May 29, 2007
Remember the conventional wisdom?
By Noah Pollak
I’ve had little time to post over the past week, as we’re in full production mode at the journal I work for and my days have been busy. But I wanted to make a brief observation about the situation today in Gaza, as by my lights there are three fundamentally important premises of recent Middle East diplomacy that the lawlessness there has overturned -- and quite violently, at that.
The first is the notion that power would moderate Hamas. After the terrorist group was elected in January 2006, western interpreters of “the conflict” dreamily predicted that its stridency and absolutism would attenuate; with its constituency being the entire Palestinian population, this thinking went, Hamas’ war against Israel would be necessarily curtailed by the mundane requirements of governance and incumbency. At the time, President Bush said, “I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I’m looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.” The AP’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief wrote, “if the elections pull the Islamic militants off the streets and into the corridors of power -- shifting their focus from terror to governance -- prospects for peace could be improved.” Not only has Hamas not moderated, it has actually become even more self-confident. Islamists, like most people, aren’t “moderated” by winning political power; they only compromise when a more powerful force, or necessity, compels them to.
The second is an idea that dates back at least to the start of Olso in the early 1990’s. It is the belief that Israel must make concessions in order to validate and strengthen the Palestinian moderates and marginalize the radicals. Another piece of conventional wisdom holds that Hamas won the 2006 election primarily due to a widespread feeling of disgust among Palestinians with Fatah’s corruption and fecklessness. Yet Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza happened just four months before the election, and the commotion surrounding that event distracted many people from taking note of what the withdrawal meant for the Palestinians themselves.
And what it meant for the Palestinians, especially the residents of Gaza, was that Hamas’ fierce resistance over the decades had finally forced an Israeli retreat. It was the Shia reaction to the 2000 Lebanon pullout all over again, with Hamas playing Hezbollah. Hamas was able to campaign proudly on this victory, which was viewed as additional evidence of Hamas’ strength and competence. And so it seems clear that a massive Israeli concession -- its departure from Gaza -- did not strengthen the Palestinian moderates at all, but in fact did the opposite: it vindicated the extremists, who unlike the moderates could declare a great victory and bask in the ensuing public admiration -- and collect a lot more votes when election day arrived.
And finally, there is the matter of foreign aid and its relationship to democracy-promotion. The Arab states and Iran have always spoken with great high-mindedness about the plight of their brothers in Palestine, but these regimes in practice have always lustily enjoyed seeing their brothers become permanent wards of UNRWA, settle into never-ending refugee status, and stagnate in extremism and violence. Since Hamas came to power, as David Frum helpfully notes, the gushers of largess that flow into the Palestinian territories have actually increased.
It is a little-known fact that international aid to the Palestinian territories has actually risen since Palestinians elected a Hamas government in January, 2006. According to International Monetary Fund and UN figures, the Palestinian areas received a total of $1.2 billion in official aid in 2006, up from $1 billion in 2005.
America's contribution rose from $400 million in 2005 to $468 million in 2006. Aid from the European Union and other international organizations also increased handsomely, and the UN has called for still greater increases in aid in 2007.
Look at the incentives that have been created for the Palestinians: vote for terrorism, get an increase in your foreign aid. The Palestinian areas now receive more than $300 per person, per year, making them the most aid-dependent population on Earth. (The people of sub-Saharan Africa receive only $44 per person per year.)
Meanwhile Hamas’ supposed pariah status has allowed it to strike a deal with a generous fellow-pariah, Iran, which since the election has spent well over $100 million directly on the terrorist group. Iran, whose economy is rapidly falling apart, is not providing this money out of altruistic solidarity, or even as cheap symbolism, as Saddam Hussein used to do with his payments to the families of suicide bombers. Iran is purchasing terrorism against Israel and improving its already substantial ability to foment crises in the region, which is one of mullahs' greatest deterrent capabilities.
Add all of this money up, and one confronts the reality that Hamas and the PA today are awash in unprecedented sums of money, absolving both Hamas and Fatah of the need to fulfill the most basic requirements of governance. This largess has so taken the pressure off Hamas that it is free to indulge almost exclusively in its greatest interest, and a major interest of its new patron, Iran -- waging jihad against Israel.
The primary givers to the Palestinians -- America and the EU -- have for years insisted on democracy without demanding accountability, or even a modicum of initiative and self-sufficiency. This is not aid; it is welfare. If there should ever be a moment when the institutions that are charged with improving the plight of the Palestinians take stock of what their benevolence has wrought, that moment it now, amidst Hamas' acts of war against Israel, its entente with Iran, and its civil war with Fatah. Have all of these billions been helping the Palestinians, or hurting them?
Many observers of Hamas’ rise to power have noted that the U.S. wishes for the Hamas government to collapse under the weight of its own narcissistic radicalism and unrestrained ambition. But the U.S., UN, and EU are pumping so much money into the Palestinian territories that they’re preventing that collapse, and the ensuing recognition among Palestinians that their votes were perhaps cast unwisely. With its prolific foreign aid, the West is not just infantilizing the Palestinian people and continuing to thwart any possibility, however implausible, of a Palestinian state. It is now underwriting the emerging Palestinian-Iranian alliance.
Posted by Noah Pollak at May 29, 2007 04:32 AMI can understand the Europeans, given their history, wagging a proxy war against Israel, but why the Americans? Have the Saudis been squeezing them that hard?
Posted by: redaktor at May 29, 2007 06:35 AMFinally, Noah Pollak writes something worth reading.
Good article Noah. Your three points are excellent, and manifest the fallacy of the arguments that recently dominated discourse about Palestinian politics.
Write more like these, not like the ridiculously pathetic and whiny piece you wrote about UNIFIL, or the other generic summations you offer.
I am taking in mind that Totten is not the best example for you to follow. Miguel is spending his town outsourcing his blog to you, Tony Badran (Mike, I sure hope you're giving him some of the cash you earn since you cite him daily instead of writing for yourself), and Lebanese bloggers.
Good article, Noah. Seriously. I'm being a punk because this blog has deteriorated, and I've paid too much to watch it fall apart now.
Noah, it's warm and sunny enough now in Israel for you to put those sunglasses you are always pictured in to good use.
Posted by: Longtime Totten Reader at May 29, 2007 06:37 AMWith its prolific foreign aid, the West is not just infantilizing the Palestinian people
Does all the blame belong to the Western donors? Doesn't the average Joe (or Mohammad) over there deserve any blame for sympathizing with these groups and contributing to the malaise?
Most of the blame belongs to the Palestininan culture in general.
Posted by: Xylo at May 29, 2007 06:40 AMThere are a number of reasons why Hamas has gained such confidence and legitimacy.
1. During the 2000-2005 infitada (or however you spell it), Ariel Sharon kept hitting Fatah positions after every suicide bombing. Say someone struck in Haifa, Sharon would retaliate by destroying a Fatah police station. Now, why on earth would he do that? It wasn't Fatah that launched the suicide attack, but Hamas, or Islamic Jihad. Why punish Fatah? After all Fatah was in charge of the government and running the police stations. Why undermine their strength and their domain, and most importantly, their monopoly on violence in the Palestinian territories?
Was anyone else befuddled about this? Does any American have a long enough attention span to even remember this?
2. Every single time Israel retaliated with a missile that destroyed a home with civilians in it only further strengthened Hamas' position. Every single time a Palestinian civilian was killed, a Palestinian boy or girl under the age of 12 shot down by Israelis only strengthened Hamas' position. Every single time. Did Israel not realize this? Apparently not, because now they've got a confident and ruling Hamas over Palestine, and they can't do a single thing about it.
3. Hamas runs the social programs and hospitals in the Gaza Strip (and I think some in the West Bank too, though I am not sure). That scores lots of points with the natives. What has Israel done for the locals?
4. The Checkpoints. Let's talk about those checkpoints. I don't know about you, but I personally would be seething through each and every checkpoint, if I had to go through them. My anger would come to a serious boiling point and I would feel quite justified in my mind at killing all those soldiers at those checkpoints if I had to go through them every single day. Has anyone considered the negative effects of those checkpoints, because let me tell you, I think they've done far more damage than they were supposed to have prevented.
5. The continual undermining of Fatah, as corrupt as it was, had a detrimental effect upon moderates in Palestine. Say what you will about Fatah, but it was no Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Why undermine them? Does anyone honestly think that continual undermining of moderates somehow will bring the people to your side?
6. The lowering of education standards in Palestine so that what was preached was the glory of Hamas. This is where Hamas excelled at getting the people behind them.
7. Hamas pulled off smart moves within Palestine to undermine Palestinian informants who, according to Hamas, betrayed Palestine to the Jews. Hamas found ways to curb informants and get Palestinians to submit to their way.
All these (and probably many more) gave power and legitimacy to Hamas. Some of the problems could have been averted by the United States reeling Israel in, getting them to step back from some of the more detrimental policies Israel implemented. Some, Israel and the West could not do anything about.
America and the West wanted elections in Palestine. Did they know that that risked Hamas winning? When a people are in such circumstances, they tend to want the most extreme leaders, the ones who fight back. The ones who say, "Enough of the oppression!" Hamas gave them that script, those leaders. What did Fatah promise that Fatah could deliver? Normalized relations with Israel? Just what did that mean? More living in subjugation to Israel? More checkpoints? Can anyone see that for Palestinians, sticking with Fatah meant more of the same? Why would anyone want that?
Posted by: Dan at May 29, 2007 07:03 AMTrackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 05/29/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
'What has Israel done for the locals?' Israel has kept Gaza supplied with electricity, water, and continues to provide pediatric hospital care. What, one has to ask, has the PLO or Hamas done for the locals with the billions of aid dollars in the past 10-20 years? Not a fucking thing. If Arafat had put his 'personal' 2 Billion share into edication and clinics, Hamas would not have had such fertile ground.
