Andrew Sullivan Formally Joins the Arabist Crowd
For Sullivan, then, the burden of making peace rests alone on Israel. Nothing is required of the Palestinians, who have for decades rejected every deal offered them. Of these, Sullivan says not one word. In fact, Jonathan Tobin of Commentary notes that President Obama is ignoring the importance of the Fatah-Hamas agreement, which effectively ends any true partner willing to negotiate a peace with Israel. As Tobin writes:
But rather than draw the obvious conclusion peace will be impossible until Fatah disassociates itself from Hamas, the president and Secretary of State Clinton are proceeding on the false assumption the PA will return to the talks and accept the concessions Washington is attempting to squeeze out of the Israelis. Instead of seeking to appease the Hamas-Fatah government, Obama and Clinton ought to be warning the Palestinians that the presence of terrorists in a PA administration will legally obligate the United States to put an end to the flow of American aid to the PA.
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post adds:
So it should not be surprising that Obama wouldn’t dream of threatening the PA, which is instigating the U.N. gambit, for forcing him to exercise the veto. It’s clear why Obama isn’t demanding a repudiation of the unity government as a condition of talks. He plainly finds it much easier to savage Israel than to stand up to the Arabs’ threats. And of course, in his view, Israel is the stronger power, so it must give up more to level the playing field. As [Mark] Dubowitz put it, ‘In the choice between a democratic, pro-American Israel and her enemies, who are also America’s enemies, how many Western leaders have the courage to say what Canada’s prime minister, [Stephen] Harper, said this weekend at his party’s convention: ‘Moral ambiguity, moral equivalence are not options, they are dangerous illusions.’” None, it seems.
Except, of course, for Andrew Sullivan, a man so delusional and so opposed to the only democracy in the Middle East that he sides with the very Arab regimes who, if they had their way, would throw a gay man like Sullivan into jail or put him to his death. A British expatriate, Sullivan clearly still feels at home with the long tradition of the Arabists in Britain, who, from the start, sided with the Arab governments and did all they could to prevent the Jewish state from being born.
At least unlike the J-Street crowd, Sullivan’s hatred for Israel is upfront. Unlike the others, he does not hide his disdain for Israel, and he does not pretend to be advocating a pro-peace, pro-Israeli position. Give him credit, if you can call it that, for honesty.
Sullivan is a mediocre blogger who seldom shows command of the facts on his blog.
It also takes a lot of chutzpah for a British blogger to tell the American people that they are wrong.
If we’re handing out credit to Jew-haters for honesty about their Jew-hatred, let’s start with Hitler for Mein Kampf. And don’t forget the unambiguously honest Jew-hater Martin Luther.
The first of the British Arabists–if indeed, Sullivan may be counted in that august company which includes Kim Philby’s father–was Sir Richard Burton the brilliant geographer, linguist and African explorer who discovered the source of the Nile. Burton deeply admired the cultured and luxurious life of the Arab slave traders who were his regular African hosts. For the black Africans, Burton had nothing but contempt save for a deep curiosity about their intimate sexual practices. Later in his career, Burton served as British Viceroy (?) to Syria where he ran afoul of the local Jewish Merchants who accused him of invariably siding with their Muslim competitors in disputes. Burton was Anglo Irish like Andrew Sullivan and like Sullivan, was an anti-Semite.
My deepest curiosity about Sullivan has to do not with Sullivan but with his former rabbi, Martin Peretz. How much penance must Marty Peretz do to compensate for all the talented Israel haters whose careers he nurtured and promoted?
(For an hilariously sanitized contemporary humanist portrait of of Burton don’t miss Bob Rafelson’s ludicrous Mountains of the Moon.)
Kim Philby’s father, Harry St. John Bridger Philby, as perfidious as perfidious Albion that birthed him, sold out his birthright, got revenge against his government for kicking him out of the Civil Service, by helping Ibn Saud get control of what is now Saudi Arabia, so the story goes.
And along with Allen Dulles has given us the problems we have today with that Wahabbi sect.
