… or is he just the Michael Richards of diplomacy? I always wondered if Baker was being fairly quoted when he supposedly said “F… the Jews! They didn’t vote for us anyway.” Now, after reading smatterings of the Iraq Survey Group report, I think that’s the least of it. He wants to have a regional conference in the Middle East without Israel but with Iran and Syria. From Insight Magazine: “As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure,” an official said. “This has become the most hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month.”
Pressure for what – it’s own survival? “Most hottest” indeed.
UPDATE: There’s also this from the report: The final point in the list was: “Sustainable negotiations leading to a final peace settlement along the lines of President Bush’s two-state solution, which would address the key final status issues of borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the right of return and the end of conflict.”
“‘Right of return’ is not in Oslo I or Oslo II, it’s not in the Bush Rose Garden speech, it’s not even in UN 181, the original partition resolution — it’s part of the Palestinian discourse,” said the US analyst.
and I think Baker and Co are certifiable: that the “Israel/Palestine” issue can be “solved” with a conference, in which Syria and Iran are cozened into being allies of the US, and Israel excluded… well
this is insane.
How much did the US pay these guys to sit around and come up with this “Report” anyway??
So anonymous sources are okay now?
Why not attack Baker’s policies toward Israel on their own demerits (I disagree with him myself) instead of using an unattributed rumor to cast him as an anti-semite?
As much as I support Israel in her fight for survival, I have grown weary of the hypocrisy of the American Jewish community in general in inferring any action not in Israel’s best interest to be anti-semitic.
It’s demeaning to Jews whether they realize it or not. When Mel Gibson’s the Passion of the Christ was coming out several Jewish organizations, hundreds of Jewish pundits, and the Jewish heads of two major Hollywood studios called for a blacklist of Mel Gibson. A few Jewish pundits, to their credit, condemned such talk.
And then, Mel Gibson gets drunk and yells that Jews are out to get him, something that prominent American Jews were not at all ashamed to pronounce when it suited them and suddenly the obvious becomes a hateful anti-semitic slur. It was a stupid drunken remark, and an accurate description of his treatment by the American Jewish community.
Baker’s plan sucks. So does the seemingly constant state of hypocrisy any time affairs that effect Israel are discussed in America. Arguments in Israel’s favor are obvious and do not require slurs to back them up.
“Why not attack Baker’s policies toward Israel on their own demerits (I disagree with him myself) instead of using an unattributed rumor to cast him as an anti-semite?”
James Baker is minimally a moron. He clearly embraces the notion that the Palestinians are victims instead of being the perpetrators of violence in the area. That’s enough for me.
There is no such thing as a ìpeaceful resolutionî of the Palestinian issue until Israel kills or jails the militants. Anything less is a complete waste of time—and a dangerous delusion. It really is this simple: the Jews are mostly victims, and the Palestinians are raging and hateful human beings. And no, I am not exaggerating. One only needs to read the results of the polling data concerning the Palestinians. The majority of these folks are low lifes. What else can be said on behalf of those who proudly raise their kids to become suicide bombers?
“Arguments in Israel’s favor are obvious and do not require slurs to back them up.” (Mikem)
This is precisely the point. If these arguments are so obvious, why do the Jim Bakers and Jimmy Carters fail to appreciate them? One is forced to conclude that they are either terminally stupid or,just possibly,they have a problem with Jews. Take your pick.It’s a slur either way.
“Is James Baker the biggest American anti-Semite since Father Coughlin?”
Naah, only since Pat Buchanan and Jimmy Carter.
As for anti-semitism vs. “anti-Israelism”, it’s true that criticizing Israel doesn’t automatically make you an anti-semite. But they sure do hang around together a lot. All too often critics of Israel who claim not to be bigoted give themselves away, whether it’s Jimmy Carter making mocking, sarcastic references to the “Chosen People” or Pete McCloskey hanging out with Holocaust deniers. And it’s interesting how some people are more outraged by accusations of anti-semitism than by anti-semitism itself.
It’s merely the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis converted (finally, after that long, long winter of discontent—and Zionist meddling) to US policy.
(Keeping in mind, that if one spews lies often enough, with sufficient seriousness and with ample earnestness and passion, not to mention credentials, then such lies magically become true. It’s proven. Works every time—until the roof falls in.)
You see, if the liberation of Iraq was a Zionist-Likudnik-Jewish plot, then the only justifiable flip side is the sacrifice of the State of Israel.
