The other night at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, Anne Roiphe said that she could have dialogue with anyone except me, because as a non/anti-Zionist, I was denying the right of Israel to exist. Dan Fleshler, the third panelist, and I love to have dialogue, but I remember Dan using similar language, about the right of Israel to exist.
I've been mulling the phrase since the panel because last year I wrote Noam Chomsky a note that touched on this very subject. And Chomsky responded in a way I didn't then understand.
At the time, I was reviewing a dreadful book by David Mamet called The Wicked Son, and I quoted to Chomsky three statements Mamet made about the great linguist. Mamet wrote: 1. that "Mr. Chomsky sees [Israe] as a criminal enterprise." 2. That Chomsky, having declared Israel "a crime," feels exempted “from the need of further investigation, explanation or defense of [this] position.” 3. That Chomsky "does not recognize the Jewish State's right to existence."
I asked Chomsky, "Are these statements accurate?" It is said that Chomsky, who is the son of a Hebrew scholar and who spent time in his youth as a Labor Zionist in Israel, devotes half his time to answering correspondence--presumably for his own improvement, as well as for the correspondent's. Chomsky, wrote me back:
I've been mulling the phrase since the panel because last year I wrote Noam Chomsky a note that touched on this very subject. And Chomsky responded in a way I didn't then understand.
At the time, I was reviewing a dreadful book by David Mamet called The Wicked Son, and I quoted to Chomsky three statements Mamet made about the great linguist. Mamet wrote: 1. that "Mr. Chomsky sees [Israe] as a criminal enterprise." 2. That Chomsky, having declared Israel "a crime," feels exempted “from the need of further investigation, explanation or defense of [this] position.” 3. That Chomsky "does not recognize the Jewish State's right to existence."
I asked Chomsky, "Are these statements accurate?" It is said that Chomsky, who is the son of a Hebrew scholar and who spent time in his youth as a Labor Zionist in Israel, devotes half his time to answering correspondence--presumably for his own improvement, as well as for the correspondent's. Chomsky, wrote me back:
"Without looking, I am sure no sources are given, because the statements are all pure lies, as Mamet knows. He's not an imbecile.
There is, to be sure, one exception. No state demands a 'right to exist,' nor is any such right accorded to any state, nor should it be. Mexico recognizes the US, but not its 'right to exist' sitting on half of Mexico, acquired by aggression. The same generalizes.
To my knowledge, the concept 'right to exist' was invented by US-Israeli propaganda in the 1970s, when the Arab states (with the support of the PLO) formally recognized Israel's right to exist within secure and recognized borders (citing the wording of UN 242). It was therefore necessary to raise the bars to prevent the negotiations that the US and Israel alone (among significant actors) were blocking, as they still are. They understood, of course, that there is no reason why Palestinians should recognize the legitimacy of their dispossession -- and the point generalizes, as noted, to just about every state; maybe not Andorra.Noam Chomsky
When I say I didn't understand Chomsky--well, readers of this blog know that I am fumbling toward an understanding of the Middle East and the American Jewish role in the mess. As an American Jew, I have been recruited in a lot of the pro-Israel talk since I was a kid, and I absorbed those ideas without deliberation. Some of them involve this "right to exist." At the time I found Chomsky's comments too heretical to understand, also too compressed. He didn't fully explain a complex idea. I think I understand it better now. We recognize the right of people to exist--and when another state violates human rights, we decry the state. Within our borders we recognize the right of my house to exist, or yours, as a property right. But we didn't recognize the right of the Saddam/Iraqi government to exist, as we don't recognize the Iranian gov't right now, or the Syrian one. I don't recognize the right of the West Bank settlements to exist, unless it is in the context of a binational state. That doesn't mean I want to kill the settlers. The "right to exist" is Holocaust-tinged language, and echoes the determination of Hitler to wipe out the Jewish people. But when you talk about a state, you're not talking about a people, you're talking about a concept.
Another important point:
To request that Hamas or any Palestinian group accepts Israel's right to exist makes as much sense as asking the NY Yankees to recognize Tanzania's right to exist.
Whatever this "recognition" business means, it has to be a mutual recognition between states. America and Mexico "recognize" each other, in a way, by establishing diplomatic relationships and having embassies. This is not something that a non-state actor can, by definition, do.
