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Why Does the U.S. Get All the Tornadoes?
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 4:01 PM
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Last summer, the Israeli government announced a new effort to "rebrand" the country in the eyes of the world, and it hired a prominent British public relations firm to help out. In addition to various forms of cultural outreach designed to highlight Israel's achievements, this effort included having a men’s magazine publish a photo spread of several women from the IDF (including the former Miss Israel) in various fetching poses, a decision that didn't go over all that well back in Israel itself. You can read all about it here, here, or here.
The Gaza operation, the sham peace process, and the recent election of the Netanyahu/Lieberman government aren’t making the "rebranding" effort any easier, of course. And if you want to know why this new hasbara campaign isn’t likely to work, start by reading English journalist and military historian Max Hastings's sobering account, published last week in the Guardian. Drawn from an appearance in Balliol College's Leonard Stein lecture series, Hastings recounts his own evolution from an enthusiastic cheerleader for Israel to a disillusioned critic who strongly supports Israel’s existence but openly opposes many of its present policies. Where once he "loved those people, and boundlessly admired their achievement," he now describes himself as "one of those foreigners who progressively fell out of love with Israel." I know the feeling.
The problem, as Hastings makes clear, is the reality of the occupation and the brutal treatment of the Palestinians that goes hand-in-hand with it. This situation can't be disguised by more energetic public relations efforts. There are too many video cameras and human rights groups documenting Israel's actions -- including Israeli groups like B’tselem. There are too many bloggers willing to write about the conflict from varying perspectives, and too many scholars and journalists like Hastings -- plus a growing number in the United States -- who no longer accept the outdated image of Israel as a plucky and virtuous David facing a looming and bloodthirsty Arab Goliath. That image was easy to sell in 1948, perhaps, and it remained fairly convincing after the Arab states offered the infamous "Three Nos" at the 1967 Khartoum summit. But it's a much tougher sell after Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, after Gaza in 2008-2009, and after the Saudi and Arab League peace proposals in 2002 and 2007 don't even elicit an official response from Jerusalem.
Israel's achievements over the past sixty-one years are undeniable, and the officials responsible for the rebranding campaign won't have any trouble finding artists, athletes, scientists and entrepreneurs to write feel-good stories about. But the dark side of the story won’t go away -- 40-plus years of an increasingly brutal occupation, the construction of the apartheid wall (or if you prefer,"separation fence"), much of outside the 1967 borders, thousands of dead Palestinian civilians, a series of failed wars since 1982, and the repeated squandering of genuine opportunities to make peace. And every year the number of settlers grows. I don't hold Israel solely responsible for this tragedy, but they are neither powerless nor blameless.
As Hastings observes, more in sadness than in anger, these policies have also had a deeply corrosive effect on Israeli society itself. In his words, "Morally, if not militarily, [the IDF] is a shadow of the force which fought in 1948, 1956, 1967, or 1973." Not to mention rising political corruption, the polarization of the body politic, once-impressive universities in decline, and a worrisome tendency for younger Israelis to seek careers abroad. In an era when information flows freely and where anyone with an internet link can read Ha'aretz, the Jerusalem Post, the Daily Star, the Guardian, etc., the Israeli Foreign Ministry is not going to control the story.
In fact, trying to "rebrand" Israel through a one-sided PR campaign could be counterproductive, because offering a uniformly sunny image that leaves out much of the story just undermines the credibility of the messenger. My sense is that few Israelis believe Shimon Peres anymore, and I doubt many of them think Benjamin Netanyahu means it when he says he’s interested in a genuine peace. It's like when Bush and Cheney declared that United States doesn't torture, Bill Clinton told us that he "didn’t have sex with that woman," or Richard Nixon said "I am not a crook." After awhile, smart listeners learn not to accept anything they're told without double-checking it themselves. Even worse, when they hear one thing, they start to assume that the opposite is probably true.
Some readers may think that Hastings is employing a double-standard, or that he is "singling Israel out" for criticism. They could point out that Israel's adversaries have often lied or prevaricated too, and that they have done plenty of brutal things themselves. They could also remind us that Israel's neighbors are hardly models of tolerance or open discourse and that there is a far more open debate about these issues within Israel than there is in Jordan or Saudi Arabia or Syria. I agree, and the willingness of some Israelis to confront the past honestly and to question its present policies remains an admirable feature of Israeli society.
But there is no double-standard at work here, and comparisons with states whose behavior may be worse miss the point. Israel's actions are not being judged against the conduct of a Sudan or Burma, but by the standards that people in the West apply to all democracies. It is the standard Americans expect of allies who want to have a "special relationship" with us. It is the standard Israel imposes on itself when it tells everyone it is "the only democracy in the Middle East." Israel is being expected to behave like Britain or Canada or France or Japan and not like some one-party military dictatorship, and it is certainly expected not to deny full political and civil rights to millions of Palestinians who now live under its constant control. These other democracies eventually gave up their colonial enterprises; Israel is still trying to consolidate its own.
As Americans have learned in recent years, whenever any country fails to live up to its own professed values, it is going to lose friends and admirers around the world. Barack Obama understood that he couldn’t restore America’s image in the wake of Abu Ghraib and the Bush torture regime by trying to change the subject or by talking about some cool or virtuous things Americans had done. ("OK, we tortured some people and invaded Iraq on false pretences, but weren’t the Founding Fathers great, aren't Tiger Woods and Kelly Clarkson amazing, and have you seen that new Star Trek movie?"). The way a country regains the world’s admiration in the aftermath of misconduct is to stop doing it, admit it was wrong, express regret, and make it clear that it won't happen again. Restoring Israel's image in the West isn't a matter of spin or PR or "rebranding;" it's a matter of abandoning the policies that have cost it the sympathy it once enjoyed. It's really just about that simple.
DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images
The G*d-given "right" to someone else's land?
"The way a country regains the world’s admiration in the aftermath of misconduct is to stop doing it, admit it was wrong, express regret, and make it clear that it won't happen again."
How can this ever happen in Israel's case when the basis of Zionism is that one's G*d gave one the "right" to take land from others without any apologies, reparations, or even regret? It is a G*d given right. Jews can be imported from Moldova, but Palestinians who lived on the land have no right of return.