I am a German Protestant, and I don’t like Luther for the reason you mentioned. I consider Luther’s church one of Hitler’s helpers, and Bonhoeffer was an exception, but not entirely, as he considered Jews undone and wanted them to convert to Christianity. And I think that today you still find that same virus of anti-Semitism in the Protestant church. You find growing criticism and hostility towards Israel, and I will probably leave my church because I’m fed up with that. What might interest you: The former head of the Protestant church in Germany, who had to step back as a consequence of drunk driving, the Bishop of lower Saxonia before, Margot Kässmann, was invited to an American university in Atlanta afterwards. She said on the last church meeting in Dresden, a mixture between political feast and dansing party, beginning of June, that she wants to pray WITH the Taliban.
I can’t say that there have never been any anti-Semites in the Orthodox Christian Church (of which I am a member), but there is no doctrinal support in our Church for anti-Semitism. Religious doctrine must be preserved from the time of the Apostles, and is not allowed to be changed.
Not being pacifists, we accept the premise that each nation has the right to defend itself against attackers and invaders.
Israel has that right, and should exercise it as needed.
To which part of the Protestant church do you refer? I certainly see it in the mainstream, dead denominations that descended from the Reformers (Lutheran Church, various synods), less so historically in bodies like the Methodists (oddly, more so now that they are infested with modern liberalism).
You will find the opposite in the evangelical movement. Evangelical Christians are the main bastion of support for Israel in the world today.
Well, of course! That’s what the Bible teaches. Jews need to be saved just the same as everybody else, and there is only one way for that to happen:
As someone who has some experience with Lutherans in the USA, I would have to disagree with your opinion that they are anti-semitic.
But rather than draw the obvious conclusion peace will be impossible until Fatah disassociates itself from Hamas…
Still barking up that “Fatah-is-a-moderate-peace-partner-with-whom-a-deal-is-possible” tree?
Sorry fellas.
Whoever believes that Fatah (whether “associated” with Hamas or “dissociated” from Hamas) is a peace partner for Israel is as deluded in his or her way as Andrew Sullivan is deluded in his.
File under: “Delusions R’ Us”
I agree, Barry. While Fatah’s words may be somewhat more moderate than those of Hamas their stated goal, if I’m not mistaken, is the the same: the elimination of Israel.
Israel really must make the decision to play offense and start making demands of its own.
The only way Israel can afford to go on the offense is knowing that they have someone watching their back, that is to have a veto preventing international sanctions (UN).
The Europeans would be only too willing to go along with that.
From this piece
Italy against the Jews we now discover that
The Arab block already has a majority and with the current administration Israel is between a rock and a hard place.
Israel after watching Obama circumvent Congress cannot be sure of anything.
Your mention of Fiamma Nirenstein gives me an opportunity to quote from her 2001 article “The Journalists and the Palestinians.” Her words describe that frisson which is Andrew Sullivan:
Imagine a weary journalist, getting back to his office or press room in Jerusalem at the end of a hard day: how is he to begin describing what he has seen? Like the morning mists that envelop the city of Jerusalem, the reality of the situation often dissipates into a fog made up of the psychological impulses and fixed ideas of those observing it.
And what about the view from East Jerusalem? In the Arab city, from early morning on, the international media breathe the perfumed mist of something indescribably romantic and archaic mingled with the aroma of youthful furor. The morning fog offers an opportunity, a screen, against which foreign correspondents project the attitudes they came with: their reflexive critiques of capitalism, of consumerism, of globalization, even of themselves and their own societies.
The American Colony, a lovely old hotel in East Jerusalem, is home to almost all the international journalists who have come here on temporary assignment. The ancient vine-covered stone is part of the hotel’s charm, and so too is its storied past, redolent of travelers’ tales, of miraculous reunions after shipwrecks at sea and near-escapes in faraway climes. Above all, its charm derives from the discreetness and quiet of the remote little street where it stands, a symbol of understatement amid the vertiginous passions of the surrounding environs.
The support crews are largely Arab, the stringers Palestinian and often the cameramen, too. The hotel waiters and staff are likewise Palestinian, as are the regular guests one runs into in the halls. The infitada leaders regard the American Colony as their private stomping ground, a place for keeping appointments, for conducting interviews, for jocularly confiding in foreign newsmen.
