06/14/10 – Philip Weiss – The Scott Horton Show

Alright y'all, Anti-War Radio, the Liberty Radio Network, LRN.
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Alright now our next guest on the show today is Phillip Weiss.
He keeps the blog Mondoweiss, that's M-O-N-D-O-W-E-I-S-S, at mondoweiss.net, there, and he writes the Mondoweiss blog with Adam Horowitz, who I think is probably not Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys but a different Adam Horowitz, and they do a hell of a great job covering Israel-Palestine issues.
It says here, we maintain this blog because of 9-11, Iraq, Gaza, the Nabka, the struggling people of Israel and Palestine, and our Jewish background.
Welcome back to the show Phil, how are you doing?
Good Scott, how are you doing?
I'm doing great, it's good to talk to you.
Do you want to talk to me about what's been going on in the Middle East lately here?
Well you know, I mean I think that it's actually a good time to be focused on these issues from my standpoint because the dial is moving, I mean it's moving slowly but it's certainly moving in this country, and slowly but surely the neocons are becoming more and more isolated.
They're in the Obama administration, no question, there are neoconservative elements in the Obama administration, but at least some more rational and realistic voices are finally getting into the debate.
I don't know, I mean, and events have really helped us here because things like the flotilla raid just reveal how violent Israel is when it has to confront any kind of challenge to its authority.
And you know that, I mean it's just, on Friday night this 41-year-old father of three girls was killed in Jerusalem, and this happens all the time in Palestine, and now that story is being scrutinized.
Israel's version of why it would determine that a 41-year-old father of three girls who was going to pray is a terrorist is being scrutinized and undermined, and even the mainstream media are paying a little attention, and that's something my site is really working on today, is telling the story of Ziad al-Jilani, and what his family says happened to him on this horrifying night when he just made the mistake of driving near a checkpoint.
Yeah, well, and of course the checkpoints in Israel as well as all the American occupations are where a great deal of the violence takes place, I'm sure you saw where General Petraeus said about Afghanistan, that we have shot an amazing number of people at checkpoints, and so far none of them have proven to have been a threat.
And that was the general in charge of all of the land between Morocco and India, you know?
It's his war.
God, help me on that.
I missed that one.
When did he say that?
Oh, it was just a few weeks back.
Really?
An amazing number, we have killed an amazing number of people, he said.
And of course, you know, we can understand what happens when you put an 18-year-old kid with a rifle at a checkpoint, and every approaching vehicle is a possible threat that he can't see inside.
How nervous is he?
Even if he's not a bad guy at all, how nervous is he?
Right.
Yeah, it's occupation.
It's just occupation that produces...
I completely agree.
And this event that we're studying on Friday night in Jerusalem, you know, it looks like what happened was there was stone throwing going on, and the stone hit at the kid's car, and you know, he lost control of his car, because people were throwing stones.
And you know, the next thing you know, they're shooting at him.
I mean, it's just like, because these kids, like you said, they're these young kids who are nervous, and they've heard, oh, Palestinians are going to use their cars as a weapon.
I mean, it's just...
I got to check out that Petraeus statement.
That's amazing.
Well, you know, the parallels between the mindset of the people in charge and the population, I think, of Israel and the United States on all these issues are so comparable.
For example, kind of the basic premise that we are number one, and strong, and good.
And that's why everyone hates us so much, that we are always on the defensive.
That anyone who could possibly resist our authority, as you said, are considered to be a horrible, dangerous threat.
And that's what a threat means, when there are no actual threats.
All you have left as a threat is anyone who could dare strike back, or have the ability to do anything in retaliation.
Or challenge the oppression in some way.
I mean, again, we've had this conversation before, but I just can imagine that you and I would be meeting under very different circumstances if our country was under occupation.
I know you wouldn't take it, and I don't think I would take it.
And I might not be good on the Second Amendment stuff, but I'd sure be helping you on the pamphleteering and the Samizdat, and it's just amazing.
Americans have to start thinking about it in those terms.
Well now, I guess I wanted to save the Charles Schumer thing until the second segment to make sure there's time to address it, really.
But one point that he makes is the same point that's made over and over again in the American media, and of course in the Israeli media.
And that is that Hamas is just pure evil, and they might as well be Al-Qaeda, they cannot be dealt with in any sense.
And they insist 100% on the complete and total destruction of Israel, and they'll stand for nothing less.
And you have a writer named Alex Kane at Mondoweiss.net today, who addresses that very question, Phil.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, the thing that, the easiest way for me to, I mean, it's a great point, it's an important point because it's made all the time.
And the first thing I'd say about that is, you know, right now Hamid Karzai is talking to the Taliban.
And I imagine the United States is talking to the Taliban.
And just as we talk to extremist elements in Iraq, when we were trying to put together a government, and I'm not recommending occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq, but it's not as if we Americans are somewhat realistic about what happens with occupation and what happens with extremism, and you have to talk to these people.
