Natanyahu Lowers the Boom

[Frediano]

It's interesting to watch people become totally polarized by two completely antithetical views concerning the Jews. Israel has become the moral acid test for the whole World.

Care to take the test?...

Greg

Outstanding. Nails it on the head.

With the left, 'Rich vs. Poor' sensibilities triumph over the KKK basis for this conflict; "Too many Jews buying land in the 'hood" -- a paraphrase of Arafat's Uncle Nazi precise complaint in the 20s as part of the Muslim High Council in Jerusalem -- could as well be reformulated "Too many successful Jews buying land in the 'hood."

“The envy of excellence leads to perdition; the love of it leads to the light.” ― George Gilder, The Israel Test

[Brant Gaede]

I used to love the Jews because they killed Arabs.

Then I took the Israel test. I failed the test.

Now I envy the Jews because they increased the Arab populations.

Now I'm confused.

It's my love-envy of the Jews.

I'd check my premises but that wouldn't be any fun.

--Grant

(everything above is a lie [helping out Ba'al here])

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I finally watched that video.

Fantastic.

The Arab populations were able to increase because of the technological and farming advances of Jews. That's a hell of a way to commit genocide...

Michael

[George H. Smith]

A question:

The Israelis used to destroy an entire Palestinian house if even one family member engaged in violent activities against Israelis. Is that form of collective punishment still being used? If so, is any kind of due process employed before this punishment is inflicted?

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I finally watched that video.

Fantastic.

The Arab populations were able to increase because of the technological and farming advances of Jews. That's a hell of a way to commit genocide...

Michael

Fine, but let's not forget how some of that land was acquired. I doubt if anyone on this list would be satisfied if, after having their land confiscated, were assured that the confiscators would make much better use of it than they, the legitimate owners, did. From a Quaker peace outfit:

During 1947 and 1948, Israel systematically demolished 531 Palestinian villages inside the

area that became Israel. More than 200 of these villages were destroyed, and between 250,000

and 350,000 people were displaced before May 1948 when the first Arab-Israeli war officially

began. Ultimately, approximately 750,000 Palestinians were displaced in 1948 as a result

of the war and the systematic demolition of Palestinian towns and villages. In 1967 Israel

took over the West Bank and Gaza, displacing even more Palestinians. These peoples rights

to compensation and return were never fulfilled, and they and their descendants remain

refugees today.5

http://www.afsc.org/sites/afsc.civicactions.net/files/documents/Forced%20Displacement_v2.pdf

Ghs

[Guyau]

Thanks, George.

The following book looks very informative concerning the birth.

The Birth of Israel 1945–49: Ben-Gurion and His Critics
Joseph Heller

. . .

(It appears there is no longer a way to preview this book; I had been impressed with it from the preview formerly available at Google Books.)

Interesting remark from Steve Reed on (5/19/08):

Consider how many Jews were, and are, able to live in genuine and continuing peace with their neighbors, worshiping unmolested, not looking nervously over their shoulders for suicide bombers or conscription officials. Far more, still, than in all of shrinking Israel — but they're living in American neighborhoods, running American businesses.

I heard a remark on TV the other day that in the end Israel will have to choose between being a democracy and being a Jewish state. Rings true.

[Mikee]

http://www.jewishpost.com/archives/news/in-defense-of-ben-gurions-legacy-1.html

[william.scherk]

A question:

The Israelis used to destroy an entire Palestinian house if even one family member engaged in violent activities against Israelis. Is that form of collective punishment still being used?

According to a story in the Jerusalem Post, Israel has returned to the practice, after having stopped the policy circa 2005:

Israel to renew demolition of terrorists’ homes

06/23/2014

Sources say government will resume practice which was discontinued in 2005 amid findings that it was not having a deterrent effect.

Israel is to renew its controversial policy – discontinued in 2005 – of destroying the homes of terrorists as a deterrent measure, as Jerusalem continues ratcheting up steps it hopes will place pressure on Hamas and lead to the return of the three kidnapped teens, Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah.

The decision came at a recent security cabinet meeting, and will be implemented – subject to court approval – against the home of Ziyad Awwad, the terrorist suspect arrested last month with his son, Azzadin Ziad Hassan, for the Passover-eve murder near Kiryat Arba of Baruch Mizrachi and the wounding of his wife and one of their children.

The sources said that the government intends to increasingly ask the courts to allow the punitive house demolitions, which they said have proven to be successful in the past

.[...]

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Fine, but let's not forget how some of that land was acquired.

