Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels

As the Women in Black marched away from the demo, many people yelled insults after them. This woman yelled "our settlements are not going anywhere" as the few moderate supporters of Israel left.

I think this is a picture of the Isreali consul general for San Francisco (http://www.israelemb.org/sanfran/AboutUs/)
and one of the main web sites advertising this rally
(http://www.sfjcf.org/whoweare/news/041402rallyforisrael.shtml)

On the point that not too many "progressives" have shown up at the Palestinian rallies: All these rallies have been during the day. Some of us have jobs. I expect that there will be plenty of support this Saturday.

I went to a demo at the Israeli consulate a week ago Friday. There were maybe 500-600 anti-Zionist demonstrators and maybe 600-700 pro-Zionist demonstrators. I went to a demo at the Israeli consulate last Wed. There were maybe 200 anti-Zionist demonstrators and six pro-Zionist demonstrators. I didn’t go to the one on Thursday. I had to work. I went to the last Friday. There were maybe 150-200 anti-Zionist demonstrators and one (count him), ONE pro-Zionist demonstrator.

Today, there were two separate demos, one pro- and one anti-. I didn’t go to either. Personal business kept me away. I heard two TV news reports. Their estimates of both demo sizes varied by thousands of people. Since I wasn’t there to see for myself, and never in thirty years have I heard the TV get it right even once about a demo I saw for myself, I don’t know how many people turned out.

As far as I’m concerned, if you didn’t show up to at least one of these demos, you are not a progressive. Shame on you. You should have been there. What’s the matter, you think the world is going to save itself?

Fortunately, you can redeem yourself. Start Saturday. Get off your ass and into the street. Join the Carnival Against Carnage, at 19th and Dolores at 11AM.

A progressive missing out on a possible opportunity for mischief...What is this world coming to!!

Chris Drater

Good one! That's so true! Also, Jefferson was a racist. He even threatened his black mistress if she didn't leave his state with her children. I don't know if it's all true, because I wasn't there, but if it's true, our Founding Father was not perfect, not even close!

Jefferson, in 1822, owned 267 slaves.

Guess he wasn't perfect.

Er, I'm sorry; I have a hard time seeing the Palestinian cause as "progressive" when they are blowing themselves and Israeli civilians into small gorey bits.

Maybee Israelis are naughty people; guilty for the sins of their ancestors in taking over that part of the world, but they don't deserve to be blown into smithereens any more than a Palestinian civilian does or a white Zimbabwean does. And, please, don't give me any nonsense about their being the moral equivalent of Nazis: if they were, not only would there be no Palestinians, there would be no Arabs. They certainly have the military power to take over the whole region.

-Lupo
-Lupo

Actually, SF is failing its Jewish community -- in SF State University Holocaust Rememberance Day was forsaken for an anti-Semitic demonstration of Palestinian Arabs. To so-called "liberals" Jewish people only exist in the context of Arab-Israeli conflict, we are viewed as a problem only. San Francisco Chronicle, too, only reports on pro-Israeli rallies if there is a pro-Palestinian rally going on side by side. SF Chronicle simply ignored the 5 thousand strong rally you mentioned. Another event took place about a week ago when an equally peaceful demonstration of Israel supporters was faced with an ugly croud of people, most of whom seem to be of Arab origin. SF Chronicle, as well as all other major US media only showed the even from afar. Why no close ups? Because the anti-Israel protesters were threatening the mostly Jewish demonstrators across the street. Russian-langauge local press (Kstati) printed pictures of the generaly male Arab side articulating with gestures that they wish to cut out heads off. Check it out. At the same time, pro-Israel emonstration was chanting "5,6, 7, 8 -- teach your children not to hate". I think it's a little irrelevant; this generation of Arab children is completely lost for peace. The most aggressive signs read "Peace without Arafat", and "Sharon stop coding". I personally think we need to assasinate Arafat and move aggressively against terror. Operation Defencive Wall is a greaet tactical success and we should go on with it. It's pretty amazing that the world fails to be outraged when hundreds of Israelis are dying in the hands of Arab terrorists.

Mainstrem US media never raises this question, but yes, Jordanians are the same people as Palestinian Arabs. There is 22 Arab states in the world already, one of which is Palestinian. And hey, I'm a Palestinian too, and I'm Jewish!

