Bring Down the Fire and Brimstone

It's not every day we get a religious argument about why Israel is bad, but here's one:

Yes, people who support Israel are "The Damned"

The original link.

Example of a Post: Human Rights

The secular religion of human rights is turned on its head in this example of a post:

So what kind of human rights did the Palestinian Arabs have in 1948, according to this poster?
1. The right to keep their land Jew free
2. The right to not sell land to Jews
3. The right to kill anyone who attempts to violate the first two rights.

The Palestinian Arabs do not and did not have the "right" to keep Jews out of Palestine. It was not their country and the decision about who to let in and who to keep out was not up to them. Only sovereign states have that ability, and even today if Israel were to say "we're not letting in any Arabs", the world would scream racism. But apparently, according to this user, the Palestinians are not only correct to discriminate against Jews, it's their human right.

Is it any wonder why when the HPers start yelling about human rights I start to tune out?

Today's Personal Attack On A HP Blogger

Abraham Foxman went after Jimmy Carter in his most article, and so more than a few HPers went after him. Here is one example:

I guess Mr. Foxman isn't entitled to the Extra Special Moderator Protection Package (tm) that defend certain other bloggers from their critics.

"Jewish Or Foreign Lobby Group"

Check out this comment by noted anti-Zionist "SamSeven," most notably the first sentence:

Anti-Zionists demanding that people who don't hate Israel like they do should be denied their rights to petition the government is not new. This claim that Jewish lobby groups are "foreign entities" and "foreign lobbies" is. It is especially problematic when you remember how Jews used to be perceived as foreigners no matter where they were. I say used to be.

News the HP Doesn't Follow Up: West Bank Trees

I trust you all remember the article posted on the HP last week about the cruel destruction of Palestinian olive trees? All the HPers came out to decry the terrible act, far more than who came out during the terror attack that killed four Israelis. Well, the extensive resources of the Huffington Post Monitor has come up with this followup news story.

According to YnetNews, a group of Israelis caught some Palestinians and "left wing activsts" in the act of destroying their own trees.

"The photos, taken by members of the Tazpit Unit, were shot on Palestinian land Friday, near the Neveh Tzuf settlement. The images allegedly show Palestinians and left-wing activists cutting down Palestinian olive trees using an electric saw.

Many so-called "Price Tag' acts targeting Palestinians were recorded in the last few weeks, and the settlers now claim they were staged by the Palestinians themselves and intended to harm the settlers' image.

Tazpit photographer Ehud Amiton, who documented the vandalism act on Friday, says that this is exactly what can be seen in his images. 

 "We are talking about an olive grove east of Beit Zayit, located near Route 60," Amiton said."I immediately saw that it was no ordinary pruning, it was done very aggressively...Some of the branches broke and other trees were cut off entirely. When I approached closer with my camera, the Palestinian man waved his saw at me threateningly. I felt uneasy so I backed off"."

Congratulations for Tazpit for finding out the truth of what's really going on in the West Bank, and stand by for the HP to cover this important update to their original story.

News the HP Doesn't Cover: Islamization of Gaza

YnetNews covered Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar speaking out about Islamization and the West:

"The West is floundering in immorality and has no right to criticize the Islamist movement Hamas over the way it governs the Palestinian territory of Gaza, a veteran leader of the terror group said.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar told Reuters in an interview that Islamic traditions deserved respect and he accused Europe of promoting promiscuity and political hypocrisy. 

"We have the right to control our life according to our religion, not according to your religion. You have no religion, you are secular," said Zahar, who is one of the group's most influential and respected voices.

"You do not live like human beings. You do not (even) live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?" he said earlier this week, speaking from his apartment building in the densely populated city....

 Sitting in a cavernous reception room, with an old Mercedes saloon car parked in one corner, Zahar denounced European states, such as France, for recently introducing legislation preventing Muslim women from wearing full face veils in public.

"We are the ones who respect women and honor women ... not you," he said. "You use women as an animal. She has one husband and hundreds of thousands of boyfriends. You don't know who is the father of your sons, because of the way you respect women."

"Is it a crime to Islamize the people? I am a Muslim living here according to our tradition. Why should I live under your tradition?" said Zahar, who served as Hamas foreign minister between 2006-2007 and is under constant, heavy protection.

"We understand you very well, You are poor people. Morally poor. Don't criticize us because of what we are." 

Yes, these are the people that the liberal, human rights loving HPers support over Israel.

Palestinian Exclusivity

Anti-Zionist "Richard Pearce" made this comment on the Daoud Kuttab thread, speaking of "defining things:"

Be sure to note the last sentence: "Being a Palestinian is someone who is born to a family with ancient roots in the Holy Land when that family is NOT Jewish."

Now, one would think that if a Zionist declared that being Israeli means not being Arab, that Zionist would immediately be labeled a racist and Israel a racist state. But I guess it's okay for Palestinians to exclude people.

By the way, after a called RP out on this, he claimed that the definition wasn't his but "the one used by the Hafrada regime." Yeah, whatever. Because the Palestinians have been so accepting of Jews as potential citizens, right? Sure.

Example of a Post: Racist Terrorists

Let's take a look together at this post, also on the recent riots thread.

