Do American Jews have any idea what Zionist organizations say routinely? Here Susan Tuchman and Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America respond to an interview of University of California President Mark Yudof:
“We do, however, respectfully take issue with two points that President Yudof made in his interview. First, President Yudof said that it’s his belief that all people are ‘protective toward their children.’ If only it were true. What unfortunately is true is that the parents of Palestinian Arab suicide bombers celebrate when their children die as terrorists in the act of murdering innocent Jews. They hand out candy and brag about their children’s ‘achievements.’ Some even express the wish that their other children could also die as ‘martyrs.’ Sadly, this shocking difference in values from ours in America and the West has encouraged violence and stood in the way of peace...."
This sounds like what nazi propagandists said about how Jewish people treat their children.
But, then the nazi propaganda model is the staple of zionist propaganda.
Actually, such accusations were central during the European witch craze: witches sacrificing their children during the Sabbath (!), as part of their conspiracy to destroy Christianity.
Good point, Antidote
Hmmmm….seems the zionist hate propaganda is only slightly more sophisticated than the dribble of several centuries ago used against “witches”. I always figured zionism was a mental disease that attracted the less evolved, more backward sorts.
“I always figured zionism was a mental disease that attracted the less evolved, more backward sorts.”
That’s also a common explanation for Nazis and witch-hunters.
Not true, though
It’s also a good explanation for neo-confederates.
:D
It may not actually be a mental disease, though, but something’s definitely not screwed on correctly with these people. Something got broken.
I think this is what the Romans said about the early Christians, that they celebrated the martyrdom of their children and called them saints.
They said even worse things about the Christians:
“And now, as wickeder things advance more fruitfully, and abandoned manners creep on day by day, those abominable shrines of an impious assembly are maturing themselves throughout the whole world. Assuredly this confederacy ought to be rooted out and execrated. They know one another by secret marks and insignia, and they love one another almost before they know one another; everywhere also there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust, and they call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters…
Some say that they worship the genitals of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their common parent. I know not whether these things are false; certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites…
Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds. Thirstily – O horror! they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs. By this victim they are pledged together; with this consciousness of wickedness they are covenanted to mutual silence.”
Minucius Felix, Octavius, R. E. Wallis, trans. in The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, N. Y.: The Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), Vol. 4, pp. 177-178.
IT’S A BLOOD LIBEL!!! CALL FOXMAN!
call Foxman…
I was hoping he had resigned?
Helen Thomas turned 90 yesterday. No cupcakes from Obama this year.
Shame.
Obama’s too busy carrying water for Netanyahu. I don’t think he’s considered the “house” variety of “involuntary worker” for the Israeli Prime Minister.
Susan Tuchman and Morton Klein,
You miserable, nasty pieces of racist wakos – you’re the ones who should be banned from going anywhere near ‘children’. You have nothing to teach but fear, hatred and irrationality!
I wish for a big fat Catapillar bulldozer to come crushing your homes, properties and futures – everything you own and value you evil wretches!
Morty Klein – what a bottomless cesspool of toxic filth. Any wayto apply for Superfunding to clean up that site?
Such revolting propaganda by the likes of Tuchman and Klein are the staple of Israeli indoctrination. I grew up hearing such statements day in and day out. Those two are merely leading by example.
Did Zuckerman recognize the pain and the tears dripping down the eyes of Cindy Sheehan?
If he did he would have seen farce and collective social pressure in the forced celebration of death in combat so pronounced in our culture.
He should ask his buddies in Israel not to glorify Massada any more.He should ask the counties and districts in Israel to pull down the signs on the streets naming so many child -killers as national Israeli heores.
Just further dehumanization of the enemy as the enigmatic “other”.
What a load of bollocks.
People care about their children, period.
The statements are those of confusion, which it would be wonderful if they stated, rather than projected.
“We don’t understand how people can send their children off to martyr.” Rather than “they obviously don’t care about their children”.
Its something they need to learn, that Phil and others could educate about if that was their choice.
Most that I know that that have spent time with Palestinian families note the closeness and humanity of them. Its a message that is lost to the world, obviously.
The confusion is understandable. How can a parent send their child off to martyr? I feel the same way about the military.
“Most that I know that that have spent time with Palestinian families note the closeness and humanity of them. Its a message that is lost to the world, obviously Its a message that is lost to the world,
First of all, your disgusting and smug satisfaction with that fact is not lost on anybody. Second, the Zio-Orgs of America are not “the world”
The rest of the world knows what’s happenning, and so does most of America. You wish it was lost to the world, and it shows.
And then, in the very next sentence, you again smugly, with the lowest of insinuations, echo the sentiment that Palestinians care nothing for their children and wish them to be martyrs.
Still the same phony hippie you always were.
Oh please Richard. If the same was said about Israeli parents, you would be the first to scream blood libel – that’s exactly what it is
“The statements are those of confusion, which it would be wonderful if they stated, rather than projected.”
No, Tuchman’s and Klein’s statements are those of being assholes.
Witty, in what situation, if any, should a parent send their child off to fight a war? What do you think of those American Jewish parents who
send their child off to fight in the IDF and protect the settlers? From what I’ve read, like those American parents who worry about their child
trooper overseas, they nevertheless are proud of him or her, the more so if they make the grade in an elite (highly risky) combat unit. What is a “martyr” to you? Where, exactly is your line drawn, if you have one? Do you admire those who were in the Irgun? The Stern Gang? In what cause, if any, would you send your son off to war? Does the military have any justification at all? Do you have a very low opinion of cops and firefighters too? Should all citizens be allowed to have a gun at home, or not? We want you to get specific. We want you to say clearly why “the confusion is understandable.”
