Since the world now revolves those eternal refugees, the Palestinians, we must know about their situation in Syria. While reading the article though, I came across some interesting facts. They aren't facts that are normally reported on since they can't be used to discredit Israel. For example,
While not citizens, Palestinians in Syria have greater rights than their brethren in other Arab countries. They can hold government jobs, attend state universities for free and serve in the military. Assad's regime has long billed itself as a champion of the Palestinian cause.
So in other Arab countries, Palestinians can't hold government jobs? They can't attend state universities for free or serve in the military? Let's find out.
They are not allowed to own property, and even need a special permit to leave their refugee camps. Unlike other foreigners in Lebanon, they are denied access to the Lebanese healthcare system. The Lebanese government refused to grant them permission to own land. The number of restrictions has been mounting since 1990. However, in 2010 the government of Lebanon removed work restrictions from Palestinians, enabling them to apply for work permits and work in the private sector.
What a relief, at least in Lebanon, things are improving. Palestinians can apply for private sector work permits, but how often are they granted? And if one gets a work permit, does this mean they get the corresponding permit to leave the refugee camp? Am I allowed to ask these questions? Did these changes come about because of the actions of human rights groups and pro-Palestinian organizations. If so, they must have worked a lot more quietly than those groups who focus all of their wrath on Israel.
We don't hear anything about it, so things are probably better in Jordan, right?
Palestinian scholars and political activists including Samer Libdeh and Mudar Zahran have described the political system of Jordan as anti-Palestinian apartheid. According to Libdeh, the royal policy of "ethnic cohesion" amounts to discrimination against the Palestinians, who comprise the majority of Jordanian subjects.
What? I'm outraged! Apartheid outside of the Zionist Entity? There must be plans afoot somewhere to boycott companies who do business with the Jordanian apartheid regime that is oppressing the Palestinians . . . somewhere.
Students for Justice in Palestine, where are you? Meanwhile in Israel, Arabs who didn't flee, are citizens of Israel with full rights, They're not "refugees". They don't live in "camps." They aren't denied access to jobs. Not that these minor details matter to people whose food and drink is hatred of Israel and of Jews.
"On the individual level, there's no love for the regime or its tools of oppression, and no one thinks that it will liberate Palestine for us," said a Palestinian refugee expert in Lebanon who visited Syria this month.
Liberate Palestine? Their friends and neighbors are being murdered in the streets in Syria. They've been denied basic human rights by their "supporters" for generations, and their solution is the same self-defeating tactic that created their stateless limbo. No matter what happens they refuse to look past the hatred, which seems to be the only thing they have that gives their lives meaning. Rather than find something positive, there is always "the struggle."
He dismissed the idea that Assad's regime has been a leader in the Palestinian struggle, pointing out that Syria's border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has been largely quiet since 1974.
In fact, he said he hoped a regime change would help the Palestinians achieve their ultimate goal: the return to their ancestral villages in what is now Israel.
"We have to work together with the free people to liberate Syria, then we'll go to the Golan and liberate Palestine," he said. "We'll work hand in hand."
With all this talk of liberation, what exactly do they mean? Outside of the destruction of Israel and the murdering of more Jews, what is this "liberation" they speak of? So far, liberation looks like trading a corrupt dictator for the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia law. It's still evolving in most of the Arab nations who are making that trade, but we only need to look to Iran to see how that liberation worked. The Iranians are not exactly dancing in the streets.
So the question remains, when Palestinians are living under real apartheid conditions in Arab/Muslim countries, why is Israel the one accused of Apartheid?
Vasily Grossman had the answer in his novel, Life and Fate. He devotes a chapter to anti-Semitism. In it, Grossman says,
Anti-Semitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and State systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of - I'll tell you what you're guilty of.
There is more, and if I ever feel ambitious enough, I will reprint the whole chapter. It's part two, chapter 31, and I think Grossman captures the essence of anti-Semitism and of the anti-Semite. Of course, that kind of thinking will never make into the media. It's not their kind of thinking. We're not supposed to use terms like "anti-Semitism" to describe anyone, any organization, any culture, or any country; especially if it's true. Look what happened at Yale when the Yale Anti-Semitism Institute dared tell the truth about Islamic anti-Semitism.
For now the media will dutifully report enough of the facts to make you think you know what's going on, and so that you read it in the correct frame of mind; that is, it's all Israel's fault.
Actually, the only place you're going to find that awful potentially deadly malady, Islamophobia, is in the mainstream press. According to this article in USA Today, (and I'm guessing it's echoed across the MSM, we'd better all beware of the rising tide of anti-Islamic right wing extremism that's feeding off of all the anti-Jihad groups and blogs.
Some British mosques are boosting security after Norway's horrific massacre was traced to a man who fears Muslims are taking over Europe — an attack that exposed a failure to root out Islamophobia that has bled into the European mainstream.
European government leaders may even be feeding fears of Islam through measures such as bans on face veils on the streets, aimed at appeasing a non-Muslim majority wary about the continent's rising Muslim population.
Of course the over 17,000 Islamic terrorist attacks had nothing to do with Islam or the Qu'ran, just lone nuts perverting a religion of peace. It's only the pernicious anti-jihad writings that drive people to shoot up groups of young adults and blow up government buildings.
