Is there really any U.S. national, or even U.S. imperialist, interest in Zionism?
Posted by: TM | Mar 7 2024 14:34 utc | 1
My assumption is that Israel has a lot of support among Americans billionaires, many of whom are quite effective at political financing. The American billionaire class either supports Zionism or is indifferent to Zionism.
The support used to be argued to be due to the Jewish vote but I don’t buy that. American Jews (the non billionaire ones) live predominantly in blue states so their votes are irrelevant, and a lot of young American Jews don’t support Israel.

Posted by: Afro | Mar 7 2024 14:46 utc | 4

“Is there really any U.S. national (…) interest”
What the American citizen thinks is completely irrelevant: the ruling class in Washington, the Coca-Cola team and the Pepsi-Cola team discuss how best to serve their Gods:
(1) Jupiter: Imperial Domination
(2) Minerva: Corporatocracy
(3) Juno: “our colonial project” (Vladimir Jabotinsky)
The voter’s opinions and desires are either completely irrelevant or the media bubble is already in charge of molding the mind of the plebs and in any case keeping them entertained and confused with a lot of cultural warfare.

Posted by: Simon | Mar 7 2024 14:55 utc | 6

American citizens can do nothing
The Power is in hands of the three Washington players “inside the Beltway”:
(1) Permanent Washington
(2) Oligarchy
(3) The political-media Show business.
And the same goes for the Club of European vassals that bears the grandiloquent name of the EU.

Posted by: Simon | Mar 7 2024 15:25 utc | 8

Consistently we hear that “only” about 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza so far. But Ralph Nader has argued that this is a gross undercount: the real current death toll is perhaps on the order of 200,000.
https://nader.org/2024/03/05/stop-the-worsening-undercount-of-palestinian-casualties-in-gaza/
So here is a thought: what if Israel really does exterminate 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza – and they make it all disappear? Never happened. And anyone suggesting that would be accused of being anti-semitic and they and their families are risk of permanent blacklisting. I’m not saying that this is how it will play out – I’m just saying that it could. Israel could pay no moral price for this (at least not in the west) and Jews could continue acting like poor little oppressed underdogs.
The Arabs might also play along. Hamas might not want it widely known the full death toll of their poking Israel, and most Arab countries would be happy not to answer to an angry populace. Better for all that it never happened (except of course, for the Palestinians in Gaza).
I also heard that the Egyptians are building a camp in the Sinai for 100,000 people. But 100,000 is a lot less than 2.3 million, yes? What if the camp is just to hold the residual after the main slaughter is over? Just thinking out loud.

Posted by: TG | Mar 7 2024 15:28 utc | 10

The vast number of transfers since early October, largely financed by the more than $3.3 billion in US taxpayer funds Washington provides to Israel every year, “is something we deserve to know as citizens of a democracy”
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Mar 7 2024 14:49 utc | 5
What democracy?
Anyways, the United States of America is a Republic.

Posted by: canuck | Mar 7 2024 15:45 utc | 12

https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/06/leaked-israel-lobby-officials-war-gaza-mass-rape/
The Grayzone has obtained slides from a confidential Israel lobby presentation based on data from Republican pollster Frank Luntz. They contain talking points for politicians and public figures seeking to justify Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

Posted by: hedlykarok | Mar 7 2024 16:19 utc | 14

Several cases of death by starvation in Gaza- deaths in which every one of our governments is deeply implicated- are documented in this article by Dr Marwan Asmar.
There are shocking photographs.
“The final days of Yazan Kafarna were heartbreaking. Afflicted with cerebral palsy, he had to endure a grueling Israeli war, reducing him to a skeleton and killing him through starvation.
“Ten-year-old Yazan Kafarna stands as a vicious monument to the Israeli starvation and famine of the people of Gaza. He died on 4, March, 2024 in the Abu Yousef Al Najar hospital in Rafah, south Gaza after a long battle with starvation that reduced him to a skeletal form and forced his body to shutdown and take its last breath.
“Yazan had cerebral palsy since birth and needed to be on a strict diet because his condition meant he had a problem of swallowing and digesting. All his food needed to be mashed and crushed. Right up 7th October and just after Israel started its war on Gaza things seemed to be relatively ok….”
https://countercurrents.org/2024/03/sad-death-of-yazan-kafarna-in-focus/

Posted by: bevin | Mar 7 2024 16:23 utc | 16

Is there really any U.S. national, or even U.S. imperialist, interest in Zionism?
Posted by: TM | Mar 7 2024 14:34 utc | 1
Is there perhaps an interest that no Jewish organization or newspaper owned by a Jewish publisher asks what Roosevelt had done to prevent the extermination of the European Jews?

