Obama gave his speech at AIPAC today. He tried to mollify a room full of Jews and continue to make them believe that he is on Israel's side in their continuous fight for survival. Last year those idiots gave him a standing ovation. Since then it should be even more obvious that it's not that he doesn't care about Israel. He despises Israel. He is firmly on the side of the genocidal Palestinians.
While he doesn't like Israel, and probably doesn't care much for Jews except for the turncoats who aren't very comfortable with the concept of Judaism or with being Jewish, the ones who will sell out Israel and the Jewish community to any powerful political figure who will promise to be their friend and make them popular, he absolutely, one hundred percent, loves that Jewish money. As long as there are enough wealthy Jews who refuse to admit that Obama is endangering not only Israel, a country they may or may not care about, but he is creating a darker future for their children.
With that in mind, I would like to present for your entertainment and information (more for your information) a short movie about Obama's record on Israel. It's long by Internet standards, but it's well worth watching if you care about the future of the United States and Western civilization, because without Israel, the U.S. and the West will fall.
Even though the ruckus has died down and Helen Thomas is no longer in the news for her irrational comments, there are still things going on that relate to that wrinkled, demented gasbag.
The first thing is - most people weren't even paying attention. When I speak to people who are not obsessed (or even interested) in what is happening when it comes to our local Arab/Muslim community, they either have a vague idea of who Helen Thomas is, or the entire controversy passed right by them and they didn't even notice. I suppose that's normal. How many people's lives were impacted by Wayne State's "Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award", and Wayne State's decision to pull it after Thomas' obnoxious statements? So why should they pay attention? I'll tell you why. Because, even when they don't know the facts, people still form an opinion. I do it. You do it. We all do it. Sometimes I get into arguments with people who operate on very little (or completely incorrect) information over Israel. Sometimes those opinions affect the way people respond to situations, the way they spend money, the way they treat people, the way they vote, and the way they let some people be abused. Example: Nobody is raising their voice anymore against the genocide in Sudan. We don't see it in the news, so it doesn't exist anymore.
The second aspect of this under-the-radar-but-still-ongoing situation, is the reaction of large portions of the Jewish community and our self-proclaimed leaders. At first, Thomas was roundly, logically, and accurately condemned, as she deserved. Of course, her partners in hate are trying to frame this as a free speech issue and an example of that all powerful Jewish conspiracy that shuts down any and all criticism of Israel. So how is it that they're able to foist these views in our local (allegedly Zionist controlled) newspapers again?
We have silence from the Jewish community over this article in the Detroit Free Press, where the writer, while supposedly writing about Muslims joining Jews to help Christians on Christmas, something the Jewish community has been doing for years (as part of the vast Zionist conspiracy, no doubt) turns it into another forum for Muslims to express their support for the Jew-hating Thomas.
When Micki Grossman of Farmington Hills read journalist Helen Thomas' comments about Zionists earlier this month, the Jewish woman was hurt. "It caused a lot of pain for me," she said.
"I also wish that we could have had more of our Muslim friends stand up and say, 'This was not appropriate.' "
But some Muslims and Arab Americans were upset that Jewish leaders pressured Wayne State University to remove an award in her name.
At the annual banquet this month of the local chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, people wore buttons reading "Defender of Thomas," said regional director Imad Hamad.
And you can't accuse Imad Hamad or any of the other Thomas supporters of "not getting it." They get it. They're taking advantage of the fact that most people don't pay attention, and with the limited amount of information they have, they can be convinced that this is a free speech issue - if they can even be reminded who Helen Thomas is and what she said that was so offensive.
Instead of deluding themselves that our local Islamic community is truly interested in improving relationships with, and working side by side with the Jewish community, our "leaders" need to wake up and really listen to these schmucks. They need to understand that any compromise with this Islamic evil is a victory for evil. I would ask them when, in our 3000 year history, has compromise with evil ever worked in our favor?
Wait, let's extend that. When, in the history of human civilization, has compromise with evil ever worked to the benefit of humanity? I suppose it's possible. Maybe I missed it.
The larger problem here, as some people have recognized while others have buried their heads in the sand, is that Islam is a world wide problem. Whether or not we have personally had to face the hatred or terrorism personally, it has already affected our lives and will continue to reduce them as the evil coming out of Islam continues to be excused. You would think the Jewish community would understand that and would stand stronger in openly battling it. You would be wrong.
Last year, the Jewish community invited Muslims to help them volunteer on Christmas. The partnership was a historic first, with about 60 Muslims helping 900 Jewish volunteers. This year, up to 400 Muslims led by the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan will take the lead on Christmas.
"We have many similarities," Grossman said. "Let's look for the sameness rather than the differences."
Such partnerships are playing out across metro Detroit.
Similarities? Sure, there are some. But I challenge Jewish leaders to examine Islamic texts and attitudes as to our differences. I also challenge Muslim leaders to honestly explain and answer questions about some of the more unsavory portions of the Qu'ran and the hadiths.
That will never happen, because it would be impolite of our Jewish leaders to do so. They will be called "Islamophobic" and racist. Samuel Huntington, in his Clash of Civilizations was subjected to name calling because he made people pay attention to Islam's bloody borders. He's got the impolite, politically incorrect facts to back up his ideas, but when people refuse to face the facts, name calling becomes their substitute.
It's time for the Jewish community to face the facts.
No, I have not been paying much attention to this blog. Sometimes life takes over, and some things have don't get as much attention as you would like to give them. This argument by Gabriel Latner though, is amazing and is one of those posts that just might grow into an Internet phenomenon. I posted the entire speech, but you can refer to the link, if you want the introduction and the link to where it was originally posted, which strangely enough is an ugly, nasty, anti-Semitic site. I also posted it at the Garbanzo Annex, where I have been posting a lot of collected articles and videos. I don't feel obligated to offer any commentary at the annex, so it makes it easier on me.
Please forgive any spelling or grammar errors, this was an oral presentation. Square brackets denote impromptu comments that were added into the text after the fact. I may have strayed from the text at a few points, but this was the gist of it.
This is a war of ideals, and the other speakers here tonight are rightfully, idealists. I'm not. I'm a realist. I'm here to win. I have a single goal this evening – to have at least a plurality of you walk out of the 'Aye' door. I face a singular challenge – most, if not all, of you have already made up your minds.
This issue is too polarizing for the vast majority of you not to already have a set opinion. I'd be willing to bet that half of you strongly support the motion, and half of you strongly oppose it. I want to win, and we're destined for a tie. I'm tempted to do what my fellow speakers are going to do – simply rehash every bad thing the Israeli government has ever done in an attempt to satisfy those of you who agree with them. And perhaps they'll even guilt one of you rare undecided into voting for the proposition, or more accurately, against Israel. It would be so easy to twist the meaning and significance of international 'laws' to make Israel look like a criminal state. But that's been done to death. It would be easier still to play to your sympathy, with personalised stories of Palestinian suffering. And they can give very eloquent speeches on those issues. But the truth is, that treating people badly, whether they're your citizens or an occupied nation, does not make a state' rogue'. If it did, Canada, the US, and Australia would all be rogue states based on how they treat their indigenous populations. Britain's treatment of the Irish would easily qualify them to wear this sobriquet. These arguments, while emotionally satisfying, lack intellectual rigour.
