From March 24th, 2011: Anthony Weiner Falsely Claims There’s ‘No Israeli Occupation’ In The West Bank And No IDF Troops There

WEINER: You can see a difference in the development in the West Bank with 11 percent year over year growth, with no Israeli occupation there either, with increasing access to checkpoints —

COHEN: What about area C, D,

WEINER: Hold on, maybe this would be helpful

COHEN: No occupation in the West Bank, did I hear you right?

WEINER: Yes.

COHEN: Have you been to the West Bank lately?

WEINER: Yes.

COHEN: You didn’t see the IDF there?

WEINER: In Ramallah? No. In Nablus? No. Now can I tell ya there might be some people in this room who think Jerusalem is occupied.

COHEN: Well hold on a second there, let’s stick to the West Bank. You’re saying there is no IDF presence there?

WEINER: Yes.

Of course this is patently untrue. This is courtesy of the faux-liberal website Think Progress.

From Mondoweiss: Weiner - Baird debate lived up to it’s billing

The chief response to the debate so far (besides the predictable at the National Review) has been shock at Anthony Weiner’s contempt for international law and Palestinian humanity. A politician who has distinguished himself on healthcare reform and economic justice issues in the U.S. resorts to “It’s war, and war is hell” arguments when Brian Baird, a clinical psychologist by training, describes the destruction of schools and innocent families and U.N. compounds by Israeli bombing, and the collective punishment of millions of people denied lentils, toothpaste, building materials, and the freedom to move beyond a territory less than the size of New York City. 

Meanwhile over at the blog of Peter Belmont who was at the debate:

On the other hand, I heard much to lower my opinion of the standards for factual accuracy (or is it honesty?), legal acumen, and evenhanded judgment on the part of Congressman Weiner that I took with me going into the hall. Perhaps I was naïve.

Congressman Weiner appeared to use language in a very different way than I am used to hearing (or reading) it used, either in a deliberate attempt to mislead us, his audience of the moment, with knowingly false statements or else in a perfectly innocent expression of “received” ideas which he did not know enough to question, ideas which I judge him to have “received” from people who were using knowingly false statements with the intention of misleading their audience, including the Honorable Congressman.

The following is also from a Salon article that I’ve linked to in the past:

Will the liberals who only know Weiner from his feisty MSNBC appearances and his staunch support of the president’s domestic initiatives be put off when they hear him taking the “Israel can do no wrong” side in the debate over Israel’s botched raid, in international waters, of a humanitarian aid flotilla?

Weiner’s statement is comical. “Even if we are the only country on earth that sees the facts here,” Weiner says, “the United States should stand up for Israel.” That’s the statement of a man with whom there can be no reasoning.

And it’s not, by any means, outside the norm for Weiner. He’s precisely the sort of liberal establishment politician that Peter Beinart accused of failing young American Jews in the New York Review of Books recently. In the past, Weiner has matter-of-factly accused Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International of being anti-Semitic. And not just them!

“I would argue that in many cases, the New York Times has” anti-Israel bias, Weiner told Amy Goodman in 2006. The idea of any elite, establishment newspaper in New York having an “anti-Israel bias” makes sense only if you consider any criticism of any action taken by the state of Israel to be out of line.

Just a quick word: I’m confident that Israel-Palestine transcends political party identification. My goal in pointing this out is not to rally ‘liberals’, a title I do not and have never identified with, but to draw public attention to one man’s views on an issue that many of my followers do care about. I know that politics has largely been reduced to a sporting event in this country, (i.e. defend Team A at all costs over Team B or see the embarrassing lengths that those on the left [Daily Kos, etc…] went through to defend Anthony Weiner prior to all of the data being known and despite his use of the word certitude) but I’m not one to play those games with our politicians. Frankly, one should be capable of critique, and there are valid, important critiques to be made of liberals in this nation, without juvenile labels or resorting to impish language in retorts. I should also point out, in case you have forgotten, that this is not a discussion about Anthony’s penis. Instead the attention has been shifted to actual policy, positions and the actions of a congressman with that capacity. As an example, I care a great deal if a media staple of the US American left has parties thrown for him by men that have previously said, “I think we should kill a hundred Arabs or a thousand Arabs for every one Jew they kill.” For what it’s worth, I think you should care too. As a general rule, if you wouldn’t allow it from the right, then why defend it when it’s on the left? As I have said in a previous post with regard to Anthony Weiner, surely the left in the United States can do better than this.

Please also see the Anthony Weiner Valentine’s Day card I made this year.

Jun. 11 2011
#Anthony Weiner #Israel #Palestine
36 notes

Notes

  1. moreartlessmatter reblogged this from thenoobyorker
  2. rustbelts reblogged this from thenoobyorker and added:
    All of this.
  3. waitingonoblivion reblogged this from thenoobyorker and added:
    In order to be pro Palestinian and to be pro Democrat is to have to ignore by and large the entire Democratic caucus...
  4. orbitingasupernova reblogged this from paxamericana
  5. paxamericana reblogged this from thenoobyorker
  6. thenoobyorker posted this