Michael L.
{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under.}
Non-Israeli Jews have been in diaspora for 2,000 years or thereabouts.
We have been in diaspora so long that we have forgotten that we have a home.
The Land of Israel.
This is not to say that America is not also our home or that anyplace we happen to live, say Australia, is not a home. I live in California and have nothing but the highest regard for this land, and these people, and this country.
But that does not change the fact that Jews are indigenous to the east coast of the Meditteranean, just as the French are indigenous to France or the Japanese to their Pacific islands.
Israel is where we come from and why non-Muslims are so hostile to this notion remains a mystery to me. Many Muslims, of course, despise the idea of Jewish indigeneity because Islam is an imperialist religion and any land that was at any time conquered by the forces of Islam, as was Israel in the 7th century, must forever and always belong to the Umma, the people of Islam.
Jews, of course, have no particular reason to respect this wildly fascistic notion other than the fact that Muslims outnumber Jews by a factor of well over 100 to 1 and, therefore, have a far larger megaphone than do the Jews. Anti-Jewish racists, needless to say, believe that Jews control everything from the banks to the newspapers to the schools and do so for nefarious reasons.
This is essentially what the Nazis thought and taught.
It is true that Jews tend to punch well above our weight level, but there are reasons for this. It has nothing to do with "race" or genetic superiority, or any such notions, but because Jews have been put through the ringer by Christians and Muslims for millennia.
It was the very persecution of the Jewish people that has made us strong.
It was the persecution of the Jewish people that essentially created the IDF.
It was the persecution of the Jewish people that caused Theordore Herzl to create the First Zionist Congress in 1897.
Of all the ancient peoples of the Levant, only the Jews have survived. All the rest of our old neighbors are gone, including the Romans. The Jebusites are gone. The Assyrians are gone. The Babylonians are gone. But the Jews struggled through and survived.
I understand why Muslims resent Jews, but what I do not understand is why so much of the contemporary West also does. It makes no sense to me. The Jewish people, small as our numbers were kept, have been a major contributing factor to western culture and society, in the best sense. Judaism is a religion of law and, thus, throughout the millennia has worked through ideas of justice. This is the essence of Judaism and also a major contributing factor within Western jurisprudence and society.
There is a reason that so many towns and cities throughout the United States are named after Israeli towns. ---
But the bottom line is, the truth is, that the Jewish people are the indigenous people to the land of Israel and that is the land that we come from.
Many Muslims do not like this fact for religious reasons.
Westerners are just bullies.
The Day of the Dhimmi is Done - Michael Lumish, Proprietor
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
The Elder's Assumed Symmetry Fallacy
Mchael L.
{This is an old retread, but I like this one. Besides my laptop is busted... as is my right hand. So I am functioning off of Laurie's laptop - and G-d, how I hate it. I am feeling mean and surly so you better watch out!}
;O)
The Elder of Ziyon has a piece entitled, "Peter Beinart cannot tell the difference between a 'narrative' and a fact."
Speaking before a group of Democrats and progressives, Beinart said the following concerning conservative billionaire Sheldon Adelson:
In 2008, when Tel Aviv University's Shlomo Sand published a book called "The Invention off the Jewish People," he was widely called anti-Semitic. When Adelson says the same about Palestinians, he's a Republican rock star.
This is an example of what the Elder calls the Assumed Symmetry Fallacy. He writes:
However, the Jews of the Middle East also represent a tiny minority surrounded by a much larger, hostile majority of Muslims who have made it very clear, over the long and brutal course of 1,400 years, that they simply will not stand for Jewish sovereingty on historically Jewish land and will do everything within their power to make life miserable for the Jewish minority. They teach their children that Jews are the descendents of orangatans and swine and that killing Jewish people is pleasing to the heart of Allah. They wage war against us. They shoot rockets at us. They strap suicide belts onto women and children because when Muslim women and children commit suicide in an effort to murder Jews it is considered not merely a noble act, but the most noble spiritual act of the shaheed.