Besides, it’s only fair. After all, the Palestinians have been suffering for soooo long. (And have shown they will suffer—willingly, lovingly—until Israel disappears. Ergo, the only solution to Palestinian suffering is….)
And it’ll teach those Jews a thing or two about meddling in US foreign affairs (and pissing off our Saudi friends).
Or if all this is a bit too complicated to take in, one could more simply sub-title it as: “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Treacherous of the Earth.”
“And it’s interesting how some people are more outraged by accusations of anti-semitism than by anti-semitism itself.”
The standard “shut up” argument of the lazy. So if someone complains about accusations of racism, like say against Crown Heights Jews, they don’t care about the lynching of blacks more. Good stuff.
And as for “stupid” being no worse than “anti-semitic”, who can bother to argue with that?
And as for “stupid” being no worse than “anti-semitic”…
Ah, the other way around, obviously.
mikem’s right: pointing out the utter stupidity of what Baker proposes will defeat his proposal; the accusation of anti-semitism won’t.
Well, have a little sympathy for American anti-Semites, or anti-Israelists or whatever, as the ISG Report, added to Nov 07, has rather severely discredited their favorite shibboleth–that Zionists are running American foreign policy–leaving them with such strange breadcrumbs as a desire to keep Israel from interfering in Israel’s own future.
Saying that Mel Gibson yelled that Jews were out to get him is being a bit disingenuous. He said that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world, which is a bit harder to explain away by referring to his personal experience.
Baker is just this generation’s Phillipe Petain, and the House and Senate the French National Assembly. Every few years we need to be reminded of the total corruption that follows from a life in government, and unfortunately, catastrophes are the lesson.
Israel is being Sudentenized by these clammy-handed monsters, and one hopes that future historians, if there are any, will correctly record the tale. I don’t think Baker’s an anti-Semite, because he’d have to rise a few orders of moral magnitude to reach it. He’s something far worse, in the way that all bureaucrats are worse. Simply dead inside. Indifference is worse than hate.
Call it the banality of evil.
The report calls for the conference to ADDRESS right of return issue, not to implement the demands of the most militant Palestinians on the issue.
Addressing it, by the way, also includes addressing the claims of the hundreds of thousands of Jews that were deported from their homes in Arab countries, in response to the refusal of Israel to allow the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees displaced in the War of Independence to return to their homes.
“Right of return” is not the impossible issue to deal with in the dispute. The basic solution is pretty simple: Israeli acknowledgement/apology for the fact that some Arabs were forcibly and unjustly removed from their properties in that war; the mainly symbolic repatriation of a tiny minority of these refugees, in the five-figure thousands, back to Israel, or better yet, back to Israeli Arab neighborhoods that would be returned to the new Palestinian state in a land swap with the large Jewish settlement blocs of the West Bank.
The “impossible issue” to deal with in the dispute, I’m afraid, is the final status of the Temple Mount, and of the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
The ISG report is DOA. Reading Elliot Cohen’s op-ed in the WSJ this morning was a joy. The platitudes emanating from the report are real howlers. Talk about arriving at the least common denominator. In fact it even gives the least common denominator a bad name.
When you see Sandra Day O’Connor on Nightline saying with all the school marm certainty she can muster that all of Muslim leaders she talked to emphasized that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli issue was the most important issue and she actually believes it, well…let’s say that the ISG jumped the shark even before syndication.
The commenter two above thinks the big issue is Jerusalem. He must not have read that much about the Taba discussions. It was nearly resolved then. The big issue unfortunately is that the Palestinian leadership (now Hamas but Fatah too) does not really want a two-state solution. If they did, they could have had their own state a decade ago. The Hamas leadership believes the Koran literally. They are only interested in Palestine under Islamic law. Until they become remotely modern human beings nothing will happen. The ignorance of Sandra Day O’Connor is stunning. Doesn’t she read?
“The ignorance of Sandra Day O’Connor is stunning. Doesn’t she read?”
No, Sandra Day O’Connor is a pseudo educated academically trained fool. She reads only ìeliteî opinion. OíConnor is somewhat a poorly educated individual. You just found that out?
“F… the Jews! They didn’t vote for us anyway.”
I believe Carter said more-or-less the same in the run-up to his failed attempt for a second term as president.
