Monday, 19 January 2009
Israel is withdrawing its forces from Gaza, following a tentative truce with Hamas. The withdrawal, which began on Sunday evening, was proceeding gradually today. Israel and Hamas separately declared cease-fires on Sunday. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday that Israel does not intend to keep a military presence inside the Gaza Strip, nor does it aim to reconquer the territory.
In a recent article (The invasion of Gaza: what does it mean?- Part One and Part Two) I pointed out that the intention of Israeli imperialism was not to occupy Gaza but to inflict the maximum damage on Hamas, terrorise the population and then withdraw. This is what is now happening. Olmert told European leaders visiting Jerusalem on Sunday evening that Israel planned to withdraw all of its troops to when the situation between Israel and Gaza was "stable":
“We didn't set out to conquer Gaza, we didn't set out to control Gaza, we don't want to remain in Gaza and we intend on leaving Gaza as fast as possible", Olmert said at a dinner with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic. This decision will cause immense relief in Western capitals who, while publicly sympathetic to Israel's security concerns, were alarmed by the mounting number of civilian victims and the destabilising effects in neighbouring Arab countries.
Hamas’ Empty Boasts
The main losers, as always, are the ordinary people. In this devastating three-week war, terrible damage has been inflicted. The troops and tanks that poured into Gaza on January 3 have had two weeks in which to pulverise Gaza, which had been already badly damaged by a savage air bombardment. Now the shell-shocked Palestinians will have time to take stock of the situation. The war has taken a terrible toll on an already impoverished territory.
As Palestinians emerge from their hiding-places to survey wreckage of their homes, the last thing they will want is the renewal of the fighting that has already claimed the lives of more than 1,300 Gazans, and will claim more as the wounded die in the hospitals. The infrastructure of this desperately poor land has been devastated. Its government and administration are in ruins. Despite these evident facts, the head of the Hamas administration claimed a "popular victory" against Israel.” The enemy has failed to achieve its goals," Ismail Haniyeh said in a speech. Hamas's decision to call a truce was conditional on Israel withdrawing within a week. This was "wise and responsible," he said.
These brave words do not reflect the real situation. The Israelis are withdrawing because they have achieved their immediate goal, which I outlined in my article: “Their intention now is to make a limited strike that will seriously damage the fighting capacity of Hamas and kill as many of its leaders and militants before withdrawing, having inflicted maximum damage on the economy and infrastructure of Gaza that will take a long time to rebuild.” This is just what has occurred.
In an attempt to show that it was still capable of putting up some kind of resistance, Hamas fired about 20 rockets onto the Negev on Sunday, even when a truce was being announced to the world. But these were mere pinpricks and did not affect the plans of the Israelis in the slightest degree.
Ehud Olmert saw them – and the declarations of Hamas leaders announcing “victory” – for what they were: empty gestures. The Israeli Prime Minister declared the mission accomplished and who can doubt that he had good grounds for saying it, at least as far as the short-term military aims were concerned. The massive offensive that Israel launched with air, ground and sea forces on December 27 pushed all before it. Against the might of the Israeli state, small homemade rockets can have no real effect.
The Israeli decision to withdraw is not at all conditional on what Hamas says or does. Hamas has already said that it will stop firing rockets “when the last Israeli soldier has left Gaza.” But in reality it will be forced to stop. Its fighting capacity will have been severely damaged. Moreover, the sword of Damocles remains suspended over the heads of the people of Gaza. If there is a renewal of Palestinian rocket attacks, the Israelis will not hesitate to intervene again.
Israel still holds Gaza in an iron grip. Israel Radio reported that the Israelis would allow 200 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. But this can be opened and closed, like a water tap, whenever Israel chooses. In the economic as in the military field, Israel holds all the cards.
What Has Been Achieved?
So what has been achieved from the point of view of the Palestinians? At present Gaza’s situation vis a vis Israel remains precisely where it was before the conflict – a small and unviable state of 1.5 million people remains locked inside the strip by an iron blockade. Its economic life was being slowly strangled before the invasion. Now it must be completely wrecked. The outlook for these poor people is grim indeed.
According to the Palestinian Statistics Bureau, some 4,000 residential buildings were reduced to rubble during the conflict. Western diplomats have said it could cost at least $1.6 billion to repair the infrastructure damage in Gaza. "I don't know what sort of future I have now - only God knows my future after this," Amani Kurdi, a 19-year-old student told Haaretz, as she surveyed the wreckage of Gaza's Islamic University, where she had studied science.
Inside Israel, which lost the grand total of ten troops in combat (and three civilians in rocket attacks), the war was popular and bolstered the prospects of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak before the February 10 election. The war will have stirred up chauvinist feelings and increased the support for the right wing. This is shown by the opinion polls, which are predicting an easy win for right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Let us recall that he opposed Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza after 38 years, arguing that it would embolden Palestinian hard-liners.
The war has also undermined the credibility of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been attempting to negotiate peace with Israel. It has deepened the bitter splits that already existed among Palestinians, who feel depressed and disoriented.
During talks with Egyptian mediators, Hamas officials demanded the opening of all Gaza's border crossings for the entry of materials, food, goods and basic needs. It is probable that some concessions will have to be made on this issue. France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic (which currently holds the presidency of the EU) have called on Israel to open Gaza's borders to aid as soon as possible.
Olmert said Israel wanted out of Gaza as soon as possible and his spokesman, Mark Regev, said "enormous amounts" of aid could be allowed in if the quiet holds. But there will be conditions, as we already see from these words. “If the quiet holds” means: as long as Hamas is neutered and rendered impotent as a military force.
For the past weeks the Western governments have been content to stand by, wringing their hands and weeping crocodile tears while the people of Gaza were being subjected to a vicious bombardment. The simple fact is that these governments – and those of the so-called moderate (that is, pro-American) Arab states – wanted to see Hamas smashed and were in no hurry to stop the Israelis from carrying out this bloody work on their behalf. But now that the Israeli military machine has achieved its ends and decided to withdraw, a flurry of diplomatic initiatives has been commenced. The United States, Egypt and European countries are all striving for peace. That is to say – they are striving to prevent Hamas rearming.
That is the condition that the Israelis will demand, and are determined to get. Public Security Minister Avi Dichter threatened a military response to any renewed flow of arms into the Gaza Strip, saying Israel would view such smuggling as an attack on its territory. Therefore, we can expect to see as yet unspecified measures to stop Hamas smuggling weapons across the Egypt-Gaza frontier, a matter that the Cairo will be delighted to help bring about – if it can. Dichter told Israel Radio: "That means, if smuggling is renewed, Israel will view it as if it were fired upon."
Israel and Obama
The timing of the withdrawal is significant and confirms what I wrote in my article. In that article I explained that the Israeli ruling class attacked Gaza before Obama replaced George Bush on January 20, as a message to Washington not to reach any agreements with the Arabs that might not be to their liking. Having made their point very eloquently, they now withdraw so as not to cause unnecessary embarrassment to the man in the White House.
This was admitted by the Haaretz Service and News Agencies, which wrote yesterday: “Israeli officials have said that troops would withdraw completely before Barack Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday as the new U.S. president. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been publicly announced.” (my emphasis, AW).
The U.S. President-elect is to be sworn in on Tuesday. Everyone now looks to Barack Obama to solve this problem. But then, everyone now looks to Barack Obama to solve all the problems in the world. This would be a somewhat difficult task for the Almighty himself. Obama believes in the Almighty, but is already explaining to the people of the USA that he lacks the power to deliver miracles. This is unfortunate because miracles are exactly what are expected.
"The goal remains a durable and fully respected ceasefire that will lead to stabilisation and normalisation in Gaza," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. A spokeswoman for Obama said he welcomed the Gaza truce and would say more about the Gaza situation after he is inaugurated. Obama’s main priority is to bolster his position at home by pulling US troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. He needs to do this (and to make other popular gestures) in the first period of his administration, in order to prepare the ground for the deep cuts in living standards that he will be obliged to carry out later. His presentation of a wreath to honour US war dead a few days before his inauguration was no accident. He is saying to the US public: “Bush got you into this war. But don’t worry: I will get you out of it!”
However, as I explained in my article, in order to get out of Iraq, the Americans will have to talk to Syria and Iran, and in these negotiations (which will be conducted behind locked doors, far from the inquisitive eyes of public opinion), the fate of the Palestinians will be decided. The invasion of Gaza was part of these negotiations, which resemble a game of chess in which whole nations are disposed of like mere pawns, in order that powerful states can obtain their main goals.
The Palestinian people must not expect anything from “friends” like Obama or the governments of the European Union. Still less can they expect from “friendly” Arab governments who either fear the Palestinians because they are arousing the masses in their own countries, or else are using the Palestinian cause as a pawn in a diplomatic game of chess.
The Palestinian problem will not be solved by firing rockets or sending suicide bombers to blow up buses in Israel, as advocated by Hamas. Nor will it be solved by Abbas, who, under the guise of negotiating peace, is preparing to sell out to Israel and the imperialists. The problem can only be solved as part of the revolutionary struggle of the masses to overthrow the rotten pro-western Arab regimes and establish workers’ and peasants’ governments in the Middle East.
Just as the national problem in Russia was solved when the workers and peasants took power, so in the Middle East, the national question of the Palestinians, Kurds and other oppressed peoples can only be solved through workers’ power and a socialist federation. The only way to challenge the might of Israeli imperialism is to split the worker away from Zionism, and that can only be done on the basis of revolutionary class politics. Any other road will only lead to an increase in national hatreds, chauvinism, new massacres, wars and bloodshed. The Palestinians in the past had a socialist tradition. Today that tradition is the only salvation!
London, January 19, 2009
RENEGADE EYE
164 comments:
Great article, just want to discuss a couple of points though.
The boasting of Hamas and the resistance factions are over the top but they are not without basis. The IDF could not break the resistance, could not break the ability of resistance factiins to fire rockets and did not dare to enter the built up areas as teh resistance was well dug in and would of inflicted serious casualties on the IDF.
Israel has had to retreat (in good order) and revert to the previous strategy of straving the population Gaza until the power base of Hamas and the resistance is undermined effectively for Fatah to re-assert it's control.
Chris S: I hope you come more often here. I know you like polemical arguments.
Israel never claimed it would destroy Hamas. They learned from Lebanon not to make such claims. I think Hamas lost period. Now the so called Marxist PFLP is trailing Hamas with that position. When civilians suffer like that and calling it victory, is Orwellian to me.
I think Hamas will be in control Gaza. Fatah is discredited. Actually both are hated.
Ren:
Before I read the post, below you wrote:
"Your scenario denies the right to a Jewish homeland. Self determination is for all."
That's simply not true: in modern South Africa, that country is a homeland to both white and blacks who had a stake in it.
A Free and Democratic Palestine would be exactly the same for Jews and Palestinians. To claim it is not possible is to be racist. Any state, like modern Israel that automatically provides citizenship based on ethnicity, yet wholesale denies the right to citizenship to another, also indigenous ethnicity is constitutional racism. Nothing else.
Gert: The South African analogy, means a secular democracy. It would be unacceptable to have a state with a Jewish minority ruled by Hamas or present Fatah? I'm bringing that up, because it's something for all to think about.
A secular state does not prohibit religious or religiously inspired parties: it only guarantees separation between Church and State. I see no reason why Hamas would object to that: the denomination 'Islamist' is more nominal than functional. We must not confuse secularism with anti-religionism (a la French revolution).
Article:
Well, while I broadly agree with the analysis (there's nothing new there, though) the author is preciously sparing about his envisaged solution.
Is this popular Socialist movement also to include Jewish Israelis? If not, he's calling for Jewish bloodbath. Only Jewish Israeli AND Palestinian resistance and uprising against the march of colonial Zionism can stop the latter and result in a shared country or a just two state solution.
I await, with a terrible certainty, the shit thrown at this thread.
Here's hoping...
A Free and Democratic Palestine would be exactly the same for Jews and Palestinians. To claim it is not possible is to be racist. Any state, like modern Israel that automatically provides citizenship based on ethnicity, yet wholesale denies the right to citizenship to another, also indigenous ethnicity is constitutional racism.
Gert, exactly what race do I belong to? Am I the American Race, the Jewish Race, the Zionist Race, the White Race?
How about Palestinians; are they a race now, too? Seems you have an odd way of defining race...
Question: Was apartheid South Africa willing to give full citizenship to blacks if they legally changed their race to white? Oh, wait, that's impossible... Tell you what, just to prove that there is nothing racist about a Jewish State, I will be happy to grant citizenship to every "Palestinian" who legally converts to Judaism.
In fact, I'll even go one step further: Any brown, white, black, Oriental, Polynesian, or mixture thereof who becomes legally Jewish is welcome to enjoy full citizenship in the Jewish State of Israel.
Still think being Jewish is a race, Gert? I know your ancestors in Germany did...
Madze:
You're simply speaking a language of your own here.
I don't use the term "race" because I don't believe in the existence of "races".
The term "racism" is indeed a misnomer, yet its meaning is well understood. And deliberately misunderstood by you to try and sabotage discussion.
In short, you're behaving like an Internet troll.
Gert, since you're a bit on the ropes right now let me help you out some.
You believe it is racist to persecute a people because they have a different color skin (which is commonly understood to be race). That's good, as I find that detestable, as well.
Now, in South Africa that was exactly what happened. It wasn't political differences or national allegiences, it was cuacasians subjugating negros because of their genetics, period.
Well, we know that many Jews look like arabs, so the idea of a Jewish state has nothing at all to do with "race". What it does have to do with is people who have Jewish national/religious identity wanting a country of their own vs a people of arab national/religious identity wanting a nation of their own.
Jews don't want a nation like all the other arab countries where they are badly persecuted, or just another European nation where they have always been persecuted and still are today (you are "Exhibit A" of this, Gert), and they don't want to be forced to assimilate into another foreign national identity and culture that they are not part of either historically, religiously, or culturally.
The Jews right to self-determination is stronger than the hatred of their enemies. Stonger than the hatred of the arab anti-Semites (MFL), stronger than the hatred of European anti-Semites (Gert), and stronger than the hatred of American anti-Semites (LWB).
Jews want their national/biblical/historic/modern homeland to be a Jewish Nation, and that desire is not only just, fair, and humane, but anything EXCEPT that would be cruel and inhumane.
Cry about your fellow Palestian arabs rights to self-determination all day long, but the conversation begins and ends with Jews fighting for their home and anyone that opposes that right deserving what they get.
Oh, and while you're at it, go ahead and tell some of your fellow Englishmen that they don't have the right to self-determination, either. Inform them that you want to bring in several million more arabs and rename the country Eurabia...bet that would go over well, eh?
