It's disappointing to see how many posts are about domestic politics compared to international. I would have reasoned that people rejecting confinements imposed on their thinking by religion would have developed broader political interests and education than the latest dead horse being beaten about Donald Trump or who was responsible for Hillary Clinton's political suicide.
This video, like one other I posted on a different topic requires a little time out of the average media conditioned, brain candy enthusiast's life to view. It is, however, thought provoking; especially to those who'd only news or history arrives through a filtration system. In America, we don't get the straight information. No ivory tower here; I bought it hook , line and hasbara for decades.
Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist is very unpopular at home; but never refuted, only vilified. If you take the time to listen, you'll discover why. He's rare, but not alone.
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12 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Question for you, Silver, what would be your solution to ease the plight of the Palestinians? In your own words. What is your end-goal? Dismantling Israel? Or a two-state solution?
crazycurlz
Level 7
May 9, 2018
0
Silver, the day that you are able to step back and see the bigger picture of the dynamics in this region is the day we can hold an intelligent conversation. Levy has his place. There's no denying he sheds light on the plight of the Palestinians. My problem with your tirades is always that you place the blame on the Israelis and that's because you are unwilling or unable to see the bigger picture. I agree Netanyuha needs to be replaced but like our democracy, sometimes the best leader doesn't surface to the summit.
Israel and the Palestinians are pawns in a game. Israel was able to spy on Iran in a way that no other government is able to. Why? Because the countries of that region, Europe and the US ALL rely on Israel to play its part. That is why Israel gets the big bucks (and close behind Arab countries). Israel is PUBLICLY dissed and privately encouraged. The local Arab countries use Israel to fight hezbollah and other radical elements within their own borders because they don't want to be seen killing their own people. And it goes on and on.
The Arab countries have a vested interest in keeping the Palestinians in this conflict, too. It's been a great marketing tool to coalesce hate and keep people distracted from their own domestic human rights violations. There is not one Arab population that pretends to want democracy. The youth do and they are outnumbered.
I believe in the reasons for the inception of Israel. The land was given to the Jews and they capitalized on it. The Palestinians did not have a country there at that time and were offered their own state and instead chose war and lost. I'm not comfortable or happy with the plight of the Palestinians. Like many who are in favor of the Jewish state, why would I want to see anyone else struggle? That's just STUPID and inhumane. Like a lot of Israelis, I favor an end to this conflict. But YOU all believe the answer lies with Israel. And that's where I think you do a disservice to Israelis and the Palestinians. There are too many players in this game, too many countries that privately have made Israel into what it is today, too much vested interest in maintaining the status quo for Israel to do anything about it.
I just think you're naive. I hope it's just naivete and not antisemitism. So, if I were you, I'd ask myself: do I hate Israel out of prejudice? Why am I unable to see the forest through the trees on the dynamics of this region? Am I simply a bleeding heart liberal who lacks the intellect to really question? I hope you will do some self-examination of your pursuits, Silver. I do and I do it every day. I live in a very mixed community in a college town. Right next door is a couple a little younger than me: Chaldean woman and Kurd husband, across the way, a family of Somali Muslims. The family bought the home after renting for a few years because of me, 'you made us feel safe and welcome.' The Chaldean woman tells me I am like her sister. We talk politics. I know my stuff. I know the plight of the Palestinians. But the politics are bigger than Israel.
crazycurlz
Level 7
May 9, 2018
0
I think a lot of us are afraid of how things are going. Poking fun at some of the people responsible is a way if making it easier to live with. You are right that knowledge is power, and many "news" sources are not delivering knowledge. I don't watch mainstream news.
Livinlife
Level 9
May 8, 2018
0
A nation that can't fix its own politics should not be meddling with the world stage of international politics!