More importantly, I just don't think we can win with those arguments. It won't change the numbers. Half of you will agree with them, half of you won't. So I'm going to try something different, something a little unorthodox. I'm going to try and convince the die-hard zionists and Israel supporters here tonight, to vote for the proposition. By the end of my speech – I will have presented 5 pro-Israel arguments that show Israel is, if not a 'rogue state' than at least 'rogueish'. Let me be clear. I will not be arguing that Israel is 'bad'. I will not be arguing that it doesn't deserve to exist. I won't be arguing that it behaves worse than every other country. I will only be arguing that Israel is 'rogue'. The word 'rogue' has come to have exceptionally damning connotations. But the word itself is value-neutral. The OED defines rogue as 'Aberrant, anomalous; misplaced, occurring (esp. in isolation) at an unexpected place or time ', while a dictionary from a far greater institution gives this definition 'behaving in ways that are not expected or not normal, often in a destructive way '. These definitions, and others, centre on the idea of anomaly – the unexpected or uncommon. Using this definition, a rogue state is one that acts in an unexpected, uncommon or aberrant manner. A state that behaves exactly like Israel. The first argument is statistical. The fact that Israel is a Jewish state alone makes it anomalous enough to be dubbed a rogue state: There are 195 countries in the world. Some are Christian, some Muslim, some are secular. Israel is the only country in the world that is Jewish. Or, to speak mathmo for a moment, the chance of any randomly chosen state being Jewish is 0.0051% . In comparison the chance of a UK lotto ticket winning at least £10 is 0.017% - more than twice as likely. Israel's jewishness is a statistical abberation. The second argument concerns Israel's humanitarianism, in particular,Israel's response to a refugee crisis. Not the Palestinian refugee crisis – for I am sure that the other speakers will cover that – but the issue of Darfurian refugees. Everyone knows that what happened – and is still happening in Darfur is genocide , whether or not the UN and the Arab League will call it such. [ I actually hoped that Mr Massih would be able speak about this - he's actually somewhat of an expert on the Crisis in Darfur, in fact it's his expertise that has called him away to represent the former Dictator of Sudan while he is being investigated by the ICC. ] There has been a mass exodus from Darfur as the oppressed seek safety. They have not had much luck. Many have gone north to Egypt – where they are treated despicably. The brave make a run through the desert in a bid to make it to Israel. Not only do they face the natural threats of the Sinai, they are also used for target practice by the Egyptian soldiers patrolling the border. Why would they take the risk? Because in Israel they are treated with compassion – they are treated as the refugees that they are – and perhaps Israel's cultural memory of genocide is to blame. The Israeli government has even gone so far as to grant several hundred Darfurian refugees Citizenship. This alone sets Israel apart from the rest of the world. But the real point of distinction is this: The IDF sends out soldiers and medics to patrol the Egyptian border. They are sent looking for refugees attempting to cross into Israel.. Not to send them back into Egypt, but to save them from dehydration, heat exhaustion, and Egyptian bullets. Compare that to the US's reaction to illegal immigration across their border with Mexico. The American government has arrested private individuals for giving water to border crossers who were dying of thirst – and here the Israeli government is sending out its soldiers to save illegal immigrants. To call that sort of behavior anomalous is an understatement. My Third argument is that the Israeli government engages in an activity which the rest of the world shuns -- it negotiates with terrorists. Forget the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, a man who died with blood all over his hands – they're in the process of negotiating with terrorists as we speak. Yasser Abed Rabbo is one of the lead PLO negotiators that has been sent to the peace talks with Israel. Abed Rabbo also used to be a leader of the PFLP- an organisation of 'freedom fighters' that, under Abed Rabbo's leadership, engaged in such freedom promoting activities as killing 22 Israeli highschool students. And the Israeli government is sending delegates to sit at a table with this man, and talk about peace. And the world applauds. You would never see the Spanish government in peace talks with the leaders of the ETA – the British government would never negotiate with Thomas Murphy. And if President Obama were to sit down and talk about peace with Osama Bin Laden, the world would view this as insanity. But Israel can do the exact same thing – and earn international praise in the process. That is the dictionary definition of rogue – behaving in a way that is unexpected, or not normal. Another part of dictionary definition is behaviour or activity 'occuring at an unexpected place or time'. When you compare Israel to its regional neighbours, it becomes clear just how roguish Israel is. And here is the fourth argument: Israel has a better human rights record than any of its neighbours. At no point in history, has there ever been a liberal democratic state in the Middle east- except for Israel. Of all the countries in the middle east, Israel is the only one where the LGBT community enjoys even a small measure of equality. In Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and Syria, homosexual conduct is punishable by flogging, imprisonment, or both. But homosexuals there get off pretty lightly compared to their counterparts in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, who are put to death. Israeli homosexuals can adopt, openly serve in the army, enter civil unions, and are protected by exceptionally strongly worded ant-discrimination legislation. Beats a death sentence. In fact, it beats America. Israel's protection of its citizens civil liberties has earned international recognition. Freedom House is an NGO that releases an annual report on democracy and civil liberties in each of the 195 countries in the world. It ranks each country as 'Free' 'Partly Free' or 'Not Free'. In the Middle East, Israel is the only country that has earned designation as a 'free' country. Not surprising given the level of freedom afforded to citizens in say, Lebanon- a country designated 'partly free', where there are laws against reporters criticizing not only the Lebanese government, but the Syrian regime as well. [ I'm hoping Ms Booth will speak about this, given her experience working as a 'journalist' for Iran,] Iran is a country given the rating of 'not free', putting it alongside China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Myanmar. In Iran, [as Ms Booth I hoped would have said in her speech], there is a special 'Press Court' which prosecutes journalists for such heinous offences as criticizing the ayatollah, reporting on stories damaging the 'foundations of the Islamic republic' , using 'suspicious (i.e. western) sources', or insulting islam. Iran is the world leader in terms of jailed journalists, with 39 reporters (that we know of) in prison as of 2009. They also kicked out almost every western journalist during the 2009 election. [I don't know if Ms Booth was affected by that] I guess we can't really expect more from a theocracy. Which is what most countries in the middle east are. Theocracies and Autocracies. But Israel is the sole, the only, the rogue, democracy. Out of every country in the middle east, only in Israel do anti-government protests and reporting go unquashed and uncensored. I have one final argument – the last nail in the opposition's coffin- and its sitting right across the aisle. Mr Ran Gidor's presence here is the all evidence any of us should need to confidently call Israel a rogue state. For those of you who have never heard of him, Mr Gidor is a political counsellor attached to Israel's embassy in London. He's the guy the Israeli government sent to represent them to the UN. He knows what he's doing. And he's here tonight. And it's incredible. Consider, for a moment, what his presence here means. The Israeli government has signed off,to allow one of their senior diplomatic representatives to participate in a debate on their very legitimacy. That's remarkable. Do you think for a minute, that any other country would do the same? If the Yale University Debating Society were to have a debate where the motion was 'This house believes Britain is a racist, totalitarian state that has done irrevocable harm to the peoples of the world', that Britain would allow any of it's officials to participate? No. Would China participate in a debate about the status of Taiwan? Never. And there is no chance in hell that an American government official would ever be permitted to argue in a debate concerning it's treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But Israel has sent Mr Ran Gidor to argue tonight against [a 'journalist' come reality tv star, and myself,] a 19 year old law student who is entirely unqualified to speak on the issue at hand. Every government in the world should be laughing at Israel right now- because it forgot rule number one. You never add credence to crackpots by engaging with them. It's the same reason you won't see Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins debate David Icke. But Israel is doing precisely that. Once again, behaving in a way that is unexpected, or not normal. Behaving like a rogue state. That's five arguments that have been directed at the supporters of Israel. But I have a minute or two left. And here's an argument for all of you – Israel willfully and forcefully disregards international law. In 1981 Israel destroyed OSIRAK – Sadam Hussein's nuclear bomb lab. Every government in the world knew that Hussein was building a bomb. And they did nothing. Except for Israel. Yes, in doing so they broke international law and custom. But they also saved us all from a nuclear Iraq. That rogue action should earn Israel a place of respect in the eyes of all freedom loving peoples. But it hasn't. But tonight, while you listen to us prattle on, I want you to remember something; while you're here, Khomeini's Iran is working towards the Bomb. And if you're honest with yourself, you know that Israel is the only country that can, and will, do something about it. Israel will, out of necessity act in a way that is the not the norm, and you'd better hope that they do it in a destructive manner. Any sane person would rather a rogue Israel than a Nuclear Iran. [Except Ms Booth]
Helen Thomas, who wants all Jews to leave Israel and "go back home" - to their ancestral homelands of Poland and Germany, where - well you know, insists that she is not anti-Semitic. But then,
"I hit the third rail. You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive," Thomas told Ohio station WMRN-AM
So whose fault is it that she lost her job after exposing herself so plainly as a Jew-hater that even her employer could no longer ignore it? Why, it's those Jews of course. But that doesn't make her anti-Semitic because . . . because . . . well, because she said so? Has the habit of blaming Jews for all the ills of the world become so commonplace that it's nothing more than a mindless cliche? I don't think so, and Thomas is a fool for not understanding her own hatred, or for trying to convince the world that she isn't something that she so obviously is.
