Oh, good, the House of Representatives passed (by unanimous consent) a resolution supporting Israel’s bombing campaign against Gaza. From that you might get the opinion that Americans are united in their support for this violence. We must all think it is justified, proportional, and likely to improve things. None of us could be asking ourselves why random apartment buildings are being bombed in Gaza because of something that happened in the West Bank. And no one questions whether actions like this by our elected leaders puts a target on our civilians. All this proves is that regardless of what our lawmakers may actually know or think about what is happening in Gaza right now, none of them are willing to say that they don’t support it.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Meanwhile, the way much of the rest of the world sees it.
That’s how most people on this blog see it.
Let’s also remember that this violence is ALL predicated one fucking lie, purposefully obfuscated by the apartheid state of Israel:
link
It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren’t acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus. Hamas’ Hebron branch — more a crime family than a clandestine organization — had a history of acting without the leaders’ knowledge, sometimes against their interests. Yet Netanyahu repeatedly insisted Hamas was responsible for the crime and would pay for it.
They are taking out whole families. I guess the idea is that patriarchs who are too old to fight will keep their sons in line to protect the family, but it has never worked previously.
Supposedly over 10,000 showed up for the London protest. Including a guy from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neturei_Karta
Weird the allies you can make in certain situations.
You can see the guy from Neturei Karta here:
http://twitter.com/jhilary/status/487683947871367168/photo/1
It started as a comment, grew into a diary …
○ Stop the Occupation and Neturei Karta Orthodox Jews
Read your link.
Interesting that threats forced Hamas leaders underground which prevented them from preventing rocket fire, which then led to what we’re seeing now.
Netanyahu really is a terribly irresponsible and just plain bad leader.
Good for the Washington Post, but the House unanimously approves, so…
Why does the House fell compeled to make a statement about Israeli policy? Not one representative voted against the motion. Filth.
It was done by unanimous consent, so no roll call was necessary.
I’m no RonRand Inc. 2016 supporter, but I have no problem believing that almost everyone in the House of Representatives feels that US Empire is justified.
That they support a vassal state using military force to ethnically cleanse others is part and parcel of playing Empire.
Yes, okay, so what. Couldn’t one of them have objected? So, if no one could vote no, formally NO ONE voted because it was by unanimous consent. Am I supposed to believe that it was unanimous or not? I’d like to know who decided the consent was unanimous. And so on. It’s still filth. Why does the House even have an opinion on this matter?
And this is why I have nothing negative to say about Obama’s interaction with Israel. The congress is infinitely worse and the real problem. Congress is Israel’s client, not the other way around.
This sort of resolution just leaves me feeling sad and sick. I’m a Jew and I say this. Are we ignorant or evil (or both)? What happened to the United States that saw itself as just and a force for good, and tried to live up to that notion? Now it’s Israel, right or wrong. Israel can do no wrong in our country’s eyes. Right now I’m debating old high school friends on facebook; people who have been raised on a steady diet of pro-Israel propaganda and know no different.
Playing Empire with force engorges the brains of authoritarians like nothing else.
If the US and it’s vassal can go out and outright murder a bunch of others we don’t have a lot in common with, then AMERICA FUCK YEAH.
It really is that simple.
Humanity isn’t inherently evil, although some studies are linking authoritarianism (and fascism that they enable) to genetics, I’d still argue that Culture (the thing that exists in abstract but exists nonetheless) is the sole driver of the tribalism that is destroying the world.
Culture is hard to control, but the more money and influence you have, the easier it is to get your own viewpoints accepted by culture. Which is why Fox and the Kochs and the rest of the oligarchs are spending as much money as they can to distill it down and make it the default culture.
Authoritarians excel at following those they feel are the legitimate authority. Such as the rich and powerful who also happen to be leaders of the tribe they identify with.
YES! Nothing must stop the Allah-given right of Palestinians to kill Jews. They don’t count. They’re not really human are they?
