Very much looking forward to reading @MaxBlumenthal's new book, to be published by @VersoBooks in July. pic.twitter.com/iojB1DdyS3
— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) May 15, 2015
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2015
The Max Blumenthal New-Book Watch
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Max Blumenthal's New Book: Due This Summer
However, Goliath was delayed a few times as he put more material in. Don't be surprised if his new book might be published a little later for the same reason.
Seems like an appropriate time to announce my next book - The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza http://t.co/Swa13HCvao Due out in July
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 11, 2015Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Friday, August 01, 2014
Kunstler on Gaza and the World at Large
This is a belated posting of Kunstler's two columns on the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. Kunstler takes an extremely harsh view of Palestinians, one I disavow. But if you're interested in a very contrary, and frankly, wrongheaded, perspective, here it is. Take it with a grain lump of salt.
Kunstler: Excuse Me for Living
Kunstler: War Zones
==
And this is today's column,
"All Hell," where Kunstler says everything is to going to Hades in a handbasket.
Kunstler: Excuse Me for Living
Kunstler: War Zones
==
And this is today's column,
"All Hell," where Kunstler says everything is to going to Hades in a handbasket.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Kunstler: Struggle to the Death
In which Kunstler assesses the conflict between Israel and Palestine. (Have he and Max Blumenthal ever met? What would a debate between them be like?)
Kunstler: Struggle to the Death.
For public consumption, the fatuous haircut-in-search-of-a-brain, a.k.a. Secretary of State John Kerry, hauled out the dog-eared playbook for “negotiating a ceasefire” between the Palestinian Hamas leadership and Israel. Neither side takes him seriously, of course. In this historic moment of Islamic uproar across the entire region, Hamas is just following the larger script: act up and act out.
They would like to catch the momentum of rampaging ISIS next door, but Hamas is not a mobile force of mostly young male psychopaths. They’re stuck in Gaza embedded among their women and children doing what they can to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamic state. For the moment that means lobbing rockets from launch sites planted among the homes and institutions of daily life in the densely urbanized Gaza strip.
So far in the current offensive, they’ve launched over 700 missiles at Israel. Some of the rockets, purchased through the world’s arms bazaar from China, are powerful enough to reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. But they are poorly-targeted and Israel’s “iron dome” anti-missile system can intercept some of them before they land on anything.
Unlike previous offensives, when Hamas rocketeers could set up mobile Qassam missiles in alleyways or rooftops, and beat it a few minutes after firing, the new larger rockets require sturdier installations. Thus they can be systematically discovered and targeted. Hamas is quite willing to sacrifice the women and children who eat and sleep around their rocket installations for the propaganda value of pretending that they were not deliberately put in harm’s way.
Israel has accepted the reality that Hamas deliberately uses its own people as human shields and has opted to destroy the missile-launch sites in any case, because the alternative is to give Hamas free reign in bombarding Israel. One would think that world opinion would understand this equation. But there is little sympathy for Israel’s predicament, and little appreciation for Hamas’s calculated ruthlessness vis-à-vis its own people.
The birth-rate in Gaza is among the highest in the world. If it is a deliberate result of social policy, it is a cruel bargain for the Palestinians, who are apparently regarded as expendable by the Hamas leadership. In a culture that glorifies suicide bombings, routine human sacrifice must be normal, though to a Western sensibility it seems tragic.
It shapes up as a struggle to the death that will not be impeded by reason, the good intentions of others, or sentimentality. What Israel remembers is that nobody was on the side of its people in 1939 and they’ll be damned to make the same mistake of not fighting back again. This certainly sets up a situation of extreme political danger in the region, but no more now than the ISIS juggernaut, or the larger beef between the two basic branches of Islam, or the fate of the fragile Saud monarchy.
This is not a region of the world than can support large populations of human beings of any religious persuasion, and in the new age of extreme resource limits blind circumstance itself, more than personalities or doctrines, will determine who gets to inhabit what rockpile.
What’s changed is the perception that the USA has any role to play any longer even in the diplomatic theatrics. The Middle East is disintegrating faster than any polity in historical memory. It appears that, if anything, the USA has only succeeded in accelerating the process wherever we turn our attentions. Since the 1970s, we haven’t felt the ultimate consequence of trouble in that part of the world, which would be an interruption in the oil supply coming out of there.
Back then, there might have been something we could do about it. Now there is nothing we can do but stand on the sidelines and wait. In the meantime, wouldn’t it be a good idea to attend to our own problems, especially the critical need to prepare for American life in a post-oil world?
