Are Israeli settlers human?
Bret Stephens indicates in the WSJ that much of the world seems to think the answer is “no,” and that any sort of violence can be perpetrated on the settlers with impunity and even applause.
Stephens points out the moral failing of much of the Western world in allowing the most violent segments of Palestinian society (which is a pretty huge segment) to be feted for actions that are clearly evil, or at the very least to never be called to account for them. It is a depressing fact that this is no longer any kind of a surprise.
The action that sparked Stephens’ column was this mass murder and the celebratory Palestinian reaction to it, as well as the Western non-reaction to either the murders or the celebrations:
Last Friday, apparently one or more members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the terrorist wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s “moderate” Fatah party, broke into the West Bank home of Udi and Ruth Fogel. The Jewish couple were stabbed to death along with their 11-year-old son Yoav, their 4-year-old son Elad and their 3-month-old daughter Hadas. Photographs taken after the murders and posted online show a literal bloodbath.
Settlers have become vermin to be exterminated, exactly Hitler’s attitude towards Jews in general. And this is not just something many Palestinians think, but something a large segment of the West’s left and intelligentsia believe.
The most important portion of Stephens’ article, however (at least to my way of thinking, since my specialty is political change) is the following:
I have a feeling that years from now Palestinians will look back and wonder: How did we allow ourselves to become that? If and when that happens””though not until that happens””Palestinians and Israelis will at long last be able to live alongside each other in genuine peace and security.
But I also wonder whether a similar question will ever occur to the Palestinian movement’s legion of fellow travelers in the West. To wit, how did they become so infatuated with a cause that they were willing to ignore its crimes””or, if not quite ignore them, treat them as no more than a function of the supposedly infinitely greater crime of Israeli occupation?
That’s an important question because it forms part of the same pattern in which significant segments of Western opinion cheered Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe and even Pol Pot. The cheering lasted just as long as was required to see the cause through to some iconic moment of triumph, and then it was on to the next struggle. It was left to others to pick up the pieces or take to the boats or die choking in their own blood.
I believe I can answer, and the answer I give is not an encouraging one. I think the number of Palestinians who “will look back and wonder: How did we allow ourselves to become that?” is incredibly minuscule, and perhaps limited to those Palestinians who have not become “that” in the first place. And the same is true of “their legion of fellow travelers in the West.”
The ability to re-evaluate one’s past actions and thoughts in the light of new information is rare. Far more common is the tendency to excuse or ignore. How many leftists have taken another look at themselves because of Pol Pot? Although I’m sure they exist, they are as a few grains of sand on a vast beach.
[NOTE: I wrote at length about the same question here, in the context of the aftermath of the Vietnam War.]
In 1975 when the Democrats voted to cut off funding to our allies in SE Asia, Christopher Dodd stated in congress that the people in Cambodia would be better off under Pol Pot. I’ve never heard him admit being wrong.
oppressor oppressed class rules…
proven by disparate impact
Wonder how npr covered these murders.
It’s even worse than Stephens describes:
The bien pensant “progressives” do not really care about getting the facts right because holding these opinions is primarily a self-referential exercise, signaling elite status in their own societies – and for a handful of hardcore lefties, undermining the morality of that society. What’s happening “over there” does not really concern them.
This is also why factual argue makes not a dent on these great thinkers.
Of course they will never admit they were wrong about the facts “out there” – because it was never about anything but bolstering their own self-image.
This, one of many, atrocities should be condemned by people everywhere. I have not even seen it reported in the dinosaur media. Their silence is profound! Some crimes commited by certain people against certain others are not even seen as worthy of coment.
Evil loves to attack children:
In Auschwitz Dr. Mengele took my 5-month-old son from my hands. I inquired at the Blocké¤lteste about my child and was slapped on the face. As I got to know, my poor child and my mother had been put on the right side, that is, they had been taken to the gas chamber on that day when we arrived. They had been burnt in the crematorium. –excerpt from Protocol Nr. 614
Name: dr. S. S.
