Does the world—and the US—want Israel to survive?
When I began blogging I was surprised—although I shouldn’t have been—to find that virtually every time I wrote about Israel it drew the trolls.
And not just any trolls, either; a very specific type of anti-Semitic troll. And I don’t mean “anti-Semitic” as a synonym for “anti-Israeli,” although the two can often coexist in the same body/mind. I won’t bother to give you examples of what these trolls write, but suffice to say it’s not equivocal and it’s very vicious.
Most of you will never see these comments, due to various mechanisms I’ve put in place to delete and/or block them. But since that process is not fail-safe, every now and then one slips by. Other than that, however, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
There is no other topic on earth that predictably draws this volume of venom. And we can’t blame the internet; anti-Semitism has the longest and most illustrious history of any hatred on earth.
Countless volumes have been written about the causes of the phenomenon, so I feel no need to add to the speculation here. But suffice to say that, despite all the theories, no one really knows for sure. It’s probably a case of overdetermination—“all of the above.”
In recent decades the actual, human, imperfect-but-trying-its-best country of Israel, besieged on all sides by enemies sworn to destroy it, has come to be criticized for every single effort to survive and to defend itself. The flotilla incident is no different, but there is something new in the mix: the United States, Israel’s historical ally, has sent subtle and not-so-subtle messages through Obama and his underlings that it will wink at or even support efforts to undermine Israel’s security.
Mona Charen connects the dots for us and lists ways in which Obama subtly gave the flotilla “activists” a green light to provoke Israel and to assume afterwards that there will be no bad consequences forthcoming from this administration:
By 1) declaring through Secretary of State Clinton that the blockade of Gaza is “unsustainable and unacceptable”; 2) joining the United Nations Security Council in “condemn(ing) those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded”; and 3) having a White House official tell the Washington Post that there is now a “general sense in the administration that it’s time to change our Gaza policy”…
The administration [also] let it be known that it had “warned” Israel to “use restraint” against the Gaza convoy. There was no corresponding warning to Turkey about supporting and supplying the illegal flotilla.
Charon leaves out the preparatory steps of (1) changing policy on whether Israel should be allowed to build in its own capital, Jerusalem; and (2) insulting and humiliating Israel’s leader Netanyahu when he visited the US (this sort of message is especially well-understood in the mideast).
Charles Krauthammer sums up the picture nicely:
…[T]he blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel ”” a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets…
Oh, but weren’t the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel’s offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza ”” as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.
Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel’s inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.
Israel has already twice intercepted weapons-laden ships from Iran destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?
But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel’s fallback as the world systematically delegitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself ”” forward and active defense…The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense.
Krauthammer is not optimistic about the prospects. Those who demonize Israel and hate Jews will call his article typical inflation of Jewish victimhood (and hey, those crematoria didn’t really exist, right?). Others will simply say that he is being depressingly realistic:
The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, six million ”” that number again ”” hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists ”” Iranian in particular ”” openly prepare a more final solution.
Anyone who wants to read what the Jew-hating sickies write is recommended to the comments section of any British media website dealing with the ME.
Warning, they’re online vomitoriums.
I think i now get how the holocaust happened. Seemingly normal looking people who mowed their lawns and hugged their kids at night secretly had an envious rage in them for successful people of a certain ethnicity.
Don’t know about the countless volumes you are referring to but I’ll put my money on the Bible as the one that offers the most relaible answer as to why. It even foretold the present state of Israel and the political climate surrounding it. Or does no one think it odd that this tiny little state and what it does are the centerpiece of world politics?
Here is the last paragraph of Mona Caren’s fine essay;
“But this week is a new low. Under Obama’s leadership, the United States has capitulated to terror tactics and the despicable temptation to blame Israel. America has always been the one country in the world that reliably countered the bullying and grotesque double standards much of the world applies to Israel. Obama has now joined the jackals. What a disgrace.”
Agreed with Bob in VA – I couldn’t bear to go any farther into the comment sections of some stories in British media about this. It was perfectly sickening. I honestly can see the Holocaust happening again – and the same tools and fools turning away and pretending either that it didn’t happen or that the Jews ‘asked for it.’
I am wondering also if Turkey’s actions in supporting the Gaza flotilla will be seen in the history books as a Sarajevo moment – a seemingly inconsequential local incident which had shattering repercussions worldwide.
Can anyone explain to me why several well-known Jews are Obama’s top advisors, and how/what can they possibly be telling him? I’m speaking, of course, of Rahm Emanuel & David Axelrod. (Of the two of them, Rev. Jeremiah Wright has said, “them jews won’t let me talk to him (i.e, Obama) no more”).
I’m not jewish, and I’m at a loss as to how jews like Emanuel & Axelrod can live with themselves. Not to mention, I live in an urban area with a large jewish population, and with a couple of exceptions my jewish friends blindly support Obama. If these people were all dummies it could make some sense, but they are successful in their fields, and seemingly smart.
I know two American Jewish families who have children currently serving in the Israeli army. The children understand the risk and are putting their lives on the line, but the parents, well, not so much.
I was searching Youtube for whetever interesting stuff I could find. As one interested in history, I’ve always found old newscasts facinating. I came across this ABC newscast from 1976, giving a lengthy report on the Israeli rescue operation of hostages in Entebbe, Uganda that year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uby79EagPn4&feature=related
It served as a rememberance of how old is this struggle by Israel to survive, and how old is also the anti-Israel attitude by the so-called socalled “international community.”
It also shows how old is the tendency by the enemies of Israel to hypocritically hide behind supposed rules of propriety: these people who had aided and abetted a terrorist operation audaciously criticizing Israel for alleged “violation” of Ugandan airspace. Ugandan tyrant and madman Idi Amin promised retribution after two days of “mourning”, and UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim- who was later found to have Nazi ties- criticized the Israeli action because “the ends didnt justify the means.”
There are times when the appropriate thing to do is to tell the world to go to hell. I hope those who support Israel will now stand up and answer the hypocrisy of those who are now, again, condemning Israel for defending itself. God Bless and keep Israel.