I complain about the double standard the MSM demonstrates when it comes to Israel, but it's not just Israel. It's anything that disagrees with their perverted world view. They've misinterpreted reality in order to minimize terror attacks by Muslims, while exaggerating the danger from those scary right wing extremists. In addition to the 17,000 deadly Islamic terror attacks since 9/11, there are also the ones that were broken up before they could come to fruition. I suppose those don't count, because the jihadists based their attacks on passages and commandments from the Qu'ran while ignoring or not even being aware of guys like Robert Spencer. Israel, in this case, is just a symptom of the problem. It's a lonely outpost of Western Civilization in the midst of Islamic barbarism. Since the Left romanticizes the barbarism that they don't have to live with, but only read about and excuse, Israel becomes the problem. It, like the rest of Western Civilization, ends up on the wrong end of the double standard.
The people who pass off Islamic terror attacks against Israel are in mourning over the terror attack in Norway. The irony is that the people who were murdered in Uyota were working to destroy Israel. While I think this massacre was a monstrous act committed by a truly evil individual, the victims too, were on the side of evil. They were destroyed by the same kind of monster they support when it's aimed at Israel. Check out the photo and article here. Glenn Beck was pilloried for comparing them to Hitler Youth, but their aim was the same.
We also have weasel words from the Norwegian ambassador comparing this massacre with anti-Israel terror attacks.
In an interview with the Israeli daily Maariv, Norway's ambassador to Israel Svein Sevje patiently explained that he wanted to "outline the similarity and the difference in the two cases."
Palestinians, the ambassador told Maariv, "are doing this because of a defined goal that is related to the Israeli occupation. There are elements of revenge against Israel and hatred of Israel. To this you can add the religious element to their actions."
"In the case of the terror attack in Norway, the murderer had an ideology that says that Norway, particularly the Labor Party, is forgoing Norwegian culture," Sevje said, referring to Anders Breivik.
"We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel," he said. "Those who believe this will not change their mind because of the attack in Oslo."
This came after Israel was one of the first countries to reach out to Norway after the attacks and offer its condolences and assistance.
I'd like to feel more sympathetic toward the Norwegians in their hour of trauma, but I can't. They've embraced the evil of anti-Semitism and they've taken sides against the West, allowing and almost welcoming the Islamic conquest of their country. They ignore the fact that their granddaughters will be forced to dress "modestly" and their grandsons will be dhimmi. That's some legacy to leave your family. But rather than look that far ahead, we can see degradation of Norwegian society in what's happening right now.
Every rape in Oslo the past 5 years, where the rapist could be identified, was committed by a male of non-western background.
In Oslo all sexual assaults involving rape in the past year has been committed by males of non-western background this was the conclusion of a police report published today. This means that every single rape assault in the last five years, where the rapist could be identified, he was a man of foreign origin.
Non-western, in this case meaning The Religion We're Not Supposed to Think About When Talking About Rape or Terrorism. And the problem has been growing. Back in 2001, only 2 out of 3 rapes were committed by Muslims. Of course, rather than expecting the invading Muslims - uh - I mean non-western immigrants to modify their antisocial behavior, Norwegians, descendents of the vikings (who would not have put up with this crap and are puking up their mead in Valhalla if they're looking down on their pusillanimous offspring), are being encouraged to modify their behavior.
The explosion in the number of rape charges in Oslo involved immigrant perpetrators, which were mostly Muslims. In 2001 a police study noticed that two out of three persons charged with rape in Oslo were “immigrants from a non-western background.” A glance at Norway’s population statistics shows between 3 and 4 times more immigrants living in Oslo than any other Norwegian city.
Yet Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, said in 2001 that because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative:
“Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes.”
The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite:
“Norwegian women must realise that we live in a multi-cultural society and adapt themselves to it.”
and
In a 2001 debate about the culture of rape amongst Muslim immigrants in Norway, Wikan said that Norwegian women were ‘blind and naive’ towards non-Western immigrants;
“I will not blame the rapes on Norwegian women, but Norwegian women must understand that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.” “Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” (for example, by not inviting into their homes Muslim men with little knowledge of Norwegian culture).
Once they allow themselves to be totally cowed, we might as well say good bye to their art and society. As long as Israel and the United States don't succumb to the same self-destructive mode of thought evident in Norway, there will still be a remnant of freedom left, although the Progressives will still be fighting against that freedom.
Klavan's One-State Solution: Give the Middle East to the Jews
Yeah, sure, it sounds silly, and it may even generate a few laughs. But if you think about it, Klavan's plan makes more sense than Obama's plan to effectively eradicate the Jewish state slowly while claiming to be a friend of Israel.
OK, so it really is silly and impractical. But it still faces the reality of the situation better than Obama.
Netanyahu Schools Obama - and Lord Knows Obama Needs to Learn Something About How the World Works
Obama gave a speech. Here is an analysis of one of Obama's unnoticed bone-headed errors, not one of the big bold ones, but a tiny, telling one, that passed under most people's radars.
In doing his balancing act on Israeli and Palestinian fears and hostility, he says this:
“I'm convinced that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would rather look to the future than be trapped in the past….We see it in the actions of a Palestinian who lost three daughters to Israeli shells in Gaza. `I have the right to feel angry,’ he said. `So many people were expecting me to hate. My answer to them is I shall not hate. Let us hope,’ he said, `for tomorrow.’"
That’s genuinely touching. But in the specific case Obama cites—that of Izzedin Abuelaish on January 16, 2009-- there is strong reason to believe that the three girls were killed because of Hamas, that is Palestinian, actions.
