must be seen before they can be combatted, and you can't do that if you delete posts.

Which leads me to...

Thanks Truman!

Glad to hear you understand what seems to have been afoot around here lately.

I hope if Nana has been banned, that she at least reads these exchanges. I don't agree with a lot of what she says and writes and seems to believe, but to label her that way - and just send her away - as has happened to Coyote - with no public evidence or explanation - is not the kind of thing I'm going to sit still for.

I hope you're onside too. In fact, if certain people hadn't made an effort to contact YOU, Truman, after a particular incident last year, none of us would have known that you were on enforced sabbatical either.

I thought at the time to post some explanation - once RTB had used the phone number I provided and we found out what had happened - or information about it at the time.

Since it was a personal family matter at bottom, I decided not to. Perhaps that was a mistake. Solidarity is more than just a word....

Have a good day Truman.

And, on the other front

My latest post at transmontanus has now been up since 11:07am so we shall see whether a change of heart is underway Zalm.

Time will tell.
12:33 pm

Pathetic Indeed

G West
You are a shining example of what Cohen & Glavin write about. Anyone who dares to fall out of step from goose-stepping to the PC "Progressive", neo-leftist beat is a "pathetic creature." Ironically if it were not for a fine writer like Glavin posting here, you and your "like-minded" "progressives" would have nothing to do except fart into cushions. This article provides you with the fat to swarm over and chew on. Otherwise you'd still be hiding under the rock, from which you crawled out from.

Moppled

Drat! deleted my own post! Rewrite...

On rereading http://www.thetyee.ca/Views/2007/01/15/Israel/ , I think you're right. It was straightshooter who beat me to the punch nearly every time. If he hadn't written it, I would have, but he did, so I should stop with the cheering section and making like I'm some giant-killer.

I was primarily on about conspiracy theories and historical revisionists like (deleted for libel concerns). My post has been erased by Beers et al, along with straightshooter's which supported my comment, ostensibly because of libel concerns. Doubtless you remember it because you took umbrage at it.

I still maintain your work is excellent, but I have a problem with historical revisionists and conspiracy theories, especially around 9-11 as a lot of my time on Indymedia was spent debunking the crap "science" that people tried to foist off on others. If I vomited all over you, I apologize again, but for my rejection of conspiracy theory (as opposed to valid questioning) and historical revisionism, especially around WWII in eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and Germany, I apologize for nothing. There is too much truth to be genuinely angry about without listening to the outright lies promoted by a previously-mentioned revisionist.

Peace

If you take half a minute to actually check

If you'd taken some time to actually check the kinds of things I've said to folks like kjc and others - many others - on this site over the months, or taken a moment to look at what ‘fine writer’ Terry Glavin (at his blog) posts about everyone who comments on this site you couldn't make that comment and still be an honest interlocutor.

Given the rest of what you've written it is obvious that you haven't and you're more interested in something else entirely.

I'll let your own words speak for what that is. Further comment just brings you more of the attention you apparently crave.

naddude

Apart from having a tin ear for satire and irony, you're actually pretty slow. I can't think of a better illustration of the lack of openness to real dialogue and discussion than the fact that you are Terry's regular interlocutor at his own place of business.

Anyone else with even a modicum of intelligence is pretty clear now just exactly what kind of character assassination you're actually into ndude. Moreover, you have been for days. The only question now is exactly how deeply in this mire Terry Glavin himself has wandered. Do you think for yourself or just post his own selections for him?

I hope everyone else has a look too:
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=16873276&postID=117080693184891577

Including David Beers.

Get some help

Mental illness strikes often without warning. Seeing conspiracies and persecution everywhere, also known as paranoia is treatable.

Having conversations with yourself a.k.a. schizophrenia, is equally treatable if diagnosed early.