And, no, the analogy to American Indians does not work as we killed them off in a genocide -- and that is impossible with the rightful Arab residents of what is now known as Israel. (This does not stop Israelis from trying from time to time: eg. Gaza).
The "terrorists" are using the wrong means to fight for a just cause: ouster of the Israeli occupiers. Nelson Mandela was called a terrorist too at one point. So was Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin and Golda Meir.
You know, the world will be an easier place for all of us to live in if you would stop proclaiming one side's PR propaganda as "fact".
Lord knows I can't deal with all of them, but let's hit the highlights:
1) The "basis of Zionism" has nothing to do with anyone's God-given right to do anything. (And God alone knows why you spell the English word "God" as G*d.)
It has to do with nationalism ... and establishing and repatriating nations into their national homelands. A rather big topic around the time of the First World War. In this case, the Jewish People to the Jewish homeland. You may remember reading about the Jewish homeland and the Jewish kingdoms that were conquered by Assyria, Babylonia (restored by Persia), Greece and Rome.
You also may remember reading about Italy, Germany, Pakistan, Greece, Kurdistan, the Rom (Gypsies), the Tibetans the Vietnamese and literally DOZENS of other nations and their national homelands. G*d knows.
2) Why it bothers you that the only Jewish country on Earth can "import" Jews is beyond me.
2a) Why any nation should be forced to "import" its enemies (many of whom literally intend to murder its citizens) is beyond me.
2b) Why you use odd phrases like "import Jews" as if they were celery stalks is beyond me.
3) As Gaza is not and was not and never has been "what is now known as Israel" it is decidedly odd that you would consider its residents as "rightful Arab residents of what is now known as Israel". And what about the non-Arabs who live in Gaza? (Just wondering.)
4) At one point Nelson Mandela WAS a terrorist - which could be why he was called one. At another point he was NOT a terrorist, and people stopped calling him one.
For the ;ife of me, I cannot think of anyone who ever called Golda Meir a terrorist. Except you.
Good post, Dr. Walt. You touch on one of the bigger false points brought up by the Israeli apologist crowd, that Israel shouldn't be judged harshly because its neighbors are almost all just as appalling.
It's nonsense, of course, because Israel generally doesn't claim it is just "one of the boys" in the Middle East. Rather, it tries to present itself as if it is the bulwark of Western Civilization in the "hostile wilderness", and repeatedly uses the "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East" (which isn't true, by the way - Lebanon is a democracy, more or less). If you are going to demand a higher standard of treatment, then you should expect to be held to a greater standard of behavior.
This depends on whose standards we are talking about. When we are talking about the UN or other international bodies, everyone should be held to the same standard. So when the "Israel apologist" crowd points out the double standards at work there, which very obviously exist, they are right to do so and every "clear-eyed" (to borrow one of Walt's favorite adjectives) person should agree.
Whether this columnist Hastings holds a double standard or is "singling out Israel" for criticism depends on his body of work and one really can't judge based on one column. Walt sets up that strawman there to distract from the fact that he is begging the question with regard to his interpretation of Israel's behavior.
...the construction of the apartheid wall...
??
Is anyone surprised anymore that Walt adopts this kind of unserious rhetoric?
It's the language you fall into when you spend a lot of time reading the sources Walt has linked in his blogroll. Walt's become just one more anti-Israel agitator, who happens to have a PhD and a blog.
BTW, speaking of "sham peace processes", did anyone else notice that Hamas explictly rejected a two state solution this week?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1084398.html
No it is not an apartheid wall --- apartheid walls were smaller.
Oh, HEAVENS! Hamas rejected the 2-state solution?! I do declare!
Yeah -- maybe they were following the dumbass example of NetenYAHOO and -- the Moldovan import -- Lieberman.
Hamas ready to recognize Israel
From Ynet:
"05.11.06, 00:19 / Israel News
Headline: Hamas: We’ll recognize Israel within '67 borders"
Summary: "Faction's spokesman at Palestinian parliament voices pragmatic, surprising declarations during Ramallah conference; 'we, Hamas, are committed to calm up to this moment,' he says."
Text: "The Hamas movement is ready to recognize agreements signed with Israel, and in fact recognize Israel, but only within the '67 borders, senior Hamas member Khaled Suleiman said Wednesday.
"According to Suleiman, the movement will be ready to accept a Palestinian state inside the '67 borders and will not operate to thwart diplomatic negotiations held by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3249568,00.html
If Israel is committed to a REAL two-state solution, why is it sabotaging it by confiscating ever more Palestinian land in the West Bank and placing ever-more Israeli colonists there?
I hate to break this to you, but actions speak louder than words.
If I had a nickel for everytime they backed away from that statement since that article was written in 2006...
http://www.google.com/search?q=Hamas+recognize+Israel+2006&hl=en&start=0&sa=N
...or a dollar for every rocket and mortar they fired at Israeli towns since.
Actually, here's what HAMAS leader Khaled Meshal stated to the NY Times last week
"...On the two-state solution sought by the Americans, he said: “We are with a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.” Asked what “long-term” meant, he said 10 years."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/world/middleeast/05meshal.html?scp=2&sq=hamas&st=cse
eh, Israel is not for the 2 state solution
Is the current Israeli government for the 2 state solution?
No.
I think the appropriate question is when has HAMAS
ever accepted a two-state solution. Their current 'goodwill gesture' is a 10-year truce, provided Israel up and commits suicide for them.
An apartheid wall? I guess Walt means the one in Gaza, which saw every last Jew, living and dead, cleared out over three years ago.
So tell us professor, just how many Jews are left alive in the Arab and Muslim world?
USA should aplogize more often also
Like Hillary Clinton did recently (US pro-Zionist press did not carry it of course):
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/us-created-taliban-and-abandoned-pakistan,-says-hillary
US created Taliban and abandoned Pakistan, says Hillary
By Anwar Iqbal
Saturday, 25 Apr, 2009 | 04:39 AM PST
WASHINGTON, April 24: Two days of continuous congressional hearings on the Obama administration’s foreign policy brought a rare concession from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who acknowledged that the United States too had a share in creating the problem that plagues Pakistan today.
