“Step by step the longest march can be won …”
-- A song I remember from my United Methodist Sunday school
Congregants gather outside the Church of Saint Porphyrius, Gaza, Palestine (Photo: Joe Catron)
What would Jesus do? He would not walk up into the temple and feast with the corrupt suits. #ChurchDivest
— RAGING Palestinian (@PalestineRAGE) May 2, 2012
It says a lot about Israel’s declining status, and the rising influence of Palestinian-led civil society efforts to demand accountability for its crimes, that a boycott measure like the one United Methodists adopted at their General Conference 2012 this week could pass a major church body in the United States with minimal notice. The Palestinian BDS National Committee sifts its points of practical consequence:
The General Conference of the United Methodist Church decided yesterday to call for an explicit boycott of all Israeli companies “operating in the occupied Palestinian territories,” knowing that this constitutes the absolute majority of Israeli corporations. This and the overwhelming support for the “Kairos Palestine” document and its call “for an end to military occupation and human rights violations through nonviolent actions,” which include boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), will pave the way forward for further action by the Church to hold Israel accountable for its colonial and apartheid regime.
#GC2012. Christianity isabout love to your fellow human beings, but the Israeli apartheid is all about hate. #ChurchDivest
— Leehee Rothschild (@leehee_r) May 2, 2012
Of course a majority of conference delegates voted to refuse divestment from military contractors bearing directly responsibility for atrocities against Palestinians. In doing so, they effectively absolved themselves of responsibility for implementing the very principles they had embraced only moments before. This decision was simply shameful, rejecting the liberatory essence of the Wesleyan tradition, the contemporary church, historical Christianity, and Biblical instruction, as well as direct appeals from fellow Christians and other Palestinians living under apartheid. Future generations of Methodists will, I believe, count it alongside infamous votes on slavery as a stain on the annals of their denomination. (It was also exactly what one might expect from the leaders of a church.)
Does the Church vote with the Image of God in mind? NO #Churchdivest #BDS Jesus would weap.. :-( - #gc2012 live on gc2012.umc.org
— ThePalestinianOlive (@HopefulOlive) May 2, 2012
Nevertheless, the Tampa Convention Center was a site of victory. The forces of liberation, freedom, and justice claimed territory; colonialism, occupation, and apartheid were forced into retreat. Not only did outrage from the pews force leaders of the United States’ third-largest religious organization to endorse boycotts of Israel’s colonial expansion, it also pushed the denomination into an untenable position. The rejected divestment resolution had been carefully entitled “Aligning United Methodist Investments with Resolutions on Israel/Palestine.” Today, the church’s investments are less aligned with its resolutions than ever. This institutionalized hypocrisy will haunt it over the four years until its next General Conference.
I'd respect those who flagrantly support Israel's colonization than those who "condemn" it. #GC2012 #ChurchDivest
— Rana B. Baker (@RanaGaza) May 2, 2012
James M. Wall has analyzed the strategy behind the two resolutions:
The United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, which [anti-segregation layman W. Astor] Kirk once directed, and which is now under the direction of Dr. Jim Winkler, came to the 2012 Conference armed with resolutions from six difference annual conferences. They came prepared.
These UMC anti-occupation leaders coupled a boycott resolution that lacked specificity, with a divestment resolution that named names. They hoped to win on both resolutions, but they knew they could lose one or both.
The boycott resolution passed, while the divestment resolution lost. But the open discussion that followed the introduction of both resolutions exposed the issue to the wider church and to the secular public in ways that Israel does not appreciate.
None of this is really a political debate over money. It is a media war with a moral bite, a public image struggle which Israel is desperate to win and which they most certainly lost in Tampa, in spite of all the spinning by Israel’s US allies.
Gloating from relieved Zionists, and dejection by crestfallen supporters of Palestinian rights and aspirations, over Wednesday’s votes only make sense as products of an assumption that we are winning, while they are losing. The question in Tampa was how much power would shift; the answer, it seems, was less than we had hoped and they had feared. Surely the emergence of this consensus also deserves our celebration, no less than our concrete gains at the General Conference!