"Stonger than the hatred of the arab anti-Semites (MFL), stronger than the hatred of European anti-Semites (Gert), and stronger than the hatred of American anti-Semites (LWB)."
If that's true, Jews must be a hell of a lot tougher than I even thought they were.
Hopes dashed.
Ren, what Woods is advocating is highly unlikely to happen in the Middle East, especially on a large regional, international scale. If it did, its only conceivable chance for success would be under an Islamic, not a socialist, banner.
And that brings me back to why any so-called "peace" plan between the Palestinians and Israel is unlikely to yield anything but bitter fruit at best.
Who decides the Jerusalem question. This isn't just the most important sticking point, it's the only sticking point. Oh sure, there are other issues, but until that one is solved, they are irrelevant.
Here is the only way it can be solved. Jerusalem must become an entirely Jewish only city.
Or, an entirely Arab Muslim only city.
One of the two. No compromise.
The only way this will come about will be by way of yet more bloodshed. You ain't seen nothing yet. When one side of the other is finally so badly beaten that they just finally cave in out of exhaustion, humiliation, and abject despair, and one side is finally and at long last entrenched in their position within Jerusalem, then it will be settled, and all the other issues will finally be resolved. They will in fact be seen for what they are-not issues, but excuses.
Ask yourself which side is the least tolerant towards the rights of the other as applied to Jerusalem and you see where the problem lies.
I know it's probably pretty plain where my sympathies lies, but that's irrelevant. The point is, when one side wins, whichever side that is, the matter will finally be settled-and not until then.
MZ: "Stonger than the hatred of the arab anti-Semites (MFL), stronger than the hatred of European anti-Semites (Gert), and stronger than the hatred of American anti-Semites (LWB)."
You are talking about a few bloggers you don't like. Lets really get down to the meat of antisemitism. Hitler enacted laws against Jews, based on the US Jim Crow laws. In Czarist Russia Jews paid higher taxes than Christians, and lived in what is like townships. Don't forget the Dreyfuss Trial. If you believe antisemitism in the anti-Zionist movement is so much of a problem, can you name any impending legislation that specifies Jews in particular? If there is a rise in antisemitism, there has to be corresponding laws. Explain?
I don't believe self determination is not an absolute right. Tibetans have a right to autonomy, seperation etc from China, Not a right to oppress minority Chinese. I can go on with other examples.
Daniel H-G: I had to post a final assessment. This topic does bring out the worst.
Pagan: The key is Egypt and Iran. If they become socialist the rest will go.
The writing on the wall is that Israel will divide Jerusalem. The Zionist government has to give Abbas something.
Gert: Israel is important. Socialists are internationalists. We are active in Israel. We have people in the Histadrut. We oppose boycotting Israel, because it'll only hurt workers and leftists in Israel. You should have noticed it was critical of Hamas.
If you believe antisemitism in the anti-Zionist movement is so much of a problem, can you name any impending legislation that specifies Jews in particular? If there is a rise in antisemitism, there has to be corresponding laws. Explain?
Ren, you have an incredible naivete on topics outside of the scriptures of Marx. Are you sincerely not aware of the virulent anti-Semitism in the arab world? PA TV? Ever seen a Palestinian rally where activists are chanting "Jews to the ovens"? Ever see the frequent Palestinian sermons where they refer to the Jews as pigs and apes who must be eradicated?
Seriously, I do like you as a person, but your limited exposure to matters outside of communist inner workings is frightening.
European countries are trying to ban kosher slaughter, the Venezuelans are violently harassing their Jewish communities (I have first hand reports), European anti-Semites like Gert are burning and vandalizing synagogues, while Jews are told not to where there yarmulkes in public do to high risk of violent attacks.
Please, Ren, get some news and information beyond the prescribed communist propaganda. Break away from your isolation. There is so much out there that you're missing.
Ren-
"The key is Egypt and Iran. If they become socialist the rest will go."
No, the key is Jerusalem. When Muslims decide they can live with Jews and Christians sharing the city with them-which of course they will never do-then it's settled. Failing that, when either Muslims are kicked out of Jerusalem for good, or everyone else is, then it's settled.
Until such time one of those scenarios take place, it doesn't matter what political ideology becomes predominant.
Well, unless of course you think that the vast majority of Muslims are going to either drop their religion or reform it profoundly in the course of adopting socialism.
I would say if maybe eighty percent of them followed that rout, you might be right.
Madze:
"European countries are trying to ban kosher slaughter"
This is simply complete and utter nonsense. No wonder you feel persecuted, if you believe in this kind of crap.
Listen MZ, on Israel we all have heard and understand your position loudly and clearly: YHWH has promised Israel to the Jews, the Jews only and no one else.
Let me say one more time: WE GET YOUR MESSAGE.
BTW, for your information, my direct ancestors were non-Jewish zionists, not of your particular variety, but zionists nonetheless.
Now, unless you're actually going to contribute here and stop trolling I'm going to completely ignore you.
Spot on Gert, he simply says the same thing again and again.
I knew terrible shit would be thrown...
Thanks Daniel...
Phosphorus shells anyone?
Ren:
I've gotta say I have problems imagining the Israeli Left (or what's left of it) getting involved in such a struggle. Economically, Israel is Reaganomics, politically (and Foreign Policy) small minded neoconservative.
I just don't see the acorn from which the tree could grow. The Americanisation of Israel also plays against us: the European Left is far more rooted in direct descendants of the Social Struggles, Liberation Struggles etc than the American Left (Liberals) who spend a lot of time on wedge issues but not much more. Correct me if I'm seeing this wrongly...
Gert, ignore away...I don't expect you or any of the other bigoted Hamas activists to enjoy being publicly shamed and exposed, but becoming a card carrying, anti-Semite comes with a price.
Anyway, seeing as you have no comebacks beyond crying "stop saying that you troll!", let me continue the deconstruction of your bigotry...
Gert regarding Europeans banning kosher slaughter: This is simply complete and utter nonsense. No wonder you feel persecuted, if you believe in this kind of crap.
You are either incredibly stupid, ignorant, or an anti-Semite. I'll go with anti-Semite. Holland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland all ban kosher slaughter by law. Look it up, Adolph, er...Gert.
Gert regarding Jewish defense against libel: Now, unless you're actually going to contribute here and stop trolling I'm going to completely ignore you.
Cutting off dissent is one of the anti-Semite's first orders of business. Seeing how you've now dedicated your life to vilifying the Jews, I suggest you look in the mirror when it comes to contributing troll dialogue. You see, the only one who's screaming on this blog about God and the chosen Jews is you, the deranged anti-Semite, who's constructing his own dialogue in his head and typing out as if the conversation really happened.
BTW, the belief that the Jews are God's chosen people is fundamental to Judaism and Torah. By spewing your hate at Jews for accepting this premise is by definition anti-Semitism. Congratulations, your digging yourself deeper and deeper into classical anti-Semitism with every bigoted word.
Admit it, Gert, it'll be cathartic: you hate the Jews and are damn proud to say it.
You're a fucking disgrace MZ, you're a bigoted, myopic, prejudice ridden fucking cunt that calls people Adolf and loves to tag anyone that begs to differ as an anti-semite.
You're the weakest kind of bottom feeding fuck, idea-less, anger ridden and futile in your pissing in the wind.
As for ritual slaughter, you fuck, you forget to mention that most civilised people have a problem with both halal and kosher killing methods and legislation against these methods does not stem from anti-Jew or anti-Muslim feeling but from animal rights that ignore daft rules about how animals should be killed and what should be eaten (like god has the time to worry about that shit).
For the record twat face:
Denmark and Finland demand the animal is stunned right after the cut.
Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Sweden demand the animal is stunned beforehand so it can't be kosher or halal.
Holland demands pre cut stunning for Halal but has legislation protecting shehitah.
Spain only allows ritual slaughter for sheep and goats.
NONE OF THESE COUNTRIES HATE JEWS, THEY HATE THE MISTREATMENT OF ANIMALS BASED ON SOME BRONZE AGE BOOK WRITTEN BY MEN THAT SAY YOU HAVE TO TORTURE ANIMALS BEFORE YOU EAT THEM.
And don't even start me on circumcision, genital mutilation of any form is so anti-human it stuns me that we allow the practice anymore.
Just as the Christians and Jews looked on as the Pagan Romans made sacrifices to their gods, both animal and human and shuddered, so do non-believers and humanists look at the eating habits and genital malpractice of the religious.
You need people to hate the Jews and you do your best to enable it, because if they didn't you'd have nothing to do with your backs to the wall style of debating and polital mindset. Your lack of ideas and your neck deep prejudice would be clear for all to see.
I can assure you that every shitty little untruth and empty oratry you throw down here I'll smash to tiny bits.
Dan, I'm going to go ahead and paste your response on my blog as the perfect exhibit of leftwing anti-Semitism. Thanks for the material.
Ren, do you still have any doubts about the anti-Semitism? This should clear up any possible confusion you still may have had.
You're a joke.
I'm a German Jew you fool but I don't believe in god or feel any adherence to that cult of ethnicity. I'm a human first.
There is not one jot of anti-semitism in the comment I wrote you and you seem to think wrongly that anything that isn't a full support of Israel is anti-semitism.
I look forward to exposing your idiocy every step of the way you mug.
Madze:
"[...]crying "stop saying that you troll!" "
I didn't say that: I said that unless you're going to contribute something I'm going to ignore you. Right now there is simply no talking to you. I've known you for quite some time and you go through phases like this every now and again.
As regards my "anti-Semitism", I'm glad to be of service: people like you only seem to feel alive only if they feel persecuted, real or perceived. You'd find anti-Semitism in an empty cookie jar, when you're desperate for your "fix".
Again, I got the message: in your eyes I'm a JEW-HATER!!! Feel free. No please stop repeating yourself and actually try and contribute to this thread. (Please? You know deep down I love you... ;)
I look forward to exposing your idiocy every step of the way you mug.
With every post of hate you make it only strengthen my arguments. Keep it coming, boy.
I'm a German Jew you fool but I don't believe in god or feel any adherence to that cult of ethnicity.
Self-loathing Jews make some of the finest anti-Semites. You're apparently right up there with the best of them. Hitler, Hamas, and Hizballah would still slaughter you in a most unfriendly to animals way, but at least you'll be happy they put you out of your misery for having had to suffer the unshakable disgrace of being born a Jew.
My posts of not of hate towards jewishness but to you, you fucking idiot.
I don't loath myself, I love myself, unlike you, someone who dessicrates the idea of Jewishness and besmirchs the many people who have died in order to find some kind of peace for Jews around the world.
You're fighting yourself and yourself alone, in your personal unhappiness you project out.
I pity you, you fucking cunt and may your ideas wither and die.
Mad Zionist Cunt makes perfect sense now I realise that his avatar is the daft racist Meir Kahane, who was a particularly disgusting individual, a racial supremicist, a Brooklyn born mini-Hitler redux, who no doubt would've come up with the final solution if Hitler hadn't beat him to it only this time, it would've been for non-Jews.
Now all MZ's anti-democratic, obsession with Halakha, bigoted views have a context.
Hey MZ, you better live in fucking Israel bitch and how come you blogged on Sunday the 11th of January you blaspheming hypocrite! Hey! You better not fall in love with a non-jew, you need to maintain the purity of the race you asshat!
You couldn't make this shit up.
Beautiful...It's so nice to see how much you just love yourself and the Jews.
So, to summarize: You hate and reject Judaism, reject your Jewish identity, loathe Israel, deny Jews have the right to self-determination, want to ban kosher meat, ban circumcision, and think Jews who disagree with you are "cunts" who deserve to "whither and die".
Yep, good stuff...thanks for the material. I can now clearly see that you are not a self-loathing anti-Semite. Unbelievable...got anything more to add, boy?
Just for the record, there are good and valid reasons for circumcision. Refusal to circumcise male infants can result in sanitary problems later in life that could in some extreme cases necessitate amputation of the penis due to infection. For all we know, this could be the actual reason this practice originated. I don't take things written in the Bible in the literal sense. Almost everything happened for some reason, for the most part long forgotten.
Animal sacrifice is a different kettle of fish, and I agree it's not the place of secular governments to condone the brutal treatment of animals for the sake of religious quirks, whatever their reason or origin.
It probably had something to do with the "spirit is in the blood", therefore to consume the flesh of an animal whose blood was not drained in a certain way might cause you to take on parts of that animals spirit, and thus its nature. But that of course is mere conjecture.
Hey MZ...how come you blogged on Sunday the 11th of January you blaspheming hypocrite!
Though I love NFL football, I still choose to blog on Sundays if I feel like it, boy. You got a problem with that? Oh, wait, you're just too ignorant to know that Shabbos ends Saturday night, not Sunday.
Hey! You better not fall in love with a non-jew, you need to maintain the purity of the race you asshat!
Oh, so you also consider the practice of Jews not intermarrying "racist". Keep it coming, boy...Hitler couldn't have said it better himself.
You couldn't make this shit up.
No, you couldn't.
Mad Bigot and Racist:
To summarize: I dislike all religion and see it as anti-human, thus I don't think that anyone is chosen by god to be their best buds and special needs people.
I dislike any nation that throws it's weight around and kills civilians with gleeful abandon, I understand that many nations are in that grouping, which is a damn shame.
I don't dig human or animal cruelty.
Removing the foreskin and it's numerous nerve endings is genital mutilation and deprives the man of his version of the clitoris (a bad version but a version never the less).Go here for full facts on the joy of keeping the foreskin.
And I want your racist ideas to wither and die, not you, you fucking cunt.
NEXT UP, I SUMMERISE YOUR RACIST VIEWS!
MAD BIGOT TWAT:
You don't follow the laws you say you subscribe to becuase a) they are unworkable and b) you're a hypocrite.
You seem to have mis-read or have no understanding of irony, you support a racist who wanted Jews to only marry Jews and forbid inter-racial marraige. Any ideology that says who you can and can't marry based on their race is racist and bigoted. Just like you.
So tell me your plans to expand Israel into Iraq and Iran and Egypt and how non-Jews won't be able to vote in this racist little nation you have in mind?
You want to make Israel a Jewish Saudi Arabia but sans the oil.
Pagan, Jews haven't performed ritual sacrifice since the Temple was destroyed almost 2,000 years ago. As for Kosher slaughtering laws, it is the most humane way to slaughter animals because it kills them painlessly and quickly. It also is the healthiest because with no suffering to the animals the meat doesn't incur stress related diseases like "Mad Cow", which the "enlightened" Europeans received from meat killed by stun gun. Draining the blood is also healthier and safer than eating blood filled meat.