Coyote, of course

It's Sunday the 11th at 9pm and I just found out about Coyote's banishment- I was reading another thread and Bob999 mentioned it- I came here, scrolled through the nightmare above (pretty much with eyes rolling back in my head, just not about to get my brain around THAT topic), but mainly to read all the comments re: Coyote.
Well, it's time for my two cents' worth.
When I started posting on The Tyee back in the days of its inception, far more than I do nowadays, Coyote- who went by "Jerry" back then- used to drive me CRAZY some times. I mean, the guy would have my blood boiling, and the topics we always clashed on usually had to do with women/gender/homosexuality. We had some fun, to say the least. Over time, I came to think of him (and many others on this thread) as a friend of sorts, interesting people with interesting and intelligent opinions. I'd visit from time to time and always read Coyote's posts from beginning to end, chuckling at how angry he used to make me- and how worked up new threaders could get at his rants. Sometimes we'd write a few words of greetings to one another.
I'm kind of stunned at this banishment of dear ol' Coyote. I just want to say that I am pretty much as feminist as it gets 'round here and I'll stand by Coyote any day- so DAMN WELL BRING HIM BACK !!

What happened with the UVic radio interview? That would have been a week ago now....

One last comment...

I dunno--do you suppose Glavin is imitating his good buddy, the sprightly Nav Purewal, and having sock-puppet infestations at his place and here? Purewal used to carry on fascinating conversations with himself. One of his avatars made it over to my place--actually, two, I think--and I had to ban one because of excessive profanity. The poor dumb bunny (Nav) then complained at his place that I had banned him from my site, and wondered aloud how I had obtained his IP address.

Someone please pass him a Darwin Award.

In the meantime, the provenance of "ndude" is in question, at least so far as I am concerned. He has either emerged for a little air after having his cranium firmly lodged in Terry's posterior for some time, or he IS Terry.

Either way, it's not earth-shaking stuff, but I wonder if others have harboured the same suspicions?

International Jewish community in furious row, OK?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2010212,00.html
 
The Observer   February 11, 2007
 
The new Jewish question : A furious row has been raging in the international Jewish community over the rights and wrongs of criticising Israel. At its centre is a British historian who accuses his fellow Jews in the US of stifling any debate about Israel. His opponents say his views give succour to anti-Semites. One thing's for sure: any appearance of consensus over the Middle East has been shattered.
 
By Gaby Wood
 
On 3 October last year, the distinguished British-born historian Tony Judt was preparing for a public lecture when the telephone rang. He was due to give the talk, entitled 'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy', at the Polish consulate in New York in less than an hour. The caterers were already there. But when he picked up the phone he was informed that his lecture had been suddenly cancelled.
 
He was also told that Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was on the phone to the Polish consul. Whether the call from the ADL was the cause of the cancellation would become the subject of heated debate in the days and months to come. Foxman labelled such accusations 'conspiratorial nonsense'; however, the Polish consul, Krzysztof Kasprzyk, later acknowledged that he had been contacted by a number of Jewish groups - including the ADL and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) - who were concerned about Judt's anti-Israel message.
 
'The phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure,' Kasprzyk said. It didn't take him long to see how it might look for Poland, given its history, to be fostering arguments that in certain spheres of American intellectual life have been conflated with anti-Semitism.
 
'They do what the more tactful members of the intelligence services used to do in late Communist society,' Tony Judt says of the ADL when I speak to him from his home in New York. 'They point out how foolish it is to associate with the wrong people. So they call up the Poles and they say: Did you know that Judt is a notorious critic of Israel, and therefore shading into or giving comfort to anti-Semites?'
 
In the New York Jewish press, the episode was dubbed - with a debatable degree of sarcasm - 'l'Affaire Judt'. Certainly, not everyone felt Judt was a latter-day Dreyfus. The New York Review of Books published an open letter to Abraham Foxman in Judt's defence, which was signed by 114 intellectuals, many of whom disagreed with Judt on the Middle East yet felt that his right to free speech had been indefensibly curbed. But Christopher Hitchens, reminiscing about an occasion when a talk of his own was cancelled for similar reasons, cried out: 'What a chance I missed to call attention to myself!' - not the sort of opportunity Hitchens is in the habit of passing up - 'Once again, absolutely conventional attacks on Israeli and US policy are presented as heroically original.'
 
