“This is a universal behavior–the typical unspoken compact between bullies and their victims. Victims feel obliged to show they are still up to the fight, and bullies use this pretense to justify beating them up all the more bloodily.

The bigger question, whether Palestinians can accept the existence of Israel, is to be answered with a qualified yes in my opinion. Of course many can’t, but the majority, including the leadership of both Fatah and Hamas, can. They have also made it plain that they can accept sharing Jerusalem with Israel and would be willing to negotiate some kind of a settlement that pays displaced Palestinians for the property that was confiscated in 1948 and afterwards. What must be provided to them in exchange is a single geographical entity (not cantons) with port facilities having full access to the sea plus an airport of their own and full water rights. The costs for making this happen can be deducted from the relatively generous annual foreign aid provided to both Israel and Egypt in order to guarantee Israel’s success in suppressing the Palestinians. Once this task has been eliminated, much of the aid can be diverted to the Palestinians themselves to expedite their recovery, if such be possible.

Animosity between Israel and the Palestinians has reached such a level that I actually consider the barrier now being constructed to be a necessity. However, I think it should be located not on Palestinian territory, but on Israeli territory adjacent to the boundary line established by treaty.

All this, I think, can be accomplished IF Israel is willing to enter serious negotiations, but, as I’ve repeatedly emphasized in this exchange, it has not, and for the obvious reasons on one hand that it doesn’t want to risk the existence of Palestine as an adjacent nation, and on the other that it wants the territory for itself. This should be obvious to everyone, but as once observed, the hardest sleepers to awaken are those who pretend to be asleep.

This is my final missive, giving Jewboy the opportunity for the last word. But I do want to thank him and everybody else who has participated in this exchange for their vigorous participation. There are now several hundred google hits in response to the chronology plus our arguments, so we’re being heard around the world at a level of debate has been totally excluded from consideration by the orthodox media. This is important in my opinion, giving viewers a two-for-one opportunity to examine a presumably unbiased chronology that turns out to be favorable to Palestinians (which I consider inevitable if it is truly unbiased) and arguments in response to this chronology that unleashes the feelings of both Zionists and anti-Zionists willing to express themselves. Hurrah for us.

One last consideration. My letter yesterday was inexcusably sloppy, my excuse having been that I rushed it out too quickly because of a variety of tasks and obligations I thought I could ignore. I couldn’t. So here it is, my revision that will sooner or later be included in my final draft available on my website:
Just a postscript to Jewboy’s postscript. After everything I’ve said, he’s still got it wrong. It is Israel that stands to benefit from endless hostilities. “Cui bono?” Cicero once asked, which is the most basic question of all in politics: who gets the benefits, or more expressively, exactly who is it that cashes in? In other words, relevant to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, who benefits from a continuation of the status quo, Israel or the Palestinians? Obviously, it is Israel. The three principal reasons why Israel is the primary beneficiary may be listed as follows:

1. They are steadily demolishing Palestinian society with any claim to official status as a nation. After another decade or two Palestinians will be scattered to the winds if the Zionist leadership of Israel have anything to do with it, just as Ben Gurion first recommended.

2. Incessant conflict provides an excellent source of emergency aid from the U.S. We’re already sending too much money and military equipment to Israel, and reports of Palestinian hostility that supposedly indicate a major threat to Israel’s existence, actually serve to pump more subsidization from Congress, which is totally intimidated by the Zionist lobby at this point.

and 3. As in the U.S. the perpetual state of winning wars does a fine job of uniting a nation, at least among its less educated population. It’s like rooting for a football team. Everybody pulls together, the macho big guys take control, and the money people get exactly what they want. The only problem is that the strategy doesn’t last forever. Sooner or later it breaks down, and the sooner the better. Already for the U.S. it might be too late, as so effectively indicated by Chalmers Johnson in his most recent article. And the same might be true of Israel.

So it’s Israel that keeps resisting a peace settlement, just as Dov Weisglass confesses in the passage I quote in the third paragraph of my last letter. However, take it as a rule of thumb, as indicated in one of my earlier letters, THE AGGRESSOR NATION CAN’T SEEM TO BE DOING THIS. As in all conflict, the side that promotes and benefits from hostilities primarily has the task of making it seem that the other side is at fault. We are supposed to believe that Palestinians actually wants a war that they can only lose (as for example in 1939, when Poland seemed on the brink of invading Nazi Germany). But not true. The side with superior military force almost inevitably both seeks and wins the war, and almost always with the excuse that it is an innocent victim that just happened to pull victory out of defeat. Likewise, when war persists endlessly despite a whopping asymmetry between the two combatants, figure it is the dominant combatant that wants to avoid negotiations.