GipsyOfNewSpain
Level 9
May 8, 2018
1
I heard the jest of this. I am an anti-Zionist cultural Jew. I've served in the Israeli army. I do not like how Israel is discounting the other inhabitants of the same land. They have had no right to build settlements on Arab land. There is only the Gaza strip left for the Palestineans to live since the West Bank is being invaded. What is going on now is wrong. The US Embassy being moved to Jerusalem is going to cause WWIII.
sassygirl3869
Level 9
May 8, 2018
0
I am not anti-Zionist and not a cultural Jew. Likewise, I agree that Israel has to account for its actions, get rid of Netanyahu. And, I believe you also don't have a larger view on the dynamics in the region. To understand the conflict, one has to look at the bigger picture, the other players. Not one of you is able to do that and until you do, the situation doesn't change for the Israelis or the Palestinians.
so much to say to you sassygirl about your reasons for being antizionist. The world over countries are rejecting immigrants, the US after WWII rejected the Jews, the Chinese refused white people to enter their country for years. Somehow you single out Israel for being less integrative. Would you also say you're anti-China? anti-US? I totally understand the need for the foundation of the Jewish state. Unfortunately, in time, due to it's strategic location, it has become a useful tool for both Western politics and for the local Arab countries who use Israel and the Palestinians as Pawns.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience in Israel. The Israelis are tough people due to circumstances. But a more mature response might be to step back from personal experience and consider or develop a world view.
When the political damage is so close to home it is very difficult to look to someone else's problems. The effort is being directed to correcting our own problem. While it is nice to be informed about other news it is also great for us to keep out of someone's business for change.We currently have enough to do with multiple wars being waged, Korea and Iran as two new possibilities under trumpie.
Marine
Level 8
May 8, 2018
1
When we support tyranny and murder at the rate of billions a year, crimes enabled by the money are our business and the world is watching
@Silver1wun That still calls for making the corrections at home first.
" I would have reasoned that people rejecting confinements imposed on their thinking by religion would have developed broader political interests"
Why? It's a non sequitur and as such not reasonable.
RobAnybody
Level 7
May 8, 2018
1
Good heavens..he could have said what he wanted to say in three minutes. He is so boring, I now understand why nobody knows about him.
Also, his droning on and on, illustrates the reason why US news is now mostly spin politics, scandals and nonsense... to keep US people entertained and watching, bringing in the advertising dollars. Since few blue collar people travel out of the country, they cater to them.
I remember when that change in US news happened-perhaps their funding was being pulled and they had to do something to keep their audience. I was watching the news in the 1980s, and suddenly, one day they replaced the professional newscasters with sexy young women in tight clothes, who began mostly reporting on scandals and movie stars.
I was shocked, but understood why...the average blue collar Joe just wants sex and violence, or they'll change channels. The old news commentators looked at each other, and one of them remarked, on camera (!), "and to think, I have a degree in political science and have been proud of my job until now..."
But here in Thailand I watch international news channels, but even those newscasters are shocked and sometimes amused by our train wreck of a president, remarking that the US news is at least entertaining, since you never know what crazy, insane thing Trump will do next.
birdingnut
Level 8
May 8, 2018
2
Levy has nothing to do with US news and isn't an American.
Varn:
Thank you for slogging through that, for me - now I don’t have to 
Tired of ‘following links’ around here, I was waiting to read some responses that made it appear worthwhile. What I received from the poster was ..less than encouraging. And if this is pretty much about the Palestinian Israeli conflict - no thanks. I’d paid very close attention to that for decades until realizing - that’s going to continue forever - and I refuse to waste a millisecond on it. Glad I …kinda didn’t.
Here, just have to repeat this as confirmation, “..he could have said what he wanted to say in three minutes. He is so boring...” Onward 
I think it's understandable, given that national politics affect people more directly than international issues. Maybe it is only when things are fairly quiet and settled at home that most people feel able to look further afield. I don't think the USA is unusual in that respect. I am from the UK and not many people take a serious interest in foreign affairs in general, though our relationship with Europe is up for consideration at the moment. Issues are always complicated, and I, too would like to see more reasoned discussion of them here.