Kunstler: Struggle to the Death.
For public consumption, the fatuous haircut-in-search-of-a-brain, a.k.a. Secretary of State John Kerry, hauled out the dog-eared playbook for “negotiating a ceasefire” between the Palestinian Hamas leadership and Israel. Neither side takes him seriously, of course. In this historic moment of Islamic uproar across the entire region, Hamas is just following the larger script: act up and act out.
They would like to catch the momentum of rampaging ISIS next door, but Hamas is not a mobile force of mostly young male psychopaths. They’re stuck in Gaza embedded among their women and children doing what they can to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamic state. For the moment that means lobbing rockets from launch sites planted among the homes and institutions of daily life in the densely urbanized Gaza strip.
So far in the current offensive, they’ve launched over 700 missiles at Israel. Some of the rockets, purchased through the world’s arms bazaar from China, are powerful enough to reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. But they are poorly-targeted and Israel’s “iron dome” anti-missile system can intercept some of them before they land on anything.
Unlike previous offensives, when Hamas rocketeers could set up mobile Qassam missiles in alleyways or rooftops, and beat it a few minutes after firing, the new larger rockets require sturdier installations. Thus they can be systematically discovered and targeted. Hamas is quite willing to sacrifice the women and children who eat and sleep around their rocket installations for the propaganda value of pretending that they were not deliberately put in harm’s way.
Israel has accepted the reality that Hamas deliberately uses its own people as human shields and has opted to destroy the missile-launch sites in any case, because the alternative is to give Hamas free reign in bombarding Israel. One would think that world opinion would understand this equation. But there is little sympathy for Israel’s predicament, and little appreciation for Hamas’s calculated ruthlessness vis-à-vis its own people.
The birth-rate in Gaza is among the highest in the world. If it is a deliberate result of social policy, it is a cruel bargain for the Palestinians, who are apparently regarded as expendable by the Hamas leadership. In a culture that glorifies suicide bombings, routine human sacrifice must be normal, though to a Western sensibility it seems tragic.
It shapes up as a struggle to the death that will not be impeded by reason, the good intentions of others, or sentimentality. What Israel remembers is that nobody was on the side of its people in 1939 and they’ll be damned to make the same mistake of not fighting back again. This certainly sets up a situation of extreme political danger in the region, but no more now than the ISIS juggernaut, or the larger beef between the two basic branches of Islam, or the fate of the fragile Saud monarchy.
This is not a region of the world than can support large populations of human beings of any religious persuasion, and in the new age of extreme resource limits blind circumstance itself, more than personalities or doctrines, will determine who gets to inhabit what rockpile.
What’s changed is the perception that the USA has any role to play any longer even in the diplomatic theatrics. The Middle East is disintegrating faster than any polity in historical memory. It appears that, if anything, the USA has only succeeded in accelerating the process wherever we turn our attentions. Since the 1970s, we haven’t felt the ultimate consequence of trouble in that part of the world, which would be an interruption in the oil supply coming out of there.
Back then, there might have been something we could do about it. Now there is nothing we can do but stand on the sidelines and wait. In the meantime, wouldn’t it be a good idea to attend to our own problems, especially the critical need to prepare for American life in a post-oil world?
Monday, June 30, 2014
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Not a Pawn
@cvaldary @Julia_C_Salazar we will stay where we are and not be chess pieces in a rapture ready Christian Zionist's childlike fantasy.
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 27, 2014Monday, February 10, 2014
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Friday, January 10, 2014
Rep. Louie Gohmert Piles on Max Blumenthal
Gohmert condemned me as anti-Semitic during an extended rant warning that BDS will lead to the second Holocaust http://t.co/xLu7E8WNgY #PT
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 10, 2014Max is mentioned at the 3h 17m mark.
A discussion about this is on Max Blumenthal's Twitter account. What stands out to me is the unseemliness of Gohmert, a Gentile, calling Blumenthal, a Jew, anti-Semitic, for his vocal and sustained anti-Zionism.
