Fox Host Questions Kerry About Comment On Israel Caught On Hot Mic (VIDEO)
Source: TPM
By CAITLIN MACNEAL Published JULY 20, 2014, 10:33 AM EDT
"Fox News Sunday" played a clip of a conversation Secretary of State John Kerry had with one of his aides about Israel before he went on air Sunday.
"While you were on camera and while on microphone, you just spoke to one of your top aides between the interviews about the situation in Israel and the fact that 14 Israelis have either been shot or killed in an operation," host Chris Wallace said before playing the clip.
It's unclear what the unnamed aide is saying to Kerry, but the Secretary of State's comments are audible.
"It's a hell of a pinpoint operation — hell of a pinpoint operation," he said, which according to Fox was a reference to Israel's ground operation in Gaza. "We've got to get over there," Kerry continues. "We ought to go tonight. I think it’s crazy to be sitting around."
-snip-
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kerry-hot-mic-fox-news-israel
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calimary
(81,179 posts)Aw CRIPES!!!!
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)needing to "get over there"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014851038
Response to DonViejo (Reply #2)
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DonViejo
(60,536 posts)How happy would you be if any news outlet, let alone FOX, overheard you talking to an aide in what you thought was a confidential conversation...and then proceeded to publicize it?
Response to DonViejo (Reply #22)
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mylye2222
(2,992 posts)Yhey want to build a non story. And Kerry is since decades, the target of the most media!
24601
(3,958 posts)What kind of propaganda is that?
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)Response to DonViejo (Reply #25)
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mylye2222
(2,992 posts)Response to mylye2222 (Reply #27)
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Turbineguy
(37,312 posts)for a nice war. It's what they do.
George II
(67,782 posts)....diplomats from the US, probably himself and others.
Of course, Kerry was appointed by Obama, so he's looked upon negatively around here.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Because he was appointed by Obama, and this is the Obama Haters Site. There is absolutely no other reason whatsoever conceivable in the universe to criticize the U.S. government, the State Department, or foreign policy. Certainly not as long as the CEO has a "D" after his name. It's never about policy or history or large trends, it's always about Which Politician Is In Charge Right Now. At least, this is true in the opinion of someone who chooses a divine-right monarch as a username. I know, we're not supposed to ever, ever act like we're in a democracy and might speak negatively about officials thereof. That would be lese majeste!
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)Equating everything to Obama hating is junior high. He said a thing that could be interpreted as sending troops. Dumb move and he did it at Fox.
trumad
(41,692 posts)Only a fucking moran would think that and we all know Faux news has plenty of them.
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)think about what he says especially when he's sitting in satan's den
mylye2222
(2,992 posts)turns into Kerry-bashing??????
George II
(67,782 posts)....statement as sending troops over there is pure ignorance.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)I raise my glass to you sir.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)
Well said.
George II
(67,782 posts)...was to send troops to support Israel. Have we ever done that in the past? I can't remember, but the closest we came to doing that was when Reagan politically sacrificed more than 200 Americans at the airport in Beirut.
And who the fuck are you to make OTHER assumptions or critiques of my screen name?
By the way, the knee-jerk negative assumptions about what Kerry said have been proven false (duh! surprised???), he's leaving for the Middle East tomorrow, just as level-headed non-"the sky is falling" people around here concluded.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I was responding to your generality that criticisms of State Department and U.S. policy on this site are due to personalized Obama-hating. Sorry about the username, but you did pick it. Is it not the UK king of the Georgian period?
The answer on your first question is 1973. U.S. military resources were crash-deployed unannounced in direct support and supply of Israel in that war, given the fear they might lose militarily to the Arab armies, and this may have included U.S. planes in the theater. That then prompted the Saudi boycott and the oil shock of that year.
George II
(67,782 posts)My annoyance was the immediate and unfounded (not necessarily by you) assumption that Kerry was talking about entering the war, which will never happen.
In 1973, the US did get involved - we conducted hundreds of airlift missions to help supply the Israelis, not to participate in the hostilities directly. In fact, if we ever did seriously consider getting involved militarily the Israelis would reject the idea.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)
uberblonde
(1,215 posts)Any human being can see this is mass slaughter, not "pinpoint operations."
7962
(11,841 posts)And even the Arab countries are getting sick of supporting Hamas and the palestinians and their incessant whining. Actually they sound more like the Tea Party; never compromise.
“None of the Arab countries are being supportive. The entire burden is on the Palestinians,” said Mondher Maamar, a Tunisian protester who marched in support of Palestinians in Gaza in his country’s capital on Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/world/middleeast/palestinians-find-show-of-support-lacking-from-arab-nations-amid-offensive.html?_r=0
Amazing how the palestinians have more support here than in the Middle East
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Kerry knows what war is like. It is Hell. Both sides are suffering. And it is Hamas that bears the burden for goading on the Palestinian people and starting yet again a war that should have ended with Palestinians and Israelis living side by side in harmony -- at least 60 years ago.
