Michael L.
The Jewish Left loves to blame the Jewish Right for the lack of peace between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East.
The truth of the matter, of course, is that the real reason that there is no peace in the Middle East between Muslims and Jews is because the great Arab-Muslim majority embedded Jew Hatred directly into Islam and because Sharia insists that any land that was at any time under Muslim rule most always and forever remain under Muslim rule.
If this were not the case, if the "Palestinians" wanted nothing more than a state for themselves within which to exercise their national aspirations, then they would have called for a Palestinian-Arab state prior to 1967. Between 1948 and 1967 the Hashemites ruled Judaea and Samaria and for that entire period no movement for "Palestinian" nationalism emerged in the area.
It was only when the Jews defeated the hostile Arab-Muslim majority in the 6 Day War that suddenly the so-called "Palestinians" emerged as an allegedly distinct people on the international scene demanding a state for themselves on historically Jewish land.
In the mean time, of course, they continue to teach their offspring that the Jews are the children of apes and pigs, that we have no rights that they are obligated to honor, and that someday they will drive all of us who live in the region directly into the Mediterranean Sea.
People often say that the Arab-Israel conflict is enormously complex. In truth, it is not. It is, in fact, quite simple. Israel is the Dhimmi That Got Away and the Arab-Muslim world does not like it. That is it, in a nutshell. Nonetheless, we need to make it very clear to our former masters that the good old days of Jewish submission are over and they are never coming back.
Furthermore, by teaching their children to despise the Jewish people they nurture the very poisoned soil under which the misery of those children, and their children's children, will germinate and grow. The Jews in Israel will continue to lead the world in computer technology, medical technology, and agriculture while the "Palestinians" will lead the world in ever more creative ways of killing Jews.
I have to say, the suicide vest was quite an innovation and represents one of the very few Palestinian-Arab contributions to world culture. I cannot wait to see what they come up with next!
{They must be very proud.}
The Day of the Dhimmi is Done - Michael Lumish, PhD, proprietor. (mike.lumish@gmail.com)
I just got back from (finally) checking out the Free Library of Philadelphia's Dreyfus affair exhibit, courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania's Lorraine Beitler Collection, which will be on display until February 23rd at the Central Branch library on the Parkway in Center City.
ReplyDeleteThe 'propaganda' section was particularly striking, as it included a number of reproductions of that time's French media portrayals of Dreyfus and his defenders as monkeys, apes, pigs, serpents, insects, and, when given the honor of being portrayed as actual human beings, grotesque, shadowy, hook-nosed demonic types.
Over a century later, much of this same disgustingness can still be found in mainstream Arab and other Islamic media.
Until this problem is tackled head on, nothing much in the way of real progress can be expected. It isn't "Islamophobic" to point such a thing out.
Rather, I would say that in the face of all such evidence, it is in fact enabling antisemitism to deny the reality of same. Or to downplay its consequences.
Not quite sure I'm with you on this part, though, Mike -
"The Jewish Left loves to blame the Jewish Right for the lack of peace between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East."
How do you define "The Jewish Left?" I would consider myself to be amongst a Jewish left, but I certainly do not engage in blaming "the Jewish right" for any such thing. In ideological terms accepted by virtually everyone, I would think you'd agree that you are on the Jewish political left, as well.
I guess what I'm saying here is that perhaps a more useful term can be found to make your point, which I suspect I ultimately agree with, aside from tarring all of "the Jewish left" as any one bad group of people by default.
Framing the issue as left vs. right is a rather outdated way to look at things, at least when it comes to support of Israel, as far as I see it, and further, I'd argue that it may even harm our cause, as I'm sure there are many liberals who don't particularly want to be forced into 'siding' with 'the right,' but who would otherwise be supportive of Israel's right to self defense and our common fight against Islamist terrorism.
As recently as maybe ten years ago, I myself would have reflexively opposed anything and everything to do with 'the right.' I'm still a liberal, and still a Democrat (I've even broken my 2011 promise to give up on working political campaigns, for just this one time, wink wink, and thrown myself fully into electing Allyson Schwartz governor of Pennsylvania this year), but I've long since stopped playing the 'team' game. If someone was forcing me to choose sides against the left, however, I'm not so sure I'd have ended up in such a place yet. If ever.
I think I'll end this comment here for now, and hope I'm making at least some sense...
Jay,
DeleteI think that you are making a tremendous amount of sense.
When we speak of the "progressive-left" or the "Jewish-Left," or whatever phraseology that people use to get points across, we are obviously painting with a broad brush. If there is one thing that I know for sure it is that you are not a partisan ideologue. You are absolutely not someone who blames the Jewish Right for the failure of Oslo or who bristles with hostility at even the mention of the name Ariel Sharon.
