Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program.

More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the maneuvers, which were carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece during the first week of June, American officials said.

Was this exercise sabre rattling or is Israel preparing for war?

If Israel is serious about bombing Iran, the price of oil will soar, the world economy will collapse and we will move closer to a world war.

Is this going to be Bush's last hooray?

Something that is really quite magical. Such feelings and such sharings and such joy and such friendship.

Shows nothing is impossible and how peoples all over the world are basically kind and friendly even to one the propaganda calls enemy.

The more people of like mind and generous spirit from different political groups can mix, the more the damage from the nastiness of their leaderships can be diffused.

Cheers 

" may be withholding information needed to establish whether it tried to make nuclear arms, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said in an unusually strongly worded report."

That's because they were building a bomb. To destroy Israel. As they have repeatedly stated. With Syrian and North Korean support.

Richard:   The jury's still out on that one Eliot.  "May" is a non-definitive word.   And have the Iranians said this "over and over"?  Or is the other interpretation, that Iran believes the current Israeli adminsitration should be removed, still plausible?  It still seems to have currency.

 Marilyn Shepherd: "Hamas was welcome because they supplied welfare services when Fatah would not. "

Well, then perhaps it should drop the genocidal objectives of its Charter (namely Article 7) and focus on providing welfare services. But then it would lose its financial backing from Iran, I suppose.

By the way, getting back to Sir Max Hastings, I recommend especialy his Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, Harper Press, 2007.

Phenomenal read. Especially the chapters demolishing the more recent revisionist myths about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the subsequent decision by Japan's Emperor to sack his government and sue for peace.

Scott Dunmore: "Yes, the Rosenbergs would have been executed regardless of their name. They were found guilty of treason and the evidence as I remember was very strong. "

Mr Carter expressed his support for Israel as a country, but criticised its domestic and foreign policy.

"One of the greatest human rights crimes on earth is the starvation and imprisonment of 1.6m Palestinians," he said.

The former US president cited statistics which he said showed the nutritional intake of some Palestinian children was below that of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as saying the European position on Israel could be best described as "supine".

Israeli treatment of Palestinians is "One of the greatest human rights crimes on earth". In the same article it says that Israel has 150 nuclear weapons.

It is time the UN enforced sanctions on Israel for illegal WMD's and holding the Palestinian people in similar conditions to Hitler's concentration camps. No wonder a lot of Muslims hate Israel and its supporters.

Scott Dunmore: "Paul, you belittle yourself if you cannot accept that all socialists are not the same and your simplistic rules do not determine the thoughts and behaviour of more than a few of them."

Problem is I never wrote that. What I wrote about was a broad based political movement of the time.

I merely asked the question: What's changed in the last decade in regards to Israel and Jews? Why did an internationalist Democratic Roosevelt movement (broadly socialist), decide to jump into bed with isolationist old guard Republicans? What in their naivety did they ever hope to gain?

You've got to understand, Scott Dunmore, that leftists have always, and will always, be their own worst political enemy. So easily duped, and moulded, by the cunning and the powerful.

I remember thinking at election 96 that the Dems would reign for some time to come (the GOP was a fractured circus). Finally they (Dems) appeared to be getting their act together. Fast forward a decade and bit, and I can't see them (Dems) in "stable" power for a long time to come. Bush hasn't been their Godsend; he's been their devil. They've fractured and split their base in one of the greatest acts of political immolation I've been around to witness. Forget the crap you read in the media: this organization (Dems) has some major problems - and if Obama is elected (I find that highly unlikely); the problems are only just beginning.

Strange thing is I don't, and never have bothered to vote. I also probably understand more about the system than 99% of people who do. Perhaps a large part of the reason I've avoided taking part in it.

PS Clinton won’t be to blame for their defeat - though of course she'll be blamed. Their own idiocy of course will be the real culprit. Anyhow I look forward to four more years hearing about racist America, and fraud elections.

In 1948 Israhell stole a nation, they killed or drove the populace into the sea. When the PLO began they refused to deal with them for 40 years to the revolting Bibi helped set up Hamas.

Hamas was welcome because they supplied welfare services when Fatah would not.

