If you wanted to sense the power of Walt and
Mearsheimer’s ideas, there was no better place than the conservative synagogue Beth Hillel outside Philadelphia last night, a panel discussion sponsored by the rightwing Jewish Policy Center on radical Islam and the new anti-Semitism on campus, featuring four neoconservatives, including Giuliani adviser Daniel Pipes.
From the outset of
the evening, the talk was of Walt and Mearsheimer. Richard Fox, the real estate
mogul who supports the new pro-war group
Freedom’s Watch, opened the discussion by referring to the book. "They have been getting a lot of press. A real problem: we Jews who represent a fraction of the population are in control. These two professors are not the first to teach antisemitism and they won’t be the last."
The moderator was mustachioed Michael
Medved, and he also spoke of Walt and Mearsheimer. He said that they had gotten
$750,000 for their book from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (I also have heard that they
got a lot of money, I don’t know how much). Then David Horowitz, the reformed
radical from California,
also bashed the authors, in almost losing his composure as he described
the pitiable condition of the tiny Jewish state. "The lies are so monstrous these days… The Walt Mearsheimer book [says] the media is controlled by the Jews who are using it to attack Muslims… Name me the Hollywood film that is defending the state of Israel!"
It did not seem to me that
these references were calculated. There was a wretched, fearful quality to the
evening–as what looked to be 800-1000 people had filled a hall during the High
Holidays, their cars parked on the synagogue lawn. I sensed that the fear of Walt/Mearsheimer was genuine: reflecting a Holocaust-engendered belief on the part of
the panel and audience that we Jews are extremely vulnerable in western society, and that
anti-Semitism is as bad now as it was in the 1930s. "I believe that we are in a much worse state in the world today, that is we as Jews, than the Jews were in the 1930s," Horowitz claimed stupendously
(and crazily—I say this as a guy who likes Horowitz, he’s a kind man one-on-one).
Part of the political complex that Walt and Mearsheimer are taking on today is the myth of Jewish powerlessness. It is felt in many parts of the
Jewish community, and god knows it has good and ancient pedigree. Overcoming feelings of emasculated powerlessness is the theme of Leon Uris’s Exodus (which as W&M point out is Israeli history in the U.S.). It’s one of my themes that this idea of powerlessness is today a false one: that we are principals in
American society.
I will cite one fact that bears this out. These men who spoke
so eloquently last night of the need of defeating terrorism, not appeasing it, or making
deals with it, but of triumphing over Islamofascism, as Daniel Pipes put it so militantly—they did not once call on Jewish kids to join the Army. As I have reported, there are more Buddhists in the U.S.
At
the end of the evening, an older woman rose and spoke in agony about the situation
in Israel today and referred to the dramatic picture of frightened Palestinian schoolgirls
that appeared at the top of the front page of the Times. "I have spent my life fighting for Israel as I’m sure many people in
this room have, in every venue that I can think of. Today there is a picture
that makes us wring our hands…" She got the largest applause of anyone. When a student rose to say the U.S. should be reaching out to Egypt and other Muslim countries, he was booed.
So the Israel lobby asserts itself. The last ten minutes of
this two-hour event on anti-Semitism were all about
As to presidential politics, he said that Ron Paul and Dennis
Kucinich were all but antisemites, "both of whom have trafficked with haters of Israel and are basically pledged to the destruction of Israel as we know it." While Hillary was good for the
Jewish community, and Obama was surprisingly good as well. He had, within
hours, taken down an ad on his site for Walt and Mearsheimer’s book! As for
Christopher Dodd, he was excellent on Israel. Why, his father had served as a
Let’s linger on this point. Later that evening I opened my New York Times and saw the ad for a book by Christopher Dodd called Letters From Nuremberg, My Father’s Narrative of a Quest for Justice, replete with endorsement by Elie Wiesel. Why is this book coming out now? Because of Jewish presence in the American political process. Because Jews make up more than half of the Democratic contributors. There is only one word for the abilty to compel a leading senator to write a book about his father’s Nuremberg credentials of 60 years ago as he runs for President: power. Until American Jews come to terms with that power, until we understand that powerless Israel lost 50 people in the Lebanon war last year while killing 900 Lebanese and strewing the country with American-made cluster bombs, we are lost in the Middle East.
Related posts:
- Yivo Owes Walt and Mearsheimer an Apology. Or a Stage
- Who Are Walt and Mearsheimer? Why Did They Do It? (And What About Walt’s Jewish Milieu?)
- Walt and Mearsheimer as Scholars of Jewish History
- It’s time for Yivo to host a debate with Walt and Mearsheimer
- Peretz Says NIE Shocker Re Iran Was Enabled by… Walt & Mearsheimer
{ 50 comments }
Israel lost 150 people including about 100 soldiers in the Lebanon war if memory serves.
Lebanese dead ran well over a thousand — mostly civilians — not to mention the huge damage inflicted on their economy.
Touching image, that elderly woman lamenting the mention of frightened Palestinian schoolgirls.
Nice post Phil. Thank you.
The main problem with Pipes, Horowitz, Medved, Podhoretz et al., and essentially all militant Jewish nationalists residing in America, is that they are cowards lacking the courage of their convictions.
“Israel is in peril,” they scream. “Something must be done.”
Fine, move there and take up arms. Don’t try to manipulate others into sacrificing their lives for a Jewish state. Do it yourselves.
But of course, most diaspora Jewish nationalist Zionists like the comforts and easy living of America. And they like their carefully cultivated, widely broadcast image of modern day prophets and patriarchs and tortured, moral men of conscience oh-so worried about the well-being of their fellow Jews in Israel. But they also feel guilt about their cowardice and so they attempt to compensate by lobbying America on behalf of Israel and coming up with elaborate, highly rationalized schemes to introduce American troops into the Middle East as bodyguards for Zionism and enablers of Zionist expansionism.
Phil hints at this cowardice by noting how few Jews serve in the US armed forces, even though 82% of Jews describe themselves as supporters of Israel. http://www.standwithus.com/news_post.asp?NPI=556
What all of this seems to and up to is a disconnect from reality by diaspora Jewish nationalists that encourages ever greater rhetorical bravado to compensate for their cowardice, and ever more desperate stabs at pushing the US into a World War against Islamofascism, the latest example being the full-court press by organized US Jewish groups for an American bombing campaign against Iran. The more "threatened" Israel seems, the more their cowardice is magnified, and the louder there demands become for America to "do something!"
I have never seen a poll done, but I would bet that Israelis who have emigrated to the US are far less militant in their demands for support for Israel, and far less interested in pushing wars for Zionism, because they understand that if that is their vision, they should return to Israel and wage the wars themselves.
The problem is pampered, insular Jewish-American princes and princesses who think their spoiled-brat demands should be acted upon at the highest levels of government no matter how outrageous, unrealistic or destructive.