As for Obama: with every day, he appears more and more a scoundrel. May God keep this country until Obama is out of office.
Boots,
I think the simple answer is that many U.S. Jews are blindly devoted to anything in the Democrat party. The devotion is, in my view, both pathetic and self-destructive.
I worry about Jews in America especially. Most are largely sheltered from the type of hatred that many in the world feel for them because Americans won’t tolerate outward displays of bigotry. The younger generation is especially naive about this and feels no connection what-so-ever with Israel.
Part of me is happy that there is a place on this planet where people can feel so safe. Part of me is worried that their obliviousness will hurt us more in the long-run.
In biblical prophecy, kibbutz galuyyot, the Ingathering of the Exiles, is followed by the princes of the nations prostrating themselves before Israel. Perhaps the nations believe and fear biblical prophecy more than they can admit.
I recall reading a couple of news mags after Entebbe–which, by the way, every ex-grunt I talked to wished he’d been in on it–and discovered Americans !!! complaining about Israelis invading another country.
I cannot believe that they believed themselves. They simply needed a handy excuse. It cannot have been sincerely felt. Simply cannot.
IMO, some Jews in the US are so desperate to be liberal that they’d throw Israel overboard to keep their lib creds. Not that they dislike, hate, or don’t care about Israe. But their lib creds are more important.
Once you do that, of course, you have to justify it, which is why you pretend Israel does lots of bad things.
This puts you in hypocrisy country, ignoring the infinitely worse, so your justification process has to be even more vicious.
I don’t often think of mass murder as a good idea, but the people who think like this tempt me. Sort of like a child molester tempts me to go all pre-emptive on his ass. What catastrophes for the Jews, and the rest of us, will people who think like this cause?
Sgt. Mom, reference the “Sarajevo moment”. I was wondering the same thing. Weird things are happening, the Israelis are quoting an Al-Jeereza cameraman to back up their side of the story, indicating, I suspect, Arab fear of a Turkish-Iran axis, the Turks are publicly in cohoots with a terror supporting organization. Biden has supported the Israelis while Obama fence sits and has friends affiliated with the convoy. And that is what we can see.
Sort of off-topic but interesting nonetheless, from yesterday’s Chicago Tribune:
Guest student charged in Dominican University bomb threat
June 3, 2010 6:04 PM
A 20-year-old guest student has been charged with disorderly conduct after allegedly making a bomb threat at Dominican University’s Priory Campus on Wednesday.
Mohamed Mahdey S. Al Shria was arrested at his host’s home in River Forest about an hour after making the threat, according to a release sent out by River Forest police.
No evidence of a bomb was found on campus or at Al Shria’s host home.
Interim Police Chief Gregory Weiss said he believes the student made the threat after receiving a bad grade.
Al Shria, who is from Saudi Arabia, was studying English Language Studies, or ELS, at a program that is run out of a rented space on Dominican’s campus, said Kristin Peterson, a spokesperson for the school.
“The students are not considered Dominican students, but they are able to use the facilities,” she said.
Al Shria holds a valid student visa to study in the United States, according to police.
The Cook County Bomb Squad and K-9 team responded to the campus at 2:22 p.m., which was briefly evacuated while a search was conducted. Peterson said about 75 to 100 people were evacuated, which included students and faculty from the ELS program, as well as children and staff from a childcare center run by Dominican.
They were brought to Grace Lutheran Church nearby.
Dominican University was reopened at 4:56 p.m. after detectives determined the bomb threat was not credible and that public safety was never compromised, the release said.
All classes were moved to the main campus for the remainder of the day on Wednesday.
Al Shria has no previous criminal history and is currently out on bond. He will appear June 18 at the Cook County 4th District Courthouse in Maywood.
“Because he is charged with a misdemeanor, he is out on bond,” Weiss said, adding that misdemeanor crimes do not result in automatic deportation.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/06/guest-student-charged-in-dominican-university-bomb-threat.html
If you go to the story at the link and read the comments, the commentariat is quite upset about this “guest” and his actions. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the Catholic church & its institutions have a long way to go before they recognize the threats against them. The murder of a priest in Turkey this week is proof of that.
“Does the world–and the US–want Israel to survive?”
Does International Jewry want White America to survive?
Does International Jewry want White Europe to survive?
Does International Jewry want White Scandinavia to survive?
Uh oh. Looks like one got through.
I suspect Jen’s comments above are the type Neo filters try to weed out.
Yes, right on schedule, Jen appears. But believe me, her/his comment is very sedate and restrained, almost polite, compared to what I’m talking about.
Jen appears to be a Buchananite, a right-wing bigot. This is the only kind of antisemitism officially recognized by Hillel and B’nai Brith, but it’s so rare these days as to be almost quaint.
The real source of antisemitism is the left.
I would love to know the breakdown of these trolls. How many are moonbats or children of Mecca?
I am reminded of the Damascus affair of 1840.
Not having access to my Paul Johnson’s “History of Christianity,” I turned to Wikipedia knowing that its treatment of all things Jewish is–well the word that comes to mind– is flatulent.
To wit:
This incident, which illustrates the tensions that existed between the Jewish and Christian populations of Syria, was notable for being an exception to the rule of Jewish-Muslim relations which during the Tanzimat era in the Ottoman Empire (1839-1920) were generally much better than Christian-Muslim relations due particularly to the economic ascendancy afforded to the Christian community with the relaxation and eventual elimination of the dhimmi status rules in the 1850s.
I can tell you from a Military perspective…we love Israel. It provides a port of call for U.S. troops, ships, aircraft, and intelligence sources, and a place where arms, fuel, munitions, and other supplies can be stockpiled and accessed when America needs them in the region. The country also offers access to the Red Sea.
I read one analyst describe Israel as a “strategic aircraft carrier” in a chaotic part of the world.
What would have been the cost in American blood and treasure if Saddam Hussein had developed nuclear weapons, or if Syria possessed them? Israeli forces in 1981 destroyed the nearly finished reactor at the Osirak facility near Baghdad, and in 2007 similarly attacked a suspected nuclear facility in Syria.
This is the short list of all the contributions that Israel has made in terms of military and intelligence cooperation with the United States.
