The Right Wing Media (Discussion continued)

In my last post dated June 8^th 2015 entitled "The Right Wing Media (Discussion)" I said: “My response to the one from Albert Nekimken ended up being rather long and so I will save that for my next post." As promised it is set forth below:

Nekimken wrote:

This was an excellent commentary for multiple reasons. You've highlighted a kind of "thrust, counter-thrust" parry of political knives that exposes the underbelly of both political correctness and political incorrectness.

 In the end, it reminds me of Shakespeare, "The man doth protest too much." The more that Republicans lionize Ben Carson, the more he alienates himself from the majority of American blacks--which is unfortunate.

 On the other hand, he does serve to warn Democrats not to take the black vote for granted in exchange for pallid slogans: Most blacks want Sanders-style restructuring of the economic order in order to level the playing field.

And here is the lengthy response, referred to in my previous post:

Thank you for your complimentary response. It is indeed an example of thrust and counter-thrust. But that is not what I was trying to illustrate in posting the two articles.

Most people will read an article, whether from Left or Right, and take it at face value. I wanted to illustrate that this is a mistake. I looked for the article by Cynthia Tucker to which the Newsmax article referred, and upon finding that it didn’t say any of the things that the Newsmax article claimed, set it forth to show how extensive the misrepresentation was.

However, I now find that I found the wrong article by Tucker, and so I must make amends, by setting forth below the correct one, which did use the language claimed in the Newsmax article: I set it forth below:

Ben Carson Is in Danger of Losing All Respect

May 07, 2015 

Over decades of a brilliant career as a brain surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson attracted legions of admirers -- black, white and brown; liberal, moderate and conservative; fundamentalist Christian and agnostic. His story is the stuff of legend, the awe-inspiring tale of a poor black boy in Detroit who overcame daunting obstacles and vaulted to the very top of his profession.

 Given that his profession was pediatric neurosurgery, black Americans were particularly proud. Carson, who was the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins attached at the head, stood as stark repudiation of invidious stereotypes about black intellectual capacity. His memoir, "Gifted Hands," has been passed through countless black households.

 But the good doctor's foray into Republican presidential politics threatens to become his epitaph, to overshadow -- perhaps even to overwhelm -- his academic and surgical accomplishments. He will likely be remembered as the GOP's latest black mascot, a court jester, a minstrel show. He'll be the Herman Cain of 2016.

 Clearly, Carson's chances of winning the Republican nomination for president stand at less than zero. No matter how many cheers he attracts at conservative gab-fests, no matter how many of his bumper stickers appear on the vehicles of true believers, no matter how many Fox News pundits suggest he's a viable candidate, he won't come close to becoming the GOP standard-bearer.

 Nor should he. He is dangerously unqualified for the presidency -- a political novice who is happily ignorant of policy, both foreign and domestic, and contemptuous of religious pluralism and personal liberties.

 Carson catapulted to stardom in the ultraconservative firmament in 2013, when he addressed the National Prayer Breakfast with a speech in which he lashed out at the Affordable Care Act as President Obama sat nearby. Though the breakfast has a long history of nonpartisanship, Carson chose to criticize many of the policies that the president supports, including progressive taxation.

 That was enough to cause conservatives to swoon. Since Obama's election, Republicans have been sensitive to charges that their small tent of aging voters has become a bastion of white resentment, a cauldron of bigotry, nativism and fear of the other. They want to show that their fierce resistance to all things Obama has nothing to do with race.

 That promotes a special affection for black conservatives who are willing to viciously criticize the president. As with Cain before him, Carson garners the most enthusiastic cheers from conservative audiences when he's excoriating Obama, the most rapturous applause when he seems to absolve them of charges of bigotry. Why would Carson trade on his reputation to become their token?

 I've little doubt that his conservative impulses are genuine. He grew up Seventh-day Adventist, a conservative religious tradition. Moreover, he has adopted a view popular among white conservatives: that black Democrats give short shrift to traditional values such as thrift, hard work and sacrifice. (Hasn't Carson ever heard any of Obama's riffs excoriating deadbeat dads and promoting discipline, scholarship and parental involvement in their children's lives?)

