T. Belman. First I want to announce that Peloni and Eve Rowell have joined Israpundit as Assistant Editors.
Two days ago, I posted an interview of Mearsheimer on Ukraine and Gaza and said ignore his remarks on Gaza. This interview is also on Ukraine and Gaza but this time I advise to ignore the later part on Ukraine.
Peloni, Eve and I have all commented on what he had to say. Click on Read More and read what we had to say.
T. Belman. Sayer was great even though he chose not to challenge Mearsheimer on everything he said.
Mearsheimer offers no solution to the Israel/Palestinian conflict. He wants Israel to accept the reality of the conflict rather than make efforts to change it.
One other point I want to make.. He says Greater Israel is apartheid. But Greater Israel is not a state so it cannot be apartheid.
He does not acknowledge that Israel itself is not an apartheid state.How can it be, as the leader of the Realism School, he offers no solution.
His numbers for the Palestinians are way off. Gaza has about 1.7 million, The West Bank about 1.55 million and Israel about 2.1 million. He suggests there are close to 8 million Palestinians. rather than 5.35 million these numbers add up to.
Secondly, the 2.1 million Israeli Israeli Arabs, otherwise known as Palestinians, should be deleted as they are Israeli citizens.
Israel has made it clear that she doesn’t intend to annex Gaza so why should Gaza be included.. So now we are down to the 1,55 million in The West Bank.
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Peloni. Mearsheimer was interviewed by Unherd about 4 months ago. Freddie Sayer raised several points of hypocrisy in Mearsheimer’s perspective regarding Israel as compared to his perspective on other topics. The first 30+ minutes are on Israel and the rest is about Ukraine. See what you think about the conversation, which contains some very pointedly virulent libels against Israel made by Mearsheimer, which Sayer allows without interruption, but for which he provides some, albeit not extensive, criticisms challenging Mearsheimer for selectively doing so with regards to Israel.
This insidiously dishonest rhetoric is being promulgated throughout the internet, but no one (that I am aware of) has actually provided the challenge which Sayer provides in this interview to Mearsheimer’s hypocrisies, and even forced this bigot to admit being put on the defensive for the distinctions in his views.
I know there was significant push back for having posted the recent interview with Mearsheimer, but I think that this interview provides a perspective of Mearsheimer which is both qualifying of the other interview, as well as being substantively relevant in its own right.
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Eve Rowell. While I am halfway through the video my comment is that Mearsheimer participates in the coverup of the truth, helping the CIA and Intelligence Community keep the REALITY hidden. The reality is, as Fransisco Gil-White points out, that the US has maintained their primary support for Iran since the Iranian Revolution. And they have maintained their support for Iran by keeping Iranian proxies INSIDE ISRAEL with the goal of destroying Israel. The reality is the exact opposite of what Mearsheimer says it is.
As an analyst he makes several mistakes: if he is using Gaza casualty figures, his analysis is built on lies.
The IDF has actually broken all records for urban conflict in Gaza with the lowest rate of civilian casualties ever.So his analysis of what Israel is “doing” in Gaza is based solely on his belief that the Palestinians are ‘the victims.” Once you have that BELIEF, you can no longer look at the data as an objective analyst.
He is not a realist at all on this issue. He’s a propagandist and he’s covering up for Iran, and the US deep state.
I think Sayers vitiated his own attempts to hold Mearsheimer’s feet to the fire.
Mearsheimer was dead wrong about Hamas using hospitals as headquarters of their army and ammunition stockpiles. The proof is available every day in photos put out by the IDF. Again this is pure bias based upon his BELIEF that the Palestinians are victims of Israel.
If one is going to say Israel is committing genocide (this is Mearsheimer’s implication) or wants an apartheid state on the basis of zero evidence, one should not expect to be taken seriously as a scholar.
Your responsibility
And that’s as far as I go until Israpundit gets it’s own house in order and puts an end to enemies of the Jews who attack Leon Trotsky on the pages of Israpundit. That they are enemies of the Jewish people I can demonstrate a 1000 times over.