Richard, you need to understand and reflect why on earth Zuckerman will make this obseravtion. His intention is not to seek an answear but to smear the population. There are some observation that is self serving.It is a cliche’. It has been reduced to a premise to bolster the same premise that plaestinian are not human.they dont have same attributes “we” have. It is like self-serving obseravtion like” they hate us” or ” we are with USA in fighting terrorism” or like ” Thye dont miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. In times of this kind of group thinking , the reason does not work.Had Israel loved its children, they would have left Germany in 1933 and in 1939 without demur.
“Had Israel loved its children, they would have left Germany in 1933 and in 1939 without demur.”
I mean the the fate of Euroepan Jewry would have been been different if Zionist did not raise any objection to the drive by Hitler to remove Jews from business,official positions,cherished profession( eerily similar to current Zionist regime’s philosophy in Israel). On one side Zinost created trouble foo Hitler outside Germany using this phenomena evolving in Germany , on the other side they relentlessly worked with same Nazi party to make sure that Jews would be driven out of German and German occupied Europe.
At the end of the day we might ask this question do the Palestine see a future in world where all kids have a future or are they bent on creating a world where their kids and only thier’s kids have a future. Israel has chosen that it is the Jewsih kids , and only Jewish kids who should have a future.
Here’s D. Ben-Gurion (quoted in http://www.palestineremembered.com)
“If I knew it was possible to save all [Jewish] children of Germany by their transfer to England and only half of them by transferring them to Eretz-Yisrael, I would choose the latter—-because we are faced not only with the accounting of these [Jewish] children but also with the historical accounting of the Jewish People.” (Righteous Victims, p. 162)
time for some new material lyn117. Any more quotes that are taking entirely out of context and totally irrelevant to the topic at hand?
please tell me the time and date when that was said. can you tell me what he was talking about before he said that?
you guys are hacks!
Mind explaining in what context is perfectly fine to have a Jewish man extolling that he’d rather half the Jewish children of Germany die, than survive?
“you guys are hacks!”
Hacks are essential in a struggle like this. Israel has used them for years. Get used to it, Schwartzila. Do you really think that a lot of kvetching and screaming “Jew-haters” is going to make any difference? You are watching a much more realistic narrative about Israel being forged right in front of your eyes.
Say, Schwartzy, remember how those brave Buddhist monks used to protest the hacks supporting the War on Vietnam ? And you won’t even need a match. I bet you could go off spontaneously.
Note: Not that I think anybody here (except Rowan, of course) is a hack, by any means.
When your son ends up on the West Bank with an Uzi? Remember this line.
Hey guys and gals:
You are taking Phil’s headline and incorrectly concluding, or asserting, that Tuchman and Klein are here saying that all Palestinians don’t care about their children, which would be racist, I agree. Reading the post, however, one would have to conclude that the commentors above are either not reading very carefully, or deliberately misreading. The comments lack integrity.
First, Phil’s headline is a little misleading in using the word “care.” The phrase in the actual quote is “protective towards their children.”
Second, the group identified as not being protective towards their children is not identified as Palestinians as a whole, but a subgroup, namely Palestinian parents of suicide bombers. The observation that parents of suicide bombers who celebrate and encourge such martyrdom, before or after the fact, are not “protective of their children” is not outrageous.
For as hard a time as we give the MSM about not properly characterizing events and what people say, it would behoove us to be a little more disciplined ourselves.
What do you mean by “us”?
Mooser: I mean everyone commenting on this site. By commenting, we share in the responsibility for what the site is about.
Than why am I not banned?
“I mean everyone commenting on this site. By commenting, we share in the responsibility for what the site is about.”
Lopoked all over the commenting rules, didn’t see that anywhere. I think you’re wrong.
O.K….let me say this…everytime I see or hear these cretans use “our” as in “our” America or try to say they are representative of American ‘values’……I am going to remind that they are not part of “us”, or America, or anything but themselves.
We all know why they try to co op the American “our” and ‘we’.
The parasite hitches a ride.
They are not us…the us we use to be or the us we want to be.
They are not American, they are strictly zionist Israelis.
Echoes of the “wicked child?” Except that the “wicked child” at Seder is asking “what is this to ‘you.’” The wicked child is sitting apart from the others, because it dares to question the tradition. So it must be criticised.
Here, the tradition is to say things like “what a bottomless cesspool of toxic filth”, “You miserable, nasty pieces of racist wakos – you’re the ones who should be banned from going anywhere near ‘children’”, ” I always figured zionism was a mental disease that attracted the less evolved, more backward sorts”, or “Nazi propagandists” . . . and anyone not using such language is obviously not one of “us?”
Well actually the tradition here is to first say …’hey, wait a minute what your doing isn’t fair’…’stop doing such and such’…you’re being a bully and lying and so forth, quit it”.
Then, when that doesn’t make a dent,… we move on to ‘racist whackos’ and ‘nazi propagandist.’
Think of the American quaintism of the farmer and the mule..after the third warning it’s a 2 by 4 beside the head.
Look, Bystander (the name say it all, donnit?) a new dynamic, a new discourse and a new rhetoric on Israel and Zionism is being forged. Some of it will be excessive, some of it will be unpleasant, some of it (Oh my GAAAWWWD) will be anti-Semitic.
So I’ll make you a deal, if you’re interested. When any of the rhetoric towards Jews and Israel, for all the harm they have caused, results in a fraction of the hatred and violence which has been directed towards blacks for just wanting their civil and human rights, you can start bitching. Til then just sit down, shut up, and hang on.
