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• 
  By RonL 3/21/09 at 2:53 a.m. UTC

  This fabricated number izs used by Noeo-Nazis, Islamists, and thei Leftist allies.

  So which are you? Doesn’t matter, because you don’t belong here. 
• 
  By jer 3/19/09 at 9:36 p.m. UTC

  Jer, some facts are really simple. Jews did not just suddenly show up
  in the Middle East in the 20th century. Imagine that. I could cite
  numerous examples illustrating that point, and they would be layed out
  as very, very easily accepted facts.

  Sigh…yes, obviously. But were they present in sufficient numbers to justify building their own state? No. Thus, when Zionism took off, and sufficient numbers did arrive, any reasonable person would happily describe the situation as being one in which a whole bunch of people had suddenly shown up. Even if some other people had been there before. 

  More linguistic argument ahoy? 
• 
  By jer 3/19/09 at 9:31 p.m. UTC

  I know you said you aren’t necessarily coming back, but I feel bad about leaving a comment unresponded-to (no worries, I don’t need the favour returned).

  OK, we can use whichever word you like. The Jews both owned and possessed the land. They had the deeds to the land and
  they had the land itself. Interestingly, your point that you can’t base
  your case on deeds alone does a bit of damage to the Palestinians’ case
  - you have a lot of Palestinians, born 30, 40, 50 years after the War
  of Independence, who have never seen Haifa or Jaffa or any of the
  villages that their ancestors were supposedly driven out of, yet they
  still have the keys and deeds to that property and believe that that by
  itself gives them a legal and moral claim to the territory. It doesn’t. 

  Well, they obviously didn’t possess Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, and those other places as strongly as they would have liked; the ethnic cleansing only makes sense if the Jews are worried about their hold on the land. 

  As for the Palestinians, I’m not going to pretend to know what legal rights they have (although it seems to be a pretty widespread notion that they do have a legal right to, if not the territory, then some compensation for it), but it seems to me pretty strongly that they have a moral right. Remember, I’m not saying the Jews had no right to the land, merely that the right wasn’t enough to establish a state on. Thus, ethnic cleansing was necessary. The same is true for Palestinians. Trivially true, in fact, since they don’t yet have a state. And if someone tried to build a Palestinian state on modern Israel, ethnic cleansing would again be necessary. 

  You could truly believe all these things, but that wouldn’t make you morally or factually right. 
  

  True enough, but that people have a right not to have other people show up and take their land to build ethnically/religiously particular states that will exclude the indigenes seems a lot less controversial than the example you cite above. 

  Maybe you should visit sometime – you might just enjoy yourself and see some of your stereotypes shattered. 

  Amazingly enough, I’ve been. Twice! And it was fantastic, certainly. But that doesn’t prove anything; a Jew visiting family in Israel will tend to experience the better side of Israel. I wonder how much I would’ve enjoyed going to Gaza. 

  Anyway, if I think of anything good to say, I may message you sometime down the road, but for now, tha’ss all folks!
• 
  By rshams 3/16/09 at 4:35 p.m. UTC

  Errr…first clarifying remark. When I said ownership, I should have
  said "posession". I think the original point still stands; you can’t
  build a state on deeds to the land, you need the land itself.
  

  OK, we can use whichever word you like. The Jews both owned and possessed the land. They had the deeds to the land and they had the land itself. Interestingly, your point that you can’t base your case on deeds alone does a bit of damage to the Palestinians’ case – you have a lot of Palestinians, born 30, 40, 50 years after the War of Independence, who have never seen Haifa or Jaffa or any of the villages that their ancestors were supposedly driven out of, yet they still have the keys and deeds to that property and believe that that by itself gives them a legal and moral claim to the territory. It doesn’t.

  The rest of your last post seemed to be responding to my arguments by stating "the Arab perspective" on the matter. They believe it’s unfair that Jews are moving in in large numbers and buying land and threatening Arab hegemony. They are upset that secular moderate/liberal types like me (or more accurately, my Israeli counterparts) are placing conditions before they can have a state. Etc., etc., etc. Well, the Arabs believe a lot of things; it doesn’t make them objectively true. By that argument, one could say that it is understandable for racist white Southerners in the 1960s to be opposed to granting civil rights, since from their perspective, introducing civil rights laws would be destroying the culture they had been used to all their lives. Or if you were living in Germany in 1945, the Allies were bombing the shit out of your city, and you were dismayed, since the Nazis had helped your country’s economy and gotten you a better career than you had before. Or…blah blah blah, I won’t bore you with more examples of this kind of simplistic thinking. You could truly believe all these things, but that wouldn’t make you morally or factually right.

  Again, I’m sorry that there’s a gap between the deified Hebrew-school Israel and the
  real Israel. I’ve been to the latter many times, and I know it is an
  imperfect place, just like any other place on earth and less so than most. Maybe you should visit sometime – you might just enjoy yourself and see some of your stereotypes shattered.

  I don’t think I’ll be commenting on this thread any further – it’s already off of Jewcy’s front page, and I have several projects at work that I should be finishing up. I’m not a big Jewcy commenter – this is the first thread I’ve responded repeatedly to. But (and this will sound dumb) if you want to continue this conversation off Jewcy’s message board, let me know.

   
• 
  By jer 3/16/09 at 2:09 p.m. UTC

  Errr…first clarifying remark. When I said ownership, I should have said "posession". I think the original point still stands; you can’t build a state on deeds to the land, you need the land itself.

  If, from the very, very beginning, the Arabs did not contest the right
  of Jews to own land and have political sovereignty in Israel, I think
  the arguments would be very different. I don’t think the issue of a
  "demographic time bomb" would be discussed in the same way.

  Alright, fine, I doubt the "bomb" part of the metaphor would be around. But still, we’re all aware that a Jewish state needs a Jewish majority. Also, I think it was pretty much inevitable that the Arabs would contest the right of Jews to have political sovereignty in Israel. Look at how most countries feel about massive immigration influxes. Now imagine if those immigrants start claiming that they’re going to build their own country in this new land they’ve moved to. There was no way this was not going to end up in violence.

  You’re basically excusing this hostility on the false notion that Jews
  didn’t have the right to build a country in what was then Palestine,
  even when we bought the land from its owners, even when we worked the
  land and built it up ourselves.

  Whether or not they had a right, I think the Arabs also had a right to defend their land against encroachment. Surely not just anyone can walk in somewhere and say, "alright, this is our country now!" I think if it had been almost any other group of immigrants coming over to build a state in Palestine, we’d all agree immediately to the Arab point of view. The Arabs would have an unequivocal right to keep the Basques from building a Basque state in Jerusalem, and I suspect most people would understand if they resorted to violence to keep this from happening. The Jews may have some claim that the same standards don’t apply, but their right to a state would still be in conflict with the Arabs’ right to guard what they have. I’m not saying the Jews should’ve stayed in Eastern Europe and dealt with the pogroms, but from the point of view of the Arabs, you can see why they might have been opposed.

  As regards the point about Jerusalem, I think this just illustrates my point. Even the secular, two-stater Jews and Israelis express reservations about some of the necessary preconditions for there being a Palestinian state. I don’t want to quarrel with your reasons, since that’s not my point. But if I were a Palestinian, I would look at that and say, "see! Even the peaceniks don’t trust us with a state! Israel has no interest in a two-state solution at all!" Israel may have better reasons to be withholding on peace, but you’d admit that, indeed, Israel is. 

   

  The "occupation" began in 1967, the result of a defensive war on
  Israel’s part. And numerous cross border attacks occurred all
  throughout the 1950s and 1960s. So, that argument is really easily
  disproven

  While the PLO certainl carried out raids, I am not aware of anything that might be characterized as "terrorism" until the 70s. I guess I’m not sure exactly what Isaac’s definition of "immature" is, so maybe any sort of raid against Israel counts, but then he’d have to say that there is basis to deny Egypt and Jordan statehood too. Which I don’t see him doing. 
• 
  By rshams 3/16/09 at 1:06 p.m. UTC

  Well sure, but only if you’re willing to claim that ownership of the
  land on which the state was built is not an "important aspect of
  statehood". It’s not the only one, yeah, but it’s not something that
  you can ignore. 
  

  I do think that ownership of the land is an extremely
  important aspect of statehood – precisely why I believe that the fact
  the Zionist immigrants bought large tracts of land in Palestine from
  its Ottoman rulers for wildly inflated prices, drained the swamps,
  worked the land, and built the country signifies a basis for Jewish
  statehood BEFORE the official establishment of Israel in 1948 (along
  with the infrastructure, economy, and common culture that I had
  referred to earlier). So, that’s the situation before the War of
  Independence. Now, after the war, we both agree that large numbers of
  Palestinians either fled or were expelled from their homes (not all of
  them owned the land that they lived on, of course, so I don’t know if
  one could fairly argue that all Palestinians who fled/were expelled owned all
  the land they had to leave – but I’ll concede that the wealthier Arab
  families did indeed own their own land/homes/etc.) – but that was in
  the context of a war of aggression initiated by the Arab states. I
  would say that original ownership becomes secondary to Israeli
  security.

  Thus, I think it’s still not unreasonable to say that, insofar as
  non-Jews lived in mandatory Palestine, and someone was going to build a
  Jewish state in mandatory Palestine, it was always going to be
  necessary to expel those non-Jews if that Jewish state was to have any
  chance of success.
  

  All the examples you cite of the Jewish "need" to expel Arabs in order to maintain Israel’s security are in the context of more than a century of Arab hostility to the Zionist project. If, from the very, very beginning, the Arabs did not contest the right of Jews to own land and have political sovereignty in Israel, I think the arguments would be very different. I don’t think the issue of a "demographic time bomb" would be discussed in the same way. But again, we’re discussing hypotheticals – the Arabs were never friendly, peaceable neighbors, and Israel has always understandably felt threatened by them. And you’re forgetting about the Partition Plan, which would have given the Palestinians a state of their own (much larger than they deserved, and much more than they will ever receive now). That plan was rejected, because of the refusal of Arabs to accept Jewish sovereignty over even the tiniest piece of territory.

  Second, there’s a very good reason the Arabs were not always friendly
  and peaceable. Jews were coming to their home and saying "actually,
  we’re going to build a country for us here". Whatever you think of
  Zionism, you have to admit it’s going to look a lot less compelling to
  the people who are going to have to give up the land for it to work. 
  

  The Jews were buying land legally. There was no expulsion until 1948. Basically, you are accepting the argument that the Middle East is for Arabs (and Persians) only – no Jews allowed. Again, no one would have to give up the land if there wasn’t hostility from the very beginning.  You’re basically excusing this hostility on the false notion that Jews didn’t have the right to build a country in what was then Palestine, even when we bought the land from its owners, even when we worked the land and built it up ourselves. These double standards are really a problem.

  The settlements may not be all that popular in general Israeli society,
  but holding on to Jerusalem is pretty strongly felt, even amongst
  people who aren’t fans of the settlements.

  Well, I’d be one of those people you’re referring to here. Just because the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital doesn’t mean they are necessarily entitled to it (although I do think certain neighborhoods that are completely Arab could be ceded to them under the proper circumstances). Whereas Jerusalem is at the center of our Jewish heritage (and I say this as a fairly secular person). I just don’t see Israel and the Palestinians as two morally or politically equivalent entities. Israel has built an incredible society over the last sixty years – it is no different from the U.S., Britain, France, or Sweden, with all of their associated flaws and qualities. The Palestinians have minimal infrastructure, economy, and civil society, because they would rather spend the billions they are given in international aid in attempting to destroy Israel than built their own society.

  I’d also like to respond to a comment you made to Isaac, about how the Palestinian terrorism was a response to "occupation". The PLO was formed in 1964. The "occupation" began in 1967, the result of a defensive war on Israel’s part. And numerous cross border attacks occurred all throughout the 1950s and 1960s. So, that argument is really easily disproven.
• 
  By Isaac 3/16/09 at 12:47 a.m. UTC

  "if someone shows up in your part of the world"

  Jer, some facts are really simple. Jews did not just suddenly show up in the Middle East in the 20th century. Imagine that. I could cite numerous examples illustrating that point, and they would be layed out as very, very easily accepted facts. 
• 
  By jer 3/15/09 at 11:29 p.m. UTC

  Okay, so I’ve been away for a few days, but better late than never.

  We are going to have to disagree on this.

  Fair enough. However:

  The nature of an opinion is to convey one’s perception about something. The nature of a fact is completely different.

  I can’t agree entirely to this; facts are inextricably bound up with our perceptions. Imagine a statement like "the Palestinians have proven themselves unwilling to make peace". Some people would regard this as a fact; it’s not their perception, it’s what is. Others would say it’s an opinion, a judgement based on a certain set of facts. What the facts are, and which ones are relevant to an opinion, is not always hard and fast. Anyway, this is all a little beside the point. I’m pretty sure the reason this all started was because I said the phrase "Arabian bravado" was a bad thing to say. That’s neither a fact nor an opinion, and I still think it was a bad thing to say.

  I happen to believe in the entirely uncontroversial view that the
  Palestinians (or their leadership) have made horrifying, and
  horrifyingly irresponsible decisions.

  But so have the Israelis. So have the Americans, the Russians, and though I can’t think of anything specific, I’m sure the same can be said of the Portugese, the Finns, and any other identifiable group of people around. The question is, why is the right of Palestinians to self-government revoked because of their embrace of violence as a solution, but not the right of the Israelis?

  Did the United States not have standing to (politically) occupy Japan
  and Germany in the wake of winning the wars of aggression that they
  irresponsibly (and with what I would consider a raging sense of
  immaturity) waged against us? Did our postwar actions make us
  "fascist"? Of course not. Who would argue such a thing?  

  There are a few points I want to make in response to this, some of which will expand on the point I tried to make immediately above, so this may be a bit convoluted for a bit, but I’ll try and wrap it all up together.

  I’ll get to the question of standing in a second, but first let’s point out that I disagreed with the use of the word "fascist". I said "authoritarian" and "anti-democratic", and I I’ll stand behind those. In the case of Germany in particular, consider exactly how that occupation came about. Just because the part occupied by the allies ended up being reasonably prosperous and well-off, doesn’t mean that the occupation didn’t end up being pretty danged well anti-democratic for the other half. The allies carved Germany up like a steak, and tossed half of it, plus Poland, to the Soviets. Even if you have the utmost faith in the way the western governments handled the occupation, it’s worth acknowledging that what happened to Germany post-war was not unmitigated good. 

  As to standing, there certainly is an argument there. But that same argument justified the Soviet occupation of East Germany, which is something I think we’d all feel a little bit less enthusiastic about. Germany launched an aggressive war against the Soviets just as much as they did against the Europeans, and more than they did against the Americans; by your standard (at least as stated above) Stalin had even better justification for occupying Germany than the U.S., and thus the DDR was fully justified. Or, at the least, not anti-democratic and authoritarian. Or, we can argue that yes, indeed that occupation IS authoritarian and anti-democratic, but sometimes it’s just the best choice available.

  However, even this argument has its flaws. First of all, as I believe the example of the DDR shows, this depends in part on the nature of the occupation. Israel’s occupation involves the expansion of settlements, the restriction of roads to Jews only, siege, blockade, etc., etc. It’s not exactly been the benign reconstruction that (the idealized?) version of the postwar occupation of Germany was.

  Second, as you pointed out, it was in fact Germany and Japan who launched the wars of aggression that ended with them being occupied. Contrast that with the Palestinian situation, where the occupation preceded the immature and irresonsible behaviour of the Palestinian government. I mean, Hamas came into existence only twenty years after the occupation began, and it took nearly another twenty years before they became the Palestinian government. The idea that Israel occupied the territores to stop Palestinian terrorism is silly; Palestinian terrorism is a result of the occupation. As such, the analogy with Nazi Germany breaks down. From a Palestinian point of view, it was Israel who launched a war of aggression to take over their territory. Therefore, they would probably think that your argument justifies a Palestinian occupation of Israel, at least until such time as Israel is willing to not wage aggressive wars of conquest against Palestinians any more. So, in light of all this, I guess I’d ask: how does one decide which side is the one being more irresponsible, and how does one decide when a level of irresponsibility sufficient to justify such anti-democratic measures as occupation has been reached? How do we know that Palestinian rockets justify denying the Palestinians a state, but Israeli mortars launched at Palestinian targets don’t mean that the Israelis lose their right to self-determination? I’m fine to concede that democracy and self-determination aren’t rights that trump all, but I think the view that therefore it’s okay to withhold a Palestinian state until the rockets stop still needs a lot more to support it.

  For purposes of organization, I’ll deal with your second post now, and then respond to rshams. So,

  But the more plausible explanation is that it was more strongly rooted
  in opposition to Jews pursuing their inherent right to remain
  politically active as an identifiable national group in the Middle East.

  I’m sure that’s exactly what Arab/Muslim opposition to Zionism is rooted in, but the reason they would oppose the Jews pursuing the right to remain politically active in the ME is because that would mean the Jews would get to control territory that they felt was theirs. We can agree or disagree on whether or not they should have been more charitable or whatever, but it’s hardly a ridiculous position to take that, if someone shows up in your part of the world and starts claiming the right to build a country primarily for them on that land, you should oppose it. 

  And surely we can agree that even if someone is being unnecessarily recalcitrant to the idea of sharing their land, the proper response is not to boot them off the land by force. It’s absolutely reasonable to oppose ethnic cleansing, even if it isn’t motivated entirely by a herrenvolk ideology. I don’t think Ismail’s point of view is delegitimitized simply because he opposes something that happened in the past (and I’m pretty sure that expression can be read as a shorthand way of saying "had I been alive I would have opposed it then", or "I do not approve of what happened"). I will admit though, that I don’t know if I entirely took your point from the second comment, so if you feel I’m missing the point here, maybe try explaining it again.

  Now, rshams:

  was that the important aspects of statehood were in place BEFORE the
  war and the expulsion of the Arabs that was the issue at hand.  

  Well sure, but only if you’re willing to claim that ownership of the land on which the state was built is not an "important aspect of statehood". It’s not the only one, yeah, but it’s not something that you can ignore. 

  Even disregarding that, though, I think there’s still an argument to be made that ethnic cleansing was necessary. To listen to some people talk about the "demographic bomb" that the Arabs have, it’s obvious that a Jewish state with lots of non-Jews living in it is not going to remain secure as a Jewish state. Thus, even if the state could have been formed around the Arabs, incorporating them peacefully, it’s not clear that Israel as a Jewish state would exist. Thus, I think it’s still not unreasonable to say that, insofar as non-Jews lived in mandatory Palestine, and someone was going to build a Jewish state in mandatory Palestine, it was always going to be necessary to expel those non-Jews if that Jewish state was to have any chance of success.

  basically if the Arabs were friendly, peaceable neighbors – then, no, I
  would think expelling Arabs forcibly would have been wrong. Of course,
  none of those hypotheticals occurred, and thus the expulsion, in my
  view, is justified. I guess you could then technically say that I
  believe expulsion of the Arabs was necessary for Israel to exist and be
  safe, but only in context of actions that had been initiated by the
  Arabs. 

