Sar Shalom
One of the debates running in electioneering circles is whether campaigns should focus on mobilization, that is ginning up excitement among loyal supporters to make sure they feel compelled to show up at the polls, or persuasion, or trying to convince swing voters. For promoting support of Israel, there is a similar choice between whipping up passions on the side that of the domestic debate that currently is more favorable to Israel or directing arguments to the side that is less supportive. Bringing these options to mind are two recent articles linking the recent Brett Kavanaugh confirmation to discourse about Israel, one by Melanie Phillips and one by Caroline Glick.
Both of those articles are examples mobilization. Both take as a given that there was no substance to the accusations against Kavanaugh and thereby compare the media's treatment of Israel to the left-wing conspiracy against Kavanaugh. Earth to supporters of Israel, how many people who engage in the necessary motivated reasoning to dismiss the charges against Kavanaugh without a bona fide investigation are there who do not already support Israel? If there are not that many, what is there to gain by canonizing Kavanaugh?
On the flip slide, how many people are there who see the whole process as steamrolling Kavanaugh through who are not solid supporters of Israel? Does declaring Israel as innocent as Kavanaugh help endear Israel to such people? A persuasion approach would take an opposite reading of the Kavanaugh confirmation process. I'll give two examples.
Following a hamstrung investigation that explicitly limited who could be interviewed, the FBI failed to find any corroboration of Dr. Blasey Ford's allegations. Similarly, following a hamstrung inspection that allowed Iran to declare certain sites off limits, the IAEA failed to find any violations of the JCPOA.
During the pre-hearings stage of the confirmation process, Judge Kavanaugh gave Sen. Susan Collins that he accepts Roe v. Wade as settled law. Similarly, there is a widely held narrative that while Hamas and Islamic Jihad reject Israel's right to exist and are committed to terror, Fatah recognizes Israel and have renounced terrorism. This narrative is held solely on the basis of Yasser Arafat having said so in the 1990's and Mahmoud Abbas repeating that assertion.
If you want to convince America's liberals to support Israel, instead of justifying the steamrolling of Kavanaugh's confirmation, ask those who view the FBI investigation that failed to confirm the allegations (as opposed affirmatively finding anything exculpatory) as a sham and who excoriate Collins for her willful blindness to Kavanaugh's ruse, why do they take the IAEA's certification of Iran's compliance with the JCPOA and Fatah's recognition of Israel/renunciation of terror at face value?
The Day of the Dhimmi is Done - Michael Lumish, PhD, proprietor. (mike.lumish@gmail.com)
42% of French Muslims between from age 18 to 29 believe
ReplyDeletethat suicide bombings against civilians can be justified.
35% of British Muslims between from age 18 to 29 believe
that suicide bombings against civilians can be justified.
26% of American Muslims between from age 18 to 29
believe that suicide bombings against civilians can be justified.
SOURCE: By the Numbers, a YouTube video
by Raheel Raza, 2015 December 10
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSPvnFDDQHk
http://zalmi.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-brave-muslim-woman-tells-us-what-were.html
=================================
MR. PAT CONDELL SAID:
“If you ever called Israel an apartheid state,
the word MORON was invented for you.”
SOURCE:
I Vote Against You by Pat Condell, 2016 May 6
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjYLWadz5Yc
time = 3 minutes 10 seconds
MICROBIOGRAPHY:
Mr. Pat Condell is an atheist, who was born
in Ireland around 1950 CE, and raised in
England as a Roman Catholic, and educated
in Church of England schools.
He has no Jewish ancestors and no religious
beliefs that might cause him to favor Jews.
The numbers you cite regarding percentage of Muslims justifying suicide bombings are important empirical facts. (Any information about Muslim sentiments on Dar-al-Islam in those countries? My suspicion is that it is worse than the numbers you cite on suicide bombing, but I have no data.) Unfortunately for us, there are a lot of people who are reticent to accept those facts. The more that reticence dissipates, the better. Any suggestions of how to get past that reticence?
DeleteGeneralizing my post, the main point would be to identify what could be called "gateway facts" that those reticent to accept the statistics of Muslims supporting support supremacist doctrines would readily accept. Either such people would not think about such facts or would not draw an inference between those facts and supremacist leanings without prompting. However, presentation of those facts along with logical reasoning for why those facts indicate supremacist leanings within the Muslim population would make such people feel licensed to think that Muslim rates of accepting supremacist doctrines are what the empirical data say they are.
Sar Shalom, get past the reticence by teaching
Deletethe truth about Islam and its most sacred writings:
the Koran and Hadiths.
The Koran and Hadiths are filled with HATE against:
Jews, Christians, women, Africans, and all non-Muslims.
