The Protocols of the Elders of Java

Man, I hate it how so many so-called liberals ally with Marxists and Islamists and stuff. I am an actual liberal (cf. Mill, Locke, etc.) and I'm sick of Leftists doing crap like this. Antisemitism just gets more and more bizarre every day.

"Schultz himself is an avowed friend of Israel..."

Well, if you call hanging out with Aish HaTorah being a friend of Israel, maybe.

Aish HaTorah is a decidedly right-wing organization implicated in the production and distribution of the "Obsession" video that hid, like a cockroach, within the folds of our Sunday papers not long ago. It is also closely associated with the settler movement and runs a hasbara program which plucks young and impressionable American Jews from their homes and brings them to Israel, where they are inoculated with a particularly toxic variant of Zionism, in the hope that they will become immunized to whatever truthfulness and moral sensitivity they may encounter in the future.

As readers of Jewcy well know, increasing numbers of American Jews no longer feel that this steroidal version of Zionism best serves the interests of Israel; hence, my questioning whether Schultz's dalliance with these nuts makes him a friend of that combative nation.

My own avoidance of the swill Schultz serves derives from culinary rather than political reasons, but I am happy that my refined gustatory sensibilities have the happy coincidental effect of depriving an agent of Zionism of even a latte's worth of treasure. 

Starbucks is also a symbol of America.

I remember an anti-globalization riot on Oxford Steet in London on May Day, 2001 when Starbucks was targeted. I never buy coffee at Starbucks but after that experience in London, every May First I make a point of buying something there as a form of defiance against the far-left (and now Islamofascists) who want to intimidate the public.

I would hope Ismail would denounce this rabid form of mindless vandalism worthy of the brown shirts but apparently a DVD and other forms of free speech is much more sinister.

These thugs and those who effete fools who excuse them makes my "refined gustatory sensibilities" churn like an espresso machine on the fritz.

Fascinating, Ismail, simply fascinating. What next? All Zionists are liars? The 'right-wing' are pigs? You presuppose the 'illegality' of a Jewish nation-state and from there simply assume the bad faith of those who write or act in support of it. Indoctrination? Innoculation against 'truthfulness and moral sensitivity'?

You ought to be well aware that Zionists are taught none of these things. Do you think Zionists hand out little cards of Palestinians dying and an Israeli flag waving proudly above their corpses? On that view Palestinians and their supporters would be subhuman. Do you think your presence here would be permissible if you were viewed as subhuman by the staff, who obviously subscribe to Zionist views? Do you suppose that all who oppose you hate you?

You commit the critical mistake of interpreting the viewpoint of your enemy from a position of hostility, rather than attempting to view how that enemy thinks. That is no way to understand how anyone thinks, regardless of who they are. You are free to characterise Zionists as blind to evidence that decimates the validity of their political positions. You are free to further state that the effect of the policies of Zionists are to create human tragedies. If you wish to argue that they are racist, you are also free to do so. Here you have focused your attention on the particular 'toxicity' of the beliefs of Aish Hatorah and so-called 'right-wing' Zionists especially. I can only suppose (though perhaps you ought to have made this far more clear) that the 'special' or 'additional' element of disgust their beliefs provokes within you stems from the fact that you believe they are racist.

I might add that you have spectacularly failed to show proof to that effect in the past. Accusing President Peres, the man who first initiated talks with Fatah without authority from the Israeli Prime Minister, of opposing a Palestinian State?

...I believe, is De-Nihilists.

Ismail, you write beautifully. Too bad about the content being a whole amalgamation of un-truths, repackaged. I guess Keats was wrong.

"I would hope Ismail would denounce this rabid form of mindless vandalism worthy of the brown shirts but apparently a DVD and other forms of free speech is much more sinister."

First of all, Hume alerts us to the fact that "...branches of Starbucks have been attacked in cities from Beirut to London ...", leaving the impression of dozens of coffee shops reduced to rubble by barbarians, sort of like, say, schools and hospitals in Gaza have been. While many Starbucks have in fact been vandalized by WTO opponents, I could find reference to only 1 (one) in London and 1 (one) in Beirut targeted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. And while I disagree with those particular expressions of protest, I think it's sort of silly to make a fuss about minor acts of vandalism associated with a war of choice in which over a thousand have been killed. It's called perspective.