This is a perfect example of another red herring fousted upon us by Zionist propaganda scum. While Israel, a fully-fledged state, destroys the ability of millions of Palestinians to live a normal life in independence, it manages to convince its moronic supporters around the world to harp on about the nonsense of the need for Hamas to first recognize Israel before Israel even sits at a negotiating table to then contemplate possibly giving the Palestinians a bantustan. The racist hypocricy is mind-boggling.
Fortunately for Israel, the world is full of morons who are willing to repeat this bullsh1t over and over. The sad thing is that it is Palestinian children whose futures are destoryed because of this nonsense.
Saree Makdisi has an excellent article on the topic: link to latimes.com
Phil,
Anne Roiphe does not speak for me. When it comes to "dialogue," obviously I want to speak to everyone. Otherwise, why would I have anything to do with this blog?
You don't see your role as galvanizing any political activity or bloc, and that is your privilege. But my question is not, "Who do I want to talk to?" My question is, "Who are the people in both `camps' on the left who could work effectively on joint political activity?"
The camps were mentioned in remarks on June 21st, but I was not clear about the topic at hand:
I, for one, don't think someone needs to recognize Israel's right to exist or its legitimacy before we can work together effectively. They need not think there is any justification for Zionism. They just need to accept the fact that, right now, Israel is a reality –i.e., a majority-Jewish state is a reality that cannot be transformed into something else, like a bi-national state. They need to accept that it is here for the foreseeable future, and it is impractical to try to completely change the situation by working for a bi-national state. (we could argue about the impracticality forever, but I'm giving you my personal litmus test here).
Most Palestinians in the OPTs, I am quite certain, have this view. Now, if one accepts the premise that at a majority Jewish state will exist–at least for the forseeable future– then one needs to figure out how to help end the occupation and create a viable Palesitinian state, long shot though it may be.
So, with that as background, here is my bottom line:
I know there are pragmatic people on the non-Zionist left who, in their brains if not their hearts, accept the that a majority Jewish state is a reality that cannot be dislodged. For example, there are individuals actors in both United for Peace and Justice and Jewish Voices for Peace who accept that, although their organizations won't commit themselves to an end-game.
It is those pragmatists who should be able to make common cause with people like me. We should be able to push for evenhanded American policies. We should try to make American policy makers feel like they have more political leeway to criticize and lean on Israel on a host of matters –from targeted assasinations to settlement expansion to checkpoints…
All the rest, as they say, is commentary.
I think it's fairly straightforward from Chomsky's pov. No state has a right to exist. In practice, though, there's a legal framework in which countries are supposed to operate and Israel has as much right to exist within that framework as any other country.
Part of what this "right to exist" language is about is a way of delegimitizing the Palestinian demand for a right of return. The simple fact is that the Israelis are not going to give up their majority Jewish state, so they're not going to allow an unlimited Palestinian right of return (or maybe even a token one). But it would be awkward to come right out and bluntly say "We're not going to give up the benefits we got from the ethnic cleansing of 1948". Instead, they talk about how some Palestinians won't acknowledge their right to exist, which is a brilliant PR move–it makes the Palestinians asking for their rights into the fanatical villains out to destroy the Jewish state.
As for myself, I sorta agree with Chomsky. In the forseeable future a one state solution doesn't seem to be in the cards, so the Palestinians should go for the two state solution. But (my view now, I don't know what Chomsky would say) from a negotiating point of view, they shouldn't take this dismissal of their right to return lying down. If they give it up, it should be clearly acknowledged that it is a huge concession they are making. There shouldn't be any of this nonsense about how generous it is for Israel to give up 90-97 percent of the 22 percent of the land Palestinians used to live on. It's as if the Palestinians are supposed to come to the bargaining table dismissing all their own claims right from the start, and should then be grateful to accept whatever crumbs are handed to them.
Israel's occupied territories equate to Saddam's Kuwait or Hitler's Poland.
On a day-to-day living basis of comparison the occupation is much like slavery was in the US: 4 million people (must be) kept in subjugation so that another people can have all they want out of life.
If I were POTUS, I would organize a multi-national force (a la Gulf War I) to take back the Palestinian land — knowing that Israel would not dare fire on American troops or their allies. But that's megalomaniac me. :-)
Denis, if you truly believe what you are saying then you are either mentally defective, have never read a book, or were jerking off during history class in hgh school. Please enlighten me has to the similarities between gaza city and the Warsaw ghetto
Saree Makdisi had a nice op-ed in the LA Times earlier this year on this topic.
link to latimes.com
He echoes the point of Chomsky/Weiss, but he also brings up another aspect — one related to the Jewish state's ticking demographic bomb:
"To fail to acknowledge the living Palestinian presence inside Israel (and its enduring continuity with the rest of the Palestinian people) is to elide the history at the heart of the conflict — and to deny the legitimacy of Palestinian claims and rights. This is exactly what Israel wants. Indeed, its demand that its 'right to exist' be recognized reflects its own anxiety, not about its existence but about its failure to successfully eliminate the Palestinians' presence inside their homeland."
