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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
I'm saying that these countries profiling of Jews doesn't really mean anything. Some Israelis do go to Dubai, fair enough.
Israel will probably decry this as evidence of intractable Arab anti-semitism. Of course, Jews as a whole shouldn't be profiled, but how many American Jews are jumping up and down to visit Lebanon and the UAE?
I've made this point before in a couple of comments. I just don't think the Israel lobby is going to make it when the under-30 generation takes over the reigns. I went to a university that is around 30% Jewish and I could count the number of people who really cared and wanted to participate in the Israel lobby on one hand.
To play devil's advocate, do you guys really want a comments section where everyone agrees except for two or three dumb trolls? I'm not saying agree with Mr. Witty, just that I'd rather see debate here rather than groupthink (even if I agree with the majority).
The OR Books website itself says the book is "available only from OR Books directly, not in stores." I think this is just a publishing tactic; their other book, Going Rouge, was eventually released to Amazon and other outlets.
Well well, Yonira is calling for more massacres. What does this say about him?
Israel claims to do what it do in defense of Jews as a people, not of Judaism. Rabin's wife Leah said she would rather have her children be Arabs than Orthodox Jews. Why should Israel's crimes be blamed on Jews as a whole? Less than half of the world's Jews are Israeli and the vast majority of American Jews have no real connection to Israel.
What I like most about that post, aside from the revealing that Israel's supporters want to target children, was how A.S. just demonstrated how disconnected Israel's supporters have become. I've met many Zionists (mostly Jewish) who truly believe there are no Israeli bad guys, the IDF never kills civilians, Israelis never celebrate civilian massacres, etc. Obviously they've never been to Baruch Goldstein's grave.
This fantasyland view of Israel needs to stop, first and foremost among American Jews who often seem most afflicted by it.
Is there genocide in Palestine? Possibly. Evil, racist, you could call it anything. But stories like those Anees mentions get the point across better than slogans.
If this really happens, it could be a watershed moment. Here's to hoping.
"I believed Shlomo Ben-Ami when I heard him say that American Jews are the greatest obstacle to peace in Palestine. It seems that the most whacked out US Jews funnel huge amounts of support via elected representatives and projects for Eretz Israel. It seems like a form of mass hysteria."
I am an American Jew, have worked in two synagogues and I believe that you and Avi are absolutely right.
This is already common knowledge, but the mere name Podhoretz infuriates me...he's kind of a singular representation of most of the wrong tendencies of the American Jewish community.
The other scary thing about this is that if Israel is the collective Jew, all Jews are potential targets. That means that bombing a synagogue in Paris or New York becomes justified if Israel does something that people don't like. It essentially says there are no civilians in a conflict, so everyone is a target. What better way to fuel terrorism?
I agree with you that Zionism is becoming (has become?) the secular religion of Jews, but the idea that the U.S. is using them to advance its interests I think is wrong. I also think it is wrong to look at Israel as the collective Jew when less that half of the Jews live there and only a very small minority give real support (money or lobbying) to Israel in the U.S. and Canada. Not to mention there are anti-Zionist Jews.
I also don't agree with your analogy regarding Jewish middlemen and gentile peasants. Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold War when Soviet-backed Nasserism was prominent in the Arab world and Iran was pro-Western. This situation is no longer the truth. Israel is a millstone; U.S. interests in the Mid-East are about oil, hegemony, containing or stopping Iran from going nuclear, and prevention of terrorism. Israel hurts U.S. attempts to do any of these things. I no longer buy the argument that Israel is the American spearhead in the M.E., I think that the power of the Israel lobby is getting the U.S. to support Israel beyond its interests.
You and Danaa make great points. But to an Israeli or a Zionist it is destruction to end Israel as it is and create one state, regardless of the term one-staters use or promises they make. One of the fundamental tenets of Zionism is that Jews can never live in peace with others without a Jewish state. If you truly believe this, the next two logical conclusions are "Without a Jewish state, Jews will be destroyed" and "anything that might lead to the end of Israel, i.e. criticism, is anti-Semitism." These are completely distorted attitudes, but pretty much every committed Zionist I ever met holds them deeply.