A sometimes wonder if the solution to the most tenacious anti-democratic Zionist ideologues (guys like Pipes, Horowitz, Medved, Podhoretz et al) bent on overthrowing the US government on behalf of Zionism is to deport them to Israel the way Communist ideologues like Emma Goldman were deported to the Soviet Union.
Only after Goldman saw Communism in action did she moderate her views. Perhaps if the neocons were forced to serve in the IDF for a few years, they wouldn’t be so gung-ho either.
"Why is the American Jewish community so determined to convince itself that we are living in 1938. Why does the most successful, the most well integrated, the most culturally and politically influential, the most socially and economically well situated Jewish community since the late years of the Roman republic, why is it so worried about the demon of anti-Semitism—more worried than the Jewish community in any other country I know and certainly more worried than Israel itself? It's an American issue."
Tony Judt
Sorry, this is an interruption but watch this video and read Paul Craig Roberts' comments on this scene in Counterpunch.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?filmID=601
This is a very daring post of Phil's, and I don't think they're going to let him get away with it much longer.
Where are the other "progressive Zionists"? MuzzleWatch, Richard Silverstein and others are trying hard but it's not enough, and they're primarily aimed at the Jewish community.
Dan Fleshler, don't you too feel any responsibility toward your gentile neighbors? They don't need you to help them think about Palestine–they can handle that on their own. They need you to tell them about what they CAN'T understand on their own–the mentality behind the lobby.
Phil's comments about serving in the military are a bit hypocritical though.
Phil never served in the military either. He was too smart to, also too lucky, as the draft ended just before he was eligible.
I regard most that don't serve in the military as SMART.
We need a military (not nearly as large or as imposing as we have), and those that do so out of a sense of community service, deserve the world's respect.
If only a very small portion of Jewish adults served in the American professional army, that is wonderful. It is a great shame that any more than a small number should anywhere.
"Disloyalty". Are you hearing yourself Phil?
Aside from the exagerated response of Pipes, the reasoning of confidence that Israel would not be left high and dry, is real.
Confidence.
Children for example thrive when they are confident that they will be cared for. Most naturally then develop into ethical human beings.
A loved spouse thrives when they are confident that they will be cared for.
Its most often the deprived that end up cruel and violent.
Such confidence engenders peace and goodness.
If the question is "how can we improve the lives of Palestinians?" lets ASK that question already, and pursue it in earnest.
Not the rhetoric, the reality.
Also, my father served in the US military. I never asked his father, but I suspect he did as well.
I didn't. Phil didn't. If he had children, I pray that his children wouldn't. I pray that my children don't. (Its unlikely, they have other options thankfully excepting the prospect of the draft.)
Richard Witty, 05/10/07:
"The sympathy of desiring to defend one's even distant relatives, is real and laudable. In some ways, I feel better about the prospect of my 18 year-old son joining the IDF, than if he announced he was joining the marines."
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/05/zionism_was_onc.html
You should have called David Horowitz "a DEformed radical. Episcopalians are sometimes called, "God's Frozen People." One reason why American Jews don't join the U.S. military is that the Christian Evangelicals are taking over–they really MEAN it when they sing, "Onward Christian Soldiers!" They might as well try to join the Ku Klux Klan.
Israel is having trouble with draft evasion on the part of its young people, and they're shameless about it now.
I think ed's comment is rather insightful. Phil's post, too, but I don't see so much significance to the Dodd book but that's just me.
To Richard Witty, what's the problem with Phil alleging disloyalty on the part of those who wish for war without being willing to participate in it? Those who don't desire military conflicts on the other hand should be able to avoid military service without having their motives impugned, that I think we can agree on.
{humor}
I finally figured out Dick Pitty’s function on this board:
FADE IN:
Two overfed Jews sit next to each other on black leather chairs at one end of a long, mahogany table in a dimly-lit, wood-paneled conference room. AIPAC is stenciled on the smoke-glass doors. The older of the Jews, SHOCKSTEIN, is scarfing down a lunch of bagels and kosher pudding. The other, BAUMSTEIN, eyes him with envy and malice.
Shockstein (talking with his mouth full): Oye, dis Mondoveiss guy is starting to cause us a lot of problems, a lot of problems.
Baumstein: Yes he is. And you know what they say: if one goes goy, there goes the neighborhood. No wonder he’s sympathetic to the Pali’s. (rolls his eyes) God in heaven.
Schockstein: I understand he’s developed quite da following?
Baumstein: Oye.
Schockstein: Wvell, wvat can we do about all dis, huh? We’re at a crucial juncture now, pushing for da war wvhid Iran and all. Wvat can we do?
Baumstein (slaps his own forehead): Wait a minute, wait a minute, I just got an idea. It’s perfect. Perfect!
Shockstein: Wvhat already! Wvhat?!
Baumstein: I know someone who knows him. This is perfect. They grew up together. Spent a couple summers together.
Schockstein: Who is it?
Baumstein: Oh, you don’t know him. Some putz by the name of Pitty…Dick Pitty.
Shockstein: Is he Kosher?
Baumstein: Well…he likes to pass himself off as a moral Jew, a humane Zionist, but he’s committed.
Shockstein: A humane Jew? I don’t like him.
Baumstein: Yeah, he believes his own schtick. But that’s what makes him perfect. We send him into Mondoweiss to identify with the progressive Jews who are susceptible to Monodoweiss’ lure, and then ease them back toward Zionism with sappy appeals to their history. It always works. It’s perfect.
Shockstein: Alright, alright. I guess its wvorth da shot. But don’t pay him more dan peanuts.
Baumstein: Peanuts? I was just gonna let him hold the coats at Barbara Walters’ next dinner party and shake hands with Tom Friedman before he valet-parks his car.
(They both laugh)
Shockstein (rolling his eyes): Humane Zionist. Wvat an oxy-MORON. (more laughter) Hey! Don’t touch dhat bagel! Get your own damn bagel, you damn putz!
FADE OUT
It might just be me, but I didn't like this last post very much.
Sorry, but that really did smell of anti-Semitism. Witty is adequately served by our arguments. Though he is annoyingly woolly and long-winded he fulfills a useful function by drawing these out.
There is a movement afoot in the world's Muslim community, sometimes violent, sometimes democratic, at its center it is "anti-imperialist".
"Imperialism" here is taken to mean the domination of non-Christian, non-European peoples, by European or Euro-American-Christians (since roughly the 1950s the Jewish people of the United States under the neologism, "Judeo-Christian" have been given the status of "honorary Christians", in much the same way that the Japanese were considered "honorary whites" under the former apartheid regime of South Africa). Certainly for the inhabitants of Muslim countries the distinction between Zionists (read Jews) and "crusaders" (read Christians) has become rather blurred over time.