Let's check the reality of the situation, you know, examine the facts, something Helen Thomas and her fellow travelers strenuously avoid, unless they are making up their own facts, which change as quickly as the weather, once the old ones are exposed as bogus. Some professional critics of Israel are making a fine living. Jimmy Carter, Mearsheimer and Walt, and other spiritual heirs to the Spanish Inquisition, Russian pogroms, Islamic massacres, and low grade thugs whose only function in life was to make life miserable for the Jews in their midst, are feted by elite news magazines, and treated to softball TV interviews as they push their Jew-hating books and complain that they are being silenced by a shadowy Zionist conspiracy.
This time Helen Thomas has pushed her agenda a little too far. I'm tired of this crap and now I'm pissed off. So let me just say to Helen Thomas (and believe me, others will follow) - Listen, and listen good lady, because now you've done it. You've pushed me over the edge. I am a member of that shadowy Zionist conspiracy that controls the Media and holds U.S. foreign policy hostage. Well, guess what. I'm stepping out of the shadows to let you know something. I'm going to be working with some of my co-conspirators, and when you wake up tomorrow morning, you are going to wish your name was Sleeping Ugly and that you could have slept for another hundred years. Because when you awaken, you are going to find that your house has been foreclosed on, your car repossessed, all of your credit cards canceled, your bank account frozen, your driver's license and passport revoked, your Facebook and Twitter accounts closed, and your birth certificate hiding in a place so obscure that hunters will find Obama's long before they find yours. You school records, even those from the "school of hard knocks" will disappear. You will become a nonentity. You will have ceased to exist in every data base in the world and in the lives of anyone you know or have ever known. Those who used to love you (if it was even possible to love a hideous wretch like you) will avoid your gaze and involuntarily cringe if you approach them on the street - which will be your new home. You will be brought so low that you will wish and beg to be allowed to rise to the level of a street person, one of those we used to refer to as "bums". They will pity you but want nothing to do with you.
Understand - you didn't criticize Israel. Criticism is honest. It takes into account the good and the bad. It's logical and based on facts. You showed your irrational hatred for 14 million people you only know as "Jews". You demonstrated your support for a Jew-free Middle East by way of ethnically cleansing Israel of its majority Jewish population. And even though you did this, and are now pegged as the next victim of the "Zionist Conspiracy," you will survive - in a way. But you're going to wish you hadn't. You are about to end up as a character in a Philip K. Dick novel. Enjoy your new "life", sucker!
Mike Grimm, a G.O.P challenger to Democrat Mike McMahon's Congressional seat, took in over $200,000 in his last filing.
But in an effort to show that Grimm lacks support among voters in the district, which covers Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, the McMahon campaign compiled a list of Jewish donors to Grimm and provided it to The Politicker.
The file, labeled "Grimm Jewish Money Q2," for the second quarter fundraising period, shows a list of over 80 names, a half-dozen of which in fact do hail from Staten Island, and a handful of others that list Brooklyn as home.
"Where is Grimm's money coming from," said Jennifer Nelson, McMahon's campaign spokeman. "There is a lot of Jewish money, a lot of money from people in Florida and Manhattan, retirees."
There's more. Read it if you want. McMahon has gone into damage control. We know that there is a double standard, and had a Republican made this charge against a Democrat, all the major news organizations would have already labeled him as a Nazi, a hate monger, and even worse, as somebody who doesn't worship diversity or multiculturalism. All of the "leaders" of the Jewish community and of the major Jewish organizations would be putting out editorials demanding apologies, and calling for his head on a platter. He would be pilloried, hung from a gibbet, and forced to drop out of the race. He would be demonized, his children hounded at school, his wife thrown out of her social circle. His name would (until the next scandal) become a synonym for irrational, blind hatred.
McMahon is lucky to be a Democrat. This will blow over in a day or two, and all of the major news organizations will accept the firing of this Jennifer Nelson as proper penance for this minor indiscretion. They will accept the dubious claim that he had nothing to do with it, it was all the fault of Jennifer Nelson, and they will go back to their Obama-worship and looking for dirt on Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. Jewish organizations will go back to condemning conservative Christians and hunting right-wing extremists.
The worst part is that (and I really hope I turn out to be wrong here) his liberal Jewish supporters will pass over this blatantly anti-Semitic dirty trick. They will excuse it as "just politics" and nothing compared to what Bush did when he was president. (Yeah, I know. It's a non sequitur, but we've heard that argument before from progressives when they've lost the debate. Who needs facts when you have an insane alternate world view?) They have to forgive their Democrat, no matter how much this candidate demonstrates his disregard, or even his antipathy toward them. The alternative is unthinkable. No liberal Jew in their right mind wants the "nuclear option", you know, voting for a Republican.
And if you, like I do, think that is a ridiculous position for allegedly intelligent people to take, watch and see the large percentage of the Jewish vote Obama receives in 2012. Sure, he will lose some Jewish support, but I'm guessing he will still get over 70%.
The Detroit News and others who are sympathetic to the Islamic community are making a big deal of the fact that an estimated 150 Muslims protested against terrorism at the arraignment of the latest high profile Islamic terrorist.
Muslims, Arab-Americans and Nigerian-Americans stood together Friday outside the federal courthouse downtown to speak out against terrorism and Islamic extremists.
An estimated 150 people attended a peaceful demonstration, carrying large American flags and signs that read, "Not in the Name of Islam" and "Not in Our Name."
The rally was held during the U.S. District Court arraignment of terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet bound for Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Christmas Day.
Majed Moughni of Dearborn said he hopes Friday's rally leads to a "movement" by Muslims to become more vocal in standing up to Islamic radicals who invade their schools and mosques.
"We are not going to let these terrorists hijack our religion," said Moughni.
"We've been trying to recover from (the Sept. 11 terror attacks) for nine years. (This) comes right in our backyards, right over the heads of the largest Muslim population in North America."
There are other article about how outraged local Muslims are over recent Islamic terrorist attacks, but they could only muster 150 for an anti-terror rally? That's it? This was pretty well publicized too, so there are no excuses for not showing up if one is a true opponent of terrorism.
As a contrast to this pathetic, limp-wristed attempt to garner public sympathy, let's take a look at a previous rally (actually rallies) held by local Muslims. Back in the summer of 2006, Israel was forced to go to war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. How did local Muslims feel about terror back then? According to this NPR report:
Daily protests occur in Dearborn. At one recent demonstration, organized by the Congress of Arab-Americans, about 1,000 people attended. College-age men asked, in call and response fashion, "Who is your army?" Protestors responded: "Hezbollah." "Who is your leader?" they were asked. "Nasrallah," the chanters responded. Many carried placards of the Hezbollah leader. A few days earlier at an even larger demonstration, more than 15,000 turned out, about half of Dearborn's Arab community.
Those who regularly attend the demonstrations tend to be the most strident.
"Oh, Jews, remember Khaibar," the marchers chant. "The army of the Prophet will return."