I often follow links from blogs or articles I find on the web for personal edification. I even check into Huffington once in awhile (more like once in a blue moon) just to see what the “other side” is saying. More than once I have tripped over articles that have stopped me in my tracks & made my heart beat faster as I realize the venom and hatred harboured by so many. It is not only about Israel, but there has been a huge wave sweeping Europe for quite a while now — I wonder if some of this derives from the enormous wave of Arab immigrants settled now settled in Western Europe. However, I don’t discount the vicious hatred that eminates from native citizens as well. Why, I cannot explain because it has always been a deep-seeded hatred, especially in the Middle East, that has been passed on from generation to generation rather than something that has a rational logical basis. How does one even explain why many Muslims have a deep-seeded hatred for other Muslims of different tribes: that was a shock to me as we learned the extent of such hatred through the years of the Iraqui War.
I, too cannot read more than several comments as they are so repulsive, and frightening. Some seems to be that taught hatred. Other definitely does stem from envy. Here in the U.S. we have witnessed a growing malevolence directed at Jews arising from resentment of success among Jews; claims that Jews “control so much money” or “control so much of media” and so forth. (I’m willing to bet that in the comments section following Charles Krauthammer’s column today, there is no dearth of vicious anti-Semitic comments and reference to his being Jewish. Given the subject of today’s column, I’m guessing there will be an even greater volume — and they are not monitored being a column in the Washington Post. (Just last week I read one so disgusting and full of venom, referencing Nazis, and inciting attacks on Jews that I actually felt compelled to report abuse. Usually I take such comments with a grain of salt, but this was particularly disturbing). Ironically, another major media source, the New York Times has historically reflected anti-Semitic sentiments and it was founded and published (and still controlled) by the Sulzberger and Ochs families, both Jewish!
I’ve long thought it ironic that so many Jews have blindly supported Obama in huge numbers, and so many are major players in the very Administration that has revealed itself to be one of the most anti-Semitic in the history of this country (not that we haven’t had Presidents in the past who harboured deep anti-Semitic sentiments). Previously, I’ve posted comments here re: David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel (does anyone else remember when he was first appointed, his proud father claimed he would be so loyal to the Jews and to Israel — and there was a rush to quash these comments and keep it out of the media? Quite successfully I must add. A huge portion of the financing of his campaign came from Jews — Penny Pritzker, heiress to the Pritzker fortune from the Hyatt Hotel chain was the finance chairman for the campaign. My family knows well several extremely wealthy Jewish families who still are fiercely devoted to Obama (perhaps first to the Democratic party and then Obama — but the upshot is the same). One was singled out in his Inaugural Address. The others were the very first people on the guest list of his most recent state dinner for the President of Mexico. I come from a tightknit Jewish community which is almost exclusively Democratic. Most of our family friends are Democrats. Sometimes I think the only Republicans emerging from my hometown are myself and the wife of Minority Whip Eric Cantor, who also grep up where I did and who was my best friend for decades. (our conservative sides did not emerge until well into adulthood — mostly because we didn’t know better!) Ironically, much like hatred for Jews, this devotion is blindly passed on from generation to generation, it is based on history and on ignorance of current events and awareness of today’s facts. There is one difference in that there was at one time (long ago) a rational basis in which most Jews were dedicated to the civil rights movement based on their own experiences of historical persecution as well as discrimination encountered upon immigration to America.
The question posed in the title of this blog reminded me of the following. Bob Dylan’s Neighborhood Bully still says it all:
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully he just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against it, and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a licence to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, he got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract that he signed was worth that what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully.
What’s anybody indebted to him for ?
Nothing, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so many scars ?
Does he change the course of rivers ? Does he pollute the moon and stars ?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully.
Pablo
How are the bars in Haifa?
As for American jews supporting democrats, the only thing i can figure is they are ashamed on some level at their success as a people. Maybe theres a drive to be just one more mediocre minority with some victimhood status to hang their hat on.
Jewlicious…
sorry.
The Rubin Report has a speech from the Turkish leader of the flotilla. It makes unmistakeably clear that it was a jihadist operation supported by the government of Turkey. It also makes clear that the goal is the domination of non-jihadists governments in the region. Sgt. Mom, if this is not a Sarajevo moment it is certainly informative.
This is amazing! I came upon it after following links from blog to blog and in the comments section of one of them. It is video showing the “peaceful” instruments of the flotilla “humanitarians” at the Ashdod port:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/06/anti-israel-freaks-think-they-caught.html
I am gobsmacked that people are gobsmacked regarding the hatred directed against Israel. But, upon reflection, the gobsmack turns into gratitude for the influence and information of the evangelical Christianity that believes that to go against Israel is to go against God.
I, a non-Evangelical WASP, am almost physically ill over the current administration’s pandering to Islamic terrorism and their not at all subtle anti-Israel policy. I cannot understand how self-understood civilized people can either stand by silently or even agree with what I see as the beginning of another cycle of persecution of Jews. Americans who disagree with the administration must find a way to let the world and Israel know.
Adrian Day – I never knew about this song; thank you.
I’ll reciprocate with this video: Daniel in the Lion’s Den. It happened in LA few days ago. The police is protecting the boy…I wonder for how long.
I’m not jewish, and I’m at a loss as to how jews like Emanuel & Axelrod can live with themselves.
What about George Soros, who got his start confiscating items from Jews with his adopted father?
If you go to Ace of Spades site, he has a video up of Helen Thomas saying that Jews should go back to their “homes.” Where would that be? Why, Germany and Poland, of course!
As a 70’s Jesus Freak, I read my share of purported explanations of Biblical prophecy in my day, but have discarded most of it as poorly-supported. However, when push comes to shove, the continued existence of the Jews, and the irrational hatred for them, is one of the most powerful arguments (in the sense of evidence, not proof) for the existence of God. It’s not a fully positve argument, but the other explanations do not explain. Envy? Yes, but there’s plenty of that in the world that doesn’t rise to this distributed level of hatred. Separateness? Okay, but Europe and the ME are all about separateness anyway until very recently. Gypsies are hated, but not so venomously. The Druze are hated, but not so implacably. Every tribe in those areas has another tribe they hate first, but somehow the Jews show up second on everyone’s list, until gradually over time they move to the top spot. Hitler started with hating communists, after all. Shia and Sunni usually focus on each other.
