Letters to the Editor

Letters posted here are associated with the following article:
Both parties cheerlead still more loudly for Israel's war As the body count in Gaza piles up, the U.S. Congress acts overwhelmingly to insinuate itself into the war with blind support for Israel.
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  • For all of those claiming that these pages are filled with Israel hating posts, I finally found you one...

    "I grew up in a household of German Jews, who really did not like Israel."

    That was Lotus Feet, explaining that his family dislikes the entire state of Israel. They may be self-hating. Does that mean Lotus Feet is also self-hating. Perhaps he isn't consciously aware of the hatred for Israel he inherited from his family.

  • Israeli Air Force Captain

    Former Israeli AF Captain warns Obama not to be a "slave" (!) to AIPAC.

    http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/israeli-captain-we-are-near-ww-iii.html

    Note to Winsmith: Just because the pernicious stereotype of Jewish control over money, media, and power is wrong and offensive and anti-Semitic, does not mean that objective analysis and convincing evidence of AIPAC's pro-Israeli influence on US policy is wrong or anti-Semitic. Nor is the act of pointing out the relationship. In your legitimate quest to root out hidden anti-semitism based on historical stereotypes, you must allow for objective analysis of the present, if persuasive, to override the objection that said analysis harks back to historical stereotypes. It may, but that doesn't make it untrue.

  • Following the links offered by Kagro-X

    I'm still looking around for whether there is a record of the voice vote in the matter of S.RES.10, but as per THOMAS:

    Title: A resolution recognizing the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks from Gaza and reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

    Sponsor: Sen Reid, Harry [NV] (introduced 1/8/2009)
    Cosponsors (31)
    Latest Major Action: 1/8/2009 Passed/agreed to in Senate. Status: Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent.

    The Cosponsors were:

    Sen Baucus, Max [MT] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Bayh, Evan [IN] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Bond, Christopher S. [MO] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Boxer, Barbara [CA] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Brown, Sherrod [OH] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Cardin, Benjamin L. [MD] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Carper, Thomas R. [DE] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Casey, Robert P., Jr. [PA] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Chambliss, Saxby [GA] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Crapo, Mike [ID] - 1/8/2009
    Sen DeMint, Jim [SC] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Dorgan, Byron L. [ND] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Johanns, Mike [NE] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Kerry, John F. [MA] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Kyl, Jon [AZ] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Landrieu, Mary L. [LA] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Lautenberg, Frank R. [NJ] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Levin, Carl [MI] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Lieberman, Joseph I. [CT] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Lincoln, Blanche L. [AR] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Lugar, Richard G. [IN] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Martinez, Mel [FL] - 1/8/2009
    Sen McConnell, Mitch [KY] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Menendez, Robert [NJ] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [MD] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Nelson, Bill [FL] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Pryor, Mark L. [AR] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Schumer, Charles E. [NY] - 1/8/2009
    Sen Thune, John [SD] - 1/8/2009

  • @PalestraJon

    PalestraJon: "you once again do not respond either to the history that I discussed"

    Your "history" is grossly one-sided and misleading. For example:

    "The population of Palestine, Jew and Arab, was tiny at the turn of the 20th Century"

    A half-million people is not "tiny" - at least not in my book. Also, the vast majority were Arabs.

    Also:

    "the UN Partition Plan, which left 65% of the arable land of Palestine in Arab hands as well as most of Jerusalem, together with the rights of each group to live in peace with the other, was accepted by the Israelis and rejected by the Arabs"

    Gotta love the Blame Game - or not. As Israeli historian Tom Segev explained in his excellent book "One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate" about that Partition Plan:

    "[I]n rejecting the partition plan the Arabs... made a tactical error. There were Jews who opposed partition as well... The Zionist movement accepted the partition plan, in a wise tactical step. Even then all the players understood that geographically and demographically the U.N.'s partition plan could not be implemented. The border between the two states was long and contorted, impossible to defend; the Jewish state would include more than half a million Arabs, slightly more than the number of Jews then living within the proposed boundaries... No one believed in the U.N.'s map; everyone knew there would be war."

    A map of that UN Partition Plan of 1947 is here:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/israel_and_palestinians/key_maps/6.stm

    I could go on, but this is all historical Blame Game stuff - the reality is there is more than enough blame to go around on both sides - or more accurately, all sides - of this conflict.

    PalestraJon: "Well, come on Glenn, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Make a suggestion if you were the new American envoy. How do we get out of this?"

    Here's my suggestion: As an American I put U.S. security interests first. As such I believe the United States should halt "aid" to Israel until Israel, at minimum, stops settlement expansion. Our bankrolling Israel's settlement expansion both engenders anti-U.S. hatred and inflames the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

    What say you, PalestraJon? Do you think Israel should stop settlement expansion? And do you think the United States should halt its "aid" to Israel until Israel stops settlement expansion? And if not, why not?

  • @oomoex

    Perhaps what I wrote was confusing. I think what I'm trying to say applies to Apartheid-era South Africa, Northern Ireland and anywhere where there are conflicts that, in whole or part, derive from non-existent or artificial or trivial differences between people, such as color, race, ethnicity, religion and even finer, if less meaningful, distinctions (such as sects within the same religion).

    It did not make sense for rights in South Africa to be based on color. It did not make sense for rights in Northern Ireland to be based on religious sect. And so on.

    To my way of thinking, it does not make sense for rights in Israel or Gaza or the West Bank to be based, in whole or in part, on religion/race/ethnicity. Perhaps you'll forgive me the details, but in all instances, it's people seeing distinctions between themselves and others that are either artificial, non-existent or unimportant.

    There are "jews" and "palestinians" (artificial constructs) who correctly (imo) believe this general area is their homeland. So...what's the problem?

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