What i really love about you rufie is yoour willingness to stoop quite lowin order to defend zionism, of all things.
Zionism is pure racism, from start to finish
Your attempts to defend it shows that you either do not know what you are talking about, or that you do know, but are willing to lie about it anyway
Either or both is likely with you rufie, given that you are at heart ideologically driven and truth means little since you have in the past demonstrated you are quire prepared to lie to win an argument.

Posted by: blockquote | Aug 29 2015 8:57 utc | 104

If they launch a nuclear war with Iran, then they’ll be as bad as the Nazis.
Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 29, 2015 1:28:58 AM | 101
Jeez rufie, will ya ever atop lying?
If the ZioNazis launch nukes at Iran then theyll be much worse than the Nazis since the Nazis never did that
Is their no limit to how low you will go, in your defence of Zionism from well-earned accusations of inherent racism?

Posted by: blockquote | Aug 29 2015 9:14 utc | 106

in re 104 – 107
What I love about you is your total ignorance.
What an odd definition of lying — “disagreeing with my vulgar, unsupported opinions.” Zionism is hardly monochromatic, and your prejudices against it are not universal. Sanders clarification of his position is perfectly reasonable.
The Israelis have yet to slaughter 12 million people in slave labor and extermination camps. Nor have they started a World War killing 10’s of millions.
So apparently you do not acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, and would seem to be contemplating an act of genocide yourself. I am not surprised.
Are you some sort of Islamicist then? You always pop up on Mid-East threads. Or are you an anti-Semitic neo-Nazi yourself? Since you seldom advance your own views, but merely mock others, it’s hard to tell.
Again, straight from the horse, and my, but isn’t it so very piquant!

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 29 2015 13:28 utc | 108

@ 108: “Are you some sort of Islamicist then? You always pop up on Mid-East threads. Or are you an anti-Semitic neo-Nazi yourself? Since you seldom advance your own views, but merely mock others, it’s hard to tell.”
Actually rm, none of the above. Just another PAID HACK for the EMPIRE LOVERS. By now, that should be plain for everyone to see.
As Chipnik always says, “It’s just business, we all should get over it.” Everyone needs employment.

Posted by: ben | Aug 29 2015 14:40 utc | 110

From Global research on Trump-Sanders:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-trump-sanders-phenomena/5472268

Posted by: ben | Aug 29 2015 15:34 utc | 112

Posted by: ben | Aug 29, 2015 11:34:30 AM | 112
This article by Robert Parry of ConsortiumNews.com is very strange. It starts by praising Trump and Sanders for their independence from wealthy donors, then segues to an attack on Hillary’s neocon ties and resulting foreign policy mishaps.
Parry implies that Trump and Sanders would NOT be as militaristic and would be able to stand-up to the neocons. I see little evidence of this. Both Trump and Sanders are supportive of America’s militaristic posture. Trump has declared that he would build a military that would be so strong that it wouldn’t need to be used (!). Sanders is strangely quiet about his foreign policy and support for the military. Although he did not support the Iraq War, he has otherwise been supportive of a strong military and Israel (not much different than most other members of Congress).
Our militaristic foreign policy ‘comes home’ in the form of a police state and oligarchy. Any candidate that does not speak out about these connections are lying by omission – and taking sides with the establishment.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 29 2015 16:31 utc | 114

Omfg
I just had a horrible thought
Rufies inanimate corpse has been taken over by Louis Proyect!

Posted by: blockquote | Aug 29 2015 17:08 utc | 116

Good news about Trump: “contemplates raising taxes on the wealthy”, in contrast with the rest of GOP field.
Bad news about Trump: instead of using glumly delivered slander phrased in cultured language, as befits GOP politicians, uses most crass slander plus innuendo that would cost your comedian job on cable TV. I have no liking of Hillary, Huma Abedin and her husband, but Trump reached “a new low, after many previous new lows” by accusing Abedin of betraying state secrets to her husbands (because she knows secrets and loves her husbands, case closed!!) and Weiner is a “bad guy, even before [texting affair] I knew him and I knew that he is a bad guy”. ??!! So on the basis of that knowledge he gave 2000 dollars to Weiner’s campaign in 2010?
Besides, can anyone tell what Trump means by “Yeb”? In the same speech, Trump compared himself favorably as a negotiator with Hillary and “Yeb”. This is funny if you know one of westen Slavic languages, as in all of them (including Czech and Slovenian spoken by a former and the current wife), because Jeb Bush had campaign posters “Jeb!!” that would be pronounced “Yeb” and means (in all Slavic languages) “Copulate!” (absolutely impolite).