At first the political tools used by "third world" countries to resist this domination were nationalism (emphasizing local sovereignty, UN seat, nationalized-socialized economy, etc.) and in many cases simultaneous alignment with the Soviet block in "national liberation struggles". In order to weaken the allure of left-wing nationalism the United States and her allies often encouraged Islamic fundamentalism and encouraged the growth of movements such as the Taliban, Hamas and Hizbullah. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the advent of globalization, secular nationalism and socialism lost practically all their usefulness as tools for loosening the grip of aliens on the economies, lives and customs of non-"European" peoples.
However, by now, many Muslims have discovered that, for better or worse, Islam is the one idea, culture and "way of life" that cannot be dissolved or co-opted by the omnivorous powers of synthesis and the economic and military hegemony of the "New World Order". Thus, as day follows night, with nowhere else to turn, "Islam is the Answer" (http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/20/news/islam.php ) has now become the default slogan of anti-imperialism among Muslims and may, who knows, begin to resonate among disaffected, heretofore non-Muslims, that find themselves helpless victims of American-led globalization.
BTW.
Yes the poster identified as TL is an old fashioned antisemite and yes at the same time this blog IS in danger turning into flypaper for such….
Speaking as someone who has been the executive director of a Reform Temple (though long ago) I'm astonished that a synaoguge would've put on a forum so imbalanced as this. Four neocons with absolutely no representation fr. anyone to the left of Genghis Cohen er, Khan?? It's a shande.
And thanks David for those nice comments about my blog & Muzzlewatch. We try.
"They have been getting a lot of press. A real problem: we Jews who represent a fraction of the population are in control. These two professors are not the first to teach antisemitism and they won't be the last."
Did he really say this?
"They have been getting a lot of press. A real problem: we Jews who represent a fraction of the population are in control. These two professors are not the first to teach antisemitism and they won't be the last."
***************************************
This quote illustrates an interesting phenomena I posted on yesterday, namely rightwing Zionism's illustrating Oscar Wilde's famous aphorism, "life imitates art".
As I said then, probably the most notorious antisemitic tract of them all, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion) is a total forgery, cooked up by the czarist secret police in 1903. In short it's a fake and it never happened.
What is weird to the point of hallucinating is that the American Zionist right seems to have adopted this nauseating screed as their operating doctrine and then with typical American innocence and Paul Bunyan braggadocio they go flapping their mouths off and bragging about it in public in the age of blogs and YouTube. Dumb, n'est pas? (that's French for "nu?)
How can you have a conspiracy in America when Americans can simply never shut up for a minute?
Obviously if people talk like this and can back it up with any factual activity that is noteworthy and others see them and hear them, and the word gets around, then of course everybody, but I mean *everybody* else, would consider them rightfully their mortal enemy because objectively they would be their mortal enemy and thus be fair game for anything at all.
Vietnam was only 40 years ago.
For us now approaching senior citizens, us progressives, the memory of Vietnam is real.
Some have renounced their former dissent (not too many). Many have renounced the form of their dissent.
But we haven't forgotten. And those that haven't forgotten, but still had positions of responsibility and power in the US government (a state WITH enormous military power), have changed the way they would use or restrain their use of that power.
Those that have experienced the holocaust are similarly of critical importance in out lives.
Vietnam happened again, as surprising as it was that it could be forgotten so quickly.
Genocidal conflicts have occurred in communities that were enlightened enough to know better, in our lifetime.
I'm still appalled that NOONE has engaged the question regarding the Palestinians of "how do we ACTUALLY improve their lives? What is possible?" In fact.
At least then a political, economic, social, ethical strategy can be articulated and supported that accomplishes something.
Here is an interesting comment by Ehud Barak in Haaretz, that sheds a lot of light on Bill Clinton's frantic attempts at the "Peace Process".
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/906114.html
To Arie
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/104221.html
Yes Richard, let's change the subject:
Richard Witty, September 20, 2007:
"Also, my father served in the US military. I never asked his father, but I suspect he did as well.
I didn't. Phil didn't. If he had children, I pray that his children wouldn't. I pray that my children don't. (Its unlikely, they have other options thankfully excepting the prospect of the draft.)"
Richard Witty, 05/10/07:
"The sympathy of desiring to defend one's even distant relatives, is real and laudable. In some ways, I feel better about the prospect of my 18 year-old son joining the IDF, than if he announced he was joining the marines."
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/05/zionism_was_onc.html
After also being caught lying about English newspapers that supposedly had written that elderly Jewish people who were beaten deserved it for supporting Zionism, I personally think that Mr. Witty has as much credibility as Baghdad Bob.
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/09/mearsheimer-if-.html?cid=83597729#comment-83597729
I continue to feel better about my sons joining the IDF than the marines.
If they joined the IDF, they would likely be asked to defend.
Whereas if they joined the marines, they would most likely be asked to attack or occupy.
The comments about English papers are that in a few cases, I believe cited earlier in related discussion (if not this one particularly), the emphasis was that "if Jews didn't support Zionism, then people wouldn't be angry at them, and there wouldn't be hate crimes."
That conveys "Jews deserve whats coming to them."
The hate crimes happen. The condition that makes them happen AREN'T the support of Jews of Israel, but the attitude that it is acceptable to harm another on the basis of their ethnicity, association, sensitivities.
Do you think its an acceptable outcome that random vulnerable Jews are singled out because they are Jews?
Again, thanks to David Seaton for his perceptive post (and blog):
"Democracy is not the antidote to the Islamists the neocons once fondly believed it would be. Since the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been a consistent response from voters wherever Muslims have had the right to vote. In Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Algeria they have voted en masse for religious parties in a way they have never done before. Where governments have been most closely linked to the US, political Islam's rise has been most marked.(…) in concentrating on the violent jihadi fringe, we may have missed the main story."
Real democracy is, as per Chomsky and the very real example of our own elections, anathema to our rulers. Lipservice, yes, but real-world application, no. How long will the globalists tolerate a popular push towards Islamist government in Pakistan, Turkey, or Egypt? Pakistan is most problematic, given their nuclear arsenal (and must be equally alarming to Hindus in India).
How to thwart such a movement, particulary when, as nicely hi-lighted by David, Moslems recognize it as the last bulwark against globalism? It took a long time for Christendom to be coopted, but it was, and now the former heart of Christendom, Europe, is one of the central actors advancing the globalist agenda (despite setbacks, such as Maastricht and the British pound). It took many decades, centuries, even, of internecine warfare to destroy the linkage between State and Church in Europe (an inevitable process, from my perspective). This rejection of Church/State condominium was ultimately codified in our constitution.
Sunni and Shiite have been again permitted to have at each other in Iraq, possibly (my suspicion) by design, as a default when the flower-tossing cakewalk didn't manifest. Can a similar strategy be planned, but on a global scale, until the weight of blood and sorrow forces Moslems to reject orthodoxy in favor of an etiolated path of moderation?
Are there alternatives? Everyone here is aware of the demographic reality: the Vatican will be someday surrounded by a sea of Roman mosques, and Israel will find itself one huge Massada.
