Het onvermijdelijke is aan het gebeuren: de conservatieven in de VS nemen steeds meer afstand van Israel:
'Islamo-fascism, Judaeo-fascism, Bapto-fascism, and Why We Need More Bars After Which I Promise to Shut Up on This Subject
The wheels are squeaking on the tumbrel methinks. At a recent conclave held by AIPAC, unease arose, reasonably enough, over eroding American support for Israel. What apparently did not arise was any indication of understanding of why support is eroding. In Haaretz I find the following account of a speech by Howard Kohr, the executive director of AIPAC: “‘These voices [not hostile to Islam] are laying the predicate for an abandonment [by the US of Israel]…The stakes in that battle are nothing less than the survival of Israel, linked inexorably to the relationship between Israel and the United States. In this battle we are the firewall, the last rampart.’” This sort of shrieking-dental-drill end-of-worldism is of course the boiler plate of alarmed extremists, and extremists are congenitally alarmed. Eeek, we must stop the (blacks, Moslems, commies, Mexicans, Jews, secular humanists) before they destroy (Western Civilization, America, Israel or, you know, something Really Important.) Haaretz goes on to speak of AIPAC’s loosening hold on America, of what I call Israel fatigue, which seems to be growing. Not long ago, criticism of AIPAC was a firing offense at newspapers. Today, less so, probably because the internet has outflanked the print media. However, it seems to me that AIPAC is not the firewall defending Israel that it believes itself to be, but rather the carpenter putting the first nails in Israel’s coffin. Permit me a few thoughts: First, Jews are in no danger in the US. It is to AIPAC’s benefit to pretend otherwise. Howwsomever, America is not an anti-Semitic country. Yes, you can find websites like Loonfront.com and Stormbird.org. (I made those up. I hink.) It remains that Jews, once outsiders, are now insiders. They are deeply integrated into the country, intermarriage is high, and few care. The only potential source of anti-Jewish hostility is the belief that Jews have pushed the US into some international catastrophe, as for example war with Iran. Otherwise, few Americans seem particularly interested in Jews. Second, few Americans, as best I can tell, object to the existence of Israel. What huge numbers of people object to is Israel’s constant savage bombardment of Beirut, butchery in Gaza, and colonization of the West Bank. Third, AIPAC, by its ownership of Congress, enables the current unprincipled (and, I am inclined to add, un-Jewish) government of Israel to continue these policies that, yes, very much undermine American public support for Israel. Is this really a favor to Israelis? Ponder the dilemma that Israel presents to me, to Americans who are not Jewish. I loathe America’s militarism, the carnage it wreaks in its wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, and earlier in Southeast Asia. Why am I supposed to approve of identical behavior by Israel? Am I to have one morality for Israel and another for my own country and the rest of the world? Am I to believe that gratuitously bombing Baghdad and Hanoi is wrong, but gratuitously wrecking Beirut is right? Although I am a Southerner, and like being one, I detested the apartheid practiced in the South. I was there. Don’t tell me ‘bout dem happy niggahs plunking dat ol banjo undah dee big oak tree. It was ugly. Jews, I note, didn’t like it either, and in fact led the movement for civil rights. If I didn’t like brutal repression (which it was) engaged in by my own people, why am I supposed to like it when engaged in by Israelis? And why do Jews, who didn’t approve of it in the South, support it in Israel? Why don’t they tell Israel to stop it? They could.
Lees verder: http://www.amconmag.com/headline/202/index.html
Lees verder: http://www.amconmag.com/headline/202/index.html
2 opmerkingen:
Tegenpropaganda noodzakelijk
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3744516,00.html
Newsweek:
How to Sell Americans on the Idea of Israeli "Settlements"
' How do you sell the American public on the idea that Israel has the right to maintain or even expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank? Be positive. Turn the issue away from settlements and toward peace. Invoke ethnic cleansing.
Those are three of the recommendations made by Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, in an internal study he wrote for the Washington-based group The Israel Project (TIP) on effective ways to talk to Americans about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
The report is strewn with bolded examples of "Words That Work" and "Words That Don't Work," alongside rhetorical tips such as "Don't talk about religion" and "No matter what you're asked, bridge to a productive pro-Israel message." Taken together, the 18 chapters offer a fascinating look at the way Israel and its supporters try to shape the public debate in their favor.
In the report, Luntz describes the "best settlement argument" as one that draws a parallel between the Arab communities in Israel and the Jewish settlers in the West Bank—and refers to the idea of evacuating Jews as racist. "The idea that anywhere that you have Palestinians there can't be any Jews, that some areas have to be Jew-free, is a racist idea," he suggests saying. "We don't say that we have to cleanse out Arabs from Israel. They are citizens of Israel. They enjoy equal rights. We cannot see why it is that peace requires that any Palestinian area would require a kind of ethnic cleansing to remove all Jews. We don't accept it. Cleansing by either side against either side is unacceptable."
One line of argument that Luntz says actually harms the cause is Israel's policy of restricting Arab housing construction in East Jerusalem: "The arguments about demolishing Palestinian homes because they are not within the Jerusalem building code tested SO badly that we are not even going to dignify them with a Word's That Don't Work box. Americans hate their own local planning boards for telling them where they can and can't put swimming pools or build fences. You don't need to import that animosity into your own credibility issues. Worse yet, talking about 'violations of building codes' when a TV station is showing the removal of a house that looks older than the modern state of Israel is simply catastrophic."'
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23022.htm
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