Posted by: Oliver Krug | Mar 7 2024 16:28 utc | 18

Is there really any U.S. national, or even U.S. imperialist, interest in Zionism?
Posted by: TM | Mar 7 2024 14:34 utc | 1
Yes.
To keep it as simple as possible: 1) extension of Empire. You never know when Location X is going to turn out to be the world’s only source of Unobtainium. 2) Projection of power. Every Empire needs forward bases. 3) Oil. Durr. 4) Denial of access: the US may not get everything it wants in the region, but it is positioned to prevent others from getting it. 5) Disruption: When you make your living exploiting other and generally pissing people off, you need to pre-empt attempts by the weaklings you bully to join together and kick your ass. And the farther from home you do that, the better. 6) Valuable proxy: denial of responsibility.
Although not a genocidal settler-colonial state, check out Kenya for most of the underlying basics.

Posted by: Honzo | Mar 7 2024 16:42 utc | 20

I don’t think it’s a case of “U.S. national, or even U.S. imperialist, interest in Zionism” … what there is in my view is:
1) the permanent interest of the rulers of the country to convert public monies into earnings through foreign tension and war leading to an outrageously expensive and lucrative MI Complex. Israel is just one more tension point (Russia, China, Iran, Korea, etc. being other ones that also have no impact on actual US citizens) justifying the existence of the $1.5 trillion dollar national sec state with its attendant profits.
2) a few genuinely interested partisans of the “realm” who are willing to spend very large amounts of political funds on both parties to ensure loyalty to the cause.

Posted by: Caliman | Mar 7 2024 17:09 utc | 22

Lebanese TV reports:
15:19 Hamas: We call on our people in the West Bank and the 1948-occupied territories to guard Al-Aqsa Mosque during Holy Month of Ramadan
Comment – note reference to the UNR 181 borders, the only internationally recognized borders of Israel.

Posted by: Exile | Mar 7 2024 17:21 utc | 24

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Mar 7 2024 17:20 utc | 23
” it’s overlord in Washington DC.
Cheer up. Talk to people around you. There is an unprecedented and broad awareness of the nature of western imperialism. ”
DC was conquered and razed before building was even completed. Ignoring/ignorance of that does not seem to me a broad awareness of the nature of western imperialism.
Posted by: Rhymerez | Mar 7 2024 17:33 utc | 25
Ok, Rhy. I suppose you and holy Simon are the only ones who get it? May your two precious souls save us all!

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Mar 7 2024 17:42 utc | 26

BREAKING: In his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Biden is expected to announce that the U.S. military will establish a port on Gaza’s coast that will be used to get aid in.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 7 2024 18:14 utc | 28

Consistently we hear that “only” about 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza so far. But Ralph Nader has argued that this is a gross undercount: the real current death toll is perhaps on the order of 200,000.
https://nader.org/2024/03/05/stop-the-worsening-undercount-of-palestinian-casualties-in-gaza/
So here is a thought: what if Israel really does exterminate 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza – and they make it all disappear? Never happened. And anyone suggesting that would be accused of being anti-semitic and they and their families are risk of permanent blacklisting. I’m not saying that this is how it will play out – I’m just saying that it could. Israel could pay no moral price for this (at least not in the west) and Jews could continue acting like poor little oppressed underdogs.
The Arabs might also play along. Hamas might not want it widely known the full death toll of their poking Israel, and most Arab countries would be happy not to answer to an angry populace. Better for all that it never happened (except of course, for the Palestinians in Gaza).
I also heard that the Egyptians are building a camp in the Sinai for 100,000 people. But 100,000 is a lot less than 2.3 million, yes? What if the camp is just to hold the residual after the main slaughter is over? Just thinking out loud.
Posted by: TG | Mar 7 2024 15:28 utc | 10
———————–
If there’s one miserable silver lining to this, any western wittering about human rights, press freedom etc. Will be laughed to scorn so long as the current regimes are in power.
No-one with an iota of integrity can claim that NATO, has any higher moral claim than the people they vilify.
In fact, since those people usually aren’t credibility accused of genocide or facilitating same. Being denounced is probably a net positive now…

