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Israel’s Defense Chief OK’s Hundreds of Israeli Deaths
“If we take out the Iranian nuke facilities, sure, they’ll strike back at us,” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said yesterday. “But if every American stays in their home when the Iranian rockets start falling, well, it will be uncomfortable. It won’t be a picnic. But we won’t have 220,000 Americans killed. Not even 22,000. So let’s stop the fear-mongering. We’ve got vital interests to protect.”
No, of course Panetta didn’t say that. It would be unimaginable. But Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak did say much the same thing in a radio interview just the other day.
“Not 500 dead” in Israel, Barak assured his people, which translates proportionally into 22,000 Americans. The words “stay in their homes,” “uncomfortable,” “no picnic,” “fear-mongering,” and “vital interests” were Barak’s. And he clearly implied that a few hundred Israeli deaths would be perfectly acceptable.
Such a cavalier attitude might have sounded shocking in the U.S. But in Israel it wasn’t any big news. Haaretz, Israel’s leading liberal newspaper, ran the story for a few hours buried far down on its website homepage. Yedioth Aharanoth, the nation’s largest and very centrist paper, didn’t put it on the homepage at all.
Nor, according to the reports, did the interviewer bother to ask Barak what “vital interest” would justify such massive death and suffering. The answer was taken for granted: Iran must never, ever have even one nuclear weapon. Barak assumes that Israelis are ready to pay the price he sketched out in exchange for crippling the Iranian nuke program.
No matter that Israel, the Middle East’s only nuclear power, already has an arsenal measured in the hundreds. One Iranian nuke on Tel Aviv would trigger those hundreds falling on Iran. When the Israelis justify their anti-Iran hysteria by saying that even one Iranian nuke would trigger a regional nuclear arms race it’s a coded way of saying: For every nuke you make we’ll make many more, and we’re ready to use them all; if you attack us you’re committing national suicide.
It’s an article of faith for most Israelis that Iranian leaders are perfectly ready -- some say eager -- to do just that. The commonly assumed (though rarely articulated) explanation: The Iranians, like all Jew-haters, are irrational. They’ll pay any price to kill Jews.
Of course the real irrationality is the idea that the Iranians would commit suicide. If they are working on a nuke, it’s not to be used but to be publicly brandished. Like North Korea, Pakistan, and India, Iran may want to join the nuclear club because it’s the only way for a regional power to be taken seriously on the world stage. Since the early days of the cold war, nations have pursued nukes more for their symbolic value than any practical value they might have.
Israeli leaders surely understand this, even if many of their voters don’t. If we could ask Barak what “vital interest” would justify such massive slaughter in Israel, and if he answered honestly, he’d say that there is no practical interest involved. It’s all in the realm of symbolism.
An essential motive of Zionism from its beginning was a fierce desire to end the centuries of Jewish weakness, to show the world that Jews would no longer be pushed around, that they’d fight back and prove themselves tougher than their enemies. There was more to Zionism that that. But the “pride through strength” piece came to dominate the whole project. Hence the massive Israeli military machine with its nuclear arsenal.
But you can’t prove that you’re stronger than your enemies unless you’ve also got enemies -- or at least believe you’ve got enemies -- to fight against. So there has to be a myth of Israel’s insecurity, fueled by an image of vicious anti-semites lurking somewhere out there, for Zionism to work. Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iran has gradually risen to the top of Israel oh-so-necessary enemies list. Iranophobia is rampant in Israel, as one Israeli scholar writes, because “Israel needs an existential threat."
Anyone who has grown up in Israel, or in the U.S. Jewish community (as I did), and paid attention knows all this. Maybe that’s one reason U.S. Jews are so likely to support the Obama administration’s moves toward Mideast peace.
