Perhaps you've overlooked a couple of posts I've made to you on this thread, but I've gotten the impression that you're not being entirely sincere here in your appeal for enlightened debate.
It seems to me that you've been just as eager to stoke old battles as anyone. On this thread, I've seen chips on the shoulders of people on both sides of the debate, yours included. At post #483 I made the following point (apologies for muffing some of the links in an earlier post)...
I've also noticed that a number of self-described "America-firsters" and "anti-zionists" really seem to take a twisted sort of pleasure of rattling the cages of the "usual suspects" and the "amen-corner." They strike poses just outside the line of anti-semitism and taunt and bait and stick their thumbs in their ears, fingers a wiggling, just to provoke a visceral reaction from those with whom they disagree on Israel policy. As though they want to be called "anti-semite," and then make the charge of an ad hominem against their opposition.
In fact, I've seen it on this thread. Is this intellectually honest?
What's really the point?
No answer from you. In fact the only answers I got were from a pair on your side of this overall debate who happen to be two of the worst offenders. There's plenty of group-think going on here, but if you only respond to those you accuse of it, or to give high fives to those who you agree with, one has to wonder if you're truly against group-think.
I've had civil exchanges with some who agree with you on Middle East policy, like wooly_mammoth, and The Docummentary Lady, but I've also been accused of being some sort of "secret jew" by one of your allies here. This would appear to confirm some of what I said at #483, no?
Yet, when I brought this to your attention at #874, still, no response from you. You're too concerned with fighting the kind of battles I described in #483. Why?
Certainly not in the interests of intellectual honesty. Maybe I'm wrong, but it apppears that you're name-calling as much as anyone.
Let me address the problem I have with your article...
One of the huge ironies of this whole thread is that it's based on a rather nebulous conspiracy theory that Zionists foment anti-semitism in order to create a pretext for their policies.
Isn't that what the Arab Moslems have done with the "Palestinians?" Oil money goes to terrorists in Gaza (Arafat sits on millions, if not billions), but not to industrial development. Jewish refugees from throughout the Arab world are welcome in Israel, but in the first "Palestinian" state of "Jordan," and the rest of the Arab word, there is no room for "Palestinian" refugees.
It's not like the Arabs actually care about their brethren in the Levant., this is all for the purpose of keeping the "Palestinian problem" at a boil.
For no other reason than that they would like to see Israel destroyed.
Toward that end, the "Palestinians" and the Arabs have never respected any agreement with Israel, or her right to exist (Egypt and Jordan being tenuous exceptions). They use Israeli borders as advance positions from which to launch their next attacks on Israel. When they get beaten back, they suddenly demand that Israel respect the borders they never did. How many mulligans do the "Palestinians," led by the Egyptian-born Arafat, deserve before there is a permanent penalty? How many times in the 20th Century did Israel or pre-Israel exchange parcels of the former Transjordan for peace, only to be attacked from those very parcels by the people they were supposed to have peace with?
Clearly, Arafat proved hi bad faith once and for all when he spurned Barak's offer at the end of 2000.
And at the heart of it all is what I think we can all agree is a ferocious, genocidal Arab and "Palestinian" anti-semitism.
Now, if you're for ending US foreign aid to Israel and other nations, we agree on that. But that would also mean cutting the Israelis loose to deal with the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, etc. in a manner that serves Israel's best interests, and not ours. They'd be off our leash.
Would that be OK with you?
Ironically I would have to disagree with these sentiments. Aid to other countries is a long established tradition of foreign policy -- perhaps justified on a more theoretical basis rather than practical utility. The aid going to Israel is really not very significant, and considering the potential consequences of having a diminished influence over the actors involved, it would seem to be a prudent "investment". I think we can all imagine an out of control situation escalating to the point at which nuclear weapons may be used. I would also look beyond a purely "machivelian" foreign policy, more specifically in regards to the post-Shoah historical context, in support of a Jewish homeland.