Posted by: Urban Fox | Mar 7 2024 18:20 utc | 30

As Diane Johnstone writes Israel is and has long been a burden on the United States and the British Empire thatnpreceded it.
Far from being a strategic asset it was a liability that endangered the long standing assets of control over the Gulf, the enormous energy reserves and the goodwill that it earned by supporting the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks.
The real reason why the imperialists supported, or came to support the Zionist project was very simple: it fitted in exactly with their own world view. It was an extension of the settler colonial project which is central to the Empire. To everything out of Israel-every enormity, every crime Australia, Canada and the US can say “Been there. Done that.”
It would be surprising if the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand did not sympathise with Israel which is modeled on their own countries.
How can the US, founded on genocidal policies and an example of ethnic cleansing at its most rigorous, not rally to the support of Israel which is consciously following in the footsteps of the Zionists who settled New England ? How can Canada not feel instinctive empathy with the settlers in the West Bank who are doing what was done in Upper Canada to a series of indigenous peoples- civilisations- who were killed, driven away, scattered ?
In both cases the settlers justified their land piracy on the basis, firstly, that they would exploit the resources more quickly (which often led to dustbowls of which Ontario has had many) and secondly, that the settlers were themselves displaced, often for religious reasons, and were following a divinely inspired mission.
Some may object that, for exanple, the Canadian government has taken steps to repair its irreparable crimes. And so it has: hardly a meeting begins today without someone mumbling an apology to the effect that “We are here on the traditional land of the ‘Nishnabe…” or the Iroquois, or the Wendat or the Cree….. But that is where it ends- no right of return has been established for the Wyandot in Kansas or Oklahoma to Georgian Bay. No reparations are made to the people of Red Lake for the tons of gold taken from their lands. And what do the Innu in Quebec get for standing aside for the Hydro power projects which supply electricity to millions in Canada and the NE USA ?
Not much. In some cases not even electricity.
The entire economy of the settler colonies rests on the basis of the lands taken by conquest and deceitful dealing in the form of treaties and broken promises- offers that it was impossible to refuse.
And that is only part of the story: Germany, France, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden have all feasted off colonies of their own practising the politics that Israel practises.
The entire imperial system- of the ‘West’ – is founded on wealth plundered from places like Palestine, in which Africans, Americans, Malays, Indians and many others were treated, withot benefit of the instant reporting through social media that our current genocide enjoys.
And this is significant- to disown Israel, for countries like Canada, is to question every land title in the registry. It was as recent as 1960, just twelve years after Israel’s establishment, that indigenous Canadians won the right to vote in elections.
And, underneath the cheap talk of liberalism, the status of the descendants of the population of America in 1500 remains that of second class, inferior status. There are hundreds of the communities whose reserve status inspired South Africa’s Bantustans without potable drinking water in Canada. The entire basis of the traditional economies of the hunter gatherers and the horticulturalist nations alike have been erased- the land itself mined of its fertility and poisoned with chemical, fertilisers, pesticides and pollution. River systems have been reduced to sewers for industry- the story of Grassy Narrows an example of the sordid sociopathy of capitalist accumulation: a community poisoned by mercury used to make newsprint, then poured into a pristine river system.
What the Palestinians are struggling against is another iteration of the projects which became Canada, the United States, Australia and that the South Africans for centuries endured, eventually defeating.
There has been much chatter in Canada recently of the role the country played in bringing an end to Apartheid in South Africa. But all that, at best, it amounted to was the withdrawal of vital support for the regime.
And that is all that the Palestinians ask for- not the support of peoples of the ‘west’ but an end to the hostility they show by unfailing solidarity with Zionism. The Palestinians and their Arab neighbours would liberate the country in an afternoon. All that keeps Israel going is the support it gets- diplomatically, militarily, economically and intellectually- from the rulers of Europe, the former British empire and fellow settler colonial projects around the world, including many in Latin America where there has been a see-saw battle between the “white” creoles and the indigenous (with Canada and the US invariably on the fascist creole side) for many years.