But the U.S. mass media still frame the story within the myth of Israel’s insecurity. Barak’s words get presented by our leading newspapers as serious, sober analysis, with no comment on their sheer absurdity and callous disregard for human life. His own admission (in that same interview) that Israel faces no threat to its existence is ignored. So most Americans are left assuming, as they have for so long, that Israel is a brave tiny nation fighting for its life against anti-semitic fanatics bent on destroying it. This tale of Israel’s insecurity, like any powerful myth, is immune to facts and reason.
A leading Israeli scholar now argues that most Americans readily accept the myth because it reflects America’s cherished frontier myth: supposedly civilized white guys endlessly fighting off the crazed violent savages. That sense of shared mythos, he suggests, is the strongest basis for the long-standing “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel.
If so, it’s not surprising that Republicans, who are most likely to embrace the frontier myth, are more likely than U.S. Jews to support the hawkish Israeli government as well as the calls to attack Iran, whatever the costs.
As long as this mythic view dominates the discussion of Israel here in the U.S., our government will continue to block reasonable moves toward Mideast peace, which must include a Palestinian state with full membership in the U.N. And we’ll continue to hear more talk about the U.S. permitting an Israeli attack on Iran, which would bring death and destruction to the attacker as well as the victim without any tangible benefit for anyone.
31 Comments so far
Show AllThese people in power really are out of their freakin minds. Here's one small fact.Iran does NOT have the delivery system to plant a ...oh never mind... the shit is hitting the fan faster than we can defuse it. I have to wonder about 12-21-12...maybe the Mayans knew nations of dumbassedness would rise up and slaughter each other in the name of a God who never intended this division of thought. It is the worst form of crassness in humanity, one can tolerate no more.
A mad strike on Iran could start an outofcontrol eruption of the mideast if not the world. STOP THE MADNESS.!
When you're mad - as in crazy - the MAD policy isn't much of a deterrent.
Even worse if you have a population that thinks the book of Revelations is a version of a 'future history'. In spite of the fact that the book was obviously written by someone stoned out of his mind on something like LSD.
Dont blame someone tripping on "something like LSD" or any other drugs for the craziness in that book, the sick global society in wich we live would benefit greatly from legalization of ALL drugs but especially psychedelics such as LSD.
"Hofmann was disappointed when his discovery was removed from commercial distribution. He remained convinced that the drug had the potential to counter the psychological problems induced by "materialism, alienation from nature through industrialisation and increasing urbanisation, lack of satisfaction in professional employment in a mechanised, lifeless working world, ennui and purposelessness in wealthy, saturated society, and lack of a religious, nurturing, and meaningful philosophical foundation of life"."
Taken from A. Hofmann obituary in the Telegraph.
There is a fascinating documentary on Hofmann and others......Darn, i forget the name of it right now. He did discover it by accident. Or, i should say, formulated it. He didn't know what was happening, as he began tripping while on his bicycle.
The u.s. military of course, researched all nefarious ways of using it for 'mind control' as is so well known by now.
Might it be "Hofmann's Potion"*, perchance?
* http://www.nfb.ca/film/hofmanns_potion
Yes, that's it!!!
Thanks for the recommendation, I had heard about it but forgotten to check on it. Hofmann is in my opinion one of the greatest minds of humankind, his serendipitous discovery is seen by some as a chemical response to aid us against the dark forces unleashed by nuclear fisssion, equalizing our chances of survival as a species.
LSD was first synthetized in 1938 the same year that nuclear fission was discovered and the Bicycle Trip (Hofmann´s first intentional acknowledgement of the power of the substance) happened on 1943 just as the Manhattan Project was gaining momentum. To say Hofmanns discovery changed the world is an understatement, he will someday be regarded as an equal to Newton, Darwin and Einstein.
