A website called Orthodox Anarchist — “no authority but G-d” — put up a brief note on my post on David Landau:
Augean Stables’ response to David Landua’s remark to Condoleezza Rice that the US should “rape” Israel offers perhaps the most insightful critique of “Jewish anti-occupationism” that I have ever read. As Kelsey so brilliantly noted in a recent conversation: The Jewish Left and the Jewish Right are hardly ever right about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but they’re often very right about each other.
I responded:
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thanks for your comment on my explanation for David Landau’s request to Condi that the US rape Israel. i do however, object to your implied categorization of me as “right”, and to your implied suggestion that i’m wrong about the “occupation” when i haven’t even published something on what Israel “ought to do.” my overall point is that, however annoying and even violent the settlements, they are not the source, cause, or main problem behind the “occupation.” indeed they are a drop in the bucket compared with the Palestinian/Arab/Muslim perception that the very existence of an autonomous Jewish state in the region is a theological blasphemy and an unbearable humiliation. so it’s got nothing to do with the “green line” and everything to do with the shore line. if that kind of realistic observation makes me a “right-winger”, then heaven help us all.
Posted on 06-Jan-08 at 12:20 am
To which Mobius wrote back:
richard,
i apologize if you feel misrepresented. you’ll have to excuse me if i took the inclusion of dhimmi watch, little green footballs, and pajamas media in your blogroll, as well as your championing of daniel pipes and your endless indictments against the palestinians and their supporters as an indication of your political orientation. it is certainly not uncommon for jews to hold liberal positions on every domestic issue and only go batshit crazy when it comes to israel. so perhaps you’re not a right-winger. perhaps you are indeed a liberal. …on everything except israel.as per your remarks concerning the main problem underlying the occupation, i will not bother to justify arab rejectionism (though i think one can make such a case legitimately).
rather, what i will say is that the most interesting question for me, piqued, in fact, by your post upon which i initially remarked, is as to whether or not it is wise to withdraw from the territories — having the full awareness that it is the ethical and moral thing to do — while acknowledging that it will neither pacify israel’s enemies nor bolster israel’s standing in the world.
israel certainly has a responsibility to its citizens to insure their safety, and withdrawing from the territories without a negotiated settlement (to which fatah, hamas, and islamic jihad adhere) will, in fact, only bring the rocket and sniper attacks all that much closer to israel’s major population centers. with this assessment, i cannot disagree. it is an inescapable fact and as a resolution to this situation i can offer no easy answers.however, i can say that the occupation does go to certain extremes. there are certain excesses that go beyond israel’s legitimate security needs: the often humiliating and degrading policies of the IDF towards palestinians, the endless complications heaped upon the average palestinian in the conduct of their daily affairs, and the act of settlement and the actions of settlers, only add to the anger, the animosity, and the hatred that commit palestinians to the destruction of israel.
that said, i believe it is possible to provide for israel’s security without inflaming the situation by allowing — among other things — religious fundamentalists to run amok, enacting their own version of vigilante justice, by uprooting olive groves, cutting off water, staging attacks against arab villagers, and expanding their settlements onto lands from which palestinians draw their sustenance.there is no magickal sigil — no simple act — that israel can do that will resolve this conflict painlessly. however, israel as the occupier can act to minimize the pain and reduce the harm to everyone involved, should it only choose to do so.
that israel and its supporters have grown completely callous and indifferent towards the suffering of palestinians is certainly understandable. but it’s neither acceptable nor forgivable. it is israel’s responsibility to ease the suffering of those it occupies, and to do so should not be considered rewarding terror nor abetting the enemy.
i can accept not racing to withdraw from the west bank. i cannot accept indifference to the actions of yesha.
to which I respond interlinearly [Mobius in blockquote; me in regular]:
i apologize if you feel misrepresented. you’ll have to excuse me if i took the inclusion of dhimmi watch, little green footballs, and pajamas media in your blogroll, as well as your championing of daniel pipes and your endless indictments against the palestinians and their supporters as an indication of your political orientation.
I don’t know if I’d take PJMedia and LGF as signs of “right-wingerhood.” Certainly, before 9-11, both Roger Simon and Charles Johnson were pretty much on the left by any standards. As for Pipes, I’m not even sure what his real political orientation is, since what he talks about virtually non-stop is the problem of Islamism (and is careful not to indict all of Islam), which problem, as I’ll argue below, throws all the political meters off kilter. If the only way to stay “left” or “progressive” in these times is to ignore what sites like Dhimmiwatch, Pipes, PMW, and MEMRI have to tell us, then okay, I’m not left.
By the way I periodically go to “leftist” blogs, but I must say I find them so riddled with Bush Derangement Syndrome (not that I either like or voted for Bush), that it gets very tiresome. If you have some good “progressive” blogs to recommend, I’d be happy to visit and blogroll them.
it is certainly not uncommon for jews to hold liberal positions on every domestic issue and only go batshit crazy when it comes to israel. so perhaps you’re not a right-winger. perhaps you are indeed a liberal. …on everything except israel.
Regardless of whether I or anyone else is Jewish, I’d argue that any real liberal — i.e., someone who believes in things like equality before the law, resolution of conflict through a discourse of fairness, human rights, gender equality, freedom of speech and press — could not possibly side with anyone but Israel in the Middle East, and that for any liberal to side with the Palestinians given the behavior of their leaders and colleagues in the Arab/Muslim world, is nothing short of a dramatic betrayal of liberal values. On the contrary, it is precisely because I adhere to liberal values that I cannot countenance the “progressive” pro-Palestinian discourse that has hijacked the “left” in these last years (since 2000 in particular).
as per your remarks concerning the main problem underlying the occupation, i will not bother to justify arab rejectionism (though i think one can make such a case legitimately).
i’d like to see you do that by liberal standards without special pleading and without ignoring the behavior of the Palestinian political elites whatever their orientation — secular, religious, “moderate”, extremist…
rather, what i will say is that the most interesting question for me, piqued, in fact, by your post upon which i initially remarked, is as to whether or not it is wise to withdraw from the territories — having the full awareness that it is the ethical and moral thing to do — while acknowledging that it will neither pacify israel’s enemies nor bolster israel’s standing in the world.
i’ll go with that formulation — a good one from start to finish. The study you link to on the long-term results in US and UK public opinion on Israel after the withdrawal from Gaza illustrates the unconscious (?) tendency of Westerners to admire Israel most when it makes itself most vulnerable — during the disengagement, when Iraqi bombs were landing in Israel in 1991 and Israel did not respond…
israel certainly has a responsibility to its citizens to insure their safety, and withdrawing from the territories without a negotiated settlement (to which fatah, hamas, and islamic jihad adhere) will, in fact, only bring the rocket and sniper attacks all that much closer to israel’s major population centers. with this assessment, i cannot disagree. it is an inescapable fact and as a resolution to this situation i can offer no easy answers.
however, i can say that the occupation does go to certain extremes. there are certain excesses that go beyond israel’s legitimate security needs: the often humiliating and degrading policies of the IDF towards palestinians, the endless complications heaped upon the average palestinian in the conduct of their daily affairs, and the act of settlement and the actions of settlers, only add to the anger, the animosity, and the hatred that commit palestinians to the destruction of israel
I am tempted to agree with you but several things hold me back.
