The country that wouldn't grow up - Haaretz

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Wed., November 28, 2007 Kislev 18, 5768

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The country that wouldn't grow up

By Tony Judt

By the age of 58 a country - like a man - should have achieved a certain maturity. After nearly six decades of existence we know, for good and for bad, who we are, what we have done and how we appear to others, warts and all. We acknowledge, however reluctantly and privately, our mistakes and our shortcomings. And though we still harbor the occasional illusion about ourselves and our prospects, we are wise enough to recognize that these are indeed for the most part just that: illusions. In short, we are adults.

But the State of Israel remains curiously (and among Western-style democracies, uniquely) immature. The social transformations of the country - and its many economic achievements - have not brought the political wisdom that usually accompanies age. Seen from the outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: consumed by a brittle confidence in its own uniqueness; certain that no one "understands" it and everyone is "against" it; full of wounded self-esteem, quick to take offense and quick to give it. Like many adolescents Israel is convinced - and makes a point of aggressively and repeatedly asserting - that it can do as it wishes, that its actions carry no consequences and that it is immortal. Appropriately enough, this country that has somehow failed to grow up was until very recently still in the hands of a generation of men who were prominent in its public affairs 40 years ago: an Israeli Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep in, say, 1967 would be surprised indeed to awake in 2006 and find Shimon Peres and General Ariel Sharon still hovering over the affairs of the country - the latter albeit only in spirit.

But that, Israeli readers will tell me, is the prejudiced view of the outsider. What looks from abroad like a self-indulgent, wayward country - delinquent in its international obligations and resentfully indifferent to world opinion - is simply an independent little state doing what it has always done: looking after its own interests in an inhospitable part of the globe. Why should embattled Israel even acknowledge such foreign criticism, much less act upon it? They - gentiles, Muslims, leftists - have reasons of their own for disliking Israel. They - Europeans, Arabs, fascists - have always singled out Israel for special criticism. Their motives are timeless. They haven't changed. Why should Israel change?

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But they have changed. And it is this change, which has passed largely unrecognized within Israel, to which I want to draw attention here. Before 1967 the State of Israel may have been tiny and embattled, but it was not typically hated: certainly not in the West. Official Soviet-bloc communism was anti-Zionist of course, but for just that reason Israel was rather well regarded by everyone else, including the non-communist left. The romantic image of the kibbutz and the kibbutznik had a broad foreign appeal in the first two decades of Israel's existence. Most admirers of Israel (Jews and non-Jews) knew little about the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948. They preferred to see in the Jewish state the last surviving incarnation of the 19th century idyll of agrarian socialism - or else a paragon of modernizing energy "making the desert bloom."

I remember well, in the spring of 1967, how the balance of student opinion at Cambridge University was overwhelmingly pro-Israel in the weeks leading up to the Six-Day War - and how little attention anyone paid either to the condition of the Palestinians or to Israel's earlier collusion with France and Britain in the disastrous Suez adventure of 1956. In politics and in policy-making circles only old-fashioned conservative Arabists expressed any criticism of the Jewish state; even neo-Fascists rather favored Zionism, on traditional anti-Semitic grounds.

For a while after the 1967 war these sentiments continued unaltered. The pro-Palestinian enthusiasms of post-1960s radical groups and nationalist movements, reflected in joint training camps and shared projects for terrorist attacks, were offset by the growing international acknowledgment of the Holocaust in education and the media: What Israel lost by its continuing occupation of Arab lands it gained through its close identification with the recovered memory of Europe's dead Jews. Even the inauguration of the illegal settlements and the disastrous invasion of Lebanon, while they strengthened the arguments of Israel's critics, did not yet shift the international balance of opinion. As recently as the early 1990s, most people in the world were only vaguely aware of the "West Bank" and what was happening there. Even those who pressed the Palestinians' case in international forums conceded that almost no one was listening. Israel could still do as it wished.

The Israeli nakba

But today everything is different. We can see, in retrospect, that the victory of Israel in June 1967 and its continuing occupation of the territories it conquered then have been the Jewish state's very own nakba: a moral and political catastrophe. Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza have magnified and publicized the country's shortcomings and displayed them to a watching world. Curfews, checkpoints, bulldozers, public humiliations, home destructions, land seizures, shootings, "targeted assassinations," the separation fence: All of these routines of occupation and repression were once familiar only to an informed minority of specialists and activists. Today they can be watched, in real time, by anyone with a computer or a satellite dish - which means that Israel's behavior is under daily scrutiny by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The result has been a complete transformation in the international view of Israel. Until very recently the carefully burnished image of an ultra-modern society - built by survivors and pioneers and peopled by peace-loving democrats - still held sway over international opinion. But today? What is the universal shorthand symbol for Israel, reproduced worldwide in thousands of newspaper editorials and political cartoons? The Star of David emblazoned upon a tank.

Today only a tiny minority of outsiders see Israelis as victims. The true victims, it is now widely accepted, are the Palestinians. Indeed, Palestinians have now displaced Jews as the emblematic persecuted minority: vulnerable, humiliated and stateless. This unsought distinction does little to advance the Palestinian case any more than it ever helped Jews, but it has redefined Israel forever. It has become commonplace to compare Israel at best to an occupying colonizer, at worst to the South Africa of race laws and Bantustans. In this capacity Israel elicits scant sympathy even when its own citizens suffer: Dead Israelis - like the occasional assassinated white South African in the apartheid era, or British colonists hacked to death by native insurgents - are typically perceived abroad not as the victims of terrorism but as the collateral damage of their own government's mistaken policies.