In an appearance before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Mrs Clinton explained how the militancy in Pakistan was linked to the US-backed proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
“We can point fingers at the Pakistanis. I did some yesterday frankly. And it’s merited because we are wondering why they just don’t go out there and deal with these people,” said Mrs Clinton while referring to an earlier hearing in which she said that Pakistan posed a “mortal threat” to the world.
“But the problems we face now to some extent we have to take responsibility for, having contributed to it. We also have a history of kind of moving in and out of Pakistan,” she said.
“Let’s remember here… the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago… and we did it because we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union.
“They invaded Afghanistan… and we did not want to see them control Central Asia and we went to work… and it was President Reagan in partnership with Congress led by Democrats who said you know what it sounds like a pretty good idea… let’s deal with the ISI and the Pakistan military and let’s go recruit these mujahideen.
“And great, let them come from Saudi Arabia and other countries, importing their Wahabi brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet Union.
“And guess what … they (Soviets) retreated … they lost billions of dollars and it led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“So there is a very strong argument which is… it wasn’t a bad investment in terms of Soviet Union but let’s be careful with what we sow… because we will harvest.
“So we then left Pakistan … We said okay fine you deal with the Stingers that we left all over your country… you deal with the mines that are along the border and… by the way we don’t want to have anything to do with you… in fact we’re sanctioning you… So we stopped dealing with the Pakistani military and with ISI and we now are making up for a lot of lost time.”
It was question from Congressman Adam Shciff, a California Democrat that spurred Secretary Clinton to delve into history and come out with an answer that other US politicians have avoided in the past.
The congressman noted that while the US had provided “a phenomenal amount of military support for Pakistan,” they had not changed the paradigm.
“And more pernicious, there are elements within the Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI that may be working at cross-purposes with us.
“How we can possibly be funding the Pakistani military if elements of the military or intelligence services are actually working against us and having the effect of killing our troops next door?” he asked.
Professor Walt,
You call yoursef a realist, but you are as far from a realist as one could possibly be. In your mind the only thing keeping there from being peace is Israel and if only Israel accepted the Arab initiative, Hamas would refute everything it has ever said for the last 20 years. BB apparantly can't be moderated by being in charge of a real democracy, beholden to voters; but Hamas, who kills any voters it doesnt like, just needs a chance.
You have no credibility because you do not give a second's thought to the fact that Israeli concessions are not enough for peace in the real world. If you ever turn your mind to thinking of a true realist solution to the problem where both sides, including Hamas, agree to real peace, then you will have made a real contibution. Until then you will still have your legions of fans at hundreds of neo-nazi, islamist, and stalinst websites. Is that really how you want your life's work to be remembered?
As far as double standards, are you saying we don't have a specal relationship with Saudi Arabia or Quwait? Two countries we actually went to war with Iraq to protect? Shouldnt we have just made a grand bargain with Saddam in the same way you want us to make one now with Iran? What about Egypt who we also give billions to each year? No special relationship?
Israel behaves much better than France ever did with regard to Algeria and France wasn't invaded three times or subject to thousands of terrorist attacks.
How did the Dutch react when 10,000 Bosnian men and boys were being executed in front of their troops? They did nothing.
The US has a 50 to 1 civilian to enemy kill ratio with unmanned Predator attacks. A program continued by Obama. The most ferverent Israel enemies say Israel had a 1 to 1 ratio in Gaza and Israeli numbers are 1 to 5. Yet there are calls for war crimes trials against Israel, but none for those operating Predators.
Not a double standard?
"You have no credibility because you do not give a second's thought to the fact that Israeli concessions are not enough for peace in the real world."
Actually, Walt has no credibility because he isn't credible. Or, as he puts it...
After awhile, smart listeners learn not to accept anything they're told without double-checking it themselves. Even worse, when they hear one thing, they start to assume that the opposite is probably true.
For instance, in the above essay Walt says this:
...and after the Saudi and Arab League peace proposals in 2002 and 2007 don't even elicit an official response from Jerusalem.
However, this indicates something other than what Walt implied:
...At the summit, Arab League chief Amr Moussa urged Israel to accept the initiative rather than ask for changes.
"The Israelis response was to ask for an amendment. We tell them to accept it first," Moussa told Arab leaders at a summit in Saudi Arabia...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/843076.html
Not only did Israel show a willingness to engage, contrary to what Walt presented, but the Arabs stymied that with a "take it or leave it" response.
Palestinian research claims 5 civilian to 1 fighter casualty rate.
New Palestinian research says the toll was 1,434, including 960 civilians, 235 fighters and 239 uniformed police.
Despite Zionist blood-thirstiness, uniformed police are civilians and protected noncombatants.
In my experience in working in Israel and the Occupied Territories, I have found that Zionists are lying as long as they are breathing.
[How long was the time period between the ethnic cleansing of 1947-8 and Benni Morris publication of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem? -- About 40 years. Isn't it amazing the length of time that corrupt Jewish social networking across academia, the news industry, publishing, and the movie industry can suppress an obvious fact?]
several women from the IDF (including the former Miss Israel) in various fetching poses,
women saving (salvare apparentias) the State of Israel;->>
it hired a prominent British public relations firm to help out.
I am disappointed that they didn't hire Paul Joseph Goebbels, he would know what he is doing;->>
Have you heard Obama is doing a better job to save the State,
Obama will seek to delay photos release
MSN
to slow down the shit (I mean unidentified sticky brownish substance) from the back of the prisoners hit the fan;->
That reminded me what Hegel used to say:
The State is Divine Idea as it exists on Earth. We must therefore worship the State as the menifestation of the Divine on Earth."
I mean even the Holy See couldn't declare it better;->>
That's what you Guys do here day and night, definitely more than five times a day, it looks like I have no chance, should I give up?;->>
One day one of the Blogger here wrote that I sound like one of those scary characters out of a horror film say The Shining, an axe in hand, attacking State and the Professor must be playing the Saviour of her with many figurines;->>
Grand Sen~or.
Walt's become just one more anti-Israel agitator, who happens to have a PhD and a blog.