This in fact has been Israel’s basic strategy since 1948. The most recent test of its leadership’s ability to claim innocence while promoting military victory was the misguided 2003 “Roadmap” peace effort of the so-called “Quartet Group” that was declared just six weeks after the Iraq invasion. The tradeoff to help bring Israel into a new round of negotiations was plain: (1) all of the benefits offered by the Arab League in both trade and full diplomatic recognition; and (2) the unacknowledged quid quo pro that the U.S. was finally eradicating Iraq as any kind of a military threat, so peace negotiations could finally be undertaken without any fear from the presumably most dangerous frontier nation.

What U.S. negotiators didn’t quite realize was that the biggest threat of all for Sharon was of being forced into negotiations he did not want and would not be able to dominate. But threat it was, as could be seen in Sharon’s almost immediate response. There was a flurry of assassinations within a day the Roadmap was announced (May 1, 2003), followed by another flurry of assassinations on June 2, just after Bush visited the Arab summit meeting in Cairo. And an intensification of hostilities followed over the next year or two.

But this was not enough to terminate the peace effort. On August 15, 2005, Sharon therefore announced his Unilateral Disengagement Strategy, effectively bypassing Roadmap peace negotiations, which had become moribund but were still festering. However, his unilateral generosity was limited to the liberation of Gaza from Israeli occupiers as well as the closing of four Israeli settlements on the West Bank. “Thank you for Iraq,” he seems to have been saying, but I’ve lost interest in my end of any tradeoff we might have had in mind now that Iraq has been liquidated as a potential enemy. Please to accept Gaza and four settlements as your consolation prize.”

Indeed, the settlements were dismantled, but with almost hysterical resistance by the Zionist residents that seemed staged to provide lots of photo opportunities for the international press. Also, Sharon liberated Gaza as promised, but then he escalated hostilities that soon culminated in a full-scale attack on Gaza’s infrastructure, the invasion of Gaza by Israeli troops, and the killing of hundreds of Gaza residents. U.S. press coverage focused on the Hamas rockets whereby maybe one Israeli was killed for every thirty rockets used, while the devastation wrought on Gaza has mostly been ignored. Even you, Jewboy, resorted to this kind of argument in your last letter–the complaint that the Gaza residents, instead of being grateful for having been given freedom in a zone of their own, resorted to unjustified rocket attacks that necessitated counter attacks. Gimme a break.

I admit that Palestinian militants make a big issue of their successful campaign against Israel, but you should have noticed by now that every time there is any traction toward international negotiations to finally settle the conflict, it is the Palestinians who quickly indicate their cooperation, while Israel resists and soon foments hostilities every way it can until the pursuit of negotiations ends once again. This is a universal behavior–the typical unspoken compact between bullies and their victims. Victims feel obliged to show they are still up to the fight, and bullies use this pretense to justify beating them up all the more bloodily.

You guys emphasize the issue of victimization all the time. It’s become your mantra in fact. So look into to what you are doing, and put it to an end. Again: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

1. They are steadily demolishing Palestinian society with any claim to official status as a nation. After another decade or two Palestinians will be scattered to the winds if the Zionist leadership of Israel have anything to do with it, just as Ben Gurion first recommended.

2. Incessant conflict provides an excellent source of emergency aid from the U.S. We’re already sending too much money and military equipment to Israel, and reports of Palestinian hostility that supposedly indicate a major threat to Israel’s existence, actually serve to pump more subsidization from Congress, which is totally intimidated by the Zionist lobby at this point.

and 3. As in the U.S. the perpetual state of winning wars does a fine job of uniting a nation, at least among its less educated population. It’s like rooting for a football team. Everybody pulls together, the macho big guys take control, and the money people get exactly what they want. The only problem is that the strategy doesn’t last forever. Sooner or later it breaks down, and the sooner the better. Already for the U.S. it might be too late. And the same might be true of Israel.

So it’s Israel that keeps pushing for warfare, just as Dov Weisglass confesses in the passage I quote in the third paragraph of my last letter. However, as indicated in one of my earlier letters, THE AGGRESSOR NATION CAN’T SEEM TO BE DOING THIS. As in all conflict, the side that primarily has the task of making it seem that the other side is at fault and to such an extent that it is actually promoting a war that it can only lose (as for example in 1939, when Poland seemed on the brink of invading Nazi Germany).

