Comment by Jerry Gordon: Read this commentary of the Gaza Flotilla episode by Weekly Standard senior editor, Christopher Casldwell published in the Financial Times Weekend Edition, “Israel had no other choice.” This is a play on the English translation of the Israeli military slang ‘en brera’: no alternative. He takes apart mainstream media pundists like New York Timesmen, Tom Friedman and Nicholas Krisitof and other who decried Israel’s alleged “stupidity” and “botched” assault. Then he chastises David Grossman, Israeli noveslist and prominent leftist who criticized the IDF for not acting ‘creatively”. Caldwell rightfully says that’s nuts. Israel had to do what was necessary to protect itself from apatent “miliotary” action by the Turkish flotilla – piercing the blockade of Gaza with jihadi thugs who took on the Israeli Naval sayeret (commandos) with knives, clubs and iron rods, and as some allege, guns. Caldwell also strikes back at the Turks and islamist pals in the UN demanding an independent investigaton of the Mavi Marama carnage, and suggest they are the provaceuteurs who should be held to account. He reserves his sharpest critcism for the herd of new and mainstream media who parrotted the line that this was a PR disaster for Israel. In conclusion, Caldwell says:
The most alarming thing this week was not the raid. It was the way internet opinion fell in behind activist opinion, and then the opinions of political and journalistic elites fell into line with the web. That Israel has lost the battle for public opinion is unfortunate. More troubling is that that battle was lost before the facts of the case had even emerged.
Israel had no other choice
By Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times
“Botched” and “stupid” are adjectives that have been applied all week to the events of Monday, when Israeli soldiers killed nine passengers and wounded dozens more on the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish flagship of a six-boat convoy. The boats, sponsored by a Turkish charity with ties to Islamist radicalism, had a humanitarian objective: to deliver aid to Gazan ports. But as the flotilla leaders themselves acknowledged, they also had a military one: to break the blockade of Gaza that Israel imposed in 2007. When participants in a conflict blur the line between civilians and combatants, good options disappear. Under the circumstances, the raid was neither stupid nor botched. It successfully repelled an attack on Israel’s borders, albeit at considerably higher cost than Israel would have wished.
There is a blockade of Gaza because Hamas, the Islamist party that runs Gaza, wants Israel destroyed. In recent years, it has launched thousands of rockets at cities in the Israeli south. One can argue over whether quarantining Hamas is wise, reasonable, proportionate or effective. But this is a separate question from whether Israel has the right to enforce a blockade in a war zone. Those complaining loudest about the Israeli raid tend to mix the two up and to say that because a) Israeli’s blockade of Gaza is unjust, and b) the passengers of the Mavi Marmara oppose the blockade of Gaza, therefore c) in any encounter between Israel and the passengers of the Mavi Marmara, Israel is in the wrong and the passengers are in the right. This is an unreasonable viewpoint. It is also a blueprint for escalating violence. Imagine the dangers, if, during the cold war, non-governmental organisations from the Soviet bloc had sailed flotillas into US waters to protest about racial conflict, or into British waters to protest against IRA internment.
Israel has provided evidence that its soldiers were in mortal danger when they abseiled on to the decks of the Mavi Marmara – high-quality video footage, which was released within hours. The government has shown that the passengers brought gas masks and had pre-fabricated propaganda videos. The Guardian reports that three of the dead Turkish citizens were seeking “martyrdom” through the operation.
But the intentions of those on the boat – whether humanitarian, as the organisers said (publicly), or terroristic, as the Israelis say – have nothing to do with the justice or injustice of the raid. Protecting borders is about sovereignty, not sentiment. The fact that, say, a door-to-door evangelist wants to save your soul rather than rob you does not give him the right to enter your house. Where intentions do matter is in assessing the relevance of whether the boat was in Israeli or international waters. The explicitly stated intention of the activists to violate the Israeli blockade almost certainly renders the precise location of the boat less important.
The insistence, even among Israel’s friends, that Israel behaved stupidly rests on the idea that it had other options. The American journalist Thomas Friedman and the Israeli novelist David Grossman both faulted Israel’s leaders for not acting more “creatively”. But creativity has its limits. A post on foreign affairs website Stratfor.com on May 26, almost a week before the encounter, laid out the alternatives ominously and accurately. Let the boat through, and you have issued an invitation to Iran and others to re-arm Hamas. Stop the boat and you have an “incident”. In retrospect, Israel sent its soldiers on to the Mavi Marmara too lightly armed (some with paintball guns) for the mob that met them. Yet this was the right decision at the time, made to avoid even accidental violence.
If there is one attitude that some of Israel’s sincerest friends share with the extremists who have added comments to many of the Mavi Marmara videos on YouTube, it is that perfection and omniscience are both to be expected from the Jewish state. (They should have deployed their Secret Boat-Stopping Machine!) The extremists, though, take perfection to be a precondition of the state’s legitimacy.
