Friday, November 23, 2007

A new verb for Blogtopia

By Libby

I love the way new words get invented on the poliblogs and eventually become part of the lexicon. Like swiftboating for instance. Time was that would have meant you owned a cigarette boat but now it's an code word for falsely smearing. Kevin Drum discovers the newest term that has orginated in Israel. The literal translation is to Condoleezza and its appropriate usage:

The long buildup to Annapolis, together with Ms. Rice's many trips to the region, have given birth to a new verb in Israeli government circles: "lecondel," meaning, to come and go for meetings that produce few results.

I hope it catches on. It has nice ring to it.

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19 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

fuck israel. it's their fault condoleeza, clinton, carter and every other american adminstration has been unable to secure a state for the palestinians. watch them do it again at annapolis. parasites

9:56:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

Lester, I know you hate Israel but I'm really getting tired of your anti-Semitic comments. As I've told you before, I have a lot of Jewish friends and actually have something of a Jewish heritage myself. I would really appreciate it if you would keep those comments to yourself.

10:57:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

criticizing israel isn't anti semtic.

11:01:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

I don't want to argue about this Lester. You may intend as such but all your remarks on Israel come across as anti-Semitic.

You say a lot of stuff that I don't like or agree with and I let it pass so on this one thing, I'm asking you not to talk about Israel here. I'd appreciate if you'd show me that courtesy.

11:36:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When you realize that the Israelites were scattered to the four winds centuries ago, then came together after WWII to reclaim their land which, at the time was mostly scrub and desert that no one really wanted until they stepped back on their soil. The Arab states declared war, thus creating the all or nothing stakes. The Israelis won and took back their land. The new Israelites then began building and growing in this wasteland. While I think everyone should have a home, the Palestinians have, so far, shown no desire to find a solution but rather have continued in their war mongering and quest for genocide. Israel has made a few of its own missteps here. They have made aggressive moves when perhaps they should have allowed a little more time for diplomacy. But the fact remains that the Arab states have made their wish for the total annihalation of Israel quite public, so what's a country to do?
The waters have been muddied by the fact that the world uses the words Jew, Hebrew and Israeli interchangably. Judaism is a religion, a faith whereas Israeli is a national identity. I daresay not every Jew resides in Israel and not every Israeli is a Jew.
Those of us who have evolved to having more than two brain cells can understand this concept. But don't expect the battles to ever end since this hatred has existed since the beginning of time.

12:26:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"your remarks on Israel come across as anti-Semitic"

libby- remember when you didn't know what a neo con was? well, now you are one. you are branding me an anti semite for criticizing a COUNTRY. is being anti war anti semetic too? that's the next step in the logic of your new ideology.

"I'm asking you not to talk about Israel here"

you posted an article referrencing the annapolis conference. It didn't occur to me that someone who is allegedly interested in news wouldn't know what that was.

I have no problem not discussing Israel because there is no such place. it's called Palestine.

rockync- trhank you. I'm sure you and I have very different views on the situation there but at least you realize that israel is not the same as "jews".

3:06:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lester, although we might agree on there being a difference between the term Israeli and Jew, it looks like we part company after that. After WWI the UN established the Israel/Palestine boundaries. The Arab states rejected this and began a war with Israel that they ultimately lost. At that time Israel expanded her borders in to Gaza and the West Bank. Had the Arab nations not tried to annihilate them,the Palestinians would have had their land. The land that encompasses modern day Israel was a wasteland which has been turned into a prosperous, fertile land. The Palestinians don't want to "secure a state" for themselves so much as they want to eliminate every Jew in Israel.Palestinians are not an ethnic group but a geographical one. They are Arabs largely comprised of Sunni Muslims and a smaller percentage of Christians. There are ways to resolve the issue of a country for all, but it would require level heads and compromise and that's not about to happen as long as Arabs so publically profess their desire to comlete the genocide of the Jews that Hitler began.

3:50:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

rocky- sufficet to say yuo and I have radically different interpretations of history. I'd point out then each time an arab state allegedly attacked israel, israel picked up massive amounts of land.

anyway here is the history of the area i personally subscribe too

http://www.aldeilis.net/english/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=108&Itemid=114



bottom line: like america, israel created herself by driving the indegenous people out. unlike us, they are in a bad position to hold on to it. We could fight and defeat the Indians handily if they decided to take back this land for themselves. israel faces essentially the reverse: a billion "indians" of all different walks of life united in the common goal of driving them out. with the demographics there it's only a matter of time

4:05:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lester, I'm will have to side with Libby on this one. I too have Jewish blood running in my veins, but this does not necessarily make me a knee-jerk Zionist.

