Israeli folly and More Olbermanns Please
Yep, coming after Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article last April, the Sunday Times (London) has reported that the Likudniks plan to strike Iran (subsequently and unsurprisingly denied) and we also witness Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu finally freed after a lengthy period of house arrest (which followed 18 years in jail).
The two are connected because it was just over twenty years ago that the same newspaper broke Vanunu’s confirmation of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program.
I have few words right now for the monumental stupidity and lack of ostensibly “strategic” thinking behind these putative plans. Amid the post-Ramallah raid bumbling, wherein Olmert was reportedly not informed, it was left to the two ubiquitous government spokespersons Miri Eisen and Mark Regev to issue denials of the mad bellicosity of the Israeli military, who really run the government.
Meanwhile, Ehud Barak wants a comeback, announcing he will contest the leadership of the Israeli Labour Party in May. (I’ll resist any quips about resurrections of the still comatose war criminal Ariel Sharon).
Not a great political gene-pool — we have the racist moron somehow elevated to Deputy PM, Avigdor Lieberman; the bumbling idiot PM under whom a war with Lebanon, the oPt’s worst year and a raid in Ramallah just took place unbenownst to him while he meets with the Egyptian President; and the boundless bigot Bibi or Benjamin Netanyahu, who was even recognised as such in the conservative Jerusalem Post last week, is the most popular politician in Israel.
Yes, there’s something rotten at the core of the worse-than-apartheid state, with very unedifying consequences.
For now, though, some impassioned online op-ed from Olbermann on “sacrifice”.
The videoclip goes for 10:54; the transcript is available at t r u t h o u t
More Olbermanns and there won’t be any room on television for anything else. Maybe that would be a good thing these days. But he does go on a bit. Makes me sympathetic for my blog readers when I am on my soap box. I’ll have to tighten it up. I’ve learned my lesson.
Israel is just insane. They’re calling everyone else terrorist threats, but they are the third most dangerous military capability on the planet behind the U.S. and Britain. They could kick Germany’s ass for Chrissake and France too. Now that’s ridiculous. I don’t see why we’re going to let them start world war three. They are hallucinating about the threat from Iran. It isn’t even a real potential for years to come and Iran has never attacked anyone – unlike Israel.
Incisive commentary. I saw this post on Ha’aretz which I think sums up certain points nicely.
Thanks for the valuable link, Curt-meister, I really like Danny Rubinstein’s journalistic honesty and integrity. Concurring with what Servant says, I think it is a measure of our disgust at the folly demonstrated by Israel’s Likudnik “leadership”, its idiocy amplified at present if that is at all possible, that leads us to speak so plainly–tellin’ it like it is ;)
Speaking as a blogger who wrote an impassioned post denouncing the IDF plan to bomb Iran, we should keep in mind that many well-informed progressive Israeli military analysts have poured cold water on this IDF “leak” as anything more than a threat to Iran. In other words, some dolt in the IDf thinks that if it rattles its sabers that the Iranians might shiver in their boots & rethink their policy objectives.
Of course, even the “bluff” scenario is pathetic & empty since I believe the Iranians would love nothing more than going toe to toe w. the IDF. I even believe they’d be willing to absorb a nuclear attack to be able to say to the rest of the Arab world: “You see what we’ve done on yr behalf.” Imagine how much street cred they’d have in the eyes of Muslims the world over then.
This is a harsh scenario. But not, unfortunately, lacking in believability. I have no love for Iran or their leadership, but even less for Israel & its leadership.
Thanks Richard, appreciate the voice of calm reason as there was a lot of anger and alarmist disbelief, including my own. I guess we are all just worried that this saber rattling becomes a game of brinkmanship and a self-fulfilling prophecy. I hope you’re right.