Not that anything is supposed to be funny about the Israeli-Palestinian problem, but there's a Vox article called ""Does It Matter That John Kerry Compared Israel to Apartheid?" that says "pretty much the entire American discourse around Israel-Palestine has devolved into an endless stream of language-policing. . . . This is all discourse about discourse," to which Taranto retorts:
A horse is a horse, of course of course / And no one can have a discourse with a horse / That is, of course, except discourse with the Famous Mr. Ed. Or, as the New York Times once put it: " 'John Kerry walks into a bar,' goes the Washington version of the old joke. 'Bartender says, "Hey, Senator Kerry, why the long face?" ' "
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God forbid that diplomacy should ever be contaminated with language policing.
I thought it was a fine entry as well.
I think there's a difference between language policing and asking our leaders not to engage in racist hyperbole.
But, what do you expect from the administration that accused its political opponents of wanting to put people back into chains in its own country? I'm surprised Kerry didn't indulge in a little blood libel.
If you wanted to cast someone as a snooty, weak, entitled and despicable fop you couldn't construct a more suitable face than John F'n Kerry's.
Can you imagine him as POTUS? He makes Obama look like a strong leader in comparison.
Things are going swimmingly on the Foreign relations front.
Syria is, as predicted, not giving up their WMD. And, it's looking quite likely that they have actually used those weapons again last week in Syria.
Israel is being labeled an Apartheid state by the idiot Kerry and the Palestinians, who happen to be aligned with Western leftists, are dancing in the streets regarding Israels increasing isolation by obama.
Libya is basically in the early stages of conversion to an Al Qaeda state after several hundred millions in weapons being provided to them by obama.
And, of course, obama's boyfriend Putin/Russia is having commie May Day parades in Red Square again while consolidating their position in greater Ukraine in the lead up to full takeover all the while beginning destabilization activities in the Baltics.
China continues its military expansion and obama/Hagel look to slice our military in half.
All in all it's been a very "flexible" and wonderful last couple of years for the leftists/communists/Muslim Brotherhood/Al Qaeda types.
Winning.
The threat of a United Nations attempting to declare Jerusalem an international city and send in an Army to cease it from Jews by force has always been the Real Threat behind the peace process imposed on Israel.
So the label apartheid is not mere words. It is a dog whistle to begin the UN declaring Jews living in Jerusalem Israel outlaws and start the invasion.
And Kerry and other European Jew haters understand that use of apartheid perfectly.
Kerry's comments were abhorrent. He's allegedly a diplomat and seems spectacularly unable to do it.
"Does It Matter That John Kerry Compared Israel to Apartheid?"
Yes, because words matter, because words have meaning.
Christ, it's like people who say "semantics!" when they're babbling, not realizing that semantics is exactly what gives their utterances what little meaning they contain.
Drago said...
"All in all it's been a very "flexible" and wonderful last couple of years for the leftists/communists/Muslim Brotherhood/Al Qaeda types."
Exactly! I think Obama and most lefties are all in for the Muslim Brotherhood. The fact that Obama is still ordering drone strikes on Al Qaeda operative shows that some on the left still consider Al Qaeda too aggressive in advancing their agenda. The left don't seem to have the same reservations about the Muslim Brotherhood.
We just witnessed a leftie hissy fit about a private citizen who used racist language in a dispute with his girl friend but who has no power to force his will on the rest of us. Yet, John Kerry who has all the power of the US government behind him make anti-Semitic slurs against Israel and the left either agrees with him or clucks a few times and shuts down further discussion.
John Kerry is the greatest Secretary of State since Hillary Clinton.
The reason why it's news is because Kerry's comparing Israel to an Apartheid state says so much more about Kerry than it says about Israel. Because anyone who knows anything about Israel knows that Israeli Arabs have far more rights in Israel than they'd have in any Arab state.
Mostly it speaks to his unsuitability as a diplomat. For saying such things essentially says to Israel, "This man is not worth talking to." And what good is a diplomat who's not worth talking to?
Taranto is a treasure.
trad guy, any U.N. force going in to take Jerusalem from the Israelis should expect to be wiped out to the man, and quickly. "Never Again" is a battle cry which means DIE MFs!
I still don't understand why Kerry was picked to handle foreign policy. He's been consistently wrong on every foreign policy issue since he was a kid--and always tried to read the winds of popularity.
Supported Vietnam when it was popular, turned on it when it got "uncool." Then decided to play up his vet status when that became cool again.
Voted against Gulf War One when the liberals thought it'd be a quagmire. Vowed not to get caught flatfooted for Gulf War Two, voted for that--whoops! Got unpopular again! So he voted against funding the war, voted against the surge, whoops again!
Then tried to get us to attack Syria.
With a batting average like that, who would even pick him for foreign service officer, let alone secretary of state?
I think VOX is engaged in reducing everyones' cognitive biases.
"you right and left wingers think it matters if Kerry uses particular language. But that's just because it supports or undermines your worldview. We're here to say it doesn't matter"
"we have an article on the minimum wage that doesn't give you any data that a right winger might seize on to support their side, or a left winder might think supports their side. It just tells you that 'economists differ'. We're telling you ONLY that to get you to calm the heck down about how certain you are you know things"
Both Dragos' list @11:12 and the conclusions he draws from these facts have the "added advantage" (as Kissinger once said) "of being true."
Mulling these facts over in my mind gives me the same sense of forboding that I experienced when about a year & 1/2 before Katrina reading a New Orleans Times-Picayune multi-part, in-depth series on what could happen to N.O. under several various worst-case scenerios.
One of them came true almost to the letter...
Much of this is not rocket science. Predicting that bad things will inevitably happen when one nation cuts its armed services to the bone while its most ardent enemies are arming and modernizing themselves to the hilt ain't all that difficult..
The problem with people like Kerry is they believe that the words they say actually have the force to reorder reality.
And when reality continues along the same trajectory after the words are said, it is easier for the Kerrys of the world to think reality has changed, than to accept that it has not.
I think Voltaire had a character in Candide who thought the same way. If not, Candide is where I'd put such a character.
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