Moishe3rd, I think we are in general agreement, but I do hope that you are not focusing on this topic as a way of delegitimizing the existence of Palistian society. I do grant that most Isrealis are far more sophisticated and worldly than are most Palistinians, and the proportion of their (Isreal's) citizens are who "fundamentalists"--the most destructive, naive populations--is considerably smaller. This puts Isreal in a much better light. My greatest fear is that of fundamentalism, whether it be Jewish, Muslim, or Christian--and the fundamentalist movements in the U.S. frighten me as much as does that of Islam. Regarding your comment about the connection between art and mental health, I suspect that the level of "mental health" among the Palistinians is lower than that of Isreal. And perhaps differences in artistic production reflect this. But I do think that the suffering of Palistinians is in large part because of policies of Isreal.
JLNobody wrote:Moishe3rd, I think we are in general agreement, but I do hope that you are not focusing on this topic as a way of delegitimizing the existence of Palistian society. I do grant that most Isrealis are far more sophisticated and worldly than are most Palistinians, and the proportion of their (Isreal's) citizens are who "fundamentalists"--the most destructive, naive populations--is considerably smaller. This puts Isreal in a much better light. My greatest fear is that of fundamentalism, whether it be Jewish, Muslim, or Christian--and the fundamentalist movements in the U.S. frighten me as much as does that of Islam. Regarding your comment about the connection between art and mental health, I suspect that the level of "mental health" among the Palistinians is lower than that of Isreal. And perhaps differences in artistic production reflect this. But I do think that the suffering of Palistinians is in large part because of policies of Isreal.
Well, I was not focusing on the idea of civilization as a way of "delegitimizing the existence of Palistian society" but...
Sigh...
Okay, rather than go off, maybe you can educate me.
What are the values of "Palestinian society?"
Why do you think the "suffering of Palistinians is in large part because of policies of Isreal?"
If Israel did not exist - or more to the point, if the present State of Israel were instead part of Jordan or Syria and the West Bank was occupied by that country, and the people in Gaza now had an independent Gaza, how do you think the suffering of the Palestinians would change?
It seems you want to put me to work. Let me ask YOU to justfiy's Isreal's policies regarding Palestine. This would be a good exercise for you. I DO support Isreal; I think the U.S. should always keep this support at a very high priority. But I do not agree with all of its policies, in part because I feel they endanger Isreal's future.
JLNobody wrote:It seems you want to put me to work. Let me ask YOU to justfiy's Isreal's policies regarding Palestine. This would be a good exercise for you. I DO support Isreal; I think the U.S. should always keep this support at a very high priority. But I do not agree with all of its policies, in part because I feel they endanger Isreal's future.
No. You misunderstand me. I was being deliberately obtuse.
I do not support the Arabs called Palestinians. I do not think they have a "society;" or a "culture" or much of anything other than the desire to obliterate Israel. Quite frankly, I believe that they are something very much akin to death worshipers.
I don't think Israel's policies are any worse towards the Arabs called Palestinians than most nations and, I think that Israel's policies are much, much better than most countries such as Jordan or Syria or Egypt, to mention three nations that have kept the Arabs called Palestinians stateless, homeless, and destitute, fueling only their hatred, for the last 58 years. I also think Israel's Arab policies are superior to most European nations who dance a strange dance of acquiesence and contempt towards Arabs and Islam in general. Acquiesencing to insane demands to change European values into Islamic values even while Europeans try to maintain a sense of superiority over the indigent Arabs that flood their countries. It's very odd.
So, I was asking you to explain the good "Palestinian" values and why you believe that it is Israel that causes them to suffer.
I was attempting to forestall the above polemic.
Oh well...
Oh well, indeed. I've known Palestlinians and see no grounds for demonizing them. The violent fundamentalism of many of them I do condemn, but the condition of middle east has helped to feed that fundamentalism, or at least its underlying hatred and violence. I agree with your evaluation of the cruelty of other Arab nations toward the Palestinians, and Arafat's cynical exploitation of "his people's" situation.
But this is a topic I rarely think about any more; it seems so hopeless. Both sides are so absolutely right and righteous. It will be--like the hubris of Greek trajedy--the cause of their mutual doom.
