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“I Meant to Say Zionists, Not Jews”
By Ben Cohen / February 3, 2009
As I reported last week, Fatima Hajaig, the Deputy Foreign Minister of South Africa, delivered a speech at a Palestine solidarity rally that could have been scripted by a sub-editor on Der Sturmer. “The control of America, just like the control of most Western countries, is in the hands of Jewish money,” she screamed, “and if Jewish money controls their country then you cannot expect anything else.”
Hajaig has now offered…what, exactly? A clarification? An apology? A restatement of her original remarks?
Whatever you want to call it, here it is:
I have just returned from a visit to Japan and learnt of the controversy surrounding some comments that I was purported to have made. I have reviewed the proceedings of the meeting and wish to say, to state the following: Throughout my life I have been opposed to apartheid and all forms of racism. It is this opposition that drove me into exile and to work with the African National Congress for decades. Along with all in the ANC and consistent with the recent resolutions adopted at our Polokwane conference in December 2007, I have long been cognisant of the immense suffering the Palestinians have experienced in the form of expulsions, collective punishment and massacres, of which the recent war in Gaza is but the latest example. It is to this suffering that I spoke at the meeting. I deplore the attempts of Zionists to justify policies that have worsened the crisis in the Middle East, in particular unmitigated state violence directed against unarmed civilians as much as I deplore indiscriminate attacks against Israeli unarmed civilians.
At a singular point in my talk, and entirely unrelated to any South African community, I conflated Zionist pressure with Jewish influence. I regret the inference made by some that I am anti-Jewish. I do not believe that the cause of the Palestinians is served by any anti-Jewish racism. As a member of the South African government and a committed member of the African National Congress, I subscribe to the values and principles of non-racism and condemn without equivocation all forms of racism, including antisemitism in all its manifestations and wherever it may occur.
To the extent that my statement may have caused hurt and pain, I offer an unequivocal apology for the pain it may have caused to the people of our country and the Jewish community in particular. I wish to reiterate that the major issue in relation to the Palestinian Israel conflict is the enormous suffering of the Palestinian people and the struggle for peace for all its’ people based on justice and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
As Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, I reaffirm the government’s commitment to engage all parties in Israel and Palestine to find an amicable and just resolution to the conflict in that region.
Let’s begin with the phrase, “some comments that I was purported to have made.” What’s implied here is that she may not have made these comments, or that what she said has somehow been distorted. One problem, though: she’s on record. Listen for yourselves here, about 50 seconds into the broadcast.
Then she adopts the moral high ground, with a reminder of her service to the ANC and her anger at “Zionists” who justify indiscriminate attacks upon civilians. Her point here is to say, in essence, do not judge me for what I may or may not have said, but rather by my political beliefs.
Then we get the killer line: “At a singular point in my talk…I conflated Zionist pressure with Jewish influence. I regret the inference made by some that I am anti-Jewish.” Check out the fascinating inversion going on here: instead of the word “Zionist” being used as deliberate code for “Jew,” the word “Jew” is being – accidentally? – used as code for “Zionist.”
Fatima Hajaig doesn’t want to explain how she flipped those around. And why should she? Antisemitic canards about Jews and money and power were, no doubt, furthest from her mind when she made this unfortunate slip of the tongue. Those of us who dwell on this point are playing the usual Zionist trick of changing the subject. As Hajaig’s defenders in South Africa’s Palestine Solidarity Alliance put it, what we have here is “no more than a sinister means of diverting public attention from the ever increasing reports war crimes, ethnic cleansing and a massive humanitarian crisis caused in Gaza by Israel.”
Yes, it’s very sinister. After all, Hajaig is clear that what she calls “anti-Jewish racism” does not serve the cause of the Palestinians, so how could she possibly be suspected of anything other than noble intentions? When Hajaig rails against Jewish financial influence, or when Hamas quotes from the Protocols, or when Torah scrolls are pulled from the ark of a synagogue in Caracas and defaced by a group of armed men, none of this is directed at Jews. Shame, really, on those who say otherwise.
Actually, one reason that Hajaig’s statement is so tortuous is that it goes on. And on. And on. Just when you think you can’t take any more, along comes this flourish: “To the extent that my statement may have caused hurt and pain, I offer an unequivocal apology for the pain it may have caused to the people of our country and the Jewish community in particular.” Ah, Fatima Hajaig. If she wasn’t South Africa’s Deputy Foreign Minister, she’d be the creative mastermind behind Benetton’s next advertising campaign. And teaching the world to sing at the same time.
Perhaps the one saving grace is that what we have, up to now, are Fatima Hajaig’s own words. But what of that final sentence, with the reference to an “amicable and just resolution to the conflict?” I can only think that such diplofluff was inserted by a South African Foreign Ministry bureaucrat who didn’t bother to read the preceding paragraphs.
To return to my original question: how are we to categorize this statement, other than by noting its astonishing stupidity? In my view, it is a statement of contempt, rather like the person who smashes a bottle over your head and then assures you, three weeks later, that they didn’t intend to hurt you.
If Hajaig is signaling that she now wants to move on, her supporters in South Africa already have. Boycotting Israel was a constantly reiterated demand at the rally where Hajaig underwent her Hitler moment. It now appears that Cosatu, South Africa’s trade union federation, plans to take that to the next stage this weekend, refusing to unload an Israeli merchant ship scheduled to arrive in Durban. (Anyone spot the irony there?)
As sure as night follows day, activities like these, in South Africa and elsewhere, are bound to be accompanied by more speeches fingering Jews as the problem. But as to whether the speakers will even be bothered to say, afterwards, that they really meant “Zionists,” all bets are off.
POST A COMMENT
 Jews try and hide saying its the Zionists (Gaffaw, are there still Zionists? The world, even the Jewish world has progressed. Where have you been?)  but you people (Is a reference to the people of Israel/Jews/supporters of Israel?) are in on it, (In on what? In on defence and self preservation?) the cowards that you all are, (perhaps I am being big headed but I don’t consider myself a coward) fucking scum !!! (I think neither that I am that, nor do I do any fucking of scum).
An apology is in order.Â
Jews try and hide saying its the Zionists but you people are in on it, the cowards that you all are, fucking scum !!!
It makes me so happy that people are coming to know how sick you #%@ people are, and that you are going to be held accountable for your crimes against humanity once and for all  ! ! !
1. Israel is not in a state of war against its Arab citizens by any conventional definition.
2. So far, even the Arab states which sponsored the peace initiative have wisely accepted the replacement of a demand for a forced immigration of the original Palestinian refugees (and/or their descendants, since it’s not clear whether either you or they accept the non-standard definition which includes both) with compensation. Israel has generously gone beyond this and agreed that a small but symbolic number may be allowed to immigrate – a fitting final touch to what is a largely symbolic issue in the first place. You have no say in telling them that they should not be satisfied with a resolution that comports with every other single successful resolution to this type of a conflict, and one finally endorsed comprehensively by the parties with the means to end the dispute.
3. Israel can address its laws and concept of citizenship in ways which make the Arabs feel less excluded from Israeli society. However, the only reason for it to declare itself as a binational state and put on all the pretty window dressing that goes along with that is if the Palestinians don’t gain one. This is a great argument for continuing the occupation and granting Jewish settlers unfettered rights to the West Bank and Gaza. So, in making the perfect the enemy of the good, you unwittingly put yourself into a practical (even if not ideological) alliance with the extremist elements that will be sure to continue the conflict, the occupation, and everything else that you don’t like which goes along with it – even if you don’t understand that those things are connected to the former.
4. I’m not sure any Palestinians fled from Israel in 1967. The ones who fled the territories were allowed back to where they fled from. Â
5. If Israel isn’t liberal enough for you, and if you actually think that starving it in an effort to appease less liberal societies is a reasonable action, then even your rhetoric won’t save your vision from the unintended consequences of such a folly.
…No, I have to answer this too.
"Exactly what sort of Trotskyist order and time machine do envision in
order to deny the legitimacy of every one of these issues and concepts?
You clearly seem very big on assuming that one people’s
political existence is a moral affront to a certain other people – for
whom you’ve never even bothered to define a supposedly proper and
just form of political existence."
Right now and tomorrow. If Israel committed one nakba limited to a certain time period, I think it would be more accepted in the world. Instead, it insisted on drawing out the nakba until they’re satisfied with the demographics, which is still to happen.
I think the mass expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 and more pressing, the fact that Israel reserves the right to expel again is a moral affront to those who would be expelled. duh.
Israel can make peace with Hamas, Fateh, Hezbollah, and the Arab League. It can not make peace with its own Arab citizens until they’re no longer a demographic threat. And for that reason alone Israel should not be a zionist state.
A bi-national state with universal sufferage and the right of return.is a proper political existance. Instead of ambiguous borders and gerrymandering. As al-awda points out, "the right of refugees to return is not only sacred and legal but also possible."
http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html
"
And no matter how prosperous, the liberal world cannot save the illiberal world from the fruits of its own illiberalism."
We can’t save Israel from itself, no. But we can cease economic and military links with it.Â
"I get it. Israeli civilian noncombattants don’t count as a third party.
