That sounds like a conspiracy to me. And the upshot of that is ........
Victims are not to blame for their being victims of victimizers.
Victimizers are to blame for their victims being victims.
Advocate wrote:George, you throw around the term "Zionist" as though it were an epitaph. Here is a definition.
Even I don't mean epitaph.
Perhaps you meant to write epithet.
I used the word accurately throughout as a reference to the advocates of a Jewish state in Palestine. It has turned out that most such Zionists intended a state that would forever provide unequal treatment for non Jews. and that, too has become part of the meaning.
Advocate wrote:Further, your calling Israel regressive is laughable. It is a democracy, much like ours, surrounded by totalitarian states. The latter subjugate their women and minorities, tolerate no dissension, are mired in religious persecution, etc.
And I find your selective omission of the systematic differentiation of the immigration, property, and political rights of Jews and non Jewish citizens of the state equally laughable. Non Jews are restricted from service in the Armed Forces and many branches of government. Because of the close relationship of business and the security services, this restriction effectively blocks them from advancement in Israeli society. Their rights of property ownership are subject to restrictions that do not apply to Jews. Immigration laws and many government programs for subsidized housing (usually on seized Palestinian property) do not apply to them.
In what way is this any different from the laws of Nazi Germany that gave special status to Aryan people? Is not this feature of the Israeli state an exact replica of the historical restrictions Europeans had placed on Jews, and which Zionists cited so ofter as a basis for their need for a Jewish state? Has the cruel irony of that hypocrisy escaped you? What could be more profoundly unlike the United States with its tradition of acceptance and pluralism?
Even more significant is the brutal, inhuman oppression of the present and former Palestinian occupants of the lands they have taken and others they still covet. This much larger group of people has lived for decades with no political voice whatever in the affairs of the state that rules them; which grants them no transcendent human rights of any kind; and which takes their lives with such ease. Their treatment by Israel violates all of the norms of modern concepts of human rights. It puts Israel in a league with the despised former governments of Serbia and South Africa.
georgeob1 wrote:In what way is this any different from the laws of Nazi Germany that gave special status to Aryan people?
You may see it that way, but actually the law restricted rights of German Jews (and later of any Jews in German occupied countries).
Well, the Nuremberg Laws allowed explicit that Jewish were allowed to hoist the "Jewish flag" and show "Jewish symbols". (Imagine such with Palestines.)
I don't think, however, that they can be compared with any Israelian law.
You are quibbling again Walter, and making distinctions that don't logically relate to your (apparent) point.
georgeob1 wrote:You are quibbling again Walter,
Yes, Mrs Walter said so earlier today, too.
Undoubtedly a wonderful and patient woman! Please tell her she has my sympathy and understanding.
Everything is relative. Compared to its Arab neighbors, Israel treats its Arab citizens wonderfully. The restrictions are minor; they are allowed to vote, own property, serve in government and the Knesset, and, Walter, even fly Palestinian flags. They are excused from the military because they are not trusted, and also to keep them from having to fight and kill fellow Arabs. Oh, woe is the Israeli Pal!
No Jew is "allowed" to live in Palestine. The Pals would love to kill all the settlers, even children, women, and the elderly. It is basically the same way in the other Arab countries that still have a few Jewish residents. There are a small number of Jews still living in Iran, and they have been persecuted, and many murdered.
Nazi Germany not only killed its Jewish citizens, but also killed those with physical and mental defects, gypsies, dissenters, et al. After all, they didn't measure up to the master race.
Yes, I meant to say epithet. BTW, I think most Americans are Zionists.
Quote:BTW, I think most Americans are Zionists.
I disagree.
Quote:The Pals would love to kill all the settlers, even children, women, and the elderly.
Sentences like this rob you of credibility.
Cycloptichorn
The Arabs tend to blame the problems in the Middle East on Israel and on the Israeli lobbyists in Washington. David Brooks sees it somewhat differently.
A War of Narratives
By David Brooks, New York Times, April 8, 2007
On the Dead Sea, Jordan
I just attended a conference that was both illuminating and depressing. It was co-sponsored by the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan and the American Enterprise Institute, and the idea was to get Americans and moderate Arab reformers together to talk about Iraq, Iran, and any remaining prospects for democracy in the Middle East.