And the thing of it is - yet, again - I come out of the American Left. I also come out of the Jewish Left, but I owe a greater ideological debt to the broader American Left. The roots of my political thinking go to Abolitionism and the Progressive Movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the New Deal and Civil Rights, the New Left, anti-War, Women's Rights, GBLT, Environmentalism, and so forth.
The whole hodge-podge of allied, yet competing, interests bound together at the heart by the entirely admirable notion of universal human rights.
However, you should know that I do not wish to demonize the Jewish Left, but to criticize it. If my pen is sometimes acerbic it is because I do not believe for one second that the majority of progressive-left diaspora Jews have learned much of anything from the failure of Oslo. Perhaps it is simply my own arrogance, but I feel like we are being dragged into a viewing of Oslo II: The Revenge of Arafat.... if you get me.
In any case, I certainly do not want you to be offended. What I admire about your position is that you are upfront about your progressivism, not vindictive toward those who disagree with you, and willing to dialogue with entirely wide-ranging group of people without acrimony, sarcasm, or general nastiness.
It's not a whole lot people who pull that off, Jay.
Well, to be fair, I don't have much tolerance for the Ali Abunimah, David Harris-Gershon and Gilad Atzmon types of the world, but thanks...
DeleteYou assume that their teaching their children anything at all implies an end game. It might not, it may simply be another tactic in a program that they themselves see as having no end. It could very well be fighting for the sake of fighting. Even if we accept that the Arab and Israeli war is the first tribal war of the 21st century - and I think it is - we have to understand that not all tribal wars are quick hard brutal affairs that end with the extermination of one tribe vs another. They could go on for decades, centuries even where the point of the war is keep the war alive for its own sake. When your entire society has built itself to do nothing but hate and kill, that's what they're going to do. There's no 'day after' scenario, no postwar 'reconstruction' they have in mind. None of the civic or civil institutions which might support that were developed. The Arabs could do this another hundred years or more and it would look the same. Because that's the point of it. Has the Mafia ever evolved to be some kind of quasi democratic statelet? Do Mexican drug cartels that have killed 110,000 people since 1990 aspire to something more? Of course they don't. Their business is business and business as they say, is good.
ReplyDeleteIf what you say is true, Trudy, then there is only one option and it is not a pretty one.
DeleteI won't say I'm a Revisionist Zionist, because I believe their Greater Israel philosophy is idealist and impossible if not downright fascist. But I can't quibble with their view of how to relate to the Arabs long-run. There has never been a 'win-win' proposition. There is only 'us' and 'them'. At best Israel can erect an 'iron wall', one which is physical, political, military, economic.
DeleteSome will consider this heresy, but it seems clear to me that the Revisionists (or Jabotinskyites?) are making some gains in recent years. Israeli Jews are coming to recognize that the two-state solution is a mirage and that we need fresh thinking. Therefore people like Caroline Glick, who has written a new book entitled, The Israeli solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, and Martin Sherman, have an opening to make their cases. The question that is on the mind of many of these Israeli Jews is when the diaspora will open a discussion on the possible annexation of Judaea and Samaria? I have never forsworn the two-state solution, but I find myself drawing close.
DeleteMy position has consistently been that Israel should declare its final borders to the east and remove the IDF to behind those borders. Whatever those borders will be should be entirely up to Israel for the obvious reason that the celebrators of murderers cannot represent credible negotiating partners.
It has come time to discuss the annexation of Judaea and Samaria on Israel Thrives.
Unfortunately hatred and a death wish is to Islam as love and life affirming is to Judaism . Teaching children to hate the Saturday and Sunday people will always be part of that culture. Never accepting a foreign body on land inhabited once by Muslims is the abiding principle. Not understanding this is delusional. Strength is the only thing that will guarantee peace. The political concept of left and right is as dated as is the concept of class warfare. We. Need to redefine this discussion . Being pro Israel is also an animal of many dimensions . However for those of us in the diaspora we are bound to support the government of the day and the people. Am Israel chai!
ReplyDeleteIt runs far deeper than any of this. When Hitler came to power one of the first things the Nazis did was stop educating children and instead changed into propaganda factories that drummed race hatred into their heads. But the odd or not so odd thing is that 'regular' Germans turned on a dime and openly hated, beat down, ostracized the same Jews they had known for generations. Children who played with one another one day bullied those same children the next. They clearly didn't need much inducement to do what always lurked beneath. Just because the state gives you license to burn your friend's house down doesn't mean you're going to do it unless you always in some way felt that you wanted to.
DeleteSo just because the EU and the UN pays their own staff to run schools little different from Nazi schools where the curriculum isn't learning, it's genocide, there's always something at play outside of that which goes all the way down into the deepest roots of their society. It's not what they 'do' it's who they 'are'.
"They clearly didn't need much inducement to do what always lurked beneath."
DeleteMy mother always used to say that antisemitism is imbibed with mother's milk. This proves it.
Hi Shimona,
Deletewelcome to Israel Thrives.
It's a great pleasure for me to see you here.