The Pied Pipers of Palestine
Children are being actively recruited by the Palestinians into the cult of martyrdom, which encompasses both the extreme of suicide bombing and other, “milder” activities such as acting as shields for adult fighters.
These children do not get the idea to do this all on their own. Martyrdom is not a natural youthful aspiration, but the plasticity and vulnerability of the very young can be exploited to mold many of them in just that direction, much in the way advertising works to form habits.
There is a concerted effort in many parts of the Arab world–and, most particularly, among the Palestinians–to glorify martyrdom in such a way that it specifically appeals to children. There’s nothing subtle or hidden about this campaign, which uses modern media tools in a most effective manner. It’s another example of the pernicious power of the wedding of new technology with a medieval mindset.
Here, for example, is the transcript of a recent children’s program (June 15, 2006) aired on Egyptian TV. The text is about as far from “Sesame Street” or “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” as it can be:
…when a child is brought up in a good home, and receives proper education in faith, he loves martyrdom, which becomes like an instinct for him. He can never give it up.
Augean Stables has a discussion of the phenomenon among the Palestinians, and notices a recent uptick in frequency. An article from the Jerusalem Post is quoted (which I will quote at some length because I think it’s necessary to get the full flavor of the message, and its enormous and powerful appeal to children):
As Israel enters the northern Gaza Strip, there are signs that the Palestinian Authority plans to renew the tactic of sending children to the front lines as human shields to obstruct the IDF.
PA TV is again broadcasting music videos designed to brainwash young children into seeking death as shahids – martyrs for Allah. Shahada-promoting music videos were first broadcast thousands of times on Palestinian TV from 2000 through 2004.
One of the most sinister of these clips was broadcast twice last week, according to our research after a three-year absence. The clip features a child actor playing the most famous Palestinian child martyr, Muhammad al-Dura – whose death in a crossfire was broadcast to the entire world – calling to other Palestinian children to literally follow him to Child Martyrs’ Heaven.
“I am waving not to part but to say, ”˜Follow me,’” is Dura’s invitation on the TV screen.
The children watching this video are then shown what awaits them if they join Dura in death. The video follows the child actor – “Dura” – joyously frolicking in heaven. He romps on the beach, plays with a kite and runs toward a Ferris wheel.
The children are being told that death in conflict with Israel will bring them into a child’s paradise. Muhammad al-Dura is already in this paradise, tranquil and fun-filled.
This call to children to seek death, coming from the child who has turned into a Palestinian hero, and broadcast to their children by PA TV, is one of the most odious examples of exploitation of children witnessed on PA TV.
THE WORDS sung by the popular singer Aida are as insidious as the pictures. The earth is described as yearning for the children’s death – “its thirst quenched by the gush of blood flowing from the youthful body.”
I would hope that even the strongest proponents of the Palestinian cause would recognize the vileness and moral bankruptcy of this particular campaign. My guess, though, is that some of them will not, and will instead find ways to excuse it and/or blame it on Israel.
(And, by the way, the evidence is nearly overwhelming that al-Durah, the child martyr exploited in these abominable ads, was either killed by Palestinian forces, or that the entire al-Durah incident was faked. Although that’s important, it’s also irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is undoubtedly true: the purposeful recruitment of children into active participation in the cause.)
Movements have often tried to indoctrinate children, and even sometimes used them as traps. In recent memory, this was done during the Vietnam War by the Vietcong, to great effect. Recruiting children is not only a tool for using scarce resources, but a sort of moral jujitsu; a way to turn the “softness” of the opposition–i.e., soldiers’ reluctance to cold-bloodedly kill children–into a way to cause them to feel remorse when they are tricked into doing so against their will (or, if that fails, into appearing as though they’ve killed children, as with al-Durah).
Here’s a description of the way it worked for the Vietcong:
A member of the Viet Cong would later confirm that: “Children were trained to throw grenades, not only for the terror factor, but so the government or American soldiers would have to shoot them. Then the Americans feel very ashamed. And they blame themselves and call their soldiers war criminals.” It was not rare for small children to wave an American patrol into a booby trap or minefield. Additionally, the Viet Cong would use women and children as lethal ploys or ruses to lead Americans into deadly ambushes.
I haven’t been able to discover how these children were recruited. But I doubt it was the same sort of slick media blitz that’s occurring with the Palestinians. One has to reach far back into medieval times to something like the Children’s Crusade to find a campaign approaching this one, and even then the comparison is not really apt. The children there were merely responding to the general call for rescuing the Holy Lands, not one specifically aimed at and targeting children. And in fact, the Children’s Crusade was actually a sort of grass-roots mass movement led by children themselves, all apparently under twelve.
At any rate, that was in the year 1212. Most assuredly, television was not involved, nor did the Children’s Crusade have the blessing of the Catholic Church. But current-day calls in the Arab world to children to become martyrs to the cause are on government-run and sanctioned media, purposely orchestrated and planned by adults (the adult in the Egyptian excerpt linked above is identified as “a preacher at the Egyptian ministry of religious endowment,” for example).
As I was reading all of this, some sort of memory, some association, began stirring within me. Something from literature? Folklore? Poetry? History? Then it came to me, and it turned out the answer is “all of the above:” the story of “The Pied Piper.”
As a child, I’d heard the tale, as did most of us. I also owned a comic book based on the famous Browning poem on the subject, and it became one of my favorites. I read it over and over, charmed by the rhymes, but frightened by the disturbing, ambiguous, and powerful ending. Folktales and fairy tales are often dark, but this seemed one of the very darkest of all. There was no redemption at the conclusion, just children disappeared into the side of a mountain, and devastated and bereft adults left to grieve.
Do you remember the story of the Piper (and see this for speculation about the historical incident of 1284–including, among other things, whether a children’s crusade might have been involved–that inspired it)?
It goes like this: leaders of the medieval town of Hamelin, plagued by rats, hire a magical piper to rid the city of the pests. But when he succeeds in seductively using his music to lead the vermin into the sea, where they drown, the people of Hamelin renege on their deal and fail to “pay the piper.” In anger, he takes revenge on the townfolk, and what a revenge it is! The Piper plays his pipe again–a different tune–and this time lures the all the children in the town to a door in the side of a mountain that mysteriously opens up and closes behind them. They are never heard from again. Only a few handicapped children survive to tell the tale; in my comic book version it was a lame boy on crutches who couldn’t catch up with the others.
One of the ambiguities of the story is what actually happens to the children. It’s clear that the Piper’s music is a sweet song, promising wonderful and glorious experiences if the children follow him. The fact that this is a lie, and that they are following him to death, is implied but never unequivocally stated, and as a susceptible child myself I puzzled over the conundrum and the mystery. Would I, too, have followed? Was the little lame boy blessed or cursed in not having gone with the others?
As an adult, I think the answer is clear that the Piper was up to no good. But as a child, I wasn’t quite sure, and I was well aware of the seductive power of the Piper’s promise.
Many parts of Browning’s poem are funny, particularly the earlier passages, and the rhyme scheme is inherently light. But this part chilled me then, and it chills me still–his description of the way the beautiful music called the children, and what it spoke to them:
…Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering,
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter….
When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
Did I say all? No! One was lame,
And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say,–
“It’s dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can’t forget that I’m bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me.
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles’ wings:
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!”
The similarities, I think, are clear, even in the prominent use of music in present-day Palestinian child recruitment videos. And I think it’s no coincidence that, in the one featuring the child actor playing al-Durah, he is shown saying, Pied Piper-like “Follow me.”
How to stop the Pied Pipers of Palestine? The first step is to recognize, publicize, and condemn what they are doing. This is my small part in that effort.
Ymar wrote:
I think stevie acts like he doesn’t understand what I say, because Sally’s an easier person to talk to.
No man. You have a weird way of writing. I honestly don’t know what your on about half the time.
Apart from that – you don’t really leave much room for me to comment, Ymar.
I suppose I could come up with some clever insult as an equivalent response, but I just can’t be bothered right now…
A tangent — A haunting spin-off of the Pied Piper story is Atom Egoyan’s 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter. One of the best, little-seen movies ever.
Teeny, tiny nitpick about the analogy: The Pied Piper was an outsider, and enticed the children away without the approval of their parents or the local “society” in the form of that town. And it was not a reoccuring event. What’s happening to Palestinian children nowadays is being done by the parents and the local society. Continuously.
Otherwise, nice parallel. You’re right about drawing the semblance between the seductive nature of the Piper’s tune and the seducing nature of the martyrdom environment.
Goldie locks and the 3 bears, illegal immigration.
http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com/all_things_beautiful/2006/07/the_kid_is_dead.html#comments
Alexandra has some good stuff to say about Israel. Namely, in my words, Israel is in the pit they are, because Israel acts weak, and does not do total war. And Israel does not do total war in part because of the Holocaust.
America should never act like Israel. Never, regardless of how many people toute Israel’s superior CT skills. The cost isn’t worth it.
They negotiated with terroists, they gave over 400 Hizbollah prisoners in return for one Israel. That, is why Israel is getting blown up.
I wonder, will there ever be as much protest at the detention without trial of women and children in Israeli jails?
Oh.
Of course there will not be.
They are terrorists, aren’t they? They don’t deserve any justice.
Ka whakapohani!!
All terroists should be executed, after 2 years of interrogation of course. If you haven’t gotten the goods from them in 2 years, that’s your fault.
I’ve recently written of “Palestine” as a death-cult masquerading as a state. The children are the most egregious manifestation of the cult, but the majority of the population seems to be susceptible.
It’s like an Arab version of the Heaven’s Gate cult.
In his book “A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind And The Renaissance Portrait Of An Age”, William Manchester maintains that the “Pied Piper” was a real person, a “pyschopath and pederant who, on June 20, 1484, spirited away 130 children in the Saxon village of Hammel and used them in unspeakable ways”.
Improbligo:
“I wonder, will there ever be as much protest at the detention without trial of women and children in Israeli jails?”
Typical liberal response. As if this ever came as close.
Probligo, aside from naturally assuming on your part that Israel is actually jailing innocent women and children, is that ANYWHERE near as equal as conditioning them to become human shields?
(Hell, thats probably the best way to keep them alive.)
How the hell is anyone supposed to take your kind seriously?
Do you really care? Or is this just automatic on your part?
Then again, this might mean they’re running short of the 72 virgins per adult martyr quota.
Makes it cheaper just to send your kids to the great “Never-Neverland Ranch” in the sky.
Suicide bombing, great way to free up widowers for marriage and getting rid of the excess “male” population.
It is specifically the death-cult aspects of the Palestinian terrorists that make them appealing to so many Western intellectuals. If this were a movement concerned with things like political freedom and economic development, most of the professors would drop them like a hot rock.
Only truely oppressed people would be stupid enough to blow themselves and their children up.
neo-neocon writes, “Here’s a description of the way it worked for the Vietcong: A member of the Viet Cong would later confirm that: “Children were trained to throw grenades, not only for the terror factor, but so the government or American soldiers would have to shoot them. Then the Americans feel very ashamed. And they blame themselves and call their soldiers war criminals.” It was not rare for small children to wave an American patrol into a booby trap or minefield. Additionally, the Viet Cong would use women and children as lethal ploys or ruses to lead Americans into deadly ambushes. I haven’t been able to discover how these children were recruited.”
Your last line is completely senseless. How were the Vietnamese children “recruited”? What do you mean? Their country had been invaded, and the Vietnamese, men, women and children, were all defending their homeland any way they could. I doubt that there was any need to “recruit”.
Remember how the Roman historian Joseph Flavius described how the Jewish defenders of the Masada — men, women and children — defended themselves?
“Some 75 years after Herod’s death, at the beginning of the Revolt of the Jews against the Romans in 66 CE, a group of Jewish rebels overcame the Roman garrison of Masada. After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple (70 CE) they were joined by zealots and their families who had fled from Jerusalem. With Masada as their base, they raided and harassed the Romans for two years. Then, in 73 CE, the Roman governor Flavius Silva marched against Masada with the Tenth Legion, auxiliary units and thousands of Jewish prisoners-of-war.
“Josephus Flavius dramatically recounts the story told him by two surviving women. The defenders – almost one thousand men, women and children – led by Eleazar ben Ya’ir, decided to burn the fortress and end their own lives, rather than be taken alive. “And so met (the Romans) with the multitude of the slain, but could take no pleasure in the fact, though it were done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution, and at the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was.” ”
Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Masada1.html
We’re not equating Masada with the Gaza strip now are we?
neo-neocon: “I haven’t been able to discover how these children were recruited.”
Nate: “Your last line is completely senseless.”
Your entire comment misses the point of her last line. Children don’t naturally march off to war. As for the Jewish resistance, they carried their children with them. That’s how the kids were recruited. The Vietnamese, indeed, fought the invading NVA tooth and nail (at least until our Congress denied them funding), but we’re talking about the VC using kids.
Their country had been invaded, and the Vietnamese, men, women and children, were all defending their homeland any way they could. I doubt that there was any need to “recruit”.
They were recruited the usual way. Exterminate a friendly US village, take the women and children hostage, kill the men. Hold the mothers hostage, train the children, then unleash the children by threatening to kill the mothers. When children are used up, get rid of the women. Simple. Food might be a problem though, but the village probably has enough.
The reason why the Jewish women and children had to fight back, is because the ROmans didn’t give a damn and would have crucified everyone. The children and the women would have suffocated to death on the cross.
led by Eleazar ben Ya’ir, decided to burn the fortress and end their own lives, rather than be taken alive.
Good choice mofo, you don’t want to be the prisoners of Rome after rebelling. Bad mojo.
Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution, and at the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was
Courage? Romans expected people to suicide before they fell into enemy hands, it was a more “honorable death”. Trying to use human shields to make the Romans feel ashamed, would have been a losing proposition, obviously.
Nate doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about, because this is obviously not relevant to Nate’s point that the women and children of Vietnam resisted to the death.
a guy in pajamas wrote:
“Your entire comment misses the point of her last line. Children don’t naturally march off to war. As for the Jewish resistance, they carried their children with them. That’s how the kids were recruited. The Vietnamese, indeed, fought the invading NVA tooth and nail (at least until our Congress denied them funding), but we’re talking about the VC using kids.”
————
Nate replies:
See the article “Back to Vietnam, and Its Myths,” by Michael Lind, New York Times, June 19, 1997. It’s available online here: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lindviet.htm
It says:
“Until the Tet offensive, however, most of the guerrillas and the supplies came from the South itself.“
Very good post, neo. We train our children that when they reach the age of 18-20, it is their responsibility to join the army to defend other Jews (or, in the case of religious girls, spend this time volunteering for national service). Until then they are children – and should spend their time in school and enjoying life.
i remember reading the browning poem in grad school, and having the same questions. i definitely see your point, and it’s an excellent one. the sad thing is that while many here will agree, it’s the folks on the other side who are convincing their children to martyr themselves who will probably never see it the way we do. i used to teach (back in my own pre-neo-neo-con days) and one of the questions i used to pose was “are we, in the western world, justified in pushing our western values on non-western countries?” i wonder if this can be seen as the same thing. of course what they’re doing is morally wrong (at the very least)but if we were in their shoes, would we behave the same way?
ugh, i sure hope not.
Nate, you simply do not know what you are talking about. You cite books and articles as if they were facts and worse yet, you expect us to believe such nonsense. Which Tet are you citing, Nate? There was a Tet offensive every year. It coincided with the Vietnamese New Year. You and the rest of the Left have been drooling over pictures of Che Gueverra for too long. The NVA moved south in force in 1965 and first openly engaged US forces en masse at Ia Drang. They received support from China and Russia. Where do you think all their AK-47s came from for heaven’s sake? More than one Chinese advisor was killed in Viet Nam too, but your Liberal references won’t cite that. Ho Chi Minh willingly sacrificed hundreds of his men at Ia Drang simply to learn about US helicopter tactics. I’ve been in villages where the NVA tied the hands behind the backs of a number of men and women and shot them in the back of the head for reasons of being suspected for collaborating with US forces. This reminds me of the way the palis deal with suspected Israeli collaborators. What, Nate? You haven’t seen the pictures of public mutilation of the bodies in the West Bank of those summarily tried and executed for collaborating? Yeah, Nate, they hang them up and slash them with knives and even drag them behind cars. My, my – another tactic the NVA used in Viet Nam to ensure logistical support, and Nate that means food, lodging, scouting and women for pleasure, was for the NVA to enter a village and kill the head man, sometimes torturing him and mutilating him in front of the entire assembled village, thus they knew they had better cooperate or else. Yeah, Nate, it really works that way in the 3rd world. You really believe all the human cargo haulers on the Ho Chi Minh trail were volunteers, don’t you? There was only 1 Che and he died a miserable death in Bolivia having utterly failed to inspire and organize the peasants there.
“How to stop the Pied Pipers of Palestine? ”
Thay could start by taking out the TV and Radio stations that broadcast the Pied Pipers message.
Goesh, ya but the Vietnamese were deciding their own “destiny”, and that’s why they supported fighting the US to the death.
Just giving you Nate’s response so Nate doesn’t have to bother.
I came on a link from Dean’s World.