  Firstly, I think the demographic point still stands; expulsion would likely have been necessary anyway, even without the conflict and tension. Second, there’s a very good reason the Arabs were not always friendly and peaceable. Jews were coming to their home and saying "actually, we’re going to build a country for us here". Whatever you think of Zionism, you have to admit it’s going to look a lot less compelling to the people who are going to have to give up the land for it to work. 

  I think it just boils down to the Palestinians owning up to their
  responsibilities for once in their history, showing that yes, they are
  willing to live side-by-side with Israel as a Jewish state. The reason
  many Israelis are apprehensive about taking steps toward a two-state
  solution is that they don’t think that that is the goal of the
  Palestinians, and frankly, there hasn’t been any evidence of that from
  the Palestinian side.

  I argued this a bit before, but anyway, I think there’s a strong argument to made going the other way; that the Israelis have been equally unconvincing that they are willing to live side-by-side with a fully independant Palestinian state. Again, think of Jerusalem. The settlements may not be all that popular in general Israeli society, but holding on to Jerusalem is pretty strongly felt, even amongst people who aren’t fans of the settlements. Also, the fact that settlements continue to expand pretty much constantly makes a strong case that the Israeli government wants to continue to encroach on Palestinian land, making it harder and harder for there to be a Palestinian state. Both sides can justify their intransigence by pointing to the other side. 
• 
  By andrew r 3/15/09 at 6:07 p.m. UTC

  Go on, then. You whinge constantly about Israel’s right to exist, and when someone points out what it has to do to exist, you’ve got nothing but satire.

  Maybe I can take you seriously if you give me a reason to not believe:

  a) Israel is expanding its borders while excluding the non-Jews

  b) Palestinian violence caused Israel’s expanded borders to retract

  c) The Palestinians are a threat to the demographic majority that Israel’s existance is based on
• 
  By Isaac 3/15/09 at 5:44 p.m. UTC

  Of course, in andrew r’s mind, Israel is a demon just waiting to commit some godawful evil of such unprecedented scale that only the paranoid can imagine. Sort of like Hiroshima, but without actually using atomic weaponry and without the excuse of intransigent belligerence by the other side. Not capable of any moral restraint whatsoever. Intentionally aims to target and kill as many civilians as possible and leaves actual belligerents like Hamas alone. Etc. Of course, this all comes from a guy who thinks the Palestinians, who publicly admit to actually embracing and glorifying such acts as these, can do no wrong.

  Sounds like a massive case of delusional projection. 

  It almost seems like the only way Israel could mollify Andrew (other than
  by having the decency to not exist) would be by commiting its military
  actions with individuals strapped in suicide bomb belts, detonated exclusively in civilian
  areas, never bothering to engage actual militants, bragging about the
  deaths caused, and naming streets after the (martyred) Israeli suicide
  bombers. Would that help matters for you, Andrew?

  Would you be so kind as to autograph my Illuminati literature, Andrew?
• 
  By Alcove-One 3/15/09 at 8:27 a.m. UTC

  "Israel and (Nazi) Germany both …..and both embrace disgusting policies"

  Ismail writes these charming words with a tone that suggests he just finished filing his nails.
• 
  By andrew r 3/15/09 at 1:06 a.m. UTC

  Palestinian resistance takes many forms, and Israel represses all of them. Even the non-violent ones. Look at Ni’lin. There’s no moral restraint involved, just logistics.

  Right now, I think the major factor preventing a total campaign is the reaction of neighboring states. Israel’s main patron would probably not approve of starting a war with Egypt and Jordan (it would sure test the limits). However, an unarmed populace will be easier to expel. Following the demands of the Israeli govt. and moderate Zionists to disarm would be suicidal.  And since that’s one of the pre-requisites for a two-state solution, it’s not the Palestinian side making it impossible.
• 
  By Isaac 3/15/09 at 12:18 a.m. UTC

  So if I understand correctly, not accepting Israel’s inherent right to exist will lead to its disappearance (or improvement? Which is it andrew r?) about as readily as not recognizing the rights of Palestinians or Lebanese to live where they are currently currently situated will lead to their displacement elsewhere. Is that about right andrew r? Impeccable logic, that. What a stupendous feat of reasoning.
• 
  By Isaac 3/15/09 at 12:15 a.m. UTC

  Good point, andrew. It’s all the suicide bombing, or what you and the Palestinians refer to as "resist(ance)", that’s prevented Israel from carrying out a full-scale expulsion of the population from the West Bank and Gaza. Not their moral restraint in the face of it. Very cogent. Well played.
• 
  By andrew r 3/14/09 at 7:39 p.m. UTC

  The reasoning here is that if the Palestinians resist, it will be harder for the Zionists to commit total ethnic cleansing.  Part of resisting is not signing away any of the rights they have.
• 
  By andrew r 3/14/09 at 5:09 p.m. UTC

  It’s the theme of accepting Israel.  So far, it hasn’t given any one on the receiving end a reason to.  Israel still commits expulsions to this day on a regular basis.  Just ask any Palestinian abroad who’s banned from the occupied territories, nevermind Israel-proper.  And it committed another mass displacement in 2006, sending 500,000 Lebanese fleeing from their homes.

  As long as Israel reserves the right to use violence against civilians, no one has to accept it in any framework.  Nor do they have a reason to believe accepting Israel up front will make life any better for them (indeed, that’s what Fateh did in the Oslo era, and they ended up policing some of the checkpoints themselves).
• 
  By Isaac 3/14/09 at 12:56 p.m. UTC

  And Jer, having just read rshams comment above, I’d like to clarify something for you that seems to form the foundation for your criticism of my remarks regarding Ismail’s intolerance.

  This whole discussion of bigotry is rather beside the point. My accusations of Ismail stem from my observation that he toes the traditional (and traditionally intolerant and unrealistic) Arab-Muslim line regarding Israel’s legitimacy. Opposition to Israel in the region might have had something to do with concern for the rights of the "indigenes". (BTW, I use that term in quotes because I view it as deliberately over-politicized and because as long as one is going to politicize one’s origins that person must accept that such a term as a signpost of political legitimacy applies no less to the Jews of the region. Show me an example of another place in which Jews had ever before maintained self-determination and I might be inclined to mitigate my insistence on this being an important point).

  But the more plausible explanation is that it was more strongly rooted in opposition to Jews pursuing their inherent right to remain politically active as an identifiable national group in the Middle East. One cannot look at a region that first achieved prominence as a politically coherent whole through the Arab-Muslim conquest of it, and assume that the incredibly longstanding empire they forged did not create long-lasting impressions in the minds of its inhabitants regarding assumptions of some sense of Arab-Muslim hegemony over the entirety of the region. For Ismail to deny this would be expected (actually, I rather expect that he’ll just do what he naturally does and ignore it). But that would just prove his historical illiteracy in these very matters that he selectively refuses to discuss, despite the fact that he knows they are germane to the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. 

  At the time of the rise of Zionism, the Ottoman Empire (which was the last caretaker of the original Arab-Muslim empire) was crumbling and nationalism was on the rise. The Arabs, obviously, saw themselves as a single nation, overshadowing the identities of other perpetually suppressed groups in their midst that could just as easily claim a national status: Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, Berbers, Jews and others. It is for this reason that the Arabs never saw the Arab Palestinians as a distinct nation, but rather as the bellwether of success for maintaining Arab-Muslim hegemony over not just an emotionally and historically important part of it, but over the region generally. Again, entirely logical and uncontroversial stuff. 

  But the problem (at least, for the Arabs) is that we do live in the era of nation-states. Nation-states form the legal and cultural basis for political relations around the world, despite the Arabs’ continuing attachment to empire as that basis. Had they come to an acceptance of nation-states as that basis, they would have agreed with Feisal and others who had made their pacts with Zionist leaders such as Weizman, and not made this an issue of rights. They would have had their own (national) rights in their own states. All twenty some-odd of them. And they therefore wouldn’t have had a problem with the Arab Palestinians pursuing those rights in their very own fucking state, as was mandated by the United Nations when it also decided to grant one to Israel. 

  Ismail says he has a grievance with the way Israel might have played a significant role in expelling hundreds of thousands of Arab Palestinians from what became Israel. But his problem is that he uses the present tense. He says he is "opposed" to it. How one can state their present opposition to a historical fact that already occurred and is in the past is beyond me. But Ismail is not thinking clearly. The Arabs have to figure out how to live in the present if they are to be relevant to the present. As such, Saudi Arabia and other players have proposed to advance an initiative which might come to terms with all the historic atrocities (including the ethnic cleansing by Arabs of Jews from their countries), and thereby come to terms with their historic opposition to Jewish self-determination and free political expression somewhere in the Middle East – despite their extraordinary level of continued (and unjustified) discomfort with it. Once that happens, Ismail, who when it comes to politics is nothing more than a cranky and cowardly old demagogue, will have to adjust his rhetoric and come to terms with this reality – assuming it happens in his lifetime. 

  But until that day comes, the burden is upon Arabs (and especially assholes like Ismail) to prove that they have done more to confront their own inherent biases and intolerance than it is incumbent upon Jews to do so. 
• 
  By rshams 3/13/09 at 11:43 p.m. UTC

  Jer,

  Like Isaac, I’d like to thank you for your thoughtful responses.

  I really think the biggest reason that there is an Israel today is the simple fact that Israel won the 1948 war.

  Well, that goes without saying really. The reason I mentioned the Zionist immigration, infrastructure building, etc. was that the important aspects of statehood were in place BEFORE the war and the expulsion of the Arabs that was the issue at hand. 

  If the security measure of expelling Arabs was at all justified, then
  surely you have to believe that not having expelled them would have
  represented too great a danger to the state, i.e., it was necessary (or
  at least, very likely to be necessary) to expel those Arabs in order
  for Israel to be safe.
  

  Yes, I agree. BUT that is in context of the War of Independence, initiated by the Arab states and the Arab residents of what was then Palestine. If there had not been a war, if there had not been Arab hostility to Jewish immigration and subseqeuent statehood, if the Arab residents hadn’t provoked riots against the Jews and the British in the 1930s in order to prevent more immigration, etc. – basically if the Arabs were friendly, peaceable neighbors – then, no, I would think expelling Arabs forcibly would have been wrong. Of course, none of those hypotheticals occurred, and thus the expulsion, in my view, is justified. I guess you could then technically say that I believe expulsion of the Arabs was necessary for Israel to exist and be safe, but only in context of actions that had been initiated by the Arabs.

  if Israel really doesn’t want responsibility for the Palestinians, a nice way to show that would be to withdraw from their land…even
  the liberal Israeli governments have continued to expand settlements
  (or at least turn a blind eye while the settlements expand on their
  own), bomb Palestinians, and have generally been unwilling to make a
  strong commitment to a two-state solution. I mean, think how the idea
  of a divided Jerusalem still plays in Israel. 
  

  Here I’m mostly in agreement with you, though I don’t think that all of the territory taken in 1967 is inherently "Palestinian land" and "bombing Palestinians" didn’t just happen out of nowhere, but in response to deadly attacks against Israeli civillians. My Israeli friends are mostly secular (or traditional/Masorti) and politically middle of the road. Neither they nor I have any sentimental attachment to the settlements, though I think that Jews should have safe access to all our holy sites, just like Muslims have access to theirs in Jerusalem. They (and I) have nothing against withdrawing from all settlements except the really large blocs like Ma’aleh Adumim and Efrat. But it is very hard to convince even those Israelis (the moderates who make up a majority of the country) that withdrawal is a good idea, after what happened in Gaza. We might think the settlements are wrong-headed, but we’re not willing to allow the West Bank to devolve into another rocket-launching zone.

  I think it just boils down to the Palestinians owning up to their responsibilities for once in their history, showing that yes, they are willing to live side-by-side with Israel as a Jewish state. The reason many Israelis are apprehensive about taking steps toward a two-state solution is that they don’t think that that is the goal of the Palestinians, and frankly, there hasn’t been any evidence of that from the Palestinian side. I support a two-state solution in principle, as do most of my Israeli friends, but there needs to be concrete evidence of Palestinians taking responsiblity, cracking down on the terrorists, building their own civil society and infrastructure, etc. before we can make progress on that front.

  Shabbat shalom.
• 
  By Isaac 3/13/09 at 9:55 p.m. UTC

  Jer,

  Even though I’ve only got partway through your (first?) response to me, I want to thank you for taking it seriously and would just like to make a few initial clarifications. 

  "There are bad opinions."

  We are going to have to disagree on this. In my mind, an opinion is a preference, or a preferred way of seeing things. When I think of opinions, I start with the simplest examples. "I like ice cream" denotes an opinion. "I hate piranas" is an opinion. "Circuses are fun!" Etc. In any event, its subjectivity is blatantly declared, and this neutralizes any basis for according it any objective evaluative criteria. You can say that someone’s opinion is "bad", or "shitty", but that just meets their subjectivity with your own. Now, I might claim that it is dangerous if too many people (or even, in some cases, one person) with too much time on their hands and easy access to explosives proclaimed "I hate all niggers!", and even more dangerous if such a person or persons proclaimed his interest in committing physical harm to the president or other black folks as a way to sate this preference, but in this instance I am doing the favor of returning the subjective uttering into a context in which objective analysis can now take place. "Dangerous" has greater objective evaluative criteria associated with it than do "bad" or "shitty", and the first example of those would be the opinion, or judgment, or whatever you want to call it, that would form the basis of my conscious reaction to their opinions. And although you could proclaim that what I am about to say is still an opinion, if I were to deem my approach more "useful" or more "productive" to any one of a number of social or individual imperatives than one which employs the descriptors which you had provided (eg. "bad" or "shitty"), I think I would also have greater standing for saying that my judgments do a better job of lending themselves to objective discourse. Not because they were somehow "better" opinions, but because they were less opinionated, less subjective judgments. They made use of labels that were more amenable to evaluation and/or agreement by outside, impersonal, objective criteria. 

  You would think that progressives would understand the value in what I am saying here. It is generally much more useful to their aims to try to understand what they find wrong with something (especially in a social context) than to merely condemn it. But perhaps you guys either learned more from the socially authoritarian conservatives whose political power was just handed over to you than you either realize or want to admit, or you really never got past the approaches endorsed by political correctness that conservatives were right to dismiss and belittle.

  I agree with you that the difference between opinion and fact (or more properly, between the level of opinion or subjectivity that could corrupt either of two differing, factually-based and potentially sound analyses) is not always hard and fast. But I think it helps to recall Marcus Aurelius. Let’s get back to basics.Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? The nature of an opinion is to convey one’s perception about something. The nature of a fact is completely different. No observation is completely free of the subjectivity of the observer, but let’s agree that there is such a thing as a matter of degree in this regard. Some observations have clearly passed a threshold of objectivity that others have not. Is that really such a contestable point, regardless of precisely which opinions – detestable though most of them are – ultimately emanate from Thors Provoni’s keyboard? Is the word "opinionated" really of so little value? At least, is it of so little value insofar as making a value judgment is concerned? 

  This also deserves my attention:

  "I don’t know that it’s necessarily "fascist", but the view that people
  have to meet some level of responsibility (decided by others, natch)
  before they can have any self-determination is a pretty authoritarian
  one. Certainly anti-democratic. I mean, if I think that the Jews in
  Israel are acting immaturely, does that negate the right to Jewish
  self-determination? I’d say no; people have the right to make
  decisions, even bad ones."
  

  I do not advocate delaying anyone’s inherent right to self-determination merely because they have behaved in an immature or irresponsible way per se. However, if one’s immaturity or irresponsibility forms the basis for actions which harm the rights of another, then that other person certainly has a right to react. I happen to believe in the entirely uncontroversial view that the Palestinians (or their leadership) have made horrifying, and horrifyingly irresponsible decisions. At some level they are horrifying for their incompetence and for their lack of ethical maturity and for their lack of responsibililty. And whoever has the right to react by claiming that their rights were adversely impacted by these actions depends on the party affected. If the Palestinian people claim that they were not well-served, or harmed, or their rights infringed, by their leaders because of their immature and irresponsible behavior, then they have the right to overthrow them. I endorse that. If it is shown that the irresponsible decisions of the Palestinian leadership have resulted in an immature preference for totalizing revolutionary ideals and a non-coexistence oriented, illiberal political dynamic with Israel that has encouraged violence and warfare to be directed against it, then Israel has the right to react militarily to violent acts of such scale as it deems sufficient to warrant such reaction. (I believe this conforms to a basic understanding of cause and effect in the history of human conflict.) However, although Clausewitz was wise enough to understand and clarify the relationship between military reactions (to acts of violence) and politics long ago, my own liberalism and Wilsonian convictions prevent me from endorsing any military reactions as a means of delaying the emergence of a liberal political order among the Palestinians over the long-run. 

  But your reaction to my statement was really like an extreme pacifist’s over-reaction; to wit: Did the United States not have standing to (politically) occupy Japan and Germany in the wake of winning the wars of aggression that they irresponsibly (and with what I would consider a raging sense of immaturity) waged against us? Did our postwar actions make us "fascist"? Of course not. Who would argue such a thing? 
• 
  By jer 3/13/09 at 5:39 p.m. UTC

  Israel does not exist because it expelled Palestinians from their
  homes, no matter how much you, Ismail, or Norman Finkelstein would like
  to think so. Zionist immigrants bought land from the Ottoman rulers of
  Palestine decades before the declaration of the State of Israel. They
  built the country’s infrastructure and economy, and they welcomed new
  immigrants once the state was established. That is how Israel exists -
  through its own efforts.
  

  I don’t disagree that all those things are also reasons why Israel exists, but it’s hard to imagine an Israel with a majority Arab population, or one that lost the war of independence. Like I said, I’m not a historian, so I can’t really judge these counterfactuals, but I think it’s at least arguable that the expulsion of Arabs was a necessary precondition for a functioning Jewish state. It’s nice to think that buying land and building infrastructure is all it takes to establish a state, but Israel is not alone in having had a darker side to its foundation too. I really think the biggest reason that there is an Israel today is the simple fact that Israel won the 1948 war. Declarations of independence, international recognition, ownership of land bought from the Ottomans…all these would mean nothing if that war had been lost. Similarly, there would have been little infrastructure left, and few immigrants incoming to rebuild it, had the war gone otherwise. You yourself seem to acknowledge the point when you say "It was a security measure, that, while tragic for those who had no part
  in the fighting yet were expelled anyway, is nothing out of the
  ordinary when one considers other actions democratic states have taken
  during times of war." If the security measure of expelling Arabs was at all justified, then surely you have to believe that not having expelled them would have represented too great a danger to the state, i.e., it was necessary (or at least, very likely to be necessary) to expel those Arabs in order for Israel to be safe.

  So, yes, the Arab states, which initiated the war against Israel, are responsible for the welfare of those displaced as a result of that war.

  Yeah, of course. But Israel is too. And especially in light of the occupation, Israel’s duty to those it has displaced is greater; if Israel really doesn’t want responsibility for the Palestinians, a nice way to show that would be to withdraw from their land. But of course, any proper solution will have to involve assistance from and coordination with the surrounding Arab countries.

