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  • A portrait of a former Zionist (Part 1)
    • RoHa May 16, 2012 at 10:17 pm

      "That is more than enough to demonstrate ethnic nationalism."

      Do you think that demonstrating a bit of ethnic nationalism in other countries justifies Israel's ethnic nationalism?

    • RoHa May 15, 2012 at 1:32 am

      We do have a lot of people of Asian ancestry these days. Their parents and grandparents brought in some wierd, un-Australian ideas, such as "food should have taste", "politeness matters", "education is more important than sport", but the latter two have not made much of an impact yet.

      They don't seem able to explain this ethnicity stuff clearly, either.

    • RoHa May 15, 2012 at 12:36 am

      "an American born person of Japanese decent who is raised in america is ethnically american whether he/she speaks japanese or not. that person would also be ethnically japanese therefore an american/japanese ethnicity. only if the person is completly cut off from japanese culture ..."

      So "thinks and acts like and American", then not of Japanese ethnicity.

      Is this "ethnicity" stuff any use for anything?

    • RoHa May 14, 2012 at 8:55 pm

      " Is an American born Japanese person still ethnically Japanese even if he or she doesn’t speak the language? Of course."

      Of course? A person born in America, brought up in America, thinks and acts like an American, and speaks only American is somehow "ethnically Japanese"? What makes him or her "ethnically Japanese"?

      Eye shape and hair colour? But that same criterion could be used to declare him "ethnically Chinese" or "ethnically Korean".

      Ancestors from Japan, maybe? But then "ethnically Japanese" simply says something about his ancestors, not about him. How does it make him in any way Japanese?

      How does this "ethnicity"work?

    • RoHa May 13, 2012 at 7:59 pm

      He's not the only one who does not see a clear difference between the concepts. On my Australian passport it says on the first page " ... the bearer, an Australian Citizen, ... " but on the page with my photo and details it says "Nationality: Australian". Australian Fedreal Law requires that Members of Parliament be of Australian nationality only. And "nationality" is the word used.

      It is pretty easy to pin down what is involved in being a citizen of the Japan, but what is it that makes one a member of the "Japanese ethnicity"?

      And why does "ethnicity" matter to you? Why do you give a [moderated] about the "ethnicity" or "nationality" of your fellow citizens or your fellow human beings?

    • RoHa May 12, 2012 at 9:08 pm

      "It’s an old Palestinian claim that Jews aren’t a nation. Fine.
      If we aren’t a nation then neither are Palestinians."

      So what?

      Forget about your silly ideas of "nations"and start giving equal rights to all the people in the territory of Palestine.

  • Israeli military raids office of human rights organization 'Stop the Wall'; steals computers and hard drives
  • 'Death of a Salesman' came out of an intermarriage
    • RoHa May 15, 2012 at 2:08 am

      But my comment was simply surprise to find out that Miller was Jewish.

      And yes, though I have spent a huge chunk of my adult life in Britain, with smaller chunks in Scandanavia, Japan, and the US. Plus a year in Saudi.

      And I'm still not thinking of Henry Miller, even as I type his name.

    • RoHa May 14, 2012 at 9:58 pm

      "Odd, you don’t mention, e.g., Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, or Philip Roth."

      You mentioned Roth, so I didn't need to. I don't remember whether I have read anything by Malamud or Bellow.

      "Haven’t you read Roth’s “The Plot Against America”? "
      No. Why should I?

      "(Gee, I bet you think Dirty Dancing merely reflected class conflict.)"
      No. I didn't see the film, but from what I heard about it I thought it was a rehash of the old "young people enjoy R&R even though old fogies call it sinful" films.

      " have you a less biased view of either Paul or Lindbergh?"
      Not much interest in either.

      "So you think Who-Dunnits R first class literature?"
      I think well-written who-dunnits are often more interesting than the tedious pretentious tripe that is often classed as "first class literature".

      "How is this relevant to my question?"

      It shows that I don't think about your question.

      'Post WW2, “The American literary landscape was suddenly and audaciously alive with Jewish characters of every sort. Writers shed their coyness and let their Jewishness speak in loud, even stentorian, tones.” '

      So what?

    • RoHa May 13, 2012 at 8:25 pm

      "RoHa, you mean you think of him as an American writer like John Updike, or Phillip Roth?"

