Ha! He thinks "keeping score" means results!!!

Boy, does he have a lot to learn.

As I have said before I have a lot of respect for Peter DeFazio, but it is ironic and says something about our times when he is considered a hero for just doing his job. What does that say about all the other representatives who didn't do their job because they were afraid of somebody "keeping score"?

The bad news about "hero" is that is has joined "incredible," "unbelievable" and "amazing" in that lexicon of words that have been abused, overused and misused to the point of rendering them almost meaningless.

The good news is that, in the original term of reference for heroic status, there are many people worthy of the term. Unfortunately, many are like Cassandra the Greek goddess who was doomed to tell the people the truth and to be incessantly ignored. Ralph Nader, Michael Ratner, John Pilger, George Monbiot, Greg Palast, Alexander Cockburn, Paul Craig Roberts, Uri Avnery, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Juan Cole, Jo Wilding, Seymour Hersh, the late Anna Politkovskaya, Jo Wilding, and Hedy Epstein, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who went on a hunger strike in Cairo to support delivery of humanitarian aid to the persecuted people in the Gaza ghetto - to just name a few.

The NATION?

Isn't that the magazine that still thinks Alger Hiss was innocent?

If you need to find a hero and are short on time, don't waste any looking among the leaderships of the Democratic and Republican parties. They have all sold their souls in Faustian bargains.

Carla, DeFazio's certainly a leader, and in this day and age, that makes him a hero, as well. Still would like him to run for Governor.

As for "we're keeping score", when I heard that Rahm E was chief of staff, on day one, I knew the game was up. Then they pushed Dean out, and I was certain. Still better than McCain and ol' what's her name.

"The NATION?

Isn't that the magazine that still thinks Alger Hiss was innocent?"

The Nation is one of the magazines that got it right on the war on Iraq and in many other instances.

Peter DeFazio is the kind of progressive allot of people hoped President Obama would turn out to be, but isn't. It looks like we elected the a liberal republican president instead of a Democrat.

Which is still better than hot-head killer McCain and 'what's her face.'

But, so far, President Obama has been less change and too much more of the same in terms of war and favoring Wall Street over Main Street. He's not been the guy we thought we were voting for.

However, I will give him a full term before I give him a grade one way or the other.

President Obama would do well to listen to Peter. He'd be getting better advice.

"President Obama would do well to listen to Peter. He'd be getting better advice."

Obama isn't in the White House to take advice from Peter DeFazio or any other responsible politician. He is there to do the bidding of his big money campaign donors and not the little, naive suckers who sent in their tens, twenties and C-notes. Perhaps you are waiting until his year is up before you recognize that. Why wait till then to face reality?

I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night

It's the hero that suppose to hold out until the end of the night.

Wonder how much lived existence separates "hero" from your typical old primate alpha male?

Obama is better than Shrub. But you know what? Shrub was better than Cheney! Clinton was a lot better than Dole. Reagan was better than George Wallace. You know what? Americans always have the best President for the times! That's why we're the greatest country on earth!!!

DeFazio is the man, no doubt. Oregon needs more like him.

If Defazio ran for President he would win. If he ran for Gov. I would vote for him. I still say vote no on 66 and 67 do not think this is a different Galen. If you looked at Obama's voting record before, you would know he was going to do what he is doing now. However, he was running against McCain who promised to do what everyone was voting against so you cannot be angry with Obama voters they were pissed with good reason. Always search for truth. Somtimes the truth benefits others not just one's self at least on the surface. also, never vote for someone who is not clearly against the Patriot act. This is a great litmus test for detecting fascism btw. No matter the party a yes vote for the patriot act is a no vote at the ballot box.

Bill Bodden:

...Edward Said...

Bob T:

Your list wasn't bad until you got to this one. Said is a first-class liar regarding the Israeli- Arab issue.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Unrepentant Liberal:

He's not been the guy we thought we were voting for.

Bob T:

Of course he is! Most who voted for him were voting for an image, a slogan, a "cool" guy. Substance was never part of it (only his word for it).

Bob Tiernan Portland

"Bob T:

Your list wasn't bad until you got to this one. Said is a first-class liar regarding the Israeli- Arab issue."

That's your opinion, but I prefer the opinion of people who have probably forgotten more about the Israel-Palestine tragedy than you ever knew and whose respect for human rights is certainly greater than yours if you would defend the actions of Israel's right-wing government. Some of the people I prefer for opinions happen to be included in the list you approved of and have spoken highly of Said.