George,

We can take that logic back to the founding of the USA. By contextless right, this should be a country of Indian tribes, or rather, not a country at all. America should not exist.

btw - Did the Indians have a right to war on each other as much as they did way back when? They sure weren't happy with losing their lands. Not even to each other. But I wouldn't be, either. Nobody who loses is happy about it.

Conquest has been a value and process in the founding of every country on earth. Every single one. Modern civilization arose on top of this. It did not start magically in some utopian past and then history was a progression of violators against it.

But for Jews, it's not permissible to have even a smidgen of this reality (and I say smidgen considering that vast tracts of Israel were legitimately purchased before Israel existed).

It's not permissible for the USA, too, in some quarters.

Why the double standard of allowing the enemies a tacit right to conquest?

Put another way, who will feel gratified if an Arabian country conquers Israel? (I can think of many.) If such happens, will the new conquerors have the right to sack and pillage while the world looks to the side? Because that is exactly what they will do. I seriously doubt the new conquerors would instigate technological and farming boons so more Jews could flourish.

Where will the moral crusaders be then? Taking time off? This, I believe, is what Ayn Rand was getting at in her controversial comments about Indians. People defend in all righteousness the brute and the ignorant. But they will not defend those of the mind.

Want a good example? Where are the moral crusaders who were so busy and so righteous about the war in Iraq now that ISIS is arising and slaughtering people wholesale? I don't know of anyone who condones that, but I can't help but notice a total lack of moral enthusiasm by these same people who used to claim universality of their standards when the object of their criticism was the USA.

I'm not a fan of conquest, but I'm not a fan of denying reality, either. A standard to be valid has to apply to all, not just to one collective. The same goes for exceptions to that standard. If XXXX is excepted (like backward cultures), so has to be all (like advanced cultures).

I'm cool with saying conquest has to stop, then going through the messy process of making that happen. We are building a new world where we can get rid of conquest because humans have the capacity to acquire wisdom and create a world of abundance instead of scarcity. It's a choice so people of the mind can flourish (but not so new dictators can flourish). I love living at a time when I can witness this transformation.

However, I don't agree--on a conceptual level--with applying this standard to mankind's nature as if conquest never existed universally up to now, or selectively applying it to cherry-picked collectives. That's incorrect epistemology in my understanding.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Israel has dirty hands and Israel is at war. There is always collateral damage in war, as in U.S. fire-bombing then atomic-bombing of Japanese cities in WWII. The U.S. had kept poking Japan with a stick so the Japanese finally attacked Pearl Harbor bringing down 100% American alligator-mind wrath on Japan. A strategic disaster for Japan, it wasn't even much of a tactical victory because the wrong targets were prioritized. My just deceased uncle, who was there with the Army Air Corps (he ran for his B-17; it blew up in front of him), said they just sank a bunch of obsolete battleships.

Israel and the Palistinians are just facets of the huge Middle Eastern mess that grew out of WWI--as did WWII and its aftermath--courtesy of Great Britain. WWI has defined and caused more horrible world history than any other single event of the last 100 years. WWI came out of the break down of the European balance of power and the rise of Germany in the late 19th C. Great Britain, pissed off at the decline of its relative and absolute economic-military power got the progressive Roosevelt-Wilson controlled United States to come in and set that right. Serves Teddy right his son was killed. Shot down, the Germans buried him with "full military honors."

--Brant

[william.scherk]

 

Fine, but let's not forget how some of that land was acquired.

 

Conquest has been a value and process in the founding of every country on earth. Every single one. Modern civilization arose on top of this. It did not start magically in some utopian past and then history was a progression of violators against it. 

 

I saw a striking video today on topic for historical bloodshed in Palestine/Israel. Dang did I love the instrumental version of Exodus back when. This video uses the syrupy Andy Williams version, and the trenchant  cartoonship of Nina Paley. 

 

A brief history of Israel/Palestine/Canaan/The Levant.

 

Who's-killing-who viewer's guide here: http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/

 

Music: The Exodus Song/This Land is Mine melody by Ernest Gold, lyrics by Pat Boone, sung by Andy Williams. Jazz instrumental (over end credits) by Quincy Jones.

This Land Is Mine from Nina Paley on Vimeo.

Edited July 16, 2014 by william.scherk

[Marc]

No, because I'm right, and you haven't really presented any arguments to the contrary. The genocide is at the stage of herding the undersirables into ghettos. They're just one step away from concentration camps.

Jews will never herd people into concentration camps. Not ever. I would bet my life on it. I would even bet the lives of Palestinians on it. If the Israeli government wanted to "rid rid of the problem" they would have done it right after the six day way or the 1973 war.