 But Carson hardly represents the long and honorable tradition of black conservatism in America. Starting with the father of that movement, Booker T. Washington, its adherents have had a healthy appreciation for the reality of racism in America. Carson, however, thinks Obamacare "really (is) the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And ... it is slavery in a way." Washington and his peers, who knew better, would never have countenanced such nonsense.

 Moreover, black conservatism has promoted self-reliance, but it hasn't been a font of right-wing intolerance and know-nothingism. Carson, for his part, has dismissed evolution (giving his former colleagues at Johns Hopkins heartburn); he has compared homosexuality to bestiality; and he has spurned the First Amendment's separation of church and state.

 Given the ultraconservative politics of GOP primary voters, those extreme positions may help Carson in the early campaign season. But those views also guarantee that mainstream Republican leaders and their donors will flock elsewhere, seeking to find an experienced, broadly appealing and electable candidate.

 Carson can only lose in this campaign -- and more than just the Republican primary. He also stands to lose his place as one of the nation's most admired men.

Thus it turns out that the claim by Newsmax that Tucker said of Carson:

"He will likely be remembered as the GOP's latest black mascot, a court jester, a minstrel show. He'll be the Herman Cain of 2016,” is accurate.

The fury by any African-American at one who betrays his people’s aspirations is understandable - such people used to be called "Uncle Toms”, but that term has gone out of favor. A careful reading of what Tucker is saying reveals that she is not so much denouncing Carson for his views, as she would a white politician with similar views, but describing the attitude within the Republican party toward blacks who are prepared to front for them. The racism within the Right is established beyond dispute, and when they embrace one in black skin, who has nothing but contempt for his own race, they embrace him, to try to show to White moderates that their bigotry does not really exist. But one black face on the platform does not erase the missing black faces in the audience, which invariably shows a sea of White. Thus, when Tucker talks of minstrel shows, she is not saying that she thinks he is that, but rather that to the Republican party he represents “their minstrel show”. She points out that Carson has no chance at the nomination, but if he did somehow get it, he would not get the bulk of the African-American vote, which votes on issues, not on identity politics. Backs voted in no greater numbers for Obama than they did for Clinton, and they have been a reliable Democratic constituency since Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights legislation.

As for the constant reference to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as Hispanic candidates that is a misnomer that is not challenged nearly often enough. Both of these politicians are of Cuban descent and as such have nothing in common with the Hispanic population that hails from south of the border, other than a common language. They are not traitors to their brethren because they do not hail from the same ethnic background. The media is not doing anyone a favor in putting all who have a common language (Spanish) into one ethnic basket. In fact, the true White colonial Spaniards who owned all the land in the Americas, south of the border, were the privileged oppressors of the indigenous people who represent what is today called Hispanic.

Your comment that "blacks want Sanders-style restructuring of the economic order in order to level the playing field” expresses your views, rather than that of most blacks. I predict that in the Democratic primaries Clinton will draw far more black voters than Sanders, who is considered a fringe candidate by most of the electorate, and that includes blacks.

But returning to the racism of the Right, it reveals itself once again in its concluding paragraph:

After all, it’s easier to attack Carson that admit to the fact that in Baltimore city schools 84 percent of eighth graders score below grade level in reading and 87 percent below grade level in math. That’s not Carson’s fault!

The implication is that there is something inherently wrong with blacks who have not, like Carson, been able to overcome the obstacles that our racist society puts in their path by putting their fathers in jail and giving them inferior schools. From the moment they start out they are born with obstacles that Carson, Oprah Winfrey, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou have managed to overcome, but that most find insurmountable. Except for Carson, the others are not crowing that if they can do it anybody can. They try to help those who are left behind by supporting policies that will help the aspirations of their brethren.

I am afraid that brevity is not my strong suit.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

The Right Wing Media (Discussion)

On June 4, 2015 I posted my commentary entitled "The Right Wing Media."

Almost imediately I received three commnets on the post. My reponse to the one from Albert Nekinken ended up being rather long and so I will save that for my next post.

The other two, however, are set forth below:

From Mike Cerrato, Esq. of Westville, New Jersey, came this generous compliment:

As usual, very educational. I fear, however, that many of the people who SHOULD be comparing and contrasting the "reported facts" to the actual article will be few and far between. Thanks for the ammunition, though, I will certainly use it appropriately.