I would like to know how much aid money went into Palestine over the years. What a waste. The Palestinian leadership did nothing but fight its neighbors, bore tunnels, and advertise the suffering of its people to get more money. Meanwhile the Palestinians suffer and suffer.
The war has to end. The Palestinians have to stop the rockets and the rocks and get some police authority over petty crimes and change from anger to understanding. So many, many people of peace have tried to resolve that conflict. Diehards on both sides but especially on the Palestinian side insist on war.
And then when a Palestinian "leader" like Arafat dies, you learn about his accounts in Switzerland. What corruption at the cost of the lives of innocent people.
It's time for peace, and yes, Kerry needs to "get over there" figuratively speaking or in the flesh, as he deems appropriate. Kerry tried to negotiate peace and got nowhere.
That nowhere is due to the distrust on both sides that has built up over decades. To get sincere negotiations, the Palestinians have to have leaders (as do the Israelis) who let hotheads know that acts, however small, that incite anger on the other side must end.
The Palestinians lose every time they throw rockets or rocks or suicide bombers and start a war at their border. This has been going on since the partition. It has to stop, and the parties have to build trust.
The Palestinians must begin by proving that they would be capable of enforcing a peace agreement among their own people.
This is not a question of who started the fighting it or whether Israel should exist. Jews have always lived in that area. This is a question of who can and will start the peace. Getting rid of the tunnels is a good idea.
The Palestinians have to understand that if they want peace, they have to negotiate. If they want more land, they have to negotiate. That's just the reality.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 21, 2014, 02:22 AM - Edit history (1)
Combat operations, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and general fear resulted in millions of people being uprooted from their original homes in the course of World War II. Between 11 million and 20 million people were displaced according to estimates. The majority were inmates of Nazi concentration camps, Labor camps and prisoner-of-war camps that were freed by the Allied armies. In portions of Eastern Europe, both civilians and military personnel fled their home countries in fear of advancing Soviet armies, who were preceded by widespread reports of mass rape, pillaging, looting, and murder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displaced_persons_camp#cite_note-Beevor.2C_Downfall-3
Here is a listing of the incredible number of expulsions mostly by the NAZIS of the citizens of various countries in Eastern Europe during and after the War:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_evacuation_and_expulsion
At the end of World War II, 12 million people had been driven from their homes. In 1946 there was 200,000 inquiries for lost children. There were more than 7 million men and women living in Germany who had been moved to the German Reich as slave laborers or prisoners. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) took care of these people. UNRRA was essentially a temporary organization which expired in June 1947. Afterward, the International Refugee Organization (IRO) took care of Displaced Persons. Almost 6 million DPs were repatriated in the 5 months from May to Sept. 1945. Three years after the war, there were 370 camps in the English, French and American Zones in Germany, 120 camps in Austria and 25 camps in Italy with well over 800,000 DPs. Of this 800,000:
55% Roman Catholics
27% Protestant and other Eastern orthodox faiths
18% Jews
(Statistics provided by Scholars in the DP Camps by Edward B. Rooney, SJ):
http://www.dpcamps.org/migration.html
Near the end of 1947, a US emigration bill required every DP emigrant to have a sponsor in the US. When not enough sponsors were found, in June 25, 1948, Congress passed Public Law 774, the Displaced Persons Act which provided for more than 200,000 DPs to enter the US over the next two years. 85,000 were Ukrainians.
. . . .
http://www.dpcamps.org/migration.html
Between June 1946 and 1957, the United States received over 2.6 million refugees.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1031581?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21104509347173
_________________
_________________________________________________________
Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies
2
/
1
Displaced Persons, Jewish
At the end of World War II, between seven and nine million people had been uprooted from their homes by the Nazis. By the end of 1945, more than six million had returned home to begin life anew. However, many Jews who had survived forced labor camps, extermination camps, concentration camps, and death marches did not want to go home. After experiencing the horrors of the Holocaust, they wanted to leave Europe altogether and rebuild their broken
lives elsewhere. Some did return home, only to leave again after finding their homes and property stolen by their former neighbors. None of these Jews had anywhere to go. Thus, they congregated in Displaced Persons' (DP) camps located within the central European areas controlled by the Allies. They organized themselves under the Hebrew name, She'erit ha-Pletah,
a biblical term meaning "surviving remnant." The She'erit ha-Pletah organization existed from the end of the war until December 1950.
Those Western European Jews who survived generally returned to their countries of origin, while those from Eastern Europe flocked to DP camps in the Allied zones of Europe. Soon, thousands more Polish, Soviet, Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, and Romanian Jews who had tried to go home
began to flee westward to the DP camps when they realized that nothing was left for them in Eastern Europe. By the end of 1946, there were approximately 250,000 Jewish DPs–185,000 in Germany, 45,000 in Austria, and 20,000 in Italy.