Posted by: bevin | Mar 7 2024 18:33 utc | 32

Gaza already has a harbor – why would Washington need to build another one to bring food in ?

Posted by: Exile | Mar 7 2024 18:43 utc | 34

32 bevin
British politicians today are only capable of very limited intellectual effort. Mostly they contribute by keeping it Zipped.

Posted by: Giyane | Mar 7 2024 18:53 utc | 36

Gaza already has a harbor – why would Washington need to build another one to bring food in ?
Posted by: Exile | Mar 7 2024 18:43 utc | 34
_____
Brand-new harbor to be gifted to the Zios. ‘nuf said.

Posted by: malenkov | Mar 7 2024 18:55 utc | 38

Oh man this hilarious and utterly depressing. I don’t know whether to fall of my perch laughing or cry into my corn flakes…
Biden to announce US will build port on Gaza shore for large-scale aid delivery: President to make announcement in State of the Union speech while senior US official says “We are not waiting on the Israelis”
I bet it’s the beginning of an LNG processing hub. The cynicism and evil of these fucks knows no bounds.

Posted by: Patroklos | Mar 7 2024 19:02 utc | 40

ELECTION 2024 Language of Psychopathy w/e March 9
Background Press Call on Humanitarian Aid for Gaza Ahead of the State of the Union
140,896 MREs delivered to 1.2M Palestinians and a NEW! “maritime corridor” to the shore of Gaza designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, constructed by Anyonebut US Army boots-on-ground. Any. day. now.

Posted by: sln2002 | Mar 7 2024 19:20 utc | 42

@ TM | Mar 7 2024 14:34 utc | 1
A very good, important point, that Israel is not now and never has been an asset or a help of any kind to the US.
So then why has the US so relentlessly backed Israel?
Mainly, I think, because it hasn’t actually cost the US elite anything. It has been expensive, but a lot of that expense has been borne by and shoved off onto others, and also has come back to the MIC. Until this change, this year, now, the cost hasn’t been prohibitive. This has concealed the fact that the political interests of the Zionist State of Israel and the US are not only divergent but also contradictory.
Now Israel is ruining everything for the US, and those without firm commitments to Israel in the establishment are beginning to push back against it. Those with firm commitments to Israel are more prevalent the higher you get to the top echelons of the government and elite, and even some of these are beginning to have doubts.
So now it is revealed that, because of the way dyed-in-the-wool supporters of Israel, who are not even all Jews, as so entwined in the US system, the US divesting itself of Israel will tear the US political fabric apart. This becomes an acute contradiction when the US clash of interests with the Israeli ones reaches an extreme crisis, as it is doing. The cost of Israel to the US is exploding. This business will never be the same again.

Posted by: Cabe | Mar 7 2024 19:25 utc | 44

Oliver, indeed that is an interesting question because Roosevelt met Jan Karski who told him everything about the death camps as early as 1943.

Posted by: Minaa | Mar 7 2024 19:27 utc | 46

My assumption is that Israel has a lot of support among Americans billionaires, many of whom are quite effective at political financing. The American billionaire class either supports Zionism or is indifferent to Zionism.
The support used to be argued to be due to the Jewish vote but I don’t buy that. American Jews (the non billionaire ones) live predominantly in blue states so their votes are irrelevant, and a lot of young American Jews don’t support Israel.
Posted by: Afro | Mar 7 2024 14:46 utc | 4
The Jewish billionaires sway politics through donations, both to defeat candidates perceived as hostile to Israel like Ron Paul and Ilhan Omar ($6mill+ last cycle), and to support those seen as friendly (Tom Cotton, Menendez, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Barrosso etc ) with unlimited resources to keep their seat from challengers, who usually arw scared away. Those non Jewish billionaires are usually indifferent to Israel beyond the usual American attitude towards Israel.
Most corporate interests donate to politicians to serve their own interests, which usually means local politics and the House, which is where most domestic policy is made. The Presidency and the Senate are where foreign policy is made, so the Zionists have little to no competition, and the defense industry which also rely on Senate and Presidential approvals for arms sales and donations, usually have the same goals as the Zionists.

