thank you. well said. One can be anti the horrific war in Gaza without being antisemitic. And simultaneously be horrified by what Hamas did on Oct. 7th. The right's portrayal of this as binary - If you're anti-the-war you must also be antisemitic / if you are pro-Israel you must be in favor of killing Palestinians - is ridiculous and sha…
thank you. well said. One can be anti the horrific war in Gaza without being antisemitic. And simultaneously be horrified by what Hamas did on Oct. 7th. The right's portrayal of this as binary - If you're anti-the-war you must also be antisemitic / if you are pro-Israel you must be in favor of killing Palestinians - is ridiculous and shallow and clouds the deeper, more complicated history and makes it easier for people to yell at each other and feel self-righteous.
It's just plain lazy to take an either/or position, ie. either you're antisemitic if you oppose Israel's over the top response to Hama's attack or you're anti-Palestinian if you support Israel's right to defend itself. When we take sides on this issue, we're just mirroring what the combatants are doing, that is demonizing one side or the other. Would that the world would pressure both sides to stop killing each other. I wonder if there will ever be a time when people stop using their religion (my god is better than your god) to justify slaughtering those who don't share their beliefs.
Thank you! "Lazy politics" is a perfect description.
The complexity of the situation in the Middle East is lost on many of the students and certainly those who cluelessly blame Biden for the Gaza conflagration.
Can we agree that Israel deserves to exist without threat?
That Israel's founding, while appropriate, displaced others indigenous to the region.
That October 7th was a vicious slaughter of innocents.
That the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Gazans is an over reaction.
That Hamas is using their own children as shields.
That Israel has blocked humanitarian aid and killed aid providers.
That Hamas is pledged to the elimination of Jews.
That the Nakba in 1948 has never been properly addressed.
That Israel is threatened daily by the proxies of Iran who lob missiles at Israeli citizens with regularity.
That Iran is aligned with Putin who has been a constant pot stirrer in the region to keep our attention away from his atrocities in Ukraine.
My hope is that Israel calls for early elections and Netanyahu finds himself in prison. That he is charged with war crimes.
But for Biden and America to withhold military support for the defense of Israel from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis is to sacrifice the greater peace and security of the region. It would be a gift to the religious extremist terrorists that rule Iran and want Israel destroyed. Repeat after me. Iran wants Israel gone.
And zoom out further, please. Gaza was once administered by Egypt. Why do you think Egypt has not opened the border to Gaza enough to allow Palestinians to rush to safety? Because Egypt considers Hamas to be a terrorist group. Egypt doesn't want the Palestinians because they are a threat.
We (including the students) should draw back from our armchair criticism of a president who is doing the very best he can to thread the needle of a very complex dynamic.
And please! While we are considering the "big picture", what is the alternative to the careful diplomacy that this administration has been working at 24/7? Does anyone think that "Mr. Muslim Ban" who doesn't want immigration from "shit hole countries" is a good alternative?
Here is the big picture. The choice is binary. Biden or a madman/dictator who will launch Project 2025 and ensure that women are treated as they were 150 years ago - or worse.
Where are the campus protests for women's reproductive rights? Where are the protests for the slowest road to justice we've ever seen - The Insurrection happened in 2021! Top secret documents were stolen and there is no trial date yet! Why aren't students upset about that?
And where are the protests to restore voting rights and get big dark money out of politics? Our democracy is crumbling.
The few who are super wealthy are accumulating trillions and trillions and students have loans that will last for decades. Where are the demonstrations about that? Women can't fully participate in the workforce because child care is so outrageously expensive - if available. I hear crickets.
The list of injustices perpetrated on Americans is long. And President Joseph Biden has been attempting (with some success) to address it. And yet, he can't get the support of many because of the deeds of a leader of a country halfway around the world?
Bill: Yes, but. Israel’s founding led to the displacement of Palestinians because extremists among the Palestinians began violence against Jews in the 1920s. Jews who came to their ancestral homeland after the founding of modern Zionism in 1896 bought land from its owners, often absentee Turkish landlords. How else were they to get land? There may well have been some displacement of Palestinian tenants, but there was a great influx of Muslims into the area at the same time—drawn by development and opportunities largely spurred by the Jewish settlers. In 1947, the UN proposed a partion of the land into what became Israel and Palestine. Jewish leaders accepted that, although geographically it would have been very difficult to survive. The Arabs rejected partition and six (I think) Arab nations tried to eliminate the nascent Jewish state. Not for the last time, they paid for their mistake. I hold no brief for the present Israeli regime, and I hope it is replaced by a much better one at the first instance, but the whole situation is unimaginably complex, and judgments are all going to be flawed.
Thanks for adding this history. I wonder what percentage of the angry ones are interested. I certainly am.
I have often wondered what would have happened if "Israel" had been created as a nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there. A place where democracy and tolerance could thrive.
My wife has family in Israel. Her cousin has made a career of finding common ground for Jewish and Arab kids. Teaching about each others cultures.
Israel is a place of religious tolerance. It is a Jewish state (the UK, France and Italy, among others, are explicitly Christian states), because Jews never found a place where they were truly at home. I used to say that the United States is a homeland for Jews, but in the past few months I have been a lot less sure of that. In any event, as you probably know, 20 percent of Israel's population is Arab (Muslim or Christian, also Druse) and they serve in Parliament and, in some instances, in the IDF. Ironically, given that we lawyers are said to be Jews who can't stand the sight of blood, a very large proportion of the doctors in Israeli hospitals are Arabs.
I was speaking broadly. But note that there are more Muslim citizens of Israel than there are Jews in all of the Arab nations around her. Before 1947 there were close to a million Jews in those nations--they were expelled or induced to leave after Israel's independence. Many of them went to Israel, where they are part of the problem. While Israel was founded by Jews who were of European origin, with ideas like social democracy in their blood, the Mizrahi from the Middle East had much the same intolerance and lack of interest in democracy that their former neighbors have exhibited (I am speaking VERY broadly here). Russian Jews who came to Israel in the 1980s and '90s exhibited many of the same regrettable tendencies. And it is true that many awful things have been done and are being done to Palestinians on the West Bank, and that they are largely shielded from view by what is happening in Gaza. Another reason why Israel must change course, radically. But it is true that Israel is a democracy, which none of the Arab states are, and that change is much more likely there than in their neighbors--that's one reason Israel is held to a higher standard.