11 January update: A transcript of the remarks.
Saturday, January 04, 2014
Protesting B.D.S. While Divesting From Palestinian Universities
Louis Proyect: "Bard College and the American Studies Vote"
In an apparent breach with two other prestigious universities, Botstein has refused to break ties with Al Quds University in occupied Palestinian territory. Although Syracuse University and Brandeis University are both opposed to boycotting Israeli institutions, they had no problem breaking ties with Al Quds on grounds far less substantial than those that are fueling the BDS movement. Supposedly, a rally by Islamic Jihad on the East Jerusalem campus of Al Quds was punctuated by Nuremberg type Nazi salutes. Without conducting any serious investigation into the matter, Syracuse and Brandeis abandoned Al Quds. Why would Leon Botstein, an ardent supporter of the state of Israel that now puts forward the demand that the Palestinians recognize it as a “Jewish state”, not follow suit? The explanation for that requires understanding the particular place that Bard occupies in the American academy and the pressure that Botstein would be under to maintain the illusion that he is committed to free speech. ...To understand Leon Botstein’s stance in the Al Quds controversy, you have to start with his need to go one step further in reconciling Mammon and God. Bard College has a reputation as being some kind of “progressive” liberal arts institution and cutting ties to Al Quds would be counter-productive from a marketing standpoint. Let’s say you are some successful professional in New York who voted for DiBlasio and subscribes to the Nation Magazine and NPR. Would you want to send your kid to a school that broke with a Palestinian university on the basis of a witch-hunt organized by the Israeli right and its friends in the U.S. like Pamela Geller?
Corey Robin: "When It Comes to the Boycott of Israel, Who Has the Real Double Standard?"
In an apparent breach with two other prestigious universities, Botstein has refused to break ties with Al Quds University in occupied Palestinian territory. Although Syracuse University and Brandeis University are both opposed to boycotting Israeli institutions, they had no problem breaking ties with Al Quds on grounds far less substantial than those that are fueling the BDS movement. Supposedly, a rally by Islamic Jihad on the East Jerusalem campus of Al Quds was punctuated by Nuremberg type Nazi salutes. Without conducting any serious investigation into the matter, Syracuse and Brandeis abandoned Al Quds. Why would Leon Botstein, an ardent supporter of the state of Israel that now puts forward the demand that the Palestinians recognize it as a “Jewish state”, not follow suit? The explanation for that requires understanding the particular place that Bard occupies in the American academy and the pressure that Botstein would be under to maintain the illusion that he is committed to free speech. ...To understand Leon Botstein’s stance in the Al Quds controversy, you have to start with his need to go one step further in reconciling Mammon and God. Bard College has a reputation as being some kind of “progressive” liberal arts institution and cutting ties to Al Quds would be counter-productive from a marketing standpoint. Let’s say you are some successful professional in New York who voted for DiBlasio and subscribes to the Nation Magazine and NPR. Would you want to send your kid to a school that broke with a Palestinian university on the basis of a witch-hunt organized by the Israeli right and its friends in the U.S. like Pamela Geller?
Corey Robin: "When It Comes to the Boycott of Israel, Who Has the Real Double Standard?"
Sunday, December 22, 2013
The American Studies Association Endures a Backlash for Its B.D.S. Resolution
More soon.
Links added as I find them.
Tax-Exempt Status of ASA Challenged Because of Boycott.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2013/12/israel_academic_boycott_american_studies_association_joins_the_fight.html
Brandeis Withdraws from ASA.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-launches-fierce-counterattack-against-american-studies-association
Max Blumenthal, keeping up with this matter, as always:
Links added as I find them.
My statement on ASA boycott
http://t.co/p78lw3Z50p
— Alison Byerly (@alisonbyerly) December 29, 2013@MaxBlumenthal @AliAbunimah Univ. of Ind. Pres. bypasses Dept. of Am. Studies and withdraws ASA membership. http://t.co/HYmzMUDY3j
— Kirk K. (@Kirk__K) December 23, 2013Tax-Exempt Status of ASA Challenged Because of Boycott.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2013/12/israel_academic_boycott_american_studies_association_joins_the_fight.html
Brandeis Withdraws from ASA.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-launches-fierce-counterattack-against-american-studies-association
Max Blumenthal, keeping up with this matter, as always:
@DianaValerie @ThaddeusRussell academic institutions in US are in deep with Israel, not North Korea or Zimbabwe or Syria.
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 22, 2013Sunday, December 08, 2013
Friday, November 08, 2013
Goliath Arrives
I received my copy of Goliath in the mail yesterday. It's a substantial book, which Max Blumenthal began writing in 2009. I think publication was delayed a few times so he could include more material. Following his Twitter account these last few years is how I learned about the persecution of African migrants in Israel.
Some people have crowed that the book is a "flop" (especially when compared to the sales for Killing Jesus and Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims). Two reasons why it hasn't gone gangbusters, I think, are:
It deals almost exclusively with the situation inside Israel, whereas Republican Gomorrah was about American politics. And, it is a very critical overview of Israeli history and society. So, the cable-news shows that featured RG in 2009 have not done the same with Goliath because it's not America-centric and because it "goes there" on Israel. Yet, the book is one of Amazon's top sellers on the topic of Israel.
