tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post3533920154498204136..comments2024-01-02T02:18:30.960-08:00Comments on Israel Thrives: Confronted with an Uncharitable WorldMike L.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06450806807610560873noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-48509750545748385032013-06-19T08:11:39.148-07:002013-06-19T08:11:39.148-07:00Jay,
Yeah, sometimes I don't know what distur...Jay,<br /><br />Yeah, sometimes I don't know what disturbs me more: Anti-Zionism in particular, or the general fact that they're meddling in affairs that are no concern of theirs (while accusing the Zionists of doing just that).<br /><br />I could settle for a world that cared about this conflict as much as it cares about Northern Ireland or Sri Lanka: here and there a news item or opinion piece from time to time, but not the relentless, frenzied obsession with this conflict we see every day.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-28639424676215042712013-06-18T13:12:19.107-07:002013-06-18T13:12:19.107-07:00This about sums it all up, nice and neat -
"...This about sums it all up, nice and neat -<br /><br />"<i>I get it that people, for some reason or other, don't want to stand with Israel. I don't want to stand with Sierra Leone or Paraguay or Marshall Islands, so what? But one thing I have a right to request, nay, demand, is they not stand with our enemies.</i>"<br /><br />Well said.JayinPhiladelphiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556212008313470286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-42690274791873835032013-06-18T11:11:14.065-07:002013-06-18T11:11:14.065-07:00Mike,
"Nonetheless, if they won't stand ...Mike,<br /><br />"Nonetheless, if they won't stand with us, just why should we stand with them?"<br /><br />I think my requests aren't exorbitant. I get it that people, for some reason or other, don't want to stand with Israel. I don't want to stand with Sierra Leone or Paraguay or Marshall Islands, so what? But one thing I have a right to request, nay, demand, is they <strong>not stand with our enemies</strong>. And that's exactly where the process of mainstreaming is headed: Making it obligatory to stand against Israel and with her enemies.<br /><br />You don't get a clearer declaration of war than that.<br /><br />"But your circumstance is entirely different from mine - yet integrally connected."<br /><br />As I wrote in this post, I think the world is no longer as it was in the 1970s, with the Islamic threat fairly localized. For so much as the Jewish State has acted a lightning rod in its first decades, the lightning now strikes everywhere, too far from the rod to capture it. With each strike the fools rush to blame the rod, but that won't improve the situation, of course.<br /><br />I hope the scenes of horror, hitherto confined to the Middle Eastern heartland but now found in London, Paris and Stockholm, will skip America. But, I'm not so optimistic in that regard. So, if things go in the same direction as now, there will be no place in the world where people will be able to say, "This is a safe haven and impregnable fortress, unlike Israel."<br /><br />I'm not saying all Jews have to make aliyah. There are a lot of substantial reasons why Jews living in abroad can't or won't. But there's one reason that no longer applies, and that is the old 1970s refrain that Israel is ironically where the Jews are the least safe. That's out of date.<br /><br />"My suspicion is that Israel is becoming far too important to the world from an economic and technological standpoint for us to get to the point ... that a combination of European and Arab pressure could seriously hurt Israel's reason-to-be as that national homeland of the Jewish people."<br /><br />I'm glad you think so. I've never thought of it that way, but then the view from inside often misses a lot of things seen from outside, and vice versa.<br /><br />"The world around you is falling apart, but you guys remain strong, despite the hatred of so much of Europe and virtually the entirety of the Arab world."<br /><br />We have no choice. :) Really, when I think about Jewish history, I'm surprised that we were able to hold on in the Diaspora for nearly 20 centuries. Now that we have our state, a return to the previous situation looks unbearable. Here we stay for better or worse.<br /><br />"The truth of the matter is that you probably have many more friends than you realize."<br /><br />I know. It might not seem like I know it, but when I think about it, I know. And I appreciate it. Like I said, reading your stuff convinces me that the adage "Those abroad will never understand" isn't true. From the start, with your first dissentions from Daily Kos (like your DKosWatch site), you've understood the situation in Israel amazingly well. Most of the info I've added about life and politics in Israel has been just details.<br /><br />"But, y'know, I have always been an optimist, by nature."<br /><br />I'm an optimist too, just one who's worried that it might be so unbearably dark before the dawn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-75798124810660705032013-06-18T10:44:57.477-07:002013-06-18T10:44:57.477-07:00Zion,
"The terrible truth that many Israeli ...Zion,<br /><br /><i><b>"The terrible truth that many Israeli Jews have come to understand in the past decade and some, and that Kaniuk too may have realized in the last years of his life, is that we are in the process of mainstreaming the denial of Zionism’s rightfulness in toto..."</b></i><br /><br />That definitely seems to be the case.<br /><br />So, where does that leave us?<br /><br />You are a religious Israeli Jew, living someplace in Israel, and I am a secular American Jew, living in Oakland, CA, USA.<br /><br />Where it leaves me is that I get to tell the major political movement in my part of the world to go screw and get to suffer the consequences of that decision. <br /><br />{Oh, Joy.}<br /><br />Nonetheless, if they won't stand with us, just why should we stand with them? <br /><br />But your circumstance is entirely different from mine - yet integrally connected.<br /><br />My suspicion is that Israel is becoming far too important to the world from an economic and technological standpoint for us to get to the point - anytime in the reasonably near future - that a combination of European and Arab pressure could seriously hurt Israel's reason-to-be as that national homeland of the Jewish people.<br /><br />When I think about Israel now versus the way it was in, say, the 1950s, I understand that your country - my homeland - has come a very long way, indeed. <br /><br />The world around you is falling apart, but you guys remain strong, despite the hatred of so much of Europe and virtually the entirety of the Arab world.<br /><br />The truth of the matter, nonetheless, is that you probably have many more friends than you realize.