1) although there are unquestionably things that should not happen (as there is in every society imaginable, a fortiori, an “occupation”, a fortiori, one under such difficult conditions as preventing a plague of suicide bombing), I do not trust the reports that we get from either the Palestinians or Israel “human rights” groups like Btselem and Women in Black, both of whose reliability is hostage to their activist political agendas.
The complaints about “humiliating” behavior often come from people far more sensitive to the “honor-shame” sensibilities of the Palestinians, than to the threats that too many of them represent. We Westerners really have no idea how to deal with a hostile honor-shame culture (short of kicking the sh*t out of them the way we did in WW II), and appeasement is just as, if not more dangerous than a strong hand. I personally think there’s a profound arrogance in the discourse of “progressive” Westerners who berate Israel for “humiliating” the Palestinians, since, not only don’t they know if their “nice” policies would work better, but when the Arabs want to humiliate Israel, these same folks have nothing to say (e.g., Rice having the Israelis go through a different entrance at Annapolis).
2) The unnecessary complications heaped on the average (presumably innocent) Palestinians also strikes me as a bold judgment. If members of the “left” had been loyal to their values (e.g., the ISM had really been a peace group rather than a cover for Palestinian terrorism) and a center of demonizing rhetoric, then long ago they would have repeated endlessly that the Palestinians cannot complain about Israeli measures while they do nothing to control their own terrorists, especially suicide bombers. When an Irish terrorist tried suicide bombing the response of the public for whom he “struggled” was so negative, that it was the first and last Irish suicide terror attack. Palestinians have approved of suicide bombing in numbers up to 80%. It’s the liberal’s favorite line to say, “You get the leadership you deserve.” Why not at least explain to the Palestinians that they can’t ask for nice treatment when they make no effort to clean up their abominable act of hatemongering and targeting civiians? And if the answer is, “what do you expect from them, they’re ‘occupied’?” then my response is, you’re an unconscious racist (no moral expectations of people of color), and neither liberal nor progressive, but “objectively” (to use the Marxist term) proto-fascist.
3) The settlements. as far as i know, many of the settlers have been very friendly with the local population (there was a whole group of Arabs in Gaza who bewailed the departure of the Israelis), and i would not tar every settlement with the brush of the least attractive… one could easily do the same for the Palestinians. In any case, i don’t see why Jews can’t settle this area. There is no reason on earth why a future Palestinian state should be Judenrein — itself a demand for ethnic cleansing I cannot imagine a true liberal accepting — and for the Palestinians to complain that this is the problem when the problem existed long before any settlements existed is a) dishonest and b) stupid for us to parrot.
that said, i believe it is possible to provide for israel’s security without inflaming the situation by allowing — among other things — religious fundamentalists to run amok, enacting their own version of vigilante justice, by uprooting olive groves, cutting off water, staging attacks against arab villagers, and expanding their settlements onto lands from which palestinians draw their sustenance.
True, but again, I don’t think this is nearly as serious a problem as the hate-mongering of the Palestinian media and the factory of human bombs that it feeds (not to mention the overall brutality and authoritarianism of Palestinian culture). I know that for Jews who care about morality, Israeli behavior matters a great deal, and seeing Jews behave immorally pains them a great deal.
But in the mirror of history, Jews are like the princess who can’t sleep on 14 mattresses on top of a pea. The kind of thing that bothers you, and the kind of thing the Palestinians bitterly complain about Israel doing to them, is a drop in the bucket compared with a) what the Palestinians would do to the Israelis if they had the power the Israelis have over them, and b) what their elites do to their own people. Why do you think, two years later, that the majority, possibly the great majority of Gazans regret Israel’s departure? The pathetic truth is that what moral Jews find almost unbearably immoral behavior towards Palestinians is so much better than what Palestinians do to their own people, that despite all the imperatives of honor and shame, many Palestinians prefer Israeli rule.
there is no magickal sigil — no simple act — that israel can do that will resolve this conflict painlessly. however, israel as the occupier can act to minimize the pain and reduce the harm to everyone involved, should it only choose to do so.
You may be right. But you may not be right. The terrible thing about the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians right now is that more lenience and appeasement actually encourages violence. This is the opposite of what all we liberals have learned in our upbringing — “compromise is the essence of democracy” and negotiations can lead to win-win — and it seems like a betrayal of liberal values to recognize that not everyone operates by those rules, indeed some despise and exploit those rules to pursue some very nasty agendas.
What does this mean? That we have to be really mean? That Machiavelli was right about the “economy of violence“? That is that a quick burst of ruthless violence will prevent long and endemic violence? I’m not ready to go there (I think Israelis are by and large incapable of really ruthless violence, which makes the accusations that they are the main purveyors of it so pathetic.) But I am certainly not arrogant enough to think that I know that they should be nicer. That’s the kind of arrogance that leads the “left” to militate for “forcing” their solutions on the Israelis.
that israel and its supporters have grown completely callous and indifferent towards the suffering of palestinians is certainly understandable.
Now here’s an irony. On the one hand, you say you understand their lack of sympathy for the Palestinians, on the other, the callousness you say you understand is actually considerably less bad than you claim. What you say is not true even by a long stretch of the imagination, certainly not “completely callous and indifferent…” There remains a strong contingent of Israelis who, despite it all, still dream of peace with the Palestinians and still wince and shout at what they perceive as callousness. And the army continues to inculcate strong values about respecting Palestinian civilian lives — their acceptable civilian casualty rate in a targeted killing is less than a third the American one in Iraq — etc. The very fact that you can use the word “completely” callous suggests you’ve been listening to what I call hyper-self-critical Israelis who are using “prophetic” rhetoric — “We’re worse than the men of Sodom” — in order to shame the Israelis into changing. Which is fine, but don’t mistake prophetic rhetoric for a description of empirical reality.
but it’s neither acceptable nor forgivable. it is israel’s responsibility to ease the suffering of those it occupies, and to do so should not be considered rewarding terror nor abetting the enemy.
Well, is it in any way meaningful that the lives of Palestinians under the worst of occupation (say, Gaza 2000-2005) is preferable to Palestinian self-rule? Does it mean anything that Israeli hospitals are full or Arabs — Israeli and Palestinian? Does it mean anything that before the first Intifada, the lives of Palestinians were measurably superior to the lives of Arab commoners in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria? I don’t think that historians will find many examples in the history of occupation where the conquerors have been as attentive to the needs of the occupied as the Israelis to the Palestinians — especially given the conditions in which the “occupied” have so much encouragement to be irredentist and violent from their “brethren” in the surrounding region.