The context, if you recall, is that an Israeli Arab man was recently arrested for the crime of spying for Hezbollah.

Now, the first user "eva07" points out that a march calling for the deaths of terrorists is hardly an controversial position. The controversy, of course, is that they went through an Israeli Arab town. But still, you would think the Israeli Arabs wouldn't be so upset at their fellow Israelis for waving their country's flag and chanting "death to terrorists" that they would attack them in the streets.

But look at "skialethia's" response. The provocation is racist. Now, why would anyone consider the phrase "death to terrorists" racist? There is only two possible explanations: he or she thinks that terrorists are a worthwhile group of people and are upset that these Israeli Jews want to kill them, or he or she considers all Arabs to be terrorists! That's really what skialethia is saying. If all Arabs are terrorists, than chanting death to terrorists is racist. But otherwise, there is no reason "death to terrorists" could possibly be racist.

It's fascinating to look at this kind of revealed pro-Palestinian mindset. Skialethia has totally absorbed the idea that all Israeli Jews hate Arabs, and she will project it onto statements that are not racist in any way. In doing so, though, she reveals her own racism. The Israeli Jews didn't consider all Arabs to be terrorists, but skialethia did! And she's offended for them, even though the Jews didn't say what she thought she said. The HP Palestinian apologists are so quick to defend the Palestinians they'll defend them against imagined offenses as well as real ones.

Daoud Kuttab Starts Defining Things

Daoud Kuttab is back again, this time talking about the differences between "Jews" and "Israelis." As you might not be surprised to here, he considers the differences between them to be huge. He begins by chastising his fellow Muslims for mixing up the two:

"It bothers me when Palestinians use these two terms interchangeably."

But it doesn't remain that way for long. Pretty soon he is reminding us (as if we needed reminding) that there are anti-Zionist Jews. He doesn't like when people substitute "Jew" for "Israeli," but only because he is reminded of American Jews who have "nothing to do with the occupiers and the state of Israel, or would be anti-Zionist and share with Palestinians their aspiration to be rid of the Israeli occupation." Not, presumably, because there are simply Jews who don't hold Israeli citizenship.

He then makes the connection to the Israeli citizenship controversy and the already discussed recognition demand, but eventually he gets to the real meat of why he doesn't like the equating of the two terms:

"The attempts to blur these differences certainly play into the hands of those trying to describe every anti-Israeli action or statement as anti-Semitic."

Oh! Of course. How convenient it would be if we could just pretend that the many anti-Semitic things that the Palestinians do and say in their media have nothing at all to do with Israel, and it's just some creative directing by their Pr departments. I'm sure that would be very convenient for Mr. Kuttab and his fellow Palestinians, wouldn't it?

"Palestinians have rejected, and will continue to do so, equating the two terms, for a variety of reasons. Palestinian nationalists insist that the Arab-Israeli conflict is a political national struggle and not a religious one."

I think Mr. Kuttab is speaking for the Palestinians here, and is mistaken in doing so. Hamas, for instance, certainly considers this conflict to be a religious one, and (lest we forget) they did win the majority of the votes in 2006. And are we simply supposed to forget about the clerics all over Palestine who use religious terms in their arguments? Let's not forget either that the suffering inflicted on the Palestinians by Israel is treated very differently than the suffering inflicted on them by their fellow Arabs. If this really has nothing to do with religion, then why the dichotomy?

Anti-Semitic Comment of the Day

On the recent riot thread:

But, of course, the HPers don't know and the HP doesn't publish the ACTUAL radical Islamic prayers that call for the destruction of Israel.

The original link. 

Flag Abuse to Silence Dissent

I just wanted to showcase some pro-Israel or even just neutral posts that received an unusually high number of flags. There is some evidence of people flagging just because they see a lot of others do it, and we'll see if these posts eventually get deleted.

(it in the first post is, of course, Israel)

So much for the belief in freedom of speech.

The Anti-Zionist Argument By Repetition

In the recent Noura Erekat lawfare article, many Zionist HPers came forward presenting legal arguments about why Ms. Erekat was wrong. The anti-Zionist crowd was quick to come back at them, occasionally with legal arguments of their own, but more generally with insults, ad hominem attacks and spamming. The most notable spamming was when certain AZs such as Avirahim and barefoot2626, just repeated the same talking points over and over (and over and over).

To demonstrate this, here are all the posts from Avirahim from that thread. Each one is a unique post, again click to zoom in.

 Now the ones by barefoot. Again, click to zoom in:

Yep. There you have it. Wow, I don't understand why all these pro-Israel posters on the HPers don't just see the light and turn over to the anti-Zionist point of view? Can it be that saying "Gaza is occupied" fifty times isn't enough to change peoples minds?

This thread is a nice example of what happens when anti-Zionists are backed into a corner...again. It isn't pretty.

Noura Erekat's Circular Logic

In writing the other day about Noura Erekat's lawfare article, it occurred to me that I missed a key flaw in her argument. Fortunately other HPers on the threads pointed it out and now I thought I would take the time and point it out.

