Top Ten Things Anthony Weiner has Said that are Worse than Sexting | Informed Comment

Posted on June 11, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

Top Ten Things Anthony Weiner has Said that are Worse than Sexting

Posted on 06/10/2011 by Juan

The real scandal surrounding Anthony Weiner is that he is bigoted against Palestinians and has misused his position in Congress to support punitive policies against them. Americans appear to be bored by policy, titillated by private peccadilloes. But it is the policies that are important. Mahatma Gandhi was once kicked out of a brothel in South Africa. No one judges him by his lapses. Weiner, in contrast to Gandhi, has not worked for peace but has rather given knee-jerk support to the worst policies of the most far rightwing parties in Israel toward Palestinians. A social liberal in American terms, Weiner is so blinded by his allegiance to Israel and so studied in his ignorance of the Middle East that he has played a uniformly sinister role in that aspect of foreign policy. If he were replaced by, say, an up an up-and-coming Dominican-American politician from Queens who had some sympathy with Arabs, that would be all to the good.

Weiner:

1. Called for Columbia University professor Joseph Massad to be fired for being critical of Israel; Weiner thus spearheaded a new McCarthyism.

2. On the Israeli attack, in international waters, on the Mavi Marmara relief ship, Weiner sputtered: “”If you want to instigate a conflict with the Israeli navy it isn’t hard to do. They were offered alternatives. Instead they chose to sail into the teeth of an internationally recognized blockade.” The blockade of Gaza civilians is a breach of international law; it is not internationally recognized and has on the contrary been condemned by almost every nation and human rights organization.

3. Alleged that the New York Times is anti-Israel: “Amnesty International in particular, has always had bias against Israel, and frankly I would argue that in many cases, the New York Times has, as well.”

4. Alleged that the Palestine Liberation Organization is still listed by the US as a terrorist organization. It was dropped from the list over 2 decades ago.

5. Tried to bar the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations from New York.

6. Alleged that Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestine Authority, is not the head of the PLO. He is.

7. Refused to condemn the use by Israel of cluster bombs on the civilian farms of south Lebanon in 2006.

8. Alleged that the Israeli army does not occupy the West Bank and that there is no Israeli Army presence in the West Bank.

9. Called Israel’s war on Gaza a “humane” war. 400 children were killed.

10. Voted for Iraq War authorization in 2002, before later turning against the war.

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Posted in US Politics | 33 Comments | Print

§ 33 Responses to “Top Ten Things Anthony Weiner has Said that are Worse than Sexting”

  • Peggy says:

    Thanks for stringing these together. He’s a loud mouth (& a liar) and many people overlook his allegiance to Israel.

  • MR says:

    The sanest commentary on Weinergate I have heard so far.

  • James Speaks says:

    From the Saw this coming down Broadway Department, “Let’s be frank. He tries to be the big hot dog but he’s just a little piece of artifical casing with meat by products.”

    At least now we have had a chance to see what a fine job AIPAC has done stuffing Congress with their weiner-types who say on national TV, “Yes, I’m telling the truth today and I haven’t been for several days. Now I have to go back to work (making our nation’s laws).

  • Ann says:

    Thank you for these facts, Juan. I had no idea.

  • Laura says:

    Amen. And thank you so much.

  • Chu says:

    Thanks for making this list. I was waiting for someone to make the case against this zio-creep. Baird was so patient for sitting through this man’s mental tanrum’s. It was very childish the way he carried on. Half the crowd saw a an unleashed zealot of zionism, the other half saw a rational congressman who was more that fair dealing with Weiner’s tantrum.

    What’s sad in Baird is gone and Weiner won’t leave the house.

  • Jessica says:

    Brilliant. Good work, good sir.

  • Shahid Shahid says:

    The only thing comes to mind is “men proposes, God disposes”.

    It is a perfect example how one chops his own feet.

  • moe99 says:

    One wonders why his wife, a Muslim, married him.

    Reply

  • Bill Bodden says:

    There are a couple of problems with your comments on Weiner. The first is that not enough people will read them. The second is that many people claiming to be liberals should agree with the points you make but are instead touting Weiner as a liberal. He has consistently approved of the Israeli right-wing violations of international law and human rights, and he is a “liberal”? What would Orwell have to say about that? Apparently, a significant portion of representatives in Congress are seeking to get rid of Weiner yet they joined him 29 times in applauding Binyamin Netanyahu’s claptrap.

  • linda in chicago says:

    Wow!!! I don’t get it–his wife is Arab, isn’t she?!

    Reply

    • Sumbz says:

      No actually she’s Pakistani. But yeah, I had no idea he had these type of extreme views on the Palestinians and Israel- Bc he comes off as this liberal super hero on the daily show. What a fail. And his wife is smoking.

    • Mariella says:

      No, she’s Desi.

      Reply

  • I have written about Weiner’s bizarre, extreme support of anything Israel’s government does, regardless of Weiner’s otherwise liberal, pro-human views. He has a blind spot here, or is dishonestly political due to the demographic of his district – either way, his views on Israel-Palestine are repulsive and dishonest.

    Reply

    • super390 says:

      That gets us to the heart of the tragedy of what Israel has done to the liberal spirit of Jewish America over the last 60 years.