The best way to invest in Palestine is to divest from occupation #gc2012 #churchdivest
— Yousef M. Aljamal (@YousefAljamal) May 1, 2012
Meanwhile eight of the church’s Annual Conferences, along with two affiliated organizations, have divested from their own holdings in occupation profiteers. Momentum has built for other divestment initiatives, including those of the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Canada. And thousands, if not millions, of United Methodists and others have gained new insight into Israel apartheid, understanding of the lives of Christians and other Palestinians struggling under it, and knowledge of the BDS movement against it.
You can tell who's speaking from the heart and who's just a politician #gc2012 #methodist #churchdivest
— Yasmin Hamidi (@yazham) May 2, 2012
For all of this, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude and respect to the activists and delegates who fought the ground war in Tampa, struggling for every last inch they could take, making action inevitable. Their Web pages and articles informed us, their tweets updated us, their pictures encouraged us, and a few of them delivered what must certainly have ranked among the most inspiring speeches of any Annual Conference – not to mention the countless tasks that weren’t apparent thousands of miles away! I thank them, and hope to be there with them next time. “You are the light of the world.”
The Christian Zionist discourse is being challenged passionately... Things are changing, the tide is changing. #gc2012 #churchdivest
— Danya دانية (@Dizzanya) May 2, 2012
I can’t seem to get worked up about the Methodists backing the brutal Zionist regime. They’ve also shown themselves to be anti-gay bigots this week. Does anyone expect better from American Christians?
“Does anyone expect better from American Christians?” Nope but I had hoped.
The huge contradictions between what the Catholic church and its Reps said and what they did was one of the big reasons I left the CC 42 years ago. Not sure how people can align themselves with any Jewish, Christian, Muslim religious groups with all of the very serious contradictions.
Those Methodist prayers I heard on the floor of their convention sounded wonderful. But as the one young Methodist woman who stood up and said “stop hiding behind pretty rhetoric” Summarized that vote
“Does anyone expect better from American Christians?”
Oh Woody, go easy on them. Their daughters often make excellent wives (twice, in my particular case) once you get their heads screwed back on right.
And mine is a real penny-pincher, a regular “second-hand Rose”. A drunkard’s dream, if I ever did see one.
Mooser: ‘And mine is a real penny-pincher, a regular “second-hand Rose”’
Uh oh, sounds like trouble Moose. Has she set spending limits on your trips to Guitar Center?
So, Mooser, do the daughters of American Jews also make excellent wives? Or should I ask somebody else, maybe Philip Roth? Wait a minute, I should know–in my experience, great cooks! Penny-pinchers too! Go that extra mile for you, literally, even if you don’t deserve it. Of course my experience with wives is more limited than yours.
@ Woody Tanaka,
How many people have come to your door and tried to convince you to believe in nothing?
We both know the answer.
Daniel Rich, I love your comment!
I agree with those who say that BDS activity, today, which is merely at a “civil society” level, is mostly about education — not about economic clout.
It is possible, too, that the BDS-lite (OPTs only BDS) that some favor (Methodists, Beinart, MJR) is JUST AS GOOD (although my gut tells me it is not) as Total-BDS (all Israel institutions, culture, sport, diplomacy, transport) because it has the same educational value as total-BDS without carrying the baggage (for the timid) of appearing to threaten Israel with some unnamed horror of delegitimization or destruction.
One of the comments above said that MOST Israeli companies are involved with OPTs. If this is so — how would the world know? — how would BDS-ers know which products should be boycotted and which not? (This is one, but only one, reason why I favor Total-BDS).
Great-total BDS it is!!! Should we as Israelis to stop supplying goods to Gaza and PA? Let the hunger games begin!
Very disturbed psyche. Goes with being a zionist no doubt.
“Should we as Israelis to stop supplying goods to Gaza and PA? Let the hunger games begin!”
Spoken like a true Israeli: taking pleasure in causing the death of innocent children.
his racism and lust for this idea is palatable for him isn’t it.