And if you don’t like that, I’m sure the Zionists can find a use for you.
Cretans? Are they from Crete?
Cretans have since about 600 BC had a reputation as self-confessed liars since around that time the sophist Epimenides, a Cretan, accused Cretans, perhaps including himself, of lying and drunkenness. The Epistle to Titus, perhaps with a slight twinkle in its eye, alludes to him.
Oddly, the paradox of ‘I am one of a group who are all liars’ could also be based on Psalm 116.
The other role of Crete is that some suppose it to have been the origin of the Palestinians. In Amos 9 God says that he brought the Israelites from Egypt, the Philistines from Crete and the Syrians from ‘Kir’ = ? ‘beyond Iraq’ as part of a general settlement.
Richard Ben Cramer quotes uninhibited statements from Israeli leaders to the effect that all Palestinians are liars.
@ Innocent Bystander
“Sadly, this shocking difference in values from ours in America and the West has encouraged violence and stood in the way of peace.”
These people really tried their best to hit you over the head with their blatant, crass chauvinism, and you still didn’t see it? Wow.
Koshiro:
It’s a fair question. Sue Johnson raised it squarely, I think. Is there a difference between supporting your child in the IDF, or any army for that matter, and supporting your child in a suicide bombing mission. I think there are things to legitmately discuss about that. Perhaps someone wants to follow up on Sue’s comment and make a start.
One difference any such discussion will need to tackle is the fact that suicide bombings by their very nature are targeted at vulnerable civilian populations.
“One difference any such discussion will need to tackle is the fact that suicide bombings by their very nature are targeted at vulnerable civilian populations.”
The IDF is engaged in enforcing apartheid and inflicting war crimes or is this something you deny?
Look, it’s obvious you are going to lose any ‘debate’.
There is nothing you can say about Palestine suicide bombings that can’t be compared to deliberate Israeli civilian bombings except Israel’s are on a larger scale.
If you say Muslims celebrate their children dying for their cause and taking some enemy with them, they can point out Israelis are proud of their IDF sons for killing the enemy children and Israeli children had fun writing nasty notes on bombs dropped on Lebanon.
If you say the Muslims build monuments to their martyrs, they can point out that you celebrate every year at the shrine you built for Baruch Goldstein who mowed down 50 unarmed Muslims, men, women and children, at prayer in their mosque.
Being an American mongrel and not part of either side, I just total the marks on both sides. I find your side ‘more’ guilty in all areas, from the original cause of the conflict to your mind numbing moral hypocrisy.
That’s just the way cookie crumbled on the facts.
American:
There is no debate about any parade of horribles: deliberate targeting of civilians is reprehensible, no matter who does it; exulting in your child killing anyone is reprehensible, no matter who does it; building shrines to sucide bombers and Baruch Goldstein are both counterproductive and wrong.
We are all entitled to our opinion on how the cookie crumbles on the facts.
I’m not sure who you refer to when you say “your side.” If you intend me, allow me to correct you: I am neither Israeli nor zionist. I support a two state solution because I believe, based on how I see the cookie crumbling, it offers the best hope for peace in the region. As I read more, I am becoming more agnostic on whether a two state solution is in fact possible. In the meantime, I support what this site is trying to accomplish (I have supported it monetarily) . . . and I wish the comments would be more substantive and less mob like.
Well I don’t like ‘mobs’ as a means to change or cures.
But then I don’t like the eternal equivocating stall game either while Rome burns.
So we mobbed up…. the squeaky wheel gets the grease….we’re squeaking.
“I wish the comments would be more substantive and less mob like.”
Actually, so do I, sometimes. There are certain things said around here sometimes that border on (or cross right over into) anti-semitism, for instance.
But that said, almost every time I see you pop in you attack on the wrong issue or say something not terribly substantial yourself. In this thread you made a blanket, cliched and inaccurate statement about the Palestinian parents of suicide bombers and have not bothered to respond to the very substantive excerpt I posted by Scott Atran. You seem rather blind to the ethical problems of anyone serving in the IDF, given that it commits war crimes by imposing a policy of apartheid on the occupied Palestinians (not to mention the slaughter of civilians in their so-called wars). In that context your calls for substance ring a little hollow.
Oh sweet merciful Buddha, you still don’t get it? You cannot derive meaning from a phrase such as “ours in America and the West”? Well, let me break it down for you:
Us (Good) vs. Them (Evil)
Your idea that these two did not refer to Palestinians in general is obvious, utter bullshit. It’s the same-ol, same-ol game of reducing individuals to component parts of a fictional “whole”, defined racially, religiously or culturally.
Well, obviously America and the West don’t love their children. Their religious leaders (Catholic, schmatholic, Westerners are almost all Christians, and all Christians are basically the same) make a habit out of sexually abusing them. And still, they allow such an obviously sick religion to govern their lives. Our values are different – we don’t condole child abuse.
“There are certain things said around here sometimes that border on (or cross right over into) anti-semitism.
What the fuck do you intend to do about it? People are allowed to not like Jews, and/or Israelis for any reason or no reason at all.
Do you think there’s a law against it?
I am a Jew, I have read way more anti-semitic comments here than you have (I read much, much faster, and have extra-Semitic perception). And you know what? I checked myself all over last night, and I’m still fine! My wife, who is not Jewish, reads them too, and still refuses to divorce me until I get a little older.
“The comments lack integrity.”
“it would behoove us to be a little more disciplined ourselves.”
I can’t take these vapid, insipid comments anymore.
