Zomblog has an amazing round-up of protests against Israel that took place around the world on Jan. 10. What you’ll see isn’t antiwar; it’s anti-Semitism, pure, simple and outrageous.
60 thoughts on ““Long live Hitler!””
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Zomblog has an amazing round-up of protests against Israel that took place around the world on Jan. 10. What you’ll see isn’t antiwar; it’s anti-Semitism, pure, simple and outrageous.
Comments are closed.
Media Nation 
Bring back Bronson Arroyo!:-)
Dan I do wish you would respond to the point in the Times’ article about how Israel, and Hamas did not live up to the ceasefire. Hamas commits terrorism — which I condemn, and it is bad. Israel does not have to drop bombs, intentionally, on civillians.I condemn that as well. It is a shame because children in hospitals and schools have been killed with weapons both of our tax dollars paid for.But you do not have to respond if you feel Israel is so justified in thier actions at it does not warrant discussion beyond platitudes.
Dan: You’re correct that rockets continued to fly during the cease fire, but you’re ignoring orders of magnitude of difference.Check out the Israeli government’s own data. There are several graphs — you may be most interested in the one under the phrase “mortar bomb hits”. Was the cease fire perfect? No. Did the cease fire have real, tangible effects? I think you’d have a hard time arguing against that.
MTP: I am deliberately ignoring that. The cease-fire was aimed at getting Hamas to stop firing rockets. Hamas kept firing rockets. That is the end of any necessary inquiry.
MTP: Essentially, you are asking me to ignore Hamas’ rockets because their aim is bad.Much of the debate here involves the inability of some people to understand who’s in the right when the aggrieved party is powerful and the aggressor is weak. Cognitive dissonance, in other words.
No, I was suggesting there’s a significant quantitative difference between 3 and 300, which may speak to something.As I understand it, Hamas was supposed to stop the rocket firings, and they were something like what, 95% successful for those months compared to the others? That counts for nothing?And I never did suggest Hamas should be praised because its aim is bad. Likewise, Hamas did say if people don’t want it to have bad aim, they’ll take some smart bombs. They’re “working” with what they have, which is repulsive on many levels.I don’t see many knights in shining armor. And if you think it’s worthwhile to ignore such a large percentage in reduction of rockets, perhaps you want to look at the alleged bad guy: civilian kill ratio by Israel.I see little room for praise in any quarter.
How apt that the energy-wasting tit for tat repeats itself in the blogosphere as well. The following are direct excerpts from the writings of an Israeli blogger living in the Israeli town of Sderot next to the Gaza border. His writing makes it clear that although both sides are culpable, it was the Israelis, in the end, who definitively and for all practical purposes broke the ceasefire on November 4th: For 5 months there was an almost complete cease fire. Instead of taking advantage of this long period of quiet to reach a long term agreement, both sides spent their time preparing for this war by planning and arming. No serious efforts were made to start a dialog…On November 4th Israeli armed forces entered Gaza and as claimed blew up a tunnel that was being dug towards the Israeli border. As a result Palestinian forces attacked the Israeli forces, and the circle of blood has returned…Since then the region has been slowly but surely moving back into instability… We lived for almost 5 months in a ceasefire situation. On my side of the border things had returned to normal and we finally once again felt safe. Kids played freely outdoors, streets filled once again with people, and the constant fear of the rocket alerts had disappeared…My kids went to sleep in their room again instead of the safe room, and I could walk out to the fields surrounding the town without the fear of being out in the open with no where to hide…gaza-sderot.blogspot.com">
…. I admire your work going back years and enjoy your blog. But I stand by my critique that your analysis here is woefully oversimplified.As I said, who broke the ceasefire is not obvious. Different sources said different things. I have condemned both the rocket attacks and the attack on civilians by Israeli — and have recognized the arguments on both sides. You have not gotten past “Hamas= terrorist” end of story.If it’s not the Irish in him, (Unblinkingly = stubborn) what is it then?Expect an announcement Wednesday that George Mitchell will be appointed by the state Dept and the Pres. to act on behalf of the US as diplomatic envoy to Gaza and Israel.
I don’t disagree with your interpretation of cognitive dissonance, Dan, but I think there’s also an element of not really believing the threat posed by groups and governments vowing to destroy Israel. I wonder whether some people think these groups and governments don’t really mean it. And I can’t help thinking how we only entered WWII after Pearl Harbor.
Compare the rhetoric: Above the law because the mission demands it. “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”George Bush, September 20, 2001When Bush claims unconstitutional powers and uses “signing statements” to negate U.S. law whenever he feels the rule of law is in the way of his leadership, he is remarkably similar to Hitler who told the Reichstag on Feb. 20, 1938: “A man who feels it his duty at such an hour to assume the leadership of his people is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary usage or to a particular democratic conception, but solely to the mission placed upon him. And anyone who interferes with this mission is an enemy of the people.”