Gender: female
Place of birth: Nagyléta
Date of birth: 1913
Place of residence: Munké¡cs
Occupation: housewife
Ghetto: Munké¡csi téglagyé¡r
Camps: Auschwitz, Stutthof, Praust
Untill Palestinians en masse stay unpunished for their crimes, situation will not change. They need Hama, Dresden or Hiroshima lesson to repent.
We witness the same pattern over and over: the left champion the virtues of Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, over here the Palestinians, over there the 9 month abortionists, under that rock the repressed Rev Sharpton yearning to be free, and so on. They see heroes everywhere that we see villains.
It all starts when people are in their teens. Since its hip to wear a Che t-shirt, put on a Che t-shirt. Since Hollywood starlet Jane believes it I believe it. Rock star Bono believes it so I believe it. My profession who is so smart believes it so it must be true. Never forget that a large part of the allure the left holds out to youth is that its cool to be left.
Like Neo says, few of them will ever experience an epiphany and realize they have been idolizing the worst monsters of the modern era. I no longer try to discuss anything of substance with a leftist, there’s just no point. My cats have a better grasp of reality.
“the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them”
since she is a feminist she puts men in the begining…
I feel that “man-hating” is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.
of course she does not hate the men of the other oppressed classes which means she is only referring to one group in a very indirect way.
this particular group is to be removed and is responsible for all the ills in the world.
the people of israel are a subset of this group, and so have, according to applying outcomes based comparing, oppressed the Palestinians.
oppressors are not human by definition. they are not allowed to defend themselves, and of course cant have businesses, economic help, sympathy, even rights…
what do you think all these offices of diversity, and women/girls in signing statements and laws and all that?
the majority are trying to find why, and they are not looking at the rules of the very game they themselves follow, and of course as in the past, creating the scape goat that will be the target of frustrations.
this same idea is what makes them side with Palestine… we are all the same… we are equal, but look.. the Jewish people have more than Palestine… that cant be if they are the same… so they must be cheating.
same with the men targeted in the west, of which Jewish men are a subset. throw the bathwater out with the baby in this case.
no scholarships, no business help against huge affirmative help, majority being fired.
heck justice department is refusing to accept test scores unless there is enough people of race that can be promoted ahead and over the oppressor class.
oh.. and if the people who have joined in did so thinking that somehow absolved them or separates them… well..
so much for things like
Paulo Freire – Pedagogy of the Oppressed
so why did they want us to vote?
“There can be no really pervasive system of oppression… without the consent of the oppressed”
under Volk or folk Marxism…
the traditionally underclass are superior to the traditionally upper class who only have that place due to oppressing the underclass.
so in this way, the underclass rise up to overthrow the one over class of oppressors, and basically endeavor through redistribution, abortion, health rationing, and if need be other population control things in which disproportionate selection is unavoidable, or the diluting of the genomes through social changes
to marx the oppressors were the owner of capital, and the oppressed the poor.
but volk marxism is based on race and gender, as in germany..
ie… its called polarizing society… dividing it to set the two halves at each other under hegelian ideas… of course the ones slamming the two together will insure that our battle between sexes, and races will turn out with a powerful state which will use social justice to rebalance realities unfairness.
you have to remove the oppressors, they are such from birth (all men are rapists), and so have to go…
you can find the pertinent quotes in each groups leaders quotes.. just remember they are one, so if they say men, they are not talking about the men who are in the other under menchen groups…
so when they talk about having to lower population, they are not just talking equally..
