Call For Genocide Adds to Israel's Mounting Public Relations Problem

It's not like Israel has enough of a public relations problem with the mounting "collateral damage" from Operation Protective Edge but when moronic bloggers are openly calling for genocide it doesn't help the cause. In a deranged screed that was published by The Times of Israel and then rapidly removed after mounting outrage triggered by the ill-advised posting by Yochanan Gordon. The piece also appeared on The Five Towns Jewish Times, a Long Island based newspaper and website founded by his father. Both rapidly sites issued apologies for the piece and should hang their heads in shame for ever allowing such a thing to slip by their editors. It only serves to bolster anti-Israel sentiment, feeds the bloodlust for killing Palestinians, fills the coffers of corrupt U.S. politicians and makes for an easy win in the media and propaganda scrum for warmongers on both sides (and within the arms industry) who benefit from the ongoing inability to bring peace to the region.

In the offensive piece Gordon makes light of an ongoing human tragedy, trivializing it with sports references, in particular NBA basketball:

I wasn’t aware of this, but it seems that the nature of warfare has undergone a major shift over the years. Where wars were usually waged to defeat the opposing side, today it seems – and judging by the number of foul calls it would indicate – that today’s wars are fought to a draw. I mean, whoever heard of a timeout in war? An NBA Basketball game allows six timeouts for each team during the course of a game, but last I checked this is a war! We are at war with an enemy whose charter calls for the annihilation of our people. Nothing, then, can be considered disproportionate when we are fighting for our very right to live.

  The Times of Israel's statement is as follows:

This blog post, which was described by our Ops & Blogs editor as both damnable and ignorant, blatantly breached The Times of Israel’s editorial guidelines.

We have discontinued the writer’s blog.

It is getting so bad that even Elliott Abrams, a former Reagan official, Iran-Contra criminal and member of the Council on Foreign Relations or CFR. as it is commonly known on the far-right is questioning the wisdom of U.S. military aid to Israel. Abrams was interviewed in a piece that ran  in the Dallas Morning News from which I excerpt:

You’re part of a growing body of Israel supporters who believe it’s time for Israel to stand on its own financially, without U.S. military aid. Why do you believe that should happen?

Of course, this is a medium- or long-term matter, unrelated to the current tensions between Obama and Israel. I’m not in favor of cutting aid now, because it would seem punitive and seem a part of those tensions. But in the long run, Israel is growing richer and soon will have natural gas in abundance. Justifying the aid becomes harder in that economic sense. Moreover, I think our best military alliances do not include aid — just mutual respect, cooperation and interdependence: Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea, the U.K. and others like them.

Wouldn’t there be significant blowback domestically in the United States, regardless of whether it’s Barack Obama or someone else in the White House who initiates such cuts?

That depends on how aid is cut — for example, slowly over 10 years is different from all at once — and the nature of the military relationship that we have if and when aid starts coming down. We [can] cut off economic aid entirely without blowback. If it’s the right thing to do, it can be managed.

Abrams isn't talking about a drastic and immediate reduction but it is an image problem having U.S. bombs and other munitions being used against civilians. This sort of thing is not in the best interests of either the United States or Israel (let alone the dead children that Netanyahu is racking up) and Mr. Abrams should be given a hell of a lot of credit for his stance. It would be a damn good thing if more like Abrams could rise above the ongoing cynical use of Israel and Palestine as political footballs to become the sort of respected and wise elder statesmen who are able to work towards long-term solutions.

The fire-bombers like Yochanan Gordon and his ilk are doing in writing exactly what those who would resort to terrorist acts against Israel and America do with suicide vests and homemade bombs - or hijacked airliners for that matter. Given my contempt for Abrams for his role in Iran-Contra and other machinations of the shadow government this is high praise indeed.

The violence that is being perpetrated by the extremist Netanyahu government in Gaza must stop and not only should Americans reject arming this fanatic but he and all who support his Naziesque megalomania need to be denounced and held accountable as the war criminals that they are.

Shit like what this guy wrote should be condemned by all who value human decency and hopefully more will follow the examples of the two publications in which it ran that soundly denounced it as the embarrassment to Israel that it is. I often write as if ALL of Israel is an insane, racist, fascist nation but it it isn't. There are decent people, humanitarian people and liberals who are forced to live under Bibi's jackboot - much like those progressive and liberal Americans who have to live in the deep south red states behind the cornbread curtain.

Decent Israel citizens must unite against Netanyahu to bring about the one regime change that is desperately needed so that the endless cycle murder and violence can be halted.