"I'm sticking with Obama. On Jan.20th he will have served one year."

And Wall Street, Big Pharma, the health care(?) insurance industry, and the military industrial complex appreciate all he has done for them.

In praise of Edward Said:

Tariq Ali: Thinking of Edward Said - http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq12242007.html

Alexander Cockburn: A mighty and passionate heart - http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09252003.html

Robert Fisk: Palestinian, intellectual, and fighter, Edward Said rails against Arafat and Sharon to his dying breath - http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1978.shtml

Okay, so I keep reading this quote from DeFazio that Larry Summers is from "Wall Street." To my knowledge Summers is an academic economist that won the John Bates Clark Medal, was the president of Harvard, and served as the Treasury Secretary under Clinton. Does anyone know what Wall Street institution Summers worked for?

Bill Bodden:

Obama isn't in the White House to take advice from Peter DeFazio or any other responsible politician.

Bob T:

He should take DeFazio's advice regarding things like putting full body scanners in all of our airports as soon as possible.

Bob Tiernan Portland

thank you Carla

Bill Bodden:

That's your opinion, but I prefer the opinion of people who have probably forgotten more about the Israel-Palestine tragedy than you ever knew and whose respect for human rights is certainly greater than yours if you would defend the actions of Israel's right-wing government.

Bob T:

There ya go again -- assuming that someone who sees Said as a propoganda-spewing liar must be a supporter of "Israel's right-wing [oooo!!!!] government".

I know quite a bit about this subject, thnak you very much. Fortunately I've read enough to have changed from someone who used to believe all the bullshit about Israel being "just like the Nazis" or some such garbage, and began to see how effective the Jew-hating pro-Muslim Palestinian propaganda has been for decades. Many people ought to know better, but I guess it makes them feel good to pretend that Israel is similar to the Third Reich and Apartheid South Africa, and that the Muslim Palestinians are angelic victims seeking nothing but peace, and a nation of their own.

And I really doubt that you have a clue regarding what I'd like to see as a solution in that conflict.

Bob Tiernan Portland

To repeat: "That's your opinion."

Bill Bodden:

To repeat: "That's your opinion."

Bob T:

It's not my "opinion" that there's a propaganda campaign to smear Israel as some sort of Nazi regime that should not exist. Sadly, it's been working well among college students for decades.

Bob Tiernan Portland

"It's not my "opinion" that there's a propaganda campaign to smear Israel as some sort of Nazi regime that should not exist."

"Propaganda campaigns" are like beauty. They are in the eyes of the beholder.

"It's not my "opinion" that there's a propaganda campaign to smear Israel as some sort of Nazi regime that should not exist."

And who do you believe are waging this propaganda campaign to smear Israel? Self-hating Jews like Uri Avnery, Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein? How about the Jew and Zionist Richard Goldstone whose commission found both Israel and Hamas guilty of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead? How about the videographers who shot scenes of white phosphorous being used on Gaza during OCL and the devastation after it was all over? How about the hundreds of people stuck in Jordan and Egypt trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza? Does Israel have the border crossings wide open while these people from several countries are pretending Israel won't let them deliver medicines and other vital supplies?

Bob: This article is by Robert Fisk. He has only spent 30-odd years as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, so perhaps you will forgive him for not knowing as much about Israel as you may do, but you may find the comments on Israel and Ireland of interest: Walls never work: in the Middle East or in Ireland

Cultural amnesia, I guess. You know, it seems to me that we vilified the Soviets based on the existence of the Berlin Wall. I really can't recall ever hearing anyone argue that the wall was evil because it was built by the Soviets, otherwise it might have been a fine idea.

And don't forget the American one. More miles than Israel has. Of course those Soviets were bush leaguers, not realizing they could just fire on people on the other side. That's where Israel and the US are way ahead on wall building.

We'll add this to the list of issues that have nothing to do with population control.

Bill Bodden:

And who do you believe are waging this propaganda campaign to smear Israel? Self-hating Jews like Uri Avnery, Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein?

Bob T:

That latter have their own problems with truth-telling.