“If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.” — Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001
ah… one idea, many parts, all converging on the target.. the creators of the industrial revolution, modern economy, banking, and all that… with those people gone, who would bring it back?
if not for the nasty stuff in history one would say such was unimaginable…
having made a wonderful society, the suggestible side of the family ( turned on their mates, and somehow got it into their heads that their mates and helpmeets through millions of years before we were even human, was their oppressors, and that left could live better without right. as if dark exists without light and visa versa.
and the rest, shall we say, became history…
their children are unfit and dumbed down and unskilled…. their infrastructure is been neglected in favor of entitlements which has made them fat and nasty, and ready to hammer any part of the population who could do better than average. their manufacturing base is gone, their credit is in taters as men desperate o keep their families went up into stratospheric hock to people who divorced and cashed in… huge infertility, no family unity or social networks… tradition is now a pavlovian bell to go out and buy with its meaning drained…
i dont know about you but i dont remember that that would be the results of following their promise and being the army of societies change from the oppressive lives they said we had to this which is the results of their “adjustments”.
curtis.. whats the difference between your example and social engineers that sort children and play games with their minds to trrick them into career catagories that they think need adjustment to improve the state?
well, the difference is we werent normalized to mengele doing it, and here we are, so we think its just fine…
My nephew is turning 13. Time for a man to man gift. I am buying him a gun. A nice Henry — a lever action 22 caliber. It’s a pretty expensive gift for a birthday present but guns are special. He LOVES to shoot. I’m going to get so much joy out of giving it to him. He’s been safety trained and demonstrated he’s responsible. He’s been shooting since he was six. They do that in the heartland. But overall, I think the gun is more a gift to me than to him. It’s a way, however small, of continuing the freedoms and values I cherish.
Curtis,
Good for you. I got my first 22 rifle when I was 8, started shooting when I was 6 (I was a farm kid). I gave my daughter and my 2 sons their own 22 when they turned 10 and taught them safety and marksmanship (living in town by now). Safe gun handling and target shooting are a wonderful and fun way to teach a kid what it means to be responsible.
“They do that in the heartland.”
Yes, we do.
Reference hate, lies and murder;
Unfortunately I lost the link to this dandy. An online BBC report on the west bank murders put ‘family of five’ in apostrophes, as though the Israelis were claiming it and it was really not so or in some way suspect, or not really a family. or something less than real victims of murder. People like the BBCs are immune from moral epiphanies, they are apes by choice.
Unfortunately Sergey is right about a massive tragedy being necessary to change opinions. Peace usually comes about by one party breaking the will and destroying the hopes of the other party. The constant pressure on Israel for concessions has the opposite effect.
The Vicious Babushka has the story at
http://www.viciousbabushka.com/Outrage Over BBC and CNN Use of Scare Quotes in Israeli Mass Murder
Bob from VA, referencing Sergey, says,
“Peace usually come about by one party breaking the will and destroying the hopes of the other party.”
Yes. Nothing changes a bad actor’s mind except utter, humiliating defeat; which has to be followed up with an ultimatum of how the defeated enemy will be allowed to continue breathing and blinking.
“Ben David” – Excellent and perceptive comment! – “…a self-referential exercise, signaling elite status in their own societies.”
In a similar sense, I believe that this was much of the impetus among those who in 2010 cast their votes in favor of our current president. In effect, for many, politics became a conduit for the reaffirmation and validation of one’s social status.
Anyway, Mr. Stephens’ question:
“I have a feeling that years from now Palestinians will look back and wonder: How did we allow ourselves to become that?”
Akin to Neo, I believe that few, if any, “palestinians” will ever ask, let alone entertain, such a question, to begin with. From my reading of history, for example, I am unaware of any members of Japan’s Kempei Tai or Unit 731; Germany’s S.S.; Russia’s NKVD, ever having had any regrets about their actions. Alas, such people sleep very well at night, as it were. As I am sure will the creatures who murdered the members of the Fogel family.
In a historical and political sense, however, the reason is quite simple: “They” can’t, because there is no “they”, there.
What, at bottom, does the contrived “Palestinian People” stand for and epitomize; what is its fundamental guiding ethos; how does it define itself? What gives the “Palestinian People” meaning…except the negation and obliteration of Jewish statehood?
There is not and has never been a “Palestinian People” – historically; ethnically; anthropologically; linguistically, to begin with.