Walt's polemical and dishonest rhetoric and hiding behind the writings of others now makes the above the best summary one could find. Not only has he brought disrepute on himself, but also on the Kennedy School and Harvard University, that they tolerate this biased propagandist as an "academic". Since he likely has tenure based on his past body of academic work, the best solution henceforth is simply to ignore him and let him fade into obscurity along with other discredited academics who have departed from rational analysis.
Yeah, Sterngang, good idea: let's ignore Prof. Walt by posting more things on his blog everyday.
I have another idea: why don't you start a pro-Israeli settlements blog and let's see what kind of hits it gets?
You can start by posting this from CBS 60 Minutes:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4752349n
What?! You want Professor to resign (or better being kicked out) from his post and join the IL;->>
Grand Sen~or.
So the Star of David is about where the anus or genitalia of the sunbather would be? Very nice! (sarcasm intended)
I wish it were "really that simple."
I agree with most of what Walt says about branding. It's a waste of time; it won't work. His error (besides the usual error about Israel having the power to end the war), is in the post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning that Israel's bad image is all a result of the 1967 occupation. That fact is obviously important, but at least as important is that there has been a sea-change in the West since 1967, and the West's dislike of Israel has more to do with what the West has become than with what Israel does.
Even if Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 lines in the near future and signs a peace treaty establishing a Palestinian state, the Palestinians' armed struggle to liberate the whole of Palestine will continue - I don't see how anyone can seriously deny that it will - and most of the West will continue to side with the Palestinians against the State of Israel. The Israelis are seen as European (or white) colonialists oppressing an indigenous, brown-skinned population (Israeli Arabs and Arab citizens of the new State of Palestine). Therefore, there is absolutely no way the Europeans will ever side with the "European colonialists" (Zionists) in this war, no matter what either side does.
Israel's "Brand" Has Never Been Better
Israel's "brand" certainly needs refurbishing in the eyes of Professor Walt and his fellow Israel critics in the realist foreign policy establishment. No doubt many leftists also yearn for a major change in policy direction on the part of the Jewish State; but in most of the world, Israel's "brand" has never been better. Professor Walt is conflating his fervent desires with objective facts when he claims otherwise.
In the United States, numerous public opinion polls show American support for Israel to be steady with an approval rate in excess of 60 percent; the same place it has been for 20 years. Conversely, there’s not a single Arab State with an approval rate better than 35 percent (Iran’s is around 10 percent). As Professor Walt knows (because he bemoans it all the time) millions of American Jews and perhaps 10 million American Christians) regularly donate their time and their money to organizations that advocate on behalf of Israel. Over 50 percent of the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate attended the recent AIPAC Conference and the Obama Administration is filled with long time supporters of Israel. While these public officials may not always agree with Israeli policy, it seems self-evident that the Israeli "brand" appears rock solid to them. And anyone interested in how our neighbors to the North think might be interested to learn that the Canadians were the first nation to pull out of the Durban Conference because of what the Canadian Premier called “anti-Israel bias.”
In Europe, despite the protestations of some noisy but largely irrelevant and powerless leftists, relations between Israel and European nations have never been stronger. In France, President Sarkozy is the most pro-Israel French President in a generation. Not since the Suez incident have Israeli and French relations been so closely aligned. President Sarkozy was in Israel and addressed the Knesset just a few short months ago. Chancellor Merkel in Germany is a staunch Israeli ally who recently approved donating two German built Dolphin Class submarines to the Israeli navy. It is widely believed that the Israelis can and will alter the submarines torpedo tubes to make them capable of firing nuclear tipped cruise missiles. In Italy, Prime Minister Berlusconi regularly excoriates the Palestinians while maintaining close relations with the Israelis. The current Czech President (who will be resigning shortly) describes himself as Israel's closest ally in Europe and during the Gaza Campaign was outspoken in his criticism of Hamas (he did this from the platform of the rotating Presidency of the European Union). The Poles have developed a remarkably close relationship with Israel and there is a renaissance of interest in all things Jewish taking place in Poland (especially around Cracow). British sympathy for the Israeli position has increased markedly as a result of attacks by Muslim extremists in Britain. Even Russia's relationship with Israel (despite its economic relationship with Iran) is far better than it was during the Cold War. As Professor Walt surely knows, within 48 hours of the end of the Gaza Campaign the heads of State of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic were all in Israel for a dinner meeting with then Prime Minister Olmert promising to help stem the flow of Iranian weapons into Gaza. If he thinks there is evidence of a problem with Israel's "brand" in Europe, Professor Walt should cite the evidence, otherwise his claim is just puffery.
Israel's "brand" also seems to be doing fine with the nations that everyone assumes will be the next world superpowers. The rise of Islamic extremism has pushed India closer to Israel than it has ever been. India recently launched an Israeli spy satellite; Israel is selling India its Phalcon AWAC planes; with the assistance of the Indian navy, Israel recently conducted test launches of cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads in the waters off the Indian Ocean; Israel is training Indian troops in counterinsurgency and scores of Israeli and Indian high tech companies are engaging in joint ventures.
China's Foreign Minister (Yang Jiechi) paid an official visit to Israel just last month and China just purchased unmanned drone aircraft produced by Israel Aerospace. While trade between the two nations is relatively small ($7 billion), Israel is China's second largest military supplier (after Russia). Israeli relations with both China (which has an Islamic extremism problem of its own in the Uyghur Autonomous Region) and India are far stronger than they have ever been. In case Professor Walt didn't notice, both nations were remarkably restrained in their comments on Israel's attack on Hamas in Gaza. Rightly or wrongly, the plight of the Palestinians is virtually irrelevant to the Indians and Chinese. Concern about the plight of the Palestinians is largely a western conceit.
Paradoxically, Israel's relations with its Sunni Arab neighbors have never been better at any time in its history. While Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel because they realized that militarily they could not defeat it, now for the first time, they are strategically aligned. Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE all fear and loathe Iran at least as much as Israel does (probably more) and they were all virtually allied with Israel in its war on Hamas. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia foiled the Arab league from developing a unified statement against Israel's Gaza Campaign and Egypt and Jordan rooted for Israel to lengthen its attack to destroy Hamas (something Israel wisely decided not to do). Tom Friedman said it best in a recent column when he highlighted how while the Sunni Arab states were bemoaning all of the terrible destruction in Gaza they were secretly furious at the Israelis; criticizing them mercilessly for not finishing off Hamas, civilian casualties be damned.