We are asked to be ‘nuanced’ in our understanding of a statement that does nothing but promote a worldview that is sinister and shameful in its attempts to dehumanize Palestinians, and then justifies the actions that result from this view.
The significance of this statement is its source, it’s thinly veiled attempts at racism and its implications that ‘they’ are different, the West and Israel are civilized and ‘they’, Palestinians, are uncivilized barbarians.
If you haven’t grasped that, then you didn’t get the point of Phil’s headline. Or maybe you aren’t that interested.
rmokhtar:
Questioning the moral foundation of suicide bombings is not sinister, or shameful, and it is not dehuminizing anyone. I’m sorry you find the topic uninteresting or in poor taste.
As to “justifying actions that result from that view,” I don’t follow you. I believe that encouraging anyone to blow themselves up in a crowded marketplace, or at a bus-stop, is morally reprehensible. I also think that such actions are counter-productive to achieving peace. However, the fact that Palestinians have supported suicide bombings does not not justify the occupation, does not justify illegal settlements, does not justify the burning of olive trees, and does not justify the harrasment of Palestinians.
“Questioning the moral foundation of suicide bombings is not sinister, or shameful, and it is not dehuminizing anyone. I’m sorry you find the topic uninteresting or in poor taste.”
Interested Bystander,
Seriously, where in my post have I said that “Questioning the moral foundation of suicide bombings” is “sinister, or shameful, and it is not dehuminizing anyone”?
I was referring to the message, the messenger, and the point he is trying to make. If you really think that he is decrying the morality of suicide bombings simply because they are ‘immoral’, then it follows that Morton Klein would decry the many injustices that are done on the Israeli side that fuel this cycle of violence. But obviously, he doesn’t, and he won’t.
“As to “justifying actions that result from that view,” I don’t follow you.”
Then let me be clear: justifying the policies of Israel simply because ‘they’ are not ‘civilized’ like the ‘West’ and ‘Israel’ and hence cannot be treated like human beings, and that international and human rights laws do not apply to them, is what I meant.
“However, the fact that Palestinians have supported suicide bombings does not not justify the occupation, does not justify illegal settlements, does not justify the burning of olive trees, and does not justify the harrasment of Palestinians.”
Many Palestinians have been using the non-violent route of resistance for ages, yet you just said that ‘Palestinians’ have supported suicide bombings. See, you cannot ask others to be nuanced about this when you yourself fall into the trap of generalizing.
Perhaps people who feel inclined to bloviate about the parents of Palestinian suicide bombers should pay attention to people who’ve actually interviewed the parents of suicide bombers–Scott Atran for one. Here’s a long excerpt from the link I provide below—
“First some contrary facts: it is wrong that suicide bombers are invariably Islamic. In fact, the single most prolific group of suicide attackers has been the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, an avowedly secular movement of national liberation whose major constituency is nominally Hindu. True, since 2001 the overwhelming majority of suicide attacks have been sponsored by militant Muslim groups, but there is little if any precedent in Islamic tradition for suicide terrorism. As for the “tremendous pride” that invariably trumps parental love, which Sam Harris posits as a trivial truth about the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, I have yet to meet a parent who would have done anything in his or her power to stop their child from such an act, but none I talked to ever knew and few ever imagined their child doing such a thing.
Here’s a diary entry from my interview in Gaza’s Jabaliyah refugee camp, in September 2004, with the parents of Nabeel Masood, a 16-year-old who exploded himself in the Israeli port of Ashdod the previous April. Nabeel’s mother was reading a letter from her son’s high school head master when I walked in the door; she was crying although her son had already been dead for months. She handed me the letter. It read:
“Mr. and Mrs. Masood, it gives me great pleasure to inform you that your son Martyr Babeel [sic], has passed his tests successfully in the 11th grade. He was first in his class. He was distinguished not only in his hard studying, sharing, and caring, but also in his good morals and manhood. I would really like to congratulate you for his unique success in both life and the hereafter. You should be proud of your son’s martyrdom. ”
Shortly before the attack, Nabeel had received word that he had received a scholarship to study in England, but the two cousins he most loved were then killed in an Israeli raid, so he went to the Mosque and prepared himself to die. I asked his father, “Do you think your son’s sacrifice will make things better?” “No,” he said, “this hasn’t brought us even one step forward. ” I asked him if he was proud of what his son had done. He showed me a pamphlet, specially printed by Al Aqsa’ Martyrs Brigades and endorsed by Hamas, praising the actions of his son and the two other young men who accompanied him. “Here, you take it,” he pushed the pamphlet into my hands, “burn it if you want. Is this worth a son?” The reaction of Nabeel’s parents was typical. Although the plural of anecdote is not data, the preceding is illustrative of a wider pattern.
Earlier that month, Sheikh Hamed Al-Betawi, spiritual leader of Hamas, told me in Nablus: “Our people do not own airplanes and tanks, only human bombs. Those who undertake martyrdom actions are not hopeless or poor, but are the best of our people, educated, successful. They are intelligent, advanced combat techniques for fighting enemy occupation. ” The statistics that I and others have gathered confirm much of what he says — most Hamas suicide bombers, for example, are college educated and come from families that are economically better off than their surrounding populations. Neil de Grasse Tyson was quite right in asking whether suicide terrorism would disappear as a weapon of choice if other arms were available. “
And here’s the link to Atran’s words above. The part I excerpted is part 6, so you’ll have to scroll down a bit.
link
Hamas seeking more effective means to make war, willingly and intentionally directed at civilians, and you argue for their civility, their normalcy?
Thank you, Donald, for shedding some light on the truth about the parents of Pallestinian suicide bombers, as opposed to the negative overgeneralizations.