Do these people?"
Israeli civilians aren’t a coherent group. Many of them haven’t done the Palestinians any wrong. Many more have done their military service and support war crimes. When year after year large sections of the Israeli public support "transfer" and the wars in the territories and Lebanon, they lose the innocent tag. No section of humanity, I don’t care who you are, is entitled to inflict mass organized violence on helpless people and not receive anything in return. And the Israelis who really are innocent? They are treated by their society as cannon fodder just as much as the soldiers. After all, every Israeli Jew is designated a pawn to enact ethnic supremacy in the zionist state. And I am not saying Israeli Jews are cannon fodder. Their state is the one treating them like this.
Don’t forget what kind of a state Israel is — one that bribes its citizens to live in a warzone, but won’t pay them to get out of it. Because their ethnicity is needed to fill out the land.
Silly question, asking if Palestinian kids are a third party. Their parents didn’t force the Zionist military to attack them. And while we can look at some fake dynamite and green headscarves and get appalled, the reality of Israeli parents bringing their kids to live in the West Bank goes normalized and without protest. Israeli parents force the conflict on their children and their children. The same can’t be said for Palestinian parents.
The rest of your post I’m probably not going to answer. That was important.
"So whether you think the PLO behaved badly leading up to Black September, it still wasn’t an attempt to dispossess some one else. And it wouldn’t have happened if the Hashemites weren’t holding on to their own little domain granted by a distant power. Hussein brought it on himself and he was only dealing with people who were forced there against their will."
The term "dispossession" is an interesting one. I love these arbitrary little points in history you latch onto as if they represent the grievance to rectify and all other realities fade from consideration. Dispossessed – deprived of possession. What about dispossessing another people, the Bedouin Jordanians, of their government? What about dispossessing the Israelis of their liberal democracy? What about dispossessing the two-millenia long dispossessed Jews of their rights to political expression and representation, of their rights to seek refuge from persecution and bigotry in lands that are available for refuge – through purchase, of their rights to integrate themselves into the community of nations (which occurred through U.N. recognition) and the region (which Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia claim to seek with the Arab Peace Initiative)? What about any of that? Exactly what sort of Trotskyist order and time machine do envision in order to deny the legitimacy of every one of these issues and concepts? You clearly seem very big on assuming that one people’s political existence is a moral affront to a certain other people – for whom you’ve never even bothered to define a supposedly proper and just form of political existence.
"At least Palestinian ideologies for the most part have not been turned on third parties who did them no wrong."
I get it. Israeli civilian noncombattants don’t count as a third party.
Do these people?
Until you can demonstrate otherwise, it seems pretty obvious that you are fond of peddling a shortsighted sense of grievance-mongering without any regard for every other peoples’ rights except for one. You are doing this at the expense of even defining whatever sort of hypothetical political order you would establish so that your grievances from yesteryear can be addressed and corrected. I’m not sure if that’s a coincidence or something intentional on your part. Â Â
And no matter how prosperous, the liberal world cannot save the illiberal world from the fruits of its own illiberalism. You can think otherwise, but that makes you a "neoconservative", not a liberal. If you think "liberal" meant the death of responsibility for one’s actions, then your starting point for when the notion of liberalism came into being as a political philosophy sounds like a rather illiberal one.
Oh, and an "Islamist" is an adherent of a fucked-up ideology, not a member of a "race".
No, you can be very readable when you don’t speak in muddled analogies.
"A possibly just cause can be corrupted beyond redemption if it wholeheartedly embraces sufficiently sullied means."
You mean like ZIONISM??? Okay, that wasn’t a just cause to begin with. It is an example of what happens when people decide to be more like their persecutors. At least Palestinian ideologies for the most part have not been turned on third parties who did them no wrong.
[Paragraph cut for redundancy]
On the PA and Bethlehem Christians, let’s try an experiment. If they want to come back, who is going to let them back in (or not), the PA or Israel? If they try to enter the West Bank through Jordan, who is going to let them cross the river, the PA or the IDF border guard? And if the PA is a neighboring state, find me a map showing the border between this state and Israel.
P.S. "You’re really giving me the impression that as long as a sufficiently
politicized, black-and-white narrative is imposed, then none of
the historical context matters."
It’s like this: there’s a situation, and people are suffering from it, and the prosperous liberal world at large bears responsibility for it, especially the US. I don’t divide people into good and evil (no, not even Hitler, if only because I’m out for more stimulating insights). You can be a bad person and suffer from an unjust situation. You can be a good person and complicit or actively part of inflicting it. The nice liberal boy is oppressing the big bad Islamist because of his race (more tongue-in-cheek than usual here). The Islamist doesn’t deserve to be oppressed because of his race. In fact, liberalism can be a bloodier ideology than any thing a so-called religious fanatic comes out with.
So whether you think the PLO behaved badly leading up to Black September, it still wasn’t an attempt to dispossess some one else. And it wouldn’t have happened if the Hashemites weren’t holding on to their own little domain granted by a distant power. Hussein brought it on himself and he was only dealing with people who were forced there against their will.
"Andrew R, you say, "As a dispossessed and persecuted people, they [the Arabs] are right to take arms against the ones responsible and deny them complacency."
If so, it cuts both ways: Jews therefore are also allowed to "take arms against the ones responsible", etc."
 Andrew’s comment clearly refers to the right of a dispossessed and occupied people to take arms against their dispossessors and occupiers (a right enshrined in international law).
You analogize this to the adventurism of the IOF. Please explain which Palestinians dispossessed which Israelis and which Palestinians occupy which parts of Israel.
You preposterous perfuming of the wretched Kahane showed a profound moral imbecility (I offer to pay you to leave your home; if you refuse, whatever happens to you is your fault. Are you kidding?), but this bit is just willful stupidity or cynical invention.
Become decent.Â
Andrew R, you say, "As a dispossessed and persecuted people, they [the Arabs] are right to take arms against the ones responsible and deny them complacency."
If so, it cuts both ways: Jews therefore are also allowed to "take arms against the ones responsible", etc.
Congratulations, you just justified the IDF. The only difference between the IDF and the Arabs would be that the IDF has superior weaponry. If so, then the Palestinians are idiots for picking a fight with someone outside their league, but morally speaking, the IDF and the Palestinians would be equal, and you cannot criticize one more than the other.
Your reference on Bethlehem is no more or less ignorable than every demographic shift experienced before 2005, but I’m not surprised that the security barrier is the only factor you find worth mentioning. And do you really not deem the distinctions between this factor and others worthy of your attention? Do you really not see a difference between the economic hardships resulting from a physical barrier that keeps terrorists out of a wealthier, neighboring state and the harrassment, abuse and deprivation of rights which the P.A. allowed to be inflicted on the Palestinian Christian community? Does such a distinction even exist to you?
You go through 25-year long somersaults attempting to paint Black September as the noblest of revolutionary struggles against a truly ugly and brutal regime. Do really see it in terms that stark? What about the Seven-Point Agreement? What was it meant to resolve and why? Are any of the details post-1967 of consequence to you? You’re really giving me the impression that as long as a sufficiently politicized, black-and-white narrative is imposed, then none of the historical context matters.
Perhaps you do know a bit about Lebanon. The Palestinians might well have played a minor role in the event itself, but certainly didn’t mind being exploited as the demographic spoiler to that circus and creating their own little side show. As per usual.
"As a dispossessed and persecuted people, they are right to take arms against the ones responsible and deny them complacency, and in overthrowing third parties who are complicit."
This does not seem to be working very well. But perhaps we place a different emphasis on what the ultimate goals should be, or even differ on which might be acceptable. I also think that the methods embraced define, to a large extent, the integrity of the endeavor. A possibly just cause can be corrupted beyond redemption if it wholeheartedly embraces sufficiently sullied means. "By any means necessary" sort of went out the window after Malcom X saw the light.
If you find some part of what I’ve written to be "semi-readable", quote it in chops and I’ll break it down for you.
Your semi-readable analogy had the implication that Jews would be persecuted in a bi-national state. But maybe you’ll find this ignorable.
http://openbethlehem.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=122
"The Christians of Bethlehem overwhelmingly blame the Wall and Israel’s
blockade of their city (78%) for their emigration: some describing it
as a form of ethnic cleansing."
Black September – Let’s see, a monarchy imposed on the East Bankers by the Brits was nearly toppled by people who were expelled into the East Bank and who were subject to dictatorship by said monarchy, which turned over Lydda and Ramle without a fight and quashed any show of independent nationalism. And I’m supposed to find something wrong with that? You also can’t blame the Palestinians for the Lebanese Civil war (yes, Palestinians did wrong during this war. War crimes like Damour.). Hell, the first Lebanese Civil war in 1958 didn’t even involve Palestinians.
Can I say it now? This talk about condescenion and responsibility is freaking retarded. I am saying that some actions are justified. When George Habash orchestrates a plane hijacking, he is responsible for his own very justified action. I do not automatically allocate every Palestinian sainthood or applaud every attack they commit (suicide bombings included). As a dispossessed and persecuted people, they are right to take arms against the ones responsible and deny them complacency, and in overthrowing third parties who are complicit. If there’s some part of that you didn’t understand, quote it in chops and I’ll break it down for you.
