Andrew Sullivan has been doing great work lately, as we often say here. He is trying to unlearn a lot of the B.S. he learned when Marty Peretz dandled him on his knee as a young editor and has vigorously questioned the Israeli story-line and the Israel lobby in the U.S. This letter that Sullivan runs without comment– objecting to his characterization of the settlements as "colonization" — shows just what pressure Sullivan is under. The writer is unidentified, but take it from me, kid, this is from a powerful friend of his, otherwise he would not have run it at such length. Also it has the pokey prickly manner of a powerful Jewish friend in the media who– while I have always admired what you’re doing Andrew, I needed to point out one flaw in your argument. And instead of taking the person on, Sullivan runs it. I bet the writer is American, too.
It’s pure hasbara. It says that the settlements are not colonization, are not the French in Algeria, because the Jews have a "home" in Palestine to which they are returning, per the "national discourse." So that national discourse includes the West Bank now.
Yet another answer to Sullivan’s correspondent was offered by Ami Ayalon at J Street, the former head of Shin Bet. I have to dig out the quote. But when asked about the colonizers of the West Bank, he said in essence, Look, we indoctrinated them with a biblical rationale for their effort to build the Jewish state, now we have to come up with a different doctrine about how they’re going to build the Jewish state by coming back into the ’48 boundaries. Even a leading Zionist figure and Israeli official was conceding that the national discourse is a construction.
Thanks to Peter Voskamp.
Phil assumes that the letter is from a powerful person in the media. Maybe sullivan ran it because it expresses something that he wants out there. Isn’t that enough of a motive?
Lizzy Ratner considers her homeland to be in Eastern Europe. If history had been different maybe she would be visiting her “family” in her homeland. but most of her “family” was murdered in her “homeland”.
There is no Jewish people according to Shlomo Sand, but there is a Jewish religion. Is the Jewish religion attached to the land? Is the Jewish religion attached to Jerusalem?
Well of course the modern movement of the Jewish religion attempted to obliterate the connection with Jerusalem. And the purest Jews might admit a connection to Jerusalem but will eschew the Jerusalem captured and ruled by the force of arms. But who can deny the Jewish religion’s connection to Jerusalem?
Are the Jews a people? But you say they’re not. They’re a religion. Who can deny the Jewish religion’s connection to Jerusalem?
The Jewish religion as it was practiced in Jerusalem during the Temple era, slaughtering animals in sacrifice, bears no resemblance to the Judaism of today. Jerusalem is a fetish.
potsherd- I am only vaguely aware of the term religious fetish and I’m not sure if it can be applied to Jerusalem, but I will go into detail regarding the modern (post sacrificial) connection to Jerusalem.
Jews pray in the direction of Jerusalem. (When Muhammad still had hopes that the Jews of the Arabian peninsula might still accept him as a prophet, he too had his followers pray towards Jerusalem. Only when that hope of acceptance from “local” Jews was disappointed, did Muhammad change the direction of prayer from toward Jerusalem to toward Mecca).
Jews pray three times daily, included in the primary prayer is this prayer: “And to Jerusalem your city, in your mercy, return and dwell in it like you said and rebuild it quickly in our day an eternal rebuilding and the chair of David hurriedly establish within it.”
After every meal Jews pray for the rebuilding of Jerusalem: “And rebuild Jerusalem the holy city hurriedly in our day. Blessed is the lord who rebuilds Jerusalem in his mercies, Amen.”
(note: I am translating the word “build” as “rebuild”.)
On Passover the Haggada ends: “Next year in Jerusalem”. The prayers on Yom Kippur day end, “Next year in Jerusalem.” A groom breaks a glass under the bridal canopy in order to symbolize the unhappiness of the Jews because of the destruction of Jerusalem. On the 9th Day of Av, Jews lament the destruction of Jerusalem. Two other fast days of the year: the 10th of Teveth and the 17th of Tammuz are fast days that mourn other aspects of the destruction of Jerusalem: the siege and the breaking through of the walls.
It is true that Orthodox Jews had relegated Jerusalem to a time in the future when the Messiah sent by God would rebuild Jerusalem and it was a secular movement which actually returned to the land near Jerusalem. (Zionism comes from the word Zion which refers specifically to a mount near Jerusalem.)
Judaism is not lacking in aspects that might be considered fetishistic. I’ve heard the Jewish respect given to a Torah scroll as fetishistic (Joseph Campbell described it that way.) Maybe Jerusalem fits that definition as well. If the Jewish connection to Jerusalem is fetishistic that only means that it doesn’t fit your definition of a worthy religious attribute; it does not deny the existence of this element in Judaism.
What happens if Jews pray in some other direction? What does God do?
Jerusalem is named after the Canaanite deity Shalim [hence Ur'Shalim]; most of the Jewish history associated with it is probably fiction since no archaelogical evidence supporting any of it has been found.
Sammy,
that is so ridiculous, the old oh there is no historical evidence that the Jews were even there.
link to aish.com
link to israelseen.com
Are you really giving me hasbara sites as evidence? Even the bones they gave a state funeral to at Masada were pigs bones. I only read peer reviewed scholarly sources of information.
yonira, even the Bible says that Jerusalem originally belonged to the Jebusites.
Than show me a peer reviewed scholarly source that backs up that bullshit. you a propagandist pure and simple. The PA has been trying to use this bullshit for years now, its a lie.
Oh its a Hasbara site, that is my favorite line, when shown proof, oh its the source that is lying. But at the same time the only proof EVER offered on this site is from sites like presstv, counterpunch, or some other shit blog whose only purpose is to demonize Israel.
Sammy, I’ve been to Jerusalem, I’ve seen w/ my own eyes Hebrew inscriptions from the first temple period.
Also can i see the scholarly journal which you cite about these pig bones at Masada?
Potsherd,
so that is proof that Jews were never in Jerusalem?
Of course you saw Hebrew inscriptions. Hebrew is a Canaanite language. Any ordinary linguist can tell you that. Even good ole Wikipedia
link to en.wikipedia.org
What would you like peer reviewed sources for? The history of Ur’Shalim is available in any history book on Jerusalem. The earliest one I found was the inscription on the Amarna letters
Here is a good dictionary on deities in the Bible:
link to books.google.co.in
The only one I cannot give you a published source for is the burial of pigs bones at Masada. That comes from an interview with the original archaelogist who found them. Its 60 years on, but he hasn’t published his findings, however, he is apparently honest enough that he stated his findings.
You can find this discussion here:
Sacrificing Truth
Archaeology and the Myth of Masada
by Nachman Ben-Yehuda
Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2002. 300 pp. $35.
link to meforum.org
I recommend you look at all the PBS shows on biblical archaeology
I agree with you on the archaeological issue–I think that some on the pro-Palestinian side are sinking to ridiculous levels to deny Jewish connections to Jerusalem. There’s no logical reason for this–Palestinian rights don’t stand or fall on what one believes about the Temple in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, but anyone who denies there was one is making an absurd claim.
On the other hand–
“But at the same time the only proof EVER offered on this site is from sites like presstv, counterpunch, or some other shit blog whose only purpose is to demonize Israel.”
That’s a lie. I for one have cited a Human Rights Watch report in a link responding to you about Jenin.
I’m not disputing their “connection” to Jerusalem. Just the fact that much of it is not backed by archaeology. Yahweh for example, is the son of the Canaanite deity El and had a consort, Ashwereh. So it is likely that there is a temple to him somewhere. After all the Samaritans [who are not Jews] also had synagogues when they were pagans.
Israel = Isis-Ra-El
most of the Jewish history associated with it is probably fiction since no archaelogical evidence supporting any of it has been found.