The line is a reference to Khaibar, a Jewish town north of Medina that, according to Islamic tradition, was overtaken by the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Once defeated, the surviving Jews of Khaibar were forced into serfdom. Two decades later, they were expelled from the Arabian peninsula.
Hmm, let's review: 150 show up to condemn terrorism and they're lauded. 15,000 show up to support terrorism and outright Jew-hatred, and they are forgotten.
Final thought: Out of the 150 protesters, how many really meant it? I bet the high profile names were there only for show.
The aspect of today's liberalism, or progressivism as it is sometimes referred to, that helped shove me toward a more conservative political point of view, in fact it is the thing that outraged me the most in this post 9/11 world and actually began my move rightward, is the knee jerk anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian stance among so many progressive adherents. It shocked me at first. I was used to seeing anti-Semitism coming from the right. I was always under the impression that those on the Left fought for the underdog, while those on the Right were for the rich and powerful. If there is one group who has been the historical underdog, it's been the Jews. And Israel, that miniscule strip of land on the Mediterranean, surrounded by five hundred million Arabs who nurse genocidal dreams against the Jewish state so foul that murderers are celebrated and lionized, while children are sacrificed if it means killing even one Jew, is the feistiest of underdogs, facing attacks unprecedented in history.
Yes, there is anti-Semitism on the right of the political aisle too, but except for Pat Buchanan and a few others, it isn't nearly as mainstream as that coming from the left. For the most part, it is still reviled on the right as a mental disorder and the sign of a twisted mind.
Due to some fancy propaganda from Islamic nations and a moral weakness among Progressive leaders, Israel has been absurdly portrayed as the the aggressor in this situation with no regard as to how many violent, unprovoked attacks it's had to endure over the years. The inversion of good and evil that has taken place in Progressive groups and media runs counter to the facts and counter to reality. There is a general acceptance of the Palestinian "narrative" as a replacement for objective (or as objective as it can be) history. And no matter how they try to deny it, or dress it up as anti-Zionism, or bring up the fact that there are some Jews who buy into this madness, in its rewriting of history and inversion of morality, it is anti-Semitism, pure and twisted.
Even those who aren't anti-semitic have bought into the current anti-Semitism being promoted throughout the Islamic world. They don't dig into their beliefs to see where they come from. Their self-willed ignorance gives them the strength of their convictions. For those who do plunge into the history of Islamic and European Jew-hatred and notice the ancient blood libels being updated, the explanation is that it is the fault of Israel, you know, that tiny sliver of land, about the size of New Jersey, population of around 7 million, a country that under normal circumstances would scarcely be noticed except for the fact that it is the only majority Jewish nation on Earth. But anti-Semitism, like other dysfunctions, is blamed on who? Why, as always, it's blamed on the Jews, or now, since Progressives refuse to take responsibility for their irrational hatred, it's blamed on the Jewish state.
The second unforgivable sin of the Israelis is the fact that they have created wealth through the adoption of Capitalism in the midst of dysfunctional dictatorial Islamic cultures. Notice, I did not say that Israel has amassed wealth. They created that wealth where previously there was very little. And they did it in spite of almost universal condemnation and continuous violent attacks from their Jew-hating, dysfunctional neighbors.
One of the more twisted and offensive tactics of the anti-Semitic left is the attempted relabeling of people which goes beyond confounding good and evil. Some of the more deranged have gone so far as to equate Israel with Nazis and name the Palestinians as the new Jews. But over time, this got me thinking about the way these people think. I'm going to do a lot of generalizing (as if I haven't already), but I think my generalizations are correct . . . in general.
Those who demonize Israel imagine themselves on the side of goodness and morality, no matter how ignorant they force themselves to be. I'm guessing that they imagine that if they lived in Germany back in the 1930s that they would have been part of the brave few that spoke up against the Third Reich. I bet they really believe that they would have bravely hidden their Jewish neighbors, that they would have risked their lives to do what was right.
But they wouldn't. They would have been boycotting Jewish businesses, turning in their Jewish neighbors, cheering as they were being carted away, and ignoring the awful truths of the death camps.
And here's why.
Progressivism, due to the Marxist leanings of . . . well, of . . . Progressives, is also profoundly, proudly, and stupidly, anti-Capitalist. And Marx was profoundly anti-Semitic. How that stance leads to progress of any kind is beyond me, but that's not what I'm writing about today. In Germany of the 1930s, there were wealthy Jews, doctors, lawyers, merchants, who wanted nothing more than to be accepted as Germans. Many downplayed their Judaism. Some even converted in order to be more a part of mainstream German society, and to spare their children the hatred they faced their whole lives. Did it work? Well, according to Nazi racial policy, you were Jewish if one grandparent was a Jew. So there really was no escape. And if you were wealthy besides, well what a scapegoat you could be.
Not all Jews were or are wealthy, but that's one of the age old stereotypes. And if one rich Jew can be found, then they all must be rich. They are rather clannish, we're told. And we know that according to the Progressives who condemn Capitalism, wealth is never earned, it is always stolen. From whom is it stolen? It is stolen from the poor. Do the poor really have anything one can steal? They must have at one time. When? Who knows? Maybe before the Jews, or Zionists, or Capitalists stole it from them.
Just as they hate Israel today for being Jewish, strong, and wealthy, they would have hated Jews back in the 1930s for the same reason. Strong and wealthy is bad. Poor and weak (in appearance if not in reality) is good. They worship (in retrospect only) the poor, weak Jews of the Holocaust. That is how their brains work. Just as they accept every anti-Israel canard, no matter how ridiculous and unprovable, they would have accepted every piece of propaganda coming down from the Third Reich. The lies are the same. Nazis fraudulently claimed that Jews "stabbed Germany in the back" during WWI. They were outraged over the fact that some Jews became wealthy. They accused Jews of trying to control the world (not just the Middle East) They were -ahem - anti-Zionists. Remind me. Who takes those positions these days? I don't think most Israelis do. And don't forget the ancient blood libels, now resurrected throughout the Muslim world and in mainstream Swedish newspapers.
There is no logic behind the Israel hating stance, there is only a burning hatred that comes from envy and a strong desire to make sure that nobody is allowed to become too wealthy or as the term is used, "obscenely wealthy," especially if they're Jewish. It's the same burning hatred that ran rampant through Germany in the 1930s, the demonization, the calls for boycotts of Jewish businesses, the personal attacks on Jews and their property. I'm not claiming that Progressives are in favor of reopening the death camps. I am claiming though, that when Jews are murdered in Israel, or anywhere for that matter, when synagogues are vandalized, the silence from the Left demonstrates that they care as much as the average German citizen cared when those oppressive Jews of Berlin, and Frankfort, and Hamburg, were forced to wash the streets to cheering crowds and later carted away. And who in the West is demanding divestiture from and the boycotting of Israeli businesses and the country of Israel itself? As I recall, it's those loving, human-rights-demanding Progressives.
All of the excuses the "good Germans" made are made by today's Progressives. But in order to be able to face themselves when they look in the mirror, they have to create a morally inverted world where terrorists who gleefully murder children are called "freedom fighters" and the society that raises them and cheers these murders is called "oppressed". The one country in the Middle East that has allowed its citizens to create a decent standard of living is condemned in the stupidest and most offensive manner. But then again, it is the Jewish country. And as much as they deny it, that is what it comes down to when Progressives decide who their devil is.
They've taken the same positions that Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Nazis take. They fail to see the hypocrisy in their position which claims Muslims can murder Jews as a basic human right while Jews who fight back are oppressive. And as one last thought, let us not forget that Nazis were officially known in Germany as National Socialists. That's kind of far left, isn't it?