The truth is that in the Long Arab War Against the Jews of the Middle East, there is no symmetry. In terms of numbers, resources, land mass, every advantage goes to the Arabs. They outnumber the Jews by a factor of 60 or 70 to 1 throughout the region and if you include Muslims, more generally, the odds are over 100 to 1. They conquered and conrol over 99% of the entire Middle East, with the sole exception of the Jewish State of Israel, and are committing a genocide against the native Christian population. Muslims hold all non-Muslims under submission within imperial Islam since the rise of that religion in the 7th century throughout the Middle East with the lone, sole exception of Israel.
And now they literally created a brand-spanking new people, the "Palestinians," for the distinct purpose of countering Jewish sovereignty and freedom on historically Jewish land.
So, no, there is no symmetry in this fight.
The Jews are fighting to maintain freedom and sovereignty and the great Arab majority is dedicated to destroying that freedom and sovereignty and will ruin their own cousins, the Palestinian-Arabs, in order to keep them as the dagger pointed at the heart of the Jewish people on Jewish land.
Peter Beinart, it should be noted, is perhaps the single foremost example of Jewish dhimmitude in the public square today. He represents an excellent example of the kind of Jewish "progressive" who cannot only not bring himself to take his own side in a fight, but who has so incorporated the "Palestinian narrative" of pristine victim-hood into his apprehension of the conflict that he honestly believes that the besieged Jewish minority in the Middle East are the aggressors upon their former Arab-Muslim masters.
Finally, and most importantly, the Elder is generally correct when he writes this:
And I suppose this is where I disagree with the Elder. Are the "Palestinians" a distinct and separate people from Jordanian Arabs or Syrian Arabs or Egyptian Arabs? The classical definition of nationhood would suggest not. So-called "Palestinians" share the same religion with other Arabs, the same food-stuffs, generally speaking, with other Arabs, the same language and traditions. The "Palestinians" are Arabs. Period. And, in fact, most of their grandparents immigrated into the area following the Jewish aliyahs around the turn of the century.
The Jewish people, or so it seems to me, are under no obligation to recognize a brand-new allegedly distinct people who came into existence for the explicit purpose of robbing the tiny Jewish minority of sovereignty on Jewish land.
The truth of the matter is that we owe them nothing, not even recognition. If this sounds rather harsh, I am sorry, but the "Palestinians" have turned down every single offer for a state in peace next to Israel since 1937. They are never going to accept a Jewish presence with autonomy on land that was once captured by the forces of Islam, because to do so contradicts the very reason that they came into existence as an allegedly distinct ethnicity to begin with.
What the Elder understands, and what Beinart clearly does not, is that there is no symmetry. Shlomo Sand is a racist and a traitor to his people. The very notion that the Jews are a recently invented people is historically preposterous and Sand is a fraud. Adelson, however, whatever one may make of his politics was correct if he suggested that the "Palestinians" are a newly invented people.
This is not a matter of opinion.
It is a matter of fact.
{This is an old retread, but I like this one. Besides my laptop is busted... as is my right hand. So I am functioning off of Laurie's laptop - and G-d, how I hate it. I am feeling mean and surly so you better watch out!}
;O)
The Elder of Ziyon has a piece entitled, "Peter Beinart cannot tell the difference between a 'narrative' and a fact."
Speaking before a group of Democrats and progressives, Beinart said the following concerning conservative billionaire Sheldon Adelson:
In 2008, when Tel Aviv University's Shlomo Sand published a book called "The Invention off the Jewish People," he was widely called anti-Semitic. When Adelson says the same about Palestinians, he's a Republican rock star.
This is an example of what the Elder calls the Assumed Symmetry Fallacy. He writes:
I am not a logician and do not know of a formal name for this fallacy, but let's call it the Assumed Symmetry Fallacy: the assumption that two sides - by virtue of their opposition - are falsely assumed to be symmetric.This is a very important insight and one that we need to consider. The Jews of the Middle East, via the State of Israel, are now a powerful people and we should be very proud, as Jews and friends of the Jewish State, of their accomplishments. The success of Israel is nothing short of remarkable, given its humble beginnings. Israel has the most powerful military in the entire region and one of the best economies, given its relative size, of any country in the world. Israel is creative, innovative, technological, internationally-minded, and sophisticated.