Scarier thought. The persistence of Jew-hatred is suggestive evidence of the existence of some devil as well. I don’t pretend to know how spiritual mechanisms work, and perhaps we will over time learn entirely naturalistic reasons for such persistent and unreasoning hatred. But for now, that impossible-sounding explanation hangs together better than the material ones.
Neo,
I think much of the current strain of Jew hatred stems from shame and jealously. The Islamic world has long since pissed away a great heritage. Some hide their shame in victimhood.
Europe, and Christendom in general, has a shameful history of antisemitism that was partially expunged by WWII. But Europe has also pissed away its liberal heritage. She’s allowed herself to be overrun, once again, by the Golden Hordes. She hides her shame behind multiculturalism, and she vents her rage through antisemitism.
Until recently, America has been largely blessed. Certainly, we’ve had our lunatic bigots on the fringe–mostly leftists. And oddly enough many American Jews have let their liberal insticts be perverted by political correctness. Regardless, America, almost alone, has stood with Israel. But now our so called elites are timid and weak and ashamed, and they hide their shame in ridiculous and craven and academic polemics, but at the end of the day, their shame hides cowardice and antisemitism.
But the majority of Americans still stand with our Jewish brethren–God forbid, some are knuckle dragging Evangelical Christians–who know a friend when they see one. Our political elites appear ready to leave Israel to the Islamist wolves, but that’s just cowardice. They know Israel will fight as she always has and do what we’re apparently too timid to do. And when Israel defangs the mad mullahs we will roundly condemn her and breathe a cowardly sigh of relief and stoke our shame with another Security Council rebuke of our savior.
All in all, there’s much to be ashamed of.
It seems to me any humane person who looks at facts will side with Israel. One certainly doesn’t have to be evangelical to support Israel.
However, a look at what some of the mainline churches are doing makes it apparent that the more fundamental or bible believing an organization or society is, the more likely it will support Israel. This is a great new fact which is different than the previous centuries of history.
The following presents evidence of mainline churches practicing anti-semitism.
http://www.nysun.com/national/methodist-report-borders-on-anti-semitism/57560/
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=45&x_article=1194
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1363096/posts
“They know Israel will fight as she always has and do what we’re apparently too timid to do.”
Israel can see how very dark and profoundly awful things will be when Islam finally gets what it wants. You and I dead and everything we value destroyed and gone. Perhaps as we near such a point of no return, the millions of deluded and clueless Westerners will finally be able to see things as they really are. But I wouldn’t count on it. Because we’re kind of already on the Istanbul Express, so to speak…
More poetry, from a master…
“Kill enough of them and they stop fighting.” “If you are going to use military force, then you ought to use overwhelming military force. Use too much and deliberately use too much; you’ll save lives, not only your own, but the enemy’s too.” “I had blood upon my hands as I did this, but not because I preferred to bathe in blood. It was because I was part of a primitive world where men still had to kill in order to avoid being killed, or in order to avoid having their beloved Nation stricken and emasculated.” General Curtis LeMay.
Genesis, Chapter 12, Verses 1-3. And I will bless those that bless you and curse the one who curses you. And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.
This is in reference to the nation of Israel.
I’m not a particularly religious person but do tend to listen to warnings from God such as this.
“Biden has supported the Israelis while Obama fence sits and has friends affiliated with the convoy. And that is what we can see.”
They’re playing a phony game of good cop/bad cop… Biden is a duplicitous serial liar; like Kerry; and the Clintons. Hillary is still looking to be POTUS, there isn’t anything she and Bubba and any of those people won’t say or do to become immortalized in the history books, especially to have a portrait hanging in the White House. They will go down in history like Arthur Neville Chamberlain, famously stupid. The innocent, as usual, will pay for their pretentious incompetence.
I have been disturbed, but not totally suprised about the way The flotilla thing is being portrayed. I have posted more than one article sympathetic to Israel on my facebook page for my friends to see, though its effect is limited as most of them are Evangelical Christians and from what I see they mostly support or respond to these things the same way I do, though some of us are way more political than most of the others.
Someone above mentioned prophecy and from what I can tell, there are at two or more major attacks on Israel yet to come. One of those seems to involve Jerusalem being overrun (again) with the women being raped, but then the 6th century BC Jewish prophet Zechariah said “The Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.” – (Zechariah 14:5 (NIV)) (Pity that invading army!)and “Jerusalem will be secure” (Zechariah 14:11)
The 6th century BC Jewish Prophet Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39 ,spoke of a great war, often called the “Gog and Magog War”. The interesting thing about this war, is that the Jewish Prophet said that the invaders would:
” … After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety.
.” (Ezekiel 38:8 NIV)
In other words, the regathering of Jews to Israel is foretold here. Also, it seems Saudia Arabia (“Dedan”) sits this one out. There are a number of specific groups which are mentioned as taking part in this invasion though some of the ancient names cause problems with identifing some of their current locations. Interestingly, many of the names are beleived to have been in areas which are now Islamic, with some scholars also including Russia in this invasion, though there is great debate on this.
This war is often believed by evangelical Christians as predating the “rapture” of which readers might be familiar of hearing about from those “Left Behind” books. Though some believe it to be later as the war in which the more famous “battle of Armaggedon” is fought.
I might add, that in both Ezekiel and Zechariah, Israel is delivered, though Zechariah shows that it will be at great personal cost to many in Jerusalem.
Things may get bad for all of us before it is over.
But Messiah will come.
“They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.” Jewish Prophet Zechariah 12:10
“3 Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle.
4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.
5 You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.”
Zechariah 14:3-5
Genesis 12:2-3
“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
According to this, those who curse the Jews are in turn, cursed by God and those who bless them will be blessed. History has shown this to be true. This should be fair warning to all antisemites, that they risk being cursed by God if they do not change their ways. When the Messiah comes to rule all the nations, who would want to be on his enemies list?