To prove my point that Kahanism is not anti-Arab racism, note that my pro-Kahane pen could also write the following lines elsewhere:
http://archives2005.ghazali.net/html/respect_american_muslims.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40049-2004Dec31.html?sub=AR
If I (supporting Kahane as I do) were truly racist against Arabs per se, could I have ever written these lines? Therefore, the fact is that I have nothing against Arabs per se, but only, I oppose those, whoever they are, who are enemies of the Jewish people.
So assuming I truly hold like Rav Kahane does…
Andrew R,
Your comparison to David Duke is meaningless. I don’t care what he said, anyone who supports discrimination against the blacks is simply racist. The blacks aren’t infringing or impinging on whites in any way, so enforcing white rights in no way validates oppressing blacks, unless one (unjustly) redefines white rights to be more than those of black rights.
By contrast, the Arabs living in Israel are impinging on the Jewish right to live at home in peace and tranquility. Rav Kahane’s point was that he has nothing against the Arabs as Arabs, but only that he opposes anyone (Arab or not) who impinges on Jewish rights. And Jewish rights here are the same as any human’s rights – to live as a free independent people in their own land, in peace and tranquility.Â
This is why Rav Kahane wants the Arabs to live elsewhere in the Middle East. Were Rav Kahane opposed to the Arabs as Arabs, per se, he’d advocate genocide; he wouldn’t want them to live, anywhere! But in truth, Rav Kahane has no problem with Arabs living in peace and tranquility and economic security, just as long as it is in a place where they can’t send rockets and suicide bombers to Israel.Â
By contrast, racists such as David Duke don’t care where the blacks live, for they have a vested hatred of blacks per se, in their mere existence, regardless of where they live. It has nothing to do with the blacks hurting anyone, and everything to do with their mere existence.
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Rav Kahane was perfectly internally coherent. His point is that the Left honestly believed that the Arabs could be bought, and had no plan or expectation beyond this. Rav Kahane, on the other hand, fully expected that coercion may be necessary, but in the interest of fairness, and so that Arabs couldn’t cry foul, he offered them compensation. In other words, their being expelled from Israel by force would be their fault, not Rav Kahane’s.
Similarly, for example, Jewish law stipulates that when inviting a non-observant Jew for a Shabbat meal, one should additionally offer a place to sleep for the entirety of Shabbat. Now, in all likelihood, the non-observant individual will decline this offer to sleep over, and simply attend the meals themselves by driving his car on Shabbat to and from the home of the observant host. But by making the offer of sleeping arrangements, the observant person has ensured that he is not the direct cause of the non-observant individual driving his car on Shabbat. Whether or not the non-observant person will likely accept the offer is irrelevant; the point is that as long as the offer is made, and as long as it will indeed be kept in the unlikely event that the person accepts it, this is enough.
So Rav Kahane made the offer. If the Arabs reject it, that’s their problem, not ours. Rav Kahane also said that if the Arabs decide to stay and live in peace, they may also do that. Now, Rav Kahane himself said that he hardly expects any Arabs to take him up on these, but he said that all the same, the offer IS on the table.
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And I am flaggergasted by your statement that "Zionism initiated the violence from the moment it decided people who lived in the land <b>since recorded history</b> could no longer live there." Pray tell, which history books are you using? The Arabs whose descendants today live in Israel, historically lived in the Arabian peninsula, not the Levant! The Caananites were of Babylonian and Egyptian stock (I forget the exact demographics, but they were not Semites), and the Philistines were of Cretian (Greek) extraction. In the Roman era, Israel was inhabited principally by Jews and Edomites (who are close relatives of the Jews).
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Regarding the video at 4:20 – So? Rav Kahane is saying that if the Palestinians reject his offer of compensation (and presumably, if they also reject living in Israel in peace, since Rav Kahane elsewhere makes this offer), he’ll drive them out by force. And? What’s your question? I’m not sure what you expect me to say.
Since the real Palestinian proto-state has meant an end of Christians in the West Bank and Gaza, I’ll have to assume you’re not being sarcastic with that point. Not that I wrote anything of the sort, though.
Of course, we’re talking about a people who in your eyes can do no wrong. And I’m sure once they get to have their vaunted demographic and electoral hegemony over the other state that the U.N. already recognized, then you’ll come up with some other excuse for denying them any responsibility for their actions.
Have you ever considered taking up your argument for Palestinian enfranchisement with Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh? With Yasir Arafat? Yes, I agree that if I were stupid enough to vote for at least 2 of those dumbasses then I’d feel deprived for lacking the ability to vote for a much more competent Israeli politician. Not that, in your world, any Palestinian would actually be smart enough to do so. But I’m sure that’s the fault of the colonials too, right?
Nice gaping blindspot on your part about the Palestinians not fighting and violently destroying the political order of “someone else”. You would probably draw inspiration from the leaders of Black September and the Palestinian factions in the Lebanese Civil War. That is, you would if you bothered to become familiar with them. But maybe that was just a rhetorical trick on your part.
Issac – Wow, a bi-national state will mean the end of Jews in Palestine. Except they (you?) have had one for decades and they’re still there. The West Bank is simultaneously annexed to Israel and something they can give up in their own good time. And while they pretend to give up Gaza, they didn’t give it up so much they can’t blockade Gaza from its own waters and drill for natural gas there. No, all the land from the river to sea is one country gerrymandered to have a certain ethnic majority that doesn’t exist. With 1/3-1/2 of the population disenfranchised. If you’re so scared of a bi-national state, start hemorrhaging because it’s what you have now.
I’ll put aside the obvious, belabored response to that rhetorical device about bad decisions and just point out one bad decision the Palestinians did not make in 60 years. To go somewhere else and dispossess some one else. When they fight, it’s to get their own back. And for that reason I feel more respect for people such as George Habash and Abu Daoud than the war criminals who dispossessed them, even if they weren’t saints.
And not just because he’s assassinated. There’s nothing radical within Zionism for advocating expulsion. Most members of the Israeli public do whenever they get polled about it. Still, he’s a catalyst for witnessing the intellectual laziness of Zionist supporters.
"I don’t hate Arabs, I love Jews! And I hate the enemies of the Jews, not because they are Arabs but because they are enemies!"
David Duke said we’re pro-white, not anti-black. Is there a reason anybody with intellegence above crustacean would buy such a flimsy argument?
And those quotes only show Kahane’s world view isn’t even internally coherent. First he’s willing to offer the Arabs compensation to move out, then right below he says you can’t buy them off. Who has contempt for who here?
Condescending would be telling the Palestinians they can’t resist, or telling them how to. Zionism initiated the violence from the moment it decided people who lived in the land since recorded history could no longer live there.
Oh and Mike, go to 4:20 and tell me you still want to cover for Kahane when he is on video openly advocating the same force used to expel the Germans from Czechoslovakia after WWII.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB8m7CQSIIkÂ
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Oh, and I have been in the West Bank.
Just yesterday, I was in Givat Asaf, on the way to Beit El. There, my rabbi gave us a visual tour of the area from a mountaintop, and pointed out that before "peace broke out" with Oslo, he used to be a kosher supervisor for an Arab food factory. He’d go to Ramallah and spend money in the supermarket, and even leave his car unlocked as he shopped. He’d go to the factory to inspect their kashrut, and they’d treat him quite nicely. But the day "peace broke out", the police stopped him on his way home, and told him it was no longer safe for him to drive through Ramallah on his way home.
By the way, the busride to Givat Asaf/Beit El is on a bulletproof bus, for fear that Arabs will fire on Jewish civilians. But of course, the Arabs, who have very little to fear from Jewish vigilantes firing AK-47s on their cars, are the ones being persecuted, don’t you know?
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See http://www.kahanetzadak.com/
"I am
ready to offer the Arabs that want to leave voluntarily compensation
for his properties, which is more that what they did for the Jews they
expelled from Morocco, from Egypt, from Iraq. Do you know how much
money was left behind by Jews in those countries? Billions of dollars,
and we were never compensated for it. And when we signed the treaty
with Egypt we didn’t even have the decency, the self-respect to demand
compensation for the properties seized by Gamal Abdel Nasser from the
Jews in Egypt. I am better than they; I will give compensation to the
Arabs that are willing to leave. And those that are not willing to
leave, I will throw out without monetary compensation!"
I heard (not in person, but rather on YouTube) Rav Kahane make the same sort of statement in a live presentation to the National Press Club; see YouTube. There, he also said something like, "The worst thing, after the death of a Jew, is the death of an Arab. We don’t want them dead; we just want them away from us, so we can live in peace." And see the URL above: "This
is racism? My God, this is saving ourselves, this is self-preservation,
I don’t hate the Arabs, I wish them well, elsewhere! I wish them the
very best in any of their 22 countries. I have only one, it is mine and
I am not going to lose it to either Bush [Senior] or Begin."