Your view makes any Israeli response to violent attack impossible -- can't hit non-civilian targets because it might be Fatah (as if Arafat wasn't directing the intifada!), can't hit anyplace there might be a civilian, like the in-home bomb factories of Hamas.
Your failure to even consider the other side, Dan, paints you as a Palestinian apologist (and a jackass) -- every time an Israeli civilian, women and children, were killed, it played right into the hard-liners' hands. Israel didn't deliberately target schoolbuses -- the Pals did. It raised the same level of rage and pain in Israelis as civilian deaths do in Palestine -- perhaps more, because there's none of this 'martyr' crap. (And you don't see Israelis dancing in the streets handing out candy when they hit a home with civilians in it.)
The dead Israelis were not in the kitchen fixing Mahmoud the bomber's breakfast while he refined a trigger device in the living room, or hugging their son the suicide bomber as he started out the door. If as Arabs say, there is no Israeli civilian, I think the reverse is even more true -- at this point, there are no innocent Palestinians.
Noah -- so all this money is not getting to the people, obviously -- or is it? Are the reported trash-filled streets, etc. all calculated for effect? It wouldn't surprise me, just curious.
Posted by: Pam at May 29, 2007 08:16 AMThank you, Pam.
Dan checkpoints, you are seething so much (I do not like it either), are the effect and not the cause.
Posted by: leo at May 29, 2007 08:28 AMIs "Don" that "Dan Williams" (from the 22 May Yglesias thread) back again? The similarities in style and content are striking.
So Don, is there a security guard where you work?
Are you "seething" every time you swipe your badge? Are you justified in your mind at killing that security guard?
the points pollack makes are all no-brainers and nothing new. for anybody moderately familiar with the arab culture/religion and the conflict and a minimal brain it should have been obvious.
that the us and eu are willfully ignorant about it and delude themselves to bribe sworn, ruthless enemies, and for which israel has become an inconvenience given their natural tendency to appease, and dumped billions into a bottomless barrel does not surprise me at all.
what worries me is that israel has bought into the nonsense and wishes the reality away.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 09:18 AMi think it was mjt who mentioned paul berman. so here's an email that i just got.
if anybody has access to tnr and can make it available, pls do.
Dear Reader,
Can you keep a secret? OK, there are no secrets on the Internet. But I am excited to divulge to you the first word of an intellectual explosion that The New Republic cases in our June 4 issue. Paul Berman has written a 28,000 word essay--an incendiary pamphlet, really--about the extraordinary though exemplary case of the Islamicist thinker Tariq Ramadan, who has become the darling of liberal commentators in Europe and increasingly also in the United States. Berman's essay is a detailed examination of not only of Ramadan's thought, but more generally of Islamicist thought since the 1920s--and more, of the bizarrely cordial reception that certain strands of Islamicist thought have recently found in the West. Berman's essay is erudite and vivid, a model of the history of contemporary ideas. And a model also of the battle of ideas: Berman has written a stirring defense of the liberal ideal a gainst its enemies (and e! ven against some of its friends)--an unforgettable call to intellectual responsibility. People will be arguing about it for a very long time. Subscribe today for only $9.97 to read this first-rate essay and the rest of our June 4 issue.
You may recall Berman's 2004 book, Terror and Liberalism, which was on the serious best-seller lists for months and months, and began the intellectual debate in which we are all, willy-nilly, now unavoidably ensnared. Reading his essay will be both a responsibility and an opportunity.
Best,
Martin Peretz
Editor-In-Chief
The New Republic
PS: In his research for this essay, Berman unearthed a fascinating exchange on the stoning of women in Islam between Ramadan and Nicolas Sarkozy. You will certainly want to read this.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 09:21 AMHamas runs the social programs and hospitals in the Gaza Strip (and I think some in the West Bank too, though I am not sure). That scores lots of points with the natives. What has Israel done for the locals?
Dan - The Palestinians and their state sponsors are at war with Israel. When at war, you fight back or you lose. The history of the Middle East is proof of that. The idea that Israel or anyone else could win a war through 'hearts and minds' efforts has been proven wrong so many times, it's hardly worth arguing.
I don't know about you, but I personally would be seething through each and every checkpoint, if I had to go through them. My anger would come to a serious boiling point and I would feel quite justified in my mind at killing all those soldiers at those checkpoints if I had to go through them every single day.
Soldiers and security guards are trained and paid to keep the general public safe from the dangerous and the lunatic. If someone with your attitude did come to a 'boiling point', I trust that they would respond efficiently and effectively, with little harm to themselves. Their salaries are money well spent.
Posted by: mary at May 29, 2007 09:32 AMIt's quite obvious there would be no need for security checkpoints were it not for the Palestinian desire to harm Israelis. Ditto with the security fense. Don has action and reaction all backwards.
Posted by: Zak at May 29, 2007 09:43 AMSince what we read is not what is being implemented in the run the papers-diplomatic world I thought the following.: When Sharon was doing the Sharon thing I thought that the end result was going to be that Gaza (because of its lawlessness, chaos, etc.) would revert to Egypt (I understand that Gaza was forced on Begin by Sadat). Gaza was always dominated by the M.Brotherhood-Hamas, etc. and the Egyptians do not like the MB. The West Bank was going to be given back to Jordan. King Abdullah was married to Queen Rania, a Palestinian, and the marriage was not an accident.
Has the paradigm changed or not?
As I have written before Hamas, Hezbollah, M.Brotherhood, etc are all into theo-raketeering. Baby Assad has to be taught a lesson if he wants to join the real world of a better economy and wealth distribution. We have to dismantle the refugee camps. The Palestinian people have paid a very heavy price; they have been punished and continue to being punished by their egomaniacal-thugs-leaders. All of them, the Hanyies, as well as the Dahlan and the Abbas, have to be replaced by people who are invested personally into making their world a better one.
And finally isn’t it peculiar that a lot of money is being invested in global small conflicts that destroy lives in a most stupid way. And I am talking about more than Iran, Syria…………………My challenge consists of quoting a famous phrase: ………follow the trail of the money…………
Longtime Totten Reader: I'm being a punk because this blog has deteriorated
Yes, you are being a punk.
I'm working on some long non-blog writing projects right now, and I can only write so much in one day. So the blog suffers temporarily. Sorry. I have to make a living. My mortgage doesn't pay itself. Don't take it out on Noah. He's helping, and he's good.
My passport is at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington now awaiting a visa. (This is a brand-new requirement.) I'll be in Baghdad and Anbar Province as soon as I can get there.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 10:18 AMmjt,
i have no idea why you have to explain/justify yourself just because a reader complains. if he does not like it, he does not have to visit.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 10:29 AMat best of times the funds dumped on the palestinians were to pay "security forces" and corruption. the latter was explicitly admitted by the palestinians more than once, but has not deterred the funders one bit, just the opposite.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/05/17/do1705.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/17/ixnews.html
the funders really just want to assuage their "guilt" and pay jizya, they care little about the use to which the funds are being put, as long as it's "resistance" against the joos.
if they had any brains and cared about the palestinians they would at the very least condition the funds on stopping violence and economic development. but it is unconditional welfare which rather pumps the conflict rather than stop it. and the palestinians feel entitled to it, for when it's reduced they seethe and threaten and denounce the "boycott".
why should hamas stop when somebody else funds their terror by the billions? have the funders ever asked themselves why the palestinians seem to be eternally on the edge of disaster, yet the arms and armies are always plentiful?
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 10:44 AMIsrael has kept Gaza supplied with electricity, water, and continues to provide pediatric hospital care.
Which makes Israelis idiots and suckers. Or do they like having rockets fired at them?
Why is it that Israelis never have the balls to make ultimatums?
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 11:13 AMIsn't it strange and complexing how it seems that the 'radicals' and 'terrorists' of the Arab world keep getting elected, while the so-called 'moderates' (who are the real radicals and terrorists) are hated amongst the arab people and are considered to be non-patriotic as well as agents of foreign lands?
This applies to terrorist Hamas, Hezbollah, Amal, even Fatah who used to be called terrorist, but is now ofcourse mainstream, secular and moderate since Mahmood Abbas set out to kill his own people. As soon as Fatah becomes 'moderate', they're voted out.
Take some time and think about it, maybe you will realise that for once, the majority of the Arab people are making the right choices and its the West who isn't, instead of the other way round.
The same groups who are supposedly using there people as human shields and terrorising them, are electing these same 'terrorist/radical' groups into government and Parliament freely.
mind bogling
Posted by: YO YO at May 29, 2007 11:44 AMfp: i have no idea why you have to explain/justify yourself just because a reader complains.
I don't have to explain myself, but I felt like it. So I did.
I am aware the blog isn't top-notch lately because I have to earn money by also writing for publications other than this one.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 11:48 AMAnd the non-blog publishing industry, newspapers aside, is glacially slow.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 11:49 AMIt wasn't Fatah that launched the suicide attack, but Hamas, or Islamic Jihad.
Fatah did launch suicide attacks, through the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades and the Tanzim. Members of Fatah 'police' forces aided in or carried out numerous attacks on Israelis. Not to mention that Fatah-PLO was the government, and thus responsible for acts of war carried out from its territory. Fatah earned every bomb.
Every single time Israel retaliated with a missile that destroyed a home with civilians in it only further strengthened Hamas' position. Every single time a Palestinian civilian was killed, a Palestinian boy or girl under the age of 12 shot down by Israelis only strengthened Hamas' position. Every single time. Did Israel not realize this?
Israel understands that. It is in a Catch 22 situation. They kill enough Arab civilians to cause anger, but not enough to cause fear. The other choice - not shooting at anybody - is not viable.
What has Israel done for the locals?
Why would Israel try to win the hearts and minds of culturally different, politically radical, religiously intolerant hostile civilians? It is a waste of time. Israel has inexplicably provided medical services, electricity, water and other aid to them.