Posted by: Delhiliterally | Mar 7 2024 19:33 utc | 48

@ Patroklos | Mar 7 2024 18:36 utc | 33
It may be that there is oil and gas off the coast of Gaza, but that is not the main Israeli interest or motivation in pursuing this genocide.
For Israel, there is really only one issue: Armed Palestinian resistance cannot be countenanced at all. If armed Palestinian resistance is not crushed utterly, Israel will have to negotiate, but the Zionist maximalists who want all of Palestine can’t do that, because they have nothing whatever to offer and because they intend to commit still more atrocities. So it is all about the Palestinians having dared to fight back. While this is not in truth an existential struggle for all the Israelis, in the sense that the Palestinians for the most part do not intend to remove them from Green-Line Israel, it is an existential struggle for maximalist Zionism, because if they lose the edge of imposing their will by force, they will have to consider, negotiate with, and at least make some concessions to the Palestinians, ending forever their dream of ridding themselves of the Palestinians completely.
Certainly the Zionist maximalist ideology is exclusionary, racist, murderous and genocidal in intent and policy, and that clashes with and violates any actual or suggested moral standards of the contemporary world. Support of it by western politicians is an atrocity and a crime for which they should never, ever be forgiven. Indeed, since their support of it is so harmful to their own national interests in every case, they rather should be put on trial for capital treason in their own countries and if found guilty hanged like the Nuremberg criminals.

Posted by: Cabe | Mar 7 2024 19:39 utc | 50

Exile 34
Like Caesarea 6 AD , the new port will be called Biderrhea and last 40 years.

Posted by: Giyane | Mar 7 2024 19:43 utc | 52

@ bevin | Mar 7 2024 18:33 utc | 32
Great post with details on Canada’s dealings with the displaced indigenous. Thanks.
Indeed, all settler states are similar, and that definitely plays a role in the support in those states for the Zionist colonization of Palestine.
I would say there are six successful 100% settler states: the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Uruguay, in that each of these succeeded in imposing a mainly white European settler population on a land populated by aboriginal tribes, who mostly were killed or died as a result. There were also numerous unsuccessful European settler ventures which tried and failed to achieve majority status in the colonized lands, so that their settlement was eventually reversed, including the Dutch & British in South Africa, the British in Zimbabwe and part of Kenya, the Germans and then the Afrikaaners in Namibia, the Portuguese in Angola, the French in Algeria, and the Italians in Libya. There are also many other settlement ventures of different character, partial success, or involving only parts of countries.
Typically, these ventures had a hard core and a lot of ambiguous and messy details. Hence the latter-day concessions to the surviving indigenous made in the successful settler colonies listed above. Amends were made, but only very late and only where these could be afforded. Hence the nearly complete physical annihilation of the indigenous in the original 13 British colonies that formed the US, then the expulsion of whole peoples farther west into Indian Territory=Oklahoma, then the creation mostly in the US west of the Indian reservations, mostly on land deemed worthless and undesirable by the settlers, and later these were cut back by more demand for settlement, and finally, in the 20th century, some amends, some restoration of small bits of government land to reservations, and so on. And some of this has made life better for at least some of the indigenous, but it never is allowed to touch any vital interest of the usurpers, and making amends is especially only possible because of the smallness of the remaining aboriginal populations. Even so, where local settler interests are threatened, the settlers continue their traditional hostility to the indigenous. This is exemplified by the case of the Lakota Sioux in Western South Dakota, where the fewness of the whites and the largeness of the Lakota population make that a continuing sore point clash. But people back in Pennsylvania can support the Lakota to salve their guilty consciences, but it is no skin off their noses, because no indigneous exist who may come back to Pennsylvania in any number.
So Israel is in a different situation than other settler states, living with over seven million Palestinians still in Palestine and an equal number displaced elsewhere, while the whole Israeli Jewish population is likewise only seven million. This certainly accounts for the harshness of Israeli attitudes against the Palestinians; they feel their venture may fail, and indeed it might, and it certainly in any case seems unlikely to prevail in its exclusionary form.