And the distribution of the DVD is in fact far more sinister than a stupid window defacement or two. Suppose a DVD of the Protocols appeared in thousands and thousands of newspapers one Sunday. Suppose also that a group of Jews, alarmed at what they saw as a threat to Israel, defaced a couple of halal butcher shops. Which would you find more sinister?

"...makes my "refined gustatory sensibilities" churn..."

I have seen no evidence in your postings here of your possessing any refined sensibilities whatsoever, gustatory or otherwise. Please advise if I've overlooked something. 

"Do you think Zionists hand out little cards of Palestinians dying and an Israeli flag waving proudly above their corpses?"

Not sure about that, but I do know that they cause Palestinians to die and create those corpses, and that they do so viewing the carnage from promontories overlooking Gaza, picnicking and waving little Israeli flags.

"Do you think your presence here would be permissible if you were viewed as subhuman by the staff..."  

Most merely dislike me...I think it's only Craig who thinks I'm subhuman.

I'm not quite sure what to make of your third paragraph. I see that you disapprove of approaching an enemy with hostility and instead counsel that I try and understand their perspective. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm sure that Zionists come in all flavors, many (maybe most) being honestly interested in peace. But as I've explained many times before, you don't have to assume someone is a demon to oppose them.

What issues animate your passions? Are you "pro-choice" or "pro-life"? Does it help to say that you must understand your opponent's way of thinking? How so? What do you do once you've achieved such understanding? Do you mitigate your activism? Seems to me that calls such as yours a) only come up when Palestine/Israel is the topic, and b) serve only to quiet pro-Palestinian voices.

As for the rest ("you are free to..."), I'm not sure what you're getting at.

And Peres really is a two-faced old dog. The introducer of nuclear arms to the Middle East, shameless enthusiast of the settlement policy, orchestrator of the Qana massacre, etc, etc., the opportunistic old relic isn't fooling me.

 Sara E-

Please point out a single untruth in my post. I understand that you may have opinions different from mine, but what did I say that was untrue? And your post put me in mind of Keats, too....something about "a heifer lowing at the skies." 

"..leaving the impression of dozens of coffee shops reduced to rubble by barbarians, sort of like, say, schools and hospitals in Gaza have been.."

Gee, much rocket fire coming from your local Starbucks?

" a war of choice in which over a thousand have been killed.."

When thousands of rockets are landing in southern Israel and Israel responds, that is not a war of choice but one of self defense.

And now Ismail, you saucy fellow, you can go back to filing your nails.

And all this time, I was just avoiding it because the coffee sucks!

Badum-bum. *cymbal crash*

Ismail is the Charles Dickens of Jewcy.com.  The coherence of any thought he expresses is drowned in his rich albeit useless (given the  medium of blog) vocabulary. 

Please, try for clarity.  

"Ismail is the Charles Dickens of Jewcy.com."

I'm thinking more along the lines of Yeats, maybe, or Nabokov. The later Wittgenstein when I'm feeling allusive, Bertrand Russell when I'm shooting for precision. Oh, and Carl Hiassen; definitely Carl Hiassen.

But Dickens? Gee, I don't know...

I'm charmed by your delightfully kooky embrace of the notion that a rich vocabulary is useless. And while you may disagree with my opinions, they are nothing if not coherent, which I think even my severest critic will acknowledge.

See, this is where a decent vocabulary comes in handy-it prevents you from using "coherence" when you meant "clarity". Although I'd insist that my remarks are both coherent and clear. And correct.  

Did you get all that?    

Dickens, Nabokov, Yeats?

I would say the style of Little Lord Faulteroy with the content of Lord Haw Haw.

Ismail, you appear to have an inflated ego. To assert that your remarks are coherent, clear and correct? Why that's an alliteration only an egomaniacal moron could produce.

See, if your remarks were "correct" you would not be posting them on Jewcy.com. You would have solved the Mid-East crisis. 

Fortunately, you have done me a great favor in one of your "remarks": 

"Does it help to say that you must understand your opponent's way of thinking? How so? What do you do once you've achieved such understanding? Do you mitigate your activism?"