Your long main comment is wonderful, Bill. And Jon Margolis is spot on. Please remember that Israel is a secular democracy. Its enemies are theocratic religious extremists. The fact that Israel is a "Jewish state" is not simply a function of religion; many many Jews past and present are atheists or non-believers whose highest values include tolerance, peaceful co-existence, and democracy (although tolerance cannot be open-ended; tolerance of religious extremism is self-defeating). The "Jewish state" is a result of centuries of murderous scapegoating of Jews the world over, most famously from Spain to Russia. We must not lose sight of the fact that Israel stands almost alone surrounded by mortal enemies. In the 'big picture' that is the problem that is being ignored by ignorant leftist extremists who bow to Chomskian false equivalences.
You might call it that. Not unlike our White Christian Nationalists. Hopefully, both Netanyahu and the Republican Party will soon be roundly defeated. But don't lose sight of the fact that our White Christian Nationalists are part of a vast fascist conspiracy affecting the entire planet, not just one small struggling democracy in the eastern Mediterranean which will quickly fall when the big democracies fall.
Bill & Jon, are you able to address women's rights in Palestine? I ask because to me it is something that perhaps many female students protesting in the streets are unaware of. My understanding is women do not have many rights like they do in the U.S. - rights at least granted by our various laws.
Had Israel been created in 1947 as you suggest--a "nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there" --it would have been unique in that area of the world, as most Arab nations had been discriminating against Jewish residents for decades, in some cases violently and reminiscent of the pogroms of Europe, and forcing them out. Unfortunately, Netanyahu in his effort to make Gaza Hamas-free has imitated his enemies by slaughtering innocent non-Hamas residents of Gaza.
I'm reading a very interesting book, Dear Palestine, by Shay Hazkani (an Israeli historian). According to him -- he cites chapter and verse -- the acquisition of the land that became Israel was not quite as benign as the comments here picture it. There was much more than "some displacement" of the locals, amid much violence and destruction of villages by the Israelis. It's true they were fighting 5 Arab countries. The Arab militaries were much weaker in training and materiel than the Israelis. Much of this has been made clear in the writing of historians, both Arab and Israeli. In many ways it's very similar to the takeover of the American lands from the American Indians. I was taught a rather heroic version of the establishment of Israel, and in many ways it was heroic, but it also has a dark side; and the behavior of Israel over the years, settlements, repression of the Palestinians, coddling of Hamas by Netanyahu to prevent a Palestinian state, all of that has been a disgrace. It has been very disappointing to me to learn the fuller picture. Still, Israel exists; it's not going away. People should stop killing each other and work out a livable arrangement. The present one is not livable.
Thanks. My references were to the early part of Zionist settlement. When I was growing up, in the '50s, I was told that Palestinians cleared out to leave a way for Arab armies to sweep in and kill the Jews. Some left out of fear, but you are right that many were displaced forcibly. To my mind, the attacks on the new state made such expulsions understandable and even necessary in a least some cases.
Have you in the online press the massive protests by ISRAELIS against far right Netanyahu. Have you watched and heard Israelis say they want Democracy.. The students have seen that. I'm not a student, but I've seen the protests. The journalists who work for reputable publications, saw those protests.
Really well done Bill, and very much not lazy. It's almost as though you learned something about how to think critically that some of the protestors and most of their media promoters either don't know or are avoiding because it would obviate their actions.
Maybe the intelligence agency knew something was brewing and it was ignored because Bibi was itching for a fight to keep him in office? Maybe too many eyes were on Hezbollah? Maybe the "H's" were coordinating?
Pravda newspaper, Russian military historian Arsen Martirosyan revealed that Soviet intelligence had named the exact, or almost exact, date of the invasion 47 times in the 10 days before Germany struck.Jun 21, 2011...........Stalin did not listen??? All his generals were in prison at the time. History always repeats itself.
Just as we had fair warning before 9/11, so too Israel had plenty of intel before October 7. I seriously doubt we'll ever know the truth. There won't be an investigation akin to the 9/11 Commission and any adverse findings from an internal investigation will never be made public.
A film about October 7 states that senior Israeli intelligence officials met around 2 am to discuss warnings that an attack was imminent. They supposedly dismissed the warnings because they felt Hamas was incapable of making the attack. Hamas had been training for months. There was video of the training. Things like blowing a hole in a fence. Some Israeli soldiers were killed in their beds.
Thank you! This captures well my own conflicted sentiments on this. I would just add (for myself) - it has been puzzling to me why this issue has seemed to galvanize (a segment of) college students, like nothing else, to protest. My conclusion has been that malign antisemitic (and/or anti-Biden) forces are amplifying and using good faith protesters' legitimate concerns to their own advantage, as HCR's comments also suggest.
Because it's on TV (which doomed the war in Vietnam, thank god), and because Biden's embrace of Netanyahu is so problematic. There's the problem of his wanting to stay in power to avoid jail, of trying to achieve a wildly unpopular court "reform", and of his party's own version of "from the river to the sea" in opposition to longstanding US policy of a two state solution. Sound familiar?
I don't see that Biden has "embraced Netanyahu." He has embraced the democratic state of Israel. Sorta like Biden would never deny aid to red states because they are Trump/MAGA states.
Yeah, I actually did forget. More cringeworthy for me was the fist-bump with MBS.
Still, shortly after 10/6, my memory is Israel had a lot of solidarity in the world; there was a pause on negativity for Netanyahu. I can't tell you where I read/heard this, but it's my understanding that Biden personally doesn't like Bibi, but he's not the kind of man who kicks someone when they are down. Some would say that's being two-faced. Maybe so.