Posted by: Cabe | Mar 7 2024 20:05 utc | 54

Posted by: Cynic | Mar 7 2024 20:07 utc | 55
That and/or the Leviathan gas fields…

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 7 2024 20:08 utc | 56

For all those whom think that Israel is leading the Empire by the nose rather than the other way round here is a quote that should disabuse you of that idea.
In 1986 then Senator Biden (Delaware) form the Senate floor in discussion of sending Israel aid he uttered the following:
“[Supporting Israel] is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region.”
1. https://ca.news.yahoo.com/fact-check-biden-once-said-203300571.html

Posted by: canuck | Mar 7 2024 20:11 utc | 58

bevin | Mar 7 2024 18:33 utc | 32
** The real reason why the imperialists supported, or came to support the Zionist project was very simple: it fitted in exactly with their own world view. It was an extension of the settler colonial project which is central to the Empire. To everything out of Israel-every enormity, every crime Australia, Canada and the US can say “Been there. Done that.”***
That misses out one very major factor …. religion and pro-zionist brainwashing.

Posted by: Cynic | Mar 7 2024 20:15 utc | 60

the U.S. military will establish a port on Gaza’s coast that will be used to get aid in
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 7 2024 18:14 utc | 28
Anything and any propaganda to win back the Arab vote and maintain Israel’s stranglehold and genocide of Palestinians.

Posted by: Menz | Mar 7 2024 20:28 utc | 62

Holy Smokes!
Where did my post go!!

Posted by: librul | Mar 7 2024 20:30 utc | 64

Ralph Nader
@RalphNader
·
2h
On any given day Israeli soldiers seize twice as many Palestinians and throw them in prisons. The Israeli hostage/Palestinian hostage exchange negotiations need to be viewed in that context. -R
https://twitter.com/RalphNader/status/1765804810136068414
Ralph Nader
@RalphNader
The focus on the 100+ Israeli hostages in Gaza is not matched by the focus on many thousands of Palestinian hostages abducted into Israeli jails without charges or trials. Many of them are children and women.
https://twitter.com/RalphNader/status/1765804808928194720

Posted by: Menz | Mar 7 2024 20:34 utc | 66

For being a good puppy!
Middle East Eye
@MiddleEastEye
Egypt signed a $8bn deal with the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday after months of speculations, which includes a $5bn increase from an original deal, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced
https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1765712645338882277

Posted by: Menz | Mar 7 2024 20:40 utc | 68

None of these are ever mentioned in the MSM:
Younis Tirawi | يونس
@ytirawi
🧵 In this exclusive thread 2.0, we will reveal dozens of war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip revealed for 1st time. Incidents incl looting from shops, genocidal statements, religious mockery, and confessing to blowing up a mosque due to boredom (1/18)
https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1765747246190952491

Posted by: Menz | Mar 7 2024 20:42 utc | 70

In the first century
In the first century in the Levant “slave” and “Canaanite” were synonyms: “Canaanite slavery”.
We are back to square one: the Sadducean priestly aristocracy, the Roman-American general Pontius Pilate, and the subjugated “people of the land” (“am ha’eretz”)

Posted by: Simon | Mar 7 2024 20:44 utc | 72

Robert Martin 🇵🇸
@Robert_Martin72
“We can have different views about Hamas as a political party. We can have different views about armed resistance. But I think it is more honest and historically correct to say that the uprising of October 7 was an act of armed resistance. It is not a terrorist attack and it’s not an antisemitic attack. It was an attack against Israelis.”
American Philosopher Judith Butler stresses that the military operation on October 7th was an act of resistance.
https://twitter.com/Robert_Martin72/status/1765231890234261794

Posted by: Menz | Mar 7 2024 20:45 utc | 74

@Posted by: librul | Mar 7 2024 20:44 utc | 73
Looks like using a link to ZH was causing my posts to be filtered.
Here is the anthology:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/02/palestine-open-thread-2024-058.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef02c8d3abbe0d200b#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef02c8d3abbe0d200b

