They think they're the GOOD guys

The latest batch of leaked Sony emails is downright astounding.

If I had written a parody email exchange worded exactly like this, the hasbara "sealions" would be calling me Hitler. If you need context, start here and then go here. From Gawker:

Imagine being forced to listen to other people discuss the following question: "Is the Gaza War Really Over?"

Now imagine those people include Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, baby-resembling GOP talking point-scribbler Frank Luntz, producer Ryan Kavanaugh, former NBC and Universal co-chair Ben Silverman, actresses Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, at least three rabbis, and, of course Ryan Seacrest.

Mondoweiss:

You may recall that Kavanaugh was vehement last summer against Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem when they said Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza. Kavanaugh wanted Hollywood to cut them off at the knees.

Kavanaugh would no doubt cry "Anti-Semitism!" if you suggested that Jews in the media use vindictive tactics to control the range of permissible opinion in this country.

I don’t think this kind of group email is meaningless. Frank Luntz is a rightwing Zionist pollster who has promoted PM Netanyahu over President Obama. Marvin Hier is a rightwinger too. Simmons is an outspoken Democrat, but he is obviously concerned about saying the right thing re Israel to a group that includes powerful folks. Yes: also some concern for “innocent Palestinians,” as opposed to Hamas. Despite Portman’s demurral, the email chain here surely represents a cultural consensus about Israel inside the establishment. The fact that Rick Stengel of the State Department also reached out at that time to Lynton– both men are of Jewish descent (and Stengel is an old friend of mine, and a good guy)– is no conspiracy but a reflection of The Powers That Be in this day and age. The same cultural consensus was evident when Democrat Haim Saban and Republican Sheldon Adelson got together and mused about bombing Iran and buying the New York Times to guarantee its support for Israel. Haaretz at that time said archly, “It was like a scene out of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ Two immensely wealthy Jews, key financiers of the main political parties of the world’s superpower, discussing how to wage war on the enemies of the Jews, and control the media and presidents.”

One of the people on this list refers to the Holocaust as the "Hollacast." Yet that same freakazoid probably thinks he can take me to school on historical matters.

What appalls is the sheer obnoxious arrogance on display here.

These letters are dripping with self-congratulatory references to love and kindness. Sayeth Kavanaugh: "With great love all things are possible."

And what sort of "things" are made possible by this great love? One of them seems to be the enforcement of the pro-Israel Party Line by destroying the careers of truth-tellers. Media control seems to be Kavanaugh's specialty. It takes great love to restrict the range of permissible opinion.

The people who wrote these emails really think that they are the good guys.

The problem is this. 70 years since the end of WWII ..... and the murder and genocide of six million European jews and 100 years since the exile and murder of jews in eastern europe and russian during the era of pogroms ......
The few remaining Jews on this planet, having made a massive contribution to the entire world during this period in science, technology, finance, the invention of the motion picture industry, the arts, politics, charity, academia, medicine, media etc
As a major force for liberalism and humanity in western societies; as major supporter of the civil rights movement in america, the democratic party, the gay rights movement, the womens rights movement, the green movement, the rights of hispanics and all oppressed americans ...... the same in france and england ........
After all of this ........ the Jews still have to defend themselves, justify their existance, justify their lifes ........ to over one billion Muslims?

What a display of self-serving delusion!

The real problem is this: A once-victimized, now-powerful minority group has decided to use the wrongs of the past to justify a program of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and land theft.

The real problem is this: Too many Jews (but not all of them, thank god) think that the murderous crimes committed in Europe sixty years ago justify the equally heinous crimes committed against the rightful owners of the land called Israel.

No.

The genocide of the 1940s does not justify the slow-motion genocide going on right now.

Moreover, Israel's powerful supporters (and the above-linked email exchange will introduce you to several of them) are trying to make the American government fight wars on behalf of a foreign government that is almost universally despised -- for the same reason South Africa was almost universally despised.

Why are so many people in the media are trying to drum up a war against Iran? There is only one reason: Iran supports the Palestinians. Therefore, Iran must be destroyed.

Similarly, there is only one reason why Israel's partners -- the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia -- created ISIS and the Nusra front: To topple Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Assad had committed the crime of supporting the Palestinians.

Why did Bush support the Iraq war? Oil was only part of the equation. The other part was Israel. The Israelis considered Saddam Hussein an enemy, but they could not take him out on their own. They had their big, well-muscled lunkhead pal do the dirty work.

There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded. There was no ISIS before we blundered into that region to fight Israel's wars.

Nobody knows how many people have died in Iraq as a result of our invasion. Some say half a million; other estimates go higher. The financial cost of that vile war is in the trillions. Although the war was primarily the fault of Bush and the Republicans, "Democratic" neocons, like the ones we meet in the Sony email exchange, helped make the Iraq invasion possible.

The Syrian civil war -- covertly instigated by Israel -- has killed 250,000 so far and his made the lives of millions unbearable.

Israel's racist war of extermination against the Palestinians is nothing short of a plot to destroy the lives of four and half million people.

The planned war with Iran will surely destroy millions of lives.

Centuries from now, historians may call it "Equivalence Day" -- the day when the number of people killed by Zionists reaches six million. (Besides, you don't have to kill someone outright to make that person's life nearly unbearable. Just ask anyone who knows anything about American slavery -- or about life in Gaza.)

How many more people must have their lives ruined to fulfill Israel's great goal of ethnic purification?

Another question: When may we be allowed to speak the truth freely in this country without fear of retribution? When can we have an end to censorship and mass brainwashing?

The participants in the Sony email exchange congratulate themselves on their "great love" even as they wallow in the filthiest forms of racism and dehumanization of The Other. People like Kavanaugh are so lacking in self-awareness that they don't even see the irony of their own words.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, a mental sickness took hold of this country's white inhabitants -- a sickness that rendered them unable to face (or even to discuss rationally) their atrocites against Indians and black people.

In Hitler's Germany, another mental sickness took hold of the population. The disease caused a once-civilized people to dehumanize anyone they viewed as The Other. We all know what happened.

The same mental sickness has taken hold of the minds of the Israelis and their supporters. (In America, most of those supporters are Christian Zionists. Many Jews, interestingly enough, are starting to recover -- to remember their best selves.)

It may be pointless to engage these diseased minds in debate. You can't debate a Nazi, a Klansman or a rabid dog.

Nevertheless, I want to deliver a message to people like Kavanaugh. It's a simple message.

I hate you.

I admit it. I hate you and so do many others.

But despite the self-serving narrative you've spun for yourself, we do not hate you because of your race or religion. Personally, I could not give even half a crap about anyone's race or religion.

We hate you because of what you are actually doing. What Israel is doing.

We hate the Israelis because they are committing mass murder and land theft.

And we hate Israel's supporters in the American media because they are justifying that enormity.

More than sixty years ago, after the invasion of Ethopia -- a war which killed 750,000 people (the same number displaced by the Nakba) -- many people hated Italy. They were right to do so. Speaking as someone of largely Italian heritage, I can fully understand why so many people came to despise Italians at that point in history. The hatred which people then felt had nothing do with the religious, cultural or genetic makeup of the Italian people.

Hatred of Israel is not based on race or religion. It is a hatred earned. And no amount of public relations will make us forget or ignore what you are doing to the innocent Palestinians whose land you have stolen.