Here is a link for those interested in the history of Israel, Palestine, Jordon etc.
http://www.masada2000.org/historical.html
The bottom of the page has animations showing the details of the current conflict.
These are some animations:
http://www.somebodyhelpme.info/mideast/History_of_Israel_in_a_Nutshell.swf
http://www.somebodyhelpme.info/mideast/The_Middle_East.swf
you will need to have flash enabled on your browser.
IronLionZion wrote:The billions we give to Israel yearly, for example, have no pragmatic usefullness, and are based almost wholly on our cultural affinity for them.
Wrong. It helps establish and maintain a definitive US position in the Middle East, sort of a mini by proxy US. This is very important from the perspective of oil and the US's need to maintain a geopolitical economic military influence.
Bartikus wrote:How do you remove the motivation to destroy another? How do you remove hatred?
Via the exemption of destructive religions and other modes of destructive irrational thought.
Hi JoshuaAri,
I am a Jew by ethnic origin, agnostic by temperament. Welcome
Chumly wrote:IronLionZion wrote:The billions we give to Israel yearly, for example, have no pragmatic usefullness, and are based almost wholly on our cultural affinity for them.
Wrong. It helps establish and maintain a definitive US position in the Middle East, sort of a mini by proxy US. This is very important from the perspective of oil and the US's need to maintain a geopolitical economic military influence.
Maybe this was the real reason for the Balfour Declaration in the first place....what do you think Chumly?
Hi Bart,
After reading about it some, it seems as if there are any number of speculations, and any number of sub-motivations and sub-themes.
Nevertheless, two overt driving forces that surface are a combination of guilt and the Jewish drive for a homeland. It also seems pretty clear that if the Axis Powers had won, there would be no Israel and quite possibly no Jews either.
It seems doubtful the US would have had the foresight in 1917 to fully comprehend the present economic and geopolitic of the Middle East to the extent you suggest.
In fact, although I am no expect on the Balfour Declaration, it strongly appears the British were vastly more important in the architecture of the Balfour Declaration, than the Americans.
"The Balfour Declaration was a letter dated November 2, 1917 from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation, a private Zionist organization. The letter stated the position, agreed to at a British Cabinet meeting on October 31, 1917, that the British government supported Zionist plans for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine, with the condition that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of existing communities there."
Chumly wrote:Bartikus wrote:How do you remove the motivation to destroy another? How do you remove hatred?
Via the exemption of destructive religions and other modes of destructive irrational thought.
I don't think your exemptions would eliminate either the impulses to kill or do away with hatred.
Your solution if even were possible...would fail IMHO.
There are many reasons for mankind's destructive nature outside religion and much destruction could be carried out using rational thought in support of it.
I think you tend to target religion only to substantiate your lack of belief.
The world would not be at peace just from an absence of religion.
Of course, I don't think peace is really your concern in the first place.
Maybe I'm wrong but, it seems as though many in the name of peace and in order to establish it....lash out at beliefs in God and.......their efforts stop there.
If that's what people do.......that says alot don't you think?.
Chumly wrote:Hi Bart,
After reading about it some, it seems as if there are any number of speculations, and any number of sub-motivations and sub-themes.
Nevertheless, two overt driving forces that surface are a combination of guilt and the Jewish drive for a homeland. It also seems pretty clear that if the Axis Powers had won, there would be no Israel and quite possibly no Jews either.
It seems doubtful the US would have had the foresight in 1917 to fully comprehend the present economic and geopolitic of the Middle East to the extent you suggest.
In fact, although I am no expect on the Balfour Declaration, it strongly appears the British were vastly more important in the architecture of the Balfour Declaration, than the Americans.
"The Balfour Declaration was a letter dated November 2, 1917 from British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation, a private Zionist organization. The letter stated the position, agreed to at a British Cabinet meeting on October 31, 1917, that the British government supported Zionist plans for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine, with the condition that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of existing communities there."
Britain did play the central role. The truth is we will never really know what all the motivations were in drafting this declaration. It's difficult for me to believe that the British handed this land over to the Jews without anything to gain from doing so.
Kinda like no one believes American troops are in Iraq only for the good of Iraqi's. Something is to be gained by it one way or another.
