Religion & Beliefs
Nothing Says Lovin’…
By Adam Shprintzen / January 2, 2009
Around the world, angry responses to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead have, predictably enough, flooded the streets. In Jakarta, protesters carried mock missiles with the quaint message of "Target: Tel Aviv, Israel," while in the UK Annie Lennox for some reason has contributed her two cents. It seems that protest has even spread to the universe of awkward tech geeks looking to escape reality (it is good to see that flags burn just as quickly in cyberspace). But what about in the United States? Where can we go for some good, old fashioned Hamas-style shouting and extremism? Turns out that Jewish snowbirds in Florida don’t have to travel to the Holy Land this winter in order to be approached by Hamas supporters.
The account reported in the Sun Sentinel seems to have missed or ignored the content spewed by the ANSWER-led rally. Note the particularly foul claims of the young woman at the 3:25 mark, calling for "a bigger oven" and that Jews "need to go back to the ovens."
Given the overly facile narrative being connected to the events in Gaza, is such blind hatred really surprising? In a war in which Hamas forces have been described as "unarmed police officers, public servants" whose terror tactics have flippantly been called "homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety," an oversimplified narrative of aggressor and oppressed continues to be wrapped around the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Associated Press utilizes terms such as "assault" to describe Israeli actions, while describing Hamas as "resilient." Does anyone really benefit from an over-simplified narrative? Does it improve the lives of Palestinians living under Hamas-style Sharia?
POST A COMMENT
Kitty, Ismail, Isaac and whoever wishes to go at it without responding to the substance of the above post in a civilized and respectful manner, please do so offline (i.e. through email), or start a Jewcy user blog post.
One of the Commandments:
THOU SHALT NOT FEED THE TROLLS.
Gendanken sind frie, remember? Watching people dig children out of rubble is not conducive to clear thinking. Especially when the mother looks shell shocked and thankful that they did not take all. But you’re right, I should not express cracy thoughts I feel when emotionally wrought. Apologies.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
I don’t care if her beliefs are unpopular. That doesn’t bother me in the slightest. But I have demolished every facile point she has attempted on a substantive basis. How? It wasn’t difficult. They were so simpleminded as to strain credulity. But her bias bled through every comment. That’s fine, as long as the presumption of moral superiority isn’t there. But it was, and hence I attacked her in funny ways. (I mean, come on, who finds an avatar of a tiny screeching kitten interesting?) It’s childishly cute, which would have been fine assuming such transparently childish babble weren’t there to accompany it with every post.
Oh, and Ismail, about kitty’s advocacy for genocide, I’ll let you try explaining away this one (emphasis added):
escapism" on How to Make the Palestinian Cause More Successful!
is sometimes the only alternative to reality. I see a genocide going on and everyone cheering it. For what? Humiliation is never an option for surrender when you believe yourself to be the righteous defender of your own cause. Which leaves only the option of genocide. Sometimes, I wish they’d get on and get it over it. Why wait, when compromise has been off the table years before there was a state?
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
Sometimes it’s easier for me to remember that I knew something than how I came to know it. But you should really be less uncharitable to me by now. In any event, you go try unravelling the contortions you’ll inevitably put yourself through to explain how this piece was not either advocating genocide, or so blithe with it as to make absolutely no difference whatsoever, Master Procrustes. My take is that she honestly seems not to care here – a symptom of the extreme Euro-left that pretends to aspire toward justice but is just as much motivated by a fear of power wielded in the hands of "the (angry) other" and the practical ambiguity bred of unresolved standstills that intensify that sense of power. There is no moral sensibility embedded within this statement of hers to balance or justify it as even just a rhetorical device! Still, I humbly await your remonstration. If nothing else, the sense of urgency in kitty’s words demands it.
It’s fine to challenge my beliefs. But if you provide material support to those who would do so with the aid of a knife, an AK-47, and a Koran – or a version of the Communist manifesto, then I will either kill you first (if my life was immediately in danger) or do everything in my power to prevent your actions. I won’t be sorry about it.
I seem to have studied enough physics to know that mortars can’t hit you once they and their launching pads have been destroyed. Much like if I destroyed your computer you would be restricted from advertizing to Jewcy that you don’t know much of anything.
It’s probably not as complicated as your highly interactive model. But then again, you’ve proved yourself to be so wrong on so many things that you really fucked up the "trust" factor on anyone assuming much validity when it comes to your own purported intellectual and ethical authority.
But I’m really interested in how it works, though. No, really! Does it come with a secret decoder ring? Does it look like a Rube Goldberg illustration?
You are a troll. But you are also a tool - in your own right. You are a learning tool for Americans, Jews and for the free world to understand who would not care to protect the latter. Some don’t believe it. If I wish one thing for the left and for the success of America and for the prosperity of the world, it’s that the left does all it can to identify and expose retarded gremlins such as yourself and put your sensibilities to shame before it does them all in. It’s not hard to do.
And I think enough of them have already gotten the message.
Its interesting, this new model of argumentation, which believes that mockery and derision actually resolve issues. The principle that humiliating your opponent can somehow educate him is a fascinating evolution in thought that is characterised by being perhaps the only meme to be incredibly successful inspite of its high failure rate.