Sure, the Israeli government may be coming up with a new marketing slogan to entice tourism. In doing this, its doing what many governments do including the United States and numerous state governments ("I love New York," "New Jersey and You, Perfect Together", "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas") but if Professor Walt wants to claim that this is a metaphor for a larger "brand" problem of Israel's own making, he should mention some facts; otherwise his comment is nothing but hot air.
re: Israel's "Brand" Has Never Been Better
Published: 05/13/09, 10:15 AM
Israel to Open Embassy in Turkmenistan, Neighbor to Iran
by Maayana Miskin
(IsraelNN.com) Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman,despite recent budget cuts, has arranged to open a new Israeli embassy in Turkmenistan, which shares a border with Iran. The decision follows secret talks with Turkmen officials...
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131330
Turkmenistan is a Muslim country. Hat tip: FP's Passport blog.
Dr. Alan Sabrowsky's Khaleej Times op-ed The Two State Delusion implies that support for Israel in the USA could crumble at any moment (as it should).
Unfortunately, like Professor Walt and Max Hastings he displays a lack of familiarity with modern Jewish history when he writes:
Israel itself is a fascinating case study in the principle that people often acquire the worst habits of their oppressors, for the dominant Israeli attitude — views Arabs generally and Palestinians in particular much the way their last oppressors viewed Jews.
Because it is important in the aftermath of the Israeli slaughter of Gazan civilians to understand how much far too many ethnic Ashkenazim have participated in mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide since the 1850s, I have put together the following discussion summary to encourage some truth into the advertising of the backstory of establishment of the State of Israel.
The Holocaust was for the most part both
- the result of legitimate fear of the Soviet Union perceived (not unreasonably according to Yale Jewish studies Professor Benjamin Harshav) as an expression of Judeobolshevism and also
- a consequence of a desire for collective revenge on the part of victims
- of attempted communist coups in Germany and Hungary as well as
- of genocidal (often Jewish Bolshevik planned and organized) Soviet policies.
Poles had strong memories of the Jewish Bolshevik commanded Soviet army that attempted to overrun Poland and that was defeated by Pilsudski in the battle called the Miracle of Warsaw.
The Holoexaleipsis of which the Nakba is only a part is much more correctly described as the archetypal genocide than is the Holocaust.
Stealing Palestine was wrong no matter who did it, but ethnic Ashkenazim, who have yet to demonstrate any willingness to express acknowledgment, remorse, contrition, or atonement for the massive crimes that have arisen since the 1850s from their political culture, were probably one of the most dangerous groups upon which state power could have been conferred.
A List of Articles on the Holocaust and Ethnic Ashkenazi Genocidalism
- Understanding the Holocaust by Understanding Eastern Europe
- Holoexaleipsis, Holocaust, Holosphage and Holodomor
- Nakba education vs Holocaust disinformation for Americans
- The Unrepentant Genocidaires -- addresses the international legal definition of genocide
- One-Sided Dialogue from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Letter to the Boston Globe: Dishonest American Genocide Discourse
- The Holocaust and "Getting Off" on Abusing Palestinians
- Yom Kippur and Ashkenazi Genocidalism
- Married to Another Man, Married to Another Woman
- The Most Important Hanukkah Gift: The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook!
- More Jewish Genocide Denial
- David Horowitz' Glass House
- ADL, Ron Paul, Stormfront
- Merry Christmas, Israel-Supporters!
- Christmas Under Zionist Rule
- Bringing Holocaust Religion to Arabs
- Set Up for Another Holocaust
- Sometimes Emailing Makes a Difference
- USHMM: National Thought Control
- Sarkozy, Holocaust 1956 Versus Today
- Gilad Atzmon - Sabra, Shatila and Collective Amnesia | Palestine Think Tank
Is this "Joachim Martillo" trying to hide under a different pseudonym? People have learned to ignore your mix of psychotic rants and outright lies.
So Many Myths: Is it Walt or is it Bulfinch?
Professor Walt promotes so many myths in this post that it's almost hard to know where to begin rebutting them. He makes this cheeky comment,
"In addition to various forms of cultural outreach designed to highlight Israel's achievements, this effort included having a men’s magazine publish a photo spread of several women from the IDF (including the former Miss Israel) in various fetching poses, a decision that didn't go over all that well back in Israel itself."
True to form, the good Professor fails to tell us whether he prefers the manner in which women are treated in Israel or in Saudi Arabia or even in Egypt or Jordan. And of course, he forgets to mention the annual "Women of the U.S. Army" edition of Playboy. I guess it's only scantly clad Israeli soldiers that he finds objectionable.
Professor Walt admonishes us that Israel needs to be judged by Western standards. He is at his most disingenuous when he says,
"It is the standard Israel imposes on itself when it tells everyone it is "the only democracy in the Middle East." Israel is being expected to behave like Britain or Canada or France or Japan and not like some one-party military dictatorship..."
If Israel "behaved" like Britain, France or the United States, Israel would exile the entire Palestinian population in the West Bank, Gaza and even Israel proper and it would claim the entire former British mandate for itself. After all, this is precisely what the victorious allies did not in the far distant past, but less than 69 years ago at the conclusion of the Second World War.
Winston Churchill is a revered figure in the United States and Great Britain. He is widely acclaimed as the father of modern Europe. This is what Churchill had to say about massive forced population movements in a speech to the British Parliament in 1944,
"Expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble. A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed at the prospect of disentanglement of populations, nor am I alarmed by these large transferences." (See Jerry Z. Muller, “Us and Them; The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism,” Foreign Affairs, 2008; 87, 2)
And Churchill wasn't just talking; he meant what he said. Along with Roosevelt and Stalin (and with the full acquiescence of DeGaulle) this is what the Americans, British, French and Russians presided over in the aftermath of World War II:
1) Between 1944 and 1945 5 million ethnic Germans who had lived in Russia and the Ukraine for generations were forced by the Russian army to flea westward to live in a Germany destroyed by war that most of them had never seen.