While we are all frustrated that the Israel-Palestinian conflict holds the world in thrall, there is sufficient fault on both sides (and lost opportunities for a settlement), and I am of no mind to heap blame only upon one side. That makes me more of a Noam Chomsky type.

There is as much political variation among Israel's as there is among Americans. Do not, however, make blanket statements about all Israelis and Jews. You would be seriously misinformed.

P.S. Today's word verification ... sbhlae ... sheesh.

8:18:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lester, They didn't pick up more land because they lost. As you point out, they have been attacked by Arab nations several times and won the fight. I looked at your link but I'm not sure what the thread is there. Ancient history is interesting although I see your link is light on Hebrew history but modern history dictates that the UN agreed that an Israeli state should be formed. Palestine was also provided for but chose to fight instead and lost.Time will tell what Israel's future will be but your assessment that they can't hold their own doesn't bear up historically since Israel has been holding their own since 1948.

9:07:00 PM  
Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

It's funny that they all claim there's no anti-Semitism involved, but you won't hear them wailing about the partition of India and Pakistan which involved millions of deaths, nor of the partition of Iraq and Iran. No Jews involved there.

The half baked historians like to pretend that there was an independent Palestine, which there wasn't and they like to ignore the fact that Jordan was created as the Palestinian half of the partition.

9:22:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well said, Capt. This is about Jews in the Middle East. Hamas is already screaming foul about the Arab nations comitted to attending the Annapolis summit and threatening to increase rocket attacks on Israel during the peace talks. Hamas doesn't want a Palestinian country, they want to annihilate the Jews and take over Israel. It's no secret, they are always spouting off about it. This isn't about Israel, the nation but about the Jews who inhabit it.

12:26:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

okay, Israel, FDR and Lincoln can't be criticized. are there any other sacred cows I should know about? how about the iraq war? Am I an enemy of freedom and liberty and and anti semite if I criticize that one?

Look, there is no jewish view on Israel. I happen to take the Chomsky, Finkelstein, Amy Goodman line. Yourselves, the Lieberman, Perle Wolfowitz line. I don't think you can fairly call either side anti semetic when thuosands of jews support either position.


rockync- Israel was created by driving the people who lived there previously out. the jews were not the jews of palestine who decided to stand up for themselves, they were from europe. Zionism was a european movement.

Your defenses of it are little more than recycled justifications for Apartheid. at best, they are an endorsement of a jewish Crusades. morally speaking, that's not very moral!

I'm a christian, that's my holy land too. You don't see me going there and kciking everyone out and setting up shop. We tried that about a millenia ago and it didn't really pan out.

9:20:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lester, a few flaws in your argument there. One, these Jews are not the Jews of Palestine but the Jews of Europe? Um, and where do you think the "Jews of Europe" came from, the cabbage patch?
Two, on the one hand, you seem to find it perfectly ok that our European ancestors came here and kicked the indigenous people out of their land, but take exception with "Jews of Europe" doing the same thing. Actually, it's not the same thing since the United Nations actually created the state of Israel along with creating the state of Palestine.
The Arabs went to war with the new settlers and lost so the new settlers took more land in order to protect their flanks. There would have been NO justification for this IF the Arabs had not declared war and they could have gone to the UN if Israel moved on them unprovoked. But that's not what happened.
I would much prefer to see a peaceful settlement where everyone gets a homeland, but that is NOT what the Palestinians want. They want nothing less than the total annihilation of a group of people. This is not acceptable.

11:23:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

some of them came from israel thousands of years before. some of them, the khazars, are caucasians who converted aronud the time of charlamagne. most of the russian and ethiopian jews are not semites. the region had an arab character for about 18 centuires before zionism. I think that is enough to establish precedent.

"that our European ancestors came here and kicked the indigenous people out of their land, but take exception with "Jews of Europe" doing the same thing"


no. I'm saying we fought and beat the indians for the land. the UN didn't give it to us. if the indians decided they wanted it back we'd have to fight them again. Israel is hiding behind us. If they want their land they have to fight for it. like every nation everywhere. demographically speaking, their odds are getting worse.

