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[Mike Renzulli]

Google "Rothbard Lenin" you will see the relevant article where Rothbard writes appreciatingly about Lenin's revolutionary ideals. As far as Israel is concerned, criticize the country all you want but your criticisms ring hollow since (like I said earlier) you twist the facts to fit your prejudice. If you are an Objectivist you have a moral obligation to the truth. I think I read somewhere that facts are facts regardless if you want to ignore them or not want them to be so.

Also, have a look at this quote from a famous Muslim 14th Century Muslim scholar. You will see the jihadist line of thought goes back even then which was long before the U.S. existed:

In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force... The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense... Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations. - ibn-Khaldun

Mike R. argues as follows: Murray Rothbard had "an affinity" for Lenin – whatever that means – therefore Ben Gurion’s admiration for the Bolsheviks and his emulation of the early Soviet Union is excusable. Come again? Since when did Rothbard become a standard of proper behavior, and when did he ever promote Lenin?

Edited September 21, 2011 by Mike Renzulli

[anthony]

One needn’t object to every iniquity on earth before objecting to Israel. I criticize Israel here because the subject of this thread is the Clarion Fund’s pro-war propaganda. I claim it’s Israeli propaganda masquerading as American, and it pretends to be for the benefit of Americans when it’s really for the benefit of Israel. I’ll say this for the Arabs, at least they don’t pretend to be your ally while stabbing you in the back. They say they hate you and stab you in the front. The U.S. should never have entered the quarrel between Arabs and Israelis six thousand miles away – which it did not long after WW II. If whYNOT himself wants to emigrate and fight for Israel, I wouldn’t stop him. But I’m sick of being made a host and cats-paw for a socialist rat-hole on the other side of the earth. 　

"Rat-hole"? Aren't you thinking of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Misdirected anger.

Predictable, when one concedes to irrationality - fear becomes anger and hatred; leading to the false dichotomy of either over-reaction -- or appeasement, and sacrificing your allies and friends.

It's not Israel that's the bogeyman, but if you believe it is, score one for the terror gangs: they have succeeded in their wildest dreams of breaking apart "Big Satan" from "Little Satan".

Post WW2 America was a nation that had self-confidence and benevolence aplenty. So much so, that it would help protect the vulnerable 'new kid on the block' against the bullies who plainly wanted to eradicate him . Without, I'd add, direct US military intervention.

Now it appears that you and many others regret that.

Supporting Israel is seen (I guess) as the cause of the terrible consequences your country suffered.. Perhaps understandable, but irrational. What's that Rand said about condemning the best for being the best?

Mark, what the USA did for Israel was "the best", and now you and others would condemn yourselves.

[Mark]

I despise Israel for the reasons I’ve given.

Hurling the Objectivist insult "hatred of the good for being the good" at that just bounces off. Israel is not good and in fact is hateful.

"Despise" more accurately describes the feeling but hate is OK. Usually Aristotle’s relevant aphorism is translated using that word: "Justice consists in loving and hating aright."

We ought to despise Israel because of its behavior, what Israel does. Instead of an ally it acts like an enemy. A few of its enemy actions are described in This Is Our Ally? Links to some others can be found in Links on Israel.

The unquestioning attitude toward Israel is very like a religion, hence the phrase "Israel worship." It’s beyond evidence. There’s nothing you can say to those afflicted, you will always be a hater of the good for being etc.

If you don’t like Israel you don’t like America, that’s the message conveyed by the obscene juxtaposition of images created by Yaron Brook, Israel born and bred, not long after taking over the Ayn Rand Institute:

http://web.archive.o....org/medialink/ (from aynrand.org August 2002).

If that loads too slowly there’s a copy at:

http://ariwatch.com/...iaLinkFlags.htm

So tell us all, if Israel is an ally of America, what friendly act has it ever performed that justifies billions each year in U.S. foreign aid and that begins to compensate for the crimes above?

Be specific please. "Israel is a bulwark" and "America would be worse off without Israel" (instead of better) only begs the question.

That Israel simply exists is not enough.

Edited September 22, 2011 by Mark

[Mark]

Truman’s support for Israel in 1948 wasn’t due to any "benevolent attitude" of the American public. Supporting Israel was neither benevolent toward America nor benevolent toward the idea of civilization. The proto-Israelis were terrorists: letter bombs to England, assassinating Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, bombing the King David hotel, etc. Eventually individual terrorists held high positions in the Israeli government, including Prime Minister.

In so far as people knew about Israel at all in 1948 the attitude of James Forrestal, U.S. Secretary of Defense, was also in the public eye. After his retirement in 1949 he was making plans to buy a newspaper to better promote his views: anti-Soviet, anti-Israel. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1949 and, recuperating on the 16th floor of Bethesda Naval Hospital, went out the window.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Israel isn't hateful at all. It's a country with lots of good people in it.

Ditto for the Muslim world.

This hatred crap is really something.