Posted by: librul | Mar 7 2024 20:46 utc | 76

Zionism is
(1) The doctrine that says: the lands of La Mancha in Spain belong to the readers of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
(2) It is the biblical doctrine that establishes a brutal distinction between a dominant “people” (a “HerrenVolk”) and a subjugated population: “the people of the land” (“am ha’eretz”)

Posted by: Simon | Mar 7 2024 20:54 utc | 78

RE: Posted by: Menz | Mar 7 2024 20:40 utc | 68
Originally it was 10 billion. I think framed that way on purpose. Egypt was chopped 2 billion for disobedience.
It was never 3 billion. It’s framed this way to make it look like Egypt was bought off.
They wouldn’t have moved to their “port” machination’s and delusions if they could just use Egypt to finish their plans.
The port is to expel and deport Palestinians.
But it’s another delusion.

Posted by: Trubind1 | Mar 7 2024 20:57 utc | 80

Simon | Mar 7 2024 20:44 utc | 71
*** We are back to square one: the Sadducean priestly aristocracy, the Roman-American general Pontius Pilate, and the subjugated “people of the land” (“am ha’eretz”)***
Not quite …. Pilate had to carry out demands/requests from the religious leaders, but that was less drastic than letting them impose their laws full-force. An unstable region, where small outbreaks of violence, or bandit gangs, could be dealt with by the Roman army but not large-scale violence as there were simply not enough Roman troops readily available there.
Rome tried (cannot recall if it was before or after Pilate’s time) to form a Jewish legion within the Roman army, recruitment as in other occupied provinces — but found that although the signed-up soldiers were no problem the attendant rabbis (numerous religions had priests attached to Roman legions) were a constant source of internal and external trouble and quibbles. So the Roman army gave up on that idea, and any soldiers wishing to continue got a transfer to another legion.

Posted by: Cynic | Mar 7 2024 21:03 utc | 82

Judaism was once a religion but ceased to be a religion as the rabbis forged an ethnicity that flourished in Poland-Ukraine. Judaism was a religion that was present in “all the nations of the world” (Flavius Josephus) of the ancient Persian, Greek and Roman world, which was the whole world seen from the Mediterranean.
The Likud comes from the Irgun, a Polish Ukrainian anti-Semitic terrorist group that hates the Hebrew roots of “the land of Canaan”.
The Great Temple was not built by a Ukrainian fanatic, but by an Arab king: Herod the Great.

Posted by: Simon | Mar 7 2024 21:07 utc | 84

maybe Bibi is a pyromaniac, as well as being a sociopathic genocidal monster
https://twitter.com/ejmalrai/status/1765703265377755458
#Israel wants the war to spread to #Lebanon, #Syria, #Iraq, #Iran and #Yemen, to bring the #US into the war and to keep @Netanyahu in power as long as possible.
Basically he is creating an ‘incendium magnum Romae’ and wants to burn everything, including Israel.
https://twitter.com/ejmalrai/status/1765731375238271143
#US carried out 4 Air drop (Every air drop is equal to 1 full truck) over #Gaza but failed to allow 1000s of trucks to access the besieged city. This theatre won’t earn the US any “humanitarian credit”, particularly when over 1000 shipment of US weapons were delivered to #Israel.

Posted by: michaelj72 | Mar 7 2024 21:25 utc | 86

Biden gonna build that “aid” port in Gaza… convenient place to export Palestinians too.

Posted by: Peter b | Mar 7 2024 21:38 utc | 88

The EU had also recently described setting up a maritime relief effort working from Cyprus. Probably same as US plan. Note this will be run by respective militaries. The Maritime effort from Turkey announced back in the Fall never happened.
The Guardian piece on the US port-building scheme never once mentions the US weapons deliveries to Israel. the naval effort to secure deliveries to Israel via Red Sea, or the UN Security Council vetoes against ceasefire resolutions.
Always a class act, the IDF earlier today dropped leaflets across Gaza wishing the residents there all the best during the Ramadan “fast”.