To which I was forced to reply:

As you will see from one of my future posts, I made a mistake, and while one should always " be comparing and contrasting the "reported facts" to the actual article will be few and far between” I ended up quoting the wrong article from  Cynthia Tucker. Mea culpa.

Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY wrote:

This is why I *don't* read "conservative" (i.e., reactionary) news sites or watch their television.  I know I should, if for no better reason than "know your enemy."  The combination of hypocrisy and imbecility enrages me, which adds nothing to my day.  I'd much rather watch MSNBC and John Stewart skewer these evil trolls, even if it doesn't have much affect.  Luckily the Foxpublican Party is going to die out, as ignorant white men become a smaller and smaller percentage of the electorate.  The Koch Brothers can spend a billion dollars per election cycle and try to suppress minority voting, but their base (and I do mean BASE) electorate is slowly but surely going six feet under.

To which my response was:

Thanks for your comment.

I can understand your reluctance to read Right Wing commentary. It can be infuriating. But as you say one should read it, "if for no better reason than "know your enemy.”

 But actually, I think there is an even better reason. How can one be sure ones views are sound unless they are constantly tested against different views. If one choses to live in an echo chamber, and unfortunately, recent surveys have shown that this is exactly what most people are doing, how can one ever be sure that ones views are sound. I feel I have to expose myself to a variety of views to get stimulation for my own, though I have to admit that this is easier for one who is retired, then for one who has to earn ones daily bread.

My post “Facts, Facts, Facts! They are pesky things," is an example of the extent to which the Right Wing media will go, telling outright lies about the Clintons. Yet we have to recognize that the smears of the Clinton’s are definitely having an effect, as the polls on Hillary’s popularity have shown. In November of 2012 her favorability rating was 58.6% favorable v. 33.1% unfavorable. As of June 1 it was  favorable 46% v. 48.4% unfavorable, and in a discussion with a very liberal friend (supporter of Bernie Sanders) today, she expressed concern about Clinton's ethics on the basis of foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

 In the hubbub over foreign contributions to the foundation, what is overlooked is that it is a charitable foundation, from which the Clintons do not profit. One might even argue that turning down donations, which benefit people in need throughout the world, is something no one has the right to do, since the money refused is money that is not available for the recipients of the foundations work. But the media has always enjoyed lots of good copy by playing up accusations that eventually, more often than not, have turned out to have no basis in fact. Whitewater never proved to be Clinton corruption despite the best efforts of Keneth Starr, and in the end all they could get on Bill or Hillary was that he lied about an extra-marital affair, as just about anyone would lie about something like that, and as e.g. Martin Luther King (of sainted memory) did.

 But the so-called liberal media is a myth concocted by the media echo chamber, and the New York Times, despite its liberal editorial page, has spread more than its share of Right Wing lies. 

And then added:

After I sent the below set forth message I started thinking about the things that do bother me. For instance I think it was wrong to indict former speaker Hastert for paying blackmail. But I am much more bothered by the amount of money he reportedly made as a lobbyist after leaving Congress. Influence peddling is a big deal in Washington and the Clintons never indulged in this form of payola.

 On the other hand they have made huge amounts in speaking fees, which I find abhorrent. But this is so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult to fault them. See ABC News for an article about how much Sarah Palin has been making. But that article has an even more important item. I quote from the article. "President Reagan once got $2 million from a Japanese manufacturing company for two 20-minute speeches… And George W. Bush told reporters he expected to make a "ridiculous" amount of money on the speaker's circuit when he left office.”

 Our system also effectively makes it impossible for anyone to run for public office unless they have one or more rich angels, and that includes Sanders. 

 We cannot hold people to a standard that is completely out of line from that which is ingrained. More important is whether they want to change the system.

 In the end we will always have to choose between realistic, and I emphasize realistic, choices, unless we want to simply opt out of the process and leave it to the very worst elements.

 Sorry! I do get carried away.

Which only prompted a further repsonse from Malchman as follows:

Well, a couple of things. One, if Hillary is elected and one or more of the SCOTUS Republicans leave the bench, Citizens United will get overturned.  My fantasy is that the Court say corporations are not people for purposes of constitutional protection.  Corporations are creature of state (and sometimes federal) law, and could be banned outright (caveat: I haven't thought about the implication of the Contracts Clause here), and therefore could be regulated to restrict speech.  The Constitution protects people, not legal fictions or business constructs.  But I'm not holding my breath waiting for that ruling.