Now as we discussed, Ms. Erekat believes that because Israel is blockading Gaza, that means they are continuing to occupy it. In other words, because Israel controls Gaza's borders they control it:

"The confluence of its ongoing control, its continuous military operations, as well as its capacity to redeploy its troops within a reasonable time, demonstrate that Israel remains in effective control of the Gaza Strip."

 But on the other hand, she also claims that Israel's attempts to control the borders of Gaza are illegal because (as determined above) they already occupy it.

"However, specifically because Israel remains an Occupying Power, its blockade is illegal even if Israel were to ensure the welfare of Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants."

But she also believes that a blockade is an act of war:

"As a blockade amounts to an act of war under international customary law, its imposition on Gaza both breaches the limitation on Israel's permissible use of force as well as flagrantly challenges the definition of Article 51 self-defense."

What Ms. Erekat has set up is a logic trap in which Israel would never be legally allowed to control the borders of Gaza. If they occupy Gaza, they can't blockade it, but if they blockaded it they would immediately become an occupier...at least according to her.

In other words, if Israel were to stop controlling the borders of Gaza (i.e. blockading it) they would cease to be an Occupying Power and then would (legally) be able to control the borders through a blockade. Except they wouldn't, because they would become an Occupying Power again just by forming that blockade.

Confused yet?

Conversation on Racism

Collectively punish the Jews and accuse those who disagree with you of racism. Just another day on the Huffington Post.

The original link.

Stirring Up Trouble in Israel And On the HP

Yesterday there were some clashes between right-wing "death to terrorist"-chanting Israeli Jews and some Israeli Arabs where the protest took place. Eight people were arrested and quite a few were injured. Since there is no much going on in Israel, and since the Catholic Church hasn't made any statements recently, the HP was forced to give this story its headline for the day:

As for the story itself, it is nothing we haven't heard before. Jews provoke the Arabs, the Arabs respond with violence, the police crack down, etc etc. Of course, the HPers decided to go with their usual beliefs that those who provoke the violence are the ones responsible for it and not the people who actually carried out the violence. One can't help but wonder if the rock throwers had been Jews (or settlers) how the reaction would have been much different. In my opinion, both sides are wrong, but there is no excuse for violence just because some Jews marched into your town and provoked you. And yes, if Israeli Arabs had done the same thing I would feel the same way.

So even though there isn't much of a news story here, the anti-Zionist crowd was still out in force, possibly because there was so little else to satiate them. The thread has more than 500 comments so far and is still going strong.

One last thing. I wondered where the HP got that picture from, and it took me longer than expected to find it. Turns out the teenager is a Palestinian and the guy holding him is an Israeli police, at least according to NPR. Here are some other pictures, courtesy of NPR:

 There are more on the aforementioned websites. Anyway, I don't get the impression based on these pictures that this was a big protest, at least not by Middle East standards. I guess it was a slow news day on the HP, and when you ignore things like Turkish "peace activists" who love terrorists and more clashes between the IDF and Islamic Jihad, there isn't a lot of options.

Some More News The HP Doesn't Cover

I know that for those of us who read Israeli newspapers and Zionist blogs, the news story about Turkish "peace activists" posing with Islamic Jihad memebers while carrying weapons and ammunition is now pretty old:

But it is still worth mentioning that the Huffington Post, who usually cares just so gosh darn much about "peace activists" of all stripes and creeds, managed to let this one slip by their radar. Oh well.

Vincent Warren on the Corrie Trial

Vincent Warren has published two articles on the new Rachel Corrie trial, and each one has been long on opinion on short on substance. In his most recent one, the person writing (someone who works for Warren, not Warren himself) spends most of her time talking about the size of the courtroom (small, indicating Israel doesn't want people to know THE TRUTH) and the screen separating the bulldozer driver from the rest of the courtroom.

The writer, Katherine Gallagher, is more interested in editorializing than reporting facts, despite the name of the piece being "Live from the Rachel Corrie Trial". Here's some quotes:

"Everyone asked the same question: why hasn't a bigger court room been provided for this case -- or at least for the testimony that the court knew many people would come to hear? When members of the press, human rights observers and the general public cannot watch the proceedings, it is hard to describe the process as transparent."

"Because of the screen, the lawyers' and the judge's gaze and attention was focused on a part of the court room that only they could see. We, in the audience, felt very much "outside" of the proceedings, privy to only half of the story."

Even when Gallagher reported facts, they weren't really facts.

"Credible? Y.F.'s testimony was often confused and at points lacked credibility. A 38-year-old who immigrated to Israel from Russia in 1995 and said he learned Hebrew on his own after he arrived, Y.F. appeared to have difficulty with Hebrew and struggled to read the affidavit he signed less than six months ago. He also said he could not remember basic facts, such as the date of Rachel's killing or time of day it happened."

"At times during the lengthy cross-examination by the Corrie's lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, Y.F. contradicted his own testimony, contradicted statements he had made to the military police in 2003, contradicted his signed affidavit and contradicted testimony given by other witnesses called by Israel."

 I guess we're supposed to take Gallagher's word that Y.F.'s testimony lacked 'credibility' since she never tells us what he actually says or how he contradicted himself. The basic facts of the date and time aren't extremely relevant to how credible Y.F's testimony is, seeing as how the accident happened several years ago at this point.