A year and a half earlier, in the summer of 1945, public interest in the DP camps had influenced President Harry S. Truman to send Earl G. Harrison as his personal emissary to check into the conditions of the Jewish DPs in the camps of the American zone in Germany. Harrison reported that the conditions in the DP camps were terrible. He accused the Americans of being responsible for the awful situation, and declared that the only solution was to let the Jewish DPs immigrate to Palestine. Harrison advised that the Americans work to improve the conditions in their camps, and that the British allow 100,000 DPs to move to Palestine. . . . .
http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206273.pdf
Why couldn't the Jews of Western Europe simply move back into their former homes in Western Europe?
Based on my experience in living in Western Europe, it is clear that
a) the hatred of Jews which was prevalent all over Europe especially following the Inquisition made life there dangerous for Jews. The last of the anti-Jewish Catholic shrines in Austria was disavowed and closed in the late 1970s or early 1980s. (I was there but don't remember the year.)
b) the NAZIs had confiscated the homes and property of the Jews, at least those things that the Jews had been unable to entrust to their friends. The properties had been sold or were being lived in and used by non-Jews. In most cases, the properties could not have been simply handed back to the previous Jewish owners. This included not just homes but businesses. The losses were terrible and could not be made right.
The US was barely out of the Great Depression when WWII began. During WWII, Americans sacrificed. I still have pages of ration stamps for sugar that were erroneously made out in my name (I was a baby) with the wrong year. Pristine condition and a reminder of the relative poverty of the time.
After WWII, there was a severe housing shortage not only in the US but in Europe as the baby boomers arrived. Schools were overcrowded. The crisis was very difficult to deal with.
Israel was just one country that made room for displaced persons. The Ottoman Empire of which the area that Palestinians claim as their country was actually a British Protectorate beginning in the aftermath of World War I.
The allies fought against the Germans in the Middle East during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_Campaign
Many Jews had fought for the Allies during World War Two and had developed their military skills as a result. After the war ended in 1945, these skills were used in acts of terrorism. The new Labour Government of Britain had given the Jews hope that they would be given more rights in the area. Also in the aftermath of the Holocaust in Europe, many throughout the world were sympathetic to the plight of the Jews at the expense of the Arabs in Palestine.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/palestine_1918_to_1948.htm
In contrast,
Al-Husseini was the scion of a family of Jerusalemite notables. After receiving an education in Islamic, Ottoman and Catholic schools, he went on to serve in the Ottoman army in World War I. At war's end, he positioned himself in Damascus as a supporter of the Arab Kingdom of Syria. Following the fiasco of the Franco-Syrian War and the collapse of the Arab Hashemite rule in Damascus, his early position on pan-Arabism shifted to a form of local nationalism for Palestinian Arabs and he moved back to Jerusalem. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot that broke out over the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Al-Husseini was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, but was pardoned by the British. Starting in 1921, al-Husseini was appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, using the position to promote Islam, while rallying a non-confessional Arab nationalism against Zionism.
His opposition to the British peaked during the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, evading an arrest warrant, he fled Palestine and took refuge in, successively, the French Mandate of Lebanon and the Kingdom of Iraq, until he established himself in Italy and Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping Germans recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. At war's end, he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo to avoid prosecution.
In the lead-up to the 1948 Palestine war, Husseini opposed both the 1947 UN Partition Plan and King Abdullah's designs to annex the Arab part of British Mandatory Palestine to Jordan, and, failing to gain command of the 'Arab rescue army' (jaysh al-inqadh al-'arabi) formed under the aegis of the Arab League, formed his own militia, al-jihad al-muqaddas. In September 1948, he participated in establishment of All-Palestine Government. Seated in Egyptian-ruled Gaza, this government won a limited recognition of Arab states, but was eventually dissolved by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1959. After the war and subsequent Palestinian exodus, his claims to leadership, wholly discredited, left him eventually sidelined by the Palestine Liberation Organization, and he lost most of his residual political influence. He died in Beirut, Lebanon, in July 1974. Husseini was and remains a highly controversial figure. Historians dispute whether his fierce opposition to Zionism was grounded in nationalism or antisemitism or a combination of both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini
Remember, at the time, there was a lot of anti-Jewish sentiment in the US so just receiving all of the Jewish refugees here was not an alternative.
It is so easy to judge decisions made in times of historic upheaval.
But if you had lived in the years between 1946 - 1956, what would you have done?
Remember, the Allies had just won WWII with the help of Jewish soldiers. Some of the Americans who built our atomic bomb and split the atom were Jewish. Because of the actions of Al-Husseini, they viewed Palestinians as German supporters and allies. Palestine had never been an independent country in modern times.