  And they could very well have had a state of their own – long, long
  ago. But it seems the Palestinians’ desire is really not
  self-determination, but the destruction of Israel.

  Obviously, this is likely to be a point of contention between us, but I’ll just say that Israel has been just as much an obstacle to peace as the Palestinians. I read a book a little while ago (alas, I don’t have it here, and I don’t remember the exact title…I’ll look it up) which detailed in part how frustrated Clinton often was with Barak in the late nineties, as Barak would continually back away from his commitments for fear of losing face in front of the Israeli electorate. No doubt Arafat was not exactly the greatest partner either, but even the liberal Israeli governments have continued to expand settlements (or at least turn a blind eye while the settlements expand on their own), bomb Palestinians, and have generally been unwilling to make a strong commitment to a two-state solution. I mean, think how the idea of a divided Jerusalem still plays in Israel. 

  But the reality of Israel also isn’t that it is a dark, oppressive state whose only goal is to harm the innocent Palestinians.

  Oh, no doubt. I sincerely doubt any other state would handle itself much better if found in Israel’s shoes. But the fact remains that it’s Israel who’s got this occupation, and this sixty year old refugee problem, and so it’s Israel that draws my attention (and yes, I know there are plenty of other places with even worse problems. That’s part of the problem with the "Israel should be important to all Jews" style of education; even after you stop believing what you were told, you still feel compelled to pay more attention to Israel than other places). 
• 
  By rshams 3/13/09 at 3:17 p.m. UTC

  Jer,

  I apologize for thinking that you were referring to Jewish refugees from Arab countries and not Jews expelled from what was once Palestine. Please disregard my comments in reference to that.

  "Israel has responsibility for their plight because it sits where their
  homes used to be. Not the other Arab states. The same goes for
  compensation. Those expelled Jews have not been living in refugee camps
  for generations, and have not languished without a state of their own."

   But I don’t think I’m taking anything out of context when I say that I think your definition of "responsibility" is quite distorted. Israel does not exist because it expelled Palestinians from their homes, no matter how much you, Ismail, or Norman Finkelstein would like to think so. Zionist immigrants bought land from the Ottoman rulers of Palestine decades before the declaration of the State of Israel. They built the country’s infrastructure and economy, and they welcomed new immigrants once the state was established. That is how Israel exists – through its own efforts.

  I don’t dispute that some Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes in the midst of the War of Independence, but that is completely understandable considering that the Palestinians were participants in, well, a war against the new state of Israel. It was a security measure, that, while tragic for those who had no part in the fighting yet were expelled anyway, is nothing out of the ordinary when one considers other actions democratic states have taken during times of war. So, yes, the Arab states, which initiated the war against Israel, are responsible for the welfare of those displaced as a result of that war. Just like Germany had to absorb the millions of ethnic Germans from Poland, Romania, etc. who were forcibly expelled (in a much more brutal way than the Palestinians) by the oncoming Red Army at the end of World War II. The idea that you have to suffer the consquences of the wars you begin also applies to Arabs. Simply put, the Palestinians who are in refugee camps for generations are the responsibility of those whose actions led to their expulsion – Arab leaders.

  And they could very well have had a state of their own – long, long ago. But it seems the Palestinians’ desire is really not self-determination, but the destruction of Israel. And unfortunately, the Israelis have an annoying, persistent habit of not being willing to be destroyed.

  I’m sorry, Jer, that the gap between your Hebrew school version of Israel and Israeli reality has left you embittered. I also wish kids weren’t led to believe that Israel is a magical utopia without a single problem on its hands. But the reality of Israel also isn’t that it is a dark, oppressive state whose only goal is to harm the innocent Palestinians. It is a flawed place, yes, but it is also a remarkable place that behaves more humanely toward its enemies than any other nation I know of (the United States included).
• 
  By jer 3/13/09 at 1:44 p.m. UTC

  Deleted due to accidental double post, and my inability to figure out how to actually delete a comment.
• 
  By jer 3/13/09 at 1:37 p.m. UTC

  The claim that Jews in Arab lands had a weaker tie to the land that
  they were expelled from than Palestinian Arabs would be laughable

  Sorry for being unclear; I was responding to this: "how it was different from say, Arab massacres of Jews and similar efforts aimed at intimidating Jews from staying and remaining politically active in mandatory Palestine" from Isaac, so my comment was strictly about expulsions in what is now Israel or Palestine. Not that some of those Jews didn’t have long family histories there either, but I think it’s relatively safe to say that more of the Arabs expelled from their homes in mandatory Palestine were "indigenes" than Jews.

  If Jews unjustly expelled from Arab states were settled into Israel,
  then it is only natural that Arabs who fled/were expelled as a result
  of the war that they perpetrated against Israel should have been
  integrated into the Arab nations that initiated the war.

  First of all, the claim that all expelled Arabs were expelled "as a result of the war" needs backing up; many were forcibly removed before the war, or during the war but not incidentally due to nearby fighting – rather because they had been targeted for expulsion by Jewish forces. Further, as above, I’m not talking about Jews expelled from Arab states. I’m talking about Jews expelled from homes in Palestine. They were kicked off the land they’d lived on, but in many cases ended up with land not too far away. Even if Jordan and Egypt were to accept huge numbers of refugees in, those refugees would not be settled on their ancestral land. Israel has responsibility for their plight because it sits where their homes used to be. Not the other Arab states. The same goes for compensation. Those expelled Jews have not been living in refugee camps for generations, and have not languished without a state of their own. Obviously, their expulsion is still unconscionable, but to claim that the suffering of Jewish exiles from Arab states equals that of a group of people about half of whom are still refugees is slightly ridiculous. Yes, in a just world, everyone would be held accountable for everything. Alas, the best we tend to manage is half-hearted compensation for the most egregious of crimes, while everything else gets to slide. The two expulsions may be similar in kind, but they’re vastly different in degree.

  I hope I pressed stop in time, but if not, sorry if this comment gets double posted. I wanted to say though, that I don’t think I’ve ever excused the murderous, tyrannical behaviour of anyone. None of what I’ve said above qualifies as a defense of measures taken by the Arab states to get rid of Jews. I’m sure it’s the height of narcissism to quote oneself, but I did say this: "The fact that the Jews did it doesn’t justify that the Arabs did it,
  but the same is true vice-versa. The biggest similarity is that both
  types of expulsion were wrong.", and I stand by it. I’m making excuses for no one’s behaviour, you’re asking that I make excuses for Israel’s.
• 
  By rshams 3/13/09 at 10:06 a.m. UTC

  The claim that Jews in Arab lands had a weaker tie to the land that they were expelled from than Palestinian Arabs would be laughable, if it weren’t so wrong and offensive. The heritage of Jews from Arab lands include the Babylonian Talmud and Maimonides, whereas Palestinian Arab society before the Zionists began arriving in the 1880s was unorganized, without infrastructure, without an independent economy, etc. 

  Your argument comparing the consequences of Jewish and Arab expulsions also inadvertently proves your opponents’ points. If Jews unjustly expelled from Arab states were settled into Israel, then it is only natural that Arabs who fled/were expelled as a result of the war that they perpetrated against Israel should have been integrated into the Arab nations that initiated the war. The fact that those Arabs and their descendants have languished in refugee camps for decades is the fault of those nations – not Israel. And compensation? Where is the compensation for the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab states?

  If you want to excoriate Israel for not living up to your impossibly high standards, that is your choice. But at least make an attempt to not be so intellectually dishonest as to excuse the murderous, tyrannical behavior of the Arab states and the Palestinians in the process.
• 
  By jer 3/13/09 at 4:08 a.m. UTC

  Goldang but that’s a long comment. No wonder Jewcy thinks I’m spam. And I apologize for the fact that my copy-and-paste quotes never seem to format properly, even when I try and do it manually. Anyone know what’s up with that?
• 
  By jer 3/13/09 at 4:00 a.m. UTC

  So sad to see how easily you fall into Ismail’s trap of making the
  perfect the enemy of the good, Jer. However, you do seem to have going
  for you a better and more realistic working definition of what
  perfection would be.

  First of all, I don’t see why this is Ismail’s trap. Second of all, trust me, that’s not the issue here. It’s not that Israel hasn’t turned out to be a utopian paradise on Earth, it’s that its that it is in fact a far "worse" state than it has any reason to be. Basically, I don’t think Israel is quite at the level of "good" yet. 

  Anyone making the claim that expulsions occurred before a declaration
  of statehood, please cite examples of a specific incident and its
  date, along with an explanation of how it was different from say, Arab
  massacres of Jews and similar efforts aimed at intimidating Jews from
  staying and remaining politically active in mandatory Palestine. As a
  corollary explain also, if you would, why November 29, 1947 shouldn’t
  be seen as the date in which Israeli statehood was inevitable

  Wikipedia. Money quote: "By May 1, 1948, two weeks before the Israeli Declaration of Independence, nearly 175,000 Palestinians (appoximately 25%) had already fled." More quote goodness: "In this sense, Glazer
  quotes the testimony of Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator in Palestine,
  who reported that "the exodus of the Palestinian Arabs resulted from
  panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning
  real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. Almost the whole of
  the Arab population fled or was expelled from the area under Jewish
  occupation.""

  Further: Plan Dalet. Not-quite-as-money-quote as the previous quote: "Within the framework of the establishment of Jewish territorial continuity foreseen by Plan Dalet, the forces of Haganah, Palmach and Irgun intended to conquer mixed zones. Palestinian society was shaken. Tiberias, Haifa, Safed, Beisan, Jaffa and Acre fell, resulting in the flight of more than 250,000 Palestinians."

  In the interest of both further making my point, and also answering your corollary, this is why Israeli independence wasn’t inevitable as early as 1947. If Israel had lost the independence war, there would pretty obviously be no Israel, much less an independent Israel. And that’s why even the expulsions that took place during the war can still be considered as having occured "in order to" establish the state; if the Israeli army had not managed to take Tiberias, Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, etc., etc., etc…plus all the contiguous territory and small villages and the like connecting them, winning the war might have been impossible. I’m not enough of a military historian to argue for sure that this is the case (read: I’m not a military historian at all), but it seems pretty reasonable that without having driven the Arabs from the cities that were to become the main centres of Israeli society, there might not be an Israeli society.

  As to the difference between these events and Arab explusions of Jews, I’d say that they probably weren’t wildly different. I do think some consideration has to be given to the fact that the expelled Arabs likely had longer ancestral ties to the land they’d been kicked off of, but that’s not a wildly important point. The fact that the Jews did it doesn’t justify that the Arabs did it, but the same is true vice-versa. The biggest similarity is that both types of expulsion were wrong. However, I imagine (I admit I don’t have the facts at hand) that most of those expelled Jews have since been settled in Israel, whereas still large numbers of those expelled Arabs ended up in refugee camps, or abroad, where their descendents remain to this day. More pressing than the fact that the expulsions occurred is that the victims have still not received anything approaching justice for them, and many victims are still actively suffering because of them. 

  The level of confusion here between opinion and fact,
  as if the two concepts were not distinct and at least somewhat
  different and contradictory (can you at least draw a contrast between
  them? Is that even possible?), is ridiculous and reveals a stunning
  level of intellectual immaturity. Of course, that rudimentary
  observation might pose a bit of a challenge to someone who doesn’t
  understand why it is much more useful to declare a raving anti-semite
  such as Thors Provoni a nutjob and leave his opinions alone, as it
  might be to someone who saw my pronouncement of his statement as
  "uninteresting" as some kind of a challenge to it in an intellectual
  sense.

  Okay, fine, Provoni is pretending to have facts, and I guess your "Arabian bravado" thing isn’t properly an opinion, but that’s hardly the point. If Provoni had made essentially the same point, but phrasing it as an out-and-out opinion, it’d still be a bad opinion. Whether or not my example of Provoni’s comments was a good one, there are still definitely bad opinions. The corollary of his "facts" – that Jews should be held responsible for all sorts of bad things that have happened in the world – is an opinion, and it’s still shite. There are bad opinions. There are statements that can be dismissed more or less out-of-hand. This seems to me unobjectionable.

  And just to the be kind of "dick" that some of you seem so fond of
  acting like, I’ve gotta love the statement by Ismail regarding my
  "fascist" observation of the relationship between maturity and the
  exercise of responsibility.

  I don’t know that it’s necessarily "fascist", but the view that people have to meet some level of responsibility (decided by others, natch) before they can have any self-determination is a pretty authoritarian one. Certainly anti-democratic. I mean, if I think that the Jews in Israel are acting immaturely, does that negate the right to Jewish self-determination? I’d say no; people have the right to make decisions, even bad ones.

  Nor was it required to renounce its existence, despite the fact that
  the Allies wouldn’t have had to remake it were it not for the actions
  of its latest iteration as a state (i.e. The Third Reich) that
  accompanied deeds far more evil than anything Ismail could ever hope to
  ascribe to those which he believes formed the basis for Israel’s founding.  

  As a caveat before I get into this, I want to say that I still hold out hope that Israel will not have to renounce its existence. All I want is an extreme makeover. That said, the key difference between Germany and Israel is in this phrase: "formed the basis for Israel’s
  founding." Whatever you want to say about the Nazis, it has to be admitted that the German state preceded their atrocities, and so the "right to exist" of Germany was not compromised in the same way that Israel’s (arguably) has been, since there was already a model of how a non-Nazi-atrocity-committing Germany might function as a state. Now, the counter to this of course is that most countries have equally bloody foundations as Israel, but those foundations were laid way back before people cared about that sort of thing. And it is a fair point. Which is why I don’t think the idea of a Jewish state is irredeemably compromised. But whether it’s fair or not, Israel was founded after we started being a bit more conscious about ethnic-cleansing and the like, and Israel will always have a problem with legitimacy until justice has been done. 

  I would have done neither had he not pretended to have been so offended
  by the term "bravado" in reference to Arabs. No inconsistency. Just
  holding him to his own standard. 

  I think I’ve made this point before, but the "fetish" remark was not the first time you’ve accused Ismail of harbouring anti-Jewish bias; it’s a far more plausible reading that he was giving you a taste of your medicine, rather than the other way around. 

  "Willfully" is an adverb and can therefore modify the adjective
  "craven" which appears immediately after it, not just "manipulative".
  Stop rushing to judgments.

  Yeah, I know "craven" is the only thing being modified by "willfully"; my point is that "willfully" implies that it’s…you know, willed. Intentional. His cravenness is not accidental, or the result of unthinking instinct. This contradicts your statement that "He just unwittingly crosses a line". If it’s unwitting, it’s not willful. That was my point. Your attempt to clear up this inconsistency is fine enough. I disagree with your judgement, but at least it’s coherent. But before that clarification, your statements had been contradictory. Anyway, it might just be me, but I feel it’s probably bad internet etiquette to discuss Ismail’s writing and the motivation thereof right here on a public forum, so I’m done with this. You think he’s either lying or being pigheaded, I disagree – c’est la vie. 

  Someone who would proclaim something so inane as a defense of "having
  strong opinions about whose truth one feels confident" obviously has a
  different understanding of truth than those of us who consciously
  prefer to derive it from objective fact and analysis.

  Oh, come on. It’s entirely possible to be confident in the truth of your opinions because they’re derived from objective fact and analysis.

  If something is accepted as a fact, there is no reason to proclaim
  one’s confidence in it or in sound conclusions derived from it. And
  there is strong reason to differentiate such things from "opinions".

  Well, there’s the rub: the difference between fact and opinion is not always hard and fast. I mean, Thors Provoni accepts certain "facts" that you and I would be more, uh, hesitant about. Consider our argument above, about whether Israel was established in part through ethnic cleansing. Ismail thinks it’s a fact, Max Socol and I (apologies to him if I’m misreading his views, but that’s the impression I get) think it’s an opinion but heavily based on fact, and you probably think it’s pure unfounded opinion. The "if something is accepted as a fact" criterion ignores the pressing questions of who accepts it as a fact, and based on what evidence. Hence, to express one’s confidence in it really means to express one’s confidence that it is indeed a fact, and not just a well-supported opinion. This philosophy of knowledge is not unique to Ismail. 

   

  And, finally, apologies, but due to distressing laziness on my part, some work that I should have done today didn’t get done, so my blog post probably won’t come ’till tomorrow. 
• 
  By Ismail 3/12/09 at 10:42 p.m. UTC

  deleted for reasons of charity
• 
  By Isaac 3/12/09 at 8:50 p.m. UTC

  And Jer, feel free to conduct all the back-slapping (or more ventrally oriented, mutal actions) with Ismail that you want. The reality is that in response to your chrysalis analogy, the only thing that Ismail might envisage is a slug. You do realize that despite his willingness to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, even the latter wasn’t forced to change its demography and open its borders to all (or just to certain, agitating) takers – even after being remade in the image of the Allies who defeated it, don’t you? (I don’t know, perhaps the Allies weren’t comparitively liberal enough for you and Ismail in this regard). Nor was it required to renounce its existence, despite the fact that the Allies wouldn’t have had to remake it were it not for the actions of its latest iteration as a state (i.e. The Third Reich) that accompanied deeds far more evil than anything Ismail could ever hope to ascribe to those which he believes formed the basis for Israel’s founding. 

  And take note of numbnuts’ profession of "absolute convergence with (Maher’s) views". This would come as a big shock to Maher, given the fact that the majority of Ismail’s 166 registered comments (so far) on this site and his googleplex of unregistered comments that preceded them were devoted to announcing that one country out of all the others has no right to exist, and of hurling copious amounts of unhinged invective and other intellectual sludge in hopes of somehow convincing others of the soundness this view. If Ismail needs me to dig up quotes to prove Maher’s pro-Israel bona fides, I’d be happy to do so. Perhaps Ismail meant to refer to his absolute convergence with (Maher’s) view – i.e. regarding Catholicism and nothing else. But if that was the case then he might want to do a better job of coherently speaking and writing in English.

  As long as we are at it…

  A while back, you stated that I would have taken him to task for using either the terms "fetish" (in relation to embracing dispute) or "neuroticism" in reference to Jews. I would have done neither had he not pretended to have been so offended by the term "bravado" in reference to Arabs. No inconsistency. Just holding him to his own standard. 

  You also took issue with something I said by stating this:

  A "a willfully craven and manipulative calumniator" is not someone who
  does something unwittingly; even if the "willfully" weren’t there,
  manipulation and calumny both imply intent and understanding.

  It’s a clumsy construction, but sound. "Willfully" is an adverb and can therefore modify the adjective "craven" which appears immediately after it, not just "manipulative". Stop rushing to judgments. 

  And just to clarify the point, there are some things that Ismail does wittingly and there are some things that Ismail does unwittingly. Assuming that no one has perfect knowledge (although apparently, according to you guys, there are such people as those who hold to a nonsensical standard of having perfect opinions) this idea can and does apply to pretty much everybody in the known world. Things about which he knows he usually does treat in a manipulative way – especially if the subject matter is political in nature. Things about which he doesn’t know he will usually shut up about after having been rebuked on them, if the rebuking is done by someone whose writing he respects, such as Michael Weiss.