The same has been Israel’s basic strategy since 1948. The most recent test of its leadership’s ability to carry it off was the misguided “Roadmap” peace effort of the UN,the U.S., the EU, and Russia. The tradeoff to help lure Israel into such a solution based on Security Council Resolution 242 was plain: (1) all of the benefits offered by the Arab League in both trade and full diplomatic recognition; and (2) the unacknowledged quid quo pro that the U.S. was finally terminating Iraq as any kind of a military threat, thus eliminating the excuse against such dangers during the time of peace.

What U.S. negotiators didn’t quite realize was that the biggest threat of all for Sharon was the possibility of a peace arrangement during negotiations Israel itself would not be able to dominate. But such was the case as could be seen in Sharon’s almost immediate response. Within a day (May 1, 2003–also June 2), Israel launched various unprovoked attacks on Palestinians, and there was a sustained intensification of hostilities over the months that followed. Sharon announced his substitution of his own strategy of Unilateral Disengagement for peace negotiations, and his unilateral generosity obviously included nothing more than the liberation of Gaza as well as the closure of four Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Indeed, the settlements were dismantled, but with almost hysterical resistance that seemed staged with lots of photo opportunities for the international press. Also, Sharon launched his campaign against Gaza once it was liberated, of course with the justification that relatively harmless rocket counterattacks justified the damage inflicted on Gaza’s infrastructure and the killing of hundreds of Gaza residents. The U.S. press coverage focused on the Hamas rockets, when maybe one Israeli was killed for every thirty used, while the devastation wrought on Gaza has simply been ignored. Even you, Jewboy, resorted to this kind of argument in your last letter–the argument that the Gaza residents, instead of being grateful for having been liberated, resorted to unjustified rocket attacks. Gimme a break.

I admit that Palestinian militants make a big issue of their successful campaign against Israel, but you should have noticed by now that every time there is any traction toward international negotiations to finally settle the conflict, it is the Palestinians who quickly indicate their cooperation, while Israel resists and soon foments hostilities every way it can until the pursuit of negotiations ends once again. This is a universal behavior–the typical unspoken compact between bullies and their victims. Victims feel obliged to show they are still up to the fight, and bullies use this pretense to justify beating them up all the more bloodily.

You guys emphasize the issue of victimization all the time. It’s become your mantra in fact. So look into to what you are doing, and put it to an end. Again: Enough is Enough.

Edward Jayne

However, again I will ask what an earlier writer posed: “Will Arabs accept Israel and then make peace and sort out the refugee issue and deal with borders and security, or will they continue to seek to destroy Israel? … Which one do you choose?”
The only other alternative is endless war. And I still think you are obsessed.

I do want to express my concern in response to Eskomo’s revelation, of February 4, that Jaime’s email address is Ward Z of a mental health clinic. If indeed Jaime is in confinement and finds gratification in trashing my ideas, I want her to continue her unique therapy with full permission on my part. Whatever helps. As for the letter Z, of course, referring to her ward, it sometimes refers to Zionist, as has often been suggested relevant to the mysterious scientist, Dr. Z, who just might have launched the anthrax attack just after 9-11. Dr. Z, who was very bigoted indeed against Arabs, was supposedly out of the country just then, but that’s always a convenient excuse–supposedly used, for example, by Winston Churchill, England’s young navy secretary, when the Lusitania was held in position to be sunk by German submarines in order to bring the U.S. into World I. In any case, no doubt about it, the sudden anthrax attack just after 9-11 produced enormous public indignation against American Arabs UNTIL it was discovered that the strain of anthrax used could only have been from the U.S. laboratory where Dr. Z worked. Very quickly the anthrax issue ceased to get press coverage. To avoid a lawsuit, I refrain from mentioning Dr. Z by name, but it can be resurrected with ease on google. The lack of solid information is my primary reason for having excluded this incident from the chronology.

Lenny’s list of my lies in his February 3 contribution i in itself quite remarkable, since each of the lies he cites happens to be true, whereas its refutation turns out to be the lie–not Lenny’s lie, of course, but the lie of Zionist propagandists he unfortunately believes in. Let me take his borrowed lies one at a time.

To begin with, Lenny rejects my notion that the Palestinians are now willing to negotiate toward a compromise settlement rather than seeking the destruction (i.ethnic integration) of Israel. But Lenny is very wrong. As I make plain in my 2005 entry, when Abbas was elected on January 9 as the new president of the Palestinian Authority, he declared a unilateral cease-fire with Israel and called for a temporary truce to end violence and work toward a peaceful settlement. It was Sharon who refused to negotiate with Abbas, after which Hamas resumed fighting. An excellent assessment of Abbas’s plans upon his election is to be found in Greg Myre’s article, “Mandate in Hand: Abbas Declares He’s Ready for Talks,” NYT, Jan 11, 2005, p. 3. Also useful is the quotation of Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s closest advisor, when he admitted in an unfortunate moment of candor, “The significance of what we did [the termination of Roadmap negotiations toward a two-state solution] is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely.” (Mearsheimer and Wallt, p. 217] Thank you Dov Weisglass, but could you try to explain what you’ve just said to your gullible acolyte Lenny?