I agree COMPLETELY! Israel/the civilized world should ignore all the whining from the UN, the Arab League and what ever other entity that spews forth meaningless verbiage; and just proceed with the destruction of its enemy: HAMAS/Militant Islamism. Because it doesn't matter how the Islamists and their supporters think, or why they think the way they do. Inquiring into that will only serve to "quiet" voices of civilization's defense.

Alcove again displays his appalling ignorance by suggesting that a literary character has a prose style (interestingly, despite the derisory connotation that the term "Little Lord Fauntleroy" has acquired, the actual character was quite admirable-and, yes, I know that language is a living thing and that connotations change over time, etc., etc.-I just need to indulge the pedantic tilt that my readers have come to expect.) I assume that the Lord HawHaw reference means to assert that I am a Nazi sympathizer. Alcove has now placed himself outside the perimeter of the merely stupid and has travelled way over to insane and irrelevant.

Fishman-

No argument about my ego. But moron? C'mon, you can do better.

Let me help you out with your comprehension difficulties. You may notice that my original remark referred to "activism". You took this as providing dispensation for the "destruction of (one's) enemy". With diligence, you may yet come to apprehend the difference between these two. Don't give up. There's a good lad.

No one enjoys trouncing dunces more than I, but this is getting tiresome even for me. Fishman, alcove et al may continue their assaults on language and reason without expectation of reply from me. 

One of the benefits of permitting Ismail to post his silly, if highly entertaining comments on Jewcy is that it exposes the folly of his black-and-white mindset.

While the obsessive clarity of Ismail's writing is part of what makes it as much a delight for me to read as it is for him to create, I note that the unwitting permeation of this approach to his sense of reasoning comes at a steep price. It is not coincidental that humanity's most dramatic and horrifying moral failures were accompanied by the sort of self-righteousness and smug moral certitude that exemplify the very tone that Ismail is so fond of. The commentariat here should take note of that fact, and thank the moderators for providing us with such a stark and edifying example of the sort of reasoning that is as typical of both Ismail and Israel's other habitual detractors as it was of nearly every other morally disastrous political movement in history.

While Ismail loves to chide me for not infrequently employing an often intentionally obscure style, he should realize that a sense of self-doubt is essential to one's ethical maturity. In his unwillingness to entertain a single moral shortcoming on the part of his cause (in his case, the Palestinian cause), Ismail bears at least as much resemblance to George W. Bush as he does to any author of a work of literature! Indeed, he shares this trait with most if not all whose sympathies are so strongly aligned. But at least he speaks well.

No, we can assume that Ismail won't be holding up signs that bear such slogans as "Death to all Juice" anytime soon. You see, for Ismail a spelling error would be unforgiveable. He does seem to have that going for him.

P.S. Everything that I have written above comes with the caveat that I might possibly not know what I am talking about at all, and simply wrote it out of love for the fact that I was just able to make yet another smashing and dialectically unassailable argument!

Buried within Isaac's swamp of prose is an interesting question; what is the difference between a firmly-held political position and "...smug moral certitude..."? Put another way, at what point does deep conviction about the rightness of one's cause, often regarded as an estimable trait when we talk about racial or gender equality, slavery et al, become the mark of dictators or brownshirts?

I've never denied that a robust sense of skepticism does wonders for one's overall ideological health, but this does not mean that one must treat one's every conviction as Descartes treated the evidence of his senses-"maybe I am mistaken.." Of course every belief is subject to revision, but this does not mean that I must foreswear acting as though what I believe is true. Really, this is quite obvious and only when Zionuts encounter strong and informed opposition do such preposterous epistemological caveats as you propose rear their mangy heads. 

There are some things I know nothing about. There are some things I'm confused about. And there are some things I'm certain of. This does not mean, as Isaac's caricature would suggest, that I am immune to empirical correction or that my belief derives from some sort of unimpeachable source; only that I am an intelligent person, widely read and endlessly curious, who has weighed the evidence on the subject of Palestine/Israel and has come to a conclusion, about the accuracy of which I have great confidence.

Is this really so unusual? Wouldn't you describe yourself in similar terms? (OK, except for the intelligent and widely-read part.)

And you defer to as much with your own restatement of his words

"Of course every belief is subject to revision,"

despite your disavowal of the (one presumes) original quote that immediately precedes it:

"maybe I am mistaken.."