And regarding Rav Kahane’s respect for the Arabs (as opposed to the Left’s racism and condescension) , "I
don’t hate Arabs, I love Jews! And I hate the enemies of the Jews, not
because they are Arabs but because they are enemies! You think there is
a single Arab living in Israel in a place that is called the Jewish
State? Liberals have immense contempt for the Arabs; they believe that
they can buy them. "We’ll raise their living standards and then they’ll
be good Arabs" Good Arabs? What contempt! They think that a good Arab
is one that will agree to the Jews living in what he considers to be
his Palestine. You think there is one Arab who enjoys living in a State
where there is a law of return that applies to Jews and not to
non-Jews? You think there is one Arab who enjoys living in a State,
which has a National Anthem: Hatikvah with words that say, ‘nefesh
yehudi omia’ – the soul of the Jew yearns? You can imagine how that
sits with them. You think there is one Arab who enjoys living in a
State, whose Independence Day celebrates his defeat? You can’t buy a
person by giving him an indoor toilet. "You see, you had no toilet, now
you have one." You can’t come and say as the UJA says: "What do you
want? We came and we turned the dessert into a garden" Let me tell you
what the Arab says: "Yes it’s true, but it was my dessert and now it’s
your garden." I respect the Arab, and that is why he has to go!"
—————-
Someone else pointed out that Rav Kahane advocated vigilant violence against Arabs. But I’m skeptical: Of everything that I’ve read of Rav Kahane, in his own books, and in interviews and the like, I’ve never seen Rav Kahane say this; I’ve only ever seen it being quoted by others. So either Rav Kahane never said it, or he said it very rarely, and it was far from a prominent part of his philosophy. For every one time I’ve seen him supposedly advocated vigilantism, I’ve seen say ten times he doesn’t really want the Arabs dead. So I’ll go by what I’ve seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears from his own mouth and his own pen. As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t really a part of Rav Kahane’s philosophy. I’ve eaten dinner multiple times with Rav Kahane’s son-in-law and daughter, and not ONCE have I ever heard the slightest hint of any advocacy of vigilantism. I’ve also eaten dinner with a man who claims to have trailed Rav Kahane at almost every speaking location of Rav Kahane’s, and from this man too I never heard any advocacy of vigilantism.
Seriously, do you think Charlton Heston did a poor job portraying Moses? Or do you just have it in for the prophet?
Ismail’s wisecracks above exemplify his and his ilk’s inability to make any headway on any issue, least of all the Palestinian issue. What is "funny" or "unfunny" is a matter of opinion, a subjective assessment dependent upon the perspective of whichever individual is making the judgment. This is not the same as having a sense of humor, which I clearly do have, and which even Ismail apparently thinks I do have by comparing my quips to those of another comedian – whom he then states that he reveres. So perhaps he thinks I’m funny after all.
Ismail is nothing if not incoherent.
This was after Ismail called me a "stalker". This happened after I responded to the issue he took to one of my previous comments in order to clarify his confusion. He hasn’t stated why he agrees or disagrees with my clarification, but at least the man behind the mugshot (and no friends, but he’s certainly not a stalker. Right.) took to throwing sleazy criminal comparisons my way. (By the way, has it ever occurred to the astute reader that the acquaintances Ismail took to most ardently defending have either lost their marbles or receded into obscurity? I speak, of course, of the commenter "Kitty", who in a fit of fury expressed her hope that Israel would soon commit a definitive genocide of the Palestinians [and not a "genocide" of the half-assed sort defined according to the widest of constructions and designed to fit political ends which Andrew is impressed by, but a real, flaming, stinking genocide. The kind that results in no (or few) living Palestinians, rather than the increase in their numbers which has been typical since the occupation]. I also refer to "Reality Check", who just lost it in a frenzy of "fuck-you"s as if that were the definitive demonstration of dialectical superiority).
So the question comes down to whether or not you actually care to discuss the ethical and practical consequences of Hamas’ actions and decisions, Andrew, and whether any contextual or historical analysis you would find appropriate to apply to them can be discussed in light of other nativist/exclusivist impulses. It seemed so long ago, (i.e. a few comments back), that such might have been the case. But given your willingness to agree with Jewcy’s resident troll, Ismail, I’m not sure if you’re still interested. If not, that’s ok. Feel free to jump on board with Ismail’s trainwreck of previously notorious commenters, who decided to get onto his bandwagon before it crashed and burned, as it usually does.
But if you want to have a cogent and reasonable discussion, then I suggest you do yourself a favor and not assume agreement with someone who can’t put his insane jealousy of my thought-provoking ideas here into action with anything more than his repeated attempts to shut me out. About the only thing Ismail’s ever provoked is a response from one’s lower intestine, and perhaps another one from the esophageal sphincter. But if that’s the style that you think makes a substantive impression upon the Jewcy readership and commentariat, I suggest you think again. Â
I doubt that’s the reason they’ll be voting for him.
There’s nothing wrong with having a sense of humor when reason fails. Perhaps that’s why tragedy and comedy go hand in hand.
The cheap shot for this comment would be a scenario where an Israeli politician runs on an anti-"colonialist" ticket. He dresses up as a Revolutionary American patriot, complete with a tricorner hat, and claims that, you know, irredentist theocratic terrorism is not a problem. He holds up the Hamas charter, its words magically change into something approximating the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, the wardrobe of every Jew changes into a red coat, and the current PM grows a crown and morphs into King George. Palestinians elect a competent, but pro-nativism leader who warns against foreign entanglements, such as with Iran. Jews are counted as 3/5ths of a person for 100 years, at which point a reincarnated Saladin leads the victorious side of a Palestinian faction in a civil war, which ultimately ends up re-enfranchising said Jews. Reconstruction is tough and involves the sort of lynchings that once occurred in Ramallah, but after 144 years a Jew can actually be elected to lead The Palestinian States of Arabia. Ismail’s vision comes to fruition.
Now why not attempt the same, but with the terms reversed? It’s better than crying about the Palestinians’ tragic incompetence, isn’t it?
I’d prefer this not be about entertainment. But take a guy like Ismail. You really think, that as entertaining and perhaps even well-intentioned as he is (although that’s a huge stretch), that he has a clue about politics? This is why the Palestinians remain stateless after 60 years. I’d prefer the boredom of competence to the tragicomic situation currently in place. But hey, it’s not really up to me. I don’t tell the Palestinians and their sympathizers what kind of bad decisions to make.
Persusasion I’m not counting on. Giving people something they don’t want to hear is the idea.
Bibi is about to become prime minister again, if the Israeli bloggers I read have their heads screwed on. Sooo… the Israeli electorate also think in soundbites?
Let me guess… this is all entertainment to you. Yes, even that cheap shot.
…was that he not only spoke in soundbites, but perhaps thought in soundbites.
If you want something shorter, more visually compact, I could find a way to appeal to your advertising dollar. But good luck finding anyone who thinks that a short attention span is an intellectual virtue. And good luck using that form as a way to persuade a significant number of them to agree with your views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Cripes, did any one read it?
Let’s just say I’m out to call a spade a spade. If you want to be impressed, go to an art museum.
"…to respond to someone who has Charlton Heston as an avatar."
Yeah, and instead of casting down his rod, it had to be pried from his cold, dead fingers.
"The funniest thing about these threads is the fact that every time Ismail’s mug shot makes an appearance to defend his inability to respond to a single point made (or to offer a single, thought-provoking point in return), the serial numbers that should be hanging below it are missing."
Ba-da-bing! Thankyewverymuch, ladies and germs!
I rest my case, although I think it was definitively decided with the Henny Youngman, Las Vegas circa 1970, hey-what’s-with-these-kids-today-you-can’t-tell-the-girls-from-the-boys "combing his hair with an eggbeater" kneeslapper, unfunny even when first uttered by Lucy the australopithicene some time back.Â
By the way, I mean no disrespect to the peerless Youngman, whom I revere.Â
Now I shall take my own advice and leave poor Isaac howling in the wilderness alone. Â
Your points are taken Ismail. And maybe my screeds on genocide were a bit influenced by the company here (because we all know what I’m talking about even if not all of us likes to hear it, but to be honest it was that stuff about Kahane and the Hamas charter that set me off). One of the problems with these ‘-cide’ words is they’re not very specific. Terms like dispossession and expulsion should be apparent to every one and they don’t have as much exclusive baggage. Heck, even brandishing apartheid around isn’t always helpful. It depends on who’s saying it in what context.
than to respond to someone who has Charlton Heston as an avatar.
Who says I don’t have a sense of humor? The funniest thing about these threads is the fact that every time Ismail’s mug shot makes an appearance to defend his inability to respond to a single point made (or to offer a single, thought-provoking point in return), the serial numbers that should be hanging below it are missing.
Ismail doesn’t respond because he has nothing to offer other than boilerplate, opinions, insults and jokes. No one has a problem with his jokes (at least I don’t). But he can’t pretend that these devices make his contributions substantive. And the icing on the cake is that he states all this in order to merely insult me and to express his jealousy that I can offer something worth engaging. (Sort of hypocritical, wouldn’t you say?). Very extensive mechanisms at play simply to demonstrate that he lacks any convincing defense for what he can’t stand to see attacked.