Allowing Gaza to exist as an autonomous entity was a very big mistake on the part of the Israelis and the Hamas Rocketeers have been making them pay for that mistake for decades.

Ba'al Chatzaf.

Not only will Israel never do that as you state , but they did not need to wait for the 73 war if they wanted to sir . As you well know ( but just to inform some good folks here ) Jews in pre Israel in the 40s bought land legally at up to 10 times the value of said land while neighbouring Arab States would simply kill or kick out Jews while stealing their land . Jews also allowed Arabs in Israel to become citizens , vote and even have numerous Arabs holding seats in the Knesset . If our friend who was banned simply stood anywhere in Judea and Samaria and spouted anything pro woman's rights , or anything bad about the current administration she would not be banned from a site like MSK did , she would be banned from living . This is the difference .

[Marc]

People have visions of Jews , 5'7" and 120 lbs walking in a straight line into an oven . We all saw the pictures of the living skeletons in said camps that our now banned friend claims is similar to Gaza . In Israel now , there are 6'3" Jewish soldiers , Jewish bullets , Jewish F18s and Jewish nuclear bombs . The world does not like Jews who fight back . Some people think that Jewish blood is cheap and that 30 dead Jews on a bus in Tel Aviv , needs to be met with "restraint" . Well , Jews fight back , Israel will always fight back and very sad to me , they actually do show restraint to be pragmatic , even Netanyahu in my view is a very weak leader but he has a lot to deal with as the political situation in the Knesset is ridiculous as he needs to deal with the orthodox , the left , the right , the Arabs , the Russians so Israeli leaders become soft .

Ariel Sharon had it right , " not one inch " , was his mantra until he too gave in .

I do agree with MSKs ban on our bigoted friend because in my view she went to far .

I would though love to ask her if she ever went to an Arab country to research womens rights , or what they do to young girls so they do not experience pleasure from sex . Then I would ask her to actually ask Arab Israelis about their life in Israel proper , as opposed to Arabs in anyone of the 22 Arab States .

In Israel at the top of the country , there is a spot called " The Good Fence " . Christian Lebanese come into Israel daily to work . No issues . They go back and forth . Many more Christians are killed by Arabs every year than Jews killed by Arabs , but we do not read about this on page one . Why ?

The Arabs need to be respected . They are very straight forward about their mandate . If Israel consisted of 1 Synagogue on 100 sq feet in Tel Aviv , if this was our Nation , the Arabs would still fight us . Because they consider Israel to be their land .

While Arafat stood on the White House lawn shaking hands with that specific Israeli dove , his people and later him were chanting in Arabic their true goal . Piece by peace .

[Marc]

I do apologize for my scattered thoughts but I did not want to quote 20 posts here , so I am just writing what comes to mind after reading the whole 6 pages of this great discussion .

For anyone who does not really understand the area or population , this is for you .

Israel land area: 8,000 sq miles.
Arab land area: 5,120,000 sq miles.
Israeli total population is 7,116,200, ALL people who live in Israel, BUT 1,413,500 or 20% are Arabs (Muslim & Druze).
Israel is surrounded by 270 million Arab Muslims.

[Marc]

One last point I wish add . Hopefully our banned friend is reading still at an internet cafe , lurking to see what happened to this thread . In that case , this is for you :

The Arab assaults and aggressions against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1968, and 1973 had nothing to do with 'Palestinians'. The Palestinian terror campaign would itself be easy to suppress today and eradicate if the Middle East conflict were really a Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel would simply obliterate the terrorists and expel their supporters to Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Those nations have already stated they will NOT receive 'Palestinians'. The Middle East war continues because it is really an Arab-Israeli war, not an Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It is also an Islamic religious jihad against the Jews.

“Some 11,000,000 Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, or 0.3 percent, died during the sixty years of fighting Israel.
In contrast, over 90 percent of the 11 million who perished were killed by fellow Muslims.”
SOURCE: Arab-Israeli Fatalities Rank 49th
By Gunnar Heinsohn and Daniel Pipes, FrontPageMagazine

[moralist]

I finally watched that video.

Fantastic.

The Arab populations were able to increase because of the technological and farming advances of Jews. That's a hell of a way to commit genocide...

Michael

The Jews have blessed the whole world.

Greg

[moralist]

. From a Quaker peace outfit:

The Quakers were big time jewhaters... and they're even worse today.

"The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is the NGO of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. While it seeks to wear a moral mantle it claims from its 1947 Nobel Prize, in recent decades it has eschewed its values of peace and nonviolence and embraced unapologetically the world’s worst dictators and terrorist movements bent on genocide."