I guess I could go on, progwoman; I'll just say with all his faults, I love him still and will be voting for him come Roevember.
As previously stated in Heather's letter, the United States' monetary contributions to Israel have enabled them to fend off relentless missile strikes from Iran, not necessarily used to bomb Gaza.
And the complexity of the issue of Israel and the Palestinians is demonstrated by this: if the US does not help the nation of Israel - NOT netanyahu and his orcs, but the populace of Israel, regardless of whether they are Jewish or Muslim or Christian or no religion - to defend itself and themselves from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. - we will be helping Iran. Iran which, thanks to trampler's historic pullout from Obama's 2015 JCPOA, is in the process of "advancing slowly but confidently, accumulating the means for a future [nuclear] weapon while making no overt move to build one." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/10/iran-nuclear-bomb-iaea-fordow/. Does ANYONE want that?
My Southern brother called me in NYC to express his concern that I might be in danger living near the Columbia campus. "I had no idea there was so much anti-Semitism," he said. He watches a lot of Foxx, and I try to be patient, but I did feel the need to tell him that the situation is complex, and many of the protestors were Jewish, and that I was far more concerned about the police presence and the constant noise of helicopters and the drones tethered to unmarked vehicles on the public street beside my apartment. I am extremely grateful that President Biden has rejected calling in the National Guard. Maybe if Columbia's president had not called in the NYC police so quickly, things could have been resolved soon, but Congress is determined to blow this (not the war but demonstrations against it) up into a political cudgel. Can anyone remember another occasion where the Speaker of the House of Representatives visited the campus of a private university to assert himself?
Bill, this is a brilliant list, thank you for sharing it with us. It's not lazy politics as much as it is cynical politics. Those who exploit the situation do so assuming we're all dim bulbs who don't know the history of the region or the peoples involved.
Shane, unfortunately, many here are "dim bulbs." They are too lazy or ill-informed to try to learn the history of today's dilemmas, and now history is repeating itself.
Excellent nuanced reply to a very complicated situation. The exploitation by the RW community and the accelerants (agitators) on the campuses feed the emotive quality to hate the actions perpetrated on the less fortunate.
It is taught in public policy that if you're hungry and starving and someone puts a gun in your hand - it won't matter the cause if they promise you (even empty promises) of a better future. The "religion of hating others" is exploitive.
Bill I agree with many of the points that you make in your excellent historical overview. However, as someone who wrote a book on Egypt (that Nasser banned), I do not believe that Egypt seeks to prevent Gazans from settling in Egypt because of fear of Hamas.
I visited a large Palestinian refugee camp in Egyptian Gaza in 1953. The refugees were housed in temporary tents. Egypt, with a population of 22 million strongly opposed accepting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Now that Egypt has 100,000,000 citizens in a poor country, its opposition to the intrusion of a million Palestinians is even greater. I do not envisage that sending Palestinians into Egypt will ever be an ‘amelioration’ of the current situation.
Oh yes. So well articulated. Would that more people could actually comprehend the extent of the complexity in this situation rather than the either/or simplicity that seems to reign.
The way someone worships God should not be dictated by how someone else worships God. ie You cannot tell me your way is the only one way to worship God. Nor can I tell you.
Then what's the point in "my God is better than your God." I know, but it's so "human," to want to one-up the other guy's God. It's a battle without an actual God winner so it can go on forever. What's not to like.
The “my God is better than your God” is a human failing. And as long as humanity believes “my God is better than your God” no one will “win”.
Like you say the battle can go on forever. But the real battle is internal not external. That’s a tough one. To confront one’s own prejudices regarding God (or for that matter anything) is not an easy path. The mindset of seeking to change you (aka win/ beat you) so I can be at peace only brings short term results. Short term results never bring long term peace (internal or external). And fwiw I’m no “saint” and are as “guilty” as anyone in trying to achieve short term results.
Would like results to last longer than a few minutes before cruel cretins take over the narrative. In Nov 2008, the son of my bff indicated that he would oppose every idea that Obama had. I said the same about W and chump. The difference - Obama didn’t cheat to get in. W and chump most assuredly did. Whose side was God on? It’s like God is prey being chased by every predator on the planet. Who can grab a scrap?
J. Nol, it may be lazy for most people who are mostly also ignorant of the history of this and won't bother to inform themselves. However, the Rs are making as much hay as they can while being total hypocrites. I was surprised by some of the responses of students at Portland State, who were all for what the protesters were doing. They were both frosh and sounded totally naive. Of the first 12 protesters arrested by Portland police in clearing the library, only 4 were students. Also saw the anarchist symbol as part of the graffiti and the mess the protesters had created inside. I support peaceful protest, but not violence, intimidation, and destruction. Yes, religion is often used to vilify the other, but it is also often used to hide other priorities like conquest, exploitation, etc.
First you have to dehumanize the other, then you can exploit and conquer. Any training of soldiers has to include stamping out empathy, especially for the "other" or the enemy, otherwise those soldiers would have difficulty killing them.
This was a problem in the Civil War when the country was more religious. Soldiers did not want to kill and one case cited in a book about death in the Civil War (title escapes me at the moment)one soldier refused even when threatened with death himself, a southerner.
J Nol, I , too, wonder if people will ever stop cudgeling others of another (or no) religion. I don’t hold out a lot of hope since it seems that our brains are preprogrammed to fear anyone who is different (not of our tribe).
It’s Chinese propaganda on TikTok. That social platform is nothing more than Asymmetric warfare using propaganda to prejudice our children against rational thought and to undermine being pro-America.
Yes, how has this war become Biden’s doing? I have seen reporting that nearly half of the protesters arrested at Columbia were not students or otherwise affiliated with the school. Are they conscientious citizens? Opportunists? Provocateurs? I would like to know.
First. - This conflict in NOT complicated. That’s absurd. The Israelis want to live in peace. The Palestinians want the land now ruled by Israel. It’s that simple. It’s a war and the Palestinians will not agree to peace while they believe there is an ability to take all of Israel. The world is trying to create a solution the Palestinians do not want, and then is blaming Israel for failing to make it happen. The “2 state solution” is a post 1967 invention offered by the west.