As it happened, though, the Arab speakers mainly wanted to talk about the Israel lobby. One described a book edited in the mid-1990s by the Jewish policy analyst David Wurmser as the secret blueprint for American foreign policy over the past decade. A pollster showed that large majorities in Arab countries believe that the Israel lobby has more influence over American policy than the Bush administration. Speaker after speaker triumphantly cited the work of Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Jimmy Carter as proof that even Americans were coming to admit that the Israel lobby controls their government.
The problems between America and the Arab world have nothing to do with religious fundamentalism or ideological extremism, several Arab speakers argued. They have to do with American policies toward Israel, and the forces controlling those policies.
As for problems in the Middle East itself, these speakers added, they have a common source, Israel. One elderly statesman noted that the four most pressing issues in the Middle East are the Arab-Israeli dispute, instability in Lebanon, chaos in Iraq and the confrontation with Iran. They are all interconnected, he said, and Israel is at the root of each of them.
We Americans tried to press our Arab friends to talk more about the Sunni-Shiite split, the Iraqi civil war and the rise of Iran, but they seemed uninterested. They mimicked a speech King Abdullah of Jordan recently delivered before Congress, in which he scarcely mentioned the Iraqi chaos on his border. It was all Israel, all the time.
The Americans, needless to say, had a different narrative. We tended to argue that problems like Muslim fundamentalism, extremism and autocracy could not be blamed on Israel or Paul Wolfowitz but had deeper historical roots. We tended to see the Israeli-Palestinian issue not as the root of all fundamentalism, but as a problem made intractable by fundamentalism.
In other words, they had their narrative and we had ours, and the two passed each other without touching. But the striking thing about this meeting was the emotional tone. There seemed to be a time, after 9/11, when it was generally accepted that terror and extremism were symptoms of a deeper Arab malaise. There seemed to be a general recognition that the Arab world had fallen behind, and that it needed economic, political and religious modernization.
But there was nothing defensive or introspective about the Arab speakers here. In response to Bernard Lewis's question, "What Went Wrong?" their answer seemed to be: Nothing's wrong with us. What's wrong with you?
The events of the past three years have shifted their diagnosis of where the cancer is ?- from dysfunction in the Arab world to malevolence in Jerusalem and in Aipac. Furthermore, the Walt and Mearsheimer paper on the Israel lobby has had a profound effect on Arab elites. It has encouraged them not to be introspective, not to think about their own problems, but to blame everything on the villainous Israeli network.
And so we enter a more intractable phase in the conflict, which will not be a war over land or oil or even democratic institutions, but a war over narratives. The Arabs will nurture this Zionist-centric mythology, which is as self-flattering as it is self-destructive. They will demand that the U.S. and Israel adopt their narrative and admit historical guilt. Failing politically, militarily and economically, they will fight a battle for moral superiority, the kind of battle that does not allow for compromises or truces.
Americans, meanwhile, will simply want to get out. After 9/11, George Bush called on the U.S. to get deeply involved in the Middle East. But now, most Americans have given up on their ability to transform the Middle East and on Arab willingness to change. Faced with an arc of conspiracy-mongering, most Americans will get sick of the whole cesspool, and will support any energy policy or anything else that will enable them to cut ties with the region.
What we have is not a clash of civilizations, but a gap between civilizations, increasingly without common narratives, common goals or means of communication.
In the real world, Israel cannot be blamed for:
The Muslim enslavement of black Africans in Mauritania,
The mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Arabs in a 13-year Algerian civil war,
The endless brutal oppression of Egyptian Christian Copts in Egypt by Egyptian Muslims,
The genocide of 2,000,000 black African Christians and animists in South Sudan by Sudanese Muslim Arabs over the past 23 years,
The genocide of 800,000 black African Muslims in Western Sudan (aka Darfur) by Sudanese Muslim Arabs over the past 5 years,
The blatant religious apartheid of the Saudi government in Arabia,
The mass murder of Arabian Shi'ites by the Saudi royal family,
The de facto maintenance of slavery as an economic institution in Arabia,
Saddam Hussein's murder of hundreds of thousands of his own Iraqi citizens during his 32 years of repressive tyrannical rule,
The current Muslim-vs.-Muslim terrorist carnage in Iraq,
The Taliban reign of terror in Afghanistan,
The decades-old civil war between Islamofascists and non-Muslims in Nigeria,
Syria's brutal 27-year occupation of Lebanon,
Six decades of Muslim terrorism against the Hindus of Kashmir and Gujarat,
The Muslim repression of Hindus in Bangladesh,
Islamic terrorism in East Asia (Bali, East Timor, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia),
Muslim terrorism against Russia (remember 186 dead children at the school in Beslan?)