The American Colony — with its reassuring air of Arab refinement, the plashing of the fountain in the hotel’s paradisiacal little garden where breakfast is served amid jasmine and roses, its white and blue Armenian tiles, its Eastern touches adjusted to Western tastes, the friendliness of its staff cloaked in courtesy and dignity — is much more than a hostelry: it is a metaphor for the sympathy the international press harbors for the Palestinian cause and, conversely, its complex animosity toward Israel. Slightly vain, many of the guests here still bask in memories of themselves at age twenty, Arab kaffias around their necks, on the campuses of American or European universities: young rebels, young heroes, young upsetters of the hegemonic powers-that-be. For them, pro-Palestinian leanings are as natural, as elegant, and as correct as the American Colony’s famous Saturday-morning brunch.
The culture of the press is almost entirely Left. These are people who feel the weakness of democratic values, their own values; who enjoy the frisson of sidling up to a threatening civilization that coddles them even while holding in disdain the system they represent.
the attraction the liberals have for the Arab/Islamic culture is very interesting to ponder. and I’ve wondered if it had something to do with the romance of the keffiyah and the whole Lawrence of Arabia desert vibe. your beautifully written post describes how it would be easy for the young and liberal to be seduced by that romance. I enjoyed reading it!
Yep. Just like with Arafat “denouncing” terrorism, it’s just a “good cop, bad cop” game.
They ALL have the same agenda, and anyone who doesn’t see that is either incredibly stupid or willfully ignorant.
Muslims cannot be peace partners with non-Muslims of any stripe. If you don’t believe me, it’s in the Qur’an!
A Nobel prize, money, adulation among their elite cocktail hacks are all more important than the people of a sovereign, true democratic nation. Liberal derangement.
Why anyone wastes any breath on Excitable Andy is beyond me.
Oh, I forgot, The Naked Emperor reads this clown. G-d help us all.
Sullivan is in the process of withdrawing completely from any acquaintance with objective reality. That this should manifest itself in such a fashion should surprise no one familiar with his Trig Trutherism or his renunciation of his supposed “conservatism” over the single issue of same-sex marriage.
Come to think of it, the hammerblow the Palin emails have delivered to the Trig Trutherist crowd might have something to do with this, too. Sullivan was its spearhead. Having been deprived of his favorite hatred target by irrefutable documentary evidence, no doubt he feels a wee bit lost.
Many of us in Canada are very proud of our Prime Minister Stephen Harper; he and his CPC (Conservative Party of Canada, roughly analogous to the Republican Party) have stood firmly with Israel since they were elected to government in 2006. PM Harper is roundly criticized and sneered at by our left-liberal elites in government and the media but he has never let this bullying deter him from standing firmly on the side of Israel in this dispute.
I am continually astonished at the myopia of commentators who champion the Palestinian cause and blame Israel for the misery of the Palestinian people. Eighty per cent of Palestinians are illiterate and perhaps even a larger number live in poverty — and that’s Israel’s fault? Why does no one think to blame Palestinian dictators who live in the lap of luxury while their people languish under appalling living conditions, and why does no one blame the enormously wealthy Sheiks who seem not to, as Christians do, love their neighbours as themselves? Why do the oil sheiks not fund literacy and anti-poverty programs for the Palestinians? Why do the Palestinians always expect people in the (Judeo-Christian) West to provide humanitarian aid to their own people? If the Palestinians would help themselves, there is no reason why so many of them would have to live in sub-human conditions, unable to read and write. It’s obviously in their leaders’ (sic) better interests to keep “the people” weak, dependent, and demoralized — and to blame Israel for their downtrodden state.
Israel is not the problem. The Palestinians, themselves, are the authors of their own misery and degradation — and are too pig-headed and viciously prejudiced against Israel to move forward. Useful idiots in the West, like Andrew Sullivan, just add to the toxic brew.
Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy).
“Instead of supporting negotiations with the Palestinians that would result in an actual two-state solution, Sullivan accuses the U.S. of being an “enabler of Israeli intransigence.”
Both statements are wrong. The Palestinians have no intention AT ALL of having a “two-state” solution. That idea is just plain rubbish. They never accepted Israel and they never will. The only solution they want is the destruction of Israel.