But getting back to Said, he was a counterpart to Mayer Kahane, tho' it should be pointed out that Said's views are closer to normal for Mulsim Palestinian thinking than Kahane's are to Israeli thinking, which is why Kahane's party was banned in Israel and his views remain very marginal. Said is opposed to a two-state solution -- a clear non-starter and a viewpoint that still encourages kill, kill, kill. No one who opposes a two-state solution should be a hero in anyone's book, but instead should been seen for what he was: a barrier to a peaceful solution.

In Said's own words, he admitted that "the whole of [Muslim] Palestinian nationalism was based on driving all Israelis [Jews] out".

Did Said ever say anything about the Egyptian occupation of Gaza, and [Palestinian] Jordan's occupation of the West Bank and those two countries never making a peep about a Muslim Palestinain state in those areas when they could have easily created one?

No, Said merely keeps spewing his lies to college students (including his invented credentials as a refugee) so as to condition them into thinking that Israel, like Nazi Germany earlier, cannot be allowed to exist. And never mind that one of Said's heroes was the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini, a leader in the movement calling for the creation of a Muslim Palestinian homeland, was a Nazi war criminal (declared at Nuremburg), sought by Britain and Yugoslavia but never brought to justice. You might as well call him a hero, too, for he'd be saying the same garbage Said spewed had he been around the past 30 years.

The sooner his views are marginalized, the sooner there will be a peaceful solution (because he doesn't want one, unless that "peace" means what occurs after the killing all of the Jews.

Bill Bodden:

How about the hundreds of people stuck in Jordan and Egypt trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza? Does Israel have...

Bob T:

Gee, what's going on with that Egyptian-Gaza border? As usual, your picture is very one-sided. You made up you mind a long time ago (whereas I changed mine, having once believed a lot of the scat you gobble up).

Bob Tiernan Portland

Peri Brown:

You know, it seems to me that we vilified the Soviets based on the existence of the Berlin Wall.

Bob T:

A wall that JFK even encouraged, by the way (in the days when he was learning foreign policy on the job, for he paid no attention to it when he was a playboy congress-critter in the 50s).

But anyway, there's a difference between a wall built to keep people in, and one built to keep them out (or at least to keep them filtered towards a gate).

Not that I expect you to see a difference. I don't even know why I responded since your points were so ridiculous that you must be making it up as you go along.

Bob Tiernan Portland

The Nation... that awesome "progressive" rag that praises Obama's Nobel Prize speech (which went, not very astonishingly, totally unacknowledged here at BO) and which makes no attempt to deconstruct the lies and distortions behind Mr. Obama's endorsement of unending pre-emptive war.

Oh Democrats, is there nothing painted "blue" that you won't groundlessly enthuse over?

"Gee, what's going on with that Egyptian-Gaza border? As usual, your picture is very one-sided. You made up you mind a long time ago (whereas I changed mine, having once believed a lot of the scat you gobble up)."

The Egyptians are accomplices to the Israeli right-wing.

In your change of mind does that mean you approve of the slaughter of hundreds of Palestinian women and children during Operation Cast Lead? Or is that some fiction put out by Israeli-hating propagandists?

Hundreds of Israelis have rallied in central Tel Aviv to protest against the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Bob T: "And never mind that one of Said's heroes was the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini, a leader in the movement calling for the creation of a Muslim Palestinian homeland,..."

Response: What evidence to you have to support your claim that Said regarded the Grand Mufte as a hero?

The is from Wikepedia: "Professor Edward Said corroborates al-Husayni's popularity by stating:

Hajj Amin al-Husayni represented the Palestinian Arab national consensus, had the backing of the Palestinian political parties that functioned in Palestine, and was recognized in some form by Arab governments as the voice of the Palestinian people."

This appears to be a case of Said stating a fact not one of approval.

Bob T: "Gee, what's going on with that Egyptian-Gaza border? As usual, your picture is very one-sided. You made up you mind a long time ago (whereas I changed mine, having once believed a lot of the scat you gobble up)."

Response: That "scat" is evidence of abuses of human rights, war crimes and crimes against humanity compiled by respected international organization involved in these areas, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The Goldstone Commission and independent reporters.

Perhaps you prefer the philosophy and words of Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's racist foreign minister.

Not that I expect you to see a difference. I don't even know why I responded since your points were so ridiculous that you must be making it up as you go along.

Bob Tiernan Portland

I would like, just once, to meet an Oregonian in the public sector that isn't contemptuous of every last word those that pay their salaries have to say. Funny, though, "must be" means you don't know the facts yourself. This is how gov in Oregon works, no? You get taxed, someone gets a job, then they spit in your face.