We all love to second-guess history. But what would you have done had you been faced with the task of setting new national boundaries in all the areas in which the war had taken place.
Strasbourg, France and the Alsace-Lorraine became as it had been off and on through history, a part of France. (Its population was divided German and French.) Yugoslavia was formed. The Iron Curtain fell.
Peace came at a price, and that price was paid by many people across Europe and the world.
Israel was in my view a necessary part of the compromises that finally ended WWII.
To try to do away with Israel would probably mean more war. It is time that the Palestinians make a peace. They should try to exchange peace for land and live as friends with all their neighbors. They are wasting their lives and those of their children in constant war.
I posted this as an OP in a thread under Israel/Palestine. It was locked because it was not a recent event. I remember this history. I predicted the Yom Kippur War way back when based on my understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The brutality of the fighting, the absurdity of the fighting does not speak well of the Palestinian leadership. They are the worst enemy of the Palestinian people. Israel is a democracy (in which Palestinian residents vote by the way). If Israelis feel safe living next to Palestinians, they will vote for leaders who will make peace with Palestine. The Israelis have proved in the past that they are capable and willing to destroy settlements and trade land for peace. It is up to the Palestinians and up to Hamas in particular. Peace or the suffering of war. It's up to the Palestinians.
Life is not fair. Peace is to be preferred over so many decades of war. Getting justice means getting the right to be yourself and to live in peace with the world, not just getting back at those who have hurt you. It is not easy to "get over it," but sometimes "getting over it" is a huge victory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War
heaven05
(18,124 posts)that is informative for a lay person.
swilton
(5,069 posts)in documenting the Jews misplaced in the aftermath of WWII. But you haven't mentioned how many Palestinians have been misplaced since the creation of the state of Israel officially in 1948 and beyond. Much of this was done through violence and terrorism to indigenous peoples and also through assassinations to those (UN diplomats) who tried to represent the Palestinians. ...It may be quaint to think this but perhaps the Palestinians are entitled to have some land rights as well.
http://iamthewitness.com/doc/Bunche.Report.on.Zionist.Terrorism.in.the.Near.East.htm
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)since I have heard it so often in my life.
My point is that we should know the history, understand that there are two opposing views on it, that each view is in the eyes of those who old that view, the correct one.
My point also is that at this point, after so many years, the history cannot and will not be undone. The confusion of that time, the errors or brilliant actions (depending on your point of view) of the actors of that time cannot be undone. We are not magicians who can go back and change the past.
We can learn from the past though. And in the Israel/Palestinian conflict, the lesson to be learned is that to have a lasting peace, both sides must learn to trust each other. Each side must demonstrate that it can be trusted. I have observed attempts by Israel to prove how trustworthy it will be in enforcing peace. They destroyed settlements after agreeing to do so. They arrested Israelis suspected of killing a Palestinian. I along with the world am not waiting to see Palestinians prove that they can enforce a peace agreement within their own population should such an agreement be reached. That is the missing peace to credible settlement negotiations: proof that the Palestinians can enforce a peace agreement on their side.
The history is what it is. Two promises were made, two conflicting promises.
Another historical reality that many today do not understand is that colonialism was strong and well until 1947 and the independence of India. The assumption that Britain was sovereign in the areas it administered after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI was unquestioned. The creation of Israel had the approval of the nations of the day. That may be viewed as wrong today, but it is still part of the reality that we have to deal with today.
You are correct that the Palestinian refugees should not be forgotten. But I do not think there is any danger of that on DU.
Response to JDPriestly (Reply #15)
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JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)a news item. Sorry if I offend you with it. I am trying to cast a little light of tolerance and historical perspective on the heated discussions about Palestine. We all live with the colonial past. Every one of us without exception. Colonialism is in one way a heavy burden and in another awakened much of the world to technology thus raising the economic, public health and education opportunities the world over.
We have to live with our pasts. There is no changing the past.
Rex
(65,616 posts)It is in his blood, he wants to head off another potential war in the ME...or that is how I interpreted the exchange.
Think of John Kerry as the Anti-McCain of foreign relations.
mylye2222
(2,992 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)No doubt with everything currently going on with Russia, he has to be tired I bet he hardly sleeps. I hope he can get over there safely to help negotiate some kind of cease fire.
mylye2222
(2,992 posts)US had an incredible luck to have a current SoS, who doesnt look at international issue only on a cold perspective, but on a human level.
Rex
(65,616 posts)They would have started WWIII already! I think you are right, he is appalled at the slaughter and wants to try to stop it ASAP. It must be incredibly frustrating having so many international crisis to handle all at once.
Still, I thank my lucky stars he is SOS and Obama is POTUS.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The world would be a different place now if he had won in 2004.
The Stranger
(11,297 posts)as if the U.S. Secretary of State can't talk to his aides about the clusterfuck/bloodbath Israel is conducting.