The brutal Islamic subjugation of women prevalent in many Muslim countries for the last millennium,
The Muslim persecution of Christians and Jews throughout the Muslim world since the beginning of Islam,
The fact that the "religion of peace" spawned a thousand-year war against the non-Muslim world (aka Jihad) a thousand years before Israel came in to existence,
The grinding poverty and lack of productivity that typify even the richest of Arab countries, as documented in three recent UN-sponsored studies,
The fact that, while not all Muslims are terrorists, almost all terrorists, for the past 30 years, are Muslims,
The fact that millions of Muslims every year flee their home states, Shari'a law, and Islamic sovereignty, to seek refuge, a better life, broader opportunities, freedom and a brighter future for their children . . . in Western states.
Advocate wrote:In the real world, Israel cannot be blamed for:
The Muslim enslavement of black Africans in Mauritania,
The mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Arabs in a 13-year Algerian civil war,
The endless brutal oppression of Egyptian Christian Copts in Egypt by Egyptian Muslims,
The genocide of 2,000,000 black African Christians and animists in South Sudan by Sudanese Muslim Arabs over the past 23 years,
The genocide of 800,000 black African Muslims in Western Sudan (aka Darfur) by Sudanese Muslim Arabs over the past 5 years,
The blatant religious apartheid of the Saudi government in Arabia,
The mass murder of Arabian Shi'ites by the Saudi royal family,
The de facto maintenance of slavery as an economic institution in Arabia,
Saddam Hussein's murder of hundreds of thousands of his own Iraqi citizens during his 32 years of repressive tyrannical rule,
The current Muslim-vs.-Muslim terrorist carnage in Iraq,
The Taliban reign of terror in Afghanistan,
The decades-old civil war between Islamofascists and non-Muslims in Nigeria,
Syria's brutal 27-year occupation of Lebanon,
Six decades of Muslim terrorism against the Hindus of Kashmir and Gujarat,
The Muslim repression of Hindus in Bangladesh,
Islamic terrorism in East Asia (Bali, East Timor, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia),
Muslim terrorism against Russia (remember 186 dead children at the school in Beslan?)
The brutal Islamic subjugation of women prevalent in many Muslim countries for the last millennium,
The Muslim persecution of Christians and Jews throughout the Muslim world since the beginning of Islam,
The fact that the "religion of peace" spawned a thousand-year war against the non-Muslim world (aka Jihad) a thousand years before Israel came in to existence,
The grinding poverty and lack of productivity that typify even the richest of Arab countries, as documented in three recent UN-sponsored studies,
The fact that, while not all Muslims are terrorists, almost all terrorists, for the past 30 years, are Muslims,
The fact that millions of Muslims every year flee their home states, Shari'a law, and Islamic sovereignty, to seek refuge, a better life, broader opportunities, freedom and a brighter future for their children . . . in Western states.
But some on the left like to blame Israel for this.
I don't blame Israel for any of it. Nor have I ever suggested anything remotely like that in any of the many particulars. Furthermore, I haven't seen such a thing from any of the other critics of Israel here either.
This raises an interesting question. Why bring it up at all?? What is the point or purpose of this litany? Could it be an attempt to distract the conversation from the essential and central question of Israel's continuing suppression of the political and human rights of the Palestinian population of the occupied territories for the past forty years? I can think of no other logical rhetorical purpose for it.
I found the Brooks piece interesting. There is little doubt that the problem of Israel's behavior provides all elements of a still backward and conflicted Islamic world with a ready excuse for their failures and a less threatening point of discussion than would be one focused on their own many failings and contributions to their problems. This is basic human nature. A ready scapegoat is always to be preferred to a more painful, objective self-analysis.
