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- Meet the Israeli-linked firm that sold Big Brother machines to … 94
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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
"After an intense battle for the strategic border town of Quneitra, Vienna announced its decision to remove its troops due to the severity of the fighting."
What is the point of "peacekeepers" who run away as soon as there is any fighting?
But Dickens is, like, not relevant to us, you know? I mean, he's just, like, another dead white male, isn't he?
"@eljay, your “two-state solution” is really “one state solution”, it is not “two states for two peoples”. It is not acceptable to any sane Israeli Jew."
Surely sane Israeli Jews are the ones it would be acceptable to.
I suggest a three-state solution.
A scrap of desert for a Jewish State, separated by a chain-link fence from an equally tiny Arab state for those who don't want to live with Jews. The rest of the country for decent people who are prepared to make an effort to get on with the neighbours.
If some keeps saying "you all hate me", we will end up hating that person for being so irritating.
To me this looks like another piece of self-indulgent Jewish self-obsession. But if that is what is needed to get justice for the Palestinians, let it roll.
But not so long ago we learned, via goldmarx, that Jews don't like each other.
"In the case of US Jews, many intermarry not out of love for their Gentile spouses but because they want to escape from the possibility of intimacy with other Jews. They cling to certain derogatory stereotypes – the women are JAPs, the men are Abe Foxman, etc."
link to mondoweiss.net
"the predilection for latkes in december and matzas in april and apples with honey in september is handed down in the DNA. "
Wow! When did they locate the genes for these predilections?
"The arrogant laws of the holy men by coincidence saved many lives from the “perfect” nature of the foreskin."
Glad to see you praising those Ancient Egyptian priests of Ra, Horus, etc.
"I think climate breakdown deniers are worse than Zionists."
The hasbara of the AGW crowd works in a very similar way to the Zionist hasbara. It ignores facts, bases its claims on theoretical constructions, accuses critics of dishonourable motives, etc.
And, as with Zionism, the effects are damaging. Millions of people in the world do not have access to clean water, abundant food, or decent medical care. The only way these things can be delivered is through cheap, abundant energy. So far, the only ways of providing sufficent energy are through combustable fuels, nuclear power, and hydroelectirc power. But the AGW crowd wants to restrict the use of fossil fuels on the basis of a theory that does not have empirical evidence to support it.
(The theory is: CO2 + feedback mechanisms -> continually rising temperatures. But it has not been shown that the feedback mechanisms exist or operate in the postulated way. The empirical evidence suggests that they do not.)
World Food prices go up as corn is used to produce ethanol rather than as food. In Europe and Australia electricity prices go up from carbon tax and subsides to ineffective "alternative energy" schemes. In Britain old people suffer from cold because they can no longer afford to keep warm.
All for a fashionable but crank theory.
Israel's treatment of the nomads is appalling even though we see that the deserts are retreating.
link to agu.org
(Actually, the climate scientists acknowledge that the world hasn't warmed for at least 16 years (23 years on the RSS data set). There are indications that it might have started cooling. I hope not. Warmth is better.)
"This is a conflict between two people with self-determination rights in the same place."
For the purposes of self-determination, the people resident in the place are a single people. Neither the resident Jews nor the resident Arabs have a right to self-determination as an ethnic community.
Encouraging news. About eighty years too late, but better than never.
A small question. You say
'Jewish groups have rightly complained about internet anti-Semitism, asking sites like Amazon not to feature mythic propaganda booklets like the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” '
Have those same groups also asked Amazon not to feature From Time Immemorial?
And I note that you say
"Many of the parade floats are from Israeli companies and organizations, and are not outwardly Jewish in any way."
So there is even less connection with American Jews.
"When there are enough Kiwis and Lesothis (?) in NY to fund a celebratory parade,"
So foreign citizens are allowed to have a parade?
"There are lots of Italians; they have the Columbus Day parade. There are lots of Irish people; they have the St. Patricks Day parade,"
These are actually Americans celebrating their ancestry.
"There are more than a million Jews in NY."
Are they Israelis or descendants of Israelis? If not, the "celebrate Israel parade" is not the same as other Americans having a parade to celebrate their ancestry. It is a celebration of a foreign state, not a celebration of ancestry*.
*Not that I approve of celebration of ancestry.
"my community"
1. Who are the members of "your community"? (Certainly not all Jews, since you reject NK.)
2. Why do you think of those people as "your community"?
"I can’t even think of another country that is “celebrated” in this country."