Of course Hamas is seeking more effective means to make war. They are resisting occupation.
Do you really think that people under siege in Masada were throwing flowers at Roman soldiers?
I suspect that they are on par with Israelis when it comes to civilian casualties – they consider civilian deaths as regrettable “collateral damage” by-product of military action.
“Hamas seeking more effective means to make war, willingly and intentionally directed at civilians, and you argue for their civility, their normalcy?”
Who are you talking to, Richard? Your comment makes no sense if aimed at me. Not that I expect you to make sense, but I want to know who your spray of nonsense is meant to splash. Did you have a comment about what Atran said?
But since you brought it up, Israel has been making war on Palestinian and other Arab civilians for its entire existence, and yes, I think we should have relations with them–not close ones and we should put pressure on them, real pressure, to stop oppressing Palestinians and killing innocent people. Hamas was the elected government of the Palestinians and we should have had relations with them rather than inciting a civil war. In that alternate universe where we respected the democratic choice of Palestinians we could have put diplomatic pressure on Hamas to refrain from terrorist methods. Instead we support Israeli terrorism.
Up until the bombings in Madrid, London, and the US, the Islamic people who became terrorists (suicide bombers) were generally considered to be poor uneducated people. But poverty was not the case with the new breed of educated, middle-class suicide bombers. Ideology, not poverty or depression, allows fanatical religious clerics or leaders to intice these young people. Ideology depends on one’s perspective. The Zionists who bombed the King David Hotel, the Stern Gang, the Irgun–all believers in a specific ideology. Deir Yassein, ditto.
The American Israeli who used his automatic rifle to kill those in prayer in the mosque–Ideology. Perhaps, when you’re young, the prospect of a heaven filled with 72 black eyed virgins helps?
Suicide bombing is part of a much bigger category which at least use to be called Unconventional Warfare. Unconventional warfare is where a country, army, or groups uses tactics in war that have not been seen before, at least in a given area of the world. Examples: Hannibal using elephants against the Romans, the British using smallpox against Indians, and Japanese kamikazes purposely crashing into American ships. DESPERATION is generally what starts this, forces that have no chance in a real battle like the Mongols, Palestinians, and Japanese navy find a way to turn their disadvantages into advantages using the resources they have at hand. What new unconventional tactics will be used, say against video game warfare and drones? They are coming.
What is the cause of such a magnitude of desperation youngsters strap bombs on themselves?
Both the Torah-Talmud and the Koran contain conflicting statements, values. Thus a religious or ideologically motivated person can read into those documents what they want. Look what some have done in the name of JC.
IB,
If you are going to focus on context, and insist that Klein and Tuchman are really only talking about a small subset of Palestinian parents and not maligning the culture as a whole, then I think that it would be highly useful to find the article that they are “responding” to.
Its here:
link to ocjewishlife.com
Its a discussion with Yudof about freedom of speech on campus and concerns on the part of some Jews with the content of that speech. It is NOT a discussion of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Here is the sentence to which Klein and Tuchman are “responding”:
Yudof thinks that all people are “protective toward their children,” but “young people can think for themselves, speak up, and participate in student government. They’re not helpless. They’re very well grounded.
It is obviously and totally a statement about young people on US college campuses. For Klein and Tuchman to stretch the statement and bring in the unrelated slur on all the parents of Palestinian suicide bombers is ludicrous and most certainly a consequence of their own deluded racism, If one really wants or needs to question whether all parents are protective of their children, there are ample US examples of individual parents who aren’t.
If one really feels a need to respond to that one innocuous statement with a negative generalization about the parents of Palestinian suicide bombers then that most surely does indicate an unhealthy dose of racism on the part of such a person.
Two more points. My understanding of Arab cultural practices (and I hope someone will correct me if I’m wrong) is that sweets or candy are always offered at the family receptions associated with any death and funeral. Klein and Tuchman make this general cultural practice sound like it is particular to suicide bomber families, and somehow sinister. Its equivalent to saying that the Irish don’t care about their dead because they drink liquor and celebrate the deaths with wakes.
One can look further at the statement by Klein and Tuchman but it doesn’t put their bigotry in any better light to do so. And, yes, it is bigotry.
Ha, I forgot to mention my second of “two more points”.
I always find it offensive when someone uses the terms ” in the act of murdering innocent Jews” to describe those acts that are focused against Israeli targets, whether military or civilian. Israelis, (and sometimes visitors to Israel) are the targets of Palestinian suicide bombers. They are not target because they are Jews, but because they are Israelis, and many non-Jewish Israelis have died in suicide bombings. Such slanted verbiage is intended to portray the conflict as merely a case of religious prejudice and not a conflict about oppression and injustice.
It ranges from dates and coffee to pot luck, to catered meals @ funerals.
So, in essence you’re right.
Bystander, you are usual wrong, with your protestations and nitpicking over minutiae threatening to take Wondering Jew’s position as the Zionist distractor of the blog.
Second, the group identified as not being protective towards their children is not identified as Palestinians as a whole, but a subgroup, namely Palestinian parents of suicide bombers.
Wrong. The statements specifically single out parent’s of Palestinian Arab suicide bombers, in other words targeting a race especially for its alleged lack of humanity.
That is purely outrageous.
Before you lecture “us” on “discipline”, you might want to brush up on your reading comprehension.
Interested Bystander, are you thick? If you, if you are not protective of your children (especially in this environment we speak of) do you think that means that the scenario which these bastards set up means that you care for your children? This is not merely one statement being made, but it is plethora of statements made by those of the same sentiment to vilify the Palestinians, if you hear nothing else about them and all you hear is this tripe what do you think the conclusions will be – how will those who hear this propaganda repeatedly written and spoken think, what conclusion will be made? Again for emphasis, because somehow I do not think you are following me, are you thick?