I clicked on the comments to see if commenters would try to use morally-relative ju-jitsu to make America and the Jews worse. I was really hoping to be disappointed.
I will never be able to understand how somebody could look at the idea of brainwashing children into wanting to die and think, “How can I blame this on America and the Jews or at least say they’re worse?”
I hope I never do understand that logic either.
Vive le Che! I’ll admit he was a handsome devil – too bad his ideology helped turned Cuba into a living cesspool of firing squads, grinding poverty and oppression, but hey! if you got the looks and love of the Left, who cares!? You can even turn him into a zaqawri or an arafat if you are desperate enough. I’ve heard from more than one reasonably reliable source that he had his balls cut off, a macho S. American custom amongst some elements, as he lay in that hut after being shot dead by one of the men from you-know-which American agency(wink wink).
Palestinian children are fed a diet of hatred from their earliest moments of life. Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, everyone helps feed them hatred. It’s just another vile way generationally warped families have of using their children as a means to their own ends, instead of letting the children be ends in themselves.
vive le Kant
Nice Kant reference.
“Suicide bombing, great way to free up widowers for marriage and getting rid of the excess “male” population”
Y,
Make war on other countries, great way to free up widows for marriage and getting rid of the excess “male” population.
Mallory. I just love the ability of people like yourself to deny truth.
There are “some 400 women and children” prisoners in Israeli jails. Are you saying that is untrue?
Those women and children are being held without trial. Are you saying that is untrue?
Ka whakapohani!!
Our lack of confidence in Western cultural values prevents us from acting more forcefully to stop this type of child-abuse. We are reticent, and hesitant, to stand up and frankly declare such a child-abusing culture sick and diseased. If the Palestinians were raping every child above the age of three, we might stand up and declare their culture to be sick and diseased.
This brainwashing of children is morally repugnant. Any society which condones it is sick and diseased. Every Westerner who has moral confidence should be unafraid to declare so, in frank and confident language.
Those women and children are being held without trial. Are you saying that is untrue?
It is untrue. Now prove it.
If the Palestinians were raping every child above the age of three, we might stand up and declare their culture to be sick and diseased.
From what I’ve read, Arabs already doing that.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/183793.php
Probligo wrote: “Those women and children are being held without trial. Are you saying that is untrue?”
Sakar then replied: “It is untrue. Now prove it.”
Amnesty International confirms what Probligo says.
If you click on the following page:
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/isr-action-detention
at Amnesty International’s website, you’ll see the following (I quote):
“Administrative detention is a procedure under which detainees are held without charge or trial. No charges are filed, and there is no intention of bringing a detainee to trial. [..]
“Currently, more than 600 Palestinians remain in administrative detention. Most of them are held in Ofer Military Camp (in the West Bank) and the Ansar 3/Ketziot Military Camp in the Negev desert, where conditions are extremely harsh.
“‘Etaf ‘Alyan, 42 years old, mother of a 20 months girl, is serving her second consecutive administrative detention order. She was arrested on 22 December 2005 by the Israeli army at her house in the West Bank town of Ramallah, and has since been detained without charge or trial.[..] Her daughter was initially not allowed to be with her in detention but was eventually allowed to join her in prison in March 2006.”
— Amnesty International website,
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/isr-action-detention
Statistics on administrative detention
According to figures provided by the IDF to Hamoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, the IDF is holding, as of 3 Jan., 2006, 741 Palestinians in Administrative Detention.
The IDF is also holding Palestinians against whom administrative detention orders have been issued, but not yet approved by a Judge. The IDF does not consider these individuals to be administrative detainees.
According to IPS data provided to B’Tselem, the IPS was holding, as of January 1, 2006, 53 Palestinians in administrative detention .
Since February 2005, the Prisons Service has refused to provide B’Tselem with figures on detainees and prisoners on a regular, free of charge basis, as it did previously. Since then B’Tselem had to request the information monthly, under the Law on Freedom of information.
The following table details the number of Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories who were held by Israel in administrative detention at various dates, during the years 2001-2005:
2006
IDF (Defence Force) 741
IPS (Prison Service) 53
Date of Statistics
January IDF: January 3
IPS: January 1
Source: B’Tselem, January 2006″
Yes, those are the totals and I have been talking only of the women and children. They are included in those numbers. Don’t you just LOVE the euphemisms involved; “administrative detention” for “without trial”. Further investigation will show that the larger number of those in “administrative detention” are “awaiting trial”. That B’Tselem is unable to obtain any detail of the length of detention surprises me not.
Have a read here, and here for a more partisan description.
Sakar (Y?) Your turn, prove that wrong and untrue. A link to a verifiable web page or news item that SAYS that every one of those 100 women and 300 under-18 aged children have faced charges in Court and been sentenced to imprisonment, and that the time waiting for trial is not excessive. I am sure that B’Tselem would publish your figures if they are verifiable.
Nate, thanks for the Amnesty detail.
The problem with the war in the Levant, AFAIAC is that there is equal wrong on both sides, as there is equal right on both sides.
gcotharn, what do you teach your children about the Palestinians in particular, and Moslems in general?
probligo wrote: “Nate, thanks for the Amnesty detail.”
Not to worry, probligo — they will now say that Amnesty International can’t be trusted because it’s a “liberal” source 🙂
Probligo wrote: “Those women and children are being held without trial. Are you saying that is untrue?”
I’ll even hand that to you. What Im asking you how this equates? Why do you ignore the foundation of my question?
How is this even as bad as making those same children human shields?
Human shields Harry?
When they are playing on the roof of their house? Or when they are playing soccer in the street? Or how about walking home from school with their father?
Sakar (Y?) Your turn, prove that wrong and untrue.
Why do I need to prove it untrue, all I got to tell you is “that it doesn’t matter” if it is true. Detaining suicide bombers (and their helpers) and providing them their children to care for is…. not inhumane.
Not to worry, probligo — they will now say that Amnesty International can’t be trusted because it’s a “liberal” source
Ymar isn’t as predictable as that, I’m afraid.
So long as he children and mothers are in IDF jails, they aren’t free to kill each other out in the real world.
“By their fruits ye shall know them”
Really quite simple, the reality on the ground is that it would be in the Paleo’s best interests to reach an accommodation with Israel and each time an accommodation is offered them they spit on it to continue their killing.
They are simply a branch office of the worldwide Jihad.
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
For the worldwide left, the Israel/Paleo conflict is a gateway recruitment mechanism. First you have to believe something according to their dogma that transcends observable reality, then you can be a member of their really Kewl Sekret Klub. Every opposition group has a version of this from the Kikuyu Mau-Mau Blood Oath to the German National Socialist Party on up to the Islamists.
If you believe in principles and values which can be empirically proven to deliver the greatest good for the greatest number you are derided. By the True Believers.
Y..S… whatever, never let the truth get in the way of a good lie, huh! No wonder you support GWB.
________________________________
So that it is clear –
If the provenance of the story is correct, and I am not going out of the way to prove it wrong or right but accept it as “probable” –
Then personally I think it stinks.
BUT –
I ask again, if this is the honest expression of opinion, what are each of you teaching your children about Palestine, Palestinians, and Moselms in general?
ps; and Harry, I ignore questions that are couched in insult and sophistry. I have it on the very good authority of MHW that that kind of conduct will not be tolerated on this site. I am refraining as best I can…
Ka Whakapohani!!
Y..S… whatever, never let the truth get in the way of a good lie, huh! No wonder you support GWB.
Bush wouldn’t know how to lie if his life depended upon it.
Btw, this is more important than Israelis locking up Palestinian insurgents.
http://ymarsakar.blogspot.com/2006/07/un-scores-another-one-for-guys-at-loot.html
Probligo: I Walk The Line from the song of the same name.
Israel has been detaining children LONG before the idea of suicide bombing came into the scene.
To add: What is being described in this article is not a ‘phenomena’, these are individual cases only.
The uncles, ants, fathers and mothers are NOT those who is feeding these palestinian children with hatred..yu know what is feeding these children with hate ? see :
http://peacepalestinedocuments.blogspot.com/
See the Hebron kids vs IDF..
Probligo, you wrote, “I wonder, will there ever be as much protest at the detention without trial of women and children in Israeli jails?” as a reply to a thread on Palestinian children being recruited by their society to martyr themselves. As if your question or comment neatly brushes aside the entire issue. Do you think thats fair to make that comparrison?
I swear, these people that believe in propaganda so easily are really guillible and easy to manipulate. Too bad Bush doesn’t know how to manipulate
My son and I note that Islam sanctions violence as a method of expanding the influence of the religion. We wonder if a Muslim can reject the use of violence and actually remain a Muslim, insofar as they are rejecting a basic premise of the religion? I teach my son that “Islam” refers to the peace which will reign when the entire world is ruled according to Allah’s strictures. To say “Islam is a religion of peace” is to participate in a propaganda campaign, since the “peace” can only occur when Allah rules the entire world.
Harry, yes I do.
But then the rationale behind my statement would take more space than I am permitted here (see the rather cryptic little post by the wasp – that is the alarm bell) to fully explain.
It is as I said earlier – there is much wrong on both sides, as there is right on both sides.
Tell me again how many tanks and F16s the Palestinian Defence Forces (or the terrorists for that matter) have…
I post here for the underdogs simply because of the attitudes on show. Think about what has been said for a moment or three to see what I mean.
And I would dearly like to hear at least one person say what they teach their children about Muslims and Palestinians.
Amnesty International is a corrupt organization. Its claims are so often biased that no reasonable person can trust that they are a fair and balanced portrayal of any given situation.
As for the claim by some professional bligo that “innocent women and children” are being held in Israeli custody, well I suppose that the bligo wouldn’t mind if only innocent men were in custody, eh? Sheesh, pinko bligos are sooo often blatant anti-man sesists!
Furthermore, just because those the professional bligo is bligoing over are in Israeli “Administrative detention” doesn’t for a second show that those palis are “innocent”. (Duh.)
I compare the palis who raise children to be suicide bomb fodder to the bloodthirsty and equally barbaric Aztecs who also slaughtered for their “religion” and motherland.
Michael wrote:
“Furthermore, just because those the professional bligo is bligoing over are in Israeli “Administrative detention” doesn’t for a second show that those palis are “innocent”.”
As you must well know,
(1) whether an accused is guilty can only be determined if the accused is given a fair trial, and
(2) an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and
(3) “administrative detention” is a procedure under which the detainees are held without charge or trial.
So, the detainees are to presumed innocent. Not only have they not been brought to trial, they have not even been charged with anything.
If Israel wants the world to consider the detainees as “not innocent”, Israel needs to (a) charge them, and (2) bring them to trial.
Michael wrote:
“Amnesty International is a corrupt organization. Its claims are so often biased that no reasonable person can trust that they are a fair and balanced portrayal of any given situation.”
Funny, I have in the past seen neocons trumpeting Amnesty International’s claims when AI criticizes the government of Cuba (a country that neocons dislike). The charge that “AI is a corrupt organization” is reliably trotted out only when the government that AI criticizes is one the neocons happen to cheerlead (in this case, Israel).
There’s a name for such selective blindness. It’s spelled h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y 🙂
Actually, people use AI because they believe you might be convinced if it comes from AI. Since I know how the Left operates, I don’t do that.
If Israel wants the world to consider the detainees as “not innocent”, Israel needs to (a) charge them, and (2) bring them to trial.
They need to hold them hostage and have prisoner exchanges. 1 Palestinian woman and child for 10 Israelis. That’s fair.
It is as I said earlier – there is much wrong on both sides, as there is right on both sides.
No, there there ain’t. You guys keep wanting to stack the deck to make the chem reaction go until there are not reagents left. All you are doing is sustaining the cycle of violence.
Tell me again how many tanks and F16s the Palestinian Defence Forces (or the terrorists for that matter) have…
How many hostages have the IDF executed and then sold the DVDs for it?
I post here for the underdogs simply because of the attitudes on show. Think about what has been said for a moment or three to see what I mean.
Go over to Palestinian Princess if you want to “post” for the underdogs. Aren’t we acting morally superior here, or is it just you?
Probligo:
“Tell me again how many tanks and F16s the Palestinian Defence Forces (or the terrorists for that matter) have…”
OK. That pretty much says everything about where your at right there.
The Palestinians are justified in teaching martyrdom to their children so that they can use them as weapons against Israel who are using their high tech weapons to defend themselves from fanatic psychopaths who use children as weapons.
Of course this perfect circle of insanity will continue largely because world opinion doesnt slam down on the Palestinians, get them to cease the violence so that victimhood and martyrdom wallowing Palestinians might come up with another way to solve their problems. (Negotiation maybe?)
That way, Israel could actually turn over more than just the Gaza strip and not feel afterwards that they’re going to get screwed by fanatic psychopaths using children as weapons.
But, we’re not going to see that.
Porbligo, you are concerned about what we here might tell our children about Palestinians or Moslems in general. Again, as if this equates with promoting martyrdom among them.
If I had children, I would not offer an opinion unless asked and then Id tell them that the Moslem world creates its own problems and that liberals in the west enable them to do so. Id tell them that because of it, the violence will continue well into the next century.
Adam: The charge that “AI is a corrupt organization” is reliably trotted out only when the government that AI criticizes is one the neocons happen to cheerlead (in this case, Israel).
No, I think we can safely say that AI is biased and corrupt pretty much all the time, but when it feels itself forced to criticize a nation the left-libs happen to cheerlead (e.g., Cuba), then we can be fairly assured that the abuse is at least as bad as they portray — which is not the case, obviously, when their criticism simply reflects their bias.
Btw, israel has the technology to exterminate the entire Palestinian area free of life. Should they use it? Should Palestinians use suicide bombers?
Answer is obvious. If you want to take the gloves off, don’t act like you didn’t start the fight. And if you take the gloves off and I don’t, and I still beat you, don’t whine and complain that I’m “cheating”.
Once upon a time, a country existed that rocketed its neighbors indiscrimately, kidnapped noncombatants for later execution, and whose population sought to conquer as much territory as possible and reduce the rest of the world to slavery.
That country was Nazi Germany. And when avenging Allied tanks encountered resisting German villages, they reduced the buildings to mere memorials, and the villagers to penury.
No one seems to consider these actions a crime today. What would be wrong if Israel levelled Gaza and drove its inhabitants away tomorrow?
“Aren’t we acting morally superior here”
Yes ,Y, you are. The emphasis is on the operative words.
Pretty damned poor thespianship it is too – ham footed and cow tongued.
Thanks for the thoughts on what you might teach your children. About what I figured. As is the rest of the vapours around this topic.
Ka whakapohani!!
What neo-neocon rubbish.
Israel has been killing Palestinians daily while Hamas observes a cease fire, starts to muse about offically recognizing Israel(for what it’s worth I have no idea – apparently for Israel to negoiate what it should have been negoiating 40 years ago – but manages to find an excuse to not negoiate every time – and which point Israel starts provoking Palestinian response.
So typical.
And even more typical is the no brained analysis of people like neo-con who know nothing about the conflict demonizing the Palestinians for fighting back. What a crock.
Don’t you realize that sane people can see right through such nonsense?
I guess not because you repeat it like clockwork while the evidence stacks up around you.
Israel is the closet thing we have to Nazi’s today. Hands down.
And they are Jews.
Go figure….
Solomon wrote:
Once upon a time, a country existed that rocketed its neighbors indiscrimately, kidnapped noncombatants for later execution, and whose population sought to conquer as much territory as possible and reduce the rest of the world to slavery.
He’s talking about Palestinians. He’s equating a rag tag bunch – in the poorest strip of land on the planet without adequete water, no electricity who have have their homes destroyed their land stolen, their children and women imprisoned and tortured – and these people are supposed to remind us of Nazi Germany?
Wow. Just when I think I’ve read idiocy beyond my basic comprehension.
There’s a new one every day.
By the way – the soldier they ‘kidnapped’ – a soldier – like the ones who regularly shoot and kill civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, beating, abuse etc.
They should hand him back in pieces.
No one has pointed out the obvious here so far:
It is Israel which is occupying territory illegally, in violation of international law and US resolutions.
Palestine isn’t occupying Israeli territory illegally. It’s the other way round.
Countries that violate international law are called rogue states.
Question:
If the U.S. were to invade the “rogue state” of Israel, set up a democratic government, ask for amnesty of the “insurgent” Palestinians, and then leave, would that satisfy the left? (Since the Israelis violated UN resolutions, disobeyed international law, etc., etc.)
By the way, does this sound familiar, at all?
Nate: Countries that violate international law are called rogue states.
Only by indiscrimiante lefties. The rest of us would say that if a country attacks another country and then is defeated and occupied, the attacking country should remain occupied until, at a bare minimum, it formally recognizes the other’s right to exist. Most sensible people (i.e., not counting gullible lefties) would also recognize that “international law” is often little more than a facade for various other tyrannies, dictatorships, theocracies, failed states, and real rogue states a cover for their international machinations.
Sally wrote:
Only by indiscrimiante lefties. The rest of us would say that if a country attacks another country and then is defeated and occupied, the attacking country should remain occupied until, at a bare minimum, it formally recognizes the other’s right to exist. Most sensible people (i.e., not counting gullible lefties) would also recognize that “international law” is often little more than a facade for various other tyrannies, dictatorships, theocracies, failed states, and real rogue states a cover for their international machinations.
