Olmert's Apology: 'Occupation' in Gaza Causes Anti-Semitism

[bemildred]

(IsraelNN.com) Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel's “occupation” of Gaza was causing worldwide anti-Semitism. In his weekly cabinet meeting, Olmert said the restrictions on Gaza caused hatred, adding, “It should be remembered that we see the occupation as problematic.”

The Prime Minister, whose government supports the removal of Jews from most of Judea and Samaria, added, "As long as this reality continues, it makes it possible to attack Israel and gives anti-Jewish sources the opportunity to be heard. The complicated situation we're in encourages anti-Semitism.”

---

His reference to Israel as “occupiers” was seen as an attack on more than 250,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria by his implicit reference of their presence as an "occupation," a term used by dovish groups who favor Israel’s surrendering all of the land restored to the Jewish State in the Six-Day War in 1967.

“As long as we continue to be presented as occupiers, we'll continue to suffer from anti-Semitism. We'd do well not to forget the overall picture and the complex meaning of being an occupier,” Olmert said.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130081

[Behind the Aegis]

1. What a maroon.

[iconicgnom]

4. Surely you can do better than that?

[Behind the Aegis]

5. I figured I'd leave the real hateful remarks to those who actual hate him.

[IndianaGreen]

8. C'mon, the man has one foot in jail

How about some compassion for the war criminal and crook Ehud?

[Behind the Aegis]

9. See, your kind never fail to deliver.

[IndianaGreen]

15. My 'kind'? There is a whiff of NY Post editorial cartoonist in the air..

Your negative attitude about those DUers (and others) that disagree with your I/P views may well be the result of that web echo chamber you frequent often in which DU is often characterized as a cesspool of anti-Semites, the admin is an enabler of anti-Semites, and where hatred is the one common bond. Believe me when I tell you that I have seen the mirror image in which nothing good comes out of Israel, and that it is always the Jews's fault whenever some calamity strikes. The similarity in rigid thinking is amazing!

Back on point:

Fact #1: Olmert is under criminal investigation and may well find himself being prosecuted.

Fact #2: There is a global consensus that Israel committed crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Fact #3: Israel violated US arms export laws by using American made weapons against civilian population.

Fact #4: Believing in Facts 1-3 does not make a person an anti-Semite, or one wishing for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Not even in biblical times were the Jews of the Diaspora required to profess blind obedience to the rulers of Israel.

[Behind the Aegis]

18. Laughable on so many levels.

Yes, "your kind." It has nothing to do with skin color, sexual orientation, gender, sexual identity, ethnic origin, but rather a deep-seeded hate of Israel. It is almost amusing...almost, mainly just sad, you'd even make this about race given your past rants about Zionism and it being a racist ideology. Those two things demonstrate a lack of understanding on your part about "race" and "racism."

"Your negative attitude about those DUers (and others) that disagree with your I/P views.." Untrue. I would say you know this, but you swallow so much anti-Israel kool-aid that any one seen as remotely "defending" Israel is "an evil imperial Zionist."

"...where hatred is the one common bond." No, that would the site to which you post and bigoted remarks against Jews AND gays, go unchallenged by you.

"Believe me when I tell you that I have seen the mirror image in which nothing good comes out of Israel, and that it is always the Jews's fault whenever some calamity strikes. The similarity in rigid thinking is amazing!" Yes. I know. You post there every so often. The difference? You can't see it because of your own blindness.

"Fact #1: Olmert is under criminal investigation and may well find himself being prosecuted." Red Herring.

"Fact #2: There is a global consensus that Israel committed crimes against humanity in Gaza." Irrelevant to this discussion, and in general, in some respects.

"Fact #3: Israel violated US arms export laws by using American made weapons against civilian population." The only time this is a "fact" is when fabricated and repeated by your kind sans proof.

"Fact #4: Believing in Facts 1-3 does not make a person an anti-Semite, or one wishing for the destruction of the State of Israel." Strawman.