2) Between 1945 and 1947 7 million ethnic Germans were forced to leave Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia to be resettled in Germany.
Together these movements enforced by the allies represented the largest forced population movement in European history; hundreds of thousands died in route.
3) In 1947, 1.5 million Poles who were living in the Soviet Union were forced to leave their ancestral homes and resettle in Poland.
4) Starting in 1948, 500 thousand ethnic Ukrainians were forced by the Allies to leave their homes in Poland and resettle in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
5) Between 1945 and 1950 the entire ethnic Slovak population was required to leave Hungary and resettle in Czechoslovakia.
6) Between 1945 and 1950 the entire ethnic Magyar population (hundreds of thousands of people) was forced to leave Czechoslovakia and resettle in Hungary.
7) In 1947 the end of the British Raj brought the partition of the Indian subcontinent. The British presided over 15 million people becoming refugees with Hindus moving to India and Muslims moving to Pakistan.
8) After 1945 the few remaining European Jews (about 220,000) made their way from all over Europe to the American controlled zone in Germany; from there most emigrated to either the United States or Israel. Jews essentially vanished from eastern and central Europe (excluding the USSR).
9) Between 1948 and 1967 partly as a result of nationalistic and xenophobic violence directed against them, more than 500 thousand Arab Jews left the nations they were born in to resettle in Israel.
10) In 1962 the end of French colonialism in Algeria resulted in the forced repatriation of tens of thousands of Algerians of European or mixed European-Algerian ancestry.
The reality that Professor Walt can’t bring himself to acknowledge is that Israel’s “behavior” after its victory in 1967 is far better than the “behavior” of the British, French, Russians or Americans after their victory in World War II.
The Israelis are far from perfect and there is much to criticize in their policies, tactics and treatment of Palestinian civilians. But according to the standard that Walt postulates as appropriate, the standard of the modern Western nations, Israel comes off smelling like a rose.
Time to bone up on your history, Professor Walt.
Expulsion is all the rage! Come join us!
Cool -- so Hamas is being just as enlightened as the Western powers by calling for expelling all Zionists into the sea.
Hamas' terrorism is peanuts compared to the fire-bombing of Danzig.
9/11 was nothing compared to Hiroshima.
Moral relativism is very fun -- a game for the whole family!
Why does anyone have to behave morally?! -- we are all apes.
Sit back and enjoy the terrorism that you earn.
“What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.”
- W. H. Auden
I understand what you're saying. But I'd like to add that there is a fine line between moral relativism and cultural imperialism.
Most of the incidents he refers to took place during or in the immediate aftermath of the greatest struggle in the history of mankind - the Second World War. In this titanic struggle -- the allies had succeeded against great odds in facing down the greatest tyrant in World History. Some population transfers were made, most of them affecting the loosing part, the Germans, who due to this countrys role as instigator of two world wars, most people thought very little of in those days. Therefore you cannot compare the fate of Germans with an hypothetical fate of Palestinians, because the Germans were slain after having tries in Two World Wars to take over the World, and many considered their fate fair, whereas in the Middle East context Israel have won some local wars over a people that were the original inhabitants in the jewish colony today known as 'Israel'.
And with regards to your point:
9) Between 1948 and 1967 partly as a result of nationalistic and xenophobic violence directed against them, more than 500 thousand Arab Jews left the nations they were born in to resettle in Israel.
-it is important to remeMber that this took place A-F-T-E-R around 800.000 Palestinians had been expelled in 1948. And in French North Africa, the Jews had been on the side of the White colonialists (surprise, surprise) and left with them,- some to France, but most of them relocating to Israel.
Overall you need to understand that after The Second World War, we were trying to build up a better world, where such expulsions and transfers could not occur. Therefore it was shocking to many of us to see, that of all countries Israel -- with its own history of being persecuted and harassed -- were expelling hundreds of thousands people, and apparently had no wish to let these many people come back after the war, as was customary. President Truman like many others was in disbelief over that. And as time has shown, his and many others concerns have been proven right, as this problem with the expelled Palestinians -- today numbering close to three million people -- continues to be a great cause for instability that have led to war, terror (and terrors response in the form of state terror) and it remains the very core of the Middle East Conflict. Lastly I shall remind you that if the Palestinian leadership are out -- perish the thought -- Palestinian terror will again become International as it was between June 1967 and the beginning of the Oslo Peace Process. This was the greatest terror campaign the world has ever seen, involving the hijacking of numerous aircrafts and hostagetakings, such as that in Munich in 1972.
With regard to the latter*, it was carried out by a group called 'Black September', named after the incident in Jordan i September 1970, when the Palestinian Leadership were thrown out of that country and escaped to Lebanon, where they seemingly has a negative influence on the Civil War there. What is certain is that the Civil War started after they arrived - it started in 1975.
__________________________
*)
Greatest terrorcampaign the world has ever seen
We now know the price for expelling the Palestinian leadership in this way. The incident was the start of the greatest terrorcampaign the world have ever seen, far outdoing recent hysteria about - for the most part - non existing terror. The world saw airplane-hijacking for the first time on a grand scale, and 11 israeli atletes were taken hostage at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 by the Palestinian group: "Black September". 'Only' two were killed by the hostage-takers - the remaining nine, five out of eight hostage-takers and one german police-officer were killed in the ensuing gun-fight, after two helicopters - provided under the promises of a free transfer - were attacked by an amateurish acting West-german police.The motives for the Palestinians were as pointed out grief and anger of having been expelled from Palestine in 1967.
Further motives, that resonates among all Palestinians, includes anger, that Israel had taken Palestines place at the Olympics. Palestine had been a proud participant in the Olympic Games in the 20'ties and 30'ties, but from 1952 Israel took over its place (for the record: There were no Olympic Games in 1940 and 1944, and in 1948 the parties were at war)
Palestinian terror ended with prospect of state
In the middle of the Eighties, Palestinian International terror ended, one of the last spats being the hijacking on October 7, 1985 of "Archille Lauro" by members of The Palestine Liberationfront (PLF). With the onset of the First Intifada and the subsequent beginning of talks between the parties, resulting in the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and the return of Arafat in 1994, these International terror-incidents had all ended, showing in a Nutshell that terror is political motivated, and can be remedied by political negociations - and it shows the Peril for the rest of the world, when the Palestinian leadership are out.