Israel has been held responsible for the actions of others – notably, this week, for the deterioration in its relationship with Turkey. This view is promoted cynically by Suat Kiniklioglu, a spokesman for Turkey’s ruling AK party, who says the incident has “irrevocably damaged Turkish-Israeli relations at the bilateral level”, and naively by the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who warns, “Israel’s storming of a Turkish-flagged vessel in international waters was a huge setback to efforts to win new sanctions on Iran”.
The deterioration of Turkish-Israeli relations has proceeded steadily since Recep Tayyip Erdogan brought the AK party to power. Mr Erdogan wants a more Islamic Turkey, and in this he speaks for his country’s democratic majority. One cannot re-enter the good graces of the Muslim world with a trusting, or neutral, attitude towards Israel. Turkey’s growing hostility to Israel is a cause, not a consequence, of the Mavi Marmara incident. The promised United Nations investigation will provide a chance to examine the claims of foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu that the NGOs organising the flotilla were beyond Ankara’s control.
The most alarming thing this week was not the raid. It was the way internet opinion fell in behind activist opinion, and then the opinions of political and journalistic elites fell into line with the web. That Israel has lost the battle for public opinion is unfortunate. More troubling is that that battle was lost before the facts of the case had even emerged.
The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard
Yes, I transferred from a school back in NY to USC. My moms sister lived in N Hollywood and they owned a few apt. complexes so I wangled a
cool apt. from them for the duration. I paid them back by generally looking after the property. I worked for awhile for a large concern in
Van Nuys summers.
One of my best friends who I grew up with is a well known shrink whose office is on Wilshire Blvd. When I visit I try to see him.
I used to go to Fairfax and Wilshire for business so I know the area. I know you’re from NY, but did you live in L.A.?
The population, any population in such circumstance needs to be maximum militant unfettered by false guilt and with unwavering will tempered only by evaluation of political repercussions regarding their image on a moment to moment basis.
If only..
Because not enough of the population is like this Israel has sunk down the vortex created by itself.
Any population under such assault as Israel is should be almost 100 percent militant. Yet it is not.
I do not think it is a problem of Jewishness , Jewish Identity or Jewish religious identity.
This is something else.
All the populations of the West have been poisoned against protecting their own interests through socialization , daily MSM propaganda and state education. And entire ideology of passive victimization is transmitted to them.
Everything, the working system , the criminal justice system, the policing system, the advertising system etc etc is designed to create a passive victim class. It is all under the control of the superrich for their business and power interests.
You end up with a society working against itself.
The society is diseased from within and it is nothing to do with ethnicity. (True , Jewishness unity might help oppose this problem but why see the problem for what it is and solve that problem. If you don’t , it remains there and festers always.) Every Western Society is the same. Poisoned by it’s internal structure. Clean it up from the top down, the ground up in every regard to education and media. First disempower the superrich and end their control of the society , their extreme unequal ownership of wealth has undermined the capitalist and democratic system , They must be totally demolished, deconstructed from monopolization and their assets returned to the free market in society. There are many ways to do this. The first step is to see and understand the problem, the solutions will follow naturally.
You can’t fight on the combat field with the cancer eating your gut and spitting blood.
(Another one of my imaginative analogies 🙂 )
And now we have the problem of those who have been convinced trough the propaganda of the superrich that the system is good for them. “I love this cancer, yum yum! How dare you not love cancer!”
Maybe 25-30% will stick together through thick and thin. The rest forget them. Liberal Jews are already off the charts when it comes to Jewish identification and concerns. Go to Cantors on Fairfax Ave in LA and you will see the gastronomical Jews in full force.
Yamit (Uncle Nahum) I told you a few times what the Jewish glazier told me about the need for Jewish people to stick together after what happened in Europe. I never forget his kindness to us Catholic school students who broke window and he provided the glass and instructions along with good conversation, no charge The good nuns didn’t punish us, simply said you break it, you fix it.
60% would cheer 40% would scream what will America and the Europeans say or do. If the attack was preceded by a major terrorist attack where many Israelis died especially kids then the percentages would be more like 70% cheering 10% extreme left screaming we are Nazis and 20% (Israeli Arabs) hiding till it all blew over.
Israeli governments for a long time have not been reflective of the Israeli peoples sentiments.
If the Israeli government took the Harry Fisher approach, how would the Israeli public respond?
I like Harry Fisher reminds me of my dad.
Israel: Offensive or Defensive?
By Harry Fisher
I was a sergeant in World War II. I landed at Normandy and fought the Nazis all the way up with General Patton’s army up to and into Germany. I was there when we ‘liberated’ the concentration camps.
I learned from the greatest generals how to fight a war and how not. I saw the results of being hard and not giving in. We pushed through the mud and we pushed through the rain. We never stopped pushing.
Before we would come into a town that the Germans had been in, we would shell them, just to let them know that we weren’t sissies. When we found some Germans, we hit them hard and did not stop firing until nothing moved. Patton was tough, he was there to win a war against a tough enemy who knew how to kill you and liked to ambush you.
Patton was clear. The enemy is afraid of our bullets. Don’t put your head down in a ditch and wait for the fire to clear. The enemy loves that. They will find you with their mortar shells, so get up and shoot, shoot, and keep shooting.