It’s certainly true that Hamas has been far more militant than the PLO under Abbas’ authority. However, when Hamas won the general election January 25, 2006, its spokesmen were quoted as having indicated they might be willing to participate in negotiations involving the use of a third party as an intermediary. This alone was a major concession on their part. They also indicated their willingness to accept a long-term truce, effectively a modus vivendi, if Israel pulls back to its 1967 border. [see Steven Erlanger’s front page NYT article on January 27, 2006, “Hamas Routs Ruling Faction, Casting Pall on Peace Process”] Ismail Haniya, by reputation the most pliable of the Hamas leadership, became the Prime Minister of the newly elected Palestinian government, and with the formation of the Palestinian National Unity Government a year later, in February, 2007, Abbas and Haniya were reportedly 99% in accord with each other, and with negotiations at the top of their agenda. However, Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert totally refused to cooperate despite the March 29 Riyadh Summit for the Arab League having submitted a new version of their peace plan in late March. By June Hamas and Fatah partisans break up with each other once again, and Abbas’s flight from Gaza to the West Bank was gladly subsidized by Israel and the United States. At this point Gaza could be put under siege, and everything followed much as had been intended by Israel. But don’t kid yourself, Lenny — Hamas was far more interested in negotiations throughout this period than Israel was, just as Dov Weisglass had earlier indicated.

I’ve already spent two enormous paragraphs belying Lenny’s list of charges, and frankly, I’m becoming impatient with the task. Fortunately, however, his other charge has been refuted that Israel has never tried to provoke acts of hostility in order to justify major invasions. I’ve already explored several instances of this particular tactic in earlier letters, and the outline takes a large number of these incidents into account. it’s tricky business, but it works time and again against easily angered opponents.

In a second missive on February 3,Lenny also expresses his disagreement with my account earlier on February 3 of how Israeli artillery was used against a UN observation post during the 2006 invasion of Lebanon by Israel. My account, it turns out, is far more likely. The NYT story by Warren Hoge on July 27, 2006, p. A14, specifically states there were no Hezbollah military sites near the observation post.. Also supportive of my argument is Ian Austen’s NYT article of February 2, 2008, “Canadian Inquiry Blames Israelis for Deaths in 2006,” whose title speaks for itself. So what exactly are Lenny’s sources that indicate a nearby Hezbollah target. Whoever they are, , I would suggest are the liars.

On Feb. 3, 11:24 a.m., jewboyantichrist666 displays his acquaintance with my other writings, but it’s obviously a very partial acquaintance (pun intended). He mentions my obsession with sex, but the half dozen articles in which I once dealt with the topic (mostly during my forties, over three decades ago) were written on what might be described as a Freudian-Fiedlerian basis to explain the denial of sex as an overlooked source of literary form. I never published anything in the field of deconstructionism, though I taught it at the graduate level, and my response to the critical theory of Roland Barthes, sometimes identified with deconstructionist theory, did apply my Freudian-Fiedlerian analysis to Barthes’ entire career from start to finish. It’s a highly intricate piece, and I’m still proud of it. These articles comprise only about a tenth of the sixty-to-seventy articles and papers now to be found in my website, and their total word-count is about the same as the three pieces I later wrote explaining the early history of judicial review in the U.S. I consider the largest of these, “Accidental Conspiracy,” to be probably the most demanding of all my writings. Other topics of interest to me include Kondratieff theory, grammar (with 3 pieces), cultural relativism (with 4 or 5 pieces), the dubious value of religion except as a source of psychological gratification (maybe a dozen pieces), and American foreign policy since the sixties (also about a dozen pieces).

It is in the latter category, listed under Iraq on my webpage, where I repeatedly criticize U.S. foreign policy with a tenacity I find totally lacking in Jewish authors who identify themselves with the Zionist cause. Despite my recent piece attacking patriotism, especially when linked with religion, I can identify myself with the U.S. perhaps more than I should (one of my ancestors actually having proposed naming our country the United States at the Constitutional Convention). Our nation has been doing very bad things during the past six decades, and I take it personally–this is not what my ancestor wanted. I expect the same from Zionists who identify with the state of Israel. Israel, too, has been doing very bad things–at least as bad as those of the United States–and truly patriotic Zionists should have the guts to take a similar stance against its policies. Indeed, such figures as Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Seymour Hirsh, and Amy Goodman have done this, and the many hundreds of other Jews attacked in the despicable website SHIT (which can be found by typing these letters on Google) are also to be commended for their rejection of Zionist excesses. However, most all of these people are already secularized. It is the religious Jews, the hard-core Zionists, who must realize that enough is enough–that their country must make big changes soon.