This discussion about any nation's right to exist was analyzed in an excellent article by Michael Scheuer … link to antiwar.com
On another topic, looks like the neocons were fighting from within during an idealogical Alaskan cruise. Norman Podhoretz and W F Buckley were slapping each other around about the Iraq debacle. It appears that Buckley should have listened to Pat Buchanan about America's greatest blunder, a man he knifed in the back at the urging of Podhoretz.
link to vanityfair.com
Bill,
You talk like someone who is cracking the whip on a camp inmate at the same time.
Meantime, I am talking about how Hitler abused the Poles — which is admittedly quite a step down from the Holocaust. Now tell me why it is alright for Israel to violate the Palestinians as Hitler violated the gentile Poles. Don't keep citing the serial killer which you are not, to justify the illegal imprisoner which you are.
I suppose the next step is brand opponents of Israel's Hitler/Hussein type aggression as anti-Semite. As a matter of fact, Israel gets away without criticism in this country precisely because it is populated by mostly Western-style Jews — and she is preying on darker skinned people's. It is racism in Israel's favor, if anything, that is preponderant.
Again, why do so many defenders of Israel's policy of "lebensraum" spew dirty mouth venom worthy of concentration camp guards? I see it everywhere Israel is discussed on the net — and no place else.
I am a kid from the Bronx where we used the "F" word every other word growing up so I do not have sensitive ears — but Israel-can-do-no-wrong people have uniquely dirty, uniquely venomous vocabularies — it sort of gives away the kind of person who vehemently supports crimes against humanity (ironically after their people suffered the greatest crime).
As a prolifer I am used to the idea of being screamed at like I was in the Klan — because I oppose a holocaust — the only brand of venom that even reminds one of lebensraum fans.
the "right to exist" argument is based on a flawed view of the world. Namely that the UN means something. Isreal won it's country by the law of the jungle, force of arms. the only way they can hold on to it is force of arms. If the american indians decide they want their country back, we will not go to the UN or get the EU to send us troops, we will fight them as we did for hundreds of years.
If israel really wants to be the country that sits and battles the wildfire instead of letting itself burn out they are free to do so. just include us out
I always viewed the "right to exist" issue as a legal disaster for Israel. I am not a lawyer (Baruch Hashem!), but the way it looks to me is that a "right" can only be applied to anything that is a subject to a sovereign power, i.e. it cannot be another sovereign state!
Here is proof:
A "right" is a guarantee given by a sovereign power to the qualified entity ON ITS TERRITORY. Which sovereign power we are talking here?
There are international rights but they are all subject to signature of participating sovereign powers (states) and the following enforcement by them on their respected territories.
Again – what sovereign state can enforce a "right" for presumably another sovereign state to exist?
For such a "right" have any legal meaning it means that a giver of the "right" has to have sovereignty over the receiver's territory! Which in case when a receiver is itself is a sovereign a state is beyond ridiculous!
Its a contradiction – if they are both sovereign that means that they cannot enforce their laws on each other territory!
I think Palestinians should have given that "right" to Israel long time ago. The mere fact that Israel put itself on the receiving side of this "right to exist" is an acknowledgment of sovereignty of Palestinian entity over it!
In terms of violence of occupying army, the situation in the Occupied Territories is very similar to Occupied Poland circa 1940 although often the IDF cranks the level up to Poland circa 1942.
Visit Qalqiliya; it will certainly make you think of the walled-in Jewish Getto that the German Nazis created in Warsaw.
Zionist immurement of the native Palestinian population also combines aspects of the Soviet alienization of distrusted minorities as designed by mostly ethnic Ashkenazi members of the Soviet elite class. The Soviets removed the minorities to Central or Eastern Asia in acts of brutal ethnic cleansing. Zionist genocidalism in essence ethnically cleanses the native population in place, and the Zionist immurement program seems to be a hybridization of German Nazi and Soviet ideas.