On the one hand, I do not like the spiteful attempt by some Objectivist folks to transform ARI and Objectivism into nothing more than a lobbying firm for Israel and the Neocon (and now Neobama) war machine, but I also do not like the blatant antisemitism disguised as "anti-Zionism" I always see preached by opponents of Israel.

To me, it's all hatred--and to me, it all stinks.

There's a different way--one that rejects bigoted hatred of scapegoats--and I endorse that one.

This discussion has a lot of very good information and links in it, but the hatred is polluting the discussion.

I advise the reader to look at ALL the material, regardless where it comes from, and come to his own conclusion. Try to filter out the yelling. You won't remember who said what about whom this time next year, anyway, but you will remember the information you looked at and thought about.

It's a value judgment--and the real value is not what Rand would have done or if this person or that is a scumbag or evil or whatnot. The real value is the irreplaceable minutes and hours of your life you spend on this.

For the record, here is my stand.

I stand with Israel.

I also stand against war machines--both Islamist war machines and crony capitalism war machines.

If the Palestinian leadership (the true Philistines in more ways than one) ever gets rid of that obnoxious charter provision to destroy Israel and cuts down on the bigotry crap, I will stand with Palestine, too.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Gee, if Israel would only . . . . Then the birds would sing and the flowers bloom and it'd finally be beloved.

--Brant

[Mark]

The U.S. must learn to mind its own business. Neither Israel nor Palestine are its business.

Keep out of that distant conflict. Stop giving foreign aid to either side, including war materiel to Israel.

Indeed, "if Israel would only" pay back the countless billions we've been forced to give it over the years "it would finally" be able to boast honestly of – to quote the words of David Ben-Gurion – "what the Jews can do."

It’s past time for payback time. Ditto for Egypt and India and Uzbekistan and all the other Third World rat-holes. I’ll plant some flowers with my first Israel inspired tax-rebate and give them to Brant.

[Brant Gaede]

The U.S. must learn to mind its own business. Neither Israel nor Palestine are its business.

Keep out of that distant conflict. Stop giving foreign aid to either side, including war materiel to Israel.

Indeed, "if Israel would only" pay back the countless billions we've been forced to give it over the years "it would finally" be able to boast honestly of – to quote the words of David Ben-Gurion – "what the Jews can do."

It’s past time for payback time. Ditto for Egypt and India and Uzbekistan and all the other Third World rat-holes. I’ll plant some flowers with my first Israel inspired tax-rebate and give them to Brant.

My, my. Can you stand not being an agent of the American nationalist state? If you can then you won't be so pissed off at its foreign animadversions upon or in support of sundry foreign states. You'll simply move abroad and get an individualist life--or just the last, at least.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Israel, of course, has done many bad things--so too the United States. Shall we too hate the United States--or aren't there enough Jews? If the U.S. were only 90% Jewish, what a curse upon the world! Goddamned blood-sucking, mother-f__k__g Jews!

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I saw about half of "The Third Jihad."

As a work coming from one side of the divide, I was surprised to find it objective and not heavy on the demonizing.

That's the real turn-off to me with works of this nature. Their entire fundamental default message (as opposed to objective identification and evaluation) is usually, "Everything would be in the land of milk and honey if it were not for THEM! Life is good except for THEM! Because THEY are a manipulative evil cancer on the world, this crappy thing happens, that crappy thing happens (yadda yadda yadda)!"

That's not very deep philosophical thinking. Hell, that's not good thinking on any level.

But this wasn't the tone of the documentary. True, it did identify the bad guys and the threat they represent, i.e., the radical fundamentalist wing of Islam, but it merely presented the facts and backed them up with quotes on video from radical fundamentalist Islamist leaders and opinions about what this means by various critics, scholars and experts. Not all of these people were from the standard Jihad Watch kind of crowd, either, although most were. At least the message targeted Islamism, not Islam as a whole. From what I could tell, the excerpts from Islamist leaders were not taken out of context.

I was not too excited by the film because I have studied a lot of the material already. But for anyone not too familiar with Muslim-world names and places, and with any doubts about the belligerent intent of radical Islamists, and the benign peaceful nature of moderate Muslims (the film was narrated by Zuhdi Jasser), this is a good film to see.

Here's the Wikipedia article on it for anyone interested in a short overview: The Third Jihad.

I'll probably finish watching it, but I don't expect the rest to be much different than what I already think about it.

btw - Good music scoring.

Michael

[Mark]

Israel, of course, has done many bad things – so too the United States. Shall we too hate the United States--or aren’t there enough Jews? If the U.S. were only 90% Jewish, what a curse upon the world! Goddamned blood-sucking, m...-f__k__g Jews!

— Brant

Brant loses it at the end but a reply to the beginning is possible.

First though, the following is my claim in a nutshell and what Brant should address:

Israel has done many bad things to Americans, frequently in collusion with the U.S. government.

Brant replies with a rhetorical question:

"Israel, of course, has done many bad things – so too [has] the United States. Shall we too hate the United States ...?"