If the animal is tortured or suffers distress at slaughter it is not kosher. Anti-Semites throughout history have attempted to ban kosher slaughter for "humanitarian" reasons as the thin veil disguising the true motivation: hatred for Jews and the desire to exterminate Judaism.
The likes of Dan go as far back as the ancient Greeks, who also attempted to exterminate Judaism with the help of "Hellenized" self-loathing Jews.
As Solomon famously wrote, "There is nothing new under the sun".
Listen Madze:
This is what you do best when you're in this kind of mood: provoke people. You hold dear an entire set of definitions of Jews, Judaism, anti-Semitism, Israel etc etc etc that are unique to you and you alone. You are without any doubt the most extremist blogger I know. Since as no one agrees with you, you can then, by your own self-serving definitions, call everyone that disagrees with you an "anti-Semite", or a "self-loathing Jew".
Haven't you worked out yet that these terms coming from you are meaningless to most other people?
I'll never forget how when Obama finally seemed set for victory over McPalin, you laconically titled one of your posts "It's the racism, stupid!", implying by your own inverted definition of racism that that was the cause of McPalin's defeat. Charming!
Pagan:
"To foreskin or not to foreskin, that is the question!"
Keep staring at your navel, boy!
Gert, in your world maybe my ideas are unique, but I assure you that in my world your views are unheard of while mine are the majority. Let's not argue popularity of ideas, because your support of terrorist organizations waging war against the Jews doesn't exactly lend you to being Mr. Popular outside the arab and communist world.
MAD RACIST:
That spiel on Kosher is pigshit and you know it, endless studies by expers the in the field of animal welfare have deemed it cruel and unusual...don't tell me, they are all anti-semites.
Mad cow comes from the animal's feed, not method of death you gonk.
"Draining the blood is also healthier and safer than eating blood filled meat."
Utter un-scientific tosh, this has will never be true.
You are making everything about Jews when policy on animal rights is not connected, just becuase the NAZI's did it doesn't mean when other nations do it, they do it for the same reason. Why is the world you live in so simple?
As I said, you keep trolling this bullshit and I will take it apart piece by piece.
MAD BIGOT RACIST TWAT FACE LOSER:
"but I assure you that in my world your views are unheard of while mine are the majority."
You hold minority views that the Israeli government itself deemed racist and eventually banned.
You are a race supremacist and such as bad as any bigot that suggests that any race has a superiority and purity over any other.
Madze:
I imagine you and your family to walk on the ceilings and not the floors, I mean you invert everything else, why not up and down too?
Mad cow comes from the animal's feed, not method of death you gonk.
Fact: No kosher meat, even those from cattle eating the exact same feed as the infected animals, has EVER had Mad Cow...NEVER. Why? Because the stun gun scrambles the infected cow brains, causing great stress to the animal and forcing the disease to flow through the bloodstream to the rest of the animal.
Kosher slaughter drains all the blood from an inverted cow, so no diseased, stressed blood can flow to the meat. In addition, if an animal is showing any outward signs of "madness" or disturbing, abnormal behavior it does not qualify for kosher slaughter.
You do like making a fool of yourself, don't you? How about another crack about blogging on Sundays while you're at it?
BTW, Daniel is right about Mad Cow disease: it's caused by cannibalistic feeds to the animals. No correlation whatsoever with the killing method. The method of butchering (cutting up the carrion) can cause spinal material to end up in meat for human consumption and cause variant CJD, but that has nothing to do with how the animals was actually killed.
I believe many of the Kosher rules were once 'food hygiene' measures but now mostly outdated and ritualistic only.
MAD RACE SUPREMACIST:
"Fact: No kosher meat, even those from cattle eating the exact same feed as the infected animals, has EVER had Mad Cow...NEVER. Why? Because the stun gun scrambles the infected cow brains, causing great stress to the animal and forcing the disease to flow through the bloodstream to the rest of the animal."
HA HA HA! That is total madness and un-scientific bollocks not based on any FACT whatsover, you've just made that up. Mad cow is purely based on feed. Please read some more books you loon, I know religion denies much of science but to compete here you're going to need to kno wmore.
HA HA HA! FUNNY AS FUCK.
Please read the studies on the pain caused during Halal and Kosher processes by something called experts and scienctists.
Hey and while you're at it, stop justifying an ancient process written in an ancient bit of fiction by modern methods, you weaken your arguement, just say god told us to do it.
Some links to educate yourself with before you get shown up again bitch...
Mad Cow.
Kosher and Halal cruel.
Never mind all the countries that have banned Halal and Kosher killing and has anyone noticed how MAD ZIONIST CUNT ignores the Halal bit?
He hates the Muslims becuase they aren't Jews.
HA HA HA! That is total madness and un-scientific bollocks not based on any FACT whatsover, you've just made that up. Mad cow is purely based on feed. Please read some more books you loon, I know religion denies much of science but to compete here you're going to need to know more.
Stupid, stupid, little man...
If 97% of white voters had voted for "McPalin" I am reasonably sure there are some here who would claim "McPalin" won for racist reasons, so MZ has a valid point there.
Since I'm not a Hindu, and couldn't under any circumstances be a Buddhist because they tend to be "pacifists", I don't waste my time staring at my navel. I would however perhaps offer one other observation, which is, this discussion is a perfect example of why the topic of the blog post-you know, the one we are supposed to be discussing-is just never going to work.
There is one way and one way only there will ever be peace in the Middle East, and that way is all-out and total war with one side or the other going down to a crushing, painful, humiliating, and irrevocable defeat. It will probably result in the loss of lives of hundreds of thousands, and it would by no means be out of the question for it to hit the million mark-especially if the Jews lost and found themselves in the unfortunate position of being unable to escape what I am most certain would be a horridly bloody fate.
Be that as it may, when one side achieves total and uncontestble victory, and the other side is totally and irrevocably destroyed, then you will finally have peace, and not one second before that.
All you have to do to see my point is read the raw emotion inherent in these comments. Multiply that times say seventeen and you probably have a pretty good gauge of the feelings of the people actually involved in the conflict, as opposed to those of us sitting at the comfort of our computers half a world away.
The key is Jerusalem. When that goes to one or the other side, completely, indisputably, and forever, the others matters will be quickly resolved.
I dare anybody to offer any kind of substantive evidence that I am wrong in that assessment. I say that you can't, and you know you can't, otherwise you would have done so.
Mad Zionist CRETIN:
Your source is the Jewish Journal of LA, which you'll have to forgive if a) it can't be taken seriously on matter of science and b) might be a wee bit bias..you know, at a guess.
I trust goverment level sources and independent scientists in the UK who have suffered from it the most. The article you link to doesn't even agree on the content.
NEXT BITCH! YOU'RE LOSING REAL BAD BIGOT!
There has been some compelling evidence noted to the effect that Mad Cow might be caused by cannibalism . There is a variant strain of the disease that has afflicted people on the African continent that have practiced this culinary fine art. Admittedly, it is a rarity, but it's occurrence is of a similar enough nature to Mad Cow for there to have been a connection noted.
The connection seems to be that some cattle feeds contain ground up cattle bones. If this is including ground up skull, that could even more definitely account for it, as the human cannibal caused variant seems to have a strong connection to the consumption of human brain matter.
Jerusalem?
Was this anything more than an exercise to ensure the election of a right wing government in Israel next month?
Pagan:
"If 97% of white voters had voted for "McPalin" I am reasonably sure there are some here who would claim "McPalin" won for racist reasons, so MZ has a valid point there."
Two wrongs don't make a right. Madze's point was wrong and borne out of vindictiveness, nothing else. Calling black people to vote for a black candidate "racist", is something only the moronic Far Right is capable of.
Ahhh...an article originated by Jews must be a lie because you can't trust those lying Jews...Oh, but the Farm Animal Welfare Council (Fringe Leftist Welfare Council) is a valid and unbiased organization.
You are making a fool of yourself. Just go ahead and admit you're an anti-Semite, you're proud of it, and you are devoted to militantly advocating the extermination of the Jewish religion, the Jewish State, and all Jewish identity.
Ducky:
It definitely played a part, that and restoring Israel's deterrence in the ME.
Ooooh, Ehud Barak is going to be soooo mad! (When Netancescu wins...)
"Calling black people to vote for a black candidate "racist", is something only the moronic Far Right is capable of."
Actually, people in Kentucky were called racist for voting for Clinton over Obama in the Kentucky Democratic primary. They were called this by the left, not the right. The reason they voted for Clinton by the way, though I'm sure there was some racism involved, was mainly due to the fact that Kentucky voters, even Democrats, tend to be more conservative to right-of-center, and the Clintons were actually very popular there.
Of course, facts like those didn't prevent the left from levelling the racism charge at ALL voters who voted against Obama, nor did it prevent the media from at least tacitly implying there were strong grounds to believe the charge.
The plain facts are the Democratic Party has tilted so far to the left over the last two or three decades that even though Kentucky is a two0to-one majority Democratic state, the Republicans have grown exponentially competitive here.
Moderates like Clinton, who is by no means a racist, still win. Those who are more to the left, like Obama (at least that is how he is perceived) will lose almost every time. Racism is in some cases a factor, but not a major one.
So much for the "right" being the only ones to play the race card. The left are experts at the process, if in fact they did not invent the game.
Still waiting for a response to my point about Jerusalem?????
"That means, if smuggling is renewed, Israel will view it as if it were fired upon."
The tunnels are already being rebuilt. Hamas pays hundreds of dollars a day to each person that helps build or rebuild tunnels, through which anything can be smuggled, including bomb making materials.
Where do they get the money to pay this kind of money per individual. One account stated that one young boy made thousands of dollars a day doing this.
Answer-they have to be getting it from either or both-the UN, who doles out money ostensibly for aid purposes, as well as Islamic charities, many officials of whom probably know full well what a good lot of the money is being used for.
That's a lot of money to pay one person, so just imagine how much money on a daily basis is paid for this kind of activity. How much money that could go for valid reconstruction, and food and medicine, etc., is going towards this, which is just serving to make matters worse for the average person?
Yet, what option do these young children have? Most of the people engaged in this type of work are teenage boys? They are trying to make a living for their families.
But we are to believe they are concerned about "returning" to cities they have never seen from a distance in most cases, let alone lived in.
Again, and I will repeat this until I'm blue in the face, this is all about Jerusalem. Does any rational person actually think all of this is going on because somebody's great-grandfather-more than likely long dead and in the vast majority cases known only in weathered old photos at best-lost his home in Haifa.
I beg to differ.
Pagan:
"The plain facts are the Democratic Party has tilted so far to the left over... [...]"
When Americans and Europeans talk about 'Left' they're talking about two different things. The European Left are the linear descendents of the Social Struggles of the Old World. The American Left don't have that legacy ('Liberal' is therefore a term better applied to them) and will always concentrate on some social issues, without that 'socialistic' feel of the European Left. In the US a Socialist (in name or real) could never get elected (which is why the Far Right tried to make that label stick to Obama). The US is a conservative country, more or less centre-right.
"Still waiting for a response to my point about Jerusalem?????"
Must stay a divided city, as it's been for hundreds of years. To Arafat (e.g.) al Quds was more important than the RoR issue. But in a Socialist secular "Republic of Israel and Palestine", J'sem would simply be the capitol, period.
See ya in J'sem!
Pagan:
"But we are to believe they are concerned about "returning" to cities they have never seen from a distance in most cases, let alone lived in."
as
Again, you're making two mistakes:
1. double standard: the vast majority of Jews that make Alyah in Israel haven't seen a square inch of it before they land there either.
2. the connection to the land (hypocritical or romanticised you might see it is) is very real to people even if they're only the descendants of Palestinian refugees. The connection is carried over from generation to generation. Americans that have spent nearly all their lives abroad also still feel the connection to the 'homeland'.
A socialist (or for that matter any other) state will not solve the problem of the fundamentalist Muslims determined to run everyone out of the city but Muslims. There is a woman-I can't think of her name, but you would probably know who I am talking about, as she is a Palestinian leader connected with Fatah. She used to appear on all the talk shows. She all but said this openly, that if Muslims gained complete control of Jerusalem they would run it the way they do Mecca. It is a sacred city to Muslims and I guess they feel anybody else being there is an abomination or something. When she affirmed this, she seemed to act like she was confused as to why anyone would question the legitimacy of this stand. Bear in mind this is a woman who is claimed to be a moderate, and not even a member of a religious faction at that. Some of the more fundamentalist Muslims would probably kill her for appearing on television, especially in a position of authority.
Those are the people you have to deal with. They are not going away, and at last count, they had the loyalty-either tacitly or openly-or at least twenty percent of the Muslim populations of the world.
Twenty percent of a population of more than a billion people is a hell of a lot of people. And that was given as a conservative estimate. It might be more than that now.
They aren't going away just because somebody declares a new inclusive state of any type, socialist or otherwise. That is even under the very unlikely scenario that such an event might happen.
Also, the Jews (Israelis and their state) have controlled the area for sixty years, and have decided who can come and go. Their connection to the land is as much a modern one then as it is based on ancient religious sentiments. The Arabs have a few old weathered photographs and some land deeds from a by-gone era, owned by people they for the most part didn't even know.
By the way, unless I am mistaken, the Muslims already control East Jerusalem, which I believe is actually where most of the ancient city is located. If they were willing to settle for part ownership under a socialist state, why not now? Why would they suddenly accept a Jewish, and a Christian presence there under a socialist state. The fundies would not go along with it any more then than they are now. They are the problem.
Pagan:
Talking to you confirms all the stereotypes I have about small time American Conservatives: you guys have never studied previous cases of Liberation struggles and reason as if things don't have a root cause. Extremists (they exist on both sides, see e.g. your new pal MZ) are the product of what befell the Palestinians in 1948, in 1948 - 1967, in 1967 and to date: that is the root cause; not some innate hostility Arabs feel towards Jews (check even historical relations between Judaism, Christianity and Islam - Jews have suffered from Christian-on-Jewish persecution far, far, far more than from Muslim-on-Jewish persecution - at the heart of anti-Semitism lies a theological dispute between early Judaism and early Christianity).
Take away the cause of the hostility and the hostility will disappear. No-one hates someone else for no reason at all: it's not a constructive or rewarding activity.
Prior to the reconciliation between Black and White South Africans, Blacks also avowed to wipe the colonialists off the map. But non-violent reconciliation and guarantee of equal rights for Whites in the new SA, made it possible for the country to transition to peaceful majority rule.
To believe this cannot be achieved in Israel is to be racist, for it presumes that 'they' are like 'this' (innately and immutably) and the 'others' are like 'so' (innately and immutably) and that's ahistorical, almost eugenist bullcrap. Come off it, it's not hard to understand.