The following is the first few sentences in a preface to an edition and if you don’t think it relevant to the present there must be something wrong with your heads
You can read this now on a kindle for a few dollars or better this online free
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/
Correction…1918 not 2018 in any case this book was written in the period of the Russian Civil War which was essentially the first imperialist proxy war by them against Russia. We can also say first stages in the nazi Holocaust
It is not possible to have this article and thread pushed under the carpet. Too many vital issues are involved
I quote
Written by Zorn in that order, last comment comes first of course
1. I object to the total distortion by Zorn as to WHY I gave this short incident.
The reason I did this is extremely important
2. He Zorn distorts totally what this book by Trotsky was about.
(I will point out that this book was written in 2018 in the midst of the Russian Civil War. Zorn obscured that)
No evidence yet that Zorn has read this book.
https://www.israpundit.org/john-mearsheimer-there-is-no-two-state-solution-what-can-realism-teach-us-about-israel/#respond
I guess it’s important to listen to what other people have to say, even if they’re wrong.
@Madeline
Mears has a very large following, and due to his very rational perspective on the Ukraine matter, he has gained a great deal of respect and deference from many, particularly in the Global South, and he wields this respect and deference to deligitmize and libel Israel. So for all the matters on which he strikes a fair analysis and for all the matters on which his analysis is quite befouled, I believe it is important to draw the line and demonstrate the distinction between these two patterns of analysis for others to recognize and share with their colleagues and associates. If done well, and I think Freddie Sayer did so quite well, such a demonstration can have a significant and lasting impact. Just my own thoughts of course, such as they are.
I don’t get it. Mearsheimer is seen as wrong on so many counts. So why bother to include him at Israpundit? I would rather ignore him and let his influence fade away.
@Felix
https://youtu.be/t2c-X8HiBng?si=qk2JnVVHOnryOxRn
@Felix
@Felix
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Quel difference! as the French like to say. 😀
@Felix “That comment heavy with sarcasmis most unfair.”
– Hamlet, Act III, Scene II
– John Mearsheimer @16’48″”
—-
Let me translate:
Earlier, he said he advocated intervening in Rwanda during the genocide there.
And done what?
The man is channeling Ilhan Omar. Or vice versa. (A limited analogy, I know, she only defends (and receives money, lots of money from) Islamist terrorist regimes, black or white. The Hutus and Tutsis are and have been mostly Christian. )
He’s also lying when he says the U.S. has always (or ever, for that matter) unconditionally supported Israel. There’s no way he couldn’t know. He’s a professor, for cryin’ out loud. First he says, no example in “modern history”, but not satisfied with that hyperbole, he amps it up to “recorded history.” 😀
Sorry, I should have put “professor” in quotes. Academia has really been an Augean Stables for quite some time.
[Enter stage right Deus Ex Machina, Trump as Hercules?]
Sebastien
That comment heavy with sarcasmis most unfair. You need to read the book written to defend the armed struggle against Fascism to understand it’s meaning. From memory it was aimed against the sickly and pro British pacifism of the British Labourites.
Lack of empathy for Jews in their historical suffering IS Antisemitism. Your cavilling with me over this is astounding.
@Felix Yes, Felix. I found his empathy for the Irish struggle very moving, especially the last line of his letter,
And I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate you, Felix, on your amazing empathy and singular ability to read the room.
Here you can read the 2 letters I referred to. Trotsky was writing from Norway in 1936 and although he had come to Norway in high spirits and although avoiding all Norwegian party politics the in power Labourite leaders were about to expel him (there was a strong Stalinists party there). That’s the background. His only last hope was Mexico.
His respect for James Connolly was genuine and touching. What I meant by “empathy”
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/ireland-fi/norac.htm
@Felix
I don’t agree with this. I think he actually holds a great animus for the Jews. It doesn’t require empathy to be honest, and Mearsh isn’t honest, not at all. He says he reads the Israeli press reports very closely, but disputed the veracity of the extensive tunnel system under Shifa Hospital, he disputed the truth of any command center under the hospital as well, and he states that ‘I don’t remember that being the case’ with regards to tunnels even linking to the hospital. He also stated that “there isn’t much evidence of” Hamas placing tunnel systems under schools and hospital centers. He also disputed that there was any military solution to removing Hamas from power after it had been well proven that Hamas had been already removed from power in the north. He also uses overestimates of Arabs in the ‘greater’ Israel while underestimating the number of Jews to fit a narrative that is wholly dishonest.