The only way you might not be denying what you just acknowledged with this display is if you actually believe that knowledge originates solely in one's mind and requires no external stimulus for its creation. While you may fancy yourself "widely read and endlessly curious", I suggest that you would do well to read up on cognitive science. My suspicion is that you are locked into a philosophical framework that has not been updated to account for empirical realities that I'm sure even you won't reject outright, once presented with the overwhelming evidence for them. While we now recognize that the mind is not a blank slate, there is something to be said for the fact that a child who is blindfolded for the first year of life will never be capable of vision. And this is just the most extreme example.

That you are so willing to relegate the political to a realm where "deep conviction about the rightness of one's cause" can innoculate one's views from the need for revision (an exercise that I highly doubt you would see fit to apply to other pursuits) says as much about your outdated views of politics as it does your support for a selective and inherently solipsistic empiricism (the latter, in your case, being a hallmark of the former).

Oh, and sorry about having to consistently pack more information into my comments than you are comfortable with. If only your remediation didn't require it. That and the application of moral reasoning to politics.

And the application of complexity to any written work.

Ummm, Isaac.....my undergraduate degree was in philosophy, and I did three years of doctoral work in neuropsychology before finishing my degree in a related field, so spare me your nursery school lectures on matters you don't know much about (let's not forget your silly Godel reference a while back, which was not in the least apposite to the subject you were pontificating upon).

Since my Descartes reference was lost on you, let me get down on all fours and approach this from your perspective. Descartes didn't start merely from the ordinary and uncontroversial observation that we are sometimes mistaken about what may be the case. He was doing a thought experiment in which he supposed that everything he thought he knew was a fiction, perhaps invented by a Grand Puppeteer with malicious intent. In that case, could he be certain of anything? Thence, rational/empirical, analytic/synthetic and the whole of modern Western philosophy. 

Do you see the difference between "every belief is subject to revision" and " I must, as a matter of principle, assume that my senses regularly deceive me. If so, what can I claim to know?" 

"...a philosophical framework that has not been updated to account for empirical realities..."

Philosophical frameworks don't typically need updating via empirical discovery. If the question can be settled empirically, it is not a philosophical one. "What does it mean to know something?" is not the sort of thing that can be answered in a lab.

Not sure what your "blank slate" remark is meant to contribute. I suspect you are just regurgitating a factoid regarding Cartesianism in a pathetic attempt to demonstrate your readiness to sit at the adults' table. Not so fast.

And your steadfast refusal to understand even the simplest and most straightforward of points worries me. I neither said nor implied that "deep conviction" is incompatible with "revising one's belief". You surely must realize that any strongly felt conviction is vulnerable to your silly criticism. What would you have us do, preface every single expression of belief with, "I may be wrong, but..."?

Get serious, or see your doctor. Stat. 

Whatever academic work you did, it's obvious that your understanding of it hasn't been updated in a very, very long time.

If Descartes is too antiquated to bring to a discussion on the relationship between knowledge, evidence and ideology in the 21st century, then you have only yourself to blame for bringing him up. I was going to do you the favor of moving on to Hume (i.e. David Hume, 18th-century Scottish philosopher and not the author of the post we're commenting on) - who is more relevant to the discussion (and if you truly did major in philosophy, you must have realized this but probably neglected to instead mention him in order to sate the appetites of your own connivances) - before you chimed in, and will get to him soon enough. In the meantime, I have to face the oddity of someone who claims to have a background in both philosophy and neuropsychology expressing his bafflement over my mentioning the tabula rasa construct of human knowledge.

For the benefit of the reader, the idea I just mentioned originated with Aristotle and was most recently and extensively addressed to the public in a book of the same (translated) name in 2002 by noted linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. Perhaps Ismail's heard of him. While I can apparently never hope to have the incredibly sophisticated handle on 17th-century European philosophy that Ismail claims, I can at least update my knowledge in the 21st according to the works of accomplished neuroscientists who might even manage to make it into Ismail's neck of the New England woods every now and then. Hell, the guy might even make use of observations regardless of whether or not they were discovered in a lab. But perhaps he should take that up with Ismail.