Which country is "this country"?
"He didn’t even try to kill them all"
That proves he is an incompetent anti-Semite!
When do they have the "Celebrate New Zealand" parade?
And the "Celebrate Lesotho" parade?
So the IDF are also the truancy officers?
"$500,000 for a 45-minute speech"
I'll give a full hour for $400,000. (Plus expenses and GST.)
C'mon, JNF. It's a great offer.
Yeah, yeah.
But Reconciliation Week
link to reconciliation.org.au
ends tomorrow, so you got that in just in time.
On Tuesday we can get back to normal business.
"When will Mondoweiss set an example and honor the [fallen] men of the USS Liberty or is that another ‘verboten’ and ‘self-censored’ area?"
I put "Liberty" into the MW search engine and nothing came up. Except for these, which came up in the first two pages.
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
link to mondoweiss.net
Definitely self-censored.
'And “not being entertained by Alicia Keys” is not, by any definition of the word, “punishment.”'
Having just listened to her on You Tube, I would remove both negatives from the above sentence.
You were fairly warned - by Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, no less - that letting women sing is a bad idea.
"You have a strata. "
No, you have a stratum. "Strata" is plural.
'... suggesting that at least SOME of the people who were buried there were victims or combatants in the 1948-49 conflict. ... Even so it’s really misleading and fraudulent to declare in the story headline that ALL were “Victims of the (so-called) Nakba, without reasonable evidence."'
Good point. They had a mass grave available, so they decided to do a bit of tidying up. After all, the district was littered with the bodies of people who died of old age, boredom, disease, tainted candy floss, etc.
"You couldn’t make it up!"
I couldn't, but the Hasbareers clearly can and do.
"There are only 5 comments to that article at this time. I predict that this will get scant coverage in the media and will soon disappear into the “memri” hole."
The Daily Mail article (thanks, MRW) has lots of comments. Click on "Best Rated" and you will se a lot of anti-Israel sentiment.
link to dailymail.co.uk
"I dont know that anyone predicted the total end of Jewish dissent"
I suspect that most people didn't care, anyway.
The whole film was very well researched. The scriptwriters had a pretty detailed knowledge of early Christianity.
[Sigh]
I gave you an opening for this
link to youtube.com
and you blew it.
Gaaaah! The stupidity!
But this is what you get when you teach people to think in terms of ancestry rather than citizenship.
"Wasn’t it the Romans who put Herod, builder of the Great Temple into power?"
But what other benefits did the Roman occupation deliver?
"We remember Roman occupation."
Amazing! Even I'm not that old. I learnt my Latin at school, not from a centurion.
link to youtube.com
Rather your backyard than mine. I certainly don't want the buggers coming to Australia and deafening us with their whining.
"Israel ... unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon"
Israel was driven out by Hezbollah.
"Israel has been prepared to share a very tiny country with its own Arab neighbors – who refuse to share it with the Jewish people."
The Palestinians were prepared to share the country with the Jewish immigrants, in the sense of living as equal citizens in a single democratic state. They were not prepared to allow those immigrants to set up a Jewish state in part or all of the country. Nor should they have been. It was clear from the beginning that any such state would either expel any Arab residents or make them second class citizens, and that the intention was to expand that state over all of Palestine.
Since then, the Palestinians have been prepared to accept the 2000 Arab peace plan. Israel has ignored that plan.
"Israel says will act to prevent S-300 missile systems from becoming operational"
This going to be a dicey operation. If they wait till the Russians have gone, the missiles might already be operational. (And what will they do if the Russians don't go, and hang around in Damascus as well as Tartus?)
If Israel hits Russians, they will be in really deep
shitrouble.The US is supposed to step in and save Israel from any real danger, but even the crazies in the US are likely to pause before taking on the Russians. Win or lose, that would be good business for the body-bag manufacturers.
Correction.
"The only person in the
worldU.S.A. who can defy him is FLOTUS. "(Incidentally, the US needs a president whose wife is named Florence.)
"You want the US military to turn on an ally and illegally invade a sovereign country. "
Israel is not an ally of the US. And I certainly don't want the US to again illegally invade a sovereign country. Iraq didn't work out too well.
"74% of the aid is spent on US military equipment. So most of it comes right back to the US. "
How is that different from the US giving some aid as cash and some as weapons?