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/12/09/when-friends-turn-anti-semitic/

Greg

[moralist]

I do apologize for my scattered thoughts but I did not want to quote 20 posts here , so I am just writing what comes to mind after reading the whole 6 pages of this great discussion .

For anyone who does not really understand the area or population , this is for you .

Israel land area: 8,000 sq miles.

Arab land area: 5,120,000 sq miles.

Israeli total population is 7,116,200, ALL people who live in Israel, BUT 1,413,500 or 20% are Arabs (Muslim & Druze).

Israel is surrounded by 270 million Arab Muslims.

Thanks for providing the useful context of scale, Marc.

It begs the question:

Why have the Muslims (or the rest of the world for that matter) been in a constant hissyfit for so long over just one teeny tiny little country?

Hmmm?...

Greg

[Marc]

ok , ok , ok just one more video . Just over 1 minute but very good to watch :

http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/07/16/60-seconds-on-how-hamas-uses-people-as-human-shields/

[Marc]

I do apologize for my scattered thoughts but I did not want to quote 20 posts here , so I am just writing what comes to mind after reading the whole 6 pages of this great discussion .

For anyone who does not really understand the area or population , this is for you .

Israel land area: 8,000 sq miles.

Arab land area: 5,120,000 sq miles.

Israeli total population is 7,116,200, ALL people who live in Israel, BUT 1,413,500 or 20% are Arabs (Muslim & Druze).

Israel is surrounded by 270 million Arab Muslims.

Thanks for providing the useful context of scale, Marc.

It begs the question:

Why have the Muslims (or the rest of the world for that matter) been in a constant hissyfit for so long over just one teeny tiny little country?

Hmmm?...

Greg

Hahhaha , I know !!!!! Too much religion and not enough lovers of Ayn Rand

[moralist]

Anyone notice how even the just the topic of Israel has the power to polarize people?

Everyone clearly takes a stand on one side or the other: Blessers or Cursers

There's no middle ground:

"And I will bless those who bless you,

and curse him who curses you;

in you will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed

and by you they will bless themselves."

(Genesis12:3)

Greg

[Marc]

Kind of like Ayn Rand , no ?

[Guyau]

Marc, a citizen of Israel writes, as of two years ago:

Last week marked Israel’s 64th year of independence; it is also when Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” during which many of Palestine’s native inhabitants were turned into refugees.

In 1948, the Israeli brigade commander Yitzhak Rabin helped expel Lydda’s Palestinian population. Some 19,000 of the town’s 20,000 native Palestinian inhabitants were forced out. My grandparents were among the 1,000 to remain.

They were fortunate to become only internally displaced and not refugees. Years later my grandfather was able to buy back his own home — a cruel absurdity, but a better fate than that imposed on most of his neighbors, who were never permitted to re-establish their lives in their hometowns.

Three decades later, in October 1979, this newspaper reported that Israel barred Rabin from detailing in his memoir what he conceded was the “expulsion” of the “civilian population of Lod and Ramle, numbering some 50,000.” Rabin, who by then had served as prime minister, sought to describe how “it was essential to drive the inhabitants out.”

Two generations after the Nakba, the effect of discriminatory Israeli policies still reverberates. Israel still seeks to safeguard its image by claiming to be a bastion of democracy that treats its Palestinian citizens well, all the while continuing illiberal policies that target this very population. There is a long history of such discrimination.

In the 1950s new laws permitted the state to take control over Palestinians’ land by classifying them “absentees.” Of course, it was the state that made them absentees by either preventing refugees from returning to Israel or barring internally displaced Palestinians from having access to their land. This last group was ironically termed “present absentees” — able to see their land but not to reach it because of military restrictions that ultimately resulted in their watching the state confiscate it. Until 1966, Palestinian citizens were governed under martial law.

Today, a Jew from any country can move to Israel, while a Palestinian refugee, with a valid claim to property in Israel, cannot. And although Palestinians make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population, the 2012 budget allocates less than 7 percent for Palestinian citizens.

Tragically for Palestinians, Zionism requires the state to empower and maintain a Jewish majority even at the expense of its non-Jewish citizens, and the occupation of the West Bank is only one part of it. What exists today between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is therefore essentially one state, under Israeli control, where Palestinians have varying degrees of limited rights: 1.5 million are second-class citizens, and four million more are not citizens at all. If this is not apartheid, then whatever it is, it’s certainly not democracy.

