Here's where we agree. 1) You can criticize my country, it doesn't bother me in the least. That's what I said in my post. 2) The AIPAC people who are put on trial are Jewish. I also said that in my post. Now where we disagree: a) Israel receives about 3-4% annually of GDP in aid from the US and other countries. A lot of that aid is sent right back to where it came from, because only about $500 million (roughly a tenth of the total) can be converted to Israeli currency and spent here. The rest is spent employing Americans building war materielle that is used by the Israeli Army. It's welfare for America's defense industry, not for Israel. Now, due to US's consumer habits, the US on the other hand owes about 24% (about a third of its debt) of it's GDP to foreign countries, an increase from 14% in 1997. We might ask, "Who owns whom?" Is China "welfaring" America? Maybe. Does China "own" the US? By your terms, it seems so. 4% vs. 24%, no name. Clean up your own act before you profess to have advice for us. b) Yes, the people who are being tried for the AIPAC scandal are Jews. The welfare they raised above all others was of other human beings; they passed on information about threats to Israelis in Kurdistan by Iraqi insurgents, if my memory serves me. How does that put the welfare of Israel above America, do you care to explain it? What American interest is served by allowing Israelis in Kurdistan to die at the hands of a common enemy? Nobody is saying, as they did with Pollard (probably mistakenly) that they had harmed American security i n any way. It's purely a technical charge, that they took possession of confidential files from an American Agent. It was stupid, and they shouldn't have taken the documents. I would have expected that if the information was true that an ally would have offered them of its own volition. I don't suppose a few more dead Jews would bother you if it meant defending your hallowed principles, though. It seems to me that you are spinning this to suit your own purposes and prejudices. "A lot" is by no means a description you can apply to the amount of spying Israel does on the US. Alex, at least, has a mind that is open enough to explore his claims further and set others straight who are trying to put words into his mouth. You seem to be altogether close-minded and bigoted. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's for you to prove.

If Pollard was sentenced on the basis of a mistaken view of the damage that he did (ie, Ames blamed Pollard to divert attention from himself,) then that is just cause to review his sentence. That is not just cause to accuse Americans of anti-Semitism as I have seen done here and elsewhere. Nor have I seen Pollard demand his release on that basis. Rather Pollard somehow seems to believe that it is unjust that he was sentenced at all. Switching topics, my understanding is that the American who gave the classified information to the AIPAC folks was not a Jew. Not that I think religion is relevant. You seem to know much more about the details than is available in the US. For example, if the information was exclusively related to protecting Israeli agents in Kurdistan (something I am not aware of), it still does not follow that the information should have been disclosed. If the agent who acquired the information was also at risk and still providing useful and reliable information in time of war, disclosure could have damaged the interests of the US and could (conceivably) have put many more in danger. The ethics of espionage are too tricky for me to pretend to great authority. In any case, the real question is why a fairly senior civil servant in the US Defense Department elected to distribute classified information to private citizens of the US. Civil servants are not given leave to substitute their judgment of what (and how) to disclose information considered in the national interest in place of the judgment of their elected superiors. I believe that is true in Israel as much as in the US. Finally, I must have been unclear. I was not denying that Israeli had proportional representation. I was taking the position that proportional representation tends to fragment the development of political consensus and destablize administration. That is, I admit, a very Anglo-American view. Finally,

I only wish the US Administrartion's lies were the worst thing they did. Their disasterous mishandling of post-war Iraq has been much worse. The great civilian and military casualties to date will be dwarfed by the consequences of the coming Civil War which will split Iraq into three ethnically homogenious States.

Although I appreciate your intelligence and erudition, Alex, I must question the amoral conception of 'National Interest' on which your arguments are based. It was certainly against our national interest when Israel sunk the USS Liberty. Was it not also Wrong? What about the destruction of the Irani civil airliner by a US guided missle cruiser. Do you really think this was an accident? If not, was it not cold blooded murder, and so even more Wrong? Do you think such an evil deed could be justified by the US national interest? In my humble opinion, in the US, the confluence of a crazed society and an evil power structure frequently leads to the installation of a fundamentally murderous national leadership. Do you think their definition of the national interest is valid? Do you think it is in the interest of the people of the US?

totalitarianism... But hey, at least they aren't atheist, and probably won't allow abortion. That must count for something.