I wonder why that is. Anyway, goodnight.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
Ah, so there is evidence that it works?
Being a kind of simple minded buffoon, I tend to understand trial and error.
Independent variables, dependent variables, put it in a model and look for a predictive equation. Its surprising how it simplifies life. Strangely enough, it would seem, given a similar set of circumstances, people tend to behave in a similar fashion. You can, to the extent that you put all variables [not always a possibility] you come up with a pretty good prediction of the results.
Now I’ve been looking at occupation and rebellion as an interactive model. And deterrence has only worked in two models. You actually reached the first at one time, when Arafat sobbed at the funeral of Rabin. But for some reason, that one completely escaped the highminded problem solvers out there. So you’re heading for the next one. Its a more permanent resolution, I admit. But it comes with a heavy price.
"You were probably sympathetic to al Qaeda, too. Who knows? I usually do
my best to avoid lumping those categories together. But people like you
really energize the American right and bring them back into relevance,
I’ll have you know.’
One must only be sympathetic to the ones that don’t challenge our beliefs, is it? Hate the racist if you’re a liberal, the homosexual if you’re a homophobe, the pacifist if you’re an authoritarian, the atheist if you’re a theist. Yeah, makes sense. If you’re not extending yourself, you don’t have to question much.Makes it much easier to put people into black and white categories. The AMERICAN RIGHT! Ooooh! shockandawe. Its not like the left does anything wrong. A war here, a nuclear bombing there. But since I’ve decided which one is MY side, I needn’t watch my back.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
We’ll see. It hasn’t been tried in a while.
Perhaps your status as an outlier extends to preferring not to imprison or fine criminals, because deterrents, you know, are dehumanizing.
Maybe you’re an absolute pacifist. Maybe you’re not. I doubt you have the brains to have thought it through either way. But you are an incredibly annoying idiot. And a troll. There is no reason not to ignore you from here on out. You don’t even understand when or why you’re wrong. You seem to lack the capacity for that, despite your preachiness.
But allowing you to yammer on in post after post just exposes the intellectual rot of the pacifist or impotent Euro-left and their fellow travellers, who comprise the bulk of recruits for those sympathetic to the goals and tactics of the Palestinian cause. You were probably sympathetic to al Qaeda, too. Who knows? I usually do my best to avoid lumping those categories together. But people like you really energize the American right and bring them back into relevance, I’ll have you know. You’re too dumb to know (or apparently care about anything else). Keep it up, though. I’m sure you’ll really enjoy it when the next version of George W. Bush comes to power!
I hear stout assertions without any evidence are unhelpful [source: who knows? common sense? a guide to fallacies of basic logic?]
"there is a humanitarian crisis"
"there is a genocide"
"there is an occupation"
"there is a Palestine"
"there are Palestinians"
Apparently, if you say it often enough, it becomes the truth. Some kind of magic mantra.
You are an absolute, fucking buffoon. And one dumb pussy.
Your hissing noises have become quite tiresome. Go away before someone ties a firecracker to your tail.
True, I find myself more of an outlier every day. Apparently, its the fad to dehumanise people so that its easier to er, eliminate them. Everything is collateral damages. Perhaps I’m missing the gene that makes the euphemism the rationale.
"establishing a deterrent effect"
how’s that working out for you?
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
Not much no.I tend to believe that killing people does not undo the crime. And its very worrisome for me that people confuse justice with revenge and think that killing people for killing people is closure. I think you can estimate the humanity of a person by their desire to punish. Beware of those in whom the desire to punish is very strong, they say. Is state sanctioned revenge less horrendous? Should Mother Teresa have been tortured to death because she witheld medications from sick people, believing that suffering was good for the soul? Would it make up for all the painful deaths she was responsible for?
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
And for the record, it was kitty who was abusing the word genocide – indicating that she didn’t even know what it meant. I point this out now in case you missed it above.
I think it’s safe to say that the concept therefore eluded her as well, regardless of the historical baggage that rightly accompanies those who know what it means and just choose not to take the phenomenon seriously.
So I was obviously right to take that feline version of a she-wolf to task. Hey, she even failed by your standards!
There is a price to pay for disregarding what we can make of the intentions and intellectual capacities of the speaker. I regret that your method and preferred standards missed this point for much longer than mine did.
I hear stout denial is helpful [source: Lord Emsworth]
"there is no humanitarian crisis"
"there is no genocide"
"there is no occupation"
"there is no Palestine"
"there are no Palestinians"
Apparently, if you say it often enough, it becomes the truth. Some kind of magic mantra.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
"But you don’t need the confirmation of historians. At the time of the first aliyah, the Jewish population of Palestine was 2.5% of the total. Less than 80 years later, they had a state. Do you think this was accomplished with the approval of the Muslim and Christian population, happily selling away their homeland? Does this make sense to you?"