Thanks for slumming.

Posted by: Aaron Cady | Dec 30, 2009 1:09:57 PM

Ha! He thinks "keeping score" means results!!!

Boy, does he have a lot to learn.

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Posted by: paulie | Dec 30, 2009 3:54:34 PM

I'm sticking with Obama. On Jan.20th he will have served one year.

THAT's what "we're keeping score means". Brownie point to Paulie. "Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right! Unless you were goin' all the way...". Good girls don't go all the way.

Peri Brown:

I would like, just once, to meet an Oregonian in the public sector that isn't contemptuous of every last word those that pay their salaries have to say.

Bob T:

You're not paying my salary. Even the other Bob Tiernan who's the head of the Ore. Repub Party is not paid by you.

As for being "contemptuous of every last word", well, no, I'm contemptuous or garbage talk like that you spewed about "just firing" on people on the other side of a border fence.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Bill Bodden:

The Egyptians are accomplices to the Israeli right-wing.

Bob T:

Uh-huh, yeah, sure. What a talking point!

Bill Bodden:

In your change of mind does that mean you approve of the slaughter of hundreds of Palestinian women and children during Operation Cast Lead? Or is that some fiction put out by Israeli-hating propagandists?

Bob T:

Oh wow, you've discovered that people are getting killed.

I've yet to hear you condemn, and mean really condemn (not rationalize) bombs in Israeli pizza and ice cream parlors and buses and schools.

But anyway, my support for two-state solutions in no way means that I deny that Israeli weapons kill people. What you seem unable to admit or realize is the difference between Muslim Palestinians (and others) deliberately targeting everyone and anybody in an anything goes method ("just lob a missile or bomb anywhere in Israel because even babies are legitimate targets"), and the kind of attacks made by the Israelis trying to target specific people and locations identified as bomb factories or terror cell meeting houses or whatever. The Israelis don't gain anything by just lobbing bombs or missiles in any old direction or at any old location. But from the Muslim Palestinian POV, anything goes.

Part of the lying propaganda of the Saids and others over the years has been not only to deny this difference, but to paint the Israelis as no different from SS units roaming around occupied Russia or Poland. It is designed to prevent a solution that involves recognition of Israel, even one the size of a town, as part of the deal.

Let me make some points to outline my views on this. Before listing these, I will point out that I've long believed that both the Israelis (Palestinian Jews as well as immigrant Jews) and the Palestinian Muslims should have their own states. Too bad the Muslims of the region more or less coerced the Palestinian Muslims into rejecting the two-state deal in 1947, even if the borders of those two states were perhaps unworkable in many ways and would have need to change in trade-offs.

1) Israel was not created by Jews "kicking out" Muslims from their land. Most of the land that became Israel (particularly the UN partition version) had been purchased going back into the 1800s from absentee Muslim landowners. This land was then cultivated and/or plotted for towns.

2) Much of this area was devoid of people and very sparsely populated when many Jewish immigrants from Europe (including Czarist Russia) and other parts of the Middle East settled in that part of the Ottoman Empire, joining the many Jews already there who had been descended from those who had lived at the time of two early Jewish states (there never being a "Palestine" as anything but a name on a map as a region of first the Roman Empire and then the Ottoman Empire. Read what visitors to that area wrote, such as Mark Twain who described traveling over large portions of what is now Israel without seeing anyone at all.

3) Once many towns were laid out and started to grow, and many square miles of land cultivated (they did indeed take barren land and turn it into orchards, citrus groves, fields of vegetables and so on), many, many Muslims migrated to the area in order to take advantage of the active and growing economy. Many, many of the people calling themselves Palestinians today are descended from immigrants to the area who arrived even later than the Jews who arrived in 1890-1920 period.

4) Far from being a "racist" movement, Zionism was simply a movement to create a homeland with a Jewish identity (enough to prevent being victims like they had been in Russia and most of Europe), and did NOT exclude Muslims from being part of the community. If you think otherwise then you are ignorant of the views of many of those dedicated to Zionism in the 19th century. And if you read of the newly settled areas and communities surrounding the older towns and cities you'll find ample evidence of Muslims and Jews living and working together.