It’s his way of compensating for the fact the IDF are a pack of impotent, overweight, stoned Dough Boys who’s idea of armed conflict is manning a check point while sending Tweets.
Oh sweet Annie, please do not put the words in my mouth-I’m still capable of speaking for myself. There is no lust or racism here, the use of these words here make no sense at all. You and your comrades here lay down the righteous path for Israel to leave Palestinians alone, while arguing for the total BSD of any Israeli goods, cultural, scientific and tourism exchange. In your fury over the plight of poor Palestinians you seem to forget that ALL their livelihood depends on Israel. So far no country in the world has no ability to help them on their path to statehood except Israel. No Jordan, Egypt, Syria or anyone else can help on that. The have so much of their own problems now.
You and your comrades here lay down the righteous path for Israel to leave Palestinians alone, while arguing for the total BSD of any Israeli goods, cultural, scientific and tourism exchange.
Nice trye Dim, but that’s uneblievbably lame. If Israel were to leave Palestinians alone, there would be no basis for BDS. In fact, BDS would simply run out of support.
In your fury over the plight of poor Palestinians you seem to forget that ALL their livelihood depends on Israel.
In your fury over the supermacy of Israel, you seem to forget that Israel’s livelihood depends entirely on foreign aid and internationa tarde – all of whch could be cut overnight.
That’s becasue Israel stands in their way and refuses to let them ie. blockade
>> Should we as Israelis to stop supplying goods to Gaza and PA?
Yes.
But first, and more importantly, the Glorious Jewish State should halt its 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder, and it should remove itself back to within 1967 borders.*
The Glorious Jewish State of Greater Israel has the power to do all of these things immediately and completely…but it chooses not to.
(*I’d add that the Glorious Jewish State of Greater Israel should also enter into sincere negotiations for a just and mutually-beneficial peace, but – as with asking the rapist to stop raping AND to apologize for what he’s done – it seems that that might just be asking for too much.)
Careful dimadok, your claws are showing. Do you really want people of the world to know how deranged and toxic you ziobots are?
The short answer to your question is YES.
The fact is Palestinians in their ghetto pay for everything that Israel “supplies” to the West Bank and Gaza, and often at inflated prices.
Meanwhile, Israel steals vast amounts of water from the aquifer under the West Bank and pipes it to Israel proper (and the settlements), while several hundred thousand Palestinians in Area C have no piped water and get by on as little as 15-20 litres a day/person, settlers nearby consume 300+ litres a day/person. AND, Israel sells Palestinians their own water. Disgusting.
Israel has created one large [literally] captive market in the occupied territories; through controlling the borders they control and deliberately crush Palestine’s economy. Here is Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat on Sky News a few years ago, he gives a breakdown of average annual incomes for comparison starting at 2:30:
• jews in Jerusalem: $16,000
• jews in Israel: $24,000
• arabs in Jerusalem: $4,000
• arabs in West Bank: $800
This poverty exists for one reason only: because Israel wants to make life as unpleasant for Palestinians as possible so they leave. Too bad for Israel that Palestinians have so much devotion to their homeland.
What is the percentage of taxes payed by the Palestinians vs. Jews in Jerusalem- 20% vs 72 %.
You mean like you’ve been fmdoing for over a decade you dolt?
Sure dimadok, you like America’s total BDS of Iran, don’t you? Why, that includes messing with Iran’s central banking even! And how about apartheid S Africa back in the day? You liked that too, yes?
@ pabelmont,
The only language a bully understands is brute force. You don’t talk, you kick ‘m in the nuts and smash his windpipe. Not advocating violence here, but Israel has to be hit were it hurts and imho that’s finance/money/export/etc.
Daniel Rich, not to mention Israel’s former great moral brand name, eh? I mean, hell, the current bad image might even one day infect Hollywood!
Just to point that many have tried, including the Palestinians, but failed. Maybe talking and working together will help, but if you like to “smash my windpipe”-please come over.