The idea of the “subgroup” is complete fodder, because there is no definitive statement before or after – “which are few – which are a mere handful – which a an insignificant amount.” With no qualifier what is meant to be communicated, especially with the repeated propaganda in our “mainstream media?” Thrice for emphasis, do you live beneath a rock, is this is why you are so thick?
The second derivative of this type of propaganda is “because” we have this group (non-defined as to the size etc.) becomes the bogus reason for the wall, and the treatment of the entire Palestinian population (both inside and outside of Israel). It is just like the US attacking Iraq (or Afghanistan), and going after a “enemy,” which somehow turns into the destruction of the entire region and hurting all the people. So the bogus call for the wall to “defend” themselves, the checkpoints, the indiscriminate attacks, etc. As in all of the cases the excuses used are never the real reasons, whether it is Israel or the USA, and attacks all the people in the name of the few.
No wonder Phil is neurotic. He has people trying to deconstruct his sentences word by word.
Funny thing is, it doesn’t bother Witty at all. Of course, whens it’s a paskudnik and Litvak who’s doing the deconstructing, there’s no reason to worry. Crap, he might as well be a Gentile, he tells himself.
Pashkudnyak:
Yiddish insult. THE most potent and offensive insult known to man. it has so much connotation that cannot be truly defined that the closest you can come to its meaning is “horrible person”. no other definition has the meaning, and there is no way to convey how powerful that word is. Use with caution.
-Urban dictionary
Good word, Pashkudnyak. Not sure about “Litvak.” Lithuanian Jew?
Litvak? Yeah, but more; here’s some details:
link to jewishgen.org
“The Litvaks” is the name of my all-Jewish sport-bike posse. If you see more than ten guys wearing leather jackets with a stencil of a large eight-ball running down a smaller Mogen David, that’s us.
We accomdate non-Jews in The Righteous Gentiles MC, and our women’s auxillary is called “The Bitchin Balboostas”.
You oghta see what we do when we ride into town and can’t get a decent egg cream or a Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray. We once destroyed an entire subdivision over some excessively salty Novy.
The Litvaks is open to any Jewish guy who has been brissed Bar Mitzvahed, and owns and operates a 600cc. or larger sport-bikes. No tref no “cruisers”
This over-aged jewish biker bit of yours is as phony as hell.
From The Gantseh Megilla:
Litvak – Lithuanian; Often used to connote shrewdness and skepticism, because the Lithuanian Jews are inclined to doubt the magic powers of the Hasidic leaders.
I bet you ride with your feet way out in front of your ass, with the wind whistling up your pant-legs. I bet you ride a (poo,poo,poo) “cruiser”. I bet you wear (poo,poo,poo) “chaps”.
Excuse me, I have to go purify myself. I said a bad word.
I know Rowan, the same Jews who keep you from getting married won’t let you ride a motorcycle.
I, off coss, ride a 996cc “Shonda”.
There’s a fellow not 5 miles from me keeps a whole herd of Harleys (between 20 & 30). To the horror of envious millions, he doesn’t even ride!
I though it was honda from the 80′s?
“over-aged jewish biker bit”
Over-aged Jewish biker? Guilty as charged, my boy, guilty.
The first time I got on a bike (my Honda CB-350) I wanted to ride the rest of my life, if possible. A “wanna-be” motorcyclist is just someone who hasn’t bought a bike yet, gotten an endorsement, nothing wrong with that, maybe they will some day.
But a “used-ta-be” biker? A guy who used up an entire lifetime’s worth of motorcycling in just a few seasons by gwetting in so much legal, financial, and physical trouble they can’t consider riding again? That’s sad. So yeah, I am a little over-aged to be squidding around on sport-bikes.
That’s 35 years (kaynahorah) with nary a scratch.
My technique? Easy! Leave no turn unstoned!
Lot of bikers in the town I live in. Most have quaint little american flags hanging off the arse end, pot bellies, a deep ignorance of personal hygiene and are bigots. Most of them are also impotent – which has worked out quite well, for me, from time to time. ;D
This over-aged jewish biker bit of yours is as phony as hell.
What do you want me to do, Rowan, send you a photo-copy of my endorsement, MSF training certificate, and the registration of my bikes?
I’ve heard of anti-semitism, but the idea that a Jew can’t ride a motorcycle is just plain ridiculous.
And don’t worry, my Jewish ass has never ever sullied the seat of that two-wheeled garden tractor, a Harley-Davidson. America is still safe.
“Lot of bikers in the town I live in.”
And they all think they’re soooo tough, til they meet up with The Litvaks. Assuming, that is, we can get a minyan. Our motto is: Oy Vey! Let’s Ride, Already!
We like our Cel-Ray cold, our Pastrami hot, and the only thing makes us cry is the price of gas.
Vrrooom vrroooom! Mooser’s the Leader of the Pack!
“And they all think they’re soooo tough,”
They do, it’s really funny. Those litvaks, are they good with cat hair? My old eureka is, well, old, and I’m thinking of breaking the piggy bank and buying new vac.
Don’t tell me where Paskudistan is then, I can guess.