5) The Muslims of the Palestine region of the Ottoman and then out-going British Empire were the ONLY pro-Axis colonial people offered their own state following World War Two. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, acknowledged leader of Muslims on the Palestinian region, spent much of the war in Berlin making radio broadcasts and aiding to raise Muslim combat units from then-occupied Yugoslavia. He made it clear that he planned to do with the Jews in the Mideast what Hitler was doing to them in Europe. The Grand Mufti is the one who really jump-started the serious hatred of Jews (in the 1920s or a bit earlier) and propagandized (brainwashed) many, many thousands into a no-compromise, irrational hatred that exists to this day. Among his accomplishments were various murder campaigns carried out against Jewish settlements.

6) Muslims in the Palestinian region weren't as interested in their own state so much as they were interested in being part of a greater Islamic state, or in particular becoming part of Syria. In fact, many or most of them called themselves "Southern Syrians" (and were, in fact, from Syria originally).

7) When the two-state partition plan was proposed (this does not include the already-created eastern Palestinian state known as Jordan, formerly Trans-Jordan, which is mostly Palestinian and prohibited Jews from living there), the partially-checkerboard borders were drawn up to create a majority of Jews in one and a majority of Muslims in the other without a single person needing to be relocated. Many Jews would have found themselves in the Muslim state, and many Muslims would have found themselves in the Jewish state. They had been living that way for decades already, for the most part (by then there was a record of murder raids by the Grand Mufti groups, and by the Jewish self-defense groups that formed in response to these), so apparently most knew they could live with this without seeming to change anything about their lives.

8) The future residents of the Muslim state foolishly turned down the deal when existing Muslim nations of the area convinced them that if they waited they would the entire Palestine region to themselves.

9) After some months of this impasse, the Israelis decided to declare their independence. No one was "kicked out" to creat this state (see next section).

10) The Muslim nations in the area immediately vowed to fight this new state to eliminate it, and the Muslim Palestinians were told to get out of the way so that they would not be killed by the Muslim artillery and air attacks in particlar. Many of these Muslim residents never got back because, as we know, their Muslim brothers failed to overrun the Israelis. These nations then refused to take in the refugees and kept them in that status ever since. In response to this fighting, in some areas of fighting the Israelis pushed out many of the Muslim residents if they were deemed to have been part of the effort to help the Muslim coalition forces overrun Israel. Prior to this they had been more than welcome to stay and be part of the Jewish state, as many did anyway (where they have a higher standard of living than if they were living in any other Islamic state in the Mideast).

11) After Israel was independent, the area known as the West Bank (considered by some to be a good candidate for a Muslim Palestinian state, or at least part of one) was an unclaimed area that was, I think, under some limited UN oversight. It remained so for five years and then Jordan annexed it. During the Jordanian occupation (until Israel overran it fifteen years later in response to years of attacks coming from that area), there was apparently no cry that this was an occupied Palestine that should be a Palestinian state for Muslims. It was only after Israel moved in that this became an issue. Gee, what a surprise. (Note: Israel should not have annexed either this area, or the Golan Heights, but they hadn't done so when they fought for independence in creating their own state from what was left-over empire land and the Palestinians refusal to accept Israel's existence all these years has allowed the Israelis to settle this area to a point that perhaps makes it impossible to give up entirely. The Palestinians are indeed their own worst enemies in many ways.

12) Israel has given up two pieces of land it had taken in response to aggression or planned aggression against it (1967 and 1973), namely, the Sinai and the Gaza strip, and in each case they forcible removed all of the Israeli Jews who had been living there. So it can happen again. Despite his flaws, I think Sadat was a good man because he realized the stupidity of being dedicated to eliminating Israel. And Israel responded. He was no Gandhi, but I'd like to know if the Left would like to see any Muslim Gandhis on the north, west, and south of Israel, and inside it. Or must they all be murdered as "traitors"? I had not realized that Gandhi was out of fashion.

13) Even though I support the creation of a Muslim Palestinian state, I have no illusions that it's not going to be just one more Jew-hating Islamic despotism. Gee, what a concept.

14) Calling Israel a genocidal nation is another piece of nonsense. Considering all of the health care and the standard of living in Israel (many Muslim Israeli citizens don't want to be anywhere else), it must be one of the oddest efforts at genocide I've ever heard of. It's just another very over-used propaganda lie that does nothing but get many to reach a no-compromise stance.