  Although I think it’s fair to say that Ismail’s approach is so slippery that, in him, it is usually more difficult to discern the line between what he is truly ignorant of and what he is just trying to speak about in a deceptive and manipulative way than it is in most people. But it’s possible that’s got something to do with his theory of knowledge. Someone who would proclaim something so inane as a defense of "having strong opinions about whose truth one feels confident" obviously has a different understanding of truth than those of us who consciously prefer to derive it from objective fact and analysis. If something is accepted as a fact, there is no reason to proclaim one’s confidence in it or in sound conclusions derived from it. And there is strong reason to differentiate such things from "opinions". But perhaps Ismail doesn’t have the luxury of being able to feel confident about such things. Perhaps he is very good at articulating that he very well may live in a near-constant state of fantasy after all. Even if he is too stupid to realize that’s what he just did. 
• 
  By Isaac 3/12/09 at 7:36 p.m. UTC

  So sad to see how easily you fall into Ismail’s trap of making the perfect the enemy of the good, Jer. However, you do seem to have going for you a better and more realistic working definition of what perfection would be.

  Anyone making the claim that expulsions occurred before a declaration of statehood, please cite examples of a specific incident and its date, along with an explanation of how it was different from say, Arab massacres of Jews and similar efforts aimed at intimidating Jews from staying and remaining politically active in mandatory Palestine. As a corollary explain also, if you would, why November 29, 1947 shouldn’t be seen as the date in which Israeli statehood was inevitable – given the fact that that’s when the U.N. decreed it even if Israel itself did not until 7 months later.

  The level of confusion here between opinion and fact, as if the two concepts were not distinct and at least somewhat different and contradictory (can you at least draw a contrast between them? Is that even possible?), is ridiculous and reveals a stunning level of intellectual immaturity. Of course, that rudimentary observation might pose a bit of a challenge to someone who doesn’t understand why it is much more useful to declare a raving anti-semite such as Thors Provoni a nutjob and leave his opinions alone, as it might be to someone who saw my pronouncement of his statement as "uninteresting" as some kind of a challenge to it in an intellectual sense. But the latter has a reputation that Bill Maher, an entertaining and intelligent man whose views could be safely classified as "pro-Israel", would have the good sense to not go anywhere near – even with a ten-foot pole. Perhaps that has something to do with Maher’s understanding of the difference between entertainment and information, or for that matter, between opinion and fact.

  And just to the be kind of "dick" that some of you seem so fond of acting like, I’ve gotta love the statement by Ismail regarding my "fascist" observation of the relationship between maturity and the exercise of responsibility. I guess that explains why he doesn’t see his own child-like social behavior as discrediting (or at least mitigating) his claim to any realistic and morally compelling political views.
• 
  By Ismail 3/12/09 at 10:23 a.m. UTC

  jer-

  "Having done the Jewish school-system thing, and having been raised on a steady diet of pro-Israel material, it’s still a little difficult for me to face the fact that the Israel of real life has failed pretty spectacularly to live up to the ideal version preached to me in my schooldays. As such, I still have a deep-down desire to see Israel burst from its chrysalis a beautiful secular state butterfly, with justice and guaranteed rights for all! hurray! while you probably are happy just to point out that, well, you’re looking real hard and you still can’t see anything other than a caterpillar. Basically, I still keenly feel what I think of as the failed promise of Israel, and that probably colours my comments. "

  First, I congratulate you on transcending your early indoctrination and approaching Mideast issues analytically and soberly despite the emotional pulls you feel. As has been revealed here, I am a former Catholic and, unnervingly, still feel a little bristly when, e.g., Bill Maher tears into the Virgin Mary (that didn’t sound right, did it?) or similar fictional personage, this despite my absolute convergence with  his views. So I understand the stubborn allure of those fictions to which we were exposed when critically helpless.

  From my perspective, the only way to make sense of the "failed promise of Israel" or the "ideal version" of Israeli history is to understand those notions in a form so abstract as to be meaningless. That is, it may be that some Israel, established in some place, at some time, via some means, may have been a fine idea, but that when we look at the actual circumstances, "failed promise" doesn’t cut it.

   
• 
  By Max Socol 3/12/09 at 5:31 a.m. UTC

  Isaac, ethnic cleansing of local Palestinian populations did begin before Israel’s declaration of statehood.  Not long before, and depending on your view of history I suppose you could see the expulsion as being part of the establishment of the state in a way, but nonetheless it did come first.
• 
  By jer 3/12/09 at 1:53 a.m. UTC

  And, what the hey, before I go to bed, some remarks. You know, in the interest of not abandoning this thread.

  Do yourself a favor and look up the phrase "in order to". Israel
  declared its statehood, thereby establishing its existence, before any
  "indigenes" were either expelled or fled in the wake of the war their
  co-nationalists declared on it.

  Again, this is gonna be one of those arguments that depends on how you define your terms, but I think there’s at least a strong argument that Israel’s declaration of statehood was not enough to establish its existence. I mean, plenty of countries have declared themselves independent, but that doesn’t always translate into actual recognition. Hell, even Palestine has declared as a country. I don’t have any particular opinion about whether Israel’s ethnic cleansing was properly "in order to" establish the state, or merely occurred around the same time, but it certainly did occur, and there’s a fair argument that the state thus declared would not have been established in any meaningful sense had not majority Jewish areas already been cleared.

  Oh, and by the way, Thors Provoni is a nutjob. Isn’t that judgment at
  least as useful as saying that what he posts is "bad"? Personally, I
  think so. 
  (Sorry, I’m drawing from posts all over the place; it’s too late to organize this properly)

  Well sure, but that’s the point: saying someone’s opinion is "nuts" can be totally valid, so long as what the person is saying is indeed nuts. Ditto for saying something is a "shitty" or "bad" thing to say. Not ALL statements or opinions can be dismissed so easily, but certainly some can.

  And, just to be a dick:

  it would be easy enough to refute your slanderous and opinionated garbage

  vs.

  And second of all, I’m not really in the business of evaluating opinions (that’s Ismail’s speciality), least of all, opinions so trite and simple-minded as "bad" or "good". 

   And, to Ismail:

  And I admire your fairness in parsing my comments despite what I
  suspect is a significant difference in our overall assessment of
  Israel. 

  Well, thanks. It’d be hard to say how much our assessments do in fact disagree, since I haven’t really formulated a coherent judgement, and what I know of yours has been gleaned piece-by-piece from blog comments, which is generally not considered to be the best way to gain an understanding of another person’s views. I think though, that most of our disagreement is on an emotional level. Having done the Jewish school-system thing, and having been raised on a steady diet of pro-Israel material, it’s still a little difficult for me to face the fact that the Israel of real life has failed pretty spectacularly to live up to the ideal version preached to me in my schooldays. As such, I still have a deep-down desire to see Israel burst from its chrysalis a beautiful secular state butterfly, with justice and guaranteed rights for all! hurray! while you probably are happy just to point out that, well, you’re looking real hard and you still can’t see anything other than a caterpillar. Basically, I still keenly feel what I think of as the failed promise of Israel, and that probably colours my comments. 
• 
  By jer 3/12/09 at 1:17 a.m. UTC

  Well, I kinda like the discussion going on here too, so I will probably not abandon this thread. But if you want to talk about the "racism" thing separately, I guess I can write up a blog post that more cogently summarizes what I’m trying to say, what so’s it’s not all divvied up between different pages, and then we can have at it there. That will probably have to wait until tomorrow night though.
• 
  By Ismail 3/11/09 at 6:48 p.m. UTC

  "Israel declared its statehood, thereby establishing its existence, before any "indigenes" were either expelled or fled in the wake of the war their co-nationalists declared on it."

  1. Why is indigenes in quotes? 

  2. In actual fact, the Irgun and similar pre-state terrorists and militias were quite busy exterminating and expelling the indigenes before Israel declared its statehood.

  "And it will continue to do so until the indigenes start behaving responsibly."

  Thanks for so honestly expressing the sort of fascist sentiment that animates the right-zionist heart.

  "Point 3 was uninteresting other than as an example of your need to preen so shamelessly as to assume that anyone was impressed by your use of a word like "metastasizing" in a political context."

  You would benefit greatly from re-reading what you purport to challenge. Point 3 had to do with very specific issues-Israeli expansionism and racism. You declined to address the very specifics you repeatedly insist I provide, and instead ignored the point entirely, confusing my point 3 with my closing remark. And most of us don’t regard "metastasizing" with such awe, though I appreciate that to an invertebrate, it might be considered out there at the frontier of lexical complexity. 

  "…it’s good that I might be exculpated by even such a low-life as yourself of actually being stupid in exchange for what is a lesser charge." 

  You’re right, and I stand corrected. The issue is not that you might look stupid. It is that you most certainly are stupid. 

    

   
• 
  By Isaac 3/11/09 at 6:04 p.m. UTC

  Oh wow, Ismail. You can call me stupid! What an impressive act. Actually, you cautioned me against "look(ing) stupid," which is good for two reasons. Because even though your opinion is worthless, it’s good that I might be exculpated by such a low-life as yourself of actually being stupid in exchange for being accused of what is a lesser charge. And second, it’s good to know that you care about how I come across, given how much more important appearances and reputations are to you than are actual realities.

  Ahem.

  "1. Israel expelled the indigenes in order to establish itself as a state."

  Do yourself a favor and look up the phrase "in order to". Israel declared its statehood, thereby establishing its existence, before any "indigenes" were either expelled or fled in the wake of the war their co-nationalists declared on it. I know that time is a difficult concept for some people, but do request that your next word-for-the-day calendar has words like "before" and "after" in it. It will help you tremendously.

  "2. Israel has occupied the remaining parts of mandatory Palestine for two-thirds of its existence."

  And it will continue to do so until the indigenes start behaving responsibly.

  Point 3 was uninteresting other than as an example of your need to preen so shamelessly as to assume that anyone would be impressed by your use of a word like "metastasizing" in a political context.

  Now can’t you go away and play mental masturbation games with someone more on your level? Jer and I have a real discussion to engage. For someone who throws around words like "stalker" on a message board, you really don’t practice what you preach. But that’s because you’re a thoughtless and wildly tendentious hypocrite with nothing interesting to say. And you’re a bore!
• 
  By Isaac 3/11/09 at 6:01 p.m. UTC

  I know I promised you a response, Jer. But I’m finding Ismail’s uncivil diversionary tactics and intellectual dishonesty on this thread to be quite distracting. If you like, I could summarize your last comment in a user blog post that gives some background to the discussion, and we could continue talking about it there. Let me know if you wouldn’t mind doing that – either here or in an e-mail. Thanks.
• 
  By andrew r 3/11/09 at 5:35 p.m. UTC

  "There’s no question that the Jews were in Israel before the Muslims,
  and also no question that the Muslims made life difficult for Jews and
  Christians."

  There’s no question that Judaism existed in the holy land before Islam and Christianity. But that does not apply to the actual people. There were Arabic tribes in Palestine before the Islamic conquest. The people called Palestinians today were not installed as settlers from Arabia. No one really knows when they physically entered Palestine. I don’t believe it’s even possible to know, because movement through the holy land has been fluid since recorded history. So for all intents and purposes, the Palestinians may as well have been there as long as Judaism itself. And those who had to be expelled so Israel could have a Jewish ethnic majority are banned from their homeland because of their race.

  What is clear is that today’s Palestinians know their ancestors came from Palestine. Yet the state of Israel gives some one like me, whose ancestors came from Eastern Europe, to live in their land.

  "Ah. The Arabs missed a few Jews when they launched their expulsion project."

  Not the point. Expelling all Jews isn’t the policy of the Arab League states. Some of them explicitly permit Jews to return (Lebanon has many Jewish citizens abroad). In fact, Syria had to be tugged to let most of its last few thousand Jews go in the nineties. It wasn’t going to let them flee. Israel permits no one to return.

  "Israel is a democracy, with Arab citizens who vote and serve in the
  parliament. Arabs retain control of their holy places in Israel, and
  enjoy a freedom which they don’t have in countries run by their
  co-religionists."

  Israel has stripped millions of people of their citizenship so it could have a Jewish majority, confiscated refugee property en masse, there’s sizable public support for expelling more of its Arab citizens, and Israel’s land confiscation policies are practiced against Bedouin in the Negev. According to Uri Davis, 93% of the surface area in Israel is closed to usage by Arabs. It allows Arabs to serve in the Knesset if they accept Israel as a Jewish state, and they don’t have the power to oppose racist legislation. And look at the recent attempt to ban Balad and Ta’al. Arabs are only permitted to visit Jerusalem if they live there. Are you from Bethlehem, Ramallah, or Gaza? Sorry, no Jerusalem for you.

  http://www.uridavis.info/jewish_national_fund_apartheid_israel.htm

  As bad as Saudi Arabia is, it doesn’t declare this patch of land as "not Saudi Arabia", blockade it from all sides, bodies of water included, and repeatedly bomb and invade it.

  "Yeah, they probably just focus on Arab official policy, as opposed to
  the fact that a minority of Arabs managed to conduct themselves as
  humans. Go figure."

  The Brits were in charge of Palestine then, not any Arab officials.

  " Yeah, the idea that the Jews, like the Arabs or the Serbs or the
  Italians or anybody else could have a small hunk of their ancestral
  homeland for themselves certainly needs to be defeated. God forbid the
  Jews should ever exist as anything but an oppressed minority."

  But "the Jews" don’t have it for themselves, do they. Half the inhabitants of the land claimed by Israel are not Jewish, and they’re treated by the state as if they have no right to live there. And Zionism wouldn’t be justified even if Jews were oppressed every where else. Zionism has sold itself as the solution, but it only replaces one form of oppression with another. And it has been oppressive to a lesser extent against Jews.
• 
  By Morganfrost 3/11/09 at 2:27 p.m. UTC

  "First of all, no one is obligated to accept a state that bans them from their ancestral homeland because of their race."

   Precisely why the Palestinians have no right to an independent country.  They’re on Jewish ancestral land, never had a country of their own, and do not, in fact, constitute an independent nation– indeed, those who later became Palestinian leaders originally claimed that "Palestine" was nothing more than greater Syria.  Moreover, the Arabs who now consider themselves "Palestinians" are, in many cases, descended from people who came from Egypt or other Arab countries to take advantage of the economic situation created by Zionist settlers.  The whole concept of a Palestinian identity is a relatively recent one.  There’s no question that the Jews were in Israel before the Muslims, and also no question that the Muslims made life difficult for Jews and Christians.

  "The banishment of Arab Jews isn’t total."

   Ah.  The Arabs missed a few Jews when they launched their expulsion project.  Gee, that makes it better!  Sorry, dude– your argument stinks.  If the Muslims decide that the Jews of Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, etc. are not allowed to remain in their "ancestral" homes (nor keep any of their property), that must be a de facto recognition that those Jews had somewhere else to go (not that anyone cared).  You can’t have it both ways.

  "Your logic boils down to ‘everyone does’ it, which is bollocks."

  No, my logic boils down to "Israel is entitled to exist as a sovereign state on its territory."  The Muslims got 99% of the Middle East, and could have had an independent Palestine, as well.  They refused, on multiple occasions, because they wouldn’t accept the idea that Jews could also have their own country.  In other words, the Arabs will not exist side-by-side wtih Jews unless the Jews agree to live as a subject population.  Would you sign on to that deal?

  "And besides, Saudi Arabia, repugnant as it is, does not perpetually threaten its own people with war and expulsion."

  Is that a joke?  Saudi Arabia exists exclusively by virtue of the oppression of its own people (and the payment of protection money to Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations).  It has no freedom of any kind, and does not allow Christian worship– or even Jewish visitors.  Israel is a democracy, with Arab citizens who vote and serve in the parliament.  Arabs retain control of their holy places in Israel, and enjoy a freedom which they don’t have in countries run by their co-religionists.

  "Whenever some one brings up the Hebron massacre, they don’t mention two things: many Arabs protected Jews during the riot, and the Zionist movement was always working towards removing the indigenous population. In fact, read this and marvel at what the Israeli army thinks of Arabs who helped Jews in 1929. Not much."

  Yeah, they probably just focus on Arab official policy, as opposed to the fact that a minority of Arabs managed to conduct themselves as humans.  Go figure.

  "The long and short of it is, Zionism is an ideology that must be defeated on its own terms, and is in no way conductive to any progressive cause in the Middle East."

   Yeah, the idea that the Jews, like the Arabs or the Serbs or the Italians or anybody else could have a small hunk of their ancestral homeland for themselves certainly needs to be defeated.  God forbid the Jews should ever exist as anything but an oppressed minority.

  You’re an imbecile, Andrew, or a bigot.  Probably both, so go find somewhere else to shriek your hate.
• 
  By Ismail 3/11/09 at 2:20 p.m. UTC

  "…it would be easy enough to refute your slanderous and opinionated garbage regarding Israel …"

  Slander requires that the speaker both knowingly utters a false claim and means to harm someone’s reputation by doing so. I’m happy to depict Israel accurately, which necessarily makes that usurping entity look bad, so I guess you’ve got me on the reputation part. Regarding falsity, I made three specific claims in my most recent effort to drag you, kicking and screaming, into the realm of sanity, to wit;

  1. Israel expelled the indigenes in order to establish itself as a state.

  2. Israel has occupied the remaining parts of mandatory Palestine for two-thirds of its existence.

  3. Israel continues its metastasizing expansion and embraces racist policies.

  Regarding 1, such worthies as Arno Mayer and Benny Morris, along with the usual self-hating suspects (Finkelstein, Chomsky, Halper, Pappe et al) not to mention Massad, Khalidi, Makdisi, Qumsiyeh-crazed desert brigands all, right?- endorse my reading. On your side, we have….Joan Peters and her issue ( Chesler, Dersh, the Frontpage crowd). In fact, there are hardly any serious scholars of the region who believe that Israel could have been established without significant ethnic cleansing.

  Regarding 2, if you’ve picked up a newspaper since 1967, you will have noticed that small matter of the occupation. Unless you are "all eretz Israel, all the time", you must acknowledge this.

  Re 3, do you deny that Israel continues to chip away at what remains of the OPT? And are state policies racist which treat citizens differently regarding where they may go and who they can marry depending on whether they are Jews or not? (hint: yes, they are).

  So much for slander. Opinionated? Well, if you mean "having strong opinions about whose truth one feels confident", you bet your tuchas I am.

  As for garbage, well, that’s your opinion. Or is it you being opinionated?

  That specific enough for you?

  Oh, by the way, re "…equivocation and other verbal fallacies…", equivocation is not strictly speaking a fallacy, nor do I equivocate; although I have powers far beyond those of mortal men, even I haven’t figured out how to be both opinionated and equivocal. Make up your mind about which vices you want to attribute to me (hint 2: lay off accusing me of logically incompatible ones-makes you look stupid). 

   

   

   

   

   
• 
  By Isaac 3/11/09 at 1:20 p.m. UTC

  Ismail, I know this is all a game to you, and it would be easy enough to refute your slanderous and opinionated garbage regarding Israel (as always). But my explanation of how your unfair and propagandistic biases poison productive debate and social discourse has already been layed out in great detail above. If you are still confused, be civilized enough to quote a specific one of any number of those many details, and I will help you out. But be a lazy jerk-off and ask for others to do your homework for you on your own time and on your own thread.