SF Chrinicle refers to Jenin residents as "survivors" making a mockery out of the Holocaust. Holocaust survivors were indeed survivors, very few were saved. Out of 13,000 residents of Jenin, on the other hand, less then 100 died in fighting -- that's fraction of 1%! It's like you had to try to get killed (which they did). Moreover, there are important qualitative differences between the victims of Holocaust (loyal civilians who were simply slaughtered) and non-victims of Jenin (mostly terrorists who invaded Israel on a daily basis). Terrorists indeed got mail!

Terrorists were acing out of assumption that might makes right when they invaded Isreal and slaughtered civilians. Israel is simply playing the game that terrorists had started. And, indeed, Israel will be victorioius!

Israelis want peace. Unfortunately, this organization, like all other diolog-type initiatives, is a one-way street; majority of the members are Jews and Israelis. Most Jews and Israelis, however, realize the futility of such initiatives. Most of us realize that sometimes to have peace you need to fiht a war, just like it was the case with Hitler.

The demonstration was very peaceful, although mostof us realize the futility of WIB's efforts. Settlements are Israel's first line of defense. Moreover, if 1.2 mln Arabs live in Israel, why 200,000 Jews can't live in PA? What, do you want ethnicaly clean Palestine?

I don't get it -- is the what's so incriminating about this picture? The fact that an Israeli participated? An Israeli doesn't have the freedom of speach in this country? Where are the signs that read "Israel wants peace?" Did you not notice them. Another good sign was a golda Meir's quote "There will be no peace in the Middle East until Arabs will start loving their children more then they hate Jews".

As evidents from this picture the rally was a nice and calm event. Throughout history Jewish people were always relatively non-violent which irritates the hell out of some people, particularly the once resoponcible for the Holocaust. It simply irritates them. they want to see Jews commiting atrocities. Fat chance! We will fight for ourselves, but that's our right, we will not be victims again!

The reason why there is a lack of support for the Palestinian cause is because American people can identify terrorism when they see it. I like how you said "some of us have jobs". Some of the all-purpose protesters do have regular jobs. I'm sure. But why not to have a demonstration on a day off, the way we did it? Because you won't gather 5,000 people, let alone 100,000. Many of pro-Palestinian supporters don't know the basic facts about Arab-Israeli conflict, as was evident from the interviews taken from Berkeley students during a recent protest. They were saying things like "Palestinians were occupied for 10 years". And yet they felt strong enough about the cause to actually protest. The attraction of the pro-palestinian events to young white people as well as aging boomers lies in the fact that they feel that they are rebelling against parental authority. Some colored people mistakenly believe that Israelis are white when majority of them are refugies from the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, and some colored people in US (not, notably MLK's son) make a moral judgement on the basis of the assumption about the skin color. That's racism.

Again, all the demonstrations you mentioned were held on work days and were poorly advertized. This Saturday was a big one (estimated 5,000 had attended). Predictably, "peace process" had failed and US "doves" are disenchanted.

Lupo, you should know better. There is no Palestinian, only Arabs living in Palestine. They are alive and well, not threatened by IDF, contrary to popular belief.

Fry the IDF!

Ana B is a bit mixed up, I'd say. She emphasizes that there was a sign that says "Israel wants peace," but what does this mean in the context of an Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and of the continuing massacres, arrests and house demolitions in the West Bank by the IDF. I'll tell you what it means - it doesn't mean sh-t. It's lying propaganda. Many war-mongers claim they want peace -- only after they've gotten what they've wanted. After they've conquered another people and another land, sure they want peace. Every side claims to want peace during war.

Ana B. also says, "Another good sign was a golda Meir's quote "There will be no peace in the Middle East until Arabs will start loving their children more then they hate Jews". --- it's a good sign if you're a f-cking racist. It's unbelievable that ANYBODY could claim a sign that claims Arabs don't love their children and are a bunch of anti-semites is "good." Get real.. look at the historic oppression of jews and learn a lesson. That's what history is supposed to be good for - that the mistakes and atrocities are not repeated. End the racist policies of the Israeli government and get out of the Occupied Territories. The Palestinians are asking for a state on merely 22% percent of historic Palestine, and yet there are people like those fascists at the pro-Israel rally who are goading on further incursions into Palestinian land.

Another thing -- the Jewish settlers aren't just a group of benign villagers. They're colonizers, often racist and often violent. If they were just seeking to live peacefully with the Palestinians, that would be a whole other story. But they're not. They have access to a disproportionate amount of the resources in the territories and are rabid Zionists who have a claim to all of Palestine for the state of Israel. They're there to perpetuate the continued oppression and disspossesion of the Palestinian people. You're lying to yourself and everybody else when you claim otherwise.