But what's a bit of misrepresentation of the truth when "evenhandedness" is at stake? Truth be damned in the name of moral equivalence, a favorite tactic of Israel bashers and enemies of Western Civilization. Netanyahu begins talking about 7 minutes in, and he politely fills Obama in on some relevant facts surrounding Israel and its neighbors.
But there's more. Obama either doesn't understand, or doesn't want to understand what the Israelis and by proxy, we in the United States, are facing. The Muslim world suffers from an "inner Nakba", a hatred so deep and so all consuming that it's the focus of their lives. We see it in the behavior of Hamas and Fatah in their refusal to stop the violence and the incitement, and we see it in the rest of the Islamic world in their war against Israel, in their overt Jew-hatred, and in their covert (or maybe not so covert, just not as pronounced as their Jew-hatred) hatred of Christians. For video evidence of the inner Nakba, watch this:
The lady is being honest, and a lot of people accept the fact that Muslims around the world are taught to hate Jews. When not accepted, it's rationalized. But if anyone even questions the claim that Islam is a religion of peace there are charges of racism and islamophobia. It's also accepted that Palestinians should get their Jew-free state. Ask for an Islamic-free state, and again, get ready for the name calling. Anyway, I'm rambling. The fact remains that when it comes to Israel, Obama is guided by ideology rather than facts. Israel should make no more concessions. Netanyahu needs to continue standing up to Obama. He needs to demonstrate loudly and clearly that the survival of the Jewish people is not open to compromise or concessions.
Sir Horace Rumbold, who took up the questioning, asked Churchill whether there was not ‘harsh injustice’ to the Arabs if Palestine attracted too many Jews from outside? Churchill replied that even when the Jewish National Home became ‘all Palestine’ there was no injustice. ‘Why is there harsh injustice done,’ Churchill asked his questioner, ‘if people come in and make a livelihood for more and make the desert into palm groves and orange groves? Why is it injustice because there is more work and wealth for everybody? There is no injustice. The injustice is when those who live in the country leave it to be desert for thousands of years.’
With those who shall henceforth be known as Fakestinians clamoring to get "their land back", we would do well to recall the above quote. We should also recall that before lots and lots of Jews began moving in to what was then Palestine, much to the chagrin of the Arabs and the British, Palestine was very sparsely populated. There were Jews, Christians, and Muslims even though this was a backwater of the Ottoman Empire.
In order to be classified as a refugee after the founding of Israel, an Arab only had to prove that they'd lived in Palestine for two years. But, beginning in the late 19th century, after Jews began immigrating en masse, started improving the land and beginning to make the desert bloom so that it would support a greater population, lots of Arabs began moving in to take advantage of the Jews' work and to begin claiming a 3000 year lineage. No archeological, historical, or scholarly evidence? Well, then, it's obvious that the evidence is racist and islamophobic.
Now, of course, the Fakestinians want all of Israel so they can return it to its natural state of barren desert punctuated by malarial swamps. Some of them no longer even bother to pretend that they belong to a religion of peace. Of course, if Islam is truly a religion of peace, how does Islamic terrorism come about? I mean, how do the isolated individuals who make up the "tiny minority" of terrorists pervert "peace" into murder, terrorism, and "kill the Jews?"
But anyway, for anyone who still asks, no, they don't deserve a state. Past and current actions exclude them from having one. They've been sucking at the U.N. teat for the past four generations while they create hatred, worship death, and demand more, and more, and more. Watch the following video and then tell me that this rot doesn't permeate their entire vile, wretched, pathological society.
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!
The Media's Anti-Semitic Hate Machine by Daniel Greenfield
When I read this article, I realized that it said a whole bunch of things that I'd been thinking. The fact that it was put into words by someone who actually knows how to write makes me happy. To say Greenfield "hits the nail on the head" would be a gross understatement. He hits many nails.
By linking Islamic terrorism to some form of Israeli provocation, and from there to the support for Israel by American Jews—the same media which would commit seppuku rather than blame Muslims for Islamic terrorism, instead blames Jews for Islamic terrorism. The steady drumbeat of such rhetoric, which exonerates Muslims but indicts Jews, for the actions of Muslims, is brilliantly perverse. And it also puts the lie to the media’s defense that it avoids attributing terrorism to Islam because it does not want to stoke bigotry. In reality, the media has no problem with using Islamic terrorism to stoke bigotry. It just has a different target in mind.
Behind the media’s long ugly history of misreporting terrorism against Israel, has been that one fundamental narrative, that it is not Muslims who are responsible for Muslim terrorism, but the Jews. When a Muslim terrorist attack happens in Tel Aviv, Madrid or New York—it turns out that the Jews are the ones to blame. It really doesn’t matter whether an Israeli soldier kills a Muslim terrorist, or a Muslim terrorist kills a Jewish father of four driving home from work, it is never the Muslim that is at fault. Always the Jew. Forget about even splitting the difference. There is never any difference to split. It is always Israel’s “humiliation” of Arab Muslims that is at fault for provoking their righteously murderous anger. A familiar theme that recalls Hitler’s constant invocation of “German humiliation” at the hands of the Jews.
Yeah, I know, the constant comparison of one's political political opponents with Hitler and Nazis gets tiresome, but here the comparison is apt, not overused hyperbole. Who was out to end the life of world Jewry back then? Who's, by their own admission, out to end it now? See?
All the media’s talk about Israeli disproportionate force in relation to Muslim terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank has nothing to do with it. Back when Israel was fighting wars for survival against enemies that vastly outnumbered it, the Jews were still to blame for humiliating their enemies by refusing to die. That is “Jewish Privilege”. To go on living, even when people who fancy themselves nobler and better, who have wonderful ideas about a Third Reich or a Pan-Arab or Pan-Islamic union want them dead.