As far as concerns the alleged non-philosophical nature of questions that can be settled empirically, perhaps Ismail is too hoity-toity to regard theology as falling within the province of philosophy. If this is also truly the case, I admit my ignorance on that score as well. But last I checked, there are a whole bunch of quandries that theologians have found themselves in when it comes to that whole evolution thing. Since their concerns apparently can't be touched by appeals to either evidence or philosophy, I suppose Ismail is calling them stupid. If he wants to do that, such is his right. And I don't even know that I have good standing to disagree with him. But again, I don't see much reason to get into futile brawls that he is infinitely more qualified to facilitate and participate in, and waste his time with, than I am.

Regarding Hume...

From him we have a valuable musing that is infinitely more relevant to the discussion. It goes like this and is predicated upon the observation that all knowledge is provisional (a point obviously lost on Ismail):

"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."

My reason for harping on this point is that it illustrates Ismail's inability to separate opinion from fact - a crucial precondition required of reasonable individuals before  attempting to reconcile the two. For some people, especially those hanging on to the intellectual streams that defined older generations, the theme encapsulated by a particular political cause is so romantic and captivating that no facts may be allowed to modify its meaning and significance. With the Palestinian cause, Ismail boils everything down to a call for the stirring rebel to square off against the imperial oppressor. When the mundanities of everyday politics are allowed to enter the discussion, Ismail's sense of ideology and excitement gives way to disappointment and betrayal, and hence his habit of larding up descriptions of politicians who don't fit the purpose of his narrative with defamatory and nonsensical labels.

Allow me to relate some examples: For, one presumes, his adeptness with such customary political skills as common sense and compromise, Mahmoud Abbas has earned himself Ismail's epithet of "quisling". For exercising the same while possessing rhetorical gifts of which Ismail can only dream, Barack Obama was labelled by Ismail as a "con man of Olympian proportions". One can only assume, based on deduction, that Ismail will apply these taunts to any political figure who commits the grievous sin of deviating from a script so obsessed with motif and theme that it can never yield to what must be, in Ismail's view, such an intolerable absurdity as a credible plot.

And so it goes, that, with discussions of factual matters, Ismail will attach every device known to man in an effort to sustain a theme so irredeemably beyond hope that the intensity of one's emotion in imagining it is the only thing that matters. Every clause of his, every metaphor, every turn of phrase, is but another meathook in the carcass of a sentiment forever wandering, moving along the conveyer line in search of an argument, but never finding one. And apparently he finds it difficult to deviate from this approach even when discussing the subjects in which he received formal training: Philosophy and neuroscience.

Ok. Maybe that was a bit harsh. But you get the point.

OK - You two - It's handbags at dawn.

A couple of points and I'm done with this.

First, I asked an altogether reasonable question: when is strongly held belief to be considered "smug moral certitude"? Isaac declines to answer. I say again, if you have reason to believe that Israel has not become a depraved and bellicose pariah nation, do tell us why, but don't attribute my conviction that it is that and worse to some quackery about my personality. One more time: there is nothing pathological about championing a belief in whose truth one has a high degree of confidence-we all do it all the time.

"For, one presumes, his adeptness with such customary political skills as common sense and compromise, Mahmoud Abbas has earned himself Ismail's epithet of "quisling". "

No, because he has systematically continued the looting of his people's vanishing treasure initiated by his predecessor Arafat, because he instructs his troops to cooperate with the IOF as Israel continues to expand its settlements, because he has exacted nothing-nothing at all- from Israel as he continues prattling on about the "peace process" (doesn't compromise usually involve both sides meeting somewhere near the middle?), etc , etc-for these reasons I call him a quisling, as would anyone who knows the meaning of the term.

Re Obama, anyone who appoints to his economic team the very felons who midwived the current crisis, who proposes increased troop levels in Afghanistan, who articulates a position to the right of Olmert's re Jerusalem, who votes for the Patriot Act and indemnifying the telecom companies from prosecution for violating our privacy, who funded the Iraq aggression again and again-all while crowing about his progressive bona fides.....yes, a con man.

And don't worry, you weren't too harsh. Just incredibly wrong.

G'bye. 

Hehehe...

Some people like to keep furry and easily provoked creatures in their handbags...

Given the often challenging task of separating Ismail's rhetoric from any sincere interest on his part in seeking and disseminating knowledge, it isn't always easy to know which of his questions are really meant to be taken seriously. That said, I didn't anticipate the offense he'd take to my addressing his concerns as selectively as he addressed mine. Rather, I figured that he'd appreciate such a move given my tendency to create a "swamp of prose".