Such comparisons are lethal to Israel's moral credibility. They strike at what was once its strongest suit: the claim of being a vulnerable island of democracy and decency in a sea of authoritarianism and cruelty; an oasis of rights and freedoms surrounded by a desert of repression. But democrats don't fence into Bantustans helpless people whose land they have conquered, and free men don't ignore international law and steal other men's homes. The contradictions of Israeli self-presentation - "we are very strong/we are very vulnerable"; "we are in control of our fate/we are the victims"; "we are a normal state/we demand special treatment" - are not new: they have been part of the country's peculiar identity almost from the outset. And Israel's insistent emphasis upon its isolation and uniqueness, its claim to be both victim and hero, were once part of its David versus Goliath appeal.

Collective cognitive dysfunction

But today the country's national narrative of macho victimhood appears to the rest of the world as simply bizarre: evidence of a sort of collective cognitive dysfunction that has gripped Israel's political culture. And the long cultivated persecution mania - "everyone's out to get us" - no longer elicits sympathy. Instead it attracts some very unappetizing comparisons: At a recent international meeting I heard one speaker, by analogy with Helmut Schmidt's famous dismissal of the Soviet Union as "Upper Volta with Missiles," describe Israel as "Serbia with nukes."

Israel has stayed the same, but the world - as I noted above - has changed. Whatever purchase Israel's self-description still has upon the imagination of Israelis themselves, it no longer operates beyond the country's frontiers. Even the Holocaust can no longer be instrumentalized to excuse Israel's behavior. Thanks to the passage of time, most Western European states have now come to terms with their part in the Holocaust, something that was not true a quarter century ago. From Israel's point of view, this has had paradoxical consequences: Until the end of the Cold War Israeli governments could still play upon the guilt of Germans and other Europeans, exploiting their failure to acknowledge fully what was done to Jews on their territory. Today, now that the history of World War II is retreating from the public square into the classroom and from the classroom into the history books, a growing majority of voters in Europe and elsewhere (young voters above all) simply cannot understand how the horrors of the last European war can be invoked to license or condone unacceptable behavior in another time and place. In the eyes of a watching world, the fact that the great-grandmother of an Israeli soldier died in Treblinka is no excuse for his own abusive treatment of a Palestinian woman waiting to cross a checkpoint. "Remember Auschwitz" is not an acceptable response.

In short: Israel, in the world's eyes, is a normal state, but one behaving in abnormal ways. It is in control of its fate, but the victims are someone else. It is strong, very strong, but its behavior is making everyone else vulnerable. And so, shorn of all other justifications for its behavior, Israel and its supporters today fall back with increasing shrillness upon the oldest claim of all: Israel is a Jewish state and that is why people criticize it. This - the charge that criticism of Israel is implicitly anti-Semitic - is regarded in Israel and the United States as Israel's trump card. If it has been played more insistently and aggressively in recent years, that is because it is now the only card left.

The habit of tarring any foreign criticism with the brush of anti-Semitism is deeply engrained in Israeli political instincts: Ariel Sharon used it with characteristic excess but he was only the latest in a long line of Israeli leaders to exploit the claim. David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir did no different. But Jews outside of Israel pay a high price for this tactic. Not only does it inhibit their own criticisms of Israel for fear of appearing to associate with bad company, but it encourages others to look upon Jews everywhere as de facto collaborators in Israel's misbehavior. When Israel breaks international law in the occupied territories, when Israel publicly humiliates the subject populations whose land it has seized - but then responds to its critics with loud cries of "anti-Semitism" - it is in effect saying that these acts are not Israeli acts, they are Jewish acts: The occupation is not an Israeli occupation, it is a Jewish occupation, and if you don't like these things it is because you don't like Jews.

In many parts of the world this is in danger of becoming a self-fulfilling assertion: Israel's reckless behavior and insistent identification of all criticism with anti-Semitism is now the leading source of anti-Jewish sentiment in Western Europe and much of Asia. But the traditional corollary - if anti-Jewish feeling is linked to dislike of Israel then right-thinking people should rush to Israel's defense - no longer applies. Instead, the ironies of the Zionist dream have come full circle: For tens of millions of people in the world today, Israel is indeed the state of all the Jews. And thus, reasonably enough, many observers believe that one way to take the sting out of rising anti-Semitism in the suburbs of Paris or the streets of Jakarta would be for Israel to give the Palestinians back their land.

Israel's undoing

If Israel's leaders have been able to ignore such developments it is in large measure because they have hitherto counted upon the unquestioning support of the United States - the one country in the world where the claim that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism is still echoed not only in the opinions of many Jews but also in the public pronouncements of mainstream politicians and the mass media. But this lazy, ingrained confidence in unconditional American approval - and the moral, military and financial support that accompanies it - may prove to be Israel's undoing.

Something is changing in the United States. To be sure, it was only a few short years ago that prime minister Sharon's advisers could gleefully celebrate their success in dictating to U.S. President George W. Bush the terms of a public statement approving Israel's illegal settlements. No U.S. Congressman has yet proposed reducing or rescinding the $3 billion in aid Israel receives annually - 20 percent of the total U.S. foreign aid budget - which has helped sustain the Israeli defense budget and the cost of settlement construction in the West Bank. And Israel and the United States appear increasingly bound together in a symbiotic embrace whereby the actions of each party exacerbate their common unpopularity abroad - and thus their ever-closer association in the eyes of critics.