Patton was tough. He said things that his superior officer General Bradley had to censor. But I was there. I heard him say “if some one has a gun and doesn’t use it (meaning firing it) well, he is about as useless as the prick on the pope.”
He was not big on taking captives. He did not want any one standing Germans up against the wall and shooting them. Hell, he said, kill the bastards before you get them to a wall.
Patton’s philosophy was simple. “Attack, attack and keep attacking.” Never give your enemy a chance.
One time we came into a German village. They put out white flags to surrender. When our boys walked in and came close to the village buildings, they started shooting at them – an ambush. They retreated quickly. Patton gave the order to bring up the artillery and told them to level the whole damn village. Hell, he didn’t care who was there, men, women or children. He leveled it and left it as a lesson to them if they were going to pull the same trick again what to expect.
Today Israel is being attacked daily from the Gaza strip. She ignores it and it only gets worse. I want to tell you that building thicker roofs for the people in S’derot is not the answer; the Arabs will only get bigger bombs. How thick can you make a roof to protect people? What happens if they walk outside? Will the Israeli government build them tunnels under the street so that they may crawl to the market and to their jobs?
I believe that the Israeli government is making a mistake in being so lenient with Hamas. It is hard to send men into a war knowing that some of them won’t come back. But the more Israel waits, the worse the situation will get.
One time General Patton was talking to the men. He told us that one of his friends, General Scott, was a short, small man, but he said that he would be willing to get into a boxing ring with heavy weight champion Joe Louis if Louis would promise to be defensive. That was Patton’s was of telling us that being defense is a sure way to loose.
Here is what I think that Israel can learn from this much decorated hero. Warn the Gaza government and the peoples in the cities from where the missiles are shot that if they do not stop the shelling, their city will be destroyed. Then when some one shoots a missile, shell that city relentlessly until every one in it has either moved out or is dead. Completely level it. It may take a week, it may take longer. Israel has the guns, let them use it. Probably the UN or the USA or one or two of the European countries will cry that we are beasts, but, who the hell cares. It is not their ass being shelled daily from Gaza. Everyone knows that – if one Arab country would shoot one missile at the US or other European country, they would be attacked ten fold in return. What are we, shooting targets because we are Jewish?
It pains me to see a good state like Israel that wants to treat everyone in a humanistic manner being taken advantage of by their own leaders who care more what is written in the New York Times than what happens in S’derot.
Isn’t it time to begin to respect your own people who are suffering and stop giving support to the enemy? Only if we crush Hamas, will they begin to respect us. As long as we apologize for every ‘innocent’ civilian that get killed or injured, as long as we feed them and give them electricity to produce bombs, we are not being humanitarians. We are causing harm to our own people so that the goyim will think we are ‘nice’ people.
Who cares what they think? We must defend ourselves and the only way to do it is to be on the offensive. Remember, if you want to live in peace, you must be willing to fight for it, and fighting means just that.
Just remember, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. This is not a time to turn the other cheek, this is a time to turn their cheeks. And if the world yells and hollers, just say the hell with it, just keep on driving!
Joy,
“There was one concentration camp in Austria that I visited. This was called Linz. The inmates told us that when the Germans would feed them, they would tell us that this is from the flesh of your children.”
“Now I am fortunate to live in Israel. We are at war here, when people are killing your people, that’s war! During war, you have to attack, not retaliate, it’s either your life or their’s. People understand only one thing: might! Don’t kid yourself to think that the Arabs will give up the fight as long as they have guns and leaders that urge them on. We are in a real war and we should act accordingly.”
Harry Fisher is retired and lives in Jerusalem
I know and agree, the sooner we forget about being loved and accepted the easier it will be for those of us who still have a sense of being, what I call rational realism, the better we can defend ourselves.
My dad fought with Patton, his was the first American platoon to cross the Reine. This was before I was born and my dad never mentioned his war experiences. I never thought to ask. I learned most from my 96 year old Aunt,( She still drives bless her) when I was already in college by the time I became curious dad was already gone.
We Jews are in for a difficult time and whoever still cares better stick together. I have a feeling we are going to need and depend on each other like never before. I hope I’m wrong.
Jeff,
Most people around the world agree with George Patton, so the Israelis can forget about pr.
Ask your imagination.
Is this bullshit or fertilizer?
No , there’s no glory in Canada, that’s for sure. Only in the newspapers where they lie.
It’s only an attempt to find an analog, don’t take it to heart.
Have to modify it – Actually a professional soldier will try to save the fool anyway.
And you don’t know anything about my background, I’ve’ lived many years outside of Canada even inside Canada has been no picnic.
Don’t get that syndrome where you think you are the only people that know death, violence, suffering and oppression.
Hezbollah and Hamas have to be exterminated don’t make thing s complicated.
I’ll check up on your history but I think you interpret it for another agenda.
That’s just an excuse, toughen up a little. If you don’t have that luxury, you’d better get it.
You aren’t an eggplant are you?