In effect, the idea of a “Palestinian People” has been manufactured and perpetuated over several decades – from motives economic, ideological, theological, and political, and shared over time among a wide variety of nations – to nullify the re-established nation-state of a genuine, ancient, historical, people: The Jews.
Is it wrong for me to hope for a day when the Palestinian people, root and branch, are expunged from the face of the planet? I guess it is wrong, but still…
“What gives the “Palestinian People” meaning…except the negation and obliteration of Jewish statehood?”
The Arabs read “the book” and fret that “the elder shall serve the younger.”
I used to think the phrase, “never again,” meant something like “not another Holocaust.” But I think more deeply it means “never again with our consent,” which is what Zionism is all about: the in the present fulfilling of that phrase because if you wait until “then,” “never again” won’t be plausible. It was because there was waiting and denial that it happened in the first place. It is this meaning of Zionism, this present, now, today, preparation for tomorrow which enrages Esau. How fitting that Purim (March 20, 21) should be so close and a reminder that Amalek shall not prevail but will be hung on his own gallows.
As Michael in Pa states, the ‘Palestinian people’ is a contrived entity. They are simply arabs who the Jews displaced.
Too many people forget why the modern state of Israel came to be. Too many people forget or choose to ignore why the Israelis came to possess the West Bank, the Gaza and the Golan Heights.
It was Arabs who displaced Arabs, their own fellows against each other and not permitting those who wanted to leave Israel to find a refuge in any Muslim lands. On the other hand, all Muslim lands immediately ejected Jews and confiscated their property and money, and often, their lives.
Moreover the Jews made Israel fertile and productive from the 1880’s onward and attracted Arabs who preyed upon them. These parasites and persecutors were invited to stay upon nationhood.
Joan Peters covers the myth of a “Palestine” quite well in “From Time Immemorial.”
Can there be any doubt that Obama has led this nation into an abyss?
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
It’s a video of the 12 year old surviving member of the family asking, “What will happen if you do anything, America will get at you!?”
“Is it wrong for me to hope for a day when the Palestinian people, root and branch, are expunged from the face of the planet? I guess it is wrong, but still…”
Vanderleun,
Technically, it is wrong, but it is also a perfectly understandable sentiment that does not bother me in the least. I am going to pray that one day the Palestinians become civilized human beings, and that the wider Arab-Muslim world one day truly earns the respect of the rest of humanity. Until that happens though, I have not one iota of sympathy for any of them, except for those very few who have rejected Islam utterly and rejected their Jew-hatred with it. I am constantly reminded of that famous scene from Lawrence of Arabia, in which Lieutenant Lawrence describes the Arabs as “a little people, a silly people, greedy and barbarous and cruel.”
In one respect I find this all ironically liberating, for whenever I hear about some Palestinians being killed, regardless of whether they were targeted, or whether they were collateral casualties, I don’t feel the slightest bit of sympathy for them; nor do I feel any moral obligation to them whatsoever. I only get annoyed, because I know that whenever Israel does anything to defend itself, every Leftist cockroach is going to blame them for their “arrogance” and “cruelty.”
I don’t like feeling this way, but it seems like such a waste of time to regard the Palestinians as human beings. The Palestinian people are pure filth.
Since I recently converted to Catholicism I may have to confess the sin I am about to commit, but God bless every piece of shrapnel from every Israeli bomb, bullet and missile that ever ripped through the flesh of a Palestinian Arab Muslim. The world is a much better place without them.
The very term “settler” represents the ultimate demon in Marxist eyes. All the evils of “White, Western, Capitalist, Bible-believing, Patriarchal Colonialism” are encapsulated in that word. And since the Marxists have framed Zionism to be a colonial enterprise along these lines, the same kind of hatred they have for the Tea Party is on display here.