A few examples:
=============================
Mohammed’s last words before he died:
“O Lord, kill the Jews and Christians.”
SOURCE: Hadith Malik, 511:1588
EXPLANATION: Islam teaches that Mohammed’s
later teachings take priority over his older teachings.
Therefore, the later the teaching, the greater it is.
Therefore, Muslims must believe that Mohammed’s
last words were his most important words.
=============================
Koran, chapter 4, verse 34:
“If you fear high-handedness from your wives, remind them [of the teachings of Allah], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them.”
=============================
Tabari, chapter IX, paragraph 113:
“Allah permits you to shut them [women] in separate rooms and to beat them, but not severely. If they abstain, they have the right to food and clothing. Treat women well because they are like domestic animals and they possess nothing themselves. Allah has made the enjoyment of their bodies lawful in this.”
=============================
Hadith, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 124:
The Prophet [Mohammed] said:
"…Then I stood at the gate of Hell [the Fire] and saw that the majority of those who entered it were women."
TRANSLATION NOTE:
The Arabic word used for "the majority" here is 'Aammah, and it indicates beyond any shred of a doubt (in Arabic) the *VAST MAJORITY.
=============================
from Brigitte Gabriel:
Wife-beating in Islamic nations is more prevalent than one can imagine.
In Pakistan, is has been reported by the Institute of Medical Sciences that 90% of the female population has been beaten for such wrongdoings as giving birth to a daughter or cooking an unsatisfactory meal.
After the African country of Chad attempted to outlaw wife-beating, Islamic clerics in that nation deemed the bill “un-Islamic”.
SOURCE: They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It (Chapter 9, page 173) by Brigitte Gabriel, year 2008, year 2010, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages, ISBN 0312571283, ISBN 9780312571283.
MICROBIOGRAPHY: Brigitte Gabriel, the author of They Must Be Stopped, is a Christian Arab, born in Lebanon. Arabic is her native language.
=============================
Even though slavery was abolished in [year] 1962 in Saudi Arabia, it is still practiced there today.
Not only is the government aware that it still exists, but religious and influential clerics sanction it.
Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, an opponent of anti-slavery laws and member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, said:
“Slavery is a part of Islam, and whoever
wants it abolished is an infidel.”
SOURCE: They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It (chapter 9, page 187) by Brigitte Gabriel, year 2008, year 2010, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages, ISBN 0312571283, ISBN 9780312571283.
=============================
I have more, but I am trying to consider
the maximum length for comments on this blog.
Saying that the sacred texts teaches hate essentially causes Muslims to be supremacists shows nothing more than you are a racist. That is exactly what leads to such reticence.
DeleteAny teacher at any school that emphasizes such hadiths and suras should be regarded the way you say that those passages indicate we should regard all Muslims. Ascertaining what any individual school teaches takes a bit more work than opening the Koran.
EoZ had an excellent post a few months ago about someone who grew up in Gaza and decided to go the bathroom when the teacher started to talk about the nature of the Jews. The teacher then lambasted him for missing the most important lecture she had ever given and sent him to the principal's office who sent him home where his father punished him. That story actually does tell us about what Gaza society, and only Gaza society though other examples could be found for areas under PA control, is like. As a one off, I doubt that telling it would change anyone, though repetition is worth a try.
“Too many people dismiss the prospect of a worldwide jihad occurring again.
ReplyDeleteIn doing so, they misunderstand the ideology of original Islam or naively assume its resolve. Political correctness has literally paralyzed many in government and created an atmosphere in which fear of being called intolerant or an “Islamophobe” trumps concerns over safeguarding our lives and liberties.
Were we living in a time when weapons of mass destruction did not exist and global transportation was virtually impossible, a misread of this enemy might be excusable.
But we do not live in such a time. If an Islamic radical is willing to put his children in a car, buckle them in, fill the car with explosives, use the children as props to deceive the soldiers at a security checkpoint, and then detonate the bomb—with the children still in the car—what makes anyone believe such a radical would hesitate to detonate a nuclear bomb if he had a chance?”
SOURCE: They Must Be Stopped: Why We
Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It
(introduction chapter, page 5) by Brigitte Gabriel,
year 2008, year 2010, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages,
ISBN 0312571283 * ISBN 9780312571283.
No one in politics is ever persuaded to change the bulk of their views. Perhaps they can be convinced to change tactics. But like the first and best Terminator, "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!"