      Reply

      • MaisOuiMaisNon says:

        But didn’t you you know turning all the rest of humanity against the evil Arab is a liberal cause? But seriously, this is a big moral issue for the whole of the West. Selective morality is now totally acceptable with a huge sector of the middle classes everywhere. Zionist propaganda has gone to the extreme of brilliantly playing on people worst instincts, and by mulching this in with assorted liberal views it provides the garb to dress up the basest of attitudes as somehow noble and honourable.

  • R. Reed says:

    Thank you for pointing out the REAL reasons we should not be sorry to see AW vacate his House seat.

  • Henry James says:

    I don’t think that Weiner’s political views are anyhow relevant to this situation. What matters is that he is a mainstream politician, nothing like a radical. Most importantly, nobody accuses him of real corruption.

    All we have against him is pretty bad taste. What matters is that permanent Monicagate makes US political process a joke. It is impossible to discuss anything of importance this way!

  • Oliver L. says:

    What should also be kept in mind is that he is hardly alone in this pattern of behavior, a fair number of Democrats are essentially the same (Joe Lieberman comes to mind).

  • Ian says:

    “Americans appear to be bored by policy, titillated by private peccadilloes.” Appear, yes, but there is a level of deliberateness involved when that’s the only available story on the mainstream news reaching the majority. I think that the real people titillated by this garbage are the politicians and elites who revel in rubbing each others noses in their various shinanigans. Basically, I think its a kind of game that billionaire media moguls play with each other and the politicians, that serves the purpose of presenting some form of false accountability for their actions, thereby placating some percentage of the populace who are unable or unwilling to examine these issues more in depth.

  • Neil says:

    Being “Liberal” doesn’t have to mean Anti-Zionist. The world is a big place.

    Reply

  • Mark Lause says:

    Excellent work. Thanks, Juan.

  • Diana says:

    also he told NYC’s Janette Sadik-Khan that once *he* was mayor of NYC he’d preside over “ripping your f**king bike lanes out.” Details on this particular instance of bad behavior are at Grist and NYC Streetsblog.

  • Billy says:

    As usual, you’re right on target. Thanks for your voice. He is one like so many others in the current government (most, actually) that I honestly don’t understand. Like Lieberman, he’s one of the best representatives Israel ever had. No interest in decency, right and wrong or even the best interests of the US. It’s a bit frightening.

  • Jean-Michel Cartier says:

    Very surprised to see his wife is a practicing Muslim given these disgraceful and conformist policy details. That said, Juan your work here is an great alternative, creative take on another mainstream media diversion. Looking forward to reading the next.

  • Quinty says:

    Weiner’s pro Israel intransigence is pretty disturbing. We should be accustomed to hearing such voices though from New York. Is it all a cultural bubble which doesn’t permit for any other point of view? In this case, it leads to more hate. And greater human suffering. No small thing.

    It appears Weiner has his blind spots. One can only wonder at his self destructive behavior on the electronic media. And at his inhuman views of Arabs: the rationalizations he gladly grips to support apartheid in Palestine. Though on progressive bread and butter issues he has been pretty good, and it was a bit of a tonic to occasionally hear a Democrat forcefully speak up and puncture some of the more lurid rightwing lies. But this guy is not perfect, not by far.

  • daisy says:

    Thank you, Juan Cole! We must all share this.

  • MaisOuiMaisNon says:

    Hmm. The “H” word again. We don’t hate , do we? We’re past all *that*. Oh, but them , they are full of hate, Didn’t you know? Muslims, hate , Palestinians , hate, Arabs, hate, Muslims, terrorists, what’s the difference, all interchangeable words perpetually glued together. Personally, I find that when people do really bad things, I kind of dislike it. And if they do it a lot, I really dislike it. And want to put a stop to it. And when any attempt to do so is blocked by the accusation that I am somehow the bad guy, by certain members of the world’s creme de la creme, it kind of intensifies the issue. Maybe it’s something to do with an innate sense of justice, some kind of evolutionary hangover, it would seem. But doesn’t anyone remember how they wanted to jump into the screen and gun down Eichmann in that film? Ah, but that was *different*, how we felt then was proof of our nobility courage and desire to vanquish evil.

    With guys like this gagging for things like the Iraq sanctions and subsequent war, not just the removal of Saddam, but the the utter destruction of the country, if you’ve lost everything, what is there to love?

    When youngsters, including my children, mention Israel and Jews, I mention the likes of Uri Avnery, God love him.If anyone is serious about countering anti-Semitism, I suggest they do the same. You wont get any thanks for it, but you will be doing the job.

  • JTMcPhee says:

    From the comments, one might surmise that the Rabid Right has decided that trolling and pugnacity here in favor of that End Of the World vision of Greater Israel is a waste of time.

    Those folks, ReZionists and Christianists and general revanchist reactionaries (yeah, redundant but it bears repeating), are sure all over this elsewhere that the “serious people” attend…

  • Don says:

    We soon lose the Senator from Likud (incidentally also from Connecticut) but we will retain one of our representatives from Likud.

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About stephenkmacksd

Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer. 'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.' https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary
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