Possibly off-topic, except for comparing Baker’s predisposition toward misrepresentation, but here’s a very damning critque of Carter’s appalling new tome from a very authoritative source:
ERRORS, OMISSIONS, INVENTIONS AND FALSEHOODS
By John H. Hinderaker
A reader writes that he received the email message below sent by Professor Kenneth Stein of Emory University and the Carter Center. Porfessor Stein’s expertise lies in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Our reader writes that when he was an undergraduate student at Emory in the mid-1990′s, Professor Stein was one of the most revered, respected professors on campus, and that Professor Stein had a long-standing association with the Carter Center in his capacity as an expert in Middle East politics and history.
Professor Stein is apparently terminating that association, solely as a result of Carter’s new book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid. The reaction of Professor Stein — a formerly close associate and collaborator of Carter — to Carter’s new book is, as our reader thought it would be, of great interest to us:
This note is to inform you that yesterday, I sent letters to President Jimmy Carter, Emory University President Jim Wagner, and Dr. John Hardman, Executive Director of the Carter Center resigning my position, effectively immediately, as Middle East Fellow of the Carter Center of Emory University. This ends my 23 year association with an institution that in some small way I helped shape and develop. My joint academic position in Emory College in the History and Political Science Departments, and, as Director of the Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel remains unchanged.
Many still believe that I have an active association with the Center and, act as an adviser to President Carter, neither is the case. President Carter has intermittently continued to come to the Arab-Israeli Conflict class I teach in Emory College. He gives undergraduate students a fine first hand recollection of the Begin-Sadat negotiations of the late 1970s. Since I left the Center physically thirteen years ago, the Middle East program of the Center has waned as has my status as a Carter Center Fellow. For the record, I had nothing to do with the research, preparation, writing, or review of President Carter’s recent publication. Any material which he used from the book we did together in 1984, The Blood of Abraham, he used unilaterally.
President Carter’s book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins.
The decade I spent at the Carter Center (1983-1993) as the first permanent Executive Director and as the first Fellow were intellectually enriching for Emory as an institution, the general public, the interns who learned with us, and for me professionally. Setting standards for rigorous interchange and careful analyses spilled out to the other programs that shaped the Center’s early years. There was mutual respect for all views; we carefully avoided polemics or special pleading. This book does not hold to those standards. My continued association with the Center leaves the impression that I am sanctioning a series of egregious errors and polemical conclusions which appeared in President Carter’s book. I can not allow that impression to stand.
Through Emory College, I have continued my professional commitment to inform students and the general public about the history and politics of Israel, the Middle East, and American policies toward the region. I have tried to remain true to a life-time devotion to scholarly excellence based upon unvarnished analyses and intellectual integrity. I hold fast to the notion that academic settings and those in positions of influence must teach and not preach. Through Emory College, in public lectures, and in OPED writings, I have adhered to the strong belief that history must presented in context, and understood the way it was, not the way we wish it to be.
In closing, let me thank you for your friendship, past and continuing support for ISMI, and to Emory College. Let me also wish you and your loved ones a happy holiday season, and a healthy and productive new year.
As ever,
Ken
Dr. Kenneth W. Stein,
Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History, Political Science,
and Israeli Studies,
Director, Middle East Research Program and
Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel
Atlanta, Georgia
I’m actually taking the time to read the report word for word, and have currently read through page 30 of the Assessment section, but I just want to point out something very easy to miss when skimming. The very first sentence of the executive summary states as fact something that is highly questionable.
What proof is there that Syria and Iraq want anything OTHER than chaos in Iraq? Just what the hell is going on here? Nobody can be this goddamm stupid except on purpose. These bastards plan to use Israel as a bargaining chip, that’s what, and this report is the preparatory rhetoric for setting up sacrifical altar. Sickening.
This whole week has been so discouraging what with Bolton departing the UN, Carter getting kudos for his horrifying new book of fabrications, omissions and half truths, and Baker being in the spotlight again espousing the principles of appeasement, cut-and-run military scenarios and unlikely liasons in Iraq.
Oh please. Tehran and Damascus can no more be talked into truly helping the Iraqis solve their problems than Europe, led by Neville Chamberlain, could sweet-talk Hitler into making nice with the Jews. Will we learn from history, or will we relearn this awful lesson by having to repeat it again and again until we get it?
Only time will tell, but if we don’t get it, it’s not going to be pretty or comfortable here for a long time to come.