It is a fairly lengthy article, but it is well worth reading. I already passed it on to the people on my email list and posted it at the Garbanzo Annex.
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%.
Did anti-Semitism in Europe end with the demise of the Third Reich, only to be reborn with increased Islamic immigration to Europe? Or did it merely go underground, seething and waiting until the time was right to once again take prominence in the minds of the European populace? I don't know. But I know that if I were a Jew living in Europe, even one of the supposedly free and democratic western European countries, I would pack up my family and make Aliyah. The reaction of European governments to the recent Gaza flotilla was monstrous. It has also been noted that England, the country, that thanks to Winston Churchill, stood fast against the Nazis in Europe's darkest hour, had strict quotas for Jews and rather than admit them during the dark days of the Shoah, sent Jews trying to escape the Nazis back to the continent to be liquidated. And of course during the 30s and 40s they tried to keep Jews out of the holy land.
England hasn't changed much since then, except for the worse. With all the fuss they made over forged British passports used to assassinate a Hamas terrorist in Dubai because they assumed the Israelis made the hit, they're strangely silent on the use of forged British passports used by Russian spies. As they continue to bend over further and further on their journey to dhimmitude, their natural animus against Jews has returned. How bad is it? Let Debbie Schlussel fill you in on the latest.
So, it’s no surprise that a British judge and jury said that vandalism–destruction that could have killed many and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars–is okay . . . so long as it’s against the Jews or Israel (or someone doing business with or helping them). It’s really not too different than laws the Nazis had in place. And that’s no hyperbole.
The ends justifies the means, Judenrein-style. Yup, 1940 Europe repeats itself 70 years later. Today, they use the euphemism “Israel” as their excuse, but tomorrow, they’ll openly use the word “Jew”:
Five activists who caused £180,000 damage to an arms factory were acquitted after they argued they were seeking to prevent Israeli war crimes.
The five were jubilant after a jury found them not guilty of conspiring to cause criminal damage to the factory on the outskirts of Brighton.
Yeah, go read the whole thing. And remember, this is Great Britain. There have been a few times in the last few years when I thought that England would wake up from its slumber and fight the enemy in its midst. I don't think so any longer. At some point, leftists in the United States who didn't care what was happening over there will be trying to bargain with the British Islamic mullahs in order to have the art treasures (more important than people to some) of the various British museums kept out of harms way, and perhaps moved to a safe (for the moment) haven in the U.S.
Some people have been trying to figure out why Europe hates Israel.
The Europeans' vicious attacks on Israel are animated less by the Jewish state's foreign policy than by Europe's ongoing fixation on the Holocaust. What else could explain the presence of posters equating Israel with Nazi Germany at pro-Hamas demonstrations in Vienna? According to one recent German university study, 45.7 percent of the European respondents supported the contention that "Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians."
In their eyes, apparently, maintaining a naval blockade against a government sworn to destroy you – while providing the unfortunate people living under that government with tens of thousands of tons of supplies and humanitarian aid – now equates to looting and butchering six million people. Click here to find out more!
Wolfgang Benz, the controversial director of the Berlin Center for the study of anti-Semitism, neatly summed up this incongruity on German television when he insisted that "anti-Semitism is different from anti-Zionism."
Benz embraces the European wish to alleviate guilt by denying the weight of the Holocaust. (As the head of a center for the study of anti-Semitism, he's a particularly strange case; the German political scientist Clemens Heni discovered that Benz's beloved academic mentor was the now-deceased Karl Bosl, an outspoken Nazi who contributed enormously to spreading Hitler's ideology.)
Of course, nothing Israel has ever done can even begin to compare to the crimes of the Shoah. But to help alleviate their feelings of guilt, Europeans delegitimize Israel, ignore modern anti-Semitism, and portray Muslims – who number over one billion and whom no one seeks to eradicate from the earth – as the new persecuted Jews of Europe.
Some of that may be true, but after 1500 years of persecution, I think it has become ingrained into the European psyche. And then there's the new European (and generally Western) secular cowardice. Their ancestors unapologetically conquered the world and forced their morals and ethics - for good or bad - on those they conquered. Some of that conquest was done in the name of Christianity. So what. No matter how much anyone insists that there is, there is no moral equivalence between Western/Christian imperialism, and Islamic imperialism. That should be clear by looking at the results of both. The fruits of one over time is freedom and prosperity. The other has only spread barbarism and intolerance.
The secular descendants of European warriors quiver in fear, because to admit that unassimilated Muslim immigrants are destroying the Western freedom that their brave ancestors fought for and bestowed upon them, would be seen as racism and "islamophobia". They never had to work for their own freedom. It was unearned and so it means nothing. Until it's gone. Then it will be mourned by some. They will wonder what happened. But, it's better to shut up and be conquered without fighting back than to be thought a racist. Besides there are always the Jews to blame.
UPDATE: I almost forgot this article about the situation and the possible use of "decoy Jews" in Brussels.
In an effort to arrest the culprits who terrorize Jews, the Amsterdam authorities have ordered police officers to walk the streets disguised as Jews. The Dutch police already disguise officers as “decoy prostitutes, decoy gays and decoy grannies” to deter muggings and attacks on prostitutes, homosexuals and the elderly. Apparently sending out the decoys has helped reduce street crime. The “decoy Jew” has now been added to the police attributes.