But whereas Israel has no choice but to look to America - it has no other friends, at best only the conditional affection of the enemies of its enemies, such as India - the United States is a great power; and great powers have interests that sooner or later transcend the local obsessions of even the closest of their client states and satellites. It seems to me of no small significance that the recent essay on "The Israel Lobby" by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt has aroused so much public interest and debate. Mearsheimer and Walt are prominent senior academics of impeccable conservative credentials. It is true that - by their own account - they could still not have published their damning indictment of the influence of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy in a major U.S.-based journal (it appeared in the London Review of Books), but the point is that 10 years ago they would not - and probably could not - have published it at all. And while the debate that has ensued may generate more heat than light, it is of great significance: As Dr. Johnson said of female preachers, it is not well done but one is amazed to see it done at all.

The fact is that the disastrous Iraq invasion and its aftermath are beginning to engineer a sea-change in foreign policy debate here in the U.S. It is becoming clear to prominent thinkers across the political spectrum - from erstwhile neo-conservative interventionists like Francis Fukuyama to hard-nosed realists like Mearsheimer - that in recent years the United States has suffered a catastrophic loss of international political influence and an unprecedented degradation of its moral image. The country's foreign undertakings have been self-defeating and even irrational. There is going to be a long job of repair ahead, above all in Washington's dealings with economically and strategically vital communities and regions from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. And this reconstruction of the country's foreign image and influence cannot hope to succeed while U.S. foreign policy is tied by an umbilical cord to the needs and interests (if that is what they are) of one small Middle Eastern country of very little relevance to America's long-term concerns - a country that is, in the words of the Mearsheimer/Walt essay, a strategic burden: "A liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states."

That essay is thus a straw in the wind - an indication of the likely direction of future domestic debate here in the U.S. about the country's peculiar ties to Israel. Of course it has been met by a firestorm of criticism from the usual suspects - and, just as they anticipated, the authors have been charged with anti-Semitism (or with advancing the interests of anti-Semitism: "objective anti-Semitism," as it might be). But it is striking to me how few people with whom I have spoken take that accusation seriously, so predictable has it become. This is bad for Jews - since it means that genuine anti-Semitism may also in time cease to be taken seriously, thanks to the Israel lobby's abuse of the term. But it is worse for Israel.

This new willingness to take one's distance from Israel is not confined to foreign policy specialists. As a teacher I have also been struck in recent years by a sea-change in the attitude of students. One example among many: Here at New York University I was teaching this past month a class on post-war Europe. I was trying to explain to young Americans the importance of the Spanish Civil War in the political memory of Europeans and why Franco's Spain has such a special place in our moral imagination: as a reminder of lost struggles, a symbol of oppression in an age of liberalism and freedom, and a land of shame that people boycotted for its crimes and repression. I cannot think, I told the students, of any country that occupies such a pejorative space in democratic public consciousness today. You are wrong, one young woman replied: What about Israel? To my great surprise most of the class - including many of the sizable Jewish contingent - nodded approval. The times they are indeed a-changing.

That Israel can now stand in comparison with the Spain of General Franco in the eyes of young Americans ought to come as a shock and an eleventh-hour wake-up call to Israelis. Nothing lasts forever, and it seems likely to me that we shall look back upon the years 1973-2003 as an era of tragic illusion for Israel: years that the locust ate, consumed by the bizarre notion that, whatever it chose to do or demand, Israel could count indefinitely upon the unquestioning support of the United States and would never risk encountering a backlash. This blinkered arrogance is tragically summed up in an assertion by Shimon Peres on the very eve of the calamitous war that will in retrospect be seen, I believe, to have precipitated the onset of America's alienation from its Israeli ally: "The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must."

The future of Israel

From one perspective Israel's future is bleak. Not for the first time, a Jewish state has found itself on the vulnerable periphery of someone else's empire: overconfident in its own righteousness, willfully blind to the danger that its indulgent excesses might ultimately provoke its imperial mentor to the point of irritation and beyond, and heedless of its own failure to make any other friends. To be sure, the modern Israeli state has big weapons - very big weapons. But can it do with them except make more enemies? However, modern Israel also has options. Precisely because the country is an object of such universal mistrust and resentment - because people expect so little from Israel today - a truly statesmanlike shift in its policies (dismantling of major settlements, opening unconditional negotiations with Palestinians, calling Hamas' bluff by offering the movement's leaders something serious in return for recognition of Israel and a cease-fire) could have disproportionately beneficial effects.

But such a radical realignment of Israeli strategy would entail a difficult reappraisal of every cliche and illusion under which the country and its political elite have nestled for most of their life. It would entail acknowledging that Israel no longer has any special claim upon international sympathy or indulgence; that the United States won't always be there; that weapons and walls can no more preserve Israel forever than they preserved the German Democratic Republic or white South Africa; that colonies are always doomed unless you are willing to expel or exterminate the indigenous population. Other countries and their leaders have understood this and managed comparable realignments: Charles De Gaulle realized that France's settlement in Algeria, which was far older and better established than Israel's West Bank colonies, was a military and moral disaster for his country. In an exercise of outstanding political courage, he acted upon that insight and withdrew. But when De Gaulle came to that realization he was a mature statesman, nearly 70 years old. Israel cannot afford to wait that long. At the age of 58 the time has come for it to grow up.

Tony Judt is a professor and the director of the Remarque Institute at New York University, and his book "Postwar: The History of Europe Since 1945" was published in 2005.

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	The full text of Bush, PM, and Abbas speeches, and the joint statement.