CeliaVL
Level 7
May 8, 2018
1
Our nation supports the state of Israel financially to the tune of $10 Million per day, plus additional military support and support from Fundamentalist Christian Zionists. This enables their crimes and in that way blood of Israeli tyranny is on our hands. We ate helped to ignore this by a press and political leadership that DARES NOT even sound like they would even thonl about so much as a critical word about behavior of Israel. Your situation, until Corbyn was the same. I suggesy a comprehensive under cover documentary on youtube called 'Lobby', exposing exactly how the Israel lobby infests your domestic politics. It's in four parts.
@Silver1wun the US also gives 1b to Egypt and Jordan and the US is the largest donor to the Palestinians. Of all donors, the UNITED STATES is the largest donor to the Palestinians. Let that sink in. Where are the wealthy Arab countries in helping the Palestinians? The US expects a lot in return from Israel for that money. As the only democracy in the ME, the US expects and privately uses (though it also publicly discredits) Israeli investigation and 'patrolling' of the region: spying. The West and the neighboring Arab countries rely on Israeli to keep the peace. This is real complicated relationships in this region. You take a very limited, surface view on all the interplay that goes on. Do you think any country US or Arab really wants to change the situation between Israel and the Palestinians? These countries are being used as pawns to others' advantage and you don't seem capable of looking beyond your hate for Israel to recognize this.
Only these two countries and their people want peace and a solution to this problem. WHAT COUNTRY ON EARTH WANTS TO LIVE IN A CONSTANT STATE OF WAR? Do you think the Israelis want this? They are a democracy and there's a big fight that happens there, just like in the US, sometimes they vote in bad leaders...do you think it happens to US? That's democracy.
@crazycurlz Israel a peace keeper? A democracy? Have you ever considered stand-up or possibly writing for it? Part of my 'narrow scope' includes a particular volume penned in 1939 by British journalist J.M.N. Jeffries. That alone, tells a very prophetic story of just who the peacemakers are and are not in Palestine. The Zionist criminal enterprise began long before victims of NAZI genocide and persecution needed a place to go.
@Silver1wun I agree with you. I am not at all hopeful about the future of the Palestinians though. I have said elsewhere that I think they are quite likely to go the same way as the Aborigines in Australia and the Native Americans in the USA and Canada - ground down and dispossessed until they effectively give up. The USA and UK have too many vested interests in Israel to be fair to Palestinians.
@Silver1wun: No need for undercover: In the States, you already have the very above-board (and divine!) Abby Martin, and of course, Noam Chomsky!
@LoneJungle just because you are all like-minded, doesn't make you right.
@LoneJungle, @CeliaVL and the Arab countries have too much of a vested interested in keeping the Palestinians in the limelight...it's a distraction on both sides. It's amazing to me that so-called well-educated people don't get it.
Gideon Levy is a Jewish Israeli who shares stories about the Palestinians and the suffering of the Palestinians in order to humanize their position in the world. The heroes you choose to emulate, Silver, are always the bleeding heart liberals who react to human suffering without stepping back and getting a bigger view. My problem with your view is you blame Israel, end of story. But it's so much more complicated than that.
I just think it's funny that you feel entitled to lecture others about lack of political appetite, Silver when your world view is lazy and status quo bleeding heart liberal. You'd do a better service to the Palestinian people if you broadened your view of the conflict. Israel has it's problems but they do not include genocide. The UN, including many Arab countries, spend the bulk of its energy casting votes against Israel when Syria is killing its own people, it's appalling to me that your focus is on the same old 'Jews (here Israel) are the problem in this world' tired old theory. The UN was late in the game on Syria, late in the game when any population is facing genocide. They are DISTRACTED, as are you.
It's your perspective that's skewed, Silver, not your intentions. Jews make up less than 2% of the world's population. (And for those who get caught in the weeds, I've been told that is actually less than 1%). The world over, from time immemorial, tribes have overwhelmed other tribes, taking their land and acting with impunity. Europeans did it to the Native Americans and we didn't give back this continent. I'm not saying this is RIGHT. I would like to see this changed. But, the reason the Jews were GIVEN this land is because they were being killed off in Europe. Remember that little thing called the holocaust? Creating Israel was in the works for decades before it finally happened. There's a lot of Jews and Palestinians trying to rectify the situation in the conflict who aren't Israel bashers.