  And of course, I won’t play your game of confusing two different meanings for one thing. Your attempts at equivocation and other verbal fallacies are as transparent as they are lame.
• 
  By Ismail 3/11/09 at 12:02 p.m. UTC

  Kind of a hoot to find myself explained by my favorite stalker Isaac. I feel as obsessed-over as a Jonas brother. Let’s have a look at some particulars, shall we?

  "Technically he’s Catholic."

  Why "technically"? To be precise, I was raised Catholic but have not practiced for decades, having no belief in the Catholic canon. And Catholicism is not a quality like, say, maleness or right-handedness, which endures whether or not the owner likes it. If I renounce Catholicism, I am not a Catholic. So your 3 word sentence is wrong on several counts-"technically" means nothing in this context, the present tense of the verb is incorrect since I do not profess Catholicism at the moment, and "Catholic" is wrong because…well, you get the idea.

  This may be a record for getting so many things wrong in so few words.

   "…as best as anyone can tell, he’s a secular, socialist-leaning (i.e. "New Left") liberal who is afraid of what Muslim fanatics will do to him, his family, or his lifestyle if either he or Israel causes them too much offense "

  Here we may enjoy another instance of this poor fellow’s projective fantasies. As I’ve pointed out before, nothing delights our friend more than inventing opinions which I have the good sense not to hold and then decisively rebutting them. Amusing, in an insane way.

  "..his thinly-veiled advocacy…"

  Rats. I’ve been exposed. I thought my advocacy was thickly-veiled, but Isaac’s seen right through my clumsy efforts to disguise my beliefs. Now all will know of my support for the Palestinians and my profound dislike of Israeli policies. And I thought I was being so careful…

  collie:

  "You are aware that this [idea that Jewish statehood is wrong] is uncomfortably close to the opinion of an increasing segment of the Palestinian public, aren’t you?"

  I wonder why. Israel was established via a mass expulsion of the indigenes of Palestine. For two-thirds of its existence, Israel has occupied the remaining Palestinian lands. It continues its relentless expansion and filthy racist policies as we speak. You’re alarmed that more and more Palestinians are feeling pessimistic about getting along with Israel; I’m flabbergasted that there are any at all who still are open to reconciliation. This speaks to their charitable and forgiving nature, I guess.

  jer

  I thank you for your patient attempt to convey to Isaac the altogether homely truism that "racism" has acquired a consensually accepted meaning beyond the strictest dictionary definition. Too bad that he obstinately refuses to accept the obvious. And I admire your fairness in parsing my comments despite what I suspect is a significant difference in our overall assessment of Israel. 

  Isaac-

  "I don’t think racism applies to any of what has been said here or on Jewcy by …Ismail " 

  Is this a sea change in your opinion? Or do you think I can be antisemitic but not racist? Or are you saying that nothing I’ve overtly said has been racist, but you’re holding on to your homecooked notions that I may be motivated by unconscious or disavowed racist sentiments? ‘Fess up.  

   
• 
  By Isaac 3/11/09 at 9:15 a.m. UTC

  Jer, you’ve written a whole lot here that calls for more attention to the level of detail that you (defensibly) believe I was the first one to raise. And because it does a good job and calls for response, I’ll do my best to do it justice and get into it in good time (probably later today). But the economy being what it is, I want to pay more attention to other matters this morning first – and just leave with you for the moment with the reminder that my point is that intolerance as a social phenomenon is worth addressing exhaustively, but that we do ourselves a dis-service when we politicize it too much with simplified labels, condemnations made too quickly and easy judgments that should go beyond those as opinionated as "bad" or "shitty". To the degree that you think I’ve done what I’ve accused Ismail of, I’ll respond.

  But in the meantime, I don’t think racism applies to any of what has been said here or on Jewcy by either myself or Ismail (or you) and I would urge us to make better use of more appropriate labels at least insofar as we are describing the actual dialogue taking place. Thanks.

  Oh, and by the way, Thors Provoni is a nutjob. Isn’t that judgment at least as useful as saying that what he posts is "bad"? Personally, I think so.
• 
  By jer 3/11/09 at 4:15 a.m. UTC

  And I say it’s important to any discussion in which such words are used.

  Agree to disagree then, I guess, but I still think this is an incredibly silly position. "That’s racist" is an extremely convenient shorthand way of expressing a whole bunch of related ideas; I find it very hard to believe that you would object to someone characterizing a remark like "Mexicans are lazy" as racist. Maybe you would, and I guess I admire your consistency, but I still think it’s ridiculous.

  I just figure that in going to actual definitions derived from
  etymology, history and context, that I am holding him to his own
  standard, rather than one resting on such vulgar (in the Latin sense of
  the word), bullshit, propagandized standards as "this is what we mean", whoever the hell "we" are. 

  See…the problem is that etymology, history, and context can all conflict. For example, the context in this case makes it pretty clear what was meant by "racist", even though you’d object that etymologically it’s not an appropriate word. Anyway, just for shits ‘n giggles, I looked up racist in the OED. Here’s what we get:

  "An advocate or supporter of racism; a person whose words or actions
  display racial prejudice or discrimination. Also in extended use: a
  person who is prejudiced against people of other nationalities." The second illustrative quotation is "Classic German racists..ascribed all achievements beyond the Alps to infiltrations of northern blood", from 1940. Unless you think that "northern" is a separate race, we see that already in 1940 "racist" did not strictly refer to discrimination based on "race". The first quotation, from 1927, isn’t clear enough to tell the context. The earlier word "racialist" is illustrated by the following quotation, from 1924: "The censor, an anti-Semite, declared this part of the picture
  pro-jewish propaganda and said it could not be permitted in a Christian
  ‘racialist’ country". Again, unless Jews are now a "race" (and they may have been considered such in 1924, but that only illustrates how difficult it is to tell when a distinction is being made based on "race", as compared to ethnicity and nationality, when those notions are so fluid), words etymologically based off the word "race" can be used to where you would prefer "bigotry", or whatever. So context and history are on the side of Ismail’s usage. Etymology is a bit muddier; "race" generally means "group of people connected by common descent" (a definition that Arabs certainly satisfy), and the word either comes from the Latin "generatio" (i.e. descendents) or "ratio", presumably because the descendents are some "proportion" of the original stock, or something. So two, and maybe three of your criteria actually come down squarely on my side here. Race is a messy complicated word, and it’s useful to sort out all its meanings. But that doesn’t mean that anything but the most precise possible use of the term is wrong.

  And second of all, I’m not really in the business of evaluating
  opinions (that’s Ismail’s speciality), least of all, opinions so trite
  and simple-minded as "bad" or "good". 
  

  Oh, come now. My opinion is that Thors Provoni’s comment about how Jews are responsible for every atrocity commited in the last 100 years is bad. This is now simple-minded? I agree that classifying everything as "good" or "bad" is a simplistic tactic in general, but you really think there’s more to the "Arabian bravado" mark than that either it was a stupid, stereotyping thing to say, or it wasn’t? You really see shades of grey and deep complexity there? Please do enlighten me as to what depths I have yet to plumb in this statement that I have so reductively dismissed as "bad".

  I didn’t get mad. I held him to his own damn standard.   

  Again, without wanting to speak for Ismail here, it’s a standard that you’ve held him to pretty much constantly the whole time you’ve been arguing with him. His accusation against you was him holding you to your standard. 

  And regardless, it’s still inconsistent: either you held him to his own standard for the "fetish" remark, but wouldn’t have for the "neuroticism" remark, which is inconsistent, or you would have held him to "his" standard for both remarks, in which case I’m right and you wouldn’t have let the neuroticism remark slide.

  I don’t think he seethes with Jew hatred. He just unwittingly crosses a
  line. Often. Which is what unchecked people with burning
  passions usually do.   
  

  A "a willfully craven and manipulative calumniator" is not someone who does something unwittingly; even if the "willfully" weren’t there, manipulation and calumny both imply intent and understanding.

  I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. But it doesn’t sound
  like an illuminating addition to anything we’ve gone over so far.

  Aight, moving on then.

  I don’t accuse him of anything conscious. I don’t believe I ever had. I
  accuse him of being blithe with other legitimate concerns. Since you’re
  making such a stink of it, though,  why don’t you go and find me the
  academic opinion which proclaims that only conscious group, ethnic or religious biases are problematic? I doubt you’ll find one. 

  See above. Also, of course it’s problematic if you’re a racist but you don’t really know it; the point is, Ismail has not only given no evidence that he thinks he’s a racist, he’s given no evidence that he is a racist. You can be a racist without knowing; you can’t be a racist without ever doing racist things.

  I’d say he’s in greater danger of engaging socially destructive
  attitudes and historically problematic rhetoric against Jews than I am
  against Arabs. It’s honestly not a scathing indictment, just one that
  warrants his (and apparently your) attention at least as much as he
  pretended to believe that his calling me out warranted mine.
  

  Again, I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. I think neither of you is in any reasonable danger of spewing problematic rhetoric against anyone. I just find it curious that rather than address his claim that, hey, "Arabian bravado" is a shitty thing to say, you went on a bizarre tangent about what it would mean to be "racist" rather than just defend the remark on its own merits. That’s my main concern here; anything else I’ve said I’ve just been drawn into by the momentum of the conversation. 
• 
  By Isaac 3/10/09 at 10:42 p.m. UTC

  Well, well, well. It looks like Ismail’s finally got what he always aimed for (although in all likelihood, unwittingly so): A commentariat that has no compunction sinking to his fetid level of analysis, persistence and tone. Too bad they’re of a persuasion that he finds anathema. But birds of a certain feather being what they are, like attracts like – despite the mutual hatred they share based on their differing, though no less selective and ideologically blinkered, persuasions. I have no doubt whatsoever that he is, indeed, as McDonald’s would put it, "lovin’ this".

  But ad hominems being what they are – that is, discouraged by the admins unless accompanied by some wit and/or (one would hope) substance – allow me to dispatch the formalities. Of course one could make a technical exception to Godwin’s Law by noting that neither Israel’s technical prowess should completely prevent, nor did Nazi Germany’s technical prowess actually prevent (Ismail kept referring to the latter in the present tense and without the essential qualifier that I italicized), the sort of ethical deviations that attract widespread opprobium. But it hardly seems likely that an argument to the contrary was the author’s primary intention.

  And it would be an intellectual obscenity to assert that Israel sinks to Nazi Germany’s level of disregard for any ethical considerations, or to ignore the fact that its existential concerns, made abundantly clear at least as much by enemies violently pledged to acting on them as they are by such midget would-be polemicists as Ismail, dwarf any justifications made by the Nazis on behalf of their actions or involvement in WWII. But intellectual obscenity is the only category available for describing the musings of someone like Ismail, whose essentialist treatments of Jewish political expression in general (at least at a national level) and Israel in particular, mask a particularism that allows him to make common cause with Islamist/anti-Semitic aims, even though he doesn’t share their religion or fundamentalist sentiments (or so he claims).

  However, whether he understands that he shares their political goals is another question, and one worth asking of someone whose perceived or real co-nationalists have scarcely managed to achieve any tangible political or economic gains – this despite 60 years of holding the U.N. and the international agenda hostage to their feelings and propaganda. But as I said before, there is no such thing in Ismail’s mind as a credible plot that would ever so much as subordinate the overly sentimental theme he perpetually emotes over. He is merely a small player in a plot that is, thankfully, coordinated by men even more ridiculous and evil than he, such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri… and all their predecessors. The only remarkable thing is the delusional lengths to which he goes to portray his useful idiocy as something else entirely.

  It helps to remind oneself that we are talking about a man who believes that rights are absolute things. Such a construction implies that two people’s rights would never come into conflict with one another, and that in America it’s fine to scream fire in a crowded theater. This makes sense when one thinks of Jewcy as a crowded theater and Ismail’s bitchy screeds against a nation of Jews as barks of "fire!"
• 
  By Isaac 3/10/09 at 5:18 p.m. UTC

  "Look, I never said it wasn’t important; I said it wasn’t important to this discussion."

  And I say it’s important to any discussion in which such words are used.  

  "But what’s also obvious is that when Ismail said "This is what we mean by "racism"", he was not claiming that it was on par with Jim Crow, or Japanese internment."

  For someone who is on record railing against definitions of words other than those which are derived from "consensus and tradition" as opposed to those which, I believe he said, are ad hoc and personal, I just figure that in going to actual definitions derived from etymology, history and context, that I am holding him to his own standard, rather than one resting on such vulgar (in the Latin sense of the word), bullshit, propagandized standards as "this is what we mean", whoever the hell "we" are.

  "If you want to explain how all these fine distinctions apply to the evaluation of whether or not "Arabian bravado" is a bad thing to say, please do. I would welcome actually arguing the point. As opposed to you just asserting that they are so relevant, and anyone who can’t see how they’re not isn’t credible." 

  First of all, I think I did. And second of all, I’m not really in the business of evaluating opinions (that’s Ismail’s speciality), least of all, opinions so trite and simple-minded as "bad" or "good".

  "Dude, you got mad at this: "I retain the romanticized notions of Jewish culture that I think I may have alluded to before in some comment or other; the almost fetishistic embrace of dispute," so I pretty much refuse to believe you would have let "neuroticism" slide."

  I didn’t get mad. I held him to his own damn standard.  

  "So basically, you’re calling him an anti-Semite – no, wait, a Jew hater (anti-Semitism is too broad a term!) – because…well, there’s no because. It’s a "likely possibility" that he’s a Jew hater, but no evidence is presented."

  I honestly don’t know what he thinks or feels (other than that his burning hatred of a nation – not a state, he is very careful to avoid discussion of this Israeli policy or that, or this Israeli aspect of statehood or that, and raves and rants in a way that I claimed [correctly, I believe] takes an unduly essentialist posture against a nation of Jews). I don’t think he seethes with Jew hatred. He just unwittingly crosses a line. Often. Which is what unchecked people with burning passions usually do.   

  "Unless of course, "you read too much Leon Uris" and "I identify with the stereotype of the disputative Jew" count as evidence of Jew-hatred. Now THAT, my friend…that is a stink."

  I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. But it doesn’t sound like an illuminating addition to anything we’ve gone over so far.  

  "Look, no one’s saying that your "bravado" mark proves that you’re some unreconstructed Kahane-type who thinks Arabs are probably somewhere in between sea slugs and flesh-eating disease on the great ladder of life. For someone who seems convinced that Ismail is putting it on half the time, you seem not to have considered the possibility (admittedly, I don’t know what he was thinking either) that his picking on your remark was a tit-for-tat for all the accusations of bias and bigotry you’ve hurled at him. Insofar as I am raising any stink, it’s not about what you said; it’s about the fact that you have blithely accused Ismail of anti-Semitism time and again, and on far flimsier evidence. But when you say something that maybe wasn’t the best thing to say, suddenly we have to consider what we really mean when we say "racism" and so on. It’s the double standard that’s bothering me."

  I don’t accuse him of anything conscious. I don’t believe I ever had. I accuse him of being blithe with other legitimate concerns. Since you’re making such a stink of it, though,  why don’t you go and find me the academic opinion which proclaims that only conscious group, ethnic or religious biases are problematic? I doubt you’ll find one.

  What historians understand, even if amateur sociologists don’t, is that there are all different shades of biases and attitudes against others. Most are innocent, many serve a purpose other than promoting hatred – some of which are worth addressing and some of which aren’t – and then there are worse and more problematic things. In that last category I would include those which have (or have had) the support of government or some other important institution and those which are never addressed thoughtfully by a society but are coupled with violent passions. Given my willingness to explore certain mindsets – of which Ismail only scratches the shallow surface, I’d say he’s in greater danger of engaging socially destructive attitudes and historically problematic rhetoric against Jews than I am against Arabs. It’s honestly not a scathing indictment, just one that warrants his (and apparently your) attention at least as much as he pretended to believe that his calling me out warranted mine.
• 
  By Shootingsparks 3/10/09 at 3:25 a.m. UTC

  America: Freedom to Fascism – Director’s Authorized Version

   
• 
  By jer 3/10/09 at 1:50 a.m. UTC

  Ah, Ismail you are not Muslim? What are you? Christian, Atheist, Naturei Karta? Jewish you are not…

  I don’t know what religion you think Neturei Karta are, but I’ll give you a hint: it ain’t Zoroastrian.
• 
  By jer 3/10/09 at 1:46 a.m. UTC

  But next time you might want to try acknowledging the importance of
  the distinction between when intolerance is officially condoned by
  political or scientific authorities (or worse yet, encouraged; and
  worse still, pursued and engrained as an official caste system), and
  when it is not. If you want to call reminders of these distinctions
  irrelevant, go ahead

  Look, I never said it wasn’t important; I said it wasn’t important to this discussion. Of course the fact that some people are dicks to redheads is not nearly as big a deal as that some people are (much bigger) dicks to gays in all sorts of more officially systemized ways. This is obvious. But what’s also obvious is that when Ismail said "This is what we mean by "racism"", he was not claiming that it was on par with Jim Crow, or Japanese internment. Anymore than when you accuse Ismail of reducing Judaism to a cultural stereotype you’re making some implicit claim that this implies that government and cultural institutions are complicit in this, and that this ranks with Birth of a Nation in criminal misrepresentations of a people. If you want to explain how all these fine distinctions apply to the evaluation of whether or not "Arabian bravado" is a bad thing to say, please do. I would welcome actually arguing the point. As opposed to you just asserting that they are so relevant, and anyone who can’t see how they’re not isn’t credible. 

  And yes, I do think "bravado" is rather benign as far as labels go in
  comparison to "deviousness". The appropriate analogy would have been if
  he’d spoken of Jewish "neuroticism", in which case no one would have
  cared.

  Dude, you got mad at this: "I retain the romanticized notions of Jewish culture that I think I may have alluded to before in some comment or other; the almost fetishistic
  embrace of dispute," so I pretty much refuse to believe you would have let "neuroticism" slide. 

  Bravado as an inappropriate cultural indictment? Really? This is the reason for such a stink?

  Um…there was no stink until you started going off about how racism isn’t as simple as all that. The supposed "stink" raised by Ismail was the following:

  "This is what we mean by "racism". This is why I believe that you and
  all your likeminded friends who cannot imagine that some of us really,
  really dislike the political entity that is Israel while harboring no
  ill will whatsoever towards Jews, why all of you are massive
  projectors, discerning in others what are in fact your own disavowed
  bigotries."

  Your response is something like 40 lines long, declares that racism against Arabs is an incoherent notion, and accuses Ismail of "a willfully craven and manipulative calumniator who likes to chastise
  Jews with flimsy accusations of doing things to Arabs what [he] would
  not only never criticize an Arab for doing to a Jew, but that [he] [him]self do[es] to them." You also claim state: "That you enunciate your problems with Jews in
  political terms doesn’t easily mask the likely possibility that your
  burning hatred for their nation goes far beyond any mere, political disagreement." So basically, you’re calling him an anti-Semite – no, wait, a Jew hater (anti-Semitism is too broad a term!) – because…well, there’s no because. It’s a "likely possibility" that he’s a Jew hater, but no evidence is presented. Unless of course, "you read too much Leon Uris" and "I identify with the stereotype of the disputative Jew" count as evidence of Jew-hatred. Now THAT, my friend…that is a stink.