Now if you go to Gaza, as I've gone to Gaza, you see that, you know, Hamas is representative of a lot of the people.
These people voted for Hamas.
And you cannot deal with this situation politically, which is what it requires, a political settlement.
You cannot deal with these people politically without dealing with their political representatives.
And that's just, you know, fundamental.
And this effort by, you know, you began this conversation, and I take your, I know you're sincere about this, that you, you know, you see the United States as being in the same boat as Israel.
And my thing is that I tend to see Israel as being worse.
And the problem is that you've got these politicians who serve the Israel lobby, like Chuck Schumer, who go around saying we have to strangle Hamas, something he would never say about, I mean, I can't imagine he would say about a political group in Iraq, or even in Afghanistan.
And he's saying we've got to strangle these people, and we can't talk to them.
And it just shows that, just how screwed up our debate about these issues is.
Yeah, well, we're going to try to set them straight a little bit.
Everybody, it's Philip Weiss from the Mondo Weiss blog, mondoweiss.net.
We're talking Israel-Palestine, and we'll be right back.
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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio on the Liberty Radio Network, 9 to noon, West Coast time, Monday through Friday here on the Liberty Radio Network, lrn.fm.
And I'm speaking with Philip Weiss from the Mondo Weiss blog.
That's mondoweiss.net.
And it's a very important part.
The blog itself is a very important part of the public debate on Israel-Palestine issues in this country, and has set itself apart, not just to me, but to a great many people, and for pretty obvious reasons, when you check it out.
Now, Phil, we were talking about Chuck Schumer a little bit there, just kind of getting into that.
There's a comparison between, you know, American politicians don't say things like, yeah, we'll strangle children.
They do things like that, but they don't say things like that.
Sometimes they grudgingly admit that, yes, the price is worth it, or whatever psychotic madness.
But that Chuck Schumer, who might as well be, I guess you're implying, an Israeli politician in the Imperial Senate of the United States, takes the position that, yeah, let's strangle children.
Yeah.
And I mean, that's right.
He basically is taking that position, I mean, obviously he said, let's strangle them, but you know, he, economically, he claims, but you know, it's still, it's a grotesque statement.
And this is a guy who stood up in front of AIPAC and said, I'm Yisrael Haid, Israel live, and in Hebrew.
So you know, he sort of, and so that's in front of a Jewish audience, but he's sort of declaring his, you know, sort of devotion to Israel.
And what I find kind of bizarre about all this is, and the hopeful thing also, is that they never get challenged on this, but it's beginning to change because the Democratic Party that represents the left, there's beginning to be some stirring.
And I imagine it's in the Republican Party too, but you see 53% of Democrats saying they have a negative view of Israel.
So the question is, if this American streak is beginning to shift on Israel, why don't the politicians begin to reflect that?
And I think that we will see some gradual shift on that.
And you know, what you did with Alan Grayson, I haven't listened to that yet, you know, we talked about it, but you basically called him on his reflexive support for Israel.
Here's a guy who claims to be a progressive, who represents, you know, a Democratic district, and he's a great big liberal and all this, and he's basically, you know, a right-winger on the Israel-Palestine question.
And you called him on it.
And you know, that threw him.
And that type of, you know, sort of confrontation throws these people, and they've got to hear it more and more and more.
And I think it's going to happen.
The street is going to start rising up on these questions.
All right.
Well, I got two things for the record I need to say here.
One is, don't listen to it.
I really wish I'd handled it better.
It could have been much, much better.
I'm going to be happy when I hear it.
Well, you might.
A lot of the people who agree with us were happy to hear somebody take a lightsaber to one of these congressmen and whoop their ass with it.
And of course, I did that because I am a Sith.
I'm one of the bad guys here, and I can be mean as hell, and I was.
And I should have been a Jedi out there, cool, calm, and collected, what would Obi-Wan Kenobi say?
And instead, I went in there, and I handled it all wrong.
This is, you know, how I judge right and wrong in my life here because, you know, well, let me make my one correction, and then I'll finish that segue.
My one correction is it was McChrystal who said that horrible thing about killing an amazing number of Afghans rather than Petraeus.
Thank you to the guys in the chat room for helping me with that.
But then, back to my whole Jedi thing.
My whole right and wrong, I'm basically, you know, a Yoda-ite, I guess, on this.
I don't have a religion, Phil.
I don't really know.
In fact, I'm like, maybe, in a way, like I take pride in how little I know or care about the monotheistic religions or any of them, because who cares?
To me, no offense to people, because I believe in freedom more than anything, and freedom of conscience and freedom of people to believe whatever it is that they want is my most high value.
I don't stick on people's religion or whatever.
I'm not anti-people's beliefs, but it's just not my thing.
But so now I'm confused, and I wonder if you can set me straight.