As for “Israeli intransigence,” well, why should Israel negotiate with people who want them dead? Why should they negotiate with people who have broken just about every agreement they made with Israel? Why should they negotiate at all with the Palestinians, considering the fact that they won the land in battle and with Israeli blood?
I guess I’m in the minority here, but I firmly believe that Israel doesn’t have to give anything back to anybody. They are the only country in history that consistently wins wars it doesn’t start and then is asked to give BACK the land that it has won in those wars. Israel has already won its “right to exist” simply by being able to defend its own borders. The Palestinians, people who have demonstrated time and again that they cannot manage anything, let alone their own country, should be greatful that they even have what they have right now, let alone any more land. Fatah has always been plagued by corruption, greed, religious fanaticism, and incompetence, and the United States has foolishly financed this terrible organization for years. Time to let Fatah squirm on its own. The Iranians are probably supporting them now, just like Hamas, so we are just wasting our money giving it to Fatah.
So let’s get back to simply supporting Israel and letting the Palestinians fend for themselves. They are going to attack Israel no matter what we say or do, so we may as well arm Israel and prepare them for the coming war.
“I guess I’m in the minority here, but I firmly believe that Israel doesn’t have to give anything back to anybody.”
You’re not in the minority in my Irish-Ukrainian Roman Catholic house.
I agree with you! Why should Israel give back land that they won in a war they didn’t start?
That’s rewarding losers and punishing winners. I know: In our therapeutic, hug-a-thug world this illogical scenario is often encouraged, but in the real world it makes no sense at all.
Two paws up!
Libertyship46,
I suppose Israeli intransigence is due to the fact that Israel sticks with the International agreements from the League of Nations, San Remo and Sevrès decisions that were incorporated into the UN’s undertakings along with 242 and 338, while the West’s politicians are busy reneging on them in the Global Idol stakes.
Just this century after all parties agreed on the Quartet’s “Road Map” Obama comes along with his latest vision.
With that ex-Brit Sullivan one must take into account the historic attitude Brits had towards the natives they colonized – not doing as the master demanded was being intransigent – especially those uppity Jews who evaded the blockade against getting into Palestine by refusing to die in Europe.
The British Arabists existed amongst an effete and often homosexual upper class who enjoyed the decadent languor and lax morality of the souks. This was not reflected amongst the majority which relied upon the pithy epithet of ‘wogs’ when describing the denizens of the Middle East.
My late Father spent around three years during WW2 in Libya and Egypt, fought at El Alamein, Bengazi and Tobruk and I can tell you that his recollections reflected the perfidy, untrustworthiness and lazy attitudes prevalent amongst the Arabs who were employed by the British Army at that time.
Locals would often have two sets of flags, one a Nazi swastika, the other, the Union Jack to wave depending on the dominance of the see saw to and froing across the region.
Nothing has changed. Arabs will follow the strong horse no matter what heraldry is plastered on its flanks.
The so-called Palestinians don’t want a two state solution. They want Israel for themselves. The world that stood by while Hitler was trying to wipe out the Jews is now actively supporting the destruction of Israel – a country whose western border should have been the West Bank. There is a story out there that Obama’s first call to a foreign leader after he was sworn in was to Abbas. His demand that Israel be reduced to an indefensible 9 mile wide country is an outrage but consistent with his support for Muslims.
Israel should simply refuse to negotiate with the Palestinians until they elect a non-terrorist government which recognizes Israel’s right to exist. The cancer in the White House will be removed in 2012.
American Jews need to get a clue.
In a singular moment of clarity on June 24, 2002, Bush outlined a vision that effectively based US support for a Palestinian state on specific actions. And only when they elected new leaders “not compromised by terror”, established new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors would the US support the creation of a Palestinian state. That moment of clarity didn’t last long, as pressure from Arab states and the Europeans forced a weakening of expectations on the Palestinians together with more pressure on Israel. Thus we came to the “Road Map” with its stages, and eventually Annapolis, which promoted skipping over the stages and moving to “final status” talks.
Which brings us to Obama, who insists that “everyone knows” what the solution looks like, except that many of us recognize it as simply one of the interim stages that Arafat himself advocated. And his talk of the “fierce moral urgency” of creating a Palestinian state, irrespective of action, behavior, or impact on regional stability fully abandons the expectations and requirements of 2002. The Palestinians now want, with the help of the UN, their state on a silver platter with no “end of conflict” and no obligations on their part.