1.	And one more thing	09:34	\|	John	04/05/06

2.	What a fantastic article	09:47	\|	Ronnie Wolman	04/05/06

3.	Compliments	09:55	\|	Dani Reiss	04/05/06

4.	Israel`s Nakba	09:58	\|	Sophie	04/05/06

5.	"Disastrous victory of 67" "Offer something to Hamas" "Unconditio	10:17	\|	Absolute Sweden	04/05/06

6.	50,000,000 Frenchmen can be wrong	10:25	\|	Yisrael	04/05/06

7.	50,000,000 Frenchmen can be wrong	10:25	\|	Yisrael	04/05/06

8.	The country that would not grow up	10:26	\|	Ben vR	04/05/06

9.	A post -Independence Day present from `Haaretz`	10:29	\|	Shalom Freedman	04/05/06

10.	#4, Sophie	10:29	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	04/05/06

11.	#4, Sophie	10:29	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	04/05/06

12.	Anti- Zionism has become Anti- Semitism Judt is Chomsky	10:37	\|	Shalom Freedman	04/05/06

13.	Sophie	10:38	\|	Gina	04/05/06

14.	WELL Said! ...A Great And Courageous Article!	10:52	\|	Proud Pal Defender	04/05/06

15.	Refreshingly Objective.	10:52	\|	Richie	04/05/06

16.	I read this yesterday, minus Talkback	10:56	\|	sh	04/05/06

17.	New York Professor	10:57	\|	Dror	04/05/06

18.	Gina	11:00	\|	Sophie	04/05/06

19.	What you see from here...	11:04	\|	Dani Reiss	04/05/06

20.	Great article. Well done.	11:07	\|	Dave	04/05/06

21.	Kudos to Sophie	11:15	\|	Musashi	04/05/06

22.	Softening us up for Ahmadinejad	11:16	\|	Shalom Freedman	04/05/06

23.	Living in sin	11:25	\|	Khalid	04/05/06

24.	Gina...because it was only euphemism for surrender	11:31	\|	Khalid	04/05/06

25.	If it was only growth Part 1	11:31	\|	TonyL	04/05/06

26.	If it was only growth Part 2	11:34	\|	TonyL	04/05/06

27.	No.4 Cipora you are right!	11:36	\|	True Brit	04/05/06

28.	Dave from London :GB has no right to exist,all her victories	11:36	\|	Absolute Sweden	04/05/06

29.	"OCCUPATION"	11:42	\|	CHONI	04/05/06

30.	excellent article	11:57	\|	Ernst	04/05/06

31.	US critics of Israel, breathe easy, you`re OK	12:08	\|	Timothy L	04/05/06

32.	#26, Non-county and non-nation	12:20	\|	Concerned bystander	04/05/06

33.	NYU professor, times are a changing?	12:31	\|	Dror	04/05/06

34.	Gina - dispelling the 90% myth	12:36	\|	Liam Evans	04/05/06

35.	great article	12:39	\|	Tanja	04/05/06

36.	Dror et al - lambasting the Professor.	12:45	\|	Liam Evans	04/05/06

37.	IT WANTED TO HEAR	12:46	\|	Indrajaya Syukri	04/05/06

38.	Khalid	12:49	\|	Finn	04/05/06

39.	My faher - `60s socialist	12:55	\|	Liam Evans	04/05/06

40.	antisemitic jews?	13:04	\|	razièl	04/05/06

41.	Khalid. Are you really playing word games?	13:20	\|	Corin	04/05/06

42.	GREAT article for those who wish to see&hear one side only.	13:36	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

43.	Musashi and Sophie	13:39	\|	Sam The Sham	04/05/06

44.	Sophie and Cipora	13:53	\|	Ronnie Wolman	04/05/06

45.	THe settlements did not start till years after1967.ARABS said NO	14:00	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

46.	THe settlements did not start till years after1967.ARABS said NO	14:00	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

47.	Facism in the UK today	14:09	\|	Nicole	04/05/06

48.	"STATE OF SIN" MY A# @	14:15	\|	Gideon	04/05/06

49.	RIGHTS AGAINST RIGHTS	14:16	\|	Nicole	04/05/06

50.	Ronnie off the Wall Man #30	15:14	\|	Gabe1	04/05/06

51.	Asolute Sweden absolute rubbish, as usual	15:17	\|	Dave	04/05/06

52.	Sophie #16	15:20	\|	Gabe1	04/05/06

53.	Khalid #22	15:27	\|	Gabe1	04/05/06

54.	That country that wouldn`t grow up	15:31	\|	Henryk	04/05/06

55.	PROUD P Defender."Great and courageous" ? It is said daily.	15:36	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

56.	O.K. we have lost all sympathy and legitimacy	15:38	\|	Judith	04/05/06

57.	IF YOU LOVE ISRAEL	15:48	\|	michael	04/05/06

58.	Judt	15:52	\|	Proud Zionist	04/05/06

59.	!967 Naqba indeed.The Arabs said NO to peace	15:55	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