Second - The Nakba as a concept of unfair colonialist invasion is 100% propaganda revisionist one sided history. The British had ownership of the land from the Turks. Both were invading colonialists. They split it with the Jews and “indigenous Arabs”. Palestinians at that time were British subjects and included both Arabs & Jews. The coin of the area had both Hebrew & Arabic on it. There was a war between Jews and ALL the surrounding Arab countries. The Jews won what is now called Israel. Period. Gaza was taken by Egypt. The West Bank taken by Jordan. From 1948 to 1967 the 700,000 indigenous Arabs / now called Palestinians who were displaced by the war were “refugees” living in Egypt and Jordan. At the same time 900,000 Jews were expelled from ever Arab country. Centuries of Jewish life were extinguished in days. Those Semitic Jew refugees (ie brown people) ended up in Israel - a 60% majority of Israel’s are the same brownness as the Palestinians. Let’s drop the white colonialist lie already.
Now the Palestinians are hateful to every conceivable cultural similarity as the west. Egalitarianism or gay rights or freedom of speech or assemble or religion as anathema to Palestinian life. Why did Bethlehem go from 80% Christians living safely under Jewish control to 20% living scared under the Palestinians?
Third, it is impossible to be pro-Palestinian without being anti-Israel or anti-Jew - unless you are a Palestinian who is fighting for land you think is yours. Theres no rationale basis beyond ignorance, prejudice, or religious triumphalism (you want the world to convert to Islam even if the conversion comes by the sword) for any westerner to support Palestinians.
If you are a Palestinian I’d ask: over the past 75 years how has the fight been going? I see the propaganda map you use showing Israel slowly taking land. Why should they stop? It’s not your land unless you can secure your borders. That’s just the truth of human history. How’s the terrorist fight going? I know; you think it’s splendid cuz you slaughtered 1200 Jews in October. But Israel is about to make peace with the Saudis. They have good ties to Egypt., UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Jordan just let the Israel Air Force use Jordanian airspace to knock out Iranian missiles. Plus as a.reward for your brutal terrorism, the land Israel unilaterally gifted to you in 2005, Gaza, is now a literal wasteland 100% because of Palestinian stupidity and brutality in attacking the Jews.
Isn’t it time to try peace and negotiations. Why don’t you give back the hostages and ask for a peaceful resolution. Israel left Gaza without getting any assurances. But tried in good faith to give Gaza the ability to self rule. You guys blew it. If you wanna re-do on that concept you must give up violence as your method of gaining statehood. Otherwise I think the tea leaves will see a lot of pain in your future.
May 14 will be the 76th anniversary of the founding of Israel. Marking the beginning of this conflict. Israel will have to learn the lesson we did in Viet Nam: bombing innocent people does not eliminate any threat, nor bring peace. It only provides another generation of enemies.
In the fifty years since the end of the US war in Vietnam, relations have been somewhat normalized, to the point that there are no travel restrictions for US citizens to Vietnam. Will there be normal relations between Israel and other nations fifty years hence?
Putting aside the fact that you are comparing apples and oranges, it is fair to say that Arab interests in the middle east would have long ago benefited from creating their own secular democracies and living in peace with Israel. The problem is not a "Jewish state", which happens to be a secular democracy; the problem is the theocratic dictatorships bent on destroying it, none of whom will open their doors to Palestinians. (Once Netanyahu and Donald Trump go to jail, things might improve).
Agreed. T**** and Netenyahu have been the recipients of judicial privilege for too long. Both Israel and the US face threats to the 'secular' and 'democracy' as long as their supporters have power.
Had I been Virginia Gay testifying at Stefanik’s committee, I would have responded, “Congresswoman Stefanik, who the hell do you think you are acting like Joe McCarthy badgering witnesses?” Had she done this she would still have her job.
I wonder if all those protesters yelling at one another understand the implications of the US ceasing to provide military support for Israel? In the aftermath of this humanitarian mess I believe and implosion would occur. Huge black hole in the Middle East.
This view seems so self-evident to me. I guess that means I'm still very naive. And the republican party's hypocritical words and deeds for political gain probably should't surprise me either. But the fact that they get away with such transparent power grabbing and destruction of vital American institutions nearly makes my head explode. I hate injustice and that seems to be increasingly what the gop is all about.
thank you. well said. One can be anti the horrific war in Gaza without being antisemitic. And simultaneously be horrified by what Hamas did on Oct. 7th. The right's portrayal of this as binary - If you're anti-the-war you must also be antisemitic / if you are pro-Israel you must be in favor of killing Palestinians - is ridiculous and shallow and clouds the deeper, more complicated history and makes it easier for people to yell at each other and feel self-righteous.
It's just plain lazy to take an either/or position, ie. either you're antisemitic if you oppose Israel's over the top response to Hama's attack or you're anti-Palestinian if you support Israel's right to defend itself. When we take sides on this issue, we're just mirroring what the combatants are doing, that is demonizing one side or the other. Would that the world would pressure both sides to stop killing each other. I wonder if there will ever be a time when people stop using their religion (my god is better than your god) to justify slaughtering those who don't share their beliefs.
Thank you! "Lazy politics" is a perfect description.
The complexity of the situation in the Middle East is lost on many of the students and certainly those who cluelessly blame Biden for the Gaza conflagration.
Can we agree that Israel deserves to exist without threat?
That Israel's founding, while appropriate, displaced others indigenous to the region.
That October 7th was a vicious slaughter of innocents.
That the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Gazans is an over reaction.
That Hamas is using their own children as shields.
That Israel has blocked humanitarian aid and killed aid providers.
That Hamas is pledged to the elimination of Jews.
That the Nakba in 1948 has never been properly addressed.
That Israel is threatened daily by the proxies of Iran who lob missiles at Israeli citizens with regularity.
That Iran is aligned with Putin who has been a constant pot stirrer in the region to keep our attention away from his atrocities in Ukraine.