At one time, Andrew Sullivan was a good conservative writer. I fondly remember reading him in the Washington Times. Somewhere along the line he began to descend into madness, and I see that his descent continues apace.
After a couple of years of the Iraq war, Andy went on vacation one August. Before he left, he was a Bush supporter & pro–Iraq war. After that vacation, he was anti-Bush (because of Bush’s anti-gay marriage stand, which was long standing.) and anti-Iraq war. he did a complete 180 turn. Now, I can understand changing one’s mind about Iraq at the height of the uncertainty, but turning against a president who’s stayed consistent to what he’s said, and the Trig issue, well at first it felt like Andy’s boyfriend and others “got to him” but the Trig thing does seem like a mental illness issue. He’s not thinking clearly, and it’s more sad than anything. Best to not look at this train wreck.
rbj – thanks.
When my lifelong friend and co-author Max Weisser traveled to Israel in 1983 we jokingly had a plan for Arab/Israel reconciliation. We would be good-will ambassadors between the waring parties…It didn’t work..
Max was an obssessive collector of binding materials…glue,string,rubberbands,etc. which I think in retropect had some unconscious connection to bringing people together and cementing their relationships. When after three week we came to the conclusion our naive plan would not work, I asked Max, “Do you think there is anything we could do to affect this conflict?” He said,” I didn’t bring along enough rubberbands.” He was really incredible smart and sane, but everyone has something.
Anyway, I have an updated suggestion for settling of the A/I problem. How about designing a land area twice the size of Israel in Jordan and have all the Middle Eastern nations including Israel raise a enormous amount of money…and “HELP” ( teach them how to fish)the Palestinian build a modern homeland.I am sure there is enough sand in Jordan which is unused. And we could import barrels of rubberbands.
Selwyn Mills suggestion about solving the I/A conflict is the smartest, most creative approach I have seen in years. If he could get Jimmy Carter to influence the Palestinians and jordanians I think this would be a home run
Why not get Jimma Cahtah with Habitat for Humanity over there?
Why does anybody take Sullivan seriously. He is probably mentally impaired from the effects of the HIV virus. He is borderly sane at the moment and he is steadily deteriorating. His sexual preference is another motivating factor. Despite Islam’s prohibitions on homosexuality, gay sexual practices are ingrained in Arab culture.
Why do people keep writing about this irrelevant, irrational, and possibly insane idiot? It’s probably the drugs, and I feel sorry for the guy, but you keep propping him up. He’s as relevant as Olbermann; still blathering but invisible and nearly inaccessible to me.
If you think my judgement is harsh, what else do you call someone who ingratiates himself with those who would drop a wall on his head for being a homosexual?
Sullivan’s invisibility is not a problem and let’s keep it that way.
Jonathan Kay of Toronto’s National Post is an extremely strong supporter of Israel. Here’s what he says: http://natpo.st/mLNnf4
The solution that promises the most stability is two states existing side by side, one mostly Jewish, the other mostly Arab, their contours roughly shaped by the Green Line.
This also happens to be the preferred solution of the international community — including every U.S. President and Secretary of State since the days of Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright.
Jeffrey Goldberg says the same thing: http://bit.ly/kJYqDV
” Does Anyone Seriously Believe That the ’67 Would Not Have Served as the Basis for Negotiations? “
“…and one mostly Arab?” But the Palestinians, the PA, Hamas, and everyone else, insist that any future Palestinian state would have no Jews, would in fact be (and I use the term advisedly) judenrein.
If anyone were to suggest seriously that Israel expel its Arab citizens into the Palestinian state there would be a huge uproar, including from most of Israel’s Arab citizens. But it seems to be taken as read, to be unremarkable, that the Palestinian state would have no Jews.
The shocking thing to me isn’t whatever mercurial and unstable Andrew Sullivan is or isn’t saying in the moment (have you ever seen those beefcake pictures where he was soliciting & advertising his “wares” online ?) but the arrogant dictator living in the White House telling Israel what it has to do.
Obama’s Khalidi/Ayers/JWright conditioning is showing more glaringly than ever.