Abolishing the State of Israel is not a fantastic idea. If we Americans had an open discussion of the criminality of the Zionist state and the disloyalty of American Zionists (whether Jewish or non-Jewish), I have little doubt that a majority of Americans would support regime change in Zionist controlled Palestine (both pre-1967 Israel and the Occupied Territories).
It is a matter of thwarting the media gatekeepers and facilitators, of whom David Mamet is an example. Rent The Spartan to see how demonization of Arabs suffuses our popular culture to the point where most Americans simply do not care about crimes committed against the peoples of the Middle East.
I have worked in Egypt, Saudia, the Persian Gulf, Israel and the Occupied Territories, but only in Tel Aviv has anyone tried to sell me a blond 12 year old virgin.
See link to thejewishadvocate.com and link to haaretz.com .
Note that the RCA misrepresents the Rabbinic Jewish position on slavery and human trafficking. Nothing in Rabbinic Jewish thought or law discourages it.
If I am not mistaken, the Lehman family that founded Lehman Brothers was heavily invested in Southern slavery and owned many slaves. The Lehmans were hardly unique among the American Jewish community of the time period, and as far as I know, no Rabbinic Scholar criticized them.
Ethnic Ashkenazim in the modern period have been heavily involved in human trafficking since the 1830s. I hypothesize that the business has its origins in the kinderkhapper (Jews hired by the Jewish upper class to kidnap poor Jewish children for Russian military service). Sholem Aleichem wrote an interesting short story about the ethnic Ashkenazi involvement in white slaving in Argentina.
We Americans can openly and honestly talk about the political economy of Germans, Egyptians, Brazilians or Russians, but as I found when I was a graduate student, we cannot freely discuss the political economy of ethnic Ashkenazim or the Zionist colonizer population in Stolen or Occupied Palestine.
Denis:
I heard the word fuck just has much in Queens has you did in the Bronx. Ok, lets leave the Jews aside for a millisecond. Impossible for a guy like you but lets give it a shot. 3 million Christian Poles died in WW2. The Palestinian population increases geometrically. Every house in the Gaza strip has a gun and they get the highest per capita foreign aid flows in the world. I fail to see the comparison. Although I do like the Nazi references when you apply them to Israel, very subtle scumbag.
Joechem:
I say again. How is life up there on the planet Klingon. Good to see that you send us messages. Even if you are a lunatic
Just an observation –
How strong is the Zionist position is, if to defend it our good friend Bill Pearlman has to call people Klingons, curse, change subject, insult and behave like a total lout, which we know he is not, as was attested by Phil himself, who met him personally?
I believe that it is desperately trying the defend the indefensible that makes reasonable people into such a sad creatures.
And it is everywhere – look at Finkelsteins' site – all "pro" letters are very polite, written in scholarly language and ALL the "against" letters are just pure hate mail, badly written and studded with profanities.
I think we must be kinder to Bill and allow him and his friends more leeway in their desperate attempts. Certainly we can afford that having our position strengthening almost on a hourly basis.
By Pearlman's logic we would have to conclude that the German Nazis were not abusing Jews in 1939 because the size of the Jewish population under German control increased so much after September 1, 1939.
Alex, I'm wounded by your slashing rhetorical wit. Especially coming from a Karaite such has your self. You know, one who doesn't believe in intermarriage with other Jews much less gentiles. And reveres the site of the temple in Jerusalem. By the way, how come your not in SF, the site of the only karaite congregation.
Joechem: little matter of WW2 there, maybe you heard about it when you were coming off your drugs. The fact is that if Israel was doing such a hot shit job of ethnic cleansing and genocide the Palestinina population wouldn't be leaping up like it does. Especially since the women are so fraking ugly
Dear Bill –
We are ready to forgive your rudeness, but it does not mean that we are ready to forgive stupidity. I do not think that people at your age can have Attention Deficits Disorder, so you cannot have that excuse.
Again – try to focus when you read, its not that difficult.
We all understand that the only thing you can do is insult, hoping that people would blow up and engage you on your level, i.e. outside of issue debate.
That is how desperate your position is.
Dear Phil –
I recently started to post on your blog and although I am a 100% pro free speech, I doubt that Bill Pearlman's rant has any useful part to it. I have no problem with people being rude and insulting while addressing the issue, but having someone who just post insulting rant completely outside the issue debate I think diminish us all.
We may not be your personal friends like he may have become during your latest meeting with him, but we do deserve common courtesy of not being exposed to childish discussions of Palestinian women being ugly.