Go ahead, read it and weep - or laugh. I mostly laughed at the insanity of it all. I'm sure decoy Jews will help solve the problem. Actually, if everybody dressed up as orthodox Jews . . .
Some of us need to be hit in the head before we adjust our world view so that's in more in line with reality. Others need a good swift kick in the pants. Then there are those who need who, unfortunately need to have their reality rearranged by having their family jewels attacked. Yes, I'm speaking of the rabbi who conducted that recent ill-fated interview with the aged anti-Semitic Helen Thomas.
During an interview on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, Rabbi David Nesenoff, known for exposing Helen Thomas’s anti-Semitic views, informed viewers that, up until now, he has considered himself to be a liberal Democrat – who even opposed the Iraq War and supported Barack Obama – but now asserts that "I have to really reevaluate liberal and conservative and really find out where I stand because I think I've been a little blind."
A little blind?
As Nesenoff recounted that he had previously agreed with Thomas in her opposition to the war in Iraq, and her challenging of President Bush on the matter, he now sees himself as unknowingly being allied with people who think that "Israel and the Jewish people don't have a connection." Before being interrupted by host Howard Kurtz, Nesenoff began to explain his evolution of thought:
He is one of the reasons that when it comes to backing Israel, I trust conservative evangelical Christians more than I trust liberal Jews, even liberal Jewish rabbis. It's not so much that his eyes have been opened, but he's been forced to reevaluate his willful blindness to the anti-Israel agenda.
I have to wonder if the rabbi is part of an interfaith group that is involved in outreach to local mosques. After all, the liberal belief in dialogue with "the other" is a core orthodox (liberal) belief. If so, he would do well to read and reread this article.
Jewish residents in Malmo are furious after the Swedish town's mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, equated Zionism to anti-Semitism in an interview published on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
During the interview with Skanska Dagbladet newspaper, Reepalu was asked whether he considered a public condemnation of anti-Semitism in Malmo. The mayor responded that "Malmo does not accept anti-Semitism and does not accept Zionism," charging that both adopt extreme positions towards certain groups.
Reepalu added that local Jews bear some responsibility for the attitude towards them, noting that "they have the possibility to affect the way they are seen by society." The mayor then urged Malmo's Jewish community to "distance itself" from Israeli attacks on Gaza's civilian population.
"Instead, the community chose to hold a pro-Israel demonstration," he said, adding that such move "may convey the wrong message to others."
He (and you) need to read the whole thing, and then read some more about the current wave of unapologetic anti-Semitism sweeping Europe. Never again? Don't you believe it. It will happen again in Europe. It's already started.
You really have go beyond the pale to get the mainstream media to notice anti-Semitism these days, since, as we're told, those Jews are always playing the anti-Semitism card. And of course, if you aren't as deferential to Israel as the Israel Lobby wants you to be, well then, the Jew-controlled media bounces your butt out the door. Just ask Glen Greenwald and his fellow hate monkeys. Others noticed Helen Thomas' tendencies years ago.
First a question: If Israel is the oppressive, apartheid, genocidal entity its enemies constantly claim it is, why do refugees (even Muslim refugees) from the north African craphole countries seek refuge in Israel? Hasn't word gotten to them yet? Hatred of Israel along with the enumeration of alleged past, present, and future crimes of the "Zionist Entity" is rife throughout the world. How did these poor, abused people miss it? And why are they shot by Egyptian police if they're caught in Egypt while trying to sneak into the Country-That-is-the-Cause-of-All-That-is-Wrong-in-the-Islamic-World? And how much effort are the world's "human rights" advocates including those at the U.N., putting into publicizing and condemning these atrocities?
Egyptian police shot dead a 42-year-old Eritrean migrant on Thursday as he tried to cross the border into Israel at dawn, a medical source and a security source said.
Five other Ethiopian migrants were arrested in a separate attempt to cross the border four hours later, the same security source said.
The Sinai border is a major transit route for African migrants and refugees seeking work or asylum in Israel. Egypt has come under pressure from Israel to staunch the flow. Rights groups complain about the methods of the border police. Advertisement Egyptian police have killed 13 migrants this year, a security source said, compared to 19 for the whole of 2009.
The United Nations and Amnesty International have called on Egypt to check its border guards' use of excessive force against unarmed migrants.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay asked Cairo in March to launch an inquiry into what she said could be a "shoot-to-kill policy" by some Egyptian security forces. Egypt rejected Pillay's comments.
Security forces say they fire at migrants only after repeated orders to stop are ignored, and say that in some cases smugglers who ferry migrants to the border have opened fire on security forces.
Here are Penn and Teller explaining Obama's concept of "spreading the wealth". Remember when Obama was first elected and it was forecast by the Obama-loving MSM that there wasn't anything about Obama that would provide comedians and satirists with material for their craft? Remember, they told us that there was nothing to make fun of or to laugh about when it came to Obama? It's obvious that they were and still are troubled at having the one they worship brought down to a human level by those of us who don't and who never have thought much of him. We are laughing (through the tears in some cases) at his ineptitude, his failed ideology, and the fact that he really doesn't like the United States that much. But, hey, watch the video. It's funny.
This morning I went to a fundraiser. I didn't know it was a fund raiser. I got an invitation from a friend to come to her house for brunch and to hear a talk by an IDF member. So I went. And I was impressed. The soldier I listened to was from a new (at least to me) organization: Our Soldiers Speak. They travel the world giving their story, of life on the battlefield, fighting terrorists while trying desperately to avoid hurting the terrorists' human shields. The young fellow giving our talk spoke eloquently about the morality of the IDF compared to the documented immorality of Hamas and Hezbollah. He also talked about the need to counter the UN and the MSM who have chosen the side of the barbarians against civilization and morality in this battle.