60.	Only a Twisted Mind	16:05	\|	Bouhadana	04/05/06

61.	OIL, OIL, AND OIL	16:12	\|	FOX	04/05/06

62.	a Lenin Prize worth article!!	16:18	\|	Zyama	04/05/06

63.	LIAM EVANS Intermediaries make an offer invalid??	16:21	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

64.	Michael#57	16:25	\|	Gabe1	04/05/06

65.	Amused	16:27	\|	Israel Israeli	04/05/06

66.	What he doesn`t address	16:29	\|	Steve	04/05/06

67.	choni border dispute	16:31	\|	michael	04/05/06

68.	Rhetoric and The Mindless Right (oh yes and Left)	16:33	\|	Ronnie Wolman	04/05/06

69.	The simple truth	16:40	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

70.	The world`s sympatyhy changed to antipathy	16:42	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

71.	The Accidental Empire	16:45	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

72.	The 1967 Naqba?	16:46	\|	Sy	04/05/06

73.	The lies of Tony Judt	16:53	\|	Joel Meyers	04/05/06

74.	Tony Judt last year wrote Israel must be dismembered	17:00	\|	Dan Patton	04/05/06

75.	Followup for Mr. Lincoln	17:01	\|	Steve	04/05/06

76.	The Jewish Nakba - dumb articles like this that Haaretz prints	17:14	\|	pace306	04/05/06

77.	imagine no 1967	17:19	\|	michael	04/05/06

78.	stop attacking Judt	17:25	\|	P	04/05/06

79.	For Freedman, any critical advice given is a death sentence	17:31	\|	P	04/05/06

80.	A country behaving badly	17:31	\|	Dave	04/05/06

81.	To peter sm	17:40	\|	Liam Evans	04/05/06

82.	The only "Nabqa"	17:44	\|	SHIMON	04/05/06

83.	Genuinely "pro-Israel"	17:45	\|	Aaron Levitt	04/05/06

84.	Tony Judt`s warped mind	17:47	\|	Greg Graze	04/05/06

85.	#70 Mark and his self made victims	17:49	\|	pace306	04/05/06

86.	A European gentile?s opinion	17:53	\|	KUTW	04/05/06

87.	Tony Judt is spot on	18:00	\|	peter	04/05/06

88.	khalid	18:05	\|	alan	04/05/06

89.	74 michael	18:07	\|	alan	04/05/06

90.	Mr. Wolman	18:10	\|	Bouhadana	04/05/06

91.	PETER SM open your eyes	18:16	\|	peter	04/05/06

92.	Bravo!	18:19	\|	Don	04/05/06

93.	STYLE AS SUBSTANCE 1	18:20	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	04/05/06

94.	Growing up, if slowly	18:21	\|	Ben Gurion	04/05/06

95.	Liam, maybe you`ll answer on behalf	18:30	\|	peter	04/05/06

96.	Imagine no 1967 war	18:35	\|	bpaul	04/05/06

97.	STYLE AS SUBSTANCE 2	18:39	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	04/05/06

98.	#74 michael and we still wouldn`t see the kotel	18:40	\|	peter	04/05/06

99.	KUTW #80	18:44	\|	ALAN	04/05/06

100.	NYU Buffoon!!	18:45	\|	Pastor Phil	04/05/06

101.	Helping Israel grow up	18:46	\|	Ben Gurion	04/05/06

102.	SSTYLE AS SUBSTANCE 3	18:52	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	04/05/06

103.	Linoln has bought the farm	18:54	\|	FOX	04/05/06

104.	OK, it is a good, deep article	18:54	\|	Inyaki	04/05/06

105.	STYLE AS SUBSTANCE 4	19:02	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	04/05/06

106.	1John: A better thing	19:09	\|	KUTW	04/05/06

107.	Khalid	19:10	\|	Gina	04/05/06

108.	Sophie	19:12	\|	Gina	04/05/06

109.	Liam Evans	19:15	\|	Gina	04/05/06

110.	Nicole	19:23	\|	Gina	04/05/06

111.	Excellent, excellent, excellent!	19:25	\|	Gabriel Goren	04/05/06

112.	Excellent, excellent, excellent!	19:25	\|	Gabriel Goren	04/05/06

113.	1. John: who you should to ask for apologies	19:35	\|	Eylo	04/05/06

114.	The country that can	19:39	\|	Jim Berliner	04/05/06

115.	Bouhadana on Realities	19:48	\|	Ronnie Wolman	04/05/06

116.	from victim to exectutioner	19:49	\|	A.K.	04/05/06

117.	The changing "occupation"	19:53	\|	Aaron Levitt	04/05/06

118.	To Pace and his rabid racism	19:53	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

119.	Ben Gurion, re growing up slowly	19:54	\|	Dave	04/05/06

120.	Growing up, if slowly	19:56	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

121.	Cipora WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?????	19:57	\|	Ronnie Wolman	04/05/06

122.	Tony Judt is pen name for Neturei Karta!	19:57	\|	Mosheh Wolfish	04/05/06

123.	From Occupation to Appropriation - Fox	20:00	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

124.	To 84, regarding warped minds	20:03	\|	Bob Flisser	04/05/06

125.	Fox the Liar	20:05	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

126.	# 9 Freedman , Is blaming the victims again	20:11	\|	Dutch	04/05/06

127.	bpaul - weird isn`t it?	20:15	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

128.	Well Dave ,disappearance of England is more welcome than disappe	20:17	\|	Absolute Sweden	04/05/06

129.	"the Israeli nakba"	20:27	\|	M.CANETTY	04/05/06

130.	Marks selective history	20:37	\|	pace306	04/05/06

131.	Mr. Wolman	20:47	\|	Bouhadana	04/05/06

132.	Ahhhh....you forget	20:54	\|	Messy	04/05/06

133.	Israel is monstrous crime before G-d	20:58	\|	Satmar Hasid	04/05/06

134.	Israel -- remarkably restrained	21:05	\|	Gina	04/05/06

135.	alan # 88	21:11	\|	Gina	04/05/06

136.	Bouhadana: Sportswriters and the Forest	21:12	\|	Ronnie Wolman	04/05/06

137.	Land ownership claims heart of the problem	21:30	\|	Student	04/05/06

138.	Piece of Crap	21:31	\|	O	04/05/06

139.	Listen, read and GROW-UP!	21:33	\|	Khalid	04/05/06

140.	133 First decide who your rebbe is before you lecture us	21:41	\|	pace306	04/05/06