The Jewish-only roads, the settlements, the privileging of Jews in Israel need to cease to exist in order for a just one state solution to be. This involves the dismantlement of the system that created them. But when you've become so attached to that reality, and been brought up to believe that the system you live in could only be ended by a second Holocaust, you can only think of the end of Israel in terms of destruction.
The question remains, and no one on the one state side has satisfactorily answered this for me, is what to do about this mentality and how to change Zionist/Israeli narrative? I'm not trying to be Witty and say this is a war of two equal narratives; my point is I believe the one-state solution has next to no traction among Israelis is because Israelis do accept their narrative as fact.
Sorry for rambling.
This is silly. There is no good reason the U.S. or Canadian government needs a special bureau on anti-Semitism. 360 days of the year all that involves is washing swastika graffiti done by stupid 15 year olds.
Of course when criticism of Israel becomes anti-Semitism, then the bureau is suddenly needed....
Nonsense. Every group have some level of ethnic loyalty involved, but 95% of American Jews probably have no idea such a halacha even exists. To say it is a "biological imperative" is just bigotry.
That site (Jewish tribal review) is more than a bit sketchy, but I've also seen similar facts on Wikipedia (which also can be sketchy, but in this case was balanced out by the census).
I feel that the Jewish poverty rate is going to increase. This is because the Jewish elite is not reproducing at replacement rates. The only groups that are really increasing are Jewish immigrants, who face language and cultural barriers like other immigrants, the elderly, and Hareidim, most of whom are poor. Those are the demographic trends in the community, which is why I think Jews will be less of the elite in a generation or two. It's also why I think the lobby will fizzle out. Nonetheless, there is a substantial and disproportionate part of our community that is well off, like you said. That won't last, IMO. There have always been class differences between Jews, like I said in my original comment, rather than one cohesive community.
Links here:link to haaretz.com
and here: link to forward.com
I agree completely.
Most American Jews are average Americans - it would help us if we did not refer to American Jews as some entity separate from the rest of society as this is one of the fundamental ideas of political Zionism. In what way is there no comparison? Are you talking about wealth or suffering in the current downturn?
I'm not going to debate poverty rates between different groups, but of course some of my family members and (Jewish) family friends are suffering from this economic downturn. I don't see Ashkenazi (90% or so of American Jews) American Jews having any special privileges other than white privilege. Yes, there are networks on some level but even those are mostly family and friends based. Networks in general are more based on kinship rather than ethnicity or religion.
Commentary and classical anti-semitism. I've never understood people who thought every Jew was in some Jew-wide network conspiracy.
This is somewhat factually incorrect. German Jews did indeed tend to be well-off and assimilated, but that was not as true in Russia. There were large class discrepancies between Russian Jews (particularly Yiddish vs. Russian speaking) in the 19th century. And the German Jews looked down upon the "Ostjuden" who were poorer and, it was said, classless and unrefined. To say that Jews were a privileged people then depends on who you are speaking of - the Yiddish-speaking shtetl Jews in the Pale or the Russian and German speaking assimilated Jews. My family was in that area as peddlers - basically middlemen, yes, but they had a pretty meager existence. Why would so many have come to the U.S. if they were privileged in Eastern Europe?
This is still true in the U.S. There are a lot of Jews in the establishment, but for every one of them there are 2 Jews that aren't. There is a significant portion of the Jewish community that is really struggling; it's only the most elite in the community who wield power and attention.
This sort of thing cheapens anti-semitism. So he made one inappropriate comment and now he's being investigated? It's a crock. Nice job in pointing out the hypocrisy of a member of Yisrael Beiteinu complaining about prejudice.
What I don't understand is why the pro-peace groups are all so worried about this one anti-semitic comment? Why are they so worried about civil debate, when the protesters only disrupted a few minutes of speech, which happens all the time? It's really not a big deal. They should be more concerned with their glossing over of who Danny Ayalon is - a member of a racist party that advocates ethnic cleansing. So one inappropriate mark from one heckler among a dozen or so is not such a big deal in context.