It's a trippy read, but that isn't the problem with the old book/paper. The problem is that people don't recognize the fact that it's not real. I used to do LSD and mushies, but I'd never have decided to put up any of my writings as 'proof' that the end of the world would have trumpets... :)
In 2007 I was in Paris, and casually picked up some kind of magazine-like handout in front of some Parisian salon type of store. It had in it, in addition to fashion/makeup articles, some odd sort of factoid blurbs about one thing or another. One paragraph quoted (oddly synchronistic here) a professor from a Tel Aviv university who stated that according to (his?) research, that Moses was very likely under the influence of some kind of psychotropic plant (apparently common at that time) when he observed the "burning bush", "heard God", and "received the 10 commandments". (Must've been good shit!) I thought that this was fascinating and very likely true (it was about 3500 years ago... let's go to the video tape!)
(To get a distillation of those 10 edicts, see George Carlin on youtube for an updated modern version.)
The book of Revelations, however, must've been written by someone who took (a real early version of) something like the infamous bad "brown acid" at Woodstock!
Not to worry. When your divine real estate agent makes you his "chosen people" with unquestionable rights to all the lands you can grab, and with exhortations to "slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass", there's no need to be concerned about any retalliation.
Well, that's what the book they wrote on the subject says. Stark raving lunacy!
Life is cheap in the OT accounts, and modern Israel is apparently trying to keep the spirit of those times alive.
For some people, not all of them Jewish by any means, the "OT" is their latest and greatest guide to morality and justice.
Actually, speaking as an activist, antizionist person of jewish birth, i can tell you that old testament guide to morality comes from the christian right. I've never met a jew who quoted the old testament, in fact, most jewish people i've run into are agnostics or atheists........
The christian right, as Hedges does a great job of discussing, tend to quote 'scripture', which always seems to be stuff from the old testament i've never heard of. Religious mythologies are interesting as anthropological research and understanding of human history of a certain area of the planet.
Chernus writes: 'A leading Israeli scholar now argues that most Americans readily accept the myth because it reflects America’s cherished frontier myth: supposedly civilized white guys endlessly fighting off the crazed violent savages. That sense of shared mythos, he suggests, is the strongest basis for the long-standing “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel.'
This 'shared mythos' of a 'cherished frontier myth' is nonsense. Zionists thoroughly dominate the Middle East narrative of 'poor Israeli insecurity' through all significant forms of mass media and institutional dialogue. Anyone who offers even a mild counter narrative is threatened with reprisals or told quite literally to shut up. It's simply dangerous to offer a view, other than AIPAC's, in public discourse.
Calling the leadership of the Israeli government insane warmongering bastards is an insult to the insane, to the warmongering and to the real bastards of the world.
The idea of attacking Iran is suicide.
We remember those who died in wars on November 11, why is it that there are so many leaders who want to do what those veterans asked us not to do? By making more veterans?
"Such a cavalier attitude might have sounded shocking in the U.S. But in Israel it wasn’t any big news. Haaretz, Israel’s leading liberal newspaper, ran the story for a few hours buried far down on its website homepage. Yedioth Aharanoth, the nation’s largest and very centrist paper, didn’t put it on the homepage at all."
But of course. We all saw how the entire State of Israel yammered for years on end about one kidnapped IDF soldier. We all know how the death of one Israeli Jew hurt in one of the few successful Qassam attacks has to be avenged tenfold. It therefore stands to reason that any estimation of Israeli Jewish casulaties has to be suppressed if the ramp-up to the next war is to be successful.
"Maybe that’s one reason U.S. Jews are so likely to support the Obama administration’s moves toward Mideast peace."
Come on Ira, when it comes to Israel, the O in Obama stands for obsequious.
For Ira Cheruns....What ME peace moves are going on regarding obama that i don't know about? Also,
I read the article you linked to. I don't happen to think that the frontier theory is very insightful. Seems more like racism and colonialism to me, although perhaps he was saying that in a more acceptable way. And you linked to JStreet which, although to each his own, is like AIPAC's slightly more liberal relation. All that being said, i think nation states have outlived their used by date. However, i do agree with several points you've made here, as far as israel needing a threat in order to have an identity. Actually, i see this as a rather universal mindset, with israel being a very clear, concrete example. Until this mindset changes, there will never be peace. How could it be otherwise?