"There are Palestinians who say all Jews are pigs and monkeys. The Palestinians elected a terrorist organization. The moderate President Abbas talks in Arabic of a mass return to Israel proper. What memo does that send?"
That the actions of Jews have royally pissed off the Palestinians.
Consider those actions. A bunch of European Jews drive the Palestinians out of their land, and lots of Jews all over the world shout "Hooray! We matter and you don't".
And you are upset they say "pigs and monkeys"? Seems pretty mild to me.
"lines of thought that already existed within non-Monotheistic religions."
Xenophanes and Antisthenes were certainly monotheists. Pythagoras seems to have been more of a pantheist. (I suppose that can be called a form of monotheism.) Plato and Aristotle certainly had ideas of a Supreme Being*, but they did not clearly deny the existence of the other Gods.** They frequently referred vaguely to "the God" without specifying which one they had in mind. Stoic monotheism was also pantheistic.
Of course, if the Greeks were pushed towards monotheism by foreign influence, the most likely influences were the Persians and the Egyptians.
*Aristotle's version spent its time in contemplation of eternal truths. We philosophers do the same, which makes us closest to the Divine. But you never doubted that, did you?
** Partly because that would have made them unpopular with the rest of society, but especially because it would have made them very unpopular with the Gods. Wise men do not piss off the Gods.
Anti-penguinite.
"Nixon had no choice but to airlift supplies because of the Russian threat."
And he broke the NATO treaty in the process. The supplies were airlifted from NATO bases in Europe, and were there specifically for the defence of Europe against the Soviets.
Hmmn. No explanation.
I will assume you are just very busy, and not assume that you can't do moral reasoning.
"It should be added that there is nothing logical in the Arabs having 22 countries while the Jews have to make do with only one."
This is just silly.
The Jews have many countries. Australian Jews have Australia. Swedish Jews have Sweden. Mexican Jews have Mexico.
On the other hand, the Europeans have 47 countries, while the Egyptians have to make do with only one. The Japanese have to make do with only one.
How many countries do English-speakers have? How many countries do Confucians have? How many countries do stamp-collectors have?
Work out your logical fallacies for yourself.
"Lots of countries have Christian state churches and they are democracies. It should be added that Israel has no state religion – and non-Jews engage in the reductionist error of reducing Jewish civilization simply to a religion. Religion is a Christian term that neither describes nor defines Judaism…."
If Judaism/Jewishness is not just religion, then your reference to Christian state churches is irrelevant. The intended analogy does not hold.
A “strong Jewish state” guarantees the future of the Jewish people in age in which Jew hatred has never been higher.
There is no need to guarantee the future of "the Jewish people". "Peoples" do not matter. People do. It is the future of individual Jews that matters, and in many countries (perhaps most) individual Jews need have no more fear for their future than other citizens of those countries.
"Once you’ve started comparing Gaza and the Holocaust- you’ve lost your moral ground.
Once you complained that Yad VaShem commemorates mostly Jewish victims of the Holocaust- you’ve started to look morally bankrupt."
Why? Do, please, explain your moral reasoning.
'The figure used now is 7 million refugees. Won`t bringing all those people into a miniature state in geographical size a formula for disaster for them and for the people already there – Jews and Arabs – a receipt for horrendous instability and who knows what extent of bloodshed. Is that a formula for a “historic reconciliation”.'
The Israeli Jews had better get started on making friends with the Palestinians, then.
"And doing so when the one thing Arab countries have in abundance is land"
If Israeli Jews were to make friends with Palestinians and other Arabs and learn to be acceptable members of society, then there would be plenty of land for them to move into.
National Reconciliation Week started today.
link to reconciliation.org.au
May 27 is the anniversary of the 1967 referendum. (I remember voting in that.)
link to reconciliation.org.au
"Jerusalem is holy to all religions"
Only holy to four on my count. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Baha'i.
Anyone know of any others?
"While I am technically Jewish (my mother was Jewish by lineage) I was not raised Jewish or practice Judaism, I don’t regard myself as complicit. "
Are you suggesting that you have to be Jewish to be complicit by silence? Anti-Gentilist!
I have not been complicit since about 1965 or so (as a result of reading Childers' The Other Exodus) but I haven't done much about it. A letter or two in The Times and other newspapers, steadfast refusal to buy Israeli products, and vocal support for the Palestinians whenever the topic came up.
Phil and Medea have done a lot more in a much shorter time.