141.	118 Mark and his edumacation	21:47	\|	pace306	04/05/06

142.	Woolman and Sport Analogy	21:56	\|	Bouhadana	04/05/06

143.	#66 and #75, Why pick on Israel	21:59	\|	Don	04/05/06

144.	growing up	22:01	\|	michael	04/05/06

145.	LIAM.E The offer was made.Clinton blamed Arafat	22:05	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

146.	KHALID.YOU are moralising??	22:13	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

147.	118.Mark Lincoln	22:14	\|	KUTW	04/05/06

148.	pace you are so rabid you are incapable of knowledge	22:16	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

149.	pace on the origins of semitic	22:20	\|	Mark Lincoln	04/05/06

150.	Bouhadana: Some Darwin and some Dar-lose	22:26	\|	Ronnie Wolman	04/05/06

151.	Khalid	22:34	\|	Gina	04/05/06

152.	99.ALAN	22:38	\|	KUTW	04/05/06

153.	Imagine Israel responded to terror, the way King Hussein did 1970	22:38	\|	Joel Meyers	04/05/06

154.	amek - not rabid - vigilent against people who spread lies	22:41	\|	pace306	04/05/06

155.	Absolute Sweden, you`re a strange lad	22:45	\|	Dave	04/05/06

156.	149 - jew hating is a tough job but try to keep up mark ..	22:46	\|	pace306	04/05/06

157.	THE proffessor ignores the strong Christian lobby for Israel.Why?	22:48	\|	PETER SM	04/05/06

158.	Lincoln`s crock	22:51	\|	FOX	04/05/06

159.	Gabriel Goren	22:51	\|	Gina	04/05/06

160.	85 Pace306 - On Holy Sites	22:52	\|	Mark of Lewiston	04/05/06

161.	Myoyic Dave,believing to be the "rest of the World"	23:18	\|	Absolute Sweden	04/05/06

162.	PETER SandM	23:19	\|	Ibrahim	04/05/06

163.	137 Student	23:24	\|	KUTW	04/05/06

164.	Israel needs to forsake violence and intimidation	23:24	\|	Ibrahim	04/05/06

165.	Khalid, Hitler and Husseini	23:24	\|	FOX	04/05/06

166.	Joel Meyers, they already did, it failed	23:26	\|	Ibrahim	04/05/06

167.	Don, why pick on Israel?	23:28	\|	Ibrahim	04/05/06

168.	#159 - your answers make no sence	23:29	\|	pace306	04/05/06

169.	Conclugins without connection to reality	23:33	\|	Just Cause	04/05/06

170.	#127, Mark Lincoln	23:39	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	04/05/06

171.	#121, Ronnie Wolman, "who is your audiance?"	23:48	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	04/05/06

172.	Cipora: Questions are Part Of Judaism as much as Answers	00:05	\|	Ronnie Wolman	05/05/06

173.	Ship of fools!	00:08	\|	Khalid	05/05/06

174.	#121, Ronnie Wolman, "who is your audiance?"	00:11	\|	sh	05/05/06

175.	Ibrahim you sell your wares so sweetly	00:24	\|	peter	05/05/06

176.	1967 WAR WAS A MIRICLE FROM G-D	00:36	\|	MEIR WEINSTEIN	05/05/06

177.	Aboslute Sweden, do you make more sense in Swedish?	00:37	\|	Dave	05/05/06

178.	sh: Spelling Shmelling and Cipora	00:40	\|	Ronnie Wolman	05/05/06

179.	#173, Khalid	00:42	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

180.	168 Pace - Because it Was Holy	00:47	\|	Mark of Lewiston	05/05/06

181.	meir 176	00:47	\|	alan	05/05/06

182.	#172, Ronnie Wolman	00:54	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

183.	173.Khalid	00:55	\|	KUTW	05/05/06

184.	RE#153 JOE MEYER/ KEEP DREAMING	00:56	\|	MEIR WEINSTEIN	05/05/06

185.	Absolute Sweden, absolute Hamas	01:15	\|	Dave	05/05/06

186.	172. Ronnie Wolman re Cipora	01:19	\|	KUTW	05/05/06

187.	Ship of fools revisited!	01:32	\|	Khalid	05/05/06

188.	Ronnie if you weren`t a Leftist	01:42	\|	peter	05/05/06

189.	#184, Meir Weinstein	01:48	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

190.	Khalid	01:56	\|	Dror	05/05/06

191.	#187, Khalid, you are back to your monotonous propaganda	01:58	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