This is the comment of yours which I find hard to believe. I’ll need to read the Masada reference, but the other two I guess I don’t see where we conflict. Jerusalem was a city before Judaism was a religion, as were Mecca and Medina cities before Islam and Rome a city before Christianity, but to say there is no archaeological evidence of Jews in Jerusalem is not true.
fair enough, sorry Donald.
Lets just say that after they went through the Ottoman and Romans and Greeks, they landed with the Canaanites and Phoenicians without ever stumbling across David. Also, simple enough to check, the Judaeans were pagans with multiple deities with names strangely reminiscent of the Jewish ones so if there is a temple of Yahweh, it will be a Judaean one [there is constant misreferencing of Judaeans who were the residents of Judea, with the fictional Israelites who were the people of the fictional state of Israel, which has never been found on any map]. Meanwhile there is plenty of evidence for Roman, Ottoman, Greek and Canaanite residence with nary a whiff of the kingdom of David. Not even a coin.
sammy- God hears all prayers in any direction. But sometimes one has a choice in which direction to pray to and in those times, towards Jerusalem would be the first choice.
Are you a historian or an archaeologist?
Why Jerusalem? I am curious because I have looked for that and haven’t found any substantial reasoning behind it in history. The kingdom of David existed barely for a hundred years while the Khazarite kingdom was almost [or more than] four hundred years. So when did the “return to Jerusalem” meme start? What is the religious reasoning behind it?
“fair enough, sorry Donald.”
Okay, thanks.
yonira, no one is claiming that Jews, or rather the Kingdom of Israel, was never in Jerusalem. But the archeological evidence for it does not back up certain specific Biblical claims. For one thing, it suggests that the Biblical dates are incorrect. For another, it suggests that the Davidic city was at most an insignificant backwater, not a flourishing metropolis.
Well, I guess sammy is claiming there is no evidence for a Kingdom of Israel – it was my understanding that there was, but at a different date than is normally believed.
You have to remember that many of the “sources” are Israeli. In all the ones I have checked, the “kingdom of Israel” has never been mentioned, it is assumed from Hebrew writings [and there have been two falsifications that I know of]
See fake Ossuary
link to msnbc.msn.com
potsherd:
See this video, it has a companion book which gives a lot of information
link to youtube.com
yonira, jews can go to Jerusalem in Palestine, i don’t see the problem. Nobody here is telling you not to believe in religious myths, but at the same time, killing children, babies and women is far opposite to your religious myths.
yonira, when you saw these inscriptions, could you read them? Did you recognize the letters?
Because if you did, and you’re not an archaeologist, they weren’t from the first temple period.
You are right, sammy–in the funeral event you mention those bones were proven to be pig bones. The ironies of ethnic national socialism engineered by big industry never end. When I think of how we now look at Nazi Germany compared to the temper of the 1930s, I can only imagine how we will look at
the US-Israel period in another century–who will survive and prosper to total up the casualties? Give them some special significance far from truth and justice? Enforced by state police and military power. And, of course, the always
suck up news media.
“Jerusalem is a fetish.”
I don’t agree with this. Obviously Jews have a strong emotional connection to Jerusalem and I can’t see the point in contesting this. What I contest is that it would give them the right to force Palestinians out of their homes. You can criticize the treatment of Palestinians without getting involved in irrelevant questions about how the religion of Judaism has changed in the past 2000 years.
I think all delusions should be contested with facts. Why are we still pandering to prehistoric ethnocraies?
you guys talk about facts but are unable to show anything.
Yonira, when you resort to Holocaust-denial style tactics with everything we present there is no debating with you on rational terms. Everything you quote seems to come directly from IDF military and intel sources.
what are you talking about Chaos? and where is the new Hamas charter?
And is saying Jews were never historically in Jerusalem rational?
Thats not what I said, I said much of the biblical history of Jews in Jerusalem has no archaeogical evidence to confirm it. And I posted my comment with three links so its awaiting moderation
You know what, yonira? Show me the Israeli constitution, first. Show me where it is written that Israel is a democratic state that guarantees everyone — Jewish or not — equal rights.
sammy – better repost
HAHA, well you must have realized that this lauded Hamas charter that has been quoted as truth on here several times is a figment of your imagination.
I give it a week or maybe even two before you start bringing it up again as fact.
There is no Israeli constitution.
Its up there now, #10
I distinctly remember reading that Hamas had changed its charter. Perhaps there is no English translation of it. If you notice all the previous links are from Israeli or hasbara site. Its obviously not to their advantage to put up one that is changed.
Besides, anyone with a brain cell can see who is wiping whom off the map:
link to lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com
“HAHA,” yonira?
What is wrong with you? Are you like ten years old?
Anyway, I’m done arguing with a homophobic right wing racist. There is no talking facts to you. You keep bringing up a Hamas “charter” that is over a decade old and has no names or signatories attached to it whatsoever. It’s become like the Jewish equivalent of waving around the Elder Protocols of Zion as “proof.”
you are a joke, now I am homophobic because you can’t show me evidence of something you have said to be fact on here numerous times.
Great reasoning, and i am the child……
You should read the charter from 1988 BTW it takes a lot from the Protocols…
Yeah, and both documents are frauds. Fancy that.
Are you Chaos saying there is no Hamas charter and when I google “Hamas” “charter” Google guides me to something that is a construction?
“omfg i found it on teh google so it must be tru!!!11 so stfu!”
You know, “dumb ass” really doesn’t begin to cover these guys, does it?
As a matter of fact, I remember reading that back in January 2006, and I copied it. It was in the NYT, but it’s not there anymore. Now historical accounts are like this one from the NYT, but I distinctly remember reading something different, and I copied it immediately. It’s on my other monster drive that I dont feel like hooking up.
yonira, and why there is no Israeli constitution in theocratic Israel?
Hamas has a NEW charter.
This charter came into effect when Hamas became a political party.
How many times do we have to debunk this Zionut myth before they’ll understand?
1) Hamas removes call for destruction of Israel from their Charter:
link to guardian.co.uk
2) Hamas explains the double standard applied to them vis a vis Israel:
link to latimes.com
The writings of Israel’s “founders” — from Herzl to Jabotinsky to Ben Gurion — make repeated calls for the destruction of Palestine’s non-Jewish inhabitants: “We must expel the Arabs and take their places.” A number of political parties today control blocs in the Israeli Knesset, while advocating for the expulsion of Arab citizens from Israel and the rest of Palestine, envisioning a single Jewish state from the Jordan to the sea. Yet I hear no clamor in the international community for Israel to repudiate these words as a necessary precondition for any discourse whatsoever. The double standard, as always, is in effect for Palestinians.
I, for one, do not trouble myself over “recognizing” Israel’s right to exist — this is not, after all, an epistemological problem; Israel does exist, as any Rafah boy in a hospital bed, with IDF shrapnel in his torso, can tell you. This dance of mutual rejection is a mere distraction when so many are dying or have lived as prisoners for two generations in refugee camps. As I write these words, Israeli forays into Gaza have killed another 15 people, including a child. Who but a Jacobin dares to discuss the “rights” of nations in the face of such relentless state violence against an occupied population?
I look forward to the day when Israel can say to me, and millions of other Palestinians: “Here, here is your family’s house by the sea, here are your lemon trees, the olive grove your father tended: Come home and be whole again.” Then we can speak of a future together.
Of course, another article from the Guardian. The mouthpiece for Hamas and the anti-zionist movement.
You showed me an article from a newspaper with a dubious history at best. I for one would like to read this ‘new’ charter myself.
i spent a good hour looking for it, is it that good James that its hidden?