But the question he poses isn't one that I have any trouble taking seriously, and I respect the fact that it was asked. The fact of the matter is that I don't see much difference between strongly held belief and "smug moral certitude" -- well, apart from perhaps the "smug" part. Other than that, I think that Hume's words invite a profound realization (my interpretation of course, not being a professionally apprenticed philosopher). We can never really be sure of anything. And hence the importance today of such a writer as Andrew Sullivan, who is eager to (re-)introduce the crucial element of doubt into American cultural, political and religious discourse. Perhaps my stance is an unconventional one. But if there's any belief in whose truth I possess a high degree of confidence, it's that one: That we don't really know anything for certain.

Ideologues are becoming as unfashionable in America as they should become in the Middle East. And I suspect that this is part of a deeper dynamic that so vexes Ismail when it comes to Obama, and when it comes to Ismail's rather dismal prospects for possessing reasonable and pragmatic political sensibilities generally.

As for Israel being a pariah nation, I don't have any doubt that the self-appointed betters of the world have successfully transferred their contempt for the same pariah people that they defamed for centuries onto that people's statehood. What should be the ethical significance of this is something that Ismail will have to explain, though. You see, my knowledge of philosophy relies much too heavily on the principles taught in first-year logic courses, such as the invalidity of argumentum ad populum. Moral trials are best not reduced to popularity contests. But perhaps in this regard, as in my respect for the role of doubt, I am missing in my analysis something about which that wise polemicist Ismail is more expert.

I don't doubt that Israel has achieved a degree of bellicosity that wouldn't make me at all comfortable. Living among so many pledged to your extinction will tend to do that. Although one wouldn't know it judging by Ismail's words, context is important. But "depraved"? Well, I'll have to refer you to the paragraph above.

The idea that the Palestinians have extracted no concessions from Israel is a canard. They could achieve many more, I'll admit. But how this obviates their need to engage Israel politically, to institute a government that represents them, and to recognize the requirement that they face up to their own responsibilities (all fruits of Oslo), or worse - how this makes one of their leaders a traitor for proceeding with the only process available for resolving their dispute with Israel in a legally permissible way! - is something that perhaps Ismail might want to explain. But it looks like it's too late for that.

As for our friend's parting shots at the president-elect, I was initially going to delve into an effort at analyzing and better understanding the numerous weird and overly conspiratorial assumptions (and social pathologies) that might be at play there. But I've already done enough damage today. And even I can only permit myself to cause so much hurt to Ismail's smug sense of pride - no matter how wrongly misplaced that pride is.

Philosophical frameworks don't typically need updating via empirical discovery

Ismail, I think this is too quick. In contemporary philosophy of science, for example, the two main factions -- the realists (e.g., Sellars and Putnam) and the empiricists (e.g., van Fraassen and Laudan) -- generally agree that a good deal of their dispute hangs in part on the empirical matter of whether the history of science is in fact evolutionary or revolutionary, broadly speaking (otherwise, they wouldn't devote chapter after chapter to accusing the other side of mischaracterising that history).

And just today, I read Ned Markosian's defense of presentism -- the view that nothing non-present is the value of a bound variable under the scope of a completely unrestricted quantifier -- against (among other objections) the conventional interpretation of special relativity to the effect that it rules out absolute simultaneity (and a fortiori absolute presentness) in any intelligible sense.

As somebody hoping to earn a living doing speculative analytic metaphysics, I'm as sympathetic to the idea of philosophy as a domain of enquiry impervious to demands for empirical confirmation as anyone can be, but since the question is still up in the air for a lot of philosophers, I don't think the position that empirical discovery rightly constrains philosophical theorising can be dismissed out of hand. The fact that, e.g., there are now some experiments designed to test rival interpretations of quantum mechanics previously thought to be empirically indistinguishable surely ought to chasten metaphysicians. 

I do find, FWIW, that the Knesset's recent action proscribing Arab parties puts defenders of the compatibility of Zionism with liberal democracy  (like myself) even more in the awkward position of western socialists going on interminably about how the Soviet Union got Marx wrong. I mean, even more than we had been in that position before.  At some point, the ideology just is what it is in practice.