For those who aren’t aware, here’s the relevant history, from Genesis, approx. 4000 years ago.
God had promised Abraham that from him God would make a great nation (chapter 12), and that all the land of Canaan (Palestine) would belong to his offspring forever (13:14-17). Later he specifically stated that Abraham’s wife Sarah would bear his child, from whom this nation would descend. At that point, Sarah was 65 and already past menopause. Ten years later, Sarah was getting impatient, and took matters into her own hand (chapter 16). She convinced Abraham to take her servant girl Hagar as concubine, so that Abraham’s seed would not die with him. So Abraham impregnated Hagar.
Once she was pregnant, Hagar taunted Sarah — likely something like “I can and you can’t.” In retaliation, Sarah began mistreating Hagar so badly she ran away from Abraham’s encampment, out into the wilderness. There, an angel of God spoke to her, telling her to go back and submit to Sarah. He also said this to her:
Hagar obeyed. Ishmael is the progenitor of the Arabs.
Fifteen years later, as promised, Sarah became pregnant by Abraham and bore a son named Isaac, who is the progenitor of the Jews.
Anyone who thinks this conflict can be solved is seriously deluded.
All the explanations for antisemitism seem to be true. I know this sounds like a silly answer, but it’s clear that antisemitism is very old. Paul Johnson has a good description of Greek hatred for Jews in Roman times–Greeks and Jews shared the city of Alexandria. Some of the problem then was based on simple rivalry and a different outlook. Later, the Christian Church promoted antisemitism. Later, the Russian government promoted it. I have no idea why the Brits are now leaders in promoting it. The Scandinavians seemed to be controlled by a weird mixture of white supremacy and holier-than-thou stupidism.
OK, I’m rambling here, but I think it will always be with us. Demagogues love it (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Ferrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, et. al). The media promotes it because they’re liberals/progressives.
Let’s not forget that there is Big Money behind antisemitism, most notably the evil Saudis, who bribe many of our government officials with cushy pensions and consulting jobs. There are several fine books on this subject.
The most important reason, however, is that the Jewish people have a relatively low population. Imagine the same kind of filth spewed again the Chinese people. Its just not possible, even though Chinese populations are hated and murdered in many Southeast Asian countries.
Also, the Jews are too “nice.” They rarely go in for mass murder. I don’t know when the Jews became such pussycats–they did a lot of damage in the early years described in the Torah. My contribution to this discussion is to say to Jews and Israelis, “Stop being so nice!”
Any further blockade runners should be sunk to the bottom of the sea. Any further rockets sent from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, or wherever, should be met with major force. We already know that people are cowards in the face of Muslim threats. They should be more afraid of angry Jews than they are.
If Israel disappeared, the Arabs and Muslims would be at each other’s throats. Nobody wants the Palestinians — Egypt, Jordan, Syria, or Lebanon. That’s why they have lived in camps for fifty years.
Our dhimmi government:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/selfinflicted_defeat.html
We definitely have been infiltrated. I’ll probably buy Andrew McCarthy’s new book describing how this happened to us.
Before I take the time to write up a thoughtful comment I want to test and see if I’m still blocked … test test
he Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks) was a political party in Russia. It emerged in 1912, as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was divided into two (the other group being the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks)).
After the 1912 split, the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia became a federated part of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Menshevik) (by this time the Mensheviks had accepted the idea of a federated party organization)
General Jewish Labour Bund of Lithuania, Poland and Russia
The Bund, or the Jewish Labour Bund,was a secular Jewish socialist party in the Russian empire, active between 1897 and 1920. Remnants of the party remain active in the diaspora as well as in Israel.
After the October Revolution, differences surged inside the party. The centrist and right wing sections of the party leadership sought to align themselves with counter-revolutionary forces. In 1921 the party issued the ‘Platform of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party’, calling for liquidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, re-privatizations of large sectors of industries and giving full voting rights to the bourgeois class. From the point onwards, the party would operate in exile.
The Foreign Delegation of the party had been established in 1920, and was at first located in Berlin (until 1933), then shifted to Paris and in 1940 moved to New York. In exile the party consisted of small groups in Geneva, Lié¨ge, Berlin, Paris, Berne and (later) New York.
The General Jewish Labour Bund in Russia and Poland was founded in Vilna on October 7, 1897.[1] The name was inspired by the General German Workers’ Association.[2] The Bund sought to unite all Jewish workers in the Russian Empire into a united socialist party. The Russian Empire then included Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine and most of present-day Poland, areas where the majority of the world’s Jews then lived.
The Bund sought to ally itself with the wider Russian social democratic movement to achieve a democratic and socialist Russia. Within such a Russia, they hoped to see the Jews achieve recognition as a nation with a legal minority status. Of all Jewish political parties of the time, the Bund was the most progressive regarding gender equality, with more than one-third of membership being female
Given the Bund’s secular and socialist perspective, it opposed what it viewed as the reactionary nature of traditional Jewish life in Russia.
IE. Tevye of fiddler on the roof was not a member
In the Polish areas of the empire, the Bund was a leading force in the 1905 revolution. During the following years, the Bund went into a period of decay. The party tried to concentrate on labour activism around 1909-1910 and led strikes in ten cities. The strikes resulted in a deepened backlash for the party, and as of 1910 there were legal Bundist trade unions in only four cities, Bialystok, Vilno, Riga and Lodz.
Riga is the capital of Latvia
now for the interesting part in that bolshevism ended with the fall of the berlin wall, now social democrats pull strings.
and you want to know why that area never cools down?
remember who sells them weapons and supplies and as i just showed above, have a lot of people there..