      I mean that he is on my mental list of American writers, along with Gore Vidal and John Steinbeck and Joseph Wambaugh and Raymond Chandler and Ernest Hemmingway and Robert Frost and Mickey Spillane and Eugene O'Neil and Herman Melville and Orson Scott Card and Sara Paretsky and Ray Bradbury and Carl Sandburg and a pile of others.

      "Is there any difference in your mind between a writer who universalizes his/her personal experiences and one who more emphasizes them in the particular?"

      I don't usually think about that. I think about who did the murder.

    • RoHa May 13, 2012 at 12:22 am

      "you’re not american!"

      Which is something of a relief, since it means I don't have to go around thinking of Henry Miller all the time. Don't you find it exhausting?

    • RoHa May 12, 2012 at 9:04 pm with 9 replies

      No. I never think of Henry Miller. I just never had any inkling that Arthur Miller was a Jew. I just thought of him as an American writer.

    • RoHa May 8, 2012 at 8:03 pm with 11 replies

      Arthur Miller was a Jew?

  • 'Liberal and enlightened'-- and all white
    • RoHa May 8, 2012 at 8:11 pm

      "They claim Asians tend to self-segregate most, and since they are about 25 % it has a larger impact. "

      Do you mean people of Far Eastern (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.) ancestry or people of Indian subcontinent ancestry?

      I remember reading some time ago that in the US a woman of Far Eastern ancestry was more likely to marry a white man than a man of Far Eastern ancestry. I don't know if that was true or not.

  • Brilliant judges rule that administrative detention is copacetic
  • Secrecy pact over Israel's nukes, reached by Nixon and Meir, serves policy of 'nuclear coercion' to avoid peace deal
    • RoHa May 8, 2012 at 6:56 pm

      There's a pretty good chance that Big Banking had a hand in it. JFK wanted the US currency to be in the hands of the US Government rather than the Federal Reserve Bank.

      Actually, I think the best argument for the Lone Crazed Gunman theory is that it would have been impossible for all the institutional enemies to co-ordinate their actions.

    • RoHa May 7, 2012 at 9:46 pm

      Read the review. It is heavy-handed sarcasm.

      "Israel, being chosen by G*d, is the steward of humanity therefore Israel is conceptually incapable of "crime" as such. In short, if Israel does it, it is no crime. We non-Jews must accept this and accept the fact that we, as non-Jews, are in most cases just not intelligent enough to understand that everything Israel does is good"

    • RoHa May 7, 2012 at 9:40 pm with 2 replies

      " Richard Nixon, who like Lyndon Johnson was more compliant than their predecessor, the late John Kennedy. "

      Which is why he is late.

  • After LGBT forum, Oren will headline for notorious homophobic pastor John Hagee
    • RoHa May 8, 2012 at 7:57 pm

      "I see nothing anti-Semitic in belief that Jews will go to the Lake of Fire. "

      I'm not clear on the details of this bit of eschatology, but if only Jews are sent to the the LoF, it seems obvious that it is anti-Semitic.

      On the other hand, if (as I think you suggest) all unbelievers and sinners are sent to the LoF, that too is anti-Semitic, since it treats Jews just like everyone else and so denies their Jewish identity. They need a special kosher Lake of Fire.

  • Palestinian students at Israeli college say they were forced to stand to honor war dead
    • RoHa May 6, 2012 at 11:57 pm

      Yet another example of the amazing ingenuity of Israeli Jews!

      Cherry tomatoes, and now this.

  • Who's the anti-Semite?
    • RoHa May 11, 2012 at 12:45 am

      "So the only two possibilities in your worldview are that the Jews themselves are responsible for causing anti-semitism or that there is no reason at all for anti-semitism? "

      False dichotomy. It seems perfectly possible to me that the actions and attitudes of some Jews (almost certainly a largish number) have been a contributory cause without them being the sole cause.

      If you want to know the causes of antisemitism, you should take that possibility into account. Perhaps you can find good, empirically based, reasons for rejecting it. You will never know unless you look, and you will never look if you simply reject the idea as antisemitic.

      To repeat myself, the accusations “antisemitic” and "Jew hater/ing" function almost solely as fallacies of relevance. They serve as ad hominem, name-calling, and poisoning the well. They are bad logic, and no good comes of that. The Confucians are right about this. You cannot have moral order where there is intellectual disorder.