ReplyDeleteThe US has, for a very long time, even in the worst of times been blase about elections. This century has seen some of the most vitriolic and contested national elections since the Civil War and turnout barely crossed 50%. That's a strange thing at first but not if you realize there's a hate industry driving it. Demagoguery is a business. If Al Sharpton for example spent 10% of his energy, political capital and money mobilizing buses to take black voters to the polls the so called black community could swing any election it wanted, absent any other group doing the same thing. But victory isn't what they want. Hate is. Hate pays the bills. Inside that is a kernel of truth, that activism can't be broadly based it must be focused. Activism can't succeed by turning your face to sky and screaming for 2 minutes a day. It doesn't win or lose with information or opinions. It wins with bodies. Here's a mental exercise - which is more effective, lobbying congress to reign in twitter, or mobilizing a hundred thousand people to each buy one share of stock (about $28 today) and send a several thousand people to their annual shareholder meeting and tear the venue down around their heads. Riot. Use tactics of the left to trample the corporate officers on stage, to death. The only pre emptive defense Jack Dorsey has is to hold the meeting in some far off obscure place that's absurdly hard for ordinary people to get to. And if that happens, send those 100,000 people to twitter HQ and throw rocks at the building.
There comes a time and it's usually early in the political cycle where attempting to hold a reasoned impassioned discussion with your opponents is pointless. The democrats in the Senate openly chanted they would and will fight whomever was or will be nominated to the SC before they are named. This is why I recommend that when Ginsberg keels over, Trump nominate someone like Obama and then immediately open up an open ended no holds barred public investigation into him (or her) going back to age 3. Be the sand in the gears. Be the shoes in the looms.
The key to this is not to change anyone's mind which is almost impossible. There is far more leverage to be obtained by motivating the people who already largely agree with you to dust the Cheetos off their chests heave their fat asses off the LayZBoy and go vote. Most national elections are not mandates anymore. They're statistical ties. Anyone espousing a cause who can drive 1-3% more people out there voting is probably going to win.
"Hate pays the bills."
DeleteThat is a very good line and it has truth in it.
What strikes me most about the period between the campaign for the presidency and this historical moment is the remarkable smokescreen of hatred that the progressives and Democrats have swirled around Trump.
I have never seen so much political hatred in my lifetime.
There has not been this much political hatred since 1968, but there was a major war on then.
What is most disappointing to me, personally, are seeing intelligent real-world friends just go along with the hatred.
It is jaw dropping. Some family members are all a gaga about Matt Damon's SNL schtick. To me, it's just again sacrificing some good comedy for the cause if they didn't add one for Christine Blasé Ford. Imagine Feinstein reading her resume aloud - degree after degree, peer reviewed papers, co-authoring books, and leading a professional life in psychology and statistics where you have to be pretty obsessive over details. Then the camera pans over and sitting their is little Shirley Temple in curls doing a little song and dance of "Animal Crackers in My Soup" and "The Good Ship Lollypop" to enthralled Democratic senators.
DeleteAnd Trudy is right about mandates. I don't think there has been one in a presidential election since Reagan, and working back from that, Nixon and LBJ. With the aid of the social sciences they got it down to winning that extra 2%. That's all you need to get over the top. But in the final analysis, it doesn't work for governing a country very well.
Democrats Claim that the
ReplyDeleteConstitution Is Unconstitutional:
www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/10/democrats-the-constitution-is-unconstitutional.php
BLACK WWII SOLDIER SAVED BY JEWISH DOCTOR
ReplyDeleteThere are elementary schoolchildren in Earl’s
neighborhood who need to hear some of his stories.
They should hear about the time when Earl
[an African American] was on Okinawa,
“the rock” [during World War II].
He complained about segregation in the [American]
Army and was thrown in the stockade [army prison]
for insubordination. One of his friends slipped out
of the barracks at night and low-crawled to
the fence line outside Earl’s cell.
His friend told Earl that he had overheard
the commanding officer say that they were
going to find a way to provoke Earl when he
was on work detail, make Earl attack one of
the guards, and then they would shoot him [dead].
They said: “That man will not leave the rock alive.”
They also need to hear Earl tell his story
about the Jewish doctor on the [USA Army]
base who did not want to see anyone punished
on account of prejudice.
The doctor risked his own career, got Earl
off the rock [Okinawa], and saved Earl’s life.
He also – to hear Earl tell it – changed Earl’s
own prejudiced view of people who were Jewish.
SOURCE: Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom
for Living a Better Life (chapter 6, page 67)
by Eric Greitens (Navy SEAL), year 2015 CE,
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishers,
ISBN 9780544323988 * ISBN 054432398X
============================================
Who are the Palestinians?
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2018/06/who-are-palestinians.html
BTW I'm chewing on an approach that's neither mobilization nor persuasion but more along the lines of counterinsurgency. It's taking a great deal of time to flesh these ideas out as there are few primary sources that articulate good strategies for counterinsurgency (at least in English)
ReplyDelete