True, did you see the (Jewish) guy who said to the MSU people "You're failing all your final exams!" as they walked out near the end of the video?
It seems Wiesel has proven himself to be the "resident clown" that Norman Finkelstein said he was.
Naomi Klein said something like "there is a Jewish debate about the Holocaust - never again to anyone, or never again to us" in a speech. The latter view has pretty much won.
I honestly don't care much about Holocaust deniers. Until Israel stops what it is doing, people will not care about the feelings of Jews unless they are browbeaten into doing so. This is not a good situation for anyone, especially Jews.
I can see your point about the generalization. Steve Walt actually does a really good of separating Jews from the Israel lobby, interestingly enough.
"To NOT consider Israel’s security in undertaking a war, would have been GROSSLY negligent, on Blair’s or any foreign policy perspective."
How on earth is one country thinking for itself first before involving itself in a multi-trillion dollar, eight year (at least) war grossly negligent?
I'm happy that As'ad finally got mentioned here - his blog is great. Wow, did he destroy Goldberg on that post.
On Goldberg's logic: why on earth would Palestinians necessarily be less objective by joining the only two major Palestinian parties? He had to point that out like it's a shocking idea. But Americans don't criticize reporters for being Republicans or Democrats (despite obvious large-scale bias on TV channels like Faux News and MSNBC)
The Pashtuns of Afghanistan also consider themselves a lost tribe of Israel. Maybe half of Afghanistan will decide that they are the real Jews and want to make Aliyah.
You just keep getting more and more ridiculous....
Are they the people who made the S.H.I.T. Jew (self-hating Israel threatening) list? Aparisian should feel honored by being noticed by them.
I emphasize that my answer to this predominance is not in any way to deprive Jews of political access (though a certain WASPy voluntary declination of privilege might be in order, to make a little room for others…) but to urge a wider consciousness of social responsibility on my people. And yes, to fuel the critique of Zionism. With this much power, we must show greater consideration for others.
Meant to just italicize that, sorry.
I emphasize that my answer to this predominance is not in any way to deprive Jews of political access (though a certain WASPy voluntary declination of privilege might be in order, to make a little room for others…) but to urge a wider consciousness of social responsibility on my people. And yes, to fuel the critique of Zionism. With this much power, we must show greater consideration for others.
I believe that people who become power brokers don't do so out of concern for others, so it is unrealistic to expect power-broker Jews to be charitable when others in the same position are not. And based on what values system do you expect them to be considerate of others? Judaism to the Jews you speak of seems to mean little more than bagels, ethnocentrism, Zionism, antisemitism (to the extent that it exists) and networking. Perhaps that's stereotypical, but I find it to be true. How do you appeal to a Jewishness that has lost its ethical meaning to the most powerful Jews (Israeli and American both)?
Yeah, but one can chock that up to lack of good religious education, which affects everyone.
Hmm, AISH horror stories...
Well, there was the cult-like love bombing. They give out free trip to Israel, Chile, New York, Europe (Prague), etc. The rabbis went way out of there way to act cool and invite everyone to their Shabbat parties, where everyone under 21 was given tons of vodka. While we were drunk, they started talking about life in the West Bank settlements.
Then they made a "Jewish Leadership" class for us which was really about "Why you need to be a fundamentalist and ARABS SUCK." More subtle promotion of West Bank settlements. One time, they told us that we had to always obey God and listen to God in every situation. I figured this was ridiculous, so I said "well, what about Baruch Goldstein?" The guy got visibly angry and said Goldstein was a hero, the Arabs deserved it, etc. Another time, I mentioned my (low-prestige) job and the guy said he could hook me up with a better one in Ariel (a settlement) and said that the whole citizenship and hiring process would take a month. When I criticized him for this, everyone just called me a know-it-all, etc. These guys lurk around college campuses recruiting people for this.
I don't think your comment makes much sense. You are making the assumption that every Jew with power and influence in the U.S. is working for a group cause or automatically has group loyalty. That may be true for some of the scummy AIPAC traitors, but not for someone like William Cohen. This is too broad an assumption.