In the past two weeks, the Judt Affair has entered an entirely new gear. In an essay written by the Holocaust scholar Alvin Rosenfeld and published by the American Jewish Committee, Judt's views - and those of other 'progressive Jews' such as the American playwright Tony Kushner and the British academic Jacqueline Rose - were expressly linked to anti-Semitism. That row was reported in the New York Times, giving it an unprecedented prominence, and since then the story has opened the floodgates of a debate that until now has been shrouded in fear. Americans have long been in the grip of a cultural taboo that is characterised by Judt as follows: 'All Jews are silenced by the requirement to be supportive of Israel, and all non-Jews are silenced by the fear of being thought anti-Semitic, and there is no conversation on the subject.'
 
Philip Weiss, a bold polemicist whose New York Observer blog, MondoWeiss, has been besieged by posts on the subject since he addressed it last week, has even gone so far as to declare a new movement. His account of it embraces the new forum for dissent, Independent Jewish Voices, which was launched in Britain last week by an eminent group that includes Eric Hobsbawm and Harold Pinter. In launching its manifesto, Independent Jewish Voices has taken the 40th anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as an occasion to create 'a climate and a space in which Jews of different affiliations and persuasions can express their opinions about the actions of the Israeli government without being accused of disloyalty or being dismissed as self-hating.' One of its founding principles is: 'The battle against anti-Semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic.' 'A lot of people, like Tony Judt, have been doing brave work here in the US for a while,' Weiss tells me. 'What has happened specifically is that for once, the mainstream is paying attention.'
 
He dates the beginning of this back to last March, when an explosive article about the influence of the Israel lobby on American foreign policy, written by two American political scientists, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, was published in the London Review of Books (having originally been turned down by the Atlantic Monthly). The response to the piece was so overwhelming - and so coloured by accusations of anti-Semitism - that the LRB decided to host a debate on the subject in New York last September. That debate was sold out; Tony Judt, one of the speakers, gave an exceptionally eloquent performance, in the course of which he said it was significant that the event had been hosted by a London publication. Public conversation on the issue had been so absent in America, he suggested, that it could only be opened up by importation.
 
'When Walt and Mearsheimer were published in London,' Philip Weiss continues, 'I said: something's changing.' Since then, the publication of former president Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, and the attention given to Rosenfeld's accusations in his AJC article, have proved, in Weiss's view, that 'there's no question that something has changed. One of the excitements of what's going on right now is that people who have had feelings about this and have not expressed them are popping up all over. It's personally very stirring to me that this is happening. I can't believe it.'
 
In fact, the debate is so current that the online magazine Slate has come up with a quiz entitled 'Are You A Liberal Anti-Semite?' (Sample question: 'Which state's offences against humanity bother you most? a) Sudan b) Israel c) Massachusetts'.) One of the prizes is dinner with Tony Judt.
 
Tony Judt is, in the words of a fellow historian, 'one of our most dazzling public intellectuals'. As a prominent professor at New York University and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New York Times and The Nation, he has a strong and widely heard voice. His latest book, Postwar - a magnificent, opinionated and vast history of Europe since 1945 - was voted one of the 10 best books of last year by the New York Times. A talented forger of links between thinkers from countries all over the world, Judt worked tirelessly after 1989 to bring together eastern European and American intellectuals, and he solidified these efforts by founding the Remarque Institute at NYU in 1995 to promote the study and discussion of Europe in America. A natural polemicist, he brought with him to New York an Oxbridge tradition more pugnacious than is generally characteristic of American academic life, and found himself - after years spent concentrating on European history - drawn back into an engagement with the Middle East.
 
