I don’t have a lot of patience with people that try to make every single thing about America’s foreign policy all about Isreal and Israel’s security. But I have even less patience for transparent arguments on Scooter Libby’s behalf by people like Alan Dershowitz. Maybe Dershowitz is tone-deaf, but an argument from him about leniency for Scooter Libby plays into every conspiracy theory that our foreign policy has been hijacked by Likudniks. Dershowitz thought Israel’s war with Lebanon was a good idea and justified, and now he defends Scooter Libby. What more could he do to justify the position that the neo-conservatives are some kind of Zionist cabal?
He should shut the fuck up.
Right on, Booman!!!! Dershowitz sure knows which side his bread is buttered on, and by whom, evidently.
I have no respect for any that could make a defense of Libby. Sure, he was the fall guy. But he was a willing, witting participant in all that transpired.
Let us see a baseline for this retardation.
Israel has an estimated population of 6,426,679 (unless you distrust the CIA Factbook).
Bolivia has an estimated population of 9,119,152,
How much prattle does Al talk about Bolivia?
And Hay-fucking-soos, those durned indigenous peeps actually elected a Lefty (disregard the fact that Golda and Chaim and Moshe were Lefties, here).
STMFU is too nice for his schtick.
To reiterate, STMFU!
He should shut the fuck up.
Too late for that, I’m afraid.
I’d say it’s rather more than a conspiracy theory at this point, and the “conspiracy”, as such, is pretty much out in the open. The main advantage it has is that it’s so fucking wacky that it’s actually painful for rational people to think about.
There’s one non-insane rationale for US support of Israel: no decent person wants to see the people of Israel slaughtered like dogs, which is unquestionably what their Arab neighbors would like to do to them. As much as I detest Zionism, I don’t want to see anyone, even Zionists, murdered in the name of race and religion, to say nothing of the many Israelis who are actually willing to peaceably cohabit the so-called Holy Land with their Arab neighbors.
The remaining reasons range from stupid to insane to just plain weird.
There’s the practical argument behind Zionism, which is that the Jewish diaspora has historically been horribly victimized by its host cultures wherever it has gone, so Jews will be safer in their own state. There’s a good deal of merit to that idea, but Palestine is arguably the least safe homeland the Zionists could have chosen.
Then there’s the religious argument, which is that God gave Palestine to the Jews in ancient times, encouraged them to massacre the original inhabitants, and now it’s theirs for all time. You can’t argue with people who believe this sort of savage superstition. And you can’t argue with the Muslims who believe something similar about the same chunk of real estate. The best a rational person can do in such circumstances is watch reruns of Cosmos and hope that Carl Sagan’s soothing voice will drown out the shrieking of lunatics building walls and blowing up buses.
Then there’s the other religious argument, the one made by the looney-tune evangelicals in the US, which is that Israel must be preserved so that, between (presumably forced) conversion and the massacre of the rest, the Jews will become Christian so the battle of Armageddon can be fought and the world brought to an end.
We leave a consideration of the absurdity of the Zionist-Evangelical partnership as an exercise to the reader, preferably after having taken a handful of tranquilizers.
And that’s it, folks. You can scrape the bottom of the rationale barrel all day long without finding anything that actually makes sense. Our support of Israel is largely driven by American Zionists who see the US as just a convenient instrument in the service of Zionism, and American evangelicals who see both the US and Israel as convenient instruments to bring about the end of the world so that Jesus can come back and send all those nasty homosexuals to the lake of fire.
And this little coagulation of bullshit so mindbogglingly absurd that it hurts, I mean, really hurts to think about, is what actually drives most of our serious diplomatic and military conflicts these days. You have to wonder if Republican opposition to socialized medicine is based on the fear that these wackos might actually get the psychiatric medication they all plainly need.
Exactly. Precisely. And the most fitting tribute to Independence Day I’ve seen or heard anywhere. “Ship of Fools” doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
Well, I definitely fall into the first category. If I had been around in the late 1940’s I would have advised against choosing Palestine as a Jewish homeland, but I certainly would have understood it. And I don’t think the U.S. should even discuss or entertain reversing our support for that initial decision.
I get angry over 2 things.
So, what makes me angry is that Israel continues to pursue self-defeating policies which increase the hostility to the United States. What are we getting out of this? Whatever it is, it is not sufficient compensation.
Of course, we are also to blame, because we have the leverage to change things. And we have not done it. The current situation is the most hopeless of my lifetime. I honestly have no constructive advice at this point. And that is largely because of people like Scooter Libby, who though the excellent Iraqi adventure would somehow benefit Israel. Why did he think that? I don’t know. I don’t know why so many people keep doing the same things expecting different results.
And I don’t understand the Israeli electorate. Everything I see suggests they will choose Netanyahu if given a chance. That baffles me at this point. I can’t understand that at all.
And that is largely because of people like Scooter Libby, who though[t] the excellent Iraqi adventure would somehow benefit Israel. Why did he think that? I don’t know.
See here and here.
The Israeli electorate doesn’t want peace. No one who wanted peace could have ever voted for Shamir. They want to WIN! They want to stomp the evil terrorist Palestinians into the ground, not share one inch of land with them.
The fact that this is impossible doesn’t seem to register with most Israelis, and certainly not with their American cheerleaders.
Presumably AIPAC is thrilled to no end by the Libby commutation.
is that most of the unquestioning Israel-first crowd call themselves Democrats.