As a Catholic who tends towards quietism (thus my happy embrace of Bal Shem Tov), I often wonder if the medieval crusades, the idea of militant Christianity, were really in accord with Christ's teaching. Without the defense of Vienna, the heart of Europe would have been overrun four centuries ago. Would formal "Church-State" Christianity have disappeared? Would the northern Protestant nations have mounted a succesful defense?
I don't like to see the U.S. railroaded into imperial wars of aggression, but in the broader historical context, how do we of the secularized West counter a renascent Islam? I reject the "Clash of Civilizations" concept, and as a peace-loving Catholic, would rather see a rejuvenated "true" Christianity (ala JP2) and Judaism (Martin Buber, anyone?) enter into a sweeping, vivifying encounter with Islam. Better words than swords.
Oarwell, "renascent Islam" is a response to western imperialism. It's not a push, its a "push-back". I wrote extensively on this earlier:
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/2007/09/globalization-versus-islam-unspeakable.html
We have created our own problem, as my granny would have said, "if you pick at it it will never get well."
I continue to feel better about my sons joining the IDF than the marines.
If they joined the IDF, they would likely be asked to defend.
Whereas if they joined the marines, they would most likely be asked to attack or occupy.
The hate crimes happen. The condition that makes them happen AREN'T the support of Jews of Israel, but the attitude that it is acceptable to harm another on the basis of their ethnicity, association, sensitivities.
Do you think its an acceptable outcome that random vulnerable Jews are singled out because they are Jews?
Posted by: Richard Witty | September 21, 2007 at 08:08 AM
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Americans like me are rapidly not giving a rats ass about your jewish "vulnerablity" and your whining.
Let me tell you something buddy …being a jew is not a get out of jail free card…that holocuast card has been maxed out and clx'ed. And furthermore Israel is going to get "what's coming to them" just like the US is…and it will be we fed up, dusgusted Americans who finally bring them both to account.
And do send your sons to join the IDF..
Teen crushed by Israeli bulldozer in Gaza
AFP – Thursday, September 20 01:13 pmGAZA CITY (AFP) – A 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed on Thursday after being run over by an Israeli army bulldozer during a military incursion in the Gaza Strip, medics and witnesses said.
Mahmud Kayed was run over by the bulldozer when it lurched towards a group of youths throwing rocks at the vehicle during the army incursion in the Al-Bureij refugee camp, they said.
Israeli bulldozers were ripping up farmland in the area, while soldiers were going house to house searching for militants and weapons, they said.
No comment from the Israeli army was immediately available.
The death brings to 5,866 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP tally"
The bulldozer "lurched"? Sick son of a bitches. This whole ginned up terrier "wur" and this Israeli "occupation" is coming to an end if we have to drag every congressman out of his office, string them up on lampost and burn Washington to the ground.
Oy and double veh! My co-religionist, Ghouliani, has his own concept of orthopraxis:
"Any nuclear or conventional attack on Israel, be it direct or through proxies such as Hezbollah or other terrorist groups, would be met by a cataclysmic response from the West."
Blessed be the threat-makers.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
As Gen. Smedley Butler–the most decorated soldier in US history–put it, the only military the US needs is the Coast Guard. Richard as usual clouds the issue by observing that it may be a good thing to avoid military service.
Zionists in this country have allied with the military/industrial complex to provide political and media support for an ideology of war and empire. This alliance was consummated at the end of the Vietnam War, which accounts for the contradiction between jewish support for the antiwar movement at that time and jewish opposition to and misdirection of the antiwar movement today. As Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and other zionist leaders have stated explicitly, this ideology of war is intrinsic to zionism.
It is disingenuous to support Israel and claim to oppose militarism.
Bloomberg gives us this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZ2X168uuvJ0&refer=home
Thus, despite the populist groundswell for Ron Paul and widespread opposition to the War Party, the race is already framed in terms of two favorites of Zion. Will Mr. Bloomberg himself emerge from the shadows to deliver us from this hedged position?
==============================
In the Deak manner, I will try to be constructive. Have you got integrity and decency? – and nothing else matters.
Israel has got too many people who have been stuck in the old Eastern European tradition.
Smart but without empathy. Which leads to lack of integrity.
Still, most Israelis are just practicing a pragmatic self-defense, and face some occasional barbaric local Palestinians.
So there is room for improvement. Israel needs more internal justice to bridge the gap between poor and rich, and between the ethnicities.
The overall impression is rather positive reflecting on the real Israelis. The people are civilized, mostly honest, and diligent, and sweat.
So it is unfair to bury all Israelis with the WM smearing.
WMs are a Daniel Pipes mirror in academia.
A total misconcept. Totally unscholarly.
The better approach would be to lend a helping hand to the suffering Palestinians.
Paula Sibley is a good and bad example.
See their website:
http://www.iwps-pal.org/en/index.php
These women are personally assisting Palestinian families. It is so positive.
Their political support or understanding of the daily confrontation is so one-dimensional and subjective.
This is exactly the same with the comments on this blog.
Most of the present Palestinian sympathizers are more attracted to the militant ideologies of the PLO or Hamas than to the civilized groupings of the Palestinians.
The Palestinians need a second Deak Ferenc who can weed out the local warlords, hotheads, lynchcrowd, and guide the nation to modernity in the sense of liberty-freedom-tolerance.
It is better to be attracted to peace than to war.
Most of you preach peace, but support war by the Palestinians on the Israelis. Is this nice?
Have you got any decency?
===================================
Most of you preach peace, but support war by the Palestinians on the Israelis. Is this nice? Posted by: Steve | September 21, 2007 at 10:43 AM
That's an easy one, Steve.
Everyone is crying out for peace, yes,
None, none of them, is crying out for justice.
(line stolen from Peter Tosh).
Reading the W&M book now I'm looking forward to seeing the greater W&M discussion group's response to the little debate at Columbia on Monday. I am sure Dershoclan is going to pounce on W&M if the bearded Hitler reincarnate himself dares to mention the Lobby in any way shape or form.
But I do have one qualm with the whole way the media (the NYtimes for instance) and Columbia are handling this event. The question of whether or whether to conduct economic warfare against Iran while making military threats while trying to occupy its neighbor isn't supposed to be some Ivy League debate. That's not how we successfully got the populace behind Iraq. It's gotta have some kinda streetfighter or western justice theme that gets the blood boiling.
So why not do this thing in a big steel cage? Prime time, pay-per-view, smack dab in the middle of Ground Zero? The rumble in the rubble. In this corner, 5'4 1/2", prancing around at a buck 65, in the black trunks and matching black beard, ladies and gentleman, the man who starts each day threatening to wipe Israel off the map AND has the NERVE to question honest American Jewish Holocaust propaganda, you hate him and baby so do I, he's the man who wanted to come to Ground Zero to gloat, to GLOAT about our tragedy, so boo this clown back to Tehran if you love America and the Old Testament (which you consider a modern land deed), people, it's MAHMOUD (spit!) (spit! spit!) [audience roars] AHMAAAA-HITLER-HOLO-CAU-STALINIJAD!!!!!!