I'm a jew and a ardent anti-Zionist. Get the hell out of the occupied territories!! All Palestinians should have the right of return. It's absurd that jews from L.A. (or wherever) have the "right of return" to a land they've never been to, while people kicked off their land can't go back. There's not moral justification for this racist policy.

Stop fighting each other!
The real enemy is the Illuminati.

If you want to fry IDF, I think it will be only fair if IDF will fry you.

Israel wants peace; Israel didn't start this "intifada". "Intifada" didn't errupt sopntaneously, it follows the blueprint developed by the KGB as early as 1940's.
Although PA only holds 22% of historic Palestine, Arab people hold omst of the Middle East; there is 22 Arab states, by the way. On the other hand, there is no such thing as a historic Palestinian, only Arabs living in Palestine. Again, look through history books and try to figure out just when Arabs of the West Bank desided to be Palestinians. And then deside if they actually have a claim to nationality -- they are generic Arab people.
Congratulation on your anti-Zionist Jewish identity hope you'll make friends, esp. emong the baby boomers.
As far as "occupation" of West Bank and alleged massacares --- you'd think that in a city of 13,ooo which Jenin is, they would know by know who is dead and who is alive. And if people are talking of mass grave, then they must know where they are, otherwise they are simply not reliiable sorces. Their culture and folklore still need to be studies, but as culture and folklore only.

This thread has nothing to do with patriotism. If anything the two groups advocating postions of two foreign/non-US nations at the possible expense of the US is non-patriotic. Isreal is not a US cause and neither is Palestine. People who identify with the US should push to have the US stand back from both sides and watch our interests. And Isreal IS NOT in the US interest anymore than Palestinian interests are.

Here's why: Look, France is full of French people. If Arabs took over part of France by conquest, but only part, it would still be wrong. Of course the Arab World is full of Arabs.

But EUROPEAN JEWS backed by England and then the United States have absolutely no right to come and steal land through ethnic cleansing. This is what they have done and are doing.

Apologists for Israeli war crimes can call the rest of us anti-Semites all they want. We are motivated by respect for all human life, not a fanatic belief that we are some chosen people exempted from any standard of human rights because we were oppressed decades ago.

Israel will never know peace until the day it falls.

Don't forget: Israel sold US nuclear secrets (stolen by its spies in our goverment) to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, that's how much Israel loves the US. There is ample proof -- they still want spy Jonathan Pollard freed. Look his name up some time.

Like the Nazis, the Israelis are motivated by a doctrine of supremacy. Some Israelis on this site even seem to hint that Israel might somehow destroy the United States if we do not stick with their agenda. Ultimately, US citizens must turn against Israel and, by cutting off economic and military support, help crush the Occupation.

start here: http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org

Golda: There has not been one Israeli threat against the US nor have any posters suggested that -- you are lying.

As for BurningMan -- I'm glad to see that your valuation of non-Jews' lives over those of Jews has been exposed. Anti-Semitism is a real problem and as much as you try to devalue Jewish lives and claim that Jews have no origins in the Middle East before 1948 and are all White and are there for "colonialist oppressor reasons" history does not fit neatly into your pidgeon holes. Israel was the historic home of Jews up to Roman times, there was a Jewish presence there when Islam first emerged, during the time of the Crusades and in the 18th and 19th Centuries. There are African Jews, Middle Eastern Jews and European Jews. There were millions of Jewish refugees after World War II and no place to put them but Palestine under the restrictive immigration laws that were still in effect and given the intollerance of Eastern European nations to Jews.

Jews and Israelis want peace but they also want security -- the right to live free from the prejudice which they have been heaped with for centuries. If the Palestinians and Arabs stop hatemongering with blood libels and anti-Semitic stereotyping in their media and textbooks and are willing to recognize Israel's existence and right to freedom from fear, self-determination can happen for Palestinians in the West Bank, Arab E Jerusalem and Gaza. Peace and human rights are and must be a two way street.

And would you have us believe that Israel did not betray the US by giving nuclear secrets to the USSR during the Cold War?

Cat got your tongue?

I will not dignify your anti-Semitic allegation that because I am Jewish and concerned about Jewish lives I must be a spy.

And as for your allegations regarding nuclear secrets -- I have no such knowledge and no sense of the salience of what you said to my remarks.

Hate mongering is wrong in all forms. If I said this kind of stuff about Moslems people would rightly jump all over me. You should be ashamed!