In other words:

The U.S. has done many bad things, therefore it’s all right for Israel to do many bad things.

There are two problems with Brant's reply.

(1) It doesn’t address my claim. The problem with Israel is not merely that it does "many bad things" period, but also to whom Israel does them. It does them to its benefactor.

Set aside the billions in U.S. largesse to Israel (at the expense of Americans). What bad things has the U.S. done to Israel that somehow balances all the bad things Israel has done to America?

(2) Considering what Brant does address, he argues using the tu quoque fallacy – "you’re another." The U.S. doing bad things to X – whom Brant doesn’t specify – somehow excuses Israel doing bad things.

But of course it doesn’t.

After this bit of (1) indirection and (2) logical fallacy, Brant attacks with implied slurs. One wonders if Brant would be pleased to hear them uttered. Talk about a straw man.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's what that sick bigoted hatred stuff does.

I just watched Abbas address the UN in his request that Palestinian statehood be recognized by the UN Security Council. (You can see the entire thing on YouTube

.)

All well and good and reasonable except for the many references to Israel as a colonial power and racist state engaged in ethnic cleansing and total omission of any mention of Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians.

Colonial?

Racist?

Ethnic cleansing?

Gimmee a break.

Clashes, OK. Hostilities, OK. Even long-standing mutual hatred, OK. But this crap?

I'm sorry, but words have objective meaning in my world. I have no doubt they have the same meaning for many, many others, too.

There is no Palestinian race or Jewish race--not in the biological sense (which is the linchpin of the racist form of bigotry). You are only a colonial power if you expand your homeland country to include colonies on a foreign continent. Ethnic cleansing means genocide and wholesale murder.

What on earth is this guy talking about?

When someone does that kind of distortion, he undermines his entire discourse to anyone who wishes to be objective.

Also, the Drudge Report is currently linking to Ynetnews (to this link here) and using the following headline: "'We shall not recognize a Jewish state...'" I haven't seen that repeated elsewhere yet, but I expect it will be. I want to mention it right now, but also say I have not confirmed it with other reports--not that the mainstream media is in any great shakes credibility-wise.

I would take a screenshot and post it, but this is more hatred stuff (and no doubt will cause the standard denial and accusation yelling back and forth) that will be forgotten by everyone later so, frankly, it is not worth the effort.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Every nation has the right to collective self defense. But when Jews do it, it is somehow a "bad thing"

Israel is the only nation on earth that has to sue for peace after it has won a war.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Yeah, I lost it all right.

Israel does what it does out of its perceived self-interests and what it can get away with, like almost all countries. The United States has let it get away with a lot. The geo-political reality is the U.S. is a governor of sorts on Israeli foreign policy excesses. There must be a lot the U.S. doesn't let Israel get away with. Take this country out of the equation and you have a small country armed to the teeth with nuclear and other weapons. The U.S. needs to get a little closer to Israel considering the alienating policies of the current administration to have more effective influence in tamping down the winds of war.

--Brant

the mess Britain left behind

[BaalChatzaf]

Yeah, I lost it all right.

Israel does what it does out of its perceived self-interests and what it can get away with, like almost all countries. The United States has let it get away with a lot. The geo-political reality is the U.S. is a governor of sorts on Israeli foreign policy excesses. There must be a lot the U.S. doesn't let Israel get away with. Take this country out of the equation and you have a small country armed to the teeth with nuclear and other weapons. The U.S. needs to get a little closer to Israel considering the alienating policies of the current administration to have more effective influence in tamping down the winds of war.

--Brant

the mess Britain left behind

Making nuclear weapons used to be a Jewish cottage industry. The Manhattan Project was manned by Jewish physicists at least 80 percent. The only reason that Germany did not get the Bomb was that our Jewish physicists were better than their Jewish physicists.

Of course Israel has the Bomb. Some of its first citizens invented the damned thing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I want to address an issue Mark raised which I think is legitimate--the influence of a foreign power in the USA government. I'm not comfortable with some of the stuff I have looked at with respect to Israel.

But how about the other foot?

How about the influence of all those Muslim-world dictators over the years--you know, the ones sitting on oil lands and other raw materials and dirt cheap labor? How about their influence on the USA government? After all, the USA government trained their respective secret polices so these dictators could torture and kill off their own citizens.

If that isn't a demonstration of influence, I don't know what is. It's a smoking gun, that's what it is.

And don't think this hasn't resulted in the deaths of oodles of USA citizens. The fingerprints of these dudes are all over USA wars, especially with front companies, gun running, drug wars, etc.

There's a variation on this theme currently going down with the boneheaded Fast and Furious thing where high capacity guns were practically "run" to drug cartels and the whole operation was overseen by the USA government. This is being sold as a bungle, but I see government corruption on a massive scale, and I see no reason to exclude Mexican officials in my suppositions.

If foreign influence in the USA government is to be an objective filter, I hold that this should apply to ALL foreign influence, not just Israeli.

Michael