Richard Witty: "I regard most that don't serve in the military as SMART."
Which means, I suppose, that those who do serve in the military are DUMB.
As for your preference that your son join the IDF over the US Marines, spoken like a true Israeli-firster.
"As for your preference that your son join the IDF over the US Marines, spoken like a true Israeli-firster."
I guess you didn't read my comments.
They are based on the sense that defense is legitimate, while the majority of American wars have been fought over "interests".
Richard Witty, are Judea and Samaria not Israeli "interests"?
Because IDF has "defense" in their name, that must mean they're legitimately defensive.
And the Irgun were just defending themselves, too.
"If they joined the IDF, they would likely be asked to defend."
Ignorance joined with malevolence is impregnable.
The reality is still the same.
The VAST majority of IDF responsibility, and action is to defend the people directly.
While the vast majority of US military responsibility currently is to defend US "interests".
Oarwell wrote: "As a Catholic who tends towards quietism (thus my happy embrace of Bal Shem Tov), I often wonder if the medieval crusades, the idea of militant Christianity, were really in accord with Christ's teaching. Without the defense of Vienna, the heart of Europe would have been overrun four centuries ago."
The Crusades were much earlier (up to the 13th century) and were offensive in nature and before the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The massacres committed in every Crusade were truly reprehensible. The IVth Crusade resulted in the rape of the greatest city in the world, Constantinople, the Christian Orthodox capital of the Byzantine Empire, where ancient Greek works of art of unparalleled beauty were destroyed, as were many ancient manuscripts of works by Plato and Aristotle.
The Siege of Vienna by the Ottomans in 1529 and the Battle of Vienna in 1683 were defensive in nature and a good three to four centuries after the last Crusade.
Most people don't understand the religious mania of medieval times, when absolutely everything was revolving around God and Satan, at a time when Europe was completely illiterate (not the Arab world or Byzantium though) and extremely superstitious. The zeitgeist is really incomprehensible to us.
For anyone interested on the Crusades, the greatest work ever written on them is Sir Steven Runciman's "A History of the Crusades", a magisterial work which even though a little dated now, is still unsurpassed. His writing style is incredible and he was a Cambridge scholar with a capital S, of the kind rarely seen today:
**********
"In his personal life, Runciman was an old-fashioned English eccentric, known, among other things, as an aesthete, raconteur, and enthusiast of the occult. According to Andrew Robinson, a history teacher at Eton, 'he played piano duets with the last King of China, told tarot cards for King Fuad of Egypt, narrowly missed being blown up by the Germans in the Pera Palace hotel in Istanbul and twice hit the jackpot on slot machines in Las Vegas'. In these respects, he was not a typical Medieval historian. He was also known for his remarkably sunny disposition and openness of spirit, and made friendships with people from all walks of life and all classes in many countries, from the most humble to aristocrats, including most of Europe's royalty, and political leaders. He died in Radway, Warwickshire."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Runciman
*********
To get an idea of the incredible savagery of the Crusaders, here is an account of the sack of Constantinople, a Christian city of unparalleled beauty mind you, in 1204 (IVth Crusade):
**********
"Inside the walls most of the inhabitants were Orthodox Christians. Outside the walls the men wore crosses on their mantles and called themselves Christians. It was Holy Week of the year 1204.
Their own historian wrote that the Crusaders never had imagined that there could be a city like this anywhere in the world. These men, who came from mud huts with thatched roofs, gaped in astonishment. Here it was: the imperial city, called "Tsargrad" by the Russians, greatest in the world, hub of culture and commerce, center of the civilized world. Here was more wealth than in all of Europe put together. This was the inheritor of the Roman Empire. Here was a city of churches, monasteries, palaces, towers, forums, arenas, bazaars, baths, libraries and monuments. Here stood Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), crowning glory of the city, marvel of the world, built by Justinian six centuries earlier. The Theotokos being the patron and protectress of the city, over a hundred churches were dedicated in her name. Her maphorion, which twice had saved the city: once from the Avars and once from the Russ', was kept in the Blacharnae Church, as was her wonder-working icon. The Theotokos' belt (zone) was preserved in the Chalkprateia Church in the copperware district. In the center of the city stood the Church of the Holy Apostles, built as a shrine for St. Luke, and which also was the custodian of the relics of Sts. Timothy and Andrew, as well as the head of St. John the Forerunner, in whose name there were some 35 churches. St. John Chrysostom was brought to this church from far-off Armenia for burial eight centuries earlier. Elsewhere were the relics of St. Stephen and St. James, as was the wood of the True Cross found by St. Helena. The Pantacrator Monastery was the guardian of the Icon of the Theotokos of Nicopeia, which preceded the emperor into battle. At Blacharnae stood two gigantic pillars, on the tops of which sainted stylites in past centuries had spent the remaining years of their lives in prayer and meditation. Throughout the city were numerous other churches and monasteries which guarded the many relics of Apostles, martyrs and Church fathers. Such was the city before which the western armies stood in awe and disbelief.
After receiving absolution, the Crusaders attacked. Constantinople fell after three days of the final, furious attack by land and by sea. Once inside the walls, the Crusaders began an orgy of carnage, brutality and vandalism not seen in Europe since the barbarians invaded seven centuries earlier. No one was spared: not bishop, priest, nun, man, woman or child. Few women escaped being violated, whether at home, in the street, or in the convent. Fires were started throughout the city. The butchery ended only when the Crusaders were so tired that they no longer could lift their swords. Then began looting and profanation on a scale unparalleled in history. A mob rushed into Santa Sophia. With the Image of the Pantacrator looking down upon them from the great dome, they broke up the altar for its gold content, smashed the icons, threw the Holy Gifts to the floor, seized the church vessels for their Jewels, and tore mosaics and tapestries from the walls. Horses and mules were brought into the church the better to carry off the sacred vessels, gold, silver, and whatever else they could gather. Drunken soldiers drank from chalices and ate from patens while riding asses draped with priestly vestments. A mocking prostitute was placed on the Patriarch's chair to dance and sing obscene songs. This pattern of pilferage and desecration was repeated in churches, monasteries and palaces throughout the city. The tombs of the emperors were rifled, and all of the classical statues and monuments which had survived from ancient Greece and imperial Rome were destroyed. One writer wrote that never in history had so much beauty, so much superb craftsmanship been so wantonly destroyed in so short a space of time. What was not carried off was burned, smashed, melted down for its precious metal content, or stripped for its jewels.