I’m glad to see that Guliani and McCain are in disagreement with the report. Meanwhile, on Fox just now Menendez from New Jersery was wetting himself over the prospects of having talks with Iran and Syria. That’s bad enough, but this “Baker regional conference” proposal which excludes Israel is so odious that the Republican Party must skewer this worm right now while it is still wiggling. Regarding this utterly contemptible proposal, the words “Baker proposal” and “senior leader of the Republican leader” are in close proximity. Republican leader my ass. Not any more. Guliani and McCain are as much Baker boys as John Kerry is on my political contribution list.
Jane, what do you mean by “a long time to come”? A few battles swung the other way, a little luck gone wrong, and the fascists would’ve had the globe in the 1940s, and without a natural enemy, their secret police and modern technology would’ve kept ‘em in place for as long as time.
Let’s see. Iran undermines MAD, The West’s official Middle East policy in the making is to sacrifice Israel to the radical Islamists (thank you Mahmood Baker), American conventional forces are considered to have lost a local battle in the ME, and once withdrawn will not be coming back. Sounds like a run up to nuclear war to me.
Most of the Baker ideas seem….well-meant. I don’t see a sell-out of Israel in them, and it doesn’t seem like Olmert does either.
Making a deal with Syria and Iran is unrealistic.
Those countries are in a triumphalist mood right now. There is not much they can deliver, and their price for that “not much” will be way beyond what we are willing or able to pay. Talking to them will make that abundantly clear–so go ahead and talk.
As to Iraq, that’ll be a bugout. And as that becomes apparent, it’ll affect the fighting morale of our troops and those few Irqqis who are unreservedly on our side. No one wants to be the last guy killed in a war. The last helicopter will son leave the Embassy roof.
What then? Kurdistan should be alright. The south will be pro-Iranian, but so what? they already are. No big change there.
The center–including parts of baghdad–will be governed by monsters in human form. But if they leave us alone,we’ll leave them alone–just like we did with the pre-9/11 Taliban.
There will be terrible fighting between the jihadis and the Shia for the oilfields and for Baghdad and other “mixed” areas. Whichever side starts to lose will call in foreign allies–the Saudis or the Iranians respectively.
An eight-year war between Saudi Arabia and Iran!
Wish they could both lose….
If Israel was considering taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities, they better hurry up and do it before Iran becomes one of the USA’s partners for peace! Now would be a good time, while the Iranians are off guard laughing their asses off.
I just wonder if Damascus and Tehran really, really, would like to see USA cut the IDF loose. I know if I were them I’d have to think long and hard about that.
I agree with Buddy. Over the long term, it’s very difficult to say what American withdrawl from the entire craphole would mean.
Afghanistan will eventually prove to be an impossibility. The problems associated with the expiration of the treaty demarcating The Durand Line is a local matter way beyond NATO’s capacity to solve in any way. The Pashtuns will solve it by killing everyone in sight. I hope we aren’t there when it begins.
As for the ME, Egypt and Jordan certainly have much to lose with an American presence, and the Saudis too, who are unable to defend themselves in any meaningful way.
Once you begin to contemplate the symmetry and unintended consequences of American indifference to Muslim self-destruction, the game looks a little different.
We should never abandon Israel, in any case.
“…WITHOUT an American presence.”
“One is forced to conclude that they are either terminally stupid or,just possibly,they have a problem with Jews.” So are the 89% of American Jews who voted Democrat this year. Bush, the “greatest friend” of Israel had the Jewish support pulled under him. How could he stand up for Israel when he didn’t even have the support at home? He was the one who stood up against the UN in the Israel-Hizbo war. When every “world leader” called for Israel to stop, Bush said Israel had the right to defend itself. He appointed Bolton to the UN, an Ambassador who objected the UN’s using a map with the State of Israel wiped off. Yet 89% of American Jews wanted him gone. Israel has the American Jews to thank for being in such a dire position.
I put this remark up at Hugh Hewitt’s place:
December, 07, 2006 4:37 PM
Having watched Bush & Blair
I just watched the Bush/Blair press conference, and I have concluded that Bush is STILL a strong fellow. As to “Unity” it seems to me that he has a point: you can’t have half the population wandering around thinking that Iraq is ‘none of our business’, that finding a way to frame the battle is very important, and my impression is that that is what the Baker Commission Report is doing.
Obviously Kumbaya moments with Syria and Iran are pretty silly ideas, but the Pelosi gang want to believe that this is ‘possible,’ and ‘part of the plan.’ Bush said that the Kumbaya moments are predicated upon Iran giving up its nuclear plans and Syria stopping undermining the democratically elected Lebanese government. Now. This is what the Baker Report wants. Kumbaya.