My hope is that Israel calls for early elections and Netanyahu finds himself in prison. That he is charged with war crimes.
But for Biden and America to withhold military support for the defense of Israel from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis is to sacrifice the greater peace and security of the region. It would be a gift to the religious extremist terrorists that rule Iran and want Israel destroyed. Repeat after me. Iran wants Israel gone.
And zoom out further, please. Gaza was once administered by Egypt. Why do you think Egypt has not opened the border to Gaza enough to allow Palestinians to rush to safety? Because Egypt considers Hamas to be a terrorist group. Egypt doesn't want the Palestinians because they are a threat.
We (including the students) should draw back from our armchair criticism of a president who is doing the very best he can to thread the needle of a very complex dynamic.
And please! While we are considering the "big picture", what is the alternative to the careful diplomacy that this administration has been working at 24/7? Does anyone think that "Mr. Muslim Ban" who doesn't want immigration from "shit hole countries" is a good alternative?
Here is the big picture. The choice is binary. Biden or a madman/dictator who will launch Project 2025 and ensure that women are treated as they were 150 years ago - or worse.
Where are the campus protests for women's reproductive rights? Where are the protests for the slowest road to justice we've ever seen - The Insurrection happened in 2021! Top secret documents were stolen and there is no trial date yet! Why aren't students upset about that?
And where are the protests to restore voting rights and get big dark money out of politics? Our democracy is crumbling.
The few who are super wealthy are accumulating trillions and trillions and students have loans that will last for decades. Where are the demonstrations about that? Women can't fully participate in the workforce because child care is so outrageously expensive - if available. I hear crickets.
The list of injustices perpetrated on Americans is long. And President Joseph Biden has been attempting (with some success) to address it. And yet, he can't get the support of many because of the deeds of a leader of a country halfway around the world?
This is indeed lazy. This is lunacy.
Excellent post, Bill. I wish I could "like" it a thousand times.
Can you put your post in the form of a letter to the editor of one of the major newspapers? It deserves to be widely read and shared.
Bill: Yes, but. Israel’s founding led to the displacement of Palestinians because extremists among the Palestinians began violence against Jews in the 1920s. Jews who came to their ancestral homeland after the founding of modern Zionism in 1896 bought land from its owners, often absentee Turkish landlords. How else were they to get land? There may well have been some displacement of Palestinian tenants, but there was a great influx of Muslims into the area at the same time—drawn by development and opportunities largely spurred by the Jewish settlers. In 1947, the UN proposed a partion of the land into what became Israel and Palestine. Jewish leaders accepted that, although geographically it would have been very difficult to survive. The Arabs rejected partition and six (I think) Arab nations tried to eliminate the nascent Jewish state. Not for the last time, they paid for their mistake. I hold no brief for the present Israeli regime, and I hope it is replaced by a much better one at the first instance, but the whole situation is unimaginably complex, and judgments are all going to be flawed.
Thanks for adding this history. I wonder what percentage of the angry ones are interested. I certainly am.
I have often wondered what would have happened if "Israel" had been created as a nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there. A place where democracy and tolerance could thrive.
My wife has family in Israel. Her cousin has made a career of finding common ground for Jewish and Arab kids. Teaching about each others cultures.
Israel is a place of religious tolerance. It is a Jewish state (the UK, France and Italy, among others, are explicitly Christian states), because Jews never found a place where they were truly at home. I used to say that the United States is a homeland for Jews, but in the past few months I have been a lot less sure of that. In any event, as you probably know, 20 percent of Israel's population is Arab (Muslim or Christian, also Druse) and they serve in Parliament and, in some instances, in the IDF. Ironically, given that we lawyers are said to be Jews who can't stand the sight of blood, a very large proportion of the doctors in Israeli hospitals are Arabs.
Tolerance? Like the settlers in the West Bank?
I was speaking broadly. But note that there are more Muslim citizens of Israel than there are Jews in all of the Arab nations around her. Before 1947 there were close to a million Jews in those nations--they were expelled or induced to leave after Israel's independence. Many of them went to Israel, where they are part of the problem. While Israel was founded by Jews who were of European origin, with ideas like social democracy in their blood, the Mizrahi from the Middle East had much the same intolerance and lack of interest in democracy that their former neighbors have exhibited (I am speaking VERY broadly here). Russian Jews who came to Israel in the 1980s and '90s exhibited many of the same regrettable tendencies. And it is true that many awful things have been done and are being done to Palestinians on the West Bank, and that they are largely shielded from view by what is happening in Gaza. Another reason why Israel must change course, radically. But it is true that Israel is a democracy, which none of the Arab states are, and that change is much more likely there than in their neighbors--that's one reason Israel is held to a higher standard.
Your long main comment is wonderful, Bill. And Jon Margolis is spot on. Please remember that Israel is a secular democracy. Its enemies are theocratic religious extremists. The fact that Israel is a "Jewish state" is not simply a function of religion; many many Jews past and present are atheists or non-believers whose highest values include tolerance, peaceful co-existence, and democracy (although tolerance cannot be open-ended; tolerance of religious extremism is self-defeating). The "Jewish state" is a result of centuries of murderous scapegoating of Jews the world over, most famously from Spain to Russia. We must not lose sight of the fact that Israel stands almost alone surrounded by mortal enemies. In the 'big picture' that is the problem that is being ignored by ignorant leftist extremists who bow to Chomskian false equivalences.
Doesn't Israel have its own brand of "religious extremists," too? A significant part of the coalition that supports Netanyahu in office.
You might call it that. Not unlike our White Christian Nationalists. Hopefully, both Netanyahu and the Republican Party will soon be roundly defeated. But don't lose sight of the fact that our White Christian Nationalists are part of a vast fascist conspiracy affecting the entire planet, not just one small struggling democracy in the eastern Mediterranean which will quickly fall when the big democracies fall.
Very well said! 16 replies tells you all you need to know about the one sided propaganda against Israel.