After the killing, after the city had been subdued, there began a slow and steady removal of treasures out of the Orthodox temples and into the cathedrals, churches, monasteries, convents, cities and towns of Latin Europe. Some of these items had been venerated, cherished, and protected for centuries, others for a millennium. Now they were being carted away from over a hundred and fifty churches: altars, altar screens, tabernacles, antimins, icons, icon frames, processional, pectoral and altar crosses, gold and silver chains, panagias, mitres, croziers, chalices, patens, star covers and spears, Gospels, Epistle books, ladles, church plate, censers, votive lights, relics, candelabra, epitaphia, fans, reliquaries, vestments, banners, manuscripts, miniatures, ivories, carvings, mosaics, thrones, tapestries, furniture and architectural items. Cartloads of gold and silver from Santa Sophia found their way into the Vatican treasury. Constantinople had become the gold mine which supplied Latin Christendom.
The wealth was so great that the looting continued for sixty years. A century earlier, after the First Crusade, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa were similarly stripped for a period of forty years. Now it was happening to the imperial city. A scandalous traffic in relics was started. The head of St. John the Baptist was carried off to Amiens. Amalfi, Italy took the head of St. Andrew the First-Called from the Church of the Holy Apostles, along with a set of heavy bronze doors. The bishop of Soissons shipped home the head of St. Stephen and a relic of St. John. The remains of St. Clement, pillaged from the Church of St. Theodosia, were taken to Cluny. St. Albans received the relics of St. Marina. Halbstadt claimed the relics of St. James. The True Cross was divided up among the barons, with a portion sent to the pope, and another fragment taken to Paris. A priceless gold and enamel reliquary encrusted with jewels, containing a fragment of the Wood wound up in a nunnery in Steuben. King Louis IX of France paid 10,000 silver marks for the "true" Crown of Thorns, for which he built St. Chapells in Paris.
Gone was the maphorion of the Theotokos, as was her zone and the wonder-working icon. Gone or destroyed–the relics of St. Luke and St. Timothy; no trace of the relics of St. John Chrysostom. An altar cloth with the relic of St. Paul was missing. Nothing is known of the stone seat of St. Mark.
The Venetians were the most discriminating–they knew exactly what to take. From the Monastery of the Pantacrator they appropriated a group of exquisite gem-crusted enamel cameos, (a vast collection of panagias), to enhance the Palo D'Oro, an elaborate Byzantine bejeweled gold screen which was used in the Cathedral in Venice to cover the relics of St. Mark. (We will recall that St. Mark was stolen from Alexandria in the ninth century). They also carried off the Icon of the Theotokos of Nikopeia, as well as a relic of St. Stephen (the feet already were in Venice). The golden tabernacle from the Church of the Holy Apostles, a replica of the church itself, was added to their booty. Venice's prized possessions are the four magnificent glided bronze horses, cast in Constantine's time, which once stood in the Hippodrome; today, except when removed for cleaning, they stand atop the gallery of St. Mark's basilica. The porphyry statue of four tetrarchs, taken from a palace, stands in a corner of St. Mark's treasury.
Venetians valued craftsmen, and they took away the best: goldsmiths, silversmiths, jewel workers, iconographers, woodcarvers, stone and glass workers. Much of the Venetian glass technique so famous today originated in Constantinople. St. Mark's contains the finest collection of Byzantine craftsmanship in the world. It includes 32 Byzantine chalices, plus assorted relics, reliquaries, altar pieces, Gospels, Jewels, vestments, manuscripts and church plate. The collection includes the Veroli casket, the finest Byzantine carved ivory in the world, and the Psalter of Emperor Basil.
Dandolo sent home shiploads of mosaics, panels, stones, pillars, precious marbles, columns of rare stones and the many building components which have gone into creating the texture of the city which today is Venice."
**********
I apologise for the length of the post.
Thanks for the info, Alan. I never knew that the looting was trans-generational. Sixty years!Industrious, those illiterate slobs, weren't they?
All kidding aside, you've piqued my curiousity: I wonder why such a rich city couldn't defend itself against the Western crusaders, and how much the crusader attack contributed to the final "fall" of Constantinople to Mehmed II in 1453.
But you illustrate my point. The Crusades were clearly not motivated by what we moderns would consider "beatific spirituality," but were, in contradistinction, ghastly affairs of rapine and pillage.
In my haste earlier, I lumped two disparate historical epochs together; I shouldn't have mentioned the Crusades. But as you noted, "The Siege of Vienna by the Ottomans in 1529 and the Battle of Vienna in 1683 were defensive in nature." Defense of Catholic Europe against the Ottomans, correct? What I was wondering is: what if the defense had failed, or not been attempted? If the Ottomans had overrun Europe, extinguishing not only Catholicism but all of Christianity?
Would this have been a good or bad thing, if Islam had triumphed in Europe roughly 100 years before the American Revolution?
One of the great "what ifs" of history, I suppose. Catholics (sorry for taking Phil's discussion so far adrift) bank on Christ's words to Peter, "and the very gates of Hell shall not triumph against it (the Church)." We like to think that in the end, God wins. So, I assume, do Moslems and Jews. But it has to be asked: did God ordain the military defense of Christian Europe? Is such a thing even remotely possible?
It seems unlikely, to say the least.
I am also led, in a similar vein, to wonder whether Islam isn't meant to be triumphant. The Huntingtons and the Pipes would scoff, of course: they are basically sounding a call to arms, trying to rally "the West" to again rise up in defense of its civilization. You and I object to such bellicosity, and we would agree that the West has no business projecting its "civilization" through force of arms. But, even if a peaceable accord were reached between Islam and the West, demographics alone will eventually win the day for Islam, unless current trends are reversed. In 100 years, when Westerners are a dwindling stock, Islam will be left only Asia with which to contend (unless Philip Jenkins' thesis is correct, as outlined in 'The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity').
I don't expect an answer to these abstruse conjectures; they are imponderables. But we in the West would be wise to heed the famous words of Shelley's poem Ozymandias:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Anyway, Shalom for now.
Very nice poem Oarwell, I hadn't read it. Thank you.
Wikipedia has a good entry on the IVth Crusade:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade
According to most historians, the sack of 1204 made the Eastern Christian Empire easy prey because Byzantium never recovered from such devastation. It also made the schism between the Catholic West and Orthodox East final.
On the question of Islam, there are no Islamic armies threatening Europe or the West. This is just propaganda for Americans who don't own a passport. But Islam does indeed seem to be poised to prevail as a model because of the demographic trends and I'm glad you mentioned this.
In a historical context, one century is a very short time period. As you mentioned, if current trends continue, Europe will lose 25% of its population in the next 50 years alone! In a century, the West will be finished, not due to the Islamic "threat", but due to its civilizational model which has morphed into an amalgam of apathy and consumerism. The West is committing suicide, not just Europe, but the US as well if we exclude immigration. People don't have kids anymore in order to get an even higher "standard of living" which is mostly about having better cars and TVs and fancier clothes. They would rather be consumers in debt than dads or mothers. One wonders how the previous generations, who had a much lower standard of living, were having kids if we say we supposedly can't make ends meet. This probably says more about our priorities than our objective difficulties.