I don’t think it will be possible without a major explosion going off on USA soil. However, to bring Pelosi onside, and Levin and the rest of the silly bunch, before this happens, it is necessary to say so.
Anyway, having watched the Press Conference (at CSpan), I think Bush is still on track. And he said he is waiting for other reports: the Military Report, and State Dept. And the State of the Union will outline the track to what Bush knows is necessary: a stable Iraq.
Again, I am one of the people that thinks the US citizen requires a huge wakeup call of a major bomb. But. I could be wrong. And I support Bush in this very lonely and responsible battle he is in.
The ISG Report looks like a Middle East meatloaf, w/o Israel it looks like Taco Bells w/o its green onions.
Whatever people say about the report, I believe it has achieved its objective. People are not talking about immediate withdraw nor timetables for withdraw. Witch means the Iraqis have some time to get their s#%t together.
Next time there will be loud talk of timetables, if not immediate withdraw and perhaps even talk of partitioning Iraq.
Also, the issue of “right of return”: a foolish idea, one that would mean that my scottish forebears have the right of return to the Western Highlands (I know exactly where a few of them lived and farmed, too, a mere 120 years ago. The property has a lot of potential for development, and has a lovely view, I wanna return, darn it.)
Anyway, with regard to the “right of return” it means that Jews should be able to return to Damascus and Cairo and Baghdad and Vienna and Berlin and Prague and Paris and Brussels and Amsterdam … and reclaim their properties therein. Ones that were lost to their owners a lot less than 120 years ago too.
The “right of return” is according the Blair (who mentioned it in passing in the press conference this morning is a simple matter of negotiation. Sure. Like pigs can fly.
The Baker report’s greatest failure is the absolute absurd idea that Iran and Syria can become allies in stabilizing Iraq. This myth obscures some other more realistic recommendations that could make the report a point of reference in the ongoing debate.
It is not without merit, but until such fallacies as above are rejected, the report’s failures will over-shadow its strengths, in my opinion.
Webutante
FINALLY:
“Officials said Mr. Baker’s proposal, reflected in the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, has been supported by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns and National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.”
“the ISG Report, added to Nov 07, has rather severely discredited their favorite shibboleth–that Zionists are running American foreign policy–”
On the contrary, it proved that we have been misled by Zionists such as Douglas Feith.
hey rog’!
here’s a post of mine from Sunday, November 12, 2006
titled THE FOLLY OF APPEASEMENT:
WHAT THEY SAID THEN:
Just give them Sudatenland, and everything will be alright.
Just give them mainland China and everything will be alright.
Just give them Eastern Europe and everything will be alright.
Just give them Cuba and everything will be alright.
Just give them Hungary and everything will be alright.
Just give them the north of Korea, and everything will be alright.
Just give them Czechoslovakia and everything will be alright.
Just give them South Vietnam and everything will be alright.
Just give them Nicaragua and everything will be alright.
Just give them Iran and everything will be alright.
Just give them Afghanistan and everything will be alright.
Just give them Poland and everything will be alright.
WHAT THEY SAY NOW:
Just give them Waziristan and eastern Afghanistan and everything will be alright.
Just give them the so-called ìoccupied territoriesî and everything will be alright.
Just give them Iraq and everything will be alright.
Just give them Kashmir and everything will be alright.
Just give them northern Nigeria and everything will be alright.
Just give them south Thailand and everything will be alright.
Just give them the Moro Islands and everything will be alright.
Just give them sharia in the banlieues of Paris and eveything will be alright.
Just give them all of Israel and everything will be alright.
APPEASEMENT: wrong then; wrong now.
Today – after the ISG report ahs been digested -
all I have to add is this: the recommendations are bad because they amount to APPEASEMENT.
The fact that Israel is to be offered up to the enemy is due to the fact that the appeasers are anti-Semitic – as well as stupid.
Why didnlt Baker ande company offer to hold a conference on KASHMIR or Patanni or SSudan!?
Because they hate Israel. They hnate Issrael becasue it has so many PUSHY JOOOOOZE!
Sleeze like Baker gave Lebanon to Syria, and failed to topple Saddam in 1991.
He was wrong then and he is wrong now.
I too tire of cries of anti-semitism just as I tire of cries of racism or ageism or whateverism.
As a solid supporter of Israel, I don’t automatically judge her critics as anti-semitic. Even if someone says “F*ck the Jews” at some point in a life of millions of utterances, that doesn’t make them anti-semitic.