Andrew and Jer,
I’ll get to your substantive points shortly. Ismail knows better than to believe that any of you are taking what he just said any more seriously than he intends, which is to say, not very seriously at all. Unlike him, I see this as more than just a form of entertainment, and can engage it as such – and he can’t stand that.
On an entirely unrelated matter, jer’s remark
"I wouldn’t have had to resort to that pr0n…"
reminds me that I’ve seen "pron" for "porn" on a number of blogs, message boards, etc. Being a superannuated Luddite who speaks internets poorly and with an impenetrable accent, I have no idea how this convention came into being. Can any of you not-yet-ex masturbators fill me in on this?Â
andrew r-
Thanks for your comments re the use of "genocide" over "sociocide". You are right that Israel’s actions qualify as the former under the UN definition. I guess our difference has more to do with ideas about activism than definitions of genocide. Most people imagine genocide to be what happened in Germany and Poland in the 1930s and ’40s or what’s happening in Africa in the 21st century. The UN definiton is far from their consciousness (guess how long it will take Isaac to rail about the use of "consciousness" as a braindead, Marxist, postmodern, flower power, hippie or Islamofascist term. This could be a good drinking game…). And until such education takes place as will inform folks that genocide may be something other than wholesale slaughter of the Nazi sort, using the term gives our enemies an opportunity to talk about hyperbole, etc.
Now, you may argue that you are providing the very education I’m talking about-it’s got to start somewhere. And you may be right. I also hear your insistence that "sociocide" will be no more persuasive to apologists than "genocide". Maybe, but it might be more persuasive to the puzzled, undecided or those recently awakened from Zionist hegemony (bottoms up!) in the conventional public narrative re the Middle East. But I can’t help but think that using a word rich with associations that mislead about the term’s actual meaning is just putting another obstacle in the way of revealing the truth re Israel’s brutality.
In any event, we agree on the larger point. Â
And it’s none of my business, but I’d advise against replying to little Isaac. The poor creature is sort of a stalker and becomes rapidly deranged when challenged. Your reasonable and cogent comments will twiddle their thumbs forever waiting for a coherent and relevant response from the sad fellow, although senseless and immaterial ones will burst forth in abundance, you have my word.
Worst of all, Isaac believes his overwrought and clunky prose is funny, when it’s clear to all that he lacks even a microparticle of wit. Blind devotion to an colonialist ideology, OK; preposterous conflations of his opponents’ positions with ideologies they don’t resemble in the slightest, fine; profound ethical dwarfism regarding his justifications for Israeli terror, whatever: but leaden attempts at humor? Unforgivable.
Â
Â
"Add "intended" and "calculated" to your list of words to learn."
So Israelis aren’t worried about a demographic problem? Palestinians can become the majority from river to sea or even in the green line and nothing will be done about it? Glad we cleared up that. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
Seriously, aren’t you familiar with Dov Weisglass and his "putting them on a diet" remark? It’s not telemetry here, just you crying wolf (anti-semitism) when I point out the very predictable effects of Israeli policy. If the Israelis themselves didn’t know their blockade would have this effect, they’re too stupid to run a country. But they’re not, and they know what they’re doing. You’re just helping them maintain plausible deniability (that’s if any one swallows your gobshite).
Hey man, if you’d left the thread more sexed up I wouldn’t have had to resort to that pr0n last night to substitute for a real life.
Err… as to this:
I guess the question is how the situation of Gaza changes in your eyes
upon the application of some basic counterfactuals. If it were Jewish
refugees living stateless in those territories, would you show any less
opprobrium for a Kahanist movement among them as strong and as popular
as Hamas is in Gaza now? How about a more secular Kahanist movement
(Hellenizers welcome), sort of like the pre-Oslo equivalent of Fatah in
comparison to Hamas? Their platform was no less revanchist than
Kahane’s, and included not just Sinai, not just Iraq, but the whole
Arab watan
Psychologocially speaking it’s hard to say; there is definitely something a little bit more repugnant to me about Jewish fundamentalism than any other fundamentalism, but I don’t think I should show it any more or less opprobrium, regardless of how I might end up feeling in practice. Understand, I am not a "supporter" of Hamas, or even Fatah, in any meaningful sense, nor would I ever "support" a Kahanist movement; but certainly if a Palestinian state were stealing Jewish land and killing Jews in the hundreds every so often, while the Kahanist resistance only managed to kill a few dozen Palestinians at a time , I would certainly be happy to acknowledge that the Kahanists might not be the biggest problem when compared to other actors.Â
Add "intended" and "calculated" to your list of words to learn. Not as fancy schmancy as "racist", "dispossession", "expulsion" and "colonization", but I’m sure you can rattle off your impressive list of new terms you memorized from your college bookstore’s edition of Claptrap for the Budding Young Marxist Undergraduate in a conversation with Brian. As a historian, maybe he’ll even engage you on the terms and with the buzzwords you find most exciting! Me, I can never hope to match your zeal for revolutionary politics with such depoliticized and mundane things as cogent thought, so I’ll just leave the thread bare and less sexed up for Jer’s sake when he catches up to it tomorrow.
And what’s with all you losers bugging around on a Friday night with nothing to do? I mean, I actually have to get up early tomorrow, so that’s my excuse. But please, at least go watch a porn or something. Advertising your lack of a life on Jewcy on Erev Shabbat makes you come across in terms that are almost as unflattering as your extremely derivative, recycled views do. Sometimes in order to be trendy you actually have to be a part of catching the trend while it’s happening.
"I love how these guys look at a condition, and then deem Israel
responsible for "the lack of spare parts in the local market", for
instance."
Now you are denying Israel is blockading the Gaza Strip, which Israel’s government is very open about. One blogger called this being more Catholic than the Israeli Pope.
Edit: And blockade means BLOCKADE. On all sides. Even if I tried to sail those spare parts into Gaza, the Israeli Navy would stop it.
Well, Issac, what can I say? I unconditonally support resistance movements against racist dispossession and mass expulsion. If in a hypothetical universe Palestine is liberated and Hamas insist on making their most extreme positions a reality, then I stop supporting Hamas. However, I’m not going to ask the Palestinian people as a whole to reject them while they are constantly subject to aerial bombings. That would be arrogant.
Also, I don’t care about nationalism. Resisting colonization is a different concept than its ideological formulation. Any one who studies the conflict knows any resistance group’s ideology doesn’t matter to the colonizing forces. Hamas’ ideology is a convenient scapegoat and that’s it.
Ismail! Baby! You really need a new photo. I mean, what’s with the sour frown? You must be covering up some bad orthodontic work or something. And would it kill you to comb your hair with something other than an egg-beater?
Obviously the context of my remark reveals it to be in reference to your very own support for that Arab-Muslim version of Kahanism. Hamas is, as should be clear to everyone on Jewcy, not Ismail’s organization. Ismail doesn’t head it up or claim membership in it – it’s just the group that he supports. Much like the way the Haj Amin al Husseini couldn’t claim Nazism for himself, nor could he claim to be a member of the Nazi party, he just saw it as the life preserver that Ismail sees Hamas as and supported it as Ismail supports Hamas.
There. Now would you say that’s a more accurate description of how you affiliate politically with the Arab-Muslim Kahanism that is represented by Hamas? Because me and Jer had a serious discussion to engage if you don’t mind.
Wow Andrew,
Look up the word "deliberate" much?
I love how these guys look at a condition, and then deem Israel responsible for "the lack of spare parts in the local market", for instance. Next they will deem Israel responsible for weather conditions in the territories.
"int’l law enforcement is politicized"
So are its pronouncements.
Ok everybody. Amateur hour’s over.
Brian – There’s no resolution accusing Israel of genocide because while international law is formulated idealistically, int’l law enforcement is politicized. It’s only enforced when the big powers want it. There’s nothing in UN resolutions about Tibet, either.
Genocide also doesn’t have to work or be effective to be genocide. Israel does what it can get away with, and although it can get away with a lot, it has limits. Their goal is to eliminate the Palestinians as a nation and dispersing them outside Palestine falls under 2(c) " Deliberately inflicting on the
group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;"
More prima facie evidence: (d) Imposing measures intended to
prevent births within the group;
"UNRWA reports scarce medical facilities in
Gaza, where 7 out of 17 incubators for newborn babies have not been
duly maintained due to the lack of spare parts in the local market,
which appears to have resulted in a decline in health standards among
newborns during the reporting period. According to UNRWA, the number of
infant deaths at Gaza’s main hospitals – Shifa hospital, Gaza
paediatric hospital and the Gaza European hospital – was on average 20
per cent higher during the period of January-October 2007 than during
the corresponding period in 2006."
As for whether Zionists collectively are killers, I’m convinced that any one who calls themself a zionist, and thinks Israel should remain a Jewish state, implicitly endorses warcrimes. Look at the polls supporting "transfer" and the latest war. If you think Israel has to have a Jewish majority, are you going to twiddle your thumbs while the percentage of non-Jews who are Israeli citizens climbs higher?