After Israhell murdered Arafat they forced elections and Hamas was elected so they refused to deal with Hamas and insist they will deal with Fatah, but they don't.

Why don't you read the Israhell historians instead of peddling the normal drivel, Eliot?

Marilyn Shepherd says;

"And we support this trashy place? "

Yes. Hamas, however, and its backers have resolved not merely to destroy it, but Hamas's charter calls on Muslims everywhere to kill Jews wherever they find them.

Also, you cannot even spell Israel without turning it into a racist slander, can you? Reminds me of those southern rednecks that call black people Nigras.

By the way, that's Sir Max Hastings to you.

So say these two lovely ladies, if that's what one could call them.

I would like people to think about this.    What if the UN decided that Tibet needed a homeland far away due to years of oppression by the Chinese and they decided Australia would be excellent.   WE were not given a vote because we have a foreign head of state making our decisions for us so the Tibetans are granted 56% of our land even though they are a minority with minor ownership.      We don't like it but they start bulldozing, blowing up and destroying our homes and committing the sort of mass murder described in Ilan Pappe's book "The ethnic cleansing of Palestine".    531 villages and 13 urban centres are destroyed and nearly 800,000 people are driven into the sea while zionists are peddling the lies of the Uris book.

 Then I want people to get hold of another book I am wading through.

Max Hastings of the Guardian and other major papers describes it this way

"VE day on May 6, 1945 mocked the subsequent conditions of Europe.  As crowds in London, Paris and New York celebrated the declaration of peace, much more misery and death lay ahead.  Two, perhaps three million Germans persihed in the years that followed:  in captivity, from hunger and casual violence, and above all the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the east, which the western allies had agreed with the Russians before hostilities ended.

 Giles MacDonogh's book chronicles this saga from the liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift.....it makes grimmer reader than most war stories because there is little redemptive courage or virtue.   Here is a catalogue of pillage, rape, starvation, inhumanity and suffering on a titanic scale.   After the Reich brings together many stories that deserve to be better known in the west".

I thinks these two books alone should suffice to stop the senseless war stories and glamour of the non-state called Israhell.

 On two small notes.   Norman Finkelstein, the son of two holocaust survivors and historian, has been denied entry to Israhell.

Last week some lovely orthodox chaps rounded up the bibles of some of the Christian evangelicals who decided to visit and had a good old fashioned book burning.

And we support this trashy place?

Sorry to interupt, but the "waning star" has safely landed Phoenix on Mars.

I don't mind admitting, I'm really effing excited!!!

Scott Dunmore : "Yes, the Rosenbergs would have been executed regardless of their name. They were found guilty of treason and the evidence as I remember was very strong."

Well, yes, maybe.

Though if you were a socialist of the day, you'd likely not be writing that (writing about a Kangaroo Court comes to mind). You'd probably later not be celebrating the attack on "Jew-controlled Hollywood" either - and you'd probably be writing about the benefits of the Kibbutz or the "communist training farm clubs" as Henry Ford once described them (I still find it amusing reading self-titled intellectuals rehashing the "special musings" of an anti-intellectual like Henry Ford). Yes, back then, there's a very good chance that, as a good socialist, you'd be supporting Israel at the expense of Arab nationalism.

So what's changed? Perhaps those Floridian Jews just weren't grateful enough?

http://www.bushwatch.com/jews.htm.

Take special note of the date - and go through the years.

My oh my, how some messages change when political expediency is needed. The mind-numbing empty headed world of the political goat herder indeed makes for fascinating watching.

Scott Dunmore : “[Paul Morrella:] ‘Republican old guard.’ Genuinely perplexed, to whom do you refer?”

I'm writing about old school Republicanism - isolationism, conservatism, right-wingism, whatever "ism" you wish to call it. Make no mistake; anti-semitism was a big unquestioned part of this movement, world wide, during the first half of the 20th century.

Now does anyone really believe the Rosenbergs would have been "whacked" if their name was Jones?

Jews are communists, Jews are spies, was as common as Anglo only country clubs for the old school conservative. Of course they were the days when much of this came with a class distinction (many an industrialist was a proud anti-semite); unlike the white trash (think American Conservative) that holds this particular movement together now days.

