The power of America's "Jewish lobby" is said to be legendary.
Commentators the world over refer to it, as though it were a well-established fact that US Jews wield far more influence than their numbers (2% of the population) would suggest.
But this presumed influence is also a delicate issue in the US, and is rarely analysed.
How does the lobby work? Is its power truly legendary, or just a legend?
Murders [of women] have risen in the Palestinian territories to nearly 50 this year – a fact that many here blame on the absence of any true law and order, which allows individuals to enforce their own version of justice. Palestinians here say the image of an ever-weaker Palestinian Authority has increased after Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, making this local vigilantism harder to combat.
The page may want you to register, but the article describes a horrendous patriarchal system where males accuse females of immorality and then murder them, leaving their bodies in garbage dumps.
Israelis may be a nation of dirty low-down bastards, but the Palestinians are a long ways from any kind of civilization. If Israel was not there to be the only true democracy in the middle east, tribal war would be the norm. With that in perspective, most Americans see Israel as a relatively good investment in foreign aid. Also Egypt, which after all has honored Henry Kissinger's peace treaty, a lasting peace that has horrified more extremist Arab nations.
I am actually pretty surprised more people can't see the positive results of peace between Israel, Egypt and Jordan. but these are people who are driven by hate, and reasonableness is not their forté.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
The state of Israel embodies the last, best chance for the Islamic world to come to terms with the modern world. Received wisdom in the foreign ministries of the West holds that relations with Muslims would be ever so much easier without the annoying presence of the Jewish state, which humiliates the Muslim world. Just the opposite is true. The Israeli presence in the territory of the ancient Jewish commonwealth, on land that once belonged to the Dar al’Islam, offers the single, slender hope for the future of the Muslim world, precisely because it constitutes a humiliation.
Posts: 7939 | Location: Santa Barbara | Registered: 19 July 2005
quote: "The state of Israel embodies the last, best chance for the Islamic world to come to terms with the modern world. Received wisdom in the foreign ministries of the West holds that relations with Muslims would be ever so much easier without the annoying presence of the Jewish state, which humiliates the Muslim world. Just the opposite is true. The Israeli presence in the territory of the ancient Jewish commonwealth, on land that once belonged to the Dar al’Islam, offers the single, slender hope for the future of the Muslim world, precisely because it constitutes a humiliation."
Wait a minute- this is supposed to be the "last hope" that the "Muslim world" can come to terms with modernity?
You mean the world's going to end soon, so there'll be no more chances?
And the fact of a "humiliation" is the best means to facilitate this?
I think the point the Asian Times is making is that the democracy of Israel towards her Arab citizens is an embarrassment to Arab regimes which are exclusively dictatorships.
And that is the crux of the propaganda campaign, to fool the world into not noticing Israel as a democracy. It's easy enough, since the Arabs nationalists reject democracy anyway.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
Muslim countries historically do NOT have the same freedoms that we have in the West, however as our sense of absolute democracy wanes (and I would say it has), comparing the US to other Western countries, we don't look AS democratic either.
"Yeehaw" is not a foreign policy!
Posts: 875 | Location: The Emerald City | Registered: 02 January 2007
This article is about the system of government of democratic Athens. See Athens (polis) for the state itself. Athenian democracy (sometimes called Direct democracy) developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 500 BC. Athens was one of the very first known democracies and probably the most important in ancient times.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
America isn't a democracy. It's a representative republic with democratically elected representatives.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
The fact that the book invites criticism, however, is also a strength. Its scholarly, dispassionate tone is meant to encourage a debate.
"Reasonable people can disagree and one of the reasons we want to have a discussion is to get issues out in the open so people can talk about them," Mr Walt says.
Tony Judt - a prominent historian and critic of Israel - does not accept every point made by Mearsheimer and Walt, but he credits them with lifting a taboo.
The main effect of the lobby, he says, has been self-censorship. "There are people out there who are anti-Semitic obviously, and you don't want to find yourself in their company, so you end up saying nothing," he says.
Mr Judt himself is not afraid to speak out, but he has to tread more carefully when he criticises Israeli policies in the US than he does in Israel itself.
"I have written articles in Haaretz that no American newspapers would touch," he says.
In this context, he adds, Mearsheimer and Walt's book is an "enormous act of intellectual courage".
"They gained nothing from it, but the community has really gained something because with each little step like that, the conversation opens up a bit more."
was a focus point for me.
quote:
The main effect of the lobby, he says, has been self-censorship.
IMO this seems to point to the root of Thom's fears.
"The moon that I love clears a path through the pines And guides a stream right to the bamboo gate."Poems by Zen Master Hsu Yun: Series I
Posts: 795 | Location: western slope, northern sierra | Registered: 18 April 2003
The date of Dec. 12th to discuss US democracy is ironic indeed, it's the same day it died [or was assassinated] eulogy for US democracy[in a book excerpt] and it's associated democratically elected representatives
quote:
The day democracy died...And I was singing bye bye, my America - bye...them good old boys were toasting "tax cuts and lies", "We'll even profit when the Mississippi levees rise" "We'll then say that the flag draped coffins are a prize" The day democracy died
This message has been edited. Last edited by: douglaslee,
Blaise Pascal Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Pensees
Posts: 2917 | Location: Sverige | Registered: 21 June 2005
Are you the American expat living in Sweden, who's email Thom read on the air yesterday?
Just wondering, it was a very profound statement, in fact I would like to ask Sue if she could post a copy of it on this site.
I used to love that song, American Pie. Actually, you wouldn't even need to change the lyrics for it to have significant meaning to what has happened in the US.
"Yeehaw" is not a foreign policy!
Posts: 875 | Location: The Emerald City | Registered: 02 January 2007
Are you the American expat living in Sweden, who's email Thom read on the air yesterday?
The letter was not mine, but there are many of us here that could've written the same thing. I was just in the US -[FL] last month with my two kids, and nephew. My daughter asked me why? on every traffic light there were soldiers panhandling, begging with a tin can in uniform, "Support the troops" was the plea, then I had to say some are homeless, and if sick denied healthcare... but the Boat Show was neat. My explanation was too long to post here, but it also included when me and her grandpa [my Dad] went to the Viet Nam Memorial in D.C., and the names of people my age, names of friends of her uncles [my brothers] on the wall, and why? I always encourage her questions, my answers to her whys I told her not to discuss in the states, then she asked why? She's wise beyond her years.
Blaise Pascal Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Pensees
Posts: 2917 | Location: Sverige | Registered: 21 June 2005
Sue, Thanks for posting the letter, I was really struck by what he wrote.
Douglaslee, My french friend (from Paris, her husband works for Microsoft), commented on the homeless people holding up signs, she told me, that she had never seen anything like that.
It is difficult to explain things to children, however they do tend to be much more observant than we adults.
You are fortunate that you can raise her in a much better environment, and you don't have to worry about her future.
Hopefully, things will turn around for the US, however I suspect it is still going to get much worse before it begins to get better.
"Yeehaw" is not a foreign policy!
Posts: 875 | Location: The Emerald City | Registered: 02 January 2007
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