Garbanzo Toons

New Idea or Total Lunacy?

I hate to generalize about groups of people, because there are usually so many exceptions to any generalization, that you end up sounding ridiculous. But I'm going to do it anyways. After all, this would not be the first time I've ended up sounding ridiculous.

Here is my generalization: Secular liberal Jews have created an alternate reality in the Middle East. They've done it in order to bolster their obsessive desire for peace without pain, personal security without having to work for it, the rainbow without the rain. They truly believe that if they appease the monster enough, the monster will leave them alone, and they won't have to fight back. The fact that 78% of American Jewish voters voted for Obama demonstrates that either they weren't really listening during the campaign or that they allowed the wish for peace in the Middle East at any price cloud to their judgment by denying reality and creating the hallucination of their non-Republican candidate Obama supporting Israeli and Jewish claims to the land. In this fantasy world, the Middle East is populated with long suffering, peace-loving Palestinians whose claim to Jerusalem and Israel is equal to that of Israeli Jews. They believe the lunatic idea that there are competing Jewish and Muslim narratives that have equal validity. The problem that they have defined in this dream world construct is that extremists on both sides refuse to allow the people to share the land and live in peace. I haven't read of any fairies, elves, or unicorns also sharing the land, but there might as well be.

Facts are not allowed to intrude. I think there are mental road blocks, check points, and even a security barrier to keep them out. The Hamas and P.A. charters are forbidden to be mentioned. History is either changed, whitewashed, or ignored. Nobody is allowed to point out that interest in Jerusalem only rose in the Muslim world when it was proposed as Israel's capital. Before that, it was a neglected backwater of the Ottoman Empire; it meant nothing to any Muslim government or religious leader. Muslims have treated Jerusalem like the two year old little brother or sister who isn't interested in the toy you want them to play with until the older sibling expresses interest in it. Then it becomes the most important object in the room and the two year old will throw a fit until it's theirs.

I was sent the link to this article in Tikkun, a very liberal/progressive Jewish magazine. I would go so far as to state that they are stupidly progressive, as their world, based on "social justice" and other such wishful thinking that is as impossible in this world as Obama supporting Western civilization over the barbarians at and inside our gates. The name "Tikkun" is based on the Jewish concept of "tikkun olam" - repair of the world. As Dennis Prager once explained, the Reform liberal/progressive notion of "tikkun olam" leaves out God, as the complete phrase is, "tikkun olam b'malchut shaddai" - repair of the world under God's sovereignty. Remember God? Not all progressives do. They're much too enlightened.

Some of these progressives are so smart that they can come up with ideas like this one:

The two-state condominial arrangement starts out with the creation of a democratic Palestinian state (composed of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem) much like that suggested in other two-state proposals with the boundaries of the Palestinian state roughly determined by the pre-1967 Green Line. The Palestinian state ("Palestine") would have most of the features of a democratic nation-state, but from the outset it would be an ethnically defined state, a state of the Palestinian people, whereby a close parallel was maintained to the definition of Israel as a state of the Jews. As part of the fundamental agreement, all current Israeli Arabs would be required to transfer their citizenship, national identity, and national voting rights-but not their residence-to the new Palestinian state. Israeli Arabs would retain their permanent right to live in Israel and they would also retain their current benefits under the Jewish welfare state (or be adequately compensated for the loss of them by another arrangement, such as a lump sum payment), but they would become citizens of-and permanent voting members of-the Palestinian state, not Israel.

Both Palestinians and Jews under the condominial proposal would be granted the right to settle anywhere within the territory of either state. Together the two states would thus form a single, binational settlement community. Palestinians would have the right to settle anywhere within Israel, just as Jews would have the right to settle anywhere within the territory of the Palestinian state. Regardless of which of the two states they live in, all Palestinians would be citizens of the Palestinian state, and all Jews would be citizens of Israel.

The states themselves, Israel and Palestine, would have the right-and, indeed, the moral obligation-to set up a dense network of support facilities to care for the economic, cultural, religious, and welfare needs of any citizens living in the territory of the neighboring state. Each state, in other words, would have extensive extra-territorial rights and obligations vis-à-vis its citizens in the neighboring state.

That's only a small portion of the entire thing. I read about half of it, skimmed another quarter, and glanced at the rest. As with all progressive ideas for a "two state solution" or some other sort of shared arrangement, this one ignores two important aspects of the current unpleasant reality of the Middle East.

Remember the Palestinians? Both the Hamas and the (allegedly moderate) Palestinian Authority's charters call for the destruction of Israel. Maybe I'm naive, but to me, that seems like a huge roadblock to peace, even greater than the building of housing for Jews in Jerusalem and "settlements" in the West Bank. Not to mention the fact that Palestinian children are taught in school, on TV, and in mosques to hate Jews.

The second huge problem is the history of Islam. Looking back at the past 1400 years of their bloody, genocidal history, when and where have Muslims ever shared any land with any different religion? They're not allowed to. As it is said many times, in many variations in Islamic scripture,

"So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."

And yes, not all Muslims follow the decrees to murder the unbeliever, but if we look at the demographics of the Islamic world, it's obvious to anyone (even though the more progressive among us will not admit it) Muslims do not share, have never shared, will never share. It is also sickeningly clear that religious minorities do not thrive under Sharia law. In fact they dwindle away until they are gone altogether. How many genocides, world wide, have been perpetrated in the name of Islam? We're not allowed to ask; it's an islamophobic question.

I suppose that is the biggest fault with this idiotic plan, the false assumption that Muslims are willing to live in peace with and as equals with Jews.

The person who sent me the article should know better, but when even Alan Dershowitz, a staunch, unapologetic supporter of Israel is fooled into voting for and supporting Obama (and boy does Melanie Phillips have his number on that descent into madness) I really have to wonder what has happened to a people who, for hundreds of years have been both praised and denounced for alleged mental prowess.

Labels: Dumb Jews, islam, Israel, Jews, Tikkun

posted by Harry @ 8:30 PM