Pragmatically, I usually don’t begin condeming Israel with genocide. If I had to give a presentation in public on why Israel should not be a Jewish state, it would probably use ethnic cleansing in lieu of genocide. However, if any one is going to use a ‘-cide’ word to describe the situation, anything short of genocide is a half measure. It’s an established term not limited to the widespread accepted usage.
http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/bc34a63f8f9c87550525663b006c57af/fd246b9c33182c72852573ed005001d2!OpenDocument
You and several other guys here ought to visit the
"territories" soon. You know, this isn’t just an intellectual
exercise involving abstract notions of ‘justice’ and ‘genocide.’ We are talking
about a people here who have been fucked for 40 years (some would say 60). I
suggest it is high time for you and other intellectual warriors to get off your
high horse and just make a visit to the "territories". The rest will
take care of itself.
That is, if you really have the stomach for it. I bet you guys don’t. You
are all just little sissies pontificating on things you have absolutely no idea
what they are all about. So yeah, as far as I am concerned, fuck you all. Brian
with his touching little worries about undue comparison to the holocaust and
Isaac’s bs and lbjack’s racism, FUCK YOU! You don’t know what we are talking
about here. Put your money where your mouth is and go see Jews acting like
Nazis on the "territories", if you dare.
Yeah. Fuck you. Fuck all you armchair warriors while Israel’s youth has to
go there and treat pregnant mothers and elder people on wheel chairs like existential
threats and lose their soul forever, so fuck you and your hypocritical morality. Go drown in a sea of diet coke.
Oh, did I just hurt you feelings?
Yeah, well. I’m sorry! Fuck you.
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/index_e.asp
"…his very own Arab-Muslim version of Kahanism…"
Please cite any argument, remark, comment, witticism or belch I may have produced that could be construed by any adult mammal (canine or higher) as being congruent with Kahanism. Have I insisted that all Jews leave Palestine? Have I argued that Palestinian national identity can only be realized in an exclusivist state? Have I urged that the state should recognize the primacy of a bunch of guys in funny hats with a special relationship to their petulant Friend in the Sky?
Of course not, and neither is there any other principle of mine that could conceivably be identified as Kahanist, except insofar as that term is Isaacspeak for "I disapprove".
Stop being a twit and offer something sensible. Â Â
I guess the question is how the situation of Gaza changes in your eyes upon the application of some basic counterfactuals. If it were Jewish refugees living stateless in those territories, would you show any less opprobrium for a Kahanist movement among them as strong and as popular as Hamas is in Gaza now? How about a more secular Kahanist movement (Hellenizers welcome), sort of like the pre-Oslo equivalent of Fatah in comparison to Hamas? Their platform was no less revanchist than Kahane’s, and included not just Sinai, not just Iraq, but the whole Arab watan.
So if your answer is yes, then I guess you’d be consistent in the application of a more forgiving standard to extremist organizations based on… well, based on the politics of the situation. If your answer is no, well then you’d be consistent in a more universalist fashion — and one that begs the same question of Mug-Shot Ismail, in order to see if his contempt for Jewish nationalism specifically isn’t bred of as essentialist a mentality as it clearly appears to be.
Personally, I couldn’t see myself supporting Kahanism on behalf of Jewish refugees anywhere in the Middle East. But that’s just me. I’m curious whether or not you endorse or find legitimate whatever Ismail-colored lenses of the world have allowed the guy to support his very own Arab-Muslim version of Kahanism, or if you would were the shoe on the other foot. But the more interesting question is how Mr. Mug-Shot himself would respond to the reverse situtation.
As the mug shot above might indicate, it’s likely that Ismail intends to use his creative neologism of the "sociocide" that he resists to describe something worse than the slaughter of Jews that Hamas anticipates in its own charter, article 7:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews). When the Jew will hide behind stones and trees, the stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharqad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."
Perhaps if Kahane had advocated not just expelling Arabs, but killing every last one – even those who take to hiding behind stones and trees – the way Hamas does the Jews, then the two groups could stand accused of exhibiting a similar level of racist brutality in Ismail’s warped mind. That would require Ismail to take Hamas’ words and deeds (and his own) seriously. But taking Hamas’ words and deeds seriously would detract from Ismail’s essentialist approach toward Israel and Zionism, and he’s much too skilled a prevaricator to allow for that.
Perhaps if Kahane had advocated not just expelling Arabs, but killing
every last one – even those who take to hiding behind stones and trees
- the way Hamas does the Jews, then the two groups could stand accused
of exhibiting a similar level of racist brutality in Ismail’s warped
mind.
Isaac, Wikipedia has this quote from Kahane (alas, the link to the interview it came from is down): "I’d offer financial compensation for those who want to leave the
country voluntarily. I would only use force for those who don’t want to
leave. I’d go all the way, and they know that… I’m going to hold the
bridges on the Jordan river; we’ll hold them for two weeks. We’ll evacuate the Arabs and let Jordan go to the United Nations"
I assume those who "don’t want to leave" may well choose to hide behind stones and trees, given that he also is quoted (from, I believe, the same interview) as saying: "want to scare them and I want to make them realize that, contrary to
what they have believed for fifteen years, time is not on their side…
And I approve of anybody who commits such acts of violence. Really, I
don’t think that we can sit back and watch Arabs throwing rocks at
buses whenever they feel like it. They must understand that a bomb
thrown at a Jewish bus is going to mean a bomb thrown at an Arab bus."
Let’s read that again: "I approve of anybody who commits such acts of violence". And note that he’s not just referring to Jews in Tel Aviv, or even in the West Bank and Gaza. He’s talking about "all of northern Sinai, including Yamit. To the east, the frontier runs along the western part of the East Bank of the Jordan river, hence part of what is now Jordan. Eretz Yisrael also includes part of the Lebanon and certain parts of Syria, and part of Iraq, all the way to the Tigris river". Any Arabs living in these lands are fair game for expulsion, and if they don’t like that, then violence, according to Kahane. It’s also worth noting that it’s a lot harder to describe a state that gets billions of dollars a year for weaponry from the world’s only current superpower as "drowning". While I don’t agree with Ismail that any life-preserver will do, at the very least you have to admit that it’s the Gazans are far more submerged than Israelis are at this point.Â
As far as I can tell, (although I’m sure he’ll come and explain how I’m misrepresenting him, and therefore a liar, a postmodernist, and a pseudointellectual leftist) lbjack thinks Kahane was right about Arabs, but doesn’t go in for the rest of the religious bigotry. His comments on the "trouble in the Catholic church" thread seem to indicate that he isn’t the kind of person who regards non-Orthodox Jews as "Hellenists", as more doctrinaire followers of Rabbi Kahane would.Â
OK, pump the breaks Andrew R. There are legitimate criticisms of Israel or Zionism or specific Israelis or Zionists and there are illegitimate criticisms. The charge of genocide is illegitimate. Whatever semantic games you want to play with the term itself, the notion that "any good Zionist" or Zionists collectively are mass-murderers is vile slander and the product of exactly the kind of overzealous indictophilia that undermines any attempt to be taken seriously. Palestinian territory has dwindled but population has not. And were Israel’s agenda (please forgive me if I recognize an established national entity out of fidelity to fact) the mass murder of the Palestinians, they would conduct more of their military operations from the air and risk fewer of their soldiers on foot. And if you are going to try using United Nations’ definitions to support your use of language, then please produce the UN resolution accusing Israel or Zionists of any organization of perpetrating genocide. Unless you’re practicing your distortion and perversion techniques in search of a job with the South African diplomatic corps…
But if you’re really concerned about the Palestinian people, don’t try to sex up their already tragic plight just to give your rhetoric more oomph. It makes you look like almost as big an asshole as the people here who are proud of their indifference to the murder of Palestinians.
Not a dig at you Ismail but what is with these pussyfooting labels to describe what the Zionists are doing to Palestine? (I refuse to say ‘what Israel is doing to the Palestinians’.) This and Baruch Kimmerling’s ‘politicide’ aren’t going to win any more friends among apologists than calling it what it is, genocide.
Genocide is not the physical murder of every last Palestinian. It is the destruction of them as a group. That’s how it’s defined in the UN Convention for the Prevention of Genocide. Israel has ambiguous borders that stretch from the river to sea and it’s a self-declared state where half the inhabitants of the land can not be the majority population.
Of course Issac is being totally disingenuous since Kahane was willing to do whatever it took to expel the Palestinians. His first option wouldn’t be mass murder but if it came down to it he would’ve done what any good Zionist does, shoot (or give the order to) and feign anguish.
As for Hamas’ charter, it’s a nasty document. And that’s all it is, a document. No written word can be worse than what the Israeli killers do. And if anyone pays attention to Hamas’ diplomacy and self-restraint, they don’t live and die by the charter.
"Perhaps lb’s thoughts about Kahane go something like this:"
Perhaps they do, Isaac, perhaps they do.
Of course, if he did think there were any parallel whatsoever between my defense of resisting ongoing sociocide and Kahane’s brutal racism, that would mean his logical and ethical faculties were as musty and crippled as your own.Â
Which would surprise no one.Â
Â
OK, jacko, c’mon out…no one’ll hurt you, I promise. Jer says that with your every foul utterance you proudly announce that Kahane was right.
Is this true? If so, care to explain what he was right about and what are the "many things" he got wrong? I know how touchy you are about being misquoted, so I want to make sure you have the opportunity to defend yourself in the event that people are mistakenly attributing to you an affection for someone the entire civilized world regards as a particularly nasty little simian.