    • RoHa May 8, 2012 at 1:05 am

      "RoHa, Sartre took a swing at your interesting question ..."

      But my main concern - perhaps not so well expressed in my post - is that the accusation "antisemitic" seems to be used to avoid testing the truth of the allegedly antisemitic claim

      If it is true all major media are controlled by Jews, then we should be prepared to say so, no matter how antisemitic the claim may be.

      If it is false, then we should not say so regardless of whether it is antisemitic or not.

      But we will not be able to investigate the claims and decide whether they are true or false if we are prevented from even provisionally expressing the claim.

    • RoHa May 7, 2012 at 2:12 am with 9 replies

      "It is undeniably antisemitic to blame Jews for fostering antisemitism."

      So what? The interesting question is whether Jews do or do not foster antisemitism.

      And it seems absurd to me to suggest that everyone decided "Let's hate the Jews for no particular reason".

    • RoHa May 6, 2012 at 11:54 pm

      Er, Mooser. My totally goyish son is interested in learning to play the accordion. Is it allowed for Gentiles?

  • I always knew Nana was Jewish, but it only came up once
    • RoHa May 8, 2012 at 8:23 pm

      You are suggesting that Isaac Goldstern, who has contributed nothing, should feel proud because Mooser has contributed so much fun and wisdom to this blog?

      In that case, should I feel proud because other people whose surnames also begin with "H" have contributed so much to the world?

  • 'Holocaust-obsessed fantasist' rides high in the polls
  • It took decades for South Africa boycott resolutions to gain traction
  • Beinart warns Jews that not talking to Palestinians and anti-Zionists 'makes us stupid'
    • RoHa May 5, 2012 at 2:42 am with 4 replies

      I, for one, would. If a single unified state, in which everyone has equal rights, is established in Palestine, then it does not matter which group is the majority.

      Of course, I would like to see the people give up this stupid business of being Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Baha'is, and just be reasonable people. But I do not expect to see that much good sense for a long time.

    • RoHa May 4, 2012 at 11:48 pm

      Unconscionable frivolity aside, are there any answers to the question "What is it that makes a group “your own people”?

    • RoHa May 4, 2012 at 11:47 pm

      Not all Canadians are old.

    • RoHa May 4, 2012 at 11:46 pm

      "old farts have been living in your place for centuries "

      I certainly have.

    • RoHa May 3, 2012 at 8:33 pm

      Right!
      So for all the boring old Jewish farts out there, remember that your loyalty should be to boring old farts. We, not "the Jews", are "your own people".

    • RoHa May 3, 2012 at 8:13 pm with 11 replies

      "What does it mean to be loyal to your own people. "

      What is it that makes a group "your own people"?

      I was born in the UK, and I am a British Citizen.
      Does that make the British "my own people"?
      I was brought up in Australia, I am an Australian Citizen, and I live here.
      Does that make the Australians "my own people"?
      (Or are just the people who were born in Britain and brought up in Australia "my own people"?)
      My wife is Japanese. I speak primitive Japanese, have lived in Japan, and have a 3rd Dan in Aikido.
      Does that make the Japanese "my own people"?
      I speak Swedish and have lived in Sweden.
      Does that make Swedes "my own people"?
      I have a great admiration for Confucian philosophy.
      Does that make Confucians "my own people"?
      I am a boring old fart.
      Does that make boring old farts "my own people"?

      How do we decide?

  • When the Methodist Church decided that slavery was regrettable but none of our business
    • RoHa May 1, 2012 at 11:02 pm

      In that case, the failing would be God's.

    • RoHa May 1, 2012 at 9:18 pm

      Please note that I am referring to Christians from St. Paul onwards, and to slavery as a whole throughout that period, not just slavery in America.

    • RoHa May 1, 2012 at 7:26 pm with 4 replies

      "One of Stowe's central ideas was that Christian principle forbade slavery. But the church was deeply corrupted by it."

      Actually, the topic was one on which Christian thinkers were divided. Slavery is not forbidden or even roundly condemned anywhere in the Bible*. On the contrary, it seems to be endorsed, and many Christians accepted that. Nonetheless, there were others who thought, like Stowe, that it was contrary to the basic principles. The eighteenth/nineteenth century anti-slavery movement in Britain was set in motion by people who were religious dissidents rather than representative of established churches. One of the first and most powerful voices against slavery in America was Thomas Paine, who was not a Christian at all.