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 30 2015 0:45 utc | 118

@119 rm asked: “So what exactly do you propose to do with Israel?”
??????

Posted by: ben | Aug 30 2015 2:22 utc | 120

Oh god I’ll bite RM’s comment “so what do you propse to do with Israel” carries the typically Zionist insinuation that there are only two choices – the continued existence of the apartheid state which just like it’s old ally apartheid South Africa uses ancient superstitions, compounded with cherry picking of mis-translated texts to justify it’s racist policies, or the murder of the entire jewish population.
There is no -in-between situation allowed.
The ‘fix’ which avoids both those situations is out there and known to all if zionists don’t mention it its not because they don’t know its just that it is ‘inconvenient’.
The obvious solution to abolish the ersatz state of Israel and create a new state Palestine where all citizens’ (including those who have been driven out by the current regime’s racist excess) rights are equal.
There would have to be some considerable effort to restore mis-appropriated lands of course, but that shouldn’t trouble many – virtually everyone who bought into lands stolen following the foundation of Israel has known they were purchasing stolen goods.
As for those wanting to get out since they no-longer have a special status to lord over the hoi polloi, let them go back to amerika and Europe. I suspect most have retained their former citizenship as an each way bet just in case their attempt to put their feet under another’s kitchen table should fail. That was certainly true in South Africa.
ME jews and muslims had a much more peaceful relationship with each other than Europe’s non-jews had with jews. It wasn’t until European Zionists started turning up in Palestine after ww1 that trouble began. The parallel in many ways is similar to the Sunni Shi’ite bullshit that’s been going on since the invasion of Iraq. In most ME nations people had sorted it out themselves until acts of cynical terror by the ptb were used to divide the population. In time the people of Palestine will learn to live with each other again.
But we all know this it is disappointing to have to read posts here in MoA which so blatantly seek to ignore the obvious.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 30 2015 3:11 utc | 122

in re 122 —
One good turn deserves another.
Sounds like a plan. I see absolutely no way such a state could be formed or sustained.
Did the West have the right to solve “the Jewish Question” at the expense of the Palestinians? Not really. But they did, and given the realities of post-war Europe, it is difficult to see how the demand for it could have been resisted. Clever words and glib demands like “ersatz Israel” and “let them move back” is not going to undo that.
I’m all for giving the PLO/PFLP and Palestinians what they have wanted for decades — their own state, based on the 1967 borders, as per assorted UN resolutions.
In any realistic plan, an end to settlements, immediately, as well as encroachments on East Jerusalem, is the absolute first step. The United States should immediately stop all financial support of further construction. Dismantling the settlements and the exact amount of reparations will come later.
And if any of you think that makes me some sort of crypto-likudnik hasbara troll, the lot of you are bloody fucking nuts.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 30 2015 3:43 utc | 124

Damn, this thread brought out some excellent writing. Presumably because it is only tangentially about the beheadings, civil wars, spying, and economic collapse generally covered here:
Here’s some favorites but I was too lazy to list them all:

…people in the U.S. really do look like that. And think and act like that. Their souls are hard, dark kernels of fear and insecurity, encapsulated in a thick rind of pure hatred. Their diabetic bodies are thoroughly colonized by Big Food…
…They swoon when they hear what they want to hear, and the short-term memory on previous liars who curried their favor is a Vagus nerve which starts at the gut resulting in self-inflicted case of Parkinson’s and very-early-onset Alzheimers. Trump’s minute of fame and obsessive need for attention will shortly be remembered as clearly as last week’s bowel movement…
…one of those other nasty dumb shitheads so lavishly funded by the Kochs…
…The woman is reacting to T in the way a person with an 80 IQ reacts to touching flesh with a TV-famous person…
…Biden wrote the US Patriotic Act, don’t forget, and he is deeply involved in the war crimes in Kiev. Would you prefer an urbane, sexist, schmoozing Biden for the next four years, or a bloviating Trump? Because you only get to choose the flavor of your Kool-Aid, not whether you get waterboarded with it….
…the studied trashing that Ramos got from the MSM … Lippizaners defecating at the sound of the trumpet…
…surely even american aren’t so fucked up & brainwashed they’ll elect a traitor who sold out his mates…
…hundreds of millions in Latin america paid dearly for the amerikans’ choice of that alzheimer encrusted lying puppet….