Charles Schumer explained that it's okay to strangle the children of Gaza because they don't believe in David.
They don't believe in the Torah.
And I'm so freaking ignorant, Phil.
Is the Torah not the Old Testament, or is that different?
It's the Old Testament.
But I mean, it includes, yeah, it is the Old Testament, but he's not saying, I mean, I don't think he's saying it's because they don't believe in, because they're not Jewish.
I think he's saying they supported Hamas.
That's what he's saying.
And so because they voted this way, they get strangled.
And they vote this way because they don't believe like we believe.
Yeah, I mean, he would claim that, you know, there are a lot of good Muslims.
I'm sure he'd say, you know, there are a lot of good Muslims and all like that.
So I can't, I mean, I know that he believes in the Jewish state, so he believes that second-class citizenship in Israel is a fine thing.
If you're not Jewish, you don't have the same rights.
I don't know how he squares that with democracy.
I don't, but you know, how much of this he believes because he's doing it for his constituents, I don't know how much of it comes out of a religious conviction.
I just don't know.
You know, he's an ambitious politician.
But that's where I think that the Grayson mugging, if that's what it was, great.
You know, these guys need to be called on this.
The next time someone says, let's strangle the people of Gaza, someone should stand up and say, what are you talking about?
You know?
Well, it's just a technicality, but it seems kind of important, his ignorance about Islam when they're of the same tradition.
They believe in Moses, Abraham, Solomon, and Jesus, and on down the line.
And so they got one more prophet who was a little bit different and came 300 years later on.
Yeah.
Although now you're going to be exposing my religious ignorance, Scott, because I don't know jack about this kind of stuff.
And I'm sort of like you.
It's not my bag.
And, you know, if people are into it, hey, you know, it gives your life meaning.
Wonderful.
I just, you know, I don't know how to play, you know?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, and that's the thing is, you know, if it wasn't for all this insane religious war, why would we care at all to even need?
Why would we even need to know to be able to correct anyone that?
No, sorry.
But actually, the Muslims do revere David.
I don't know exactly what position he holds compared to Judaism or whatever, but whatever, man, it ain't like, you know, right.
But if they were Hindus, that would be worse or something, right?
Yeah.
You know.
But anyway, it's just such an ignorant.
It just shows that this guy has no frame of reference for what he's even talking about.
Palestinians are cartoon characters.
Do what you want with them.
That's his point.
Yeah.
Not like us.
They're them.
That's right.
And but look what all the racism against Muslims and, you know, Arabs generally in this country.
I mean, Ralph Nader the other day said that in the wake of the Helen Thomas business, he says anti-Semitic feeling racism against Arabs, because they're Semites, too.
Anti-Semitism against Arabs is rife in this country.
And he's a Lebanese-American, so he knows of whereof he speaks.
And you know, here's this woman who made this, you know, unfortunate comment, and she lost her job.
In addition to saying that there's an occupation that's been oppressing the Palestinians, she made the comment that, you know, the Israelis should leave that Palestine.
You know, she's an anti-Zionist.
She makes that comment, and poof, a 60-year-long iconic career goes right down the crapper.
And you hear intolerance used from Jews all the time, supporters of Israel all the time, and we don't demand that sacrifice in that situation.
Yeah, and it really is incongruent.
You know, I was just speaking earlier with Pierre Tristam, a journalist who covered a story about an attempted bombing, like a pipe-bombing-type attack on a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida, and nobody even cared.
And the lead-up to it, it got no coverage, and the lead-up to it was the city council demagoguing against a local Muslim leader who had been associated with CAIR in the past, and so therefore he was an international terrorist like Ayman al-Zawahiri, and they demagogued and demagogued and demagogued against this guy, and it led to the pipe-bombing.
Talk about inciting violence and all that stuff, that's what they like to do, that's your limit on free speech, right?
Well, here's the government of Jacksonville, you know, and well, it just goes without people even noticing or caring at all, and it goes really along with the whole Daniel Pipes view of the world, the neoconservative thing, I'm so glad you point out that Arabs are Semites here.
What does this remind you of, Phil, that there's this group of Semites who secretly all communicate telepathically with each other, and they are infiltrating our society in Europe and in America, infiltrating the West with their evil, secret religion that we're all excluded from somehow, and they're bent on subverting and destroying us, and so we have to do something about it.
I mean, this is the protocols of the elders of Islam that we're hearing from these men.
It's a mirror, and it's like, you know, part of it is, I think, you know, since I'm so immersed and grew up in Jewish culture, some of it, I think, is, you know, Jews are trying to enact their own history on the Palestinians now.
I'm sorry we gotta go, I'm so sorry we're out of time.
It's Mondoweiss.net, y'all, Philip Weiss, thank you.
Pleasure, Scott.
That's Antiwar Radio, see y'all tomorrow.
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