Mears is a highly intelligent man, knowledgeable and discerning of subtle facts which distinguishes the interests between nations, but when it involves the Jewish State, he prefers to propose a moral response rather than a response using his tenets of realism as he does for nations such as Russia while stating that “I don’t have to be consistent” – and of course he isn’t consistent, not even slightly so. He never has stated that the Nazi element in Ukraine can not be irradiated as he has stated about Hamas in Gaza. He recognize the right of Russia to respond militarily against the Ukraine, while never reproaching them for attacking urban centers. We could compile a whole list of the inconsistencies which distinguish his approach to these two conflicts, but as he states unequivocally he isn’t consistent.
Unless he is lying, or if he is simply ignorant of the true facts of which he has distorted to the particular purpose of denigrating Israel, this is antisemitism, pure and simple – and let us be quite honest, Mears is not one to be unaware of the details about which he is clearly distorting.
Hence, I would suggest that it isn’t a lack of empathy with the plight of the Jews which leads him to the distinguishing manner in which he mischaracterizes and then misjudges Israel, rather it is simply Jew Hatred.
Empathy is not to be taken tightly
I can give very many examples
Just one at this point as it will fill a book
In the 1930s the daughter of James Connolly wrote to Leon Trotsky a letter
It was remarkable and the reply very remarkable.
As I remember so full of empathy for that suffering people. So exactly right politically.
I think we can say that Meirsheimer reads history as regards all things Palestine very different.
It’s not that he hasn’t studied it…not at all that. But very basically he writes with no empathy for Jews in their very severe persecution in history.
And that lack of empathy has made his research meaningless.
On the other hand he has empathy for Russia and his struggle is very important.
There’s another aspect. Many are so consumed.by their chosen topic they haven’t read up.
One person can not do it requires the party. A cadre.
@Felix
I have never objected to you raising the name of Leon Trotsky. Instead, I simply asked you to clarify what I found to be an obscure statement in which you of course included a reference to Trotsky, and your explanatory response was as obscure as was the first comment, which I told you. Speak Trotsky’s name all you like as far as I am concerned, however, it would be useful towards an engaging dialogue, which is actually the clear purpose of the comment section, if you could clarify your comments to those who request such clarity as I did.
Correction
Spouting lies NOT Sprouting lies
Israpundit is not yet sprouting rather it is scouring the internet and passing on this anti science garbage
Some couple of months ago Peloni and Sebastien Zorn made a helluva fuss over me raising the name of Leon Trotsky into the discussion. Who? Why? these august Zionists of the rapidly becoming clear “old school” echoed back. For me it was catch 22 because if you have to provide an answer you’re beat anyway.
So what is this Realism school that these characters like the good Professor refer to? There is actually no such thing. It is a contrived and foolish thing.
So what do you know you might ask! Tell us your secret you retort!
Well it is wide open knowledge.
When Leon Trotsky was assassinated on August 20, 1940 by a Stalinist gangster recruited in the Spanish Civil War Trotsky’s pursuit of knowledge was struck down but not ended. We are back to the same questions once again.
To understand the present it is necessary to understand the capitalist system.
Of course Meirsheimer doesn’t do that, not can he. He doesn’t even set out to do that.
But the part that he applies his studies to he has added some partial knowledge which I welcome.
The Zionist outlook doesn’t even do that, example being Caroline Glick
The backwards nature of Zionism as expressed on Israpundit is seen in Israpundit becoming a purveyor of anti science nonsense re climate and the anti vaccination scams beloved by Peloni.
So Israpundit is sprouting lies on this yet they try to counter the Fascist lying of the Palestinianism. Not a good look I would say.
It cannot be done with that kind of leadership. A new one has to be created taking up a discussion in the key concepts where Trotsky left off.
So go back or fail. It has become as sharply defined as that.
After reading your comments, I’ll pass on listening.