I am not sure if “defeat” and “victory” are good categories here. I guess “a measure of progress” is a better one.
The situation on the ground that activism is addressing is affected by Israeli mentality as small nation (tribe if you will) with “chip on the shoulder”. Basically, they do what they can get away with. From that perspective, Israel is not unique only in what it can get away with. Subjected to sanctions like those imposed on Iran it would change policies in 10 minutes. (For that matter, Iran would change nuclear program in 10 minutes, but USA would like to make them change WITHOUT dropping sanctions, and even the mightest power cannot achieve goals if they are self-contradictory, an Earthly power cannot change rules of logic).
Thus a lot of progress is achieved just by raising the issue. Formal measures of success help too, because they affect “common wisdom”, and clearly, at the start it is not crucial which resolution was adopted. The strategy of “Israel-firsters” is to isolate, marginalize and criminalize for a good measure. Fences, dams and walls. A crack in a wall is not “victory”, but a clear mark of progress.
@ piotr,
Q: I guess “a measure of progress” is a better one.
R: I fully agree.
I suggest reading the full text before calling this either a victory or a boycott. All they do is call for their members to “read and study” the Kairos document and “take up its call for non-violent action”. Non-violent action is a vague term and doesn’t have to mean a boycott. They commend a report that calls for boycott of goods emanating from the settlements (not all companies doing business with the settlements), without actually calling for one themselves. They also explicitly say they aren’t calling for a boycott of products made in Israel.
This toothless resolution means nothing and changes nothing, which is why the Israelis and their supporters are celebrating. It is designed to make it look as though they are doing something without actually doing anything.
“They also explicitly say they aren’t calling for a boycott of products made in Israel.”
Which is the problem. If they were true to their creed, they would boycott not only the colonies built on stolen lives and land (the so-called “settlements”), but the Israelis who make those colonies possible, as well as those around the world who support either. A businessman in New York or Sydney who supports the colonies or Israel, for that matter, should be boycotted no less than the colonies themselves.
That doesn’t go far enough. You also need to boycott all companies doing business with Israel, and all companies doing business with them, and all companies doing business with them, and the ones doing business with them. And all countries doing business with any of them. That probably takes care of most of the companies in the world so you’d better go live as a hermit.
Your reductio ad absurdum is exactly why it is proper to limit it to those who are committing the crime and those who are directly supporting it which, in this case, are the settler colonials, and their enablers and supporters in Israel and elsewhere who support them and Israel, without whom the colonial project falls apart.
As was the case with apartheid South Africa, and I see PW has just done an article on that right here, it took decades for sanctions to work and we all know what happened in the end.
Just out of curiosity-how old are you Woody? The terms such as “colonial” are very much 50′s or 60′s of the last century.
“That doesn’t go far enough. You also need to boycott all companies doing business with Israel, and all companies doing business with them, and all companies doing business with them, and the ones doing business with them.”
What a wonderful thing to read first thing in the morning. I knew you would see the light one day, Ferdblogs.
“That probably takes care of most of the companies in the world so you’d better go live as a hermit”
Realistically Fred, Israel could disappear tomorrow and there wouldn’t be blip in the world economy. All you would see is other suppliers in other countries take the place of whatever Israel provides. This is the case with most small countries simply because of the globalized economy….it can skip right over a country because all the eggs of world production and economics are not in one basket. We have many times here illustrated this when we get the claims about…..”no one would have a computer if not for Israel stuff’. Intel and Microsoft, the companies Israel’s tech sector is based on for instance, operate plants and research facilities in more than 65 countries around the world…if they shut down in Israel, no problem , it shifts to another plant or facility to take up the slack. If Israel’s generic drug industry dropped out, India who has an even bigger one, gets a bigger share of the market and richer. Israel just doesn’t have unique products or resources to offer than the world can’t get elsewhere. In today’s global economy critical raw material suppliers, countries that are major importers of those materials and goods, and the world’s food suppliers ‘are’ the ultimate economic rulers. Israel is not any of those. If the world shut the door on Israel it would only hurt Israel. That’s the plain truth, hasbara, if that’s where you get your stuff, isn’t telling you.