He also asked for tough questions. He wasn't afraid to answer them. He'd already spoken at Columbia and in Berkeley, hotbeds of Palestinian sympathizers. Some of my friends had heard him speak at Michigan State University and at U of M Flint, where he was verbally attacked by the Israel haters. He answered their questions and kept his cool.
I've been going to various pro and anti Israel events around the Detroit area. Besides the points of view, the big difference is in the demeanor of the two sides. Pro Israel speakers are not afraid of tough questions. When they're not being interrupted or drowned out by the moral retards of the "human rights" and "peace" communities, they are willing and very able to give easy to understand answers to the most obnoxious and insulting questions. When attending Israel-bashing events, we sit quietly and politely and wait until the end to ask questions. That's when we get shouted down and insulted and when our questions get too tough, we are asked to leave. The Israel haters don't always have good answers. Frequently they are convoluted and hard to follow, or outright lies.
Why the interruptions? Why are they so threatened by allowing our side to speak? We know the answer. It's embarrassing to be unmasked in public as a liar.
Anyway, the organization, Our Soldiers Speak, deserves your support. And if you are looking for an effective pro-Israel college speaker, this is the organization to seek.
Here are some Jewish students at U of C Irvine standing up for themselves and battling the student government which seems to be in the pocket of the Muslim Student Union. It's about damn time. Like so many college organization this student government has no trouble with anti-semitism as long as it is disguised as "anti-zionism.
Why isn't the university standing up for the rights of Jews as they stand up for the rights of everyone else?
Gazans elected the terrorists of Hamas to run their government. Like those who voted for Obama (and no, I'm not comparing the two) they should have known what they were getting, a repressive, dictatorial, terrorist, bunch of thugs. The problem now is that for some, Hamas is not repressive and dictatorial enough. They haven't forced Gazans far enough back to barbarity. They still haven't reached their goal of a seventh century Sharia-inspired Islamic utopia. As the AP relates:
Gaza's Islamic Hamas government on Thursday banned men from working in women's hair salons, the latest step in its campaign to impose strict Islamic customs on Gaza's 1.5 million people.
Since seizing Gaza in 2007, Hamas has taken steps in that direction while avoiding a frontal assault on secularism. The majority of Gaza residents are conservative Muslims, but Hamas is under growing pressure from more radical groups to prove its fundamentalist credentials by imposing ever harsher edicts.
The latest measure irked one of the victims of the ban.
"Next thing you know, they will ban doctors from treating women, and will only let women treat women," said Barakat al-Ghoul, a 44-year-old hairdresser. "Tomorrow, they will ban everything."
No, Barakat, they won't ban everything. They will merely ban everything that makes life enjoyable.
Islamic tradition forbids women from showing their hair to men who are not their husbands or blood relatives. Until now, though, exceptions were made for the eight known male hairdressers in women's salons in Gaza City.
Solution: If they hire gay hairdressers then- oops! Sorry, I forgot.
Fares said Hamas' new ruling takes away one of the last remnants of a more liberal lifestyle in Gaza that flourished decades ago, when the territory had cinemas and bars.
So then why exactly did you vote in Hamas? Is your Islamic Jew-hatred really that strong that you were willing to overlook the fact that Hamas would create more suffering for Gazans than they ever could for Israelis? Did your hatred blind you to the fact that Hamas doesn't care about whether or not you make a living? The fact that you can't, makes it easier for them to recruit your children for jihad. Or in the end, will you find some twisted, irrational way to blame this madness on the fact the Israel is willing to protect its citizens against Hamas?
Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, small ultra-radical Islamic groups have sprung up. Known as Jihadi Salafis, they advocate holy war and a strict, fundamentalist brand of Islam, dismissing Hamas as too pragmatic. They are suspected in dozens of bombings of Internet cafes, music stores and other alleged purveyors of vice. All cinemas and bars closed years ago.
Hamas - too pragmatic? As if Gazan society wasn't dysfunctional enough, there are those who wish to sink further into the abyss. When you accept the kind of hatred espoused by Hamas as part of every day life and as normal within your society, don't be surprised when somebody even crazier and more hate-filled comes along to make your life even more miserable.
And by the way, how much of this dysfunction is paid for with American dollars?
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.
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.
Thanks to advances in the Internet, I can get into arguments with people anywhere the world, at any time, and for as long as I'm interested in banging my head against a wall. As if there weren't enough ways to waste time already on the computer. I wasted a good amount of time on this one. The argument had already begun. I was merely watching it on The Jungle Hut (and I can't seem to find the post that the argument took place on). But then, words were printed that I couldn't ignore from an Algerian Muslim woman named Lilia. It was some of the same sick anti-Semitic crap that I've heard before, and I couldn't just let it go.
The debate continued here on Conservative Outrage. And I shouldn't have even been a participant there. I accidently linked over from Blowing San #1. Nobody told me that the debate had moved there. But the argument did continue until the Muslim woman decided that I was an islamphobic, bigoted dunce who was too stupid and hateful to admit the truth of her words. Of course, her words were idiotic. There is a huge population who would agree with her though. They have other problems too.
I only thought the debate had ended though. Lilia snuck up on me here where once again I proved my duncehood and hatefulness. Maybe she thought one more attack on my stupidity would do the trick.