Yes, if most was owned by landowners who had no particular interest in anything but themselves and their money. Does that ring any bells to you in the modern context? People being interested in nothing but themselves and their money? Lemme give you a hint: it starts with Fatah, and it ends with Fatah. The Palestinian President, duly elected with a mandate to steal as much money from his people as possible, with their knowledge and consent. Or Arafat and his wonderful wife. What leads you to believe this was impossible before? Were Palestinians any kinder to themselves? More politically aware?
"Forty years, expanding despite promise after promise to freeze their size, more water taken, more groves bulldozed, Jews-only roads, checkpoints, no living with your spouse if you marry a Palestinian from outside the OPT, schools closed, etc, etc. And Zeevico cavalierly assures us this will be "…dealt with eventually, one would hope."
The pont is simply this: the two-state solution is probably the only means by which the issue of the settlements can be dealt with properly. But it’s not going to happen any time soon, is it? There are certain fundamental disagreements between Palestinians and Israelis over the political issues at stake. Try to stick to one issue at at a time.
Genocide, kitty, is a term used when there is intent to destroy an ethnic grouping on the basis of their ethnic identity, and that intent is being carried through. If one is trying to commit a genocide, one is not just being indiscriminate: one deliberately targets as many civilians as possible. So, for example, one would simply be carpet bombing Gaza. You know what carpet bombing is, yes? There are 1 million civilians in Gaza. In World War 2, 2 days of carpet bombing took between 24,000 to 40,000 lives in Dresden. How many dead are there over the week of fighting so far? About 300 fighters and 200 civilians, according to Hamas, without independent verification, at the latest count. This, of course, is not counting the number of civilians Hamas is killing by refusing to allow its own injured over the Egyptian border. Does that look like genocide to you?
Well, Ismail, given how willing you are to ready your pen with the caveat that you don’t really want to get into it, but then again, here are a few points that you want to throw out there in any event, let me respond in kind. I’m actually short on time at this minute but can at least put your gripes to rest without the sort of hemming and hawing you dispense with above.
Being "acknowledged by everyone" or "entirely uncontroversial" doesn’t make something right. It does make you a practitioner of appeals to popularity or to ignorance to make use of such phrases in defense of your assumptions. I speak, of course, of your assumptions to the effect that Zionism wasn’t predominantly as secular in philosophy as was every other 19th-century national movement. It’s fine that you begrudge or envy the Jews for having, let’s say, a longer, more venerable and more popular – nearly universal - national mythology and literature, some of it with a concomitant religious foundation that others have appropriated. But that speaks to your own insecurities. It doesn’t challenge the concept of the Jews as a nation or ethnic group in the same secular sense as every other nation whose existence and statehood was declared from recorded history through the twentieth century, the appeal (or lack thereof) of their own literature and mythology notwithstanding.
As far as our furball’s genocidal comments go, feel free to pretend that you can read into her blithe suggestion any basis for the dismissal that you make. You see, I read into it a different sort of a dismissal, however. Perhaps being sarcastic about real genocides is an approach with which you identify, but to me it projects a lack of seriousness about such matters. Didn’t mean to offend you by taking issue with your apparent approval for resorting to appeals to mass murder as a mere rhetorical trick or device, and maintaining the legitimacy thereof, when others take the specter of such matters as genocide much more seriously. How silly we were to expect that others would agree! How wrong it is to reserve ghastly terms for the deeds they actually define, free from the sort of embellishment, exaggeration or hyperbole that drives your comments.
You can now continue with them as I leave you to Zeevico.
"I don’t know about you, but all dead people look the same to me. Even the kids. Very dead, for some reason."
In that case, I’d love to know how Jeffrey Dahmer’s corpse looked to you as well. Probably not much different from Mother Theresa’s.
You are saying absolutely nothing at this point. And repeating nothing with every single post. You’re even embarrassing Ismail - despite his belief against belief that he can blame me for exposing that.
Nor should they be.
But they help provide context for determining one’s hold on reality.
Political groups are another matter. They make official documents and statements of record. If you disfavor that and prefer finding governments that can say anything and mean nothing more legitimate, then might I suggest a Soviet gulag (or a camp in Guantanamo) for your greater comfort.
Listen, you don’t really have much going on, at least not of your own, in your own mind. You just throw up inflammatory quotes by Goebbels or whoever (or the ones you fantasized, in any event), and put a so-called thought by some pretend Islamophobe up there alongside it. There is no analysis. There is no linkage. Just your frenzied lumps of hatred wherever you want us to pretend that it exists.
But it’s no wonder you don’t think fantasies should be illegal. In your world no other form of cognitive activity exists.
"The Golden Rule says nothing about your right to complain when others
treat you in ways that are similar in intent to the ways in which you
treat them."
I don’t know about you, but all dead people look the same to me. Even the kids. Very dead, for some reason.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
I’ll have to disagree. I don’t think fantasies are illegal. If I think of alien monsters rampaging the earth and chewing on my enemies while beheading them, hey, thats my sick twisted mind. Might even get a book or movie deal out of it. Die Gedanken sind frei and all that. But if I start acting it out, it doesn’t matter if its one person I do it to or six million.
"And that’s why the genocidal ideas of some of the more "militant"
members of the replacement theology known as Islam are pure evil."