You really just sound like you’re in denial now, yonira.
On this blog, the MSM as well as independent resources – are cited.
If there is ideological bias, then illustrate it for us in the articles above.
I mean, I don’t even see how it can be ideological in the specific article cited.
You’re being very shallow at the moment.
Gee, oh my, yes, yonira. A British newspaper obviously must be a mouthpiece for Hamas. It makes perfect sense! You know, except for the ones that are owned by Rupert Murdoch, of course.
Of course, another article from the Guardian. The mouthpiece for Hamas and the anti-zionist movement.
Are you joking? The Guardian is one of the most respected newspapers on the planet today.
I’m sorry if you can’t handle the facts Yonira, Hamas has a new charter which they abide by now, there is NO call for the destruction of Israel in their new charter nor any anti-semitic ravings.
Its time you accepted that and dealt with it.
Furthermore, Hamas has repeatedly accepted the 67 borders as a basis for a FULL peace with Israel based on the two state solution:
link to online.wsj.com
From the Wall Street Journal, (I hope its right wing enough for you):
Mr. Meshaal said Hamas wouldn’t be an obstacle to peace. “We along with other Palestinian factions in consensus agreed upon accepting a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines,” Mr. Meshaal said. This is the national program. This is our program. This is a position we stand by and respect.”
Furthermore, Ismael Haniyeh echoed those similiar comments several years ago:
From Haaretz an Israeli source, is that okay with you Yonira?
link to haaretz.com
The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said on Saturday his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
And Haniyeh breaks down the conflict in a nutshell:
Does a besieged people that is waiting breathlessly for a ship to come from the sea want to throw the Jews into the ocean? Our conflict is not with the Jews, our problem is with the occupation,”
So there you have it Yonira.
The most extreme faction amongst the Palestinians is willing to accept a peace deal with Israel that involves them only receiving 20% of their historic homeland.
I guess I just want to read the new charter so I am being pushing and shallow.
Also, its OK on here to say that the entire MSM has an Israel bias(which I don’t argue) but to say there is a British newspaper that has a Palestinian biased its like I denied the Naqba or something like that.
A few minutes ago you didn’t believe the new Hamas charter even existed. Anyway, even if we found an original copy, could you read it? Do you know Arabic? Are you maybe aware that the IDF leveled pretty much every single building in Gaza connected with civil governance, including the Parliament building, and Israel keeps most journalists out of Gaza still? You don’t suppose that factors into your in ability to find a copy?
It might help of course if you made a sincere effort to look for it, yonira, but you haven’t.
Why are you so insistent on making such a fool of yourself, all the time? Repeatedly?
No I’ll cede that point to you Yonira, the Guardian is a lil bit more pro-Palestinian than other news outlets in the West, however, I would never say they are pro Hamas, if anything for every article that shows Hamas as a “normal” group there are 5 more articles that portray them in the same negativity that we’ve come to get used to it in the Western MSM.
Furthermore, I’m not trying to say that Hamas is the savior of the Palestinian struggle. BUT I have to acknowledge that They’ve changed a lot, their positions are far less radical than they were when the original Manifesto was created in 1988 in the fires of the first intifada.
Today they are a political group with some very reasonable demands that I think any Israeli who believes in the 2 state solution would find very appealing. Since 2005 they’ve become very open about the 2 state solution based on the 1967 borders. They’ve even sat down with Jimmy Carter in the hopes that he could convey that message to the United States.
At the same time its groups like Hamas (a brotherhood based Islamic group) that have prevented Takfiri based Islamist groups like Al-Qaeda from gaining a foothold in the Palestinian struggle. Al-Qaeda has beef with Hamas because Hamas is willing to negotiate with Israel.
Hamas’s opposition to these Al-Qaeda sympathetic and Salafi and Wahabi groups is so severe that they have used armed violence to quell them:
link to guardian.co.uk
Well, yonira, here’s how your side handled that “Hamas Stands” article, which Reverend Wright reprinted in his newsletter last year. The LA Times printed the Guardian story. Wright copied the LA Times.
What Wright copied:
link to bizzyblog.com
How Aaron Klein of WND characterized it.
This is absolutely true, yonira.Hamas’s opposition to these Al-Qaeda sympathetic and Salafi and Wahabi groups is so severe that they have used armed violence to quell them:
They gained the confidence of the Gazans because the Fatah leaders were such crooks, and the corruption level was astronomical with the theft of border crossing fees and US foreign aid. That’s why 75% of the population came out to vote Fatah into the dustbin in January 2006. Hamas have made it clear that they are a political not a religious party, and that their main interest is in restoring government services for the Palestinians.
yonira, you know Israel has a good reputation in killing civilians, i was just reading about Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114, have you ever heard about this? When the Zionists gang killed 113 civilians, i invite you to read this link to en.wikipedia.org
Pretty fascinating Yonira, did you read the whole article entry though? Should Israel have shot down a civilian airliner…… of course not, but there is more to the story than an unprovoked downing of a civilian airliner.
Not the first time something like this has happened either:
link to en.wikipedia.org
hole crap I am now talking to myself, perhaps too much blogging for me today :)
Wow, yonira is attempting to rationalize an attack by the Israeli military on civilians in occupied territory. Color me shocked.
yonira i was watching Esther Benbassa on the TV, a French Jew who became anti-zionist after Gaza, Yonira get a life!
I am done playing your games for good Chaos, you can continue to take what I say out of context, you can continue to lie about what I am saying, its no big deal to me, it just makes you look like a prick.
Okay, yonira, you tell me in what context Israeli F-14s should shoot down a civilian airliner and kill almost everyone abour after it strays into occupied territory and is leaving it with all due haste?
More children killings by your friends the Zionist gang Yonira
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Sand’s book is a work of fiction, like most of the anti Zionist spin. He can’t disprove scientific evidence so he dismisses it.
From the National Academy of Sciences:
“Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level.”
link to pnas.org
link to nytimes.com
At the genetic level, Jews are not different than any other human being!!!! Recourse to genetics to prove or disprove national affiliation is very much the same as what the Nazis tried to achieve.
Julian, you’re peddling old info from 1999 and 2000.
Here’s more:
In DNA, New Clues to Jewish Roots
link to humanitas-international.org
Geneticist David Goldstein in a book called Jacob’s Legacy said that Cohan type Y chromosomes have a high incidence in the Lemba tribe of Southern Africa, and they have long claimed they are directly descended from Israelites.
So do Jews derive Jewishness from the mother, ie mitochondrial DNA or father, ie Cohen haplotype?
And how did the Lemba tribe of South Africa meet the 9 women of Soviet Georgia?
Why do people here care about this? What difference does it make as far as Palestinian rights are concerned?
Why do you think American Jews move from Brooklyn to Bilin? Its because they believe all this fiction is true.
The Palestinians are being shoved out of Jerusalem on the pretext that it is holy to the Jews. Religious Zionists are on a campaign of “the flag follows the tomb.” Any place Jews might want to worship is claimed by them as their property.
Jerusalem belongs to all three of the Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It is not the exclusive property of the Jews, which the original 1948 charter or mandate or whatever the hell the UN called it was written. It was always understood to be international, divvied up like Berlin was during the Cold War.
But now you have Israeli settlers violating that 60-year-old agreement, ripping families out of their houses in the dead of night and by force, so of course there’s going to be bitching and moaning about their right to do that on this site, not to mention over there. But Jerusalem is not an exclusively Jewish town, no matter how much violent settlers run around screaming that God gave it to them in the Bible, which seems to be the rant.