You're right about people not giving up power willingly. But I feel that the lobby might decline naturally over a long period of time, or someone will be spurred to create a real rival, rather than the tepid J Street. I do not believe there will be anti-elite physical violence or outcry directed against Jews, if that's what you mean. The majority of the elites in this nation are not Jews, and most Americans are too apathetic towards the I/P conflict. If this were going to happen, it would've happened already, given the insane amounts of money we give to Israel, and the repeated use of Palestine by every Muslim terrorist including Bin Laden to justify killing Americans.
As for God choosing Jews to be the leaders of the world, this is a misreading of the theological idea of "chosenness." It has nothing to do with politics - it means that Jews were chosen to be Jews by God. The Torah specifically says this was not because Jews are or were better than others. A Jew who thinks this way is ignorant or using it as a cover for basic prejudice.
Lastly, AISH is NOT a legit source for anything Jewish. They are essentially Kahanists. I have a good friend who was involved with their youth programs for a while and I was suckered into one myself and I could tell you all kinds of horror stories. AISH does not represent Jews. And this quote shows that this Ken Spiro person is an idiot. Has he forgotten about China and India, which have nearly always been powerful and technologically advanced and which are now set to outpace the U.S.? How many Jews are there in those countries? Yet they prosper, and have historically prospered.
It is a huge loss for people concerned about justice, which probably does include "Israel haters." Nice try though.
I presume you mean by "nothing will change until Jews in the U.S. start to get hurt" to mean a general decline in Jewish wealth, influence, cohesion, lobbying power, etc. That scenario is in the cards for a few reasons; economy hurts everyone, younger Jews are less committed to Israel/lobbying, etc.
There is no threat of physical violence against Jews in this country. Violent acts towards Jews here historically could be counted on two hands. By saying "Kristallnacht" you are insinuating physical violence. Why do you think that it is a logical conclusion?
I should've made clear that this is what was taught to us, rather than my current beliefs.
It sucks to admit it, but yes, Elie Wiesel is the face of Judaism to some (many) Jews.
I agree that Hagee is important; Max Blumenthal did a video that exposed how he funded much of the settlement of Ariel with millions of dollars to make state of the art buildings. And he does influence millions of American Christians; John McCain wouldnt've hobnobbed with him otherwise.
I read Elie Wiesel's books growing up; they are part of a sacred canon of Jewish literature and identity. He defines the Holocaust for many of us. This guy has made a living talking about his experiences, writing about them and promoting himself as a general moral authority. Yet here he sounds like any hysterical Hasbara-fount.
It seems the last Holocaust survivor with any moral authority left is Hedy Epstein. Hopefully someone will correct me on that.
True, but many didn't (don't) know what they actually mean nor could they speak Hebrew conversationally. I say prayers but I don't speak good enough Hebrew to really understand them past a basic level.
Fair points all. But virtually no Jews spoke Hebrew except for a prayer or two for almost 2,000 years except for an educated few academics and rabbis, and yet Jews still lived. Ladino and Yiddish are just dialects of other languages, and they have some cultural value but there were Jews long before either language was invented and there will still be Jews after they become extinct.
Not every group of Jews is shrinking; the Ultra-Orthodox in the U.S. and Israel are growing rapidly. At the rate we're going, Jews won't die out but in 60 years most will be wearing silly 18th century costumes.
Zionists take it seriously because of their destructive entitlement (a phrase coined by Avigail Abarbanel) and the paranoia of anti-Semitism (that barely exists in a meaningful way in the U.S.) which has become a part of the personal identity of many Jews.
It's really a con, because Israel just wants more people so they can keep trying to outnumber the Palestinians, who are having far more babies.
Congratulations to all!
It's amusing how right-wing Zionists use the anti-Semite card against non-Jews who criticize Israel, while making that poster against a critical Jew which literally looks straight out of 1939 Nazi propaganda.
"Our first delivery stop will be the pro-civil rights protesters in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s Executive Director, will go to show them that American Jews who love and care about Israel’s vibrant democracy stand with them as they exercise their basic democratic rights and protest Palestinian home evictions in East Jerusalem."