“Just out of curiosity-how old are you Woody?”
I’m ageless.
“The terms such as ‘colonial’ are very much 50′s or 60′s of the last century.”
No, it’s a term still very much today when you’re talking about the imperial projects, such as that of the European Jews.
You haven’t heard much of the term “colony” since the decolonizations in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s because the world, thankfully, swept away those anti-human imperial abominations, with a few exceptions, such as the atrocity called “Israel” and its subsidiary colonies in the West Bank.
“I’m ageless.”
Younger than springtime, are you, Woody!
You, know, I’ve never seen anyone say “no one would have a computer if not for Israel”. Just that if you are going to boycott, you are going to have trouble finding a computer or phone that doesn’t have chips that trace back to Israel. But hey, if you want the standard to be “no boycotts of anything that you could get from elsewhere if Israel hadn’t done it”, then I’m right there with you, since that means no boycott of any Israeli goods.
“Just that if you are going to boycott, you are going to have trouble finding a computer or phone that doesn’t have chips that trace back to Israel.”
Point being, if enough people personally boycott “chips that trace back to Israel” the marginal and decidedly preferential (imposed qualitative) business decisions to locate in Israel will become decisions to locate elsewhere.
What’s done is done, but what isn’t done becomes a consideration.
In Fredblogs private universe the world wouldn’t have computers without chips developed in Israel, because the world decided that either Israel develops them or the world abandons scientific progress.
Maybe that’s the reason why Zionists didn’t join the Jewish boycott of Nazi Germany after Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press.
And Israeli expansionism is very much 19th century.
“Just that if you are going to boycott, you are going to have trouble finding a computer or phone that doesn’t have chips that trace back to Israel.”
link to cnn.com
Please, Fred, give up that silly hasbara shtick about computer chips. Its just incredibly stupid as well as untrue.
I watched one of those hasbara videos last night. Don’t buy a mobile phone or a laptop because they were all designed in Israel.
Absolute BS.
Methuselah, age 4,789, Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) Inyo County, California, United States Oldest currently living tree.
Does it mean that Woody sprouted in 987 Anno Mundi?
Mmmm, Fredblogs, that sure has not stopped the US government from BDS in every way they can Iran. Maybe you know something it does not?
@fredblogs: Let’s face it the fact that they even discussed it shows progress as this was NEVER discussed before in 64 years and brought up an agenda that was for so long ignored. Justice is coming. Time is not on your side.
Actually, it’s been voted down by the Methodists and the Presbyterians before. Actually got voted up once in 2004 by the Presbyterians apparently, then down 95% to 5% in 2006.
link to divestthis.com
So they do have a lot of blood on their hands then.
re: “Time is not on your side”. That’s what Pharaoh said. And Haman, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Torquemada, and… and… and… throughout history. Guess who is still here, and who isn’t.
Zionism is but 200 years old if that fredblogs. You make it sound as if it has outlived all and sundry. It is obvious that soon Zionism will enter into Trotsky’s “ashcan” of history along with every other nationalistic “ism” that has plagued humankind during the 20th century: Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc
Nice touch.
“That’s what Pharaoh said. And Haman, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Torquemada,…”
Well, I’ll give you credit, Fredo, for finding a new way to accuse someone of antisemitism. It’s still you licking the bottom of the barrel, but it is creative.
“Guess who is still here, and who isn’t.”
Well, any individuals that the Pharaoh, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar and Torquemada are as dead as they are. Their descendants and the descendants of their people are as alive as the Jews. What’s your point?
not anywhere near 200 years blake. barely past 100.
That should have read: “Well, any individuals that the Pharaoh, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar and Torquemada actually dealt with are as dead as they are.”
Darn it, why isn’t there an “edit” button. Oh, wait, there is.
Darn it, why didn’t I hit the “edit” button.
Actually, that one had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Just about people who thought that “time is not on your side” about the Jews.