I remember a few years ago I had a vacation at a friend's house who had a great collection of documentaries. I was astonished to realize that all life forms, from the most primitive to the most advanced, have one single goal: To reproduce, to continue living through their offspring. Biologically, this is the number one priority of every life form. The wonders and mysteries to achieve that end are incredibly fascinating. Yet we in the West have given up.
To illustrate this point, consider this: The Black Death is estimated to have killed a third of Europe's population within a decade. This is considered to be the greatest catastrophe ever. Yet Europe will lose about the same percentage in 5-6 decades simply for not reproducing! And nobody really cares! In essence, the West is committing suicide.
Something is wrong here. It doesn't make sense. But if in a century or two people speak Arabic in the West and pray to Allah, it won't be because Islamic armies will conquer the West. It will be because our model failed us.
Zionists have done their utmost to prove -Hitler was right.
Richard Witty, the lives of Palestinians could be improved by providing them unfettered access to their trees and crops and most of all, good water.
The 1967 war was much about water or lack thereof and when a people feel their green lawns and swimming pools are more valuable then human life, there is going to be revolt and it will be justified.
Human life is always more valuable than luxuries and material vanities.
With regard to these bombs and attacks toward Israel, it's Israel's own Mossad that is known to engage in warfare using deception tactics such as engaging in terrorism and blaming the designated "bad guy."
It certainly doesn't serve Palestinian causes when Hezbollah and Hamas attack Israel, does it? Quo bono? WHO GAINS???? NOT THE PALESTINIANS.
My Mother is an Alsatian Jew and My Father is Israeli, Sabra, born in Rehovot. My Mother's parents fought in the French Jewish Resistance. They were killed near Nice, during the normal course of war. My mother and her brother were orphaned but too far from relatives in northern Alsace to get them back there; besides it had become dangerous: German. The Resistance fighters couldn't take care of them. The Zionist charities took my uncle because he was young, healthy, male, and prime fodder to pick the orange groves in Palestine. They wouldn't help my mother because she was young and female. So they abandoned my mother, took my uncle; left her to fend for herself in the fields and woods near Nice, alone, scavenging for food, sleeping in barns. Nuns found her. The nuns had a school and they hid her, gave her a fake French Christian name. She stayed with the nuns until she finished her schooling long after the war was over, and tells me she is eternally grateful for their charity and kindness.
My Mother met my Father when he went to the South of France on holidays, and she followed him to Israel to find her brother, which eventually happened. My parents married and they stayed in Israel until the sound of bullets became too much for her and she refused to let me serve in the IDF when I was about to come of age. We emigrated to the US, such is the love and devotion between my parents that my father would follow her anywhere. My Mother has no sympathy for the Zionists after what they did to her. She has even less respect for the Zionist lies told to American Jews AND Non-Jews. Her memories are raw.
But she has genuine contempt for American Jews who refuse to entertain the truth about what really went on during WWII, refuse to investigate beyond some Pollyanish idea of a uniform Jewish extermination for all [she says it was metered, and aided and abetted by the Zionists in cahoots with Hitler, and that members of the French Resistance knew this and accepted it as a danger] and who claim Jewish victimhood when their worse childhood memories are a jejeune epithet hurled at the mall.
My Mother despises Israel because she says it was built on the backs of innocent European Jews sold down the river by Zionists who prevented these innocent Jews from reaching America or Britain or the US; she says the Zionists robbed the traumatized Jews under the guise of helping them; and she rages that any attempt to understand or explain what really happened during WWII HERE IN THIS COUNTRY is labelled antisemitic.
Just another point of view.
My Mother is an Alsatian Jew and My Father is Israeli, Sabra, born in Rehovot. My Mother's parents fought in the French Jewish Resistance. They were killed near Nice, during the normal course of war. My mother and her brother were orphaned but too far from relatives in northern Alsace to get them back there; besides it had become dangerous: German. The Resistance fighters couldn't take care of them. The Zionist charities took my uncle because he was young, healthy, male, and prime fodder to pick the orange groves in Palestine. They wouldn't help my mother because she was young and female. So they abandoned my mother, took my uncle; left her to fend for herself in the fields and woods near Nice, alone, scavenging for food, sleeping in barns. Nuns found her. The nuns had a school and they hid her, gave her a fake French Christian name. She stayed with the nuns until she finished her schooling long after the war was over, and tells me she is eternally grateful for their charity and kindness.
My Mother met my Father when he went to the South of France on holidays, and she followed him to Israel to find her brother, which eventually happened. My parents married and they stayed in Israel until the sound of bullets became too much for her and she refused to let me serve in the IDF when I was about to come of age. We emigrated to the US, such is the love and devotion between my parents that my father would follow her anywhere. My Mother has no sympathy for the Zionists after what they did to her. She has even less respect for the Zionist lies told to American Jews AND Non-Jews. Her memories are raw.
But she has genuine contempt for American Jews who refuse to entertain the truth about what really went on during WWII, refuse to investigate beyond some Pollyanish idea of a uniform Jewish extermination for all [she says it was metered, and aided and abetted by the Zionists in cahoots with Hitler, and that members of the French Resistance knew this and accepted it as a danger] and who claim Jewish victimhood when their worse childhood memories are a jejeune epithet hurled at the mall.
My Mother despises Israel because she says it was built on the backs of innocent European Jews sold down the river by Zionists who prevented these innocent Jews from reaching America or Britain or the US; she says the Zionists robbed the traumatized Jews under the guise of helping them; and she rages that any attempt to understand or explain what really happened during WWII HERE IN THIS COUNTRY is labelled antisemitic.
Just another point of view.
My Mother is an Alsatian Jew and My Father is Israeli, Sabra, born in Rehovot. My Mother's parents fought in the French Jewish Resistance. They were killed near Nice, during the normal course of war. My mother and her brother were orphaned but too far from relatives in northern Alsace to get them back there; besides it had become dangerous: German. The Resistance fighters couldn't take care of them. The Zionist charities took my uncle because he was young, healthy, male, and prime fodder to pick the orange groves in Palestine. They wouldn't help my mother because she was young and female. So they abandoned my mother, took my uncle; left her to fend for herself in the fields and woods near Nice, alone, scavenging for food, sleeping in barns. Nuns found her. The nuns had a school and they hid her, gave her a fake French Christian name. She stayed with the nuns until she finished her schooling long after the war was over, and tells me she is eternally grateful for their charity and kindness.
My Mother met my Father when he went to the South of France on holidays, and she followed him to Israel to find her brother, which eventually happened. My parents married and they stayed in Israel until the sound of bullets became too much for her and she refused to let me serve in the IDF when I was about to come of age. We emigrated to the US, such is the love and devotion between my parents that my father would follow her anywhere. My Mother has no sympathy for the Zionists after what they did to her. She has even less respect for the Zionist lies told to American Jews AND Non-Jews. Her memories are raw.