Again, rudeness and insolence between us, boys is tolerable, insulting women is not.
That is, if we have any self-respect as men.
Bill's logic
________________
I go along with you Alex. But let's give Bill the credit of a fool: He believes in "the moral superiority of the Jewish people" – as Ben Gurion did. Hence: An insult to laps Jews or Gojim isn't one. Can you insult a pig of being dirty? It IS dirty. – That's Bill's logic.
Alex, been here for ages and Bill has behaved this way since the Observer days of yore. In fact he has even improved, being more humane of late. Anyway, he is part of the environment and being a creature on the verge of extinction he must be preserved for educational purposes.
Not feeling the love guys. Klaus, how are plans for the 4th reich coming
Ethnic Cleansing and Murdering Palestinians
Whenever Zionist forces have thought they could get away with ethnic cleansing or mass murder, they have made the attempt. It happened in 1947-8, in the murder of unarmed "infiltrators" during the early 50s, during the 1956 war, during the 1967 war, during the Lebanon invasion, etc.
In general settlers from the militias of the 19-naughts like Bar-Giora and Hashomer groups felt they had a God-given right to kill Palestinians as do the new settlers since the 1967 war.
Mass murder and genocide is part of Zionist indoctrination and intellectual culture as practically every significant study of Zionist colonizer attitudes has shown since Georges Tamarind's studies of the 1960s.
A few months ago I attended a meeting at the Kennedy School of Government. An exceptionally vile Harvard Wexner Israel Fellow was abusing an Arab speaker. I intervened with an impromptu discussion of Zionist genocidalism during the ethnic cleansing that began during 1947.
I went through the code names given to various operations.
Just what did the members of Zionist militias think they were supposed to do during Operation Biur Hametz I asked. The Israeli went silent. The Arab speaker did not know. (It is good to know Hebrew and Jewish religion when arguing with Zionist extremists.)
I explained that hametz is leaven, which is forbidden as a source of impurity during Passover. As part of the ritual preparation for Passover, Jews burn hometz to finalize the intent to make the home and seder table ritually fit. This burning of the hametz is biur hametz.
The Zionist militia members were to analogize the Arabs of Haifa to ritual impurity that must be destroyed by burning.
Mass murder of the Arabs of Haifa was apparently in the minds of the Zionist planners of the operation. Haifa's Arabs were lucky that the rank and file in general were not quite ready to go to that level of crime against humanity. Today's Israeli Zionists (and racist Ashkenazi American fellow-travelers like Jennifer, whom Fleshner mentioned in Thursday's talk) probably would be more than willing to go all the way.
By the way, Bill's "klingonian personality award" is sure to be bestowed on the most magnificent commentators among us.
Joechem:
You are one strange guy. What exactly do you do when your not sniffing out the Jews and their evil designs on the world from time immemorial. I really am curious.
The Shah of Iran speaks his mind, from 1976–
link to youtube.com
(Poor ToughDove won't come out of his house for a month.)
Well, in that case I think I will have to leave. I just cannot continue discussing things on the forum where insulting women does not warrant editor's reprimand.
Damages my honor.
"Poor ToughDove won't come out of his house for a month."
He should. Those bloody pigeons and their residential zoning codes:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Come back Alex, come back………….
Alex, to leave because of Bill makes his sayings more important than they are.
If Bill wants to play the fool let him. With all his rudeness he sometimes manages to be funny.
I, for one, would regret it if you left.
Alex, I pay more attention to your posts than Pearlman's.
Chomsky is, in my view, completely right in asserting that after the PLO's recognition of Israel: "It was … necessary to raise the bars to prevent the negotiations that the US and Israel alone (among significant actors) were blocking, as they still are."
This happened again in the nineties. In 1996 the PNC voted 504 –54 to annul anything in the PLO Charter that contradicted the Oslo agreement. The amended version seemed to satisfy Yitzhak Rabin’s cabinet.
It was mainly at the insistence of Rabin’s successor, Binyamin Netanyahu, that the PLO had to go through the same exercise again – as happened in December 1998, during the presence of President Clinton.
Apparently Netanyahu's cabinet was satisfied with the proceedings that then took place. Netanyahu himself expressed his satisfaction very soon after the December 1998 PNC meeting. Vol.17 of the Documents from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the years 1998 – 1999 gives this account of Netanyahu’s reaction:
"Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his satisfaction at the result of the PNC vote today, achieved as a result of the firm stance taken by the Government of Israel on the issue of the vote to revoke those clauses in the Palestinian Charter calling for the destruction of the State of Israel."