Rubbish. And it’s not ‘indiscriminate lefties’ it’s the vast, vast majority of the world’s population.
Even in the U.S.
Israel is by definition – even by ‘righties'(?)- a rouge state.
International law is a guideline for international behavior and cooperation. It was formed as a response to World War 2 and as a framework for minimizing conflict. It has become a facade mainly – and the record bears this out as clear as day – because of American hegemony and it’s ability to undermine the U.N to suit it’s needs and those of it’s allies while maintaining some kind of semblence of legitimacy where it has none – outside of the military industrial complex.
And thats well known and understood.
Please, Sally – you’ll have to do much better than just rehashing rightwing horsecrap.
Nobody’s buying it except for your fringe, lunatic no-brainers….
stumbley wrote: ” Question:
If the U.S. were to invade the “rogue state” of Israel, set up a democratic government, ask for amnesty of the “insurgent” Palestinians, and then leave, would that satisfy the left? (Since the Israelis violated UN resolutions, disobeyed international law, etc., etc.)”
Stumbley: invasion of country A by country B when B has not attacked A is also a violation of international law, and is therefore not acceptable.
I think the proper analogy of Israel is not with Iraq but with apartheid-era South Africa. The world needs to start treating Israel in the way it treated apartheid-era South Africa: like a pariah. Until Israel withdraws from all the occupied territories, dismantles all settlements in the occupied territories (building settlements in occupied territories is in violation of international law) and recognizes the right to return, with full citizenship, of all Palestinians who had had to leave their homes.
By your er…logic, Poland, France, etc should have recognized Nazi Germany’s ‘right to exist’ after they were occuppied(bare minimum) in the 40s.
Are you for real girl?
Who in god’s name do you think your fooling?
Put away the crayons and lets talk….
Sally wrote: “Most sensible people (i.e., not counting gullible lefties) would also recognize that “international law” is often little more than a facade for various other tyrannies, dictatorships, theocracies, failed states, and real rogue states a cover for their international machinations.”
From Amnesty International’s website:
“Among the key human rights principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the right to return. Article 13 of the UDHR states: ”Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
“The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the treaty which gives legal force to many of the rights proclaimed in the UDHR, codifies the right to return, stating in Article 12.4: ”No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.””
“Amnesty International believes that the right to return applies not just to those who were directly expelled and their immediate families, but also to those of their descendants who have maintained what the Human Rights Committee calls ”close and enduring connections” with the area.
“International law provides a standard for measuring the existence of a ”close and enduring connection” between a person and his or her ”own country” through a set of criteria established by the International Court of Justice in 1955.”
— From Amnesty International’s website, http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150132001?open&of=ENG-PSE
I personally am sick and tired of apologists for “Palestine”. If the “refugees” would stop teaching their children to be martyrs, and instead teach them to be engineers, doctors, teachers (of useful stuff, not bomb-building), use the millions (billions?) they’ve received in aid to build electrical plants, hospitals, schools, roads, etc., and use the arms they’ve been given by “friends” to police the criminals among them, they’d be far better off. Unless and until I see the kinds of actions I’ve described above, I have no use for people who blame others for their misery.
If the Palestinians live in abject poverty, slums, and third-world conditions, they have only their “leaders” and themselves to blame.
Deportment, stevie, deportment. “fringe lunatic no brainers”.
Appeals to mythical “international law” are vaporous. Show me your “international police badge” and your “international warrant” and then back it all up with your “international gun” and your “international jail”. States are the ultimate arbiters of what will be; and, as Mao so aptly put it, we all know from whence comes power.
How many divisions does the does “International Law” have. (Adapted from a famous remark by Stalin) Israel is a state confronting the localized manifestation of criminal gangs, deranged by “faith”, masquerading as a state.
Oh, and by the way for Probligo: I taught my children values, principles, ethics, gave them first class crap detectors and gave them the latitude to make up their own minds about politics. As it happens both became conservatives, as did most of their schoolmates, even after years of exposure to socialist memes. Gosh, where do you suppose I went wrong?
Stumbley – who cares whether you have any use for them? You don’t even know whats going on over there so can’t really have an opinion of it.
Lets see if I kill your family, destroy your house, confine you in your backyard with no water or energy, take your money and then whup your useless ass in front of your neighours whenever I frickin’ feel like it – and we’ll see how fiercely independent you are – we’d see how you quickly you blame others for your woes…bloody imbecile….
stevie said:
“your useless ass”
Yep, that about describes their situation, doesn’t it?
But to respond to stevie more seriously:
All of what you describe *may* be true, but so what? Does that justify the training of children to be martyrs? How does that improve the Palestinian’s situation in the least? That, as I understand it, was the point of neo’s post. Your blathering on about the miserable state of the Palestinians says nothing about their perpetuating it by using their children as pawns instead of instilling in them a hope for the future and the education and training that they can put to use attaining it.
Again, I say: If the Palestinians want respect and/or sympathy for their situation, they had best stop complaining, act to stop the most violent among them, turn their attentions to building instead of destroying, and improve relations with their neighbors instead of rocketing them.
Seems simple to me. Anyone who says that the endless cycle of violence cannot be stopped is foolish. All it takes is for one side to stop. And the Israelis don’t attack unless provoked.
Sally – is Israel not a member of the United Nations? Does it not vote at the U.N? Does it not call on other states to observe international law?
Didn’t your government use 16 U.N resolutions to justify the invasion of Iraq by which you support?
Do you believer in U.S federal laws? State laws?
Or maybe you just think that because I am bigger, stronger and am just damn able too – that it’s quite natural for me to kick you ass just because I feel like it or because I don’t like you. Or steal from you because I want to.
Is that right?
What rubbish. ….
stumbley wrote:
All of what you describe *may* be true, but so what? Does that justify the training of children to be martyrs? How does that improve the Palestinian’s situation in the least? That, as I understand it, was the point of neo’s post. Your blathering on about the miserable state of the Palestinians says nothing about their perpetuating it by using their children as pawns instead of instilling in them a hope for the future and the education and training that they can put to use attaining it.
What I wrote is true. The question isn’t whether it justifies it dumbley.
The question is why does it happen? And neo doesn ‘t go there. Because we and anybody with an ounce of honesty knows why it happens. 40 years of brutal(brutal by ANY standards)occupation. Israeli rejectionism, flagarent human rights violations, 60 odd U.N resolutions and mountains of evidence that Israel is conducting a slow and deliberate ethnic cleansing – contrary to what it says. It does not recognize Palestinian rights to the land that they have inhabited for centuries as a majority in Palestine.
Which if it was any other nation would face sanctions, and even possible military intervention – almost certain military intervention if you consider the number of wars it started and aggressive attacks on it’s neighbours.
Using children as pawns is horrible. So are suicide bombers. So are occupations.
If your so godammn concerened about Palestinians children Stumbley – and Neo and whoever else wants to use this bullshit as pro-fascist propaganda – than you ask why this is happening. And then you be honest.
And if you can’t be honest or must support Israel for religous reasons or facist ideology well than at least show the minimum decency and shut your stupid cakehole.
You don’t sit on your throne of shit and point fingers at a people who are being murdered, and disspossed as we speak.
Where is your frickin decency?
Stumbley wrote:
And the Israelis don’t attack unless provoked.
Yes they do. And they have been attacking Palestinian’s daily in Gaza BEFORE the rocket attacks and WHILE Hamas observed a cease fire for over a year. They have a long, undefenseable history of provoking Palestinians – and Syrians and others if they want to attack – 1967 was an excellent example and one well documented and necessarily avoided at all costs by liars for… I mean, supporters of Israel.
Hamas was also openly discussing full recognition of Israel – and then Israel stepped up it’s attack in Gaza – all to save this soldier, of course.
Those of us familiar with the history of the conflict and Israel tactics in conflict and it’s image in the international community are only too familiar with the latest lies and atrocities….
stevie:
Sorry, but “occupation”, brutal or otherwise, still does not excuse or justify suicide bombers, or the willful indoctrination of children into a suicide death cult, no matter what your opinion of Israel. And your use of profanity and invective don’t bode well for rational discussion, which is what we’d like to have at neo’s site. Insult, frothing at the virtual mouth, and bile will get you banned, so I’d suggest that you clean up your act, and attempt a civil discourse.
No one is suggesting that Israel is blameless in this conflict, but to call Palestinian suicide bombers morally equivalent to the Israelis imprisoning suspects without trial is simply wrong. And you keep ignoring the fact that if the Palestinian leaders would simply turn their energies and resources (however meager) to improving the plight of their people instead of attacking Israel, *everyone* in the area would be better off, and “fascists” like me might be more disposed to consider their situation differently.
“But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow…”
Stevie, wipe the spittle off you lips and adjust your clothing your Marxist slip is showing. Frothing at the mouth and name calling is a no no here at Neo’s house.
My apologies for the language.
Not conductive to rational discourse, agreed…
“if the Palestinian leaders would simply turn their energies and resources (however meager) to improving the plight of their people instead of attacking Israel, *everyone* in the area would be better off, and “fascists” like me might be more…”
this maybe true but I doubt if the Palestinians would be better off – I very seriously doubt that – I wish that were true.
And I’m not drawing an equivlancy between suicide bombers and Israel’s aggression – that is an exercise in futility and emotion – but simply waxing outrage at suicide bombers is not the method of ‘rational discourse’…
Stevie: What I wrote is true.
No, what you wrote is false, as in:
Hamas was also openly discussing full recognition of Israel – and then Israel stepped up it’s attack in Gaza – all to save this soldier, of course.
(How, pray tell, do you know this? And if they’re discussing “full recognition”, why did they kidnap the soldier? Why are they continuing to fire rockets deliberately targeting Israeli civilians (however badly)?)
And as in:
By your er…logic, Poland, France, etc should have recognized Nazi Germany’s ‘right to exist’ after they were occuppied(bare minimum) in the 40s.
(Poland didn’t attack Germany, Germany attacked Poland, and “France, etc” came to the aid of an ally. I’d suggest you brush up on logic, but then I don’t think logic’s your problem. Blind hatred, Jew-bashing prejudice, impotent rage — those are a few of your real problems.)
And this is either a filthy lie or it’s psychotic (or both):
Israel is the closet thing we have to Nazi’s today. Hands down.
By the way, for those getting all upset over “international law”:
Legitimate law requires a (legitimate) justice system, which requires a legitimate means of making and changing the laws, a legitimate means of interpreting those laws, and a legitimate means of enforcing those laws. None of those three essential elements are present in the case of so-called “international law”. Instead, what we have is a set of “pretend laws”, that various states and factions of states use simply as a facade to serve their national interests. As such, the facade can be useful, certainly, but no one should be so simple and deluded as to think that the fake front actually represents anything like a legitimate rule of law. Some lefties, as we see here, clearly are that simple — but most are probably just upset that their attempt to use the facade is as transparent as the fake itself.
Sally wrote:
(How, pray tell, do you know this? And if they’re discussing “full recognition”, why did they kidnap the soldier? Why are they continuing to fire rockets deliberately targeting Israeli civilians (however badly)?)
Hamas takes step towards recognition of Israel
By Donald Macintyre in Gaza
Published: 28 June 2006 )The Independent)
Hamas bowed to the combination of an ultimatum from the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and relentless international pressure last night by committing itself for the first time to a two-state solution of the conflict with Israel.
In an important step towards the recognition of Israel sought from Hamas by the international community, the Islamic faction agreed to a deal intended to pave the way for a new coalition government which Mr Abbas hopes will bolster his standing as a potential partner for peace negotiations with Israel.
I misread your point in my comparison to Germany. Regardless – your point about being occuppied is nonsense – Israel attacked Lebanon and I don’t think the West would have accepted any occupation of Israel as a result…
The bit about Nazi’s and Israel is my opinion. And I think there is a solid case for comparing the two – one of th e most ironic being the studying of the Nazis occupation of Poland and there methods of control in the Warsaw Ghetto – by the IDF to be used as model for the Palestinians.
No lie.
I could go on about racism, Jewish superiority, religous extremism, mystism and the land, i.d cards, torture, propaganda and justifying ethnic cleansing under the quise of ‘defense’; greater Israel and the war in Lebanon,etc.
Israel had strong ties to aparthied South Africa, including arms sales when they were banned and cooperation based on the racist policies of both states. As well as arming some of the more savory Central American right wing death squads…
Not true say you Sally?
Why are they still attacking Israel?
I already said clearly that Israel has continued so-called targeted assassinations in Gaza in contravention of a cease fire and has cut off aid supplies etc into Gaza – in other words no incentive not to fire back at Israel.
Same old story…
Notice too, the date of that Independent article – June 28.
So it is historically consistant for Israel to either launch a major attack on civilians and infrastructure or find any excuse to break off negoiations when the threat of peace talks arises.
It’s like clockwork.
This is a rouge state. The most extreme and dangerous state in the world – operating under the wing of the U.S and a major propaganda offensive that persists despite the obvious outright lies and immoral conduct.
It’s truly outrageous.
I have a feeling too that at some stage(soon) when the U.S political leadership understands Israel is a major liability(as many political elites I think are opining -beyond the ideological and religous crazies)to it’s interests in the middle east(Tony Blair as much as he is an idiot at least understood that finding a just solution to the Palestinian conflict was crucial to the success of the U.S occupation) the relationship could sour considerably.
What will happpen when the next U.S president decides Israel must agree to give up land and the ongoing onslaught of Palestinian territory?
You’ll here most on the right cry anti-semitism when you draw the link between Israel interests(as percieved by the more powerful segments of American Jewrey) and the war in Iraq, the coming war with Iran, Syria and it’s ‘threats’ to the region all based on non-existant theories but certainly on the agenda of Israeli domination in the region, but there is no doubt these so-called supporters of Israel are a dangerous bunch and the main cause – the MAIN cause – of the current instability in the middle east and in the world.
Stevie: Israel attacked Lebanon….
Israel attacked Lebanon because Lebanon had already attacked Israel.
This is a rouge state.
It’s truly outrageous.
… these so-called supporters of Israel are a dangerous bunch….
… racism, Jewish superiority, religous extremism,…
Yeah, yeah. These are just very old and very tired and very well rehearsed lies, Stevie, and you can keep dredging them up from the likes of the Independent, the Guardian, Socialist Worker, Aryan Nations, etc., etc., etc., all night and all day, for as long as you like — a lie doesn’t get any more true the more often it’s repeated. We’ve heard this garbage a million times — for the indecent left, the Israelis are nazis, pig-dogs, running-dog lackeys, the worst of the worst (except for Republicans and the Jew-loving evangelicals).
But the truth of the matter is that Israel is a democracy — the only one in the Middle East; Israel enjoys freedom of the press — the only country in the Middle East to do so; Israel is governed by the rule of law; its people are enterprising, energetic and prosperous; it provides its Arab minority with more rights and dignity than most Arabs enjoy in any other country in the Middle East; it strives to minimize civilian casualties even as it defends itself against an enemy that strives to maximize the slaughter of Israeli civilians and uses its own people as human shields.
By contrast, the Palestinians have now become the very picture of a depraved and corrupt people, spiralling down into a death cult that grinds up its own children, fighting amonst themselves over scraps of power, scheming to use their own weakness as some sort of pathetic propaganda weapon. Increasingly, everybody else is merely disgusted. If and when they truly decide to recognize and live with their neighbor in peace, then and only then will they have a chance to regain at least a portion of what they’ve lost through their own folly.
The only export that the Palestinians seem to have is suicide bombers and ineffective Russian missiles. As I understand it, the Palestinians have no real GDP. The Muslim world keeps the refugee camps as a permanent fixture because it is a great recruiting ground for future terrorists and because it keeps the issue in a chronically inflamed and infected condition.. If Muslims were really interested in helping their co-religionists, each country would settle some Palestinians in it and discussions about the fate of the Palestinians could be carried on while the Palestinians themselves could at least live in relative comfort.
I thought it instructive that after the Isrealis withdrew from territory and left functioning greenhouses, the Palestininas didn’t use them to grow cops but, proceeded to destroy them. Destruction, I guess, might be their other export crop.
GaryK wrote: “I thought it instructive that after the Isrealis withdrew from territory and left functioning greenhouses, the Palestininas didn’t use them to grow cops but, proceeded to destroy them. Destruction, I guess, might be their other export”
Wikipedia says: “When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in the Summer of 2005, these greenhouses were bought by the World Bank and given to the Palestinian people to jump-start their economy. Most of these greenhouses are now utilized by Palestinian farmers, although there have been incidents of looting and vandalism in a few locations.
Source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip
Sally wrote:
“But the truth of the matter is that Israel is a democracy — the only one in the Middle East”
You say “the only one in the middle east” as if it’s the Arabs’ fault that other countries aren’t democracies. You might want to ask why the USA is propping up dictatorships with military and economic support. There’s been a pro-democracy current in Egypt for a long time — why does the USA keep propping up the dictator Hosni Mubarak? And I won’t even mention Saudi Arabia, where the women-oppressing, anti-democratic monarchy is a close ally of “freedom-loving” USA — now why might that be?