Their descendants are alive, so are the descendants of most peoples that no longer exist as a people. Their cultures are gone and (for the older ones) the gods they worshiped are no longer worshiped. The Ancient Egyptians are gone as a people, their culture, gone. The land is still there, and the Arabs who have moved in like to think of themselves as the same people, but that is out of historical ignorance. The Babylonian culture? Gone. The Amelekites (Haman was one of them). Gone. Empires and countries go to dust, the Jews endure as a people. As for the more recent ones, like Torquemada, how’s that inquisition doing?
Even if you and yours manage to destroy Israel as a country, we will go on.
“Guess who is still here, and who isn’t.”
Geez Ferdblahs, I knew you showed every indication of senility, but I had no idea you were that old! Was it hard for you during the war, Fredblogs? Was it hard for you?
And to think that you defeated all those terrible anti-semites with your very own hands!! Where did you get all the energies to defend us Jews through all those centuries? From some kind of super-borscht or something?
ALL HAIL FREDBLOGS, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE JEWS!!!!!
Moses is dead (if he ever existed)
Joshua is dead (if he ever existed)
Mordechai is dead (if he ever existed)
Esther is dead (if she ever existed)
Judah Halevey is dead
Jabotinsky is dead
Sharon is mostly dead
Benzion Netanyahu father of GWOT is dead
I am alive and my words bear witness to the evil deeds of Joshua, Mordechai, Esther, Jabotinsky, Sharon, Netanyahu.
when drilled down to its core, the demand that Methodists divest from three companies that do business rests on a fundamental conundrum of Christianity: Is Christianity REALLY based on old testament, or not?
I’m in Marcion’s camp: if we stipulate that Jesus was a real person (it’s not historically certain), it’s nowhere certain that he was of Jewish paternity, and in the era he was said to have lived, Jewishness was patrilineal. It is equally possible that Jesus’ father was Roman, Persian, German, Turk, Greek. Ergo, Christianity is sui generis; its roots are in Jesus, not in Hebrew scriptures.
Christians end up in cognitive dissonance as they attempt to live by both Hebrew scriptures — ‘god gave THIS land to JEWS alone’ and ‘god chose Jews alone’ and a Christianity based on Jesus — god is the god of all, and one’s moral obligations — agape — are to all humans, etc.
Much of OT is political — the acts of Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Mordechai, Esther and surely Herzl, Weizmann, Jabotinsky, Netanyahu were POLITICAL acts — having to do with “Caesar” not god; they had little spiritual or moral content — little to do with a universal god. How could a universal god command that one of his sons slaughter another of his sons?
Christians, esp. evangelical Christians, worship the bible, a false god if ever there was one, — equally ‘false’ as Protocols of Zion — not a creator god and not the principles of Jesus.
The 1200 rabbis played rope-a-dope with the cognitive dissonance of Christians, simultaneously demanding that Christians employ Jesusian principles of love while endorsing the rabbis’ exclusivist political claim.
but that is out of historical ignorance
Fred,
In your triumphalist zeal, you’ve included one culture that probably never existed (and an individual member who almost certainly never existed), and another that is still going strong, although its attitude to heretics has softened considerably in recent centuries.
Besides, as Israel’s eternal nemesis, Amalek will (by definition) continue to exist for as long as Jewish culture or parts of Jewish culture preserves the concept.
fredblogs:Palestinian parent tree goes back to the Canaanites long before Israelites invaded, to whom the current “state of Israel” has no continuity with anyway. Time is measured in centuries in the Middle east not years and months.
Not that we should take the story of Israelite invasion at prosaic face value – see Oxford History of Biblical World and in a somewhat different vein Freud’s Moses and Monotheism. It ((Joshua etc.) is a great theological essay but even in that respect it should be treated critically or at least reflectively. If the Israelites behaved as represented then they would in some ways have deserved to be hated. Some further act of understanding and reconciliation is called for – something that the poets who wrote the story meant to convey, I think.