But that’s history, and you want morality. I do too, I just can’t engage in the politics of tyrannical superego. In life, especially the life of nations, you cannot grade on the absolute; you must grade on the curve. Give the Israelis any grade you want, and the next nation after them gets two grades lower. Factor in the conditions of existential siege under which the Israelis operate and you have to give the next nation four grades lower.
i can accept not racing to withdraw from the west bank. i cannot accept indifference to the actions of yesha.
I’m with you. I just wish you felt half as strongly about the actions of the PA, with their hate media and their systematic pursuit of violent solutions. Or are you only concerned about Palestinian suffering if the Jews are responsible, and if the Palestinians are the source, it’s of no real consequence? If the left wants Israel to withdraw peacefully, they would be working on creating a civil society among the Palestinians. Show me a “left/progressive” blog/group/article that denounces unequivocally the hatemongering of Palestinian culture. Please.
Which leads me to my final reflections on Right-wing/Left-wing. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the problem of Islamism, with its profound fascist roots and tendencies, and its disturbing alliance with “progressives” in the West, has thrown all traditional political registers off kilter. Sympathy for the Palestinians and concern for how much they suffer remain perfectly legitimate “leftist” sentiments. But when weighed in the scale of a) how much Palestinian and Arab and Muslim elites contribute to that suffering; b) how much other peoples around the world suffer much more; and c) how much this “leftist” sympathy has harmed the Palestinians by encouraging them to the worst kind of irredentism rather than teaching them progressive values, I’d say it’s time for a serious reappraisal.
The sign of a real progressive is one capable of reassessing the impact of his behavior and adjusting in order to bring about his values, not to indulge in a moral narcissism in which, as long as he or she can feel good about themselves, what does it matter what kind of damage ensues. As far as I’m concerned, in 2000 the “left” faced a critical test of its values and the “critical mass” failed. Miserably. They have yet to recover.
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Pingback by Pages tagged "liberal" — January 7, 2008 @ 10:07 am
I think you make a major mistake at the outset in responding to these remarks. You are willing to agree that you “— hav[e] the full awareness that it is the ethical and moral thing to [withdraw from the territories]-”.
I don’t see how anyone can reach that conclusion, much less why you would accept it without debate. Given (1) that the Israelis provide rule of law and prosperity to the occupied territories, and (2) limit the violence both between Palestinians and Israelis and amongst Palestinians, I would argue that continuing the occupation is more appropriate than the alternative. In reaching this conclusion, the Gaza experience has been critical to my thinking, as I had advocated unilateral withdrawal long before Sharon made it a serious topic for discussion. I honestly don’t see how you can not at least seriously weigh the implications of withdrawal against the (relatively minor - no one dies from it) moral problems of the occupation.
Also, you are right, the Israelis don’t have the stomach for ruthless violence. I think the U.S. lacks it, too, at this point. Think about the carpet bombing of Germany or the firebombing of Japan during World War II - can you conceive of the U.S. killing hundreds of thousands of civilians like that these days? I can’t. I think we need to actually think about whether Machiavelli was right about violence. Did Germany accept defeat in ‘45 (as opposed to ‘18) because so many had died in the daily bombings? It’s an ugly question, isn’t it? Do we gain more than we lose by not really asking it?
I go back and forth on these issues intellectually, but I also remember what Golda said about what is and isn’t forgivable and can’t see that I’d be able to give orders effectuating such an approach. Is that hypocrisy? Probably, but I can live with that label.
Sorry, but this is less well articulated than it should be, but I can’t take the time to fix it now.
Comment by David — January 7, 2008 @ 11:45 am
I love the way your mind works. Thanks for sharing.
Comment by Diane — January 7, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
Well, as usual I find responding to these people useless. They know very little about the ME and they simply accept the anti-israel and arab propaganda as facts because it fits with their bastardized leftist seeking for new oppressed after they lost the economic conflict in the west.
You refer to “political activism” agenda of groups in the ME. But this holds for the left in general, and it looks like mobius belongs to it.
So if he accuses you of right wing, he’s left wing. And when it comes to the ME, I would not let the lefties clean my toilet. They are ignorant and dumb.
Comment by fp — January 7, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
I agree with you both. Richard’s parsing was a great act. He held the mirror to liberals and showed how anti-liberal are their irrational attitudes in the special case of the state of Israel. And you, David are correct too. So was Machiavelli, who was no advocate of violence but a keen observer of the political landscape. The real question is, how do you play poker with a ruthless enemy when you just can’t bring yourself to pull the trigger? A lot of this is religion-based. Judaism stands for freely negotiated contracts and Christianity for redemption through love and sacrifice. This is why the Christian world loves the Jews when they suffer - they think they’re on the right path to redemption. Unfortunately their enemies believe that a swift sword is the kindest cut of all, a cauterizing operation, a healing through the quickest brutality followed by acceptance on an equal footing. You can’t play but by the same rules your enemy plays by. You can but you’ll lose.
Comment by Abu Nudnik — January 7, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
i plan on responding fully on my own blog, but just for the record, in response to fp: i lived just off the midrachov in downtown yerushalayim for three years in a building with three plaques commemorating the suicide bombings that took place outside my front door. beyond traveling every inch of israel proper, from eilat to mt. hermon, i have spent numerous shabbatot in gush etzion, as well as making several visits to the palestinian territories. to classify me as being a leftist idiot attacking israel because i’m upset about the fall of communism only illustrates your own prejudice and ignorance. i’d be more than happy to introduce you to my friends in shovrim shtika, who have spent more than their fare share of time manning checkpoints, making raids in hebron, and driving tanks in the siege on ramallah, all of whom are modern orthodox, and many of whom would argue that my remarks don’t go far enough.
Comment by mobius — January 7, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
rl uses empirical evidence and reason. this is something that the left has lost for quite a while, so it won’t be persuaded. in that sense there are yet another (albeit secular) religion. faith-based.
fp
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/
Comment by fp — January 7, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
hello,i admire your work a lot,but there is a mistake in your sources.caroline glick,from jerusalem post,admitted she was wrong writing that the israelis had to enter by a different door at annapolis.
thank you. updated at that post.
Comment by rosay — January 8, 2008 @ 4:37 am
I wonder if Mobius considers it “ethical and moral” to be ignorant, to lack knowledge. Further, is it ethical or moral to reach conclusions about weighty matters based on ignorance? Of course, we can’t always blame someone for being ignorant. Ignorance can be the result of limited intelligence OR of a lack of educational opportunities, a lack of books and periodicals that would convey the truth, etc. But if someone is ignorant, then he is NOT being “ethical or moral” in reaching conclusions based on ignorance. He should hold back from pronouncing his ignorance or half-baked opinions as truth.