So yes, the old school Republican guard, and the socialist left are at the moment together like white on rice.

[Paul Morrella;] Of course back then Israel gained leftist support. Back then Israel was viewed as the underdog (and socialists love an underdog irrespective of the battle).’ A tad dismissive and not entirely true. I couched it in different terms and I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on it.

Israel is disproportionally condemned compared to other regions in the world. For mind this isn't even an argument.

Neither have I but I don’t think I’ve met an Israeli citizen and if I did I’d be very wary about broaching the subject but the sentiment is out there regardless of the source. Did they ever give you a justification?

Never has a Jewish person given me any justification for Israel - and neither should they. Do you justify your nation? Do know a Jewish guy that once said Moses should've turned right instead of left - and with the current price of oil he's certainly not telling me anything I don't know.

... Scott Dunmore, for the (unintentional) offence I evidently caused.

Another lesson learned.

Scott Dunmore: "And why not, how can the dreadful fate that befell some six million souls justify the visitation on a helpless and hapless people that had inhabited what was then Palestinefor two thousand years by a bunch of terrorists and carpet baggers, no few of whom were not victims of the holocaust."

I've never once heard a Jew use this as a reason for Israel existing. I've never once heard a Jew ever use the holocaust as a reason for attaining something "extra". Though, I've heard this reason given by some of the Arab leadership (and delusional followers). I think it has something doing with equating Israel with Nazi Germany or some such. Maybe this plays well with the over eighties age demographic?

Of course the makings of present day Israel came into being long before 1947. The reasons for this you've probably answered yourself:

Perhaps the motivation of Britain in particular was to divest itself of a social problem of over a thousand years standing. That of having a minority, recalcitrant in that it refused to integrate fully with mainstream society, a source of envy and at times, the cause of social disruption.

Europe has always been, and still is, a class conscious society. Anti-Semitism is of course a part of being class consciousness (and I'm not referring to the yahoos in blog land who wouldn't understand class if it fell on them). Class Europe will always respect diversification - that is, until of course, it moves in next door.

The makings of present day Israel was as much to do with what we may refer to as the Republican old guard type (wanting Jewish competition shifted on) as anything else. Only in those days "society" didn't even pretend (unlike today) they gave a shit what Arabs thought (if they thought about Arabs at all).

The fact is I have been a member of that group all my life but did not develop Palestinian sympathies until my late thirties after starting to think for myself and accepting the reality of dispossession, an ongoing occurrence and the injustice of it all.

Of course back then Israel gained leftist support. Back then Israel was viewed as the underdog (and socialists love an underdog irrespective of the battle). Also in those days socialists (especially in Europe) were battling the old class forces. The present day alliance of old right, and socialist left on this issue reminds me of the alliance between feminists and religious anti-pornographers. You just know if the battle is ever won; the real battle only just begins.

My preference is for a single state. Regardless of the injustice suffered by the Palestinians there can be no denial of the state of Israel. There is no such thing as absolute justice; meted out it almost invariably creates other victims.

Eventually globalization will overwhelm the situation - as happened in Northern Ireland. Of course like all fights this one is as much economic as anything else. The desperation of the Palestinian cause in stopping young Palestinians leaving gives it away as much as anything else. The leaving isn't what they fear, it's the returning - more precisely the ideas returned with.

What a proud nation to have Bush as their supporter and blesser.

It has also been the end of reporting, after five years, by the SMH reporter on the scene, Ed O'Loughlin, and his farewell piece surprisingly didn't make the Sydney paper, just the Age.

One can read it in full here – Wars between worlds. It makes very sad reading and much is similar to the balanced view that Ian McDonald takes.

A second tank shell, fired several minutes after the first, sprayed would-be rescuers with a second cloud of three-centimetre "flechette" steel darts, killing 19-year-old Khalil Dogmoush and injuring several others, including freelance photographer Ashraf Abu Amra.

We didn't know all of this at the time, as we stood by the wreckage of Shana's vehicle. All we knew was that a press vehicle had been targeted minutes earlier, that we were standing beside that vehicle, fully exposed to a hillside where Israeli tanks were operating, and that an Israeli drone was whining overhead.