Huh? It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the racism embedded in many of your comments. It’s as if your brain defaults to a white guy 1967 position whenever the issue is Russia (which you don’t seem to differentiate from the defunct USSR) and immigration. 1980 for Iran. And somewhere in-between in unquestioning support for Israel (that period of time when many US anti-Semites decided that Jews in Israel were good and Palestinians bad). Or maybe it was the Six-Day-War that caused so many to switch because Americans like nothing better than seeing poor, dispossessed people getting their butts kicked by western advanced weaponry.
Israel drops bombs on Gaza because they can; just as the US dropped bombs on Iraq for fifteen years or so because we could. Both are wrong and crimes against humanity.
It’s just like watching fireworks!
Nothing makes a tribe more coherent and controllable than the mass killing of another tribe.
See: Bible, Old Testament.
See also: Fascism, Nationalism, Empire, Jingoism.
GET SOME! GET SOME! GET SOME!
Truly sickening for those of us with a conscious.
They drop bombs of Gaza because rockets from Gaza are first shot into Israel. YOU are the one being racist.
And those rockets were fired because Israelis killed Palestinians. And those Israelis killed Palestinians because Palestinians kill Israelis. And those Palestinians killed those Israelis because those Israelis killed some Palestinians.
An eye for an eye!
Hooray for the Old Testament! (which is very fitting, no?)
Weird how if one adds up all the death/injuries from all those rockets alleged to have been launched from Gaza over the years is likely less than what one well-armed man in Norway did all on his own. The IDF bombs and tanks, however, lay waste to far more humans and property.
btw — this latest round of violence didn’t begin with rockets. First two Palestinian kids were killed by armed guards. Next three Jewish kid were killed by Palestinian thugs. Then Jewish thugs immolated a Palestinian kid and Israeli police brutally beat up a Palestinian teen visiting from the US.
It’s a lot more complicated than the idea that Israel should have the right to retaliate when Arabs kill Jews.
Even if you think that the Arabs somehow “started” this latest spate of violence, you have to wonder what Israel thinks they are going to accomplish by blasting away at apartment buildings and blowing people up while they watch the World Cup at the beach. Are they going to make the resistance go away? Are they going to improve their situation internationally? Are they going to deter future attacks?
As far as I can tell, Netanyahu didn’t even want to attack Gaza but basically told so many lies that the people demanded it. He has no plan whatsoever. He just made a series of blunders, and now Israel is bombing and has no idea how or when to stop.
Reminds me of Bush.
Well, if they can get away with it just long enough they can effectively commit genocide / ethnic cleansing on such a long-term time scale that it will simply be glossed over as “typical middle-east violence”.
Guess what.
It’s working, isn’t it?
Allah and the Jewish G-d are one and the same being from a monotheistic religion originating with Abraham, born under the name Abram in the city of Ur in Babylonia in the year 1948 from Creation. Both Palestinians and Jews are semitic tribes wrestling over a place to squatter close to Al Quds.
Are you a Shas supporter or just an educated hasbarist from the school of Gerald Steinberg? I’m very disappointed as your brief comments can be viewed as Islamophobic.
In today’s Iraq, the Jewish patriarch would have been an Iraqi, lived south of Baghdad with Shiite neighbours. Jews in Palestine have ventured to kill many of its neighbours long before the state of Israel was created by a U.N. vote in 1947. A partition plan …
It started as a comment, grew into a diary …
○ Stop the Occupation and Neturei Karta Orthodox Jews
Meanwhile, our West Virginia senate candidate sure has a really big gun.
Is that a Revolutionary War musket she’s carrying in that one photo? WTF?!?
She could poke somebody’s eye out.
Meanwhile, House Republicans pass a gigantic tax cut for businesses without even a fakeout toward a budget offset:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/11/politics/gop-business-tax-cut/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Party of fiscal responsibility? They’re not even trying to hide what they are any more.
Israel blockades Gaza only letting through what goods they think appropriate. Palestinians live in abject poverty. Israel is also stealing the West Bank.
They invaded Gaza twice? Operation Caste Lead killed 1400 Palestinians around 300 children. There are 100 dead in this bombing campaign. You know for all the scary racist Israeli bullshit as far as I know only one Israeli has ever been killed by a missile from any part of Palestine. Israel is using this as an excuse for state sponsored genocide. They suck they need to chill out.