I have pondered whether Mel Gibson’s tirade means he is anti-semitic. If we accept the by-now thoroughly discredited Freudian psychology, we can say “yeah – he is letting out his real repressed feelings.”
If we are a little more careful, we might say “alcohol disinhibited him and that day, for whatever reason, Jews were what his addled mind locked on to at that moment.”
I’m not claiming he or Baker are not anti-Semites. It just seems that the politics of victimology is too happily followed by those who spot anti-semitism behind every tree. Heck, the real visible anti-semites are all over the place; no reason to go imputing it in anyone who disagrees with Israel or has a drunken tirade (after, in fact, being savaged by influential people in American Jewry).
The report says that Iran wants stability in Iraq.
This leads to the following question: Are the members of the study group so idiotic as to believe that, or did they put it in there for some more subtle reason.
It is so obviously wrong as to be bizarre.
“…we have been misled by Zionists such as Douglas Feith”
radamisto, forgetting the manifold warnings, in the months following 911 (the months wherein we assessed what we were up against), that we were in a 10, or a 20, or a 50, or a 100 year war, is not the same thing as becoming disappointed after a fraction of that time, and deciding to join in a political attack meme invented by the hard left wing of the president’s opposition party.
Remembering that all the world’s intel services–and the USA democratic party leaders–believed the same things, and agreed along with the president’s team on the proper reactions, makes your latter-day “I feel so misled” into a rather mealy-mouthed and opportunistic whine that I myself would be embarrassed to admit, as who wants to announce that he is such an easy flip-flopping dupe.
If you’ve been misled by your politicos, you should admit that it must have been inadvertent, on the grounds that the misleading was done by every informed soul (save Dennis Kucinich maybe) in DC (and Europe).
If you’ve been misled by your own weakness in deciphering signal, then you should admit that, too, rather than picking out hate objects to blame for your own gratuitous obliviousness.
In more Bizarro World politics, Tehran likely to rebuf Baker peace plan at this time
Hey, Baker, are you really Baghdad Bob in disguise, or the Green Helmut guy?
Also, in the same article I linked to in my previous comment is a nice quote from McCain.
Ahh, a breath of sanity.
Meanwhile, Baker’s defense to questions about Iran’s Nuclear ambitions:
So, we’ll have 3 negotiating committees? One for Iraq, one for Iran’s Nuclear program, and one for the Palestinian/Israeli peace plan (that excludes Israel)?
Baker, if you already haven’t done so, you need to start adding Ginkgo Biloba to your daily medicinal intake.
The UN can set it up.
Perhaps the lowest point of idiocy (quite a feat) in the ISG report was when they said they were going to get Syria to persuade Hamas to recognize Israel. Leaving aside the fact that Hamas’ reason for existence is to annihilate Jews and Israel – *Syria* of course does not recognize Israel and has never shown any more inclination than Hamas to do so. Of course we all know this, which is why the report is so blatantly one-sided. It’s like saying we’re going to get Goebbels to persuade Hitler to lighten up on the Jews.
Oh wait, how lazy of me to insinuate that Hitler and Goebbels were antisemitic. My bad. I won’t do it again, I promise.
“I have pondered whether Mel Gibson’s tirade means he is anti-semitic.”
Yeah, that’s a real brain-teaser.
“Why not attack Baker’s policies toward Israel on their own demerits (I disagree with him myself) instead of using an unattributed rumor to cast him as an anti-semite?”
Whether a person is an anti-Semite or not depends not simply on what they say but perhaps more importantly on how he or she behaves. With that last in mind, there is little doubt that Baker is an anti-Semite.
“As much as I support Israel in her fight for survival, I have grown weary of the hypocrisy of the American Jewish community in general in inferring any action not in Israel’s best interest to be anti-semitic. It’s demeaning to Jews whether they realize it or not.”
The throat-clearing exercise that anti-Semites used to employ was “some of my best friends are Jews, but…” They have now moved onto “as much as I support Israel…”
Your claim is a lie, a lie much beloved by critics of Israel, especially on the left. There is no Jew in the world outside of an institution for the mentally insane who believes that all criticism of Israel amounts to anti-Semitism. What does amount to anti-Semitism is expecting the Jewish State to live up to a much higher standard than the rest of the world, or deligitimisting Israel, or lying about Israel, or suggesting that Israel has no right to exist, or supporting suicide bombers in Israel.
