Well, this month Atlanta Jewish Times writes it might be time to assassinate the President of the United States, if only to preserve Israel and head off a nuclear strike from Iran.
A snippet:
In a Jan. 13 column, Adler, who is also the paper's publisher, outlined what he said were three possible responses by Israel to Iran's acquiring a nuclear weapon: a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist groups that he said would be emboldened by a nuclear Iran; a direct strike on Iran; and "three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies."
He continued: "Yes, you read 'three' correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles?"
Earlier in the month we read and watch as Orthodox Jews spit on 8 year old American girls in Israel. I know several Jewish women that are alarmed at their misogynistic behavior but this takes it to another level.
Another fresh hell is Adelson throwing millions into Newt Gingrich's campaign.
Change happens so incrementally. Once upon a time Israel had a positive impact, in the 60's I can just about conjure up images of the movie Exodus bursting onto the American scene and into our hearts, we were experiencing an intellectual and cultural zenith; a time ripe for cause and civil unrest. The movie's marketing campaign practically wrote itself, Zionism was all the rage. To sweeten the recipe, America's heart throb, Paul Newman, the star of the film was half Jewish. We were so responsive to their self-righteousness; martyrdom was becoming more fashionable by the moment, WW2 wasn't so much in the distant past.
It's hard to recall an America without its millions of evangelical residents, the kind who cheer on their extremism, who believe Israel's desperate qualities weigh too heavily upon modern society. One wonders if their cause hasn't inadvertently stripped America of our remaining values. I wonder if your average Americans met your radical Israeli, would they support Greater Israel? I think we know the answer, but the average American has no voice, really.
Change happens so gradually it's hard to notice. In 2002 prior to moving across the pond I was startled by an op ed article stating we should believe in Greater Israel lest we be guilty of anti-semiticism. As if the debate could be eliminated by, well, just eliminating the debate.
And then Greenwald's article. It's alarming, how Aipac is altering the very definition of anti-semiticism; challenging or even questioning the policy assumptions and preferences of certain Jewish groups and the Israeli government.
Other articles come to mind, like Michael Wolff's Vanity Fair piece in 2005 in which the author, half Jewish with a father active in the Israeli propaganda machine couldn't help but cringe at the ramped up rhetoric which blamed Jews for marrying outside their faith as participating in a silent Holocaust. Jesus Christ.
Living in Paris had a great impact on my own perceptions, perhaps because my flat was such a social cross section of expats and locals alike. In many capitals, cultures collide but conversation rarely moves beyond soundbites and yet in la ville lumiere it was easy to reflect the city's feisty emotional environs. The chattering classes became less than professionally polite once the veneer of protocol is acknowledged and accepted, at that point, be prepared for that's precisely when the gloves come off.
It's such fun when you let your guests engage. Unlike other expats, I didn't charge people to dine (yes, Paris is full of expats charging people to show up for the privilege of 'showing up' for really bad food and wine, just lots of other expats). I laid out a feast of fine wine and food every single time, to relax and pamper. And yet, it became evident, early on that my Jewish guests not only expected me to respond like an American but they became hostile when I didn't automatically agree with their desire to lay pavement through the Middle East.
But I was no longer in my America. I hadn't sailed across the Atlantic to grasp my passport more firmly, I hadn't moved my life and belongings across the pond to exist in the same protective and privileged bubble. I was ready to sacrifice my past to embrace the rest of the world.
One could argue I had my own identity issues, but then what fun would we have if not for own little 'issues'...alas, Israel chooses military over political solutions everytime, and few would argue, they're becoming less lovable by the month. Just look at this one, we get to read and watch as And now this, Glenn Greenwald wraps up another interesting read with:
So according to Block, you are not allowed (unless you want to be found guilty of anti-Semitism) to use “policy rhetoric that is hostile to Israel” or — more amazingly — even to “suggest that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.” Those ideas are strictly off limits, declares the former AIPAC spokesman. Apparently, then, America’s National Intelligence Estimates of 2007 and 2010 are both anti-Semitic, since they both concluded that Iranceased work on developing a nuclear weapon back in 2003 and that there is no conclusive evidence demonstrating it resumed; to cite those reports and to embrace their conclusions makes you an anti-Semite, since you’re not allowed to “suggest that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.” Israel’s government is also evidently suffused with anti-Semites, given that Haaretzreported this week that “the Israeli view is that while Iran continues to improve its nuclear capabilities, it has not yet decided whether to translate these capabilities into a nuclear weapon.” Make certain, though, not to mention that because, according to Block, that expression of anti-semitism “has no place in the mainstream Democratic party discourse.” To avoid being an anti-Semite, you must quietly and gratefully accept the most extreme claims about the state of Iran’s nuclear weapons program: it is not permissible to debate it.
Then there’s Jason Issacson of the American Jewish Congress, who told The Jerusalem Post that “references to Israeli ‘apartheid’ . . . are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.” Make sure to write that down: unless you want to stand revealed as an anti-Semite, you’re not allowed to point out the stark and tragic similarities between South African bantustans and the way in which residents of the West Bank are walled off into tiny enclaves and Gazans are forcibly confined to ghettos. Those guilty of anti-Semitism on this ground not only include thePresident of Turkey, the Foreign Minister of Finland, and a former American President – all of whom have made that comparison – but also the publisher of Haaretz, who last year repeatedly compared Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to South African apartheid; the Israeli writer Yitzhak Loar, whohas argued that the situation in the occupied territories is actually worse than South African apartheid in material ways; and also, once again, Israel’s own Defense Minister (and former Prime Minister), who last year warned that the only alternative to peace is apartheid: “If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.”
But the most revealing decree comes from Abe Foxman’s Anti-Defamation League, which said this when arguing that these anti-Semitism smears against CAP and MM are warranted:
Most of their blogs come from a perspective of blaming Israel for the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian affairs andminimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat.
So Israel has been brutally occupying Palestinian land for 45 years, and continues to aggressively expand settlements that all but foreclose any possibility of a two-state resolution. But as an American taxpayer — contributing to the billions of dollars of annual aid sent to Israel and affected in all sorts of ways by this conflict — you are not allowed to opine that Israel is primarily at fault for the lack of a peace agreement. If you do so opine, you’re not merely wrong, but you’ve exposed yourself as an anti-Semite. That opinion regarding the assignment of fault in the Israel-Palestinian conflict is strictly off limits.
Also strictly prohibited, according to the ADL, is “minimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat.” This means that not only are the American intelligence agencies which produced the 2007 and 2010 NIEs guilty of anti-Semitism, as are Israeli officials who believe Iran “has not yet decided whether to translate these capabilities into a nuclear weapon,” but so too is Tamir Pardo, the current chief of the Israeli Mossad, who recently rejected the claim that Iranian nuclear weapons would pose an existential threat to Israel; ex-Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy (“[Iran is] far from posing an existential threat to Israel“; instead, domestic radicalization in Israel “poses a bigger risk than Ahmadinejad” because “ultra-Orthodox extremism has darkened our lives”; he added: “The State of Israel cannot be destroyed. An attack on Iran could affect not only Israel, but the entire region for 100 years”); ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan (“a future Israel Air Force attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was ‘the stupidest thing I have ever heard”); and Israeli Defense Minister Barak (“Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel”).
But remember: as an American citizen whose country may be involved directly or indirectly in a war with Iran, you are not allowed to express any opinions that constitute “minimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat.” You’re presumably also not allowed to question the wisdom and justness of sanctions against Iran even though their principal Congressional sponsor has acknowledged, proudly, that they will “take the food out of the mouths of the citizens.” If you do question any of that, then you are an anti-Semite, pronounces the ADL.
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