Now, Mobius complains about “occupation.” I assert that Judea-Samaria are NOT “occupied” territories, at least not by Israel. But let’s leave aside the issue of whether or not Israel is occupying. The US, UK, USSR [a leftist state, right, Mobius], & France occupied Germany and Austria for years after WW2. The US & USSR occupied parts of Japan. American troops are still in Japan, although they are not called an “occupation force.” Russia still holds parts of pre-WW2 Japan [Sakhalin, Kuriles]. How many leading politicians, churchmen or intellectuals in the US, UK, or France, let alone the USSR, complained in those days about occupying Germany and Austria?? US & UK troops are still in Germany, though no longer called an occupation force. But they’re still there. Who in the US or UK complains??
Now, let’s talk about the USSR continuing to control non-Russian territories after the Bolshevik takeover in the Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks kept all [or almost all] of the Tsars’ conquests except for Finland and Poland. They couldn’t keep Poland because the Poles formed an army and drove them out, taking over parts of Ukraine & Belarus in 1919-1920. Not only did the Reds hold onto Kazakhstan & Tajikistan, etc., but they settled/colonized millions of “Europeans” in those countries. Yet the USSR was leftist, n’est-ce pas, Mobius?? I can’t recall any leftists complaining about Soviet “occupation” or control or “colonization” of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan [Muslim countries], etc. So the Left, whatever that may mean, is not really against occupation & colonization. It’s a matter of whose ox is gored.
But you may say that you belong to a more moral, more ethical left. Let’s look at Peace Now, who seem to share many or all of your positions. One Samuel Berger, aka Sandy Berger, is/was on the board of directors of Americans for Peace Now. This same Berger was Prez Clinton’s national security advisor. In this job, Berger had to get his hands “dirty” in a lot of nasty situations. But he was working for US interests, not Israeli interests. Berger was one of your associates in the Arab-Israeli “peace process.” How ethical or moral was Berger?? I don’t even ask you to relate to his notorious stealing and destruction of US government documents.
Now, Mobius you are an articulate fellow and seem rather intelligent. So aren’t you ashamed to be ignorant or to accept what the MSM say or write as genuine information?? The MSM used to be called “the capitalist press” by the leftists of years ago. Do you trust the “capitalist press”?? Indeed, I wonder why an intelligent fellow like you believes in the “left-right political spectrum” notion. Is there really such a thing as “right-left” in the real world [where the State Dept & “rightist” George Bush & Condi are aligned with Israeli peacemongers like David Landau]? If there is, why do call yourself a “leftist”? Do you really want to identify yourself with Stalin or with that other leftist, or rather with that member of the Peace Camp, Sandy Berger??
I, unlike you, agree with Richard Landes on the “value” of info from the MSM, Arab sources, “human rights” and “peace” NGOs, etc. It seems that you unquestioningly accept the MSM’s claim that Israel is “occupying” Judea-Samaria and that there is such a thing as a “palestinian people” that deserves self-determination. But don’t despair. You can educate yourself. You are intelligent. You can learn history. If you want more info about why Judea-Samaria are not “occupied,” just ask me and I can supply references.
Comment by Eliyahu — January 8, 2008 @ 9:23 am
most often than not these days ignorance is due to the collapse of the educational system: inducing appreciation and usage of knowledge and reason is no longer the function of education. consequently, people are schooled, job market trained and ideologically indoctrinated rather than educated. mobius is simply yet another product of the system.
when you’re no longer even aware of the importance of knowledge and reason and are not taught how to apply them in thinking and expressing yourself all bets are off. mobius does not see any need to learn anything about the me — cultures, history, religions, even facts on the ground. rather, bombarded with propaganda and fake press coverage, he takes them at face value and becomes part of the herd, which is rewarded socially and professionally. going against the grain is punished. critical faculties are inexistent. ignorants don’t know they are ignorant — they think they are the most knowledgeable.
here’s a rather excellent example of how this works and what the consequences are:
Feel my “rebellion”
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2008/01/feel-my-rebelli.html
I put rebellion in quotes. I am sure mobius believes he’s a rebel criticizing “the system”. nothing could be further from the truth.
so, eliyahu, i disagree: for all practical purposes mobius and his ils can’t educate themselves or learn. the capacity to do that should have been instilled in them from kindergarten thru university. it has not been and now they’re not even aware they lack it.
fp
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/
Comment by fp — January 8, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
the inclusion of dhimmi watch, little green footballs, and pajamas media in your blogroll,
Oh shit! So if one refers to sources of facts then one has a particular leaning, politically that is?
So now as the above mentioned blogs are considered rightwing, for us on the ground with some knowledge of the situation we must conclude that leftwing blogs are portrayers of lies and disinformation. I’ll buy that.
As for those terrible settlers why no mention of the agricultural help they provided to surrounding Arab village in the way of irrigation etc?
Why not come out with the facts of the so called destruction of olive trees at the time of year when hefty pruning is in order or even the trees willfully destroyed by Arabs and their “moralistic” Western helpers?
And
Comment by Cynic — January 8, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
cynic,
why? because they’re ignorant and unable to reason. they have bought the propaganda lock stock and barrel.
Comment by fp — January 8, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
mobius,
then your problem is much worse than i thought. to have lived in the me the way you describe and to know and understand so little about the history, roots and nature of the conflict takes some serious intellectual flaws.
and anyway, you seem to know practically nothing about islamism, jihad and muslim supremacism and the barbarity of arab society, being so obsessed with the so-called occupation. both RL and eliyahu have domonstrated this quite clearly.
just for the record: I lived in israel 1961-78, served in the army and participated in the 1973 war. i am a political scientist by education and spent 15 years in the field.
Comment by fp — January 9, 2008 @ 2:42 am
fp, of course mobius and his ilk would have to be deprogrammed first. But I think it’s possible.
Comment by Eliyahu — January 9, 2008 @ 4:54 am
Response to David, RL
I think you make a major mistake at the outset in responding to these remarks. You are willing to agree that you “— hav[e] the full awareness that it is the ethical and moral thing to [withdraw from the territories]-”.
I don’t see how anyone can reach that conclusion, much less why you would accept it without debate. Given (1) that the Israelis provide rule of law and prosperity to the occupied territories, and (2) limit the violence both between Palestinians and Israelis and amongst Palestinians, I would argue that continuing the occupation is more appropriate than the alternative. In reaching this conclusion, the Gaza experience has been critical to my thinking, as I had advocated unilateral withdrawal long before Sharon made it a serious topic for discussion. I honestly don’t see how you can not at least seriously weigh the implications of withdrawal against the (relatively minor - no one dies from it) moral problems of the occupation.