It's nice to show solidarity, but why isn't J Street trying to change the policy of the rest of the Israel Lobby and the American government which enables Israel to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem in the first place. Instead, we get platitudes about Israel's "vibrant democracy" (a vibrant democracy for Jew and a fraction of the Palestinians).
Too little too late. Kinda like J Street in general. They're still too wedded to Zionism for me.
This New Israel Fund sounds better, but they still mention the "ideals" of the Jewish state. Those ideals died permanently in 1948, and the majority of Zionists never believed in them anyway.
That was actually funny in a sick way (yes, it sucks for that woman, I know). It shows just how warped and ridiculous the Israeli "security mentality" is.
Seconding Marc's comment on Prof. Hillberg. The real number is around 5.5 million. There is one survivor in my family, and you're right, Israel and the CJP/ADL establishment does nothing for her. But why try to imply denial? Honestly, there were Jews in Europe in 1940 and by 1950 most were gone. What do the Zundels and Irvings of the world think happened to them? Did they fly to Mars?
Then again, I think imprisoning people for Holocaust denial is stupid. Why put someone in prison for being wrong? It just makes it look like there is something to hide regarding the matter and sets up a "tragedy double standard" for the Holocaust vs. other genocides. Why not imprison Turks for denying Armenian genocide, why not imprison Japanese who still deny the rape of Nanjing, the list goes on and on...
In hasbara world, one can "claim" to have a brain hemmorhage but that's never verifiable unless it happened to an IDF soldier. Palestinians can only "claim" suffering that is never "verifiable," from the Nakba to today's protests.
Sorry, that was a mistake.
I do not think Palestinian suffering should be hostage to Israeli intransigence.
Sorry, screwed up the html. I meant to quote Cliff on "However, if we’re just talking amongst ourselves then we aren’t growing."
Ahh, the "dual narrative" idea. It is a trademark of left-wing Zionists as a way of acknowledging the existence of Palestinians while giving no heed to their suffering or their ideas.
It's really a derailing tactic. It says well, "you have your narrative and I have mine, so I don't need to hear about your little nakba because I thought that was a miracle which gave me my own state." This sort of thing is the reason I went from a left-Zionist to an anti-Zionist when I started to read about/talk to Palestinians. It's just dishonest and condescending.
Don't forget the recent converts from Peru who are settling the West Bank. Can't take away their promised land!
I don't understand this. Europe is a very secular place - don't most European countries put church attendance at less than a third? It's the United States which has Christianity as a fundamental element of society. I've always thought that the EU exclusion of Turkey had tinges of racism/Islamophobia.
Agreed. Given the role Turkey has played for Israel in the past few decades, throwing them away would be quite stupid. But they did it by insulting the ambassador and refusing to address Turkish concerns over Gaza.
I thought the U.S. had taken over training those Kurdish militias, but the U.S. only sponsors the ones that attack Iran and help stabilize Kurdish Iraq. Is there any evidence Israel still supports the Kurds?
I've seen CAMERA on my campus back before I graduated and became "old," but this sort of thing is scary. It is so damn easy to abuse Wikipedia, and of course Zionists aren't the only ones to do it. I just don't like the idea that CAMERA can control what people see on their first google search about the I/P conflict.
I don't see it as "collective trauma." Many of the folks who use Hitler to describe every enemy of Israel had nothing to do with the Holocaust. I think it is a collective refusal to accept that it is 2010 and not 1940.
My best guess for Zionists to adopt the racialization of Jewishness would be to try to find an idea that would unite all Jews behind Zionism, since ethnicity, religion and language could not do so.
However, the racialization of Jews was actually invented by non-Jews after the Jewish emancipation from the ghettos - the idea that all Jews are a separate race and cannot integrate into their respective countries. I believe the Zionists simply bought into it completely. I'm not absolving them of any blame, but I don't think they invented the idea.
This plays into what you mentioned about Defamation. It's kind of sick that Jews are using hatred against them to define their identities. Perhaps that can only lead to psychosis.