As distinct from Little Richard's original, which was
"A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-lomp-bom-bom"
Wop bop a loo bop a Rambam boom?
"camera has a lot of gaul "
Vercingetorix or Obelix?
An American TV station defying the Israeli lobby? Is this allowed under US law?
When were Jews last expelled from Australia?
(But our country was founded as a place to dump convicts. Maybe the sort of people who get themselves thrown out of everywhere else can be quite at home here.)
OT, but I don't know where else to put it.
Anyone have any info on this claim?
link to syrianews.cc
Boykin was the "my God is bigger" guy who didn't seem to notice that rescuing American troops in Mogadishu required the help of Pakistani Army tanks and Malaysian Army APCs. Not many Christians in the Pakistani Army, and plenty of Muslims in the Malaysian Army.
"develop multifaith dialogue and train multifaith leaders.”
What for?
"reach across faith boundaries to solve social problems together.”...
What has faith got to do with that? Good sense is what is needed.
Danaa, no need to apologise to me, and I'm pretty sure Spinoza won't want you to apologise to him either. Most of us bash these posts out at high speed in between dealing with Real Life (insofar as it still exists) so it is hardly surprising that a few errors or a bit of tangled prose appears from time to time. Quandoque bonus dormitat Obses.
No excuse for bad grammar, though.
"There would hardly have been any point in claiming him when he was just a silly lens-grinder out on his ear, now would there."
As far as I can tell, he was a very good lens-grinder.
"even Spinoza did not arise from a vacuum and just because he (and Acosta) were put in Herem by the Dutch Jewish community (no doubt as a result of them being descendants of the forced converts of Spain)"
The terms of the Herem make it clear that Benedict Spinoza was expelled for his ideas, not because of his ancestors. (He himself was, of course, a Dutchman.)
"The Lords of the ma’amad, having long known of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch de Spinoza, have endeavored by various means and promises, to turn him from his evil ways. But having failed to make him mend his wicked ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving more and more serious information about the abominable heresies which he practiced and taught and about his monstrous deeds, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and born witness to this effect in the presence of the said Espinoza, they became convinced of the truth of the matter; and after all of this has been investigated in the presence of the honorable chachamin, they have decided, with their consent, that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel."
link to capone.mtsu.edu
These opinions included denying a personal god and rejecting the idea of a chosen people. I don't know what the monstrous deeds were, but they certainly weren't monstrous enough to attract the attention of the Dutch authorities.
Now that he is a famous philosopher, Jews want to count him in again, and insist on calling him "Baruch". He called himself "Benedict".
'There are people who aren't interested in the synagogue route, and they don't connect to Judaism through religion, or they don't connect to Judaism through Israel," said Aaron Paley, who founded Yiddishkayt in 1995 and whose family is providing the seed money for the Helix program. "This is a different way to connect with who you are."'
What does Aaron Paley mean by "who you are"?
A lot of the time*, this phrase seems to mean "the sort of person you are". If that is Paley's meaning, a person who doesn't "connect" to Judaism through religion, etc., is just that sort of person. That is "who they are". What do they have to "connect" to? Why should they be any other sort of person?
(*But not always. This, along with similar empty buzzwords (such as "successors", "continuity", "connection", and "shared destiny") is why so much of this babble about "identity" is just vague, meaningless, drivel.)
Gasp! Is Yiddishkayt suggesting that Jews in Europe did not live lives of continuous persecution and suffering? Doesn't that make them anti-Semites?
Exactly. What is about the contributions of German/Dutch/Welsh Jews that makes their contribution Jewish rather than German/Dutch/Welsh?
"Jewish influence on science and culture is staggering..."
What is it that makes it Jewish?
Hold on!
"...or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective—especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions."
Joe Biden is an anti-Semite!
Add to this the solecism of using (c) where I should have used TM. A fine example of Phil's law.
I am covered with rue.
"Where is Mooser when we need him?"
Not here, alas. Otherwise he would have rapped my knuckles for bad spelling.
Ziocaine.
Ziocaine.
Ziocaine.
Ziocaine.
Ziocaine.
"would change tact and reinvent themselves"
Jewish establishments seem totally lacking in tact, so it would be difficult for them to change it. Perhaps they could change tack and acquire some.
More importantly, though, you are right. They need to break themselves from the Ziocane (c) addiction.
Where is Mooser when we need him?
"Sea-change" is a nice expression. From the Master, of course, like most of the good stuff.