But she has genuine contempt for American Jews who refuse to entertain the truth about what really went on during WWII, refuse to investigate beyond some Pollyanish idea of a uniform Jewish extermination for all [she says it was metered, and aided and abetted by the Zionists in cahoots with Hitler, and that members of the French Resistance knew this and accepted it as a danger] and who claim Jewish victimhood when their worse childhood memories are a jejeune epithet hurled at the mall.
My Mother despises Israel because she says it was built on the backs of innocent European Jews sold down the river by Zionists who prevented these innocent Jews from reaching America or Britain or the US; she says the Zionists robbed the traumatized Jews under the guise of helping them; and she rages that any attempt to understand or explain what really happened during WWII HERE IN THIS COUNTRY is labelled antisemitic.
Just another point of view.
My Mother is an Alsatian Jew and My Father is Israeli, Sabra, born in Rehovot. My Mother's parents fought in the French Jewish Resistance. They were killed near Nice, during the normal course of war. My mother and her brother were orphaned but too far from relatives in northern Alsace to get them back there; besides it had become dangerous: German. The Resistance fighters couldn't take care of them. The Zionist charities took my uncle because he was young, healthy, male, and prime fodder to pick the orange groves in Palestine. They wouldn't help my mother because she was young and female. So they abandoned my mother, took my uncle; left her to fend for herself in the fields and woods near Nice, alone, scavenging for food, sleeping in barns. Nuns found her. The nuns had a school and they hid her, gave her a fake French Christian name. She stayed with the nuns until she finished her schooling long after the war was over, and tells me she is eternally grateful for their charity and kindness.
My Mother met my Father when he went to the South of France on holidays, and she followed him to Israel to find her brother, which eventually happened. My parents married and they stayed in Israel until the sound of bullets became too much for her and she refused to let me serve in the IDF when I was about to come of age. We emigrated to the US, such is the love and devotion between my parents that my father would follow her anywhere. My Mother has no sympathy for the Zionists after what they did to her. She has even less respect for the Zionist lies told to American Jews AND Non-Jews. Her memories are raw.
But she has genuine contempt for American Jews who refuse to entertain the truth about what really went on during WWII, refuse to investigate beyond some Pollyanish idea of a uniform Jewish extermination for all [she says it was metered, and aided and abetted by the Zionists in cahoots with Hitler, and that members of the French Resistance knew this and accepted it as a danger] and who claim Jewish victimhood when their worse childhood memories are a jejeune epithet hurled at the mall.
My Mother despises Israel because she says it was built on the backs of innocent European Jews sold down the river by Zionists who prevented these innocent Jews from reaching America or Britain or the US; she says the Zionists robbed the traumatized Jews under the guise of helping them; and she rages that any attempt to understand or explain what really happened during WWII HERE IN THIS COUNTRY is labelled antisemitic.
Just another point of view.
My Mother is an Alsatian Jew and My Father is Israeli, Sabra, born in Rehovot. My Mother's parents fought in the French Jewish Resistance. They were killed near Nice, during the normal course of war. My mother and her brother were orphaned but too far from relatives in northern Alsace to get them back there; besides it had become dangerous: German. The Resistance fighters couldn't take care of them. The Zionist charities took my uncle because he was young, healthy, male, and prime fodder to pick the orange groves in Palestine. They wouldn't help my mother because she was young and female. So they abandoned my mother, took my uncle; left her to fend for herself in the fields and woods near Nice, alone, scavenging for food, sleeping in barns. Nuns found her. The nuns had a school and they hid her, gave her a fake French Christian name. She stayed with the nuns until she finished her schooling long after the war was over, and tells me she is eternally grateful for their charity and kindness.
My Mother met my Father when he went to the South of France on holidays, and she followed him to Israel to find her brother, which eventually happened. My parents married and they stayed in Israel until the sound of bullets became too much for her and she refused to let me serve in the IDF when I was about to come of age. We emigrated to the US, such is the love and devotion between my parents that my father would follow her anywhere. My Mother has no sympathy for the Zionists after what they did to her. She has even less respect for the Zionist lies told to American Jews AND Non-Jews. Her memories are raw.
But she has genuine contempt for American Jews who refuse to entertain the truth about what really went on during WWII, refuse to investigate beyond some Pollyanish idea of a uniform Jewish extermination for all [she says it was metered, and aided and abetted by the Zionists in cahoots with Hitler, and that members of the French Resistance knew this and accepted it as a danger] and who claim Jewish victimhood when their worse childhood memories are a jejeune epithet hurled at the mall.
My Mother despises Israel because she says it was built on the backs of innocent European Jews sold down the river by Zionists who prevented these innocent Jews from reaching America or Britain or the US; she says the Zionists robbed the traumatized Jews under the guise of helping them; and she rages that any attempt to understand or explain what really happened during WWII HERE IN THIS COUNTRY is labelled antisemitic.
Just another point of view.
"Horowitz, he’s a kind man one-on-one"
So was Adolf Hitler…
"At 1.3 percent of the adult population, statistically we should be about 16,000. We are less than 4,000–25 percent of expected representation"
What percentage of newspaper editors and reporters are Jewish? What percentage of State Department employees are Jewish? What percentage of television personalities are Jewish? What percentage of college professors are Jewish?
On other Walt and Mearscheimer threads here on Phil's blog, I posted links to the Zohar, showing the merciless Jewish/Kaballistic agenda for "Destruction of the 70 Idolatrous Nations"
"Destruction of Rome and those who are associated with her"
"Destruction of Edom" (the White Race)
and
"The Destruction of Ishmael" (the Arabs and Islam).
So if this is the agenda of Judaism, do not be surprised if Jews are not seen in a good way. Such ideas have been at the root of bad things happening to Jewish people since they were written.
I was rewarded for this scholarship by having the searchable online Zohar removed from the internet….
In order to change this, pressure to end the Neo Con/Israeli Lobby agenda must be brought to bear from the Synagogues in measures that insure those agendas will cease to exist.
The Jewish people and religion stand at a crossroads. They must choose to either serve their Kaballistic agenda, or chose to worship God and serve their fellow man. One path leads to destruction, the other to life, peace, and a world of mutual cooperation.
Which will they choose?
Please help us all.
Someone said this and a lot of other things about how people have to support the military as a community service organization.
"…We need a military (not nearly as large or as imposing as we have), and those that do so out of a sense of community service, deserve the world's respect."
It isn't a community service organization. We have big problems in the world that are not being addressed and as long as the United States and other big spenders throw their money away on guns, et al, the less we'll have to make any headway on matters that actually are of service to communities.
The military trains people to kill without a conscience. This is what they do to soldiers, whereever they're at. It does us no good to send trained killers out to do community service jobs that would be better done by teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers, farmers, etc.
Well, that's my rant.
Comments on this entry are closed.