Very few individuals give without expecting to receive something, let alone governments.
Wars will be carried out in the name of freedom, democracy, survival, wealth, power, etc......without religion.....and with rational arguments!
Maybe peace, altruism, love is just an illusion as well.
My faith says otherwise. I believe in these things....even when i don't see them. My belief in these things....compel me to strive for them as if they were precious treasures. Being rare as they are.....they are treasures worth seeking.
Hope.....I have high hopes for this world and the people. I can't give up that hope. I have hope in the miraculous. The miraculous changing of people's hearts for the better and for one another.
That hope rests in a God who can make the impossible.........possible.
I have no doubt that the allies must have perceived some net benefit from the establishment of Israel, altruistically or otherwise, after all, they were holding all the cards.
Perhaps one of today's biggest ironies is that a number of the former Allied countries have not done as well economically as a number of the former Axis countries. Witness Germany and Japan compared to Britain.
At the least, this shows just how impossible it is to predict the future outcome of war, in terms of losers, winners, politics, religion, nation building, etc. even if you 'win' the war.
Chumly wrote:I have no doubt that the allies must have perceived some net benefit from the establishment of Israel, altruistically or otherwise, after all, they were holding all the cards.
Perhaps one of today's biggest ironies is that a number of the former Allied countries have not done as well economically as a number of the former Axis countries. Witness Germany and Japan compared to Britain.
At the least, this shows just how impossible it is to predict the future outcome of war, in terms of losers, winners, politics, religion, nation building, etc. even if you 'win' the war.
I believe Japan and Germany have done very well due to in great part the #1 consumer nation on earth.
Ironically, it took measures similar to what is being done in Iraq to get them going.
Germany and Japan develop products Americans really like and apparently so does much of the rest of the world.
Britain could do just as well or better....of course that's based on my belief and a bit of........ faith. lol
Without belief....forget it.
Posted on Sun, Feb. 12, 2006
Verbatim Verbatim 'the wonder of freedom...'
Author and Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissman Klein addressed the United Nations on Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Excerpts:
How difficult it is to speak on behalf of all the voices which were stilled so many years ago.
I am thinking of snowflakes. Millions of snowflakes falling down to the earth from darkened skies. They all seem so much alike, and yet we know that each one is unique and each one deserves to be understood and appreciated. Come with me, then, to be just one unknown snowflake. Allow me to tell just a tiny bit of my own story.
I am mindful of today's date, Jan. 27, when Auschwitz was liberated. Auschwitz. Where the unmarked graves of my parents and most of my family are.
Where was I? On the 27th of January 1945 I was in a bitter camp called Grünberg in Silesia. Just two days later... we started a death march. We were two incredibly long columns of women, 2,000 each. And I am humbled by the fact that two others of that group are in this room today: Herta and Helena... . Fewer than 120 of our column survived. Three of us are in this room... .
I remember during the death march standing in seemingly endless lines holding a battered, rusty bowl in my hand and praying that when I got to the front of the line, there should be enough food left in the kettle. As if by some miracle, the ladle went deep and brought forth a potato. I beheld a treasure! I don't want my grandchildren or any children anywhere in the world to ever feel that a mere crust of bread or a scrap of potato is a treasure. But nor do I want any of us to become so distracted by our treasures that we forget that there are still millions of children in this world who do not even have a scrap of a potato... .
Since so many of those who perished left no children behind, you here today are their spiritual heirs. And you need to know that they left a legacy of love which fuels the human heart... .
I wish, in this General Assembly Hall, to speak for one moment of my liberation.
Our captors locked us in an abandoned bicycle factory in Volary, Czechoslovakia, where the march... came to a halt on the night of May 6. There were fewer than 120 of us left now. Our captors decided to destroy the last witnesses of their deeds by attaching a time bomb to the factory door. Suddenly it started to rain. The torrential rains, so common in the spring, prevented the bomb and fuse from connecting, and the bomb never ignited.
In the morning, the doors to the factory were flung open by the good Czech people. They called, "If anyone is there, get out. The war is over!" I stood in the doorway of the factory, trying to absorb the wonder of freedom. The freedom for which I had prayed in every waking hour of those past six years... .