Meanwhile it is generally thought that the first reference to ‘Israel’ is in the 1205 BCE Stela of Merneptah, the first reference to ‘Palestinians’ in the Egyptian record of the ‘Sea Peoples’, dated to around 1175. 30 years is not much of a gap.
“Israel” was mentioned once and never again!
In Ancient Egypt, Canaan Revisited Without Israel:
The only time Israel was mentioned in the ancient Egyptian texts, the most meticulous and coherent of the world’s ancient civilizations and which covered the chronicles of nearly 3000 years, was in Merneptah Stele, a black granite slab engraved with a description of the victories of king Merneptah- son of the great Ramses II- in a military campaign against the Meshwesh Libyans and their Sea People allies, but its final two lines, line 26 & 27, refer to a prior military campaign in Canaan in the Near East.
The Merneptah Stele which dates to about 1208 BC was discovered by renowned British archaeologist Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896. The Inscription contains a hymn and a list of the Pharaoh’s military victories. A tribe, whom Merenptah had victoriously smitten”I.si.ri.ar?”Or as Petrie quickly suggested that it read: “Israel!” is on the list of conquests. The mention of Israel is very short; it simply says, “Israel is laid waste, its seed is no more.”
link to veteranstoday.com
@AllenBee
The point is, the Jewish culture survived and all of theirs died out. You really think you are clever pointing out that the individual people are dead? Did you think you were the only one who knew that?
Wrong. If there was any such thing as Jewish culture, then the Jews from the Arab states would have also shared that culture in the early 1900s. Ben Gurion pointed out that was not the case. The Arab Jews shared no common culture with the European immigrants.
Fred habibi
The Jewish people endure. But their states don’t.
Where was Israel in 1600? Somewhere east of Grozno.
Fredblogs wrote:
“The point is, the Jewish culture survived and all of theirs died out.”
1. WHICH ‘Jewish culture’ survived? David Biale, along with David Ruderman & Isaiah Gafney who teach from Biale’s text, describe numerous ‘Jewish cultures,’ defined by where Jews dwelt at the time.
2. you wrote: “That’s what Pharaoh said. And Haman, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Torquemada, and… and… and… throughout history. Guess who is still here, and who isn’t.”
Take another look at the map, fred.
Pharaoh led Egypt. Egypt is still alive and celebrating Egyptian culture. Pyramids anyone?
Haman was (in fable) prime minister of Persia. Persian culture is very much alive. The library system in my city celebrated NowRooz.
Nebuchadnezzar — ya got me on that one; Baghdad has been reduced to rubble.
Torquemada — which one, the Catholic Cardinal, the Dominican monk who was active during Spanish Inquisition? Both are Spaniards, representatives of some aspect of Spanish Catholic culture, which is still very much alive and celebrated on the Iberian peninsula, in Spanish South and Central America, and increasingly in North America. Ring them Taco Bells.
You are wrong on the facts — on pretty obvious facts at that.
Your parents and teachers have been brainwashed by hasbara central and have passed the nonsense on to you, fredblogs; recall that great line from Primal Fear: “If your mother says she loves you, get a second opinion.”
Israelites were/are not modern day Jews fredblogs. Well very few of them anyway, the ones that never left the holyland or converted to Islam/Christianity.
I think that as Christians, Methodist should believe that God truly promised a land to the Jews, but that old law given to Jews has no importance after the Good Message of Jesus Christ.
You can eat shrimp, drink mare’s milk, wear garments made of mixed thread and you do not have to worship in the Jerusalem Temple.
“Their cultures are gone and (for the older ones) the gods they worshiped are no longer worshiped.”
No, Fredo, their cultures changed, just as Jewish did. Modern Jewish culture does not resemble anything like what it did even 1,000 years ago. (Hell, even 200 years ago.)
No cultures exist in stasis. They all change, including yours. That’s the point. You and those of a like mind, like to point to the continued existance of the Jews as a people as some type of sign, but the fact of the matter is that that is the expected outcome. Nothing special at all about it.
“The Ancient Egyptians are gone as a people, their culture, gone. The land is still there, and the Arabs who have moved in like to think of themselves as the same people, but that is out of historical ignorance.”
