Inflamed right on cue. In most countries, youthful idealism results in the young seeking to build bridges with their generation globally. In Israel it’s the youth who have internalized some of the worst venom of all.
by Don Clasen
July 10 2014
I haven’t been able to devote much time to following this Israeli kidnapping story. It seems almost all my time is taken up just surviving financially lately. But this article by Max Blumenthal expresses so articulately many of my suspicions and may temper a few of my cynical assumptions.
Max is the son of Sidney Blumenthal, one of Bill Clinton’s top advisors in the 1990s. He is one of those brave young Jewish Americans who went from hero to zero among all his liberal colleagues when he wrote Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. Based on what he experienced in his travel to Israel, it’s a devastating portrait of the uber Jewish state conveying exactly the opposite public image they like to cultivate, that of a little David valiantly taking on a sea of Arab hatred against them. Apparently he touched the third rail of American Jewish tribalism and can now hardly get invited to do commentary anywhere.
Max Blumenthal
In this article, the most important thing he stresses is how the Netanyahu administration, the Shin Bet and the IDF all knew almost immediately that the three boys had likely been killed within minutes of their capture. Yet they put a gag order on the media to not release the entirety of the emergency call tape, told the parents that they hadn’t found any DNA evidence in the burned out car (though they later claimed it was covered in blood), and dragged out a long 18 day ordeal to do what Netanyahu wanted to do all along–break Hamas and break up the new unity government of the Palestinians backed by the White House as a necessary step to further the peace process. The insensitivity toward the feelings of grieving parents that reveals is troubling. And if anything tells you the contempt this man has for the peace process since he gave his approval in public to have Rabin assassinated in 1995, this is it.
Netanyahu Exploits The Situation
Other little details reveal the cynicism of those who so claim to be out to “protect the public,” such as the Shin Bet allowing the parents to finally hear the recording and telling them that the shots they heard were just blanks! Such an omniscient bunch these people are! And another little statistic, like the $3 million in cash, electronics and other valuables the IDF stole from the Palestinians while ransacking their homes. One 24 year old approached the commander of the self-described “most moral army in the world” after his unit stole all his cash and they all laughed at him. Yet according to a poll released on July 2 I believe, 76% of all Israelis approved of the way the army handled their rampage. So maybe they’re not so fooled after all. Maybe they’re just completely terrorized by their own government.
We live in such a Machiavellian time because of the ways of men like this that it has become normal for us to accept the most ridiculous excuses they come up with to do what they want to do. Just think about this situation for a moment. What would a real government official with any ounce of decency and fair play in him have done in this crisis? Here it is. He would have addressed the nation and world at the beginning, expressed his condolences to the families, and promised to track down those who were responsible and bring them to justice. Case closed.
But no, not Mr. Israel. Complete over-reaction, punishing the innocent, disproportionate responses and the whipping up of inflammatory rhetoric is his stock in trade. The first thing he asserts without any proof is, “Hamas terrorists carried out Thursday’s kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers. We know that for a fact. Hamas denials do not change this fact.” Yet as Bumenthal points out about these two alleged suspects (if they even are the real suspects), they are from a clan that has a long history of committing some hostile act that always conveniently interrupts interludes of peace between Israel and Hamas and always to Hamas’ vexation. Does it make any sense at all for Hamas to do such a stupid thing right after a reconciliation with Fatah? As Dr. Sami Jadallah recently put it, “Hamas political and senior leadership seems to shy away from taking full control and responsibility of its military wing. A military wing which proven time and time again is penetrated by both Mossad and Shin Bet.”
With a history like that how can Netanyahu know so confidently that Hamas gave the orders? He doesn’t. He’s just the perennial schoolyard bully who loves to start fights. And yet we know “for a fact” of course, that “Putin is a thug, Putin is a bully,” etc. Such is the edifying nature of the cynical, slander-based politics of the 21st Century.
The Bible says about the Antichrist that he shall “magnify himself in his heart” (Dan 8:25). The New DonnieBob International Version translates that as, “he will be full of himself.” For what it’s worth, one time in the spirit I saw Netanyahu wanting really bad to have a bust of himself on a marble colonnade some day. Go figure. “Netanyahu Government Knew Teens Were Dead As It Whipped Up Racist Frenzy” by Max Blumenthal here.
Israeli Jet Bombs Gaza, July 2014