However, some members of the Knesset soon found occasion for legal nitpicking, among other things with the argument that the two third majority of PNC-members, required for Charter change, had not been quite there (it was a miracle that Arafat got as many together as he did).
Netanyahu too soon changed front. The bar had to be raised, as Chomsky puts it. He now insisted that the annulment of certain clauses in the Charter was not enough and that the whole Charter had to be presented in its revised form. Since then he has been repeating, ad nauseam, that this has not been done – a complaint for which he has found a willing echo among the 'right or wrong, my country' school.
Arafat had to pull the whole exercise off in the face of opposition from other factions in the PLO and to insist that the whole revised Charter would be presented was just one bridge too far, particularly as Israel was not living up to its own obligations under the Oslo agreement, especially regarding the release of prisoners and the activity re settlements, as Netanyahu knew full well.
Minor problem Arie, the even f you had the correct version of events, which you don't. There was never a formal vote on this by the PNC. But that's not the problem. There not in the saddle , Hamas is. I know the Hamas covenant doesn't particularly bother you but it does make for chilling reading for some of us.
Bill, there was a vote. The argument that the decision was not delivered by the requisite two third of PNC members seems to me either deliberate nit-picking or inspired by the anxiety of habitual paranoiacs. The extent of PNC membership was unclear and with it the correct number for a two third majority.
What saddle Hamas is supposed to be in? For the time being the other crowd, that has for years been reviled by the US and Israel as totally corrupt and rotten to the core, is being lifted into that stamped "Made in the USA".
Hamas has offered to negotiate without preconditions. It has also unilaterally observed an armistice that Israel was the first to break.
If Israel really wants peace these are the people to talk to. As Avnery observed you make peace with your enemies, not with your friends.
Drew said: "If I were POTUS, I would organize a multi-national force (a la Gulf War I) to take back the Palestinian land — knowing that Israel would not dare fire on American troops or their allies. But that's megalomaniac me."
I'm not so sure the IDF wouldn't fire on American troops. During Israel's first war with Lebanon, General Sharon, unhappy with American opposition to his rampaging army, sent IDF tanks through dug-in American lines. They didn't stop until an American officer jumped on an Israeli tank, pull his .45 and threatened to shoot the IDF Colonel.
Regarding Israel's "right to exist." No country does. There is no supreme court in the sky that decides which countries are legitimate or not. All countries come into existence in the same way. A group of powerful people comes along and takes the land away from a weaker group. Right has nothing to do with it. This applies to America, Israel, Iceland, New Zealand and every other country I know about.
Regarding Israel's "right to exist." No country does. There is no supreme court in the sky that decides which countries are legitimate or not. All countries come into existence in the same way. A group of powerful people comes along and takes the land away from a weaker group. Right has nothing to do with it. This applies to America, Israel, Iceland, New Zealand and every other country I know about.
Indeed Gene, and after we get the Zionists to commit suicide and give up their county we are going to work on the Americans, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders to kill themselves as well. If we are not consistent than what are we?
Alex, this is an example of the Answer to bad speech is more free speech. I share your view of Bill's comment re Palestinian women. I think Bill should be as embarrassed about that as I was the other night, by Anne Roiphe, for my regrettable forgettable comments about Jewish women. I'm sure Bill will apologize for this some day.
Besides: Jews and Palestinians are cousins! They look rather similar. The beauty so often associated with Israelis (by birthright and other ideologies) is true of Palestinians too…
Amnesty should be given to the participants of the 1947 war of independence.
The current Israelis carry no responsibility for some old mistakes.
The victims are well advised to forgive all mistakes to Israel, and start a pragmatic new and current policy.
Instead of seeking an alliance with another illegitimate junta in Iran, the Palestinians must reform their views on Islam and history, and come to terms with the reality of Israel.
All decent people can sit down and negotiate a peace treatment.
The American Anti-Zionist Jews should really reconsider their negative disposition, and fight for the liberty of Israel and Palestine in a balanced and pragmatic manner. Not in the intellectually dishonest way of Noam Chomsky, who is dangerously generalizing without understanding the different shades of the changing world.
