Partners in Crime: Gaza (updated 8-4-2022; 10-14-2024)

[During the Obama administration]
There are some things that are just so stupid and ugly that they demand examination.
The escalation of the killing and threat of ground war between the Israelis and and the Palestinians in Gaza are a prime example..

Let me make this clear. I'm not a Muslim. But I really don't think that Christ would be copacetic with the actions of the Israelis either.
What I am is enough of a historian to be absolutely disgusted.
It was the asymmetrical and l-sided nature of the Middle East Conflict that fostered the  use of suicide bombs and terrorist attacks in the first place...a suicide car bomb being one of the few things that could be made on the cheap and nasty that could destroy a tank. Asymmetrical and lop-sided.
We can talk all we want about how barbaric and fanatical the Palestinians are. But this is only one side in this conflict armed with tanks, helicopter gunships, and jets.
As of this writing (11-19-12 9PM CT), the body count is about 3 to 100. This number can be counted on to climb and remain as unequal. That tells the story all by itself.

None of this is new. Too much of it is like those pieces of American history of which no American should be proud.
Yeah yeah yeah. Israel and America BFFs forever. Sure.
Let's have a little thought experiment.
Suppose America has been invaded. Occupied. Colonized by people who are far more technologically advanced. Bullet proof. Too much of a stretch of your imagination?
What about your 2nd Amendment guaranteed arms going up against serious heavy military hardware: Tanks, helicopter gunships, jets. Okay, you got that?
They knock down your house with bulldozers. Take your land. Besiege and blockade your cities, turning them into open air prisons.
What would Patriotism require?
What would you be willing to do for the sake of your flag?

Or let me ask another way.
What would the Native Americans have done if they had access to the technology enjoyed by the Palestinians when Andrew Jackson ordered them rounded and death marched all the way from east of the Mississippi River to Oklahoma?
How would the Mexicans have responded when President James Polk even thought about about taking Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California?

Nothing new about what is happening in the Middle East at all.

Officials can endlessly repeat the talking point that no nation would tolerate a rain of missiles. What no one is talking about is that people being driven off their lands by bulldozers and besiegeing  and blockading cities is as much ETHNIC CLEANSING as any Trail of Tears.

So Hamas is the duly elected party that leads Palestine.
Let's hear the tired line uttered by Reagan about how we don't negotiate with terrorists.
Tell us how you dealt with terrorists, Saint Reagan.
You sold weapons to Iranians who held Americans hostage who were nice enough to return them on the day they were inaugurated.
John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Liebermann all practiced this method of prosecuting terrorists when they went to Libya and advised Khaddafy on how to handle the public relations fallout from the Lochabie bombing.
Back to Israel and Gaza.
By not negotiating with Hamas out of "principle," Netanyahu is insuring that what is happening will continue to happen. He spits in the face of the lessons learned in Ireland.
When terrorist groups become part of the governing process, their teeth are instantly blunted and pulled as they are given the diplomatic means to accomplish their political aims. They must bargain in good faith in order to do so.
Continuing as he has, Netanyahu might as well be providing Hamas with missiles personally because he is giving them every justification as to continue as they have; i.e. forced resettlement, the siege and blockade of Gaza, an absolute unwillingness to bargain in good faith.

Obama had been exactly as ineffectual as Bush/Cheney in regards to the Middle East conflict.
Yes, every nation has the right to defend themselves.
But no nation should be forced to re-settled and colonized by bull-dozers, or live in cities besieged into being open-air prisons. Those are called Concentration Camps.
As long as Obama remains silent on these issues, he and every subsequent president who does likewise is guilty of supporting the same genocidal crimes that stain the history and honor of the United States.

When the Israelis and the Palestinians quit trying to combat the intolerable (from their respective perspectives) in the bloodiest way possible, they will both need to turn to suppressing the feuds and need for revenge among their own peoples.
But as long as the violence serves political purposes it will continue until one side ceases to be a problem.
In the the words of David Bowie:
"This ain't personal,
This is GENOCIDE!"

And one lesson America will be forced to learn is that, sometimes, backing the winner means being remembered as a partner in their crimes.

2-12-2018 [During the Age of Trump]
Our new president sits under a portrait of Andrew Jackson, who made ethnic cleansing as American as apple pie.

Our intellectually incurious, historically ignorant, semi-literate, attention deficient,  pathologically lying, megalomaniacal, attention whore of a president has declared by whim and fiat that the capital of Israel is Jerusalem rather than Tel Aviv, showing the back of his hand to Palestine.
Whee.

8-4-22 Reposting this in DailyKos in response to a blog about how everything short of uncritical support for everything Israeli or Jewish is Antisemitism. 

I don't have a problem w/ Jews. What I have a problem w/ is the fascistic and ethnic cleansing character of Netanyahu and the coalition he heads.

Hitler would have been proud of seeing Bibi take his lessons to heart.

Having a follower assassinate sitting Premier Yitzhak Rabin? Mwahhh! Genius!

All of this ignores that Netanyahu worked hand in glove w/ Trump, being the Jewish equivalent of Israel First. A fucking abomination because ANY Nation First is a beard for the Nazi party!

Jews are fine.

Netanyahu is unclean by any metric.

I repeat what I said earlier. Backing the winning side sometimes means being remembered as a partner in their crimes. Cheerleading Netanyahu certainly qualifies.

The only reason doctrinaire Evangelicals support Jews in Israel is because they think of them as bait for a Messiah trap they will use to catch themselves a Jesus when he goes to destroy Israel and thereby win Armageddon.

Is that the kind of support Anyone needs?

Fuck anyone who thinks the issue is simple.There's no black and white here. Everything is covered in blood and dust.

2024. Way to go Cassandra. 

America is about to learn what the extinction of a people means, and that it was done in their name. Fuck everyone who draws free breath under Netanyahu. You are Hitler's Heirs.

Marvel tov.

America is about to inherit its own Whirlwind. We are learning who we have always been. 

That is a revelation many folks will not survive.

That will be an unwelcome overture if we are fighting for our own lives.

And we will be. I have that feeling.

Not to be pulling a Pontious Pilate, but you motherfuckers disgust the shit outta me.

I don't know any of you. Not me, not my God, not the Commie Christ, not my fucking dogs.

I'm not w these assholes.

Easy prediction: Either we plant crops in the ashes of our Civilization, or we Are the ashes of our Civilization.

Complete historical disjunction is rampaging hordes of cannibals following the dictum of Rugged Individualism.

Which Cannibal Horde is right for you? Do you know your own best pairing and season palette? 

Some variation of Pork. Always.

If it happens, it is because you EARNED it.