[who in real live play the card that nancy p played too early]
The Bund eventually came to strongly oppose Zionism,[11] arguing that emigration to Palestine was a form of escapism. The Bund did not advocate separatism, focusing on culture, not a state or a place, as the glue of Jewish “nationalism.” In this they borrowed extensively from the Austro-Marxist school, further alienating the Bolsheviks and Lenin. The Bund also promoted the use of Yiddish as a Jewish national language[12] and to some extent opposed the Zionist project of reviving Hebrew.[13]
The Bund won converts mainly among Jewish artisans and workers, but also among the growing Jewish intelligentsia. It led a trade union movement of its own. It joined with the Poalei Zion (Labour Zionists) and other groups to form self-defense organisations to protect Jewish communities against pogroms and government troops.
this is also where you get american anti semites equating soviet totalitarianism with Judaism…
sounds odd unless you know the whole history, and then you know what they are referring to (and omitting)
The Bund was the only Jewish party that worked within the soviets
in the meaning prominently used in English, a soviet. was a workers’ local council in late Imperial Russia. According to the official historiography of the Soviet Union, the first such soviet was organized in May 1905 in Ivanovo during the 1905 Russian Revolution. However, in his memoirs Volin claims that he witnessed the creation of the St Petersburg Soviet in January 1905. The Russian workers were largely organized at the turn of the century, leading to a government-sponsored Union leadership.
i have asked many times do you know what a soviet is… a soviet is what we call a union.. and it was workers unions that through collective councils ran things from top down.
makes one think differently about dodd, unions, AFL-CIO, SEIU, and councils..
oh.. a government as an hierarchical assembly of UNIONS…
In 1921, the Communist Bund dissolved itself and its members sought admission to the Communist Party.[31] As of 1923, the last Bundist groups had ceased to function in Soviet Russia.[30] Many former Bundists, like Mikhail Liber, perished during Stalin’s purges in the 1930s.
no man, no problem…
and
The Polish Bundists continued their activities until 1948. Today the Bundist legacy is represented through the International Jewish Labor Bund, a federation of local Bundist groups around the world.
this was a major contributing reason why nazi Germany (one group of socialists) teamed up with Russia (another group of socialists), to go in, take over Poland under pretext, and eradicate the third and most dangerous faction.
what became of the remaining bund?
International Jewish Labor Bund
The International Jewish Labor Bund is a New York-based international Jewish socialist organization, based on the legacy of the General Jewish Labour Bund founded in the Russian empire in 1897 and the Polish Bund that was active in the interwar years. The IJLB is composed by local Bundist groups around the world. It is an “associated organisation” of Socialist International, like the World Labour Zionist Movement or the International League of Religious Socialists[1] but it has not attended any S.I. congress since the 1999 Paris XXIst Congress
however, most dont know ANY of this stuff at all…
as if it never existed.
perhaps if they did, the antisemitism of the modern age (which is different than the antisemitism of the biblical age), would make a lot more sense.
but since NO ONE writes any history that would include the history above as part of the whole view, what is above becomes progressive non history…
EVER hear anyone bring up these points/planks and goals of this in any article on middle east peace you ever read?
wonder why…
The General Jewish Labour Bund in Russia and Poland was founded in Vilna on October 7, 1897.[1] The name was inspired by the General German Workers’ Association.[2]
i forgot to mention something important and historical in reference to the above when it appeared in the previous post
The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (German: About this sound Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known in English as the Nazi Party
was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. It was known as the German Workers’ Party (DAP) prior to a change of name in 1920
they named themselves after the organization they copied that would later be run by a funny Austrian who would try to fulfill the prophecies of Marx and design a progressive future.
The German Workers’ Party (German: Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated DAP) was the short-lived predecessor of the Nazi Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Workers%27_Party
Adolf Hitler, then a corporal in the German army, was ordered to spy on the DAP in September 12, 1919 during one of its meetings at the Sterneckerbré¤u, a beer hall in the center of the city.[3] While there, he got into a violent argument with one guest. Following this incident, Anton Drexler was impressed with Hitler’s oratory skills and invited him to join the party. After some thinking, Hitler left the army and accepted the invitation, joining in late September. At the time when Hitler joined the party there were no membership numbers or cards. It was on January 1920 when a numeration was issued for the first time: listed in alphabetical order, Hitler received the number 555. In reality he had been the 55th member, but the counting started at the number 501 in order to make the party appear larger. Also, his claim that he was party member number 7, which would make him one of the founding members, is refuted. However, in his work Mein Kampf, Hitler states that he received a membership card with the number 7. After giving his first speech for the Party on October 16 in the Hofbré¤ukeller, Hitler quickly rose up to become a leading figure in the DAP.
and the rest is history…
There is a part of the Left, they are not real liberals but they say they are liberal-minded, who shake hands with the most radical, reactionary, international right wing fringe on the face of the planet, that being Islamic Extremist. All the old tyrannical foes of Capitalism are gone, The USSR is gone, China is largely inept and often complicit to the juggernaut of commerce. These self-loathing Leftist would cut the throat of their own child just to strike out at provincial foes because it’s about personal power, not ethics, about getting on top, not liberal principle, scum of the earth scum of the earth!
Artfldgr, you should really provide the source documents, such as wikipedia, if you are going to quote verbatim from them. I see italics and indented material indicating its not original, but providing the source helps your reader evaluate the material.
[and no i didnt make a mistake, these orgs were all competing for people, modeling each other, copying each other, and with all the manipulative games being played. its easy that everyone can find something to hate in all this and then latch on to a religion, and ignore others]
The General German Workers’ Association, in German Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV) was founded on 23 May 1863 in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony by Ferdinand Lassalle and existed under this name until 1875, when it combined with August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht’s SDAP to form the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany, which was renamed shortly thereafter the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
The ADAV was the first German Labour Party, formed in Prussia prior to the establishment of the Germany had united as the German Empire. Its members were known colloquially throughout Germany as Lassalleans.
“”the continued existence of the Jews, and the irrational hatred for them, is one of the most powerful arguments (in the sense of evidence, not proof) for the existence of God””
AVI
It’s almost uncanny. People who couldn’t say two logical sentences of what jews have actually done to be hated…Hate them! I do however notice a similarity in people who couldn’t name the mayor of their city or the governor of their state that had the same vitriolic hatred for one man GWB.