Here is the rub Max. You live within your sometimes overly vivid imagination. Here we don’t have that luxury. It’s all too real and sometimes very very painful but then other times it’s glorious. Do you ever have a glorious feeling in Canada Max? I’ll bet not.
Max You have been reading too many marvel comics. They have effected your mind. . Stick to Zen you would be on safer ground don’t look for alternative motives in me to justify your own ignorance.
Ya’alon was chief of military intelligence who advised in several op eds that Israel could safely give up the Golan. He said Iran was no threat , and failed to predict the intifada which took him by surprised and the IDF unprepared. a thousand dead later he finally got a grip on the situation by retaking the west bank and reestablishing our Intel network of snitches there.
No Israeli military elite or otherwise speaks with a pure concept of military security every security concept here is wrapped in some political agenda. The truth is there is no such a thing as security here except the willingness to exercise ruthless brute force to enforce our military advantage. That means the enemy can never be seen to be a peace partner but only a sworn existential enemy that must be dealt with so as to prevent them from raising any hand against any Jew. They murder a Jew we kill a hundred of them and destroy their village to the ground and who is ever left we deport.
You’re right it ain’t rocket science but it has always worked.
That doesn’t mean you don’t have your own ax to grind or other thoughts to cloud your head. You gave nothing to back up any claims of your claims that Ya’alon would not secure the safety of Israel. – Looks like 27 years of grudges.
Some people have 27 years of complexity and they use it to empty their mind learn and communicate with others yet others have 27 years and they they are incapable of practical common sense and live in a locked castle because their level is too “high”.
There is no “deference” needed here.Just leave your ego out of it. You turn a simple discussion into a well of molasses. Is that an example of the brilliance of 27 years experience? This is not rocket science, just dodging rockets. Military science is a straightforward thing but unfortunately there seem to be few with an un-distracted fearless mind for it. You just have to present a few simple facts if you have them. Show me how Ya’alon failed militarily or in military planning instead of deluging the ether-space with ideology.
Ah, so there’s your problem. You do have an ax to grind. A very, very, big ax.
Security the elimination of terrorists and the securing of militarily necessary land is the first essential need otherwise you don’t have an executive to argue about religion and land claims. It’s a misuse of the military to use it to squabble in.
So really you can’t just look at naked security, you cna’t think in a military manner. So all your thought is flawed.
I think if I remember correctly you are the one with the totalitarian religious agenda – no better than the Islamofascists. Yes, it’s OK to make a country for a singular religion so that every religion/people can have a homeland. But mandatory religion is totalitarianism. And I think you are obsessed. You need to let people alone.
I know the whole story, it’s not worth the discussion.
In my imagination I see myslef being shelled and I try to drag someone to a foxhole but he want s to argue about religion. Crikey ! Just leave him there.
That’s the way the rest of the world would feel and actually there is that attitude out there in a big way and that is not anti-semitism that’s anti-empathy. And often is deserved the way some act.
I could spend forever refining my statements but you got the general idea of my position and with that I will absolve myself of further discussion here.
I’ll give you want you want. I’ll leave you on your own.
You found a good way to alienate yourself and Israel for those that hear you as Israel.
Unfortunately, I think you got as many demons inside as out.
The foundation for the survival of Israel.
The threat of a Jewish army [October 2008 – Caroline Glick]
Thanks Caroline
The land of Israel for the People of Israel Under Torah Law.
Correction!!
I spent over
2720 years off and on in the IDF and before that US ArmyEvery Israeli is a general, I spent over 27 years off and on in the IDF and before that US Army but I’m no expert so I should defer to you?
unfortunately since before OSLO our military leadership emanated from the ideological left, that had little or no emotional sentimentality toward Y&S and Gaza. The Golan yes but not our biblical heartland. For most, those lands were viewed as expendable real estate to be sold traded or bartered for their dream (signed agreements and recognition by our enemies) For them that was Peace and they were willing to pay such a price even if they believed they posed great risks.
I knew personally many of the military notables in IDF’s history, and I can say that most with some exceptions were quite dumb, none very worldly and few with any real formal education. They rose through the ranks less by individual merit but by political manipulations and having the right political patrons. Those with the most merit and qualifications seldom got past colonel.
Since OSLO a whole generation of military career officers have been indoctrinated by the purveyors of the OSLO syndrome and instead of opting for tried and true Israeli tactics and war doctrine we began under American influence to emulate America and dropped our own Israeli war doctrine.
No senior officer in Israel has ever commanded a large force in open combat against another country. Our Army has been trained to fight terrorists at the expense of being prepared for large scale operations in open warfare.
None thus far have been tested under true fire. Lebanon was but one example. Our military is war avoidance at almost any cost and this influences our political echelons.
Our military has been shown by our leftists elites that they will be held accountable if things go south and will be sacrificed to save political asses.
An Israel with a large nuclear force doesn’t need to copy Americas globalist doctrine. Employ the right military doctrine we could almost eliminate most of the IDF. I have said many times for terrorist we don’t need billions in sophisticated weaponry Napalm is cheap and effective.