Has anyone considered the negative effects of those checkpoints, because let me tell you, I think they've done far more damage than they were supposed to have prevented.
Before the PLO was invited to the territories, there were virtually no checkpoints or soldiers. Since then, terrorism has increased. Therefore, so have checkpoints and soldiers. When there is quiet, there are fewer checkpoints and soldiers.
Israel caught 46 suicide bombers last year, thanks to checkpoints and soldiers in the territories. They would have killed over 500 Israelis. 500 civilians a year, at what cost to Israel? A handful of soldiers killed.
The continual undermining of Fatah, as corrupt as it was, had a detrimental effect upon moderates in Palestine.
Fatah is not moderate. It promotes the same martyrdom, suicide terrorism, anti-West, anti-Israel dogma through its media. It openly co-operates with Hamas and PIJ. They should be destroyed alongside Hamas and PIJ.
America and the West wanted elections in Palestine. Did they know that that risked Hamas winning?
Apparently not. The people running things make their stupidity clearer every day.
Posted by: MattW at May 29, 2007 12:02 PM"It was the Shia reaction to the 2000 Lebanon pullout all over again, with Hamas playing Hezbollah." Noah
There are no Shia in Gaza, or Palistine. There are more Shia (Lebanese) in Israel than there are in Palistine. Also, Hamas isn't Shia.
BUT, If you're trying to implicate through that sentence that it was only the Shia of Lebanon who celebrated the end of occupation, then you're wrong. 25 May was made a national holiday...UNTIL, Harriri came and claimed there are too many holidays in the Lebanese Calendar. Hmmmm, I wonder why he chose THIS certain day...
Ye as I was saying, many people, other than the Shia, celebrate the freedom and resistance day every year, so you know. Either way you're wrong.
OOORRR, maybe you're trying to suggest that the Shia felt invinsible after they got rid of the occupation. I think Lebanon as a whole was made stronger after they got rid of the wicked and evil occupation if you ask me, I was there and i lived it.
Posted by: yoyo at May 29, 2007 12:19 PMyoyo,
First of all, don't worry -- I am, alas, aware that Hamas is not a Shia organization. I am also aware of sound and light, but that's not important right now.
Anyway, moving right along. You missed my analogy entirely: I was making the point that Hamas was rewarded with political support in Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal in the same way that Hezbollah was rewarded with political support in southern Lebanon after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000.
Posted by: Noah Pollak at May 29, 2007 12:29 PMYo yo: "Isn't it strange and complexing how it seems that the 'radicals' and 'terrorists' of the Arab world keep getting elected, while the so-called 'moderates' (who are the real radicals and terrorists) are hated amongst the arab people and are considered to be non-patriotic as well as agents of foreign lands?"
Funny, I actually agree with you, Yo-Yo, that the moderates, at least among the Palestinians, radicals and terrorists, too!
Yo-Yo: "This applies to terrorist Hamas, Hezbollah, Amal, even Fatah who used to be called terrorist, but is now ofcourse mainstream, secular and moderate since Mahmood Abbas set out to kill his own people. As soon as Fatah becomes 'moderate', they're voted out."
It seems to me that both Fatah and Hamas are involved in killing their own people. And if Hezbollah is "secular" according to you, what does a religious Shiite terrorist group look like?
Yo-Yo: "Take some time and think about it, maybe you will realise that for once, the majority of the Arab people are making the right choices and its the West who isn't, instead of the other way round."
Well, if the Arabs want to choose leaders who support the destruction of Israel, maybe they shouldn't complain when Israel resists their genocidal efforts? You expect the Jews to make it easy for you? Ditto America and the West. If you guys want to elect people who are intent on being our enemies, don't complain when we act like your enemies, or at least cut off the funding.
Yo-Yo: "The same groups who are supposedly using there people as human shields and terrorising them, are electing these same 'terrorist/radical' groups into government and Parliament freely.
mind bogling"
I agree. They should elect people who will create for them a brighter future. But in any event, their mask has come off. What is mind boggling to me is that Israelis respect Arab life more than Arabs do. Proof: Kassams from Gaza would stop tomorrow if Israel really let loose. But Israel doesn't, because innocent human life is precious, and children in Gaza don't control who their parents vote for.
Posted by: Zak at May 29, 2007 12:47 PMProof: Kassams from Gaza would stop tomorrow if Israel really let loose. But Israel doesn't, because innocent human life is precious, and children in Gaza don't control who their parents vote for.
Neither German nor Japanese children voted, either. But we dropped bombs, incendiaries and nuclear weapons on them all the same. In the previous war, we did our damndest to starve Germany and allies in to submission.
Civilians are not 'off limits' and never have been. No polity has the right to expect better of their enemy than they do of themselves.
Posted by: MattW at May 29, 2007 01:43 PMHow long did it take power to moderate Likud? How long did it take them to begin to note the attractiveness of the two state solution? Like 20 years, and even then not really.
Well, they're Arabs.
Posted by: Disk on Key at May 29, 2007 01:52 PMThe Likud-Hamas analogy is rather lazy. 'Extremists on both sides'? Mmm-hmm.
Posted by: MattW at May 29, 2007 02:00 PMThe Palestinian areas now receive more than $300 per person, per year, making them the most aid-dependent population on Earth.
America is spending over $4000 per person, per year, in Iraq.
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 02:05 PMjosh,
a lot of israelis have the bolls, but just like all over in the west they have ignorant and stupid elites who just don't get it.
israel in undergoing an elite failure right now. and the political system is broken in the sense that it cannot be made to respond to it.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 02:15 PMzak, don't feed the trolls
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 02:19 PMi've been looking for this piece on pals aid and i finally found it:
The Palestinians' Real Problem is Aid
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/048vjpow.asp
I used to like coming to this blog to seek out different opinions to my own on matters Middle Eastern.
But I have to say that it has become a bit of a tree-house for some pretty violent/aggresively narrow minded thinking...
It seems one can write an invocation for mass murder here and be congratulated, as long as you at some point denounce Assad's regime.
These posters seem to talk about not much else than casually bombing this country or that country, and if it deosn't work, wiping so-and-so off the map, then killing this person or that person or the other person, "War 101," "...no such thing as an innocent Palestinian" and on and on.... kill, kill, kill.... bomb, bomb, bomb....
Look at the language you people are using here (on this blog in general)... educated, reasonable and no doubt law abiding decent folk.... I've heard this sort of thing before you know...
...some of it reminds me of an Ahmed Nejad speech.
Shame.
Posted by: Microraptor at May 29, 2007 02:34 PMI used to like coming to this blog to seek out different opinions to my own on matters Middle Eastern.
But I have to say that it has become a bit of a tree-house for some pretty violent/aggresively narrow minded thinking...
It seems one can write an invocation for mass murder here and be congratulated, as long as you at some point denounce Assad's regime.
These posters seem to talk about not much else than casually bombing this country or that country, and if it deosn't work, wiping so-and-so off the map, then killing this person or that person or the other person, "War 101," "...no such thing as an innocent Palestinian" and on and on.... kill, kill, kill.... bomb, bomb, bomb....
Look at the language you people are using here (on this blog in general)... educated, reasonable and no doubt law abiding decent folk.... I've heard this sort of thing before you know...
...some of it reminds me of an Ahmed Nejad speech.
Shame.
Posted by: Microraptor at May 29, 2007 02:34 PMmicroraptor,
you're wrong.
what's being said is that you cannot have one side ruthless and the other side political correct.
you don't seem to be as much bothered by those who actually BOMB, but you are bothered by those who only SAY that the response should be in kind.
shame.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 02:43 PMThese posters seem to talk about not much else than casually bombing this country or that country, and if it deosn't work, wiping so-and-so off the map, then killing this person or that person or the other person, "War 101," "...no such thing as an innocent Palestinian" and on and on.... kill, kill, kill.... bomb, bomb, bomb....
Do you really think that sort of talk is inappropriate in a time of war?
It wouldn't surprise me if you do. By minimising the suffering of the enemy when they attack you, you make aggression a more attractive option. Were you to respond to aggression with brief, overwhelming brutal force - once, maybe twice - most potential opposition would back down.
It would save the lives of your citizens (and theirs) in the long run.
Is that approach immoral? Yes, probably. But the point is to win the war, not a competition of morality.
Posted by: MattW at May 29, 2007 02:54 PMwhat's being said is that you cannot have one side ruthless and the other side political correct.
If that's the case, there is little to differentiate the two sides. Liberal democracies, by nature, have higher regard for what you've mislabeled "political correctness" and that, presumably, is what some of the discord is about. And while it's true that a humane fighting force has to struggle with one arm voluntarily tied behind their backs, I'd hope that it's strong enough to persevere nonetheless.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 03:46 PMOne doesn't fight to prove one's abstract goodness, one fights to restore security.
Logically, in any sort of fight (this applies to street fights as well as wars), the way to maximize the probability that you won't be hurt, maimed or killed is to incapacitate your enemy as quickly as possible, or failing that, to hurt him badly enough that he's afraid to continue.
Logic dictates, not self righteous religious or other equally immature fantasy gobbledygook.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 03:51 PMungood,
nonsense. they are different except for the morally blind.
1. they are not initiating violence.
2. they do not indoctrinate children with the hatred and the cult of death.
3. they are doing their best to restrain themselves.
but 1 and 2 defeat 1. and in that case, one can be moral and dead or subjugated, or survive free, which is highly moral in my book.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:10 PM3. they are doing their best to restrain themselves.
That was my point, I believe.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 04:12 PMi meant 1 and 2 defeat 3, of course.
btw, ungood, i bet you're far from the conflict.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:13 PMyes, but only insofar as it's effective. if it's not what do you propose?
the fact of the matter is that israel could finish hamas very quickly if they were not different than hamas. but they are and they are paying a price. too high a price in my book.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:15 PMMicroraptor: some of it reminds me of an Ahmed Nejad speech.