In Avatar, the native Na’vi chieftain’s daughter (Neytiri) nearly fires a poisoned arrow at the group of earthlings wandering the forest. It is Leftist moral dogma that such is the deserved fate of any of the demon-group (“White settler-colonist” etc.) who dares to tread on the turf of the indigenous. 9/11, as one college professor claiming to be American Indian put it, was chickens come home to roost for the “little Eichmanns” who have been oppressing indigenous peoples since 1492. The Marxist Left is thoroughly and dogmatically Manichean about this “struggle of good against evil,” and their belief that the oppressor deserves violent retribution, even annihilation, is compatible with the Islamic doctrine of justified jihad.
It is either “settler” or “human” with the Leftists. Whomever they put in the “settler” rubric, they necessarily cease to consider human.
Golda Meir expressed the conflict this way:
We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.
This isn’t quite what Torah allows since only God can forgive murder, but I think the idea is not so much that per se as it is the terrible decisions terrorism and war forces. King David was not allowed to build the temple because his hands had shed blood. No iron tool is allowed to shape stones that form the alter–same idea. God is not opposed to self defense, but even if there is no guilt, there are consequences. No wonder there is such reverence for “shalom.”
Curtis quoted Golda Meir “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”
Curtis, if you find an Israeli that feels that way you will be the first one. A lot of Israelis probably looked at one another when Meir said that and wondered what the hell is she talking about. Ask an Israeli whose family comes from an Arab country how he feels about killing Arabs. There was a reason hundreds of thousands of Jews in Arab lands dropped everything and fled to Israel as soon as they heard Israel had been re-established.
Indeed the Israeli attitude towards themselves and others is worth noting because we can learn how to handle multiculturalism and Obama from it. Exclusive of the press, which is in Israel exist only to sow panic, the Israelis know they are better, a lot better than their foes and that includes the European chattering classes and the Arab world. The Arab world is a nuisance, the Europeans are contemptible, Obama is a stupid and arrogant spoiled child, disgusting and silly, but mainly silly.
Curtis and everyone at Neo-Neocon, please join me in prayer that Obama visits Israel. One never has to guess how an Israeli feels about you. It would be a delight to see the demonstrations of utter contempt.
If you believe you’re doing the work of God (or the “force of History”, which you treat like a god), then questioning your own actions is equivalent to questioning God’s actions. By definition, this is heresy, which in the Islamic world is a capital crime. More significant, to admit you were wrong is to admit that you were not, in fact, serving God at all, which totally destroys your concept of who you are and of how the universe works. I doubt that very many people, either Palestinian or Liberal, will be willing to accept this, or even to admit that it’s possible .
The decent, humane Palestinians that might have existed at one time have long since departed for distant shores, leaving behind a particularly vile residue. For them, the murder of Jewish children isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Christopher Dodd stated in congress that the people in Cambodia would be better off under Pol Pot.
P.J. O’Rourke once described Dodd as a “human rum blossom”. I see no reason to argue with that description.
Of course, the Palestinian hatred of Jews goes back a long way, well before Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Haj Amin al-Husseini sponsored his own Waffen-SS division (“Handschar”, if you follow those things), so the “decent” Palestinians I mentioned above always seem to have been overwhelmed and outnumbered by the thugs, gangsters, and terrorists.
It’s a good point, Bob from Virginia, and there is some speculation she never said it! And I was aware that Israelis despise such a sentiment. The quote has value, however, for the dilemma that war and terrorism presents to defenders. Or take the case of a battered and victimized wife who kills her husband. He drove her nearly insane. She tried to access the legal system but it wouldn’t help her. So she kills her husband. But she will suffer the trauma of having to do so.
The “war” against our American way of life has caused me to hate, which, I believe is a valid response. But its not a great place to live and there is found a palliative in community and family.
Whether Golda said it or not, it rings true, for it would have been very much in character for her to say it. Replace “we” with “I”, remember that she was a grandmother as well as a Prime Minister, and it might make more sense to you.
Israelis are not immune to self-deception or political correctness; remember Peace Now? (That always reminds me of the Hebrew phrase, “Shalom Ach-shav”, which inspired a punny counter-slogan, “Shalom, Ach Shav” — peace, but for nothing.)