 As for Hastert, he was not indicted for paying blackmail, he was indicted for structuring cash bank withdrawals to avoid federal reporting requirements and then lying to the FBI about it.  Those are real crimes.  At a moral level, I have no doubt he's serial a child molester, and anything bad that happens to him is karmicly (if that's a word) deserved.

Ending that exhange with my concluding reply quoted below:

I am afraid that this is indeed a fantasy. The more likely scenario, even if Clinton is elected, which is not a given, is that Ginsburg will retire and her replacement will face a filibuster leaving eight on the court and we get 5-3 Right Wing decisions. Eventually one of the Right wing judges retires and we get a deal of one on the right and one on the left, continuing the 5-4 split of today. Maybe in a Clinton second term we get control of the court, but that is a long way off.

 Sorry, I wish I could buy into your fantasy.

And then concluded with:

As for Hastert, I know they got him on a law that might stick, but that is just the handle. I don’t believe in prosecuting people on a legal fiction, on the theory that you, or they think, but can’t prove, that he's a serial child molester.

 The sale of influence is of much greater concern to me.

Next time I will share with my readers my exhange with Nekimken, where I confessed a serious error in having set forth in my original post the wrong article from Cynthia Tucker. But that will have to wait for my next post.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion 2) - Further Comments

In my last post entitled "Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion 2)" I wrote in response to Albert Nekimken’s arguments:

“But before I truly launch into your “presentation”, I have to express my shock at your response earlier to my sending you an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, entitled: "Thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors still living in poverty.” It seems to me that nothing can be more damming to a Nation founded on the basis that Holocaust survivors need a refuge, if it can’t even take care of this dwindling group. Where is its moral compass?”

and referring to Albert Nekimken's comments I wrote further:

“Your response was:

 The situation of poverty and neglect among Holocaust survivors is a simple scandal that must be remedied, and should have been remedied many years ago. Who exactly is to blame, I couldn't say.

 To which I replied:

 “But who is to blame, - is it not enough to agree that Israel or its government, which is the same thing, is to blame. You suggested "Netanyahu’s tenure as finance minister is to blame when he turned the Israeli economy toward the free market” or at least that the newspaper Haaretz makes that claim. But isn't it obvious that there is money for the settler movement; there is money for the Haredim; but there is no money for Holocaust survivors. What an indictment of the values of the people who govern Israel.

 “And there are many decent Israelis who would not agree with you or the policies of its government. Unfortunately, they appear to be in a minority.”

At this point I just want to share with my readers the article from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz upon which my commnets about Holocaust survivors were based:

Thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors still living in poverty, fighting for recognition

Seventy years after the end of WWII, some 20,000 aging Holocaust survivors receive little or no support from Israel, and 45,000 live under poverty line.

 Luta “Lusha” Brachfeld was 3.5 years old when Nazi Germany invaded her native Poland in September 1939. Her memories of World War II are few and fragmentary, but no less horrifying. She remembers “buildings collapsing as if they were made of matchsticks” during the three-week terror bombing of Warsaw by the Luftwaffe, which still gives her panic attacks every time an air-raid siren sounds – not an unheard-of event in Israel.

 She remembers the color and texture of her paternal grandfather’s trousers, as he often bounced her on his knees. And she remembers seeing those same legs dangling in the air when she found that he had hanged himself in desperation.

 She remembers the hunger and crush of people in the early days of the Warsaw Ghetto, where her family lived on Mila Street – a few steps from number 18, soon to become the headquarters of the 1943 revolt against the Nazis.

 She also remembers being carried by her mother on a desperate flight in the snow toward the Soviet Union, where she and her family survived as refugees.

 It is partly because of the way in which she escaped death that, today, this 79-year-old widow and grandmother of three is forced to fight an uphill battle in the Israeli courts to receive the same state support given to other Holocaust survivors.

 On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel on Thursday, and 70 years after the end of World War II, survivors and groups that represent them say the complexities of Israeli law have created inequalities in the benefits given to Holocaust victims.