I weighed 68 pounds. My hair was white. I was in rags. I had not had a bath in three years... . The war was over, the prayers which I had uttered every night - for freedom, a family, a home, and never to be hungry again - were answered. It was a fulfillment I could never have even dreamt of in my keenest dreams.
I came to this blessed country which I proudly claim as my own. But what about my friends who could not go back, for we had no home? With incredible wisdom and foresight the United Nations established the modern state of Israel. Israel, the ancient homeland of the Jewish people.
It is also forever etched in my mind and in my heart the picture taken a few years thereafter of the late Mrs. Roosevelt holding a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, crafted here. I fervently believed then that what we had experienced would never happen again to any people, anywhere. But the wisdom that comes with age and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Darfur, and many other corners of the world has taught me that my youthful naiveté was just that.
May this place, this edifice that was built with wisdom and love to prevent such catastrophes, become a sanctuary of the fulfillment of the dreams of all people. All races. All religions. All colors.
You are the messengers of a time I shall not see. The message which I pray for every day is clear: that all children born from today on and held in the loving arms of their parents will lift their eyes to the beauty of this great planet. And when night falls, and they look up to the mystery of the stars, and the celestial homes, they shall dream the dreams of freedom, and know them to be reality.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bartikus wrote:Chumly wrote:Bartikus wrote:How do you remove the motivation to destroy another? How do you remove hatred?
Via the exemption of destructive religions and other modes of destructive irrational thought.
I don't think your exemptions would eliminate either the impulses to kill or do away with hatred.
Your solution if even were possible...would fail IMHO.
There are many reasons for mankind's destructive nature outside religion and much destruction could be carried out using rational thought in support of it.
I think you tend to target religion only to substantiate your lack of belief.
The world would not be at peace just from an absence of religion.
Of course, I don't think peace is really your concern in the first place.
Maybe I'm wrong but, it seems as though many in the name of peace and in order to establish it....lash out at beliefs in God and.......their efforts stop there.
If that's what people do.......that says alot don't you think?.
By "other modes of destructive irrational thought" That would indeed include what you call: "the impulses to kill" and "hatred".
I do question when you say"much destruction could be carried out using rational thought in support of it". As on a defensive basis, that would require an offensive aggressor, which again is "destructive irrational thought".
History and present events indicate that religion plays a large part in many violent activities, this is not a merely a "belief" as you claim but is concretely and overtly factual.
Your claim that the "world would not be at peace just from an absence of religion" is not an assertion made or implied by me.
Your claim that "I don't think peace is really your concern in the first place." is not an assertion made or implied by me.
Re the Balfour Declaration:
Historically speaking, it's pretty clear that the British were trying to shore up support for their possession of the Palestinian Mandate after WWI. There was a new, large, industrious, Jewish population in the area they were taking over and they wanted support from this population (and therefore world Jewry at large) to counter the lack of development and industry displayed by the local Arab population.
The British had been supporting "Europeanized" natives for a long time in other possessions such as India, and they saw this tentative support for Jews as a useful policy.
(Which could always be rescinded or renounced if it didn't work out - which ended up being the case.)
What was the Palestinian Mandate?
Moishe3rd wrote:There was a new, large, industrious, Jewish population in the area......
What area?
What local Arab population?
Thanks, I do not know much about this.
Chumly wrote:What was the Palestinian Mandate?
Moishe3rd wrote:There was a new, large, industrious, Jewish population in the area......
What area?
What local Arab population?
Thanks, I do not know much about this.
Google Wikipedia:
British Mandate of Palestine
In brief:
The Ottoman Empire lost WWI, along with Germany and Austria-Hungary
Two winners of WWI, France and England, divided up the possessions of the losers.
Britain got the area known as Palestine. A small part of that "British Mandate of Palestine is today's State of Israel.
Jews lived in that area and had developed the land. Many of them were recent migrants from Europe.
There was also a large Arab population.
The Jews immediately built up the land and invested in the cities, creating new farms; commerce; and public works where there had been little or none before.
Great Britain explored the possibility, with the Balfour Declaration, of getting these Jews to support Great Britain in its attempt to govern the Palestinian Mandate.