(Sigh.)
I don't want to bomb anybody. I don't want Israel to bomb anybody. But if I were to make the choice: Lebanon or Syria gets bombed next time Israel is attacked by Hezbollah...I am going to pick Syria.
I also said I preferred Israel publicly say it will hold Syria accountable for the behavior of its proxies in the hopes that no one gets bombed on any side.
If that reminds you of the theocratic nutjob in Iran, you need to take a fresh look at Achmadinejad and what he believes. Or, perhaps, you need to pay closer attention to what I say and get over your phobia of the word "bomb" in the context of war.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 04:17 PMmicroraptor: I used to like coming to this blog to seek out different opinions to my own on matters Middle Eastern.
Do you feel that way when you interview Hezbollah members? I'm not trying to be snarky here. I don't know what you actually think of them. You get defensive on their behalf sometimes, but I realize that doesn't mean you actually support what they do.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 04:20 PMmaybe microraptor and ungood should consider this and see if they stand by their comments. to be honest, i wouldn't be surprised if they do one bit. there are always rationalizations.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=28469
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:24 PMLiberal democracies, by nature, have higher regard for what you've mislabeled "political correctness" and that, presumably, is what some of the discord is about.
It is, and that is an internal Western problem. We ignore - or conflate - the distasteful ideas and (to us) detrimental aims) with the most visible method used to achieve it: terrorism.
Liberal democracies have engaged in very, very ugly tactics and strategies against civilians to win wars. That doesn't make them any less liberal or democratic. It ties in with the next point you made:
And while it's true that a humane fighting force has to struggle with one arm voluntarily tied behind their backs, I'd hope that it's strong enough to persevere nonetheless.
You'd hope, eh? Unfortunately, we need to do more than 'hope' - we need to 'win'. That means we may have to untie that second hand.
Posted by: MattW at May 29, 2007 04:25 PMMicroraptor is dead on - for an even-handed perspective on the Arab/Israeli conflict refer to the current issue of the Economist. Oh, I forgot, the Arabs are evil, Israel is good and the MSM sucks...
Posted by: novakant at May 29, 2007 04:31 PMalso interesting in the context:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1532
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:31 PMThat means we may have to untie that second hand.
As the last half century has show, liberal democracies cannot untie that hand. When there is an attempt to do so, internal conflict within the democracies cause the conflict to collapse. See Vietnam, and probably Iraq in the near future.
The only solution is to stop being a liberal democracy, and that isn't a particularly desirable option in my books.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 04:32 PMnovakant,
you're rather vacant.
right, the economist as a source on the conflict.
you also stood in line several time.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:33 PMnovakant: the Arabs are evil, Israel is good and the MSM sucks
Do you have anything intelligent to say, or are you just going to post reactionary bullshit in here?
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 04:34 PM2. they do not indoctrinate children with the hatred and the cult of death.
fp,
Are you suggesting that Israeli school children receive an unbiased education about their Palestinian neighbors?
Could you link to a study that concludes that, please?
All the studies I have seen suggest that Israeli kids receive an extremely negative message about Palestinians.
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 04:40 PMungood,
that does not say we're wrong, it only validates our position that if they choose to commit suicide, they will be accomodated.
looks like you don't have any problem with barbarians striving to exterminate liberal societies, all you care about is for those societies not to defend themselves. good liberal societies are dead liberal societies.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:41 PMIf that's the case, there is little to differentiate the two sides.
If that's the case, then vote with your feet. Get the hell out of here. Go knock your head to the floor of some madrassa five times a day, until some sense is knocked into you.
Posted by: redaktor at May 29, 2007 04:43 PMthat does not say we're wrong, it only validates our position that if they choose to commit suicide, they will be accomodated.
I've heard similar opinions justifying atrocities and genocide as simple survival tactics, fp.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 04:44 PMIf that's the case, then vote with your feet. Get the hell out of here. Go knock your head to the floor of some madrassa five times a day, until some sense is knocked into you.
Stellar logic. You must have dazzled them at the debating club.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 04:47 PMand you don't have a brain to distinguish crap from reason?
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:48 PMwith the kind of position you take, there is no logic. coz you don't get it.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:49 PMA lot of insulting and hissing goes on around here these days.
Are you simply unable to discuss positions that you disagree with without throwing a hissyfit and name-calling?
Well, easily dealt with.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 04:52 PMI'm serious. If you can't tell the difference, and it's obvious that you can't, then go join the other team. I'd be glad to slit your Jihadi throat, and we'd be on equal moral ground.
Posted by: redaktor at May 29, 2007 04:54 PMyours is not a "position". yours is nonsense.
so we're not insulting you, we're calling a spade a spade. it's the reality that insults you, we're just exposing it.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 04:55 PMDon't make me pull over this car.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 04:56 PM"Israel has inexplicably provided medical services, electricity, water and other aid to them." MattW
You mean they kill them, then try to look good by trying to provide medical help. They bomb their electricity plants, then they provide them electricity they can't afford, and the other aid is probebly the rain of bullets and bombs to kill them and rid this people of its suffering?
How very nice of the Israelis :D I never quite saw it this way.
Posted by: YO YO at May 29, 2007 05:05 PMYo yo you neglect to mention that it's the Palestinians who keep the war going.
They could end their war at any time and then they would never have a single problem with Israel ever again.
This is a war of choice for the Palestinians. And if they were capable of maturity, they would take responsibility for all of the suffering that choice causes on both sides.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 05:17 PMIn any case, Yo yo, the question wasn't whether it was "nice" of the Israelis to supply water, electricity and medical supplies to a nation that is at war with Israel.
The question was whether it is idiotic of Israel to help the Arabs bomb Israel by supplying electricity, water and medical help to a country which is at war with Israel.
And of course the answer is that, yes, it is idiotic of Israel. The Israelis should always refuse to help or cooperate with any enemies who are killing Israeli citizens.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 05:27 PMIraq was a war of choice, too, Josh.
And average Americans have had as much luck stopping it as average Palestinians are stopping their war makers.
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 05:34 PMYou're assuming that Palestinians want to stop the war on Israel.
Actually it's the one thing Arabs are almost unanimous on, especially Palestinians.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 05:38 PM"It seems to me that both Fatah and Hamas are involved in killing their own people."
You missed it. I said as soon as they start. Hezbollah used to kill the South Lebanon Army, the Israeli proxy (the same one to have never been condemned byt he west or any human rights groups for its merciless terrorism against their own people), but when Hezbollah and SLA used to clash, it wasn't called a civil war. You want to guess why?
As for Fatah, they have become SLA number 2. They take arms and finance from the west and Israel, the same country who occupies their land, destroys there homes, kills their children and burns their crops.
"And if Hezbollah is "secular" according to you, what does a religious Shiite terrorist group look like?"
The one which acts and behaves like the SLA, Al-Qaeda, Fatah-Al-Islam. I mean you don't need me to explain it. You talk so much about Hezbollah wanting to destroy Israel, but your arrogance has led you to ignore everything rational that is being said by Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah. He is telling the world that if Israel leaves Lebanon and its citizens alone, then he will leave Israel alone. When asked numerous times what happens if Israel return Shebaa farms and Kfar Shouba, i.e. what would be his reaction towards the Israelis.
He said simply and clearly that Israel then doesn't become an Arab problem, but a Palistinian one. He said if the mass population of Palestine chose to make peace, his group will support and back the decision. I f the mass chose resistance, he will also back and support them. In other words, what the poeple want should be backed.
So, I don't see Hezbollah working with the enemy against its own country, I dont see them killing there own people (Israeli bullets and rockets killed 1200 lebanese civilian, not Hezbollahs - simple) etc etc etc.
"If you guys want to elect people who are intent on being our enemies, don't complain when we act like your enemies, or at least cut off the funding."
I don't see anyone complaining. Hezbollah are your enemies, aren't scared to be your enemies and are probably proud to be your enemies. Same applies to everyone supporting these groups. We only seen to moan because most of the time Israel attacks the people who have nothing to do with these groups (like the attacks on christian and sunni towns and cities, in the mountains and the North which has 0 hezbollah infrastructure or influence/popularity), some may seem to moan only to show the world that the terrorist doesn't act nowhere near as horrific as the wrongly seen victim.
"I agree. They should elect people who will create for them a brighter future."
Go to south Lebanon and ask if Hezbollah as an entity since creation till now has caused more grief or relief to its citizens with its charitable works, job vacancies, the economy which no-one bothered to look at, the aid no-one bothered to proide etc.
Then ask them another question. Ask them whether their standards of life both financially and socially were better off under Israels illegal and terrorist occupation, or under Hezbollahs freedom. Then come back to me and talk about electing for standards of life.
Its good we have elections, in Palestine they were punished for the results and in the rest of the Arab world there are no elections, and yet America + West supports every single one of those Arab states.
"What is mind boggling to me is that Israelis respect Arab life more than Arabs do. Proof: Kassams from Gaza would stop tomorrow if Israel really let loose. But Israel doesn't, because innocent human life is precious, and children in Gaza don't control who their parents vote for.
There has been nothing except war, death and destruction in the middle east since Israels creation. Don't tell me im anti-semitic because im an Arab and im a semite, also i'm not saying the Jews, i'm saying Israel - full of Muslims, Christians, Jews and Druze - I am simply talking from a factual and statistical point of view, nothing more nothing less.
If the Zionists had any consideration for Human Life and suffering, they would know better than go into a land that is not theirs to selfishly create their own country only to replace and forbid others from their own rightful country or land.