Bill & Jon, are you able to address women's rights in Palestine? I ask because to me it is something that perhaps many female students protesting in the streets are unaware of. My understanding is women do not have many rights like they do in the U.S. - rights at least granted by our various laws.
Had Israel been created in 1947 as you suggest--a "nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there" --it would have been unique in that area of the world, as most Arab nations had been discriminating against Jewish residents for decades, in some cases violently and reminiscent of the pogroms of Europe, and forcing them out. Unfortunately, Netanyahu in his effort to make Gaza Hamas-free has imitated his enemies by slaughtering innocent non-Hamas residents of Gaza.
I'm reading a very interesting book, Dear Palestine, by Shay Hazkani (an Israeli historian). According to him -- he cites chapter and verse -- the acquisition of the land that became Israel was not quite as benign as the comments here picture it. There was much more than "some displacement" of the locals, amid much violence and destruction of villages by the Israelis. It's true they were fighting 5 Arab countries. The Arab militaries were much weaker in training and materiel than the Israelis. Much of this has been made clear in the writing of historians, both Arab and Israeli. In many ways it's very similar to the takeover of the American lands from the American Indians. I was taught a rather heroic version of the establishment of Israel, and in many ways it was heroic, but it also has a dark side; and the behavior of Israel over the years, settlements, repression of the Palestinians, coddling of Hamas by Netanyahu to prevent a Palestinian state, all of that has been a disgrace. It has been very disappointing to me to learn the fuller picture. Still, Israel exists; it's not going away. People should stop killing each other and work out a livable arrangement. The present one is not livable.
Thanks. My references were to the early part of Zionist settlement. When I was growing up, in the '50s, I was told that Palestinians cleared out to leave a way for Arab armies to sweep in and kill the Jews. Some left out of fear, but you are right that many were displaced forcibly. To my mind, the attacks on the new state made such expulsions understandable and even necessary in a least some cases.
Have you in the online press the massive protests by ISRAELIS against far right Netanyahu. Have you watched and heard Israelis say they want Democracy.. The students have seen that. I'm not a student, but I've seen the protests. The journalists who work for reputable publications, saw those protests.
Brilliant- captures the complexity that seems to be missed by the narratives on both the left and the right.
Really well done Bill, and very much not lazy. It's almost as though you learned something about how to think critically that some of the protestors and most of their media promoters either don't know or are avoiding because it would obviate their actions.
As someone once said to me: "There are three sides to every story. My side, your side and the truth."
The Truth.......I find it hard to believe that Israel did not know anything about this suprise attack. Did I miss something here?
Maybe the intelligence agency knew something was brewing and it was ignored because Bibi was itching for a fight to keep him in office? Maybe too many eyes were on Hezbollah? Maybe the "H's" were coordinating?
As Muller said: "The truth is out there."
Pravda newspaper, Russian military historian Arsen Martirosyan revealed that Soviet intelligence had named the exact, or almost exact, date of the invasion 47 times in the 10 days before Germany struck.Jun 21, 2011...........Stalin did not listen??? All his generals were in prison at the time. History always repeats itself.
Operation Barbarossa was June 21,1941.......
Just as we had fair warning before 9/11, so too Israel had plenty of intel before October 7. I seriously doubt we'll ever know the truth. There won't be an investigation akin to the 9/11 Commission and any adverse findings from an internal investigation will never be made public.
A film about October 7 states that senior Israeli intelligence officials met around 2 am to discuss warnings that an attack was imminent. They supposedly dismissed the warnings because they felt Hamas was incapable of making the attack. Hamas had been training for months. There was video of the training. Things like blowing a hole in a fence. Some Israeli soldiers were killed in their beds.
Hubris accounts for so much suffering in the world.
Someone out there knows more about this then I do. Hopefully they well share the knowledge.
Amen. People rather feel than think. Not helpful!
Bill Even more confusing, I have been known to change my mind.
Thank you! This captures well my own conflicted sentiments on this. I would just add (for myself) - it has been puzzling to me why this issue has seemed to galvanize (a segment of) college students, like nothing else, to protest. My conclusion has been that malign antisemitic (and/or anti-Biden) forces are amplifying and using good faith protesters' legitimate concerns to their own advantage, as HCR's comments also suggest.
Because it's on TV (which doomed the war in Vietnam, thank god), and because Biden's embrace of Netanyahu is so problematic. There's the problem of his wanting to stay in power to avoid jail, of trying to achieve a wildly unpopular court "reform", and of his party's own version of "from the river to the sea" in opposition to longstanding US policy of a two state solution. Sound familiar?
I don't see that Biden has "embraced Netanyahu." He has embraced the democratic state of Israel. Sorta like Biden would never deny aid to red states because they are Trump/MAGA states.
You must be forgetting that famous photo on Biden's trip to Israel shortly after the Hamas attacks.
Yeah, I actually did forget. More cringeworthy for me was the fist-bump with MBS.
Still, shortly after 10/6, my memory is Israel had a lot of solidarity in the world; there was a pause on negativity for Netanyahu. I can't tell you where I read/heard this, but it's my understanding that Biden personally doesn't like Bibi, but he's not the kind of man who kicks someone when they are down. Some would say that's being two-faced. Maybe so.
I guess I could go on, progwoman; I'll just say with all his faults, I love him still and will be voting for him come Roevember.
Yeah, me too. What he has to calibrate is way beyond our capacity (and that of most other politicians.)
😉
As previously stated in Heather's letter, the United States' monetary contributions to Israel have enabled them to fend off relentless missile strikes from Iran, not necessarily used to bomb Gaza.
It's all fungible since no restrictions are enforced.
YES!!!!!! to all of what you write! Thank you, Bill
And the complexity of the issue of Israel and the Palestinians is demonstrated by this: if the US does not help the nation of Israel - NOT netanyahu and his orcs, but the populace of Israel, regardless of whether they are Jewish or Muslim or Christian or no religion - to defend itself and themselves from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. - we will be helping Iran. Iran which, thanks to trampler's historic pullout from Obama's 2015 JCPOA, is in the process of "advancing slowly but confidently, accumulating the means for a future [nuclear] weapon while making no overt move to build one." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/10/iran-nuclear-bomb-iaea-fordow/. Does ANYONE want that?