 Despite a new law passed last year that increased the funds and services granted to Holocaust survivors, they say that 1 in 4 survivors in Israel live in poverty, and some 20,000 are unrecognized or only partially supported by the state.

 According to a report published on Monday by the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, there are some 189,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel, two-thirds of them female. On average, 14,200 die each year – nearly 40 per day. Some 45,000 have an income of less than 3,000 shekels ($760) per month, putting them below the poverty line, the report says. That marks a slight improvement from the 50,000 impoverished survivors that were counted last year.

 According to the Claims Conference, worldwide there are some 500,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors alive today, mostly in Israel and the United States. The figure includes those who fled due to Nazi persecution or suffered from various restrictions on liberty. About 20 percent were in camps, ghettos or in hiding under Nazi occupation.

 Until recently, only survivors who had immigrated to Israel before 1953 automatically received a monthly pension, regardless of their individual experiences during the Holocaust. Those who arrived later were not entitled to benefits.

 This situation was partially amended last year, when a law spearheaded by then-Finance Minister Yair Lapid allocated an additional one billion shekels ($254 million) per year to survivors and granted them other benefits, including a total exemption on all medical costs and subsidized psychological treatment.

 The law also granted equal treatment to survivors who had immigrated to Israel after 1953 – but only if they had been in concentration camps or ghettos.Brachfeld, who emigrated to Israel after 1953, has gone to court to have her rights recognized. She must now prove to a judge that she lived in the Warsaw Ghetto after it was officially established in October 1940. That is difficult, because her mother never revealed to her when and how she managed to flee the city, and “they didn’t exactly give you a certificate when you escaped from the Ghetto,” as Brachfeld tells Haaretz.

 All Brachfeld remembers is crossing into Soviet-occupied eastern Poland sometime before Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

 “We were in a field completely covered in snow and there were three Russian soldiers who were gesturing with their rifles, telling us to go back,” she recalls. “I went up to one of them and said, ‘But sir, my hands are so cold.’ And that saved us – they let us pass.”

 Brachfeld spent the rest of the war mostly in the Urals, where her father, who had fled at the start of the war, worked in a tank factory. They returned to Poland after the war, but, disgusted with the persistent anti-Semitism there, moved to Israel in 1956, where the 20-year-old Brachfeld built her family and worked as an X-Ray technician.

 Lapid’s new law has helped many people, but by restricting benefits for post-1953 immigrants to survivors of camps and ghettos, it has largely left out an estimated 20,000 survivors who went through different, but no less painful, experiences, says Colette Avital, chair of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel.

 These include Polish Jews like Brachfeld, who were forced to flee to the Soviet Union – as well as thousands of Romanian Jews who were not deported to camps but went through pogroms and were pressed into forced labor, Avital tells Haaretz. There are also thousands of Sephardi Jews who were persecuted in North Africa and the Middle East by Germany’s allies and pro-Nazi regimes.

 Painful disparity

 Under the new Israeli law, some of these survivors qualify for an annual pension of 3,600 shekels. This is much less than what the state allocates for most survivors – a monthly stipend that starts from 2,200 shekels and increases according to degree of disability. This disparity occurs even with members of the same family who lived through the same circumstances but arrived in Israel at different times.

 Dita Greenberg, a 75-year-old survivor from northern Romania, was scheduled to be deported to Trasnistria shortly after her birth. But with the help of a neighbor, she and some of her family members escaped and spent the rest of the war hiding out at the home of relatives in the city of Botosani.

 “We were on the deportation lists, so we lived in fear of being denounced by anyone, even a Jewish neighbor,” Greenberg recalls. “We never left the house. Even when I was sick with dysentery and a lung infection, they were too afraid to call a doctor for me.”

 Her cousin Chaim, who was in hiding with them, came to Israel in 1951 and receives a monthly pension. But Greenberg does not qualify for the same benefits because she stayed on in Romania to care for her ailing father and was only able to leave the country in 1988.

“We have the same biography, and when I went to court, the judge told me that he recognizes my suffering but said in Latin, ‘Dura lex, sed lex’ – the law is harsh, but it is the law.”

 Avital notes that this disparity is particularly painful because it concerns people who are more in need of the state’s support, mainly recent immigrants from former Communist regimes. “Many came as elderly people, who didn’t bring with them pension rights and who couldn’t work anymore,” explains Avital. “People who lived behind the Iron Curtain were punished twice: first in the war; and then because they were stuck living in Communist countries.”