I do think that Bernie is ultimately the only kind of “socialist” that could run in the USA – one that basically keeps his mouth shut about foreign policy. And when he opens only talks about our “friends” in Saudi Arabia “taking up the burden” (as if we’re not seeing that policy play itself out in rivers of blood right now) and/or the dangers of Hezbollah.
Though he certainly has morals enough not to think that invading Iraq would be a good idea (as did Obama, and how’d that work out) ultimately, I’ve never heard anything out of him that would suggest that he means any serious threat to US militarism. And without threatening that militarism (or at the very least its budget), I’m really not sure how you work out an improvement in the situation of US working people – the US isn’t an industrial powerhouse, that horse is out of the barn with free trade and certainly won’t ever be like it was in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
The fact is that the US just can’t afford trillion dollar a year military budgets and things like education and health care for the average person. And in that sense, he seems to me like he is talking about inequality without talking about, probably the important part along with the missing taxation of the super-rich, part of its cause.
If Bernie can’t talk about that basic reality, or is really ignorant enough to think that unleashing the Saudis onto the Middle East would cause some “improvement” in the situation there, then I just can’t back him. If I thought it was all a ruse, like he was just saying these things to remain ‘electable’ I could go with that game. But I think he means it, and in that case, I’ll take Kucinich or McKinney any day.

Posted by: guest77 | Aug 30 2015 3:58 utc | 126

Now, I wouldn’t normally take for granted that anyone was stupid enough to think that the solution to the very definite problem of Israel would be murdering its inhabitants, but considering the lizard brain aspect to most of foff/block quote/svoboda-throat’s political “thinking” and given the acute crisis his ego seems to be in, I think he probably is that stupid.
You’re not that smart, foff. In fact, you’re pretty much one of those mediocre personalities who aligns themselves with fascism because you want to believe you’re one of “the elite” or “the chosen” which is the same reason, I assume not real talented Jewish choades from Brooklyn go 4000 miles to piss on the Palestinians, hiding safely behind the guns of the IOF.
I

Posted by: guest77 | Aug 30 2015 4:20 utc | 128

@rufus: although you don’t want to see it, Sanders dodged the question. Then you dug the whole deeper by implying that anyone that is anti-Israel is anti-Semetic.
Athetists think that God does not exist. Presumably they also think that believers of God should also not exist. Do they want to kill those believers? No. They want to educate them.
Fundamentalism is a scourge. And oligarchs prey on their own people first (ethnic or religious affiliations) and then tout their ‘leadership’ and savvy.
And is Israel even a State? It requires billions in US aid and billions from Jews overseas (including $ needed to ensure the support of the US political system). Its a strange kind of ‘State’ that is economically non-viable and constantly in conflict.
I think Jewish people have a strong identity and should have a State. I don’t know _where_ that should be and it may be a moot point at this point anyway. I know that many Jews do not agree with Israeli policies and I think that the Israeli defense establishment and oligarchs have been the main beneficiaries of the eternal threat that was established as soon as Israel was established. In much the same way that the US public was manipulated by the threat of Terrorism.
Simply intoning “two state solution” is a cop-out. Those who do so KNOW that will never happen while the current Israeli regime and lapdog Congress ‘exists’. And the fundamental problem is not even an Israeli or Jewish one but one of human relations and politics; in a word: oligarchy. All oligarchies create and thrive off conflict and discord of ordinary people.
We have reached the end of the line. There are too many people and our planet is dying. Our knowledge is far beyond the superstitious fools of a mere two hundred years ago, yet our societies are still organized in much the same way (oligarchies). Its time to take back our planet and our restore our humanity. If not now, when?

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 30 2015 6:00 utc | 130

ben at 127 —
Mrs M and I agreed long ago — white people with more money than sense will be the death of this country.
129, 130 —
I may be intoning pieties, but you are courting atrocities.
You want to destroy Israel, but not Israelis? How is that possible? I would allow, it is not necessarily anti-Semitic. BQ and his friend, in their vehemence, look the part to me. Your position on the other hand seems merely untenable, being foolishly abstract and thoughtlessly cruel.
As seemingly impractical as it might appear, a two-state solution is the only one that could satisfy the claims of the two parties with any degree of equity and humanity.
If you think ethnic cleansing will work — drop the “voluntary relocation of populations” BS — look at the partition of India.
The basso profundo drone about “fundamentalism” and “the present Congress” is meaningless patter. Can’t pony up the political will to get the settlements stopped, but we can get it on destroy a state where, as someone notes above, there are literally hundreds of thousands of Americans and other Westerners resident.
Don’t stretch the facts to pretty up bad ideas. Gaza’s population is being confined to the strip for the crime of supporting Hamas in a democratic election. The control regime on the West Bank is not so rigorous. Israeli Arabs are marginalized in situ, not by deportation.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 30 2015 7:06 utc | 132

@rufus magister 132
You want to destroy Israel, but not Israelis? How is that possible?
Israel disappeared once already a long time ago. imo the current state is simply the latest attempt by the crusaders to gain/regain control of the region after failing with all previous attempts.

Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 30 2015 10:01 utc | 134

@ all: Who and what Bernie Sanders is, is a matter like beauty, ” in the eye of the beholder”. His record is there for all to see. Simply put, I believe he’s the best candidate in the 2016 race, with all his warts. His name stirs much debate, and that’s a good thing. The status quo in America fears him, and that’s a good thing also. This ” washed out political hack”, is drawing more support from common people than all other candidates combined, and yet, gets no coverage by MSCM. That, in its self, speaks volumes. Can any one person change the course of The evil empire America has become? I doubt it, but, a movement with enough common people behind it, maybe.
Just hurling invectives at one another, like some posters do, solves nothing, except to dilute debate. Which, I assume, is the point of doing so.

Posted by: ben | Aug 30 2015 14:35 utc | 136

in re 133, 134 —
Nobody there but Zionist Terrorists, so lets just push them to the sea! Lines on maps are way more important than human beings.
I’m a little unclear about exactly what is being controlled and why. Israel is all about assuaging European guilt for the Nazi persecution.
The Middle East began to slip under western control beginning with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. The Ottomans failed to keep pace with European societies in military and civil technologies.
Formal protectorates were the preferred modality. That the Ottomans endured into the 20th. Cent. in formal control was due to the Great Powers failing to agree amongst themselves who got the best bits (see, e.g. the Crimean War). Each took a turn propping the Sultans up, to forestall their rivals from easy pickings, but not so effectively as to prevent losses in the Maghreb and the Balkans.
Parts of the Middle East pursued a more independent policy during the Cold War. De-colonialization and the existence of Soviet aid drove this. Comprador allies became the Western modality of choice.
After Camp David and especially the destruction of the Soviet Union, Western influence rose. More direct means of compliance became the order of the day in Libya, Iraq, and Syria.
Western control in the area would actually be aided by a settlement in Palestine. Resentment over the treatment of the Palestinians is a major vehicle for jihadi recruitment.
The Palestinians have the right to resist; I prefer PLO/PLFP as the vehicle over Hamas. Israeli intransigence with the late Arafat helped produce Hamas, whom the Israelis originally saw as useful in undercutting the PLO.
If you’re going to sacrifice millions of lives for reasons I fail to perceive (cartographic tidiness?), at least, let’s have the facts right.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 30 2015 15:25 utc | 138

@139 “I don’t know _where_ that should be and it may be a moot point at this point anyway.”
N. Nevada is perfect: No jihad, lax gun laws, friendly americans for neighbo(u)rs, plenty o’lebensraum, same latitude as Israel… Why not? It’s no more ridiculous than catapulting a “nation” into a hostile land without bothering to consult the people who already live there.

Posted by: ruralito | Aug 30 2015 15:42 utc | 140

More Invectives, that’s the spirit. We’re still waiting for BQ, to post it’s preferences.
The operative words in WOW’s post are ” last 24 hrs.” Change, is always a good thing.
Who, and what do you support?

Posted by: ben | Aug 30 2015 15:46 utc | 142

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 30, 2015 3:06:40 AM | 132
Courting atrocities
You have now passed into the realm of pre-crime thought police.
=
I’m sorry that you can’t see that the two-state solution is a dog whistle under the current regime OR that there will not be any progress as long as the world is plagued by oligarchs.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 30 2015 16:29 utc | 144

More seriously — you are advocating policies with potential dire consequences, and are cavalierly indifferent to a very plausible outcome.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 30 2015 18:13 utc | 146

More seriously — you are advocating policies with potential dire consequences, and are cavalierly indifferent to a very plausible outcome.
Posted by: rufie Proyect| Aug 30, 2015 2:13:26 PM | 146
You tell em, Rufie!!!
Clown Posse . . . whoops . . .
Zio[!!] Clown Posse Rulez!
Rule #’s 1, 2, 3 & 4 in the AIPAC Handbook “How to Lie for Zion” –

Always distract and threaten with the Holocaust where possible, but when that’s unlikely to fly with your audience, vague accusations about future “genocide” or somesuch will suffice

Posted by: blockquote | Aug 31 2015 22:30 utc | 148

re 148 —
There’s only one rule in the Trollbook — be an asshole. Good to see you follow the rule so scrupulosly.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 31 2015 22:34 utc | 150

There’s only one rule in the Trollbook — be an asshole.
Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 31, 2015 6:34:07 PM | 150
Or in your case, a lying Zionist Asshole – the absolute worst type.
Go [Zio-]Clowns!