Of course, it didn't. I proved to be much too thick.
I did accuse her repeatedly of being anti-Semitic, a charge she denied. After all, she didn't hate Jews, and she wasn't blaming all of the problems of the world on Jews, but on Zionists. Recently though, the reality of "anti-Zionism" has been exposed.
I don't want to rehash the entire argument here. But basically, according to her, it was the Israeli Mossad who assassinated JFK and who brought down the World Trade Center. Furthermore, Mohammed did not ethnically cleanse the Arabian peninsula of Jews. Jews somehow corrupted Islamic scripture when it came to that unfortunate episode. To be fair, she only compared Israelis to Nazis once. The argument was also joined by a woman from NYC, who also tried desperately to help me understand the truth, but I proved to be much too pigheaded for even the two of them combined.
The thing is, I was able to answer their arguments while they ignored most of mine, preferring to bring new charges against Israel and the Zionists (not Jews). In fact, Lilia claimed to know the difference between real Jews and Zionist Jews. I was less than kind to her in my response to that moronic, insulting claim. In my sudden doubt as to whether I was a real Jew according to her Islamic standards, I pressed her on the subject. For some reason, she backed down on that one.
Except for the one regarding the Jews of Arabia, I'd heard all of these claims before and read some of the twisted thought behind them, so I know the bizarre claims that are out there. And I know that a lot of people, not only in the Islamic world, but all over the world believe that crap. That's the worst part of it. But don't try to convince me that this idiocy is real. Don't try to convince me that the psychotic killers of Hamas and Hezbollah are the moral equivalents of the IDF. And just crawl away quickly before blaming Zionists - not Jews - for the problems in the Middle East and the Muslim world.
One thing I take care to do on mine or any other blog that I comment on, is to not use my anonymity to say things that I wouldn't say to a person's face. So when Lilia made the insane claim that Jews - oh wait - I mean Zionists, were at least partially responsible for the Holocaust, I did get a bit excited, but I thought I showed great reserve. Had we been face to face, I probably would have gotten even more insulting.
I called Lilia anti-Semitic because to her, Jews were not people, rather, they are a collection of stereotypes, scapegoats who cause no end of trouble for everyone. And she has the audacity to think she can decide who is and who isn't a real Jew? To her, the real ones deny the legitimacy of Israel. Imagine that. To her, my avarice and hook nose wouldn't be enough to pass her "Jew test".
I decided at that point that it wasn't up to her, or me, or anyone else in the world to judge the legitimacy of the State of Israel, the one Jewish nation on the planet, and the only one whose legitimacy is questioned - even though we're told that this opposition has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Right. I brought up some of the real atrocities in the world that are being ignored because they don't involve Jews defending themselves. There were no responses from either Lilia or Elizabeth, the woman form NYC.
That's something else I've noticed in this debate, when I've had it with Israel bashers and non-anti-semites who blame all the evils in the world on Zionists or the Mossad, but not the Jews; when you ask them the tough questions, they have no logical answer. And when they have no arguments left, they always resort to name calling. It's happened to me every time I've engaged any of these dopes in debate.
As for being called an islamophobe. Let's look at it this way. Anti-Semites create paranoid fantasies where Jews, or Zionists, or the Mossad are part of some insidious conspiracy to take over the world, or spread Zionism, or oppress the "Palestinians" or control the government. It used to be contained in the fetid fever swamps of delusional weirdos on the fringes of society. But now, thanks to the advance of Islam into the West, and their willing progressive dupes in the media and on college campuses, it's become another respected point of view. And that does have me concerned.
"Islamophobes" merely read the news and pay attention to the depravities being committed by Muslims around the world. And we take them seriously instead of trying to excuse them in fits of multicultural "understanding". And we certainly don't believe it when a Canadian newspaper can find no pattern in the arrests of suspects in a terror plot who all just happen to be Muslims. Nor do we ignore the fact that French "youths" who are torching cars every night in the suburbs of Paris are Muslims. Reports like this and this and this and this just from the past two days on Little Green Footballs help to fuel the fire of distrust of the Muslims world in this islamophobe. It doesn't even include the anti-Israel aspects of professional women's tennis that LGF and Debbie Schlussel are reporting on. And if you notice, Islam or Muslims are never responsible for any evil done by Muslims in the name of Islam, never ever. It's not a Muslims man's fault he can't control his sexual urges. It's the fault of women, who must be covered from head to to in a shapeless garment so nobody can know who or what is under it.
OK, so that's only true in some Islamic countries. In others, women can show their faces. Wow, that's a huge step toward freedom!
So with all of the vicious hatred coming from the Muslim world, I will continue to be on my guard, and I will continue to stand up for the one democracy in the Middle East, the one Jewish country in the world, no matter how much anyone with a morally inverted view of the world tries to convince me with their mental gymnastics and delusional thinking that good is evil and evil is good.
Michael told me about a meeting of Jewish Voice for Peace. Actually, he described it at first as a pro-Palestinian meeting. I went with him. Michael likes to debate people, and he described it as "crashing" their meeting. And they certainly were pro-Palestinian.
The first and most important thing you need to know about Jewish Voice for Peace is that they are a bunch of truly twisted, deluded lunatics. They are communists, 9/11 truthers, conspiracy theorists, terror apologists, absolutely deranged, and morally deficient in their outlook on life. Yes, they are Jewish, but - and I hate to say this - they are anti-Semitic.
