An oldie (from 2003--Edward Said has died since) but a goodie, but one I'd never noticed or linked to before; a long but fascinating read from a former Berkeley leftist, and why he turned his back on his once comrades, over Israel:

On my last day, I was able to drive across the entire Golan Heights, past the partly destroyed Israeli post at Kfar Nafakh and then on to the farthest point of the Israeli counterattack. I passed the charred wrecks of dozens of Syrian and Israeli tanks, and the smell of burning flesh still hung in the air. I only came to a stop at an Israeli military police roadblock at the western edge of the Golan Heights. There was a tourist observation deck nearby, outfitted with telescopes. Peering through one, I could see Damascus clearly on the horizon.

After the initial Syrian successes of the battle’s first two days, the Israelis had mauled their enemy so badly that the plain leading to Damascus was wide open. The Israeli army could have reached the gates of the city in a day. But the Kremlin threatened to intervene to save Hafez al-Assad’s regime. The United States then conveyed to Israel that it must not move its forces past the pre– October 6 cease-fire lines, from which Syria had launched its attack. Once again, the rigged Middle East rules were in full effect: the Arab states could break cease-fires without fear of international censure; Israel could defend itself and repel the Arab attacks, but if it made the war so costly to the aggressors as to deter the next one it would meet with widespread global condemnation.

I didn’t write about these questions at the time, but I couldn’t help but speculate. Suppose the Syrians had actually occupied a piece of northern Israel? Does anyone believe that Syria’s government would then have offered to exchange “land for peace”? And what kind of treatment could the Jews living in “Syria-occupied Galilee” have expected from the occupiers—from the same army units that executed most of the Israeli soldiers they captured during the war?

...I remained haunted by the lesson I had learned in 1973 on the Golan Heights and at the Suez Canal about Israel’s vulnerability. Israel had zero margin of error—literally, it could not survive the loss of one war. The Arab regimes had nothing to lose except the lives of thousands of their own soldiers, which they were cavalier about anyway, and some treasure, which they could always replace with the help of one of the big powers or the Saudis. Thus, they were free to try and try again to destroy the Jewish state.

Double standards abound in the Middle East. Well, and other places.

Things didn’t turn out exactly as the neoconservatives predicted—with, first, the creation of a Palestinian state, which would then become a springboard for another assault on Israel by the Arab states—but they correctly assessed the pathological nature of the Palestinian liberation movement. Like the premature anti-fascists of the 1930s, who understood the radical evil faced by the democracies of those days, the neoconservatives have had the bad taste to show us what we wanted to avoid admitting—that this conflict is not about disputed territories. It is about Israel’s right to survive as a democratic Jewish state. And after September 11, it’s clear that it is also about whether the Islamo-fascist movement that is at war with our civilization will succeed in making the Middle East safe for obscurantism and tyranny.

It retains its resonance today, and points out the broad nature of the war in which we find ourselves. Israel, a vital ally that shares all the values that matter with us, has been on the front lines since its founding. Read the whole thing.

democratic jewish state?

what does that mean exactly?

A:
I think it means that illegal immigrants can't vote. As opposed to a real democracy like the US, where they can.

A,it means you are an idiot. To borrow an analogy from a movie, you're that piece of corn that gets stuck in ones teeth and just won't work itself out and repeated attempts to remove it are unsuccessful. After awhile it comes loose on its own and dissolves into nothing.

Rand, the link doesn't work. Article can be found here.

So, as (is probably) usual, Anonymous Moron makes his idiotic comment without even bothering to read the link. Fixed now, thanks.

One of the good reasons to have nuclear weapons. It completely stopped these meaningless wars.

It completely stopped these meaningless wars.

Not really. The Intifada is a continuation of them. It simply stopped the direct warfare and shifted it to a more subtle proxie war.

Simberg

the link was broken, but, you were too stupid to check that.

But I'd still like to know what you think a democratic jewish
state means. Do only Jews get to vote? Who determines that?
Is it race based upon proven heritage or do 9 rabbi's sign for
you or is it sufficient to answer a trivia test on the talmud?

Would you get to vote?

But I'd still like to know what you think a democratic jewish state means. Do only Jews get to vote?

My god (though I don't have one), I knew you were a moron, but I didn't know how big a moron you were. Why don't you do a little research, in which you would discover that (non-Jewish) Arabs are members of the Israeli Parliament?

Do you never question the insanity of your beliefs?

I see Anonymous Jew-Hater is polishing up his Jackboots and practicing his Prussian swagger today. Seig Heil AJ-H!

simberg

But what does a democratic jewish state mean to you?

Not israeli law, not current practice, what does it mean to you?