You are right. I was too quick to make concessions in order to get to my point. All that you point out here is true, and terribly problematic to the liberal mind which prizes both civil society and autonomy. The irony is that Israel is exceptionally good at both; the Palestinians equally bad at both (when they get autonomy ruthless elites run the show), and the world thinks that by giving autonomy to the Palestinians at any cost, they’ll somehow solve the problem. I stand corrected.
Also, you are right, the Israelis don’t have the stomach for ruthless violence. I think the U.S. lacks it, too, at this point. Think about the carpet bombing of Germany or the firebombing of Japan during World War II - can you conceive of the U.S. killing hundreds of thousands of civilians like that these days? I can’t. I think we need to actually think about whether Machiavelli was right about violence. Did Germany accept defeat in ‘45 (as opposed to ‘18) because so many had died in the daily bombings? It’s an ugly question, isn’t it? Do we gain more than we lose by not really asking it?
Another impossible dilemma. I’m not sure we need ruthless violence so much as the courage of our convictions. If we hold the line ideologically — ie honor killings, suicide bombings, summary street executions, genocidal hate-mongering, and fatwa’s for those who criticize any religion are inexcusable behavior — then we can have a powerful impact. But at some point this will become a battle that will cost millions of lives precisely because the “left” is cruel to the merciful and merciful to the cruel.
I go back and forth on these issues intellectually, but I also remember what Golda said about what is and isn’t forgivable and can’t see that I’d be able to give orders effectuating such an approach. Is that hypocrisy? Probably, but I can live with that label.
not hypocrisy. it’s a genuine dilemma. it’s one thing to recite Golda or the rabbis, it’s another thing to give the orders to be merciless, even to the merciless. at least, here, we focus on the dilemma, rather than leave it uspoken, or hide behind moral outrage at either (or both) Israeli and Palestinian depravities.
Sorry, but this is less well articulated than it should be, but I can’t take the time to fix it now.
i thought it quite eloquent.
Comment by Richard Landes — January 9, 2008 @ 5:12 am
comment to fp and eliyahu:
altho i think it’s legitimate to have suspicions about where people are “coming from,” i don’t think it’s a good (or modest) approach to assume that your first suspicion is true and assert it as a proven fact.
i assume that there is some measure of independent judgment in everyone, and will keep looking and listening for it until proven otherwise. i don’t think any of us are in a position to judge mobius (and his “ilk”?) based on his remarks so far… unless you have independent material to bring forward.
mobius: my apologies for the hasty and dismissive remarks by some of the commenters here. don’t feel you have to fight back, but it would help to explore the dilemma that i think david has laid out well and that i would welcome your thoughts on.
richard
Comment by Richard Landes — January 9, 2008 @ 5:27 am
rl,
sorry, but insofar as i am concerned, the time for looking for knowledge and reason in mountains of crap is over. no more.
I have no tolerance for all the “moral” people who have absolutely no clue about morality and who obsess about the bad jews and the poor oppressed arabs. crap is crap and the notion that by engaging it they can be persuaded to realize their own crap is simply wishful thinking. it won’t happen.
they are facilitators of western suicidal behavior and oblivious to the anti-semitic tendencies they are helping (even if inadvertently) and I see no benefit except to calling their crap a crap. enough with nonsense.
incidentally, the degree of one’s knowledge and reason CAN be inferred from one’s public pronouncements and once they are so inferred, they are factual.
to have lived in israel and to be so blinded to the reality, I reiterate, is a serious intellectual flaw. and because I lived there myself and I studied the subject, I can readily make those inferences. period.
Comment by fp — January 9, 2008 @ 5:55 pm
Fp,
You see, it’s not that I (or any number of leftists) lack the ability to learn, reason, utilize empirical evidence, think critically, challenge one’s world view, etcetera; it’s quite to the contrary. The absence of these qualities in the discourse of the mainstream are at the very core of my convictions as a leftist.
I wasn’t BORN a leftist, I wasn’t educated in a leftist tradition (quite the contrary), and I am far from brainwashed.
I have to admit, I chuckled more than a few times during your rant, in which you state:
…bombarded with propaganda and fake press coverage, he takes them at face value and becomes part of the herd, which is rewarded socially and professionally. going against the grain is punished. critical faculties are inexistent. ignorants don’t know they are ignorant — they think they are the most knowledgeable.
For when I think how my refusal to accept the narratives crammed down our collective throats has FAR from rewarded me either professionally or socially! Oh the anecdotal evidence I could rattle off…Honestly, I feel like you are writing from a place where it is opposite day every day.
I won’t spend too much time responding to everything I disagree with in what you, eliyahu, and rl have written because the level of discourse (particularily from you) doesn’t merit THAT much of my time. However, one thing i found particularly unfair, you said in reference to Mobius:
…you seem to know practically nothing about islamism, jihad and muslim supremacism and the barbarity of arab society, being so obsessed with the so-called occupation.
I’m sure Mobius can address this on his own, but in the years of reading his posts I have not once seen him excuse islamism (definition?), jihad, muslim supremacy (supremacism isn’t a word), and/or any elements of barbarism in Arab society. The virtue of being against the the Israeli occupation (or illegal occupation in general) does not preclude one from also standing staunchly opposed to any number of social, religious, or political ills. Your inability or unwillingness to recognize this shows intellectual dishonesty, which makes sense as it runs throughout your comments.
In any case…enjoy what is sure to be more VERY civilized discourse on this topic. Oy.
Comment by Alon — January 10, 2008 @ 12:35 am
well, alon,
i used the term left to refer to how the likes of you call yourselves. those who call themselves left today have no clue what left really means.
self-declaring yourself not born, educated and brainwashed leftwise is not proof. in fact, if you were all those things you would not know it, let alone admit it.
nice how you switched from “knowledge” about islam to “not excusing” it and the barbarism. they are not the same, are they?
the point is this: if you, and mobius and the others of your fake left ilk obsess about the israeli occupation (THERE IS NO OCCUPATION!!!!) while saying little or nothing about a cult of death, 7th century barbaric, murderous, treacherous and supremacist culture and religion, then don’t expect to be taken seriously. proportion and perspective is part of intelligence, and you lack that.
judging intellectual honesty requires a minimal level of knowledge and intellect which, had you possessed them, you wouldn’t have called yourself left, and would have not demonstrated such lack of understanding of the conflict, past and present.
your problem is that you don’t even see what is crammed down your throat, or who does the cramming. you want to be against something and feel you’re paying for it while in reality you’re in the herd. this is one characteristic of the real old left which the false new left has inherited.
Comment by fp — January 11, 2008 @ 10:31 pm
Mobius,
Your accusation is that anyone who espouses leftist views but doesn’t share those on Israel has gone “batshit crazy.” That in itself shows how much venom you have with lack of respect for anything not your view. You’ve belittled yourself with such remarks and showed your classic rightwing biogtries of not tolerating or respecting anyone who isn’t you. (Remember when denoucing and name calling everyone else belonged to the right?)