This meeting turned out to be a slide presentation of one woman's visit to Judea and Samaria. She was given a tour by some local Muslims living there. She swallowed every anti-Israel canard they fed her. She showed slides of the separation barrier and told us how Israelis threw garbage over the wall from their side - oh, I forgot to mention, according to her presentation, it was a 24 foot high wall the garbage was being thrown over. I guess those Israelis have really good arms. And determination. That would be quite a throw.
There were photos of where Palestinian olive groves used to be - according to the Palestinian handlers - but now they've been replaced by pine forests or housing. And then there are the Jewish only roads that go through the West Bank. On this one she was corrected by one of her own. They are Israeli only roads. Not all Israelis are Jewish. Over a million of them are - gasp - Muslims. And how many Jews are allowed to live freely in Muslim nations? But she continued throughout her presentation to refer to the "Jewish only roads."
According to this woman, these were only a few pieces of the Israeli's arbitrary cruelty to the poor downtrodden Palestinians. Apparently, the Palestinians have no freedom whatsoever. The Israelis keep randomly changing the rules on them and shooting them if they disobey. She showed a photo of two "martyrs". One was shot when he stuck his head out of his door to see if the arbitrarily placed 24/7 curfew had been lifted. Apparently it hadn't . The other was a child who was shot when the IDF was target practicing. Somebody missed. Strangely enough there were no photos of the martyrs who are really celebrated by Palestinians, homicide bombers.
This idiotic morally bankrupt woman believed everything she was told, no questions asked. And so did the audience . . . well . . . almost all of the audience.
The problem was, there was so much BS being continuously presented, it was difficult to find a starting point. I was astounded at the total and complete demonization of Israel by a Jewish organization. I don't know if everyone in the room was Jewish, but - well - they did advertise themselves as Jewish voices. And they believed and repeated gleefully every lie they were told. Nothing was put in context or questioned. Yes, the separation barrier is an eyesore, but shouldn't we be asking how many Israelis are still alive because of it? And who is really clamping down on Palestinian freedom? Have they ever known freedom living under Fatah rule? Somehow I doubt it. The Muslim world is not exactly known for its freedom of the press.
And that is why The Jewish Voice for Peace is anti-Semitic. They can criticize Israel. Anyone can. And if it's done honestly, it is political debate. But they were as honest as Hamas, as honest as every Jew-hater who is marching through cities throughout the world carrying Palestinian flags, wearing keffiyahs (and yes, there were two at this meeting), and yelling for the "liberation of Palestine" and for the Jews to "go back to the ovens." I was waiting for the woman to claim (and I was thinking of asking) that Israelis use the blood of Palestinian children to bake their Passover matzohs.
What I wanted to ask, but didn't get the chance, is if it is true as they present it, that Israel is the most evil country on Earth. After all, as they claim, the Palestinians have good reason for their "resistance" - (and yes, that was also anti-Semitic because it is a lie, as any glance at history and the charters of Fatah and Hamas will show) then it's OK to murder Jews. I wanted to bring up the fact that just as they excuse the murder of Jews by Muslims, all through history somebody somewhere has tried to justify the murder of the Jewish community. Jewish Voice for Peace is merely a link in the age-old chain of Jew-hatred.
If Jews aren't killing Christ, they're "desecrating the host" or poisoning the wells during the plague years, or plotting to take over the world, or working as money lenders, or practicing ritual murder, or- you get the idea. Watching a roomful of Jews buy into the pathology of Jew-hatred was troubling and bizarre. I know that every person in that room would vehemently deny being a Jew hater. I'm guessing they would claim to be insulted because they're Jewish and that they are anti-Zionist. But no matter how your slice it, it's still the same age-old sickness.
In the days before the meeting, I had planned on bringing a pen and paper to take notes. In all of the weather-related weirdness of the day, I forgot, so this is all from memory. These dopes made an unusually strong impression on me, and I took a few notes when I got home. I needed to remember this event.
During the Q & A, Michael's was the first question. I don't remember exactly what he asked, but he was quite dismissive of the presentation and condemned the lack of context and honesty. He became unpopular very quickly and many insults were shouted at him. One woman who wasn't shouted down, gave a long nonsensical tirade about elections in Ann Arbor. While some people around me grumbled under their breath, nobody tried to stop her. She went on for five minutes or so and I'm not sure what her point was, although it had nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Another woman got up to explain that the only thing that will solve this problem is the overthrow of capitalism and the patriarchy. At least she was brief in her idiocy.
A couple of guys wanted me to buy copies of Revolution, a newspaper put out by the Revolutionary Communist Party (find it yourself if you want, I'm not linking to these psychopaths). I asked questions about the obvious anti-Israel propaganda photo on the cover that showed a wounded man on a bed and three healthy babies on the next bed. Neither sales rep could answer. And they wouldn't stand up for the paper's trivialization of the Holocaust in one of their articles, since we know, and the JVP will back me up on this, that every time Israel defends itself, somebody screams about a new Holocaust.
We had other conversation with other audience members. One woman went on for a while trying to convince me of the conspiracies behind the JFK assassination and the fall of the Twin Towers. It was a controlled demolition, you know.
Now I'm torn between amazement that people can allow themselves to be so deluded, and anger that there are Jews so morally warped that they let themselves believe lies, and they are walking the streets of my home town.
This is truly a demonstration that evil never dies, it merely adapts and changes form so that it will become not only palatable, but welcome to some in the every generation. The fight never ends.
"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
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CHALLAH AKBAR