Wednesday Links

The AJC has made an excellent video that cuts to the heart of the I/P conflict. Check it out.

CiFWatch exposes the Israel hating Ali Abunimah using his own words. Abunimah, of course, is on the staff of Electronic Intifada, CiF, and the Huffington Post.

Noura Erekat Tries Her Hand at Lawfare

Huffington Post blogger Noura Erekat is back again, this time using the tactic of lawfare to go after Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Egypt, of course, is not mentioned even once in the article, but we are used to that at this point. Anyway, you can tell right from the title that she has made up her mind: "Collective Punishment or Not, Gaza Blockade Illegal" As we can tell, her misuse of the term "collective punishment" seems to indicate a less-than-perfect track record vis a vis international law. So even though I am not a law professor myself, let's go through the article and see where Ms. Erekat trips up. 


She begins with a huge and faulty assumption:

"Israel's blockade of Gaza is illegal irrespective of the manner in which it is imposed because a blockade is an act of war and an occupying power cannot declare war upon the territory it occupies."

A large portion of Ms. Erekat's argument hinges on us accepting her point of view here, so I'm going to take a minute and explain why it is wrong. First of all, the claim that Gaza is occupied by Israel is not an accepted fact by any measure. CNN has a multi-page report discussing the intricacies of it, and Elder of Ziyon explains why under the legal definitions Israel is not exercising "control" over the territory and therefore is not occupying it. Of course the anti-Zionists immediately began splitting hairs over exactly what "control" means but rather than range too far off topic I will just point out that Ms. Erekat is building an argument upon a faulty assumption that is not backed up in international law.

Secondly, she is leaving out an important part of the history of the Gaza blockade. It didn't simply show up from nowhere. As you can read about in this BBC report, the Quarter powers (which included the UN) decided to embargo Gaza after Hamas took power there in 2007, which "had a devastating impact on the Palestinian economy." So please explain this to me: If the blockade is illegal now, why wasn't it illegal in 2007? And if the United Nations can just make international law every time it makes a decision, why is the blockade again considered illegal now but not three years ago? Perhaps Ms. Erekat can explain that to me. 


Moving on, she then talks about collective punishment and how Israel is responsible for the care of the Gazans as an Occupying Power. Again, this is based on false assumptions, we have been over it a million times already. Does Ms. Erekat have anything new to say?

Anti-Semitic Comment of the Day

On a new thread about a U.S. bishop declaring Jews shouldn't have a state (Israel):

You gotta love these anti-Semitic statements accusing Jews of being what this user is: intolerant.

The original link.

HPW User Profile: Pierre Gaspard

I don't like doing user profiles that often but as soon as I saw some of the posts by Pierre Gaspard I knew that I needed to post them here. He first came to my attention when he made blatantly anti-Jewish remarks, most of which have now been deleted, but we did save a couple here. In looking through his comments, he hits many anti-Semitic tropes: Quoting radical rabbis and anti-Jewish scholars, spamming anti-Jewish quotes and quotes from anti-Semitic people, defending Holocaust deniers, Nazis and Rick Sanchez, spamming anti-Israel links most notably a video about "the Israel lobby," and of course attacks on Israel. It would be one thing if he were in fact merely "critical" of the Jewish religion, but I find it difficult to believe that someone who has nothing against the Jews just happens to believe in all of the above mentioned issues. Like Matt has said, Pierre may not be an anti-Semite himself, but if so this is the closest one can get to it.

Pierre Gaspard has been active since September 2010 and has about 350 comments.

West Bank Olive Groves Destroyed; Palestinian Farmers Blame Militant Settlers

“The prevarication contained in your last paragraph demonstrates exactly the kind of rationalization Shahak criticizes in his book. Why is it even a question as to whether a Jew ought to break the Sabbath to save the life of a Gentile? In fact, Shahak starts the book with a story about how an Orthodox Jew refused to call an ambulance for a Gentile suffering a heart attack. Since it occurred on the Jewish Sabbath, it was decided by some official rabbinate that the Orthodox Jew behaved piously by not breaking the Sabbath. How is this not disgusting? Contrast Maimonidies' line of thinking to classical Chinese philosophy, for example, which stresses the familial bond of all human life”

U.S. Bishop Says Jews Have No 'Exclusive Right' To Israel

“And here I thought the Australians were the chosen people.”    

U.S. Bishop Says Jews Have No 'Exclusive Right' To Israel

“"How odd
of God
to choose
the Jews."
- anon 19th century”        

International Jewish Banking Conspiracy Comment of the Day

On a new thread about another olive tree attack attributed to the setters:

Come on, guys. Who runs Hollywood? Face it, it's the Jooos.

The original link.

MJR and All the Young Jews

MJ Rosenberg has published another one of his showcase blog posts, this one about young Jews and (apparently) their growing dissatisfaction with Israel. Let's go through it, because it's pretty hilariously terrible.

Rosenberg starts off with citing Thomas Friedman as agreeing with his thesis, his one attempt at actual evidence. The fact that Thomas Friedman is (according to the HPers) a neo-con who lied us into war with Iraq is apparently no longer a problem, because Friedman wrote that young American Jews are becoming increasingly disinterested in Israel.