Ready….go!Â
Perhaps lb’s thoughts about Kahane go something like this:
"But as I have said before, when you are drowning and someone tosses you a life preserver, you don’t ask him if he beats his wife before grabbing hold."
Just throwing the idea out there… ;-)
Even though I can’t, of course, claim credit for it.
Jack’s got all the subtlety of a foot in the ass.
Kahane Tzadak = Kahane was right
Thanks, guys. Maybe the best thing to do would be to ask jacko himself what he understands by his sig line. He’s too prissy and righteous to respond to me, of course, so maybe someone else might ask?
I am very curious to know what jacko numbers among the "many things" Kahane was wrong about, and what features of mikewinddale  and his ilk he had nailed with such accuracy.
Oh, and why jacko would choose to accompany his every vicious bleat with a shout out to someone whose political party even Israel has banned, even if he was (presumably) right about some things. Can jacko find no other defenders of Israel and Zionism to identify with, perhaps one less burdened by the paranoid racist baggage of the happily deceased Kahane?
C’mon, jacko, don’t be a wuss. None of this tepid, "He was wrong about many things" ragtime. Walk the walk. Tell us why, of all the lucid and thoughtful and ethically interesting (albeit incorrect) defenders of the Usurper Unto Nations, you would choose to feature the mouldering packet of wormfood Kahane each time you stink up the place here.
Of course, we still don’t have the definitive translation of jacko’s sig, so if I’m attributing to him things he doesn’t believe, I apologize and again request elucidation. Â Â
ethnically cleansing Arabs from Palestine?
The phrase probably means ‘Kahane’s ways or beliefs were righteous’.
Or maybe (shudder) "Kahane justice"? C’mon, linguists, help a brother out over here.
Hi Jer,
Since my comment noting the distinction between ideological alliances and strategic alliances was prompted by the following:
"Jews were indeed at the forefront of white opposition to apartheid. But please note that Brian’s comments addressed the behavior of the Israeli government vis a vis apartheid, not the behavior of Jews. Trying to perfume the barbarities of Israel’s government by noting the exemplary social consciousness of Jewish organizations and individuals is a favorite Ziotrick, but we’ll have none of it."
I detected that one of the supposed "barbarities" in question might well have been Israel’s support of South Africa during the period of apartheid. As such, it would be difficult to label Israel’s support of apartheid-era South Africa a "barbarity" unless the support was of an ideological nature, and not motivated by more practical concerns.
As for "procrustean", the definition I took was the following:
"marked by arbitrary, often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances"Â
Perhaps it wasn’t the ideal adjective, but I certainly think that anyone willing to label Israel’s support of apartheid-era South Africa as barbaric might be overlooking not only the aforementioned, but its own "individual differences or special circumstances" when it comes to forming alliances. Â
Thanks Andrew. Sorry to be dense, but what is the meaning of the phrase? That Kahane was a gift to the Jewish people? That he advised doing acts of charity? Something else?
Hebrew is read from right to left.
From right to left:
kof, hey, nun, aleph
They spell: KAHANE
tzadi, dalet, qof
They spell: TZEDAKEH
I don’t know Hebrew very well but I used to put money in a tzedaka box. So I had to look up tzedaka to make sure it was saying what I think it does. Yep, Kahane was right.
This ibjack sure is a funny guy.
One more thing; I take it from the comments of mikewinddale and lbjack that the latter’s sig line was supplied by the odious Kahane. Despite my astonishing fund of knowledge, I am sorry to say that I remain entirely ignorant of Hebrew.
Perhaps a charitable Jewcer would translate jack’s signature and explain exactly how it’s related to Kahane. Gentile or not, I can’t be the only person around here who can’t decipher that line. Can I?
"…even as their aid money is transformed into more rockets and bombs and murder machines for the terrorist state."
Let’s allow jack’s projective description of Palestine as a "terrorist state" slide for a moment and have a look at the unstated assumption of his comment, namely, that Hamas ought not arm itself. Whence this odd suggestion?
Palestine has been under assault by Israel for years. Blockades, territorial invasions and similar acts of war are perpetrated by the Blight Unto Nations with a barely a murmur of protest from people who ought to know better. Abbas responds to these provocations by raising his posterior further into the air, the better to allow easy entry of the enemies’ member into his by now gaping and callused sphincter. Hamas, on the other hand, aims to resist the slaughter of its people, as is its obligation as the elected government and its right under any number of articles of international law.
There is no need to apologize for Hamas rearming itself. It absolutely ought to; it is under assault by one of the most unregenerately rapacious regimes on earth. It offers truces and is ignored, while hundreds of its children are atomized.
I have no use for the theocratic medievalisms of the more regressive elements of Hamas and I would far prefer to see an effective secular government (you know, like the one Israel undermined by supporting the flowering of Hamas in its early days) in charge in Palestine. But as I have said before, when you are drowning and someone tosses you a life preserver, you don’t ask him if he beats his wife before grabbing hold.
As long as Israel continues on its 60 year mission of sociocide, it must be resisted. So please tell me…why exactly do you believe that the elected government of a people under assault should be considered sinister for arming itself? Â
Not only is aid fungible, but it can also be outright stolen:
http://www.jewcy.com/userblog/hamas_police_raid_un_humanitarian_aid_warehouse
You are seriously sick. Your brain is a rotten ugly thing, and your opinions are odious and foul. You are deluded in denial or just completely dishonest. Your words are so far outside of factual reality that you only serve to make zionists look like vicious thugs..
.if the shoe fits eh?
All aid, including relief aid, is fungible. Every dollar of aid that goes to the Gazans releases a dollar for the rearmament of Hamas. Doesn’t matter how pure the donor or the intent, it will wind up in evil hands, and the nincompoops responding to the propaganda about the poor victims of Israeli aggression, will feel awfully good about themselves (always the purpose of the exercise), even as their aid money is transformed into more rockets and bombs and murder machines for the terrorist state. Repeat afer me, mes enfants: Aid is fungible.
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Yeah, the bigger problem is that the Jews are the only group of people that is told that their nationhood is immoral, and that occasionally, people let slip their contempt for the problematic people by mixing up a reference to it with one for the problematic nation. But we’ve all been over this ad infinitum.
Ok Jer, I agree. The U.N. and other agencies that give aid to Hamas are behaving despicably. But only because they should have had the foresight to predict that the aid they bring in would have been ransacked by Hamas and not distributed equitably.
I’m obviously being sarcastic above, Jer. No, the U.N. and other agencies are not barbaric for disbursing aid to Hamas. Their political support, OTOH, is a different story. I mean, intentions matter, don’t they? I think they should. No, someone is not barbaric for supporting an organization merely because they want to survive, rather than because they seek to make the political raison d’etre for that organization flourish. Let’s not be like the Palestinians. Let’s not forsake the role of free will and the primacy of one’s intentions in determining whether their actions are right or wrong. Let’s not junk the entire Western legal tradition and devolve to some weird system of justice by automatons. Let’s not put the insane in chain gangs. Etc.
I think all of the regulars at this bar come across posts sometimes that beg for a crushing response, but occasionally, we are treated to a civil disagreement like the [forgive me] EXIGENCIES going on between Isaac and Jer. And yet, amidst the parsing of interpretation and intent, I hope we can circle back to an issue that’s just been glanced across-
Whatever the motivations or ultimate results or moral underpinnings of Israel’s relationship with South Africa’s Apartheid, are we really going to say that an ANC member’s antipathy toward Zionism is informed wholly by irrational hatred of Jews? Now please. This is not apologism for anti-semitism. Not a single poster here is defending Ms. Hajaig’s remarks. They’re quite shitty. But my point is that highlighting them as a heralding for an onrushing tide of anti-semitism is to contextualize her statement. And if we are going to start contextualizing, we can’t do so without considering reasons why the ANC might not be Israel’s biggest fans. So as a free-standing rhetorical aberration, let’s condemn the remarks roundly. But as the part of a larger problem, let’s not cherry pick the factors that suit us to construct a larger case.
OK, I’ll smoke my cigarette and don my blindfold now.
I think an action can be barbarous regardless of the intent; surely you’d think that a government that gave material support to Hamas would be behaving barbarously, even if it was just done for pragmatic purposes. Although I guess this one is for you and Ismail to fight out if you want; I just don’t really read his comment that way.
As for procrustean, I may be out of my element here, but I always thought it meant to disregard individual circumstances in the way particular to how Procrustes himself did it; i.e., to handicap those whose differences set them apart. Like, I feel there has to be a Harrison Bergeron element to it to qualify. Whatever, that’s hardly important.
Dear Mike,Â
My comment on this thread has nothing to with the practical effects of a strategic alliance with an ideologically problematic state, and everything to do with ensuring a sense of adherence to arguments that, you know, make sense.
As it stands, I’m not under the impression that Israel’s alliance with South Africa prolonged the apartheid nature of that regime. Nor did South Africa’s apartheid make Israel any more detestable in the eyes of its detractors than it already was or would have been, or prone to looking more favorably upon entertaining policies that Israel’s detractors would waste no less time prattling on about than they would if that relationship hadn’t existed. So if you want to make a stand, by all means, make a stand. But let’s encourage the distinction between substantive stands and those of mere symbolism.