“When Mel Gibson’s the Passion of the Christ was coming out several Jewish organizations, hundreds of Jewish pundits, and the Jewish heads of two major Hollywood studios called for a blacklist of Mel Gibson. A few Jewish pundits, to their credit, condemned such talk.”
Now we get to the real point of your repellent claims.
Mel Gibson produced an ant-Semitic movie that was condemned not just by Jews but also by many Christian organisations. No “Jewish head” of a major studio called “for a blacklist” (sic) of Gibson. What you seem to forget is that anti-Semitism was not created by Martians or Hindus but by Christians, and that much of that anti-Semitism was inspired by exactly the kind of artistic re-enactment of the death of your god that Gibson had produced. You also forget that Gibson’s father is a vicious anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier and Gibson never repudiated those views. Indeed, he only made matters worse by trying to actually downplay the significance of the Holocaust. What made this particularly galling is that the Holocaust couldn’t have actually taken place without the almost total and willing collaboration of the majority of European Roman Catholics (and not a few in America who were responsible for the U.S. doing next to nothing to save the drowning Jews of Europe – the U.S. fought despite the Jews and not because of them).
“And then, Mel Gibson gets drunk and yells that Jews are out to get him, something that prominent American Jews were not at all ashamed to pronounce when it suited them and suddenly the obvious becomes a hateful anti-semitic slur. It was a stupid drunken remark, and an accurate description of his treatment by the American Jewish community.”
Whenever Christians used to engage in pogroms, they always suggested that it was the fault of the Jews in the first place. You are engaging in exactly the same kind of antics. Gibson makes an anti-Semitic movie which is criticised by leading Christians and Jews, downplays the Holocaust (“yeah, people die in wars”), accuses Jews of being responsible for all the wars in the world and suddenly he’s the victim?
It was not a “stupid, drunken remark.” They were the heartfelt ravings of a vicious Roman Catholic anti-Semite. Had he said the same thing about any other minority group he would never have worked again. I’m just sorry that any Jewish person is compelled to breathe the same air as the vile Gibson.
In the early 1930s, after Hitler had taken power in Germany and had introduced numerous anti-Semitic measures, Jews around the world arranged a boycott of Germany. To this day, anti-Semites suggest that the Jews “deserved what they got” because they had declared war on Germany. It’s quite obvious where you get your inspiration from.
“Heck, the real visible anti-semites are all over the place; no reason to go imputing it in anyone who disagrees with Israel or has a drunken tirade (after, in fact, being savaged by influential people in American Jewry).”
I was asked recently how can so many Americans can support Israel and yet retain the anti-Semitism of their parents and grandparents. In answer, I shall direct them to your post.
The Jews who complained about Gibson had every right to do so. Gibson is no more a victim than any other Roman Catholic Jew-baiter. For a further explanation, see my post above.
America should have stopped all settlement building the moment it began. The moment the USA started turning a blind eye to Israeli landgrabbing in the West Bank it was finished as an honest broker in the Middle East. A two state settlement is impossible, there are two options: ever bloodier conflict, or a one state, one man/one vote secular state. Israel will eventually lose a conflict the Arabs are happy to wage for centuries to come and they know it. There is a deep national depression in Israel, how else could they respond to the prospect of endless war. It is a horrific situation that only an uncompromised America can hope to change. That, sadly, isn’t going to happen.
Pooh:
First off, a clear “Fuck You” for calling me a Nazi inspired Jew hater.
Next, the calls and promises to blacklist Gibson for making a movie that recreated the basis of Christian belief, and which you state is Jew hatred in itself, is (as if to belie you personally) again in the news. Why? Because people are angry that Gibson is getting studio support for some new effort and demanding to know “what happened to the promised blacklist?”. So thousands of pundits are asking what happened to something that never happened, right?
But to you what everyone saw, read and experienced for months is now relegated to the realm of the infamous Protocols. Pure Roman Catholic Jew bashing. Gotcha, pooh.
Your rant is full of lies, some simply astonishingly and unashamedly obvious lies. It reeks of anti-Catholic hatred, while my post was a fervent call to separate real anti-semitism from your list, which presumably includes anyone who believes that Christ died on the cross for our sins.
And since so many youthful readers these days don’t study history, I’ll point out that the “good burghers” of Nazi Germany were overwhelmingly LUTHERAN, as about anti-Catholic a religion as one can find. Catholic clergy were hunted and killed, along with other non accommodating clergy. Why do you need to rewrite history? Why replace religions in historical accounts if not to slander one?