      *Nor in the Qur'an. One of the major failings of all the Abrahamic religions before Baha'i was the acceptance of slavery. Over the centuries Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all been heavily involved in the slave trade.

    • RoHa May 1, 2012 at 7:13 pm

      As I understand it, the idea behind the torture was that a slave, because of his powerless position, would first and foremost say whatever would protect himself. Usually this would be to say whatever his owner wanted him to say. Only torture could ensure that he told the truth.

  • Romney beats Obama-- to the eulogy anyway
    • RoHa May 1, 2012 at 12:30 am

      No. What are they?

    • RoHa April 30, 2012 at 9:42 pm with 2 replies

      Interesting that he stereotypes Arabs as "the man from the desert". For well over a thousand years the vast majority of Arabs have been farmers or city folk. Hardly any of them were Bedu. The average modern Arab doesn't know one end of a camel from the other. (Which can have very unfortunate consequences.)

  • 'When Netanyahu and I look up we see nothing but the sky' -- Deputy Messiah Barak
  • Obama high-fives Jimmy Kimmel after he calls Netanyahu a warmongering 'yahoo'
  • 'Messianic' rap on Netanyahu frees Obama, thaws discourse (and exposes 'No Return' Goldberg)
    • RoHa April 29, 2012 at 8:12 pm

      It a relief to see that Israel has people in positions of influence who are less than totally loopy.

  • Huge Co-op in UK dumps suppliers linked to Israeli settlements
  • Major olive producing village ordered to uproot 1,400 trees by May 1
    • RoHa April 29, 2012 at 1:14 am

      I never read them. Too depressing. I just wait for nice stories like "Peter Possum and Katie Koala have fun in Hebron."

  • Ozick, anti-Palestinian polemicist, is shortlisted for a big prize
    • RoHa May 8, 2012 at 1:12 am

      "A few months ago Palestine’s US Ambassador stated that any newly formed Palestinian state would be free of Jews."

      Can you quote his actual words?

  • Anna Quindlen's religious disaffection is good copy (what about anti-Zionists?)
    • RoHa April 29, 2012 at 1:10 am

      "Seeing as how I don’t care for hockey or Tim Hortons coffee, some folks might question my Canadian cred. ;-)"

      You aren't really boring enough to be a Real Canadian.

  • 'Washington Post' cartoon mocking future Palestinian state signals crumbling of two-state paradigm
    • RoHa April 28, 2012 at 2:00 am

      We know what Switzerland looks like. The cartoon is a joke.

    • RoHa April 28, 2012 at 1:58 am

      "And to think this could have been (and should have been) resolved 45 years ago."

      It would not have arisen if, in the 1930s, the Zionists had accepted the idea of a single, unified, secular state.

  • Imagine there are no Hutus or Tutsis
    • RoHa April 27, 2012 at 1:31 am

      "Apparently, in Israel, you aren’t allowed to lie your way into women’s beds."

      There go my chances, then.

    • RoHa April 27, 2012 at 1:30 am

      "She told me that the majority of Rwandan children today do not know if they are Tutsi or Hutu. Their parents do not tell them. She told me that it is illegal to ask someone if they are Tutsi or Hutu. She told me that all forms of personal identification no longer have the words "Tutsi" or "Hutu" on them. "

      Then they aren't Tutsi or Hutu any more. They are Rwandans.

  • Shmully and guilt
    • RoHa May 1, 2012 at 11:33 pm

      "We aren’t talking about a few marginal Jewish spiritual leaders here. ... Chief Ashkenazi and Sephardi Rabbis of Palestine and Israel: Kook, Yosef, et al. "

      Let's get it all out, Hostage.
      So far we have established that, according to these guys, I am a sub-human whose life isn't worth a Jewish fingernail. If they cheat me or kill me, no real harm is done. My soul is a satanic-animal soul. I was created to be Mooser's servant, but I am so filthy that I mustn't touch his wine, and certainly not his daughters.

      If I get a bit cheesed off with the chappies who are paying me these compliments, it's because I suffer from an incurable mental disease.