Gert, the fact is we both fundamentally do agree on a one state solution: as I've told you before there is absolutely no logic in a two-state plan of any kind.
Where we differ, and probably can't ever reconcile, is what that single state should be.
You believe that a Jewish minority can live together in harmony under an arab majority government of a state renamed Palestine. This is a dream of yours, but not realistic in the least, and I suspect deep down you realize the arab majority will make life in "Palestine" for Jews unbearable, and create another diaspora.
My question to you is this: Where should the Jews go once they are sent fleeing? Certainly the arab world wants nothing to do with them, Europe wants nothing to do with them, and they can't all just hop on a boat and cross the ocean to America, either.
What you are advocating is genocide for the Jews. They will be pinned in by a ruthless terrorist enemy with no place to turn. In my plan, Jews would humanely transfer arabs to live amongst other arabs. You, on the other hand, are offering Arabs the country and Jews a death sentence.
Think beyond the anger of your brethren being on the losing side in a war of independence. Think about how your "peace plan" would really turn out.
The gentiles have idly stood by watching Jews get persecuted and exterminated throughout history. The State of Israel was to give to the Jews the self-governance that secured them from the whims of their enemies. You act as if your idea is new, having the Jews live as a minority in an arab nation. Well, it isn't new and it doesn't certainly doesn't end well for the Jews.
Think beyond your deep anger and hatred for Israel, and your genuine love and devotion for Palestinians. Think about how it really plays out if your scenario happens. The partition was created to begin with, remember, because the Jews were constantly fighting for survival against the arab aggressors in the years leading up to 1947. Everyone knew it was impossible for them to dwell in peace together, and it would only be a worse result today.
I know I've made my point, and won the argument, when the other side descends to calling me a racist (or bigot, sexist, homophobe, etc.) as a response to my arguments, which are irrefutable otherwise.
Bottom line, it has nothing to do with anything innate, it has to do with a fanatical devotion to a religious cause which compels people to commit murder in the name of said religion, in addition to the numerous other atorcities they commit, all of which they do so gleefully.
Jerusalem is a sacred holy city to three different religions, one of which the most fundamentalist members of does not intend to ever allow the other two religions to have any place within it.
Jerusalem is the problem. Haifa is just one of many excuses.
Pagan, I really don't see where our frothing opponents have an argument at all, just a crazed mixture of hysteria, hate and utopian fantasy.
Pagan:
Your self-declared victory is about as real as Hamas' and borne simply out of stubbornness.
I'm off to bed.
Toodeloo!
FREE PALESTINE!
Exactly, MZ, and all of this compels them to ignore reality. How so? Simply put, in their world view, religious sentiment has no place, and is irrelevant. They can not possibly conceive that there are those in this world to whom devotion to a religion is not just real-it is the only reality worth contemplating.
Yet, they imagine in their fevered delusions that 1 billion plus human beings, at least twenty percent of whom are fanatically fundamentalist, will drop their religious views and live in peace with those of other religions-all if only they can someday succeed in establishing a "socialist society".
Once they succeed in doing so, then evidently all these religious fanatics, who number at least two hundred million people, will suddenly just realize how foolish they are and become peace-loving members of this great socialist society.
Yet, you and I are the "racists" and the "bigots".
You flatter yourself Pagan. You have won nothing. If MZ is not a bigot - or in popular parlance a racist, I don't know who is. And you have certainly made your share of bigoted comments about various groups, though I would not call you racist, without more evidence. The fact is, you are proposing ethnic cleansing as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Your "final solution" to the Palestinian problem will not fly, period. In science we don't come to a conclusion like a lawyer building a case in court. We try, rather, to look for where our position, explanation etc doesn't work. Think about why your solution won't work, rather than trying to beat us over the head with it.
"I know I've made my point, and won the argument, when the other side descends to calling me a racist (or bigot, sexist, homophobe, etc.) as a response to my arguments, which are irrefutable otherwise."
And where exactly does that leave your new buddy, MZ, who simply cannot refrain from calling people anti-Semites, "self-hating Jews" and so forth?
No, what i am doing now is trying to get people to look at the real major cause of the problem and sticking point-the status of Jerusalem.
Ignore it all you want to Gambone, but in the long run any attempt to solve this problem without taking into account the very real and very deep feelings centered around this very important, and very devoutly loved ancient city is what "won't fly".
I say that as long as it is not resolved one way or another, no other problem will be solved. Once it is solved, all others will be quickly settled.
The only way to solve it-it must be an all Muslim holy city, or an all Jewish one. Thanks to the influence of the fundamentalist Muslims, any attempts to make it a city for both religions will fail to produce peace or any other kind of solution. That's just the way it is.
Any failure to recognize that simple fact is what is bigotry, if anything is, and elitist in the extreme. News flash, fundamentalist Muslims are not going to give up their dreams and their religious convictions because a bunch of socialists tell them to.
I said "Think about why your solution won't work, rather than trying to beat us over the head with it."
The corollary of doing so, is after you have exhausted all the possibilities of failure, you are then in a better situation to judge whether your solution will work or not. This is the scientific method.
I am, of course, referring to your "solution" the Israeli-Palestinian question in general, not Jerusalem, specifically.
When I was a kid, growing up in Minneapolis, I was hospitalized in a small hospital called Mt. Sinai Hospital. It was formed by the Jewish and Afro-American community here, because of the discrimination against Jewish and black MDs. Brown shirts used to march openly in the streets. You can look at Nazi Germany, where US patterned Jim Crow laws applied to Jews.
Now you come to this blog, and have Mad Zionist call Gert a Hitlerite. Like Gert is going to take part in a pogrom. MZ you knew Gert much longer than I did, and I know you don't really mean that. After all the heat the pro-Palestinian demonstrators get for using the Nazi analogy, the other side is pretty quick as well to use it.
Hitler On Zionism: And whatever doubts I may still have nourished were finally dispelled by the attitude of a portion of the Jews themselves. Among them there was a great movement, quite extensive in Vienna, which came out sharply in confirmation of the national character of the Jews: this was the Zionists.
MZ belongs to a group that is accused of terrorism. I don't for a minute believe MZ is a terrorist. MZ helped me when I was having the ultimate troll problem.
I've never known Daniel to do other than take positions based on humanism and democracy.
The problem is how quickly people throw around the most personal and insulting rhetoric.
I believe antisemitic atitudes exist in Europe. It is not translated to Jewish specific legislation.
Israel faces no serious external threat, yet people are bombarded with crazy things as drills. The population is kept scared.
Pagan: I don't think you fully understand Islamism. Islamists contrary to popular belief, don't come from the slums. It is a solid middle class movement. What you don't understand is the difference between tactics and strategy. Like in Mumbai, the goal was not to kill Jews. That was a tactic. The goal was to get Pakistan to move troops away from Afghanistan. Islamists are capitalist. They want deals to get rich. Hamas hates Fatah more than Israel. They are chopping their dollar. Israel did business with Hamas in the past.
Jerusalem is on the table. Abbas has to get something.
Larry: The subject is a terrible maze. Behind every door is a booby prize.
Gert: There is a real left in Israel. In fact 700 Israelis were arrested protesting the war.
Ducky: Labor and Kadimah gained at the polls, but not enough.
I do not think it is an accident that Israel pulled out right before the Obama election. They were wary of antagonizing Obama until they have him figured out. It had nothing to do with the very few missiles that were 'raining' down on Israel at that point. In fact, the cease fire had reduced them significantly.
The intervention was to boost the Likunik/centrist politicians in Israel in the upcoming elections. It was also George Bush's last war crime - the Israeli and U.S. right cooperated on this one.
I guess we're at an impasse and will just have to agree to disagree. I still say anything that results in anything other than one side having complete control of Jerusalem to the exclusion of all other parties is doomed to eventual failure.
Sure, a deal might be reached. Sure, all the involved parties might arrive at a "compromise". But how long will it last?
Ren, I know the Islamists are capitalists, and want a piece of the pie. But, what do you think they would do if the American Army marched into Mecca. Can you even wrap your head around how profoundly insulting and profane that would be to them?
Jerusalem is considered the third most sacred city in all of Islam.
Larry-Yeah, I can imagine the ways my plan won't work. It won't work because the world community won't stand for it and will never allow it to be implemented. That's why it won't work.
Thus, here is what is going to eventually happen. It is the only other thing that can happen. Eventually there is going to be a full sale war in the region which is going to result in abject defeat of one side, after they suffer horrible casualties, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands of people.
Once that happens, Jerusalem will be a Muslim only, or a Jew only, city. It will not, from that point on, be a mixed city, and never will be so again.
The pot can only boil so long before the lid pops off. It's coming someday. When it comes, what just happened is going to look like a minor skirmish.
Palestinian groups like Hamas want an elimination of borders of all the Arab countries. This is what they preach to their children publicly.
They want a return of all the nation currently called Israel. They want the Jews gone. All Muslims, or at least all devout Muslims, especially want Jerusalem completely under their control. The more fundamentalist among them at least want all others barred from the city.
That is the reason the female spokesman for the PA in the days of Arafat advocated this on American public television, though this was a secular group. All these people get funding from a wide cross-section of the Arab world, depending on their standing at any given time.
That would include those middle and upper class Islamists.
Why do you think Saddam Huseein, a secular dictator, donated money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers? Do you think it was because he was a devout Muslim.
No, it was because he knew it was popular in his part of the world.
Why is such a losing proposition so popular that secular dictators like Saddam use it as a means to try to curry favor with the Muslim populace within and without his nation?
Answer-Jerusalem.
Here is some more information, this time from Juan Cole.
"Israeli politicians and military commanders are being urged to consult counsel before they travel in Europe, where some courts assert universal jurisdiction and where war crimes cases are being filed against Israeli leaders. In 1998, a London court ordered the arrest of Chilean dictator Gen. Augustino Pinochet, who had butchered thousands of community activists, asserting universal jurisdiction. Governments have attempted to reduce the prerogative of courts in this regard, but apparently there are loopholes in the current British legislation that would allow an Israeli leader or officer to be arrested if they journey to the UK. Ynet observes, "The Israeli. . . claim that Hamas has been using women and children as human shields never really took, said a source. Whenever it was used the response was the same: If you know that . . . women and children [were] there – hold your fire."
"It won't work because the world community won't stand for it and will never allow it to be implemented."
Thanks, Pagan.
So when something really, truly won't work what do you do? Search for another solution...
Noam Chomsky speaks of his childhood, growing up in one of the few Jewish families in an Irish/Polish neighborhood. Got beat up a lot and the residents were sympathetic to the Nazis. That is anti-Semitism! In Canada there was a quota system for Jews at McGill University and when refugees from Germany tried to land here they were rejected. That too is anti-Semitism. Hero of conservatives everywhere, Churchill, believed in a Jewish-Communist conspiracy to take over the world...
PT:
Keep winning arguements in your dreams but in the real world you're a fringe player.
And if MAD ZIONIST BIGOT is on your team then I'd worry for the humanity of your team, do you actually know what Meir Kahane stood for, or are you just choosing the nearest person to you in your hatred of Muslims? Be careful who you associate with, a coalition of the xenophobic doesn't have legs.
Also, if you're not a jew then you and MAD TWAT won't last very long as he's fickle about gentiles.
MAD BIGOT:
You fucking pussy, you won't publish my comments at your hate-speak blog will you, because you can't take the heat you comment moderation pussy. HA HA HA!
As for the article you goblet of spunk, it's a bad source because when I want science I don't go to the Jewish Chronicle of LA, or the Muslim Journal of London, I go to the scientific journals, I go to the science department of govermental bodies of the UK, the nation with the most experience of mad cow and they all say, it comes from feed.
Now bitch, tell me, when Israel is as big as the enitre middle east, how will you go about expelling all the Arabs? At gun point and via ships or will you putting on planes for them?
Also, with only jews having the vote doesn't that make your idea of Israel look like a shitty, religious nut backwater that will put that other shitty religious backwater Saudi Arabia to shame?
I own you Zionist.
Gambone-
You say since I know my plan won't work to look for another solution, the problem is, there is no other solution. There is only the one day prospect of what I told you-an all out war in which one side goes down to a bloody and decisive defeat resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives.
Since we agree my plan will never be implemented, that is what you have to look forward to.
Of, and by the way, regarding this bilge about courts in Europe trying Israeli leaders for war crimes, at the risk of sending Daniel off on another rampage against me, this is precisely why I detest Europe. Well, there are other reasons, but that's near the top.
Who are they to decide they have that kind of authority? That kind of nonsense is a throwback to the exact same kind of colonialism that is responsible for the world being in the shape it's in today.
Who in the hell are they to decide Israelis don't have the right to defend their territorial sovereignty based on any criterion whatsoever? It's outrageous!
Dan, since you are only capable of infantile tantrums of bigotry with zero substance, I'll not waste anymore time with you.
Please go here in the future to express your opinions...they fit right in.
Daniel-
I don't care about other people's religions, until they start flying planes into buildings and cutting folks head off, etc. Kahane wanted to re-establish the Biblical nation of Israel, and so far as I know never advocated going beyond those borders. I'm fine with that. Kahanists do not advocate forcing their religious views on others wherever they go.
If you're referring to anything else, for example what they might have planned for Muslims who oppose them, I wouldn't know about that, but I'm sure it wouldn't be anything any more horrible than what Muslims who hate Israel have in mind for them, and there are plenty of Muslims willing to go all out to do that, whether you want to believe it or not.
Whether you realize it or not, the minute you become involved in any great degree in this controversy, you pick a side. You cannot be neutral, there is no possible way you can be. You have to pick one side or another, or stay out of it.
You have picked the Palestinian side of the equation, to all intents and purposes. So has Gert. So has Gambone. So has anyone else who has chosen to side with your position.
I have chosen the opposite.
When I see the kind of stuff that's been going on back and forth between MZ and Gert, that has nothing to do with me. With them two, it is personal, invectives hurled in the heat of the moment. I knew it was never going anywhere beyond that, that's precisely why I tried to draw the subject back to the focus of the post.
But even at that, it's all nonsense, because we can discuss the matter until we're blue in the face, and still not change anything. Until Jerusalem is fully in the control of one side or another, this will go on-and on-and on-and on-and on- - - - -
Thank fuck no one here is involved in trying to sort out the Middle East, armchair critics the lot fo you and I refer ya'll back to my first comment:
"I await, with a terrible certainty, the shit thrown at this thread.
Here's hoping..."
Now PT:
THE BORDERS SPANNED INTO MOTHER FUCKING IRAQ, IRAN, EGYPT, SYRIA, LEBANON, JORDAN. HOW'S THAT FOR GOING BEYOND THEIR BORDERS?
