The Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli Connection

It is wide open now. Israelis are training Americans at Fort Bragg on their well tested techniques for carrying out targeted--and of course extrajudicial--assassinations. Americans in Iraq are copying this and all the other wretchedly cruel, unjust (and failed) Israeli occupation tactics in the West Bank and Gaza, tactics that the U.S. through its massive aid enables and encourages Israel to pursue. It is impossible to exaggerate the stupidity and just plain evil of the Bush administration in transferring such copycat policies to Iraq, at a time when hatred of U.S. policies is already rising daily around the world. The training of assassination teams is only one of many manifestations of the United States' "Israeli connection."

At the same time, almost all influential individuals and groups in the U.S. political landscape still shy away from discussing the degree to which this Israeli connection has been a major factor in determining the entire complex of U.S. policies on Iraq and the Middle East since September 11. In the eyes of most Americans, the correctness of the ever stronger ties between the right-wing governments of the United States and Israel is simply not to be questioned. (If you do question these ties, you must be prepared to deal either with suspicions of anti-Semitism that may be directed at you, or, more likely, with suggestions that you are simply "too far out" of the mainstream and therefore deserve no further consideration. In the latter case, an unspoken motive of your interlocutors is often that they fear being charged with anti-Semitism, or with being "self-hating Jews," if they seem to agree with you.)

<snip>

http://www.counterpunch.org/christison12132003.html

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

aside of you avoiding the subject when you don't like it, as usual...

just more obvious systematic propagation, by those who have an intense dislike for Israel and would like to see the end of Israel's existance, of their particular viewpoint in an attempt to convince others and sway opinion against Israel. As such, this article is little more than the throw-away byproducts of life.

Clearly, the "Israeli connection, as described in this article, does not exist, and that is the reason their viewpoint is not widely reported and discussed in the mainstream press.

not propaganda...

to quote jimbo...

"Loathsome beyond words"

WHY can't some people ever believe that Israel isn't perfect, that sometimes something negative about Israel may just, perhaps, be true? Why do some people have to label even the slightest criticism or negativity about Israel to "intense dislike of Israel" or, the old standby, "anti-semitism", when it's nothing of the sort?

You can criticize the actions of a country's leaders and some of its policies, and that does NOT mean that you're against the country itself or have an "intense" dislike of it! Am I anti-American because I criticize my country's leaders and some of its policies? NO! The problem is, some people just can't accept ANY criticism or negativity about Israel at all, and no matter who says it or how strong and solid the evidence, they absolutely refuse to even consider it.

I have no trouble at all believing this story, and I'm tired of people just peremptorily dismissing something negative about Israel just because they don't want to hear it or believe it! Of course, it it were the other way around, there'd be no question at all about it, now, would there?

Total silence from certain posters!

do YOU think are relevant. Actually, much of it is probably irrelevant since the capture of Saddam two days after the publication of this article.

Israel just released information on a cancelled assassination program targeting the same man. Because of a training error that killed five IDF soldiers and wounded more, the program was shelved.

These FORMER CIA agents may have inside info, and I have no doubt that there is cooperation in military training between the two nations, that has been documented. That many believe aid to Israel is excessive is also well known, but that isn't criticizing Israel per se as you suggest, but of American policy. Some of the responses to this article went far and beyond that.

Does that in any way satisfy your urge to hear from some of the other 35,000 or so DUers?

Saddam changes the whole story. But it doesn't change the fact that some Israeli tactics are not exactly within the bounds of the laws of war and combat, and it's greatly disturbing that such tactics may be taught to our own soldiers.

And that does NOT, in any way, signal approval or failure to recognize, on my part, the brutality and inhumanity of such murderous groups as Hamas, Hezbollah, and their ilk, who would like nothing better than to drive Israel into the sea forever.

assassination squads? wha? ..couldnt' be true. Fort Bragg? where? Never heard of it.

Please can we move on to the next topic....