      Is that all, or do they have any other words of cheer and encouragement to show their esteem for me and the rest of humanity?

    • RoHa April 30, 2012 at 9:46 pm

      Perhaps its because when we are dead we aren't likely to touch the wine.

    • RoHa April 30, 2012 at 9:26 pm

      "Can an appliance displease Jehovah by its programmed actions?"

      If it gets blasted by lightning from a clear sky you will have your answer.

    • RoHa April 29, 2012 at 2:02 am

      So I might be a Satanic animal? Is that like a Pokemon?

    • RoHa April 29, 2012 at 1:37 am

      “Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.”

      Cool!

      Is there a way I can find out which satanic sphere my soul comes from?

      (I know it isn't Canada.)

    • RoHa April 28, 2012 at 1:42 am

      They are great.

      West Side Story does not have a single tune as good as either "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" or "Mini the Moocher". The music is banal and boring, and the story should have been left with Shakespeare.

  • Widely-imitated, Beinart is giving Jews permission to be, unh, liberal Zionists
    • RoHa April 26, 2012 at 12:47 am

      Especially since it seems they don't actually know what an ” identity” is.

    • RoHa April 25, 2012 at 10:10 pm with 15 replies

      "Liberal Zionism is a national liberation struggle of the Jewish people"

      What are the "Jewish people" struggling to be liberated from? Here in Australia, Australian Jews are no more oppressed than other Australians. Many are bankers and MPs, and so among the oppressors.

      And in what meaningful sense are "the Jewish people" a "nation" for the liberation to be "national"?

  • Netanyahu goes looney tunes on Israeli Independence Day
  • 'I will always be there for Israel,' Obama promised woman he met at old Warsaw Ghetto
  • Algeria and Six-Day War led Lanzmann to make Shoah (and to deny the Nakba)
    • RoHa April 23, 2012 at 9:39 pm

      "No wonder Spinoza fled to liberal England, where he could flourish intellectually uninhibited outside the narrow confines of the Jewish community!"

      Benedict Spinoza didn't flee anywhere. He was born a Dutchman in Amsterdam, lived in the liberal Netherlands all his life, and died a Dutchman. He was excommunicated from the synagogue when he was a young man, and lived the rest of his life as an ex-Jew.

  • '60 Minutes' profiles Palestinian Christians, Michael Oren falls on his face
    • RoHa April 26, 2012 at 8:22 pm

      Your assessment of hophmi may well be correct. However, even if we abandon the idea of actually changing his mind, there are two good reasons for Hostage to continue responding to him.

      First, it gives other readers a chance to see how weak hophmi's arguments are.

      Second, it gives me yet another chance to observe (with open-mouthed admiration) the way Hostage can marshal and deploy his vast erudition to rebut hophmi.

      That alone is worth the price of admission.

    • RoHa April 25, 2012 at 10:19 pm

      "Yes, most of the mainstream media can recognize antisemitism when they see it and reject the thesis that the Jews led us into war."

      It doesn't matter a hoot whether the thesis is "anti-Semitic" or not.

      What matters is whether it is true.

      Crying "anti-Semitism" or "Jew hating" doesn't change the truth or falsity.

      Why is this so hard for you to understand?

    • RoHa April 24, 2012 at 10:30 pm

      "The fifth example is a legit price tag attack. "

      Legit?

    • RoHa April 24, 2012 at 10:20 pm

      You're welcome. I'm always ready to step in with unsolicited pedantry.

    • RoHa April 24, 2012 at 9:52 pm

      From the story, it seems as if the Rabbi is using "Sephardic Jews" to mean "Arab Jews". Moses Montefiore and Benedict Spinoza may count as Sephardic*, but they were hardly Arabs. Montefiore was British and Spinoza was Dutch.

      (*I don't know what does count as Sephardic.)

    • RoHa April 24, 2012 at 1:40 am

      Don't you ever get tired of using facts to refute Zionists?

    • RoHa April 23, 2012 at 11:23 pm with 3 replies

      Apparently, "Sephardi Jews are more natural and purer than Ashkenazim because, unlike the Ashkenazim who went as far as Europe, the Sephardi Jews didn't move that far away, didn't live among Christians and studied the Zohar,"

      But all this purity seems to have had a drawback. Sephardi Jews are a bit ignorant.
      link to haaretz.com

    • RoHa April 23, 2012 at 10:59 pm

      "Raheb pushes the anti-semitic ruse that Ashkenazi Jews are not real Jews but descendants of the Khazars.."