Both have a judgemental God connection. Hmmmm
Maybe someone else has mentioned this, I haven’t had a chance yet to read all the comments here. But–Mr. Frank, the reason the Palestinians have lived in camps for 50 years (I think) is that the Muslim Arabs decided that long ago to maintain them as a perpetually aggrieved population with a cause against Israel, the better to have them as a fighting force, ready, trained, angry, dispossessed. It’s not that no one else wants them. It’s that they have been given a mission they never had a chance to either accept or refuse. That’s why they are still in camps. And so it must remain–until Israel is gone. The entire rest of the world, through the UN and UNRWA, is complicit. Mark Steyn has referred to them as the most comprehensively wrecked people on Earth, and I think he isn’t far wrong. They are slaves, and they don’t even know it.
UNRWA is one of those bureaucratic entities that exists to extort funds from others. It’s a black hole that could be called the “Anticharity.”
In my post at 9:06 I said that Jews should stop being so “nice.” Krauthammer said that maybe Israel should build a doomsday machine. I agree with this concept. Too many people think that it’s OK to destroy the Jewish nation. They should be worried about their own nation or their own personal safety. There are many ways to destroy a city besides nukes.
“Jen appears to be a Buchananite, a right-wing bigot. This is the only kind of antisemitism officially recognized by Hillel and B’nai Brith, but it’s so rare these days as to be almost quaint.
The real source of antisemitism is the left.”
Buchanan still gets a weekly column on the conservative web stie Town Hall. Friday he ran a piece, natch, dumping on Israel saying they should end the blockade of the poor beleaguered Gazans – you know how Pat is always rushing to the defense of radical nonwhite Third World liberation movements. The comments were 10-1 against him. There is also this article I love to cite:
Democrats more antisemitic than Republicans
Jews are hated because their culture requires them to say “no” to people. Not just to non-Jews, but to one another as well. Their drive toward criticism and skepticism are what make them hated by true believers all over the world.
Although this cultural drive has made them the most skilled and effective builders, protectors, and destroyers in the entire world individually, it has also crippled their ability to organize toward a common goal, even though they can’t help but recognize that presenting a unified front is the most important force multiplier there is. That’s why, despite the amazing individual accomplishments of Jewish scholars, industrialists, and artists, they have always fallen apart whenever they are attacked militarily, and end up having to flee into Diaspora or passively submit to enslavement rather than take a stand. Jews that stand and fight have, historically, kept being killed by non-Jews who can rally much larger armies to their side and bury any independent band of Jewish warriors under mountains of fanatically loyal cannon fodder.
After the Holocaust, the Jews finally recognized that they can’t rely on the legal protection of law-abiding nations to protect them from being massacred by fanatics whose reaction to Jewish skepticism is berzerk violence. The nation of Israel is their latest attempt to unify the Jewish people so they can make an effective military stand against the zealots that want them dead for questioning everything. Although only time will tell if it succeeds or not, the number of Jews that have decided they would rather rip apart Israel with their criticism than protect it from attack by voicing even the slightest criticism of its enemies doesn’t bode well.
Not Jewish myself, or religious, but I’ll throw out a theory anyway. Isn’t much of the Old Testament about the old Prophets, who were always working themselves into a lather calling woe upon this king of Judah and double-woe upon that one? Maybe denouncing abombinations & iniquities is just in their blood, the way drink is to us Micks, which is why the Democrat Party is the natural home for them. Poverty, injustice, hunger, inequality, racism, yadda, yadda,….paydirt! (I’m sounding flip to cheer myself up)
As for the Israelis, I think they remind a lot of us Americans of our pioneers, so we’re intuitively sympathetic but somewhat frustrated right now. They–and we–need their Andy Jackson to step forward and deliver that brave little country from its enemies. OK, a Joshua or a Gideon will do….
Armchair Pessimist . . .
Interesting analysis. Makes sense.
Oddly enough, I became quite interested in the Jacksonians after reading Russell Walter Mead’s “Special Providence,” a history of American foreign policy. I then realized that that point of view was missing from my education.
My posts above reflect my new Jacksonian thinking.
“The world” now consists mainly from dying cultures. Israel is on the rise, so envy and resentment are given. In Muslim world, it is open hatred, and in the West there is an ambiguity: from the left, the same hatred, but disguised as anti-Zionism, from the right more friendly approach. Which would prevail in the future depends on success of Israel fight for her survival. In case of overwhelming victory on the scale of 6 day war a big change can occure.
This article is a blockbuster:
Comment from “Ehud Barak’s Theater of the Absurd”:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/ehud-baraks-theater-of-the-absurd/?singlepage=true
“After five yrs in Israel, I am in a state of shock at our politics & our politicians. If someone had told me the reality of politics here, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Our country, our society, has been poisoned by Leftism. I can only pray that we somehow recuperate from this debilitating mental disease.
Our experience should be a lesson to Americans reading this — if you don’t get rid of crazy Leftists like Obama, they will destroy your country.”
Let me remind many here that in previous times some Christians looked at the old prophecies about Israel and decided that they did not apply to Israel, because after all, Israel did not exist any more. They tried to say they were about the Church. Then Israel was reborn, just as the prophet Ezekiel had alluded to. oops!
“Think about it. A team of international investigators found that North Korea sank a South Korean warship in March, killing 46 sailors. But I don’t think you’ll see many American peace activists on a flotilla to North Korea.”
From:
http://townhall.com/columnists/DebraJSaunders/2010/06/04/flotillas_goal_was_not_humanitarian
“The “won” said in his book that is the stuff hit the fan he would stand with the Muslims.”
Comment from GP:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/06/breaking-white-house-sides-with-hamas-says-gaza-blockade-unsustainable/
I can’t remember now from exactly where I read, this morning, a very brief, but insightful comment observing that forcing Israel to abandon the blockade would essentially establish an open port and beachhead for Iran at the very tip of Israel…
How about a little UTube fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxY7Q7CvQPQ
Doesn’t it come down, at its base, to Jews (and by extension, Christians and Western Civilization) essentially seeing the world as a good place filled with possibility (= wealth can increase), while the “others” believe in limitation and the “fixed-ness” of wealth (the zero-sum view, in which whatever someone has MUST NECESSARILY have been taken from someone else, who now has less and is justified in his hatred of the ones who are wealthy)?