Nukes will take care of any invader. put our whole arsenal of nukes on pre-programed auto pilot and announce what the targets will be. That’s about as good a deterrence as you can have today.
Without Y&S we will not survive neither spiritually or eventually physically. Ya’alon is not a Jewish believer so he uses security. Holding up security considerations as our main if not only real demand is self defeating, a trap that will sooner or later be snapped shut.
A position that those territories are ours because we were given them by G-d is an argument that cannot easily be opposed or countered.
Ya’alon is potentially more dangerous than the self admitted leftists. Many on the right here still support him and that compound the threat.
Don’t agree with any of that at all.
He was fired because he objected. He wasn’t fired for compliance.
his position on the territories is and always has been maximum security according to his profession as a military tactician. His method is military goals military not ideological or emotional goals.
Of course his criticism had no effect in their dominated media, in the same bought up media that installed Sharon and Olmert and convinced Israelis to appease the terrorists and feel guilty, but he built a power base and alternative media dispersement with think tanks and institutions, speaking engagements, writings, etc. He has been 100 percent active, not an afterthought.
And what do you expect him to do? Walk out on BB and give up everything? You always have to some eat excrement to get ahead.
Forget about morals and Zionism, this is just the soldier you use to get the job done, the job that is defined by military reality. That is all there is to care about here.
Unless you have some smoking gun , an article of Ya’alon’s somewhere or something, I think you are wanting something else or something more than is required. You have some other goals.
The military security is first last and middle, nothing else matters in the foundation.
Fired or quitting are two different moral non-equivalents. Fact of the matter, were he given his fifth year he would have carried out to the letter the governments policies and directives. He was pissed that he wasn’t allowed to continue and even leaked his anger and bitterness over what he considered a personal slight.
Any criticism he voiced after his term ended was chalked to to sour grapes by our MSM and pundits. Therefore any of his criticisms had little or no impact. They were mostly ignored.
If he ha quit and then voiced his opposition he would have had the moral high ground and because he was then respected his voice might have had some effect.
His positions on the territories is a classic one of maintain minimum security but not ideological. Under certain circumstances he too would give up most of the territory. He is in the same mold of Rabin, and Dayan. We are still paying a heavy price for their character and lack of real Zionist and Jewish identities.
his joining the Likud was in a manner his personal swipe against his ideological camp who threw him under the bus. I see at it a pure opportunism. BB promised him DM and gave him a flunky title. He accepted that insult too!
http://www.iris.org.il/katyusha.htm
Most probably there will be an upgrade in rocket and weapon technology for the next one.
Ok Olmert took over 4 January 2006, and it was Mofaz under Sharon, I was remembering Olmert called Ya’alon a “jerk”.
I didn’t say anything about settlers.
Anyway – same result.
———>
You are second guessing Ya’alon and it seems his objecting did get him fired so it is same-same. Everything I’ve read from Ya’alon seems to indicate he has the best method and he thinks like a military tactician. IE offer the enemy peace and exterminate them if they don’t take it but finish the threat one way or another. So he is not blindly warlike but professionally warlike. 🙂
Considering Ya’alon continued in the background unrelentingly campaigning his POV in several think tank organizations , I think you are too cynical here.
And I think considering the “virus incident” they got him on a leash and they muzzled him not giving him the post of Defense Minister.
So Mad Max, now tell us what you really think? 🙂
Sharon not Olmert and it was over the evacuation of IDF from Gaza not the settlers. Ya’alon would have complied with Sharon’s directive even if he disagreed. A moral person would have resigned by himself and explained his decision publicly. These are careerist Soldiers who place their own personal advancement over any principles they might have or doing what is right because it is.
My how some people are rattling sabres, baring fangs and are in such a feisty fighting mood today.
One might get the impression that you all are thinking you are ready, willing and able to take charge of the IDF and lead Israel into a full blown war against whomever.
Hmmmmmm!
Don’t you think the 1st step would be to get off your computers, go down to the IDF recruiting office, apply for the joint positions of head of IDF, (why bother starting at the bottom) and Israel’s saviour and if accepted, then lead the IDF and Israel into the war you expect will save Israel from her enemies and put an end to anti-Israel/antisemitic beliefs in the world. Well, good luck with that.
sophistry is the last refuge of those…who can’t defend their positions through substantiated provable arguments but rely on rational fallacy.
You go a step further in the use of aspersions that those who disagree with you are madman or wolves ( predatory
beasts?)howling at a full moon.
I thought you enjoyed the arguments, the debates, words, words and more words.
I see many words from you but no argument.
That’s a Neo-leftist propaganda argument Narvey. They use the same kind of propaganda to oppose those who favour defensive wars and wars of survival.
You are really on the wrong team. You are a passive-aggressive anti-war type person. Shouldn’t you be out protesting Israeli War Crimes?
Let me explain to you how a democracy is supposed to work. Everybody gets a vote and an opinion, Then the executive branch makes the decision to go to war based on their and the group opinion and then they order the armed forces consisting of trained professionals to apply themselves and follow the executive order with full compliance. Soldiers need to concentrate on their task not on political debate, the two don’t mix.