  Look, no one’s saying that your "bravado" mark proves that you’re some unreconstructed Kahane-type who thinks Arabs are probably somewhere in between sea slugs and flesh-eating disease on the great ladder of life. For someone who seems convinced that Ismail is putting it on half the time, you seem not to have considered the possibility (admittedly, I don’t know what he was thinking either) that his picking on your remark was a tit-for-tat for all the accusations of bias and bigotry you’ve hurled at him. Insofar as I am raising any stink, it’s not about what you said; it’s about the fact that you have blithely accused Ismail of anti-Semitism time and again, and on far flimsier evidence. But when you say something that maybe wasn’t the best thing to say, suddenly we have to consider what we really mean when we say "racism" and so on. It’s the double standard that’s bothering me. 

   
• 
  By melloncollie 3/10/09 at 12:15 a.m. UTC

  The idea that a "taboo" of criticizing Israel has been broken is hilarious. How many times must this so-called taboo be broken before you realize there was no taboo?

  Was it first broken when Vanessa Redgrave scolded those "Zionist hoodlums" in her Oscar acceptance speech in the 70′s? Was it when Woody Allen called his ficitonal mother the "castrating Zionist" in Manhattan? Was it when Tony Kushner published "Wrestling With Zion" in the 90′s and suggested Israel”s statehood was a mistake? Steven Spielberg’s Munich? Eytan Fox’s The Bubble? Walk on Water? Noam Chomsky? Norman Finklestein? Half the articles in Ha’aretz? The millions of Jewish dollars and man-hours poured into Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch?

  Those are just examples of criticism from JEWS. The Israel Lobby? Two Jimmy Carter books and a Jewish-produced movie about his supposed persecution by Jews?

  If anti-Zionist voices are so stifled, why do I keep hearing them?
• 
  By Isaac 3/9/09 at 11:34 p.m. UTC

  Greenwald gets almost as hysterical as Sullivan does about this sort of thing. What can I say? He’s a lawyer. He is easily stirred.

  I don’t know much about this Freeman stuff, but Cohen’s actually not too unhinged. I’d almost go as far as to say "balanced", but he is a bit too quick to diminish the meaning of eliminationist hatred toward Israel in theocratic Iran, for instance – despite at least acknowledging it. As far as Hizbullah and Hamas being "entrenched political and social movements" goes, I don’t see much to dispute here. His only problem is that he assumes too quickly that negotiating with them, without their recognizing the other party, will lead to peace with that party. Of course, he throws out all the standard caveats – this is a limited-term hudna and not peace – and then proceeds to ignore Israel’s objection to allowing its enemies to peacefully re-arm for conflict with them during the next round after the hudna with their unrecognized enemy expires. It’s standard fare, really. He takes a position and articulates it respectably, but ignores the obvious objections.

  So you need not celebrate that some "taboo" has been broken, Shooting Blanks. Jews have dealt with people breaking the taboo against revealing their stupidity, naivite, wishful thinking or short-sightedness for most of history. They just have to accept that some of the aforementioned will now come from their own. As did the anti-Zionists, Neturei Karta, capos, Bernard Madoff, etc. etc., before them. It just makes us look that much more "peace-loving" to fanatical left-wing gentiles who didn’t (and wouldn’t) know any better and garners us sympathy and further support from the non-fanatical center and right gentiles who have to deal with the same sorts of kooks among their own ranks. 
• 
  By melloncollie 3/9/09 at 11:18 p.m. UTC

  You are aware that this [idea that Jewish statehood is wrong] is uncomfortably close to the opinion of an increasing segment of the Palestinian public, aren’t you? And it is operationally identical to the opinion of Hamas, whose non-stop terrorism have made the establishment of a Palestinian state impossible?

  Both sides have much to atone for, but only Hamas has racism in its charter–only Hamas is hate-filled to its empty core.
• 
  By Shootingsparks 3/9/09 at 10:16 p.m. UTC

  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
• 
  By Isaac 3/9/09 at 8:22 p.m. UTC

  Technically he’s Catholic. But more importantly, and as best as anyone can tell, he’s a secular, socialist-leaning (i.e. "New Left") liberal who is afraid of what Muslim fanatics will do to him, his family, or his lifestyle if either he or Israel causes them too much offense – even if that offense is caused by Israel in the course of defending her inherent right to exist. So Israel’s right to exist and defend itself is something to which he must also, obviously, mount some consistent form of opposition. This is not his sole raison d’etre for polluting Jewcy with his thinly-veiled advocacy, but it is the most important reason for it and it allows the moderators to host a culturally authentic devil’s advocate who is more literate than your typical Palestinian Hamas sympathizer or your typical Lebanese Hizbullah sympathizer. In fact, those last two examples are probably why he takes such pride in his literacy. 

  This makes him an intriguing specimen, because although he claims to have been schooled in philosophy, the ideas and thought experiments he posts here are best understood as expositions of sophistry. They are meant to divert other well-intentioned (or at least intellectually honest) participants in the comment boards from getting him to realistically confront problems in the Middle East and/or Arab culture that are more intractable and much more uncomfortable for him to consider.

  Hope that helps. 

   
• 
  By Asad Alim 3/9/09 at 7:25 p.m. UTC

  Ah, Ismail you are not Muslim? What are you? Christian, Atheist, Naturei Karta? Jewish you are not…
• 
  By Isaac 3/9/09 at 4:30 p.m. UTC

  Nice try, Jer.

  I’m glad you acknowledge that not all forms of intolerance are the same. But next time you might want to try acknowledging the importance of the distinction between when intolerance is officially condoned by political or scientific authorities (or worse yet, encouraged; and worse still, pursued and engrained as an official caste system), and when it is not. If you want to call reminders of these distinctions irrelevant, go ahead. No one with any credibility who has studied such things would find them trivial, however.

  And yes, I do think "bravado" is rather benign as far as labels go in comparison to "deviousness". The appropriate analogy would have been if he’d spoken of Jewish "neuroticism", in which case no one would have cared.

  Bravado as an inappropriate cultural indictment? Really? This is the reason for such a stink? If that’s the argument then I rest my case that what we are really dealing with is Ismail’s hypersensitivity (real or feigned) in the furtherance of some bullshit rhetorical game. Although the more probing consideration is why Jews would have no objection to hearing references to their neuroticism whereas Arabs would (or at least one Arab would) go apeshit over some offhanded remark regarding his bravado.

  As I’ve indicated earlier, this probably has something to do with one culture having undergone (and being more willing to continue undergoing) self-criticism and self-examination than another. Make of that statement what you will, because to object to it is sort of like waving a sign that says "Behead those who say Islam is violent!" 

  For you to impugn my supposedly irrelevant tangents while assuming that Ismail really believes half of what he says (which is a basic expectation when it comes to intellectual honesty) makes a statement about one’s gullibility.
• 
  By Isaac 3/9/09 at 4:25 p.m. UTC

  Ismail has nothing intelligent to say about the matter.
• 
  By Ismail 3/9/09 at 4:21 p.m. UTC

  Isaac, please, quit while you’re behind.
• 
  By jer 3/9/09 at 1:30 p.m. UTC

  Naturally, ten minutes after leaving, I come up with a better analogy for why this tactic annoys me:

  Imagine you hear a Hamas member say something like, "Jews are descended from pigs and dogs", and you say, "God! What an anti-Semite!"

  Imagine then, that someone runs to defend the Hamas member saying, "well, technically, Arabs are Semites too…so unless you think this guy is anti-Arab, he can’t be an anti-Semite! QED!"

  While this defense may be technically true, as far as it goes, we’d all agree that it’s rather stupendously missing the point. 
• 
  By jer 3/9/09 at 12:57 p.m. UTC

  I’d say you were hysterically taking such liberties with what I said as
  to confuse a hypothetical with a reality, and an argument having to do
  with probability or likelihood with an all-or-nothing false dichotomy
  of possibility versus impossibility.
  

  "Arabs have never fallen prey to efforts to biologically stratify them
  from the rest of any society, and as such, do not constitute a "race"
  and are not and have not been victims of racism." I don’t see a "probably" in front of "are not and have not been victims of racism". Your statement was categorical: since no one has come up with a biological "explanation" for why Arabs are inferior, it is impossible for any to be racist to an Arab, at least until such time as someone gets around to doing that. It may not be what you meant, but that statement doesn’t admit of any shades of grey.

  And stop with the ignorant conflation of racism with other forms of
  bigotry, ignorance, intolerance and other inter-ethnic group strife and
  competition of the sort to which nearly every immigrant group has been
  subjected in some form

  This is, actually, a fair enough point; racism is indeed only a certain type of bigotry, and there are all sorts of ways for people to pick on other people. True dat, as I understand the kids are saying these days. The problem I have is that, in popular usage, "racism" is used as a catch-all term for bigotry based on pretty much any of "race", ethnicity, nationality, or skin colour/general ethnic appearance. For instance, few people will bother to confirm that the people who murdered Emmett Till were acting on an understanding of blacks as inferior in a scientific or biological way before condemning the act as racist; in real life though, they were probably motivated by nothing so much as a vague directive to keep white women safe from black men. In fact, even if we find out that they were disgusted by some aspect of black culture, these murderers, we (and certainly most of the rest of the world) will still almost certainly use the word "racist" to describe them. Because everyone recognizes that it’s handier to say "racist" because though situations are always too complex for one word to do them justice, it is nice to have a single word that ties together a bunch of complex phenomena based on what they hold in common: people being dicks to people because the other people are different. And it was CLEARLY in that sense that Ismail said ‘This is what we mean by "racism"’. 

  And this is what I find annoying. If he had responded to your "examples of Ismail’s many efforts to reduce Jewish culture to a comic strip" by denying that anti-Semitism was possible (and hey, if anti-Semitism has to have a "scientific motivation", then surely criticism of Israel qua criticism of Israel can’t be anti-Semitic; where’s the scientific component?), or by pointing out that he was not in fact reducing "Jewish culture" to a comic strip, but in fact eastern-European-immigrant-to-New-York-Ashkenazi-Jewish cultural practice, which are two very different things, etc., etc., etc. you would see pretty clearly how that’s missing the point. But if Ismail accuses you, rather than point out why he’s wrong (which is how he’s responded to you), you do this dodge into pedantry. While the many fine distinctions between racism proper and bigotry are both important and interesting, they are utterly irrelevant to the discussion here, on whether referring to someone’s "Arabian bravado" a generalizing and disparaging statement about Arabs?

  And do yourself a favor and stop assuming that Ismail’s disparaging
  remarks and thoughts about Jews impugn him any less than anything you
  or he could ascribe to me regarding Arabs.

  Actually, I think neither of your remarks impugns either one of you; Ismail has never made any disparaging remarks about Jews (well, not about Jews in general. But even the Jews here make disparaging remarks about particular Jews), and though I do think your "Arabian bravado" comment was inappropriate (imagine if he’d written about your "Jewish deviousness", or somesuch), it seems to me that it was a remark borne from frustration and an attempt to characterize his…dramatic, I guess, opposition to Israel’s policies. The only thing impugning you, in my opinion, is this tendency to head off into irrelevancy when challenged. 
• 
  By Isaac 3/9/09 at 11:07 a.m. UTC

  "Terms like "raghead" serve only to distinguish based on a cultural marker, to wit, the wearing of a turban, or "rag" on one’s head. Hence the term."

  True, that.  

  "Silly Ismail! You can’t be racist towards an Arab. If you think that, say, terms like "camelfucker", or "hajji", or "sand nigger" are racist, just remember that Arabs have never been subject to an attempt to scientifically classify them as inferior; just like all pre-"scientific" hatred of Jews was not properly racist, (i.e., the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, etc…no ostensibly scientific distinction made between Jews and non-Jews!), neither is hatred of Arabs."

  Yep. Exactly so – including the part about how Ismail is silly (although this is an incredible understatement).  

  "Besides, even it it were possible to be racist towards Arabs, the fact that at various points in history some Arab regimes have done well for themselves surely indicates that no individual Arab can ever have racism get him/her down. I mean, c’mon! A millenium long empire! Never mind that I’m not sure exactly what empire he’s talking about; anyone whose ancestors lived in an impressive empire are pretty much immune to racism forever! Chinese Exclusion Act, pah! Those fuckers had an empire to beat all!"

  Now Jer, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were hysterically taking such liberties with what I said as to confuse a hypothetical with a reality, and an argument having to do with probability or likelihood with an all-or-nothing false dichotomy of possibility versus impossibility.

  "Or, to put it another way: Isaac, if you want people to take you seriously, don’t make bullshit claims like anti-Arab racism is impossible, or not a problem, or whatever. You can agree that it exists, and is a problem, without necessarily agreeing with Ismail that some particular sentiment is an example of it. Seriously now."

  Jer, if you want to be taken seriously, stop making bullshit claims about what I never claimed was "impossible". And if you want to define whether or not something is a problem according to your grievance-of-the-day politics, that’s fine too. But that doesn’t make it a phenomenon that’s agreed to by widespread consensus (learned or otherwise), let alone universally. And stop with the ignorant conflation of racism with other forms of bigotry, ignorance, intolerance and other inter-ethnic group strife and competition of the sort to which nearly every immigrant group has been subjected in some form. If acts of violence or deprivation of liberties toward specific groups are sufficiently widespread as to merit a concern, that’s one thing. But stop lumping all your history together, or worse – pretending it doesn’t matter. And stop implying that the consistent targetting and persecution of Jews in nearly every land from the beginning of the diaspora onward, or the inferior status conferred upon blacks as slaves, are equivalent historical phenomena to the generic antipathy exhibited toward "other" groups — merely because you believe they originate from the same thought-crime. To you they may be emotionally equivalent phenomena. But historians understand the distinction between mob sentiment, officially sanctioned persecution, and something identifiably worse. Perhaps you don’t find those distinctions useful, but then your bigger complaint would be with the institutions of academia and reasoned discourse than with my unwillingness to substitute those things with your politics.

  And do yourself a favor and stop assuming that Ismail’s disparaging remarks and thoughts about Jews impugn him any less than anything you or he could ascribe to me regarding Arabs. Serious people study and comment on history and social phenomena in a responsible way. It might not be popular or politically exciting to do it that way, but perhaps we have different concepts of what it means for "people to take (either one of us) seriously".
• 
  By Stuart 3/9/09 at 8:57 a.m. UTC

  Welcome to the ranks of the other haters who perpetually whine about how Israel’s days are numbered (I guess you all have been saying that for 60+ years now), or how Judaism and Jews will dissappear (a lot longer)..

   

  So now your version of ‘inevitability’ is that the Israelis and the Palestinians will join into one state?

  How about the Palestinians will join the rest of their brethren in East Palestine, aka Jordan? Lets add that to the list of historical inevitabilities.

   Just as imaginary, but what the heck.
• 
  By Ismail 3/9/09 at 8:22 a.m. UTC

  "My only complaint is when Muslims like Ismail, come to a Jewish forum to make comments linking Israel to Nazi Germany, as if Muslim nations were beacons of human rights."

  Glad to hear that this is your "only" complaint. As longtime Jewcy users know, I have the misfortune of not being a Muslim. Having been so informed, you will now welcome my presence here, right? I can say what I’d like, right? I mean, your only complaint had to do with Muslims speaking up, right?

  I’ll be sure to notify you if I convert, but for the moment, I know you’ll be welcoming my every utterance. After all, I’m not a Muslim. 
• 
  By Ismail 3/9/09 at 8:15 a.m. UTC

  Umm, collie? Regarding your example,

  "If someone said, ‘I have nothing against Palestinians, but I detest with all my heart their racist, evil plight for statehood’, this person would be called a racist, and rightly so." 

  you are aware that this is uncomfortably close to the opinion of an increasing segment of the Israeli public, aren’t you? And it is operationally identical to the opinion of successive Israeli governments, whose expansionism has made the establishment of a Palestinian state impossible.

  I’d begin making my peace with the idea that the Zionist regime’s moment is fading and that Jews and Palestinians are going to have to figure out how to get along with one another in the single state that Israeli policy is making inevitable. Talk about unintended consequences…..  

  Isn’t it great how history works? 

   
• 
  By melloncollie 3/9/09 at 1:47 a.m. UTC

  If Zionism is unethical, then EVERY other ethnicity’s attempt at statehood and self-determination is also unethical. Any other opinion is racist against Jews. There can be no double standards.

  If someone said, “I have nothing against Palestinians, but I detest with all my heart their racist, evil plight for statehood”, this person would be called a racist, and rightly so.

  Being gay and Jewish myself, I have seen way too many liberal Jews and gays align themselves with anti-Semites under the guise of “anti-Zionism,” which is itself racist. Add to this the fact that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where gays are not persectued, and gay peoples’ disproportionate support for homophobic, Jew-hating terrorists is even more sad.
• 
  By andrew r 3/9/09 at 1:26 a.m. UTC

  "When you establish a government based on a specific religion and that
  government executes people for being gay, or for speaking up against
  the establishment it says something about the people and the religion."

  Khomeini established his government by force, just like every
  government in history, and against the wishes of many Iranians who
  demonstrated against the Shah. And obviously, a big factor in his
  success was Iraq’s invasion of Iran. Even if Khomeini would have you
  believe otherwise, there’s no guarantee all his ideas came from the
  Quran (in fact, I once read in passing that he believed Islamic law
  could be bent in service of the state).

  Islam is complex, like any philosophy. People will read different
  things into it and use it to justify what they want. The kings who
  made Buddhism the state religion were probably not anxious to give up
  their own kingdoms, even though Buddhism expects you to give up earthly
  concerns. Hinduism isn’t down to arranged marriages and sati. And
  Israel’s lousy citizenship law that privileges an atheist of the
  correct race to live in Palestine has nothing to do with Judaism. So
  what makes Islamic governments the embodiment of Islam?

  "Muslims should be ashamed of what goes on in their own nations and
  should spend a lot of time working on their own issues before
  attempting to offer any suggestions or opinions on any subject related
  to Israel."

  This is called telling people what to do. It doesn’t work unless you have force to back it up.
• 
  By jer 3/9/09 at 12:47 a.m. UTC

  I also consider the police arresting and sodomizing a blogger worst than the US waterboarding a terrorist.

   Asad Alim: you may want to consider how you know that the only people being waterboarded are, indeed terrorists. i.e.
• 
  By jer 3/9/09 at 12:37 a.m. UTC

  Arabs have never fallen prey to efforts to biologically stratify them
  from the rest of any society, and as such, do not constitute a "race"
  and are not and have not been victims of racism

  Yeah…no one has ever regarded Arabs as different or inferior from others. Terms like "raghead" serve only to distinguish based on a cultural marker, to wit, the wearing of a turban, or "rag" on one’s head. Hence the term.