      How does being a descendant of the Khazars stop someone from being a real Jew?

  • 1200 rabbis threaten an end to interfaith harmony if Methodists support divestment
    • RoHa April 21, 2012 at 1:14 am

      "Ask “should Israel exist as a Jewish homeland” and you’d probably get about 90% of Jews saying yes."

      So you think 90% of Jews have no sense of decency?

  • Sequestering young people in religious/ethnic schools breeds alienation and hatred (Magid takes on Beinart)
    • RoHa April 26, 2012 at 12:45 am with 7 replies

      "And it is something of a social tragedy to have a part of yourself that is hidden, kept secret."

      Are you sure it was really there?

      "But most inter-married Jewish children are completely isolated and unaware of their Jewishness. "
      If they are integrated into the society around them, how are they isolated?
      If they are unaware of their "Jewishness", in what way are they Jews at all? Why should they be bothered with it?

    • RoHa April 22, 2012 at 11:12 pm

      "When we see Arab masses turning to their Islamic roots we consider it a natural (and therefore a positive) reaction to the pressures of Western coercive globalism and the lingering effects of Western colonialism."

      I don't. I see it as a negative reaction to those things. I see it as an attempt to resist change, to cling to the past, and reject the world, and thus something to be deplored.

    • RoHa April 21, 2012 at 9:31 pm

      "Jews are not the only religion with dietary laws; Muslims have them as well."

      But they are much less restrictive, and so far less of a social barrier. Muslims happily share meals with non-Muslims, without any concern for ritual pollution from presence or touch. Perhaps because Muslims are not supposed to drink wine anyway.

    • RoHa April 21, 2012 at 9:05 pm

      "If Jews marry goys the kids should be recognised as Jews."

      Why? If they don't follow the religion, what is the point?

    • RoHa April 21, 2012 at 9:03 pm

      Hop and his ilk seem to care more about their religion than they do about the happiness of their "fellow" Jews.

    • RoHa April 21, 2012 at 9:01 pm

      "I mean they generally know little about Jewish tradition, history, customs, or practices."

      That I understand, although I don't see the connection between that and "who they are", etc.

      Anyway, you think this ignorance is important?

    • RoHa April 21, 2012 at 1:28 am with 11 replies

      "It's simply about the fact that Jews in this society have little concept of who they are"

      You mean they are in a worse position than poor old Kim er Sung?
      "Am I Isaac Goldstern? No, doesn't sound right. Mo Green? Debra Weingarten? Napoleon Solo? "

      " and where they come from."

      A little talk with their fathers might help with that.

      But if that is not what you mean, please explain what you do mean. I really do not know what else "who they are and where they come from" could mean.

    • RoHa April 21, 2012 at 1:10 am with 3 replies

      "Sequestering young people in religious/ethnic schools breeds alienation and hatred"

      Gosh!
      Really?
      Who'd have thought it?

  • Three thoughts For Holocaust Day
  • Auden wrote 'by far' the best book in 1945, but was denied the Pulitzer for alleged Communism and aloofness from WW II
  • Assange's first guest on RT world premier: Nasrallah says US & Israel seek civil war in Syria
    • RoHa April 21, 2012 at 12:31 am

      Interesting. I am permitted to point out Oleg's fallacies, but not WJ's.

    • RoHa April 19, 2012 at 8:38 pm with 1 replies

      "Owhh blood libels Walid an oldie but a goodie."

      Blood libel, Jew hater, anti-Semite, what about Sudan, etc., etc., etc.

      Do they give you Zionists training in how to commit as many fallacies (and especially fallacies of relevance) as possible?

      Here are a couple of lists. Make sure you haven't forgotten any. I expect to see them all in your posts. Don't disappoint me.

      link to iep.utm.edu

      link to faculty.ccri.edu

    • RoHa April 19, 2012 at 8:26 pm

      "and i’ve never even heard of Kim er Sung"

      "Kim" seems to be the most common surname in Korea, so there probably is a Korean who has forgotten part of his name.