The failure of Israeli and American leaders to grapple with this nondemocratic reality is not helping. Even if a two-state solution were achieved, which seems fanciful at this point, a fundamental contradiction would remain: more than 35 laws in ostensibly democratic Israel discriminate against Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.

For all the talk about shared values between Israel and the United States, democracy is sadly not one of them right now, and it will not be until Israel’s leaders are willing to recognize Palestinians as equals, not just in name, but in law.

Marc, how much do the taxpayers of your country contribute through your government to propping up Israel? In this country, there is a long history of it. It is done primarily out of benevolence (with taxpayers' money) for the Jewish people in Israel and its symbolism against the holocaust. There are tap dances that try to twirl a self-interest-of-the-USA rationale, but it is empty air. It's hard for some to admit they do good things that they think good and that can't be justified by self-interest.

Marc, the state of Israel and I are the same age. If it fails before I do, I'll be here along with 300 million other Americans (yes, we far outnumber the bigots presently acting like jackasses over immigrants from south of our border) welcoming all Israel's citizens to this land.

[George H. Smith]

Fine, but let's not forget how some of that land was acquired.

George,

We can take that logic back to the founding of the USA. By contextless right, this should be a country of Indian tribes, or rather, not a country at all. America should not exist.

btw - Did the Indians have a right to war on each other as much as they did way back when? They sure weren't happy with losing their lands. Not even to each other. But I wouldn't be, either. Nobody who loses is happy about it.

Conquest has been a value and process in the founding of every country on earth. Every single one. Modern civilization arose on top of this. It did not start magically in some utopian past and then history was a progression of violators against it.

But for Jews, it's not permissible to have even a smidgen of this reality (and I say smidgen considering that vast tracts of Israel were legitimately purchased before Israel existed).

It's not permissible for the USA, too, in some quarters.

Why the double standard of allowing the enemies a tacit right to conquest?

Put another way, who will feel gratified if an Arabian country conquers Israel? (I can think of many.) If such happens, will the new conquerors have the right to sack and pillage while the world looks to the side? Because that is exactly what they will do. I seriously doubt the new conquerors would instigate technological and farming boons so more Jews could flourish.

Where will the moral crusaders be then? Taking time off? This, I believe, is what Ayn Rand was getting at in her controversial comments about Indians. People defend in all righteousness the brute and the ignorant. But they will not defend those of the mind.

Want a good example? Where are the moral crusaders who were so busy and so righteous about the war in Iraq now that ISIS is arising and slaughtering people wholesale? I don't know of anyone who condones that, but I can't help but notice a total lack of moral enthusiasm by these same people who used to claim universality of their standards when the object of their criticism was the USA.

I'm not a fan of conquest, but I'm not a fan of denying reality, either. A standard to be valid has to apply to all, not just to one collective. The same goes for exceptions to that standard. If XXXX is excepted (like backward cultures), so has to be all (like advanced cultures).

I'm cool with saying conquest has to stop, then going through the messy process of making that happen. We are building a new world where we can get rid of conquest because humans have the capacity to acquire wisdom and create a world of abundance instead of scarcity. It's a choice so people of the mind can flourish (but not so new dictators can flourish). I love living at a time when I can witness this transformation.

However, I don't agree--on a conceptual level--with applying this standard to mankind's nature as if conquest never existed universally up to now, or selectively applying it to cherry-picked collectives. That's incorrect epistemology in my understanding.

Michael

Michael,

As indicated in an earlier post on this thread, I agree with you about the conquest origin of states. I also stated that there is nothing unique about Israel in this regard, so I don't single it out for special condemnation. Nevertheless, people who have been forcibly dispossessed by a nascent state tend to get pissed off, and they frequently attempt to defend themselves or, if that fails, to seek restitution or even revenge. In short, some Palestinians have a legitimate grievance against the state of Israel. It is not as if a bunch of pacifistic Jews settled in an uninhabited wilderness, made it bloom, and are now dealing with a bunch of ungrateful Palestinians.

History cannot be reversed, so given the political status quo, Israel has as much right to defend itself as any nation does. It is idiotic and hypocritical for various terrorist groups, such as Hamas, to call for the extinction of Israel. Even worse, those Palestinians with legitimate grievances long ago made a terrible decision to resist Israel with violence. A Gandhian-style movement of nonviolent resistance would have been much more effective.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Even worse, those Palestinians with legitimate grievances long ago made a terrible decision to resist Israel with violence. A Gandhian-style movement of nonviolent resistance would have been much more effective.

George,

Man, do we agree.

And, knowing the general bent toward sentimentality of Jewish people, I believe that would have been effective to the point of over-delivery.

Michael