 A former diplomat and Labor MK, Avital says she has written to the heads of all major parties asking them to amend the law. She hopes the new government will take steps to give all survivors the same benefits.

 “There is very little time left, their numbers are decreasing but their needs are increasing,” she notes. “Many cannot fend for themselves, they need home care, suffer from trauma, dementia, Alzheimer’s.”

 In a written response, the Finance Ministry did not address the disparity of treatment between victims. However, it stressed that, thanks to Lapid’s law, it had “independently reached out to 145,000 survivors who are eligible for stipends or benefits” and “significantly reduced the bureaucracy that was a burden for many survivors.”

 Brachfeld, the Warsaw Ghetto escapee, now lives in a small apartment in a retirement home in Tel Aviv. She says she is “not looking for pity” but just wants equal treatment for all survivors.

“My childhood was taken away from me and no one can give it back to me,” she says. “I don’t compare myself to someone who was in Auschwitz, but we are all survivors, and there shouldn’t be any discrimination between us.”

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion 2)

On May 14, 2015 I posted a commentary based on an exchange of letters to the Editor of the North Jersey newspaper, The Record. I urge you to re-read it. It appeared under the title "Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me!" On May 19, I posted comments which I had received from two of my readers. You can find those under the heading "Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me! (Discussion)." 

The first supported my view and did not call for a rebuttal but the second, from Albert Nekimken did. You may want to particularly re-read Nekimken observations.

Below you will find that rebuttal:

I  find my self at a loss as to how to respond to constantly unsourced and unsupported allegations. 

I particularly point to your holding onto the totally discredited and debunked claim that there are no Palestinians. We wave a magic wand, people disappear, and so there is no problem.

You write:

Worth noting, anyone who would who would honor a despicable terrorist in this way has disqualified himself from any further rational consideration.

I don’t know whether this is a quote and if so from whom and why it is set out here.

I don’t know what your views were (are) about all the Israeli terrorists who were instrumental in creating the State of Israel, and who eventually formed the Herut party, the predecessor of Likud. But I guess they were "good terrorists”, not to speak of the Irish Republican army, which so many Americans actively supported. But what is a little inconsistency between friends?

But before I truly launch into your “presentation”, I have to express my shock at your response earlier to my sending you an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, entitled: "Thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors still living in poverty.” It seems to me that nothing can be more damming to a Nation founded on the basis that Holocaust survivors need a refuge, if it can’t even take care of this dwindling group. Where is its moral compass?

Your response was:

The situation of poverty and neglect among Holocaust survivors is a simple scandal that must be remedied, and should have been remedied many years ago. Who exactly is to blame, I couldn't say.

But who is to blame, - is it not enough to agree that Israel or its government, which is the same thing, is to blame. You suggested "Netanyahu’s tenure as finance minister is to blame when he turned the Israeli economy toward the free market” or at least that the newspaper Haaretz makes that claim. But isn't it obvious that there is money for the settler movement; there is money for the Haredim; but there is no money for Holocaust survivors. What an indictment of the values of the people who govern Israel.

And there are many decent Israeli’s who would not agree with you or the policies of its government. Unfortunately, they appear to be in a minority.

I am responding further to your message by interlineating my comments into your text in red.

Worth noting, anyone who would who would honor a despicable terrorist in this way has disqualified himself from any further rational consideration.

 Earlier in the day, Carter, 90, visited Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and laid a wreath on the grave of former leader Yasser Arafat. 

 The writer asks: (This refers to the Letter to the Editor to which I responded)  "Has he [Carter] ever asked where the billions of dollars sent in aid to the governments in Gaza have gone?"

I am now quoting Nekimken with all my comments appearing in Red. 

You (this refers to me) wrote “Just about a month ago, on April 13, the Jerusalem Post had this headline: ‘International donors fail to deliver promised aid to Gaza.’ And besides, the Israeli blockade makes it all but impossible for building materials to be delivered.”

 Your reply ignores several cogent points, including:

Israel has intercepted bags of cash provided by Iran entering the Gaza Strip to pay Hamas employees Source please!, without which support for Hamas would likely collapse. and if Hamas collapsed, would Israel then re-occupy or would they turn it over to the hated P.L.O.?