You are flat out wrong. Genetically, the Egyptian population is what one would expect from a people living where they are. They are a primarily North African people, with admixtures from various Asian, European and MidEastern populations, consistent with its’ history as a travel and trading center. The culture is not the same as it was in the days of Pharaohic Egypt, of course, but none of the world’s cultures have withstood change for even a small percentage of that time, including Jewish culture.
Your attempts at self-aggrandizement is simply unhistoric and rather pathetic.
“The Babylonian culture? Gone.”
False. Changed.
“The Amelekites (Haman was one of them). Gone.”
Fictional, by all accounts. Never existed, but in myth.
“Empires and countries go to dust, the Jews endure as a people.”
Again, false comparison. The people who made up those “empires and countries” endure not differently as the Jews have.
“As for the more recent ones, like Torquemada, how’s that inquisition doing?”
The Catholic Church still exists, as does Torquemada’s office. Under a different name, of course.
After Peter had the vision that the ceremonial law concerning clean and unclean foods no longer applied, here was his application:
So, as Christians, not only should we note that we are not under the Law but also why. Namely, God cares about people more than what we eat. Furthermore, God cares about all people and not just some chosen few. If God cares then our attitude should be Peter’s:
“So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”
Well, the jews are still here, but during most the stretch of time you’ve mentioned, Fredblogs, there was no existing Israel state or kingdom, etc. If you want to look at world history over long stretch, it does not favor the current state of Israel. It does favor the current continued existence of a jewish community, no matter where…
I think, piotr, that the 3 Abrahamic religions as crystalized in the Establishment in all states affected, are a net bane to humane existence on this planet; my opinion also covers other religions, but presently those three are most influential for practical power reasons.
Agreed. It’s forward movement. When the “stolid, middle of the road” Methodist Church thinks this is a significant issue, it’s progress.
@ Fredblogs,
What would you have said during the Titanic’s final moments?
Nobody cares about the iceberg; everyone focuses on the ship?
Israel’s losing steam ever faster, fortunately for you, the shadows in the cave are mystifying and shrouded in hasbara fog.
Nobody cares about the iceberg; everyone focuses on the ship?
lol, that caught me by surprise. that’s our fred!
Hi Annie,
Sometimes I feel like the alien in this clip, when some individuals open their mouth @ link to youtube.com
The most famous poem about the Titanic, Thomas Hardy’s ‘Convergence of the Twain’, does pay attention both to the ship and to the iceberg, the two very different things destined to meet.
thanks for the video daniel. ;)
The problem for Israel and Zionists supporters, is that once you understand the history, when you smear away all the greasy hasbara and subterfuge, it’s a criminal operation that the US should be against.
At this point, in the history of the world, Israel is fighting for tiny gains in their continued occupation.
They can survive with their 67 borders, but they love to cheat the system – hiding behind the legs of the US political and military machine. I’m surprised that many more Zionists are not embarrassed by what is happening today. It’s so bizarre how it all is undetected by average monkey in the US.
“The problem for Israel and Zionists supporters, is that once you understand the history, when you smear away all the greasy hasbara and subterfuge, it’s a criminal operation that the US should be against.”
And the crimes committed in Israel, as they were in so many other places, have no particular religious identification. Or rather, will take on any religious coloration to obscure the crime. But wow, did they hit the bullseye when they decided to use the Jews.
But then again, considering the awful centuries of segregation, persecution, and all heaped on a cohort which was unable to unite itself in the best of times, and culminating in one of the most atrocious crimes in the modern age, the Nazi Holocaust, who on earth can expect us to make any kind of reasoned political decisions? But of course, having the choice of “everybody hurts us and pushes us around” and “we are a healthy, united people without serious issues establishing our self-self determination” at any time given the situation is the best of both worlds.
Mooser, have you been drinking? Your comment is awfully fuzzy. But, an Evanston, Ill Rabbi says here’s why the Methodist Conference was a net gain for the forces of a better humanity: link to rabbibrant.com