Rosenberg then cites "personal experience",

"I know it from personal experience. Having worked for 20 years on Capitol Hill, and in other "kid" environments since, I can say that of the literally thousands of 20-somethings I have worked with, only a few outliers thought about Israel at all. I also have two kids, who both began going to Israel at age 3 and their zillions of friends. They are not anti-Israel; it's more like they don't give it much thought."

Yeah, because when I think "kid environments", the first place I think of is Capitol Hill. I have no reason to think that Mr. Rosenberg's experiences aren't the truth, but I'm not totally convinced that his childrens' 'zillions' of friend don't think about Israel at all. But let's see what else he has to say.

Example of a Post: Ethereal Standard Edition

I'd like to showcase for you an excellent example of the ethereal standard:

 The key sentence is "Israel apologists always ignore Occupied Palestine when making the argument Israel is a democracy".

Now, can you name a country that controls a lot of territory? Here's one: the United States. The United States controls territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, etc. The people living in those territories are denied "voting rights", as in, the right to vote in US elections. Remember, the Palestinians can vote in their own elections, but that's not good enough for Avirahim so that's not good enough for me either. But there is no doubt that the US is a democracy.

The treatment of the Palestinians have absolutely no bearing on whether Israel is a democracy or not. Every country in the world treats its own citizens better than non-citizens, even those non-citizens haven't been fighting a war to destroy them for decades. Nor is Israel the only country (or even the only democracy) to occupy land or people. But apparently Israel has to bow and scrape and treat the Palestinians like Israelis or else they will no longer be considered a democracy. Is it any wonder Israel is caring less and less what the rest of the world thinks, if the world has standards like this one.

Anti-Semitic Comment of the Day

On a new thread about Catholic bishops stating they think Israel should end the occupation (a really unique and brave stand).

Good news, Israel! You aren't responsible for what you do to the Palestinians, it's in your blood.

The original link.

Trees Over People

Did you know that one and one-half acres of rain forest are lost every second in the Amazon due to deforestation and logging? Not that you would know that from reading the Huffington Post of course, they care much more about the olive trees in the West Bank that might have been destroyed by settlers. Except that it might be just another lie, but let's stay on the safe side and blame Israel.


I thought I would do a side by side comparison of the AZ responses to this article as contrasted with the recent settler shooting incident in August. 


First some examples from the first page of the olive tree thread:

Yep. Real anger and hatred. But then we have the shooting thread:

And we see deflections, distortions, lies, and of course more hate, but this time directed at the victims and not the perpetrators.


This is the moralistic, human-rights oriented Palestinian cause in action? Thanks, but I'll stick with Israel.

HPW User Profile: Cougar29

A recent addition to the ranks of anti-Semitic trolls is Cougar29, who has only been around for a week or so but has done enough to make his mark, and rack up 3 fans. He has around 85 comments. Here are some of his comments:

Catholic Bishops Demand Israel End Occupation Of Palestinian Land   
“Blame the messenger and not his message eh? The Tal mud does say ugly things. Do you not acknowledge?”    

Catholic Bishops Demand Israel End Occupation Of Palestinian Land   
“They are not even Jew ish. 80% of them descendants of Khazar king who converted to Judaism about 800 years ago. They are no more "chosen" or "Hebrew" than my cat.”    

Catholic Bishops Demand Israel End Occupation Of Palestinian Land 

“0.0002% of military are joos. Which branch did you serve? IDF doesn't count shyster..”    

Catholic Bishops Demand Israel End Occupation Of Palestinian Land 

“Nonsense. Herzyl was constructing the der juden stat after WWI. The "Holoco$t" was a marketing tool for the venture..”    

Another Comment of the Day

A pretty clear attack on the Jewish people if there ever was one:

Notice the eight favorites.

The original link.

Praising Israel? The Horror!

As I said before, it is important that although we criticize the Huffington Post a lot it is also important to praise it when it at least tries to be balanced on the subject of Israel and the Jews. Which is why I thought that I would share with you this article in the "Religion" section. It is about how Israel has successfully integrated gays in their military for the past seventeen years, and how America could stand to learn something from them regarding Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Of course the haters needed to have their say, including noted AZ "cliffhammond":

Yeah! Israel is definitely the worst offender of human rights! Of course only Arabs are considered human and possessing human rights but that's okay! What else is new?

HPer American Hypocrisy

I was reading this op-ed piece in Ynet the other day, about the recent Wikileaks release of information documenting American criminal behavior during the Iraq war. He was speaking about how happy Israelis were that the self-righteous Americans finally were cut down to size a little bit, and revealed to the world that we are as human as anyone else. In some respects I think this is certainly true: We have seen how the Huffington Posters love to preach at Israel from miles away for months on end.

But after reading the piece, I thought I would test it out by comparing two recent threads. The first is the Wikileaks article, which had over fourteen thousand comments, so it is quite likely that I didn't see many pertinent comments. The second was the recent Catholic bishops article which had around fourteen hundred comments.