And we knew from long experience that, whatever had happened, the Israeli Defence Force would deny responsibility. This it duly did, claiming that its troops had fired only at armed militants who had attacked them at close range.

I have covered quite a few stories like this over the past 51/2 years, in Gaza and elsewhere. Since the present uprising began in 2000, close to 5000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli action, according to figures from the Israeli rights group B'tselem. Slightly more than 1000 Israelis were killed by Palestinians. In the first three months of this year, 11 Palestinians died for every Israeli civilian.

Eman al-Hams was a 13-year-old schoolgirl who was machine-gunned to death at point blank range by an Israeli officer, who admitted the act on army radio. The officer was subsequently acquitted, promoted and decorated.

Asma al-Mughair, 16, and her brother Ahmed, 13, were both shot in the head on the roof of their home in Rafah, which was in the sights of an Israeli sniper's nest, only 100 metres away. Seven members of the Ghaliya family were blown to bits while picnicking on a Gaza beach which Israeli artillery was shelling.

But if you Google any of the above names you will quickly learn - from armchair bloggers and Israeli Government spokespeople - that all of these stories are false, elaborate hoaxes concocted by anti-Semitic journalists to smear the state of Israel. Little wonder, then, that Israeli talkback was generally of the opinion that Fadel Shana got what he deserved.

And you can't help asking yourself, as you stand exposed on a roadway stained with blood and gristle and carbonised rubber, with a killer robot circling overhead, what would they say if it was you who'd been hit? For the average Middle East correspondent this is not a difficult question to answer.

Wow and only one person has ever been given the death penalty by Israeli courts, yet 5000 by their military.

What is really amazing is how the Palestinians from the Gaza Ghetto can go on, starved, bombed from planes, supersonic booms daily and nightly, tank shelling and tank destruction of anything they cherished or had worked for, no fishing, no picnicking on the beach, no electricity, no water, no sewer, no medicines. Why don't they just give up, give up their choice of leadership and accept control and then removal, ethnic cleansing? I guess the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is an inspiration to so many in times of such violent military oppression.

Warsaw itself also took on the Nazis at the end of WW2 as the Russians "arrived across the river". But the latter just watched on as the uprising was eventually crushed. Then the Bolshevik Soviets rolled in and wiped out the Nazis and took over Warsaw for themselves. This is what happens in history. People are helped if there is something in it for the helpers. Otherwise they are left to be murdered, as in Gaza.

We are so lucky that so far we have not been at the wrong end of an invading/occupying force. Perhaps if we had we would understand better others’ suffering.

Cheers

Ah well.

In 1964, EL Wisty and Spotty Muldoon formed the World Domination League, with aspirations to dominate the world by 1958. "We shall move about in people's rooms and say, 'Excuse me, we are the World Domination League. May we dominate you?' Then, if they say 'Get out,' of course we give up."

Their list of demands were:

1. Total domination of the world by 1958.
2. Domination of the astral spheres quite soon too.
3. The finding of lovely ladies for Spotty Muldoon within the foreseeable future.
4. Getting a nuclear arm to deter with.
5. The bodily removal from this planet of C. P. Snow and Alan Freeman and their replacement with fine trees.
6. Stopping the government from crawling up our pipes and listening to all we say.
7. Training bees for uses against foreign powers, and so on.
8. Elimination of spindly insects and encouragement of lovely little newts who dance about and are happy.
9. E.L. Wisty for God.

I imagine Mr Wisty and Mr Putin sharing a park bench somewhere with Mr Ahmadinejad and Mr Cheney.

F Kendall: "When a right wing commentator on a right wing site challenges these longstanding US alliances, at the same time as the generals are saying that the US is losing military dominance, it sounds possibly like an interesting little rearrangement of the world as we know it."

Well, the thing is, the far right of the US political spectrum has always been critical of the Saudi dispensation, oil or no oil. All the more so since September 11. Remember Rudi ripping up that cheque before the face of that Saudi prince?

And generals of all nations are forever whinging about the "loss of military dominance". It wasn't that long ago Mr Putin's generals were arguing that Russia had lost her world standing as a military power.