More specifically, jewboyantichrist666, I fully realize Amsterdam, New York City, and San Francisco have always had large Jewish minorities. This is my point–it’s exactly what I want–a truly integrated society, not a “gated” population constantly at war with its neighbors. If Israel can figure out how to gate itself without causing bloodshed at unacceptably high kill-ratios, I’m perfectly willing to let if happen. If not, I’m to be treated as an enemy (as I already am).

Finally, you reject the Mearsheimer and Walt book as having already been exposed for its inaccuracies. This would suggest you haven’t read it yet. Do try reading it. Just about everything they say is footnoted–with 106 pages devoted to these footnotes at the end of the book. I’ve seen and/or heard Mearsheimer debating supposedly expert Zionists, and he almost literally dances on their corpses. They don’t know what they are talking about, and he bombards them with information they either don’t know or don’t want to admit knowing. One of the many things Mearsheimer and Walt demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt is that Israel and its neoconservative agents in the United States played a very big role in producing the invasion of Iraq. Their book also demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that neoconservatives are at it again with Iran. This is one of the reasons why I’ve written my piece “Endless Battle.” The situation is getting entirely out of hand–the tail is wagging the dog–and those individuals, whoever they are, who think they might be able to refute Mearsheimer and Walt, are playing their own roles in the effort to make it happen. I myself would be happily at work with the rest of the topics that interest me, the denial of sex included, if it weren’t for these developments so effectively documented by Mearsheimer and Walt.

In response to the February 4 and 5 responses of Jaime and jewboyantichrist666’s use of articles of Palestinian atrocities, I want to emphasize that these perfectly illustrate my thesis. Of course the attacks were horrendous, but if you check out the presumably tank and air attacks on Gaza over the previous several months, the disparity will be obvious that they have produced a very small fraction of the number of deaths caused by Israel. Israel killed over 40 Palestinians in the week or so before these attacks. Add it up, and you get something on the order of the 20-1 kill ratio, as has been maintained now and again over the years. The use of suicide bombers begun in 1993 helped to bring down the kill ratio, but it remains pretty much at about 6-1, as far as I can tell, over the past couple of years. Again my point: do not jabber with great indignation against the behavior of suicide bombers. Instead, calculate the kill ratio involved and recognize the necessity of bringing the conflict to a close. Again as Jerry Rubin insisted, DO IT–end the endless battle so you can live in a truly decent society.

FOR ENOUGH ALREADY
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

“Kobi Moor, 34, the police officer who shot the second attacker, said he approached the man as he lay on the ground, apparently injured from the first blast, then shot him when he moved his hand toward an explosives belt strapped to his abdomen.

“His hand was twitching,” Mr. Moor told reporters. “He raised it again. So I shot four bullets into his head and neutralized him.”

Ummmm….he got neutralized. The police inspector got promoted to major. Good for him. I wonder, does this mean when this martyr gets to heaven, there will will only be 71 virgins for him? 70? 69? 68? Or will his hand be perpetually twitching as he tries to stroke their soft breasts, unable to move for eternity while the virgins taunt him, just centimeters from his fingertips? Or will Allah not allow him into paradise because he let the Zionist cop put four shots through his head before he could use himself as a weapon?
Imagine the discussion:

Allah: You have failed me my miserable follower. I sent you to kill Zionist pigs.

Martyr: Hey, gimme a break of merciful one. I tried. I really did. Can I have my virgins now?

Allah: No, you will be forced to spend eternity as a female virgin, subject to the whims of Zionists who will touch you however they feel. Now, here is your veil and burka. My, what pleasant breasts your have.
Allah is pleased.

Martyr: Oy, vey–woe is me. I should have been a Zionist!

Remember–we are dealing with an enemy that uses themselves as weapons. They have such little respect for life, knowing how much we Jews respect and love life. They have such hatred and fear of women that they cover them up on earth, and make them walk behind them, but are willing to kill women and children here so they can have 72 virgins after death for their own pleasure. What do the 72 virgins have to say about that?

Don’t you peace activists want to kill some babies and old people to free the Palestinians anymore?

(Live and let live…eh Perfessor?)