Posted by: blockquote | Sep 1 2015 7:28 utc | 152

So QED, absolutely no worries about “ongoing atrocities”! They will not be driven into the sea, merely to the shore. There to be governed by kindly rulers with nothing but the gentlest solicitude for their new charges.
Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 31
Well, done Rufie!
Extra AIPAC “Lie like A Rabbi” brownie-points for working in yet another completely dishonest “drive them into the sea!” Reference.
Abe Foxman gonna love him some Zio-Rufie Proyect tonight!

Posted by: blockquote | Sep 1 2015 7:52 utc | 154

Sorry, I don’t swing that way. In any case, you don’t really seem that attractive. And as an old-fashioned anti-Semite, you’re not really my type.
It’s actually “The Communist Manifesto.”
So no alternative scenario or refutation, just the typical abuse.
So I’m thinking you don’t really have a problem driving them to the shore, you just don’t want to be called out for it.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 1 2015 11:46 utc | 156

It’s actually “The Communist Manifesto.”
Posted by: Zio-Rufie Proyect | Sep 1, 2015 7:46:09 AM | 156
ROFLMAO
Pompous AND unwittingly hilarious.
All wrapped up in a 5 word lie.
Very impressive, Rufie.

Posted by: blockquote | Sep 1 2015 13:25 utc | 158

nr. 158 –
There’s that funny definition of “lying” again. Disagreeing with the disagreeable is not lying.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 2 2015 2:09 utc | 160

By far the most revealing paragraph of the 2006 Obama article is the following, which I found at Americablog:

Yet it is also startling to see how quickly Obama’s senatorship has been woven into the web of institutionalized influence-trading that afflicts official Washington. He quickly established a political machine funded and run by a standard Beltway group of lobbyists, P.R. consultants, and hangers-on. For the staff post of policy director he hired Karen Kornbluh, a senior aide to Robert Rubin when the latter, as head of the Treasury Department under Bill Clinton, was a chief advocate for NAFTA and other free-trade policies that decimated the nation’s manufacturing sector (and the organized labor wing of the Democratic Party). Obama’s top contributors are corporate law and lobbying firms (Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, Arps, where four attorneys are fund-raisers for Obama as well as donors), Wall Street financial houses (Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase), and big Chicago interests (Henry Crown and Company, an investment firm that has stakes in industries ranging from telecommunications to defense). Obama immediately established a “leadership PAC,” a vehicle through which a member of Congress can contribute to other politicians’ campaigns—and one that political reform groups generally view as a slush fund through which congressional leaders can evade campaign-finance rules while raising their own political profiles.

Posted by: fairleft | Sep 2 2015 2:53 utc | 162

guest77 @126

I do think that Bernie is ultimately the only kind of “socialist” that could run in the USA – one that basically keeps his mouth shut about foreign policy.

And his positions on foreign policy are naively mainstream, which is a disaster for civilians throughout the greater Middle East.
On the other hand, he supports the Iran deal. Big picture, that deal will change the main focus of the US imperial policy. Israel’s bloodthirsty antics will be a sideshow and increasingly seen by the PTB as a burden (forced on the US by Israel Lobby money) to the main game, which will involve trying to hold off the Chinese (uhh, Eurasian) Century.

Posted by: fairleft | Sep 2 2015 3:22 utc | 164

in re 165
“Justifying propaganda”? Huh? What?
I can’t tell if you’re taking a side, since I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 2 2015 11:52 utc | 166

Looks like a side has picked you, though, JR.
I was unaware that Zionism had only one meaning and that you had defined it. Sander’s Zionism is not that of Meir Kahane.
You may not like or understand Sander’s point of view, but to each their own.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 2 2015 12:16 utc | 168

The self-alleged “magister” of the anti-Imperialist Left
Fightin’ fer a more positive view of Zionist Racism, @MOA.
Go Clowns!

Posted by: blockquote | Sep 2 2015 14:26 utc | 170

Careful there @ 171
you will get rufus’ cheeto dust and nose goo all over yourself.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 2 2015 17:35 utc | 172

The only way a single state solution will come about is through main force. To imagine that this will not involve mass quantities of cruel, needless death by both sides is a pipe-dream. There are immense difficulties facing the internationally sanctioned two-state solution, but these pale in comparison to the consequences of any other plausible course of action.