Bill, thank you so much for your clarity.
To say protesters calling out Israel’s brutality is antisemitism is not only lazy, it is woodenheaded and deliberately misleading.
Palestinians are Semitic. No one in these protests is antisemitic, they are anti-genocide, and anti-Israel.
For the Christian nationalists like Johnson to categorize these protests as antisemitic assumes the USA’s electorate is mighty stupid.
My Southern brother called me in NYC to express his concern that I might be in danger living near the Columbia campus. "I had no idea there was so much anti-Semitism," he said. He watches a lot of Foxx, and I try to be patient, but I did feel the need to tell him that the situation is complex, and many of the protestors were Jewish, and that I was far more concerned about the police presence and the constant noise of helicopters and the drones tethered to unmarked vehicles on the public street beside my apartment. I am extremely grateful that President Biden has rejected calling in the National Guard. Maybe if Columbia's president had not called in the NYC police so quickly, things could have been resolved soon, but Congress is determined to blow this (not the war but demonstrations against it) up into a political cudgel. Can anyone remember another occasion where the Speaker of the House of Representatives visited the campus of a private university to assert himself?
Can we please top line this:
"Can anyone remember another occasion where the Speaker of the House of Representatives visited the campus of a private university to assert himself?"
Political cudgel is accurate and the current gop method.
Bill, this is a brilliant list, thank you for sharing it with us. It's not lazy politics as much as it is cynical politics. Those who exploit the situation do so assuming we're all dim bulbs who don't know the history of the region or the peoples involved.
Shane, unfortunately, many here are "dim bulbs." They are too lazy or ill-informed to try to learn the history of today's dilemmas, and now history is repeating itself.
Excellent nuanced reply to a very complicated situation. The exploitation by the RW community and the accelerants (agitators) on the campuses feed the emotive quality to hate the actions perpetrated on the less fortunate.
It is taught in public policy that if you're hungry and starving and someone puts a gun in your hand - it won't matter the cause if they promise you (even empty promises) of a better future. The "religion of hating others" is exploitive.
Bill I agree with many of the points that you make in your excellent historical overview. However, as someone who wrote a book on Egypt (that Nasser banned), I do not believe that Egypt seeks to prevent Gazans from settling in Egypt because of fear of Hamas.
I visited a large Palestinian refugee camp in Egyptian Gaza in 1953. The refugees were housed in temporary tents. Egypt, with a population of 22 million strongly opposed accepting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Now that Egypt has 100,000,000 citizens in a poor country, its opposition to the intrusion of a million Palestinians is even greater. I do not envisage that sending Palestinians into Egypt will ever be an ‘amelioration’ of the current situation.
Beautifully and succinctly stated. I so appreciate your analysis. Thank you, Bill.
This comment is worth sharing
Oh yes. So well articulated. Would that more people could actually comprehend the extent of the complexity in this situation rather than the either/or simplicity that seems to reign.
Bill Alstrom -- !!!
The way someone worships God should not be dictated by how someone else worships God. ie You cannot tell me your way is the only one way to worship God. Nor can I tell you.
That is, or course, one perspective. Another is, that human beings created god(s) not the other way around.
But “God” is impressed. Hahahaha
Which one?
They are all the same. God manifests in many forms.
Then what's the point in "my God is better than your God." I know, but it's so "human," to want to one-up the other guy's God. It's a battle without an actual God winner so it can go on forever. What's not to like.
So pointless, all of it. And the rich get richer.
The “my God is better than your God” is a human failing. And as long as humanity believes “my God is better than your God” no one will “win”.
Like you say the battle can go on forever. But the real battle is internal not external. That’s a tough one. To confront one’s own prejudices regarding God (or for that matter anything) is not an easy path. The mindset of seeking to change you (aka win/ beat you) so I can be at peace only brings short term results. Short term results never bring long term peace (internal or external). And fwiw I’m no “saint” and are as “guilty” as anyone in trying to achieve short term results.
Would like results to last longer than a few minutes before cruel cretins take over the narrative. In Nov 2008, the son of my bff indicated that he would oppose every idea that Obama had. I said the same about W and chump. The difference - Obama didn’t cheat to get in. W and chump most assuredly did. Whose side was God on? It’s like God is prey being chased by every predator on the planet. Who can grab a scrap?
And, just think, God is apparently also interested in who scores a goal in football but not the guy who doesn't.
My God is definitely superior to that one, Ha
😂
If only people would realize that "God" does not vote.
But those who want to control the narrative do
J. Nol, it may be lazy for most people who are mostly also ignorant of the history of this and won't bother to inform themselves. However, the Rs are making as much hay as they can while being total hypocrites. I was surprised by some of the responses of students at Portland State, who were all for what the protesters were doing. They were both frosh and sounded totally naive. Of the first 12 protesters arrested by Portland police in clearing the library, only 4 were students. Also saw the anarchist symbol as part of the graffiti and the mess the protesters had created inside. I support peaceful protest, but not violence, intimidation, and destruction. Yes, religion is often used to vilify the other, but it is also often used to hide other priorities like conquest, exploitation, etc.
First you have to dehumanize the other, then you can exploit and conquer. Any training of soldiers has to include stamping out empathy, especially for the "other" or the enemy, otherwise those soldiers would have difficulty killing them.
This was a problem in the Civil War when the country was more religious. Soldiers did not want to kill and one case cited in a book about death in the Civil War (title escapes me at the moment)one soldier refused even when threatened with death himself, a southerner.
To answer your "I wonder..." I say not ever, unless there is a drastic change in the "god gene" of people.
J Nol, I , too, wonder if people will ever stop cudgeling others of another (or no) religion. I don’t hold out a lot of hope since it seems that our brains are preprogrammed to fear anyone who is different (not of our tribe).