Posted by: jayc | Mar 7 2024 21:56 utc | 90

EGYPT
Ras al-Hekma: How Egypt is exchanging land to unlock Gulf funds
[…] Egyptian officials last weekend entered a $35 billion agreement with the UAE to develop the north coast resort of Ras al-Hekma. The landmark deal will bring much-needed foreign currency to Cairo and has caused the black market to crumble.
“It’s a surprise for everyone,” Egypt analyst Maged Mandour told The New Arab. “It was announced now because the currency crisis is reaching a peak.”
The agreement between the UAE and Cairo involves a fast exchange of funds and $15 billion is arriving immediately, followed by another $20 billion within two months. Egypt’s prime minister Mostafa Madbouly expressed relief that the project would help the FX crisis, saying, “This investment would contribute to resolving [it]”.
[…] A further sale of Ras Gamila in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF is on the horizon.
[…] The timing of the announcement is equally important, as Egypt must pay a record high of $29.23 billion of external debt service in fiscal 2024
https://www.newarab.com/analysis/ras-al-hekma-how-egypt-exchanging-land-gulf-funds
Hmmmm

Posted by: Don Firineach | Mar 7 2024 22:25 utc | 92

Thought experiment:
Given what we know about the levels of barbarity, genocidal bloodlust, willingness to flout and violate any rules or conventions that may in any way apply to “modern” warfare being exhibited by the leaders of Israel – not to mention the encyclopedia of genocidal statements they’ve made openly – is it really that contentious or unthinkable that, at least on some level, in some compartmentalized way, within some segment of the same government, there was a willingness to stand down partly or completely, for a given amount of time on October 7, inclusive of intentionally understaffing certain areas of defense and/or intentionally handicapping intelligence gathering and the interception of Hamas radio communications?
Now, is it, really?
This is to say nothing about the types and amounts of surveillance we are told that Israel employs within and around the walls of Gaza/

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 7 2024 22:28 utc | 94

Harry Truman .. Wilson .. these two were two of the most eminently useful idiots to occupy the oval office. Looking at that gov history page, you see old Harry was certainly ‘courted’ and managed. Who was courting and managing Stalin? It is entirely possible the Zionists first made their deal with Kremlin and then dear old Harry was cajoled to take one giant crap for mankind. And then uncle Joe, ‘fashionably late’, says, why not? “Let’s poke the anglo-saxons in the eye!” Da.
The puzzle must be solved conceptually before it can be solved on the ground ..

Posted by: sunof27 | Mar 7 2024 22:34 utc | 96

Posted by: Trubind1 | Mar 7 2024 20:57 utc | 80
The port is to expel and deport Palestinians.
—————-
I’ve been thinking along the same lines. The Jews still have two million Palestinians to murder. On a practical matter, that’s a lot of bodies to deal with.
My guess is when the attack on Raffa begins, the Jews will set up machine gun nests and kill until the bodies pile up too high. Then I expect they will load the dead into trucks, drive them onto the new dock, put them on ships and dump them into the ocean. Then machine gun the next group.
It would make a better show for the international community if they dumped the Palestinians into the ocean live, and it would save on bullets too.

Posted by: Chas | Mar 7 2024 22:42 utc | 98

Always a class act, the IDF earlier today dropped leaflets across Gaza wishing the residents there all the best during the Ramadan “fast”.
Posted by: jayc | Mar 7 2024 21:56 utc | 90
———–
I saw that. The leaflets say, “provide for the needy and speak kindly.”

 They also state that they (the Jews) wish that the Palestinians’ fasts are accepted during Ramadan.
Provide for the needy that Israel created. Mocking them for fasting while they deliberately starve the Palestinians. For a group that was tormented for their religion, the Israelis sure are nasty MF’ers to anyone who isn’t Jewish.
Anyway, here’s a link to a blurb about the leaflets:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israel-air-drops-ramadan-leaflets-gaza-calling-them-feed-needy#:~:text=A%20Palestinian%20journalist%20reported%20on,the%20needy%20and%20speak%20kindly.”

Posted by: teri | Mar 7 2024 22:48 utc | 100