Thats kind of thinking is so awfully familiar. Seems like I heard something like that just recently.
Something like:
"Unless we expel the Muslim people soon, they will have Islamicized our society
within a very short time."
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
peace out
re: kitty comment. Right on. I think the evil lies in the IDEA not in the fruition of the idea. Like the Holocaust minimizers who say "only" a million people died in Germany or "only" a hundred thousand. What IF "only" one died? Would it
matter? Absolutely. I’ll go even further-I don’t care if they say ZERO people died . Was there a moron named SHitler who expressed his moronic murderous ideas in a book? That’s sufficiently evil-I don’t care nobody died. And that’s why the genocidal ideas of some of the more "militant" members of the replacement theology known as Islam are pure evil.
If a man is systematically and deliberately killed for his <insert group definition>, why should one man be not enough to meet the standard? Do we need to only appreciate a senseless killing when many many people die? If one man is starved, has a missile aimed at his house for no reason, lies bleeding for 20 hours because everytime he tries to go out, he’s shot at and finally dies, it is less meaningful than if its done to hundreds of thousands of them? How many people do you need to see treated like that before its significant enough to catch your attention?
Although, to be technical about it, [just checked], the legal definition is of a group:
"a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(CPPCG). Article 2, of this convention defines genocide as "any of the
following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or
mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the
group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent
births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the
group to another group."
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
Like that dodo over at the phony holocaust memoir post who strains to explain that lying about one’s past is really no big deal, Isaac goes through Procrustean contortions to deny the obvious-he called someone’s comment genocidal, it transparently was no such thing, he refuses to acknowledge this simple fact.
Instead, he comes up with dodge after dodge, complaining that what he regards as kitty’s insufficiently reverent stance towards genocide is somehow itself genocidal.
"So whether she was advocating genocide outright or just doesn’t consider it a big deal, (or thinks it great fun!), is a distinction for you to make. Apparently you consider that to be a distinction worth making."
Of course I do, a disposition I share with those who regard the English language as a rather precise instrument and who stand ready to preserve it from linguistic vandals like yourself who think personal and ad hoc definitions are preferable to those pedestrian ones derived from tradition and consensus.
A quote from one of my favorite books comes to mind; "When I choose a word, it means just what I choose it to mean". Sound familiar? From now on, you are no longer Isaac; henceforth, it’ll be Humpty Dumpty.
You’re not being honest, so I’m done with replying to you on this thread.
Hmm, I see.
<with notepad and pen>
Kitty: So exactly how many people killed here?
Genocide exaggerator: 300
Kitty [frowning]: Thats all?
GE: Yes, how many do you need?
Kitty [fact checking]: according to the dictionary "whole or part of <some group>"
GE: 300 is not a part?
Kitty [huffy]: we have standards, you know! It has to meet minimum standards before we can anoint it as a genocide. Rwanda barely made it and they were hundreds of thousands!!!
GE [unhappy]: is there a daily rate we have to meet as well? There’s only so many of us, you know.
Kitty [offended]: Lets take it one goal post at a time, this is not something you can decide before it happens, we have to wait till its completely over and done with.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
The suspense is killing me!
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
"Perhaps being sarcastic about real genocides is an approach with which you identify, but to me it projects a lack of seriousness about such matters. Didn’t mean to offend you by taking issue with your apparent approval for resorting to appeals to mass murder as a mere rhetorical trick or device, and maintaining the legitimacy thereof, when others take the specter of such matters as genocide much more seriously."
Oh, stop being such a silly prig. If you mean to say that kitty was being mean or unbearably sarcastic or heartless or tasteless, then you should have said so. But you didn’t. You said her comments were genocidal. They weren’t. So simply own up to having erred and stop your ridiculous efforts to misdirect.
Fer crissake, grow a pair. Ovaries, testicles, whatever you like-just grow a pair.
Ok, little kitty. You go on reducing genocide to a rhetorical device, and then I’ll find a way to make sure Livni (whom I don’t know and have never spoken with) believes that you take your professed interest in humanitarian crises seriously. Isn’t that how the Golden Rule works? Or do you envision it working in an even more convoluted way?
There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza – Tzipi Livni
Yeah I can see how "seriously" such matters are taken. I suppose you have to first recognise people as human beings before you can address a humanitarian crisis.
The silence is deafening. Just as it was for the last six months while famine was being tried as an experiment.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
I will not comment on the silly dialogue between Isaac and Kitty, which has devolved into a puerile slugfest, marked by Isaac’s characteristically overwrought metaphors, except to correct what Isaac charmingly believes are germane responses to my earlier comment, to wit:
"Deluded or historically innaccurate:
"These Europeans wanted Palestine because 4000 years ago, their invisible friend gave it to them."
"Jews want a land dominated by their invisible friend." "
I believe these are simply kitty’s clumsy ways of saying that an element of the Zionist movement based its claim to Palestine upon Biblical authority. Entirely uncontroversial, acknowledged by everyone.