Israel has known nothing but war. They started a war in 1982 against Lebanon using a pretext totally unconnected - a 'Palistinian' supposedly tried to assasinate the Israeli ambassador to the UK. Something happening hundreds of miles away, created a war in the Middle East. Later on it was revealed that it was the Mossad that tried to kill him - and i challenge anyone here to bring me the name of who tried to kill the ambassador - because if they know and so sure he's a Palistinian, they must know his name.
Israel is held accountable for so many acts of terrorism and crimes it is unbelievable. Even human rights watch said 97% of all war crimes and crimes against humanity in the world was committed by the Israeli state.
The fact is that there was no Hezbollah before Israel. No Hamas before Israel. No Fatah before Israel and so on. I'll go further. There was no Fatah, Hamas or Hezbollah or PLO or w.e. it is even during Israel. Then Israel pushed it by there racist pre-emptive wars, massacres and provocotations. Everyone has a breaking point, and i'm not talking about the fit you get when your stuck on a check point, I'm talking families slaughtered for being who they are.
No-one get me wrong. I am against all racism, wars and death and destruction caused by conflict. I respect all human life, all religions, all races, all ethnicity and backgrounds or sex.
The Bible only taught humanity how to live peacefully and to love neighbours more than yourself as well as to love an enemy and give him a rose when they slap you. The Quran then taught us that tribes and nations were made for them to meet each other, educate each other and further co-existance, and the Torah taught us that the key to life is obedience, patience and hope. All religions are beautiful etc My moral is im against all war, against hypocracy, against racism, against bigotry and for coexistance and construction.
Posted by: YO YO at May 29, 2007 05:41 PMAnd the Palestinians did vote for this very popular war.
That's the gold standard measure for responsibility.
Consider some more evidence. Even Fatah, which tries to look moderate to the world feels that it has to fire it's own color branded rockets at Israel without pause as do all of the other Palestinian political parties.
So popular is the war, that no party dares be seen not attempting to kill Jews for even a moment.
And I think there was a very tiny party (of a couple people?) that called for the end to the intifada. We heard of one statement, then nothing. I don't think they got any votes, or perhaps they didn't get enough support to even hold a meeting let alone run a candidate.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 05:43 PMJosh,
This poll says 55% of Palestinians support peace:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=2384&l=1
Same percentage as Israelis, btw.
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 05:44 PMEven human rights watch said 97% of all war crimes and crimes against humanity in the world was committed by the Israeli state.
I know, I know -- Darfur, Sudan, Chechnya, Cambodia, Algeria, Tienanmin Square, Rwanda, Serbia, Bosnia... most people never knew that Idi Amin and Pol Pot were Israeli, I bet.
MJT, this one needs to begone.
Posted by: Pam at May 29, 2007 05:49 PMYo yo, Hamas can't possibly bring the Palestinians a brighter future - they can only bring war, poverty and eventual catastrophic slaughter. So your analogy with Hezbollah is nonsense. Hezbollah isn't fighting a hot war, but Hamas is addicted to killing. They will never stop killing, and so the Palestinians will never stop being punished for that war.
And may I also add that you're a very poor liar with those bullshit last paragraphs. It's clear you are for unending war, or you would repudiate the Palestinian parties for keeping the war going and you would stop blaming Israel for refusing to be destroyed.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 05:52 PMAlphie, other polls have given support for the war at 65%.
Personally I think that the Palestinians are so deeply invested in killing that complaining is the closest they can ever come to ending the war.
When they have to vote, they will always vote for death. All of the political parties in Palestine know that, and pander to that fact.
Not until there is a deep change in the culture can the war end. And that change is nowhere on the horizon. They will not do this for themselves.
And there is a very good reason they won't. It may seem invisible to us, because our own beliefs are so different.
But the Palestinians truly believe that God sends killers directly to heaven. They truly believe that every bomb that kills Jews is holy. It is the light of God's grace. And it bestows God's blessing - entrance into the heavens, not only for the killer, but also for his friends and family.
To end the killing would be to cut themselves off from God. They can not do that.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 06:01 PMAnd by the way Pam it is madness like that I mentioned above that explains Yo yo's break from reality.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 06:05 PMOk, Josh makes a nice point about who is starting the war and whos carrying it on etc.
Hamas made a truce that it abided to for a year. Why did Israel still beseige them, then target/kill/assassinate/imprison their members? Aren't those all acts of war? Go check when the first time Hamas started firing after the cease-fire, then check when the last time Israels bombs and bullets stopped - since creation.
Heres Fatah, whose members are being trained, financed and armed by Israel and America. Yet nearly every day i hear of Fatah gunmen being killed. Isn't Fatah the one who's looking for peace with Israel and hasn't carried out a single attack for god known how long?
Go check the so called Camp David "agreement". Please someone, anyone, go check the preconditions set by the Israelis on the Palistinians for them to have their own state.
I'll name a couple. Israel is to be in constant control of the Air, Sea and border of the Palestinian state (no sovereignty). Tarrif money goes through Israel (economic dependency). Gas, oil and electricity only through Israel (economic dependency). Israel has the right to go into the official Palistinian state to seek terrorists if attacked (no sovereignty or respect of security apparatus). They must sign a peace treaty calling all actions made by Israel since creation, as well as the creation itself, was 'right' (destroying dignity). The remainder of already established Israeli settlements, allowed to bear arms and independent of the Palestinian state or laws (undermining sovereignty). To expand some settlements as far as to split the Palistinian state into five terrirtories (no clear state or boundries or borders). All people going in and out of the Palistinian territories, even from one territory to another, must have an Israeli permit. Some areas which have both Jews and Palistinians, must be a free zone, or no mans land, where Israelis and Palis are allowed in and out without visas or permits, though this only applies to cities in Palistinian lands. The army must not exeed a certain number of personnel, tanks, aircraft etc. Palistinian secrets must be shared with Israel but not vice versa, only in 'excusable' conditions.
Does anyone call this a state, or a future mockery? Does anyone here solemnly agree to live in such a state where sovereignty doesn't exist, democracy is limited, the economy is handled and managed and relies on another state, dignity is being cricified and so on. The Camp David was a mockery and a spint in the face to the Palestinians.
It was mythified as being the greatest adn richest chance to make peace and a future state for the Pali's, and when it was rejected it acted as the best PR for anyone to use against the Palestinians. Please go check the pre-conditions and come back and tell me im wrong, because maybe I am.
Posted by: yo yo at May 29, 2007 06:05 PMjosh,
don't feed the trolls.
Nice. I've been commenting here for years, and while I've had my disagreements, I do believe that you're the first newcomer to call me a troll.
The quality of commenters here has been going downhill. Oh for the good old days.
By the way, there is no need to fear that Josh Scholar will "feed" me. Thanks to a GreaseMonkey script and his absolute lack of anything intelligent to say, the last few comments I've seen from him have been pie-related. To whit:
JS: That's great. Anyone have any pie?
and JS: I'd just like to say that I agree with all the positive comments made about pie. It's a pleasure being around commenters who have their heads on straight and really know what pie is all about.
Now, as you and redaktor seem to contribute nothing here that I'd be interested in reading, I'm happy to say that henceforth you two shall also be praising pie.
This place is so much more agreeable that way.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 06:06 PMlast time i looked the definition of a troll does not have anything to do with the length of participation. quite the opposite: if a troll is fed, it will go on and on and on.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 06:10 PMYo Yo: Even human rights watch said 97% of all war crimes and crimes against humanity in the world was committed by the Israeli state.
That is the most outrageously false and libelous thing (against both Human Rights Watch and Israel) that you have written here, and that's saying a lot.
You are one very small step from being banned. Dial it back or go somewhere else. This is the only warning you get.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 06:11 PMDouble-plus-Ungood is not a troll.
Be nice to him.
I have better things to do than babysit comments.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 06:13 PMYears ago I read the head of the Psychiatric association in Egypt wrote an article praising suicide bombing that said basically what I just did.
He talked about how suicide bombers feel, not pain or fear, but the ecstasy of being closer to God than anyone else etc. etc.
Obviously the Egyptian regime found his article embarrassing, so he was forced to write another article saying the opposite, that everyone deplores suicide and terror.
By the way I find DPU's attitude unbearable rude. I recommend that we don't read his posts anymore than he reads his. Make this fair ban his ass
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 06:15 PMNice. I've been commenting here for years, and while I've had my disagreements, I do believe that you're the first newcomer to call me a troll.
If DPU had read the comments he would know that I was talking to Yo yo, not him.
But he's too immature to avoid being paranoid about comments he can't read. He just ASSUMED that we were talking about him. And he's too immature to avoid gloating at people who he's blocked.
This crap is so damn rude. Just ban him.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 06:20 PMdouble-plus-ungood,
Now, how can you say I've contributed nothing when I personally offered to slit the throat of any Jihadi participating in these here forum? What have you contributed that would even come close to that?
Posted by: redaktor at May 29, 2007 06:20 PMDouble-plus-Ungood is not a troll.
Thanks Michael, but no need. Look:
fp: I just ate some pie, and darned if I don't want some more already.
JS: Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie.Ever notice how totally great that word sounds?
Who can argue with that? I love these guys.
Now, back to the topic at hand...
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 06:20 PMOops, forgot redaktor: Churchill liked pie, you know. And not that Ward guy. The other one, the British guy, he liked pies.
Awesome.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 06:21 PMunbearable rude. again
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 06:23 PMJosh,
I'm not banning DPU no matter what you say. You guys both need to be nice or ignore each other.
Redaktor,
Knock it off with the throat-slitting!
Do I need to close comments on this thread? I'm trying to write a magazine article so I can pay my mortgage. Let me work in peace.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 06:24 PMdouble-plus-ungood,
I again appeal to your moral clarity. What have you contributed that could match my generous offer?
Posted by: redaktor at May 29, 2007 06:25 PMMichael,
Was typing while you posted. But still, I'd like to know where double-plus-ungood stands on this issue.