192.	Ironic that Israel is seen as a superpower	02:04	\|	peter	05/05/06

193.	Liam in england	02:20	\|	Dror	05/05/06

194.	Cipora:Be more reflective and less deflective	02:40	\|	Ronnie Wolman	05/05/06

195.	recent history states...	02:41	\|	Jeff	05/05/06

196.	#29	02:44	\|	Jeff	05/05/06

197.	Peter: If you are talking Cipora,I really DONT argue with her	02:44	\|	Ronnie Wolman	05/05/06

198.	The country that wouldn`t listen.	02:52	\|	Khalid	05/05/06

199.	Cipora your post was very telling	03:08	\|	Ronnie Wolman	05/05/06

200.	`All you need to know` kit	03:08	\|	TonyL	05/05/06

201.	Back then - Cipora	03:32	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

202.	This should be printed in the Congressional Record	03:36	\|	Robert Mann	05/05/06

203.	In between - Cipora	03:37	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

204.	134 GINA	03:42	\|	ALAN	05/05/06

205.	Just after the six day war - Cipora	03:43	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

206.	It`s always been the same	03:46	\|	Schtarker Yid	05/05/06

207.	The years of "Greater Israel" - Cipora	03:50	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

208.	Ronnie off the Wall Man or is it	04:01	\|	Gabe1	05/05/06

209.	nakba	04:14	\|	h franco	05/05/06

210.	The world still doesnt care about the Pals,	04:15	\|	SASSY	05/05/06

211.	#7 Micheal What Moral war????	04:18	\|	Sassy	05/05/06

212.	Mark Lincoln 1	04:29	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

213.	ROBERT MANN.IT is NOT just AIPAC that supports Israel.Millions of	04:29	\|	PETER SM	05/05/06

214.	Mark Lincoln 2	04:43	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

215.	The real Palestinian Nabka was 67 not 48	04:43	\|	Sassy	05/05/06

216.	Stubborn deaf Israel should learn from Indonesia	04:47	\|	Sassy	05/05/06

217.	#192 Peter That would be Happy ending	04:52	\|	Sassy	05/05/06

218.	Ronnie Wolman	04:57	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

219.	Cipora re: Meir Weinstein	05:02	\|	Gabe1	05/05/06

220.	M.LINCOLN.Soviet disinformation did not get The UN observers out.	05:12	\|	PETER SM	05/05/06

221.	Anybody brighter than Sassy to answer?	05:23	\|	peter	05/05/06

222.	Sassy #192	05:30	\|	Bruce	05/05/06

223.	Sassy #216	05:38	\|	Bruce	05/05/06

224.	Liam Evans, you should worry more about the future of socialism	05:39	\|	Jake	05/05/06

225.	Sassy #215	05:42	\|	Bruce	05/05/06

226.	h franco #209	05:46	\|	Bruce	05/05/06

227.	Pace306, "Semitic" is not a race	05:51	\|	Jake	05/05/06

228.	1967 was Naqba for Judt, not Israel	05:51	\|	Herbert Kaine	05/05/06

229.	ppl like absolute sweden gina chana	05:51	\|	Omar	05/05/06

230.	peter	05:53	\|	Bruce	05/05/06

231.	Ibrahim, Abbas couldn`t enfore a parking ticket	06:00	\|	Jake	05/05/06

232.	Cipora on murder	06:01	\|	Ronnie Wolman	05/05/06

233.	Cipora read what Ronnie is saying	06:01	\|	peter	05/05/06

234.	Fabulous article	06:07	\|	Pro-reason	05/05/06

235.	Sorry, Judt, it is you who needs to grow up	06:10	\|	Jake	05/05/06

236.	Raziel, read Karl Marx` essays on the Jewish question	06:17	\|	Jake	05/05/06

237.	Peter SM regarding Robert Mann	06:19	\|	Gina	05/05/06

238.	Robert Mann, I believe Congress does have access to the internet	06:25	\|	Jake	05/05/06

239.	Cipora - the Oil Embargo of 1973	06:26	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

240.	Nor will Anti-Semitism ever leave Europe	06:29	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

241.	Actually, Israel is not in breach of any international law	06:30	\|	Jake	05/05/06

242.	Cipora - The Israeli/Palestinian War	06:30	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

243.	Jerusalem and Mecca	06:32	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

244.	Sassy - Indonesia and Timor?	06:34	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

245.	Mark Lincoln, on the `empire` that can`t be seen on a world map	06:38	\|	Jake	05/05/06

246.	Peter S.M. and reality c. 1967 - which suits neither side	06:41	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

247.	The Yom Kippur War Vs both sides bull twaddle.	06:45	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

248.	Regarding The "STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby! Pt. 1	06:49	\|	Proud Pal Defender	05/05/06

249.	Alan	06:52	\|	Gina	05/05/06

250.	Omar	06:57	\|	Gina	05/05/06

251.	Don`t try to confuse him Jake	07:02	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

252.	Bruce, perhaps a bit more clarity	07:07	\|	peter	05/05/06

253.	It was a great Victory! - Herbert Kaine	07:09	\|	Mark Lincoln	05/05/06

254.	#233, Peter	07:22	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

255.	Regarding The "STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby! Pt. 2	07:23	\|	Proud Pal Defender	05/05/06

256.	USA opinion	08:23	\|	CountDracular	05/05/06

257.	Cipora, you just don`t get it	09:37	\|	peter	05/05/06

258.	#240, Peter, I shall try to answer later in the day.	09:57	\|	Cipora Julianna Kohn	05/05/06

259.	Myopic Dave,whatever .As to Sweden,I must admit	10:49	\|	Absolute Sweden	05/05/06

260.	Sassy on 1948	19:01	\|	marc	05/05/06

261.	Israel	20:25	\|	Colin Dale	05/05/06

262.	RE:Regarding The "STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby! Pt. 1	21:53	\|	Roy Galut	05/05/06

263.	Re:Regarding The "STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby! Pt. 2	22:27	\|	Roy Galut	05/05/06

264.	Maturity at Work	22:42	\|	Itamar	05/05/06

265.	Mr.Articulate, I do not agree with you (end)	23:43	\|	milkboy	05/05/06

266.	Historical Perspective	23:47	\|	Michael	05/05/06

267.	RE:Israel needs to forsake violence and intimidat	04:10	\|	Roy Galut	06/05/06

268.	Tony Judt	06:38	\|	Ezekiel	06/05/06

269.	Judt is a fool	06:50	\|	Roberto El	06/05/06

270.	Shalom Freedman	07:37	\|	Nancy Bolt	06/05/06

271.	Re: Historical perspective	07:44	\|	Maria	06/05/06

272.	Re: Historical Perspective	08:04	\|	Maria	06/05/06

273.	# 262--Roy Galut--Your Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN LOBBY! Pt. 1	08:30	\|	Proud Pal Defender	06/05/06

274.	# 262--Roy Galut--Your Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN LOBBY! Pt. 1	08:56	\|	Proud Pal Defender	06/05/06