When Netanyahu recently spoke before Congress, it was amply demonstrated that the legislative branch deeply supports Israel and is quite at odds with the executive branch.
I have always maintained that Andrew Sullivan’s complete 180 degree turn around against Israel had more to do with being spurned by a Jewish male lover than any rational politics. Either that and or his daddy figure Martin Peretz disrespected him somehow. The guy is a real bitch.
Obama getting publicly lectured by Benjamin Netanyahu on the impossibility of the pre-1967 lines and the “right of return” not going to happen (what a bogus issue in the first place) was an embarrassment for our Thin-Skinned Campaigner in Chief.
As such, it is entirely in character that said TSCIC will dig in on his ultimatum to Israel.
Ironically, troubles for sundry middle east dictators are not being assuaged and deflected anymore by the “Israel” question. The excuse isn’t working, even for Bashar al-Assad who just recently orchestrated the infiltration of Israel’s borders to distract from his own up close and personal débacles.
I understand the trajectory of someone going through the transformation from leftist to center-right. There is a linear logical pattern as one weighs issues and the arguments become more clear, the language more precise, the definition more crisp.
Watching Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan it gives off the appearance of someone who has been blackmailed and is servicing their tormentors, while trying to signal their protest sub rosa by being bat spit crazy.
How else does one explain construction of the dementorium surrounding Trig Palin that Andrew huddled in for months. And LGF has lived in utter beclowning on so many issues, that has to be a cry for help.
This is not to say that Sullivan does not harbor a deep inner Jimmy Carter. The pages of American history have been littered with guys who were not quite savory characters when it comes to supporting the ending of Jewish suffering. Joe Kennedy, FDR, Lindbergh, ….after a few drinks and with the veil of privacy may have needed little prompting to go full Mel Gibson …but did not live in the age of the Internet.
So, maybe Andy Sullivan has decided to come out of all closets, rather than just the sexual orientation one. Perhaps he wishes to be liberated in his desire to give a shout out to Mel Gibson’s tirade.
Either way, leftists have their hands on the negatives. Why wouldn’t they? Being a leftist is all about owning life’s negatives.
What enables Israel’s “intransigence,” or rather her admirable steadfastness in the face of permanent Islamic aggression, is the fact that Israel holds her possessions by right, and has beaten her Arab would-be assassins on the battlefield every time and is confident in doing so again, if necessary, for the foreseeable future. It’s really quite simple, except for self-satisfied idiots like Andrew Sullivan.
As I have said here before, Sullivan has morphed into a gay Buchananite. He is basically a copy of Justin Raimondo.
What would one expect from a man who puts his gayness above everything else? Is there any doubt this helps him to align with Hitler, another gay man?
Back in the days before militant homosexuals took over the American Psychiatric Association, this kind of behavior was one of a list of clinical behaviors that were diagnostic of mental illness.
It is characteristic of homosexuals to place this above everything else.
– his stats will decline and drive him into despair.
was there a reason why my last comments were deleted?
Selwyn
was there a reason why my last comments were deleted?
Selwyn
sorry, I see you included it…thank you
Two points. People like Andrew Sullivan might actually bring about a war. Second, The position of our state department has always been to use talks to reconcile the positions of two parties – The Palestinian position of a return to the 1967 borders with some minor land adjustments; and the Israeli position that they must emerge recognized, Palestinians must renounce both violence and their call for an end to the Israeli state, Israeli security intact and defensible; and Arab return to whatever the Palestinian state will look like.
It was never an American President’s position to take the Palestinian position of a return to 1967 borders the American position, or, at the least (these things can get complicated) publicly announced as the American position.
The left seems stuck on stupid. Maybe they are holding out hope that things might turn around if they can just push through enough of their agenda before their time runs out in the next election. Do they really think that their policies are irreversible?
I’ll give him credit when he personally leads a Gay Pride parade in Tahrir Square.
If he survives, he’ll come around to what Israel has to deal with.
The problem is – he wouldn’t survive.
Sullivan is another stuck-on-stupid type.
The self-anointed martyrs, the trans-Jordanians, the refugees without a country/moral compass/ no need for upward mobility nor civility & humility (Come on, Ron. The ONLY instance ‘Palestine/Palestinian’ reference is used FACTUALLY is when ancient Romans/Greeks called the JEWS such a name..) aren’t wanted by ANY surrounding M E country.