Just try talking about the plight of the Palestinians and the USA’s heavy hand it it anywhere without anyone bringing up the Shoah and Goy anti-semitism, and self-hating Jews. Americans cannot get away from Jewish narratives of history as explanation of why US treasure and blood is disposed of the way it is these days. The US pays the price, as do the Palestinians. The Israelis just keep getting free bennies to do whatever they wish, just as if the Nuremberg Trials
never happened and there are no world moral principles extolled since then
that seek to make human life around the world more humane by limiting the sovereign power of any nation state.
Sand’s book is hardly “a work of fiction.” It is properly sourced; he reads Hebrew and had access to incredible libraries that he used to make his points; and he’s a professionally trained historian.
You just dont like what he says; namely, that there was never a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion. Name the scientific evidence he doesn’t like in his book and where he dismisses it.
I think the point about coming “home” is relevant, and distinguishing a colonization effort from a residence effort.
There are features of both in the settlements, particularly that the settlements are now exclusively Jewish rather than urban developments.
But, the desire to reside on the part of the residents is not due largely to a cynical intent to take over the land, but a different combination of sentiments.
There are those that orchestrate the settlement pattern, did early, that did seek colonization, and they certainly still exist.
After the solution of 67 borders with the settlements remaining within Palestine, a half of the Jewish residents will move out, there will be compensation paid to individual and collective Palestinians, and the settlements will become integrated. They will still be stratified ghettos, but by class not by race.
The officials of the PA in East Jerusalem will live in the same apartments as the Jewish technocrats commuting to the city.
What a load of bullshit. You can’t kick people out of their homes and off their land and call it a ‘residence effort’.
You’re such a fucking liar.
There is no Jewish State without the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Without the destruction of Palestinian villages and erasure of their society in what is now the Jewish State.
That is colonization, jackass. No amount of your verbal acrobatics will change history.
Cliff, colonizers always, always, try to find a rationale for their colonization project. Often, in this effort recourse to religious text interpretations comes in handy. Also the bastardization and distortion of language is a very common feature–we have a prime and fine example above. Richard is not lying he is obfuscating, distorting and spinning myths out of thin air.
In the cases where people were overtly kicked off their land, that is illegal and wrong.
In the cases where settlements were built where no one individual lived, that is mostly residence.
You didn’t notice that I distinguished between the individuals that lived somewhere and those that orchestrated the program as a state expropriation?
You are that one-dimensional that you can only knee-jerk?
Its the distinction between demonizing and understanding, but still deciding to do whats right.
I believe that Israel should DECIDE to not construct intentional settlements in the West Bank because it indicates an intention to annex, thereby delaying the clarification of borders and realization of peace.
It does occur within the context of a heart-valve (one way) of state sponsored annexation.
That doesn’t make the persons less human for living in an apartment.
Cliff,
You demonstrate the limitations and hypocrisy of the “colonialist” political theme.
“Remove them, all of them” (I know you didn’t say that here).
Stated in the name of protecting people from mass forced removal.
Imagine how lucky we are that the only spot in the world, outside of Antarctica to be devoid of people was in Palestine!
What the f*@k are you talking about?
Here’ some more haiku nonsense for you, claptrap. Maybe you’ll understand.
The world is like a big pond. The more powerful States are like big drops in this pond. And they cause strong ripples all throughout the pond that affect everyone else.
Ultimately, yes, Israel will ‘decide’ (although the context of YOUR usage of this word is that Israel should do it on it’s own terms and do it because it wants to, and that outside pressure is both irrelevant and unworthy). No shit.
Who are you talking to Witty? Who in the Palestinian camp has the patience for your ethnocentric-ism? The one set of standards you apply to JEWS and the much higher ones you apply to Arabs?
Are you getting paid to continue posting here? I mean that.
Nor does it make the person divinely entitled to occupy it.
Individuals reside.
As I said, the state (Israel) does have a strategy to annex and that is worthy of criticism.
But, its people that establish homes, the personal link to land, place and buildings.
There is no denying that Palestinians that have lived in a locale have a relationship of home, and people that have heard about homeland likely as well, but there is also no denying that individual Israelis have that link as well, including in the West Bank.
The question of legality is important, but not the last word. That suggests that color-blind courts can and should determine that status of indivdiuals title, and define a remedy to perfect title (shift from contested to consented, not by a political rhetorical test but by legal tests).
But Witty, Israel is denying it. Actively — violently.
You don’t believe a word of what you’re saying, do you? If you did, you wouldn’t oppose the right of return for Palestinians while championing the “right of return” for Jews from Russia, Europe and US who never lived there at all?
They are colonisers who like to say things like “that the settlements are not colonization, are not the French in Algeria, because the Jews have a “home” in Palestine to which they are returning” as a part of their colonisation efforts.
Where did the people living in Palestinian refugee camps come from? Where was their former residence (to which many still hold the keys)? What was the Jewish population in the former British Mandate land in 1890, 1920, 1930, 1936, 1939, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1967, 1973, 1980, 1992, 2000, 2009? And now, in 2010? Where did all those additional people come from? The comparison maps of Israeli expansion over the years has been shown a number of times on this blog. The map sequential demography is clear. The humanity of dwellers is not being contested. Nobody is being demonized. The native Americans of the plains moved seasonally, roaming
open spaces that they considered theirs; then there were the cowboys versus the farmers, the conflict over right to fence, etc; these type of conflicts were much more than a question of residence. It’s now way past the Nuremberg Trials and the
international consensus of basic human rights that followed, a consensus outlining limits to state sovereign power. We should be talking about more than “residence”? How about legal concepts, e.g., reverse possession in US property law, and the popular concept of “squatter’s rights?” Too, their are problems galore
with the municipal power of eminent domain, e.g., is the purpose given really a “public purpose?” Which public? Is the compensation really fair?
The notion of ‘returning’ must be clearly defined then.
Are all areas on Earth up for grabs? Is there a time-frame?
Or can we be honest, and stop giving Jewish nationalism more credit than any other kind of nationalism?
It’s power, pure and simple. It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish, Puritan, etc. It doesn’t matter if it’s Zionism or Manifest Destiny.
Jews took Palestine by force. There is no morality. And everything goes back to 48′ – you don’t get your Jewish State without the destruction of the society that was already there.
The YouTube video posted on this blog perfectly illustrates the Master-Slave relationship between Jew and Palestinian in Israel-Palestine (and in the US).
Sure there’s a morality. It’s called might makes right. Master-slave isn’t too bad a description, but I would probably prefer “civilizing the natives” – you know – its so much more antiseptic.
Eventually, even the Russian peasants under the Czars had enough. There’s hope yet for the USA, and therefore for Israel, but Obama seems to have lost it. What will happen after we throw the bums out of congress next time around? Old wine in new bottles?
Jews/Israelis resided in Israel/Palestine.
1948 was wartime. Every population migrated during that time. Jews that previously resided in the West Bank, migrated to Israel, and vice-versa.
The problem occurred in the early 50′s with legislation in both Jordanian law and Israeli, prohibiting return.
The present is the present. 1948 is preamble, and before 1948, 1947, and before 1947 WW2, and before WW2 the Arab Revolt.
There is no such thing as an indigenous population. There is always a finite number of generations that lived in a locale. Present claims to home, always prevail against ancestral.
That is the basis of Palestinians legitimate assertions, current and recent, and also the basis of Israeli legitimate assertions, current and recent.
as usual Dick Witty is being a Zionist snake, everything is fine in order to achieve the Nazi policies of Zionism…
“Zionist snake” and “nazi policies”.
Is your advocacy of democracy present or ancestral?
Do you believe that current residents have the right to equal due process under the rule of law, and one-person one-vote, or only indigenous?