The problem I have with the speakers you choose to emulate is that they all squarely put the blame on the backs of the Israelis. If you were to BROADEN your world view, step away from your narrow Israel bashing/Jew bashing perspective and LISTEN to the voices that are not status quo, you would find 1. son of Hamas, a particular hero of mine, Mossab Yousef Hassan who called out the Palestinian National Authority at the UN for using the Palestinian people as a pawn 2. a group of young Palestinians featured in Human Flow who recognize that the problem is not just on Israel but also Egypt and Jordan, too 3. so many more intelligent people who realize the solution is not to villify Israel.
The Palestinian/Israeli conflict is not resolved because world leaders (Arab governments especially) use it as a DISTRACTION and ignorant people like you continue to fan this fire as if you understand the essence of this conflict. Just take a closer look at the dynamics of the UN and you will see what the hell is going on in this world. I believe whole heartedly that if the Israelis and the Palestinians were left to resolve the issue alone and NOT used for propoganda and distraction, it would be resolved.
The Palestinians need to feel secure. The Israelis need to feel secure. Israel is an established democracy. It's got problems but it can improve. Not one of the Arab countries has an established democracy and yet, they have so many votes in the UN...do you really think leaders that don't value human rights in their own countries care about keeping peace in the world? USE YOUR NOGGIN ('head' in yiddish!).
Also, I am engaged DAILY with people in my workplace over politics. I'm American. We ARE concerned. It doesn't matter whether we're for Trump or not, we all want the same end result: a healthy economy, a safe place to raise our kids, a sense that we're doing something positive in the world. Trumpers' lifestyles have changed dramatically in the last 30 years and the unpredictability for this group is very real. Sorry you don't understand that. But, not surprising to me, either.
crazycurlz
Level 7
May 8, 2018
1
@powder we will have to agree to disagree. I won't have a discussion with someone who admires Putin's 'political skills'. Killing ones opponents doesn't take skill.
It's just insane that this one country has become a world player. It's a pawn of the West much the same as Palestine is a pawn. Assange is an interesting character. It's hard to know whether his intentions initially were pure. He's worked his way into a corner, definitely. I find it totally within reason that he is now paid to push propoganda.
Agree to disagree, powder. I agree in a limited way that there's more players to the Syrian crisis than just Assad but beyond that you are one creating-my-own-world-view-based-on-alternative-facts junkie.
First I'd like to thank you Meshuga (Yiddish for crazy), for this comment because it will help to illustrate for another person on this site, what I told her in an exchange only a few hours ago.
Quote from that conversation: "I can assure you that there is a parity of people on the Right-wing fringe who would demonize me as a 'flaming Liberal Democrat Progressive (or whatever else they're calling themselves these days)"
After answering your comment that reveals by content that you've dismissed Levy 'out of hand' without actually viewing and listening, I'll be summoning her to see this comment. She expressed tolerant regrets; being 'sorry that I had voted for such an awful man'. This response of yours was like manna (Egyptian mennu) "corn of Heaven" that had to be gathered before the sun would melt it. I found it this morning and to my utter delight am gathering it for preparation.
That you should resort to such an impassioned, verbose response to a video you've shown no evidence of having viewed with a diatribe against me personally is like the gift that keeps on giving; with zero knowledge about my familiarity with Middle Eastern cultures, history or languages, you've taken me to task as someone who is somehow under a spell of partisan propaganda. My suggestion is the classic 'Physician heal thyself'.
As an illegal occupier of the Levant which hosts a mixed population of somewhere near twelve million, roughly half Israeli and half indigenous Christians and Muslims, I suggest the aforementioned advice doubly. Israel has occupied and stolen both the land and the people; claiming only the land as it's own. How convenient! It doesn't work that way. Within 'Eretz Israel' dwell many people under control of the Zionist enterprise. When Israel 'mows the lawn' in Gaza or shoots down unarmed people via sniper fire from outside that largest open air prison in the world, it is KILLING IT'S OWN PEOPLE.
I'm lecturing others? His name is Gideon Levy. I wasn't present.