In addition, when you say that Israel is a democracy, you elide the fact that Arab citizens of Israel are second-class citizens without the same rights as the Jewish citizens of Israel:
“Constituting one million of the nation’s 6.3 million people, Arab Israelis are for the most part an ignored minority. They are routinely denied equal benefits and treated as second-class citizens. Their children attend overcrowded schools, many of their villages feature open sewage and unpaved roads, and they suffer from high unemployment.
” My Arab students at Bar Ilan University frequently gripe about Israelis citing security concerns as the grounds for preventing Arab Israelis from applying for particular jobs. The students note in their own defense that many members of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community do not serve in the military; some in this group do not even identify with the Israeli state. Yet the Ultra-Orthodox Jews are not denied positions of social and economic importance within Israeli society. One Israeli Arab simply could not understand why he could not work for Rav Bariach, a well-known (private) security door-lock firm on the grounds that he did not serve in the military — when the firm is known to have hired from the Ultra-Orthodox community without raising any security issues.”
From “Lesson for Israel: Reconciliation Begins at Home” by Leonard Hammer, from the Carnegie Council website,
http://www.cceia.org/viewMedia.php/prmID/173
Leonard Hammer is a lecturer on law and international human rights at Bar Ilan University, Israel. He was also a 2000-2001 Carnegie Council Fellow.
Nate,
There is more to the story about the greenhouses. The Palestinians found that they did not have the expertise to get anywhere near the yields that the former owners had gotten. There have been overtures to the Israelis to help in the operation of these greenhouses. Whether any came back to help, I don’t know.
Stevie,
You need to read the history of the region starting about 1850, but starting at the Balfour Agreement or Sykes-Picot and then read on would be good. You might learn that the Arab stance has been consistent in the refusal of a Jewish Homeland, including Saud’s statement the Jews were an “accursed race”, including the Arab riots of the 20’s, including the start of various Jewish protection groups which went terrorist and why, and including why each war was “to drive them into the sea”. The 1967 war was was started by Israel under good intel and obvious actions by the Arabs, such as the expulsion of UN Peacekeeper forces by Egypt, Egypt’s blockade of the Straights of Tiran (gee, why would Egypt do that?) and the movement of Syrian troops to the Golan Heights. I realize that the Israelis should have waited until Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt hit them so they could be the victim, but the Israelis thought better. On the other hand, your mind is probably made up and it is easier to blame/hate the Israelis rather than look at all the players parts. This play was written before the 20th Century.
Sally wrote:
But the truth of the matter is that Israel is a democracy — the only one in the Middle East;
False. It is not the only democracy in the middle east. Lebanon is a democracy. Did you forget or are you reading from a script. Hilarious you’d accuse me of not thinking for myself when your reading from a script, Sally.
Israel enjoys freedom of the press — the only country in the Middle East to do so;
Again – false. The Israeli press is quite free although certain papers have been shut down by the Israeli government in the name of ‘security’. But it is not the only country in the Middle East to do so – even you have heard of Al-Jazeera, who incur the wrath of not only the dictators of the countries it reports on, but also has been brutally targeted by the freedom loving U.S military – who apparently have something against the free press when it reports facts about what it is actually doing. But, Sally… jeez terrible you can’t be serious…
Israel is governed by the rule of law (I thought you didn’t believe in the rule of law, Sally – and anyway this may come as news to you but there are laws in other countries in the middle east too – but hey, I know – Israel’s are BETTER!lol…
its people are enterprising, energetic and prosperous;(fine)
“it provides its Arab minority with more rights and dignity than most Arabs enjoy in any other country in the Middle East” – that’s a subjective opinion and one I’d prefer to hear from Arabs rather than you – and from what I’ve heard they don’t agree Sally – but then you are the expert certainly not the Independent, the Guardian etc (and Aryaan Nation – there all the same right Sally!?
” it strives to minimize civilian casualties even as it defends itself against an enemy that strives to maximize the slaughter of Israeli civilians and uses its own people as human shields.” Yeah ok. If it weren’t for the mountains of evidence accumulated after 40 years of occupation by humans rights groups – American, British, U.N , Israeli you might be able to get away with it. As it is this is the easiest point to refute – it’s literally laughable- but again, just stick to the script, right Sally? B’nai Brith has further techniques of deciet for those who are confronted with criticism of Israel – no matter what the truth is. You’ve probably seen it I’m guessing.
“By contrast, the Palestinians have now become the very picture of a depraved and corrupt people, spiralling down into a death cult that grinds up its own children, fighting amonst themselves over scraps of power, scheming to use their own weakness as some sort of pathetic propaganda weapon. Increasingly, everybody else is merely disgusted. If and when they truly decide to recognize and live with their neighbor in peace, then and only then will they have a chance to regain at least a portion of what they’ve lost through their own folly.”
No Sally. You really should check opinion polls throughou
I’m facinated by people like you, Sally.
It seems to me you know you are lying.
The way you respond with out even attempting to provide any sources or evidence – the scripted response etc.
How do you reconcile lying- because I’m quite convinced you are being wilfully ignorant – with ‘supporting’ Israel? Because lying about the facts etc and demonizing a peoples does not help Israel. At all. It won’t win this war anymore than the U.S will win in Iraq. The only path to peace is truth(recognition of the injustice perpetrated against Palestinians)and reconcilliation. There will be no mass exodus of Palestinians without carrying out outright genocide. It’s not going to happen. And the longer this goes on the more vulnerable Israel gets.
The funniest thing is the fact that Israel thinks it’s security is tied to it’s killing women and children and blowing up homes and hospitals. Israel is a small country. If any number of nations – including Iran, Pakistan, Egypt etc – if any of these decide to align and take out Israel it’s all over.
Take out the nuclear equation – or balance it with Iranian nukes – and the story changes dramatically. How many people are in Israel? 6 million.
How many in Iran? 27 million.
How bout Pakistan?
Or Eygpt?
As the middle east become more enflamed through American and Israeli actions – the more the hatred breeds.
No amount of hardware is going to protect Israel after is reaches a certain point – and by the then it will have reached a stage of immorality that most Jews won’t want to have anything to do with it – there’s quite a few now that are disillusioned with the Zionist war machine.
So to outright lie and degrade Palestinians as you do- and the truth is you don’t really have a clue about them, your just a disgusting vitrolic robot regurgitating your ignorance – to what end?
You are either are a religous nut or have a horrible sense of scholarship and reading ability. Only in those two cases can I even begin to understand how somebody can be so ignorant…
Is is you are racist against Arabs?
Is it you feel sympathy for Israel because it is a Jewish state regardless of it’s true character?
Ariel thanks for demonstrating your rudimentary understanding of 20 century Middle Eastern conflicts. I am well read on the matter too.
You might learn that the Arab stance has been consistent in the refusal of a Jewish Homeland, including Saud’s statement the Jews were an “accursed race”, including the Arab riots of the 20’s, including the start of various Jewish protection groups which went terrorist and why, and including why each war was “to drive them into the sea”.
Whats to learn? While I’m quite familiar with the early Zionist efforts in British Mandated Palestine and the origins of “driving them into the sea” as bland and irrlevant as it is – I’ve never seen much import in these claims to where we are now. It’s a simple matter really. The Zionists were, to their credit, not quite as dellusional as say, the Bush administration, when it came to occupying Arab territory – they knew that Palestinians were not going to accpet having their land divided – and further they knew that what was to be theirs would always be wanted by the Jews. And they were right. But, as I say, Zionist planners knew quite well that there would be resitance and planned accordingly – including the plans for ethnic cleansing and the opportunity to claim more than what was allocated to them by the Balfour declaration(in itself a horrible mistake – Zionist pressure(the history of the Zionist movement late 19 century to the pre war period is acutally very important, I’d say to understanding the motivations for the creation of Israel and the problem of the indigenous population who resided there and who had for since the 7 century) coupled with the Holocaust allowed the notion that there was a ‘need’ for a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine – obviously not the case after the liberation of Europe by allied forces. But Israel was never about fulfilling a ‘need’. Like all colonist adventures the idea of a better place coupled with a distinct dismissal of aspirations and rights of the indigenous population. Even more decietful and immoral than the claim of Jewish ‘need’ in historic Palestine – resting on the vary principles that allowed the Nazi’s to callously exterminate 11 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals etc – those unwanted, inferior elements of German society that stood in the way of the great Aryian nation. And so 750 000 Palestinians became refugees after witnessing the razing of villages, massacres, etc – unbeknowest to them that 50 years on the same people who garnered the sympathy and respect of the world for their terrible suffering during the war would claim they left of their own accord under the premise that they would come back later and drive out the invadors – or even that they did not exist and only came to historic Palestine because of the brilliant and properity that Jewish immigration had brought there.
These were and are the lies of a criminal. Just like the Nazis were masters of propaganda demonizing the Jews
Stevie wrote: ” I’m facinated by people like you, Sally.
It seems to me you know you are lying.”
No, Stevie — I don’t think she knows it. Do not underestimate the power of denial, which leads to this kind of self-delusion.
I think she’s in denial, but she’s probably not wilfully dishonest.
stevie wrote:
“The Zionists were, to their credit, not quite as dellusional as say, the Bush administration, when it came to occupying Arab territory – they knew that Palestinians were not going to accpet having their land divided”
Exactly.
This was well understood by Israel’s early leaders. David Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Jewish Congress:
“If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country . . . We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”
Source: London Review of Books, 23 March 2006,
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
Also, in a memorandum Ben-Gurion wrote prior to the Extraordinary Zionist Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in New York in May 1942, he wrote that ‘it is impossible to imagine general evacuation’ of the Arab population of Palestine ‘without compulsion, and brutal compulsion’. Dershowitz claims that Ben-Gurion’s subsequent statement – ‘we should in no way make it part of our programme’ – shows that he opposed the transfer of the Arab population and the ‘brutal compulsion’ it would entail. But Ben-Gurion was not rejecting this policy: he was simply noting that the Zionists should not openly proclaim it. Indeed, he said that they should not ‘discourage other people, British or American, who favour transfer from advocating this course, but we should in no way make it part of our programme’.
Source: London Review of Books, 11 May 2006,
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n09/letters.html
Do you want a book written? You can cherry-pick just as I can from quotes throughout on the subject. We can pick from the “New Historians” or from better sources, whichever game you wish to play. However, the League of Nations Mandate was legal, unless you wish to throw International Law out too. WWI ended the Ottoman Empire. That the colonial power, Britain, didn’t do what it should have done, which is set up a two state system, leaves us with this mess. That the Arabs didn’t accept that what once they conquered was conquered again also left us with this mess. The Palestinian Arabs are pawns on both sides. The 1920s set the tone for all this and that was my point. The Jewish homeland was a post WWI decision which the British dragged their feet on because of the Arab response in the 1920s. This same response also drove the Jewish/Zionist actions of the 30s and 40s.
And again, the cherry-picking of various quotes proves nothing other than you leave out context.
And drop the fascist this and fascist that, it is tiresome. Godwin’s law rocks.
Also, Lebanon is a nascent democracy, given the Civil War and the Syrian occupation. Time will tell if the Lebanese will create a stable democracy. I believe they have the will, if left alone. From past posts. I don’t believe Sally will buy it as a democracy until time passes.
Stevie: So to outright lie and degrade [Israelis] as you do- and the truth is you don’t really have a clue about them, your just a disgusting vitrolic robot regurgitating your ignorance – to what end?
You are either are a … nut or have a horrible sense of scholarship and reading ability. Only in those two cases can I even begin to understand how somebody can be so ignorant…
Look in a mirror and say those words to yourself, Stevie.
Is is you are racist against [Jews]?
Is it you feel [no] sympathy for Israel because it is a Jewish state?
Ah, I see Nate has read far enough to latch onto the Mearsheimer-Walt paper, a now notorious piece of racist smear, which uses half-truths, innuendoes, quotes out of context, all coupled with the cheap and fatuous denials of racist intent, that all modern-day racists routinely utter. I’d say see this for a partial refutation, but of course nothing is going to get in the way of the good hate that the likes of Nate & Stevie have going.
Regarding democracies in the Mid-East, though, I have to stand corrected. Yes, as both Stevie and Ariel have said, Lebanon is at least a tentative and hopeful democracy — now. That is, after the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam. Another example of a nascent democracy in that benighted region? Iraq.
Oh, it’s laughable alright.
And here’s where you can see the real program of the Jew-haters above, whenever the “humanitarian” mask slips just a little:
Stevie: Israel is a small country. If any number of nations – including Iran, Pakistan, Egypt etc – if any of these decide to align and take out Israel it’s all over.
Take out the nuclear equation – or balance it with Iranian nukes – and the story changes dramatically. How many people are in Israel? 6 million.
How many in Iran? 27 million.
It’s actually more like 70 million, Stevie, but don’t let your ignorance slow you down. Can’t you just see the drool at the prospect of it being “all over” for Israel and the 6 million once again?
Of course, the fact that all of Israel’s neighbors already have decided “to align and take out Israel”, on more than one occasion, and, to their own amazement, lost to the “small country” each time, losing territory (as they should) in the process — this little fact is also forgotten or never known. But before your bloodlust blinds you completely, Stevie, you and others like you would do well to remember that Israel has a few nukes of its own, and so does its friend and ally, the United States — and the repeated failures of their enemies should stand as a stark warning of what would come of trying to finish what the Nazis started.
Ah, yes. I see someone is referring to Wiki as an authority. How anyone would rely on an “encyclopedia” where anyone can initiate an entry and then anyone else can edit that entry is beyond me.
Say you want to write an entry on the greenhouses issue. As I understand it, there is no real editor, so you just write what you want to write, use the “facts” you think important and characterize the issue any way you want. Now comes along someone who thinks you have realy screwed up this entry, that you are focusing on the wrong facts, left out major facts or that you have slanted the article in a way they don’t like so, they change the article and so on. Not a source I would rely on to prove a point.
” That the colonial power, Britain, didn’t do what it should have done, which is set up a two state system, leaves us with this mess.”
I don’t think a British attempt to set up a two-state solution would have worked any better than the UN’s attempt to do so, when they created Israel in the first place.
The Israelis are fanatically devoted to survival, and the Palestinians are just as fanatically devoted to killing every last Israeli (even the Christian and Muslim ones). There can be no resolution between the two, until one or the other gives up on their motivation.
And the “Peace In Our Time” leftists know full well that the only resolution that they can impose without resorting to any kind of military intervention, is to convince Israel to commit suicide.
Isn’t peace worth a Second Holocaust?
My answer is not just no, but HELL FUCK NO. And I’m neither Zionist nor Israeli.
“Of course, the fact that all of Israel’s neighbors already have decided “to align and take out Israel”, on more than one occasion, and, to their own amazement, lost to the “small country” each time, losing territory (as they should) in the process — this little fact is also forgotten or never known.”
Oh, they know it. They also know – as the Israelis do – that the only reason why Israel won the Six-Day War is because Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian air forces. If the Arabs could have kept control of the skies, or even been able to mount a significant challenge to Israeli aerial domination, Israel would have ceased to exist.
That’s the real reason they have declared Israel’s pre-emptive strike a war crime. They want a rematch of the Six-Day War, only this time, they want to keep Israel from striking first, using either the threat of international condemnation to stop them, or, failing that, pre-empting the pre-emptive strike with an attack on Israeli air bases by UN aircraft (which doesn’t count as military action in the Leftist peacenik pantheon, cf. Serbia, aka “Clinton’s Heroic War”).
Then Israel can finally be pushed into the sea, and Muslim bloodlust sated forever with the blood of another six million Jews.
Except, of course, for the fact that Muslim bloodlust will not be sated by the destruction of Israel. Or of America, or even by the destruction of all non-Muslims and the establishment of the worldwide caliphate.
Only the direct divine intervention of Allah, and the creation of the promised “heaven on earth” where unicorns and rainbows fly out of everyones’ asses, will do that.
It will take a thousand years before the anyone living under the Caliphate realizes this isn’t going to happen, and anothet two thousand to rebuild what they so foolishly destroyed.
Hopefully, the people who rebuild western civilisation will make sure they retain the will to defend it next time.
And, the moon-battery continues. The left is now accusing Israel of using “disproportionate force” in the Gaza operation, as if combat is some sort of sporting event.
How dare Israel, or the US for that matter, use its superior technology, organization and training. Their overt bias is ludicrous and every time they out their insanity in the media, rational people can see them for what they are.
Domestically, the Left, with its anti-Israel ranting, is becoming even more marginal and politically isolated; as their numbers decrease they simply shout louder turning the Left Noise Machine up to 12.
It’s really not even necessary to engage with them any more’ the time for overt derision is here. They’re like head cases off their meds, unable to acknowledge their own illness, unaware of the pathetic futility of their efforts.
I’ve got lots of popcorn and beer ready for the circus that will ensue when some them begin to act out and “confront the Fascist Insect in the streets” emboldened by the example of the Paleo Jihadi’s.
I’ll admit, they’re not much, our little coffee house revolutionaries, but it saves the trip to Bedlam to watch the incarcerated clinically insane. This is where the Pied Piper story is particularly apt, all the deluded children will vanish into the mountain, never to be seen again.
