From Ynet, Netanyahu on avenging the settler murders in Itamar:
Israel, Netanyahu stressed "will catch such killers wherever they may be and cut off their hands. This manifests both our commitment to the notion of justice and to our citizen's security."
Thanks to Annie.
Mmm, spoken with all the flair of any blood-thirsty film arab ever depicted for the American audience. Perhaps, if he gets applause from the right circles, he will up the ante, and say he will cut off the heads of those simple jew-hating killers? Go for it, Dershie et al. Both can show us their pure ivy league pedigree. Hillary and Obama will try to catch up.
So…the Israeli “notion of justice” involves cutting off the hands of killers. Interesting. Not what one normally expects from a “beacon unto the nations” democracy. Unless, of course, this is what RW means when he says “enough Zionism”.
(Cue the defenders of Israel, with their boast: “We may not be as good as the best but, hey, at least we’re not as bad as the worst!”)
Phil,
You are contributing to Islamophobia when you perpetuate the myth that Sharia is what Newt Gingrich claims it is. Why? Because the American public has come to associate Arabic words with violence, e.g. Fatwa, Jihad, Allahu Akbar.
Meanwhile Judaism is associated with, Bar Mitzvah, kvetch, nudnik, Oi vey, chutzpah, shmuck, shalom, Sabath, Purim, kosher, challah.
As usual, you make idiots of yourself. In colloquial Hebrew to “cut someone’s hands” is to limit their ability to act or stop them from acting, and that is all Netanyahu means.
In colloquial Hebrew to “cut someone’s hands” is to limit their ability to act
where do you think that came from?
>> As usual, you make idiots of yourself. In colloquial Hebrew to “cut someone’s hands” is to limit their ability to act or stop them from acting, and that is all Netanyahu means.
An Iranian president is not permitted to speak metaphorically, but an Israeli prime minister’s threats of violent mutilation are quickly excused as harmless colloqualism.
As usual, you manage to out-do everyone all by yourself.
Here is your Iranian friend using the phrase:
link to jpost.com
Speaking before a group of Muslim figures in New York on Monday night, Ahmadinejad said “the Iranian nation will never recognize the Zionist regime,” Iran’s Fars News Agency reported on Tuesday.
“Palestinians can cut the hands of the aggressor and put an end to the Zionist regime’s presence in the region,” he reportedly said.
>> Here is your Iranian friend …
He’s not my friend.
>> … using the phrase:
So, unless you’re still being a hypocrite, I now have it on record that you accept that not everything he says is meant literally or meant to be taken literally. Thanks.
Apparently it is a favorite of your Iranian friend:
link to ndtv.com
those middle eastern leaders have so much in common don’t you think?
your Iranian friend
are you talking about eljay or us in general. i had a beer w/ahmajinedad just last week and then we played some pool.
eljay, Ahmedinejad is an Ay-rab-type person, if not an actual Ay-rab himself. That type has no understanding of metaphor or simile.
Nor do they ever employ dramatic irony, bathos, puns, parody, metonymy and synecdoche, zeugma, litotes, hyperbole, innuendo, meiosis, or aposiopesis.
So there.
RoHa, I know many Christian fundies with that same trait you ascribe to Arab-type persons. A supplement to what you say, at least as to said fundies, if not to Arab-type persons as well, is that what figurative speech they do employ has a rigid meaning, image behind it, and any premise involved is never taken out of the specific context they learned in bible class and/or out of the bible context itself. The logic they use is of a very limited deductive and inductive nature, penned in as it were. In this manner, they are not strictly “literal,” necessarily. There’s some figurative room inside the pen they wish to remain in forever. They are Hallmark Card’s captive audience and customers.
>> eljay, Ahmedinejad is an Ay-rab-type person, if not an actual Ay-rab himself. That type has no understanding of metaphor or simile.
“Universal affirmatives can only be partially converted: All of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the class of dead people are Alma Cogan.” :-D
More to the point, perhaps: Mahmoud ain’t no Doug Piranha.
Is that so? Funny I never heard that…..in “colloquial” Hebrew of course.
Here is Peres using the same phrase:
link to jpost.com
israel is a middle eastern county so that probably explains it. at least they didn’t say anything about vanishing hands from the page of time. we’d be looking at a pr shitstorm.
In colloquial Hebrew to “cut someone’s hands” is to limit their ability to act
what a coincidence. it means the same thing in english too. i would imagine in all languages to “cut someone’s hands” would imply a limitation of one’s ability to act, especially with their hands!
;)
So Annie, please do tell, do you really believe Bibi is talking about literally cutting hands?
eee, at a more evolved site that little smile up there would turn into a smiley faced emoticon and then you’d be able to tell i was pulling your leg.
Nah, he’s talking about executing them at point blank range which is not as bad as cutting their hands.
like they thought they could cut the hand of the flotilla by shooting furkan dogan in the brain at point blank. but they couldn’t.
i would imagine in all languages to “cut someone’s hands” would imply a limitation of one’s ability to act, especially with their hands!
In all languages that aren’t used by Moslems or Arabs, then it’s literal (like ‘wiping someone off the map’, say), and with subsequent great gulps of hyperbole and no lack of imagination, you exaggerate threats, use your amygdala to create policy, and ask for donations to fight it in maudlin appeals that underscore your lack of security.
Here’s how Ha’aretz translated Bibi’s comments:
Note that Ha’aretz‘s translation, like Ynet’s, talks about cutting off the murderers’ hands.