Winston Churchill is a revered figure in the United States and Great Britain. He is widely acclaimed as the father of modern Europe. This is what Churchill had to say about massive forced population movements in a speech to the British Parliament in 1944,
"Expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble. A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed at the prospect of disentanglement of populations, nor am I alarmed by these large transferences." (See Jerry Z. Muller, “Us and Them; The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism,” Foreign Affairs, 2008; 87, 2)
Yeah, all to save the State, Israel has to find an original way to save the State of Israel;->>
Professor and his friends are here to help how to save the Sate of Israel without hurting much the Jews and the US. In this process of saving the State of Israel, Professor and his friends has to save their State as well;->
Think about it;-> Without the State whom should you and Professor & his friends worship? The G-d?!
Same for the Palestinians, they are ready to give up everything like you, including the God to have their State to worship. So, please be understanding for the Palestinians, you are in the same boat and worshipping the same Idol - the State;->>
Me?!
Me here playing Abraham/Ibrahim to break the neck of your Idol - the State - with an axe in hand;->>>
Have you started your fire yet, to burn me down to ashes to save your Idol;->>>
Grand Sen~or.
No Mr. Walt, it really just isn't that "simple". This article omits many of the complexities in the Arab-Israeli conflict including the need to balance human rights with security in an asymmetrical conflict; appears to be advocating for a "one state solution"; and repeats the canards (B'Tselem's cameras have indeed captured Israeli abuses but funny that its cameras are never around to document Palestinian crimes) and inflammatory rhetoric ("apartheid wall") of many EU- and European funded NGOs.
See www.ngo-monitor.org for more information.
From my previous post
If you ever turn your mind to thinking of a true realist solution to the problem where both sides, including Hamas, agree to real peace, then you will have made a real contribution. Until then you will still have your legions of fans at hundreds of neo-Nazi, Islamist, and Stalinist websites. Is that really how you want your life's work to be remembered?
From Siculo Arabi
The Holocaust was for the most part both the result of legitimate fear of the Soviet Union
Let me add to the list of Walt admirers "people who think the Jews deserved the Holocaust" .
Walt: Remembered for Intellectually Dishonest Detractors
Don't a lot of Zionists argue that Palestinians deserved what they got?
Turnabout is fair play. What is sauce for the goose is gravy for the gander.
By 1939 ethnic Ashkenazim were up to their eyeballs in mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
Rabbi Elkhonon Wasserman, whose works practically every yeshiva bokher studies, predicted gentile rage and catastrope (Shoah) as the response to Jewish Bolshevism.
Besides Talmudic erudition, we remember him for being right.
Professor Walt will be remembered in part for the intellectual dishonesty of his detractors, who mendaciously try to reinterpret "result of legitimate fear" as "legitimate response" to "legitimate fear."
Supporting Zionism is a wholly illegitimate response to the Holocaust while abolishing the Zionist state and eradicating Zionism is a wholly legitimate response to the crimes and threat that Zionism represents: Jewish Peril: 1933 versus 2009.
It's "Joachim Martillo" hiding under a different pseudonym. In other words, a deranged pseudo-intellectual whose rants are the main feature on... his own blog. Enough said.
who mendaciously try to reinterpret "result of legitimate fear" as "legitimate response" to "legitimate fear."
By 1939 ethnic Ashkenazim were up to their eyeballs in mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
abolishing the Zionist state and eradicating Zionism is a wholly legitimate response to the crimes and threat that Zionism represents
.
Thanks for continuing to make my point for me.
I, too, am a Jew and think Zionism is the root of much anti-Semitism today. (Which is fine for Zionists as they thrive on anti-Semitism).
Your post was excellent:
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/05/jewish-peril-1933-versus-2009.html
Comparing Zionist and German Nazi ideology shows that both political intellectual systems consist of a practically identical combination (with obvious ethnic substitutions) of politicized ethnic fundamentalism, extremist organic nationalism, social Darwinism, biological determinism, essentialism, primordialism, perverted eugenic theory, opposition to race mixing for causing ethnic degeneration, and the corresponding belief in national revival through racial purity.
Yet Zionists have proven to be much smarter Nazis for they have built their thousand year Reich as a virtual state entity and have piggy-backed on US power and influence since 1947 in an effort to conquer not merely territory but to thoroughly colonize the minds of their Western victims, who are being lead like sheep to some sort of apocalyptic slaughter in confrontation with the Islamic world.
From the Guardian: M.E. Jews/Palestinians genetically identical
Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians
* Robin McKie, science editor
* The Observer, Sunday 25 November 2001 11.24 GMT
A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal.
Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away.
Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma.
'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.'
British geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer added: 'If the journal didn't like the paper, they shouldn't have published it in the first place. Why wait until it has appeared before acting like this?'
The journal's editor, Nicole Sucio-Foca, of Columbia University, New York, claims the article provoked such a welter of complaints over its extreme political writing that she was forced to repudiate it. The article has been removed from Human Immunology's website, while letters have been written to libraries and universities throughout the world asking them to ignore or 'preferably to physically remove the relevant pages'. Arnaiz-Villena has been sacked from the journal's editorial board.
Dolly Tyan, president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, which runs the journal, told subscribers that the society is 'offended and embarrassed'.
The paper, 'The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations', involved studying genetic variations in immune system genes among people in the Middle East.
In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited.
Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate, the authors state. Rivalry between the two races is therefore based 'in cultural and religious, but not in genetic differences', they conclude.
But the journal, having accepted the paper earlier this year, now claims the article was politically biased and was written using 'inappropriate' remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its editor told the journal Nature last week that she was threatened by mass resignations from members if she did not retract the article.
Arnaiz-Villena says he has not seen a single one of the accusations made against him, despite being promised the opportunity to look at the letters sent to the journal.
He accepts he used terms in the article that laid him open to criticism. There is one reference to Jewish 'colonists' living in the Gaza strip, and another that refers to Palestinian people living in 'concentration' camps.
'Perhaps I should have used the words settlers instead of colonists, but really, what is the difference?' he said.