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Part II
One thing I forgot about in my first post on Gibbon; he was viciously anti-Semitic. All of his descriptions of Jews and Judaism are outrageous. He accuses Jews of cannibalizing their defeated enemies. That's just stupid. Observant Jews, which would have been the entire Jewish community at the time, wouldn't have eaten people. People aren't kosher. We don't have split hooves, and unless you consider chewing gum, we have no cud to chew. He also accuses the Jews of Rome of starting the infamous fire that the Emperor Nero was said to fiddle during. And it was (according to Gibbon) the fault of the Jews that Christians were persecuted. I think it's another one of those British attitudes.
I'm not sure Gibbon's anti-Semitism is ever discussed, probably because his Decline and Fall is a such an otherwise magnificent piece of scholarship and writing. As I said in part I (if I remember correctly), the man could construct a sentence and describe a character better than most novelists. He did have an advantage over writers of fiction though. These were real people he was fleshing out for us. He merely had to find the right words.
During Rome's decline, when one emperor after another was being raised and then violently dispatched, it was clear that the virtuous men of genius who ruled Rome and fought for Roman interests during its ascension in centuries past, were either no longer available or they weren't being allowed to rise up from the multitude. Instead, there was a centuries long parade of scoundrels, usurpers, and con men, who had abbreviated reigns wearing the purple. The great were sometimes thrust into the throne, but they were the exception.
As Gibbon would begin his descriptions of each new emperor rising or being forced to the top during the tumultuous third and fourth centuries A.D., I wondered each time how long this one would last and what manner of violent end he would suffer, because they all came to violent ends, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Major exceptions were Diocletion, Julian, and Constantine, but try as they might, they couldn't halt Rome's decline. The best they could do was to slow it down.
By this time, corruption reigned and the edges of the empire were being eaten away by the barbarians Rome could no longer control, but only negotiate with in-between increasing futile wars. Rather than handle the barbarians, whom I think had embraced certain aspects of civilization over the centuries, and who were being squeezed by the Scythians (who were even more barbaric) on the other side, Rome chose to negotiate when they needed to concentrate on internal problems. Who did these negotiations help the most? Well, it wasn't the Romans.
The West (Rome) discovered (and then promptly forgot) the lesson on letting a cruel barbarian tyrant grow strong by neglecting to squash him when he's weak. What is it with humanity? Don't we ever learn?
When corruption becomes the order of the day, when it's not only tolerated but expected, when society has lost its memory of what responsibilities we all must fulfill to pass our civilization on to our children, how do "we the people" maintain a civil free society? The Romans were finally overwhelmed by their own pathologies, which weakened them enough for outside forces to invade and finish the job. It was a long process though, and as each generation contributed to their share of Rome's decline, whatever they were living through was their normalcy, no matter how degraded they would have appeared to their ancestors.
Does this story hold lessons for we the living of today? Sure it does. Will we listen? We never have.
Next summer, I will reread volume II. I'm looking forward to it.
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.
There were a few articles in today's Free Press that commanded my attention. Usually it's the ridiculous that draws me in and makes the bile rise, but there were some good things too.
First the dumb stuff:
Why is Congress still out to apologize for slavery?
Lawmakers are learning the hard way that trying to apologize for historic injustices isn't as easy as saying sorry. Advertisement
Two weeks ago, the Senate passed a resolution calling on the country to apologize formally for more than three centuries of enslavement and segregation of African Americans. Senators thought they had done the right thing.
The feel-good moment was short-lived, however, after several members of the Congressional Black Caucus vowed to fight the measure when it reached the House of Representatives.
They object because it contains a disclaimer saying that the resolution can't be used to support legal claims against the United States by those seeking reparations or cash compensation for the suffering endured by black people.
No apology will ever be enough for some. They will always demand more. We know that. The smartest course in this case is to give them nothing. Encourage them to shut up already. At one time slavery was universal in human society. It was western civilization that fought to end it. The United States fought a war against slavery.
"It opens up a discussion, an opportunity for Americans to start a healing process,"
No it doesn't, it wastes time and energy. It creates demands for something that nobody living today is entitled to. I teach elementary school. Most of my students are black. Until they get to my class and I fill them in on the facts of the history of world-wide slavery, they think that slavery was a uniquely American institution. If our nation hasn't been healed yet, it's due to dopes who insist on continuing the focus on American slavery and its alleged continuing effect on Black Americans. If you read Thomas Sowell though, you can better understand that the current pathologies in the Black community have little to do with the legacy of slavery and everything to do with the breakdown of the family and the insistence on living a self-destructive culture. And why should I pay reparations? While blacks in the south were being used as slaves, my ancestors were being raped and murdered by Cossacks. Obviously, I never met these people, but still - can I have reparations? Since my ancestors suffered, don't I deserve them?
When it comes to political art, it always seems to me to be more politics than art. And the politics expressed are predictably on the left side of the aisle. If that's where your sympathies lie, you can introduce your article with sentences like,
Knit one, purl two. Fight the power.
Lisa Anne Auerbach knits charged political works stitched with slyly provocative slogans. They can be amusing, angry, quirky. One sweater says "My Jewish Grandma is Voting for Obama. Is Yours?" The back says "Chosen People Choose Obama." Another sweater says "When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire." Her "Body Count Mittens" are adorned with casualty figures from Iraq.
Oy vey, another liberal Jew, who, if she were as politically astute as she thinks she is, would never have voted for or supported Obama. And since Obama is the president, what power is she fighting?
For a much better understanding of Obama, Jews, and Israel, read this important piece by Melanie Phillips. (I found it at American Digest.) She gets it. I thought Dershowitz did. It's sad how politics can blind one to reality.
Here is an interesting letter to the Free Press clearly and simply demonstrating the unbreakable (especially when it comes to political solutions) Law of Unintended Consequences:
News of the cash-for-clunkers program is greatly distressing. I am a low-income, single mother with two teenage daughters. One is 17 and is saving up for her first vehicle. She will not be permitted to get her license until she can afford the car. The other is 15 and chomping at the bit already, eager for the independence she will achieve with her own ride.
More than once I have purchased what is being called a "clunker" because it is in the price range I can afford -- both the purchase price and the insurance costs without collision coverage. Several times I have purchased cars whose owners have told me they were asking the price because it was what they could get on a trade-in. What am I to do now that the incentive will be $4,500 for a trade-in on a car that may have been traded in for $1,000 in the past? I can't afford $4,500 for a vehicle.
What you might consider a clunker, I consider affordable transportation.
How many millions of other working poor will be financially slammed by our current one party ruling bodies?
Finally, here is a test. How much do you know about the founding principles of our nation? Just for the record, I scored 8 out of 10.
On this day in 1941 the country of Israel did not exist. There was no "Palestinian problem" as no Arabs or Muslims referred to themselves as "Palestinians". There was no "occupation" of Gaza or the West Bank. And yet . . .
That day in 1941, on the Jewish festival of Shavuot, the sight of Jews returning from the Baghdad airport to greet the returning Regent Abdul al-Ilah, ruler of Iraq, was all the excuse an Iraqi mob needed to unleash its vengeance.
The attack began at 3 p.m., as the Jewish delegation crossed Baghdad’s Al Khurr Bridge. Violence quickly spread to the Al Rusafa and Abu Sifyan districts. The frenzied mob murdered Jews openly on the streets. Women were raped and infants were killed as their horrified families looked on. Torture and mutilation followed.
Jewish shops were looted and torched. A synagogue was invaded, burned, and its Torahs destroyed in classic Nazi fashion. The shooting, burning and mayhem continued throughout the evening. Jews were dragged from their automobiles. Homes were invaded, looted and burned. On June 2, the fury continued with policemen and slum dwellers joining in.
At the Muallem-Cohen house, young Nezima was terrified. Her father had just returned from the synagogue, relating terrible stories about daughters being raped and homes burned, when suddenly shouting, armed men crashed through his own front gates. Quick, Mr. Muallem-Cohen rushed his family to the stairs to escape to the roof. Up they scampered, first young Nezima, then her mother, and then her father. A shot — Mr. Muallem-Cohen was dead.