February 5, 2008
Israel Hit by First Suicide Attack in a Year
By ISABEL KERSHNER New York Times

DIMONA, Israel — One of two suicide bombers from Gaza who may have sneaked into Israel from the Egyptian Sinai blew himself up at a shopping center in this southern desert town on Monday, and medical officials said he killed an Israeli woman and wounded 11 other people. It was the first suicide attack in Israel in more than a year.

The second bomber failed to detonate his explosive belt and was shot dead by a police officer at the scene, a police spokesman said.

Militant groups in Gaza made the names of the attackers public later Monday, saying the attackers had come from Gaza. The militant group Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militia loosely affiliated with the mainstream Fatah movement headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah, claimed responsibility, and said it carried out the attack with another militant faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and another unknown group calling itself the United Popular Brigade.

Over the previous 11 days, residents of Gaza had been able to move in and out of Egypt with relative ease because of a temporary breach in the sealed Gaza-Egypt border, which the Egyptian military resealed on Sunday.

The Israeli authorities had warned in recent days that Palestinian militants took advantage of the breach of the border between Gaza and Egypt, which occurred after members of the Hamas movement that runs Gaza blasted sections of a wall between the two on Jan. 23.

The Egyptian authorities have reported the arrest of more than a dozen Palestinian militants carrying weapons and explosives in the Sinai Peninsula, close to the border with Gaza, over the past few days.

The last suicide attack in Israel came in January 2007 in the southern city of Eilat, killing three Israelis.

In the hours after Monday’s attack, police officers lined the streets of Dimona and closed off the area of the bombing to the public.

Esther Peretz, 41, who had been running an errand at the shopping center, said she heard the bomb explode around 10:30 a.m. and arrived at the scene a few minutes later to see people gathering outside the City Hall. “It’s the first time a bomb has gone off like this in Dimona,” she said. “I can’t quite absorb it. There is a very hard feeling today.”

Kobi Moor, 34, the police officer who shot the second attacker, said he approached the man as he lay on the ground, apparently injured from the first blast, then shot him when he moved his hand toward an explosives belt strapped to his abdomen.

“His hand was twitching,” Mr. Moor told reporters. “He raised it again. So I shot four bullets into his head and neutralized him.”

After the bombing, the police services went on high alert in various areas of the country, and near Dimona police officers were stationed at main junctions on roads leading to the city.

Dimona, a remote working-class town in the Negev desert, is best known for its proximity to Israel’s nuclear reactor. The attack took place several miles from the heavily guarded reactor.

“Palestinian terror groups continue to strike at Israeli civilians,” said David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman, after the attack Monday. “Israel will continue to take the requisite steps to defend its people,” he said, without elaborating on any likely response.

Earlier Monday, Israeli forces killed two Islamic Jihad militants in an exchange of fire during an arrest raid in the village of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank.

Mr. Abbas’s Palestinian Authority issued a statement on Monday condemning both the Qabatiya raid and the attack in Dimona.

The Israeli air force later said it had also carried out an attack in Gaza against militants it said had been responsible for rocket attacks on Israel. Reuters reported that a senior Palestinian militant and several others were injured in the attack, citing a source in Hamas.

At Sunday’s cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service warned that militants had smuggled advanced weaponry into Gaza while the border was down, including long-range missiles and antitank and antiaircraft missiles.

The defense minister, Ehud Barak, told the cabinet there was an urgent need to build a fence along the porous border between Israel and Egypt.

May I draw your attention to where the above post emanates from?

Mental Health Clinic of Passaic
Z ward
1451 Van Houten Avenue
Clifton, New Jersey 07013
973-473-2775 ext. 109

I need hardly add that flowers, condolences, messages of sympathy etc. are always welcome.

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Dr. Jayne, This is why you might consider going through the workshop given by Norman Finkelstein (link in my earlier post) to better understand the tactics of those whose mission in life is to deflect attention from the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine (Finkelstein has been dealing with these “Holy Rollers” for 25 years and is well versed in the traps and pitfalls that await anyone who dares question their twisted theology).

You conveniently forgot that the Hezbollah were launching rockets at Israel right next to the UN post. The UN troops had to either prevent that or move away themselves. The fault there was not Israeli. Israel was at war and the enemy wanted to be untouchable using the UN as a human shield. This cannot be allowed to work.

Wrong. They state that but accompany that with unacceptable conditions leading to the destruction of Israel through its loss of its Jewish character. Their demand for the right of return cancels all of their “peaceful rhetoric”. Period.

Edward Jayne> The Fatah might be more willing to compromise than Hamas at this point, but there is no doubt that both seriously pursue negotiations.