 And take this from today's news:

"Russia's new President Dmitry Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao have jointly denounced the United States's plans for a missile shield.

Mr Medvedev is on a two-day state visit to China and the leaders issued the joint statement issued after the two leaders met in the Chinese capital.

The statement said the creation of a global anti-missile defence system including it deployment in certain parts of the world would not contribute to maintaining strategic balance and stability.

The plan would hinder international arms control and non proliferation efforts as well as cooperation between states and regional stability.

The United States has proposed to site a radar in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland as part of a shield to defend against states it considers a threat, such as Iran and North Korea.

The Russians in particular are concerned about the steady expansion of NATO under US leadership into former Soviet client states, such as Poland and the Czech Republic.

Does that sound like a "waning star" to you? Or does it remind you of the same sort of dynamic that was unfolding in Europe from the mid-70s on?

By the way, that Sukhoi the Russians and Indians developed between them: I'd say India's involvement in the project probably means that that particular model's entire specification set and performance report is sitting on the desks of Western intelligence directors all across the NATO heartland.

Eliot Ramsey: "Terrorist violence declined around the world while popular backing for Al-Qaeda was slipping."

Well, that's good news.

It could have been matched, I suggest, by surveys that would show that fear of terrorism had declined, also.

But, in my prior post, I was speculating about a rearrangement of the world order ... e.g.:

the Saudi military regime depends on the U.S. military umbrella for its survival ...

which , as the Wall Street Journal says

"has provided the Saudis with a security blanket that puts this desert kingdom off limits to predators" and prevented Iran and Syria from turning Saudi Arabia into another Lebanon.

When a right wing commentator on a right wing site challenges these longstanding US alliances, at the same time as the generals are saying that the US is losing military dominance, it sounds possibly like an interesting little rearrangement of the world as we know it.

"F is so impersonal".

F is impersonal?

F is impersonal!

Do you, by any chance, work for a call centre?

Scott Dunmore: "It’s been known for a while now that the Sukhoi is operationally superior to anything the US has in the air..."

 Not everyone agrees, it seems:

"The Sukhoi Su-30 MKI (NATO reporting name Flanker-H) is a variant of the Sukhoi Su-30, jointly-developed by Russia's Sukhoi Corporation and India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for the Indian Air Force. It is a heavy class, long-range, multi-role, air superiority fighter and strike fighter. It is often considered by many to be the best multi role fighter aircraft in service anywhere in the world after F-22 Raptor."

Scott Dunmore: "The Nazis had a lot to answer for; they taught their victims all too well."

One of the more reprehensible slurs against the victims of the Holocaust regularly trundled out by their modern day enemies is that the victims somehow "became" their own persecutors.

Apart from being a racist slander, it's boring. Really boring. To everyone, as the Human Security Brief 2007 report (below) demonstrates.

F Kendall asks: "What will this mean for Israel, Saudi Arabia, and, Gottliebsen's concern, us?"

What will this mean..

 " Terrorist violence declined markedly around the world in 2007 while popular backing for al-Qaeda was slipping, according to the authors of a Canadian study based on US statistics."

"The report, Human Security Brief 2007 by lecturers at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, found terrorism fatalities were down by some 40 per cent in 2006 compared to 2001, and according to preliminary data, dropped even further in mid-2007....

"... The study pointed to more widespread and coordinated counterterrorism efforts, "bitter doctrinal infighting" within the global Islamist networks, and Muslims' rejection of terrorists' "indiscriminate violence, extremist ideology and harshly repressive policies" for the downswing."

"After looking at the results of polls carried out last year in the Arab and Muslim world, especially in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the report said that support for terrorism appeared to be waning."

"... the drop in popularity for al-Qaeda in the Arab and Muslim world was due to the rejection of extremist ideology, particularly after "the terror groups' gratuitous and indiscriminate violence against their co-religionists".

"By deeply alienating the very publics whose support is critical to their cause, the Islamists have become their own worst enemies and created conditions that will likely bring about their eventual demise."

Then on top of all that, it looks like Syria is about to throw in the towel.

Must have been due to that nuclear weapons development complex getting blown up last year...