My 'world view is lazy and status quo bleeding heart liberal'? What would you know of world views that you'd make such a statement from an abysmal state of ignorance about me personally? I'm 'distracted... with a skewed perspective'? I'm by inference, 'blind to what is going on in the world'? You wish to lecture me with notions rooted in a false historic narrative as a remedy? There is far too much convoluted mishegas (Yiddish, the product of a you know what...) for me to dignify with sane, historically documented answers here.
As suggested by the posting, view the video talk. Comments ought to relate to it, not the poster who only wishes civil exchanges of ideas, two or three at a time, motivated by MUTUAL learning and respect.
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@Silver1wun here's the thing...I actually said that Levy collects Palestinian stories and shares them. I didn't condemn that. I support that. My problem with him, as with you, he reacts to what he finds without looking at the bigger picture, without the ability to look at the bigger picture. I just think you're short sighted, Silver, pushing your singular view of a very complicated issue(s). Levy has a place. Anyone that has a conscience has a place. The problem with the Left is you're great at researching things but somehow you don't know how to expand on it rationally. Instead you react emotionally and because you thought it, you equate that as intellectual. That's not thoughtful stuff, not useful. Anyone who can shed light and bring real stories forward, I am all for that. But to not realize their full power, that's the Left and I think you are part of that inability, impotence. I just think these useful stories are in the wrong hands. Your thinking isn't expansive enough, Silver.
@powder Thanks for your perspective. I hope, and it seems possibly so, that you watched the video. To read so many actual facts cited, without accompanying indictments of motives and name calling, seasoned by insults is like a breath of fresh air.
You ask questions and address the issues directly. This is terrifying stuff for captive minds confined within narrow frames of reference. Stockholm Syndrome is similarly confined by definition to those who are held physically captive. I believe it to apply with equal validity to those who are mentally captive. Criticism of captors with whom they identify is also internalized and felt as an attack on them personally.
What do you think about Levy?
@crazycurlz So what you are telling me is that 'the Lord works in mysterious ways' and that my allegedly limited scope cannot conceive of a more 'complicated' heavenly picture that is comprehensible only by those with superior understanding. I've heard it somewhere before, but there seems to be a collection plate missing... I and others have a firm, comprehensive grasp of what is going on in the world and we state it clearly, not leaving it to 'superior' beings with superior, yet unspoken, understanding.
@Silver1wun you are full of your own greatness. I agree to disagree.
@powder reread my comments on Levy and you'll find acknowledgement for his contribution.
...boy that sounded condescending..
As did the USSR in it’s heydays, if you keep the masses standing in line for food, they’ve little energy left to protest. I think capitalism has it’s own twist ...if you entertain them to lethargy, they’ll have no time to protest..
The USA is massive, and I’ve only driven across it twice. We’ve got the most powerful military in the history of the planet - and it’s under the control of a madman. This madman is breaking treaties, starting trade wars, threatening nuclear war, angering allies and dismantling the civil institutions of the most powerful nation on said planet…
Believe me - we’d much rather be following the petty bickering and presumed republican ankle-biting of what should have been the H.R. Clinton administration. We could have slept just as soundly as most had during the Obama years … as we inched toward ‘universal healthcare’ to boot.
This is different - and the whole world is watching! They’re wondering how dangerous we are? How close should they get? How did this happen? What are we going to do about it? What next? Should they trade with us? Can they depend on us? Can we ever be trusted again..?
I’ve actually and occasionally apologized to the folks not from or within the USA, and definitely appreciate their perspectives - which not that amazingly are near identical to ‘most of us.’ I’ll listen to the BBC ...rattle on about African politics till I drift to sleep.. But the thing is, I’m not as worried about Africa as I am (North) America, and I’m sure most would agree.
Some don’t do politics at all, and it shows - but they are now … and it’s cutting deep into their music & Netflix’s time I’m sure.. I’d more suggest they stay engaged with current events closest to home at the moment, and not chance losing them by assigning more homework 
Varn
Level 8
May 8, 2018
1
I see no evidence in your comment of your having either viewed or understood the video.
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