A total lie. Hamas is willing to compromise? Where did you see that? Is it a temporary hudna? You think there are fools who can accept that temporary cease of fire? They deny the basic thing – the right of Israel to exist. And you call it “…both seriously pursue negotiations”? There is nobody to negotiate with. Shame on you.

Edward Jayne> … there are still Palestinians who seek to be integrated in Israeli society.

Too bad. They hate the Jews and want to destroy them through integration in Israel (not society at all) through demographic factors.

Edward Jayne> It is the Israeli who seek to prevent negotiations, and they do this by provoking Palestinians to attack them in order to justify disproportionate counter-attacks that make negotiations impossible.

One lie on top of another.

The Arabs calls anything a provocation. Usually they don’t need even that. I gave you some perfect examples. Israel left Gaza, completely. So what is the reason for launching rockets at Israeli towns. I have not got an answer for that.

Israel allowed the PLO to return and rule their people. As soon as it happened the Arab terror began rise instead of decline. What is the answer to that?

And about disproportionate Israeli responses.
If the Arabs toss stones at Israeli soldiers (usually for no reasonable cause), do you expect the soldiers to toss stones back? This is ridiculous. Of course, the soldiers will shoot back with bullets, not stones. And that is absolutely right. If Israelis kill more Arabs than the other way it only means that they fight better. What do you expect them to do? To count the Arab casualties and avoid surpassing them? This is laughable. The Arabs can easily avoid any casualties on their side at all – stop terror. Did the Brits and Americans try not to cause more casualties to the Germans than the other way around? Did they not bomb the German population? You are saying ridiculous things. Why don’t you speak up against the Arabs murdering Jewish civilians? You don’t have strong words for those rocket launches at Israel. You are totally biased against Israel.

Edward Jayne> It should also be mentioned here that all of the wars between Israel and the Palestinians beginning in 1948, with the exception of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, were initiated by Israel.

One more lie. The Six-Day war in 1967 was a preventive war against the much more numerous enemy on the verge of attack. Even if we accept for a moment the idea that it was only an Arab provocation, the answer is that they have no right for such provocation when the survival of a nation is at stake. And if they are still willing to take the risk, then they must be ready to pay the price.

To Eskomo. I repeat, it was the words of Arafat, not mine, that the womb of the Palestinian woman is the main Palestinian weapon. Period. All questions to him. But he only said the truth. And this truth requires an adequate response to neutralize the danger. And you speculations with Nazi notions you can keep for yourself and your folks as nobody else would buy that nonsense. I have nothing to apologize for. I’m not gonna shoot around the bush. Our enemies have no moderation. We will have none either.

Your second problem is as I stated before–you want to be liked by bad people. You have trouble believing that there are bad people and therefore must find fault constantly in things that Israel has done in order to justify the extreme hatred of Israel. But beyond that, you’ve spent your life in academia, musing on about deconstruction, narrative discourses and who knows what else in cities such as the ones you have cited above–Amsterdam, New York, or San Francisco. These cities have had long histories of heavily Jewish influence–meaning intellectual, cosmopolitan, modern, subversive–all good old jewish qualities that English professor usually like. The problem is that every time in history that Jews make such a place happen, we have been expelled or murdered for doing so–IN SHORT WE CAN’T WIN— An furthermore, Israel is not balmy San Francisco–it’s in a bad neighborhood–a very bad neighborhood. It acts with remarkable restraint, civility, humanity and compassion when one considers what it is up against. The goal of Zionism was not to expel or repress Arabs, it was to create a homeland for Jews in what was their historical homeland and where there has been a presence for thousands of years, including a majority in Jerusalem during Ottoman and British times. But I digress and will one again as the question:

“Will Arabs accept Israel and then make peace and sort out the refugee issue and deal with borders and security, or will they continue to seek to destroy Israel? … Which one do you choose?”

Using terms such as neocon Zionists who brought about the war in Iraq is a scurrilous and false claim. Referring to the much discredited Mearsheimer and Walt does further damage to your credibility.

You and so many others are fixated on Israel. Obsessed. It’s time to use your academic skills and analyze yourself. You and so many other anti Zionists and Israel bashers just have trouble believing there are bad people in the world–unless they are Jews.

And you really think that hostilities wo8uld end if Israel just pulled back to 1967 borders??? Sure the would, just like there were no hostilities against Israel before then. You’re deluded! Try living in a bad neighborhood sometime.

More specifically, I’m astonished by the extent to which my detractors ignore the ample information provided in my article. I seriously wonder if they have bothered to read the piece in more than a couple of places. Instead, they rant about tried and true Zionist issues from fixed stance that I suspect they have held for many decades by now. Also they have engaged in sniping against each other relevant to topics important to them in previous confrontations well before I’ve written my article. I have the strong impression they could actually have written the same words and sentences two, five, or thirteen years ago.