Mrs. Muallem-Cohen looked back in horror. Just then a policeman appeared. “They killed my husband,” she shrieked. “How do you want to die?” the policeman snapped back, and then cracked her skull with his gun.
Finally, in the afternoon, British forces punched into the city. They opened fire on the rampagers. A 5 p.m. curfew was broadcast. Scores of violators were shot on sight. The disturbances were finally quelled.
The carnage of those 48 hours would be forever seared upon the collective Iraqi Jewish consciousness as “the Farhud,” best translated as “violent dispossession.”
So much for the fairy tale of Jews and Muslims living in peace and harmony until the founding of You-Know-Which-Jewish-State destroyed that peace and harmony by upsetting that carefully balanced aspect of Islamic society wherein Muslims were masters and Jews dhimmis. By 1951, after a continuous presence in Iraq of 2,600 years, almost all of Iraq's Jews were forced to emigrate to the fledgling state of Israel. A very few remained to be persecuted by the Iraqi government. If there are any Jews left in Iraq today, they are very quiet about it, and they number fewer than ten. Sounds like genocide to me, even though it is politically incorrect, islamophobic, and not very polite to record any of the known genocidal episodes perpetrated by Muslims on people of (not necessarily) other religions.
One more thought: just as almost all of the ancient Jewish communities in the Muslim world have been ethnically cleansed of Jews over the centuries, so have Christian communities. Apologists for Islam never acknowledge that fact and try to ignore it altogether. They will only discuss the Christians who are being forced out of Gaza, Judea, and Sumeria, because they can pin false blame on Israel. We know which religion of peace is at fault though.
George Orwell had this to say about British anti-Semitism sometime during World War Two. Among some of the more interesting points of his essay:
I could fill pages with similar remarks, but these will do to go on with. Two facts emerge from them. One--which is very important and which I must return to in a moment--is that above a certain intellectual level people are ashamed of being antisemitic and are careful to draw a distinction between "antisemitism" and "disliking Jews". The other is that antisemitism is an irrational thing. The Jews are accused of specific offences (for instance, bad behaviour in food queues) which the person speaking feels strongly about, but it is obvious that these accusations merely rationalise some deep-rooted prejudice.
Notice anything familiar? Today's Jew haters insist that they are only "anti-Zionists". They love Jews, that is Jews who will denounce Zionism and Israel.
It so happens that the war has encouraged the growth of antisemitism and even, in the eyes of many ordinary people, given some justification for it. To begin with, the Jews are one people of whom it can be said with complete certainty that they will benefit by an Allied victory. Consequently the theory that "this is a Jewish war" has a certain plausibility, all the more so because the Jewish war effort seldom gets its fair share of recognition.
So the only reason the allies fought against the Nazis during WWII was because of the Jews? Sure it sounds stupid, but it's no more idiotic (well, maybe it is) than the fools today who insist that anti-Zionism is not Jew-hatred and that 9/11 benefited Israel (how?), that the U.S. invasion of Iraq benefited Israel, even though Israelis would have been much happier to see the Iranian government being overthrown. Back in March, a Fatah official was killed by a car bomb in Lebanon. So, using the typically twisted logic of Jew-haters throughout history, there is at least one idiot insinuating that Israel must be the culprit, because - yep - Israel benefits from a dead Fatah official.
Apparently anything that has happened throughout history that has been good for Jews or for Israel is suspect, and was probably carried out by Jews or encouraged by the shadowy Israel lobby. The founding of the United States has certainly been good for both Jews and for Israel. Therefore the Mossad/Jews/Israel/AIPAC/Israel Lobby must have had their sinister hand in it. After all, except for benefitting the Jews, what good has the United States done in the world? I'm sure that Columbus would not have taken his voyage had it not been for the urging of Spanish Jews.
To publicise the exploits of Jewish soldiers, or even to admit the existence of a considerable Jewish army in the Middle East, rouses hostility in South Africa, the Arab countries and elsewhere: it is easier to ignore the whole subject and allow the man in the street to go on thinking that Jews are exceptionally clever at dodging military service.
Today's mainstream media have certainly been complicit in desperately trying to avoid bruising the delicate feelings of our Islamic neighbors. Facts can be twisted into lies to avoid humiliating or insulting Muslims. In some countries, Canada and the Netherlands come to mind, one can be put on trial for insulting Islam. Not all freedoms are restricted though. It's still OK to attackJews.
There are things that don't change, but only evolve. Anti-Semitism is one of them.
The one argument that I've read from people who don't wish newspapers to fade away - as they seem to be doing, is that without our daily paper, there would be no reporters braving uncomfortable and disquieting situations around the world in order to inform us of the happenings in far away places and in our own back yard. That's almost a plausible excuse to keep newspapers being printed, until I think of the simply awful coverage of Israel from my local papers and the slim to nonexistent coverage of other trouble spots that don't involve Jews or Israel.
For example, how much do you know about the civil war that's been raging in Sri Lanka for the past 30 years? Sure, you may be aware of it, maybe you can even name the main players; the government vs. the Tamil Tigers. But what about the thousands of civilians who have been killed, injured, and displaced during this war? Where are the reports and the outcry from the various "peace" and "human rights" groups?
In other news that hasn't been reported by my local papers:
(IsraelNN.com) For the second time in less than a week, a packed Brooklyn, New York, synagogue has been the target of threats of violence by intruders.
On Monday, according to Yeshiva World News, an Arab man in his mid-30s entered Boro Park's 'Sephardish Shul' and began making proclamations of jihad. Members of a Jewish volunteer security organization, the Shomrim, apprehended the threatening individual. They held him until police officers arrived at the scene, arresting the suspect. Detectives spoke with the "Middle Eastern man" at a station house near the synagogue.
Police officials reminded the community, "If you see something, say something." Security in Brooklyn's heavily Jewish Boro Park area has been stepped up during the Purim holiday.
Just two days earlier, a man wielding a butcher's knife burst into a Kerestir Chassidic synagogue in Williamsburg. He initially turned up unarmed and began throwing soda cans at the gathered worshipers, which hit one of them, and returned shortly thereafter with the bladed weapon.
The attacker was prevented from using the butcher's knife on anyone by a young man, described as a "friend" of the knife-wielding intruder, who then fled together with him.
The recent attacks come just over a month after Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn was targeted in a series of English-language jihadist videos posted on the Internet. The videos and accompanying texts singled out "770," but also intimated that all Orthodox Jewish organizations were equally worthy of attack by Muslims. The threatening material included images of the 770 synagogue and study house, pictures of the police van out front, and indications of which parts of the building are crowded at what times.
The source of the thinly-veiled threats, a group called Revolution Muslim, is domestic to the United States.
Yes, that was the entire article - from an Israeli newspaper. I'm guessing that this attack was roundly ignored by the American press in general, not just by my local papers. Can you imagine the hysterical outcries though, if a Jew intruded on or threatened violence during a service at a mosque? Yow!
And then there's this incident, the anniversary of which is today, the 1977 Hanafi Siege. I don't recall it at all, but back in '77, I had other things on my mind. According to Wikipedia,
The 1977 Hanafi Siege refers to an incident that occurred March 9-11, 1977, in which three buildings in Washington, D.C. were seized by 12 gunmen. They were held responsible for taking 149 hostages and the death of two people. After a 39 hour standoff all hostages were released from the District Building (city hall) – now called the John A. Wilson Building, B'nai B'rith headquarters, and the Islamic Center.