"Genocidal:
"My two cents: Invest in some ovens, the way you’re heading right now, you’ll be needing them pretty soon." "
Have a cup of coffee before you commit your thoughts to print, my friend. Kitty is clearly expressing her belief that Israel’s policies are genocidal in an extreme (and unhelpful) way. She is equally clearly not countenancing or expressing genocidal wishes towards anyone. So while you may disagree with her assessment of Israel’s wishes, you may not, on the evidence presented, conclude that her comment is itself "genocidal". But I think you knew that and, like a rodent frantically trying to escape from a trap, just wanted to come up with some bullshit, no matter how preposterous, to support your "genocidal" accusation. That is all.
Zeevico-
Your comment is one of hugest bowls of wrong I’ve yet seen at this increasingly surreal site. Having only the normal human lifespan, I can’t spare the time to correct each of your illusions, but here’s a amuse-gueule or two for you.
"It provides all of its citizens and residents with equal legal and political rights: most importantly the right to have a civil or criminal matter heard before an independent and impartial court…"
On paper only, and even there we find codicils privileging Jews. The invaluable Yesh Din has provided evidence to show the IDF’s consistent bias against indicting soldiers accused of crimes against Arabs, and B’Tselem and other Israeli human rights groups have documented widespread governmental bias against Palestinian citizens of Israel. And no, the usual "we have a way to go but at least we’re trying" gambit just won’t do-these are not random episodes of oversight but instead decades-long, consistent patterns of discrimination against Arabs and favoritism towards Jews.
Re courts, of course you know that court decisions regarding Arabs have a way of being ignored-witness the recent judicial insistence that journalists be allowed into Gaza, entirely ignored, and the finding that the route of the apartheid barrier is illegal, almost entirely ignored. Need I remind you that Israeli courts regularly find "outposts" illegal yet somehow most of them remain supplied with electricity by state agencies, guarded by the IOF, etc.? How about we talk actualities and not wishful civics-class fatuities?
"…the right to free political communication; and the right to participate in the political process, via elections and so forth."
With the enormous exception that legislative activity may not question the legality of Zionism, a matter of no small concern to the 20% of Israel’s population that aren’t Jewish, not to mention the millions of displaced and subjugated Palestinians. This is like saying that the US had complete political freedom except that legislators may not discuss segregation. Might be a problem for African-Americans (and right-thinking whites, of course.)
"…Jews as individuals, and Jewish trust organisations purchased that land legally from its owners until the inception of the state in 1948."
Spectacularly false. The amount of land acquired by purchase was a tiny percentage of overall land acquisition, and the licit nature, if not the technical legality, of even that fraction is questionable. As recently as last month, Ha’aretz reported that documents purporting to show the legal purchase of Palestinian land in the OPT by Israelis were forged, and that the cursory glance which the eminently fair Israeli legal system gives to such transactions suggests that many such "purchases" are fictive, mere expressions of Zionist land-grabbing. If such things happen under the legal apparatus of a functioning state in the very recent past, exactly how odoriferous do you imagine the pre-48 "purchases" might have been?
"The acquisition of land by violent means and with intent to steal, has never been a priority of Israeli society. The land Israel captured since 1948 came to it as a result of a series of wars instigated by its enemies; not as a result of ‘landlust’, if you will."
Laughable if not so tragically emblematic of the punctured eyeballs of apologists for Zionism. Even the disgusting Benny Morris, who thinks Israel should have emulated the US attitude towards the Indians and simply cleared the place of the pesky Arabs quickly, admits that expansionism and land grabs were part and parcel of Zionism. And we have the rich historical record of early Zioneers making it clear that their dreams would require the displacement of the indigenes, one way or another.
But you don’t need the confirmation of historians. At the time of the first aliyah, the Jewish population of Palestine was 2.5% of the total. Less than 80 years later, they had a state. Do you think this was accomplished with the approval of the Muslim and Christian population, happily selling away their homeland? Does this make sense to you?
"The post-1967 settlements are hardly acceptable, but are an issue that will be dealt with eventually, one would hope. "
Have we ever seen so contemptible an expression of Zionist insouciance in the face of Palestinian misery? Forty years, expanding despite promise after promise to freeze their size, more water taken, more groves bulldozed, Jews-only roads, checkpoints, no living with your spouse if you marry a Palestinian from outside the OPT, schools closed, etc, etc. And Zeevico cavalierly assures us this will be "…dealt with eventually, one would hope."
How promising! And why can’t the surly and irrational Palestinian take comfort in Zeevico’s bland and untroubled assurance of a sunnier day sooner or later-possibly? Must be genetic.
"You starve, displace and evict people who do not fulfill point 2 [aka
untermenschen] but live in the land in point 1, because they are a
threat to your desire to populate your point 1 land with point 2 people."
Incorrect. On any view of the conflict in Gaza and of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians residing in Gaza and the West Bank generally, it would be inaccurate to describe Israeli society as ‘Nazi.’
The aims of Nazism you highlighted in your post may be summarised as such:
1. Totalitarianism;
2. Lebensraum–landlust, a willingness to conquer and plunder, thereby endangering the lives of ones citizens and other citizens for purely material/ideological ‘gain.’
3. Eradication of ‘enemy peoples’, viz Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals of any ethnicity and so forth.
