MONDOWEISS ONLINE NEWSLETTER

NOVANEWS

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• Goldstone missed the cut
• Roll over Ben-Gurion– Michael Oren says the special relationship is over
• ‘NYT’ reporter who grooved on Jewish terrorism made Chomsky out to be ’self-hating’ nut
• Why does U.S. soccer fall short?

Goldstone missed the cut Posted: 27 Jun 2010 When Israel announced the formation of an independent commission to investigate the Flotilla debacle, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a statement welcoming the news and noting that “the structure and terms of reference of Israel’s proposed independent public commission can meet the standard of a prompt, impartial, credible, and transparent investigation.” In the time since then, it has emerged that Amos Horev, one of the three Israeli panel members, helped castrate an Arab in the mid-1940s who had been accused of attempting to rape a Jewish woman. The act of castration inspired a popular song in Hebrew. It has also emerged (thanks to Richard Silverstein) that another member of the panel, Shabtai Rosenne, helped David Ben-Gurion brainstorm lies which would cover up the Israeli military’s massacre at Qibya, in which Ariel Sharon led a force that murdered 60 Palestinian civilians, an act that outraged the world in 1953. Richard Goldstone was subjected to the most savage obloquy for his work as a judge under the Apartheid South African regime. If he had personally castrated a Black South African or helped cook up lies to exculpate the South African government for the Sharpeville massacre, maybe he would have been treated a little more gently?

Roll over Ben-Gurion– Michael Oren says the special relationship is over Posted: 27 Jun 2010 Haaretz reports: Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, painted a dark picture of U.S.-Israeli relations during a briefing at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem last week. Israeli diplomats say Oren described the current situation as a “tectonic rift” in which Israel and the United States are like continents drifting apart. According to the Israeli diplomats, Oren said relations between the two countries are not in a crisis because a crisis is something that passes. Oren opted to use terms from geology: “Relations are in the state of a tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart.” The Haaretz piece says that Oren has denied the remarks, but: These observations are wise. The whole deal is going only one direction now, south. I wonder when the Israelis/the lobby will understand that nothing lasts forever, that Michael Oren’s book saying that Israel and the U.S. are religious states that were married in a former lives was hopeful propaganda, that America has had a bellyful and with all that, will they realize with desperation, that they overplayed their hand.  Yes I know, Washington will be the last place to figure out that something has changed, but I wonder, when the special relationship ends for good, what Israel will actually put on the table in terms of repartition to try and save the two-state-solution, and the Jewish state.  Put another way, they shoulda grabbed the Bernadotte deal when it was on the table in ’48.

‘NYT’ reporter who grooved on Jewish terrorism made Chomsky out to be ’self-hating’ nut Posted: 26 Jun 2010 In the same piece in the NYT Magazine in which she glows that the days of Jewish terrorism were “romantic,” reporter Deborah Solomon serves up several softball questions to Tzipi Livni. And this at a time when Israel is approaching a crisis stemming from many facts– oh, that half the population it governs are not represented by its government, that the world is sick of Israel’s murderous behavior and Livni has lost some freedom to travel out of fear of being indicted, that even U.S. Jewry is beginning to leave the stadium. But things seem pretty darn good in this interview, which offers the usual piety about the two-state solution, and no mention of the fact that two of Livni’s former fellow gov’t ministers have warned about apartheid. Compare Solomon’s Livni interview with this bit of her interview of Noam Chomsky in 2003: But, unlike many reconstructed leftists, you have not changed your political views one iota since the 60’s. For instance, you have remained a vocal critic of Israel. I objected to the founding of Israel as a Jewish state. I don’t think a Jewish or Christian or Islamic state is a proper concept. I would object to the United States as a Christian state. Your father was a respected Hebraic scholar, and sometimes you sound like a self-hating Jew. It is a shame that critics of Israeli policies are seen as either anti-Semites or self-hating Jews. It’s grotesque. If an Italian criticized Italian policies, would he be seen as a self-hating Italian? Have you ever been psychoanalyzed? I do not think psychoanalysis has a scientific basis. If we can’t explain why a cockroach decides to turn left, how can we explain why a human being decides to do something? Notice the suggestion that reconstructed leftists are supposed to embrace Israel… Very 2003.

Why does U.S. soccer fall short? Posted: 26 Jun 2010 Wikipedia says that Americans coined the term “soccer mom” in 1995. That’s 15 years ago. Those kids so assiduously ferried to sylvan suburban fields are now in their 20s. And the young American team was beaten by Ghana today, a country a tenth our size, soundly (yes, after two inspired American performances against teams that are already out of the World Cup). I can’t remember a great American goal. Landon Donovan was OK. But he did nothing to compare with the magic goals of this World Cup that I’ve seen, from the Brazilian Maicon, from the Slovakian guy Vittek, the German-Turkish guy Ozil, the Uruguyan with the hair, that Ghanaian today in overtime, and the devilish David Villa of Spain.  Villa seems like a tough street kid. Is that the problem? Are American soccer players too middle class? Do the best athletes come — generally speaking — from the poor? Or does the U.S. lack a truly developed soccer culture to rival basketball, football and baseball culture in the imaginations of child athletes? And if we lack it, how long will it take to create one? I don’t know anything about soccer, as I remind readers. Commenters, please explain.