However, the Jews of the Middle East also represent a tiny minority surrounded by a much larger, hostile majority of Muslims who have made it very clear, over the long and brutal course of 1,400 years, that they simply will not stand for Jewish sovereingty on historically Jewish land and will do everything within their power to make life miserable for the Jewish minority. They teach their children that Jews are the descendents of orangatans and swine and that killing Jewish people is pleasing to the heart of Allah. They wage war against us. They shoot rockets at us. They strap suicide belts onto women and children because when Muslim women and children commit suicide in an effort to murder Jews it is considered not merely a noble act, but the most noble spiritual act of the shaheed.
The truth is that in the Long Arab War Against the Jews of the Middle East, there is no symmetry. In terms of numbers, resources, land mass, every advantage goes to the Arabs. They outnumber the Jews by a factor of 60 or 70 to 1 throughout the region and if you include Muslims, more generally, the odds are over 100 to 1. They conquered and conrol over 99% of the entire Middle East, with the sole exception of the Jewish State of Israel, and are committing a genocide against the native Christian population. Muslims hold all non-Muslims under submission within imperial Islam since the rise of that religion in the 7th century throughout the Middle East with the lone, sole exception of Israel.
And now they literally created a brand-spanking new people, the "Palestinians," for the distinct purpose of countering Jewish sovereignty and freedom on historically Jewish land.
So, no, there is no symmetry in this fight.
The Jews are fighting to maintain freedom and sovereignty and the great Arab majority is dedicated to destroying that freedom and sovereignty and will ruin their own cousins, the Palestinian-Arabs, in order to keep them as the dagger pointed at the heart of the Jewish people on Jewish land.
Peter Beinart, it should be noted, is perhaps the single foremost example of Jewish dhimmitude in the public square today. He represents an excellent example of the kind of Jewish "progressive" who cannot only not bring himself to take his own side in a fight, but who has so incorporated the "Palestinian narrative" of pristine victim-hood into his apprehension of the conflict that he honestly believes that the besieged Jewish minority in the Middle East are the aggressors upon their former Arab-Muslim masters.
Finally, and most importantly, the Elder is generally correct when he writes this:
The Palestinian Arabs are a recently invented people. They exist today, to be sure, but they were not a "people" before 1948 at the very earliest. Westerners who drew the borders after World War I created what today's Palestinian Arabs laughably call "historic Palestine" - arbitrary lines that surrounded a people who had as much in common with those across those lines as with those within them. Arabs in the Galilee had more in common with those in Damascus than those in Bethlehem. Tribes and families trumped geography (and they often still do.) They became a "people" because of how their Arab brethren refused to allow them to integrate into their countries, forcing them to suffer as a separate group that eventually did turn them into a people. Arabs themselves admit freely that they kept Palestinian Arabs in miserable conditions in order to foster their nascent "unity."And that, of course, is his primary point concerning the Assumed Symmetry Fallacy. The Jews have been a people for over 3,500 years and perhaps considerably longer. Among the peoples of the earth the Jews, along with the Chinese and other indigenous peoples, are among the oldest on the planet. Jews are also, along with native Americans, for example, among the most persecuted. The Palestinian-Arabs, by contrast, only emerged as an allegedly distinct people toward the end of the twentieth-century and did so for the specific purpose of beating up on the Jews.
And I suppose this is where I disagree with the Elder. Are the "Palestinians" a distinct and separate people from Jordanian Arabs or Syrian Arabs or Egyptian Arabs? The classical definition of nationhood would suggest not. So-called "Palestinians" share the same religion with other Arabs, the same food-stuffs, generally speaking, with other Arabs, the same language and traditions. The "Palestinians" are Arabs. Period. And, in fact, most of their grandparents immigrated into the area following the Jewish aliyahs around the turn of the century.
The Jewish people, or so it seems to me, are under no obligation to recognize a brand-new allegedly distinct people who came into existence for the explicit purpose of robbing the tiny Jewish minority of sovereignty on Jewish land.
The truth of the matter is that we owe them nothing, not even recognition. If this sounds rather harsh, I am sorry, but the "Palestinians" have turned down every single offer for a state in peace next to Israel since 1937. They are never going to accept a Jewish presence with autonomy on land that was once captured by the forces of Islam, because to do so contradicts the very reason that they came into existence as an allegedly distinct ethnicity to begin with.