Israel is not totalitarian; it does not constrain the civil liberties of its citizens, regardless of their ethnicity. To the contrary, it is a democratic state. It provides all of its citizens and residents with equal legal and political rights: most importantly the right to have a civil or criminal matter heard before an independent and impartial court; the right to free political communication; and the right to participate in the political process, via elections and so forth. By comparison the Palestinians accord themselves no political or legal rights whatsover, except the right to be elected (once), and even that at the instigation of foreigners.
Still, it would be inaccurate to describe Israeli society as free of racism. One of the factors that have caused social and economic inequality between the Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel is Jewish anti-Arab racism. That is unacceptable. It must be avoided. For an interesting study on the matter, see http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3381978,00.html .
As to landlust, had Jews actually stolen land by violence in creating the State of Israel, your point might have actual merit. Unfortunately for you, Jews as individuals, and Jewish trust organisations purchased that land legally from its owners until the inception of the state in 1948. Between lebensraum and lives, the Jewish state has consistently chosen lives over land. The acquisition of land by violent means and with intent to steal, has never been a priority of Israeli society. The land Israel captured since 1948 came to it as a result of a series of wars instigated by its enemies; not as a result of ‘landlust’, if you will. The post-1967 settlements are hardly acceptable, but are an issue that will be dealt with eventually, one would hope. Moreover Israel recently pulled back from some of the settlements created after 1967 in the very territory that is the topic of discussion here. It pulled back from Sinai in 1956 and again after peace with Egypt. It permitted Palestinian autonomy. It is farcical to claim that Israel values land over the lives of Palestinians, other Arabs, or indeed Israelis.
golden rule
n. The biblical teaching that one should behave toward others as one would have others behave toward oneself.
And this is what I call an encyclopedia:
Moral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to criticize any denial that a moral hierarchy can be assessed of two sides in a conflict, or in the actions or tactics of two sides. It could be considered a form of the rhetorical fallacy of equivocation.
Now don’t forget to use them. Because when in your conversations you go pulling things out of your ass, and start confusing things, others will take notice.
I am going to spout out a gut level and unintellectual response to this topic. Today a Russian immigrant made my already miserable morning even more miserable by saying, "Oh, poor Hamas, they are suffering so much". I followed this comment with a tirade about the ultimate intentions of Hamas.
Question: Why did Israel ever agree to accept Russian immigrants under such misguided and irreligious codes of law as the Nuremberg Laws? Why has there been an allowance of so many Russians into Israel without quotas and criteria!?
There is a right to opinion here, we live in a democracy, which allows for dissent. This is right and true. We do not live under tyranny as Palestinians do in the territory ruled by Hamas. But why allow unsympathetic trash into the country that would see Israel destroyed by belligerent maniacs? The “Right to Return” from Russia was given to so many. Why? Just because one of their grandparents had a Jewish mother. They bring in pork and vodka and leave with shekels exchanged for dollars. Do we really need them in Israel?
It has been an awful few days here. At present, I can think of no quote made by a politician or religious leader that has has much relevance to me as that of Dirty Harry. Forgive me you good Russian people who serve with us in the army and respect us but as for the rest…
"Come on punk, make my day".
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary." (Talmud, Shabbat 3id)
Thats moral equivalence, or what I call the Golden Rule
What you call Moral Equivalence, I call The Golden Rule.
I’ll take myself off.
Goodnight.
Seeing as how you’re the one who’s suggested investing in ovens, I don’t doubt that you think you know a lot about Nazi tactics. So much so, in fact, that you’ll project them onto others where they don’t apply.
You do this as a rhetorical device to activate Jewish guilt. It won’t work. As I said, I don’t doubt that you see the world through Nazi-tinted lenses, but you shouldn’t assume that others do.
It won’t be long before they have this hatemongering and idiotic practitioner of moral equivalency banned, Ismail. I hope she’s not related to you.
Ok, now you’ve demonstrated yourself to be completely delusional or utterly stupid – incapable of even following your own argument.
It’s best for women who want guys to focus on their eyes and not their breasts to have some brains first, or at least some other admirable and non-physical quality.
***"These Europeans wanted Palestine because 4000 years ago, their invisible friend gave it to them."
=The Right of Return to people who’ve never been there, only because they are…Jews.
***"Jews want a land dominated by their invisible friend."
=The Demographic Threat of non-Jewish natives
***"My two cents: Invest in some ovens, the way you’re heading right now, you’ll be needing them pretty soon."
=Logical Conclusion to Lebensraum by the Reinrassig who are poring over the demographics of the Untermenschen
"Wherever did you pick up such a mangy and stray thing, though? You
didn’t think others would find her as cute as you did? I do hope she’s
been vaccinated against rabies. Those multiple shots in the navel for
human exposures are no picnic."
I always wanted to have eight hairy nipples, so the guys would want to look at my eyes
/shrugs
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
I’ll be glad to do you the service of helping you figure out why you’d not have expressed yourself the same way.
Deluded or historically innaccurate:
"These Europeans wanted Palestine because 4000 years ago, their invisible friend gave it to them."
"Jews want a land dominated by their invisible friend."