Posted by: redaktor at May 29, 2007 06:27 PMjosh,
let me repeat something that does not seem to get through to the ignorant west: several generations of palestinians are indoctrinated since kindergarten with hatred and death. even if this were stopped tomorrow, it would take at least 2-3 generations for the culture to change. since it does not stop, culture won't change.
therefore, even if hamas wanted tomorrow to moderate (as the west deludes itself), it could not because at least some of the indoctrinated won't let it. the palestinians are prisoners of the culture instilled in them. which is precisely what the intention was.
for all those who bring up the so-called truce (which was never respected by non-hamas groups who got the weapons from hamas), even if there were an agreement tomorrow to stop terror, israel should condition any dialogue only if the indoctrination stopped and 2-3 generations benefitted from the change.
anything else is just attrition and slow jihad.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 06:28 PM"You guys both need to be nice or ignore each other."
Now you'll set him off again. Jesus!
I DO ignore him that's the point.
But he doesn't have the courtesy to avoid making assumptions about the posts he's not reading and he gloats at every single person he's not reading, over and over.
This is unbearably immature. It's rude to everyone.
I have nothing against people using greasemonkey to trim their reading. But gloating at people who can't respond is entirely unacceptably childish and rude.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 06:30 PMDo I need to close comments on this thread? I'm trying to write a magazine article so I can pay my mortgage. Let me work in peace.
Sorry Michael. Carry on, I'll bow out of the thread. It's not really needed as I truly cannot see their posts anymore, but from the sounds of it, commentary is degrading because I'm taunting. Apologies.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 06:30 PMAnd now we know the answer, Michael.
Posted by: redaktor at May 29, 2007 06:32 PMmjt,
if DUP is not a troll he has much more serious problems than i thought.
practically every sentence in his long diatribe is false and reveals utter ignorance and gullibility. what an idiot.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 06:34 PMHarry's place did an interesting thing about GreaseMonkey.
They banned the word "Monkey" in the comments. No comment that has that word anywhere in it can be posted.
They can't stop people from using greasemonkey, but they can discourage people from being rude enough to talk about it.
They claim, by the way, that this was because of troll called "monkeyboy" who you may remember.
But they banned the word the same day I first posted a greasemonkey script. Very diplomatic.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 06:39 PMBTW, Alphie, Israeli kids are not inculcated with racist hatred towards Arabs or with crazy ideas about Islam. Sorry, I don't have the charts to prove it to you any more than I have the same proof to show that the average American or British kid isn't fed the same garbage. I just know, based off of what I instinctively know about Israeli society and Israelis.
I do know that I have many Israeli friends, and none of them ever told me about any cartoon characters that they grew up with that preached death to Arabs. I do know that I studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and that my course on Islam was nothing but dispassionate, except for the last day of class when our professor, Yohanan Friedman, became teary-eyed as he told us not to judge Islam and Muslims by the Hamas suicide bombers that were detonating off and on during my year abroad.
Alphie, you don't have to give us proof about everything you write, but at least write about what you know. You don't know shit about Israelis or their society or their educational system. You don't know what you're talking about. Not at all.
Zak
Posted by: Zak at May 29, 2007 06:40 PMhttp://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-6604775898578139565&q=israel+palestine+war+propaganda+media
Watch, very worth it.
Also, type in google search 'amnesty internation on israel', and watch the claims of 'biased' by amnesty international against Israel on every single link. The only other people to claim thi bias were the taliban (hmm), America (wtf were they thinking), Russia (in chechnya) and Congo (dont need to talk).
Therefore they're all on the same level.
Posted by: yoyo at May 29, 2007 06:41 PMoops, my apologies to DUP.
the idiot i was referring to yoyo.
DUP is still just a troll.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 06:46 PMYo-Yo,
You should thank Allah that Israel is not on the same level as Russia in Chechnya, or the civil war in the Congo, or the behvaior of the Taliban, despite what AI says.
Posted by: Zak at May 29, 2007 06:46 PMzak,
anybody who quotes amnesty international, the economist, or anything UN or EU on the conflict is a waste of time responding to. they're gonners.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 06:50 PMZak,
Here is an interesting article that appeared in Haaretz about what Israeli and Palestinian school children are being taught about each other (.pdf):
http://nswas.org/media/textbooks.pdf
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 06:58 PMoops, my apologies to DUP.
the idiot i was referring to yoyo.
DUP is still just a troll.
anybody who quotes amnesty international, the economist, or anything UN or EU on the conflict is a waste of time responding to. they're gonners.
fp
Some people somewhat amuse me with their high levels of intellect, really. Reading you blab like an immature child is a waste of time babe.
Posted by: yoyo at May 29, 2007 07:07 PMRecently, a video was posted to Youtube of a Palestinian childrens' play. The kids in the middle, all prepubescent boys and girls, were holding cute little toy guns or outfitted with darling little suicide belts. One had her hands painted with chic fake blood. The audience of adults cheered and clapped their approval.
I remember hearing the enchanting hatred spouted by the Mickey Rat clone Farfur as I watched him prance and sashay around the childrens' television program set, and how he and a lovely little Palestinian girl traded Jew-despising barbs of utter hatred, and promises that Israel would be destroyed, and all territory from the Jordan river to the sea would be Palestinian.
I recall the interview a 3 year old Palestinian girl gave to an approving Palestinian woman, who coaxed her with leading questions. However, the little girl knew just what to say: that Jews were pigs and monkeys, because Allah told her so in the Qu'ran.
Please show me where this sort of thing goes on in Israel.
Posted by: Salamantis at May 29, 2007 07:09 PMOne had her hands painted with chic fake blood.
Actually the red hands they painted on the kindergartener was meant to celebrate this lynching of two Israelis by a Palestinian mob.
Apparently two Israelis got lost and wondered into Ramalah. A mob ripped them to pieces with their bare hands and used one of the men's cell phone to taunt his wife, "We have just killed your man"
She the man at the center left proudly displaying his bloody hands out the window? That's the image they're invoking.
I saw an Arab woman at a "peace" rally in the US with her hands painted red. She just wanted to display her hatred for Israelis in public.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 07:21 PMjosh,
correct.
but, you know, it's the nazi occupation and the massacres, like jenin. they can't help themselves.
it's realities like this that make the yoyos and alphies of the world the idiots they are.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 07:26 PMyoyo,
you would not know a mature comment if it bit your ass (with which you seem to think).
I am just lowering my comments to a level you can understand.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 07:30 PMPlease show me where this sort of thing goes on in Israel.
Well, there's this:If the Palestinians can find room for improvement, so can the Israelis. In “The Arab Image in Hebrew School Textbooks,” an article drawing from his study of 124 textbooks, Professor Dan Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University reports that “over the years, generations of Israeli Jews were taught a negative and often delegitimizing view of Arabs.”Let me stress that I don't think this is at the same level as Mickey Rat and blood dramas, but there is a certain amount of indoctrination going on on both sides.Bar-Tal found some positive Arab images. But he reports two major themes of Arab characteristics. One taught “primitiveness, inferiority in comparison to Jews.” The other related to “their violence, to characteristics like brutality, untrustworthiness, cruelty, fanaticism, treacherousness and aggressiveness.”
Referring to Israeli texts of the ’80s and ’90s, Bar-Tal reports: “Geography books for the elementary and junior high schools stereotype Arabs negatively, as primitive, dirty, agitated, aggressive, and hostile to Jews … history books in the elementary schools hardly mention Arabs … history textbooks of the high schools, the majority of which cover the Arab-Jewish conflict, stereotype the Arabs negatively. Arabs are presented as intransigent and uncompromising.”
“The parents and the grandparents of the present generation,” says Bar-Tal, “were provided with the same negative image of the Arabs in their school textbooks as we see today, within the context of the prolonged Jewish-Arab conflict. One might add that it takes many years to rewrite school textbooks and a few generations to change the societal beliefs about the stereotyping and delegitimization of the Arabs.”
Some of the remarks here might be illustrative.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at May 29, 2007 07:32 PMOne reason, besides suicide-vest-wearing jihadis blowing themselves up in busses and malls and coffee shops and unguided missiles raining down upon towns full of families, and the way that they tend to shoot each other when there are no Jews handy, that Israelis might come to have a somewhat disparaging view of Palestinian 'culture' and 'society', might be that they see these same sick, twisted and demented child-indoctrinating propaganda pieces that we in the US see via the Internet, but much more frequently, and with official approval, on Palestinian television, for instance. It would have to cause them to lose some modicum of respect for the Palestinians as a people to see them constantly and institutionally brainwash their childrn into hatred and violence this way.
Posted by: Salamantis at May 29, 2007 07:43 PMGod bless the internet
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 08:04 PM“primitiveness, inferiority in comparison to Jews.” ... “violence, to characteristics like brutality, untrustworthiness, cruelty, fanaticism, treacherousness and aggressiveness.”
these are accurate images. it's the reality that's negative. those who speak here are in no position to assess these claims because they are totally ignorant of the arab and jewish cultures and religions. (this does not mean that there are no exceptions, but that is precisely what they are. they do not invalidate the rule.)
and to preempt any predictable accusations of racism, we're talking about CULTURE here, not race. on the other hand the arab/muslim side is explicitly and openly racist all the way down to the quran's pigs and monkeys. treacherousness towards the infidels --taqiyya -- is an integral part of islam and has been applied successfully to the ignorant gullibles like those here.
robert spencer will be lecturing regularly on the islamic roots of arab culture at hot air (here's the first http://hotair.com/archives/2007/05/27/blogging-the-quran/).
i suggest all those promoting cultural equivalence here go educate themselves before they opine on subjects they know nothing about.
Whoever posted that insanely long off-topic spam message is banned.
I am tired of babysitting, people.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 08:13 PMWe'll be good :.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 08:16 PMReferring to Israeli texts of the ’80s and ’90s
Israel rewrote its textbooks after the Oslo Accords to fix the problems DPU mentioned above.