If you believe that current residents is the basis of equal due process, then the individuals that reside in the settlements are entitled to that benefit. The rule of law applied in a color-blind manner might conclude that no compensation is necessary to perfect title, that compensation is necessary to an identified individual, that compensation is necessary to a class, or that forced removal is necessary with an individual receiving the benefit or a class.
I find the concept of forced removal to be a repugnant one, color-blind.
I find that compensation for wrongs is usually fair, especially if the principles of law themselves are consented.
Of course, you could advocate for endless war, rather than that clarification, and you could distract the effort to realize reconciliation by militancy.
Wishing for magic or for unearned gains, rather than by work.
Witty Witty which law?
First of all i am a secular guy, i don’t believe in any religious myths, but i believe in the rule of law, and as you know International is on the top of any local law. When i was at school, i remember i wrote a paper about International law, and you know what Witty, Israel, the US were on the top of the countries that never respected these laws. Under International law, these colons or settlers are residing in occupied territories. The majority decided that east Jerusalem is occupied, and by expelling the occupied Pals to build Jews only settlements , Israel is ethnicity cleansing based a group of people based on their religion which is similar to Nazism.
I advocate for the respect of the International justice standards.
Dick Witty, only you would characterize Israeli’s de facto and de jure rule of law as something worthy of juxtiposing to Palestinian peaceful resistance, for example your negative characterization of the BDS movement in the face of your past statements of how much you honored the civil rights movement against Jim Crow in the USA and the apartheid S African status quo.
Your real formula for justice is your reality: Full civil rights for you and yours in the USA (at Gentile expense), something much less in Israel and its OT (again, at Gentile expense) for the Palestinians. Nearly everybody who comes to this blog and comments sees this, why don’t you?
It makes sense, I guess. The notion that a people who historically live somewhere is inconvient to Zionists like Witty, so they must insist “There is no such thing as an indigenous population.” The Palestinians, specifically, are the inconvenience so, like Golda Meir (whose real name, of course, was Golda Meirson) must insist, “There are no such things as Palestinians.” International law and human rights getting in the way? Well that goes in the bucket too. How many times have we seen Witty undermine the very concept of justice itself?
Nothing is sacrosanct to Witty above is precious judenreich.
Thats a callous rationalization.
I am New England centric if anything for one, and honor the descendants of communities that have lived here for a long time, establishing varying means to survive and thrive here.
But, that is relative, stated as honor and respect, and does not afford them superior rights to me in the present.
Chaos,
Do you think that only ancestral residents of a locale have civil rights in that locale?
Honestly.
I think everybody deserves civil rights Witty.
That is very much unlike your perspective, unless you’ve somehow changed and you’ve stopped refusing the rights of Palestinian refugee families to return to the lands from which they were ousted — by Zionist militants and terrorists — by force.
I’ve stated consistently that I believed in the rule of law, so if individuals can present evidence that they owned property, even leasehold or squatting based relative title, that their rights be recognized.
But, not an exageration of their rights, not a statement of right to dispossess another.
Its the distinction between law and rhetoric. One is legal and democratic, the other is fascistic pretending to be “justice”.
The way that the opportunism stops is by clarification of borders. So, ANY action, any approach that is likely to delay that clarification is the wrong action to take, if you are interested in either justice or peace.
Reconciliation makes justice possible, not the other way around. Justice as a prerequisite of peace, is justice delayed.
As much as that doesn’t fit the slogan.
So, the fascists weren’t the ones with guns and land mines and davidkas, huh?
Keep putting “justice” in air quotes, Witty. It isn’t as if that doesn’t prove my point about how phony your commitment to humanism really is.
How come you let Jews do that? What right does a Jew from Brooklyn, or Russia or whatnot have to land that was previously owned by Palestinians?
Wittypocrisy at play yet again. You prove over and over and over again that you really are nothing but the Zionist equivalent of the reinrassig fanatic.
Israel is now calling for international law (post Nuremberg) to “adjust” to modern reality. That’s code for authorizing Israel to be the eternal exception to the rule of law agreed to by all nations as a lesson from the costly WW2. Witty’s usage of the imperative of Rule Of Law is the apex of hypocrisy.
Witty, you should bone up on how Israeli rule of law is actually rendered, so you know the sham of “separate but equal” in Israel (and of course the Israeli rule of occupation law in the OT is much worse) as you acknowledge it was in the JIm Crow Era here. I mean, it’s not like the discrepancy between a just rule of law and the actual operation of Israeli rule of law as to land rights in Israel, including title and residence issues, has not been covered in detail on past blog discussion here. You pretend those never happened. It’s like every day you get up and read your Israel Project dictionary and talking points over your coffee, and try the same old hasbara. It’s not working, Dick Witty. Most of the people who are relegated to discussing their frustration with USA foreign policy regarding Israel on this blog because they are deeply disappointed in their own government and how its spending their treasure and blood in the middle east, and that their own MSM does not
recognize the problem, or seeks to obfuscate it, as do their elected reps, those people you argue with here, are really not morons, nor ignorant, no matter how much your pompous rationals treat them as such. You are the worst sort of “American” I can imagine because you are the most persistently hypocritical. You missed your calling. You could have been a Joe Lieberman!
Wow!
It’s a stupid argument – really stupid; but it also totally opposes the “right of return” of Jews in favour of the Palestinian refugees right of return.
Its actually painful to watch the weaselling and fluid morality at work.
It is really interesting that Zionists bring this argument up when it is convenient to discredit the claims of Palestinians and to oppose the right of return, forgetting or convenietly omitting the Zionist argument repeated ad nuseum that Palestine was the homeland of Jews some 2000 years ago. I suppose that ancestral claims don’t count unless they are either made by Zionists or they are more than 2000 years!!!!!
Fantastic logic we have here. Truly amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!
Edwin,
Perhaps you missed my comments on the rule of law, that if color-blind, sometimes it results in your community presiding, other times others, most often towards some solution that can be consented.
Thats what perfection of title means, the transition from contested to consented title (by a test of a reasonable person).
That is VERY DISTINCT from either pro-Zionist decrees, or anti-Zionist decrees, both driven more by ideology than respect for international law.
The settlers that reside in the West Bank, that have paid money to someone, that have lived there for more than an incidental amount of time, and certainly any children or grandchildren that that is their original home, have very real rights.
They might not be perfected yet, but they are not void. “Throw them out” is a fascist response to the reality.
I advocate for the green line as boundary (except for the old Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem) and allowing those that reside on either side of the green line to remain there, as citizens of the geographic state.
If settlers wish to be part of Israel, rather than reside on the specific piece of land, they should be allowed to, helped to, move.
Witty, the American test of a reasonable person in applying US property law and its off-shoots municipal and state or federal permits–is not the same as in Israel. There, the only “reasonable person” making any enforced judgements is always an Israeli Jew. Why do you insist on pretending the rule of law in the USA, or in England, for example, operates the same way as Israeli rule of law? You are so disingenuous. Maybe Phil is inspired by shell games on the street corner in Israel, but we are not. We don’t romanticize crooks, petty or major thieves. We don’t even like pick pockets. We are hopelessly goy, like Ron Paul and or like Dennis Kucinich. Or Ralph Nader.
Please turn in your American citizenship and move to Israel, which upholds your highest agenda.
It will be an important question for both communities to clarify basis of title law, so that consented title is the result, rather than continuing accusations.
It will be a component of final status agreements.
I still don’t understand why you consider international law and the Geneva Conventions to be subject to negotiation. That’s pretty disingenuous, Witty. Israel signed the treaties, and now they refuse to abide by them.