It’s located right there, such a land! Quite prosteun– filled with yentes gossiping about tsatskeles and shlumps, shmendriks, nebishes, alter kakhers, khazers, kvetches, vilde chayea, tochus lekers sans shvuntz, chiam yankel and beheyme galore! Farbisener fresers, shtarkers, shtinkers, shnorrers, shlemiels, shlemazels, shikers, and gross shtick holtz. Not to mention schmucks, pishers, nudniks, nukshlepers, mamzers, moyshe pupiks, misskayts, klutzes,
grober yungen, nervous khaleres, gonifs, zhlubs, and the worst of all
comes the paskudnik! We know who they are.
Not so fast, I can’t write it all down in time :)
Well it sure can’t be Israel then, real sabras will have nothing to do with those diaspora words I’m sure!
Wow, Citizen! Good going! Now, I prefer to italicise Yiddish words, but it’s free, the Goldenah Medina.
To help regularise the spelling of Yiddish words, I use
“The Gantseh Megillah” but there are several other good Yiddish glossaries on the web. And several good books on Yiddish, most famously by Leo Rosten (The Joy of Yiddish).
When I think of the opportunity to learn, really learn Yiddish, from real Yiddishe mayvens in my family which I so stupidly ignored, I could plotz.
Oops, Phil you know you are neurotic, right?
Phil would be as good a writer if he was not neurotic.
not necessarily eva. either way i like him just the way he is.
I am too, if it makes you feel better.
The first step to acknowledging one’s sanity, is to acknowledge the outer boundaries of it. :)
Are parents who encourage, push, expect their children to enter the military “protective parents”….. the military does most of the killing of the innocent.
And when their military child dies in the line of “duty”…these same parents glorify the death and their child…who is now a hero to be celebrated. How can these parents be considered protective? Or to care for their child…they encouraged him/her to take the path that lead to their death…and the death of others.
Now what about a country that “protects” all their children It’s done strangely by requiring they serve in the military? It’s sad Israel doesn’t protect or care for its children.
Ummm, how about parents that leave the safety and security of their homes in New York and move to Occupied Palestine to live in settlements because it’s cheaper for them because they were unsuccessful in all of their endeavors in the U.S.? Do they love their kids?
“Do they love their kids?”
Seham, think of it this way: If those nutters stayed here in America, they would end up in jail. So they go to the settlements, keeping the Jewish population of America’s prisons, artificially low, and enhancing our reputation for being law abiding.
It’s not good for children when their parents are in jail, everybody knows that.
Well, Israel allows its orthodox jews to not serve in the IDF, while it conscripts lesser jews. See how it cares?
‘All people are protective of their children’ – this is not true in every case and in every sense. Some parents are very neglectful and very violent.
Tuchman and Klein seem to take Yudof to mean ‘The disposition to protect one’s own children is much the same among all peopleS’: their counterexample does its work only if emphasis is laid on the fact that certain behaviour is marked (not necessarily universal, or even near universal) among – and indeed solely among – a certain people, the Palestinians. This is surely an expression of bitter racial contempt.
Antidote has mentioned pagan accusation against Christians of abominable sacrifice. The abominable sacrifice of children among Palestinians is quite a theme of the Scriptures, very dramatically with King Mesha – probably not forgotten among Jewish scholars to this day.
Mesha is one of the few non-Israelites to tell his side of the story, which according to him didn’t involve anything abominable. But I’ve recently seen reviews of a new book about the Palestinian colony of Carthage which suggests that the accusations had substance.
The reflection on child sacrifice in the story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the great contributions to world literature and continues to influence us all. Abraham is not normally accused of not loving his son or even of not, in any ordinary sense, wanting to protect him.
If , as MHughes points out, the child sacrifice story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the great literary tropes, so is the one about the ultimate child soldier David, the naked shepherd boy, who brings down the professional soldier and Philistine champion Goliath by shooting a pebble from a sling-shot. Is he, unloved, brainwashed or in any way forced to enter such an unequal battle? No, and that’s true for many boy soldiers throughout history, including the Hitler Youth.
Anybody who thinks that the military use of children is something peculiar to Palestinians is either a liar or abysmally ignorant.
“Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been extensively involved in military campaigns even when such practices were supposedly against cultural morals. Since the 1970s a number of international conventions have come into effect that try to limit the participation of children in armed conflicts, nevertheless the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers reports that the use of children in military forces, and the active participation of children in armed conflicts is widespread.”
more:
link to en.wikipedia.org
The reflection on child sacrifice in the story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the great contributions to world literature and continues to influence us all.”
Yep, it influenced me all right…right into regarding the bible as a primitive allegorical tale.
Who, in their right mind would ‘worship’ a God that taunted his creatures by demanding, even as a ‘test’, that they sacrifice their child?
The only reason I can figure why people are willing to ‘ overlook’ the primitiveness of the bible is their human need to believe in the bible promise they will continue to exist after death somewhere in a hereafter.
The older I get, the more I ruminate on such things, the more I find myself leaning toward the Buddhist view of the universe.
Does this reflect the Buddhist view?
ttp://www.blingcheese.com/video-32/insults.htm
Sorry, ‘ttp://www.blingcheese.com/video-32/insults.htm’ does not exist or is not available
Your link doesn’t work.
And then google showed up that link in some comedian sites, and one about naked girls and another about bananna bread, so I have no idea
link to blingcheese.com
Oh gawd….Howard Stern?
Way too out there for me.
I think howard stern tends to forget to wipe the “bling cheese” off his nose before some of his shows…
That guy is a piece of dung.
Yea, he is.
I see what you mean, American. Do you know Bruce Chilton’s ‘Abraham’s Curse’? I think it’s quite good.
Yitzhak Laor in ‘Myths of Liberal Zionism’ says that this story, the Akedah, is one of the most influential in Israeli literature and in the Israeli mindset.