Re: Pollard Irrespective of the basis of his conviction, a change in what is now considered "factual" apparently is not enough to free him because there's no way to achieve an airing of the evidence - it's all still secret. His claims have until now been primarily based on improper legal representation, because the government won't let anybody see the files that show what Pollard gave over, and hence nobody can really put together a proper legal defense for him. My suspicion is that there is a political and not a legal reason for that. Justice, even in the US, is not always blind. Re: the "real question" about the AIPAC Affair The "real question" is answered as follows - the American agent in question had his own agenda that he was trying to advance, and he thought that by giving this information to AIPAC, whom he felt shared his agenda (which was basically the neo-con perspective of a "new middle east"), his views would get a better hearing with his superiors since he felt that AIPAC's access to his superiors was better than his own. This is not, by the way, very uncommon and AIPAC is not the only lobbying group who has this kind of access, and this kind of "inter-office politics" of sorts is exactly what occurs all the time irrespective of who is involved. I think that everyone "got the message" that that kind of behavior will no longer be tolerated. At least until the next generation of agents comes to the fore. Re: Antisemitism The claim re; the Pollard and other affairs is that many people believe that Jews have some kind of unique capacity to gum up the works due to some kind of dual loyalty. Yes, some Jews, but very very few, have dual loyalties. Most American Jews would never ever ever consider Israel to be an option for them in any respect, and even those who do consider living there, most of them still consider themselves "Americans" who live in the Holy Land. They have no special loyalty to the government of Israel per se, rather their loyalty is to a national history based on the Jewish religion. But the perception is that Jews should be held to a MUCH higher standard than everybody else. Nobody talks about Aldridge Ames ancestry. But people still "wonder" about Caspar Weinberger and William Cohen, both of whom have Jewish names and aren't Jewish, where their loyalties lie. I expect that Caspar had to prove his loyalties by sinking Pollard, which is what he did. Many feel entitled to be more disappointed when a Jew fails to meet their standard, even to the point of broadbrushing all Jews with the same failure when there's no reason to do so. People are a lot more careful about broadbrushing Arabs and Muslims than they are Jews in comparison to what Arabs and Muslims have done to undermine US security. Why? Are the expectations of them less?. I would have to agree that it's odd that Pollard spied for an ally and gets a much longer sentence than gentiles who spied for an enemy country. It leads to questions, Alex. I don't claim to know the answer, but I'm suspicious. The overall pattern of holding Jews to a standard other people don't hold for themselves and then punshing all Jews for the failures of one or a few, or even for alleged failures as is the case with AIPAC (innocent until proven guilty) is classic anti-semitism.

If Pollard was given a severe sentence because it was wrongly believed that his behavior had certain deleterious effects, the belief is sufficient to explain the sentence without invoking anti-Semitism. Of course if that belief was in error, the discovery of error provides grounds for reconsidering his sentence. I am certainly not advocating the punishment of the people involved in the AIPAC case unless they are first found guilty in a trial under due process of law. Nor do I believe that I have advocated punishing anyone who was not involved. Nor am I holding Jews to a standard that I believe others should not be held to: passing official secrets of the US government to another government without proper authority is a crime in the US, whether the people involved are Jews or not. In what sense then am I holding Jews to a higher standard and thereby being anti-Semitic? Perhaps I have misunderstood you.

Whether it would be better for everyone if all abided by a code of universal morality, all do not abide by such a code. I agree with Hume that on the island of cannibals it is not prudent to act as though you were in a kindergarten. I fear we live in a world of clans and tribes, and my clan is that of Americans, and my tribe is that of the civilized world. So my morality is not a universal one. If that offends your sense of values, so be it. As for the USS Liberty, there are two possibilities: it was an accident or it was a deliberate act undertaken by the Israeli government in furtherance of its view of its national interest. If it was an accident, morality does not come into it. If it was deliberate, it may have been immoral (I am not sure I can distinguish between moral and immoral killings) but it is explicable. I will not hold Israel to a higher standard of national conduct than I hold the US, and I certainly do not expect the US to advance the national interest without killing people.. My point about the Liberty was not whether it was moral, but what it indicates about the true feelings of Israelis about the US and the wisdom of believing them to be friendly toward the US. I am afraid I cannot follow your argument about the Iranian airliner. Either it was an accident, or it was deliberate. You seem to be saying that if both the airliner and the Liberty were deliberate, then the US's actions were more morally reprehensible than Israel's. I fail to see that at all. Or perhaps you are saying that US actions are always deliberate and that Israel never does immoral acts. Again I do not see the logic. And yes, I would far rather be killing terrorists in Iraq than in the US.

I fail to see what would be so awful if the Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs, and Kurds lived in separate countries. For one thing it would deprive the Baathists of oil money. The Sunni Arabs have been oppressing Kurds, Turkomen, Assyrians, and Shiites for over 80 years. There is more peace in the Balkans since Yugoslavia was dismembered than before. Disassociation may be the most pacific option.

First, I agree with your comment to Paul (39). I think that if Bush had split Iraq into 3 countries, he'd have at least 2 allies right now where now he seems to have none. Regarding your comments, I think it's obvious that noname is anti-semitic. But I do think your arguments are tendentious regarding what you conclude about Israel by examining the Pollard, AIPAC, USS Liberty and Lavon Affair cases. If you held all countries to the same standard you hold Israel to, I guarantee you you would have no allies at all, and neither would we Israelis. Even Britain spies against the US, and Americans consider the Brits to be US's best ally. I just think that you hold Israel to an impossible standard, and maybe it's because you think we are obligated to live by a higher standard. Using the "Island of Cannibals" model, we'd be dying by a higher standard if we took your advice.