2. Europe and the EU have supplied the PA with billions of dollars over recent decades. Source please! 

It is entirely the fault of Hamas (why? how?) that whatever is left of this money after the huge amounts siphoned off by corrupt Fatah officials Source please  has not been transferred to the Gaza Strip.

3. Israel has, in fact, permitted the import of some building materials, Source please but must attempt to prevent them  from being diverted How? (as they had been in the past) to building tunnels that Hamas used to attack Israel. I thought Israel was attacked with rockets! Israel’s blockade under International Law is the continuance of war. Why does it have to be asymmetrical?  Israel wages war - good war! Hamas fights back - bad terror!!! Has Israel tried to negotiate peace with Hamas. NO!!! It is terrorist organization. Resistance bad – terror! Weren’t resistance fighters against the Nazis terrorists? 

You (Emil Scheller) wrote:

Why should an oppressed people give recognition to their oppressors? The PLO has recognized Israel's right to exist and what has it gotten in return?

The answer:

"Because after multiple wars intended to obliterate Israel, the Palestinians have lost. Now it is time to reconcile and build for the future." Their "oppression" could have been ended long ago if not for the cynical manipulation of Palestinians by their own leaders and for their own enrichment. The PLO's "acceptance" of Israel is/was meaningless so long as the PA, which is the titular Palestinian government refuses to acknowledge Israel's status as a Jewish state

This is a new requirement intended to keep raising the bar.

or, more properly, a state for the Jewish people. To avoid doing so reflects their continuing desire to transform the Jewish state into an Arab Palestinian state, which exposes "acceptance" as a mere tactic for foreign consumption.

(It implies that if Palestinians should become a majority, they would be denied their rights as citizens, and at the least makes them less than citizens. This was never a requirement in all the years since the State of Israel was founded in 1948. Why now? What would be your reaction to a proposal that the US should be declared a Christian nation?

More to the point, so long as suicide bombers infiltrate from the West Bank (thwarted only by the security wall) and rockets fly from Gaza, "acceptance" remains a hollow joke. What did "acceptance" get the PLO? Nothing, because there was no real acceptance and  because the only thing they can hope to get is peace, which is the most precious element for people who love life.

Peace under occupation is not peace!!!! Did the French, the Dutch, the Poles, etc. have peace under the Nazis? Or even the people in the colonies of Britain or of the Dutch, etc. They demanded statehood and until they got it there could be no peace.

AS for Israel's democracy and a vote for Palestinians, Caroline Glick believes that, after Israel annexes the West Bank, all Arabs who wish to become full Israeli citizens should be offered a path to citizenship. She offers compelling evidence that the risk is worth taking for both sides. Unfortunately, this solution has not attracted much interest anywhere so far as I can tell. The alternative is a demilitarized Palestinian "state" with limited scope of action.

You and I and the whole world knows that this is still more of the creation of a Vichy style government.

Now, you will ask "Why does Israel (the oppressor) have the right to dictate terms to the Palestinians (as the oppressed)?" The answer is obvious: because Israel is determined to safeguard its people and its national existence based on residence in its own territory and, as noted previously, its "rights" have been paid for in blood through several wars-if not millennia.

I guess what you are saying that since Jews have suffered through millennia, they are not bound by any moral compass that might apply to others.

Mere residence in a territory does not automatically create a "right" to political sovereignty. (Ask the Kurds who have lived in place for a thousand years without independent sovereignty.)

Indeed, and I would, as I trust you would, support their aspirations for their independence. All the colonial peoples, from India to Algeria, to Indonesia, have won their sovereignty. Were you opposed to their aspirations? 

And, as noted in prior comments, because the population of Jordan is at least 60% Palestinian, it is the de facto Palestinian state, whether anyone wants to recognize it as such, or not.

As for whether or not Israel is a democracy, let the kettle not call the pot black. Every democracy in the world, including the U.S., is a work in progress. Israel has made admirable progress in a few short decades, even if there is more to be done.

 Unfortunately, Israel has not made progress, it is going backwards.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

  

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me! (Discussion)

Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me (Discussion)

On May 14 I posted my commentary “Jimmy Carter, Gaza and me!” I suggest you re-read it so as to be able to fully follow the discussion that follows: See here.