I agree with you completely. I'm actually watching Defamation right now and laughing at how those kids are being brainwashed, even though I guess I should pity them. Really, I should be afraid of what the mentality they're creating will mean for Palestinians.
You were almost banned for suggesting Zionism racializes Jews? I've read that in plenty of books and experienced it myself. What was the logic behind this?
I think we're talking about two different things. I believe that Nazis and Zionists essentially defined Jews the same way. This racialized definition of Jews and blood and soil nationalism were created in 19th-century Europe, before Zionism and Nazism. Zionism essentially adopted it, Herzl and Jabotinsky said as much. And Zionism was always a chauvinistic movement by necessity, hence the exclusion of Arabs.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the majority of Eastern European Jews were secular/socialist until WWII. The insularity you're talking about is mostly limited to the Orthodox or Chareidi minority, but there are of course Jews who have prejudices for non-religious reasons. I've never heard of a halacha banning social activities with gentiles, at least not outside some of the kookier Hasidic communities who have always represented a pretty small minority of Jews. I'm not defending that, I just don't think it has as much to do with Zionism as people think. The Orthodox were among the most prominent early opponents of Zionism.
I agree with you on the Warsaw Ghetto similarities, but why not go a step further? Shouldn't the Nazi state, founded explicitly for one group of people on a blood and soil philosophy to the exclusion of all others, not just Jews, inspire Jews not to create a state explicitly for one people based on a blood and soil philosophy that excludes others?
Sorry for the run-on sentence.
Thank you for the remarkably vivid and human account of your trip. I'm actually curious about what it would accomplish for Hamas to use you and the other internationals to use you as propaganda. Would anyone become convinced of the Hamas ideology or cause by seeing a few happy Americans playing soccer with them? Pro-Palestine people can listen to Palestinians rather than Americans to be angry about the injustices over there. I understand the intensely supervised nature of your trip, but not the propaganda aspect of it.
One more thing: it is quite important to separate Judaism from Zionism, but parading Neturei Karta around does no one any good. I'm not sure if Hamas knows about how marginal they really are; even most anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews have condemned them.
This is true of my experiences with Russian Jews as well. They are notorious for being right-wing today.
The Israelis allowed this to be filmed by several people and just don't care. Don't they at least care about their image enough to keep this sort of thing under wraps?
It's one thing to read about this sort of thing, but to actually watch it happen just hits you on a visceral level. It's infuriating that my tax dollars support this.
I think this is exactly why Zionism used the (anti-Semitic) ethno-racial definition of a Jew rather than the Jewish religion to define Jews. This is the most prominent criticism of Zionism from anti-Zionist Haredim (who are wingnuts in their own right).
The point is not to insert a Palestinian agenda onto the Haiti tragedy. The point is to criticize Zionists for their hypocrisy. This rabbi is the worst since his Jewish values apparently only apply to certain groups of people, or at least only people who aren't victimized by Jews.
There were entries on this blog about Haiti that did not mention Israel/Palestine at all, if you looked.
Whoops, "were."
Exactly. The early Zionists (and many today) are contemptuous of Judaism.
Norm Finkelstein on this topic: link to youtube.com
It's a shame all the nonviolent Palestinian resistance is not published in mainstream media, or else there wouldn't be comments like this.
Cliff, your response is just perfect.
"Perhaps also sensing that Americans need a refresher course in the purpose of Zionism, Jeffrey Goldberg immediately reproduced the above paragraph on his blog, appreciating that Brooks “frames Zionism in a completely different way than the news pages do” and “writes smartly about the competition between tribal and worldly Zionism”."
The problem is it is essentially impossible to be a non-tribal Zionist at this point. I found Brooks dishonest and condescending in his other column about Haiti, he still is here. The essence of Zionism today is the right of return for Jews, which Brooks talks about here as meaning a "safe haven," while denying it for the Palestinians. Very few Zionists ever opposed this arrangement. Zionism today cannot be reconciled with granting Palestinians the same rights as Jews, since that would mean the end of the Jewish state with a Jewish majority, and so it can never be equal or as Brooks calls it, "worldly."