Oh great, so now you argue 'they did it so we can?' thank fuck the world isn't run like that otherwise we'd all be fucked, the idea is you take a moral highground and work in the best interests of humanity, not sink to the level of your opponent, hard to do but needed for progression, otherwise it remains stuck.
As for picking sides, I have, I hate both sides, both show no respect for humanity, decency, diplomacy and anything resembling grown-up civilised behaviour and as they make their power moves, Jewish and Muslim men, women and children are forever hurt spiritually, physically and mentally. They should be fucking ashamed of themselves.
And no, you're sos wrong it fucking hurts, hiostory shows that the only way peace can come in the long term is compromise, discussion, working together; a total victory for one side or the other leads to too much pain and resentment in the vanquished.
FUCK.
I hate debating with people who don't read books, speaking of which on to that IDIOT ZIONIST...
You daren't answer my questions regarding your racist, backward beliefs because you're a fucking pussy, scared of the reality of those fucked up, extremist ideas that riddle your mind, you bigot.
I CALL YOU OUT AS A CHICKEN-HYPOCRITE BITCH!
LOL!!
I SMELL CHICKEN!
LOL all you got fuck face?
Daniel-
Do you realize how you sound? Yeah, I remember what you said. I made a snarky comment and you said "hopes dashed". I ignored that, and the next thing I know, you are going off and jumping right into the fray with MZ and Gert, right in the mud with them with the name calling, the personal insults, the invectives.
See, here's the deal-you enjoy this shit. Which, that's fine, it can be fun to be snarky and sarcastic. It's also a good way to let off steam. I'm an old hand at it. But don't try to pretend you don't enjoy it. If you didn't you wouldn't be so upset that you can't go on another persons blog in their comments section and raise hell with them.
Also, compromise is fine when there's hope of reaching a long-term solution, but in this case I'm sorry, there's just not. Two hundred million fundamentalist Muslims sneer at your talk of compromise. To them, you're a weakling, somebody to use and discard when the time comes.
There's going to be a war the likes of which you have never seen in your life and can never conceive of. I almost feel sorry for you living in England and having to put up with your perpetually outraged Muslim population. Yes, they are the minority of Muslims-I hope-but the problem is, when they make the noise, the others seem strangely silent, at least as long as there's any chance of the radicals hearing them.
Don't look now but that smoky scent drifting across the channel one of these days might well be Paris burning.
Again.
ET:
Don't give a fuck man because when has decent debating and intelligent ideas ever been a skill on hot button topics like this? Especially when MAD TWAT has a far-right wing philosophy that is prejudiced at best and racist at worst and calls anyone who doesn't agree with him (including a jew) an anti-semite.
I was staying out of this pointless thread because, thank fuck, none of us will EVER be near a decision making process on this issue but I did warn Ren it will be a forum for idiocy. It was but then MAD ZIONIST BIGOT went on a rant about the torture of animals and I gave it to him, cuz no fucker here takes that bitch out.
Of course this is fun ET but not as much as watching all the Arab kids on TV die.
You don't believe in the compromise idea, which is odd but fine, considering everything is compromise and any solution requires it.
But cool, plough your furrow, my beef ain't with you but MAD GENTILE HATER.
As for the 2 million sneering muslims and I'd say the same amount of jews, they'll be a lot of them dead by the time they realise sneering only looks good when you're Elvis and compromise is in order.
In the meantime, may the bigots kills themselves on both sides until only the intelligent people are left and they compromise.
As for the UK, we brook no shit from the Muslims, the Jews or the Christians, mainly because god isn't a very British concept, too much blood and guts and fucking people up.
As for the French, they'll be okay, worry about your own home and I'll take care of mine.
Just to be clear, I wholeheartedly believe in compromise when there's a chance it will work, and when there's a point to it. I would feel the same way about this issue, but unfortunately I don't hold out any hopes for any chance of compromise, because of TWO HUNDRED MILLION fundamentalist Muslims, not a mere two million.
And it's not just that its a matter of Jews versus Muslims. If that's all it was, it would have probably been settled by now, say if it were just over for example Haifa or Hebron, etc.
But it's not. Those other places are sideshow issues. Jerusalem is the sticking point and why no compromise is possible between these two sides, especially when you bring the fundamentalist Muslims into the equation.
I don't think you, or for that matter anybody else here, appreciates the profound degree of religious sentiment Muslims feel towards that place, or just what that means. I'll even go so far as to say I don't think MZ fully appreciates it, as far as what Jerusalem means to Muslims. In their belief system, Jerusalem was where Mohammed ascended into heaven from.
I think you and most of the others here, the leftists, liberals, the socialist, etc., have it in your heads that if you can just establish a socialist or progressive type of society throughout the Middle East, everything will eventually, over a relatively short amount of time, just fall into place, people will forget their religious yearnings, and start to realize how foolish all of that really was, and then peace will grow and blossom.
I'm just saying that is so naive a view of these people it borders on the disrespectful. It's actually a form of reverse prejudice to imagine that their religious beliefs are so weak and baseless that they can be manipulated so easily into just gradually letting go of them.
I am though happy to see you Brits take no shit from your Muslim, Jewish, and Christian populations. I guess that means its no big deal that the main head of the Anglican Church, the Church of England, declared publicly that sharia law amongst the Muslim population should be condoned and that it was pretty much inevitable anyway.
It's good to know you're not just going to sit and take that kind of shit.
PTA:
I still think you're giving up too easy on compromise, it's all that works and dismissing an entire faith as bloodthristy killers is not on and not true.
I have not time for fundemental Muslims or Jews (like MAD ZIONIST TROLL TIT) or Christians for that matter. Sooner we get rid of that religion nonsense...
As for the rest of your commentary PT, with all due respect, I don't give a fuck, it's all wind and piss and will not make one bit of difference and such armchair lay-expertise doesn't pull my chain.
As for that silly little man you quote, he was talking out of his arse, think of him as a weak as dish water Pat Robertson or Jerry Fallwall, all full of shit and no toilet to put it in so the speak it so he runs off hsi mouth.
He was so wide off the mark it and he are a joke and the C of E creed is dying on its arse, he had to make a fuss to get a shout out.
You'll have to understand the UK a lot better than that and get your info from better sources I'm afraid before you, like him , run your moth and look like an ass.
A good read for those suffering from acute self-hate.
A good read for bigots who want to kill people and have very small brains.
I SMELL ME SOME SERIOUS FUCKING CHICKEN!
IQ challenged self-loathers aside, I'm still awaiting someone to offer a peace plan that works other than mine. We've seen the "one state utopia" plan, we've seen the "two-state utopia" plan, and we've seen "hate all plans" plan.
To review:
1. Israel annexes the territories and establishes final permanent borders.
2. Israel repatriates the Palestinian arabs to Jordan and Egypt, providing generous compensation and all the benefits of being full citizens of their respective countries.
3. End of conflict.
Now, please, no more repetitive calls for all sides to abandon religion, nationalism and self-determination, and create a peaceful utopia of Marxist humanism - it's simply ridiculous and naive beyond measure.
I'd honestly like to hear some realistic, logical, legitimate ideas that are worth discussing on an intellectual level.
Anybody? Hello? Buehler?
Hang on, let me just do this to show you how bad your idea is:
1. Palestine annexes the territories and establishes final permanent borders.
2. Palestine repatriates the Jews to Russia and Poland, providing generous compensation and all the benefits of being full citizens of their respective countries.
3. End of conflict.
You are ridiculous and naive, repatriation concepts are used by bigots and racist and always have been, our own BNP party in the UK argues the same case as you do, in short: "send 'em all back home!"
It's bigoted nonsense that no one backs or would want to back because it would come down to what right does anyone have to ship out an entire race of people?
You lose, again becuase your world view is that of a xenophobe.
The long and short of Pagan's position is that it's based on fear/hatred/misunderstanding of Islam/Islamism and an inability to understand the difference between the two.
Pagan thinks himself a 'free thinker' but owes more to Bushology than Bush himself. In the US, equating mainstream Islam with Islamism, became a really useful tactic in the aftermath of 9/11. Israel did the same by connecting Hamas, Fatah, ordinary Palestinians even, with Al Qaeda: a new monster was born and how could we ever talk to these barbarians?
bin Laden has paid the Palestinian cause the greatest disservice possible with 9/11. There is no connection between Al Qaeda and the Palestinians: bin Laden (in an interview Fisk, IIRW) has expressed nothing but disdain for their cause which he sees as 'regionalist' and not 'internationalist'.
Parochial minds like Pagan will always fall hook, line and sinker for these type of connections because the narrative presented is bite-size and easy to swallow. Furthermore, it reinforces his Manichean 'them v. us' worldview, a view of the world in which ' things just are, that's the way it is'. A la Bush: "they don't like our way of life".
Pathetic, really...
I hope you're right about the Archbishop and will take your word for it, so stand corrected.
But then there's this-
"I have not time for fundemental Muslims"
"Sooner we get rid of that religion nonsense..."
See, that's just the problem, you can't dismiss them, like you can Mad Zionist, most other Jews, or most Christians. They aren't just a part of the problem. They ARE the problem.
It's not the religion of Islam that is bloodthirsty, it's the fundamentalists you want to ignore. Yes, it's nonsense to you, but it's something else entirely to them, and that's why there is no compromise with them. Two hundred million of them, which might be a conservative estimate. You won't get rid of them or their nonsense by any other way than by killing them, or at least by killing so many of them that the rest come to realize they are fighting a losing battle. I'm afraid either way it will result in a great many dead fundamentalists.
Remember, these are people who honestly, sincerely, and devoutly believe that's it's a glorious thing to die for their cause, and the more people they take with them when they go, the better.
Like I said, it's coming one of these days, and when it does, the idea of giving Palestinians their own country away from Israeli borders might seem quite progressive by comparison.
No hope needed, when you need to know what is happening in the UK, you don't turn to the archbishop, it's like presuming you know America by referring to Pat Robertson.
As for next bit, this is where you sound like a bigot, you remove every other religious nutjob and make it all about the Muslims, which it ain't. Anyone who takes religion seriously is fucked and it'll be the athiests amongst us to head for the high ground when all the idiots start fighting over who is right.
My money is on the Skihs.
Gert-
Stop putting words in my mouth. If that's the best you can do that's really pretty weak, you know.
Daniel-
I removed the others from the context of the quote because the fundamentalist Muslims were the context of my reply. Go back and read it again-carefully. Note that I affirmed your mention of Mad Zionist and other fundamentalist Jews and Christians. I said you could not ignore fundamentalist Muslims the same way you could ignore those others. I wasn't trying to be shady.
What's really encouraging though is that people all over the world, from any country, colour, religion, political affiliation, Jews, agnostics, Muslims, Christians etc etc are beginning to see through the 'house of cards' that the neocons have spun and from which the zionutzis have benefited so much.
Madze:
In perhaps less than 20 years or so, when the Palestinians have the demographic advantage while being completely hemmed in by Nutzi colonies, fences, 'Herrenvolk only highways' etc etc, maybe the only thing they'll have to do is march on Tel Aviv. Even tanks can't stop a determined mass, see e.g. the Iran/Iraq war.
Trust me, Israel makes serious amends or it is finished as a purely Jewish state...
Yes you can ignore them and don't feed their bullshit.
Pagan:
The extremists are a serious nuisance in any such struggle, yet history shows they can be dealt with in various ways, including some internecine bloodletting from moderates on those who stand in the way. Extremists can also be converted, fought, arrested and tried or killed in action.
To try and tie in the solution with the obstacle of the extremists only, shows the rigidity of your thinking which seems to be based on an immutable world. Yesterday's revolutionaries are tomorrow's politicians... Politicians from the right however tend to come from a 'let's maintain the status quo and our own privileges'...
I find this very interesting-
"In perhaps less than 20 years or so, when the Palestinians have the demographic advantage while being completely hemmed in by Nutzi colonies, fences, 'Herrenvolk only highways' etc etc, maybe the only thing they'll have to do is march on Tel Aviv. Even tanks can't stop a determined mass, see e.g. the Iran/Iraq war."
Let's see now, demographics seem to be a valid argument as to how the Palestinian cause is destined to succeed, but I bet you if I was to point out the demographic time bomb occurring right now as we speak in Europe, I would be called a racist and Islamophobe.
I guess the only way to translate all that in a way that begins to make any comprehensible sense is that its fine and dandy if European countries become mostly Muslim majority in population, and if I don't agree I'm racist.
Okay, I'll bite. I think it's high time those hideous idols in the Louvre were burned in a big old bonfire.
This Muslim uprising in Europe is in your wet dreams only.
Pure fiction, keep runnig with it thought whilst I celebrate the end of the disgusting global gag rule.
Gert-
Again, this would not be going on for sixty years if it weren't for Islamic extremists, and Jerusalem. Do you really think this would have lasted this long if Jerusalem weren't involved? Sure, it would have gone on for a while, but I seriously doubt there would have ever been a Yom Kippur War. It would have been settled by then, or somewhere around by that time.
It would have been settled and Palestine would probably be just another country right now with it's own set of problems and pluses like any other country in the Middle East-or anywhere else. This would not be going on now.
Kahane, whom you whitewash Pagan,
“democracy and Judaism are two opposite things “ .. “Western democracy has to be ruled out” - a ban on all sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews. Kahane proposed the forcible deportation of nearly all Arabs from all lands controlled by the Israeli government. He proposed a $40,000 compensation plan for the Arabs he was to evict. But he made it clear that Arabs who refused compensation would be expelled by force: Kahane often pejoratively called other Knesset members "Hellenists" The U.S. State Department also added Kach and Kahane Chai to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Providing funds or material support to these organizations is a crime in both Israel and the USA. Kach was declared a racist party by the Israeli government and banned from the Knesset. (from Wikipedia)
From the above information, it is obvious where MZ gets his ideas from.
I would like to ask everyone here why they think I'm a fundamentalist, especially considering that fundamentalism is a foreign concept to Judaism. Honestly, please explain...
Regarding Dan's point, which actually poses a legitimate question. If you were to have victorious arabs ruling over Jews, what would become of the Jews? Would they be humanely repatriated to Jordan? Not likely, since it's illegal for Jews to live in Jordan.
No, what would happen is exactly what happens to Jews everywhere in the arab world. They would be a persecuted minority living as quasi-slaves, paying jizya and living in basements beneath the Arabs feet. Jews would flee, but where? Who would have them by the millions?
For the arabs it's a fight for pride, for hubris, for self-esteem. For Jews, it's a fight for survival. For life. For being free to live openly as Jews without persecution, without laws against Jewish observance, without laws banning Synagogue services, Jewish food, lifestyle, language, books, etc.