In 2003, Judt wrote an articulately provocative piece for the New York Review of Books entitled 'Israel: The Alternative', in which he argued, among other things, that Israel was 'an anachronism' that was 'bad for the Jews' and should be converted into a binational state. The offices of the New York Review were inundated with letters as a result. Last year, Judt wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times in which he argued that America's fear of anti-Semitism when discussing Israel wrought tremendous damage. As the page was about to go to press, the editor rang him up. 'Just one thing,' he said, 'You are Jewish, aren't you?'
 
Judt was born in London in 1948. Growing up Jewish in 1950s Britain, as he has said, he came to know a thing or two about anti-Semitism. His mother was from London and his father, who was born in Belgium, had come there as a stateless person. Judt was brought up in what he describes as 'a fairly standard left-wing Jewish secular political environment', but with close links to his Yiddish-speaking grandparents, all of whom were eastern European Jews, from Romania and Russia and Lithuania and Poland. As a teenager, he joined a left-wing Zionist organisation and became very active in the kibbutz movement, living in Israel on and off for a large part of the early 1960s.
 
'What changed for me,' he says now, 'was that in 1967 I went out as a volunteer at the time of the Six Day War; after the war was finished I volunteered for auxiliary military service and I ended up as a sort of informal translator for other volunteers up on the Golan Heights. And there for the first time I began to see another face of Israel that had been camouflaged from me by my enthusiasm for the idealism of the kibbutz movement.' He became, he recalls, quickly very detached from Israel. 'And in fact when I was a student in Paris I became involved in 1970 with Palestinians and young Israelis, trying to organise groups to talk about peace settlements and ending the conflict.'
 
Last week, as he looked over the list of signatories of the new British network, Independent Jewish Voices, Judt says he was struck by how many of them are people who have not in the past identified themselves publicly as Jewish. 'Of course they're Jewish,' he clarifies, 'but it was not part of their public identity tag. And now they feel - and I would share this sentiment - a need to say, look: if it helps you understand just how bad things have got in the Middle East, I am willing to act not as a freestanding historian but as a Jew. I don't normally like to act as though being Jewish was who I am, but it's a kind of inverse moral blackmail that forces you to go the other way.'
 
Speaking from Bloomington, Indiana, where he is a director of Indiana University's Jewish Studies Program, Alvin Rosenfeld tells me that his essay 'does seem to have struck a raw nerve'. 'I've been accused of wanting to shut down debate and stifle free speech,' he says, 'and none of that is true. I stand strongly for vigorous debate and open discussion. What in the past was said behind the hands and on the margins of society has been coming into the mainstream of discourse,' Rosenfeld adds, echoing the sentiments of those he attacks, 'Now one can deal with it. And that's one of the things I set out to do.'
 
Though Rosenfeld is careful not to say in his essay that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are identical, he does state that 'Anti-Zionism is the form that much of today's anti-Semitism takes, so much so that some now see earlier attempts to rid the world of Jews finding a parallel in present-day desires to get rid of the Jewish state.' He labels the work of Judt, Rose, Kushner et al 'This Jewish war against the Jewish state.' I ask him if he would say that an increase in anti-Zionist sentiment might be caused by Israeli policy. 'I doubt it,' he replies. 'As I read these people, it strikes to the heart, not of particular policies, but the idea of a sovereign Jewish state in the Middle East. I think it goes to the question of Israel's origins and essence.' 'Oh that's nuts,' Judt counters, 'I've never said Israel doesn't have a right to exist. I'm not actually sure that anyone in what we would call the respectable political mainstream ever has.'
 
'He says that,' says Rosenfeld, 'but it's not true. In his writings he calls not for a two-state solution but for the dissolution of the state of Israel and a one-state solution, and everyone knows that in no time at all, were such a scenario to come about, Jews would be a minority within this newly configured state, and would be at the mercy of a population that's not likely to treat them gently. Tony Judt is a kind of political fantasist, it strikes me.'
 
'The issue is not whether Israel has a right to exist,' Judt says plainly, 'Israel does exist. It exists just like Belgium or Kuwait or any other country which was invented at some point in the past and is now a fact. The question is what kind of a state Israel should be. That's all.'
 