So, whatever “cut someone’s hands” may mean in colloquial Hebrew, what does “cut off someone’s hands” mean?
LOL, really?
So saying for instance, it’s time to ‘behead’ the Israeli lobby or ‘drive a woooden stake’ thru the hearts of zionists that would be metaphorical of course.
I can hear the screeching already.
Yes, Bibi loves him some “colloquialisms”.
From the Wiki:
“Nonetheless, hostility continued to mount against Rabin. Ultra-orthodox conservatives and Likud party leaders believed that withdrawing from any Jewish land was heresy. Rallies, organized partially by Likud, became increasingly extreme in tone. Likud Leader (and future Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu accused Rabin’s government of being “removed from Jewish tradition … and Jewish values.” Netanyahu addressed protesters of the Oslo movement at rallies where posters portrayed Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform or being the target by in the cross-hairs of a sniper.[1] Rabin accused Netanyahu of provoking violence, a charge which Netanyahu strenuously denied.[2]”
link to en.wikipedia.org
All uttered (including the denial) colloquially, of course.
He knows exactly what he’s doing. Whipping up the mob. He’s done it before and it got him the PM job. He’s doing it now to keep it.
If it weren’t for the fact that Palestinians are going to die because of the frenzy, I’d say great. The more he does this the more exposure the completely amoral, racist, and virtueless political culture in Israel gets. It sharpens the contrast between what is, and what Israel says is. I causes people and pols elsewhere to question whether it’s politically possible to continue to support the [further] descent into savagery.
Or alternatively, what leader of a modern “western democracy” says this kind of stuff and stays in office for more than a day? And BN is the moderate in the government.
This may explain why Rabin’s widow, Leah, said she felt more genuine sympathy from Yasser Arafat after her husband was murdered than she did from Netanyahu.
Because figuratively speaking a person with no hands cannot do much?
eee, don’t bother. You have to accept that they just might not understand metaphors.
figuratively speaking a person with no hands cannot do much?
gee ya think?
It’s a pretty sick metaphor.
But anything for Zionism, right Michael W.?
You are heartless, eee. That’s worse
Here is Zionist justice- cutting off the legs of Lebanese farmers and their kids. It’s the cluster bombs of the last days of the 2006 war.
Video in French but you don’t really need the words. Chappatte is one of the very best political cartoonists.
link to tsr.ch
starts at 03.00
Netanyahu has been watching one Nasrallah TV speech too many. For beginners here, the ultimate punishment is the cutting of right hand; an opportune decision for errant lefties.
Nice. That ought to buy you a few posts critical of Jews. You gotta give the impression you’re a moderate Arab, right?
Tell me, Walid, do you really think that Netanyahu needs Nasrallah for such phrases?
Avi, I was mocking Netanyahu’s attempt at drama. Of course he doesn’t need Nasrallah for inspiration, he just has to look up to his own “break their bones” types terrorist heroes for that and they’re a dime a dozen in Israel.
Maybe Netanyahu is trying to be as charismatic as Nasrallah. Me moderate?
Netanyahu is frustrated.
The Arab uprisings have him unsure of who and how hard Israel can lash and attack these days so Israel has fallen back on the false flag operations like Palestines killing (actual Palestine activist) activist and Israel as victims of terrier rockets to keep up their meme of terrier wars on poor besiged Israel and need for more US money and military aid and etc..
It’s pretty obvious and way too transparent to veteran Israel watchers.
American, you are concisely astute.
Personally I find it laughable, and more than a bit revealing, Bibi’s latest attempt to sound like a tough guy. How he must love watching gangster films and trying on the poses for himself. What is revealing is his fallback on the stereotyped language of his enemies, as if he wants to match them in the hyperbolic rhetoric – surely a sign of weakness, rather than strength.
While his descent into cartoon blood and thunder is facile, what is far more disturbing is the general thirst for vengeance at any price – it will be almost impossible for these kids to have a fair trial, the fabricated evidence won’t be thoroughly tested, and testimonies from absurdly biased witnesses will be accepted. We have seen it all before. This is a classic witch hunt, with little desire for genuine justice or to establish the facts. Bibi, as ever, sees all these tragedies as a godsend to do more grandstanding, posturing, threatening and forcing through more policies and laws which will only increase misery and suffering of the people he is obsessed with crushing the life out of. The boys are merely grist to the mill.
The flexibility and suppleness of language is a thing of beauty.
I am happy to hear about Israelis and Iranians talking about cutting hands (not always “off”, note), driving stakes through, wiping countries off the map of history, etc., etc., lovely turns of phrase all. Elegant, polished, gets the point across economically.
What really riles me is Israeli claims that hummus or falafel are “Israeli”. Some things are really too much to bear. Even if merely linguistic.
And, while speaking of clever linguistic twists and turns, it is oddly comforting to read, elsewhere in these blog entries, (actually, indirectly, here) that the Israeli supreme court says that the laws of war are binding on Israelis. Did anyone tell the army that? Or the government? Nice that at least someone in Israel says these things, even if no-one is listening.
Clearly, Netanyahu meant something more civilized, like thrashing homes in the entire village by defecating, urinating, shattering furniture, etc. and then taking half of the field, while killing some other Palestinians with white phosphorus. Cutting hands was really, really only metaphorical.
jsf has an important article on the interrogation of the suspects.
link to jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com