That you say “the endless complications heaped upon the average palestinian in the conduct of their daily affairs,” (per the occupation) shows a studding lack of paying attention while living in the middle east. Endless complications is the bylaw of middle east proccessing of everything. Ask anyone who’s fought through the system to get a driver’s license or identity card. I’m talking Israeli’s in Israel proper here. The Arab styling of handling procedures is no less middle eastern muddle.
To expect efficency of any reasonable sort is to be American/Eurpo ego-centric. After all that time living there, this one little comment shows that you are not an observate and your judgement “based on experience” is to be greatly questioned.
These are people, both semitic cultures, where they will sit for hours waiting for their friends, and they will be hours late to meet their friends.
You won’t justify Arab rejectionism. Please do justify it. Better yet, describe what solution they would accept that allows for Jewish self-rule and security and access to Jewish holy areas, and that would allow peace to reign from their side? The Saudi plan has serious flaws that contradict these Israeli goals from the get go, so go for the tough ellusive conversation we should ALL be having without attacks wasting time and distracting from the task. I’ll repeat that key last piece, WITHOUT ATTACKS.
Comment by cheri — January 12, 2008 @ 1:11 am
Alon, thanks for proving what I said about those like you. You are ignorant without being aware of your profound ignorance in regard to the issues under discussion; you are ignorant of history and international law and Islamic principles of treating non-Muslims, whether dhimmis subject to Muslim rule or harbis outside of the Islamic domain [Dar al-Islam].
You are ignorant of occupation, of its legality under international law, of its history in various places throughout the world, etc. You are also ignorant of the int’l law status of Judea-Samaria.
1- the major powers make int’l law and they are in favor of occupation, at least for themselves. Occupations in Japan, Germany-Austria, etc., did not occasion protests or UN condemnation.
2- Judea-Samaria are not only parts of the ancient Jewish homeland, but were recognized as parts of the Jewish National Home in international law at the San Remo Conference [1920], endorsed by the League of Nations in 1922, confirmed by the UN charter in 1945 [article 80], and not revoked by the General Assembly partition recommendation of 11-29-47. So Israel has sovereign rights in Judea-Samaria, whereas Jordan was an occupier, legal or otherwise. Britain violated the Jewish National Home principle embodied in the Mandate by preventing Jews from finding refuge in Israel during the Holocaust [under the 1939 “White Paper for Palestine”].
3- Poland and the USSR annexed huge areas from Germany and Japan after WW2, ostensibly to forestall German and Japanese use of those territories for further aggression against them and to punish Germany and Japan. The USSR also annexed territory from Finland and Poland and Rumania in the same period. The UN doesn’t seem to care about those annexations, nor about the massive expulsions of German ethnic population from Poland, the Czech Sudetenland, the annexed parts of Germany, etc. Now the failure to complain in those cases should be compared with the constant condemnation of Israel at the UN on similar charges, merited or not. How do you explain the discrepancy??
If USSR and Poland could annex German territory after aggression against them, why can’t Israel annex territory from Arabs [if Judea-Samaria are “occupied” by Israel], when the Arab plans for Israel meant genocide??? [Arab leaders had already collaborated in the German Holocaust of Jews, i.e., the Mufti of Jerusalem, etc.].
4- the UN security council passed resolution 242 in 1967 which in fact agreed to Israel occupying Arab territory, without delineating exactly which areas were under occupation, which left open the issue of whether the UN SC considered Judea-Samaria “occupied.” Anyhow, such a label would have been false and is false, as explained above in sec. 2.
Now, Alon, why don’t you and mobius do everyone a favor and actually study international law and history, Jewish history in the Land of Israel, the history of modern Europe and the modern Middle East, with special attention to border changes and population movements. You ought to read the 4 Geneva conventions and the Hague and Amsterdam accords pertaining to the laws of war, etc. Then why not come back and have a friendly, mutually respectful chat?
Comment by Eliyahu — January 12, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
cheri and eliyahu,
you are wasting your time. the alons and mobiuses of the world are in the faith-based, not reality-based community; they are not persuadable. they are even deluding themselves that they are left and are oblivious to the fact that they actually hijacked the left.
like all those whose politics are formed by emotion, not reason, they are not amenable to learning, only to indoctrination.
Comment by fp — January 12, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
Fp,
Thank you for continuing to make my point, which was that your ability to conduct yourself in a civil manner during discourse is lacking, if not completely absent. Your ad-hominem attacks lend not an ounce of credibility to your argument.
So, let’s start from here, explain to me what your definition of a leftist is so that I can be clear what you are referring to. From where I stand, you have gone out of your way to tell me what I am and am not without knowing a single fact of my cultural, political, and educational backgrounds.
To give you a small glimpse, I will let you know that I am well versed in Islam. I have read and studied the Qu’ran and Islamic history. I have studied Shari’a and Fiqh in their religious and political contexts, and I am well versed (by non-practitioner standards) in Shi’i theology; particularly as it relates to Shi’i political movements. So please don’t tell me what I do and do not know.
And to be perfectly clear, I am fully aware of the horrendous acts committed under the auspices of upholding Islamic law and stand vehemently against them. In reading your statements about Islam, I wonder if you mean to imply that all Muslims participate in a “cult of death, 7th century barbaric, murderous, treacherous and supremacist culture and religion”? Maybe you could clear that up.
I would point out that the Muslim world is not the only world with the need to confront supremacist culture and theology. It exists in the Christian and Jewish worlds as well(need I quote Likutei Amarim?). That you are unable or unwilling to confront these realities is troubling — cognitive dissonance much?
The rest of your comment is hardly worth going into as it is simply ad-hominem attack and rambling and doesn’t take us anywhere in this ‘debate’ as it were. You will contest that I don’t understand I’m brainwashed despite my denials and I won’t resort to insulting you on the same level because I see no value in it. When you have something of value to add, feel free. You can start by addressing
Eliyahu,
Let me first state that I didn’t originally ADDRESS the subjects of history, international law, or Islamic principles on the treatment of non-muslims in any depth in my comment. Any assumptions you make regarding my ignorance on these or any other topics is pure conjecture. Let’s take a deep breath and get some perspective, ok?
Now, that being said I agree with some of your contentions regarding International Law as a whole. It is 2:00am in my part of the world and I have to work tomorrow. Let me come back and address some of your points in more detail and you might find we can have a reasonable discussion about them despite our disagreement.
Comment by Alon — January 14, 2008 @ 5:13 am
Alon, I am delighted to hear that you are well informed. Now, it’s important for you to integrate your information into your expressed opinions. Given that Hamas is an Islamist body and shares age-old Islamic prejudices and hatreds of Jews –and that Fatah is not much different, mainly it is more hypocritical– then you should view Arab actions in the past on the grounds of this knowledge. The chief Arab leader in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s was the Mufti of Jerusalem [albeit British-appointed]. Can’t we see Arab actions and policies in those days as also based on Islamic prejudices and principles??