  Silly Ismail! You can’t be racist towards an Arab. If you think that, say, terms like "camelfucker", or "hajji", or "sand nigger" are racist, just remember that Arabs have never been subject to an attempt to scientifically classify them as inferior; just like all pre-"scientific" hatred of Jews was not properly racist, (i.e., the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, etc…no ostensibly scientific distinction made between Jews and non-Jews!), neither is hatred of Arabs. 

  Besides, even it it were possible to be racist towards Arabs, the fact that at various points in history some Arab regimes have done well for themselves surely indicates that no individual Arab can ever have racism get him/her down. I mean, c’mon! A millenium long empire! Never mind that I’m not sure exactly what empire he’s talking about; anyone whose ancestors lived in an impressive empire are pretty much immune to racism forever! Chinese Exclusion Act, pah! Those fuckers had an empire to beat all!

  Or, to put it another way: Isaac, if you want people to take you seriously, don’t make bullshit claims like anti-Arab racism is impossible, or not a problem, or whatever. You can agree that it exists, and is a problem, without necessarily agreeing with Ismail that some particular sentiment is an example of it. Seriously now. 
• 
  By Isaac 3/9/09 at 12:37 a.m. UTC

  Arabs have never fallen prey to efforts to biologically stratify them from the rest of any society, and as such, do not constitute a "race" and are not and have not been victims of racism. This fact stands in stark contrast to the way they sometimes derisively treat Black Africans, referring to them as "’abd" (i.e. "slave") and so forth. I am not aware of any society in which slavery, lynchings or anti-miscegenation efforts have been directed at Arabs. Nor am I aware of any widespread efforts to scientifically classify Arabs as somehow biologically "inferior". And having been clever enough to engineer the only empire to last more than a millenium (including long historical periods where they outsourced it to others until the Ottomans could no longer hold on) it’s hard to imagine Arabs collectively as victims of anything so substantial or intense as what you hoped to describe. So spare me your phony victimology bullshit.

  You, on the other hand, are as guilty of making simplistic and unfair caricatures of Jewish culture as you would more accurately accuse me of doing — (if you were more intelligent, honest and perceptive) — to Arab culture. How hard is it for you to get it through your thick skull that culture has nothing to do with biology, that it can (and should) be criticized or praised, and that its very fluidity makes the application of derisive descriptions of it that much less nefarious than actual racism or bigotry? Of course, for you to accept that culture can be criticized would be to accept that Palestinian society can be criticized – (or any behavior on a national level at all, for that matter). And despite your incessant efforts to paint Israeli politics and society as one huge exercise in corruption and evil, you would apparently never so much as allow for the slightest criticism in the same manner of not only the Palestinians, but of Arab society in general. In other words, it is less likely that you are an accidental hypocrite so much as a willfully craven and manipulative calumniator who likes to chastise Jews with flimsy accusations of doing things to Arabs what you would not only never criticize an Arab for doing to a Jew, but that you yourself do to them. That you enunciate your problems with Jews in political terms doesn’t easily mask the likely possibility that your burning hatred for their nation goes far beyond any mere, political disagreement. 

  Allow me to recall for the reader a few examples of Ismail’s many efforts to reduce Jewish culture to a comic strip. From Ismail’s first registered comment here:

  "I retain the romanticized notions of Jewish culture that I think I may
  have alluded to before in some comment or other; the almost fetishistic
  embrace of dispute,"

  Note to Ismail: Couching your caricature in positive terms (perhaps as a disingenuous device to appeal to your interlocutor) does not mean you aren’t exposing your reductionist ideas of Judaism to the audience.

  Here’s another golden oldie from Ismail’s unregistered days:

  "It sounds to me like you endorse the Sunday-school, pushke-box, Leon
  Uris picture of sturdy pioneers, no longer rootless and more rural than
  cosmopolitan, setting an example for us all."

  There you go Ismail. Peddling intentionally unflattering caricatures of Jewish education and social service as a (not so) subtle way to challenge your interlocutor to defy them. Nothing bigoted about that. 

  And you go ballistic and proclaim the conversation beneath your dignity because of one word: Bravado. 

  Allow me to absorb into your easily-insulted psyche another description (and one that could, incidentally, be stereotypically applied either to Jews or Arabs): Melodramatic. 

  Of course, every substantive objection to your falsehoods was successfully made in the third paragraph of my comment. But because you could say nothing further about any of that, you chose to pretend that they weren’t made and instead you now make a display of licking your wounds in order to avoid the substantive conversation – exactly what it is that you or the Palestinians want that could actually be supported, legally, by the civilized world (Western or otherwise) to address whatever grievance it is that has crawled up your ass.

  I earlier compared your bleats to shouting fire in a crowded theater. But it now seems clear that your repertoire of dialectical effects is actually more expansive than that. By acting like an aggrieved victim of racism, you could win an Oscar. Too bad the Academy doesn’t offer one for farting in a crowded theater, as that’s the best description of what you just did. 
• 
  By Asad Alim 3/9/09 at 12:34 a.m. UTC

  Andrew R, I thought I was being clear on what I wrote, but apparently I was not.

  I did not infer that Muslims are of a different species. People behaving like animals is just an expression used to portray a behavior that is not civilized. I don’t understand how you can make the jump to make it seem like I think anyone IS an animal. If you are interested in people comparing other people to actual animals, you can watch the famous video of an Egyptian cleric and of a Syrian Deputy Minister comparing Jews to apes and pigs.

  I do not applaud the US for executing or waterboarding anybody. I was simply making a comparison between what happens in Muslim countries and what happens in Western countries. Both are wrong, but there are degrees to actions, and I consider hanging gay people worst than executing convicted murdererers. I also consider the police arresting and sodomizing a blogger worst than the US waterboarding a terrorist. That’s my opinion.

  I was not refering to Abbas Hoseini when I wrote about gays being hanged. Again you are inferring things. I was referring specifically to the following case,which is a fairly well known case:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Asgari_and_Ayaz_Marhoni

  Maybe you can explain to me why these gay people were executed in Iran. You say that it is not Islam, I think differently. Religion for those who follow it strictly, rules every aspect of life. When you establish a government based on a specific religion and that government executes people for being gay, or for speaking up against the establishment it says something about the people and the religion. That’s also just my opinion.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Iran#Capital_punishment

  My only complaint is when Muslims like Ismail, come to a Jewish forum to make comments linking Israel to Nazi Germany, as if Muslim nations were beacons of human rights.Yesterday, Hamas and Iran had envoys in Sudan giving Bashir hugs and kisses, and I was not surprised at all. However, I am not going into some Muslim forum, tell them I am a non-Muslim and start comparing any of their current actions throughout the Muslim world with instances where Muslims were massacred throughout their History.  I’m pretty certain I would not be allowed to blab things of that level for too long before being banned. But Jewcy seems to think that anti-semitic rambling desguised as criticism of Israel is perfectly acceptable. Ismail is definitely not the first or the only user to have compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

  I believe Israel has many issues it has to deal with and areas it can improve, but it is not up the people who brought us the 50 plus countries with an Islamic majority to give us a lesson on anything related to human rights, law or land. Muslims should be ashamed of what goes on in their own nations and should spend a lot of time working on their own issues before attempting to offer any suggestions or opinions on any subject related to Israel. Their countries are not simply flawed, like all nations are, they are amongst the most oppresive and brutal regimes in the world. That Andrew R, is a fact, not just my opinion.
• 
  By andrew r 3/8/09 at 11:25 p.m. UTC

  "The
  men is keeping them down and they have to act like animals because they
  are oppressed."

  Animals don’t kill for political reasons.  That’s a human innovation.  But my guess is you’re classing Muslims as a different species 
• 
  By andrew r 3/8/09 at 8:07 p.m. UTC

  a) I have no idea how you got this is my position.  And whether you like it or not, the same US that you applaud for waterboarding a terrorist is the very same that supplies Saudia with weapons, know-how, and allowed Dawa and SCIRI to become the ruling parties of Iraq.

  b) You don’t seem to have even read the links you posted.  Abbas Hoseini is going to be executed for a murder he allegedly committed, not for being gay.  The US does the same thing.  That’s not "Islam" executing the man.  And when Iran does execute someone for being gay, that’s not "Islam", either.  You actually do not know why Iran executes people for being gay.  You just think it boils down to the ruling establishment calling themselves Muslims.  Nevermind that Iran has executed clerics (and puts Ayatollahs under house arrest, although I don’t know if they executed any) for not towing their line.  If Islam is so bad, don’t you find some cognitive dissonance in Iranian clerics opposing their own government?

  To put not too fine a point on it, when the Iranian government is overthrown, it’s going to be done by Muslims.  Opposing Islam as a whole doesn’t make any sense, if you really care about oppression in Iran and don’t have a less savory agenda.

  I oppose any injustice, whether it’s colonization or being executed for being gay.  You selectively oppose injustices and approve of others.  If you want to fight an open-ended war on anything that strikes you as "Islam", go ahead.  Just be aware that the US is not interested in fighting this war.  It will fight Islamic radicals that get in the way and back others when it’s helpful.  Always been that way.

  P.S.  Just to humor your incredibly presumptious rant about what other victims of war and genocide would think about the Palestinian situation, maybe you should take a poll before presuming they would let the Zionists off the hook.
• 
  By Asad Alim 3/8/09 at 6:30 p.m. UTC

  "Just one question; why did you refer to my "Arabian bravado"?  Have I ever-even once-referred to any characteristic, negative or not, of any of the Zionuts I engage with here as "Jewish"? "

  No, you only made ridiculous analogies between Israel and Nazi Germany. I’m sure you meant nothing by it and you had no idea how that would go over with the Jews. You like to make fun of the word that means our right to a homeland, like in the sentence above, harmless joke I’m sure. You also like to call Jews racists against Arabs even though a large percentage of Jews in Israel have Arab blood themselves. It’s all a big misunderstanding or your staments from our part! Silly Jews.  
• 
  By Asad Alim 3/8/09 at 5:56 p.m. UTC

  Yes, let’s point out selected articles from the links and pretend that:

  a) It’s someone else’s fault ( USA, Israel, NATO, EU, the aliens. The men is keeping them down and they have to act like animals because they are oppressed.)

  b) Analogies between what happens in developed nations and in those countries are plausible. (Iran hanging underage boys for being gay is the same as the United States executing murderes. Egyptian police arresting, torturing and sodomizing a blogger is the same as the US waterboarding an Al-Qaida terrorist.)

  Whatever floats your little boat, Andrew R.  

  I’m sure all the people getting kidnapped, tortured, starved, rapped and killed with the blessings of these Islamic governments don’t mind. I’m sure the girls getting stoned to death after beign raped, getting their clitoris cut-off, being married off at 9, completely agree with you that the West is just as bad. I’m sure the very last thought on the minds of the 300,000 people Bashir has killed since 2003 was how lucky they were not to be oppressed by Israel like the poor Palestinians.
• 
  By Ismail 3/8/09 at 4:41 p.m. UTC

  So you want to avoid the particulars of my argument-too boring I task, I think you said. OK with me.

  Just one question; why did you refer to my "Arabian bravado"?  Have I ever-even once-referred to any characteristic, negative or not, of any of the Zionuts I engage with here as "Jewish"? Funny, I’m born and raised in the US, speak almost no Arabic, but somehow your fevered imagination codes either me or the property "bravado" as Arabic instead of, say, belonging to a subset of human beings of any cultural background.

  This is what we mean by "racism". This is why I believe that you and all your likeminded friends who cannot imagine that some of us really, really dislike the political entity that is Israel while harboring no ill will whatsoever towards Jews, why all of you are massive projectors, discerning in others what are in fact your own disavowed bigotries.

  It must have occurred to you that in all my comments here, I have never made the case that all Zionists hate Arabs or indicated that the motivations of Olmert, Netanyahu et al are to be found in their visceral racism. I treat their actions as political ones, hateful for their political meanings.

  You, on the other hand, are forever couching my antipathy towards Zionism in precisely the terms I avoid. Why is this? And, given this evidence, who is the racist?

  Given your frequently-demonstrated limitations, most recently that slapstick history of the creation of Israel you shoehorned into your last comment, I’m delighted to end the conversation here. But I’ll be watching, ready to swoop down the next time you violate the basic principles of logic, fact or-yep-elegant prose.

  Think what you will, but writing like a pinhead really does diminish your effect. Work on it, grasshopper.

  G’bye. 
• 
  By andrew r 3/8/09 at 3:53 p.m. UTC

  Getting away with murder? The impunity of international forces in Afghanistan

  (Couldn’t be talking about us, could it?)

  Pakistan fails to come clean on secret detentions

  (Pakistan’s government has been fighting Muslims)

  Iran: Fear of imminent execution: Abbas Hosseini (m)

  (The USA also executes people who were minors when they committed the alleged crime. That’s some Islam we’re blessed with.)

  And the first link that shows up for Mauritania is torture. I bet the USA and Israel never do that.

  http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/040/2008/en

   

   
• 
  By Asad Alim 3/8/09 at 2:17 p.m. UTC

  "…non-Jews are forbidden to render judgements about Israel. Fantastic."

  Finally, you get it! I know you must be mad since your people have tried dozens of times to form a modern nation without success. Let’s look as some of the third world cesspools that carry the word "Islamic" on their names:

  http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/afghanistan

  http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/iran

  http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/mauritania

  http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/pakistan 

  Further examination of OIC members and you can see the other hellholes blessed by Islam: Algeria, Egypt, Chad, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, etc. Must be very frustrating indeed, it’s understandable you need to come here and cry ( I believe you called it "make my case") about the Jews creating a developed nation in the middle of all that crap.
• 
  By Isaac 3/8/09 at 1:16 p.m. UTC

  See, this is why you’re not worth debating. No one gives a damn about the purported quality of your writing — at least not when it comes to debating the actual ideas involved. Until you give up your arrogant dismissals, your conflation of style with substance, your belief that your flowery (and distracting) opinions and numerous, oversimplified – and reductionist, and utterly theoretical – analogies make your thoughts profound and straightforward, whereas my more technical and factually-directed style somehow accomplishes the opposite, then you can go fuck yourself. 

  I do hope that clarifies things for you, although I doubt you were seriously seeking further clarity on anything. Of course, it wouldn’t have been intellectually difficult to have refuted your numerous slippery diversions. It just would have been physically tiresome. And not worth it. I suspect that with each example you know what I meant, and just pretended not to understand it because you had nothing better to do at 11:59 PM on a Saturday or were actually tired – or something else. 

  In the meantime I do hope you enjoy the company of this motley crew of high qualilty interlocutors you’ve collected. I’m sure they’ll draw inspiration from your use of opposition to affirmative action as some kind of incredibly convoluted (and simpleminded) example of anti-racist honesty (or whatever). As I’m sure they’ll draw inspiration from your conflation of a proponent of something with his supporter (as a way to pretend that you can argue, in strawman fashion, against a different point than the one I made). Of course, they’ll also want to identify with your willingness to talk in circles about how you don’t harbor hatred for a particular nation of people per se, but rather that you just harbor hatred for the way in which their statehood was "instantiated" (which is fancy talk for saying that refugees from two millenia of consistent, stateless persecution and genocide, who purchased land in a mandate that the U.N. later divided into, and recognized as, one of two possible states is too legally compelling a method for becoming a country, and must therefore be conflated with diversionary allusions to less defensible actions that occurred during the fog of a war declared afterward against its very survival).

  As for me, such a way of conducting dialogue is not only boring, but – Gasp! – unevolved. Oh, I’m sure that such an unflattering judgment would normally be insulting or at least uncomplimentary for someone like Ismail to hear, (or at least it would be underneath all the cognitive dissonance, Arabian bravado and other intellectually dishonest bullshit of which he’s so fond). But I’m sure he’ll instead find and proclaim some way to relish hearing it, given the company he’s collected and the sort of dialogue with them that he clearly enjoys or even prefers.  
• 
  By Ismail 3/7/09 at 11:59 p.m. UTC

  Re your first point, that strongly held convictions have a strong tendency to breed violence, I’d say that it’s either false or meaningless. That is, if the proposition is meant to be a general warning about belief, it’s too specific and vague to mean much of anything. Most of us can differentiate between close-minded monomaniacs whose convictions are immune to empirical correction (flat-earthers, say, or clinical paranoids) and those who take strong stands on controversial matters.

  If you mean your claim in the stronger sense, then it’s false. There is no interesting relationship between strength of belief and violence. What it is that one believes is the crucial issue. I’ll go out on a limb and say without fear of contradiction that people who believe fervently in unicorns are no more likely to act violently than those who are agnostic on the question.

  So if you are saying that collie’s apparent intensely held homophobic beliefs are in some way equivalent to my careful, informed beliefs about Zionism because they’re both fervent, well, then I guess you’d say that collie and gandhi have a lot in common, too, since the latter was reputed to have felt rather strongly about the evils of colonialism, probably as strongly as collie dislikes the limp wrist.

  Why is it that a strong belief in the wrongness of Zionism comes under the heading of sinister, one-track bigotry while strong beliefs on any other subject (affirmative action, abortion, capitalism, socialism) are accorded the respect of being opinions (except, of course, by ideologues-see where I’m going?). I see things different from the way you do. Get over it. Tell me I’m wrong, disagree, slap your forehead in astonishment that I can be so refractory to the obvious truths of Zionism-but forget this wheezy ploy of acting like my opinions are anything more than strongly held beliefs.

  "But let’s admit that your vitriolic feelings regarding that nation-state read as nothing less than essentialist, and that is what puts you on shaky argumentative grounds."

  Incredibly wrong. My opposition is not to some abstract notion of a Jewish state (although I don’t think it’s obvious that statehood is the best way to address the problems of antisemitism). My opposition is to the particular way that idea was instantiated in the early to mid 20th century. Nothing essentialist about that. I realize that it’s far more convenient for you to argue against things I never said, but for reality’s sake, let’s denounce one another’s actual beliefs rather than some burlesque version of same.

  Which brings me to

  "I’m sure many well-intentioned folks make a conscious disavowal of a social and ethical taboo that their subconscious biases can’t yet be fully reconciled with. And whether this or something less invidious is your problem is not for me to determine."

  Compare to

  "I’m sure you disavow enjoying the idea of Gazan babies roasting in aftermath of Israeli shelling, but this may be just a screen to shield your unconscious wishes. But hey, it’s not for me to say if you’re really an Arab-hating sadist who’s not brave or honest enough to embrace your inner wishes"

  Uninformative and scurrilous, right? End of lesson.

  Finally, the bit about enabling genuine antisemites to enact their ruthlessness is just dumb. Do you believe there are honest people who oppose affirmative action? And isn’t opposition to affirmative action a lynchpin of Klan ideology? Would you then say that honest concern about the appropriateness of affirmative action as a corrective to racism furthers the ends of racists? Of course not. End of lesson 2.

  To summarize, there is a useful distinction to be made between blockheaded zealotry and firm conviction. You know this, of course, but you find it useful to ignore when the subject of Israel comes up. Next, don’t put words in your opponent’s mouth, particularly when the opponent has a much closer and intimate relationship with language than you do, with far better words. Don’t make accusations of bigotry that depend on your fantasies rather than your opponent’s actual claims. Finally, think before you make unsound comparisons. 