That’s how it is supposed to work anyway – unfortunately amoung other problems, ulterior and dysfunctional interests turn the information outlets into propaganda forces – Everybody gets an opinion – not just those in the IDF or just those in the political Party of your choosing. – you do so love fascism , don’t you?
You are even more ridiculous as I am from non-Israeli Interests in this situation and actually I don’t think you have your citizenship there either do you?
And of course you have no idea of the personal lives of anyone you are talking to and it is not necessary. If you think my attitude is not who I really am then you are entitled. But it is also equally possible my attitude is who I am. The only rational attitude that doesn’ “howl at the moon” is to take people at face value.
What you are doing is a method of interpersonal bullying like shoving someone and challenging them to fight because you don’t like what they say. You should be careful if you do that in person you are likely to get what you don’t expect.
.
===>
As for your suggestion, it is not that bad an idea. It’s not something I would denigrate. If I was in Israel and starting a career I would think about majoring in Psychology and applying for Intelligence Division along the way in a professional military career.That would be an attractive career path and would be very challenging. There is nothing wrong with ambition in that respect, I wouldn’t knock it considering the Israeli blue-bloods that have already done so. But it’s only a pipedream, I can’t do that.
Do you have something against the IDF, Narvey? Because it seems in your strategy argument it seems you are knocking the IDF.
So ? You are really anti-military?
==>
My ideas are not just from the moon. Israelis like Moshe Ya’alon have the same ideas. If Olmert had not fired Ya’alon there would be no Hamas in Gaza amoung other things. I think they got Moshe Ya’alon now on a chain.
So how about it, was Olmert your best buddy, Narvey?
I’ve been reading you a long time you are the king of wishy washy waffle, you are like someone who never gets to the store because you pace the floor trying to think of what to buy.
It’s too late, Narvey, the store burnt down.
Israel is Dead in the Water because of attitudes like yours that infected Israelis like a virus in the last decade.You are the foolish one to think therm can be survival through a III , a IV and a V. It’s nearly over. There isn’t an ongoing steady state. People like you led Israel into fatal errors over ten years ago. your soultion of “restraint” hasn’t worked. Over and over it hasn’t worked.
“Whomever!” Did I say “whomever? I said Hamas and Hezbollah. Who is being irrational now? They will attack again, and again and agin until they finish the job. Taht is why they must be annihilated. Israel needs to institute the death penalty for terrorism and sentence all terrorists in terrorist organizations to death In Absentia. It will clear the way to summarily executing them in the field and getting the threat of each individual off the planet forever.
And I have not just said this “today” ya I said this over and over again always.
What kind of silly neurotic world do you live in? What people think is of no consequence so long as you can survive. People are entitled to be anti-Semitic. They are are also entitled to be suffer any consequences of their actions.
Eliminate them terrorist and let the world cry afterwards. It’ll be all over – at least that part. Who cares! Get ready for the next one. Right now they are getting ready for the last one
I did not say “attack”, possibly tough if they find proof of any new kind of weaponry or WMD. No, Israel just has to wait for the next assault, maybe surreptitiously throw a little escalation help, and be prepared to finish them off thoroughly and quickly before the world can react. It is very dangerous to wait though, the next assault will be made with improved weaponry and technology. There is a high likelihood Israel won’t survive the next assault. In that case we can forget about this argument and take up another preoccupation. I really hope you do have an alternative activity because I wouldn’t bank bank forever on this one.
Your idea to call others lunatics when you don’t like, don’t understand or don’t agree with their ideas is immature and time wasting.
You abhor “extremism” because you can’t face life. Hiroshima was not a problem,it was a solution. If you cna’t understand solutions f to totalitarianism you should retire and stop encouraging everyone to lie down and get killed.
Well anyway let’s see how long you will be right. Or should I say – how long you will continue being wrong.
I had a dream out of the blue a few months ago, and I heard “Israel will be killed in June” in my dream. What do you think? Did I have a premonition?
It’s still June….
They’re not my acolytes but those who recognize truth as opposed to BS ( Is BS OK TED?) I’ll rephrase that
BS______ Insert any of the following words from this list instead of BS.:________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yes Bill that about sums up the overwhelming opinion of most who comment here, yourself a notable exception.
You once said ” Rights not applied are not rights in fact” I’m paraphrasing. I say power when you have it not applied is no longer power.
Power not applied in the minds of our enemies projects weakness on our part, hesitancy to act when provoked denotes weakness. Weakness prokes our enemies to act, the world to pressure, and many of those who supported or would support a strong Israel to desert us.
People like winners, support winners and disdain weakness and losers. After 67 we were respected and feared, but never liked or loved except for fairweather Jews. After 73 war The Jews in America were the first to abandon Israel, Israel giving away all her gains from the greatest military victory in history. Where is the pride in that? Weakness begets more weakness that begets more pressure by all Jew haters and of course more wars, more dead Jews.
In the immortal words of uncle Harry, “If you’re going to shoot, shoot”!
Your support of Israel as I see it has always been conditional. Conditional in sofar like most liberals, an Israel that reflects your values and ideas. G-d help us were that to be the reality here. You again betray your values and commitment.