I don't know how thoroughly they rewrote the books, but the Palestinians didn't reciprocate.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 08:18 PMfp: those who speak here are in no position to assess these claims because they are totally ignorant of the arab and jewish cultures and religions
It must be nice to know so much more than everyone else.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 08:19 PMmjt,
i would suspect that no participant here posted that crap. or at least i hope so.
indeed, it is nice to know what you're talking about. it makes all the difference in the world.
there are a LOT of things I dk, but you won't ever hear me talk pontificate on them.
the problem is somewhat deeper and it's becoming inherent in western culture. it's not just a matter of ignorance and inability to reason, but the lack of even awareness that those two are required when talking about any subject. there is no longer an appreciation of their importance.
everything is a matter of opinion, there is no difference between opinions and facts, doublespeak (truth is lies, lies are truth), and so on.
that's one regressive reason why the west is losing to barbarians.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 08:37 PMVive la difference:
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=96c43ca9-ec26-470a-adda-93476ff79799
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 08:39 PMfp,
If you followed the link I provided, you'd see the claims of anti-Palestinian bias in Israeli textbooks were made by Israeli academics.
Their research even had footnotes, which, I believe, you claimed were the hallmark of "real" research just yesterday in another thread.
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 08:51 PMmjt,
but i think i opened myself to your remark by misexpressiong myself: i did not mean to refer to ALL in this thread, but only to those who have been proven to be ignorant and stupid. and i think it's quite clear who they are.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 08:53 PMAlphie,
Do Israeli textbooks contain bloodthirsty calls for genocide against Arabs? How about references to Arabs as non-humans? Apes and pigs for instance.
If not, why do you suppose that might me?
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 29, 2007 08:55 PMMicheal,
Could you link to an official Palestinian curriculum that makes those claims?
If it's just anectodatal, I imagine I could find some rather interesting coursework from places like Henron to match it.
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 09:06 PMThe little girl (maybe 5 years old) in dancing with her entire class with her hands painted red to symbolize lynching Israeli civilians - along with a little girl dressed as a suicide bomber is an example of extreme hatred being taught in schools.
Some years ago there were reports of a textbook that has been used for years to teach mathematics to kindergarteners in Lebanon, Palestine and probably the whole area. It taught subtraction with such word problems as "I have five Jews to kill, I kill three Jews. How many Jews are there left to kill."
Both of my examples are a sight more extreme than unflattering characterization.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 09:10 PMBy the way, that video isn't old. It's brand new.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 09:13 PMI heard about that text book some years ago by someone who wrote that he'd been very frightened by it because he was Jewish, living in Lebanon and had gone to a class where they used that book.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 09:20 PMI think that according to various reports the Palestinians have improved their books somewhat, probably in order to remove any possibility of loss of funding from squeamish European countries or the US.
It's irrelevant because at the same time these changes were claimed (under Arafat), PA controlled radio and TV were playing propaganda encouraging mere children "drop their toys and pick up rocks" to fight the Israelis. They were playing propaganda telling children how to write suicide notes. And of course extreme hatred was being taught in schools whether reflected by new textbooks or no.
In such an atmosphere, I expect that any new textbooks exist only to show "investigators" and probably aren't being used much.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 09:26 PMFuck you, Alphie, you moron. Every thread you make a half dozen moral equivalency claims (false, of course)and then bark like a trained seal for your goodie. Everybody's seen your geopolitical acumen. Why don't you get out of here? Your comments are an insult to the innocent Israeli and Palestinian victims of this conflict.
Posted by: MarkC at May 29, 2007 09:27 PMjosh,
as you probably know, two of the best sources to see arabs and iranians at their best in their own words are:
http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S6#
http://www.pmw.org.il/
i stress "in their own words" to preempt any dismissal as "israeli sources". they just tape the arab and iranian media as is and translate to english.
anybody who goes through even 1/10 of the items there and still has the nerve to focus on israeli bias and the israeli perceptions of the arabs should have his head examined.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 09:33 PMInteresting piece on empathy:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/120422.html#comments
"Adam Smith begins his The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) by observing:
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.
As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation."
snip
Apparently science confirms that we are innately gifted with the ability to put ourselves in the other's shoes - which explains why people will sacrifice to help others (even when it might not make "sense" to do so - we do it because it satisfies our souls.)
The problem with incitement, I think, is that by dehumanizing the other it deprives us of this ability to make moral choices, because obviously we can't empathize with the demonic, the hideously distorted enemy.
Don't we have to deal with this root cause of conflict in the Middle East before we can end the Arab/Israeli conflict (and probably, other forms of sectarian violence)?
Note: this goes beyond simple bigotry or contempt for people who are different, or even who've made you miserable. Obviously that's a problem too, but it's exponentially less harmful and much more easily cured.
Demonization is a calculated and conscious program to turn the other into something evil so you will not only not care for it, you will try to kill it. Jews in particular have suffered from this kind of programming, for all too many centuries now, and European antisemitism, such as "The Protocols" and Nazi mythology, have had a dire impact on the Middle East since the 1920's. Sharansky wrote to Bush only a few years ago, that Palestinian children had schoolbooks that actually quoted the "Protocols" as actual history; Nasrallah certainly has, Egyptian TV had a series "Horseman Without a Horse,"; Syrian and Jordanian antisemitism is rife. There are cartoons in the ME (and also the British press alas) which would do der Sturmer proud.
Now Ahmadijenad has joined the party.
This is one area where the UN could take a leadership position but they themselves often seem worse than useless. Their Human Rights body has an appalling record with respect to Israel, condemning it more harshly than states where active genocides are ongoing, or where endemic human rights violations are a daily occurence.
Amnesty International actually comes out and states it has a double standard for "democracies," meaning Israel: that is blatantly racist in a number of different ways.
So it's difficult to see how this problem can be corrected, but unless and until it is I don't see how we can stop the violence and create the peaceful solutions we all desire so much.
Posted by: Sophia at May 29, 2007 09:34 PMmark,
heh, heh, he got to you. you shouldn't let it.
i know it's exasperating to see such level of ignorance and stupidity, but it's the nature of the internet beast. in the real world they would not be allowed to clutter a discussion for long.
the best way to handle it is to ignore these idiots. otherwise, instead of having a discussion we'll be constantly correcting his crap.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 09:38 PMNice, Mark.
What's funny is, I support Israel and its right to defend itself.
That doesn't mean I accept any accusation against the Palestinians at face value, though.
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 09:42 PMIt's time for targeted assassinations of Hamas. I don't give a CRAP if the paleos elected them. Now is the time. What are the Israelis waiting for? Oh, that's right. They're giving peace a chance. LOL. Proving to the world how "good" they are. Like the world gives a crap if Israel lives or dies.
Posted by: Carlos at May 29, 2007 09:44 PMsophia,
ahmedinajad should take his place in a long line of murderous antisemites. and he won't be the last.
having lived as a jew in a communist eastern european country and then in israel, i can tell you that we are jaded about the constant of antisemitism.
all that stuff about "never again" after the holocaust, we knew it's nonsense. antisemitism long preceded the ME conflict, which is just another pretext to blame the joos for all the problems in the world in order to distract from their own abysmal criminal, negligent and murderous history.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 09:48 PMWell, al phie, you may not accept ANY accusation against the Palestinians at face value (although you seem to be far from that sceptical concerning accusations against Israelis), but it's kinda hard to deny videos of bloodthirsty 'plays', manipulative leading-question 'interviews', and brainwashing TV shows, isn't it?
Posted by: Salamantis at May 29, 2007 09:51 PMsal,
it's not hard at all. you either don't watch it, or you dismiss it as israeli propaganda, or you quote some anti-israeli sources.
just watch.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 09:54 PMoh, i forgot one: it's the occupation and oppression who makes them so. they're desperate.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 09:55 PMWhat's funny is, I support Israel and its right to defend itself.
You're right, Alphie. That is really funny.
Here's a link concerning Palestinian incitement, not that it should be necessary for anyone who reads a newspaper or watches the news:
http://www.pmw.org.il/KAJ_eng.htm
Mark,
Have you had a chance to read the inscription on Baruch Goldstein's tombstone?
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 09:59 PMhttp://www.teachkidspeace.com/pa/surveys/CMIPreply.pdf
http://www.nad-plo.org/pdf/txtbookana.pdf
So the Israeli texts are pluralistic, socially liberal, promote peace, and have mixed portrayals of Arabs and Palestinians as tradition-focused and not interested in scientific or technological advances,but do mention Palestinian professionals and shows them in both modern and traditional attire. Books discuss some positive relationships past and present between Jews and Arabs and acknowledges the legitimate Arab historical and current presence in the region. It shortchanges Christian Arabs mildly. In general, it seems 'if you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all.'
The Palestinian textbooks as of 2003 have removed almost all open and blatant insults and incitements to violence against Jews, except where they can quote the Quran. They quote none of the positive Quranic statements about Jews. They do not discuss any historical presence of Judaism or Jews in the region. They discuss People of the Book only in terms of Christians. They do not show the present-day existence of Israel in history or geography books, often describing Israeli cities as Palestinian, and discuss the founding of Israel as a cataclysmic disaster to the devout Muslim, also saying that the Muslim must fight to prevent even a millimeter of Islamic land from being taken by others.
The reference books recommended to upper-level Palestinian students are, however, still openly hateful.
Posted by: Pam at May 29, 2007 10:02 PMMarkC, the depressing thing is that just looking at the top of the page, two of those "kill all of the Jews" quotes on that page are direct quotes of a couple Hadiths (and yes the Hadiths themselves repetitive).
How can there ever be peace when Mohammad himself said that killing all of the Jews is duty that he has forseen that Muslims will commit?