This is one of the principal ill effects of the Zionist policies of Israel that I have already noted. The West is already confronted with a backward and outraged Islamic world, inflamed after centuries of European colonialism, exploitation, and deceit. The peaceful remedy is clearly to encourage them to develop tolerant secular and pluralistic modern societies.
However the forcible implantation by Europeans of an alien (to them) new state in their midst, one based on anachronistic principles of tribal and Religious identity, and one that systematically drives the Moslem population off its lands, depriving them of property, peace and all political rights -- is absolutely the perfect strategy to intensify and prolong an already dangerous clash of civilizations. The most vivid experience Moslems of the Middle East have with modern Western-appearing society is with a racist militarist state that takes their land, property and freedom -- how are we then to persuade them that we represent anything else. The West has provided the reactionaries if the Islamic world with a near perfect and highly visible illustration of the malevolence of its intentions.
Zionists are also subject to these things. It is far easier to quiet one's mind about the horrors of the occupation inflicted on the population of the West Bank if one refers to them as "Pals" or terrorists, or anything to dehumanize or alter their real identity. It is much easier to invent the lie of "Palestinians - a people without a land" or "Palestine, a land without a people" than to actually think about the human cost of what has transpired or the fundamental injustice of the situation.
Israel is not perfect,nobody disputes that.
But,to say that Israel MUST change for there to be peace is to ignore the fact that their neighbors have,for the most part,been trying to destroy Israel since its inception.
Why dont the countries around Israel change?
Why have they not offered to recognize Israel?
Why must Israel make all the concessions,and get no ABSOLUTE GAURANTEE that they will have peace?
If everyone wants peace,then all sides must compromise.
Its not a compromise if only Israel makes concessions.
georgeob1 writes
Quote:This raises an interesting question. Why bring it up at all?? What is the point or purpose of this litany? Could it be an attempt to distract the conversation from the essential and central question of Israel's continuing suppression of the political and human rights of the Palestinian population of the occupied territories for the past forty years? I can think of no other logical rhetorical purpose for it.
Distract? No. Recognize both sides of the problem, yes.
Since having this discussion with you I have been intentionally looking for reasoned arguments to support your point of view. I'm not finding much that doesn't present it as a "Israel bad - everybody else therefore justified" point of view. In fairness, however, the pro-Israel stuff doesn't offer much in the way of criticism of Israel or approval of the Palestinians either.
I was reading one article quoting some Palestinians' point of view as they described the hardships created by the presence of the security wall. I can't remember who the writer was but, while sympathizing with the Palestinians plight, at least did make the point that terrorist bombings in Israel have virtually ceased since the wall went up.
This has to at least be a factor in an honest debate.
If you were an Israeli and had the choice of a security wall or a very much greater risk of you and/or your loved ones being blown up when they go to the market, how would you vote?
It isn't fair to judge Israel for all her past sins unless everybody else gets judged for all their past sins too. The times that Israel was willing to compromise and others refused also has to be factored as would be any incidents in which others were willing to compromise and Israel refused.
And if it isn't fair to judge the Palestinians and other enemies of Israel by their history and past activities, it isn't fair to judge Israel by her history either. Both should be judged by their current policies, laws, stated goals, and how these are implemented. The USA certainly would not want to be judged as a slave nation rather than as a nation offering equal rights and opportunities for all. I'm guessing there aren't many modern day Israelis who remember much of 1948 if they were there at all, and not a huge amount who were old enough to have any say about it in 1967.
But are they going to be forever damned because their grandparents committed unacceptable acts at some point in the past?
I am seeing more clearly where Israel has been wrong. I still see clearly where the enemies of Israel have been wrong. When neither need fear the other, there will be peace in the ME. Right now I don't think any non-Israeli Arabs need fear Israel in any way so long as they leave Israel alone.
George somehow feels justified in making outrageous slurs against Israel and Israelis regardless of their falsity. I guess, he feels, that if you throw enough mud against the wall, some will stick. His attacks are totally one-sided despite the many, many, horrific acts by the Pals against innocent civilians.
I listed the truly monstrous actions of Arabs because the Pals constantly point to Israel as the root cause of all that is bad in the Middle East, no matter how absurd is the charge. This should certainly temper one's acceptance of Pal charges and statements.