"The Arabs went to war with the new settlers and lost so the new settlers took more land in order to protect their flanks. There would have been NO justification for this IF the Arabs had not declared war and they could have gone to the UN if Israel moved on them unprovoked. But that's not what happened. "

google "deir yassin massacre"

You think if the israelis all moved to america or europe the palestinians would travel there find them all and kill them?

2:08:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Israelis have been fighting various wars with Arab nations since the state was established, so I guess they are "fighting for it." And I think you are forgetting that the first American settlers WERE backed by England?
I would also like to know where your stats come from in regards to the ethnic make up of Jews. Is this from a reliable, unbiased research organization or ripped from the headlines of yet another antiZionist web page?
You might want to google the Holocaust and the Trail of Tears before you go down that road. I think I have stated here in a previous post that the Israelis aren't exactly innocent of taking some aggressive actions of their own, but, the whole area is at war.
And no, I don't think the Palestinians have the sophistication or ambition to launch a world wide genocide.

2:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't think there is much controversey about the DNA of the various jewish groups. particularly the ethiopians!! If anyone reading this of any ethnicity were to convert to judaism they could move to israel.


Israel isn't fighting much of anything. We send them 3 billion and weapons up the ass every year alongwith slavishly voting with them at the UN, even if it means okaying a totally pointless and destructive war like last summers.


If we cut them off, they would have the advantage of being able to defend themselves as they asee fit. Ron Paul was one of the only congressman to vote against condemning Israel for Bombing Iraqs nuclear facilities in the early 80's. because he's a hardcore zionist? no, because israels defense is their business!! not to mention the fact that we give billions to israels enemeies in saudi arabi and pakistan to foment a potemkin peace in the region. not supringly it frequently comes unfurled with disasterous results.

So I'd say our divestitutre from them benefits both parties. habve yuo read "the israel lobby and american foreign policy"?

3:09:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are still confusing Judaism, the religion with the ethnic group know collectively as Jews.
A recent study of the "Russian Jews" DNA shows that their patriachal genes originate in the Middle East and although the maternal side is not as clear, it is pointing toward Near East/ Middle East. I'm sure like many of us who no longer reside in our ancetral homelands, that their bloodlines have been diluted as they intermarried with local ethnic groups.
Israel along with the US belongs to the United Nations. It has long been the policy of the US to support other UN countries, Israel only being one of them. At least in this case, it is open support as opposed to the black ops kind of arming we have seen in South America, etc.
I'm not against pulling support for warmongering from all of them and let the chips fall where they may, but that would mean a pull out from Iraq and Afghanistan and turning our backs on Iran. Do you think this adminstration is ready to do that?The idea that we can just pack up our toys and go home is a bit too simplistic.
We'd also have to quit buying Arab oil so that our dollars weren't inadvertently supporting a war effort. How are we going to resolve that one? If it weren't for oil money most Arabs would be living in tents and tending goats.
Perhaps we would have been better off if the internal combustion engine had never been invented. You also must look at the other side of the coin; if we are supporting Israel in the open and Arab states clandistinely, then we have some influence over their actions. I agree it is not a good plan, but before it can be changed, someone has to come up with a better plan because I don't want to breathe the radioactive fallout from a glowing puddle in the Middle East.

4:04:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well again, I would argue we have no right to determine israels actions. they are a soveriegn entity. our aid is an albatross in that sense.

as for the UN, I'm a conservative. as you can imagine I'm not too big on that institution. certainly not to thepoint of sacrafising our own security for it

"but that would mean a pull out from Iraq and Afghanistan and turning our backs on Iran. Do you think this adminstration is ready to do that?"

no, but I certainly am and I think the american peopel are too. it's fuck all expensive

I agree most muslim countries, save the UAE, have zero non oil economies. It's a largely backward, unproductive region. If we were doling out land and priveleges based on merit israel would have been handed most of the middle east by 1949.

and I think our actions are doing more to bring about the radiocative puddle than preventing it.

but more than any of that is we can't risk another 9/11. israel can protect itself. it has a massive security apparatus and small enforcable borders. we have massive unprotected borders and open immigration and liberty. we are an easy target for terrorists. we are virtually undefendable.

4:33:00 PM  

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