"Not even in biblical times were the Jews of the Diaspora required to profess blind obedience to the rulers of Israel." Pathetic personal attack by one who has nothing of substance.

[Jefferson23]

2. Too little too late Olmert.

[Larkspur]

3. Juan Cole -- Netanyahu: Train Wreck for Israel, Middle East; Looming Disaster for United States

Netanyahu: Train Wreck for Israel, Middle East; Looming Disaster for United States
The selection of rightwing expansionist Binyamin Netanyahu to form the next Israeli government is being greeted with dismay by the Egyptian government, which remembers him for having derailed the Oslo peace process in the late 1990s.

Netanyahu has vowed to abandon negotiations with the Palestinians, and says he will expand the program of Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank.

Since even before Netanyahu's coronation was announced, the Israelis had been busy stealing more Palestinian land and planning more colonies on the purloined territory, Netanyahu will just be accelerating an already inexorable process.

SNIP

Netanyahu is a train wreck for the Middle East. He is willing to ally with Avigdor Lieberman, an open racist who is gunning for the 20 percent of Israel's citizen population that is Palestinian. Netanyahu wants a war with Iran, and when the Israeli Right wants a war nowadays, they usually want our children to fight and die in it for them. The 1996 "Clean Break" Neoconservative policy paper advocating a war on Iraq was written for Netanyahu. (They are not satisfied with picking our pockets for their weapons and colonization projects). Netanyahu will further oppress and brutalize the Palestinians, which he will keep in a slave-like condition of statelessness, and from whom he will steal what little property they have left. Last time he was in office he went around poisoning his enemies, for all the world like the Bulgarian KGB in the old days.

Netanyahu is the devil's gift to international terrorism, which his policies will provoke. Fifty years from now, the turn of Israel to the hard right will be looked back upon as the beginning of the end of Israel, the time when the crucial decisions were made that rendered it impossible for the Israelis to stay in the Middle East in the face of the increasing popular anger Netanyahu will have provoked in 1.5 billion Muslims. No, Israel cannot be defeated on the battleground. But the French colons in Algeria were never really defeated on the battleground, either, nor were the thousands of Britons who had ruled India.

SNIP

I agree with Cole. Israel's hard right turn and Russian mob mentality will make most countries isolate it like they did the apartheid government of South Africa. Even within the United States pressure will mount to opposed Israel's racist and oppressive policies against the Palestinians.

[Vegasaurus]

13. Nonsense from Juan Cole

None of "our children" fought and died for Israel in Iraq.

That is utter *********.

Israel isn't asking the US for a war with "our children" of any sort.

He is just another Israel hater, who should stay off on the fringe with his loony far left mates.

[LeftishBrit]

14. Juan Cole spoils what might otherwise be good points by expressing xenopobic lies

'when the Israeli Right wants a war nowadays, they usually want our children to fight and die in it for them.'

What evidence is there for that? No non-Middle-Eastern troops have been involved in *any* war involving Israel since Suez over 50 years ago; no American troops have *ever* been thus involved. It would be bad enough, under these circumstances to say that the Israeli Right wants American children to fight and die *with* them; to use the preposition *for* them implies an acceptance of the indescribably vile right-wing view that Israel is forcing other countries to sacrifice lives for them, while they sit back. Usually it implies that the writer thinks that the Iraq war is being fought for Israel, which is an evil, xenophobic, right-wing lie.

I do agree that Netanyahu is a nasty and dangerous man, and that it is particularly disgusting that 'He is willing to ally with Avigdor Lieberman, an open racist who is gunning for the 20 percent of Israel's citizen population that is Palestinian. '

[azurnoir]

6. Olmert actually admitted Israel was

occupying the West Bank, that's a change sort of but the real question is was Olmert actually equating "anti occupation" with antisemitism?

[bemildred]

7. I think he's losing it. nt

[LeftishBrit]

10. One point...

this is Israel National News, who are extremely RW, and may be trying to make Olmert look like a dangerous leftie and near-traitor to their RW pro-settler readers.