The majority of people here are in favor of banning such things, as you are Marxists who think religion is the opiate of the masses. Any step in the direction of ridding the world of another "book of myths" is appealing to you, no doubt.
But for Jews that is not acceptable. We don't intend to allow ourselves to be retreating back to the ghettos, hiding in fear of being thrown in gulags or suffering lashings if caught praying or just looking at someone the wrong way.
You may think there is no distinction between Judaism and racism, and that's your right, but as soon as your beliefs cross over into actions we have war. That war is being fought in Israel every day.
I'm not anti-Arab, I'm not anti-Atheist, I'm not anti-Socialist, and I'm not anti-gentile. I am pro-Jewish, and as such want the rest of the world to allow my people to live in peace in our tiny little homeland. The only way that will happen is separation from our enemies, and that's why transfer is the only answer.
Gert, transfer can easily be done logistically...It's only the will of the Israeli leaders to implement that's lacking.
Pagan:
Your thing with J'sem is pure wingnuttery and not worth refuting.
Europe's demographics will change as does the US's, that's not only inevitable it's also fine. No country has ever had a static demographic: the new citizens of, say, Britain, will be just that: new citizens. Period.
Only veiled racists like you worry about these things: BEWARE OF THE BLACKS BENEATH YOUR BEDS!
Now I'm off for a break.
Hasta la vista!
Larry, I make no secret of where I get my ideas from. Melting-pot democracy and a Jewish State are entirely incompatible. Even if you loathe the ideas of nationalism and religion you still must agree with this fact.
Gambone-
Why should I care if the Kahanists run Israel, and Israel only, according to the Talmud? What is that to me? If the majority of Jews were to support that, why should you care? I know I don't. All he wanted was to re-establish the Biblical nation of Israel according to those original borders, not "conquer the world" for Judaism.
The Hellenist insult is of no consequence to me. He was speaking about his fellow Jews who he felt were betraying their tradition. I am sure he would consider somebody like me probably a heathen, but I doubt he would be that concerned about my beliefs one way or another.
The Democrats and Republicans tend to lock all their other competitors out of debates, and in fact they have a lock on the electoral process here. They run all the rules of engagement in politics here to the point they have turned democracy into a shell game. I wouldn't be so quick to read too much into the Israeli political parties doing the same thing to the Kahanists, especially since he was so impolitic in his open assessments of them.
Democracy isn't for everybody, by the way. That's another arrogant, fallacious assumption on Westerner's part. We like it, and since we're supposedly so much more advanced than everybody else in every single conceivable way, it has to be right for everybody else as well. Well, maybe not so fast there, Speedy. A lot of people would beg to differ, like for example Bin Laden, who also referred to Democracy as a Greek innovation, and did so in the perjorative. At least Kahane didn't propose killing as many of us as he could possible kill.
At any rate, if they had not locked him out of the process, I doubt that he would have come to power, and he certainly wouldn't have acquired absolute and total power, so your use of Kahane might well be tantamount to that straw man charge you're constantly tossing my way.
MAD ZOINIST WHO IS NOT AS MAD A ZIONIST AS HE THOUGHT HE WAS AND IS BACK TRACKING FROM THE UNTENABLE GROUND HE WAS OCCUPYING:
Having your avatar as Meir Kahane sets you up for a fall. That and your comments lead to the road known as: fundamentalist, extremist etc.
As for your hypothetical about where all the jews would go, forget the hpothetical and deal in reality, that is, neither the jews or the arabs will be removed from those lands. No point discussing fiction just compromise.
I'd change your avatar if you don't want to be classed as anti-Arab, anti-gentile. That man was a racist and his organisation is a hate group and commits terrorist acts, it's like me having a Bin Laden as my avatar, dumb as shit.
I am pro-human, excluding no one from the mix, you need to put that first rather than the jewish race.
Finally, "Melting-pot democracy and a Jewish State are entirely incompatible." isn't a fact and if it was it would mean the end of the idea of a Jewish state.
Fuck this pointless comment shit, I'm off.
PT:
Before I go, you should care because it is backwards thinking anti-human nonsense. So you wouldn't care if a nation or nations were ran by Nazi's? You don't mind that Saudi Arabia is ran by useless, bigoted, backward fucks? Or Zimbabwe for that matter?
Great, why don't you sit out of the world on your little island and die a lonely death while the rest of us try and get on with making the world better.
Isolationism is so last century, as is being chicken and sitting out while harmful regimes destroy the rights of fellow humans.
Now I go.
Gert-
Assuming you read this when you get back, try to recall you are the one who brought up demographics as a threat, not me. I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of your position. Europeans have no worries over demographics, but those Jews better watch the fuck out, huh?
Which, that is a point, and precisely why the Jews should get the Palestinians out of their country, then, no worries whatsoever, as I don't think Egypt, Syria, and Jordan want a repeat of 1948.
Daniel-
Israel is a democracy with a tradition of multi-parties. Using Kahane is a scare tactic, as his party could never get a solid complete and permanent lock on power.
He was locked out not because there was any danger of him taking over the country, he was locked out to prevent him from influencing policy toward the right. The conservative parties are more moderate, right of center than right wing. He was a threat to them, so he had to go.
Regardless, worrying about Kahane is a pointless distraction from the present day realities on the ground, and it's useless to veer the discussion in this direction. It is almost irrelevant.
Dan, you should understand that often times perception is not reality. You perceive Kahane to be a terrorist hater, something that is patently untrue. He was not interested in waging war against gentiles, and the the policies he advocated were not to advance some kind of worldwide Jewish Jihad.
He was simply pro-Jewish, and wanted Israel to be a Jewish State where Jews could freely and openly live Jewish lives. He understood that the Palestinians also had nationalist and religious claims, but that if they were to succeed in there goals the Jewish State would be eliminated as a result.
The one thing you keep mentiopning is compromise and dialogue...which is exactly what I am advocating, too. Arabs could not be expected to enjoy singing Hatikvah as their national anthem, speaking Hebrew as their national language, and having the Shield of David be their national flag. This is why he knew that if there would ever be peace there would have to be a way of giving dignity to the arabs without compromising the existence of the Jewish State.
So, instead of a "two state solution" within Israel that would be insufficient for both Israel and the arabs, or a single "multinational state" solution that would result in the destruction of the Jewish State and put millions of lives in jeopardy, he recommended repatriating the Arabs into Jordan and making Jordan the Palestine that it was originally supposed to be.
Notice that this is not a racist concept, but a way in which two peoples can have the best of everything: dignity, prosperity, and a peaceful neighbor with whom trade, peace and tourism would eventually become the norm.
Before I head off myself, I'd just like to point out I think it's incredible that so many people are so worried over one man, dead now for years, who was the head of one small little almost insignificant party who wanted to take over one small little country only, and had no realistic hope of ever doing so, yet they have no concern for the at least two hundred million people living today who want to kill as many people as they possibly can all over the world, or at least willingly support in one way or another the most vicious elements of their societies that try to do so, all because to concern themselves with them might be deemed racist.
No, we should ignore them. One can only hope they will return the favor.
But, I guess I'm just "fear-mongering" now, so I'll just shut up for a while.
Pagan:
"Europeans have no worries over demographics, but those Jews better watch the fuck out, huh?"
You're deliberately or through stupidity distorting what I say.
What I say is essentially the same as what Ehud Olmert says: without a Palestinian state, Israel will sooner or later find itself having to absorb Palestinians as Israeli Arabs, with the same political rights as Israeli Jews. But: there's a big but: by that time Israeli Arabs will have become the demographic majority, like Whites in the free SA. That means loss of power and the fact that Israel/Palestine will no longer be predominantly Jewish.
I don't see that as a problem: the Israeli Jews (and future Jewish immigrants) will have the same rights as their Palestinian and Christian (and Druze, and Bedouin) compatriots.
Forming a majority Jewish government would thus become difficult but not even impossible: Jewish parties with an attractive manifesto would easily be able to attract voters from all religions/ethnicities. Not everybody is ethnocentric. Personally I'd rather vote for an intelligent, competent Muslim candidate than for a stupid Little Ingelander. We also have several British Jews in Government: nobody remotely objects.
"like Whites in the free SA."
Ooops: like Blacks in the free SA, of course.
My bad.
Gert, unlike the blacks vs whites issue in South Africa, this is a deep national/religious battle for the land between Jews and Arabs that has nothing to do with skin color or race.
Apples and oranges, my friend.
No Madze, not at all.
The divisions we create between peoples are always man-made and often no more than an excuse. White South Afrikaaners (Eugene Terre Blanche, what's in a name?) convinced themselves they had a right to the land because "G-d is White". It was nothing more than an incorrect but convenient post-hoc rationalisation.
In I/P things are even simpler: this is really about land and resources, not about Islam v. Judaism. Both get dragged into it by convenient demagogues. But it never was about that. The Internationalist Zionist organisations of yonder were totally secular and left wing at that. Today both Israeli Jews and Palestinians remain remarkably secular.
You want to make everything about religion because you are deeply religious but not everybody is like that.
Fuck this pointless shit, wind bags back and forth. Like we are in charge of anything, at least the dead kids aren't piling up just yet.
PTA:
"Using Kahane is a scare tactic" How fucking dumb are you? I mention that fuck becuase he is the avatar of MAD BITCH.
As for being a threat to them, he was a fucking bigoted racist wingnut. Good riddance to the assasinated shit bag.
DO YOU NOT FUCKING READ?
I'm not worrying about Kahane, I draw upon him as a reflection of why MAD TIT is fucking idiot.
You're a pointless distraction from the rest of us having a fucking life.
MAD BIGOT ASSHAT:
Kahane was an extremist whose party and views are either banned as hate mongering, racist or terrorist; even all fucking three. If my avatar was a Hamas leader you'd bitch your trap off.
And trust me rudeboy, the South African scenario may not have a dumb god on its side but it runs fucking deep and that comes from a guy with plenty of time spent there and family involved.
Fucking know-nothings pair of you.
Gert, skin color is not an ideology it is a reality. If I'm born white I'm white, if I'm born black I'm black. It was traditional racism, not religious persecution, that caused South African apartheid. Just like in America, when the policies of racial prejudice were removed we were able to integrate.
Differences in national/religious motives, however, are not settled the same way race relations are settled. You often like to say I only see things from a religious perspective, but that's actually a bogus statement.
You think that because I'm religious I'm not capable of understanding the conflicts and politics from other perspectives? I assure you I can, and do, see all sides. You, however, are completely disregarding religion and nationalism from the equation because you are agnostic and socialist. To be truly objective means understanding all sides, not just the narrow confines that fit your personal preferences.
Now, with that in mind, let me say that to ignore the very deep and serious national and religious differences between Jews and Arabs is simply absurd. Both sides are nationalist and both have powerful religious motivations underlying there national goals - even among the secular this is true. Jews are very fearful of anti-Semitic persecution, particularly from arabs, and fight against anyone who would deny their right to have self-determination in their homeland.
Yes, I did say homeland, as all but the most hardened atheist Jews consider Israel the homeland of the Jewish people, both historically and biblically. The fact that Jews aren't religious doesn't mean Jews don't want and feel they DESERVE the right to have their own country, where they can't and won't be vulnerable to the anti-Semites who have persecuted them for so many centuries.
Arabs, too, believe that this land belongs to them. That since it was conquered by Islam long ago that it's the eternal possession of the moslem people. It's a Nakba to them that they would lose a war of Independence to the Jews and have a nation other than their own possessing the land. They are deeply angered, humilated and disgusted. They want no part of a Jewish State and they expect to eventually grind out the Jews and reclaim it for Islam and the Arab people.
The solution of just expecting either side to abandon their deep, deep claims to the land and live together in peace and harmony is not at all realistic. Just as Jews will never give up their identity as Jews, they will, too, never give up their claim to Israel. Too much suffering living amoung the gentiles over the past millenia to just throw in the towel and return to business as usual.
If Israel works with Jordan and/or Egypt to humanely repatriate the arabs this isn't bigotry, it's compromise and both sides win.
THE JEW'S PAIN IS MORE THAN THE BLACKS CAN EVER UNDERSTAND!
Madze:
Interesting comment.
Alright then, let's for a moment forget about religion, socialism or nationalism. What you're doing here is lumping everything into some kind of "original sin" scenario, with one simple root cause, invariable in nature and size. But Madze, Arab hatred has been fostering for decades and has acquired other motivations too. Western support for Israel e.g. is seen as a symbol of US/Western hegemony over the region, we are seen not just as the original perpetrators but also as the perennial connivers, the thieves who not only not want to give the loot back but treacherously claim the other side are the perpetrators! Talk about adding insult to injury...
Why do you think some many hundreds of thousands of people protest around the world, including such an abundance of non-Arabs and non-Muslims (and Jews)? Because they too can see it! This Arab nationalism of which you speak wasn't born in a vacuum, it was born out of necessity. And of course Arab nationalists spin their own tale, based on a glorious past, the Golden Age of Islam and blah-di-blah, but that's no different from Israel's "making the desert bloom" fairy tale.
Let the West do the right thing and Arab-on-Western hostility will disappear like snow melting in the sun.
And for the "Democratic Republic of Israel and Palestine" we'll spin a new tale, a nice little Genesis-like story for the kids to memorise (every nation has done it, so have Jews, even before modern Israel came into being). A story of trouble and strife, ending in glorious reconciliation and true brotherhood. We're all indoctrinated, Madze, but some indoctrination is better than other.
"The solution of just expecting either side to abandon their deep, deep claims to the land and live together in peace and harmony is not at all realistic. Just as Jews will never give up their identity as Jews, they will, too, never give up their claim to Israel. Too much suffering living amoung the gentiles over the past millenia to just throw in the towel and return to business as usual."
They will not abandon their claims, therefore must learn to live together and share, like good, realistic people do. No one is asking for the Jews to pack their bags, apart from a few fanatics and a few sarcasts... I might still write a spoof called "The Canadian Solution", where all of Israel is transplanted on Canada, with the center of gravity on Bacon Eating Atheist Jew's house, just to see if he might get the point...
And now I'm off too... Talk to you later.
Shalom.
During the Ottoman reign, not that long ago, you could walk in Jerusalem and find a synagogue, a church and a mosque on the same street.Never say never.Its hard to say you have a historical claim on property that has been owned By Alexander, Augustus, Hadrian, Constantine,the Umayyad, the Crusaders, Saladin, and Hulagu Khan. Like the Aryan claim, the Zionist historical claim does not fly.They could make a modern claim but they would have to join the modern world.
"THE JEW'S PAIN IS MORE THAN THE BLACKS CAN EVER UNDERSTAND!"