Ariel: Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
The Tempest. Act i. Scene. 2.
"The biggest change I can see is in the radical left in America."
Most of us need a microscope to even detect a radical left in America, let alone see a change in it.
"Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective—especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions."
Here's an anti-Semite for you.
link to latimes.com
"Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist"
That's me, then.
After my father died I found myself constantly thinking "Dad would like to have seen that", "Dad would have enjoyed that joke", "Dad would have been interested in that".
I expect the same will happen to you, and you will feel the same frustration that you can't tell him the jokes, etc. But you can remember him, you can tell your children about him, and you can try to pass on the good in him.
So CUNY doesn't know how to use commas? No surprise there.
"A New York statute forbidding permanent certification as a public school teacher of any person who is not a United States citizen unless that person has manifested an intention to apply for citizenship, does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."
So even the Supreme Court does not know how to use commas.
“Who's got the power in a relationship where you know your professor is ardently pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, and you're a Jewish student who wants to be a Political Science major?”
So a Jewish student will be automatically pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian?
"and btw, i am not , do not want to be, have never fantasized about being, pretended or imagined i am jewish. seriously, where do you come up w/this stuff!?!!!"
Well, you haven't got a foreskin, have you?
Can we hope that the experience will prompt them to start inquiring more deeply into the issue, so that they come to understand the fundamental evil of Zionism?
Well, I suppose we can hope.
"could visibly see the refugee camps"
Can anyone invisibly see them?
"some do believe Jews have a right to self-determination."
But do they have any response to the arguments against it?
The Jewish State is what matters. Friendship and love must be set aside.
"All other Southerners understand what we are saying, and that’s all that matters."
My own experience of interactions between people in Georgia suggests that this is not entirely true.
"Come on, you laugh at national loyalties, but you’d never say that to a Palestinian. Why?"
Ellis can speak for himself*, but I do not laugh at national loyalties. I expect people to be loyal to the country that sustains them. (Though not "my country right or wrong", of course.) This sense of loyalty is that of providing mutual support for fellow citizens. In this sense, I expect Australians to be loyal to Australia, and Bolivians to be loyal to Bolivia.
But neither orthodox nor non-orthodox Jews are a nation.
And if an Australian citizen, born and brought up in Australia, tells me s/he is a Palestinian, my response will be "No, you're an Australian."
But this does not mitigate the injustices that the Zionists commit and have committed, and nor does it deny the rights of the Palestinians in Palestine (including that part of Palestine which is now Israel), the Palestinians in the camps, or those Palestinians who have not taken citizenship in other countries.
(*Or at least quote English poets without knowing that he is doing so.)
Oh, no. I take a day off, and more tripe about "identity" gets plastered on to MW.
And poor John Donne gets dragged into it without even an acknowledgement. "As the saying traditionally goes" - Pah!
(Did you take the first line of Holy Sonnet XI literally?)
Here's where it comes from:
'No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee...."
(In modern spelling, here: link to luminarium.org)
In mankind, not some tiny, involuted, self-obsessed, subsection.
And being involved in mankind is all the rooting one needs for compassion, justice, and resisting injustice.
" I was always told it was “thing” not “think.” But then I was raised in the British Isles "
I was born in the UK, brought up in Australia, and then spent a long time back in the UK. I have never heard of using "thing" in this idiom. It makes no sense. The meaning is "If you think A, you need to have another think (= think again) about it."
Perhaps the people who told you it was "thing" were trying to counter the common mispronunciation of "thing", and didn't think about what the idiom means.
Did he really say "you’ve got another thing coming"?
The idiom is " you’ve got another think coming".
"Convincing Zionists of the human dignity and worth of Palestinians is not my priority. Dismantling Zionism within the Jewish establishment is essential. "
I suspect that the former would be of assistance in the latter, even if you do not make it your priority.
"In my opinion and experience Japan and Korea were on par in terms of xenophobia in the 1980′s but now Japan is far more advanced than Korea in this regard "
I left Japan in 1990, so this may be so.
I'm dubious about light-blue Japan. I would have expected it to rank with to South Korea. I'm sure the place has become more tolerant since I lived there, but I suspect there were plenty of people who gave an "approved" answer rather than what they really thought.
"Israel is not listed because it is not a racist nation. It is, in fact, the most tolerant nation in the region....Palestine is not listed because it doesn’t exist outside the imagination of self hating pseudo intellectuals like yourself."
Love the tolerance.