Furthermore, in my previous post, I asked you a few questions, which Mobius may respond to too. Could please answer them? Here they are again:
Allied powers after WW2 annexed German regions and expelled German populaiton from the Czech Sudetenland, the annexed parts of Germany, etc. Now the failure to complain in those cases should be compared with the constant condemnation of Israel at the UN on similar charges, merited or not. How do you explain the discrepancy??
If USSR and Poland could annex German territory after aggression against them, then why not Israel annexing Arab territory [if Judea-Samaria are “occupied” and not already sovereign Israeli territory]??
If Judea-Samaria are Israeli territory under the Jewish National Home, then they don’t have to be annexed formally, rather –it seems to me– they could be declared to be parts of Israel by previously existing international law.
Be that as it may, can we have answers to my questions in my previous post??
Comment by Eliyahu — January 14, 2008 @ 1:35 pm
alon,
no, my dear, it is you who prove my point.
the main one I made explicit is that you seem more concerned with the problems of christianity and judaism, which are marginal, while going out of your ways to defend the the so-calle moderate muslims which are also marginal. i don’t see you focus on the real problems of the world.
you may have read about islam, but you have not learned much. knowledge is not enough, it is how you understand and interpret it that counts, the ability to reason, judgment and a sense of perspective, and it’s there that your faculties let you down.
your facts and comparisons demonstrate so much ignorance and moral cluelessness that it does not warrant a response. this may sound like ad-hominem, but it’s actually a statement of fact. I would have to direct you to educate yourself, but apparently you did and it has not helped, so I won’t.
if you don’t know what the real left used to be, then I’m not gonna educate you either. let me just repeat what i’ve been saying many times: the left has lost its battle regarding the economic order of society and it’s been looking for some way to (a) define that loss away (b) bring the winning order down via any means possible. It’s bastardized its dogma by finding a new oppressed — the third world — of which the muslims and arabs are a part — and have gone to bed with them in the interest of bringing the west down.
and there is nothing that annoys this new left more than israel, which is why you focus on it rather than on all the much more serious crimes performed by others in the world, part. arab societies and jihadists. because israel (a) is an “arm of capitalists/colonialists” (b) like the jihadis, the new left cannot stand the fact that despite the state of siege and hatred it is under, they manage much better than left societies, which utterly failed, to sustain, albeit imperfectly, a level of freedom and democracy. iow, israel reminds you of the very loss and failure you want to forget.
whether you like it or not, whether you’re conscious of it or not, you may deny it until you’re blue in the face, this is where you’re coming from.
but this is already more than i intended to waste on you. as i said, I do not believe that engaging you will lead to anything useful. I will let eliyahu and rl, who seem to have preserved a degree of patience I used to have myself many years ago, to bother with you, and they’ve been doing a decent job. I don’t tolerate crap no more.
Comment by fp — January 14, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
incidentally, my guess is that you’re young, or at least younger than me. if so, then you’re a product of what passes these days for education, which explains why you have such nonsensical interpretations of historical events and why your perspective on the problems of the world is pathetic.
if my guess is wrong, your problem is even worse.
Comment by fp — January 14, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
what have you ever had to say, alon baby, about things like this? anything? ever?
Self-defeat
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2008/01/self-defeat/
Digging History in Israel - Drowning it in Iran
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2008/01/digging-history-in-israel-drowning-it-in/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3494131,00.html
Until you start talking about this 80%-90% in proportion to Israel 10-20%, you don’t deserve any attention and you’re wasting everybody’s time.
Comment by fp — January 14, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
Eliyahu,
Given that Hamas is an Islamist body and shares age-old Islamic prejudices and hatreds of Jews –and that Fatah is not much different, mainly it is more hypocritical– then you should view Arab actions in the past on the grounds of this knowledge. The chief Arab leader in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s was the Mufti of Jerusalem [albeit British-appointed]. Can’t we see Arab actions and policies in those days as also based on Islamic prejudices and principles??
You will undoubtedly notice that I asked FP to define what Islamism is. I’d like you to share with me your definition of what Islamism is as an ideology. What are the hallmarks? Who are the influences? Etc. I’m not doing this to demean you but I am curious how you define it and I think it will add to the debate.
Now, Hamas was formed in 1987, Hizbollah in 1982, Fatah in 1958, the Muslim Brotherhood – the one that started it all was founded in 1928. I guess my point is that not only are these movements not that old but that they are all Islamic political parties born out of resistance to colonialism and imperialism. I think that acknowledging this will go a long way to understanding some of the issues we are discussing. We won’t solve problems in the Middle East by continuing colonial activities and fulfilling imperial aspirations in the region, we will only fan the flames.
Secondly, I am not here to defend or condone Arab prejudices against Jews. In fact, I recognize them and stand in opposition to them not only as a Jew but as a human being committed to fighting such ills wherever they may come from. I don’t know what about my comments made you believe otherwise.
Furthermore, in my previous post, I asked you a few questions, which Mobius may respond to too. Could please answer them? Here they are again:
Allied powers after WW2 annexed German regions and expelled German populaiton from the Czech Sudetenland, the annexed parts of Germany, etc. Now the failure to complain in those cases should be compared with the constant condemnation of Israel at the UN on similar charges, merited or not. How do you explain the discrepancy??
A few things….First off, the forced transfer of a well established ethnic minority in the Sudentenland is not justified (especially in the manner it was carried out). To be clear though, Hitler annexed the Sudentenland and with the help of Chamberlain and Daladier secured its secession into the Third Reich, which resulted in the expulsion and flight of Czechs out of Sudentenland.
If USSR and Poland could annex German territory after aggression against them, then why not Israel annexing Arab territory [if Judea-Samaria are “occupied” and not already sovereign Israeli territory]??
The Palestinian population didn’t annex the West Bank through an act of military force as the Germans did Polish, Austrian, French, etc. territory during the Second World War. But simply put, as it stands, the legally recognized border of Israel (whether you agree with it or not) does not include Judea-Samaria. This is why the Israeli policy of sanctioning and building settlements on this territory is occupation. The Israeli government recognizes it as such if I’m not mistaken. Does not Israel derive certain authority based on its status as an occupying power?
If Judea-Samaria are Israeli territory under the Jewish National Home, then they don’t have to be annexed formally, rather –it seems to me– they could be declared to be parts of Israel by previously existing international law.
The San Remo conference was convened to created mandates for the Ottoman territories. Out of this the British Mandate of Palestine was born. The problem with your relying on it as a source of pre-existing international law to justify Israeli annexation is that the Mandate which was born out of it expired!
It’s cursory, but this is the internet and I’m a ludicrously busy man. I hope we can build a bit off of this my friend. Layla Tov.