Actually, israel is its own existential threat. It's all a projection.
I don't worry about Israel's eschatological outlook of their theology. The Messianic era is about other countries ganging up on Israel, what is already happening now. They've had nukes since the 1950's. The Iranian Mullahs however believe very much in conquering the world to convert to Islam and establish a global Caliphate. Israel is in self-defense mode while Iran is on attack mode. Pre-emptive strikes which may occur on Iran is not belligerance, but a reaction not only to an active nuclear program but to past comments of the Iranian leadership regarding Israel as a "one bomb state" and promises to Palestinians that Israel would soon be destroyed. Keep in mind that such language from Iran is not warranted by any land disputes or prior military conflicts they've had with Israel because there haven't been any...
The Zionist entity has been the instigator since its unfortunate founding on Palestinian land in 1947. Zionism as per David Ben Gurion is not about peace, but its is about expansion, and always having an enemy in order to control the populace. If Israel attacks Iran then Israel deserves to be destroyed. Israel has instigated the war of words against Iran, furthermore Iran has never threatened Israel outright, that is unless you believe the pathetic hype from the Western propaganda machine. Israel and the United States are the premier terrorists entitites in the world today, and have made it their doctrine to target any country with resources, and who resists their hegemony. Wake up!
Dupely Kos and FluffPo are that way ------------------------------------------------------>
The crazed European white boy as civilized is even going down to discretization in establishment white boy circles. When are we going to say enough of this?
Oh and what about all this Prussian militarization of Israel of late even worse than ever before. The vollowing orders German war mongering imperialist tone is getting worse all along.
The crazed European white boy as civilized is even going down to discretization in establishment white boy circles. When are we going to say enough of this?
Oh and what about all this Prussian militarization of Israel of late even worse than ever before. The vollowing orders German war mongering imperialist tone is getting worse all along.
Can't we get some enlightened Scandinavian folks in there to deprogram these brain washed war mongers? The Scandinavians used to have one of the best educational systems anywhere for European white folks.
The myth does not have to have any value except as an excuse to stop thinking.
People don't care about thinking of Israel as Fort Apache. They just want to turn off the low voltage in their cranial cabbages and shove more junk food into their obscenely obese bellies.
The very powerful international neocon right who are hell bent to continue the imperial expansion into Iran (and Russia/China by proxy,) easily play with these Israeli leaders egos. These "leaders" that get enormous US neocon support, in more ways than one, inevitably provide cover for these international ultra-elite interests, just like all the puppet regimes have throughout the ME, including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, as well as Africa, Americas, Asia, and Europe. All the most powerful actors in the world are engaging in this charade of "Iranian nuclear threat," but here the hubris and arrogance of these Israeli leaders belies comprehension of the callous attitude toward their very own people, with which they constantly claim to be vigilantly and expensively protecting. It's sickeningly disgusting, and if democracy and freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, were actually prevalent in Israel, these "leaders" would be history, yesterday.
I guess you can't possibly believe that theyre building nuclear weapons, only nuclear energy. Iran is a cool place...no nukes and definitely no Gays.
Israel has become that spoiled, whiny little child that keeps interrupting two adults trying to have a meaningful conversation. At the end of the day Israel is just cranky because they are not getting enough attention. Sadly they feel the need to start WWIII to get what they want.
Few people care about the zionist Israelies anymore. They have shown themselves to be an inhumane Nation whose illegal military expansionism and settlement building is a stick in the eye of moral people. No thinking American will fight for such a country. Let the 1% do it.
I think Professor Chernus wrote an article about the Jewish citizens of Iran a few years ago. One of the comments from one of their Rabbis was, "If you think being Jewish is the same thing as being a Zionist, it's about like saying being Moslim is the same thing as being a member of Al-Qaida". The Israeli propaganda works in Israel quite like it does in the US. We have to step outside the Propaganda war to see some of the truth.