[bemildred]

11. No question about that, they are out to get him in this piece.

Edit: I am seeing vitriolic attacks on Peres, Obama, and pretty much anyone that thinks 2-State is still the way to go too. Elliot Abrams had one today, and Melanie Phillips.

[IndianaGreen]

16. If we are to be honest with ourselves, the one-state solution is the only solution

Two-state solution has been dead for quite some time, it is long past rigor mortis. We are going to get a one-state solution, the question is whose one-state solution?

Bibi/Lieberman will push for a one-state solution, as have their predecessors by the never-ending settlement building and expansion.

Israel's enemies have their own version of a one-state solution in which scores will be settled.

We can push for a one-state solution in which Arab and Jew live in peace among themselves with the same full rights and privileges of citizenship. Such a state would be a secular state.

[bemildred]

17. Here, read about Abrams "One State" solution (warning Weekly Standard):

---

Taken together, these factors suggest that a final status agreement is not now a real-world goal. What is? A return to the realistic assessments and policies that marked Bush's first term. In practice, this suggests an intense concentration on building Palestinian institutions in the West Bank.

There is much to build on, with security force improvements well under way, the economy in decent shape, and a reliable and trustworthy leader in Prime Minister Fayyad. Neither the United States nor Israel has done nearly as much as it can to promote progress on the ground, allowing Palestinians in the West Bank freer movement and helping create more jobs and a better standard of living. After the Gaza war, Israel appears prepared to do more, and should be asked to do so; Israel has a strategic interest in the success of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and of moderate forces in Palestinian society more generally. Arab states should be pressured intensely to provide the funds needed to meet the PA payroll and undertake sensible investment projects, for example in housing and agriculture. The United States and the Quartet should take some time away from endless meetings and speeches and resolutions calling for immediate negotiations over final status issues, and turn instead to making real life in the West Bank better and more secure. If there is ever to be a Palestinian state, it will be the product of such activities, not of formulaic pronouncements about the need for Palestinian statehood now.

---

But one is free to wonder as well whether Palestinian "statehood" is the best and most sensible goal for Palestinians. When I served under Secretary of State George Shultz in the Reagan administration, we were expressly opposed to that outcome and favored some links to Egypt and Jordan. On security and economic grounds, such links are no less reasonable now; indeed, given Hamas control of Gaza and the Iranian threat to moderate Arab states as well as to Israel, they may be even more compelling. As we've seen, President Bush in 2002 stated that the Palestinians should "reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence."

Now, even the mention of Egyptian and Jordanian involvement will evoke loud protests, not least in Amman and Ramallah, and perhaps U.S. policymakers should think but not speak about such an outcome. There are many and varied possible relationships between a Palestinian entity in the West Bank and the Hashemite monarchy, and if none can be embraced today, none should be discarded either. One Arab statesman told me when I asked him about a Jordanian role that there "must absolutely be an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank--if only for 15 minutes," and then they could decide on some form of federation or at least a Jordanian security role for the area. If the greatest Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian fears are of terrorism, disorder, and Iranian inroads in a Palestinian West Bank state, a Jordanian role is a practical means of addressing those fears.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/177aimud.asp?pg=2

[bemildred]

12. Then we have this:

Baird wants US to reassess aid to Israel

---

Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, visited Gaza last week with fellow Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and was struck by "the level of destruction, the scope of it, specifically the civilian targets - schools, hospitals, industry."

Baird also said Israel had "apparently willfully destroyed any capacity of the Palestinians to rebuild their own infrastructure."

The trip to Gaza by Baird and Ellison coincided with a separate visit there by John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Their presence marked the first time members of Congress had visited Gaza since US personnel were killed in a roadside bomb in 2003.

Baird maintained that his fellow congressmen would benefit from his first-hand account of the situation in Gaza, as well as from photos and video footage he took. In addition to pictures of physical devastation in Gaza and families living in make-shift shelters there, Baird also has photos of damage from rocket fire on Sderot, which he condemned and planned to share as well. He also indicated he would like to bring in aid and medical workers from Gaza to share their stories.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410695275&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull