The New York Review of Books has published a 1988 talk by the late Saul Bellow about the Jewish writer in America. These excerpts are from Part II and are very important. They demonstrate how important the establishment of Israel was to the spirit of Jews after the Holocaust.
In reading Lionel Abel’s memoir, The Intellectual Follies, I came upon an arresting passage in his chapter on the Jews. During the war he had heard accounts of the Nazi terror, Abel says, and reports of extermination camps in Eastern Europe.
"But I had no real revelation of what had occurred until sometime in 1946, more than a year after the German surrender, when I took my mother to a motion picture and we saw in a newsreel some details of the entrance of the American army into the concentration camp at Buchenwald. We witnessed the discovery of the mounds of dead bodies, the emaciated, wasted, but still living prisoners who were now being liberated, and of the various means of extermination in the camp, the various gallows, and also the buildings where gas was employed to kill the Nazis’ victims en masse.
It was an unforgettable sight on the screen, but as remarkable was what my mother said to me when we left the theatre: She said, 'I don’t think the Jews can ever get over the disgrace of this.' She said nothing about the moral disgrace to the German nation…, only about…a more than moral disgrace, and one incurred by the Jews.
"How did they ever get over it? By succeeding in emigrating to Palestine and setting up the state of Israel."
I too had seen newsreels of the camps. In one of them, American bulldozers pushed naked corpses toward a mass grave ditch. Limbs fell away and heads dropped from disintegrating bodies. My reaction to this was similar to that of Mrs. Abel—a deeply troubling sense of disgrace or human demotion, as if by such afflictions the Jews had lost the respect of the rest of humankind, as if they might now be regarded as hopeless victims, incapable of honorable self- defense, and, arising from this, probably the common instinctive revulsion or loathing of the extremities of suffering—a sense of personal contamination and aversion. The world would see these dead with a pity that placed them at the margin of humanity...
What was certain however was that the founders of Israel restored the lost respect of the Jews by their manliness. They removed the curse of the Holocaust, of the abasement of victimization from them, and for this the Jews of the Diaspora were grateful and repaid Israel with their loyal support.
This is an essential understanding because it demonstrates why American Jews will forgive Israel anything. Those Jews are taking up arms, and we are not. We are not soldiers, we're journalists and professors and software inventors. On the Israelis has fallen the entire burden of Jewish "manliness."
Later in the talk Bellow hints at the excesses of this spiritual contract:
The formation of Israel was a response to the nihilistic rage of the two powerful European states that began the war, and the complicity of the rest who could not and perhaps would not protect their Jews, and Israel’s founders were aware of this. But the Western world now exhibits a certain unwillingness to sanction the Israeli solution—in other words, to let the Jews get away with it.
He is aware of the world condemnation that Israel's excesses will attract. The delegitimization that is now upon us. I venture that American Jews will continue to be defensive and blind about this condemnation until we deal with the spiritual hole inside us, and our consecration of bloody manliness.
Does the “manliness” mean that one becomes a cruel opressor, agressor, an occupant??
“Manliness” is not about killing innocent, stealing somebody’s land,depriving other people their basic rights.
Maybe Jews felt, right after the WWII, that God forgot about them/abandoned them , by allowing such a huge tragedy on them.
But it looks like they answered to it by signing a “spiritual contract ” with God’s eternal enemy, who lives in the Underworld.
“But the Western world now exhibits a certain unwillingness to sanction the Israeli solution—in other words, to let the Jews get away with it.”
But, as we have seen, any reluctance of the West to allow Israel to get away with it has been very slow coming. The English-speaking world (USA, UK, Australia, Canada, some of South Africa) seem determined to love Israel to death (its? ours in the case of USA?) and abrogate international law (and cast Palestinians into eternal darkness) rather than treat Israel like a normal country under the Rule Of Law.
The UNESCO deal was not the work of the West. All the abstentions (effectively: NO votes) promised for UNSC/Palestine are by the West or result from pressure from the West.
Waiting for punitive sanctions on Israel from the West is like waiting for Godot or hell to freeze over (or for global warming to be opposed).
How does picking on defenseless victims and insisting no one else hate the weapons with which to fight you equate to manliness?
It reminds me of the last fight scene from Gladiator, where the Joaquin Phoenix decides to fight Russel Crowe’s character after he is drugged, stabbed and disarmed, to prove he’s a great leader.
Right, they take up arms, we wear hats that say “6 Days Bitch” in Hebrew.
It’s all sick. I used to have that pride, then I met a cousin in Israel who fought in 67 and 73. The dude’s eye was messed up and he did not wear his war wounds well. Made me realize what a bunch of shmucks we are, especially the neocons, whose children will NEVER be exposed to war.
The Isralis know this too. My cousin told me the difference between Americans and Israelis is that Israelis run TO gunfire, Americans run AWAY. He’s right.
Considering that restoring German “manliness” was what the Holocaust was about in the first place…?
You know, the issue this once again raises with me is its very nature in being this rather big generalization about jewry. (That, apropos Israeli jews showing their manliness, “the Jews of the Diaspora were grateful and repaid Israel with their loyal support.”)
It’s not that I think Bellow is at all wrong about this; indeed he’s know far better than I about it and so I’d suspect he was right. (Bolstered by what can seem Phil’s endorsement of his observation.)
What constantly bothers me though is the double standard used with such generalizations: More to the point, why it is that *laudatory* generalizations such as this—that jews are proud of their toughness—are not just okay but common as all get-out, but then that negative generalizations are just screamed at. As if in some fairy-tale, Lake Wobegon world where the worst one can say is that no-one is below average and where it’s only good things that exist generally and no bad things.
It’s not, however, that I’m upset that bad general things can’t be said, just that there is this huge, glaring double standard that leaves the possibility of any real meaningful discussion—one that functions with a single accepted standard that is—just absolutely impossible.
Try having a debate, that is, about any “big” issue you want, where you have such a huge double-standard at work. It’s impossible. It’s like a one-legged man trying to walk. Since there’s no agreement about what standard to use, no-one can ever come away from such a debate reasonably saying that one side or another was more persuasive and was more “right” than the other. Because there was that double-standard there was never any commonly accepted ground as to what *is* persuasive and right, and at least one side if not both were just absolutely hobbled in terms of the evidence they could use.
I dunno the answer. All I know is that Bellow’s comments here made me grimace a bit despite me suspecting they have some validity. With my grimace coming in remembering the anti-semitic meme that might be thought to be so closely related to the effect— especially after witnessing the big jewish participation in the hyper-violent crimes of the Bolsheviks and their secret police and such uber-violent types as Rosa Luxembourg in Germany—that “jews are cruel.”
After all, as some of the other comments here suggest, one person’s “manliness” is another’s “cruelty.”
So which is it that “jews” admire and are “thankful for,” someone might well ask? Well, *if* you accept the assumption made by Bellow that the “admiration” generalization is okay, then indeed it seems to me one can ask that latter question, no?
Like I say I dunno the answer, but I do have to say I’m deeply suspicious of Bellow’s assumption here because of its consequences, and indeed think it has to be rejected, despite its seeming validity. Just because something might be said to possess some molecule of validity doesn’t mean it has to be given any weight that’s determinative at all, does it?
Again I dunno, and all I can say is that so long as there *is* a double standard on the issues here the debate/conversation about it can seem just utterly futile. It’s like … “Pick a standard, any standard, just so long as there’s one, damn it.” Because so long as there’s more than one, well hell how can anyone ever say any side has the better of the argument?
“especially after witnessing the big jewish participation in the hyper-violent crimes of the Bolsheviks and their secret police and such uber-violent types as Rosa Luxembourg in Germany—that “
Wow! You are an eye-witness to “the big jewish participation in the hyper-violent crimes of the Bolsheviks and their secret police”? You should write a book about it!
Why, you could blow that “double-standard” all to hell, and expose “jewry” for what it really is!
Yes, Jews seem to feel no “anti-semitism” at characterizations like, “after 1967 we knew that Jews could be brave,” but bristle at a statement like, “after 1967 we learned that Jews could be wholesale violators of international law.” It’s sort of part of the THANG that well-documented friends of Israel will never be called anti-Semites no matter what dreadful things they say about Jews, but people who criticize Israel will be called anti-Semites even if they praise Jews generally. TOPSY TURVY LAND.
It is worth to know that Rosa Luxemburg was released from prison in November 1918, and was imprisoned for her opposition to the war (WWI, in Kaiser Germany). Then she wrote a few articles, and then in January she was killed. Her murder happens to be celebrated: the person who ordered the massacre that finished the revolution in Berlin is a national hero (a founding father figure for SPD), and her grave is visited by Far Left. She was “violently interrogated”, then felled with the butt of a gun, killed from a pistol, then her feet and hands were tied with wire with attached weights and thrown to water. Aha, before being released from prison she published an article criticizing Bolsheviks for violence. How that makes her “ueber-violent”, or “cruel”, I cannot guess.
1945 was a startling year for Jews.
Great joy at the defeat of Hitler, followed the next day by much much greater despair at the discovery of multiple concentration camps, death factories, that combined with other forms of killing, contributed to the death of 2/3 of Europe’s Jews, culture, history, libraries.
Liberation, self-determination, manliness (as opposed to slavery), is a GOOD in the world.
And what exactly did Arabs have to do with any of that?
Let the Orientalist’s rationalization begin…
what did the Jews do to deserve the Holocaust?
life isn’t fair sometimes.
What a hideous sentiment. It is not often that someone will, essentially, excuse inhumanity (presumably of any kind) with a flippant, “life isn’t fair sometimes.”
“Liberation, self-determination, manliness (as opposed to slavery), is a GOOD in the world.”
Than go get yourself some, Richard. Try to let go of those long-ago summers in Cape Cod, and whatever the hell went on between you and the Weiss brothers.
It’s not to late for you to become your own person, you know. Say, Richard, ever thought about making Aliyah, and rediscovering you Khazar heritage? Or maybe even starting your own blog?
Hey, Richard, you know, baby steps. You could start by writing one-tenth of what you do on Mondoweiss, and working your way up!
Sure, it’s not saving Phil Weiss’s Jewish soul for him, but it’s something to do.
“Liberation, self-determination, manliness (as opposed to slavery), is a GOOD in the world.”
And Jews in all the allied countries and Western Europer were liberated in 1945.
Jews in the democratic countries could take part in elections, so they had self-determination.
Jews who actually took part in the war effort had shown their “manliness” (even if they were women.
So there was no need for Israel for any of those things.
“Israel’s second largest bank will be forced to defend itself in court in the coming weeks over claims it is withholding tens of millions of dollars in “lost” accounts belonging to Jews who died in the Nazi death camps.”
link to jkcook.net
It looks like “restoring manliness” is quite costly and all the necessary means are needed.
Including robbing the victims (and their families) of other nation’s push for “restoring manliness” and “drang nach osten” strategy.
It would have been cheaper to buy a ton of Viagra!
“blind about this condemnation until we deal with the spiritual hole inside us, and our consecration of bloody manliness.”
Oh for God’s sake, not another circumcision discussion!
“Oh for God’s sake, not another circumcision discussion!”
Mooser, you really cut me up!
“Mooser, you really cut me up!”
Like the song says, I got my mohel workin! But it just don’t work on you.
I know someone who lost family in the holocaust. Though otherwise a timid person and the last that I can imagine taking to arms, his face lights up when he speaks of Israelis being trained to fight and how all know how to use weapons, that to see a soldier carrying a gun is no unusual thing. He also rants against the hated Arab, though he doesn’t know a single one. Toward critics of Israel he is bellicose. I think that he has substituted the Palestinians for the Nazis since the former are present and available while the latter are gone. For him, Israel is a standing monument to counter the image of the meek and submissive Jew that for him is shown by the holocaust. To speak with him about all the oppression we know to be happening under the power he so admires is pointless. Israel is acting to sooth his sense of humiliation while he sits safe and warm at a great distance. I can’t imagine anything the Palestinians could do that would be satisfactory to him. There is no reasoning with outlook because it isn’t based on present reality. The only hope I see is that his generation is aging and will be passing. Those not touched as he has been will be open to thinking differently
“Israel is acting to sooth his sense of humiliation while he sits safe and warm at a great distance.”
But what humiliated him?
Is he old enough to have joined the Army and fight in WW2?
If so, his humiliation is the result of him not joining up and being “manly”. To take comfort in others (who are not even his relatives) being “manly” is just plain silly.
Is he too young?
Then he need feel no humiliation for his own inability to take action. If his family could have taken action, and didn’t, then that is their humiliation. If he feels their humiliation should have been “avenged”, he only need to see what happened to Germany as a result of WW2.
So his feeling of humiliation is self-indulgent irrationality.
I think the 800 pound gorilla in the room, where this discussion takes place, is the fact that “manliness” as we generally define it – integrity, generosity and conviction – are exactly what would have gotten jewish men and women killed in the labor/death camps.
I think it was Tony Judt ( not sure) who said that the best among the jews were killed right away. The Nazi’s identified “leaders” among their victims and killed them straight away. What was reinforced was the complete inverse of manliness – this is not to mean that the Jews who survived the death camps were lesser beings than those who were killed, but it does begin the explain “the shame” that has been remarked on numerous times by a wide range of people.
What we find now in Israel and among some diaspora Jews is a “manliness” with shame at its heart – an irrational, hate filled manliness; one that had to be created, rather than organically passed down from generation to generation. It is a manliness with no sense of tradition, history and culture; instead, it is a reactionary manliness, an overcompensating manliness that makes a mockery of any ideas of liberation, self determination and manhood.
In short, Israel(zionism) didn’t restore manliness among Jews – it destroyed whatever was left of it.
“What we find now in Israel and among some diaspora Jews is a “manliness” with shame at its heart – an irrational, hate filled manliness; one that had to be created, rather than organically passed down from generation to generation. It is a manliness with no sense of tradition, history and culture; instead, it is a reactionary manliness, an overcompensating manliness that makes a mockery of any ideas of liberation, self determination and manhood.”
Yup! Dan nails it.
I couldn’t have said it better myself, a statement which I am sure most readers here will be in full agreement with.
Yes, Dan’s post was excellent.
And haven’t we learned here on mondo that the Jews who went to Israel after WWII were, for the most part, corralled into doing so, and that most would have preferred to go to the U.S. We’ve also learned, I believe, what a weak sorry lot they were.
The ‘men’ who created Israel were the rich wackadoodle international Zionists in Washington who bribed Truman.
Unfortunately, the Zionistic conception of “manliness” correlates exactly with America’s current chicken-hawk conception of manliness. A marriage made in heaven, that one!
That post deserves a “Bazinga!”
;)
“In short, Israel(zionism) didn’t restore manliness among Jews – it destroyed whatever was left of it.”
Dan, you have rung the bell, gotten the ring over the bottle, and hit the bulls-eye! You are entitled to cigar, coco-nut or stuffed animal, according to choice.
Well put, Dan.
But who is going to tell “eee” that a man doesn’t stand any taller on the ashes of six million people?
Or we could get 3e to read this excerpt from wordmeister William A. Cook:
“The Zionist world needs no Hell since it heeds no conscience. It exists on one foundation, a solid block of ice that freezes the soul of all who bear allegiance to its creed of absolute obedience, an ancient form of tribal slavery bound by fear that shackles the soul, by isolation that instills despair, by humiliation that corrodes self, and by victimhood that bonds the tribe in self-perpetuating agony. It is in this sense Medieval, a remnant of the inquisitorial mind that harbored no dissent, gave no credence to personal freedom, and obligated all to one monolithic understanding of commitment to the powers that control.”
link to dissidentvoice.org
” a man doesn’t stand any taller on the ashes of six million people?”
A line worth repeating.
>> Liberation, self-determination, manliness (as opposed to slavery), is a GOOD in the world.
Liberation is a good thing. Self-determination can be a good thing as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others. “Manliness” is irrelevant, given that liberation addresses slavery.
Terrorism, ethnic cleansing and the establishment of a religion-supremacist state – none of which adheres to RW’s oft-proclaimed principle of “live #AND# let live!” – are not good things.
I love it when he manages to summarize both his immorality and his hypocrisy in a single paragraph.
The change in Jews was palpable, entirely of a different character than prior.
I like that implied in Phil’s post is the question, “now that you are manly, on your feet, what are you going to do with it?”
That is a very important question.
The assaults here though are not of that question. They lean to the walking condemnation, the walking taunts.
They illustrate none of the awareness of the treatment of holocaust survivors from death camps (or only slave camps which morphed into death camps to finish the job), to the treatment of returning refugees to their East European homes, to the treatment of emigres in Palestine (snipers, terror, mob assaults), none of which were humane by any definition.
Opposing the wrong actions that Israel does is different than opposing its existence, or even implying that its birth should be accompanied by shame.
From me, you won’t hear acceptance of shame, nor will you hear shaming of others.
The liberation that 1948 represented was a very good year.
The healing that 2011 could represent, could be a better year.
“The assaults here though are not of that question. They lean to the walking condemnation, the walking taunts.”
Aww, poor baby! If you need a towel to wipe all the spittle off, just let me know.
“The liberation that 1948 represented was a very good year.”
Sing it, Frankie:
“In 1948, it was a very good year,
Cause we got back on our feet,
And beat down on those stupid Pal-es-tinians.
We made a colony, and kicked them out of there,
And told all the world we were new Jews, not all old and weak
In 1948”
Hey, it’s just the first verse. I’m just sending it up the flagpole to see who tries to set it on fire. But I really think something can be done along those lines.
“In 1967, it was a very good year,
We started a war, but made all our enenies take the blame,
But soon we went insane…”
I’ll keep working on it, maybe it’ll become a classic, like my hit “I Enjoy being a Jew” (don’t believe me? Google it!)
>> The liberation that 1948 represented was a very good year.
Wow, from one paragraph down to one sentence! He’s getting really good at summarizing his immorality and hypocrisy.
More and more concise. Of course, it’s just seconds before RW starts claiming he never actually said it…
>> Opposing the wrong actions that Israel does is different than opposing its existence, or even implying that its birth should be accompanied by shame.
>> From me, you won’t hear acceptance of shame …
I guess this is how RW dances around his most recent (Nov. 3) noble-sounding lie:
>> RW: A moral goal, justifying immoral means? That never worked for me.
“The change in Jews was palpable”
And that is what matters, of course.
Any amount of suffering, theft, murder, destruction, and oppression is justified, as long as it is good for the Jews.
In the early 19th century, the Germans were considered a harmless nation of idle dreamers. Das Land der Dichter und Denker, it was said.
Soon enough, they became das Land der Richter und Henker.
After Bismarck’s — and then later Hitler’s — successes gave them confidence in themselves.
You got that somehow wrong.
Going back all the way to the romans, die Germanen were known to have constant fights between the tribes.
Perhaps at the beginning of the 19th century they were reading Goethe and Schiller and were distracted from starting another war.
Basically, Prussia and Austria were eclipsed initially by France and then by Russia and England. Even so, they participated in a lot of huge battles, some of them famously victorious (check Waterloo).
Lysias ignores how German Romanticism was born in the context of Napoleonic wars etc.
Yes, German Romanticism and eventually German romantic nationalism grew out of a reaction to Germany’s national humiliation especially at the hands of Napoleon’s armies.
But Romanticism was at first something wooly-minded and not clearly bad. In fact, it had a lot of good in it. It was the military victories of Bismarch/Moltke and then Hitler with his generals that transformed it into something sinister and eventually disastrous.
“We witnessed the discovery of the mounds of dead bodies, the emaciated, wasted, but still living prisoners who were now being liberated, and of the various means of extermination in the camp, the various gallows, and also the buildings where gas was employed to kill the Nazis’ victims en masse. “
All of that is so horrible, and I can only thank God that as horrible as it was, WW2 only claimed Jewish victims. I mean, there weren’t any other victims of any consequence.
I realise it was terrible for us Jews, but I comfort myself with the knowledge that everybody else had such a good time in the first half of the 20th Century.
What exactly does it matter that there were many other victims of WWII? If there is a school shooting and 12 kids are killed, only one your own, what is the comfort in that?
eeeeeee
Your analogy is presented so callously it is simply sick.
“What exactly does it matter that there were many other victims of WWII?”
Like you say, “eee” if they weren’t Jewish, it don’t matter at all.
I might remind you, “eee” that it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, too.
But listen here, “eee” if we’re gonna be a nation, we gotta take our lumps along with everybody else. Hey, for some peoples, 6 million is just a drop in the old bucket, hardly worth remembering. If we are gonna play in the big leagues, we have got to get that birth-rate up. The Haredi are doing their part, are you?
So what do you think, “eee”? Should I just drop one “O” from my name and be done with it?
Do you guys live in never never land? An American mother of a soldier that died in WWII was obviously sad about the many victims of the war, but she mourned her son only. Mothers who did not lose a child felt completely differently than those who did. Are you going to deny this obvious fact and try telling us how you care about each victim as if he is one of your children?
I am sad about all the victims of WWII, but the 1.5 million Jewish kids murdered I take personally. I am not saying they are my own children, but I feel for them very strongly and I am angry that the Jewish community allowed it to happen. If I could have, I would have certainly put my life in danger to save them.
Actually, eee, I find your ramblings fascinating as they demonstrate a clearly damaged mindset. You really should get mental heath treatment.
I especially like how you insist — INSIST — that a mother who lost a child in the war had a qualitatively different, and more intense (perhaps more real or justified) sense of loss than one who did not lose a child. And then, although you deny it, you put yourself in the position of the mother of the Jewish children who were killed by the Nazis.
Psychologically, you are asserting, whether you admit it or not, that with regard to the Jews killed in the war, you are their mother, while those who morning the other victims of the war or all of them together, are like the woman who had no child killed and cannot know your loss, cannot know REAL loss.
It is really quite twisted.
Likewise, your statement that you are “angry that the Jewish community allowed it to happen” is an insult both to those who died and those who fought to prevent even more deaths. Because the Jewish community did not “allow” it to happen. It happened because those who sought to kill were more powerful than their victims. It was not the victims’ fault that they did not have the strength to defeat their enemies; it was the perpetrator’s fault that they did not exercise their power in a humane fashion.
eeeeeeeeeee
I don’t recall your anger extending to the pre-state zionists who exacerbated anti-semitism in order to coerce more Jews to emigrate to Palestine, people who actively lobbied to slam the doors to any other countries in their faces. I don’t recall any denunciations of the same for collaborating with the Nazi regime before and during the war. Your anger and presumably contempt is saved for the adult victims of the Holocaust, the source of the “shame” and “disgrace” of the above article. So 4,500,000 adults were worthless, expendable because they could not find a way to fight. I don’t believe you have the capacity to really feel for their children, you’ll just use them for your argument’s sake.
You guys are weird. I feel a responsibility to my children more than to other people’s children and I care for them more than I care for other people’s children. I feel responsible for Jewish children and care for them more than I care for Turkish children. I guess you don’t like this perfectly normal human behavior. You guys must love your children just as much as you love other people’s children. It is clear to me you don’t have children.
Of course the Nazi’s were responsible for murdering the 1.5 million children. But that does not mean that the Jewish community as a whole is not also responsible in a different way. The world is a bad place and one needs to be prepared, and the Jews were not prepared. We were naive and stupid and it cost us 1.5 million kids.
eee: You report what seems both accurate and bizarre.
The USA mother who did not lose her son in WWII did not mourn, but the USA Jews mourned all 6 million unrelated Jewish dead. (I suspect the Gypsies mourned their dead. I suspect the mothers of the labor union folks, the insane, the retarded, the homosexual, etc., also mourned.)
Mooser’s point is that all THIS OTHER grieving fails to get the HUGE MEGAPHONE and the FEED-BACK-LOOP which keeps Jewish mourning ever-youthful and ever on page 1. The other mothers get over it and get on with their lives. My mother lost a brother, Jewish, in WWII. She grieved for a while, as anyone might, and then stopped.
The indefinite grieving of Jews re the Holocaust is not natural — it is a manufactured thing, an artifact, as is the new use of the term “anti-semitism” to mean (and almost only to mean) anti-Zionism.
The other mothers get over it and get on with their lives.
not sure if i agree w/this. most mothers don’t really ‘get over’ the deaths of their children. not that i know of.
Pabelmont,
Who are you exactly to tell people how long they should grieve and when to get over their grief? In Russia their WWII dead get the grieving and the megaphones and in the Jewish community it is the victims of the Holocaust. What is the problem with that?
My feeling is not mainly grief. It is the feeling that a person in a military unit has when he survives and his comrades die. You are always left with the feeling you should have done more to save them.
at least there’s global recognition for your loss. at least you don’t have millions of people involved in a campaign to deny your loss, unlike the nakba which goes on here daily. and those who lost loved one in the USS liberty, how’s that for denial? don’t lecture us on grieving when you make statements like
“most mothers don’t really ‘get over’ the deaths of their children.”
Think of my poor Mom. She never got over my birth!
“Palestinians did not have a country”
What country did Palestinians have? They owned land, but they did not have a country.
” and those who lost loved one in the USS liberty, how’s that for denial?”
What are you talking about??? Where did I tell anybody how much to grieve?
Oh stuff it eee
I seriously doubt, in fact I pretty much know for a fact you have never been in the thick of battle with comrades dying all around you like real military men have in wars.
Your IDF are wimps….if you ever had to fight a real battle you would be wiped out.
Stick to killing women and children or you might get hurt or dead.
What a psycho. Let’s try this game and see if you can spot the problem:
A Russian says, “The German fascists killed millions of Russians in the Great Patriotic War. That’s what’s important. Who gives a shit if they gassed a few million Jews, too?”
>> I am angry that the Jewish community allowed it to happen.
In which case it makes perfect “common sense” to terrorize and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homes and lands, to establish a religion-supremacist state and to undertake a 60+ years, ON-GOING campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder.
The hatefulness and immorality of Zio-supremacists – whether violence-minded brutes like eee or more-delicate “humanists” like RW – knows no bounds.
“A Russian says, “The German fascists killed millions of Russians in the Great Patriotic War. That’s what’s important. Who gives a shit if they gassed a few million Jews, too?”
You are a low life taking what I said out of context. What I said using your example is the following: A Russian says, why should I be comforted about the millions of Russians that were killed because millions of Jews were killed?
“You are a low life taking what I said out of context.”
First, the word, in English, is “lowlife.” No space. Again, I understand that through no fault of your own, you’ve been cursed with Hebrew as a primary language. So, you’re welcome. I’m just trying to help. (Although I do chuckle at the notion of being called a lowlife by an Israeli like you. The irony is almost literally visible.)
And your statement,
is borderline jibberish. You clearly have no idea what the function of the word “comforted” is in Mooser’s statement, especially considering your use of the work “comfort” in your response.
Becuase, really, there is no way to harmonize the gibberish you put in the mouth of our fictitous Russian while, at the same time, making this statement:
Perhaps you simply don’t have a command of the English language sufficient to keep yourself from looking like an amoral goon. All you have to say is, “Please forgive me for my incompetence,” and I would be happy to do so.
Is it “manly” for Zionists to be overcome with OBSESSIVE PARANOIA to the point that they keep millions of people imprisoned while they steal these people’s land and antagonize every neighboring country forcing everyone to submit to their needs? Collective psychosis is NOT a sign of “manliness”.
Seems to me that behaving like a bully is a sign of a deep-rooted inferiority complex that must overcompensate for significant shortcomings.
In other words, Zionism is the indulgence of collective insanity, and robbing the Palestinians to repair an injustice is grotesque, IMMORAL and the poisoned fruit of unresolved GUILT.
Yep your right.
I don’t see the zionist or Israelis, whoever, as manly. They strike me more as sneaky, devious little street gang types…typical bullies.
I can’t see them ever taking on any real military or real men, they are button pushers not warriors.
The pictures I saw and accounts I read of the Lebanon assault made them look like sniffling little boys scared to death to be out of their own playground.
“Manliness” (which of course is also a quality many women have) at its very essence is being able to provide for and protect one’s family. Traditionally, men that were not able to do so feel humiliated and diminished. That is what Abel’s mother is talking about. Seeing 1.5 million Jewish kids murdered and not doing anything about it, is humiliating. The Holocaust was a total failure of the Jewish community worldwide to its members and especially to the 1.5 million kids it couldn’t protect.
To a large extent, Israel is the answer to the above. Any country in the world knows that if it tries killing or harming its Jews, it will have to face action from Israel and that it will pay a heavy price.
Ah, perpetual victimhood at its best, sprinkled with a little biblical fantasy.
The reality is that Jews suffer very little persecution in the world today. It seems that the lessons of the Holocaust have been learned by everyone except, well, Jewish-Zionists (ooh, the irony!). And to add to the irony, can anyone guess where the most dangerous place in the world is for Jews?
I think the biggest obstacle to the resolving the Palestine conflict is overcoming the psychological defect that forces millions of Zionists to believe they are under constant threat.
“The reality is that Jews suffer very little persecution in the world today”
A lot of this is because Israel exists. It is not so simple to mess around with Jews any more. And, how do you know what the situation will be 30 years from now? Can you guarantee no one will ever attempt to prosecute Jews? Of course you can’t.
You guys always make me laugh because even in 1938 you would have been against a Jewish state. So what if several hundreds of thousands of Jews could have been saved you would argue, it should never be done at the expense of the Arabs in Palestine.
“So what if several hundreds of thousands of Jews could have been saved you would argue, it should never be done at the expense of the Arabs in Palestine.”
So, Mr. Atheist, would you like to give us the reasons why it should be done at the expense of the “Arabs in Palestine”?
And BTW, thanks for clearly and unambiguously stating that the establishment of Israel was done “at the expense of the Arabs in Palestine.”
“So, Mr. Atheist, would you like to give us the reasons why it should be done at the expense of the “Arabs in Palestine”?”
Quite simple, because I think that the lives of several hundreds of thousands of humans (be they Jewish or not) are more important than the demands of any group to remain a majority in a certain area including Palestinians.
And who has ever denied that Israel was formed at the expense of the Palestinians? I mean, they resisted Israel vehemently and most still do.
“Quite simple, because I think that the lives of several hundreds of thousands of humans (be they Jewish or not) are more important than the demands of any group to remain a majority in a certain area including Palestinians.”
Oh my God! The Zionists were able to bring several hundred thousand Jews back to life by stealing the State of Israel from the Palestinians? Wow, I did not know this. You are so right, “eee” the Palestinians should not have tried to interfere with that miracle.
>> Quite simple, because I think that the lives of several hundreds of thousands of humans (be they Jewish or not) are more important than the demands of any group to remain a majority in a certain area including Palestinians.
Hundred of thousands of lives are more important than a permanent majority, but he’ll be gawd-damned if he’ll ever let those hundreds of thousands of dirty Palestinians threaten the Jewish majority of Israel!
What a shameless liar and hypocrite this guy is. No surprise there – he’s a Zio-supremacist.
Whoops, sorry, “eee”, misread your comment. I see what you are saying now, that the lives of “humans” are more important than those of non-humans. Well, there’s no arguing with that, is there?
Eljay,
It is quite simple. The life of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians is not at risk. The life of millions of Jews before WWII was. Just read Roger Cohen’s latest commentary, he explains well what you don’t seem to get.
The Last Jew in Zagare
By ROGER COHEN
Published: November 7, 2011
ZAGARE, LITHUANIA — The last Jew in Zagare, a small Lithuanian town renowned for its cherries, died in September. His name was Aizikas Mendelsonai, born in 1922. He was not buried in either of the two Jewish cemeteries, with their lurching gravestones, faded inscriptions and advancing lichen. Nobody is any more, not even Jews.
At his birth, Mendelsonai was one of almost 2,000 Jews living in Zagare, with its seven synagogues, its Hebrew school and its Jewish People’s bank. Jews made up about 40 percent of the town’s population. Then, in swift succession, came Soviet annexation, blamed by many on “Jewish Bolsheviks,” and Nazi occupation, bent on annihilation of the Jews.
The Nazis wasted little time after pushing into Lithuania in June, 1941. The Jews of Zagare were herded into a ghetto. Almost 1,000 Jews from nearby towns, including Siauliai, were forced to join them. On Oct. 2, 1941, they were ordered into the main square before being taken into the woods for execution by Nazi SS killers and their Lithuanian accomplices.
SS Standartenführer Karl Jäger, stated in a report that day that 2,236 Jews were killed in Zagare. In 1944, the Soviets, having fought their way back, examined a mass grave and found 2,402 corpses (530 men, 1,223 women, 625 children, 24 babies). Today, a visitor to Zagare — there are not many — is greeted by a sign pointing to woods of birch and pine: “Graves of the Victims of the Jewish Genocide.”
I recount these events for two reasons. The first is that my grandmother Pauline (“Polly”) Soloveychik was from Zagare, and my grandfather Morris Cohen was from Siauliai, and so I have a natural interest in what would have befallen them had they remained. Their hypothetical European fate was to die nameless in a nameless ditch.
Even at the end of her long life, lilacs could bring Polly to tears because they recalled Zagare; even then she spoke Russian to her parrot. Memory thrust her back in the woods where she had wandered.
The second reason is that I have been pondering the Zagare-Zionism link. The resilience of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — its capacity to last through the Cold War, the post-Cold War, the digital revolution, the rise of China, the Arab Spring — is due in part to the near-perfect equivalency of moral claim to the same land.
What emerged from the Holocaust — from the agony of every little Zagare — was the success of Zionism. Benny Morris, the Israeli historian, has written, “As the pogroms in Russia in the 1880’s had launched modern Zionism, so the largest pogrom of them all propelled the movement, almost instantly, into statehood.”
Through its vote of Nov. 29, 1947, calling for the establishment of two states in the Holy Land — one Jewish and one Palestinian Arab — the United Nations sought to expiate Nazi crimes by granting the Jews what Morris calls “an international warrant for a small piece of earth.”
The thing is, that piece of earth, birthplace of the Jewish people, was not empty. In fact, at the time of the U.N. vote, about 630,000 Jews faced about 1.3 million Palestinian Arabs in the Holy Land. Palestinians failed to see why they should pay for the Holocaust. Arab states, invoking Saladin’s triumph over the Crusaders, seeing in Israel a new expression of European colonialism, went to war against the U.N.’s will — and lost.
Einstein, arguing for Israel, wrote that, “In the august scale of justice, which weighs need against need, there is no doubt as to whose is more heavy.” The Arab League put the opposite case: “There can be no greater injustice and aggression than solving the problem of the Jews of Europe by another injustice” — against the Palestinian Arabs.
Solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict begins with accepting that there is no just outcome, none. Enough Jews and Arabs have died trying to prove the rightness of their cause. Imperfect compromise is the only way out of the spiral.
Carrying Zagare in my blood, aware of what centuries of Jewish precariousness have wrought, I believe the case for Israel was and remains overwhelming, but an Israel that condemns another people to permanent exile is not the one its founders imagined.
An Israeli state, a Palestinian state, economic union between them, international oversight of the holy places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem: The U.N. idea of 1947 is not a million miles from what any lasting peace must involve.
The second stage of solving the conflict is realizing there are no new ideas, none. The only option is gathering the will to reach the known trade-off.
I went to see the grave of Mendelsonai — the last Jew in Zagare. So, I thought, Zagare is finally Judenrein. In a sense the Nazis have won.
Then, nearby, I saw a European Union flag and thought, no.
Mendelsonai, in his 89 years, lived through five Lithuanias — independent, Soviet, Nazi, Soviet and independent. The last was best, a small state, secure, in NATO, tied in economic union with its neighbors, at peace even with Russia.
It’s amazing what putting the future above the past, jobs above some unattainable justice, can forge.
>> he’ll be gawd-damned if he’ll ever let those hundreds of thousands of dirty Palestinians
Correction: … hundreds of thousands of dirty Palestinian victims of Jewish terrorism and ethnic cleansing…
“I mean, they resisted Israel vehemently and most still do.”
That’s obviously because they are stupid and uninformed! Now, if those Palestinians knew about how the Jews in Germany and Occupied Europe got so peacefully into the boxcars, and how well that worked for the Jews, I’m sure the Palestinians would have done the same.
The Arabs did not ask to remain a majority, and large Jewish immigration was anticipated. They did not ask to remain a majority.
They asked to remain. In their homes, on their land, in their homeland. They had been promiosed (by LoN mandate) to be granted self-determination for which, it was said, they were nearly ready. Then a great Jewish immigration occurred, adn they rejected it (just as Israeli Jews today reject a great Arab immigration, even the return of the 1948 refugees). Easy to understand.
“You guys always make me laugh because even in 1938 you would have been against a Jewish state. So what if several hundreds of thousands of Jews could have been saved you would argue, it should never be done at the expense of the Arabs in Palestine.”
Eee, it’s very easy for you to write this crap because you base it on nothing except emotion. Some people like to critically think before they put an argument together. Instead of asking us if we would have supported a Jewish state in 1938, why don’t you ask how an Israel in 1938 was going to take care of several hundred thousand more Jews without dispossessed Palestinian property and reparations from the FDR. Don’t forget, the Zionist Organization did not accept the Peel Commission plan; it was to be the basis for further negotiation (Ben-Gurion wanted to accept it, though).
In the real world, after the Palestinians were expelled and Jewish immigrants from the Middle East arrived, Israel needed an austerity measure to take care of 1 million Jews. There’s no way it would have been food self-sufficient in 1938. Germany could still have invaded “Israel” or cut-off food imports through submarine warfare. Your arguments take for granted that “Israel” would have saved many additional Jews when that wasn’t a guarantee.
To really deal with your last, silly sentence, no one objects to several hundred thousand people taking refuge in a country. But the Jews who would have fled to Palestine were not just going to sit out the war and go home; they were going to replace the people already living there. There’s no way they could have accepted that. If anything, relentlessly pursuing a Jewish state in Palestine made it untenable for Jews to take refuge there.
“The Arabs did not ask to remain a majority, and large Jewish immigration was anticipated. They did not ask to remain a majority.”
The majority of Arabs rejected Jewish immigration to Palestine from the very beginning because they wanted to remain a majority. There were anti immigration riots in 1920.
“It is quite simple. The life of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians is not at risk.”
So says the Israeli. I’m sure that the Palestinians would have a different view.
“The life of millions of Jews before WWII was. Just read Roger Cohen’s latest commentary, he explains well what you don’t seem to get.”
Actually, you didn’t seem to actually read Cohen’s article at all. Your Israeli state is littered with Palestinian Zagares.
maybe if israelis were stuck drinking rationed gazan polluted salt water for a year they wouldn’t try peddling this crap here. did anyone else hear about the israeli attack on gaza last night?
because they wanted to remain a majority
yeah, i am so sure it had nothing to do with being ethnically cleansed off their own land. hey, where’s that pre israeli state palestinian article about demographics. maybe you can link to it.
“The majority of Arabs rejected Jewish immigration to Palestine from the very beginning because they wanted to remain a majority.”
And history proved them right.
Andrew,
It is high time that you stop taking arguments literally. It is a waste of time in discussion. What I am saying is that if Israel would have been formed before the war it could have helped the Jews. The earlier it would have been formed before the war, the more it could have helped. Furthermore, it is clear I cannot “guarantee” or be certain of an historical counter-factual. It is a judgement call, and in my judgement and in the judgement of many others, a Jewish state would have been able to save many Jewish lives.
“they were going to replace the people already living there.”
They were not going to replace anybody unless they were attacked. In any case you just prove my argument. You are against saving several hundreds of thousands of Jews because you think they had the intent of remaining in Palestine and evicting the Palestinians. That does not make your position more tenable.
“yeah, i am so sure it had nothing to do with being ethnically cleansed off their own land. hey, where’s that pre israeli state palestinian article about demographics. maybe you can link to it.”
What were the 1920 riots about? What ethnic cleansing are you talking about?
link to en.wikipedia.org
Nice spin there, Hasbarateee.
1. It was a British Mandate law that prohibited immigration to Palestine.
2. Palestinians did not reject Jewish immigration, per se. They rejected the establishment of a Jewish national state on land that belonged to Palestinians. The Balfour Declaration was signed in 1917 and you’re complaining about Palestinians wising up to the grand scheme by 1920.
“Actually, you didn’t seem to actually read Cohen’s article at all. Your Israeli state is littered with Palestinian Zagares.”
Where is there ONE mass grave of Palestinians in Israel?
why are you asking me a question eee? please copy/paste the section relating to your answer cuz it’s not jumping out at me.
avi, 3e is trying to use the zio obsession w/demographics and flip it over to pre state palestinians. plllease.
Avi_G,
The British limited immigration because of Arab demands. The Arabs were against Jewish immigration. History is ultra clear about this if you care to read it.
“Where is there ONE mass grave of Palestinians in Israel?”
That’s your problem, Israeli, you have the absolute inability to see anyone’s suffering but your own. If there’s no mass graves, you suppose, there’s no Zagare. Well, I was talking about the fact that there was a city where Jewish life thrived, but through the inhumanity of man, it does not.
And, likewise, there are hundreds of villages, towns and cities, all over your godforsaken state which were formerly Palestinian and would still be, but for the inhumanity of you and your countrymen.
“avi, 3e is trying to use the zio obsession w/demographics and flip it over to pre state palestinians. plllease.”
Are you for real? Palestinians were against Jewish immigration. The record could not be clearer.
This is what the Palin commision wrote:
———–
Savage attacks were made by Arab rioters in Jerusalem on Jewish lives and property. Five Jews were killed and 211 injured. Order was restored by the intervention of British troops; four Arabs were killed and 21 injured. It was reported by a military commission of inquiry that the reasons for this trouble were:–
(a) Arab disappointment at the non-fulfilment of the promises of independence which they claimed had been given to them during the war.
(b) Arab belief that the Balfour Declaration implied a denial of the right of self-determination and their fear that the establishment of a National Home would mean a great increase in Jewish immigration and would lead to their economic and political subjection to the Jews.
(c) The aggravation of these sentiments on the one hand by propaganda from outside Palestine associated with the proclamation of the Emir Feisal as King of a re-united Syria and with the growth of Pan-Arab and Pan-Moslem ideas, and on the other hand by the activities of the Zionist Commission supported by the resources and influence of Jews throughout the world.
——————————————————-
3e, i just asked if you had a pre israeli state palestinian article about demographics. you do not.
This is what the Palin commision wrote:
why didn’t you copy and paste it like i asked? it actually reads like this:
anyway, please be more precise wrt your wording and do not co-op zionist demographic framing for your assertions.
eee,
None of the stuff you cited (well, cut and pasted from Wikipedia) contested what Avi said, that “Palestinians did not reject Jewish immigration, per se. They rejected the establishment of a Jewish national state on land that belonged to Palestinians.”
And hindsight proved the Arabs right. The British policies in Palestine led to the exact evils the Arabs feared coming true.
Oh, also, with your cut and paste job from Wikipedia, you forgot the next line:
Are you an American or an Israeli? I’m curious to know…
y’know eee, i would like to remind you you’ve tried peddling this crap here before (scroll up @ the link for my response) here’s hostage’s:
Annie,
What Hostage writes is both incorrect and irrelevant. There was some support for the bi-national solution in the Yishuv before the 1929 Hebron massacre. But the massacre killed that support completely.
It is irrelevant because the discussion is about support for a bi-national solution, not whether Palestinians supported Jewish immigration, which they clearly didn’t.
“What I am saying is that if Israel would have been formed before the war it could have helped the Jews.”
You are ignoring everything that had to be done to establish Israel. No nakba, no Israel.
“It is a judgement call, and in my judgement and in the judgement of many others, a Jewish state would have been able to save many Jewish lives.”
Then explain the logistics. Moving many Jews to one location isn’t going to save them ipso facto. “Israel” circa 1939 could have been a glorified de facto concentration camp, depending on how the war turned out. And it would have been 100% dependent on Britain for defense.
“They were not going to replace anybody unless they were attacked.”
An internal WZO memorandum in 1907 (Written by Ruppin) called for a Jewish majority in Palestine. The Zionist leadership made their intentions explicit, if only to themselves, to replace the Palestinians that early.
“You are against saving several hundreds of thousands of Jews because you think they had the intent of remaining in Palestine and evicting the Palestinians.”
Actually I can not establish the intent of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Other the other hand, the intent of the political leadership of the Zionist movement can be established. And the point is that the Zionist leadership chose a Jewish state over rescuing Jews. That’s not my “position,” it’s what happened. During the 40 years preceding 1933, the Zionist movement could have put its efforts into creating refuge for Jews all over the world instead of colonizing Palestine. They were hellbent on Palestine regardless if it would save Jews or not.
Oh, and you said this above, “You are a low life taking what I said out of context,” yet you did the same with my argument. Not that I’m bothered (I don’t expect any better from you), but if no one tells you you’re acting like a childish idiot, how will you know?
did you even open the link?
t is irrelevant because the discussion is about support for a bi-national solution, not whether Palestinians supported Jewish immigration, which they clearly didn’t.
it was the zionist agenda. the one that was becoming abundantly clear to anyone but a fool.
eeeeeeeeeeee
Hebron massacre. Isn’t it a great pity that this was so cruelly spun to foster the exclusivist state, rather than to emphasize the hundreds of Palestinians who risked their lives to save hundreds of Jewish residents. You only EVER spout the deaths, never the lives saved.
eeeeeeeeee
Just how insane are you???
Had there been an Israel before the outbreak of WWII, the Arabs would have been totally on the side of Germany, Britain would not have had even a toe-hold in either North Africa or the peninsula, the war would have been LOST long before 1945 and there would have been even greater carnage among the Jewish people and other nazi victims.
Rub two of those brain cells of yours together, see if you can envisage that. Once Europe was knocked out, any pre-war Israel would have been wiped out too!
Gawd eee you are so , so whatever.
”
The majority of Arabs rejected Jewish immigration to Palestine from the very beginning because they wanted to remain a majority”..you say?
Israel came in and wanted to throw out Palestines to’ become’ the majority. Really give it up, you contradict yourself so much with your hypocrisy it’s boring.
“The Arabs were against Jewish immigration”
Wait a minute. Aren’t you the same one who is always telling us that states have the right, indeed, the obligation, to control immigration for their own purposes?
Eee,
It is irrelevant because the discussion is about support for a bi-national solution
As the British White Paper of 1939 makes clear in quoting from the Command Paper of 1922, bi-nationality was not something that Jews were to determine (not that you’re going to bother to read it, you don’t follow up any research thrown at you):
Then they quote the Command Paper of 1922 again with this, 1922 being seven years before 1929:
link to avalon.law.yale.edu
I would like to add the following. There are some things you can only do with a country. For example, take the Entebe operation. The hijacked plane was an Air France plane on its way from Athens to Paris (it arrived at Athens from Tel-Aviv). This was not an El-Al flight and it was not a flight leaving from Israel. The hijackers boarded the plane in Athens. The safety of the passengers was the responsibility of the Greeks and Air-France.
Could the Jewish community in France have convinced the French government to launch a rescue mission for the people on the plane? Not in a million years. Could the powerful and influential Jewish community in the US have convinced the US government to do it? No. Why would the US put its soldiers and interests at risk when the responsibility was clearly with Air France and the Greeks? But because Israel existed, it was possible to launch a rescue operation. Israel allowed Jews to take responsibility for the safety of other Jews.
Had there been no apartheid Israeli state (which is NOT the same as ‘no Israeli state), would there have been a PFLP to carry out the hijack?
Of course, Jews are special and rare, like sapphire and diamonds. There should be a global Jewish Task Force (JTF) or a Special Jewish and Chosen team (SJAC) that can respond to Jewish emergencies worldwide.
But of course the French government would not have bothered with AirFrance. The special gem stones on board that flight needed someone special from the Holy Land to rescue them.
You know, it’s not only pathetic that you have resorted to such banal arguments to justify Israel’s miserable existence as a colonial apartheid power, but it’s doubly pathetic that you continue unabated to peddle such racist, tribalist exceptionalism.
Israel couldn’t have hoped for a better delegitimatizer than you. Say, you wouldn’t know any Le Pen members, would you?
“Of course, Jews are special and rare, like sapphire and diamonds. There should be a global Jewish Task Force (JTF) or a Special Jewish and Chosen team (SJAC) that can respond to Jewish emergencies worldwide.”
You almost get it, but not quite. The Jews are not special. Americans can look forward to their government helping them also. And some other countries would also help their citizens. That is why a Jewish state is needed so Jewish emergencies can be better handled.
“But of course the French government would not have bothered with AirFrance. The special gem stones on board that flight needed someone special from the Holy Land to rescue them.”
Exactly. The French government planned to do nothing. What exactly are you mocking? The sacrifice that the Israeli soldiers were willing to make?
So go bomb Iran yourself already.
The French government planned to do nothing.
The French government was in negotiations with the hijackers to gain release of the hostages. The Israeli government chose the risky path of a rescue rather than negotiations. That kind of risky path had resulted in the deaths of the Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972.
With what? Socialized health care, like what the US government helps defray the costs of in Israel?
As a point of history, only 4 non-Israeli Jews were rescued at Entebbe by the IDF because all other non-Israeli Jews were freed by the hijackers prior to the rescue operation. The Air France crew WAS rescued because they insisted on remaining with the other hostages.
link to haaretz.com
Netanyahu was not killed by one of the hijackers. He was killed leading the freed hostages to the waiting plane, after all the hijackers had been killed, by a bullet fired from the control tower, probably by a Ugandan soldier.
The Israelis had built the Entebbe airport, during an earlier time when Israel and Uganda had been on good terms, even under the early days of Idi Amin, who had, as a Uganda general, received paratrooper training in Israel. In fact there are some historians who believe that Israel helped Amin execute his coup against Obote. Relations had soured quite a bit by 1976, but the idea that the Shin Bet engineered the hijacking is not as far fetched as some would like us to believe, given the Israeli knowledge of the Entebbe airport and Idi Amin, as well as their known infiltration of various Palestinian splinter groups. If the Shin Bet did not engineer the hijacking, then the rescue operation was a very risky one for the hostages and could have as easily led to their deaths as to their liberation.
link to jcpa.org
It is interesting that your country is perpetuating the very same dynamic with your Palestinian victims. And you will no doubt cry when that particular chicken comes home to roost.
“Any country in the world knows that if it tries killing or harming its Jews”
You are lying through your crooked little teeth, “eee”. Can you link us to any statement from Israel saying in no uncertain terms what they will do if Jews are attacked? Something really brave like inviting them to Israel if they can make it out of their own country?
Please, give us the info to prove that Israel will do a fricking thing to defend the Jews in other countries.
Mooser,
Israel does not need to say the obvious as it would be undiplomatic. But as the Entebe Operation proves, Israel will not only protect Jews within its borders. You think if some country puts Jews in concentration camps, Israel will not come to their help? You really do not understand Israel.
“You really do not understand Israel.”
Anotherwords, you haven’t got one groatsworth of fact to back up your sick little fantasies.
So tell me, “eee” why doesn’t Israel proclaim to the world what it will do, to prevent anti-Semitism?
In other words, according to you, Entebe never happened. What more proof do you need? Israel acted outside its borders to help Jews.
it happened. but like everything else having to do w/israel what happened and what we’ve been told are probably vastly different.
Did Israel send troops outside Israel to help Jews? Yes or no?
So Entebbe was a false flag also? you guys have got this disinformation thing down to a science.
you guys have got this disinformation thing down to a science.
feisty little thing called research. it appears the UK government at the time wasn’t buying israel’s framing either (perhaps this was pre bicom days):
From the bbc article you quote:
An unnamed contact from the Euro-Arab Parliamentary Association told a British diplomat in Paris that the Israeli Secret Service, the Shin Bet, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) collaborated to seize the plane.
That is the evidence you plan to hang your claims on. Pathetic.
“That is the evidence you plan to hang your claims on. Pathetic.”
Silly Brits. Don’t they know that they’re supposed to ignore, out of hand, anything that comes from one of those Arabs…
unnamed to us but not to the UK government. i’m hanging my claims on the fact the UK government evidently trusted their diplomat and his connection more than the israeli government, hence “the prime minister did not send a personal message of congratulations to Mr Rabin and that our public statement fell short of endorsement of the Israeli action at Entebbe”
that’s not tin hat, that’s a fact.
Well eee suppose Putin takes even a dislike to zionist when he resumes the Russian presidency next year and puts a bunch of mafia Jews or zionist in prison camps?
What do think Israel will do? Get the US to beg Putin to release them like we did they 80′s and 90′s. Or maybe you think the US will attack Russia who has 2 times more nukes and missiles then we have?
Come on, tell me what think little Israel would do about it besides beg the US to do something.
Israel couldn’t even get it’s own Isr Abm out of Egygt and had to ask the US government to call Egypt and ask them to let him go, couldn’t even get it’s own kidnapped IDF guy away from Hamas, can’t even get the Jew held in Cuba released, couldn’t even get the Jewish hikers in Iran out, couldn’t get the US Jew imprisoned in Egypt out..Israel can’t even get enough frigging palm fronds for their religious stuff without the US government demanding Egypt provide them some.
Israel is a pipsqueak in the world. You really are delusional.
BTW, “eee”, just promise me one thing. Please, oh God please, promise me that if Jews are persecuted in America, you won’t try to “help” us. I’m sure we will have, if that comes to pass, more than enough trouble without you maniacs sticking your goddam nose in and making it even worse.
“Help” like Israel gives, we don’t need. Yeah with your help, we’ could end up just like you, fighting with everyone, and headed for the Masadadammerung. Don’t do us any favors. With fiends like Israel, who needs enemas?
Sorry to pop off like that, but the thought of Israel, trying to “help” American Jews is so frightening, I can’t even think of a joke about it.
You are a sad person.
“You are a sad person.”
I know what you mean “eee”! After all, can any Jew who does not live in constant fear and paranoid fantasy about his neighbors, while pretending that only Israel can save him really make any claims to happiness, let alone mental health? Say, is there an Israeli DSM which has a name for my condition?
Especially a Jew as weak and helpless as I am. I don’t even know how to spit. Oh, I can get something spoiled or inedible out of my mouth, but as far as accuracy, distance, and velocity, I got nothin’. But that’s what happens when you grow up Reform, I guess. You just don’t get the same kind of religious training.
I wish I was Jewish enough to make ad hominems on Mondoweiss. Sigh…
Oh, Lord, I have to admit I’m wrong again! I just remembered all the “help” Israel gave the Jews in the Arab countries.
“Oh, Lord, I have to admit I’m wrong again! I just remembered all the “help” Israel gave the Jews in the Arab countries.”
Palestinians live in refugee camps 3 generations later, the Jews from Arab countries do not. See the difference? The Palestinians did not have a country and the Jews did and therefore the very different outcomes.
All that proves is that you are scum of the earth, eee. Caring for ones own skin is not unique, but people don’t usually flash it around as if it were a virtue.
If a bomb in a synagogue is the Israeli idea of “help,” I’m glad I’m Catholic.
Hey, “eee” hurry up with that list of statement from the State of Israel announcing to the world what they will do if anybody messes with the Jews. I will print it out and wave it in the face of any anti-Semite who threatens me! That’ll show ‘em! They won’t be so quick to threaten me if they knew the answer would be Israeli commandoes going all Entebbe on their Jew-hating ass!
Oh, BTW, will it work to get warrants and indictments quashed, too?
I am really disappointed the Israel government didn’t get an arrest warrant before the raid on Entebbe. I know the terrorist who kidnapped them went through all of the legal red tape to ensure the rights of the Jews weren’t being infringed upon.
Yup, they are gonna jack off over Entebbe til they are raw and bleeding.
as long as you don’t mention the british freedom of information leak
HAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
Regarding this silly ‘manliness’ nonsense – apparently ‘manliness’ is now being re-defined as setting up the killing your own people so as to make yourself look good when you kill the killers you colluded with in the first place
Who knew, eh?
British document: Israel initiated Entebbe hijack – link to ynetnews.com
it really never ends with you ppl does it? was the death of Bibi’s brother part of this plot? or was that an accident?
Since they don’t trust a word their own government says, why would they trust any government? They only trust the Iranian government that it is not developing nukes and does not plan to attack Israel. Maybe one day they will tell us why the Iranian government is so trustworthy. I guess they like Ayatollahs.
no, i trust reputable organizations like the IAEA. when they tell me iran is developing nuclear weapons i will believe them, then i will weigh that information in relation to others in the region. i’m not a big fan of nukes but if i had to make a choice between which country with a nuke could guarentee more stability in the region i can assure you i would not be placing my choice w/israel. i’m over these constant threats and sabre rattling. so what if iran has a nuke? they are not an in your face warrign nation like israel. plus, unlike israel, they are on a permanent expansion mission last i heard.
“Since they don’t trust a word their own government says, why would they trust any government?”
LMAO. Yeah, because the history of the “word” of the US government, let alone the Israeli one, is nothing a long series of absolute statements of truth. Why, just yesterday I was at the Smithsonian Museum, looking at all those Mobile WMD Vans captured in the Iraq War. You know, the ones that Colin Powell told the world about…
Oh, it’s just too bad that I don’t share your belief in government, eee. Oh, to be like you, to be like an innocent 5 year old child on Christmas Eve, with a tooth tucked under her pillow, knowing that, in the morn, all her beliefs will be shown true…
DBG November 7, 2011 at 4:06 pm it really never ends with you ppl does it? was the death of Bibi’s brother part of this plot?
I have no idea, I wasn’t in on the plot, so i really have no idea if the death of Bibi’s Bro was an intended aim of the joint Israeli-PFLP plot and nor did I ever suggest it was – that was you just making-shit-up cos you couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say at the time. So perhaps you should direct your silly question to to someone in the IDF or Shin bet/Shabak, who WAS in on the plot-
Bib’s bro was part of the ‘rescue’ team, that doesn’t mean that he was in on the Israeli-PFLP plot to make Israel look tough and the PLO look weak. Are you suggesting he was? cos that would be rather silly, getting killed in a ‘rescue’ attempt that you helped set up to make yourself look good. Are you suggesting Bibi’s Bro was really that inept?
but ‘Bibi’ wasn’t Bibi back in 76 – so the death of his brother in those circumstances would not have had the political significance it would have now, were the events to occur now
Bibi was but a lowly ex-IDF-Captain living in the US studying for a BS degree in 76- and I guess it was from his point of view time well spent, because from what we’ve seen both he and you excel at the BS
i remember when going to rabbi steven wise’s central synagogue sunday(or sat.)school in nyc in the 50′s, haganah members from israel were brought in to lecture us on just that theme, that israel, especially by defeating the arabs, had overcome the”shame” of the holocaust, that we jews had become warriors, and no one would ever be able to treat us that way again.
The spiritual hole created by 1941-1945 in Europe will not disappear any time soon. Think of the spiritual hole created by 1492, filled by Luria and his mysticism, leading to Shabtai Zevi and his false messiah movement- that’s 174 years from 1492 to 1666. Of course things are sped up in the 2010′s, but still it will take some time to fill the spiritual hole.
Question to Phil, How can a Christmas tree Jew help the Jews fill their spiritual hole? By convincing them to follow you down the path of assimilation? Doesn’t sound like a spiritual hole being filled, sounds like a spiritual hole being avoided.
how does the “mysticism” of the grest isaak luria lead to shabbatai zevi? it was the “mysticism” of luria that led to the greatest spiritual movement in judaism the hassidism of israel ben eleazer, the baal shem tov, which came about in opposition to, as a true spiritual answer to sabbatai zevi,. and how is modern “israel” anything other than a false messianic movement, and worse, an idol… a soul-devouring idol…
guernica- Shabtai Zevi was a specific use of Lurianic mysticism (see Gershon Sholem’s biography of Zevi) quite conceivably a misuse. Most people see Hasidism’s innovation (vis a vis Shabtai Zevi) to be its non Messianic emphasis. (leaving ultimate redemption in the hands of God and concentrating on individual and group redemption). As far as Zionism, I’ll leave that for a future discussion.
it was a misuse. the nazis also had mystical beliefs….the misuse, does not negate luria’s work. you don’t make a specific use out of something like luria and the cabbalah which are at some level revelation, together with actual practices… the proof is in the b’aal shem tov and his successors…. the crusaders and the teutonic knights made “specific use” of the christian revelation…it has nothing to do with jacob boehm or meister eckhardt, with jesus himself and the truth of their revelation and teaching. the hasidism of the b’aal shem tov was not an “innovation “…it can be described academically, but in the case of true spiritual experience and practice, to do so is meaningless and foolish…”spiritual holes” are happening every moment…AND THEY HAPPEN INSIDE OF US, OURSELVES.
I don’t wish to be indelicate, but I have to ask.
What is a spiritual hole, and what sort of thing fills it?
>> What is a spiritual hole, and what sort of thing fills it?
A spiritual hole sounds like one of those tribal-bonding things humans create to ensure that:
- people remain miserable;
and, given that misery loves company,
- they remain miserable *together*.
If it weren’t for religions and spiritual holes, people might just go happily about their business, enjoying their earthly lives (the only lives anyone can prove we actually have) and the company of all humans, not just their miserable, hole-riddled “co-collectivists”.
The most recent article on the suject appears to indicate that “manliness” fills spiritual holes.
(Note: Since I’ve never actually been afflicted with “spiritual hole”, I could be mistaken about all this. :-) )
“The most recent article on the suject appears to indicate that “manliness” fills spiritual holes.”
Oh dear. I was trying not to be indelicate.
“The spiritual hole created by 1941-1945 in Europe…”
1941? 1939 I could understand, even 1933 (heck, with Wannsee, I could even see 1942). But 1941? Yes, Barbarossa was major (in fact, in my mind, June 22, 1941 is one of the top 5 most historical days in all of history) but the Einsatzgruppen were in action for two years by that point. What am I missing here?
Woody Tanaka- 1941 was the beginning of Operation Barbarossa and the mass killings in USSR. This is when the final solution made the subtle transition from idea (or haphazard nonsolution) to actual process. “Bloodlands” by Timothy Snyder was what inspired me to pick that year.
wandering jew:
Fair enough. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with Snyder, given the free range of operations the Einsatzgruppen were given in Poland before ’41, but I do see what he is suggesting.
“Question to Phil, How can a Christmas tree Jew help the Jews fill their spiritual hole?”
Why do you have this obsession with Christmas trees? Were you attacked by Christmas trees as a child? Sure, they’re scary, but they can’t hurt you, honest. Try and be brave, Wondering Jew, and imagine the Christmas tree is a Palestinian farmer, no better still, just tell yourself it’s a Palestinian olive tree. Sorry, I forgot, those scare the hell out of you, don’t they.
“sounds like a spiritual hole being avoided.”
No avoiding for you, Wondering Jew. You step right in it, every time.