Daniel in the lions' den
Charismatic British-Israeli peacenik Daniel Levy made a remarkable presentation this morning, at a big conference on US-Israeli relations organized by the extremely rightwing, pro-Israeli think-tank, the Hudson Institute.
Luckily Matt Duss of the Center for American Progress's Wonk Room was there to video and verbally describe the highlights for the rest of us.
If you scroll down Matt's blog post there to the 6-minute video you can enjoy not just Daniel's great presentation but also the extreme discomfort of his fellow-panelists Doug Feith and the equally craven Bob Lieber. It is also kind of fun to see Daniel speaking his mind about the disaster of the current Israeli government's policy while many iterations of the Hudson Institute's logo are waving around behind his head.
Scroll down even further for the handily provided actual transcript of what he said.
Talk about Daniel in the den of lions, eh?
So okay, here is my big confession. I was actually at that same conference-- until just before Daniel and Co. got to speak; but I had to duck out just before their panel started.
I was there, however, for the peroration made earlier by Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, who until recently worked under some degree of cover as a 'neutral' (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) US historian of the US's Middle East policy.
The heart of what Oren had to say was a fuller, verbal elaboration of the theme he introduced in this recent article in The New Republic:
- Where Ahmadinejad leaves off, the Goldstone Report, or, as it is officially called, the “United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,” persists...
The Goldstone Report goes further than Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust deniers by stripping the Jews not only of the ability and the need but of the right to defend themselves. If a country can be pummeled by thousands of rockets and still not be justified in protecting its inhabitants, then at issue is not the methods by which that country survives but whether it can survive at all. But more insidiously, the report does not only hamstring Israel; it portrays the Jews as the deliberate murderers of innocents--as Nazis. And a Nazi state not only lacks the need and right to defend itself; it must rather be destroyed.
That is why I am really glad that his sick ranting was followed, in short order, by the eminent good sense from Daniel Levy.
I wish Oren could have stuck around to hear Levy. But he, too, had to duck out. His driver nearly ran me down as I biked away from the Hudson Institute.
Just finished reading Oren's article, he struck a cord in me when he said "Many factors contributed to the Holocaust--European anti-Semitism, mass murder technologies, and Allied indifference--but none more elemental than the Jews' inability to defend themselves."
So this is where the obstacle is, his government wants a people, namely the Palestinian and their Arab neighbours, who will not be able to defend themselves and succumb to all what the Arab haters, with their mass murder technologies and Allied indifference.!!!!
Hamas and Hizbullah and the support the Iranian give to the resistance party is an obstacle in the desire of reenacting a holocaust but this time the victim will be the victimizer ( Jewish people), and the victims are the occupied defenceless Arabs .
What an oxymoron .
I have to agree with Goldstone. If one starts with the generally agreed proposition that the zionist entity is an illegimate state (most of the world would agree with this statement), then why should it have the right to self-defence? I think that it is courageous of Goldstone as a Jew to point out the obvious-that if an illegitimate entity attempts self defence, then it is a war crime
"Shyryn", please note that Goldstone said nothing of the sort, and your attempt to claim that he did is far-fetched scaremongering.
Also I have strong reason to believe you're a sock puppet, so please stop trying to impersonate other commenters here forthwith.
levy kicked butt.