These 6 + generation refugees living off of empathy have not recognized nor adhere(d) to ANY concessions, elected 2-1 numbers-wise the terrorist group ‘Hamas’ as their ‘representative Government’, launched THOUSANDS and continue doing so, rockets at Israel’s army, civilians, children, receive the most money WORLDWIDE to improve their squalor. Yet there’s NO commerce, any sense whatsoever of the most basic of infrastructure.. after 63 years!!!
Look at Israel’s accomplishments in a mere 4 years after statehood.
There’s areas in East Israel that even have mosques!!!
Flash to the present and Israeli’s contributions to the sciences, mathematics, medicine, music, history, literature, economics, cinema, politics is unsurpassed. not to mention the TENS of THOUSANDS of trans-Jordanian’s employed by Israeli’s.. for as mentioned, there is NO infrastructure in their area, at all!
And yet, these masses, and the idiotic Sullivan want Israel to continue bending over backwards to appease.. what exactly? Gimme a break.
Mr. Sullivan is a degenerate. His degeneracy pervades his judgement. For him there is no standard of decency, honesty or integrity that is not open to compromise. There is no oath or obligation that cannot be set aside or renegotiated whenever personal need or inconvenience make it expeditious to do so. Why anyone pays any attention at all to such a person is a mystery to me. But I am a foolish man for thinking this because, after all, such creatures infest not just cyberspace and the tenderloins of every city but also government, big business, the judiciary and the professions. They are evidently welcome as many not only don’t bother to try and hide their degeneracy but proudly proclaim it and win reelection, promotion or appointment to high position. And people wonder why the nation is in decline.
Before homosexuals gained the political clout to change medical terminology homosexuality was considered a mental disorder.
Sullivan , HIV positive and demented, would be doing the world a favor if he simply crawled off and died.
I was going to say something profound in observing the apparent suicidal behavior of Andrew, but that seems to be an essential facet of gay marriage and its discontents.
Maybe he should tour Saudi Arabia and Iran on a gay-rights proselytizing mission. The more militant his actions, the better. Go for it!
Hey, Jim, I like the Idea about Carter…also a deal could be made with the Palestinians to give them the Peanut franchsize..it would be the biggest in the Middle East. They might have a lot of Oil in the those Arab countries but none have any peanuts. Just think of it, peanut butter, peanut pie, boiled peanuts,
roasted peanuts, sand crusted peanuts. They could import them from Carter country and put thousands of Georgians to work. The Israelis could do the marketing and promotion for them. People who do joint ventures that are profitable don’t want to go to war with each other.
I’m dubious about it….the other Arab countries would lose a good reason to hate Jews, but it was a creative idea Jim.
I know you wouldn’t approve of peanut huumus which would actually be very possible in the middle east
If Sullivan is trying to convince Muslims he’s all for them, it won’t work. Not for him.
Remember what Ahmadinejad said about gay people, there are none in Iran.
They’re used for stone-throwing practice. Book Iran-Air, Andrew….real soon.
Sullivan’s only claim to fame is admittedly interesting – his blog-post about Robert Fisk in 2001 (or 2002) is credited with bringing the “fisking” term, though he himself did not use the term in his article.
Sad, cos that blog-post quite good
With regard to Sullivan’s one-sided view of responsibility for the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations – Israel is the party at fault – I note that the following words come as a complete package.
1) Ignore
2) Ignorant
3 Ignoramus
If Mr. Sullivan is willing to ‘ignore’ documented arguments favoring Israel, then he is either ‘ignorant’ or an ‘ignoramus’, but probably both.
Sullivan, like so many proggy haters of Israel, has gotten lost inside a vast moral inversion.
There is nothing, and no one, that I care less to read about than Andrew Sullivan.
Please stop pretending that this hairy dipstick matters.
Suddenly, Sullivan is a fearful of the Jews as he is of Sarah Palin.
He must have given up all hope. Expect him to endorse Ron Paul soon.
“A British expatriate, Sullivan clearly still feels at home with the long tradition of the Arabists in Britain”
Better to say “the long tradition of anti-Semitism in Britain”.