I was suggesting, by way of comment on Tuchman and Klein, that if you are positively influenced by the Akedah story you cannot say that a parent prepared to sacrifice his child for what he regards as a supremely important moral reason is clearly unloving or abnormally unconcerned with the child’s protection. He would say that what is abnormal is not his disposition but the moral demand he faces.
I’ve been saying ‘he’ but there is also the Maccabean story in which a mother encourages her sons, seven I think, to face death rather than accept the king’s command to eat forbidden food and then accepts death herself. Life for principle.
T and K would say that it’s different if the parent is accepting the sacrifice not only of own child but of other innocent victims. But I don’t see how the victimisation of others helps to show that the parent is unconcerned with the protection of his/her very own child, which is the point put at issue by T and K.
We Christians meanwhile have to mull over the idea that God Himself did not spare His own Son. I use the upper case letters to show that it’s a bit serious for us. As I mentioned, I can see why people might feel happier mulling over Buddhism.
I understand your examples……and choices people make for principle.
And don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge anyone their religion or beliefs in whatever helps them live their life…unless it is something that harms others.
But I guess my mind balks at things I am ask to accept that I consider absurd. My family is mostly Episcopalian but my brothers and I started at catholic kindergarten and then off to Jesuit run boarding school..because my mother’s baby brother had converted to Catholicism in college, entered the priesthood, then got sent to the Vatican and became a Jesuit . He convinced my parents that a catholic education was superior to others, which is was actually. Anyway, I had 12 years of critical thought, propaganda recognition and uses and every argument, justification and case for and against, pro and con on almost anything you can think of that concerns Catholicism, God, Jesus, infallibility and all kinds of other religion, philosophy and so on.
I actually had to read the Koran in high school as part of our studies and remember thinking it was less bloody than the Old Testament.
The bible was a corkscrew that never fit my brain…….my little cells would withdraw like a turtle head into it’s shell when someone tried to tell me it is the actual ‘word of God’.
Sorry, can’t help my mental bent on this…..and it’s not an insult to others beliefs…..but as said, to each their own.
Actually, the Kama Sutra is a much more useful and practical tome than the Bible – old or new version.
Oh behave hataye!
I’m serious, it is. It’s famous as a “sex manual”, but that’s only like 2 chapters, I think, out of 20 or so. The rest is all about the culture, the manners, business practices, everything, really. It’s a good source to understand the Indian mindset of around 2000 years ago. It’s not a religious tome, so the advice is down to earth and practical. Even things “not recommended” are given fairly impartial coverage like “we don’t approve of this practice, but since people do it anyway, they should know how, this is a good way to do it to minimalise the repercussions.” :D
I think I know me a kama Sutra or two – no need explaining, hayate :-)
What’s sort of funny is that this is the exact same type of line Zionists are instructed to use according to GOP pollster Frank Luntz’s Israel Project Global Language Dictionary 2009. link to australiansforpalestine.com
““As a matter of principle, children should not be raised to want to kill others or themselves. Yet, day after day, Palestinian leadership pushes a culture of hate that encourages even small children to become suicide bombers. Iran-backed Hamas’s public television in Gaza uses Sesame Street–type programming to glorify suicide bombers. As a matter of principle, no child should be abused in such a way. Palestinian children deserve better.” (pg. 5)
In contrast to those in the Middle East who indoctrinate their children to become hate-mongers and suicide bombers, Israel educates their children to strive for progress and peace. Israel is the one place in the Middle East where a young girl can grow up to be anything she wants—from a doctor to a mommy, to a businessperson and even to be prime minister! (pg. 11)
“There is no reason whatsoever why Palestinian children sitting in schools today should STILL be exposed to the same vicious indoctrination against Jews and Israelis, the same hero worship for suicide bombings.” (pg. 84)
and the references go on and on throughout. this is really the best they can do.
Karsh’s claim that the Arab public is presently “apathetic” about the plight of Palestinians rests on an unreliable Internet poll, and on excluding other polling that would suggest precisely the opposite. According to the Zogby/University of Maryland poll of Arab public opinion (5/09), 76 percent of respondents put “the Palestinian issue” as either the “most important” issue or as one of their “top 3 priorities.”
@ 41 (or thereabouts) Interested Bystander August 5, 2010 at 2:55 pm
… I also think that such actions are counter-productive …
Well of course they are, counterproductive that is. From the Palestinian point of view at least. Suicide bombing has never won them any support or advanced their cause. On the other hand it has provided Israel with a convenient justification to continue hounding, harassing and humiliating Palestinians, not to mention hunting them and killing them. And it has caused “popular opinion” to give them a mandate to construct things like that ugly, ugly fence (and all it symbolizes).
And what’s more, it gives some an opportunity to be “confused” about how it can happen. Or to be more precise, how can the parents (specifically Palestinian parents) condone such action? Well the fact is, they don’t. The vast majority of Palestinian parents raise their children as they see fit and as circumstances allow. Blowing them up is no more a consideration than it is for the average Israeli parent. It has nothing to do with Palestinians per se. In fact, I would even venture to suggest that, given the boost it gave to to Israel’s acquisitive agenda, there are grounds to suspect that some faction in Israel may have instigated/facilitated these, for the Palestinians, counterproductive attacks.
Richard may be right that some Israelis are “confused” about the issue, but it may also be that other Israelis would be able to enlighten the “confused” as to just how one might facilitate such an act.
It really doesn’t matter if Iraqi parents care about their children.
The bad news is, millions of them will die in the upcoming civil war.
The good news is, Amy Goodman will write a best selling book blaming it all on Jewish Republicans.