It’ll be a case of “palm, meet face” when the slap down happens to the “vanguard of the proletariat” and the others will have no choice but to either slink home in fear and shame, go into full seizures or follow the others into the Mountain.
I for one, will miss their antics and I hope we keep a few for public edification in a reserve somewhere.
I wonder just how many realize that their tipping point is fast approaching, when it will be time to put up or shut up?
In the meantime, poking them with sticks of logical argumentation just to hear their mis-wired squealing is fun until it gets boring. Neo, the Apostate, does draw them though.
Sally wrote:
Is is you are racist against [Jews]?
Is it you feel [no] sympathy for Israel because it is a Jewish state?
Sally | 07.08.06 – 5:45 am | #
No – I don’t believe I am racist against Jews, Sally. I really don’t know whether that will convince you of that, and I don’t really know how to prove that – but the answer is no.
I do feel some sympathy for the state of Israel. I don’t have any sympathy for the arguments of it’s leaders who exploit the conflict for poor, and transparent propaganda purposes. I sympathize with any people who cannot live their lives as you and I do in peace – particularly those who are consistantly let down by their political leadership. And I know for many Israeli’s – Jews who immigrated from Europe after the war – the state provided them with a sense of security. I do try to understand the influence of the Holocaust on the Jewish psyche – I certainly understand the role of irrational fear evoked from past war(my own mother who lived through the war in England and the bombing – and while I always viewed her as a rational, open minded and honest person I’ll never forget how she became very visibly upset upon the reunification of Germany in the late 80s and her out of character comments about how the Germans couldn’t be trusted and this type of thing.)
Yes the Palestinian leadership has let down their people too – but it’s not the same thing for me. Israel has a clear cut – and really the only option of two choices – road to peace. The Palestinians don’t – for all the talk of renouncing terrorism, accepting Israel’s right to exist(a pointless exercise in school yard bullying)and accepting whatever meager crumbs Israel will throw to them – they have done a remarkable job of carrying on in horrific conditions.
Finally – to address the other comments about us ‘lefties’ who seek to destroy the jewish state throught the two state solution – no, I don’t believe that is the case at all. And I’ve yet to come upon a convincing argument that would be the case. I’ve read and heard alot of rhetorical fear mongering but very little substance.
And Sally, my comments about Israel’s vulnerability are not a ‘bloodlust’ – they are recognition of the fact that Israel is dangerously relying on it’s military prowess for it’s survival when that is a tenuous proposition at best. I don’t want to see Israel destoryed – and I certainly don’t want to see Jews killed because of the politics of the region – the role of Israel in U.S hegemony, the religous fanaticism that seeks to halt the peace process in favor of war and death for ‘God’, and the power-mad, pathalogical leaders who have no vision for the future for Israel.
And the fact of the matter is there are a great number of Israelis who understand that clearly. And I never lose sight of that basic elementary truth.
And, actually, thats not very difficult at all.
tatter wrote:
The Israelis are fanatically devoted to survival, and the Palestinians are just as fanatically devoted to killing every last Israeli (even the Christian and Muslim ones). There can be no resolution between the two, until one or the other gives up on their motivation.
Thats the type of mindless rhetoric I am refering too. An analysis based on what? Nothing. Just who is devoted to survival? First you’d have to ask who is danger of being destroyed.
And you have to be nuts to think it’s Israel – at the moment. If anything the Palestinians are ‘fanatically devoted to survival’.
Without the resistance – and all of it’s inexcusable crimes – there would never have been a peace process, and the Palestinians would have most certainly met with a far worse fate that it faces today. I have no doubts at all about that. Without the resistance there would have been no issue – no debate no truth in the international arena.
“Of course, the fact that all of Israel’s neighbors already have decided “to align and take out Israel”, on more than one occasion, and, to their own amazement, lost to the “small country” each time, losing territory (as they should) in the process — this little fact is also forgotten or never known.”
There again. Rhetoric far removed from reality. Israel’s neighbors have really never had the outright intention of taking out Israel(exept in 1948, though even this effort was so ragtag it’s stetching the boundaries of plausability to call it an effort to destroy Israel – and certainly not ‘aligning’ – finding two Muslim states that would seemlessly align as in the case of Israel, the U.S or Britain is a stretch -but I think that could change thanks to the folly of U.S foriegn policy in the region.
Subsequent Arab aggression has been carried out with very limited goals. Even in 1973 the Egyptians were a stone’s throw from conquering Israel completely – and stopped. Not what you’ll read on the Jewish Virutal Library I accept – but if that was their intention the fact is they had Israel by the neck and didn’t twist – for whatever reason.
Territory was never lost – it was stolen. In the June war Israel launched a surprise attack and invasion – and had the specific goal of capturing Arab lands – Israel’s military superiority led it to believe that it could take land at it’s leisure – the only real problem was of course, Israel’s image in the world.
And we all know how that is dealt with – even if some of us would be in denial that there is a Jewish lobby – or that recognizing it’s power and influence is ‘racist’.
Incidently – Sally – wasn’t it you who went to great lengths to argue that about racism and race, ethnicity and religon and the differences and how one can’t accuse one of being racist by criticizing a people – rather than a race(or something to that effect).
So how is the Harvard thesis ‘racist’?
Oh right – Dershowitz. Well against my better judgement I’ll have a look.
How would you explain it?
I really don’t think that any amount of discussion or negotiation will sway or stop jihadists or Islam, for that matter, from their Qur’an and Hadith-based imperative to conquer all of the Dar al-Harb and make Islam and Sharia law triumphant over all the world. What would stop them temporarily would be a series of major military defeats that are so costly to them that they would, at least, retreat back into the Dar al-Islam, what might be left of it, to lick their wounds and wait and plan for another day. That it will come to this, with many millions, perhaps tens of millions, of Muslim casualties and probably a lot of Infidel casualties too, is almost entirely Islam’s fault. The only blame I see attaching to the West if that we could have stopped Islamic aggression and expansionism dead in its tracks at little cost to us if strong positions and actions opposing any such Islamic aggression and expansionism had been taken by Western leaders over, say, the period beginning at the end of WWII; once the oil money started to flow it should have been obvious what was likely to happen.
accepting Israel’s right to exist(a pointless exercise in school yard bullying)
I’m not quite sure I understood that. Could you clarify?
Stevie: Israel has a clear cut – and really the only option of two choices – road to peace. The Palestinians don’t – for all the talk of renouncing terrorism, accepting Israel’s right to exist(a pointless exercise in school yard bullying)and accepting whatever meager crumbs Israel will throw to them – they have done a remarkable job of carrying on in horrific conditions.
This is the simple heart of the matter, Stevie. All the idiotic crap about Joos as nazis, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc. — which is meant to show what, exactly? That you feel strongly about this? So what? Do you really think others don’t? — is just so much noise. But this point is the one that decides everything — so let’s strip it of the remaining noise and see if it makes sense: Israel, you say, has at least one option before it and a “clear-cut” road to peace, whereas the Palestinians do not.
Is that true? What would the clear-cut “road to peace” be for Israel, exactly? To retire, unilaterally, to its pre-1967 borders and accept the “right of return”, perhaps? But the pre-1967 borders were no guarantee of peace pre-1967, were they? And the “right of return”, as everyone well knows, would mean the end of the Jewish state, wouldn’t it? So that’s really a road to national suicide, not peace, except in the most viciously ironic sense, isn’t it?
And what about the Palestinians’ options? They don’t have any, you say. Oh sure, they could acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, even though they haven’t throughout its existence, but somehow this simple move is seen as just a “pointless exercise in schoolyard bullying” — what, like being made to say “uncle”? But that’s still an option, isn’t it, and a pretty easy and clear-cut one at that. So why not say it, and mean it — meaning, for example, stop strapping explosives to your own children and sending them out to blow up busses and pizza parlors, and stop firing rockets into Israeli towns — and see if that might bring real and honest peace at last? That certainly looks like an option for peace that the Palestinians have and the Israelis do not, to all but those blinded by crude prejudice and/or bloodlust.
Justin wrote:
accepting Israel’s right to exist(a pointless exercise in school yard bullying)
I’m not quite sure I understood that. Could you clarify?
Israel does exist. The often repeated claim that Palestinians don’t accept Israel’s ‘right to exist’ and so are not true partners in peace(as it goes) should be regarded as a tactic of humilation – because it certainly requries a clarification (at least to me) as to how official recognition of Israel would change the dynamic’s of the conflict. What it appears though is that Israel and it’s ‘supporters’ want Palestinian accpetance of Israel’s right to expropriate land and dictate the terms of ‘peace’ as defined by Israel – namely no claims to Jerusalem, no right of return or e ven a discussion of reparations, to working state – in other words no recognition of Palestinian rights and grievances and past injustices. That I would call “school yard bullying” – say uncle and everything will be alright.
There is the small matter too of the former Palestinian representative, the PLO and the question of it’s charter and Arafat’s suppossed non-recongition of Israel – its seems to have been forgotten that Arafat and the PLO did accept the Jewish state’s ‘rights’ – and we all no how far that got the peace process – to the point where it got dangerously close to settlement s o there had to be a war(lol)…..
What does it mean to you?
This brings up an interesting point:
Stevie: Incidently – Sally – wasn’t it you who went to great lengths to argue that about racism and race, ethnicity and religon and the differences and how one can’t accuse one of being racist by criticizing a people – rather than a race(or something to that effect).
So how is the Harvard thesis ‘racist’?
Clearly, Stevie’s out of his depth here, and doesn’t understand the argument in the first place — the point originally was that there’s a distinction between the ideas of “race” and “culture” (not “a people”), the former consisting of inherited, immutable characteristics while the latter consists of learned and changeable characteristics. In this sense, criticizing a culture can have the entirely rational and moral end of changing its bad features, while criticizing a “race” can only have the effect of demonizing or dehumanizing it.
I realize that may be too complex a distinction for the simple minds on display here, but I’m going to have to stretch the idea a little further to show how Mearsheimer-Walt actually are racists, not cultural or political critics, despite their own disingenuous and pro forma protests. This is because if you think that a particular culture or religion is racial, and you continue to attack it, then your motivations are clearly racist, regardless of the objective status of the group or group characteristics you’re attacking. Mearsheimer-Walt, of course, claim that they’re merely attacking “Zionism”, a political ideology, but they give themselves away with a little slip like stating that Israeli citizenship is “based on the principle of blood kinship” –revealing quite clearly, you see, that for them Jewishness is racial, not cultural or religious.
This is the simple heart of the matter, Stevie. All the idiotic crap about Joos as nazis, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc. — which is meant to show what, exactly?
It is meant to show my frustration and anger when I read comparison’s to Nazi germany and the Palestinians. I suppose too that if we’re going to take anything from the Nazis than we are going to have to get to the roots of why such horror’s were allowed to occur in what was one of the most enlightned and advanced of Western civiliazation at the time. But as I say it – it tends to be an emotional reaction whether it used by me or somebody else, no matter the merits of either analysis. So – ‘idiotic crap’? – works for me, I’ll concede…
That you feel strongly about this? So what? Do you really think others don’t? — is just so much noise. But this point is the one that decides everything — so let’s strip it of the remaining noise and see if it makes sense: Israel, you say, has at least one option before it and a “clear-cut” road to peace, whereas the Palestinians do not.
“Is that true? What would the clear-cut “road to peace” be for Israel, exactly? To retire, unilaterally, to its pre-1967 borders and accept the “right of return”, perhaps? But the pre-1967 borders were no guarantee of peace pre-1967, were they?”
A clear cut road to peace has to start with recongition of past injustices, realization of Israel’s requirments under international law and the arguably unanimous will of the international community – which has shown clear support of Israel withdrawal from land it stole in 1967 – a crime, interpretations of the June war notwithstanding, Israel is required by law as are all nations – to admonish territories captured through war. You can argue differently but until this is done there won’t be any significant peace.
“And the “right of return”, as everyone well knows, would mean the end of the Jewish state, wouldn’t it? So that’s really a road to national suicide, not peace, except in the most viciously ironic sense, isn’t it?”
No – Israel has it’s own State – and it’s own so-called right of return bestowed upon Jews of any race, ethnicity – on it’s own territory. The right of return is a central element of international law and humanitarian law(somebody posted above)and upon the realization of a Palestinian state Palestinians would be able to return to it – if not the homes and lands they were driven from in 1948. I agree it’s not viable – but peace needs to address this injustice in some way – and I’m all for reperations and the Israel saying ‘uncle’ and recognizing the rights of Palestinians not allowed to return home in 1949 after the war. But simply avoiding the issue on the premise of the ‘destruction’ of Israel is ridiculous – and quite rightly so, extremely inflammatory to the millions of Palestinians and their families living in exile and persecuted as a result of being displaced by Israel. Ignoring a very real
Stevie, your sanity ain’t the same as ours. Just giving you a headsup in case you didn’t know already.
They should hand him back in pieces.
See this is what I’m talking about. The violent Left wants the violence to continue, they think it’s fun. So they goad the Palestinians in killing Israelis, and then taunt the Israelis for not being vicious enough. Their intention is to make sure that the chemical reaction uses up both reagents, Israeli and Palestinian. In the end, it will only be the Left alive to pick up the pieces.
By the way, does this sound familiar, at all?
What are you talking about stumb, the left ain’t consistent anymore than water is consistently a liquid.
I think the proper analogy of Israel is not with Iraq but with apartheid-era South Africa. The world needs to start treating Israel in the way it treated apartheid-era South Africa: like a pariah. Until Israel withdraws from all the occupied territories, dismantles all settlements in the occupied territories (building settlements in occupied territories is in violation of international law) and recognizes the right to return, with full citizenship, of all Palestinians who had had to leave their homes.
Nate’s another example of ignorant people who don’t know what they are talking about. I could give them what they want, but then they would neither be satisfied nor would they realize their mistakes. And in the meantime, many people would have been destroyed to satisfy Nate’s whims.
Article 13 of the UDHR states: ”Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
Israel isn’t the Palestinian’s country. The only places Palis have a right to return to is the West Bank and Gaza, that’s about it. Nate doesn’t even interpret his own sources correctly.
Anyone who says that the endless cycle of violence cannot be stopped is foolish
They not foolish stumb, they are just lying, they don’t want it to stop. What else would they feel righteous about if Israel and Palestine obtained real peace?
It’s like clockwork.
This is a rouge state. The most extreme and dangerous state in the world – operating under the wing of the U.S and a major propaganda offensive that persists despite the obvious outright lies and immoral conduct.
Witness and learn, people. This is the price of being morally pure and not getting your hands dirty, Israel has and is still paying the price for not waging TotalWar against their enemies. The holocaust must still weigh on their minds, guilt and shame alike. Such things retard the sharpness of the war blade.
The United States should learn from Israel, and never treat our enemies in a manner in which they do not deserve, because you will never get any praise for your “moral purity”. Just look at Israel, like clockwork.
Do not underestimate the power of denial, which leads to this kind of self-delusion.
This might have
This might have been more creditable coming from Nate, if Nate recognized his own internal problems, but he doesn’t and neither does stevie. So, take introspective advice from non-introspective people, if you dare. But I wouldn’t recommend it.
stevie, is it too much to ask that you learn to use quotation marks or bolding? The lack of them makes it difficult to read your comments.
Steve, you really think the suicide bombings are somehow preventing Israel from taking over the entire Middle East? How does that work, exactly? Even the UN, that bastion of international law, has condemned each one, so you really can’t even claim that they somehow motivate the world to stop Israel from making a land grab. Never mind that the UN could do nothing but stand by and whinge at the “land grab” Israel made when building The Barrier.
And you say WE aren’t making any sense.
“Clearly, Stevie’s out of his depth here, and doesn’t understand the argument in the first place — the point originally was that there’s a distinction between the ideas of “race” and “culture” (not “a people”), the former consisting of inherited, immutable characteristics while the latter consists of learned and changeable characteristics. In this ‘sense, criticizing a culture can have the entirely rational and moral end of changing its bad features, while criticizing a “race” can only have the effect of demonizing or dehumanizing it.”
Well considering I’m out of my depth here, I really appreciate your taking the time to explain the distinction – however inadequete it is in explaining your position. I fail to see your point – particularly in light of your so-called ‘criticism’ and not demonizing’ of the Palestinians – a race with a culture shaped by occupation.
“I realize that may be too complex a distinction for the simple minds on display here, but I’m going to have to stretch the idea a little further to show how Mearsheimer-Walt actually are racists, not cultural or political critics, despite their own disingenuous and pro forma protests. This is because if you think that a particular culture or religion is racial, and you continue to attack it, then your motivations are clearly racist, regardless of the objective status of the group or group characteristics you’re attacking. Mearsheimer-Walt, of course, claim that they’re merely attacking “Zionism”, a political ideology, but they give themselves away with a little slip like stating that Israeli citizenship is “based on the principle of blood kinship” –revealing quite clearly, you see, that for them Jewishness is racial, not cultural or religious.”