One of those killed was 24-year-old Maurice Williams, a young radio reporter from WHUR-FM, who stepped off a fifth floor elevator into the crisis. (The fifth floor is where the Mayor and City Council President have their offices). The gunmen also shot DC Protective Service Division, Special Police Officer Mack Cantrell, who died a few days later in the hospital of a heart attack. Then-D.C. council member, later mayor, Marion Barry walked into the hallway of the District Building after hearing a commotion and was hit by a ricocheted shotgun pellet just above his heart. He was taken out a window and rushed to a hospital.
The gunmen had several demands. They "wanted the government to hand over a group of men who had been convicted of killing seven relatives – mostly children – of takeover leader Hamaas Khaalis. They also demanded that the movie Mohammad, Messenger of God be destroyed because they considered it sacrilegious."[1]
Time magazine noted: "That the toll was not higher was in part a tribute to the primary tactic U.S. law enforcement officials are now using to thwart terrorists—patience. But most of all, perhaps, it was due to the courageous intervention of three Muslim ambassadors, Egypt's Ashraf Ghorbal, Pakistan's Sahabzada Yaqub-Khan and Iran's Ardeshir Zahedi."[2]
There's more, of course, but the main thing is that we have to keep reminding ourselves that attacks on Jews by Muslims are not recent. They began at the beginning of Islam. They continue to this day, because no matter how much the apologists want the world to believe that the fault lies with Jews, Zionists, Israel, or its policies, the sickening fact is, Muslims have always had a reason for oppressing and murdering Jews . . . and Christians . . . and any other infidel who happened to cross their bloody path. But they continue to deny responsibility for all of the death and destruction they have caused since their rise in the seventh century.
If our newspapers were worth the paper they were printed on, they would speak truth to power and report boldly and truthfully on the pathologies of Islam. Until they do, and if they ever do, I'm not sure I'll miss them.
I went to hear Brigette Gabrielle speak today. She's quite a passionate speaker, and she's got a frightening story to tell. All of the things that the anti-jihadists have been warning us about for years, have already happened to her. She's Lebanese, and her formative years coincided with the destruction of Lebanese society by Islamic jihadists.
Lebanon used to be a tiny majority Christian nation surrounded by Islamic dictatorships (well, except for that tiny "zionist entity" to its south). Now it's a tiny puppet state of Syria. Beirut, Lebanon's capital, used to be known as the Paris of the Middle East. Now it's - I don't know what it is. We don't hear much about it anymore. And while we read, over the years it took place, about the destruction of Lebanon, I don't think we were really paying attention to the details.
The once free, proud, and democratic country of Lebanon, prided itself on its welcoming attitude to all, even non-Christians including "Palestinian refugees", its multicultural attitude, and its general success in creating a free society. And how have they been rewarded for this generosity?
Ever since they first welcomed the viper, Arafat, to their breast, they've been on the losing end of the Jihad. Thanks to the entrance of the PLO to Lebanon, there's been civil war, desecration and destruction of churches (remember the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where PLO members were not afraid to desecrate a Christian shrine, but worldwide pressure was placed on Israel to avoid damaging the church?), massacres of Christian civilians, and attacks on Israel, who, after an insanely long period of patience, finally invaded to try and lift the yoke of Islam from the Lebanese Christian population. Since it was Israel, however, who tried to stem the tide of jihadist slaughter, guess who was painted as the bad guy?
Up until Israel entered the fray, nobody really cared about the Lebanese Christians, just as nobody today cares about the various wars, and massacres, and other pathologies throughout the African continent (Sudan, Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, etc.) and the continued slow strangulation of freedom in Lebanon, because nobody really cares - unless Israel is involved.
So when it comes to Lebanon, nobody can say the world community had anything against the Lebanese. It didn't matter that Lebanon was one of two countries in the Middle East where people were allowed and encouraged to create wealth (even in the absence of oil), offer freedom, build an excellent educational system and have access to medical care for all. By ignoring the fate of Lebanon for all these years, even though the destruction has been covered by the world's press, we are ignoring the future that the Islamists have planned for all of us. They've told us, they've shown us. Most of us just don't want to listen. Islam is a religion of peace we've been told. Many westerners have forced themselves to believe it.
As for the ruin of Lebanon? Hasn't that been blamed on Israel. After all, what catastrophe in the Middle East hasn't been blamed on Israel or the Jews?
What can I write about our ruler - uh - I mean president-elect that hasn't already been written? Am I worried about a catastrophic next four (and possibly more) years? You bet. I've been getting chain emails from deluded liberal Jewish relatives and friends trying to soften our fears because Obama has chosen a high profile Jew, Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Debbie Schlussel has an interesting profile (and another piece here) on Mr. Emanuel. The fact that somebody is Jewish is no guarantee that they are pro-Israel or even pro-Jewish. Rahm Emanuel may turn out to be Obama's "show-Jew" a term I first heard from Woody Allen years ago.
Carolyn Glick, as always, gives us more to worry about in an Obama presidency, especially if like me, you think the terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran should be fought rather than appeased.
Due in large part to media credulousness, Obama's new image as a centrist was widely accepted by the public. And it is likely that Obama owes a significant portion of his support in the American Jewish community to the campaign's success in distancing Obama from men like Brzezinski and Malley.
But now that the campaign is over, it appears that as his critics warned, Obama's moves toward the center on issues relating to the Middle East were little more than campaign tactics to obscure his true policy preferences. Two days after his election, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius gave a sense of the direction in which Obama will likely take US foreign policy. And, apparently directed by Obama's campaign staff, Ignatius based much of his column on his belief that Obama's foreign policy views have been shaped by his "informal" advisor, Brzezinski.
Based on what Brzezinski and Obama's "official" campaign told him, Ignatius wrote that the two major issues where Obama's foreign policy is likely to diverge from Bush's right off the bat are Israel and Iran. Obama, he claimed will want to push hard to force Israel to come to an agreement with the Palestinians as soon as he comes into office. As for Iran, Obama plans to move immediately to improve US relations with the nuclear weapons building ayatollahs.
As for Malley, an aide of his told Frontpage Magazine this week that acting on Obama's instructions, Malley traveled to Cairo and Damascus after Obama's electoral victory to tell Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Assad that "the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests."
I sent this column to a cousin who emailed me a Rahm Emanuel column. I haven't heard back from her.
David Warren has some non-Israel related worries about Obama and his legion of unquestioning followers.
As I have quoted in the past, let me quote again, the profound words of the late Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, replying to the central lie in Marxism, which remains the central post-modern or post-Christian lie: "A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death -- the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged."
A great danger in democratic politics comes with just this denial. We are tempted to think that just by voting for a demagogue, a charlatan -- for any politician who tells us cynically only what we want to hear -- we can change the facts of nature.
We think that we can "make the rich pay," or otherwise transfer our personal responsibilities to the Nanny State. By some mysterious "social contract," we transfer to politicians the responsibility for what we have ourselves decided. And in due course, we may punish them, for what we got wrong.
And then there are the political cartoonists. They're going to get the final word . . . and picture.
I have to keep reminding myself though; no matter what happens, we must never give up, because there is always-
Reading the ancient historians, you really have to pay attention. While at times, they tell fascinating stories that resonate throughout the ages, there are times, I must admit, that things can get dull, kind of that "one thing after another" syndrome. Sometimes things are happening so quickly that you get lost in the names and events that may only get a page or perhaps even a sentence of description. As an example, I found Livy's history of early Rome dull in parts, but later, when he stretches out in his retelling of the Second Punic War, he creates quite the page-turner.
Tacitus (in a well annotated edition) is really interesting. The man could tell a good story. Sometimes too, you just come across unexpected tidbits. I recently read the W. H. Fyfe translation of The Histories by Tacitus. I found it well done. It was readable, and made sense. It was modern enough to flow easily through my mind. That doesn't always mean better, but compared to this translation on the web, I prefer Fyfe. Due to the fact that I'm lazy and don't feel like typing passages from the book though, I'm quoting from the web.