If you believe your God is leading you to abundance, you’re willing to not-consume all your profits right now, and instead invest in the good to come. If you believe that having “stuff” leads to others taking it from you, you use up your “stuff” so you have the enjoyment of it before somebody else steals or taxes it away.
So, yes, in a word: ENVY. The Jews have “stuff” and additionally they bring good to the world through medical and technological advances. (And how rude of them to be altruistic — it shames the non-producers of the world!) They’ve made the desert bloom; this little sandy country exports flowers and food globally. Then there are “the others” — all they produce is starving children while they nurse their grievances; even now they can’t conceive that increase-without-thievery is possible.
Unfortunately, the liberal/progressive view is what has been taught our children for the last several decades. I feel sure it started innocently (“We have so much: security in our homes, no nation is capable of invading us, we have food to eat and secure jobs and stability. We should look to how we can help the rest of the world.”) Then the bleeding-heart liberals began to identify with the “not-haves” and their world view of, essentially: “We have resources, but we’re not rich. Why not? Somebody must be taking advantage of us. Those evil colonialists!” So liberals then start promoting the notion that capitalism is BAD and pursuit of profit is EVIL. Now we have social workers and community activists and so on promoting the idea that “it’s not your fault you’re poor” –you don’t have to struggle to change your life, you don’t have to curtail your current habits to improve your chances of success later– because “a just society” OWES you whatever you think you’ve been unfairly deprived of.
The unspoken corollary, of course, is that a RICH society, a society which pursues wealth and increase, and which doesn’t restrict its citizens with punitive laws to hinder their productivity, is necessarily an UNJUST and IMMORAL society, and deserves whatever comeuppance or retaliation the “have-nots” can manage to inflict on them. I’ll go a step further and predict that whatever evil we allow to happen to Israel will subsequently be inflicted on the USA…
A_N_M, quite a comment at this late point in this thread; your last sentence is prophetic of course. What else can we expect considering the linkage as Big Satan/Little Satan? However, in the end it will probably boil down to demographics versus privately held firearms; Lebanon coming to America, is that possible?
Sgt. Mom, as a Savajevo moment how’s this
1) Turkey and Hamas gander massive international pressure against Israel.
2) international demand for Israel to completely end blockade or face massive blockade.
3) An end to the blockade would mean an Iranian state to the south as well as to the north.
4) only option is massive and unending attacks against Iran to neutralize threat, while waiting for regime change in the US.
I doubt there will an international blockade of Israel.
“”the zero-sum view, in which whatever someone has MUST NECESSARILY have been taken from someone else””
A_Nonny_Mouse
Exactly. Make an analogy with music. Someone writes a beautiful song. Which must mean to the letist mindset that one more in the finite supply of songs available to the marketplace has been claimed and profited upon.
The leftist sees only a competitive hell all around when theres really an infinite garden of eden at all of humanity’s feet. Wealth and prosperity will become unavailable to mankind about the same time the last piece of beautiful music is created. Which is obviously never.
I am more interested in your trolls who come out of the woodwork. I just don’t think this blog has a hotbed of readers just waiting for a chance to post their various caricatures of the Jews. So, where to do they come from. How do they suddenly find out about it in such great numbers.
Their are other blogs I read that have similar situations only the topic may not relate to Jews, but maybe to Bush. There are few mentions of the hot button topic, but when there is, trolls show up that have never posted before on any other topic.
Do these guys just get up in the morning and Google their hot button topic? I really am curious.
Rick Caird—I wrote this in a comment on another thread, but it’s apropos in regard to your comment:
“I sometimes wonder whether these trolls are paid, or whether they are freelancers doing it for sheer love. Almost every single one posts from an English-speaking former British colony (or Britain itself), by the way (almost never the US, however). Australia and New Zealand are the leaders, then Canada and England distant seconds.”
Further observations and theories: yes, they do Google hot topics and bounce from blog to blog, dumping the same comments on each, or variations on the same themes. They do this whenever there’s a hot issue concerning their trolling topic, which very very often is Israel.
As I said, I think that at least some of them are organized by groups, and a subset is even paid. Of course, there are also freelancers. And there are trolls who also specialize in hounding particular bloggers in particular ways and for particular reasons.
Dealing with trolls on blogs is an art in itself. I don’t post too many details about how I do it, but suffice to say that the troll remarks you actually see appearing publicly on this blog are the tip of the iceberg.
After reading Mark Steyn on the new Islamic Turkey it looks like that Prime Minister Erdogan just might to kill two birds with one stone by escorting a convoy to Gaza.
It one lead, maybe, to military action against the Turkish Navy, thereby eliminating a threat to his regime, the Turkish military and it would solidify his position as the anti-Israeli leader of the Islamic world.
This is a long shot prediction, but Sgt. Mom feelings about Sarajevo seem uncomfortably possible.
Here is a list of the terrorists found on board that Turkish peace ship.
http://idfspokesperson.com/2010/06/06/intel-specific-flotilla-passangers-linked-to-al-qaeda-hamas-and-other-terror-organizations-6-june-2010/
Erdogan made the same mistake as Austro-Hungarian leadership in stampede to WWI: he brought in an ultimatum he believed would be accepted, while in reality it is certain to be rejected, and Israel will call his bluff. War can erupt the day Turkish Navy will try to run Gaza blockade.
From Michael Totten:
“The cycle is always the same: 1) Israel is accused of a monstrous crime; 2) the international media, European and Arab governments, NGOs, and anti-Israel commentators whip themselves into a lather with denunciations and recriminations; 3) Israel quickly finds itself in the eye of a media and diplomatic storm; 4) for a day or two (or longer) Israel looks guilty as sin, and average citizens in democratic countries become convinced that Israel indeed has committed a great crime; 5) then, slowly, doubt is cast on the prevailing narrative; exculpatory evidence comes to light; it becomes apparent that the charges are false or trumped-up; 6) but it doesn’t really matter. The wave of media and political furor has passed. The Israel-haters who rushed to judgment never retract their initial condemnations. Guilt makes the front pages, but exoneration is ignored. In the minds of people everywhere, the charges have stuck.”