15) Every single Israeli Jew (there are Israeli Muslims of course) is a legitimate target to those who want to overrun Israel. There is no such thing as incidental killings to them. On the other hand, the Israelis know that it's ineffective militarily to consider any and every Muslim within and around its borders to be a legitimate target. So they don't, despite the propaganda that they do. They have to be more selective in their targeting which is why they go after as many arms caches, bomb factories, militant hideouts and leaders as possible.

16) With the kind of Jew hatred taught to Muslims from an early age, is there anyone out there who thinks that this can be turned off if a Muslim Palestine is created out of, say, Gaza-Golan Heights-West Bank? If such a state is created, will the current supporters of the Palestinians be able to turn on those Muslims who still seek to eliminate Israel, and have the guts to support crushing them? If you want to see Israel eliminated, just come out and say it instead of hiding behind a claim that you're in favor of a two-state solution.

Because...

17) Those calling Israel a Nazi state while claiming support for a two-state solution puts them in a position of eventually accepting Israels continued existence even though the lesson of WWII is that no Nazi regime should be allowed to remain. Hence the stupidity of calling Israel a Nazi state (because they are not one anyway), or even an apartheid state similar to the old South Africa. I used to be anti-Israel until I read more and realized that I had been buying into all of the sh*t spewed by the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel propagandists. I'm sorry I ever felt that way, particularly since any objective, rational comparison of the two sides clearly reveals too many of Israel's opponents in the region to be unworthy of much sympathy at all, in how they treat their own people, let alone the dreaded infidels of various stripes. Even in recognition of a number of things Israel does (even if all or most of it is in response to moves against it), anyone who does not think that Israel is by far the best nation in that region (justice-wise, fairness-wise, you name it) is, to put it mildly, a very ignorant and misguided individual.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Bob:

I hate to tell you this, but you wasted a lot of time with your diatribe above. I don't have the time to respond (waste on?) with itemized comments. Suffice it to say I have never equated the Israelis with the Nazis nor, to my knowledge, have any of the people I cited above as people I respect on the issues of the Israeli-Palestine tragedy. If you can cite any examples to the contrary, I would appreciate them and will revise my opinion of such people who made this mistake.

Similarly, I and most of the people I have cited above have expressed disapproval elsewhere of the transgressions of Palestinians, such as corruption and lobbing rockets into Israel.

I just skimmed through your screed, in part, because I don't have the time to devote to it and it appears to be too one-sided to make worth serious thought. I have read, among other histories, "Righteous Victims" by Benny Morris, that appears to have been more honest in spreading the blame among almost all of the participants - the Brits, the Palestinians, the Zionists, certain Jews in the Irgun, neighboring Arabs, Fatah, the PLO, and others. I am now working on "Israel and Palestine" by Avi Shlaim, who also has concluded there is more than one guilty party to this problem.

In case you missed it, I'll repeat the title of Robert Fisk's articles on Edward Said: "Palestinian, intellectual, and fighter, Edward Said rails against Arafat and Sharon to his dying breath" - http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1978.shtml

Did you catch that: Edward Said rails against Arafat and Sharon to his dying breath? Seems to me like Fisk made a point of noting Said saw the sins of his own people.

Uri Avnery on The Iron Wall - Egypt's Blockade

Bill Bodden:

Did you catch that: Edward Said rails against Arafat and Sharon to his dying breath? Seems to me like Fisk made a point of noting Said saw the sins of his own people.

Bob T:

Sure, there were numerous Muslim Palestinians (tho' Said was not a "refugee" himself) who wanted to kill Arafat. Big deal. What matters (which started this exchange) is the lying Jew-hating double standard propaganda spewed by Said to far too many gullible people in the west. Said was an opponent of a two-state solution, convinced many to also oppose it (based on crap) and thus was part of the problem that is still with us. It's a non-starter. The Muslim Palestinians could have had a homeland a long, long time ago were it not for people with the Said mentality.

Sharon? Well, he had no problem with a Muslim Palestinian state whenever they were ready to out statecraft ahead of denying Israel's existence, and Said couldn't even do that! In other words, of the two, Sharon was the one who could accept peaveful co-existence (whereas Said would prefer the Muslims overrun Israel and slaughter everyone).

Good riddance to him.

Be my guest and cut and paste my "diatribe" or whatever you called it, and reply one point at a time anytime you feel you can.

Bob Tiernan Portland

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