We'll start with Wikileaks, comments collected from the first few pages at the time I wrote this. Read them carefully, click to zoom in:

I should point out that when selecting comments I didn't take any that were attacks/defenses on Wikileaks, or ones that discussed the importance of truth in a free society, of which there were quite a few. I looked instead for ones where people got angry at a specific group to blame them for the actions of American troops.

As you can see, few HPers blamed themselves, though there were some. Most instead blamed the Bush administration, Cheney, Powell. Others attacked "the vast right-wing conspiracy" and as you see in the bottom left, Israel was blamed as well. All were of the opinion that things needed to change.

Now compare these with the comments in the Israel thread:

As you can see, the rhetoric is amped up greatly. Although there were a few posts in the Wikileaks thread about "who are the real terrorists," there were barely any screaming about American "atrocities," "racism," and "ethnic cleansing." Israel as a whole is also lambasted and labeled, and they are compared with the Nazis in more than a few posts. None of these attacks were made against America.

Of course, as with all Israel threads there were people moaning and groaning about how America is really responsible for Israel's actions. But those were more on the level of: "We're responsible because we aren't stopping them," instead of "We're responsible because we are the ones doing it." So I did not count them.

So I think it is pretty clear that there is a double standard here, perhaps due to actor-observer bias. American HPers see misdeeds by American soldiers as either a mistake by the soldiers themselves or a failure by the administration who should have been looking out for them. Israeli misdeeds, on the other hand, is because Israel as a whole is flawed from the inside and must be completely reformed or destroyed. If that isn't hypocrisy, I haven't seen it yet.

Some More "Legitimate Criticism of Israel"

What? You mean you don't see the obvious connection to the Rachel Corrie trial in these posts? Well they are totally on topic and shame on you for thinking otherwise!

The original link.

Catholic Bishops Threads Descends Into Straight-Up Jew Bashing

And the thread is fully moderated so we know that (to borrow Huff-Watcher's catchphrase) "Huff-Post Approved!" Isn't it grand?

The original link #1

The original link #2

The original link #3

The original link #4

Why I Don't Support the Palestinians

On the Rachel Corrie's parents thread:

If the Palestinian cause was truly just and truly the right thing to support, there would be no reason for RubalKhali here to lie so maliciously and transparently and have such blatant disregard for Israeli life. No Zionist would dream of claiming, say, that Rachel Corrie had a gun and was shooting at the driver so he had to hit her to defend himself, but that kind of boldfaced lie is the same as this post above. I don't understand why supposedly moral people a) support the Palestinians and b) lie to help them.

The original link.

Today's Anti-Israel Incitement

The Huffington Post published a story about Catholic bishops asking to "end the occupation." It even made it to the front page. First of all, we have the biased headline:

Journalists ought to know that there is no such thing as "Palestinian land" because there is no Palestinian state. And whoever wrote the article knows it too, check out the first paragraph:

"Bishops from the Middle East who were summoned to Rome by the pope demanded Saturday that Israel accept U.N. resolutions calling for an end to its "occupation" of Arab lands."

I don't whether it was the AP or the HP who wrote the headline but either way there is some BS happening there. Then, of course, there is the inflammatory picture and caption:

Even if the story were true, it doesn't have anything to do with the article. I do think it is interesting for the race baiters on the HP that one IDF soldier is of African descent and the Palestinian looks pretty white.

As for the comments, it's the HP so you know what they will say. Which is particularly interesting because in the past the hate that the HPers had for the Catholic Church overpowered their hate for Israel. I guess not this time.

The Huffington Post's War On the ADL

If you have been paying attention in recent weeks to the activities of the Anti-Defamation League, you might know that it has come under fire opposing the Corboda Center in New York City and for continuing to support Israel, among other things. It is not my place to defend the ADL when it makes mistakes, but in this report I wanted to demonstrate just how egregious the bias is against the ADL on the Huffington Post. Whenever the ADL does something that the HP editors do not like, they unleash a plethora of bloggers to write attack articles against it.

Before I assemble the lists of blog posts I should point out that the Huffington Post actually does a rare thing: It lets the target of their attacks defend itself in blog posts by Abraham Foxman, the Director of the ADL. But as you will see, their coverage is still very skewed.

For the purposes of finding articles about the ADL, I looked at the two HP tags Anti-Defamation League and Adl. Here is what turned up. Here are the articles critical of the ADL.