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5933521/&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiHi-yW8PGFAxXMJNAFHdC1CBIQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw24AMTtwjaEW6ua2tvUEr4e
Also well said. I appreciate your use of the word binary. War is often not simple and this conflict is especially complicated.
How this war has become Biden’s doing and fault is clearly Republican propaganda.
This - perfectly stated.
And Russian propaganda on TikTok that has fueled the protests in the first place
The fuel comes from academic Chomskian far-left false equivalences. The kids should have been out there protesting MAGA the past eight or nine years.
It’s Chinese propaganda on TikTok. That social platform is nothing more than Asymmetric warfare using propaganda to prejudice our children against rational thought and to undermine being pro-America.
Yes, how has this war become Biden’s doing? I have seen reporting that nearly half of the protesters arrested at Columbia were not students or otherwise affiliated with the school. Are they conscientious citizens? Opportunists? Provocateurs? I would like to know.
First. - This conflict in NOT complicated. That’s absurd. The Israelis want to live in peace. The Palestinians want the land now ruled by Israel. It’s that simple. It’s a war and the Palestinians will not agree to peace while they believe there is an ability to take all of Israel. The world is trying to create a solution the Palestinians do not want, and then is blaming Israel for failing to make it happen. The “2 state solution” is a post 1967 invention offered by the west.
Second - The Nakba as a concept of unfair colonialist invasion is 100% propaganda revisionist one sided history. The British had ownership of the land from the Turks. Both were invading colonialists. They split it with the Jews and “indigenous Arabs”. Palestinians at that time were British subjects and included both Arabs & Jews. The coin of the area had both Hebrew & Arabic on it. There was a war between Jews and ALL the surrounding Arab countries. The Jews won what is now called Israel. Period. Gaza was taken by Egypt. The West Bank taken by Jordan. From 1948 to 1967 the 700,000 indigenous Arabs / now called Palestinians who were displaced by the war were “refugees” living in Egypt and Jordan. At the same time 900,000 Jews were expelled from ever Arab country. Centuries of Jewish life were extinguished in days. Those Semitic Jew refugees (ie brown people) ended up in Israel - a 60% majority of Israel’s are the same brownness as the Palestinians. Let’s drop the white colonialist lie already.
Now the Palestinians are hateful to every conceivable cultural similarity as the west. Egalitarianism or gay rights or freedom of speech or assemble or religion as anathema to Palestinian life. Why did Bethlehem go from 80% Christians living safely under Jewish control to 20% living scared under the Palestinians?
Third, it is impossible to be pro-Palestinian without being anti-Israel or anti-Jew - unless you are a Palestinian who is fighting for land you think is yours. Theres no rationale basis beyond ignorance, prejudice, or religious triumphalism (you want the world to convert to Islam even if the conversion comes by the sword) for any westerner to support Palestinians.
If you are a Palestinian I’d ask: over the past 75 years how has the fight been going? I see the propaganda map you use showing Israel slowly taking land. Why should they stop? It’s not your land unless you can secure your borders. That’s just the truth of human history. How’s the terrorist fight going? I know; you think it’s splendid cuz you slaughtered 1200 Jews in October. But Israel is about to make peace with the Saudis. They have good ties to Egypt., UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Jordan just let the Israel Air Force use Jordanian airspace to knock out Iranian missiles. Plus as a.reward for your brutal terrorism, the land Israel unilaterally gifted to you in 2005, Gaza, is now a literal wasteland 100% because of Palestinian stupidity and brutality in attacking the Jews.
Isn’t it time to try peace and negotiations. Why don’t you give back the hostages and ask for a peaceful resolution. Israel left Gaza without getting any assurances. But tried in good faith to give Gaza the ability to self rule. You guys blew it. If you wanna re-do on that concept you must give up violence as your method of gaining statehood. Otherwise I think the tea leaves will see a lot of pain in your future.
What about The Intercept's discovery of US administration opposition to the two-state solution? https://theintercept.com/2024/04/17/united-nations-biden-palestine-statehood/
Absolutely. And what does violence do but incite further violence. When does that stop?
May 14 will be the 76th anniversary of the founding of Israel. Marking the beginning of this conflict. Israel will have to learn the lesson we did in Viet Nam: bombing innocent people does not eliminate any threat, nor bring peace. It only provides another generation of enemies.
There is NO parallel between the Vietnam war and Israel defending itself, day after day, year after year, for 76 years.
In the fifty years since the end of the US war in Vietnam, relations have been somewhat normalized, to the point that there are no travel restrictions for US citizens to Vietnam. Will there be normal relations between Israel and other nations fifty years hence?
Putting aside the fact that you are comparing apples and oranges, it is fair to say that Arab interests in the middle east would have long ago benefited from creating their own secular democracies and living in peace with Israel. The problem is not a "Jewish state", which happens to be a secular democracy; the problem is the theocratic dictatorships bent on destroying it, none of whom will open their doors to Palestinians. (Once Netanyahu and Donald Trump go to jail, things might improve).
Agreed. T**** and Netenyahu have been the recipients of judicial privilege for too long. Both Israel and the US face threats to the 'secular' and 'democracy' as long as their supporters have power.
Had I been Virginia Gay testifying at Stefanik’s committee, I would have responded, “Congresswoman Stefanik, who the hell do you think you are acting like Joe McCarthy badgering witnesses?” Had she done this she would still have her job.
To oppose how Israel responded to October 7 is not "hostility or prejudice against Jewish people" (Oxford Languages definition of antisemitism).
Kneejerk, or blind support of all things Israel does is, however "mandated" in Zechariah 2:8-10 and Genesis Genesis 13:14-15.
I wonder if all those protesters yelling at one another understand the implications of the US ceasing to provide military support for Israel? In the aftermath of this humanitarian mess I believe and implosion would occur. Huge black hole in the Middle East.
This view seems so self-evident to me. I guess that means I'm still very naive. And the republican party's hypocritical words and deeds for political gain probably should't surprise me either. But the fact that they get away with such transparent power grabbing and destruction of vital American institutions nearly makes my head explode. I hate injustice and that seems to be increasingly what the gop is all about.