This review, at Religion Dispatches, is mixed, but also worth reading.
9 November update: Towards the end of Goliath, Max focuses on young Israelis immigrating to the U.S. and Germany. Berlin has a sizable Israeli population.
10 November update: "Attacks on Max Blumenthal's Goliath Escalate Veer Into Wingnut Land."
Some people have crowed that the book is a "flop" (especially when compared to the sales for Killing Jesus and Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims). Two reasons why it hasn't gone gangbusters, I think, are:
It deals almost exclusively with the situation inside Israel, whereas Republican Gomorrah was about American politics. And, it is a very critical overview of Israeli history and society. So, the cable-news shows that featured RG in 2009 have not done the same with Goliath because it's not America-centric and because it "goes there" on Israel. Yet, the book is one of Amazon's top sellers on the topic of Israel.
This review, at Religion Dispatches, is mixed, but also worth reading.
9 November update: Towards the end of Goliath, Max focuses on young Israelis immigrating to the U.S. and Germany. Berlin has a sizable Israeli population.
10 November update: "Attacks on Max Blumenthal's Goliath Escalate Veer Into Wingnut Land."
Wednesday, November 06, 2013
AmConMag Review of Goliath
A review of Goliath with the stark title"Will Israel Go Fascist?"
And...
And...
Positive review of @MaxBlumenthal's "Goliath" in Der @Forverts, Yiddish edition of @jdforward: http://t.co/SFFXwCJbT0 @
— Abe Greenhouse (@grinhoyz) November 5, 2013
Tuesday, November 05, 2013
Drilling for Oil in the West Bank
#ISRAEL plans to drill for oil in #WestBank in Israeli-controlled Area C as peace talks continue http://t.co/ulUBzZ2arU #MENA #energy #news
— Aslan Media (@ASLANmedia) November 4, 2013
6 November update: On a related note, Israel is counting on a natural gas field to become "energy independent."
But as we've seen from Eike Batista, there might not be much in the ground anyway.
Even if there is, Israel will have to "navigate a geopolitical quagmire that risks angering enemies and enemies alike" according to an Associated Press article ("Israel Faces Geopolitical Tangle With Natural Gas" by Tia Goldenberg) published in the 30 March 2013 edition of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The article adds that Israel's discoveries of the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields represent "just a portion of the huge reserves in the Levant Basin, which the U.S. Geological Survey estimated in 2010 holds some 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas."
Much to Write About
Help the great @davidsheen write the first book on the plight of non-Jewish African refugees in Israel: http://t.co/RbJAS8pikX
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 5, 2013
It sounds better than another cutesy/clever/navel-gazing novel.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Max Blumenthal Further Discusses His Book Goliath
Max Blumenthal discusses his book Goliath in an interview with TruthOut.org.
He acknowledges the book has received far less attention than his previous book Republican Gomorrah, because it's easy to look at the religious right but not Israel.
He acknowledges the book has received far less attention than his previous book Republican Gomorrah, because it's easy to look at the religious right but not Israel.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Alterman vs. Blumenthal
In The Nation, Eric Alterman panned Goliath, Max Blumenthal's book on Israel, and Max has been tweeting away.
Some Nation writers are known for their feuds with their colleagues: Alexander Cockburn vs. Christopher Hitchens, Eric Alterman, and Katha Pollitt; Hitchens vs. Pollitt and Cockburn; Alterman vs. Cockburn, and now Blumenthal. Hitchens even quit the magazine.
Alterman's gross and vacuous attack of @MaxBlumenthal's 'Goliath' concludes with his idiotic "Alter-Reviews" of pricey culture. Perfect.
— Andrew Bard Epstein (@andEps) October 18, 2013
Some Nation writers are known for their feuds with their colleagues: Alexander Cockburn vs. Christopher Hitchens, Eric Alterman, and Katha Pollitt; Hitchens vs. Pollitt and Cockburn; Alterman vs. Cockburn, and now Blumenthal. Hitchens even quit the magazine.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Max Blumenthal's Goliath Pushed Back Yet Again
Max Blumenthal's book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel is now to be released on 1 October 2013, according to its Amazon.com page.
Previously announced release dates:
11 June 2013
9 April 2013
April 2013
Previously announced release dates:
11 June 2013
9 April 2013
April 2013
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