“The writer is unidentified, but take it from me, kid, this is from a powerful friend of his, otherwise he would not have run it at such length.”
Do you actually read the rest of the Daily Dish, Phil?
First, most posts that don’t contain significant comment are posted by one of the two under-bloggers working with Andrew, Patrick Appel and Chris Bodenner. Andrew provides approval but the post was likely not chosen by him. Life As Part Of Sully’s Brain
Secondly, a regular feature of the blog is that, in lieu of a comment section, Sullivan/Appel/Bodenner post without comment lengthy emails from readers, regularly including dissents from earlier posts, many times a day. Blogs vs Talk Radio
Links to the half-dozen or so reader comments presented, including one even longer than “Colonization”, just in the SAME DAY, are in the Daily Wrap.
Perhaps on others’ blogs the appearance of a long quotation from a reader without comment might allow you to make such assumptions and tell us ‘kids’ to trust you on it. But there’s not a shred of evidence to support your assertion about the reader’s identity.
I find the whole discussion of the Shlomo Sand thesis to be beside the point. His book is no doubt interesting for its own sake, but I think it irrelevant to the conflict today. If Sand is all wrong, and the Israeli narrative of a worldwide group of Jewish people who share a common ancestry originating in the Holy Land is 100% true, that still provides no justification for the Zionist enterprise of creating a Jewsh State in the 20th century. In order to create their state on their “ancient homeland,” Jews had to dispossess and subjugate non-Jewish people who have lived there for centuries. It was an immoral plan from the start, and it has been carried out immorally as well.
Placing so much emphasis on Sand’s thesis implies that he has presented a significant reason for opposing Jewish domination over non-Jews in Israel/Palestine. That in turn implicitly concedes that if Sand is wrong, Israel has won a moral victory. Sand’s historical account, even if brilliant, will never be universally accepted, and those who disagree with it can cite their counter-analysis as proof that the Jewish State is a reasonable present-day entity given millenia of Jewish history. The much larger point is that the Zionist scheme was inherently flawed because of the presence of an indigenous population. The deep feelings harbored in the hearts of the Jewish people to return to “their” land should not have trumped the Palestinians’ right to full and equal lives, and that is true regardless of whether those Jewish feelings were grounded in fiction or fact.
I just said something along the same lines, but you make the point better.
You made the point just fine, Donald, and I was gratified to see that someone else was thinking the same thing.
Very true, David.
The problem is we are not dealing with rational people. Palestinian farmers are being beaten [sometimes with fatal results] because some loonies are awaiting the return of a temple they think is owed to them.
sammy, that is precisely my point. These “loonies” will never, ever be convinced that they are not physical descendants of the people who received promises from God thousands of years ago. If you argue that their facts are wrong, you concede, at least a little, that if their facts are right, they are entitled to something today. The whole issue is a distraction from legal, ethical and moral questions in the 21st century. I do not have a problem with Sand or those who find his thesis historically fascinating, but I think it’s a distraction to apply it to the present-day realities.
Okay, I can agree with that. Sorry about the loonies. You’re probably aware of our Indian problems due to all these myths gripping the populace [sati, untouchability, child sacrifice]. I find I have little patience for such.
You’re dead right, David Samel. I needed that little spanky-spanky myself. ;-) So now I have two bookends, Samel and Shmuel.: no wandering off the res and no witty.
Gee, David Samel, you took the words right out of my head, but had I reached for them, the words would not have fallen so clearly on the screen.
Think I’ll copy it and pass it off as my own a few months down the road. :-) Nice job.
As Stravinsky reportedly said, “Good composers borrow from other composers. Great composers steal.” Help yourself, MRW.
The value of Sand’s thesis is it strenghtens the theory that founding myths were created to justify the legitimacy, the morality of the project.
You could compare the function of the founding myths with the supporting construction used when building a roman arc. It’s needed to build the arc but once it’s ready you can remove the supports one by one and the arc will not collapse.
I don’t care how you try to portray what is taking place, the fact of the matter is that you, as Israelis or “sympathetic-complicit” Jews are engaging in a genocidal discourse and activity. You can have discussions till the end of time, but the acts which are occurring are from bad to worse. Once you start this false process of some deity being a real estate broker you put it in force in full, no matter how it is approached (incrementally, in short bursts of murderous carnage, or both, etc.). Unless it is halted it will follow a full course, while you are having your various discussions. If what happened in the USA was a clear genocide of the indigenous population, and it was, without this bogus religious element of some supposed “coming home” than it will certainly play out here – and it is with crystal clarity.
Three things take place in this process, the general dumbing down of the offending population through arcane religious appeal, the dehumanizing of the target indigenous population, and the consequent atrocious acts which bring the current condition. This is not something that we are not aware of, it has been correctly named as a colonizing process with all of the accouterments, and the discourse among the perpetrators is genocidal language.
WHEN DOES IT BECOME GENOCIDE?
The more important question is what changes the current to something good for all, rather than replacing on suppression for another.
You mean like universal citizenship in Israel-Palestine, regardless of “Jewishness?”
Now let’s watch Witty vacillate.
The most immediate, most important issue therefore, is why the US should use sticks and not just carrots to lift the seige of Gaza and stop the ever expanding settlements in the WB. Everything else can follow. Replacing one suppression with another is theoretical future, rhetorical game playing. The point for Americans, is that we are responsible for the horrible present lives of the Palestinian people. Many Jews hold the USA responsible for not bombing the Nazi camps, being more concerned with first defeating Germany by destroying its, e.g., ball bearing factories I hold the US responsible now for destroying the lives of Palestinian children right now, while all the while Mitchell pretends to address future peace issues. Actually it’s much worse; anybody care to calculate just how many Arab civilian bodies we’ve killed since 2003? When does it become more than collateral damage? How many drone attacks, and dead mothers and babies have become collateral damage to get a couple of Al Quaida guys? I read it took 13 drone attacks to finally get the last tiny bunch–and over 300 Afghan civilians died before the drones finally hit the target. You like this Obama?
You know, when we have articles that offer proof and testimony about war crimes inflicted deliberately by the IDF on Palestinians, the Zionists are almost completely absent from discussion.
Articles about attacks on American journalists? Zionists are all over that topic like flies.
It’s very demonstrative, isn’t it?
Wondrous Jew – you cite the prayer “jerusalem next year” intensely muttered, and properly directed as proof positive of earthly attachment to a place, said attachment having the finality of history and the legal force of a deed of trust. But just because a prayer is used as a vector (ie, it has magnitude – 3x/day + direction) does not give earthly representatives of the devout the right to turn its persistence over time into legally sanctioned tools of enforcement. Were it so, every muslim – who prays (not thrice but x 5/day) in the direction of mecca – would have automatically acquired the rights to saudi arabian oil, land and [nonexistent] water.
may be an attachment, expressed in prayer does not confer legal claims of ownership, regardless of the strength of the attachment (whether x3 or x5/day), the persistence of its direction or the length of its history. Many traditional interpretations of jerusalem (including rabbis galore) have indeed regarded jerusalem as a spiritual place, hence the yearning for a messiah as a means to affect possession. By definition, a messiah is that one prays for to arrive, with jerusalem as symbol of redemption, a potential heaven on earth, with emphasis on ‘potential’. And the possession is one of the spirit of righteousness. At least so it was in much of the jewish tradition.
It is a great irony that yearners for possession of the spirit of jerusalem, have become possessed by spirit’s evil twin, a dibuk made of zealotry and greed. The very things prayers were supposed to cure, or at least treat. And so Israel itself, and the israelites who are busily abusing both land and inhabitants, represent a frightful distortion of a grand vision. Far from having their prayers answered, they have come to worship idols, yet again. The more they violate the people who live there, the more they stuff the wall with prayerful papers, the further they move away from the real jerusalem.