Your analysis is simply incorrect, predictably. Being critical of the political ideology of Zionism – which is based on the a principle of ‘blood kinship'(I’m not sure if this is a direct quote or your paraphrase)in that it allows for a inferior class of citizenship based on non-Jewish status is the prinicple of Zionism – not the Harvard thesis. What they state is simply a verifiable fact – Jews by law are not allowed to marry non-Jews in Israel and retain citizenship; non-Jews do not have the property rights of Jews – by Israeli law. These are two of the more obvious examples among others – and if they are racist they certainly are not because of the correct observation of the two professors, clearly.
If it’s somehow revealing too you that this is racist in some way – than perhaps you should take issue with the Israeli government and supreme court.
But as you say – it required quite a stretch to demonstrate your point – which you accomplished admirally – if totally failing in proving your weak thesis.
But again – thanks again for finding the time to bless us lesser mortals with your er….input….
Sally | 07.08.06 – 11:55 am | #
Tatter wrote:
“Steve, you really think the suicide bombings are somehow preventing Israel from taking over the entire Middle East? How does that work, exactly? Even the UN, that bastion of international law, has condemned each one, so you really can’t even claim that they somehow motivate the world to stop Israel from making a land grab. Never mind that the UN could do nothing but stand by and whinge at the “land grab” Israel made when building The Barrier.”
You seem to think that I’m saying that suicide bombers are preventing Israel militarily. And if you aren’t -well I’ve already explained that resistance to the occupation has brought the issue into the international area on a grande scale – without the eyes of the world on what Israel is doing to Palestinians I do feel that they would be far worse off. Reistance has brought attention to the conflict – hard to disagree with that.
And yes the land grab and oppression would have been far worse if Israel had a free hand to do what it wishes – after all Israel considers itself as a democractic and civilized nation – not a bunch of theiving murdering butchers.
That’s why the need for major disinformation campaigns – if world opinion didn’t matter than you wouldn’t have Israel and it’s ‘supporters’ bending over backward to claim that the wall is merely a defensive structure, even while it cuts off Palestinians from vital resources and makes there life harder while being built around illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
Makes perfect sense.
Sorry you don’t understand…
Hey Ymar – why don’t you just try making some sense or even making a point.
Then I might be inclined to give you a proper response.
I guess your saying the Palestinians should consider themselves lucky they haven’t been exterminated by now.
Good for you.
The day that happens is the day Israel signs it’s own death warrant.
That state won’t be worth the sand it’s built on.
Have a nice day Ymar.
“And yes the land grab and oppression would have been far worse if Israel had a free hand to do what it wishes – after all Israel considers itself as a democractic and civilized nation – not a bunch of theiving murdering butchers.”
Prove it.
Then I might be inclined to give you a proper response.
Why would i want a response, I’m not an agent provocateur. If someone responded, then I’d have to answer, which is bothersome.
Btw, steveie’s a great example of the power of propaganda. Israel has yet to use a nuke, yet the Palestinians has just demonstrated the utter efficacy of their own weapons of mass destruction, called propaganda. Which they can use as many times as they want, and the world acts like it didn’t happen.
Actually, what Ymir is saying is that if the Palestinians keep listening to the advice of people like stevie, they will be exterminated along with the Israelis.
*stabs Ymar and his two other personalities with a mechanical pencil*
Sally wrote:
“Ah, I see Nate has read far enough to latch onto the Mearsheimer-Walt paper, a now notorious piece of racist smear, which uses half-truths, innuendoes, quotes out of context, all coupled with the cheap and fatuous denials of racist intent, that all modern-day racists routinely utter. I’d say see this for a partial refutation”
Sally cites Dershowitz’s letter to the London Review of Books as a “partial refutation” of the article by Mearsheimer and Walt.
But Sally forgot to mention that Mearsheimer and Walt have, on 11 May 2006, replied to Dershowitz’s letter, and refuted it quite effectively. Here’s Mearsheimer and Walt’s letter in response to Dershowitz’s letter: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n09/letters.html#1
I invite you to read both Dershowitz’s letter and Mearsheimer and Walt’s reply to the letter, and make up your mind for yourself.
By the way, John Mearsheimer is the Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Do you find it easy to believe that two such eminent professors will stoop to “racist smear, which uses half-truths, innuendoes, quotes out of context, all coupled with the cheap and fatuous denials of racist intent, that all modern-day racists routinely utter”, as Sally accuses them of doing?
Read Prof. Mearsheimer and Prof. Walt’s article here:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
and decide for yourself.
Sally, can you point out (with exact quotes) where exactly in Mearsheimer and Walt’s article the “racist smears” are hidden? Thank you.
Tatter wrote:
“”And yes the land grab and oppression would have been far worse if Israel had a free hand to do what it wishes – after all Israel considers itself as a democractic and civilized nation – not a bunch of theiving murdering butchers.”
Prove it.”
Prove the land grab would have been worse if the international community and it’s media did not cover the conflict in such detail?
It’s difficult to prove, and as I say that is my opinion – but let me ask you this;
What do you think would happen?
Sakar wrote:
” Btw, steveie’s a great example of the power of propaganda. Israel has yet to use a nuke, yet the Palestinians has just demonstrated the utter efficacy of their own weapons of mass destruction, called propaganda. Which they can use as many times as they want, and the world acts like it didn’t happen.
Actually, what Ymir is saying is that if the Palestinians keep listening to the advice of people like stevie, they will be exterminated along with the Israelis.”
Ok, buddy.
I’ve not a clue what your talking about but I can that I am not and never will give advice to the Palestinians.
By the way – what ‘advice’ do you think I’m giving them?
Just curious.
Nate: Sally, can you point out (with exact quotes) where exactly in Mearsheimer and Walt’s article the “racist smears” are hidden? Thank you.
I’ve done that already, Nate. Try to keep up. And you’re welcome.
Beyond their overt slip or two, by the way, the racist smear is inherent in the very title of their article and their central thesis — that a cabal of Jews, “Elders of Zion”, are engaged in a long-term, perhaps even age-old conspiracy behind the scenes to manipulate American politics, culture, media, public opinion, and foreign policy so as to ensure and maintain American support for this otherwise useless and brutal little country filled with Jewish nazi-equivalents. Lies and half-truths told about Israel are repeated without question; truths about Arab viciousness, mendaciousness, hypocrisy, and duplicity are suppressed. These are the time-honored characteristics of a smear-job, and when ascribed to a group the authors define through “blood-kinship”, they’re the attributes of a racist smear. That the authors are supposedly “distinguished” professors only says something about the viciousness of our times — there were distinguished academics in Germany in the 30’s, too, who debased themselves and their calling by succumbing to the mania of their age. That Nate and his ilk here fall hook, line, and sinker for anything that emanates from Harvard without so much as a passing doubt, just says something about their lack of critical intelligence. (And maybe the adjective is superfluous.)
Ymar wrote:
“Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ”Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
Israel isn’t the Palestinian’s country. The only places Palis have a right to return to is the West Bank and Gaza, that’s about it.”
From “Seeking Refuge”, broadcast on PBS’s Online Newshour on August 29, 2000:
(available online at PBS’s website,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec00/palestinians_8-29.html
)
“On a tour, Geday described what Jaffa was like before the 1948 fighting drove people like the Sukkars out. The city was mainly Arab, he said, but with many Jews. Of more than 65,000 Arabs in 1948; all but a few thousand fled. Today, Jaffa is part of Tel Aviv now and is mostly Jewish-Israeli. Geday said 75 percent of the old Arab buildings in Jaffa, including the Sukkars’ home, have been destroyed.”
— From “Seeking Refuge”, broadcast on PBS’s Online Newshour on August 29, 2000:
(available online at PBS’s website,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec00/palestinians_8-29.html
)
Sally wrote:
“Beyond their overt slip or two, by the way, the racist smear is inherent in the very title of their [Mearsheimer and Walt’s] article”
The title of their article is “The Israel Lobby”. Notice that? Not “The Jewish Lobby”, but “The Israel Lobby”.
Israel is a country. Jews are a people , an ethnicity. There’s a difference between the two. Criticizing the state of Israel is not the same as racism against Jews.
Consider an example: the country of Nepal, until recently, was the world’s only officially Hindu state. (India, which has a Hindu majority, is officially secular).
Now if someone published an article with the title “The Nepal Lobby”, should that have been considered as racism against Hindus or even Nepalis? Obviously not.
So, while Israel is the world’s only officially Jewish state, why should criticism of the state of Israel (or its lobbyists) be construed as racism of any kind?
Sally wrote:
Nate: “Sally, can you point out (with exact quotes) where exactly in Mearsheimer and Walt’s article the “racist smears” are hidden? Thank you.”
Beyond their overt slip or two, by the way, the racist smear is inherent in [..] their central thesis — that a cabal of Jews, “Elders of Zion”, are engaged in a long-term, perhaps even age-old conspiracy behind the scenes to manipulate American politics, culture, media, public opinion, and foreign policy so as to ensure and maintain American support for this otherwise useless and brutal little country filled with Jewish nazi-equivalents. Lies and half-truths told about Israel are repeated without question; truths about Arab viciousness, mendaciousness, hypocrisy, and duplicity are suppressed. These are the time-honored characteristics of a smear-job, and when ascribed to a group the authors define through “blood-kinship”, they’re the attributes of a racist smear.
Notice that I asked you to provide “exact quotes” from the article. You have provided none.
There are some words or expressions above that you do put within quote marks, making it appear that the article uses these expressions. The phrases that you put within quote marks are:
1) “Elders of Zion”
2) “blood-kinship”
Now, let us look at what the article actually says. I quote (exact words from the article):
“[T]he Lobby’s activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better.”
So, the article is actually saying the “opposite” of what you just claim; it is clearly saying that the Israel lobby’s activities are precisely not of the kind depicted in slanderous tracts like the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.
As for your second accusation, namely that the authors use “blood-kinship” as a racist smear. Let us again go to the actual article and read waht it says. Here is the exact passage:
“Some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a ‘neglectful and discriminatory’ manner towards them.”
This is a statement of fact, not a smear. Israel was, indeed, founded as a Jewish state in which citizenship is based on the principle of “blood kinship” — this is why any Jew from any part of the world enjoys the right to citizenship in Israel. What is slanderous or racist about this statement of fact?
The entire article is available here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06
“It’s difficult to prove, and as I say that is my opinion – but let me ask you this;
What do you think would happen?”
I think the Palestinians would start openly attacking journalists and diplomats, in an effort to force them to pay attention and keep shilling for them.
The Israelis, on the other hand, would be doing the same thing they’ve been doing… kicking ass and taking land when they are attacked, and giving it back when they feel the people living there have learned their lesson (“Don’t Fuck With Us”). The main difference would be that they wouldn’t have to invade the same areas over and over again, if it wasn’t for the media and international community rewarding the Palestinians for their attacks with fame, money, and a sympathy.
Nate: Notice that I asked you to provide “exact quotes” from the article. You have provided none.
Notice that Nate quite deliberately left this out when he quoted from my comment above:
“I’ve done that [provided exact quotes] already, Nate. Try to keep up. And you’re welcome.”
It could be, of course, that he’s just too lazy to find the comment, or too dim to remember it, but I suspect he’s just being deceitful, which is par for this sort of amateurish propaganda effort.
Nevermind. As for the quotes he did find, let’s have a better look at them. The “Elders of Zion” quote actually refers to the old blood-libel, and only incidently to the article. I chose it deliberately because I wanted to throw that phrase back in the face of these conspiracy-mongers even as they try, however weakly and formally, to deny it. They may think that this sort of feeble denial is sufficient to protect them as they go on glibly to contradict it, but it’s effective only on the simplest and most gullible, or on those predisposed to buy into this sort of bigoted conspiracy theory (Nate?). Thus, after the denial, the authors go on to tell us how the “Israel Lobby” pressures both Congress and the Executive branch, strives to “prevent critical comments [of Israel] from getting a fair hearing in the political area”, its agencies “a de facto agent for a foreign government”, infiltrate all press and media outlets — not to debate but precisely to stifle “open debate”! — infiltrates and dominates think tanks, academia, churches, and, no doubt, bedrooms. But let’s get the real, red-meat, Jew-baiting flavor from the article itself:
The Lobby doesn’t want an open debate, of course,…
The Lobby’s perspective prevails in the mainstream media….
The Lobby’s influence extends well beyond WINEP [an example of a dominated think-tank], however,…
The Lobby moved immediately to ‘take back the campuses’….
The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach….
And so on, and on — “The Lobby” is everywhere and anywhere. So all M-W have done is a little name change — the Elders of Zion have popped up again under a new and more zippy title as “The Lobby”, and an age-old bigotry is dusted off and set up again as fare for the credulous, the simple-minded, and the vicious.
As for the other quote, the “blood kinship” thing, it’s not just false, it’s revealingly so. Israel does privilege Jewishness, alright, but it defines it as a religion as opposed to a race, and extends those privileges to converts as well. The fact that M-W refer to it as racial may just be a slip on their part, but, like a Freudian slip, one that reveals the true source of their hostility to Israel — their notion, and their despising, of the “blood kinship” of Jews.
These are, when all’s said and done, a just a pair of modern-day Jew-hating bigots, who
… who dress up their prejudice as “policy analysis”, and leave the dirty work for others.
Sally,
Based on what you write above, it seems that no criticism of Israel or its lobbyists will ever be acceptable to you, because you’re operating via the following logic: Any criticism of “Israel” (the state) is (according to you) a criticism of “Jews” (the ethnicity), and is therefore bigoted, racist and anti-semitic.
Can you give an example of what kind of criticism of Israel you’re not going to dismiss as anti-semitic?
If there is none, then, one cannot but conclude that in your mental universe Israel is forever beyond any possible criticism — because to criticize Israel (or its lobbyists) is, in your eyes, automatically tantamount to anti-semitism.
This is where you step beyond rational discourse and retreat into a “theological” position. Just as, for a religious believer, no questioning of God’s existence is possible (because to do so is to automatically be a “sinner who will rot in hell”) similarly, to you, no questioning of Israel’s policies is possible (because to do so is to automatically be an “anti-semitic”).
What you fail to realize is that a criticsm of the state of Israel and its policies, or even of its “lobby”, is a quite distinct matter from a criticism of Jews or Jewsishness as such. That is where your misreading of M and W’s article comes from.
I think you know it too (from your postings you seem quite intelligent), but you probably can’t bring yourself to admit it.
Nate: What you fail to realize is that a criticsm of the state of Israel and its policies, or even of its “lobby”, is a quite distinct matter from a criticism of Jews or Jewsishness as such. That is where your misreading of M and W’s article comes from.
I think you know it too … but you probably can’t bring yourself to admit it.
Well, to clear up any confusion: yes, I’m very well aware of this. There are all kinds of entirely legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies, many of which, significantly, can be found prominently featured in the Israeli media itself and in the reports of Israeli government commissions and investigations (M-W actually referred to one of these as a source for their own attack, while gliding over its origins). But any critic that takes some pains to be fair and even approximately even-handed is someone to be listened to, whether or not they’re correct, or whether or not I agree with them.
People who call Israelis nazis, however, or excuse deranged butchers, or who apologize for every thug and fanatic that emerges from among the Palestinians or the Arab world generally, or the Third World even more generally — people, in other words, who evince a neurotic hatred of everything the West stands for as a culture (for which Israel and the US are mere stand-ins and pinatas) — such people simply forfeit serious consideration by anyone other than a cultural psychiatrist.
Now, M-W, it’s true, are one step more sophisticated that such vulgar leftists — their bigotry derives from the same source that kept Jews out of Ivy League Colleges for years, but they know enough to keep it muted in polite circles. Nevertehless, the use of caps alone in the phrase “The Lobby” is like something out of a B-movie caricature, and, as I said, the indiscriminate rehearsing of anti-Israeli slurs combined with the silence regarding the unbelievable level of atrocities perpetrated against that country, mark the twosome as anything but “fair and even-handed” — no, these deserve only the contempt they’re hoping to hide from.
“Can you give an example of what kind of criticism of Israel you’re not going to dismiss as anti-semitic?”
Criticism of their decision to uproot the settlers in the Gaza Strip, for starters. It only got Israel condemned again for “depriving Gazan Palestinians of access to Israeli goods and services,” never mind that every meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission began with a condemnation of the existence of the settlements in Gaza.
Criticism of the Camp David accords that led to the Second Intifada, criticism of Israel’s decision to abide by the Oslo Peace Process even though the Palestinians were clearly violating theirs, the list goes on.
Israel’s biggest mistake is that it’s way too kind, when its survival isn’t being directly threatened. It makes the Palestinians think Israel is weak, and encourages them to continue the war.
Sally wrote:
“the indiscriminate rehearsing of anti-Israeli slurs [in Mearsheimer and Walt’s article]”
Well, the “examples” of such “slurs” that you gave were:
“The Lobby doesn’t want an open debate, of course,…
The Lobby’s perspective prevails in the mainstream media….
The Lobby’s influence extends well beyond WINEP [an example of a dominated think-tank], however,…
The Lobby moved immediately to ‘take back the campuses’….
The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach….”
In each case, however, M & W back up the allegations with evidence.
(The article is online at:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
and people should check it out for themselves.