You are wrong about the battlefield of words and ideas. That is liberal leftist jingoism devoid of substance. We are in a war of survival pitting the Jew haters against Jews, and those who are mostly indifferent to Jews and our existence. They go along with the herd. The conflict pits all of the world against Judaism . Destroy the Jew you destroy the idea they oppose. Seldom put in this context but if you are intellectually honest I challenge you to debunk or refute my postulate.
I will make the Arabs love us by giving them indoor toilets and running tap water? If you really believe in that concept and mindset then you are a lost cause.
Narvey I always best you in debate as you never refute or really challenge any of my contentions. The reason is your positions are not defensible in the cold reality of history , facts and truth but above all common sense.
ayn said often that she liked Palin because she had good instincts. Maybe she was right. What is apparent here is that you don’t.
Wake up Yamit
Like in Eyes Wide Shut?
No thanks!
My eyes see much even that which my mouth has yet to utter.
It doesn’t matter what temperature the room is, it’s always room temperature.
What is your real objection? The thought? The expression of the Thought? The use of the word stupid or was it A..H or both?
I can rephrase it in the Queens English that says essentially the same thing if necessary?
So is it the language the thought or are you trying to protect Narvey?
Not trying to be contentious with you Ted, Narvey is a grown up who knows how to take it and once you get by cometh and whence, he sometimes has something to say. You have to get by that barrier first though to find out. So much for wordy PR. I like the concept of KISS!!!
OK Ted, now that I have gotten that off my chest, I will try to behave. I haven’t altered my opinion in any way though.
My how some people are rattling sabres, baring fangs and are in such a feisty fighting mood today.
One might get the impression that you all are thinking you are ready, willing and able to take charge of the IDF and lead Israel into a full blown war against whomever.
Hmmmmmm!
Don’t you think the 1st step would be to get off your computers, go down to the IDF recruiting office, apply for the joint positions of head of IDF, (why bother starting at the bottom) and Israel’s saviour and if accepted, then lead the IDF and Israel into the war you expect will save Israel from her enemies and put an end to anti-Israel/antisemitic beliefs in the world. Well, good luck with that.
I wonder if you are all sitting under and howling at a full moon today?
Hmm. at least Hezbollah and Hamas they have to be thoroughly eliminated to the last person. And in an action done quickly and fait accompli before the world cam come rushing to their aid.
After that moment you can conduct the propaganda war.
If you think Israel will even survive unless this is done, you are having a pipe dream, Narvey. And I know how much you are opposed to pipe dreams.
Yamit. I removed this from one of your comments.
“Anyone who thinks our problems can be solved with Better PR is a stupid A..H.
”
Stop it all ready.
Real smart Yamit. According to you and some of your acolytes, Israel’s only path to advance her interests is through war that decisively crushes her enemeis including Palestinians, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and any other group or nation that messes with her.
Not that I do not support Israel fighting to ultimately seize the kind of victory that was considered victory until WWI, war is being waged against Israel on the battlefield of words and ideas to capture hearts and minds. Israel must become fully engaged in that war and as resolved to win as it must be resolved to win on the conventional battlefield.
And one final thought Yamit. No matter how often and how hard you pat yourself on the back on these pages and declare you have bested me in a debate, it just ain’t ever so. Some day you may best me yet, but so far you haven’t. When it happens, I will let you know.
Wake up Yamit
It works for China: “Stay out of our internal affairs!”
There’s no billion Muslims marching complaining about the massacres in Xinjiang (that few of you even heard about).
They got the power. It’s all about the power.
Isn’t there an offshore oil well in the Persian Gulf. Too bad. Look how well that would work out!
Thanks Lurale, I agree of course with one caveat, that being that our Hasbarah should be focused to the already committed so as to unify, encourage and reinforce those already on our side and in our camp. The Hasbarah should be keyed to the weakest element in our camp so they don’t fold and give up.
The rest as Arafat used to say can go drink the water in Gaza.
I agree with yamit. The videos gave irrefutable evidence that the Israeli soldiers were being viciously beaten from the moment they descended on that ship and yet it didn’t prevent Israel from being crucified internationally and the terrorists portrayed as humanitarians. What do you think Israel can possibly further do in terms of PR to alter its unfounded pariah status. Bill it should be clear that most of the world WANTED Israel to be the villain, facts be damned. Israel is hated for its very existence, Jews are hated for their very existence. When there are those who don’t believe Israel itself should exist, obviously anything Israel does in its own defense is also going to be considered illegitimate. PR is a waste of time and money to a world that is not in the least bit interested in hearing Israel’s side. To true friends of Israel, they don’t need to be convinced. So what’s the point?
Kristof isn’t Jewish.
We are entering the state that follows history, the dominion not of the hunger artist but of the panther, symbol of the beautiful blond beast and companion of Dionysus. Europa, taken by the greatest of all continents means expansive or imperial gaze; via cultural rape, the West generated the Minotaur and its labyrinthine schemes that like appetite, the universal wolf…first consumes the world and last eats up himself. Chaos follows the choking.