PS no, I did not become a neturei karta convert…..just too much work lately.
Danaa, your first paragraph made me laugh outright. Maybe I’m punch drunk (been up for hours, like 30, procrastinating over something serious I dread attacking.)
By the end of it, though, the levity gave way to an appreciation of your quiet piercing wisdom.
Danaa: PS no, I did not become a neturei karta convert…..just too much work lately.
A hell of a sermon nonetheless. So who’s the prophet now (I’m thinking Zech. 4)?
MRW, glad to be of use – especially in causing laughs (that’s always a good deed in my book). will you get some sleep now please?
Shmuel, just trying to give you some competition in that department (otherwise I worry that all the praise you are subjected to here may yet go to your head….). Next on the menu (as soon as am done with this one little piece of calculation that’s been keeping me up – the better to keep up with MRW?): the definitive (ha!) comparison of zionism’s meanings (pre-, post- trans- and meta-) in Israel vs the US, including idel thoughts generated in part by your oh-so-excellent commentary on the Israeli post zionist (to which I have not responded yet; my bad) as well as Mya ‘s interviews, which i found to be an interesting cross section.
The Jews praying to Jerusalem, the Arabs praying to Mecca, both multiple times a day. And which way are the American end timers praying? Ah, their own version
of Jerusalem, their own pie in the sky that happens to be dirty with earth. So,
Danaa, in which direction and to what piece of earth cum pie in the sky is Obama
praying in his own secular way? And where is Buddha, studying his navel these days? I dunno. I’m just really glad I am not a USA young man or woman over in the Middle East and clad with their cheap uniforms and cheap tools. Hey, is Bernake the modern Buddha?
I believe people who have been born there can’t be punished for what their parents or grandparents did to the native population. Thus, a person who was born in Ariel should have the right to continue to live there (and Salam Fayyad has said as much) even if his grandfather expelled the Palestinians who used to live where his house is located. One can understand and should respect that Ariel dweller’s connection to the land.
However, the connection to the land that a Brooklin resident, or even a Peruvian Indian recently converted to Judaism, can feel is absolutely no reason to allow them to immigrate to the West Bank. They already have places to feel attached to. It is nonsensical to even suggest that their superstitions, no matter how deeply felt, should be accorded the same status as the rights of the Palestinians (or Jews) who were born in the West Bank.
So if my father the Nazi stole a collection of gold coins from a Jew on the way to the camps, I get to keep it, seeing how attached I’ve gotten to it over the lat 60 years?
Not the same. I happen to believe that everyone has the right to live where they were born, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights happens to concur with me.
Of course, the Arab who was expelled has the right to return to his land, too. But since his house is no longer there, the practical solution will be to compensate him and erect multi storey buildings where both the Arabs and the Jews of the West Bank (but not those from Buenos Aires or Brooklyn) will be able to live.
I would think that on possibility that I have heard is that people could be allowed to return, but where their residence was now owned by someone else they would receive a comparable residence in the same neighbourhood – on the grounds that creating a new set of victims to provide justice to an old set of victims is no progress at all.
As someone who has acquired a new citizenship this is of mild interest to me. Does that mean I maintain some sort of “original” citizenship whether I want to or not?
“The right to live where they were born” is a pretty vague notion. I was born in the hospital, do I have the right to live there?
It isn’t punishment to confiscate property to which a person has no legal right. While receiving stolen goods is a crime in itself for which you can be punished, the forfeiture of the goods is not considered punishment.
It is one thing to claim that Jews born in the WB are entitled to citizenship there, but quite another to claim they are entitled to possession of property stolen by their parents.
If I live in a house that was passed down to me from my grandparents (that they acquired from a state annexation then sold to my grandparents) even if the title to the house is not perfected, I do have considerable degree of ownership rights in the house and land.
The same logic supports Palestinian relative rights to land and dwellings that they did not legally own.
In the case of residence and improvements, that in itself is best continued. Otherwise you are advocating mass forced removal, in the name of opposing mass forced removal.
I am certainly advocating forced removal of settlers from stolen Palestinian land. They should probably also be forced to pay back rend to the legitimate owners for all the years they occupied the property and prevented the owners from full use and profit from it.
The settlers are not the same as Palestinians. One is the dispossessed, the other a thief. If a burglar breaks into your house, you call the police and put him in prison. This is not “forced removal” in the name of opposing “forced removal”. This is justice.
There are pragmatic reasons to accept facts on the ground , for example with paying out compensation. But. The strategy of creating facts on the ground is similar to the strategy of aiming for time limitation in legal issues.
When there has been a deliberate strategy to take advantage of pragmatic attitudes I would take as much as possible(which is how much exactly?) the principled attitude as a reference. All claims for limitation are off. The worst response is to upgrade the state of affairs to some kind of moral right.
Not just theft – armed robbery, mugging. In US law, if you kill someone in the commission of a lesser crime, such as robbery, you are guilty of murder. Even if you are only an accessory to the crime and just waiting outside the bank in the getaway car, you are guilty of murder.
That would be justice.
Yep, that’s called the felony murder rule; the various felonies applicable are usually listed in the state statute.
It’s a bit off topic, but as a criminal defense appeals attorney, I once represented a man who, along with three others, went through the pockets of an elderly man lost in their neighborhood, stealing a five dollar bill. Not a very nice crime, but no one struck or hurt the man in any way. A cop spotted them, and the men scattered, and my client was caught. He was charged and convicted of … murder! The victim, running after the cop pursuing my client, had dropped dead of a heart attack. On appeal, I argued that the felony murder rule was not intended to apply to these facts, but I lost. OK, maybe more than a bit off topic, but interesting, I hope.
I think it’s true that being born in a place normally gives you a right to just and equal protection from the sovereign power in that place. It doesn’t give you the right to inherit stolen property.
There’s also an element of paradox and abnormality about claiming a birthright when your ability to make that claim exists only because the same right was denied to others who at the time plainly deserved it.
Hey, can’t we milk another generation of Germans? Wonder how they really feel?
I guess LeaNder is ok with that; but I’d like to hear from another German citizen, say one about age 25 like the Israeli individual profiles on here recently.
And a Messiah is also the desire of all the nations, not just of one.
I think that Sand’s argument is worth discussing. The most that could be established by opponents is that Jews have rights of memory, if that’s the term, in respect of Palestine. To my mind it is inconceivable that whatever arguments might establish this wouldn’t establish with equal certainty that the Palestinians have rights of exactly the same kind. If you reach this point you have to accept that Jewish rights are not superior to Palestinian ones. If you decide that rights of memory just don’t matter at all and that everything must be justified in more philosophical or contemporary terms then Zionism has to justify itself without any reference to the Book of Books or to divine donations. This would at least sweep away a great mass of pretended justifications and once again put the discussion on a footing where there is, as far as we can see, no inherent superiority of the rights of one people over the other.
Yeah. Rights of memory.
I could fazuzzle that so it could work both ways, just like the current argument. I was raised Catholic until I discovered a thin red Raja Yoga book at the age of ten and Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian at the age of 13, but maybe I have enough right of memory about being a Catholic that I’m entitled to a penthouse apartment in downtown Rome, right near the Vatican. How about the via dei Condotti? Think someone could work that one out?
Just think how pissed Stephen Steinlight got in The Forward in June 2006, and how outraged he was that Mexicans even deigned to mention that they occupied the land all the way up to Kansas until 1850,or thereabouts, and some of their activists had the temerity to suggest they wanted it back.
maybe I have enough right of memory about being a Catholic that I’m entitled to a penthouse apartment in downtown Rome, right near the Vatican.