It is common (but wrong) to speak of Israelis and settlers, as though settlers aren’t really Israelis. (What settlers are, of course, are Israelis who have chosen to live on land rightfully captured by Israel in a war of aggression launched against Israel — land offered in exchange for peace many, many times, always rebuffed. Settlers are people who have chosen to live where they do, at risk to their lives… knowing that their government, which encouraged them to live there, could also take everything away in exchange for a peace treaty, as Israel did in Gush Katif and Yamit.)
I do hope that one day, Palestinians en masse will look back on this part of their history as a time of madness and great shame. But it would take a singularity to achieve it, a “game-changer” that separates everything before from everything after. I, and many other Israelis, have long wished for a way to get there gradually. It hasn’t happened, and it’s not going to happen; there are too many entrenched interests on the Palestinian side to allow it to happen. A brave Palestinian who dares advocate a “live and let live” policy generally doesn’t survive very long.
As has been pointed out, here and elsewhere, the Palestinians have never had to answer for their actions. When Israel attempts to force them to pay a price — such as in Operation Cast Lead, one of the most humanitarian invasions in history — the world howls in outrage, and forces Israel to retreat.
I once advocated that, with rockets from Gaza raining down on southern Israel daily, Israel could force the Palestinians of Gaza to pay — by reclaiming one square kilometer of territory per rocket. (The Gaza Strip is 160 square kilometers.) But if the world wouldn’t allow Israel to invade the Gaza Strip even temporarily, even with an embarrassing level of painstaking care to avoid killing non-combatants, how could Israel ever make such a policy stick?
It is unfortunately the case that, for the Palestinians, there is a strong vested interest in continuing the struggle — and, for Israelis, the status quo is the least awful of many horrible alternatives. So the fighting will continue, until and unless we see the game-changer.
P.S. — Michael in PA, I beg to differ. It is not at all certain that the butcher of the Fogels will sleep peacefully at night. You can bet that the IDF is looking for him. It took them seven years to track down the infamous murderers of Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche, but they did, and they got ’em all.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Daniel,
My favorite Golda quote is the one about the nation everybody keeps mentioning:
A brilliant quote which I nevertheless find fit to amend by extending it to the present tense as well. A falsified narrative has taken over, and it needs to be fixed. The very term “settler” as applies to the Jews of Judea and Samaria and Gaza is part of that narrative. It should be noted, however, that the Arab-language media (thanks MEMRI for the great job of translating them) has never limited its use of the term “settler” and “settlements” to the post-1967 territories of Israel; for example, Kiryat Motzkin, of the pre-1967 Israel (near Haifa), is called a “settlement” in the Arab media. In short, Israel has nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by maintaining the artificial distinction between its pre- and post-1967 lands, a distinction which the Arabs have never made and the Marxist Left increasingly no longer does either (cf. Helen Thomas).
By the way, you write:
“But if the world wouldn’t allow Israel to invade the Gaza Strip even temporarily, even with an embarrassing level of painstaking care to avoid killing non-combatants, how could Israel ever make such a policy stick?”
It was my impression that weariness of the situation of having to ask other nations’ permission for our survival is what prompted Jews in the late 19th century to set out to renew Jewish national sovereignty on the Land of Israel in the first place. “The world wouldn’t allow…”? Who asked it?
To do something:
http://www.onejerusalem.org/sign.php
ATTEND :: Itamar Massacre Memorial @ Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, NYC — March 17, Noon
Dear Friend of Israel,
Join in a community-wide memorial service for the five members of the Fogel family who were brutally murdered this past weekend, while asleep in their home. We must not be silent! We must demand justice for the victims.
TIME: Thursday, March 17th, 2011 at 12:00 Noon
PLACE: Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, 125 East 85th Street (Park-Lex), New York City
I wonder if among those who whine for a Palestinian state are any who are aware of the museum in Nablus dedicated to the Sbarro terrorist bombing in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, or of the mural at the local university also commemorating the act.
Come to think most of those who want a Palestinian state probably are aware of these Palestinian monuments.
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