We have a model, how the ANC defeated apartheid in South Africa. They’re international boycott strategy worked and it was non-violent.
On a slightly different point, both the one-state and two-state solutions involve the firm capitulation of Israel’s ruling elite and its propagandized population. Once that capitulation is foreseeable — and it will be caused by economic pain (experienced by the ruling elite), not military force — the people of Palestine/Israel should be free to choose whatever path they want that recognizes the full citizenship rights of all the people in Palestine-Israel and of all Palestinian refugees.
We’re not at that stage yet. So arguing over two state versus one state now is at best a pointlessly divisive distraction. More important, the whole “only two options” shouting match is suspiciously and pathetically simplistic and unimaginative. Probably developed by some brilliant Hasbara troll. A real solution developed out of mutual respect and equality among all peoples and religions will be complicated.

Posted by: fairleft | Sep 3 2015 3:10 utc | 174

@rufus
I think the summary I wrote captures your shifty-ness very well.
It is clear that you only care that Israel continues to exist. Your obsession blinds you to any other concern. Hardliners have derailed the two-state solution? No problem. Oligarch warmongers make a bundle? No problem. Sanders and other politicians have to deceive? No problem. ‘Whatever it takes’ to ensure Israel’s continued existance is really your fundamental position.
But you trumpet your support for the ‘two-state solution’ to prove yourself as a good and reasonable liberal-minded person. Even though you must know that the hardliners have no intention of ever allowing that. They leave the possibility of a ‘2-state solution’ out there as a dog-whistle – to attract support from the squeamish in face of hardliner abuses. IF you really believed in the two-state solution, you would recognize that the ‘enemy’ is the hardliners (oligarchs and Fundamentalists) much more than critics of zionism/Israel.
But people like YOU, rufus, pave the way for the elites to PREY upon ordinary people. There is ALWAYS a threat (real or imagined) that must be countered, and many rufuses willing to set aside their morals to urge people to “save” the beleaguered State. Its the same in the USA which constantly reminds its people of the terrorist threat, the Russian threat, the Chinese threat, etc.
Your defense of Sanders is pure BS. Sanders response was meant to nullify the question and allow him to then reformulate and focus on the narrowest aspects of what the question entailed. I think any independent observer would say he dodged the question. But you are FAR from independent, even though you try hard to pretend you are.
Your support for relative truth is clear from your support for Sanders manner of answering the question AND the context of the response to blockquote when you said, “disagreeing with the disagreeable is not lying”. Oh, its not that the Communist Manifesto being in your pocket (or not) has any importance – its the sentiment: I don’t have to be truthful TO YOU if you are ‘disagreeable’ (to me). And it is clear that in your worldview, anyone that is not a zionist “invites atrocities” and is therefore ‘disagreeable’. Guess what? The hardliners no doubt think the same of YOU, rufus. YOU are disagreeable to them because you support a two-state solution (at least you SAY that you do but your obsession with Israel implies that you are really a ‘whatever it takes’ kinda guy).
In any case, you have shown us what you are really all about. And through it all, you havn’t even tried to understand my point. Thankfully, fairleft has provided a good description of what independent-minded people see as necessary for real peace: “…the firm capitulation of Israel’s ruling elite and its propagandized population” as well as “mutual respect and equality among all peoples and religions”.
The more we learn about oligarchy and elites that serve them, the more it is clear how they use race, religion, sectarianism, terrorism, and more to divide us. You (and many others) are so caught up with your obsession that you can’t/won’t see that.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 3 2015 6:22 utc | 176

In any case, you have shown us what you are really all about.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 3, 2015 2:22:43 AM | 176

He sure has, hasn’t he?

Posted by: blockquote | Sep 3 2015 7:10 utc | 178

Just two example, cuz I wouldn’t want to be longwinded. If I were obsessed about Israel, why is this run of posts my first word about. Iran publishes a quite explicit, threatening, scenario, but I’m imagining that they are making threats?

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 3 2015 11:44 utc | 180

And didn’t you accuse fairleft of deliberately misunderstanding you? Funny how people who disagree with you are like that….