I’m ok with that, as long as you don’t try to kick out the indigenous non-Catholic population. When my wife’s family first settled here, Christians were mostly lion food.
;-) Nah, I’m more the bar/cafe/the/more/the/merrier/type, indigenous or not, makes it more interesting, and Italians love to laugh. Nothing like a bar full of people who dont know each other laughing their asses off, and having a great conversation. I dont speak much of their language unfortunately, or I’d live there in a heartbeat. Best food on the planet in my opinion, and so different from region to region. So maybe those early Christians did serve a purpose. Their only other characteristics were that they were dour and enjoyed being self-righteous.
First round’s on me. I’ll even throw in a free Italian lesson :-)
Venice was my honeymoon destination a few years ago, and it’s wonderful even though the Italians are leaving. I’ve found it a good place to meet
Americans and Israelis and learning how easy it is to ruin a social occasion by mentioning certain subjects.
Would just like to mention, since my mind is full of old things, a couple of points from previous discussion. As to the Hebrew language, it’s interesting that Isaiah refers to it as ‘the language of Canaan’, not ‘of Israel’. The Genesis explanation of ‘Israel’ – ‘one who struggles with God’ – seems more plausible than one involving Egyptian divine names. Would an Egyptian name have stuck among non-Egyptians? There are references to a Kingdom of Israel in the (let’s say eighth century) Moabite Stone,Tel Dan inscription and Assyrian records.
MH,
I haven’t been to Venice in years, but promised my daughter a trip before it goes definitevely blub blub ;-)
It is interesting that Isaiah treats the “language of Canaan” as a symbol of Judean hegemony over Egypt. Nehemiah, on the other hand, makes a clear distinction between Canaanite (“Ashdodian”) and Judean language. Of course the author of Nehemiah did have a clear anti-Canaanite, Judaising agenda. In matter of fact, the two (or more) languages were extremely close and certainly mutually comprehensible, and Canaan is an acceptable synonym for Israel in the Bible.
I agree about the name “Israel”. A verb/noun followed by the name of the god (El, Baal) is a classic Canaanite form, just as the name of the god, followed by -mses (Moses anyone?) was a classic Egyptian form.
The Tel Dan stele mentions a “House of David”, but I don’t recall any reference to a Kingdom of Israel.
Just looked it up, and you’re right about Tel Dan: MLK . YŠR’L.
“There are references to a Kingdom of Israel in the (let’s say eighth century) Moabite Stone,Tel Dan inscription and Assyrian records. ”
In these references, is Israel a place or a person?
Sammy,
Regarding the Tel Dan inscription, the “House of David” reference may be somewhat iffy, but the reference to Israel is almost certainly to a “king of Israel”.
Do you have a link to the source? I’d like to see for myself. There are no references to a kingdom of Israel outside of the bible that I know of
From wiki it says the inscription reads MLK YSR’L [Malik Israel]
link to en.wikipedia.org
How do you distinguish between King Israel and King of Israel? In Arabic King would be Malik and Kingdom Mummalika [as in Mummalika al Arabiya al Saudiya]
See eg. Mark William Chavalas, The ancient Near East: historical sources in translation (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), pp.305-307.
“Although the authenticity, date and unity of these three inscribed fragments have been vigorously challenged, they are provisionally treated here as representative of a single, larger royal monumental or memorial inscription … Of particular historical interest is (1) the clear reference to ‘the king of Israel’ or mlk yšr’l in line 8 and (2) the phrase in line 9 bytdwd, most likely a reference to ‘the house of David.’ Citing various lines of support, interpreters have offered alternative proposals for bytdwd …”
Samm: How do you distinguish between King Israel and King of Israel?
In biblical Hebrew (I am assuming the same in Aramaic – the language of the inscription/s), the word king generally follows the name of the king, but precedes the name of the land or people over which he ruled. More importantly however, the reference here to mlk yšr’l appears to follow a personal name ([Jeho]ram son of [...] king of Israel.
But biblical Hebrew itself extends over one thousand years and is not consistent, it could very well have read, Jehoram, son of King Israel.
I don’t know much about Aramaic, but I will look into it.
Sammy: it could very well have read, Jehoram, son of King Israel.
If there is a space between the word br (son of) and the word mlk, as there would appear to be (not quite sure how the fragments fit together), that would be unlikely.
Aramaic also had many dialects and periods, but the Middle Aramaic I am familiar with (Jewish Babylonian) – which seems pretty close to the Aramaic in the inscription – employs the same word order in this case as in Biblical Hebrew (throughout the Bible – although I haven’t done a detailed study). In Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, you would say david malka (de)yisra’el, and never malka david.
I see. I admit I am curious about it, since there is very little non-biblical evidence that the kingdom of Israel even existed. It is not mentioned in Indian or Persian sources as apparently Judea is [Yuthia/Ayuthia/Ayodhya] although the locations are all mixed up. Also the house of Israel has [apparently] another name in these inscriptions, Bet Humri, so it seems odd, that they would use Bet David and Mlk Ysrl in the one, when there are inscriptions which say Bet Humri. Too may assumptions.
As MHughes pointed out, there is also the “Moabite Stone” (Mesha Stele), which links Omri (Humri)) and Israel, referring to “Omri king of Israel” and “the House of Omri”.
Yes I know, and they both have the same inscription, interpreted the same way, assuming the Aramaic follows the Hebrew, which would be like saying the Arabic follows the Hebrew, if we were to consider that Arabic is younger and similar [but obviously its not true, there are clear differences]. I looked at that. Is there any other extra-biblical information on the kingdom of Israel?
Here’s a good list of “artifacts significant to the Bible”.
On the whole, not much to go on. I’m with the “minimalists”. Cool myths, and a few really great works of literature. Any idiot would have worked a couple of well-known facts in, for the sake of “authenticity”.
But, as David Samel pointed out so eloquently:
I’m not asking about it because of the Zionist thingy, I just have a thing for myths, unavoidable really, if you’re Indian. :D
I got that :-) I’m afraid I am afflicted with the same “disease”. As a matter of fact, the first book I ever read was a book of Indian myths, so it must be your fault!
:-)
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I’m just fascinated by the linguistic discussion above. Inconceivable before the internet.
One more comment on word order, Sammy. The Mesha stele is unequivocal, as it has both ‘mri mlk yšr’l – “Omri king of Israel” – and mš’ ben kmš mlk m’b – Mesha son of Kemosh king of Moab. Israel and Moab are both clearly names of kingdoms/peoples here.
Absolutely, James; a second Gutenberg revolution. Sadly, internet literacy (I mean knowing how to find, understand and evaluate sources) is even rarer than the other kind (not particularly robust these days), despite all the dolts who know how to type “brittany spears” and click “search”, or cut and paste from Wiki.
I can’t match Shmuel’s understanding of the original languages (very useful for this kind of discussion!) but I would recommend both the Oxford History of the Biblical World (1998) and (even more) Lester L. Grabbe’s ‘Ancient Israel: what do we know and how do we know it?’ (2007) which gives all the primary sources in translation. Grabbe (Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Hull University) makes a point of defending the existing text of the Assyrian record that attributes an impressive force of 2,000 chariots to the Israel of 753 and that some editors have tried to emend. This would make Israel something of a temporary great power, though clearly vulnerable both to internal tensions, perhaps religious, and also to the collapse of alliances – evidently both problems had struck by 740, when Jehu had replaced Ahab and Jehoram as king and had made his peace with the Assyrians. Not that it’s at all clear that the people of this kingdom were of homogeneous race or religion.
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