Pearlman: "… Palestinina population wouldn't be leaping up like it does. Especially since the women are so fraking ugly"
sexist and racist. Besides the rationality reminds me of what a friend told me long ago about his South Africa experiences. Where he discovered that as a white he wasn't allowed to talk to "blacks" women, as they told him when he wanted to invite the ladies working in his hotel for an icecream. He wouldn't have been able to tell them from "pure" whites. They looked like Spanish or Italian to him and he wondered how the hell the police – that was supposed to intervene – could tell the tiny bit of black "bloodlines" floating through their veins.
Since then he wondered how the whites managed to not see the beauty of these women.
"Men at work", I would like to argue that the occupation of North America and Australia were, in priciple, different projects from the Zionist occupation of Palestine. They formed an enterprise in accordance with then valid concepts of international law. So, however unjustified they might appear in retrospect, they were then undertaken in good faith.
The 18th Century philosopher and theoretician of international law, Emmerich de Vattel, had provided a practical criterion for a state of barbarism: lack of cultivation of the land.
Uncultivated territory with an extremely thin and partly nomadic population was regarded as ‘terra nullius’ or up for grabs.
The Zionist project, by contrast, would even in the 18th Century have been an anachronism (harking back to ‘the right of the strongest’) because it could never be argued that Palestine was in the late 19th Century ‘terra nullius’. It had a settled, comparatively dense population and, where the soil was suitable, the land was cultivated.
That is why the Zionist project was, from the start, marked by bad faith. Against all the evidence it had to be argued that ‘here was a land without people for a people without land’.
This ‘bad faith’ still pervades this whole enterprise.
Dershowitz, who is even now still clinging to Joan Peters' fraudulent data, provides a good example here.
I've heard those arguments about mass Arab immigration to Palestine from Egypt, Jordan, SA, and Syria in the early 20th century, but can anyone provide some actual numbers.
AB – question for you – Had the Hebrews decided to settle in northern Saudi Arabia, where there wasn't much population and little cultivated land, would you support their return to the region from which they last had a formal nation state?
Men At work, we don't need to get any country to commit suicide. We just need to get Zionistas to stop insulting our intelligence by insisting on Israel's imaginary "right to exist." No country has a right to exist. Rights have nothing to do with it. In What you need are stronger armies, faster planes and warheads with more kilotons.
Come on guys, leave politics aside for a second and be men again. The fact is that Palestinian women, on the whole, are lets just say, not particularly attractive. Israeli women are hot, no question about it. The evidence is there. Now its possible that in Arab culture being somewhat rotund and in a hijab is considered attractive. Look, I don't get suicide bombings, honor killings, and the stoning of homosexuals and adulterous women either. Not to mention the lets throw the other guy off the roof day they just had in gaza. But what the hell, it's just me.
Bill – I am being a man. Not a pig. A man. A woman loving man at that. You really are off base here. Even if what you were arguing is true (which it is not) you would be an asshole for making the argument. Are there unattractive Palestinian women? Yes there are. Hannan Ashrawin, a case in point, is known for her intellect not her figure. Are there attractice Palestinian women? Indeed. I've seen them and know them. These are women you could only dream about being with Bill.
Now, are there hot Jewish women in Isreal? Indeed there are. Quite a few. But how do you explain Golda Meir?
Now let me just say while there are quite a few very handsome Israeli and Palestinian men, there are more than a number that have yet to show up in any women's fantasy. Need I say more.
A fellow jew.
Ok, I'll give you Golda Meir, no question. And queen Rania is a babe, without a doubt. But find me great looking girls in Ramallah or Gaza city. Has opposed to Israel. I don't see it. Not to mention the rest of the arab world.
On a serious note, I think there have been some studies on women in Islamic countries that found that due to frustrtation with their limited freedom they tend to be depressed more often than western women and this depression partly plays out in their ignoring their physical appearance.
That being said – you come across as a major butthead making these comments.
Also – Why do you always type in "has" when you mean "as"?
link to plasticsurgery101.blogspot.com
Yes, Pearlman, in Israel "beauty" saves live occasionally. Really hot!
You can enjoy looking at Israeli women as much as you like. Maybe Arab fathers do not want to feed their daughters to your voyeuristic pleasure?
To hell with this discussion.
Does Isarel claim a 'right to exist' in order to beautify the Arab women?
Take it easy Klaus, go have a beer and burn down a synagogue. Bring back the good old days
Here Bill – Don't forget to grab the hand cream
link to metacafe.com
Proof that Bill doesn't know what he is talking about.
link to arabgirl.ws