1) Josh Ruebner of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation does like the fact that the ADL thinks his organization is anti-Israel. He then proceeds to fill his blog post with lies and distortions about Israel's occupation.
2) Ahmed Rehab says pretty much the same thing: An organization to defend the Jewish people is defending the Jewish state, and he doesn't like it! Of course, he relies on the strawman argument that people who are merely "anti-occupation" cannot be "anti-Israel," and that the ADL is silencing people for being merely "anti-occupation."
3) As we mentioned before, David A. Love is upset at the ADL for honoring Rupert Murdoch.
4) Daoud Kuttab talks about his experiences with the ADL. I'm sure it is just a coincidence that he has nothing positive to say.
5) Steve Clemons praises Fareed Zakaria for returning the ADL's award and encourages others to do with same.
6) Rabbi Arthur Waskow joins the call for the ADL to change its position on the Cordoba Center.
7) Brad Hirschfield gets in the middle of a clash between the ADL and Andrew Sullivan. Guess which side he takes.
8) Sharmine Narwani repeats the now very old refrain that Jews, including the ADL use "anti-Semitism" accusations to shut down people who criticize Israel.
9) Yoav Silverman adds to the chorus criticizing the ADL for their Park51 decision.
10) Ahmed Shihab-Eldin does the same, also accuses the ADL of "discrediting itself yet again." He also speaks of the AS/AZ issue.
11) Sarah Newman wants us all to know that the ADL doesn't represent her. I for one wasn't under that impression.
12) Rabbi Michael Lerner, the legendary anti-Zionist rabbi, doesn't like the ADL's decision vis a vis Park 51.
13) Stephen Elliot concurs.
14) And so does Alan Dershowitz.
15) Kamran Pasha accuses the ADL of "defaming its Jewish heritage."
16) James Zogby doesn't like how the pro-Israel lobby, including the ADL, disagree with Obama.
17) Sarah Newman accuses the ADL of blocking MidEast peace because they agreed with FM Lieberman about something.
18) Rabbi Irwin Kula doesn't like the American Jewish community's reaction to that Holocaust-denying bishop. Remember him?

And those were only within the past couple of years. The only articles that defended the ADL were ones written by Foxman. Just more of that awesome HP balance.

The Ethereal Standard on Display

From David Suissa' recent thread about Israel's loyalty oath. Here is the first.:

And here is the second:

This speaks back to what I was talking about here. In the first example, we have a poster quite happy to get up on his soapbox and declare that Israel is "just like" apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany without a second thought.

But then in the second we have another poster who is quite indignant that Israel should compare itself to the Arab nations. How presumptuous! The anti-Zionist tactics haven't changed: Move those goalposts as quickly as you can, just so long as you can ensure that Israel is undemocratic. And hopefully their minds won't suffer too much damage from the mental gymnastics they have to endure to hold their views.

More Corrie Conspiracy Theories

There were more posts like this one but here is the only one I could find at the moment:

Yes, okay, sure. Israel engineered the death of an American to strain relations between themselves and their best ally, and to give their enemies more propaganda points and a bloody shirt to wave...why?

Just like we have always known: If it makes Israel look bad, anti-Zionists will believe it.

Ironic Post of the Day

From our good buddy "MarcEdward:"

If you need it explained why it is ironic, just imagine how easily it can apply to the Palestinians.

"Palestine protects murders. How am I supposed to feel any human connection to a nation that protects murderers?...You cannot have it both ways. You cannot be both a mass murderer and a sympathetic figure."

The difference, of course, is that Israel does not demand sympathy the way the Palestinians do. All they ask is for the strength to defend their people.

Some Anti-Zionist Honesty

Every now and then we see a comment like this from a known anti-Zionist, and it just explains so much:

So by this logic Israel is "picking a fight" just by existing, and only when it loses that fight will there be peace. Sure, we know that the AZs all think this, but it is nice to see it spelled out so clearly.

Big Lie of the Evening

Hey, if you are going to lie make it a big one right? Five million war crimes a day? Hey, how about twelve billion war crimes a day? Why don't we go with 18 trillion war crimes a minute! As long as we're making things up, why stop there?

The original link.

MJ Rosenberg Starting to Wake Up?

In his most recent blog post, MJ Rosenberg complains about the steps some pro-Israel people are taking to get the candidates they support elected, also known in some circles as the democratic process in action. He discusses what he called the "pro-Israel" lobby creating the Emergency Committee for Israel, an expressly right-wing organization, and running ads against Democratic candidates. I've already blogged earlier today about the obvious implications of his post as interpreted by HPers ("the Jews are controlling American democracy") and then I read this post by Rosenberg on the thread:

It's too late, Mr. Rosenberg. You reap what you sow. When you complain about certain American Jews forcing our government to take action against our best interests, you can't be surprised when your loyal readers assume you're talking about American Jews in general, not just "the hundred thousand" members of the lobby. The cat is out of the bag, and when the American brownshirts come for you, all the claims of you being a "good Jew" won't do any good.

It's amazing that Mr. Rosenberg makes a living by publishing the "Jewish lobby" conspiracy theory every single week on the HP, playing on old fashioned anti-Semitism, and yet doesn't think that it will have an effect on his readership. He honestly seemed to think that he could manipulate the HPers into believing that it was only the Jews who thought differently from him who were disloyal Israel-firsters and that the rest were all right. That is not the way that these things work.

Jews are allowed to be right wing. They are allowed to support Israel. They are allowed to do both of those things without being accused of disloyalty to America. The only person bringing up the anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty is you, Mr. Rosenberg. By creating the strawman of "the lobby representing all Jews", you are making life far more dangerous for American Jews than it would have been if you had never opened your mouth. I don't think most people believe AIPAC represents all Jews, or they would not have until you suggested it.

Abuse of Flags

Also posted on MJ Rosenberg's recent thread:

This user says: J-Street is funded by a guy who hates Israel. Jews should support Republicans. Liberal rabbis oppose Obama's positions when it comes to Israel. I believe Israel is our heartland and must be protected.