Our first selection is from book 1:
22. The soul of Otho was not effeminate like his person. His confidential freedmen and slaves, who enjoyed a license unknown in private families, brought the debaucheries of Nero's court, its intrigues, its easy marriages, and the other indulgences of despotic power, before a mind passionately fond of such things, dwelt upon them as his if he dared to seize them, and reproached the inaction that would leave them to others. The astrologers also urged him to action, predicting from their observation of the heavens revolutions, and a year of glory for Otho. This is a class of men, whom the powerful cannot trust, and who deceive the aspiring, a class which will always be proscribed in this country, and yet always retained. Many of these men were attached to the secret councils of Poppaea and were the vilest tools in the employ of the imperial household. One of them, Ptolemaeus, had attended Otho in Spain, and had there foretold that his patron would survive Nero. Gaining credit by the result, and arguing from his own conjectures and from the common talk of those who compared Galba's age with Otho's youth, he had persuaded the latter that he would be called to the throne. Otho however received the prediction as the words of wisdom and the intimation of destiny, with that inclination so natural to the human mind readily to believe in the mysterious.
At this point in our story, Galba is emperor, having taken over upon the death of Nero. An astrologer predicts to Otho that he will be replacing Galba on the throne. Otho accepts that prediction and goes on to overthrow Galba. He is then overthrown by Vitellus, who is in turn, overthrown by Vespasian, who serves for nine years. All of this overthrowing stuff takes place in the space of a year - a year of civil war.
If we replace the name Otho with the name Macbeth, substitute three witches for the astrologer, and change the author's name to Shakespeare, . . .
At the beginning of book five:
1. EARLY in this year Titus Caesar, who had been selected by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea, and who had gained distinction as a soldier while both were still subjects, began to rise in power and reputation, as armies and provinces emulated each other in their attachment to him. The young man himself, anxious to be thought superior to his station, was ever displaying his gracefulness and his energy in war. By his courtesy and affability he called forth a willing obedience, and he often mixed with the common soldiers, while working or marching, without impairing his dignity as general. He found in Judaea three legions, the 5th, the 10th, and the 15th, all old troops of Vespasian's. To these he added the 12th from Syria, and some men belonging to the 18th and 3rd, whom he had withdrawn from Alexandria. This force was accompanied by twenty cohorts of allied troops and eight squadrons of cavalry, by the two kings Agrippa and Sohemus, by the auxiliary forces of king Antiochus, by a strong contingent of Arabs, who hated the Jews with the usual hatred of neighbours, and, lastly, by many persons brought from the capital and from Italy by private hopes of securing the yet unengaged affections of the Prince. With this force Titus entered the enemy's territory, preserving strict order on his march, reconnoitring every spot, and always ready to give battle. At last he encamped near Jerusalem.
What can we say about that? It began, so the story goes, with Jacob and Esau. It continues to this day. To Tacitus, who was unclear on that history, it was glossed over as just the usual hatred between neighbors.
Never before had Israel's deterrent capability and its reputation for military indomitability suffered such a blow. For the first time in its history, Israel had faced an Arab army in battle and failed to defeat it. When the hostilities ended with the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah was still on its feet, bloodied but decidedly unbowed.
Two years on, Israel is still paying for its defeat.
In a humiliating capitulation last week, the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to free five Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists, plus a still-undetermined number of other security prisoners, in exchange for the corpses of Regev and Goldwasser. Among those to be turned loose is the notorious Palestinian murderer Samir Kuntar, who in 1979 savagely killed 4-year-old Einat Haran by smashing her skull against a rock with his rifle butt, having first shot her father in the back and then drowned him in the sea. Kuntar, who also killed two policemen and was responsible for the death of Einat's 2-year-old sister, is today being hailed as a hero by Israel's enemies. The Palestinian Authority calls him a "brave warrior," and Beirut is festooned with his picture.
At the time it was obvious and it is still obvious that part of the reason for Israel's poor performance was its unfortunate leadership. Ehud Olmert is not, and as far as I can see, has never been a leader. Every day this insane loser is in office, the knife goes a little deeper into Israel's back. If he were a real leader, he would have resigned the day after his disgraceful performance during that war.
The other problem is that Israel was not only battling Hezbollah. Among the allies of Hezbollah and who were also lined up against the tiny Jewish state were: the entire Muslim world, almost all of the Mainstream Media who bought all of the Hezbollah propaganda as truth, the UN, including UNIFIL, who, as reported by The Weekly Standard and other publications,
DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.
UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.
Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is intentionally concealing information about Hezbollah activities south of the Litani River in Lebanon to avoid conflict with the group, senior sources in Jerusalem have said. In the last six months there have been at least four cases in which UNIFIL soldiers identified armed Hezbollah operatives, but did nothing and did not submit full reports on the incidents to the UN Security Council.
Then there are the various NGOs and alleged human rights organizations, some of the more liberal church groups, and the peace groups, including some headed by Jews and some inside of Israel itself. The Jewish groups are the worst. For some reason, they buy into the same anti-Israel propaganda that the rest of the enemies of Israel believe, including the most pernicious one going around today, the myth of the omnipotent Jewish lobby that controls US foreign policy at the behest of Israel, a paranoid fantasy straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
All of these allies of Hezbollah are still around today and still waiting for the next war. They will pounce on Israel again. Israel will have very few dependable allies. The United States will be one, unless Obama is elected president. Then, I have my doubts. Then our country may be divided. Evangelical Christians will always be in Israel's corner, but as I've chronicled before, most Jews are too deluded to realize how dependable evangelicals are, because evangelicals are, alas, not ideologically pure. Then there is the small cadre of independent bloggers and conservative websites and organizations. We try to alert the world, but the world doesn't want to listen. The world needs its scapegoat.
It's late. I'm tired. I haven't had a blog post in weeks (thanks to Jungle Mom for checking up on me) even though I really have been trying to put one together. I saved some links figuring that since I haven't had time to write my own post, I could link to a few others' posts that I thought were important. I hope to finish and post it soon. In the meantime, I'm going to leave this short paragraph by Hoffer, and I'm going to make my lunch and go to bed. I would have done this an hour ago, but my daughter was on the computer finishing a project for school.
In the meantime, as it is the 60th anniversary of the reestablishment of the State of Israel, I'm going to run a short piece by my favorite philosopher, Eric Hoffer. It was emailed to me a couple of months ago and I've been saving it for just such an occasion.
Notice if you will, that Hoffer refers to "Arabs", not "Palestinians". Back then, the world hadn't been trained to accept the ancient race of people known as the Palestinians who had lived in the country of Palestine for thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of years, who having left nothing to note their existence, are as mysterious as the extinct inhabitants of the continent of Atlantis. Perhaps they are the descendants of the Atlanteans. Nobody knows because the scholars who have convinced the world of the reality of this ancient and fabled race can offer no proof that they existed prior to the 1960s.
For people who are convinced of a government/Mossad conspiracy to bring down the twin towers though, this this lack of factual proof is unimportant. They will accept the myth (because the myth is more powerful than mere boring fact) of the Palestinians because to do otherwise would be Islamophobic . . . or something. One day an Islamic scholar will make up . . . um, I mean write the history of Palestinians and . . .
Sorry, I slipped off of my stated topic. Read Hoffer. I'm going to bed. I have to be up much too early.
ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION By Eric Hoffer, May 26, 1968
(In 1968 the LA times ran this article, written by Eric Hoffer, a former longshoreman and non-Jewish American social philosopher. Born in 1902, Hoffer died in 1983, after writing nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Although written 38 years ago, the following is as timely and applicable today as then )
The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese - and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab.
Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.
There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him. The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.
"No one can find a safe way out for himself if socety is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result." -- Ludwig von Mises
War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. Flavius Vegitius Renatus
This is an optional footer. If you want text here, place it inside these tags, and remove this comment.
CHALLAH AKBAR