Well said Daniel. The blacks were colonized and enslaved by Europeans, but at least they weren't pogrommed and genocided by them, like the Jews were. At least you're trying to be fair.
"Today both Israeli Jews and Palestinians remain remarkably secular."
Unfortunately, while that much is true, the people that rule the Palestinians, notably Hamas, are far from secular, and neither are the people who fund and support Hamas especially. The last thing on their minds is forming a "secular" nation, and damn sure not an "inclusive" one.
Getting back to the question of why MZ and Pagan's ethnic cleansing solution will not work – as Pagan has been honest enough to point out. The next step, which no one is taking, is just precisely why ethnic cleansing is not a solution, other than the obvious moral aspect.
Europe and China depend upon imported oil. Attempts to ethnic cleans will create a situation where the oil-rich Islamic countries will use their oil as a weapon as they did in 1973 and 1979. Neither Europe or China will side with Israel over this for economic reasons.
Russia would oppose it for geo-political reasons
The US is much weaker now than 1973 or 79. They could not take an economic hit like an oil embargo. So they too, would be against it.
Allowing ethnic cleansing sets a bad precedent. The dominant powers will not want to go there. When the far-right tried to dismember Bolivia, the countries of Latin America opposed it, regardless of ideology. They did so for fear of creating a precedent that could come back and bite them in the ass.(Or what is good for the goose, is also good for the gander.)
Western society has been becoming
more secularized since the Renaissance. Even a hundred years ago, the vast majority of the population followed a literalist interpretation of religion and rejected the scientific/rational view. Secularization does not mean rejection of religion per se, but rather taking it out of areas where it does not belong – such as science – and limiting its access to the power of the state. In all Western societies but the USA, literalists are a tiny minority and societies are overwhelmingly secular. This has also happened in Latin America and Japan. Even in the US “fundis” are a minority.
The Middle East was secularizing in the 1950's and 60's. The precedent had been set in the 1920's by Kemal Attaturk and he became the model for other secular rulers like Nassar. Imperialism saw this secular nationalism as a threat to its ability to exploit the area, thus nationalists like Nassar were given short shift and Mossedegh of Iran was overthrown by the CIA and “their type” of secularist, the evil Shah was installed.
What we have then is a world that is inexorably secularizing. “Fundamentalism” develops as a reaction to this process. It is aided and abetted by imperialism, with its hatred of secular nationalism, its support for the Wahabbi Saudi feudalists, and later its support for the Islamists in Afghanistan. Imperialism turns a minor problem into a major one.
Secular society will win out in the long term, the fundis everywhere fight hard because they know their days are numbered. A secular revolution in Iran, - which could happen any time the US stops propping up the regime - could change the channel in the Middle East.
Gambone, two hundred million flies can't be wrong. Your secular socialist solution, even if it could be implemented, would just provide more rot for the Muslim fundies to feed from, just like they feed from the carcass of the current rot.
Here's what I'd be willing to bet one hundred thousand dollars on if I had it to bet, and if I could set up the scenario to prove it. I would bet you that there is one sure fire way to provide a permanent lasting peace in the area, one that all parties, including fundamentalist Muslims-I REPEAT, INCLUDING FUNDAMENTALIST MUSLIMS-would be willing to accept.
The solution-Israel gives up all claims to Jerusalem-to all parts of Jerusalem-and withdraws totally and completely from the city. It would have to be a completely Muslim controlled city. Then, they might be amenable to a Jewish and Christian token presence, maybe even one of considerable size, so long as this did not involve any real power or shared control. Sure, a few churches and synagogues might be allowed. Why not?
I bet if Israel were willing to do this, not only would this lead to permanent peace in the region, but the Israelis would not have to give up one further square mile of their pre-1967 territories.
Strike that, I bet they wouldn't have to give up anything else, including the Golan, or the West Bank. Throw in Gaza. Israel could probably have it all.
Right of return? Who needs it? That ol "Apartheid wall"? Who gives a shit? Jews out of Jerusalem? There's your ticket to a lasting peace.
Hell, the Israelis could probably negotiate a return of all of the former Biblical territory of the old Kingdom of Israel-minus Jerusalem, of course. Well, so long as this could be done in such a way as to provide open access to the city without having to pass through Israeli territory.
There's your other possible avenue to peace. There, I've come up with three. Now you try to figure out how likely that is to happen. I say, just like my original scenario, not so much. I tend to think the Israelis won't go for that, and I don't much think I can blame them. After all, like it or not, Jerusalem was a holy city to them sixteen hundred years before it became so to the Muslims. It is obviously still important to them, even to the secular Jews. If it were not so, they would not have moved their capitol there from Tel Aviv, would they now?
At any rate, since this option would also seem to be off the table, that leaves still the one and only other option, a blood curdling war such as you have never imagined in your life, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and untold suffering.
Like I said, if and when it happens, I know whose side I'm on.
"Gambone, two hundred million flies can't be wrong. Your secular socialist solution, even if it could be implemented, would just provide more rot for the Muslim fundies to feed from, just like they feed from the carcass of the current rot."
Two things here. First off, who said I had a secular socialist solution? If you have been reading carefully, I have always said any solution will be difficult. And though the former might be the ideal one, it is not in the cards yet. Rather than offering a written in stone solution, I have merely been critiquing MZ ethnic cleansing.
Secondly, you accused me of lumping all Chriso fundies together (which I plainly did not) yet it seems you are doing the same with Islamo-fundies. Furthermore, treating Islamic societies as qualitatively different from any other society - ie they cannot evolve toward secularism - smacks of Orientalism. I suggested before that imperialist intervention was one of the biggest causes of Islamic fundamentalism and until you come up with evidence to the contrary, I will stick by that.
An important question - why do people leave mainstream (i.e. those critically accepting secularity) churches, synagogues and mosques for extreme sects?
The Palestinian struggle is not only about Jerusalem. It is certainly part of it, and your idea would help, but it is not the whole problem.
How about Jerusalem as an international city open to all 3 faiths?
"but the Israelis would not have to give up one further square mile of their pre-1967 territories."
Who here has said that they should give up any of the pre-67 territory? Not me. Not Ren.
I thank you for trying at least to come up with solutions that are not ethnic cleansing.
I've been vague about the incursion into Gaza, and American elections. Obama responded initially that we have only one president. If the cease-fire didn't occur, Obama would have been forced to say something. The decision to stop firing, was based on pragmatic politics; not fighting Islamism, destroying Hamas or anything else.
Red Frog; Thank you for visiting. We crossed paths politically in the 1970s.
Larry: It's good you made concrete, how utopian in the sense idealist, the idea of mass removal of Arabs. I guess it is not something Israel never gave thought to.
Israeli leaders and actually Hamas and Fatah, know their realistic limitations. Olmert and all the modern Zionist leaders, are aware of the demographics, and know a smaller Jewish state is in the future.
When we are talking about fanatic Muslims, we should look at the foundations of modern Islamism. Before the USSR went into Afghanistan, the CIA was paying for, and spreading Islamism; from Pakistan to Algiers. Moderate Muslims like Karzai complain even today, that when moderates went to the CIA for funding, they only gave $$ to extremists. I'm talking about something bigger than the US funded Saddam. I'm saying the US nurtured Islamism.
Troutsky: I will save your comment for use later.
Pagan: Look at what I said to Larry. Modern Islamism is very much a US creation. Islamism was paid for in Pakistan, against the PPP, when it had a socialist program. CIA money was around before the Russians went into Afghanistan.
There has been talks about Jerusalem having mixed sovereignty. Contrary to your Jews and Muslim outlook, the final decisions are going to be made from simple pragmatism.
In the long run, only the military and a small section of the Israeli ruling class, gain from constant militarism.
Another shot of realism. The US doesn't want Israel's militarism, undermining its Arab friends in Lebanin, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
Gert: Zionists well aware of the coming "population bomb." The Arab birth rate is twice the Jewish.
This was written by my comrades in Israel:
Some left-wing sects call for the replacement of Israel and Palestine with a single (presumably Arab) ‘democratic, secular state'. The slogan ‘one-state solution' is counter-posed to the imperialists' slogan, ‘two-state solution'. But several immediate problems are raised:
1. How will such a state come about? Israel isn't going to simply disappear. Does this mean socialists should call for an Arab invasion and subjugation of Israel?
2. What's the guarantee that such a state would indeed be democratic and secular? By law, Israeli-Palestinians have the same rights as Israeli-Jews, but everyone knows of the discrimination that actually goes on.
3. What about the national question? Israel has existed for sixty years, a fact which cannot be ignored. Despite the horrific circumstance under which it was set up (including the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians), Israelis still have a right to a national identity, which would be violated by simply removing their state from the outside.
The myriad of arguments in the blogosphere, university campuses and trade union fringe meetings about ‘one state vs. two states' are asking completely the wrong question. The number of states is a political detail - what's important is the economic basis of that state/those states. What we should be asking is whether a solution is possible under imperialism/capitalism at all, or whether the sheer human misery on both sides can only be alleviated by a socialist transformation of society. See this
MZ: Marx wrote an essay called The Jewish Question. It was a response to a Bruno Bauer. Bauer believed the best way for Jewish people to get political and societal freedom, was to give up being Jews.
From Marx's experience, he thought the country that had the best model for giving Jews political and societal freedom was the US. Its constitution seperating church and state, allowed Jews to be Jews, and gave them political freedom as well. Marx noted that religion was incredibly strong even with such a radical constitution.
Daniel H-G: I think Larry G made a good point. If the Kahanist plan was tried, OPEC would respond. That is probably one reason it's not on the table. I do believe it was certainly discussed.
Gosh I can't believe I missed all of this fun. Thanks Daniel for pointing out the obvious in my absence. I'll take a million more like you.
"Pagan: Look at what I said to Larry. Modern Islamism is very much a US creation. Islamism was paid for in Pakistan, against the PPP, when it had a socialist program. CIA money was around before the Russians went into Afghanistan."
Ren, where do you think the people the US funded came from, out of thin air? Do you think they were all mere mercenaries? If you think that you are sadly mistaken. They didn't just become militants because the US paid them to adopt that position. The US paid them because they saw a sentiment they could exploit.
"There has been talks about Jerusalem having mixed sovereignty. Contrary to your Jews and Muslim outlook, the final decisions are going to be made from simple pragmatism."
That may be so, but that doesn't change the fact that to the fundamentalists, Jerusalem is the major issue, in fact the only issue as regarding the Israelis and Palestinians. I insist that if there wasn't a holy city involved, this would not be an issue.
Sure, there might have been problems for a decade or so if Jerusalem wasn't involved, but certainly it wouldn't have lasted this long.
I think you just don't want to see that because you don't want to believe that so many people could be that stubborn over a religious issue. Well, I'm sorry Ren, but they are.
"In the long run, only the military and a small section of the Israeli ruling class, gain from constant militarism.
"Another shot of realism. The US doesn't want Israel's militarism, undermining its Arab friends in Lebanin, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan."
We don't have friends, especially in that part of the world. I go by the people. To me, those governments are not the people. It's erroneous to call those countries are friends, because the average person there is anything but. When you refer to the governments, call them what they are-our clients.
Israel might be an exception. The people there might for the most part like us, the government there, again, is a client. But at least they somewhat represent the wishes of the people, unlike the Arab governments.
And by the way that's not a bad thing. If the people there actually had a representative government I shudder to think of what it would amount to.
It sure as hell wouldn't be a magic solution leading to peace, for the most part it would probably be another bunch of mainly Sunni style Ayatollahs.
It might be socialist in a way, but I don't think it would be exactly the kind of socialism you have in mind.
"Gambone, two hundred million flies can't be wrong. Your secular socialist solution, even if it could be implemented, would just provide more rot for the Muslim fundies to feed from, just like they feed from the carcass of the current rot."
"Two things here. First off, who said I had a secular socialist solution? If you have been reading carefully, I have always said any solution will be difficult. And though the former might be the ideal one, it is not in the cards yet. Rather than offering a written in stone solution, I have merely been critiquing MZ ethnic cleansing."
I reject that terminology, and I'm going to tel you the same thing I said to Marxist From Lebanon. The definition of "bigot" is not "anybody that does not agree with Larry Gambone".
"Secondly, you accused me of lumping all Chriso fundies together (which I plainly did not) yet it seems you are doing the same with Islamo-fundies."
Yes, you did, I know what you said, and actually I don't have a problem with it, because I knew what you meant. I was just pointing out that it is impossible to always speak in non-general terms, because after a point it just becomes too cumbersome. It was you who were playing the word games. Well, that's fine too, but if you are going to do that, don't be shocked when the monkey throws the shit right back at you.
"Furthermore, treating Islamic societies as qualitatively different from any other society - ie they cannot evolve toward secularism - smacks of Orientalism."
Show me where I said that. There you go making stuff up again. The two hundred million I referred to is a minority within Islamic societies, roughly twenty percent. But they are very real, and they are formidable.
"I suggested before that imperialist intervention was one of the biggest causes of Islamic fundamentalism and until you come up with evidence to the contrary, I will stick by that."
Well you would be wrong. Wahabism started in the area of Saudi Arabia almost precisely the same time as the American Revolution. Wahab the founder and George Washington were near contemporaries.
Sure, imperialism might have broadened its appeal, but it didn't "cause" it. There were a variety of causes. They actually worked hand in hand with the Saud family in consolidating their influence over the area during the 18th century. The two worked together in other words.
And of course there are more fundamentalist extremist sects than just the Wahabis, and that is just within the Sunni branch. So no, I don't lump them all in together, I know they are all different, with various degrees of fanaticism and beliefs, ideals, etc.
But when it comes to this issue, especially Jerusalem and Israel, they are pretty much united.
"An important question - why do people leave mainstream (i.e. those critically accepting secularity) churches, synagogues and mosques for extreme sects?"
For as many different reasons as there are different sects. You're getting ready to lump them in all together again, aren't you? Not all of them are bad, it depends on how you define extreme.
"The Palestinian struggle is not only about Jerusalem. It is certainly part of it, and your idea would help, but it is not the whole problem."
Yes it is. The rest of the nonsense is a sideshow. Like I said, if Jerusalem was not involved, but otherwise the other aspects was one hundred percent the same-sure, there might have been serious problems, and they might have dragged on for one or two decades, maybe even three, but they would have been over and done with long before now.
"How about Jerusalem as an international city open to all 3 faiths?"
The only way that would work would be if it was made an independent nation in it's own right, like the Vatican, or maybe a protectorate-I think that's the word I'm looking for-like Lichtenstein or Andorra, something that is semi-autonomous.