      "My surname in Kim, and Sung is the second part of my given name, but dammit, I just can't remember what the first bit was."

    • RoHa April 18, 2012 at 11:43 pm

      "He was very smart to anoint himself the next – and the last – messiah."

      Of course, Baha'u'llah says Muhammad was the last of the series. The Bab and he kick off the new series.

  • Woman removed from Air France flight for not being Jewish
  • Israeli celebrity says she enjoyed video of IDF attacking Danish activist because he looked like a Nazi
    • RoHa April 19, 2012 at 8:48 pm

      "Does Jewish vengeance and need for revenge are wrong?"

      So Jewish vengance is:

      "Hey, that little kid there looks pretty much like the kid who pushed my father's best friend into the mud when they were at school seventy years ago! I'll push him into to the mud! Revenge! Revenge!"

      And you ask if it is wrong?

    • RoHa April 19, 2012 at 2:45 am with 1 replies

      "No, there is only one criteria, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with logical consistency."

      Which explains why you say "one" and then follow it with the plural of "criterion".

  • Barghouti to U.S. Jews: I know you don't like the word apartheid, but what do you call a system that gives a settler 50 times more water than a Palestinian?
    • RoHa April 17, 2012 at 7:45 pm

      For most of the run-=up to 1948, the Palestinians wanted one state with everyone given equal rights and an end to Jewish immigration.

      If, in the 1940s, they decided they wanted to kick out the European Jews, it was probably because they finally recognized that the Zionists were insatiable monsters determined to take the land away from them, and there was no way of coming to an agreement with them.

  • Iran didn't threaten to 'wipe' Israel out -- Israel's deputy prime minister
    • RoHa April 19, 2012 at 2:25 am

      "If one were to move the political spectrum of the US to Australia"

      I think that's what our Government has been trying to do for some years now.

    • RoHa April 19, 2012 at 2:21 am

      "Who knew that rats were antisemitic??"

      We've already established that trees, ducks, sheep, and five-year-olds are antisemitic. Why expect rats to be any different?

  • P.A. has lost all its meaning -- Abbas
    • RoHa April 18, 2012 at 10:47 pm

      I notice you didn't answer the two questions, "What made the first Jewish mother Jewish?" and "Why are Jews so much more important than other people?" Too hard?

      "Roha, you might not care about preserving your cultural identity, some people do."

      If your "cultural identity" is more important to you than getting on with the neighbours, stop complaining when you have trouble with the neighbours.

      But note, first of all, that "preserving cultural identity" involves imposing that "cultural identity" on another generation. And on another after that. And so on. If that "cultural identity" leads to trouble with the neighbours, why pass that trouble on to your children and grandchildren?

      If a generation of Jews were to stop being Jews, and not pass on that "cultural identity", their children would adopt another "cultural identity", and that would most likely be the same as that of the neighbours. The children would be comfortable in their "cultural identity", and there would be no more trouble with the neighbours.

      What makes a particular "cultural identity" so important that generation after generation has to suffer to "preserve" it?

    • RoHa April 17, 2012 at 11:25 pm

      "Being Jewish is a lineage that comes from having a Jewish mother."

      So what makes the mother Jewish? Having a Jewish mother, I suppose. And what made her Jewish? We keep going back until we find the first Jewish mother. And what made her Jewish? Religion, maybe?

      "The primary reason for making Israel a Jewish state is to provide a haven for Jews who face persecution because they are Jews."

      And so you say that the possible persecution of Jews justifies the real ethnic cleansing, oppression, and persecution of Palestinians.

      Why are Jews so important that they should be allowed to steal a land and drive out the people to protect themselves against possible persecution?

      "Ultimately and sadly Jews can never depend on the good will of whatever other country they inhabit"

      If they can't stay Jews and get on with the neighbours, they should stop being Jews.

  • Video: Senior IDF officer smashes peaceful activist in the face with his M-16
    • RoHa April 16, 2012 at 11:16 pm

      The Semitic languages are a group of related languages.

      They are named after the Semites. This term was applied to the ancient peoples who migrated from the Arabian peninsula to Mesospotamia and the Levant.

      Considering the mixing that has gone on over the last few thousand years, the original meaning of the term hardly applies to living people.

      However, the languages can still be called "Semitic" without implying that the speakers are pure-bred Akkadians.

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