275.	# 262--Roy Galut--Your Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN LOBBY! Pt. 3	09:11	\|	Proud Pal Defender	06/05/06

276.	RETURN	09:20	\|	Mahmoud	06/05/06

277.	# 262--Roy Galut--Your Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN LOBBY! Pt. 4	09:30	\|	Proud Pal Defender	06/05/06

278.	`Semitic` and racial status.	11:33	\|	Patrick.	06/05/06

279.	On the whole, I`ll damn this faint praise	17:06	\|	bruce	06/05/06

280.	#1 while the world fixed its gaze on Israel	17:22	\|	stork	06/05/06

281.	RE:#273 -# 262--Roy Galut--Your Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN LOBBY	00:31	\|	Roy Galut	07/05/06

282.	#2 while the world fixed its gaze on Israel	00:36	\|	stork	07/05/06

283.	# 3 while the world fixed its gaze on Israel	00:53	\|	stork	07/05/06

284.	#4 while the world slept	01:09	\|	stork	07/05/06

285.	Tony Judt in an Israeli newspaper?! Unbelievable!	04:03	\|	FlavioBrazil	07/05/06

286.	#281--Roy Galut Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby! Pt. 1	04:13	\|	Proud Pal Defender	07/05/06

287.	Correction to my post #285	04:20	\|	FlavioBrazil	07/05/06

288.	#281--Roy Galut Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby! Pt. 2	05:01	\|	Proud Pal Defender	07/05/06

289.	Great Article	05:08	\|	Bean McDuncan	07/05/06

290.	#281--Roy Galut Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby! Pt. 3	06:00	\|	Proud Pal Defender	07/05/06

291.	Israel should grow up like France?!	06:07	\|	Shaun	07/05/06

292.	NYU is full left wing fools as usual	09:09	\|	David ben Yaacov	07/05/06

293.	Judt	09:12	\|	Jon	07/05/06

294.	Re#286 #281--Roy Galut Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby! Pt. 1	12:08	\|	Roy Galut	07/05/06

295.	yes, anti-semitic	21:14	\|	MarkC	07/05/06

296.	Kudos	23:51	\|	Ron	07/05/06

297.	The Tony Youth that wouldn`t grow up	05:53	\|	Olga	08/05/06

298.	#294--Roy Galut Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby!	06:52	\|	Proud Pal Defender	08/05/06

299.	RE#298 --Roy Galut Response_"STRONG" CHRISTIAN Lobby	09:22	\|	Roy Galut	08/05/06

300.	Your article: The country that wouldn`t grow up	12:37	\|	Brendon Porter	08/05/06

301.	Great article!!	15:28	\|	Patrick	08/05/06

302.	re: the country that wouldn`t grow up	15:52	\|	richard vajs	08/05/06

303.	a warning	16:09	\|	Lynda	08/05/06

304.	Disillusioned	17:03	\|	Junoveldt	08/05/06

305.	50,000,000 Frenchmen can be wrong	17:41	\|	Mrs. Betty Trueman	08/05/06

306.	Threatened?	22:42	\|	Joseph	08/05/06

307.	The Truth	01:06	\|	mark aleshnick	09/05/06

308.	Why did Judt ignore the Christian lobby?	01:23	\|	Zhu Bajie	09/05/06

309.	article by tony judt-about israle -a country which would nto gr	04:13	\|	avatar singh	09/05/06

310.	abused-child syndrome	04:58	\|	Barnacle Bill	09/05/06

311.	Jewish racism	05:41	\|	john davies	09/05/06

312.	Re:Why did Judt ignore the Christian lobby?	20:21	\|	Roy Galut	09/05/06

313.	Disillusioned	22:34	\|	David	09/05/06

314.	Thanks for telling it like it is!	03:13	\|	Joan	11/05/06

315.	To Finn	16:55	\|	Charles	16/05/06

316.	Agree 110%	17:46	\|	Gail I	16/05/06

317.	Tony should learn more	05:26	\|	Esther	18/05/06

318.	Nakba	01:17	\|	Roel	23/05/06

319.	Well done!	11:53	\|	John Sargent	23/05/06

320.	The country that wouldn`t grow up	20:37	\|	Amanollah Ghahreman	25/05/06

321.	the country that wouldn`t grow up	13:31	\|	Dr. F. O`Reilly	26/05/06

322.	When emotions discolour reason	12:53	\|	Ed Conway	29/05/06

323.	Israel	22:14	\|	Jb	24/07/06

324.	Ceasefire, NOW!	00:01	\|	John McCarthy	07/08/06

325.	re "Softening us up..."	23:35	\|	Sonia	14/08/06

326.	Only Haaretz Has The Courage To Print This Excellent Article	02:02	\|	World Citizen	05/09/06

327.	U.S. Public Opinion of Israel	00:11	\|	Gil	21/09/06

328.	israel	03:45	\|	ciarapica	07/10/06

329.	How beautiful it might be!	04:07	\|	Gideon	10/10/06

330.	Way to go!	23:03	\|	من	10/10/06

331.	well done	06:54	\|	Ben	11/10/06

332.	truth prevails	19:35	\|	Gerald	11/10/06

333.	Israeli/Palestinian coexistence	01:03	\|	LanceThruster	30/11/06

334.	Incomprehensivle Responses	08:41	\|	Will Foote	18/12/06

335.	Re: 50,000,000 Frenchmen can`t be wrong	08:14	\|	Scharfe	23/04/07

336.	late comment	11:05	\|	just someone	26/07/07

337.	Tony Judt is hardly an objective voice	16:49	\|	Michael White	28/11/07

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