Roger Berkley of Woodcliff Lake, NJ responded thereto with this observation:

The American Jewish community has been brainwashed by the AIPAC propaganda machine.  AIPAC always supports the incumbent government of Israel, that's its job. Israel right or wrong. As American Jews, it is our responsibility to step back and take an analytical view of Israel.  I find that J Street and Peace Now are more properly targeted than Likud and its new ultra right wing coalition partners who virtually all oppose any peace treaty with the Palestinians.

In a very different vein, Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia wrote:

I suppose you won't be surprised to learn that I rather liked David Molk's letter, and I wasn't surprised to read your response. It serves as a microcosm of the much longer text you wrote earlier.

And then added the following extensive discourse:

Worth noting, anyone who would who would honor a despicable terrorist in this way has disqualified himself from any further rational consideration.

 Earlier in the day, Carter, 90, visited Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and laid a wreath on the grave of former leader Yasser Arafat. 

 The writer asks: "Has he [Carter] ever asked where the billions of dollars sent in aid to the governments in Gaza have gone?"

 You wrote:

 "Just about a month ago, on April 13, the Jerusalem Post had this headline: "International donors fail to deliver promised aid to Gaza." And besides, the Israeli blockade makes it all but impossible for building materials to be delivered."

Your reply ignores several cogent points, including:

 Israel has intercepted bags of cash provided by Iran entering the Gaza Strip to pay Hamas employees, without which support for Hamas would likely collapse.

 Europe and the EU have supplied the PA with billions of dollars over recent decades. It is entirely the fault of Hamas that whatever is left of this money after the huge amounts siphoned off by corrupt Fatah officials has not been transferred to the Gaza Strip.

 Israel has, in fact, permitted the import of some building materials, but must attempt to prevent them  from being diverted (as they had been in the past) to building tunnels that Hamas used to attack Israel.

 You wrote:

"Why should an oppressed people give recognition to their oppressors? The PLO has recognized Israel's right to exist and what has it gotten in return?"

 The answer: "Because after multiple wars intended to obliterate Israel, the Palestinians have lost. Now it is time to reconcile and build for the future." Their "oppression" could have been ended long ago if not for the cynical manipulation of Palestinians by their own leaders and for their own enrichment. The PLO's "acceptance" of Israel is/was meaningless so long as the PA, which is the titular Palestinian government refuses to acknowledge Israel's status as a Jewish state or, more properly, a state for the Jewish people. To avoid doing so reflects their continuing desire to transform the Jewish state into an Arab Palestinian state, which exposes "acceptance" as a mere tactic for foreign consumption.

 More to the point, so long as suicide bombers infiltrate from the West Bank (thwarted only by the security wall) and rockets fly from Gaza, "acceptance" remains a hollow joke.

 What did "acceptance" get the PLO? Nothing, because there was no real acceptance and  because the only thing they can hope to get is peace, which is the most precious element for people who love life.

 As for Israel's democracy and a vote for Palestinians, Caroline Glick believes that, after Israel annexes the West Bank, all Arabs who wish to become full Israeli citizens should be offered a path to citizenship. She offers compelling evidence that the risk is worth taking for both sides. Unfortunately, this solution has not attracted much interest anywhere so far as I can tell. The alternative is a demilitarized Palestinian "state" with limited scope of action.

 Now, you will ask "Why does Israel (the oppressor) have the right to dictate terms to the Palestinians (as the oppressed)?" The answer is obvious: because Israel is determined to safeguard its people and its national existence based on residence in its own territory and, as noted previously, its "rights" have been paid for in blood through several wars-if not millennia.

 Mere residence in a territory does not automatically create a "right" to political sovereignty. (Ask the Kurds who have lived in place for a thousand years without independent sovereignty.) And, as noted in prior comments, because the population of Jordan is at least 60% Palestinian, it is the de facto Palestinian state, whether anyone wants to recognize it as such, or not.

 As for whether or not Israel is a democracy, let the kettle not call the pot black. Every democracy in the world, including the U.S., is a work in progress. Israel has made admirable progress in a few short decades, even if there is more to be done.

I responded with passion, if not with anger. I will share that response with you, in my next post. 

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.