A lie travels half way around the world before the truth gets its boots on – Mark Twain
How much more when an agenda is dependent upon a lie?
The problem isn’t that Israel is very bad at getting out its message because that presupposes a fair hearing.
There is no justice in this world for israel and that is the problem.
I think it seems that way because anti-Semites are screamers. No amount of PR will ever make any difference to such people. There are, on the other hand, a great number of people in society who can be influenced, but are too absorbed in their banal lives to pay attention. If things keep going the way they are, it is very likely the crisis in the M.E. will reach critical mass; many of these people will then start trying to sort things out. If there is only one story out there, they will be more likely to buy it.
Even if the public cannot always change government policies; when there are enough opponents, they can change the way government must operate to carry them out. Israel should continue the PR and push their side even if they end up defending themselves alone; it may make a difference in the strength of the opposition.
Well said, and that was exactly my point to Narvey . A picture my be worth a thousand words, conquering our enemies are beyond mere words. Cosmic in it’s effect.
Kahane always said “I would rather be feared and hated but alive than loved and dead”.
I’ve seen too many dead Jews.
How so? I never contradict myself, I am I think now that ayn is gone the most consistent realist commenting on Israpndit.
Bitter never! Angry, maybe?
Narvey neither you or millions like you have shown your way works and is effective. Never
But here is what does work and his actions are worth a million Bill Narveys who is a slave to a fallacious conception and won’t admit he is wrong. You have never admitted you are wrong. You are though.
You are right I have been kept in the dark! What the hell I’m only human and have a trusting character defect.
Right now my mind is as lucid as it always was and it’s certainly not myopic.
Historically, the best public relations for the Jews happens when we conquer our enemies.
Yamit, you are self contradictory. On the one hand your knowledge is broad and deep and often you have great insight. On the other however, you remain bitter, angry and myopic as to how Israel should best assert herself and win the world over. Anyone suggesting something less then expressing Israel’s resentment and anger in a hostile or even violent way, as you posit they do, draws angry criticism from you with accusations that such suggestion is a foolish waste of time.
Telling the world to piss off as you say is part of public relations that you rail against. Knowing how to say things to convince, as opposed to further pissing people off, is the challenge of public relations.
Telling someone to go f&*k themselves as you contend Israel should, will not convince anyone to do that. I am sure there are ways that one can say it to make people do just that and think it is a good thing.
The proof of any strategy and tactic is in the pudding as they say, so don’t disrespect my suggestion, unless it has been tried and failed.
So far Israeli public relations has been in many respects ineffectively tried. That is why Israel getting her message out and convincing more people to her interests and needs, has been so difficult and has seen far less success then hoped.Yamit,
I thus encourage you to open your mind to the possibilities that you are so convinced do not exist. From what I see, your mind has been too much in the dark and you need to bring in some light.
F…K PR,
With better PR all the Jew haters of the world will have a sudden Epiphany and become Jew Lovers?
Mostly PR is a waste of time and resources and is as useless today as it has ever been.
Some people never learn anything and are condemned therefore to repeat every mistake of the past and then some.
Nothing will work to our benefit as much as Israel going totally macho in her own interests and saying in so many ways Piss Off, to the rest of the world.
Israel is about to become a fossil fuel energy giant. Money makes this world turn and when we have it they will kiss our asses as well, and those that don’t are of no consequence.
I concur with Caldwell, save for his statement:
That such UN investigation would cast its gaze away from Israel and towards Turkey and the Islamists running this show, is ludicrous. Israel is right to resist any UN inquiry. She is wrong however, to suggest as has been reported that she will conduct her own inquiry with American oversight.
Israel indeed should conduct her own inquiry, without anyone looking on or evesdropping. Whether the results of that inquiry should be revealed depends on whether revealing those results to the world is of benefit to Israel’s image.
The two issues she therefore should focus on is whether there was in fact a lapse in her intelligence or a failure in mission readiness, thus leaving the IDF unprepared for what they might encounter.
Secondly, Israel should use this incident as an opportunity to revisit the issue of her need to be far more effective in her public relations. As has been oft noted, Israel trimmed down her public relations department after Oslo, but with the failure of Oslo, never beefed it up to where it needs to be.
Israel had substantial evidence that this flotilla was using humanitiarianism as a mendacious pretext to create an incident to cast Israel in a terrible light. Doubtless Israel alerted all the MSM in North America and the EU to the realities including that they would allow the flotilla to dock in Egypt or Ashdod for inspection and after that inspection, all humanitarian goods would be delivered to Gaza.
The MSM ignored all that. Their reporting only reinforced the lie that this flotilla was a humanitarian effort, that the flotilla would be met by Israel’s blockade, without mention whatsoever the truth about Gaza and Hamas and that in such circumstances Israel’s blockade was legal by international lalw.
Getting the truth to the MSM is easy. Getting the MSM to report the truth is extremely difficult. It is this latter challenge that Israel needs to not only work on, but to succeed at.
When you read all the names and consider the side they stand on it seems odd.