Robert Gottliebsen on "America is about to lose its air superiority to the Russians and Chinese..." :

The U.S. has been able to conduct ground operations in the Middle East and elsewhere because their troops could not be attacked from the air.  That is about to change.

The U.S. generals illustrate the change with Taiwan - America could not defend Taiwan now, even if it wanted to.

What will this mean for Israel, Saudi Arabia, and, Gottliebsen's concern, us?

Given that in 2004 22 times more Palestinian children were killed than Israeli children, this category holds particular importance. We could find no basis on which to justify this inequality in coverage.

During the first year of the current uprising, 165 Israelis were killed by Palestinians and at least 549 Palestinians were killed by Israelis.³ The majority of those killed among both populations were civilians.

In its first year of coverage, we found that ABC reported on 305 Israeli deaths and 327 Palestinian deaths – 185% of Israeli deaths and 60% of Palestinian deaths.

CBS reported on 334 Israeli deaths and 296 Palestinian deaths – 202% of Israeli deaths and 54% of Palestinian deaths.

NBC reported on 227 Israeli deaths and 190 Palestinian deaths – 138% of Israeli deaths and 35% of Palestinian deaths.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it is controversial. Indeed, many news sources are simultaneously accused of displaying diametrically opposed biases. If Americans Knew has undertaken this study with the aim of providing objective, verifiable analysis of coverage.

The Middle East is currently among the most volatile regions in the world. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the central issues of this region, and intimately related to the escalating regional violence we see today. American forces are presently deployed in one country in the region, and it is uncertain when they will be withdrawn. More US tax money goes to Israel than to any other nation; and more American money is sent to the Middle East than to the rest of the world combined. For all these reasons and more, it is essential that Americans receive full and accurate news coverage on Israel/Palestine.

Unfortunately, our findings indicate that this is not occurring. Our analysis reveals troubling patterns of omission and disparities in emphasis that, we feel, profoundly hamper the ability of viewers to understand this conflict.

Regardless of what you call it "ethnic cleansing" or "revenge for the holocaust" the real victims are the Palestinians and the statics show it. Israel is the aggressor and their tactics have displaced over 6.8 million Palestinians

In 2005, there were approximately 6.8 million Palestinian refugees and 400,000 internally displaced Palestinians representing 70 percent of the entire Palestinian population worldwide (9.7 million).

Most of the media bias in the West leans towards the Israelis The truth should be told don't you think?

There is of course nothing new among the Israel-bashing slogans and chants published here. We've heard it a thousand times before. Afterall this stuff is intended to defeat honest discussion and intelligent debate -- not encourage it.

It's all here - the treatment of the Palestinian Arabs is/was "ethnic cleaning". But not that of Palestinian Jews of course. Or even a "form of genocide" for crying out loud. The Jews are "colonisers". The Arabs are their innocent victims. We even have that stale and sllghtly obscene travesty of history -- the Palestinians have been forced to pay for the Holocaust.

Therefore I am not intending to pick on Tony Phillips when I select this particular comment of his.

Around the time he was backing the Iraq war Christopher Hitchens made the “brave” comment that, as part of his desire to spread democracy, and as a quid pro quo for the invasion, Bush would place pressure on the Israeli government and military to start behaving like human beings in relation to the Palestinians. [My underlining] [Of course these are Tony's words, not Hitchens]

Human beings?

Is there any wonder why people like me are sick and tired of attempting discussion on this subject?

...we condemn anti-Semitism in all forms -- whether by those who openly question Israel's right to exist, or by others who quietly excuse them.

Bush's words but they are within any mainstream definition of antisemiitism. Do they give any reason for pause?

Barry Cohen in this morning's Australian.

Some of my best friends anti-Semitic

...

It's the double standards by which Israel is judged that incenses Jews and their supporters. [My emphasis]

Still no reason for pause?

Here's a little tease from a Washington Post piece from Apri 11 that I've just found (sorry if it's been linked here before):

Vice President Cheney went on right-wing talk radio yesterday with a dramatic new argument for preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, casting the Iranian leadership as apocalyptic zealots who yearn for a nuclear conflagration.