Haloscan’s word limit won’t permit me to go into every one of these so-called “slurs”, of course, so let me just pick on the very first one in your list: “The Lobby doesn’t want an open debate, of course…”
M & W point out precisely how this occurs. They say in their article: “Silencing sceptics by organising blacklists and boycotts – or by suggesting that critics are anti-semites – violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends.” They then give meticulously list examples of such blacklistings: “In September 2002, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro-Israel neo-conservatives, established a website (Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged students to report remarks or behaviour that might be considered hostile to Israel. This transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars provoked a harsh reaction and Pipes and Kramer later removed the dossiers, but the website still invites students to report ‘anti-Israel’ activity. Groups within the Lobby put pressure on particular academics and universities. Columbia has been a frequent target, no doubt because of the presence of the late Edward Said on its faculty. ‘One can be sure that any public statement in support of the Palestinian people by the pre-eminent literary critic Edward Said will elicit hundreds of emails, letters and journalistic accounts that call on us to denounce Said and to either sanction or fire him,’ Jonathan Cole, its former provost, reported. When Columbia recruited the historian Rashid Khalidi from Chicago, the same thing happened. It was a problem Princeton also faced a few years later when it considered wooing Khalidi away from Columbia. A classic illustration of the effort to police academia occurred towards the end of 2004, when the David Project produced a film alleging that faculty members of Columbia’s Middle East Studies programme were anti-semitic and were intimidating Jewish students who stood up for Israel. Columbia was hauled over the coals, but a faculty committee which was assigned to investigate the charges found no evidence of anti-semitism and the only incident possibly worth noting was that one professor had ‘responded heatedly’ to a student’s question. The
…committee also discovered that the academics in question had themselves been the target of an overt campaign of intimidation.”
Sally wrote:
“People who call Israelis nazis, however, or excuse deranged butchers, or who apologize for every thug and fanatic that emerges from among the Palestinians or the Arab world generally, or the Third World even more generally — people, in other words, who evince a neurotic hatred of everything the West stands for as a culture (for which Israel and the US are mere stand-ins and pinatas) — such people simply forfeit serious consideration by anyone other than a cultural psychiatrist.”
Can you please point out where exactly John Mearsheimer or Stephen Walt have called Israelis (a) “nazis” or (b) “deranged butchers”? The article is online at:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
and it should be fairly simple for you to look it up and provide the references of the said passages where they allegedly describe Israelis as “nazis” or “deranged butchers”.
Thank you.
Tatterdemalian wrote:
“criticism of Israel’s decision to abide by the Oslo Peace Process even though the Palestinians were clearly violating theirs, the list goes on.”
Abiding by the peace process?? The Oslo peace process clearly stipulated that no new settlements were to be built in occupied territories. Yet, Israel kept building new settlements, violating the provisions of the peace process.
Sally,
If I’m not mistaken the two Harvard professors are not ‘lefties’ at all.
For what it’s worth.
You seem to be using an argument that has formed the bulk of criticism of “The Israel Lobby” – namely that recognizing the role and power of this Lobby – and even claiming there is such a Lobby – is anti-semetic.
I’ve never quite understood that, myself.
Incidently -this paper, while causing somewhat of a stir in the MSM – has been quite a divisive among the left – Chomsky, while praising the paper for “speaking truth to power”, dismisses to a large degree the extent to which the Lobby influenecs direct U.S foreign policy decisions, as the paper claims.
Nate: Can you please point out where exactly John Mearsheimer or Stephen Walt have called Israelis (a) “nazis” or (b) “deranged butchers”?
Well, of course, I never said that M-W said that explicitly, as Nate well knows — this is what’s known among trolls and other baiters as deliberate misreading, which you fall back upon when your arguments simply fail. I attributed the “nazis” slur to other commenters here (you can look them up), with whom Nate associates himself. And the “deranged butchers” was my own invention for the Palestinians who like to strap explosives to themselves or their children in order to slaughter Israeli citizens. But I’m happy to have the opportunity to repeat what I did say about M-W:
Now, M-W, it’s true, are one step more sophisticated than such vulgar leftists — their bigotry derives from the same source that kept Jews out of Ivy League Colleges for years, but they know enough to keep it muted in polite circles. Nevertehless, the use of caps alone in the phrase “The Lobby” is like something out of a B-movie caricature, and, as I said, the indiscriminate rehearsing of anti-Israeli slurs combined with the silence regarding the unbelievable level of atrocities perpetrated against that country, mark the twosome as anything but “fair and even-handed” — no, these deserve only the contempt they’re hoping to hide from.
They should hand him back in pieces.
Stevie wrote the above.
Then Anonymous(stevie) writes in response.
I’ve not a clue what your talking about but I can that I am not and never will give advice to the Palestinians.
By the way – what ‘advice’ do you think I’m giving them?
See the above.
As to Nate’s response about the country. I don’t believe it is valid to say a person belongs to a place just because his forefathers lived there. That is not the meaning of a country or a nation. A person is a citizen of where he is born. There are complications, but in most effects, that is true.
A nation also belongs to the people who built it, not just who was born on it and became a parasite of the land. The Israelis built irrigation systems and greenhouse networks. Any body can go on Google Earth and look Israel’s border with the West Bank. On the East, is a bunch of grayish building like barren land. On West, is Israeli farms and green prosperity. If you go by Nate’s definition of country, the Palestinians have the right to Israeli goods and property just because their fathers voluntered to leave so that they could resettle the land after the Arabs killed off all the Israelis. The Palestinians left because they believed the Arabs would win, the Arabs lost, and now they want the land they vacated back. That is in essence, the “Right of Return” so to speak.
As for Justin, Sakar and Ymir got mortally wounded by your pencil, so I had to Fuuusssion with them to heal them up.
Sakar wrote:
“The Palestinians have the right to Israeli goods and property just because their fathers voluntered to leave so that they could resettle the land after the Arabs killed off all the Israelis. The Palestinians left because they believed the Arabs would win, the Arabs lost, and now they want the land they vacated back.”
Not true. They were *forced* to leave.
Derek Brown, in The Guardian newspaper, UK, May 15 2001:
What happened in 1948?
The Arabs rejected a United Nations plan for Palestine, then under British mandate, to be carved into two countries; a Jewish homeland and a new Arab state. By the time the British mandate expired in May, a vicious civil war was under way, and the nascent state of Israel was under full-scale attack by the armies of neighbouring Arab states. Israel, backed by donations of arms and cash from the USA, turned back the invading forces and seized sizeable chunks of land designated by the UN for the Palestinians.
What happened to the Arab population of the conquered lands?
Some 700,000 fled into neighbouring countries. Many ended up in squalid refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, then under the control of Jordan and Egypt respectively. The refugees and their descendants now number around 4m.
Were they expelled or did they go voluntarily?
One of the most cherished myths perpetuated by Israeli hawks is that the Palestinians were ordered to leave by Arab governments, as part of a scorched earth policy. The Palestinians themselves say this is nonsense, and that they were driven from their ancestral lands by Israeli soldiers and paramilitary forces, in a ruthless campaign of terror.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,491324,00.html
One of the most cherished myths perpetuated by Israeli hawks is that the Palestinians were ordered to leave by Arab governments, as part of a scorched earth policy. The Palestinians themselves say this is nonsense, and that they were driven from their ancestral lands by Israeli soldiers and paramilitary forces, in a ruthless campaign of terror.
That paragraph just mystified me. He first says that the Israeli hawks are lying about not forcing the Palestinians to move, then offers only the Palestinians’ word that they were forced to move. Probably should have picked a different source for a debate 😛
What “the Palestinians themselves say” is no more relevant to “the truth” than what the so-called “Israeli hawks” say — and quoting the Guardian is even less credible than quoting Fox News. Why not try Al-Jazeera, Nate? Or maybe you could dig up some suitable quotes from an Aryan Nations website?I mean, if you’re looking for evidence or authority that fits the “truth” as you’d like it to be, you have to be prepared to look in some unsavory places.
“Sally wrote:
“What “the Palestinians themselves say” is no more relevant to “the truth” than what the so-called “Israeli hawks” say — and quoting the Guardian is even less credible than quoting Fox News. Why not try Al-Jazeera, Nate? Or maybe you could dig up some suitable quotes from an Aryan Nations website?I mean, if you’re looking for evidence or authority that fits the “truth” as you’d like it to be, you have to be prepared to look in some unsavory places.”
And what are you basing that on, Sally?
There’s nothing wrong, either with Al-Jazeera – unless of course you happen to be a racist and feel Arabs are unable to tell the truth.
What’s wrong with the Guardian, Sally?
And if there is tell me what they have in common with neo-nazi websites?
I luv the way you just dismiss credible sources when they don’t agree with you. While you provide none. Interesting that.
By the way speaking of providing evidence – what evidence is there of Arab leaders ordering Palestinians to leave there homes in 1948? There isn’t any.
The claim was that they were ordered through radio broadcasts. So the broadcasts were actually checked at the time – and low and behold there was no orders to leave their homes. Nothing that could even be construed as such. And if you take a second to think about, the claim itself it ridiculous, really. And in fact there are reports that they were told to stay and fight – which makes just a bit more sense.
By the way Sally – while there is no exact science, as we all know, to determining who is more likely to tell the truth, the fact is the Israeli government and military have been proven time and time again to be lying. That is a fact. And if you like I’d be happy to provide some examples.
Common sense dictates that statements from the conquering army in violation of international law and subject to intense international condemnation would have much more reason to lie and/or coverup atrocities. However poorly their attempts are.
If you are unbiased and trying to figure out the truth.
And in this case it’s quite easy.
ps – There is no credible evidence of the claim above – and in fact in Israel it is well known that Arabs were forced from there homes, and such nonsense would be laughed at – however even if they were – it makes absolutely no difference to the fact that Israel was ordered and there is still a U.N resolution pending that those displaced through the war were to allowed the right to return.
By the same U.N that granted Israel it’s state in the first place.
A little bit ungrateful, really…
Ymar – fair enough. Though I didn’t intend that to be advice as such – it was just an extention of what I would be thinking if I were Palestinian and Israeli soldiers were killing civilians, bombing bridges, knocking out power stations and terrorizing the whole population – instead of negoiating his release. It doesn’t seem like Olhmert seems to care too much for his soldier.
Your response to Nate, by the way is crap.
I luv it when facist Israel supporters justify the dispossession of Palestinian land on the claim that ‘they have made better use of it’. What racist, bigoted garbage. Maybe to you but the Arabs who had fertile land and grew crops and olive trees and lived as they choosed probably wouldn’t agree. In fact, nobody impartial would agree.
The other bit is a bit of American(jewish) propaganda – of which there is no evidence of -like most of the tired claims you can find by visting the APAIC website, the Jewish Virtual Libary, Simon Weisenthal Centre, and hundreds of others. Almost identical and in order to repeated over and over so one doesn’t have to actually think about it.
Which helps because when they are atually investigated they turn out to be complete fabrication.
Ymar | Homepage | 07.09.06 – 4:05 pm | #
Ymar – fair enough. Though I didn’t intend that to be advice as such – it was just an extention of what I would be thinking if I were Palestinian and Israeli soldiers were killing civilians, bombing bridges, knocking out power stations and terrorizing the whole population – instead of negoiating his release. It doesn’t seem like Olhmert seems to care too much for his soldier.
Your response to Nate, by the way is crap.
I luv it when facist Israel supporters justify the dispossession of Palestinian land on the claim that ‘they have made better use of it’. What racist, bigoted garbage. Maybe to you but the Arabs who had fertile land and grew crops and olive trees and lived as they choosed probably wouldn’t agree. In fact, nobody impartial would agree.
The other bit is a bit of American(jewish) propaganda – of which there is no evidence of -like most of the tired claims you can find by visting the APAIC website, the Jewish Virtual Libary, Simon Weisenthal Centre, and hundreds of others. Almost identical and in order to repeated over and over so one doesn’t have to actually think about it.
Which helps because when they are atually investigated they turn out to be complete fabrication.
Ymar | Homepage | 07.09.06 – 4:05 pm | #
Justin wrote:
“That paragraph just mystified me. He first says that the Israeli hawks are lying about not forcing the Palestinians to move, then offers only the Palestinians’ word that they were forced to move.”
The historian Benny Morris confirms what I wrote, in his book “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949”, published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987.
See below.
From “Le Monde Diplomatique”:
http://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine
“Israel has always denied that they were expelled, either forcibly or as a matter of policy. Israel’s “new historians” have been re-examining that denial and have put an end to a number of myths.
“In the opening pages of “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem”, Benny Morris offers the outlines of an overall answer: using a map that shows the 369 Arab towns and villages in Israel (within its 1949 borders), he lists, area by area, the reasons for the departure of the local population (9). In 45 cases he admits that he does not know. The inhabitants of the other 228 localities left under attack by Jewish troops, and in 41 cases they were expelled by military force. In 90 other localities, the Palestinians were in a state of panic following the fall of a neighbouring town or village, or for fear of an enemy attack, or because of rumours circulated by the Jewish army – particularly after the 9 April 1948 massacre of 250 inhabitants of Deir Yassin, where the news of the killings swept the country like wildfire.
By contrast, he found only six cases of departures at the instigation of local Arab authorities. “There is no evidence to show that the Arab states and the AHC wanted a mass exodus or issued blanket orders or appeals to the Palestinians to flee their homes (though in certain areas the inhabitants of specific villages were ordered by Arab commanders or the AHC to leave, mainly for strategic reasons).” (“The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem” by Benny Morris, p. 129). On the contrary, anyone who fled was actually threatened with “severe punishment”. As for the broadcasts by Arab radio stations allegedly calling on people to flee, a detailed listening to recordings of their programmes of that period shows that the claims were invented for pure propaganda.”
stevie, Don’t you have a life? It’s the weekend and I check in and you’re still going like the Energizer Bunny.
In a nutshell: You are 100% wrong across the board because you are a True Believer, a zealot and a headcase. If you’re simply Witnessing for Marx you are on the wrong street corner. Take your soap box and try two block down towards the sewer plant and turn left, hard left.
You know what they say, “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.” Go find a nice Left Wing Echo Chamber, you’ll be happier in the long run.
Sally has dissasembled everything you have written. You are a limbless torso on the ground. Remember the Black Kinght in the Monte Python movie? That’s you , read the entire dialog and see if it doesn’t sound familiar.
What happened to the Arab population of the conquered lands?
Some 700,000 fled into neighbouring countries. Many ended up in squalid refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, then under the control of Jordan and Egypt respectively. The refugees and their descendants now number around 4m.
One of the most cherished myths perpetuated by Israeli hawks is that the Palestinians were ordered to leave by Arab governments, as part of a scorched earth policy. The Palestinians themselves say this is nonsense, and that they were driven from their ancestral lands by Israeli soldiers and paramilitary forces, in a ruthless campaign of terror.
Let’s look at it psychologically. Israeli settlers and civilians were not ordered to leave. But the Palestinians left before the war even started. Why would the Israelis want Palestinians to leave a war zone? Wouldn’t that reduce their kill count or something? Nate, all you got to back up your arguments is Palestinian lies and propaganda. Why would the Palestinains tell anyone the truth, that they bet with the losing side? They would lose face dude, if you understand tribal cultures and Asian cultures, losing face is worse than death. It’s worth a few lies to the Palestinians to pretend that their actions were not their own.
So Israel won and took over the West Bank and the Palestinians were sent into refugee camps. Then the Arabs regurgitated the Palis and now they are back in the West bank, that Israel gave back to the people who tried to kill their women and children. Now that’s stupid, Israeli stupid and Palestinian stupid. Americans don’t win a war and fight another war based upon the same problems, at least not twice in a century.
So what Nate and Co doesn’t like is the fact that Israelis kicked out civilians in a war zone. I suppose they won’t be satisfied until the chemical reaction burns at full fore and millions die in the Arab Israeli conflict. I prefer a different resolution.
Haloscan keeps erasing my login information, which is all right, cause we all want in on this.
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2006/07/singing-out-of-flock.html
Go to that site and read the writings of Arabs. This is just a reminder that people who come on this site are Western people who speak English. Ya I know ,that might seem obvious, but you should consider the implications. People are shaped by their cultures. A respect for strength, a respect for principle, a respect for having “balls”, this is not entirely present in the decadent West, US Hollywood included. However, the Arab world respects force and power a lot, and I mean a lot. Just read the words on the site.
So take all the complaints from stevie and nate and Country in context, please.
Nate: The historian Benny Morris confirms what I wrote.
Like everything else poor Nate turns to for confirmation of his prejudices, “the historian Benny Morris” is flawed. See “Benny Morris and the Reign of Error”, by Efraim Karsh.
Stevie: There’s nothing wrong, either with Al-Jazeera….
“And what are you basing that on”, Stevie?
Don’t worry about it too much, it’s a rhetorical question. Here’s one thing, though, that you might consider basing at least some of your words and opinions on: critical thought of your own. That means, not simply casting about for any scrap of text that confirms your existing biases, but actually thinking about what the text is saying. E.g., does it take evident care to be fair and even-handed? Is it intellectually and morally consistent? Does it present its evidence in textual and historical context? Or does it seem to be pushing a particular agenda, even if it’s an agenda you agree with?
Asking these sorts of questions of your “credible sources” would help you in forming and assessing your own opinions, and in presenting them in a credible manner — whereas just cutting and pasting anything you can dredge up makes you look like just another naive and gullible leftie, and there’s far too many of those already.