Genocidal:
"My two cents: Invest in some ovens, the way you’re heading right now, you’ll be needing them pretty soon."
Having exposed the above, I’m not sure I have to prove hatred on the part of someone who’s demonstrated herself to be genocidal. But the half-baked, wildly tendentious, irrelevant and solipsistic historical obsessions apparently give this intellectually unevolved pet a fervor and sense of irrational intensity that make her incapable of deciphering the difference between those attributes anyway.
Wherever did you pick up such a mangy and stray thing, though? You didn’t think others would find her as cute as you did? I do hope she’s been vaccinated against rabies. Those multiple shots in the navel for human exposures are no picnic.
Yeah, whats genocidal about ancestors with half baked notions about race, ethnicity and religion, purity, caste, class, prayer, atheism, God, marriage, sexual orientation, interfaith marriage, abortion, etc? I mean, do you see everything the way your parents did? I think people are entitled to look at what their ancestors did and say: hey thats crap which I do not support. Especially the part where you keep out people from their homes because their invisible friend doesn’t look as good as our invisible friend. Maybe its even the same invisible friend for all you know and bombing all those kids is completely unnecessary to protect your invisible friend from their invisible friend.
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
Ah so I wasn’t mistaken. Cheers!
The trouble with cats is that they’ve got no tact. - P. G. Wodehouse
Looks like the rambling, retarded feline above has a lot of invisible friends who have been so kind as to fuel her own delusions, hatreds and genocidal fantasies.
I find myself quite surprised at some of the comments here. Are Israelis unaware of who the Gazans/Palestinians are? Where they came from? Why they are fighting since 60 years? These are the grandchildren of those Palestinians who were dispossessed from their homes because Europeans in 1917 asked other Europeans to give them Palestine [this is called the Balfour Declaration]. These Europeans wanted Palestine because 4000 years ago, their invisible friend gave it to them. Obeying the directive from this invisible friend, Europeans, Americans, Russians, Indians, poured into Palestine, where the Palestinians have a history of thousands of years and proceeded to terrorise and murder and dispossess them.
Led by terrorists like David ben Gurion who made choice comments like:
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It
is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to
us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has
been Anti – Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their
fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their
country. Why would they accept that?”
While mouthing senseless platitudes like this:
“Israel has created a new image of the Jew in the
world – the image of a working and an intellectual people, of a people
that can fight with heroism.”
The groups of terrorists which included the Lehi, Stern gang, Irgun, Haganah were engaged in the following:
"The exclusionary Zionist vision of creating a
Jewish state in Palestine meant the elimination of the indigenous,
“non-Jewish” population. In his book, “The Ethnic Cleansing of
Palestine,” Israeli historian Ilan Pappe writes: “ . . . on 10 March
1948 . . . veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish
officers, put the final touches to a plan for the ethnic cleansing of
Palestine.”
Pappe explains how Jewish militias, the future
armed forces of the state of Israel, carried out a plan of large-scale
intimidation and siege, setting fires to Palestinian homes, planting
mines, destroying more than 500 villages, and exercising other
terrorist activities. In the end, nearly 800,000 Palestinians were
forced out of their homes and into refugee camps in Gaza, the West
Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere.
This massive ethnic cleansing completed the first phase of
the compulsory “transfer” that the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion,
advocated in his address to the Jewish Agency Executive as early as
1938. Thus the Palestinians had become the victims of the victims of
Europe."
source
I can only assume that like all governments, Israel has managed to create an alternate white washed history in which Jews came to an empty land which contained nothing and built their homes there.
However, we live in the electronic age and ignorance of this magnitude is really surprising.
e.g.Hebrew essayist Achad Ha-Am, after paying a visit to Palestine in 1891:
Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking
of the Arabs of Palestine,Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry:
The Balfour Declaration to Baron Rothchild, on the 2nd of November, 1917:
Lord Sydenham, Hansard, House of Lords, 21 June 1922:
Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, 1923:
Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism (precursor of Likud), The Iron Wall, 1923:
David Ben Gurion, future Prime Minister of Israel, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985:
As Edward Said said ten years ago: “I still find myself astonished at the
lengths to which official Israel and its supporters will go to suppress
the fact that a half century has gone by without Israeli restitution,
recognition or acknowledgment of Palestinian human rights . . . the
Palestinian Nakba is characterized as a semi-fictional event . . .
caused by no one in particular.”
So Gaza is your Warsaw. You created it. Just as the Germans were "fed up" with the tunnels and resistance in Warsaw, Israelis are "fed up" with the tunnels and resistance in Palestine. Its the burden of the occupier to find his victim tiresome. Israelis have, for 60 years, repeated ad nauseum, the policies of David Ben Gurion:
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and
the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab
population.”
As some wise tit said- insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Hamas was created in 1987 [by the Israelis, to counter the secular PLO], Gaza was created in 1948.