I emphasize, that MIGHT work. Maybe grant Jews the right to rebuild the Temple and guarantee their status and rights as citizens, and Christians as well, and otherwise make them a Democratic state with open access for religious pilgrimage for all faiths.
But nothing you come up with is going to satisfy the Muslim fundies, who will eventually have to be dealt with, probably in a violent fashion, unlike the Jewish and Christian fundies, who will mainly just fume and bitch, but nothing else.
"but the Israelis would not have to give up one further square mile of their pre-1967 territories."
"Who here has said that they should give up any of the pre-67 territory? Not me. Not Ren."
No, but that would be the result of such nonsense as the "right of return" and knocking down that "apartheid wall" and all the other illegitimate nonsense you advocate, because before long there would not be a Jewish state, just a predominantly Arab area with a few Jews-what ones aren't able to get the hell away.
"I thank you for trying at least to come up with solutions that are not ethnic cleansing."
They aren't solutions until their implemented, they're just ideas. Eventually of course, one will be implemented, if none of the others are, and I think you know which one I'm talking about.
Like I said, if and when it comes down to that, I know which side I'll be on.
PTA MEETING:
Your comment regards slavery and the Holocaust is exactly the kind of brain dead shit I expected you to throw out, the pass the buck blame style of a conservative.
Those crimes are humanities crimes and as for slavery, wasn't invented by Europeans and as for anti-semitism, I think the Christians invented that.
Now get back to being expelling hot air and armchair posturing.
LIBERAL WHITE BOY:
Thanks man, kind words indeed, means a lot in this uphill struggle with asshats.
Daniel-
It's five o'clock somewhere. Do you know where your meds are?
Pagan:
"Right of return? Who needs it? That ol "Apartheid wall"? Who gives a shit? Jews out of Jerusalem? There's your ticket to a lasting peace."
You're nuts, honestly...
As the others here have been saying: J'sem as a shared city should be acceptable to all. What Arabs want to avoid is their wholesale expulsion from East J'sem but other than that they're willing to share. Most Zionists aren't.
"Like I said, if and when it happens, I know whose side I'm on."
Like a football hooligan you choose a side and stick to it, no matter what the side does or how badly it plays.
Ren: "Gert: Zionists well aware of the coming "population bomb." The Arab birth rate is twice the Jewish."
Here's a very important point though: they realise it, yet appear collectively incapable of dealing with it. The 'colonising momentum' is in full swing (under the guise of 'National security') and will lead de facto (possibly de jure) to a situation very, very similar to SA at the height of Apartheid. Then Israel will be faced with a problem: what to do with the prisoners? Expulsion will not be allowed (at least we all agree on that apart from MZ), so annexing and absorption becomes the only real option. Enter the demographic nightmare as an actual REALITY, not just a nightmare.
Ren, go round the Israeli bloggers: they're all asleep at the wheel; aware of thedemographic nightmare, sure, but unaware of what it will actually mean and that Israel is sleepwalking into it.
Only take multi-vits.
Pagan:
At this point I'm seriously wondering whether you're actually aware of the situation in WB and the Jordan Valley, in terms of how far the Israeli colonisation has proceeded? The best source for this kind of information has been for some time the Israeli Human Rights organisation B'Tselem. One of their maps in English can be found here. Other maps tracing the Apartheid roads ("Settlers only!") and more besides that can also be found on the B'Tselem site.
Perhaps you could study them a bit and then come back to us, yeah?
Gert-
First and foremost, cease and desist referring to the abomination of a game called soccer by the name football, which is the rightful name of the great American past time.
Now, on to the bilge.
"As the others here have been saying: J'sem as a shared city should be acceptable to all. What Arabs want to avoid is their wholesale expulsion from East J'sem but other than that they're willing to share. Most Zionists aren't."
Here is where this is a racist statement. You and the others keep lumping all Muslims into the same category, therefore painting them all with the same broad brush.
Much like Daniel refuses to see that British style colonialism is a kind of apartheid, and every bit as bad, if not worse, you fail to comprehend that not all Muslims are the same. That is a bogoted, racist position.
When I refer to those Muslims who are at the heart of the problem, I do not refer to all Muslims, but to the roughly and at least two hundred million who make up the fundamentalist and extremist factions.
Wrap your head around that concept and then we can have a discussion. Until they are dealt with there is no need in carrying this any further.
Fuck off, I've already given you dictionary defs for both those words you DON'T UNDERSTAND MONG BAT!
Pagan:
What you're doing here is essentially a form of mild trolling.
Armed with very little functioning knowledge of this subject (or this blog) you come here spouting your 'free thinking' nonsense and end up simply disrupting any real discussion on the subject at hand. We've been spending most of our time refuting your nonsense, after which you then basically change the subject again with more nonsense. It's like playing tennis with a very bad player: one never knows how high the ball is going to go and how many miles one'll have to run to retrieve it from outside the court...
I've seen people like you on other fora too: on an astronomy site they start cackling about astrology. Look at your own blog: its subject matter has nothing to do with the ME.
Not trolling, mildly or otherwise, just pointing out that there is a very real difference between the majority of Muslims and the more radical branches. Yet I am the one accused of lumping them all in together as one, so going by your own criterion, who is doing the trolling here?
I was the one called a bigot and racist for my referring to the radical Muslims, while I have always gone out of my way at every opportunity to draw distinctions between for example Hamas and your average every day Palestinian.
Do I get credit for that? No, I just get called names.
Ask yourself when have I ever called you or anyone else here anti-Semitic, other than as a snarky reply to what somebody else said, which by then I'd had enough of the name calling from YOU and from some others.
You can't do it, can you? Go ahead, look back and find where I have called you an anti-Semite, other than maybe a few snarky statements in response to your own assaults.
Troll=not me.
TROLL.
It's only the internet, not real life.
Ren:
"This was written by my comrades in Israel:"
Provide a link, I'm interested in seeing these guys.
Still, I believe in Israel there exists a mindset that stretches from the Left (but perhaps not the Far Left) to the Far Right and it's very Jewish Nationalistic. Hence various players that are traditionally 'anti-war' not objecting to the Butchering of Gaza: up to 95 % approval ratings up to the very end of the "war", when the Qassams were still flying.
And so, your comrades will have understandable difficulty in opening their minds to anything other than a two or three state solution. The objections they raise [your quote] against a one state solution are IMHO quite feeble and traditional and show an inability/unwillingness to think outside the box.
Israel is not a closed society but it behaves much like one: an echo chamber and palace of mirrors where most parrot each other, at least when it comes to 'National security', sovereignty and the 'Arab question'.
My honourable fellow Israeli blogger Emmanuel, who used to post regularly at mine (not so much now I've gone AZ, lol) considers himself moderate Left, is opposed to the Occupation and in favour of a two state solution, yet continues at every turn to put up the usual obstacles related to National security. It's the idea that the unruly children (Palestinians) need to be 'educated' first before they can be trusted with their own state. What Emm doesn't recognise is that to the leadership, 'educating' essentially means completely defeating. He can't see that because he doesn't feel that way himself (at least I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt). Hasbara's continued depiction of Jews as victims ('From the Holocaust to the Qassams') helps strongly maintain this mentality and pass it on from generation to generation (Emm is only young, in my estimate). I think the comrades are 'infected' too...
Pagan:
You still jabbering on?
Go play with the other paganists, pu-leaease?
Daniel-
I know it's just the internet, which is why it's arrogant in the extreme for people sitting in relative comfort half a world away from where the action is to act like they know jack shit about what's going on. But at least I don't have blinders, and so make the attempt to see all sides.
Nor by the way do I get so pissed off that half of what I type is fucking illegible. At the end of the day, nothing you say is going to make me lose one second of sleep, but I get the impression sometimes its all you can do to restrain yourself from punching your monitor or flinging it out the window.
Gert-
Most of my fellow "paganists" feel much as you do, they are leftists. I am more of a minority than the fundamentalist Muslims you want to pretend doesn't exist or is irrelevant. I don't think I know what you think. What's worse, I don't think I know what you think. For once, I think there might finally be a village somewhere that is NOT in the least bit interested in finding it's idiot.
And don't worry about what is on my blog, I blog to suit myself, not the likes of you. I am not so obsessed over one issue that I devote all of my blogging time to it. I bet I could read one post on your blog and it would be like reading every damn one, not that I intend to bother.
I do intend to address this issue, but I doubt you would approve of anything I have to say anyway, not that I give a rats ass.
Do me a favor, I think Hamas is in need of a human shield, please go these and make yourself even more useless than you already are.
PAGAN HUT:
Hamas only like to use women and children as they look better dead on TV when they are smashed to bits by Israeli weapons.
Click here for evidence of that.
BORED YET? I AM!
Pagan:
"Most of my fellow "paganists" feel much as you do, they are leftists."
Your point being?
"I am more of a minority than the fundamentalist Muslims you want to pretend doesn't exist or is irrelevant."
They exist. They are a serious nuisance. I never said otherwise. Which part didn't you understand?
"And don't worry about what is on my blog, I blog to suit myself, not the likes of you."
Again, your point being?
"I bet I could read one post on your blog and it would be like reading every damn one, not that I intend to bother."
Again, your point being?
Irrelevancy seems to be your mode of 'free thinking'.
AW continues to analyze wonderfully.
Gert The Projecting Troll-
My point being those were all responses to your trollish statements. The Free-thinker bit was what somebody else tagged me with, but that's fine I'll take that over your tiresome brainwashed bilge any day.
And with that, I'm done with you. It is you who are irrelevant.
"Most of my fellow "paganists" feel much as you do, they are leftists."
THANKFULLY! Seeing that neo-paganism is the fastest growing religion in the US - 1500% growth since the 1990's.
There is nothing trollish - or wrong - with Gert. Believe me I would be the first to denounce him if there was.
I'll keep this post up atleast until MZ can respond.
Gert: See this. This is the whole index on this subject.
Alan Woods compares the two state solution, as similar to Britain's 1922 agreement over Ireland, which led to more Irish dead by other Irish, than by British.
Israel objectively triumphed, but not without problems. The goal of Zionism is security for Jews. Are Jews safer today than three weeks ago?
Remember 10,000 marched in Tel Aviv against Zionism.
The bigger question for the Middle East, how to insure autonomy for Arabs, Jews and Kurds?
Pagan: Islamists are decentralized for the most part. The leadership of Al- Oaeda is much beheaded. Now they have Islamists writing books attacking them. They are losing the ideological battle. Iran will have more moderate leadership soon after the upcoming elections. The mullahs want a moderate in power with Obama in power.
I don't know how many Muslim are Islamist. I know they are not well organized. See Stradfor.
Israel will make small concessions over Jerusalem.
LWB: I use your don't fire rockets into your old neighborhood line.
Graeme: AW has a photographic memory.
Daniel H-G: Damn Churchill hiding behind women and children, when London was bombed.
Larry G: Is Canada officially as pro-Israel as the US?
Ren-
It's not just the radical Islamists for whom Jerusalem is an important issue. All conservative, or orthodox Muslims, aren't radical fanatics, but Jerusalem is still an important issue to them, and even to moderates.
Recall how one of the main gripes of the radicals towards the US was the presence of US troops on "sacred Saudi soil". That was more than just their opinion. That was a recruitment slogan, pretty much.
These people take their religious beliefs very seriously. I am speaking in general terms now, nothing bigoted or racist, just a fact, and the fact that it is so important to the average Muslim (or at least to the average conservative though non-radical Muslim) is what makes this kind of rhetoric such a powerful recruitment tool for the radicals.
Al-Queda is almost irrelevant when it comes to the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem. That is the province of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, etc. Bin Laden used to give it lip service, but his main hang-up was the American infidel on Saudi soil. To him the only thing worse than that would be them going into Mecca or Medina.
Canada = Toady number one! The US and its Israeli satrap can do no wrong. Especially, since the Harper outfit took over. Had they been in power in 2003 we would have gotten into the Iraq fiasco.
MAXIMUM FAIL!
I'll keep this post up atleast until MZ can respond.
Ren, I'll not be responding...the fact is I consider those posting here to be militant, virulent anti-Semites of the worst kind. They are White Supremacists/Islamists sans honesty... advocating for the extermination of Judaism, denying the rights of the Jews to self-determination, equating Zionism with Nazism, advocating for the enemies of the Jews to succeed in their mission to destroy Israel and reclaim it for the arabs...no, that's simply a hate site not a place for rational discussion.
Nope, I'm out...I appreciate your civility, Ren, but this site has become indistinguishable from Vanguard or Storm Front, and I'll not enable it with my comments as long as this is the case.
I do respect your genuine desire for reasoned dialogue, though your views are nearly as bigoted as the posters who spew some of the most bitter, vicious Jew hate on the web. They are simply vile anti-Semites, who I genuinely believe have only the worst intentions towards the Jewish people.
Be well, but don't expect to see me here again commenting as long as this remains a Jew-hating forum of the worst kind. Consider it irreconcilable differences.
Ren:
Thanks for that link. More reading material (grrrrr!) but interesting. Will be scrutinised.
"The goal of Zionism is security for Jews"
Sorry, but no! Zionism is a massive landgrab, aided and abetted by Western powers, right from the 'off!'
Look like according to MZ, we'll have to start "Der Neue Strurmer!", pal. Ain't no-one escapes the Mad Zionist's wrath! Looks like MZ will be retreating to MZ-land (he's not calling on me either anymore - me sulking)
Larry:
"Canada = Toady number one!"
Someone tell it how it is! Canada under Harper seems more pro-Zion than the US. Possible? Hard to do but Harper and his buddies try diligently...
Oh, and then there was this:
"Alan Woods compares the two state solution, as similar to Britain's 1922 agreement over Ireland, which led to more Irish dead by other Irish, than by British."
Well, between that and roughly the end of WW II, Partitioning was seen as a remedy for all kinds of societies' illnesses, see also India/Pakistan (Pakistan: "The state that was never needed") and yes, Palestine. Never did it work well.
MZ: I support many blogs that I don't agree with on much of anything. I learn things that often show issues as being more complex than I presumed.
If the heat is bad here, think about RL.
Gert: Good point about imperialist partition.
Zionism was formed from sincere, although idealist belief, in a place where Jews can be secure.
Good fucking riddance to MAD BIGOT.
Ren:
Seems this thread has gone quiet, so time for a couple of simple questions.
I read the article you linked to for me. It's interesting but I remain skeptical about the feasibility of socialist revolution in the ME. I'm sure we will have ample opportunity in the future to go into some detail though.
But, who owns that site? There's little reference to that and I couldn't find an "About us" page.
And on my soap box you wrote:
"During the 1970s, Fatah sent a representative to London, to meet with my group."
Who is your group?
No hidden agenda here, just trying to understand.
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