I’m also amazed by their eagerness to attack me with ad hominem insults, going after my character with utter disdain based on almost no information beyond what I’ve provided in one of my paragraphs two letters ago. Almost as a pro forma obligation, they bait me with the same insults they have probably used against many dozens of others in the effort to avoid dealing more specifically with the abundance of information I provide relevant to the present conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (a good deal of which I doubt they are familiar with). This is not to mention the disastrous war that neoconservative Zionists fomented against Iraq to benefit Israel, as so effectively demonstrated by Mearsheimer an Walt, and the potentially ruinous war they are now trying to foment against Iran with the same purpose

And I am amazed by the verbal incompetence of my critics–perhaps this amazes me the most. Their rhetorical invective is stretched to such an extreme that a barrage of paratactic recriminations take precedence over the hypotactic sense of obligation to keep readers abreast of their ideas–to clarify what they are saying and to bring them with relative ease to the next stage in their thinking. Having taught freshman English for several decades at a variety of colleges and junior colleges, I am well acquainted with writers having problems at this level. Few survive their first semester of college.

Finally, I am amazed by their blatant hostility against Arabs, and Palestinians in particular. These Zionist exponents rejoice in informing me that my type of person would be accepted in Israel, but not in the surrounding Arab nations. As an atheistic quasi-Marxist with ample Freudian proclivities, I have been fully aware of this paradox for the past four decades–make it five. I do realize that I would be persona non grata in most Arab nations, but that does not mean that I am willing to deprive them of their rights as people who are no less deserving of having families, jobs, political stability, and religious beliefs no less ridiculous in my opinion than either Judaism or Christianity (the latter somewhat mitigated by its emphasis on charity). I might be slightly happier living in Israel than Yemen, for example, but only marginally happier. Much more acceptable would be the multi-ethnic cities of Amsterdam, New York, or San Francisco.

The issue emphasized by my critics to justify their bias (call it bigotry) is the hideous violence of Palestinians capable of playing soccer with the decapitated skulls of Israeli soldiers, etc. As already indicated in my previous letter, (a) there is at least as much hearsay evidence of this sort against the Israelis, and (b) I am much more impressed by kill ratios that are overwhelmingly supportive of the advantage enjoyed by Israel in this category. I hear of an entire division (or was it a platoon) of captured Egyptian soldiers being forced to take off their shoes and return to Egypt over hot sand, all of them having died as a result. Is it true or not true–I’m not certain, though I do remember a photograph many years ago. But I’m also shocked by the story of the 1967 attack on the Liberty intelligence ship that was obviously intended to kill everybody aboard. That did happen as indicated in my chronology. Also obnoxious was the July 25, 2006, artillery attack on a U.N. observation post during Israel’s hostilities with Hezbollah. The commander of the U.N. post repeatedly telephoned the Israeli who were doing the shelling to indicate the “mistake,” but the shelling continued without letting up. After the Israeli finally indicated by telephone that a rescue convoy would be permitted to remove the dead and wounded from the post, the convoy was suddenly attacked by fighter planes and destroyed. That also happened. Today Zionist apologists make the excuse that it was a mistake. But it was no mistake, any more than the Liberty attack was a mistake.

I am not suggesting here that Israel should execute or imprison the individuals involved in these two “mistakes.” What I would like to suggest, however, is that Zionists have been no more innocent than the Palestinians they have victimized over the past six decades, as might be suggested by these three instances as well as many others indicated in my chronology. So Israel would not sully itself by finally giving negotiations a chance. As indicated in my last letter, its single presumably honest effort to negotiate in 1967 was a bogus strategy to render permanent the capture of the West Bank. Let the government of Israel finally do what needs to be done: negotiate to fix boundaries and terminate hostilities. U.S. aid payments to Israel might diminish as a result, but it would be worth the loss. As Jerry Rubin once insisted, DO IT.

B’selem is there IN SPITE of you and trying to hide behind Arabs is NOT an argument that justifies crimes against Humanity. Such behaviour is an INSULT to the memory of those who were truly victimized in the Shoah.

Other voices in condemnation can be found here and here.

Again–I will ask this to all Israel bashers:
“Will Arabs accept Israel and then make peace and sort out the refugee issue and deal with borders and security, or will they continue to seek to destroy Israel? … Which one do you choose?”

And I do not hate “Zionists” either. What I hate is THIS, even more so because I, as a citizen of the country that support the genocidal policies of Israel, is thus made to be a participant in those atrocities. I hope that you can understand that.