Cheney also notably refused to comment about any recent conversations he may have had with Israeli leaders about the possibility of their bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. Some observers suspect Cheney of encouraging Israel to attack Iran as a proxy.

Conventional wisdom in Washington has it that Cheney and other supporters of military action against Iran were sidelined after a National Intelligence Estimate last November reported that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

It's a great piece.

The speech is mostly state department diplomatic speak and read between the lines is just the usual unequivocal US support for Israel (underlying logic - reliable ally in the Middle East with important domestic US constituency and cheap at only $3 billion a year, much of which comes back in arms sales). However Bush has actually gone further than that as the speech progresses, really egging on the militant right. He does this via means of the nonsensical fundamentalist war on terror stuff in the middle that he links up to the “threats to Israel’s existence”. The net result is basically throwing away any demands for acceptable behaviour from Israel. If we add the ditzy "end of times" type views often ascribed to Bush the speech’s subtext is even more frightful.

In the end he is just repeating right wing Israeli propaganda, especially the magnificent psychological projection of the Palestinians wanting to drive Israel into the sea, complete with its deliberate undertones of a rerun of the Nazi holocaust, and a suggestion of this being in the offing at any moment. In fact of course it is Israel that keeps driving the locals off the land and pushing them into ghettos and virtual camps. The threat to Israel’s existence, as opposed to individual citizens who are in some danger, is actually more or less on a par with the threat to America’s existence (both should actually worry more about climate change). For Palestinians the threat to their existence and way of life is a continually evolving reality. Israeli settlement populations have almost tripled in the last 15 years and, Gaza withdrawal notwithstanding, the number of settlers continues to rise. What with settlement outposts, separation walls and separate infrastructure it is quite clear who the expansionist colonisers are and who is closer to committing a form of genocide.

There are peacemakers in the Middle East and some of the bravest and best are Israeli and Palestinian. And their task is massive one in the face of mindsets on both sides. If you look at what Bush is saying he is actually just issuing yet another (the same) call to war, peace through total victory. All wrapped in a child's conception about the truimph of good over evil that echoes that of the great 20th Century dictators.

Around the time he was backing the Iraq war Christopher Hitchens made the “brave” comment that, as part of his desire to spread democracy, and as a quid pro quo for the invasion, Bush would place pressure on the Israeli government and military to start behaving like human beings in relation to the Palestinians. This was to totally mistake Bush, he is neither a peacemaker nor a human rights and democracy advocate, just an ideological bimbo at the service of powerful interests. One whose life, it is now clear, is one that will mostly be remembered for initiating, justifying and sanctioning murder on a mass scale. 

Oh yes, and I'm sure that other fundamentalist murderer, Mr Bin Laden, will thank the Pres for the ideological ammunition. I know old Osama is really going to miss Bush when he's gone.

Eliot Ramsey: "Well, that's not strictly true. The Soviets were able to supply the newly formed Israeli defense forces with weapons through the USSR's newly acquired Czechoslovak proxies, hoping to have a bob each way while publicly "denouncing" Zionism. I mean, there were lots of old socialists involved in setting up Israel."

Indeed.

Of course they were the days when "plucky little Israel" was a socialist dream, fighting against those fanatical religious Arab hordes. The days, unlike today, when your average socialist was a tough hard working sob. The days, unlike today, when your average socialist had a tough army full of tough (and they were whatever else people think of their beliefs) people both externally, and internally to look up to (USSR).

The fight against socialism would have been an interesting experience back then.

One of the most influential, and therefore important, books of the 20thC was the populist, hyperbolic Exodus, circa 1960. An immensely popular book, one of the first blockbusters, at a time when TV was scarce, and people read more. How could one read that and not applaud those extraordinary, brave, smart, sexy, committed, idealistic young people with their guns, rockets or whatever, used only to defend themselves? And, "everyone" read it. In my experience, it changed public opinion vastly.

For decades after, young people from around the world had Israel on their tourist itinerary, to experience, witness, and work in kibbutz ... although they had largely changed their nature in the meantime, so I'm told, as all the smart people went off to make their money in the cities.

Still, it was an extraordinarily successful bit of propaganda, which I think gave people in the west a mental set to be pro-Israel that still lingers.