Anti-Zionism has, like Zionism itself, a long and complicated history. 'The thing that we tend to forget,' Judt explains, 'is that until the Second World War, Zionism was a minority taste even within Jewish political organisations. The main body of European Jews was either apolitical or integrated, and voting within the existing countries they lived in. So to be anti-Zionist, at least until the late 1930s, was to be lined up with most Jews. It would make no sense to think of it as anti-Semitic.
 
'After the Second World War, for a fairly brief period - from let's say 1945 to about 1953 - the overwhelming majority of Jews who were politically thinking were Zionists, either actively or sympathetically, for the rather obvious reason that Israel was the only hope for Jewish survivors. But then many of them, like Hannah Arendt or Arthur Koestler, both of whom were Zionists at various points, took their distance, on the grounds that it was already clear to them that Israel was going to become the kind of state that as a cosmopolitan Jew they couldn't identify with.
 
'Ever since then, there has been an unbroken tradition of non-Israeli Jews who regard Israel as either unrelated to their own identity or something of which they sometimes approve, sometimes disapprove, sometimes totally dislike. This range of opinion is not new,' Judt concludes. 'The only thing that's new - and it's a product of the post-Sixties - is the insistence that it's anti-Semitic.'
 
Judt tells a story about an Israeli journalist who was in Washington in the
1960s. 'The Israeli ambassador was retiring, and the journalist asked him what he thought was his biggest achievement. The ambassador said: "I've succeeded in beginning to convince Americans that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism." There has been a progressive emergence of a conflation,' Judt explains. 'It didn't just happen naturally. And it was pushed quite actively in the Seventies and Eighties, to the point at which it became so normal in this country that it was for a while the default assumption. It's really only in the last five to eight years that it's started to be questioned.'
 
The actions of very pro-Israel Jewish organisations - for instance, making carefully placed phone calls relating to certain public speakers - are, Judt believes, now born of panic rather than confidence. 'They've lost control of the debate,' he says. 'For a long time all they had to deal with were people like Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky, who they could dismiss as loonies of the left. Now they're having to face, for want of a better cliché, the mainstream: people like me who have a fairly long established record of being Social Democrats (in the European sense) and certainly not on the crazy left on most issues, saying very critical things about Israel. They're not used to that, so their initial response has been to silence people if they could, and their second response has been to ratchet up the anti-Semitic charge.' Judt thinks it's telling that the New York Times 'is willing to report these issues and let reporters quote both sides. In the past, you would have had silence.'
 
Whether this will have any effect in Washington is another matter. The political influence of AIPAC (the pro-Israel lobby, American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is as strong as it ever was, and Judt argues that since it's not worth going out on a limb on Israel from Congressmen's point of view, change has to happen at a presidential level. Hillary, he says, 'is pretty gutless on this'; she has already given two gung-ho speeches to AIPAC. It's not a topic Barack Obama has yet picked up on, Judt adds, but Obama was brave enough to oppose the Iraq war from the outset, so it's possible that he would take a courageous stance elsewhere in the Middle East. 'A presidential candidate has to feel that once he or she gets into office - they wouldn't dare open their mouths while they're running for election - they don't stand to lose very much in public opinion if they put pressure on Israel,' Judt says
 
In Postwar, Judt writes of Europe that 'After 1989, nothing - not the future, not the present and above all not the past - would ever be the same.' Is there a moment like that, I ask him, in this situation? 'I think so,' he replies. 'It's not as tidy a moment as 1989 in Europe. But I think one could say that after the Iraq war, for want of a better defining moment, the American silence on the complexities and disasters of the Middle East was broken. The shell broke and conversation - however uncomfortable, however much slandered - became possible. I'm not sure that will change things in the Middle East, but it's changed the shape of things here. Even five years ago, I don't think it would have looked the way it does now.' He sounds almost optimistic. 'Well,' he sighs, 'I do my best.'