'And clearly, I should have said refugee, not concentration, camps, but given that I was referring to settlements outside of Israel - in Syria and Lebanon - that scarcely makes me anti-Jewish. References to the history of the region, the ones that are supposed to be politically offensive, were taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and other text books.'
In the wake of the journal's actions, and claims of mass protests about the article, several scientists have now written to the society to support Arnaiz-Villena and to protest about their heavy-handedness.
One of them said: 'If Arnaiz-Villena had found evidence that Jewish people were genetically very special, instead of ordinary, you can be sure no one would have objected to the phrases he used in his article. This is a very sad business.'
Actually the genetic research has show Ashkenazi Jews can trace their ancestry to the same origins as Syrians and Palestinians based on studies of their Y chromozones and have very little in common with Europeans.
http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/346genetics.html
Recent genetic studies, based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, showed that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their host populations in Europe.
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v13/n3/full/5201319a.html
Middle eastern origins of Askenazi women
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/14/science/14gene.html?_r=2&oref=slogin
The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event
http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/43026_Doron.pdf
Old Ideological Völkisch Racist Nonsense
The material to which the above comment refers is old, tendentiously posed, or tendentiously interpreted.
I used to work for the Harvard Center for Population Studies, and I am a quite competent statistician. I am more than willing to go through the underlying research articles to demonstrate the flaws. If I am not good enough, I know a Fields Medal winner that is interested in putting genetic anthropology on a sound mathematical foundation and might be willing to discuss flaws in the current approach.
As for the current state of the "science," a commenter on Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel summarized the current state of genetic anthropological research about ethnic Ashkenazim.
In fact modern genetic studies strongly suggest that Ashkenazi Jews have an Anatolian-Black Sea area ancestry. I would not say their main ancestry is Khazar nevertheless but rather Anatolian anyhow. It's clearly not from the Levant for the most part in any case.
Zionist geneticists like D. Behar have tried to hide this fact by claiming that the peoples of the Levant do not represent those living there 2000 years ago and that instead minorities like the Druzes (who are somewhat similar in their genetic makeup to Jews but who do have a tradition of foreign origin and seem like Greek Gnostics "converted" to Islam) do.
But the fact seems to be that Ashkenazi Jews appear to be mostly of Anatolian or other Black Sea are origin, with a maninful apportion (c. 20%) of Central European blood.
Also it seems that, against modern "tradition" of maternal heritage of Jewishness, Y-DNA (paternal) lineages look much more properly West Asian than mtDNA (maternal) lineages do, suggesting that, in practice, Jewish men married Gentile women all the time. This does not only applies to Ashkanazim but to all Jews in general, except those that are more clearly from a local convert background like Berber and Ethiopian Jews. Again the conclusions of such studies (Behar has provided very good data but his conclusions are very misleading and ideological) try to find most unlikely "founder effects" to justify such data within a Zionist perspective.
My model does not assume a single founder population. Late ancient and early medieval texts describe a diverse collection of communities of various ethnic origins. These communities were linked by a trade network and a sacred law (Halakhah -- the Jewish equivalent of Sharia) exchange members.
The main exporter of community members seems to be the region around the Black Sea.
Not only were Jewish men commonly marrying gentile women at least as late as the 13th century, but Sefer Hasidim explicitly recommends marriage to a good gentile woman over a bad Jewess.
As for the previous comment on my blog about the differences between Turks and Jews, one must ask which Turks and which Jews? There is at least one Turkish community known to be descended from converted Jews while Turks, even if we look just at Turkey, constitute one of the most genetically diverse human populations. It does not take much to cook up a genetic anthropological study that provides data to support any hypothesis an ideological researcher might have.
In short, ethnic Ashkenazim in Stolen Palestine (pre-1967 Israel) and in Occupied Palestine (the occupied territories) are racist, murderous, genocidal invaders, interlopers, and thieves.
American Zionists have manipulated the USA under false pretenses into a special relationship that has cost approximately $5-6 trillion at this point, and the rate of increase of the cost associated with Israel is growing rapidly.
This manipulated expenditure is a textbook case of fraud, and the US government should clawback $5-6 trillion from American Zionists.
Such action would go a long way to fixing the economy and to neutralizing the problem of Zionist subversion of American politics.
Trade Network, Sacred Law, Modern Identity
For a similar more recent example of a trade network that came to form the basis of a modern identity, see Modern Identity Creates Ancient Origins.
Mr. Martillo, no one wants to hear your racist delusional rants. Notice how the only responses you get are from me, urging people to ignore you.
Where did the current inhabitants of the US come from?
No need for genetic research; we know that they killed off the Indians and took over their land. Yet it has no relevance for the current situation. That's the point.
Racist Jewish Zionists always argue that the mistreatment of native Americans should give Zionists a pass to plunder and kill the native Palestinian population and helps justify the special relationship between Israel and the USA.
I have not met many Americans that would rationalize a rampage through Indian territories in the way that Zionists justify the IDF rampage in Gaza.
Because Zionists justify mass slaughters and population transfers, a good way for the USA to atone for crimes against Indians would be to abolish the State of Israel, remove the racist, murderous, genocidal Zionist invaders and seize all Zionist assets for aiding and abetting Zionist terrorism.
After using the clawbacked assets to cover damages to Palestinians and the USA, there should be some to provide relief to American Indians.
While there's no shame in mental illness
I wouldn't necessarily trust the judgment of a mentally ill individual. Mr. Martillo, until you get help for your paranoid schizophrenia I don't see a reason why anyone should take you seriously.
You're right, Americans didn't rationalize what they did to the Indians; they just did it. So your point is vacuous. And your non sequiturs are particularly amusing: the US "atones" for its own crimes by imposing its colonial willpower on other countries.
THEY'RE NOT IMMIGRANT
THEY-RE NOT AMERICAN
WHEREVER THEY LIVE THEY CALL THEMSELVES
JEWISH SPANISH...JEWISH FRENCH..JEWISH GERMAN..
NOT THE OPPOSITE. HOW ABOUT AMERICA. SO
STOP THREATENING U.S.I.* AND
LET'S GO BACK TO LOVEABLE U.S.A.
*UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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