  Could you do me one more favor? Could you reread this and some of my other comments and try to abstract from them what makes a paragraph readable? I want to give your thoughts my full attention, but your prose gets in the way. All of us will thank you. 

   

   
• 
  By Isaac 3/7/09 at 8:06 p.m. UTC

  Ismail, I’m not going to make this longer than it needs to be (or longer than you can tolerate), but a few short points need to be made.

  When I mention your persistence in the same sentence in which I deride your tone and analysis, I speak of your unwillingness to more openly consider differing perspectives or sentiments, especially when bred of circumstances which obviously warrant compassion and resolution. You are a true believer in your point(s) of view, and we’ve been over the dangers of rabid conviction before. We probably won’t resolve to our mutual satisfaction — at least not in this thread — whether dogged conviction is a virtue, a vice or something more neutral. But allow me to appeal to your literary and philosophical interests by suggesting you read The Metaphysical Club by Menand, which won a Pulitzer, if you haven’t already. The moral of that story (or at least one of them) is that strongly held conviction has a strong tendency to breed violence. Note the lack of any mitigation in that by any claim to a specific social class, level of education, or other traditional way of denoting social superiority. I suggest you mull that idea over a bit before continuing to differentiate your brand of ripostes from those of melloncollie, Asad Alim, or whomever else you deem less evolved than yourself. Because sometimes extolling the thin veneer of civilization, no matter how sophisticated, to which you claim to cling is not enough to trounce your perceived inferiors – or the products of their efforts, assuming that you can even bother to differentiate between the two.

  As far as your disavowal of antisemitism goes, you need not lecture me on conflating that with criticism of Israel. But let’s admit that your vitriolic feelings regarding that nation-state read as nothing less than essentialist, and that is what puts you on shaky argumentative grounds. I’m sure many well-intentioned folks make a conscious disavowal of a social and ethical taboo that their subconscious biases can’t yet be fully reconciled with. And whether this or something less invidious is your problem is not for me to determine. But I will say that one can ally themselves with the nastier goals of anti-semites and claim to do so for completely unrelated, and even ethically profound, purposes. But those nastily implemented aims, and the immoral manner in which your more ethically corruptible and politically stronger allies would surely carry them out, are things for which you can undeniably (still) be held to account.

  Jews have no less a right to refuge, political expression and self-determination on a national level than any other group, and no matter how high-minded your proclamations and purported reasons, you are walking on thin ice on that score when you expose your raw and naked hatred of Israel as a nation until you prove otherwise. Because every complaint you register against "Zionism" as such dodges that very simple, and very ethically defensible (at least by Western, liberal standards), point. And it is one to which you are obligated to come to terms, despite the fact that you haven’t managed (and surely cannot manage) to do so.
• 
  By Ismail 3/7/09 at 6:44 p.m. UTC

  Isaac-

  Hope you enjoyed your stay in Brazil but sorry that you weren’t there long enough to absorb a little of that tropicana mellowness.

  So you think my own acerbic puckishness has opened the door to fellows like melloncollie? Let me remind you of what he said:

  "I especially love all the liberal homos who bash Israel and Zionism. Sure, Israel has its share of flaws, but PLEASE do me and society at large a huge favor and move to Iran. Seriously, homos–take your limp wrists and Abercrombie polos and go swish around any of the Arab/Muslim countries you give rim jobs to. I’m sure they’ll love and support you, and you totally will not be murdered or imprisoned."

  C’mon, be serious. This calls to mind my "…fetid level of analysis, persistence and tone."?

  First, I have no idea what "persistence" is doing in that sentence. My "fetid level of peristence"? Please set phasers on "coherent" and try again.

  Second, you’re not seriously suggesting that there is any analysis whatsoever in collie’s drunken hissy fit, much less one approaching my own, are you?

  And you’ve really got to stop the "antisemitism" bit, including the silly "or so he claims" rider. If you think I’m a bigot, say so and cite a remark of mine to prove your point. Otherwise, grow up and stop the empty name-calling. As has been pointed out before, you’re crying wolf. The more you paint honest critics of Israel-even those whose criticism is unsparing and radical-as bigots on those grounds alone, you diminish the moral sting of of the label "antisemite". More and more of the world is catching on to the hoary trick of weaselling out of confronting an argument directly by crying "antisemite". It’s not working anymore. So stop it-it makes you look foolish.

  Be assured that I’m not put out by collie’s "persuasion" (by which I assume you mean his Zionism), but rather by the sophomoric, homophobic emptiness of his bleats. And I’m surprised that you ignore his obvious coarseness in your haste to somehow link my own remarks to those of that stunted boor.

  We all get that you disagree with me and regard me as all that is wrong with western society. Fair enough. But you’d do your own cause a favor by getting a grip and not making patently absurd comparisons between a serious critic with whom you fundamentally disagree and a choleric little runt who thinks "rim job" is a decisive riposte.   

   
• 
  By Ismail 3/7/09 at 1:36 p.m. UTC

  "Why don’t you ask yourself what gives a Christian or Muslim any grounds to judge Israel ethically or politically?’

  I love how morons like this make my case way better than I ever could. There you have it, in black and white, straight from this baboon’s crayon; non-Jews are forbidden to render judgements about Israel. Fantastic.

  Keep talking, pal. I’m lovin’ this.  
• 
  By Asad Alim 3/7/09 at 12:54 p.m. UTC

  I guess you only enjoy the conversation when you are the one belching about Israel/Nazi comparisons, calling a piece by a concerned Jew about this racist fest of Durban "schockingly foolish" or making fun or other people’s screen name. What’s the matter?

  Why don’t you ask yourself what gives a Christian or Muslim any grounds to judge Israel ethically or politically? Your browser only goes to Jewish websites? You don’t see what you people do throughout the world?

  Yes, please someone come and save Ismail so he can continue his prolific vomiting of moral relativism.

   
• 
  By Ismail 3/7/09 at 12:28 p.m. UTC

  Umm, Craig? What’s your thought about melloncollie’s belch in terms of the site’s comments policy? Just wondering.

  I’ll say it again-this place is in precipitous decline with regard to the quality of the conversations. The policy change requiring signing up in order to post was supposed to elevate the chat; in my entirely unscientific assessment, it seems to have failed miserably. The bozos are multiplying like fruit flies.  

   
• 
  By andrew r 3/7/09 at 2:12 a.m. UTC

  you move to some place bombarded or occupied by the Zionist entity.
• 
  By melloncollie 3/7/09 at 1:55 a.m. UTC

  I especially love all the liberal homos who bash Israel and Zionism. Sure, Israel has its share of flaws, but PLEASE do me and society at large a huge favor and move to Iran. Seriously, homos–take your limp wrists and Abercrombie polos and go swish around any of the Arab/Muslim countries you give rim jobs to. I’m sure they’ll love and support you, and you totally will not be murdered or imprisoned.
• 
  By Asad Alim 3/6/09 at 7:39 p.m. UTC

  Ismail, your abuse of Goodwin’s law is cute but your obsession with Jews is just creepy. Ismail – heard by allah. Look at your history of butchery in the Middle-East, East Asia, South Asia, Africa and Europe. Over one thousand years of rape, destruction and murder. A religion that once (long ago) contributed to the advancement of the Arts and Sciences which degenerated into a macabre cult of death and oppression. Most of all,  go take a look at your precious book before you cry once again about the mean Jews:

  Koran 33:27 "And He made you heirs of their lands, their houses, and their goods, and of a land which ye had not frequented (Before). And Allah has power over all things."

  You. Ismail, the follower of a pedophile and the follower of a religion which advocates abusing women and killing non-believers; spare everyone of your fake morality. The only idiot here is you, following this false prophet and spending hours obsessing about Jews. These American Jews are quite soft on you, but thankfully I’m not one of them.
• 
  By Alcove-One 3/6/09 at 7:23 p.m. UTC

  Right you are Tzadik. He is one.
• 
  By Shootingsparks 3/6/09 at 5:10 p.m. UTC

  It was a massive eugenics project by the ashkinazi against the indigenous sephardim. Noting more, nothing less….genocede by x-rays..
• 
  By Ismail 3/6/09 at 3:08 p.m. UTC

  "Go live in Gaza, I‘m sure you’ll be very comfortable there. Douche."

  Obviously, our friend the Tzadik was spurred on by HLY’s stinging "yeah, right" comment to compete in the Witlessness Sweepstakes. We may have to give awards to them both.

  Points for the ironic screen name, by the way. 
• 
  By andrew r 3/6/09 at 2:49 p.m. UTC

  First of all, no one is obligated to accept a state that bans them from their ancestral homeland because of their race. So if Palestine was an independent country, there would have been something wrong with the Zionist movement?

  The banishment of Arab Jews isn’t total. Jews from Morocco and Lebanon are permitted to go back there. Not sure about Syria, but Syrian Jews have visited since leaving the country. Israel will not permit a Palestinian refugee outside the mandate borders to enter.

  Your logic boils down to ‘everyone does’ it, which is bollocks. Most people have never committed a mass expulsion or applauded one, or benefitted from it. You think getting every one off the hook will leave Zionism guilt free. How about getting no one off the hook?

  And besides, Saudi Arabia, repugnant as it is, does not perpetually threaten its own people with war and expulsion. Israel does. It militarily dominates millions of people that it denies citizenship on the basis of race. And it is a joke to support Israel while condemning Saudi Arabia. The same forces that allow Israel to be a military power is the very same that permits Saudia to have an oil industry and a religious police.

  Whenever some one brings up the Hebron massacre, they don’t mention two things: many Arabs protected Jews during the riot, and the Zionist movement was always working towards removing the indigenous population. In fact, read this and marvel at what the Israeli army thinks of Arabs who helped Jews in 1929. Not much.

  http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-johal150904.htm

  Then there’s Zionism’s direct involvement with Middle Eastern Jews. "According to the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion made a decision that the reservoir of potential bodies needed to turn the Zionist dream into a reality was being burned in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. There was no alternative but to turn the Oriental Jews into Zionists. And so, the Zionist movement exerted major resources on Jews living in Arab countries only once the tragedy taking place in Europe began to be exposed and it was clear that they needed a new source of immigration." (search ‘The Jews of Baghdad and Zionism’ to find this)

  A lot of facts are disputable (the legendary Zionist bombings in Baghdad), but a few concrete facts include the massive air lifts like Operation Ezra and Neheimah, the ringworm experiments on Sephardi Jews, and the exploitation of Arab Jews for cheap labor and their placement at border areas.

  http://web.israelinsider.com/views/3998.htm

  http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5174.shtml

  The long and short of it is, Zionism is an ideology that must be defeated on its own terms, and is in no way conductive to any progressive cause in the Middle East. The Zionists who are so concerned about Egyptian gays and Christians would not wince if they were refugees from Lydda or Jaffa.  Hell, Zionism isn’t even concerned about the Jews it’s hurt.  Every Jew is a foot soldier in engineering the precious ethnic majority.
• 
  By Morganfrost 3/6/09 at 11:48 a.m. UTC

  It is you who are conveniently forgetting (or rewriting) history; not the author.

  Israel was founded as a Jewish state; it was not founded on "Arab" land, nor did any of the current occupants of the land run any pre-existing country on that land.  Israel was created out of the British mandate over part of the Ottoman empire.

   As to the poor Arabs who were deprived of their homes, cry me a river, build me a bridge and get over it.  What about the Jews who were driven out of the land years before because of Arab intolerance?  What about the Jews of Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran and various other places who were driven out of their homes (and robbed of their wealth) simply because Israel was founded as a Jewish state?  Where’s their UNWRA?  And what about the Jews who were massacred in Hebron in the ’20s?  There was no Israel then, and no displacement of some "Palestinian" population.  There were just Arabs who couldn’t stand the thought that Jews could purchase and live on land near them.

  As to "apartheid," you imbeciles, that’s what they have in Saudi Arabia, where other religions are not even tolerated.  It’s what they have in Iran.  It’s what they have in virtually every Muslim-majority country in the world.  Find me one Arab country where Jewish citizens have rights equivalent to those vested in Israeli Arabs!  Then spew your nasty lies about Israel.

   The Palestinians could have had their state; they chose a war instead.  Multiple times.  So don’t whine to me about "apartheid."  Palestinians problems are simply Arab problems, and none of the solutions which the Arabs seem willing to accept allow for the possibility of Israel continuing to exist in secure borders as a Jewish state.
• 
  By TheTzadik 3/6/09 at 9:58 a.m. UTC

  I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable there. Douche.
• 
  By Ismail 3/6/09 at 8:46 a.m. UTC

  Says Alcove-one (and isn’t an alcove a small, hollow space? How appropriate),

  "Also, I love how certain trolls love to compare Israel to Nazi Germany." 

  The poor beast unwittingly provides us a useful teachable moment, of which I will now take advantage.

  The OP made a claim about Israel’s technological prowess. I pointed out that this had nothing to do with the accusations of the Israeli Apartheid Week supporters, i.e., there is nothing contradictory about asserting both that Israel enjoys great technological achievements and that it is an ethical and political cesspool. To illustrate my point, I reminded my readers that Nazism came to flower in a society widely regarded as the pinnacle of Western rationalism, scientific achievement and artistic fecundity. Hardly an original point, that the horrors resulting from the Nazi regime’s coming to power are rendered even more unfathomable given the "advanced" culture which nurtured it.

  My point was that trumpeting Israel’s accomplishments in, say, cell phone technology does nothing to perfume its generally rotten political policies. I gave the example of Nazi Germany because it is well-known and dramatic. So in this very restricted sense, there is a comparison; Israel and Germany both enjoy enviable scientific records, and both embrace disgusting policies. Pinheads like alcove collapse this specific and useful observation into the unbounded and empty formulation above.

  HLY39-

  If you read carefully, you will note that I said,

  "It’s one thing for commentors to use sobriquets, but authors of featured pieces should declare themselves"

  Like you, I’m happy to use a shorthand screen name, but then I’m not a featured writer. But if you must know, my full name is Ismail Liebowitz.

  "Ethnic cleansing? Yeah right."

  "Yeah right" may do fine for schoolyard tussles, but its not much of a rejoinder in a forum with pretensions of substance. The ethnic cleansing accusation has a fine intellectual pedigree, cited over and over by historians of varied ideological persuasions. I mentioned Benny Morris, whose views about the rightness of this crime are, I suspect, closer to yours than mine. So if you have a substantive counterargument, let ‘er rip. Otherwise, keep quiet, pay attention, and try to learn something.  
• 
  By Shootingsparks 3/6/09 at 2:11 a.m. UTC

  Over 150,000 Jewish Soldiers Served Hitler and the Nazis

  what percentage of the adult male German-Jewish population that 150,000 represented??
• 
  By HLY39 3/5/09 at 11:01 p.m. UTC

  I would like to see Ismail share his entire name too, so we can see who exactly is writing all the complaints on all the articles. Ethnic cleansing? Yeah right. The first tool to bring down an opponent is defamation. By equating Nazi horrors to lies of Arab ethnic cleansing, must be the way. If that is true, all readers could benefit from learning of this alleged secret ethnic cleansing, so please do share links to real sources on this. Funny thing is that over many years I’ve gone from Democrat to Comm to Green and back again, cuz the times they do change, but people stay the same. Peace.
• 
  By Alcove-One 3/5/09 at 9:23 p.m. UTC

  Drug-induced false reality describes the left-wing today perfectly.

  Also, I love how certain trolls love to compare Israel to Nazi Germany.

  Moronic in the extreme.

  Great article Susie. Pay no attention to the putz.
• 
  By andrew r 3/5/09 at 5:13 p.m. UTC

  Israel may not be the worst human rights abuser in the Middle East (I’ve never seen any one make that case), but it is the only one that has active support from liberal, human rights-loving society at large.  Get back to me when rich, trendy New Yorkers throw a fundraiser with Syrian or Egyptian military brass invited.

  http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879238837&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

  Israel has to be boycotted and demonized just to offset the public support it has.
• 
  By andrew r 3/5/09 at 5:02 p.m. UTC

  I’m in general agreement with the other anti-Zionists I speak to.  It’s not possible to make a case for Israel without some level of dishonesty or stupidity.  At least in the liberal human rights framework.  If you think might makes right, just say it.  Don’t insult our intellect with a laundry list of injustices in the Middle East.
• 
  By Ismail 3/5/09 at 4:41 p.m. UTC

  A shockingly foolish piece.

  First, wouldn’t it be a good idea for contributors to identify themselves more fully than this jackanapes has done? It’s one thing for commentors to use sobriquets, but authors of featured pieces should declare themselves.

  Second, as Stu has pointed out, Susie’s grasp of history is tenuous. There is no question-none-among serious historians that massive ethnic cleansing was carried out during the establishment of Israel. This is acknowledged even by those, like Benny Morris, who applaud it and only wish it had been done more thoroughly.

  Third, the piece is shot through with silly howlers like

  "…Israel… which is the most prolific nation in the Middle East, when it comes to innovation and academic advancement." 

  What does this have to do with assessing Israel politically or ethically? If I recall, mid-20th century Germany was also a technological and academic powerhouse. Nasty bunch, though.  

  This shoddy and ignorant barking deserves no more of my (or anyone’s) time, but I again must remark on the journalistic tailspin this site is in. Surely there are writers or thinkers out there who can make the case for the brutal Zionist state in a fashion that is not insulting to those readers fortunate enough to boast a complete cerebral cortex. 

  What’s going on over there? Have you all lost your minds? 
• 
  By andrew r 3/5/09 at 4:08 p.m. UTC

  Whoever came up with it needed some one else to blame.  That’s an implicit admission that Israel was founded on an injustice.
• 
  By Shootingsparks 3/5/09 at 4:04 p.m. UTC

  the tribal narcicissim displayed in this propaganda piece is galling..

  Israel being couched as a "democracy" is complete nonsense. Calling neighboring countries racist for not taking in those folks displaced by Israeli land theft is quite a linquistic leap off the high-dive into the shallow end of the propaganda pool…
• 
  By Disco_Stu 3/5/09 at 11:54 a.m. UTC

  I agree with your sentiments about Israeli Apartheid Week, but you might want to review your history. Many Arabs were indeed forced to leave their homes by the Haganah, not the Arabs. Even most Israeli sources readily acknowledge this now. Look up Plan Dalet. 

  I make this suggestion because it doesn’t make "our side" look good if we’re repeating simplistic narratives fifty years out of date. 
• 
  By Morganfrost 3/5/09 at 10:57 a.m. UTC

  I look forward to seeing this crew of imbeciles, fellow travelers, charlatans, hacks, bigots and other bien-pensants express their outrage over: the treatment  of women in every country in the Middle East except Israel; the treatment of Jews in every country in the Middle East except Israel; the treatment of gays in every country in the Middle East except Israel; the treatment of political dissidents in every country in the Middle East except Israel; and the treatment of Christians in every country in the Middle East except Israel.  Think I’ll have to wait long?

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