HPer response? 8 flags! I'll let you know if this post gets deleted.

Here's another one

Dual Loyalty Comments of the Day

MJ Rosenberg has posted another screed about how the Lobby is attacking Democratic candidates, and I'm sure he would be shocked to read this comment posted on his op ed.

1938 anyone? The original link.

Two for the price of one.

News the HP Doesn't Cover: Automatic Checkpoints

More news from the terrible horrible occupation today, Soldier-Free Checkpoints. The Ynet article states that,

"While direct talks languish, the Israel Defense Forces have found a way to minimize friction between soldiers and the Palestinians. After years in which residents of the territories had to present entry permits and IDs on the way to work in Israel, the IDF has prepared a "soldier-free" entry procedure.  Soldiers will soon be replaced by electronic terminals checking the Palestinians by hand prints.
A military source involved in the project said the IDF-made devices will shorten the time Palestinians spend in checkpoints and create a "more pleasant atmosphere."
The new system, which greatly resembles the biometric passport control at the Ben-Gurion Airport, "speaks" Arabic with the users. After identifying the hand print and checking personal details on an electronic card the system quickly authorizes entry into Israel.
"A new situation has emerged in the territories with the creation of the security fence. The importance of maintaining the Palestinian citizens' quality of life has become more heightened," the source explained.
He also noted that some 25,000 workers from the territories enter Israel every day."

 Will the cruelty ever end?

Adam Chandler on the Israeli Left

In his recent Huffington Post op-ed, Adam Chandler asks "Is There an Israeli Left Left?". He correctly points out the shift right in Israeli politics to the point where mainstream left parties such as Kadima and Labour have trouble gaining enough seats to make a respectable run for control of the government. He answers his own question in a way I would agree with,

"There are a number of reasons for the impotence of the left, looming large among them, the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and its disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Both maneuvers were viewed by many domestically as risks taken for the sake of peace, risks that ultimately ended in more violence."

 He then talks about a new leftist movement in Israel called "Smol Leumi".

"The political objectives of Smol Leumi consist of three major initiatives. The first is an immediate withdrawal from the West Bank and the fair partitioning of a two-state solution to end the Israeli occupation with or without a peace agreement....The other two pillars of Smol Leumi are more inchoate: to return Israel to the social-democratic economy of its early years and to strive for an exemplary society by uniting the disparate parts of its populace"

Chandler describes Smol Leumi as the only possibility of breaking the right's hold of Israel's government.

Selective Outrage On Display

On the subject of yesterday's selective outrage on the topic of Sabra, Shantila and Sharon (aka "the three S's") I thought I would post a couple of posts from flaming anti-Zionist "barefoot2626":

Right. So in the first post he saintly declares that he attacks people who "committed the atrocities." And even though Sharon was hundreds of miles away, he was still the one doing the "slaughtering."

I might add that at the time of this exchange, and ever since, this post continues to refuse to so much as mention the Christian Phalange. All he does is repeat over and over that Sharon was in command. Which to most of us means that he was responsible, but that still is quite different from him doing it. It would be like saying that President Obama or General Petraeus killed Afghan civilians and kept their skulls as trophies.

Just another example of anti-Zionist commitment to truth and lack-of-commitment to pertinent outrages.

Today's Biased HP Headline

It has already remained in the World section longer than the Hamas explosion article mentioned this morning.

Sabra, Shantila, And Selective Outrage

Selective outrage is a phenomenon that we usually only see among Huffington Post bloggers, but ever now and then it shows itself as prevalent among the anti-Zionist hoi polloi as well. This was particularly true on the recent no-reason-to-be-published Ariel Sharon sculpture thread.

The anti-Zionists, when presented with the waving red cape of an Israel-related story, of course acted like bulls and charged. In this case the target was Ariel Sharon, and aside from generalized ranting (i.e. "he's a war criminal!" "He's personally killed thousands") was also the use of that favorite Palsbara talking point, the Sabra and Shantila Massacre. Here are some of the comments that touch on that, I am leaving out the many personal and aggressive comments toward Sharon that flooded the thread by the dozens:

This is interesting because we really see on display just how selective the anti-Zionists' preaching about "human rights" really is. Sharon, who was held to be "indirectly responsible" is the subject of untold amounts of vitriol, while the people who actually committed the killings are minimized or ignored completely.

The behavior of the AZs only reinforces what we already know. That they really don't care one whit about any of the suffering peoples in the Middle East unless they can somehow blame Israel or Israelis for it. Then, and only then, are they paragons of morality and self-righteousness. Really, I don't see how many objective person couldn't be insulted by the hypocrisy here.

Oh, and it is worth repeating. From the HP's Terms of Service:

"We do not allow comments that celebrate the death, illness, or personal loss of any person."

I suppose by HP logic Israeli leaders and supporters are not human, then?

Return of "Ziovermin"

The user "The Baffler," who we first noticed here, was back again on the Ariel Sharon thread slinging his trademark insult:

I wonder how many times one needs to make a clearly anti-Semitic insult before becoming banned. Clearly it is many. Be sure to notice as well that despite many hours and many flags, the comments remain.

The original link #1.

The original link #2.