And yet, I would be remiss if I neglected to note that Husseini’s alliance with Hitler was as ideological as it was practical. I can’t believe it mere coincidence that this event took place in the same region so broadly willing to take to heart such malevolent lessons as those promulgated in Arabic editions of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And yes, I would be much more magnanimous while looking upon diplomatic or economic deals made between a modern-day Hitler and Jordan than I would deals between a modern-day Hitler and the Saudi kingdom, Hizbullah, Hamas, Iran, or some similar entity that so clearly and consistently makes good on its intention to kill Jews.
Isaac:
Procrustes would be proud of such a wretched lesson in the art of mistaking a strategic alliance for an ideological alliance.
- No one actually claimed that the alliance was ideological (I guess Shootingsparks is sort of saying it by implication but if it turns out that he isn’t just being an annoying troll, then I think he might actually be insane). Brian and Ismail both merely pointed out that, indeed, there was an alliance. No motivation was suggested by either of them. Also, unless I’m missing your meaning, I don’t think "procrustean" is the right adjective to describe "equating Israel’s military alliance with apartheid S. Africa with support for its system of government", even if you think this equating is wrong.Â
lbjack:Â I sourced my quote, but you omitted the citation, depicting it as my
words, them reformating them. I don’t converse with liars, so I won’t
converse with you.
- If you are responding to Brian (which I assume you are, since the only other person who’s referenced your comment is Ismail commenting on your use of the word "emesis"), then this is incorrect. You said:
[Heim] found
that, "The Arab world was an even better, a safer haven than South
America" (Simon Wiesenthal Center).Â
Gee, what a surprise! Heim had changed his name and was known to
his neighbors as lovable old Uncle Terek, having converted to Islam, an
easy leap for an SS man.
Brian responded by asking
And then what praytell are the minimal adjustments that make morphing from a nazi doctor to an Egyptian man such an "easy leap?"
It’s pretty clear that your citation refers only to how safe a haven Cairo was for Heim, not how easy it was for Heim to have converted to Islam. If the Wiesenthal Centre source provides support for this too, it would have been clearer if you had put the citation after the "easy leap" part. Calling Brian a liar is therefore not at all warranted. Â
And, to keep us on topic, and to reference back to the last post where we all had such a good time, I fully agree that this is anti-semitic and awful. I also think that it’s clear what the difference is between accusing the Jews of controlling world finance for nefarious ends and starting a history of the I/P conflict in 1880 A.D. (or C.E., I guess, on this site) rather than 1880 B.C.(E.)
Apparently people like the author of the "new antisemitism" piece think that both are manifestations of the same phenomenon, which I find pretty much flat-out absurd.Â
lbjack, I’m sorry, but I’m now confused.
Who are you responding to? Who distorted quotes and built a strawman? Whose ilk are you speaking of?
As far as I can tell, you are responding to me. If so:
1)
How did I take your quote out of context? As far as I can tell, your
post seems to be saying that it is not surprising that an SS figure
could assimilate into the Middle East. As far as I can tell, these are
your own words, and you approve of them.
2) What did Rav Kahane
say about "my ilk"? I don’t think that Rav Kahane had negative things
to say about those such as me, who advocate a plan based on the
halachic ger toshav and the three conditions that Yehoshua sent to the
Canaanites in the Yerushalmi.
But maybe you are responding to
Ismail; as far as I can tell, you intended Ismail when you said, "No
doubt a certain…his usual emesis…"
But if you intended
Ismail, I cannot see where he took your quotes out of context, etc. So
I can only imagine you intend me. But if you are speaking to me, I am
bamboozled nonetheless.
Like your fragrant colleagues, the only way you can assert your noxious views is to build a strawman, to distort or outright lie about what I say, then knock down the lie to seem like you’re scoring a point. I sourced my quote, but you omitted the citation, depicting it as my words, them reformating them. I don’t converse with liars, so I won’t converse with you.
As for the signature, I give the devil his due. Kahane was wrong about many things, but about you and your ilk he was dead right.
???? ???
Isaac,
Let me ask you a question: Imagine the spitting-ideological-image of Hitler were alive today, whipping the masses into another Holocaust.
Then, another country (France, Egypt, Argentina, whatever) concludes a diplomatic or economic deal with him, but not for ideological reasons, but simply for pragmatic materialistic ones. He may want to kill the Jews, but hey, his automobiles are still plenty fine!
Would you really be so magnanimous?
Get ready for your tutelage in the Procrustean tactic of equating Israel’s military alliance with apartheid S. Africa with support for its system of government, lb. Soon to follow will undoubtedly be your tutelage in the slightly less Procrustean tactics of:
1. Equating Arab alliances with the Soviet Union with support for communism per se.
2. Equating Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini’s strategic alliance with Hitler with support for every one of the goals of the Nazis (although in this case, the mufti actually did base his support on the common goal of making an enemy of the Jews, either by extermination or otherwise).
Procrustes would be proud of such a wretched lesson in the art of mistaking a strategic alliance for an ideological alliance. All in a day’s work when it comes to Procrustes’ finest pupil above.
"’The Arab world was an even better, a safer haven than South America’. Gee, what a surprise!"
I was thinking that your words were resounding a bit too well within me. I wondered whether I was reading your correctly; I don’t tend to agree with very many on politics.
And then I saw your signature: ???? ???
Yup, I read you correctly.
Regarding hunter14′s few "facts":
1. Jews were indeed at the forefront of white opposition to apartheid. But please note that Brian’s comments addressed the behavior of the Israeli government vis a vis apartheid, not the behavior of Jews. Trying to perfume the barbarities of Israel’s government by noting the exemplary social consciousness of Jewish organizations and individuals is a favorite Ziotrick, but we’ll have none of it.
2. Israeli aid to Africa was disproportionately in the form of military material and training, although humanitarian projects were undertaken as well. And it is a bit of an oversimplification to say that the decision of African countries to end relations with Israel was entirely a product of Arab pressure. The events of 1967 and 1973 did not sit well with many African states and Israel’s cozy romance with South Africa didn’t help. (The only African states that maintained relations with Israel were Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland, the latter two friends of S. Africa throughout the apartheid period and the last less an actual nation than a kleptocratic satrapy of the Coca Cola company.) And the Arab states promised aid as well as an embargo-sort of a hummus and stick approach.
3. The lunatics in S. Africa whose paranoid notions are responsible for the continued suffering of their people deserve the scorn of us all, but I’m not sure about the "free ride" part. Is it a secret that governmental intransigence re modern notions of disease afflicts the people of S. Africa? I’m afraid I detect the old, "Wah! Everybody gets a break but poor Israel! Wah!" ploy rearing its stooped and graying head. Again, we’ll have none of it.
4. I wouldn’t conflate the stupid comments of a deputy foreign minister with the government of S. Africa.
PS- I applaud lbjack for his use of "emesis". As many will remember, using a robust and colorful vocabulary has often been seen as a mark of sinister intent in these parts. I’m happy that mr. jack has found my example useful for his own development, and I look forward to his political, ethical and philosophical tutelage at my knee bearing equally luscious fruit in the not too distant future. Â Â
Â
1. Jews were among the leaders of the white opposition to Apartheid in S Africa
2. Israel aided many black african nation in the 1960s and 1970s until the Arab nations forced many of these countries to break off relations under the threat of an oil embargo
3. S Africa who’s leadership is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousand of its own people due to its AIDS policies is getting a free ride from the world press.
4. Spewing anti-semitism is always a good sign that a government is in trouble
Should have said scumbags.
???? ???
"After all, it was Zionist Jews who ran South Africa’s apartheid government…"
Eh, no, but Israel did maintain a robust commercial relationship with SA’s apartheid gov’t while the rest of the world was maintaining sanctions.
And then what praytell are the minimal adjustments that make morphing from a nazi doctor to an Egyptian man such an "easy leap?"
I’m not excusing anything Ms. Hajaig said. But when a Jew spews a lot of disengenuous apologism for any atrocities that Israel has perpetrated or participated in, and he does this "in defense of Judaism," how is that an effective way to reduce the number of anti-Jewish speeches that are getting made nowadays?
After all, it was Zionist Jews who ran South Africa’s apartheid government…
Meanwhile, another Nazi monster has escaped justice (actually 17 years ago), in the convivial precincts of, No, not South America, but Cairo. Here, Dr. Mengele’s twin, Aribert Ferdinand Heim, the SS Dr. Death of Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen, found that, "The Arab world was an even better, a safer haven than South America" (Simon Wiesenthal Center).Â
Gee, what a surprise! Heim had changed his name and was known to his neighbors as lovable old Uncle Terek, having converted to Islam, an easy leap for an SS man.
No doubt a certain scumbag who pollutes this site and despoils the discussions will have his usual emesis to spew on the subject.
???? ???
I do not believe that the cause of the Palestinians is served by any
anti-Jewish racism.
 I don’t even know where to begin with that one.
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