(No charge for the unsolicted advice, by the way.)
somethingorotherwasp wrote:
“stevie, Don’t you have a life? It’s the weekend and I check in and you’re still going like the Energizer Bunny.
In a nutshell: You are 100% wrong across the board because you are a True Believer, a zealot and a headcase. If you’re simply Witnessing for Marx you are on the wrong street corner. Take your soap box and try two block down towards the sewer plant and turn left, hard left.
You know what they say, “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.” Go find a nice Left Wing Echo Chamber, you’ll be happier in the long run.
Sally has dissasembled everything you have written. You are a limbless torso on the ground. Remember the Black Kinght in the Monte Python movie? That’s you , read the entire dialog and see if it doesn’t sound familiar.”
stevie replied:
yawn.
Sally wrote:
“And what are you basing that on”, Stevie?
Don’t worry about it too much, it’s a rhetorical question. Here’s one thing, though, that you might consider basing at least some of your words and opinions on: critical thought of your own. That means, not simply casting about for any scrap of text that confirms your existing biases, but actually thinking about what the text is saying. E.g., does it take evident care to be fair and even-handed? Is it intellectually and morally consistent? Does it present its evidence in textual and historical context? Or does it seem to be pushing a particular agenda, even if it’s an agenda you agree with?
Asking these sorts of questions of your “credible sources” would help you in forming and assessing your own opinions, and in presenting them in a credible manner — whereas just cutting and pasting anything you can dredge up makes you look like just another naive and gullible leftie, and there’s far too many of those already.”
Well thanks for the crocidile advice you little cutey you, lol.
I’ve only cut and pasted one article to prove what you didn’t believe – and then you denounced the source – but, hey, whatever…
I think, and it’s just my opinion, but , if you were to actually read what I wrote(as poorly written as it may be)you might be inclined to retract your statement. I think it’s quite clear that I’m thinking for myself as I’ve not sourced anything I’ve merely offered my own analysis – a comparitive one, and one based on many different sources – true. Which I think is a fair method under these circumstances to come to my own conclusions.
But I must say Sally – seems to me you’ve far to much grey matter to be reducing a constructive debate to boring left/right insults.
I certainly enjoy the odd quip and I certainly don’t mind having a laugh at my own expense – but, believe it or not, I do have an interest in what you think and say. Mind you I’d prefer something a little more substantial than empty comments and glib without explanation. And Sally – as much as I think I’m a genius(much like yourself)and have very little patience for tired, rightwing rants(or in your case, liberal ‘naivety’) – I do my best to keep the dialouge going – know what I mean? Because if I don’t back up what I say with either an apology or with adequete substance well then I’d look like a bit of a blow-hard – or even worse, a troll.
Know what I mean?
So yes – on many issues I am on the ‘left’ as you would see it. Some others – I’m more to the right. But regardless – I’m educated(for what its worth)and have an adequete level of humility and so please, don’t feel as if I don’t value what you have to say.
Sincerely.
I think stevie acts like he doesn’t understand what I say, because Sally’s an easier person to talk to.
quickly – Benny Morris is actually quite highly regarded in acedemia for
the work he’s done regarding Israeli archived materials and there is little dispute in Israel about them.
There is, however, amongst the American Jewish/Christian right. The irony in there criticism – apart from the fact that it is poor scholarship and probably purposely so – is the Morris is actually very much to the right in his own conclusions regarding the material he has uncovered.
So, as one example, while he notes that Israel did have a program of ethnic cleansing that they carried out during the 1948 war – he concludes that the problem wasn’t the obvious crime but rather that it wasn’t carried out to it’s ultimate conclusion.
Speaking of thinking for yourself Sally – is leaving a link to a right-wing(very much so, including the racist Daniel Pipes as a main contributor)without comment, what you would consider ‘thinking for yourself’?
What do you know about Benny Morris?
Lets see if you can give a straight answer for a change….
Sally
About Al-Jazeera – if you get a chance or are so inclined there is a documentary “Control Room” – about the Arab news station before and during the start of the Iraq war in 2003 – which is facinating.
I certainly wouldn’t expect it to change your mind entirely about your views on Iraq or even Al-Jazeera, but I think you’d be somewhat surprised about how they operate.
And not to worry, there is no fat guy narrating all the way through, so you should be fine…
Hey Sally – did you actually read Efraim Karsh’s essay?
Was that convincing to you?
Cause if it was, I’ve got some swampland in Alaska I can get you on the cheap….
Sally,
The point was that I posted specific claims by Morris. You replied by posting the URL of an essay by Karsh that purports to find some errors in Morris’s work, but does not make any mention of these specific points below. You’ll need to refute *these* specific points below — referring the reader to an essay in which some other points made by Morris are supposedly refuted, is not relevant.
Here is the extract again:
“In the opening pages of “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem”, Benny Morris offers the outlines of an overall answer: using a map that shows the 369 Arab towns and villages in Israel (within its 1949 borders), he lists, area by area, the reasons for the departure of the local population (9). In 45 cases he admits that he does not know. The inhabitants of the other 228 localities left under attack by Jewish troops, and in 41 cases they were expelled by military force. In 90 other localities, the Palestinians were in a state of panic following the fall of a neighbouring town or village, or for fear of an enemy attack, or because of rumours circulated by the Jewish army – particularly after the 9 April 1948 massacre of 250 inhabitants of Deir Yassin, where the news of the killings swept the country like wildfire.
By contrast, he found only six cases of departures at the instigation of local Arab authorities. “There is no evidence to show that the Arab states and the AHC wanted a mass exodus or issued blanket orders or appeals to the Palestinians to flee their homes (though in certain areas the inhabitants of specific villages were ordered by Arab commanders or the AHC to leave, mainly for strategic reasons).” (“The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem” by Benny Morris, p. 129). On the contrary, anyone who fled was actually threatened with “severe punishment”. As for the broadcasts by Arab radio stations allegedly calling on people to flee, a detailed listening to recordings of their programmes of that period shows that the claims were invented for pure propaganda.”
Stevie to Sally:
“Speaking of thinking for yourself Sally – is leaving a link to a right-wing(very much so, including the racist Daniel Pipes as a main contributor) without comment, what you would consider ‘thinking for yourself’?”
I noticed that too (just a link, no explanation, no comment about why the link is relevant to the specific point at hand) and was struck by the irony of it.
Alas, “thinking for themselves” does not seem to be the very prevalent in the self-referential world of neo-conservative echo chambers, in which any request for refutation is greeted with pointing (with no further analysis, exegesis, or explanation) to yet another website belonging to the dittohead circuit. Honest debate is clearly not on the agenda here.
Sad.
Shall we start a Dead Pool as to just when stevie’s head will bounce in the basket for excessive demagoguery and thread monopolization? It will go unnoticed way down here in a dead thread but if he starts on an active thread…
I believe I hear the tumbrels rolling toward the Place d’ Concord.
CAMERA
First, let me confess that I tend to get Stevie and Nate mixed up. They’re a bit like the Bobbsey Twins of the Israel-hating left, so it’s perhaps understandable, but it’s likely, for example, that the point regarding uncritical cutting and pasting applies more to one than the other. In general, exchange names as appropriate.
Second, I thought the Karsh article an illuminating exercise in revising the revisionists, and even though it deals with a particular issue, it has clear implications that go much further. As he says, “Regrettably, Morris’s distortions in the article under consideration are neither a fluke nor an exception. As I have sought to demonstrate elsewhere, they typify the New Historians’ whole approach. Lacking evidence, they invent an Israeli history in the image of their own choosing.” The point, of course, is not to accept Karsh uncritically either — the point is to recognize that merely cutting and pasting text from a French review of a controversial historian isn’t going to “confirm” very much.
Third, despite what I’ve said above, I think Benny Morris is at least an example of a complex, intelligent, and reasonable critic of Israel and of its origins, to whom one should listen with interest and respect — but without trying to cherry-pick passages merely for the purpose of shoring up one’s biases, and without ignoring the context of debate and dissent surrounding him and his fellow revisionists.
Mearsheimer and Walt represent the academic contrast to Morris and co. — for all that they try to innoculate themselves against the charge merely by anticipating it, their little tract is largely just a modern-day extension of an age-old bigotry, that has lost none of its stench.
(And speaking of bad smells, then we have the Joos=nazis mob….)
But we’ve been through this repeatedly, and the thread’s getting old — I’ll leave the sinister Bobbsey twins to have the last word(s).
This discussion has been deeply disturbing, but illuminating to read. China has occupied Tibet for decades. Iran stones women who have allegedly been adulterers (usually raped) to death, with what sort of trial do you think? Somalia says people who don’t pray to Allah daily will be put to death. Palestinians teach their children to worship a cult of death, to aspire to be a blown up martyr taking out as many Israelis as possible. But none of this gets Stevie’s knickers in a lather. Only Israel, of all countries in the world, is Nazi, evil, villainous!!!!! And as Stevie says, “They’re Jews!!!!”
Stevie, probably a pleasant British person, is unashamed to say that the kidnapped Israeli soldier should be hacked up, “returned in pieces.”
This is really really disturbing. Stevie accuses Israel of Nazi tactics. This tells me Stevie has been exposed to a lot of anti-Israel propaganda and blather but A) knows little about Nazi barbarism or he couldn’t equate Israel’s determination to survive to the Nazi’s genocidal terror campaign, and B) understands little of what Israel actually is, in fact. But for you Stevie, to dehumanize a human being, Gilad Shalit, a 19 year old soldier and to gleefully advocate for his murder is sickening, and sick. And I’ll bet you’re even against the death penalty. Is murder different when the victim is an Israeli? Dehumanizing people, by the way, as the Palestinians and Islamicists the world over do about Jews (in particular, but Christians, etc. as well) is really much closer to the Nazi strategy of dehumanizing people than anything Israel has ever done.
And while you accuse Israel of apartheid, you do know that Israel is an ethnically mixed country with religious freedom and rights for gays, women and minorities. PLease tell me what the rights for gays, women and minorities are like for the sainted Palestinians. And tell me, if Hamas did succeed in destroying Israel and expelling all the Jews or murdering them or forcing them to convert would that be an acceptable apartheid to you? Israel has Arab citizens, but Gaza must be judenrein- because Lord knows, when Palestinians teach that Jews are pigs and dogs and use Palestinian blood for Passover matzah that the true bigots are really the Israelis. Right?
Consider reading this:
http://www.masada2000.org/Who-Us.html
This is bigotry wrapped in a self-congratulatory blanket of political correctness. But I fear there has been no point in my response because Stevie is a true believer, and the religion is leftism, and the devil is Israel. And if the one state in all the earth Stevie can bring him(her?) self to hate, wish dismantled, and demonize is Israel- while the far worse sins of Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, China, and the Palestinians etc etc., are ignored, then this seems like classic Protocols type anti-semitism, Stevie.
Sally wrote:
“Israel-hating left”
This is one of the canards that the right uses to substitute name-calling for intelligent discussion.
There is no “Israel-hating” left — what leftists criticize are certain specific policies and practices that the state of Israel is carrying out. This is quite different from an irrational “hatred” of Israel as such.
Also, do not forget that one of the most persistent socialist critics of Israeli politics, Noam Chomsky, has repeatedly stated that his socialist views were in fact shaped in part by the socialism he experienced as a young man working on an Israeli kibbutz (socialist co-operative).
Lulu wrote:
“China has occupied Tibet for decades. Iran stones women who have allegedly been adulterers (usually raped) to death, with what sort of trial do you think? Somalia says people who don’t pray to Allah daily will be put to death.”
True, but none of these seriously pretend to be a democracy, while Israel does. One should hold those who claim to be a democracy to a higher standard, no?
Best post of the entire thread goes to Lulu.
It seems most every extended line of discussion of the Isreal/Pastine debate becomes side-railed to the historical who-did-what-to-whom-first debate. Who cares? How does this help anything now? Lulu has brought us back to the relative and thats whats currently going on.
The Palestinians are their own worse oppressor. If they want to successfully address past grievances, they need to get their act together first and take care of their own.
Sadly, this isnt about settling disputes or establishing justice, this is about the eternal struggle against the Jew because Its the only thing they know how to do.
Lulu wrote:
“And if the one state in all the earth Stevie can bring him(her?) self to hate, wish dismantled, and demonize is Israel- while the far worse sins of Cuba,”
According to Amnesty International, Cuba currently has only about 200-400 political prisoners — far less than Israel does.
More moral equivalency from the left who insist that Israel or any other democracy should first reach a level of perfection, (measured by the left) before any condemnation of Palestinian human rights abuses can be addressed.
So much for the “peace process”.
“According to Amnesty International, Cuba currently has only about 200-400 political prisoners — far less than Israel does.”
And, of course, the obvious; Cuba is an island not currently under a constant terrorist attack by a neighbor.
Sally wrote:
“”Third, despite what I’ve said above, I think Benny Morris is at least an example of a complex, intelligent, and reasonable critic of Israel and of its origins, to whom one should listen with interest and respect — but without trying to cherry-pick passages merely for the purpose of shoring up one’s biases, and without ignoring the context of debate and dissent surrounding him and his fellow revisionists.”
Well. Thats a more like it Sally. I don’t agree with what you’re implying with regards to Morris’ ‘interpretation'(the “quote out of context” argument is a trickey one because I’ve found that too often it is used to debunk an analysis, while not providing adequete evidence of the criticism – I’ve seen it before – it appears pretty convincing on the first read – Karsh, I feel has done this – and not well, I’ve read much better proponents of the technique, with Karsh it was obvious from the first read) – but your point is well taken and much appreciated.
I’d love to go into more detail about it, but yes, the thread is getting a little old.
“Mearsheimer and Walt represent the academic contrast to Morris and co. — for all that they try to innoculate themselves against the charge merely by anticipating it, their little tract is largely just a modern-day extension of an age-old bigotry, that has lost none of its stench.
(And speaking of bad smells, then we have the Joos=nazis mob….)”
Can’t say the same about this comment though. I don’t think you’ve addressed the points at all -while us evil twins(lol)have made an attempt to discuss them while you’ve merely resorted to using an undefendable argument based on an emotional reaction. Which we all have(I regret the comment about returning the soldier “in pieces”)but some of the criticisms themselves regarding the piece are patently ridiculous.
The M and W thesis is actually rather light – as if they were not willing to go further(which they could have in terms of research and substance)as they probably had serious doubts whether they could get it published.
As a result, there is lots of room for criticism of their work – but anti-semetic it ain’t.
Lula wrote:
“This discussion has been deeply disturbing, but illuminating to read. China has occupied Tibet for decades. Iran stones women who have allegedly been adulterers (usually raped) to death, with what sort of trial do you think? Somalia says people who don’t pray to Allah daily will be put to death. Palestinians teach their children to worship a cult of death, to aspire to be a blown up martyr taking out as many Israelis as possible. But none of this gets Stevie’s knickers in a lather. Only Israel, of all countries in the world, is Nazi, evil, villainous!!!!! And as Stevie says, “They’re Jews!!!!”
Well this thread is about Palestinians and Israel, Lula. How would you know what my feeling are about the other issues you raise? You don’t. Your changing the subject and attack me personally when you don’t really have a clue.
Yes, Lula I am particularly disgusted by some Jews behaving like Nazis while using the Holocaust as an excuse or a half-arsed apology for henious crimes against the Palestinians – which, as I say, are ironically in some cases, modeled after specific Nazi methods used against Jews in occuppied Europe.
I’m well aware, however, that most Jews are only too well aware of this irony – even if some so-called Christians are not.
Harry Mallory wrote:
“And, of course, the obvious; Cuba is an island not currently under a constant terrorist attack by a neighbor.”
Cuba, in fact, has been constantly under terrorist attack for more than forty years now from some of the extremist groups in the Miami Cuban exile community.
To take just one example:
“Washington D.C. May 18, 2005 – The National Security Archive today posted additional documents that show that the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner. The Archive also posted another document that shows that the FBI’s attache in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles.
“Both documents were featured last night on ABC Nightline’s program on Luis Posada Carriles, who was detained in Miami yesterday by Homeland Security.”
Source, the National Security Archive,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/
Nate is just out of the world. Just out of this world, man.
One should hold those who claim to be a democracy to a higher standard, no?
I hate when the Left starts talking about putting women in gilded cages and holding them to higher standards of behavior than men. Double standards are double standards, and in this case the Left has beyond anti-progressivism.
Go Lulu, Lulu has perspective that Nate and stevie does not have. This means if there is a deathmatch between Lulu’s nation and Nate/stevie’s nation , I’ll bet my life on Lulu’s leadership.
Nation deathmatches are like that.
Your changing the subject and attack me personally when you don’t really have a clue.
The next time stevie rips someone to pieces, I think that would count as a personal attack.
October 6, 1973: Five Israeli Centurions of the 7th Armored Brigade are sent to intercept 40 Syrian T-55 tanks advancing along the road to Israel. Forty-five minutes after the two forces meet, twenty Syrian tanks are destroyed, and the rest have retreated. Now, where is this “overwhelming military superiority” the lefties claim Israel has over Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, etc.?