And lastly this:
“I was asked recently how can so many Americans can support Israel and yet retain the anti-Semitism of their parents and grandparents. In answer, I shall direct them to your post.”
I could spit, but I guess that was the point of your vile slander of my family. If you only knew such admirable people, especially my father who risked his career and his family’s “bread on the table’ to defend one of his Jewish friends, a lawyer, accused by the HUAAC (before which my father appeared to defend him as a witness). And this was when his fellow Jews were running for the hills, treating him like he was radioactive. He was a fervent supporter of Israel, even before it existed and a lifelong defender of Jews against anti-semitism. That’s the kind of household I was raised in.
You would feel shame if you were capable of it.
Catholics, and Christians, believe that Jesus was a Jew, although rejected by His fellow Jews for being (quite obviously) a heretic to His Jewish faith. They believe that Jesus died on the cross having been crucified by Romans, by Pontius Pilate. (I never heard “the Jews killed Christ” growing up. But Catholic bashers would have people believe it is a daily chant.) But It seems that the very basis of the Christian faiths cannot even be portrayed in a film without accusations of Jew hatred abounding. And people like you, pooh, are a disgrace to any peoples. But please, nurture your hatred. It is good for your health.
I need to add something to Mikem’s post. I was raised in the 1940′s and 1950′s as a Northern Baptist. I think they now call themselves American Baptists to distinguish themselves from Southern Baptist, but I don’t know for sure; I’ve fallen from the perch.
“Baptist” is synonymous today with a certain kind of quirky, ludicrous, fundamentalism, made worse by a reflexive objection to anything which characterizes modern life. “Christianists”, in Sullivan’s parlance.
But never once, not a single time, in all those dark churches, did I ever hear a disparaging word about Jews, or that “Jews killed Jesus”. Never. Never, also, in our Christian circles, did I ever encounter anything that, in later years, I could have interpreted as anti-Semitic. I don’t know if we were typical across the board, but for northeastern Northern Baptists, I think we were.
Rhod said: “But never once, not a single time, in all those dark churches, did I ever hear a disparaging word about Jews, or that “Jews killed Jesus”. Never.”
But I did hear such charges in Britain and Southern Africa from Anglicans – Church of England, Roman Catholics and Dutch Reformed Church members, all through the 40s, 50s and sixties.
Now if you were in Brazil over Easter you will witness the burning of Judas and hear the invective.
Just to round off; in America Jewish citizens, some of whom can trace their American heritage as far back to the time of Peter Stuyvesant after having fled Brazil and the Inquisition, are often accused of dual loyalty, because of Israel, but no Muslim has yet been so branded because of Islam even when they declare openly that their religion and its laws takes precedence over America.
Cynic:
I certainly can’t say that my experience was typical of all Baptist households. The town of my birth was a relatively small industrial town in Connecticut. I think the prejudices were inter-ethnic, Italians, Irish, Polish, some West Indians, all stereotyping each other, where the Anglos were neutral as targets of dislike, unless it was a matter of class. I can also say I had Jewish friends, although I was unaware of their being Jewish. That’s the truth. I can’t explain it, but it’s true; that other world you speak of went on outside my awareness in those years.
Test
Friends,
Excuse my “test” comment above.
For dark reasons of known only to TypeKey itself, after months of it’s having banned me from Roger’s comment section (neither Roger nor I could figure out what TypeKey was up to, and why it held such animus against me), I seem to be, like my governor, BACK!.
So I shall add my jejune bloviations to the mix.
While criticism of Israel and its policies most certainly does not in itself constitute anti-Semitism, in our country and at this time, the two are so often joined inseparably, that one makes a false positive error in thinking such criticism signals the presence of an anti-Semite so seldom (in my limited experience)…one hardly needs to worry about such an error.
Alan Dershowitz’s “tells” for anti-Semitism in criticisms of Israel are helpful; they are outlined in his book, The Case for Israel.
He has said it was his “least favorite book,” and he hated writing it. No one has had to write “The Case for Canada” or even “The Case for Iran” or “The Case for France.”
Yo, Buddy!
Jamie Irons
Yo, backatcha, Jamie, you old reprobate, you!
hook100 Jews reclaiming Zion is land grabbing?
If you have a problem with land grabbing perhaps you should insist on the Arabs ending their 1400 year land grab of the Holy Land and the bulk of the Middle East and North Africa.