What Does 'Death to Israel' Mean to You? (Bradley Burston)

[shira]

My daughter went to school this morning worried about her civics exam. She came home worried about explosive warheads.

As of this week, she's in range.

Her school is now within reach of rockets that travel farther and with far more deadly payloads than the weapons we knew just a short time ago. With blasts strong enough to shatter apartment windows seven stories in the air.

My daughter is an unarmed noncombatant. That should matter. It should matter, in particular, to progressives who believe, and justly so, that the inalienable rights of human beings, children in particular, take clear precedence over the strategic designs of nation-states and the appetites of nationalism.

It should matter, as well, when progressives turn a blind eye to war crimes committed against Israel -- or, for that matter, to war crimes committed by Syria against Syrians. The assumption is that Israel's crimes are of such Third Reich magnitude, that anti-civilian violence committed by its enemies is either negligible or justified.

more...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bradley-burston/what-does-death-to-israel_b_1078738.html?ref=israel

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JDPriestly]

3. Israel was formed by the UN specifically as a "Jewish state."

That UN Resolution was passed and Israel was founded. Now, people who have forgotten why it was founded want to do away with it, destroy it.

No, that is not right.

[LeftishBrit]

5. And how many other countries are 'long-term war criminals'?

Not saying that it's an excuse that 'everyone else is doing it'; but I don't generally hear people talking about a need to put an end to the states of the UK, or America, or China, or Syria, or Uganda.

[vminfla]

18. The myth of war criminals

I remenber the "Massacre at Jenin" and all the other fake massacres. Repeating the myth gives it credibility that it does nto deserve.

[JoDog]

7. This is a joke, right?

Israel deserves to die? Millions of citizens slaughtered. The vibrant economy that has given us dozens of lifesaving medical devices and concepts like firewall programs, in dust. The country established as a home of last resort for one of the most maligned and persecuted groups ever to exist, wiped off the map. All because it has the audacity to insist that a minority of its citizens stop trying to bomb the majority.

Surely, you are joking.

And make no mistake--end the political state of Israel, and Israelis will die. A lot of them. In fact, you may have just sentenced me to death. Thanks a lot.

[King_David]

8. What a load of shit this post is

Again you show Zero knowledge nor understanding of the situation.

And yet you continue with your 'borderline'posts.Your favorite and continually deleted post is that the Jewish State must be destroyed

WHY ? WTF is your problem?

[jimmie]

9. The "only solution" is "death to Israel" ??

Sounds like it's more your final solution.

Advocating the destruction of a state (and a democratic one at that) is allowed here ?

[LeftishBrit]

10. I'm also surprised that it's allowed.

Destroying a state generally = WAR, and advocating war is not a progressive value!!!

[Codeine]

14. Filth, and it should be bannable filth at that.

It says something bad about DU that such shit is allowed to remain posted.

[King_David]

15. Yep.

[jimmie]

16. Shouldn't someone delete this horrible post ?

I don't understand.

[bemildred]

2. +1. nt

[azurnoir]

4. Mr Burston is quite corect in that Israeli's deserve to live in peace

my sympathies to him and his daughter

[LeftishBrit]

6. Agreed.

[shira]

11. The Genocide Caucus: Progressives, Israel and the Far Left

CAMERA highlights an interesting comment on an article by the liberal Haaretz commentator, Bradley Burston, by the progressive journalist MJ Rosenberg.

The context is this. MJ Rosenberg wrote an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times in which he argued that “Israel can’t be de-legitimized, and no one is trying to do so”. Separately, Bradley Burston has written a post in which he contemplates what “progressives” mean when, like Kent State professor Julio Pino, they shout “Death to Israel”. This is what has prompted Burston’s special concern:

My daughter went to school this morning worried about her civics exam. She came home worried about explosive warheads.

As of this week, she’s in range.

So, that’s the background. What is interesting is that MJ Rosenberg comments:

No progressives call for “Death to Israel.” None. The people you cite, and others in the genocide caucus, are Trotskyists, Maoists, Stalinists or just crazy. To ascribe their behavior to progressives is like blaming liberals for Soviet Communism or conservatives for fascism. It is, frankly, ridiculous.

MJ Rosenberg makes a very clear distinction between the “Trotskyists, Maoists, Stalinists”and crazy folk in the “genocide caucus” on the one hand, and mainstream liberals on the other. The thing is, in the US context, that distinction can be sustained. There’s a small crossover between the far Left and mainstream Democrat politics in America, but it is not significant.

By contrast: in the United Kingdom, and in other European countries, there is no barrier at all between the extreme Left and mainstream liberal democratic politics. “Trotskyists, Maoists, Stalinists” are fully accepted within progressive politics here. In important areas, they’re in leadership positions.

It is easy to demonstrate the truth of this contention. Here are just a few examples.

more...
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/11/07/the-genocide-caucus-progressives-israel-and-the-far-left/

[LeftishBrit]

12. Here's something that happened not a million miles from my doorstep very recently

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/57849/oxford-conservative-students-sang-nazi-songs

Note: the Oxford University Conservative Association is probably THE biggest breeding ground for future Tory politicians.

So: very vicious antisemitism has been, and possibly still is being, very blatantly expressed by young representatives of the mainstream British Right.


There are certainly some real and assumed left-wingers who act as though 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' and who are willing to get into bed with all sorts of unsavoury types. (Though this has always been the case to some extent, part of the problem is that for a while Blair pulled the Labour Party so far to the right that left-wingers often felt that they had to seek their allies from outside the mainstream Party.) But the idea that antisemitism is primarily a left-wing phenomenon is being peddled by people who wish to discredit the left AND to let right-wing antisemites off the hook.

[shira]

13. Rightwing extremism is compared to Leftwing in the article you responded to...

To be frank, there are times that conservatives can properly be blamed for fascism. The Daily Mail is rightly condemned for its support for Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts. The Tory Party was also properly criticised when it allowed near-fascist ginger groups, including the Monday Club, to operate within its ranks. But the fact is: those days are now over. The Tories have recognised the danger of far Right entryism, and have taken on their extremist fringe.

Not so “Progressive” politics.

In fact, the following senior Labour Party figures recently spoke on a Socialist Workers Party platform, in the company of various SWP and Jamaat-e-Islami linked co-speakers:

Jack Dromey MP: Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government
Helen Goodman MP: Shadow Minister for Justice
Peter Hain MP: Shadow Secretary of State for Wales

The bottom line is this. In the United Kingdom, there is absolutely no cordon sanitare between the mainstream progressive Left and the extreme “Genocide Caucus” Left. Right up to the top of the Labour Party and the Guardian and many other institutional stalwarts of the Left, there is both tolerance and acceptance of Stalinists and Trotskyites in leadership positions. They, in turn, have enthusiastically supported and vouched for, not simply “Israel delegitimisers”, but genocidal Jew haters. None of this is effectively opposed by the mainstream Left.

[vminfla]

17. True, it is hard to tell the difference between anti-semites on the left and on the right

Do they hate the jews because they are "oppressing the arabs" or do they hate the jews because "they killed Jesus"?

[Quartermass]

19. But...

according to them, they believe that ebcause of the draft that means there's no such thing as a noncombatant because they're going to be one anyway, and there is no such thing as a retired soldier. So that means, according to them, they're all going to be soldiers so they're all going to be legitamit targets. No matter where they are in the world.

Sad to say.

it's utter junk of course.

[vminfla]

20. Utter junk, but the modus operandi of terrorists.

each Israeli child killed in kindergarten is an Israeli soldier killed before they can reach the battlefield. That is why Israeli schools are intentionally targeted by terrorists.