<br /><br />But, y'know, I have always been an optimist, by nature.Mike L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06450806807610560873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-29291378962171939232013-06-17T10:21:05.748-07:002013-06-17T10:21:05.748-07:00A simple reading of the Mandate refutes the twiste...A simple reading of the Mandate refutes the twisted and misleading interpretation given by the article.<br /><br />For example, the Preamble states:<br /><br /><i>Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people</i><br /><br /><i>Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country</i><br /><br /><i>ART. 2.<br /><br />The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble</i><br /><br /><i>ART. 4.<br /><br />An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine</i><br /><br />Further, Article 25 segregates what will become Jordan, and it may be asserted that all the land west of the Jordan River is conclusively the Jewish homeland:<br /><br /><i>In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate</i><br /><br />Article 28 does refer to the "Government of Palestine" as follows: It <i>will fully honour the financial obligations legitimately incurred by the Administration of Palestine during the period of the mandate</i><br /><br />As to the claim that the "the UN had no legal mandate to partition Palestine," that is absurd. Article 25 seems to do exactly that. As I read it, so long as the intent is to create a Jewish homeland, then the UN can act as it deems best, under the circumstances, as it does in all matters.<br /><br />The Mandate is found at:<br /><br />http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp#art28<br /><br />All this makes me wonder if the Zionists should have declared the State of "Palestine" in 1948, rather than Israel. What would the Palestinians have then called themselves?oldschooltwentysixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15672887176887940797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-26400491894673890642013-06-17T09:21:41.379-07:002013-06-17T09:21:41.379-07:00Thanks, Oldschool. :)
You might want to follow th...Thanks, Oldschool. :)<br /><br />You might want to follow the second indirect (Shorl) link I gave in my comment above. It's an entire article predicated on the assumption that the U.N. had no authority to create a Jewish state in Palestine, and that bears refutation. I'm not qualified to do this—you are.<br /><br />If you want to do it and have the free time for it, of course.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-84293362556188127012013-06-16T09:41:27.353-07:002013-06-16T09:41:27.353-07:00Article 80 of the UN Charter says:
nothing in thi...Article 80 of the UN Charter says:<br /><br /><i>nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.</i><br /><br />In other words, San Remo, Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, and The Mandate for Palestine on July 24, 1922.<br /><br />As such, when the Jews formed the State of Israel, according to the Montevideo Convention, it had the right to under international law and did so in the way recognized by international law, as any state would. It was recognized by other states and its later admittance into the UN as a member. All this shows, retrospectively, that the AHC position was wrong and why it was rejected by the international community. oldschooltwentysixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15672887176887940797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-62233922993175894712013-06-16T04:45:29.244-07:002013-06-16T04:45:29.244-07:00Oldschool,
"Where else should Zionism be rea...Oldschool,<br /><br />"Where else should Zionism be realized except in the land where the Jewish people are indigenous?"<br /><br />Apparently, old Uncle Joe's (you know, the one with the 'stache) view of Jews as "rootless cosmopolitans" who can live anywhere in the world they're tossed to informs anti-Zionism.<br /><br />I just read an article on the Far Left anti-Zionist website Countercurrents (shorl.com/prenostalostubru; follow the link at your own risk, it's a poisonous article, with such turns of phrase as "alarming colonist lebensraum") where the author quotes a fellow anti-Zionist's piece (shorl.com/labyprefipropo) on the U.N.'s right to create the Jewish state. Here is the quote:<br /><br />"On February 6, 1948, the Arab Higher Committee again communicated to the U.N. Secretary General its position that the partition plan was 'contrary to the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter'. The U.N. 'has no jurisdiction to order or recommend the partition of Palestine. There is nothing in the Charter to warrant such authority, consequently the recommendation of partition is ultra vires and therefore null and void.' " (End quote)<br /><br />What do you think?<br /><br />Rob,<br /><br />I overlooked those purchases (Gush Etzyon, Ariel etc.), in forgetfulness but also in great part because the old Israeli Leftist narrative conveniently leaves them out. It's a good point you make, then, but from my experience it has never swayed those wedded to the "pre-1967 Israel clean, post-1967 sinful" narrative to change their minds.<br /><br />And I can't agree more about what we should have done right after the Six-Day War. The painful thing about this is that we <em>could</em> have done it back then—the Arab colonists were expecting to be sent packing, and the rest of the world had yet to formulate the idea that the newly gained territories were to be the subject of a peace settlement. It was, as usual, those "Let's be smart, not right" imbeciles heading Israel's government who fouled up everything.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-3006053432418416232013-06-16T01:52:31.279-07:002013-06-16T01:52:31.279-07:00Well said, Oldschool.The entire San Remo agreement...Well said, Oldschool.The entire San Remo agreement was done to revise the original League of Nations mandate and allow Britain to create Trans-Jordan as the Arab part of 'Palestine'.<br /><br />The author also leaves out a key argument that always confounds adherents to the 'ill gotten gains' argument. The Gush Etzion bloc, Ariel, much of the Old City and much of Hebron was comprised of land and property land legally purchased by Jews before 1948 and then seized by the Arabs when they ethnically cleansed the Jewish inhabitants. <br /><br />Except for Pakistan and the UK, no other country recognized Jordan's illegal seizure of these areas, although they did nothing about it.<br /><br />Had the Jews simply annexed Judea and Samaria in 1967 and repatriated the Jordanian citizens (which is what all Arab inhabitants of these areas were at the time of the Six Day War) across the river to Jordan, this would not even be an issue today.Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13332213651195340500noreply@blogger.com