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 3 2015 12:16 utc | 182

Rufus:
How do we achieve this mutual respect you speak so highly of while casually dropping phrases like “hasbara trolls” into the conversation?
Because brilliant hasbara trolls exist, and they create artificial binary choices. Those of us who fall into that “only two choices” frame are victimized by the hasbara trolls. In fact, there are many mixed religion, mixed ethnicity states — with minority rights, including minority security rights, carved into their basic constitutions — that operate with reasonable but imperfect but far better than apartheid Israel success. Switzerland, Canada, Yugoslavia, Malaysia, Belgium, and Lebanon (when not being subverted by the Saudis or Israelis).
The coming to power of the ANC had much more to do with “necklacing” in Soweto than sanctions.
That’s completely wrong and ahistorical. Necklacing was a PR disaster for the ANC and not central to its mission. Mandela was a practical strategist, initially non-violent but then that didn’t work. Then formed an army (not a necklacing terror army). In prison, in the 80s he heard/read about the great success of the international boycott movement, supported it and stopped the necklacing. The boycott movement was eventually very successful, stopping South Africa food exports to the EU, making oil very expensive in SA, stopping much international credit going to SA. Great summary in Electronic Intifada. Best blockquote:

Bangani Ngeleza, a black South African who was a university student in South Africa at the time of the sanctions and boycott movement commented that “the anti-apartheid organisations and related campaigns gave us a sense that the world was with us and therefore freedom was within reach. The courage to continue even in the face of a regime that was becoming more and more intransigent and murderous was reinforced by the knowledge that sooner or later, the sanctions would squeeze them to a point of collapse. We, as students at universities during the eighties, could then speak more tirelessly and launch regular and more emotive protests against the system and all those that supported it, both inside and outside the country, knowing that the world was watching and that these were telling blows because we saw companies leaving week after week, governments withdrawing diplomatic relations, etc. You can imagine the momentum that this gives to an otherwise difficult, daunting and dangerous struggle against racial oppression.”

This whole ‘Boycott Apartheid’ thing happened in the mid-to-late 80s. Very successful and well-documented. It’s sad that you don’t seem to know about its great and inspirational success.
You may recall, Pretoria attempted to destabilize Angola and Mozambique in order to deny the ANC bases in these “frontline states.” Cuba, thank god, put a stop to that. Would DeKlerk have stepped aside had RSA won those wars?
The military conflict was a stalemate that could’ve continued for decades.
I would note, Blacks, Coloreds, Indians and Europeans all agreed from the outset that they were in one country. The impolite fiction of “bantustans” failed to gain traction.
The impolite fiction of ‘The West Bank’ as a real entity has very little reality. Check out a map. And, yes, whatever the solution, one/two/hybrid, Israelis’ attitudes will have to improve.
BDS can … get Israel to end its violations of international law and conduct honest negotiations with the Palestinians.
We need no more than that. Honest negotiations, which entail full respect for international law, including the right of return, and full respect for the equal rights and status of all citizens, whether Palestinians or Israelis.
But what will convince the Israelis to surrender and merge? We’ll be doing well to get the settlements removed and Palestinian lands and houses returned.
By ‘surrender’, do you mean end their illegal terror war against the West Bank and Gaza? Israel doesn’t need to ‘surrender’ or ‘merge’, it needs to engage in honest negotiations as described above. What will convince them to do that is severe economic pain and pariah status for Israel’s ruling elite.
And this is critical: you seem to assume (unknowingly?) that getting “the settlements removed and Palestinian lands and houses returned” is definitely _easier_ than recognizing, as a fairly obvious practical matter, that Israel and the West Bank are one very entangled economic/geographic ‘thing’, and then making political arrangements based on that reality.
Will the Israelis back off of their “Masada complex”?
The question is, practically speaking, will Israelis require their negotiators to get strong and reassuring security arrangements in any deal? Yes, they will. This sort of thing has been done in other transitional arrangements (see South Africa), so sure: require for awhile that a former Israeli be the interior minister, or head of the national guard/police, no problem. Lebanon has or has had permanent arrangements of sharing top security posts among the three main confessional groups in the country.
Longer term, single-confessional communities should be allowed, and the more paranoid can stay in their little or big exclusively Jewish or Muslim enclaves, protected by their exclusively Jewish or Muslim police force. If that floats enough people’s boats, most of Israel/Palestine could look like that, except for big cities’ central business districts. Hopefully secular Israelis and Palestinians won’t let that happen, but it should be an option for those that want it.
Won’t the prospect of an artificial one-state solution, imposed from the outside, actually worsen this? Could such a state guranty the security of all its charges? Our recent run at state-building does not inspire confidence.
First of all, the present arrangement is artificial (ask the Palestinians), and imposed from the outside (slavish/massive US support). An arrangement generated by honest negotiations between equals would be natural. Only the negotiations and not the final arrangement would be forced from the outside. So “our recent run” is irrelevant, since ‘we’ would not be state building, the Israelis and Palestinians would be.
And you’ve overlooked a key point — exactly why is such a hot-house flower either necessary or desirable, when it seems highly impractical and unlikely? The Jewish parties refuse to form governments with parties supported by Arabs, such as the Communists. How then to include the Palestinians?
Again with the ‘impractical’. Am I missing the practicality of the current arrangement in the West Bank? Look at that map again. And there’s nothing artificial about negotiations, and letting the two peoples who actually live in Palestine/Israel decide what to do.
Yes, the Jewish parties will have to change (whether there is a fair two-state, fair one-state, or fair hybrid solution), and that will require enormous economic pain targeted at the ruling elite, and definitely that elite will have to swing over to and propagandize with their media for a fair and just arrangement. Like they did in South Africa. Optimistically, though, recognizing all men and women as basically the same under the skin is an entirely natural and right and easy way to feel, when the artificial propagandized fear is removed. Right?
I’d like to see a revolutionary state of the Arab and Jewish proletariat throughout the Middle East. Now that’s a pipe dream worth having. But I wouldn’t blow off a genuine, mutually agreed-upon two-state solution.
Nobody is blowing it off, just pointing out the severe impracticality (because of the settlements) and undemocratic non-flexibility of the only-two-states path.
Two states remains the demand of the PLO/PFLP and Athe internationally approved solution.
That’s an argument in its favor? I say let’s let the people vote, choose who they want to negotiate for them, and all of this AFTER a boycott Israel movement has forced ‘honest negotiations’ upon the Israelis.
It would be far easier to achieve than the Mash-up State of Palestine and Samaria.
Not just because you say so. Let’s heavily pressure the Israelis like we did the economic power elite in South Africa, to engage finally in honest negotiations with (fairly elected representatives of) the Palestinians. Those negotiations should be allowed to go whatever direction the participants want them to go.