Comment by Alon — January 16, 2008 @ 4:19 am
Fp,
I won’t respond to you not because I don’t have the capacity to do so, or because your words contain an ounce of truth but because I refuse to waste my capacity on someone so undeserving of it. You have proven yourself incapable of participating in any semblance of reasonable discourse with people you disagree with; lacking both the intellectual capacity and the baseline common decency to do so.
You can continue with your hotzaat diba all you want, I just won’t be a party to it.
Comment by Alon — January 16, 2008 @ 4:29 am
Alon, I didn’t ask you to justify the Czech policy [or the broader Eastern bloc policy] towards the ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland [& other Eastern Bloc countries]. I asked you to explain why the UN so often condemns Israel for doing things that the Communist bloc did after WW2 and that Arab states are doing today. But the UN doesn’t condemn Arabs and didn’t condemn the Communist states for those same actions. Why the discrepancy in treatment at the UN??
Comment by Eliyahu — January 16, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
Alon, voici Eliyahu encore une fois. My previous comment #30 did not refer to the veracity of any allegations made against Israel in international forums but simply to why Communist and Arab states and non-Arab Muslim states are not accused or condemned for notorious and horrid crimes committed by them, while Israel is constantly condemned, rightly or wrongly.
Alon, I was pleasantly suprised to find something we agree on, that the Muslim Brotherhood [al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun] was founded in 1928. But then you describe the MB as an “Islamic political” party “born out of resistance to colonialism and imperialism.” This claim is so extra-terrestrial that methinks you might be a troll fellow [drole fellow?]. If you’re serious then I’ve got to wonder whether your Spiritual Guides in the Movement forgot to instruct you that over-reaching like that can make the Cause look ridiculous. Or do they depend on general ignorance as fp might say?
The MB wants a restored caliphate that will come to rule the whole world as Dar al-Islam, the Muslim domain oppressive and exploitative to non-Muslims. MB was founded 4 years after Ataturk abolished the caliphate embodied in the Ottoman sultanate in 1924. MB founder Hassan al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan’s grandpe`re, wanted to bring it back, together with good things like the dhimma. By the way, a Marxist-Leninist of Muslim origin, samir Amin by name, I believe [Martin Kramer linked to his harangue a few weeks ago], argues that the MB was a tool of British imperialism. You do note, Alon, that Amin’s claim counters your own, don’t you?? How do you answer Amin’s argument???
This reminds me that the early Bolsheviks had a soft spot for militant Islam, maybe as you and Mobius do. See link:
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/10/bolsheviks-for-jihad-genocide-stalins.html
As to the definition of and influences on Islamism, on one foot [על רגל אחת as we say in Hebrew], it goes back to Ibn Taymiyya in the 13th century [the best thing about this maniac is that he insisted that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was NOT the al-Aqsa mosque mentioned in the Qur’an and that Jerusalem was MOT an Islamic holy city, which belief he considered judaizing]. Ibn Taymiyya believed that “the caliphate was the golden age of Islam… Ibn Taymiyya had profound influence on contemporary [21st century] radical currents [in Islam]” (Massimo Campanini). His intellectual followers include Ibn Abdul-Wahhab in the 18th century and Qutb and Mawdudi in the 20th. Abdul-Wahhab “preached a purification of Islam and a return to the religion of its origins” (Anna Baldinetti). Does Alon know what Islam was at its origins??? It was conquest and bloodshed and massacre, & the wreckage of the remainders of the ancient civilizations of the Orient, i.e., the Middle East. It was also the building of a new empire, just for your information as an anti-imperialist. Ironically, Wahhabism was taken up as a dynastic creed by the Ibn Sa`ud dynasty of central Arabia, the Najd, who are today immensely wealthy, thanks in part to British, US, and French policy. Saudi Arabia spends huge sums to spread Wahhabism, that is, the main body of Islamism. In sum, Islamism did NOT arise as a reaction to modern Western imperialism. Rather, Western states helped to enrich Islamist Saudi Arabia and allowed it to disseminate Islamism.
Comment by Eliyahu — January 17, 2008 @ 6:49 am
alon,
sorry, I said it first.
Comment by fp — January 17, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
eliyahu,
even trollness does not convince you you’re wasting your time, does it?
note very carefully how the fool’s perception of islamism being a reaction to western colonial imperialism proves that I was right to a tee in my analysis of where the fool is coming from!!!
pathetic.
Comment by fp — January 17, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
fp, maybe you’re right that such as Alon are mentally incapable of learning. Maybe they have been too indoctrincated or brainwashed to learn from anyone except those who possess their windup keys. But I not only wanted to persuade Alon & mobius [or are they one and the same??], I wanted to show that there are answers to these questions, answers that do not fit their simplistic slogans, and not only for them but for anyone who might come along on this site.
Comment by Eliyahu — January 18, 2008 @ 7:02 am
Eliyahu,
I thought we had a chance to exchange ideas. Instead you’ve resorted to the same Argumentum ad hominem and poor reasoning as fp. Sad. I’m done here. Since you have no intention of respecting me as a person and fellow jew, regardless of my political affiliation, I have no intention of humoring your attacks and poor arguments.
And just to summarize as briefly as I can:
I’m not a bolshevik or a defender of the soviets, Israel getting a bad rub in the UN (yes, it happens) doesn’t even begin to JUSTIFY it’s sometimes atrocious actions or the occupation, I would like to see Israel operate on a higher standard than other nations, European ‘modernization’ was then and continues to be the hand maiden of western imperialism in the Middle East and elsewhere — as a scholar once said, “European modernity is not universal, and as we have received it, it is categorically European in its texture and disposition, and as such has privileged a few, by giving them agency and endowing them with the primacy of reason and progress, at the horrendous cost of denying such prerogatives to the overwhelming majority of the world’s population.” If you don’t believe that this had anything to do with the rise of Islamist POLITICAL movements in the Middle East, I can’t help you. And finally, just because a group wants something (like a caliphate) and that scares you, that doesn’t mean it’s viable much less probable.
Anyhow, best of luck to you all. I mean that sincerely, I simply have absolutely no reason to invest a single minute more of my time having my points ignored and my character insulted.
Comment by Alon — January 18, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
eliyahu,
he finds the “occupation atrocious” and he wants israel “to operate on a higher level” and reason is “european” and colonialist and not universal. and he wants to get respect for that.
told ya: lost cause.
i understand your intention and there was a time when i operated like you. but at some point i came to realize that those with knowledge and reason can figure out the answers (as you do) and those without are a lost cause.
also, there is value to calling a spade a spade: normally these lefties operate in echo chambers where the dogma is reinforced, not challenged. that’s why they get so upset when they are out of that chamber and “not respected”, they are not used to it. so being blunt and refusing to engage nonsense may serve as a healthy “shocker”. engagement reinforces their certainty that their “ideas” are worth discussing.
there are, of course, exceptions, but i am talking about the rule here.
Comment by fp — January 18, 2008 @ 11:15 pm