I think Ali Abunimah made the point of addressing Israeli/Jewish fears without becoming hostage to them (if I'm wrong on who it was, someone please correct me).
I do try to change the "hearts and minds" of the Jewish community. I volunteer within it and even know a former employee of AIPAC. The lobby is mostly Jewish and it is the enabler of Israel. We must stop it because of the privilege we gain as Jews from Israel's discriminatory policies and because Zionist/right-wing Jews are more likely to listen to us, whether we like this sort of tribalism or not. This is not about hand-wringing and crying about our lovely tradition that is being desecrated (that shit drives me nuts), it is about realizing "OK, it is mostly Jews who are responsible for the American Zionist lobby and as Jews we need to use our positions to try to change them."
I also agree with the point about organization. The anti-war/pro-Palestinian movement is unbelievably fragmented, in many ways sectarian (i.e. Jewish groups vs. Muslim vs. Christian vs. Arab)
Funny how things work out that way. I've read Buber and Arendt on Zionism and they were just unbelievably prescient about how it would turn out.
That's a fair point, Donald. There was the Magnes/Buber/Arendt/Einstein branch of idealistic, binationalists in the 1940s who considered themselves Zionists. Trouble is, no one listened to them.
Apologies for the typos.
Ben-Gurion himself said something along the lines that I just mentioned, that Palestinians will always resist Israel because they will wonder why they had to pay for the crimes of the Germans.
Mr. Witty,
Pretty much every religious Jew has been called some name or heard some crap at some point, including myself.
Explain to me why Palestinians should pay for the that. Why should Palestinians pay because your son was insulted by some moron because he was Jewish? That really is the heart of the matter.
Tell the Palestinians whose entirely family was incinerated or burned alive from white phosphorus that "well my family suffered sixty years ago and someone picked on my son, so that means you have to burn."
Or, you could tell the Palestinians kicked out of their lands in 1948 that well, because of something the Germans did, we've decided that no only will we colonize your land, we can't coexist and you must be ethnically cleansed.
Try thinking from a different perspective for once and you'll realize how horribly unjust Zionism and its implementation has been.
Forgot to mention that I believe this map is part of the same whitewashing strategy as their approach to open, vulgar racism from participants, Max Blumenthal videos notwithstanding.
An interesting anecdote about Birthright, if anyone cares to read. They have a fantastic whitewashing strategy.
I took the trip (yes, I'm embarrassed now). At one point, we passed a group of Arabs on our bus and some idiot yelled "derka derka!" at them. Immediately the guides reprimanded him. At the time I thought they might have been peaceniks. What I realize now is that it's a strategy to get American Jews, who never stay longer than a week, to believe that Israel is this wonderful society where there is no racism. That way they have "real stories" to tell people who think otherwise.
To be fair, our media hardly mentioned the Goldstone Report except to condemn it as Congress did and no one publicized how to find it. That and it's five hundred pages.
This is my first comment here, and I'd like to thank you for posting this account. It's a wonderful firsthand account of the situation in Gaza. Hopefully Egypt will lighten up their treatment of the convoy members but I'm not hopeful.
These people remind me of how medieval Europeans used to watch public hangings en masse and cheer. Some people don't evolve.
I too was shocked by that girl's ignorance. Either she doesn't have a clue what's really going on (most likely) or the deaths of 13 Israelis means another Holocaust and to her one Israeli life is equal to a hundred Palestinians.
I was a lot more horrified by the religious kookiness that the New York-accented woman at the end was saying. The angel of death is punishing those 300 Palestinian children? This is pure terrorist logic; she's saying we can kill whoever we want and God says it's OK. Zionism was once a secular movement. With the settlers in the West Bank as they are, who can say it hasn't completely embraced religious fanaticism?
I really think the fault is that of the American media here. I realize that some people are silenced by Holocaust/anti-Semitism arguments, but the average American including Jews only knows what they see in the New York Times and on our TVs. And that is not an accurate or balanced representation of the conflict. To find a website like this for the most part means that you specifically looked for it.