I guess DD stands for Dumbass Dickhead.
You are not the "Israeli Spy," asshole, Jonathan Pollard is. But look at yourself! You barely need any reason to start shrieking about anti-semitism. . . you see it oozing out of the walls, don't you?

Jonathan Pollard Was No Jewish Patriot
by Eric Margolis
The Toronto Sun, Jan. 14, 1999

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The case of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard has again reared its ugly head. American Jewish groups, Hollywood celebrities and Israel have renewed pressure on the besieged Clinton administration to free the man they call "the Jewish Dreyfus." Pollard has served 13 years of a life sentence.

President Bill Clinton is loath to antagonize America's politically powerful Jewish community, which strongly supports the Democratic party. But the president is also under intense pressure from the national security community not to free the Israeli spy. CIA director George Tenent has threatened to resign if Pollard is pardoned. Seven former U.S. secretaries of defence, some of whom are Jewish, also demanded Pollard remain in prison for life.

After years of denials, Israel finally admitted Pollard, a U.S. Navy civilian analyst, was not a "rogue agent," as it originally claimed, but a spy for Israeli intelligence.

Pollard caused enormous damage to U.S. national security. He gave Israel top-secret U.S. military intelligence and diplomatic codes; names of nearly 100 U.S. agents in the Mideast, who were then "turned" by Israel; NSA code-breaking techniques and targets; intercepts of foreign communications; and U.S. war-fighting plans for the Mideast.

According to CIA sources, Pollard provided Israeli intelligence with names of important American agents inside the former

Soviet Union and Russia who had supplied information on East Bloc weapons and war plans. How the agents' names were linked to the secrets they supplied - a major breach of basic intelligence security - remains a mystery.

Some of the enormously sensitive secrets stolen by Pollard may have been either sold, or bartered, by Israel to the Soviet Union.

A number of key CIA agents in the East Bloc were allegedly executed as a result of Pollard's spying. The KGB likely gained access to top-secret U.S. codes - either directly from Israel, or through spies in Israel's government. In short, Pollard's treachery caused one of the worst security disasters in modern U.S. history.

FBI investigators discovered Pollard was being directed to steal specific secret data by a senior administration official, known as "Mr. X." But the White House, unwilling to stir up a domestic political storm, quashed the investigation.

To my knowledge, three previous cases of high-ranking U.S. government officials caught passing top-secret information to Israel have been similarly hushed up. Two were senior defence department officials under Ronald Reagan, one a top state department official in a previous administration. None was prosecuted.

Pollard's defenders claim he, like French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus in 1894, is a victim of anti-Semitism in the military. They maintain Pollard was "only" spying for a friendly country, motivated solely by concern for Israel's security. These assertions are patently false. Pollard was suspected for some time of spying. Investigation was held off precisely because of fears of raising cries of anti-Semitism. Pollard took large sums of money and jewelry from Israeli agents in payment for spying.

With remarkable chutzpah, Israel, which receives up to $5 billion in U.S. aid annually, refuses to return documents stolen by Pollard, or allow U.S. intelligence to debrief Mossad agents who ran Pollard in order to learn the full extent of the disaster. While Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu kept calling for Pollard's release on "humanitarian" grounds, he refused to free prisoner of conscience Mordechai Vanunu, now serving 18 years in solitary confinement in Israel for telling a British newspaper about Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Pollard is no Jewish patriot. He is a traitor who sold out his country, and fellow intelligence officers, for money, then claimed he was being persecuted by anti-Semites.

Victim he is not. To the contrary, Pollard is a poster boy for anti-Semitism. His treason unfairly exposes all American Jews to hate, and accusations of doubtful loyalty.

Jonathan Pollard is a traitor of the worst kind - not a second Dreyfus - and should stay in prison.

now that Israel's backstabbery of the US has been revealed, here's a site that presents Pollard as a symbol of "Jewish Unity."


http://www.jonathanpollard.org/unity.htm

You can slam Jews and slam Israel all that you want that still won't make you right, no matter how expletive laden you make your diatribe.

Shame on you for hatemongering. You have become what you claim to despise and are blind to your own vitrolic bigotry. If any objective observer looks at this thread there is more than ample evidence of Anti-Semitism that some of you so obviously harbor. Shame!

Wow. Imagine that. DD calling someone an anti-semite in order to avoid dealing with complex issues or putting forth a logical argument.

As a scoundrelous patriot, I propose that the entire US military budget for Israel this year be diverted to the Palestinians.