Posted by: fairleft | Sep 3 2015 18:39 utc | 184

J’bunny – isn’t it funny how all “independent” thinkers just happen to think exactly the same thoughts as you? That must account for the wild popularity of your website. Nice design, though. Napoleon on Talleyrand immediately came to mind: “Shit in a silk stocking.”

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 3 2015 22:58 utc | 186

Necklacing may or may not have been a PR disaster. But it enabled the ANC to maintain control in the townships.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 3 2015 23:12 utc | 188

Your little under-the-bridge friend wondered why my sudden interest in “the Jewish Question.” It’s personal, as I said, and I rather resent your desparate personal attack, you high-minded hypocrite.
I never quite got a clear sense of how this beautiful dream might come about. But I did get dressed down for not believing in it. And I should care… because…?
Fairleft gave a fair account, but I remain unconvinced.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 4 2015 5:48 utc | 190

rufus magister @191: I was talking about South Africa itself, not its neocolonial efforts in Angola and elsewhere. Like u said, good on Cuba for defending Angola’s independence!

Posted by: fairleft | Sep 4 2015 7:47 utc | 192

There you go again, with your solipsistic definition of “lying”. But then, where would haters be without their hatred?
For those too malignant or stupid here is my original reply:
I know all about what Israel has done in Gaza. I know they steal land, houses, water, destroy olive trees, cut villages in two. They permit the settlers to brutalize Hebron and other cities. I recall Sabra and Shatila.
I have every fucking right. So piss off, mate.

Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 4 2015 12:02 utc | 194

he’s lying about his lies now
Is that Lying²? I think it is.
Rufie, the fearless Anti-Imperialist Lefty
Lying² for Zio-Racism ² @ MOA

Posted by: href | Sep 4 2015 12:56 utc | 196

From the wire: Trump could not name the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, and could not tell Kurds from al-Quds. But then he made a very reasonable remark:
Trump added that when it came to individuals: “Of course I don’t know them. I’ve never met them. I haven’t been, you know, in a position to meet them. If, if they’re still there, which is unlikely in many cases, but if they’re still there, I will know them better than I know you.”
Clearly, it is much easier to remember folks when you meet them in person. As soon as elected, Trump will put meetings with Nasrallah, Suleimani etc. on his “to do” list. Very reasonable, if you ask me. Logistics would be quite simple, organize or merely attend some international conferences, for example on Kish Island, where he could also check investment opportunities in hotels etc.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Sep 4 2015 14:39 utc | 198