Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor

The American Jewish Committee's foolish attack on the liberal Jewish
Americans whose genuine concern for Israelis as well as Palestinians
has led them to criticize Tel Aviv's policy is a good sign, a sign
that dogmatic Zionism no longer enjoys unchallenged hegemony in
political discourse. -- Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/arts/31jews.html>
January 31, 2007
Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor
By PATRICIA COHEN

The American Jewish Committee, an ardent defender of Israel, is known
for speaking out against anti-Semitism, but this conservative advocacy
group has recently stirred up a bitter and emotional debate with a new
target: liberal Jews.

An essay the committee features on its Web site, ajc.org, titled "
'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism," says a number
of Jews, through their speaking and writing, are feeding a rise in
virulent anti-Semitism by questioning whether Israel should even
exist.

In an introduction to the essay, David A. Harris, the executive
director of the committee, writes, "Perhaps the most surprising — and
distressing — feature of this new trend is the very public
participation of some Jews in the verbal onslaught against Zionism and
the Jewish State." Those who oppose Israel's basic right to exist, he
continues, "whether Jew or gentile, must be confronted."

The essay comes at a time of high anxiety among many Jews, who are

Re: "Vietnam syndrome"

On 1/31/07, Jim Devine <jdevine03@...> wrote:

> I don't know for sure, but I think that outside the left, the Vietnam
> war was seen as a mistake, not a crime. Either way, of course, it
> (temporarily) created an opposition to "big" wars.

Chomsky often quotes US public opinion polls about Vietnam done from
then to now.  The US public is pretty "left" as you call it on how
they see it.  Of course, among elite opinion it is considered a
mistake, if that.

-- Lance

Chirac Unfazed by Nuclear Iran, Then Backtracks

France is such a tease. -- Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world/europe/01france.html>
February 1, 2007
Chirac Unfazed by Nuclear Iran, Then Backtracks
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and KATRIN BENNHOLD

PARIS, Jan. 31 — President Jacques Chirac said this week that if Iran
had one or two nuclear weapons, it would not pose a big danger, and
that if Iran were to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like
Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran.

The remarks, made in an interview on Monday with The New York Times,
The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly
magazine, were vastly different from stated French policy and what Mr.
Chirac has often said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Chirac summoned the same journalists back to Élysée
Palace to retract many of his remarks.

Mr. Chirac said repeatedly during the second interview that he had
spoken casually and quickly the day before because he believed he had
been talking about Iran off the record.

"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and
understood that perhaps I was on the record," he said.

The tape-recorded, on-the-record interview was conducted under an
agreement that it would not be published until Thursday, when Le
Nouvel Observateur appears on newsstands.

Iran May Have Trained Attackers That Killed 5 American Soldiers, U.S. and Iraqis Say

It's another Judith Miller moment at the New York Times. -- Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/world/middleeast/31karbala.html>
January 31, 2007
Iran May Have Trained Attackers That Killed 5 American Soldiers, U.S.
and Iraqis Say
By JAMES GLANZ and MARK MAZZETTI

BAGHDAD, Jan. 30 — Investigators say they believe that attackers who
used American-style uniforms and weapons to infiltrate a secure
compound and kill five American soldiers in Karbala on Jan. 20 may
have been trained and financed by Iranian agents, according to
American and Iraqi officials knowledgeable about the inquiry.

The officials said the sophistication of the attack astonished
investigators, who doubt that Iraqis could have carried it out on
their own — one reason a connection to Iran is being closely examined.
Officials cautioned that no firm conclusions had been drawn and did
not reveal any direct evidence of a connection.

A senior Iraqi official said the attackers had carried forged American
identity cards and American-style M-4 rifles and had thrown stun
grenades of a kind used only by American forces here.

Tying Iran to the deadly attack could be helpful to the Bush
administration, which has been engaged in an escalating war of words
with Iran.

One American soldier was killed during the initial attack and four
more were abducted and killed shortly afterward as the police pursued

The New Saddam

<http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/25/the_new_saddam.php>
The New Saddam
Issandr El Amrani
January 25, 2007

Issandr El Amrani is a Moroccan-American independent journalist based
in Cairo. His work about Middle East culture and politics regularly
appears in American and British magazines and newspapers. A former
editor of two independent liberal weeklies in Egypt, he also publishes
a collaborative weblog on the Arab world, www.arabist.net.

Making a renewed appearance in the State of the Union address this
year was Iran. Bush set out an agenda that puts the U.S. on a path of
confrontation with Iran—the latest installment in the haphazard
collection of ideological fads that passes as Middle East policy in
Washington these days.

Having made a mess of Iraq, continuing to refuse to play a
constructive and even-handed role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
and having gotten bored with democracy promotion, the Bush
administration now appears to be fanning the flames of sectarian
strife region-wide. Since September 2006, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior
administration officials have made trips to the Middle East to rally
the support of what Rice has described as the "moderate mainstream"
Arab states against Iran. This group has now been formalized as the
"GCC + 2," meaning the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council
(Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and
Oman) as well as Egypt and Jordan.

Re: The New Saddam

Re: The New Saddam

On 2/1/07, soula avramidis <soulaavramidis2002@...> wrote:
>
> "Saddam invaded Iran without provocation,"
> how could victors write history..by relying on the ignorance of journalists
> who would say that there was awar without provocation................now
> that is truly something

The people of Iraq certainly didn't ask Saddam Hussein to invade Iran,
and they weren't as motivated to fight to take over Khuzestan as the
Iranians were in the defense of their country.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>

China attacks Marxism

SIPP Safe for 2007

Re: The New Saddam

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> The people of Iraq certainly didn't ask Saddam Hussein to invade Iran...
.

...and the people of the U.S. didn't ask their government to invade 
Iraq. They were coerced, impressed with it's necessity by a well 
orchestrated and quite 'black' propaganda campaign with no speck of 
truth to any of it, not even 'grey' propaganda.
Of course the people don't want war, just ask the ghost of Joseph 
Goebbels, or a quite alive Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, or Doug Feith.

What makes you think the Iraqis, Iranians, or anybody else, are any less 
suceptible to coercion, falsehoods, information distortion, and blind 
patriotism?

Here's how *our* leaders in the legislature continue to subvertly do 
that with the situation in Iraq using 'patriotism' ('can't leave the 
troops "hanging fire'(sic)) and dis-information ('We can't stop it, we 
don't have the power')

<...>
Senators Warner & Levin castrate a non-binding resolution on the war, 
which promises NEVER to cut off funding while troops are in the field. 
Think about that…

So why don’t they? Justice department legal eagles say that congress has 
a number of legislative ways to stop the war…
<...>
<http://leighm.net/blog/2007/02/01/tth_070201/>

As Goebbels said, it works the same everywhere.

Leigh