The Muslims will never stop killing Jews. This war will end in a new holocaust or not at all.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 10:04 PMjosh,
it's not muhammad, it's allah!!! the former was only the vessel into which the latter poured.
so it's worse than you make it. if it were just muhammad it would be one thing, but it's god's word.
as islamists always say: we're just doing god's wish.
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 10:35 PMhamas ideology:
http://www.pmw.org.il/Bulletins_may2007.htm#b240507
i dare anybody to find any israeli or jewish equivalent
Posted by: fp at May 29, 2007 10:39 PMThe Hadiths were not given the same weight as the Quran through all of Islam's history -- some Islamic scholars -- old really renowned ones -- consider only about 100 Hadiths legitimate statements of the Prophet, and the rest were commentaries and politically-motivated additions. That's one reason sound academic historical study of Islam could potentially be helpful in moderating it, if it weren't currently regarded as heretical.
Of course the Wahhabi branch gives the Hadith as much weight as the Quran, which some of the most ultra-ultra-orthodox Muslims consider blasphemous, as they do worshipping Mecca. The Quran is God's own words, and anything else is irrelevant -- even Mohammed said this; he also said he should not be an object of worship.
The Hadiths are where much of Sharia comes from, and where much of the most virulent racism and sexism lie -- but there's enough anti-Jewish and anti-woman stuff in the Quran proper to be a problem. In the Bible, the Jews will gather and convert or be destroyed at the Second Coming, in the Quran I believe Muslims must slaughter them to bring the End of Times.
Posted by: Pam at May 29, 2007 10:44 PMHow about Psalms 58, fp?
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 11:11 PMI wish Alphie were competent at argument. I keep feeling that my intelligence has been insulted.
My favorite:
All things dull and ug-ly,
All creatures, short and squat,
All things rude and na-sty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their [brutish] venom,
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spiky urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things [scabbed] and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
A--men.
Monty Python "Contractual Obligation Album"
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 11:25 PMUnless I'm mistaken, Psalm 58 discusses G*d's punishment of the wicked and reward for the righteous.
It doesn't say a word about Palestinians as far as I can tell.
And please note: the punishment is G*d's, not man's.
That in itself is an important point.
Posted by: Sophia at May 29, 2007 11:26 PMOh and ignore the brackets (but not the words in them).
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 11:28 PMthe punishment is G*d's, not man's.
Yes that's the huge (HUUUUUGE) difference that aphie missed last time.
There's a big difference in dynamic between telling your children that in the end times God will kill the Jews and other unbelievers, and telling them God expects us to kill the Jews and unbelievers and it's everyone's duty to prepare to kill them as soon as possible. And Also everyone who dies killing Jews goes straight to heaven and gets to put in a good word for his family.
Only an idiot would fail to see the difference
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 11:33 PMOr an atheist, Josh.
Your fine distinctions are lost on us, I guess.
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 11:38 PMOoh, look at what this implies.
Sunnis in Syria converting to Shiism. What's interesting - the first comment:
This just goes to show how religious identity in the Middle East is more based on culture and nationalism than any real understanding of the deen. Anyone who appears “strong” and says bad things about Jews can gain a following.
You can even get Muslims to change their religion if you can show your religion killing more Jews (this is about the example of Hezbollah).
No peace on the way, dears.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 11:39 PMTry to read the words slowly alph, one by one so you don't miss any.
The difference is between actually training your children to be killers, here, in this world, and telling them that God will kill someone one day, but they don't have to do anything.
In the first case real people will go out and slaughter. In the second case people will sit on their butts and wait for God to do something someday (which will never come).
Real things happening in the real world vs. NOTHING happening in the real world.
I'm an agnostic too, Alph. I'm only looking at what actually happens. Bombs vs. no bombs.
Get it now? Even a little?
Jesus, how dense!
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 11:43 PMThis piece has a powerful conclusion:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1532
She speaks of the fears of another Holocaust in the weeks before the 1967 war (I remember that - I found my mother crying on the phone and when I asked her what was wrong she told me she was weeping for the Jewish people).
Then, came the stunning victory - and all of a sudden the old memes about Jewish power came rushing back. No longer were we victims, but conquerors of another people.
It's caused an internal split and worse, those fears, fears of another Holocaust, are upon us once again, as people above have stated, as Iran and Hamas and so many others keep promising.
I think also, when people look back at 1948 and the Nakba, and some journalists declare that ETHNIC CLEANSING TOOK PLACE, or recount the dread deeds of the Stern Gang and Irgun (I'm thinking especially of the British, who seem to feast on this stuff), it reflects a lack of ability to empathize with the tattered, desperate people of the Yishuv. During the war, refugee ships had been turned away within sight of Haifa harbor. After, Bevin set up a blockade and forced ships of survivors back to Europe. In Poland, Holocaust survivors were killed. Pogroms had broken out all across the Middle East as well.
Der Spiegel had an article this week about Rommel, recounting Hitler's plans to annihilate the Jews in the Mandate. Threats from Arab leaders were simply bloodcurdling.
There's a distressing amount of mockery out on the 'net these days, dismissing the seriousness of the present day threats and trying to pass them off as "bad translations" - or worse, accusing Jews of trying to start another war for their own benefit. That's truly disturbing - it has spilled over into the "peace" movement as well.
Posted by: Sophia at May 29, 2007 11:53 PMThe book of revelations doesn't say that Christians have to do the killing. It just says that in some mystical way, people will die, so Christians aren't preparing themselves to be killers.
They're not hardening themselves so that they can commit genocide without guilt, quite the opposite.
But Muslims believe that it's THEIR OWN duty to commit genocide for God, so they ARE trying to spread hatred and to dehumanize the Jews in order that Muslims will be ready to do God's will, as soon as possible.
Actually this fits into the fact that Mohammad also expected Islam to conquer the world, and humble and humiliate the remaining infidels who will be their serfs.
Hatred is considered a requirement for piety. While this is logical because conquest requires brutality, Islam goes further than that, and explicitly makes hatred a duty.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 29, 2007 11:55 PMI may just be a heathen, Josh, but didn't that day already come?
While having your kids open the door once a year and shout:
"Pour out Your wrath upon the nations which do not know You, And upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Your name."
may seem like harmless fun, but do you see how some people might take it the wrong way?
Posted by: alphie at May 29, 2007 11:55 PMI had to google those words to even know what they refer to, I've never heard them before
Psalm 79:6-7
If you're claiming that Jews shout it once a year, I'm surprised never having heard it before. And yes, everyone in my family is Jewish.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 30, 2007 12:02 AMBut you do only take pot shots, don't you. Usually poorly considered ones, but that's besides the point. You never consider the arguments arrayed before you, do you alphie?
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 30, 2007 12:03 AMWhat can I say, Josh?
Maybe my neighbors used to do it wrong.
Or maybe all that kosher wine fogged my memory.
And I'm a big fan of Monty Python, but I'm not sure exactly what argument you were making with that quote, so I don't know how to respond to it.
Posted by: alphie at May 30, 2007 12:18 AMAlphie's gone, having never made a coherent argument, and having never answered either to concede or to rebut a single answer to his scatter shots.
What's his game anyway?
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 30, 2007 12:19 AMAlphie,
Before you quote another verse, out of context, and without comment, please do me a favor and read about the Noachaic Laws and understand that you do not have to be Jewish to be righteous.
You might also want to research how Jewish law prescribes that the righteous non-Jew in their midst be treated, then compare it to the Dhimmitude reserved for "People of the Book."
Lastly, do a little research on Baal worship and some of the other cults worshipped in the ancient world that the early Jews encountered to understand why they prayed for Hashem to destroy the "wicked" and "unrighteous." One hint, human sacrifice was the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by: IMFink'sPa at May 30, 2007 12:23 AMOh and it's back with a stupid taunt.
And I'm a big fan of Monty Python, but I'm not sure exactly what argument you were making with that quote, so I don't know how to respond to it.
I probably wasted an hour writing various posts and he pretends none of them are there.
The very definition of a troll. Just trying to provoke a reaction without bothering to read the thread at all, if he's even capable of understanding it.
I hope Michael takes the time to read this thread carefully enough to realize that you're deliberately wasting people's time and bans you for it.
Either have the courage to make a coherent argument or leave!
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 30, 2007 12:24 AMAlphie hasn't committed any bannable offenses, so if you don't want him around stop feeding him.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 30, 2007 12:35 AMI don't write enough or well enough to have readers.
But I've always thought that if I did, I wouldn't ban based on principle, I'd ban the way a gardener prunes bushes, for aesthetics.
Being boring, unpleasant or shallow would be bannable offenses.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at May 30, 2007 12:39 AM"What's funny is, I support Israel and its right to defend itself."
Alphie's not anti-Zionist, just anti-semitic.
Posted by: Gary Rosen at May 30, 2007 12:40 AMAnd Josh, whenever I read your sweeping generalizations about Muslims and Jews, I think of the Kurds in Northern Iraq who take the Israeli side in this conflict.
The Kurds insist this is an ethnic war between Jews and Arabs, not a religious war, and that they have no reason to hate or even dislike Jews. Meanwhile, they have no shortage of reasons to despise Arab Nationalists who, as you know, committed genocide against them.
They are Muslims, too, and rather conservative Muslims at that.
You are completely right about Palestinian indoctrination. But that's Palestine, that's the Arab world, that's the most radical place in the whole Arab world. The wider Islamic world is more varied.
The Kurds aren't the only Muslims who opt out of this bullshit, but they are the ones I know best. I have heard most Persians (not the Iranian government) feel the same way, but I can't verify that with experience.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 30, 2007 12:43 AMI wouldn't ban based on principle, I'd ban the way a gardener prunes bushes, for aesthetics.
A fair point. I am thinking about it.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 30, 2007 12:44 AMI don't want to be a jerk, though.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at May 30, 2007 12:45 AM