Palestinians are fighting a war of self determination against a much larger, well funded, well armed military. Like the Jews in Warsaw, they are using whatever is at their disposal against a population of people who have been ethnically cleansing them for 60 years from their land because Jews want a land dominated by their invisible friend. Hence the racist right of return, the Absentee law which stole the land and homes of the Palestinians, the apartheid wall, the Jewish settlements which replace, slowly but surely, the native non-Jewish population and steals their agricultural and natural resources [like the apartheid wall which goes in 20 km into Palestinian lands to acquire the aquifers], the bulldozing of homes, olive orchards, the constant excuses to bomb the shit out of the civilians. Over 400 Palestinians killed in the last four months, almost another 500 in the last eight days. For 4 Israelis killed after Saturday, 27 December 2008. Its an apartheid regime, an ugly remnant of the colonial past that has dragged on for 60 years.As their democratically elected government it is Hamas job to fight this. Jews would have made the same statements in Warsaw as Hamas is making in Palestine today. Apartheid is ugly and MUST be wiped out.
My two cents: Invest in some ovens, the way you’re heading right now, you’ll be needing them pretty soon.
Or alternately, recognise that the right of return belongs to the
native people of the region, not foreigners who have the same invisible
friend as you do.
And finally, something to ponder.
FACT: More Israelis are killed by Israelis than by Palestinians. Look it up.
PS. I am quite certain that this post will not be published or will be deleted, reality does bite and can be a pain in the butt, but I just thought you should be aware of these things. I hope that people on both sides will rip away the curtains of ideology and recognise what the real issues are and recognise that they need to learn to live with each other. Peace to all.
Some places to begin a dialogue with Palestinians:
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
And help the victims of the occupation:
http://www.palestinercs.org/
Oh, I see that George Galloway showed up to offer his two and a half cents?
Lovely!
Sweet dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody’s looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to be used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
There is of course a serious debate to be had regarding the military actions, their consequences, their wisdom, etc…That was, of course, not the intent of covering above.
Secondly, of course I would (and do) express the same level of outrage at the racist/Islamophobic ramblings that surely occur at pro-Israel rallies (and, predictably enough appeared on the comments page of the youtube clip above) and sadly even amongst some fringe parties in the Knesset (I am looking at you Avigdor Lieberman). In addition, I think that anyone of some semblance of sanity and good will found the clip that you are referring to above to be equally disgusting. They are awful, hateful and just as disturbing as the filth being spewed at the rally cited above.
And yet the issue raised, I think at least, is of substance…Hamas has and is repeatedly presented by the press as innocent victims. Despite the fact that Hamas constantly and repeatedly breaks the laws of the Geneva conventions, never once are they held accountable or even questioned. They are presented as resilient, plucky even.
You can’t have it both ways, Ismail. If you believe that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, and the operating government in Gaza, then in essence they repeatedly commit formal acts of war inside Israeli territory. On the flipside, of course is if Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, targeting civilian populations. In that instance it is the responsibility of an elected government to protect its citizens.
Part of my point above, and perhaps I did not make it as clear as possible, is that the overly simplified narrative presented, and the very defense of Hamas–not the civilian population mind you, but of Hamas–does little to help the average Palestinian in Gaza and much to harm them. You can take me to task–which of course I was expecting, and hoping for–but I do not see why I am being taken for task for not writing about your preferred subject?
Methinks this isn’t comparable to the accepted glorification of violence by supporters of the other side.
With every dodge, Ismail, you skip over the fact that the inherently illegal goals of Hamas (of which you’re more supportive than you are of Israel’s tacitly legal goal of self-preservation) require inherently violent means in order to implement.
As far as your game of morality-by-numbers goes, in order to assume the sort of outrage you envision that Israelis would express for being on the receiving end of widescale violence after provoking it, you’re right to expect a backlash. Too bad that you don’t consider that it would be directed at their own government though. Other Arab states, on the other hand, seem to disagree with your aversion for applying that calculus to Hamas.
The idea that being a less efficient mass murderer – whether of the attempted or successful sort - should be the criterion for awarding greater sympathy to one of two parties to a conflict sounds particularly warped. The sooner that both Western and non-Western societies learn how to disconnect the apportioning of responsibility and the burdens of justice from the assignment of a fictitiously simpleminded, falsely dichotomous "less powerful victim" versus "more powerful aggressor" status, the better. I fully expect that you wouldn’t refrain from assigning culpability to the wife-beater because he was down on his luck, or to the honor-killer because he was angry at those Western colonial imperialists. And at some point it would be nice to know that you can’t do the same with Hamas – however fervently you identify with the direction in which they place the blame for their rage and willingness to make Israel or its civilians the object of it.
Hamas has responsibilities to its own people that go beyond providing food and a corruption-free government. You just either don’t choose to recognize that or reduce it to an absurdity. That you do that in defense of theocrats makes a joke of your professed secularism. That you would do that in defense of those who seek vengeance and have made it their primary foreign policy goal makes a joke of your professed interest in a peaceful accomodation between Arab and Jew, apart from how unfeasible your particular political vision is already.
Who need sympathize with this brutality aggression ! u kidding me. so many innocent people killed. They proud and happy to kill children and babys. It’s call sadistic abattoir. Hmmm.. Just Go to hell
Ft. Lauderdale. FORT FRIGGIN’ LAUDERDALE!
???? ???
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