What the Elder understands, and what Beinart clearly does not, is that there is no symmetry. Shlomo Sand is a racist and a traitor to his people. The very notion that the Jews are a recently invented people is historically preposterous and Sand is a fraud. Adelson, however, whatever one may make of his politics was correct if he suggested that the "Palestinians" are a newly invented people.
This is not a matter of opinion.
It is a matter of fact.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Daily Kos and the hatred for "Zionists"
Michael L.
The genealogy of this blog ultimately goes to Daily Kos.
I started my blogging career on Daily Kos maybe ten years ago. At some point I left and became a front-pager on Maryscott O'Connor's now defunct My Left Wing. After My Left Wing proved itself comfy-cozy with anti-Semitic anti-Zionism I faded out and basically started up this joint.
But in truth, I owe many Daily Kos people and many My Left Wing people a debt of thanks for teaching me that the western-left is entirely comfortable defaming not only Israel, but "Zionists" (by whom they largely mean Jews).
The first thing that any progressive-left Jewish person needs to understand is that their own political movement does not care in the least about the well-being of the Jewish people who they conceive of as privileged and white. Hard-right anti-Semitic conservatism, of the David Duke variety, is irrelevant in the United States today. Anti-Semitism in the United States is primarily a left-wing phenomenon and it is instructive to read what the grassroots political people say about Israel and "Zionists" at places like Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the Guardian.
A recent piece by someone who goes under the name of "bobdevo" is illustrative.
In Hillary attacks Bernie for not being a good enough Jew bobdevo tells us that Hillary Clinton published a piece in the Times of Israel on the eve of Passover.
In that piece, she wrote:
The stupidity in such a conclusion is profound, but I am less concerned about bobdevo's attack on Hillary for allegedly attacking Sanders than I am in the nature of western-left discourse vis-à-vis the Jewish State of Israel.
The first thing to note is that bobdevo refers to the Times of Israel as "right-wing."
This is false.
Any fair-minded individual familiar with the scope of the Jewish press - or even the press out of the United States - would recognize that the Times of Israel is decidedly moderate. They publish people on both the Left and the Right. Further, chief editor David Horovitz - not to be confused with American conservative editor David Horowitz - is a moderate and reasonable individual.
So, why label the paper "right-wing."
I would submit to you that very many people on the Left think that any form of "Zionism," whatever they may mean by that word exactly, is "right-wing." All forms of struggle for ethnic self-determination and autonomy are welcomed on the Left, as part of the larger coalition, with the sole exception of the movement for Jewish self-determination and autonomy which is deemed right-wing racist. As an Israeli newspaper with a Jewish Israeli publisher it is hardly surprising that the editorial stance of the paper favors Israel's ongoing existence as the national homeland of the Jewish people.
For this it gets labeled by bobdevo as "right-wing."
The piece, itself, is not worthy of much consideration because there is "no there, there."
It is in the comments where we learn how so many of our fellow "liberals" feel about "Zionists" and Israel.
Notice the use of "Zionist." They have constructed a negative resonance around this word such that anyone, or anything, that is Zionist is considered bad on a visceral level.
And, needless to say, As a Jew (who lost family members in the Holocaust), I find Ion's blog in a left-wing anti-Zionist forum even more disgusting.
Also, of course, we have the ever-popular "as-a-Jew" theme wherein Israel hating Jews give non-Jews the permission to likewise hate on Israel. After all, if I, as-a-Jew despise Israel why should not anyone else?
Finally, notice the shaming admonishment.
This is very common among anti-Semitic anti-Zionist Jews. Arabs and progressives have taught many progressive-left Jews to be ashamed of Israel, and her supporters, and therefore to remain in their good graces they wear that shame on their sleeves. In this case, of course, Ion is projecting the shame onto Hillary Clinton but it is the same principle.
Further comments under the diary, not surprisingly, descended into the usual mud-slinging between Hillary supporters and those that feel the Bern.
The "Palestinians" were constructed by the PLO, with some advice from the Soviets, and came into being for the sole political purpose of undermining Jewish self-defense and autonomy toward the end of the twentieth-century. I, myself, am slightly older than "the Palestinians."
Karl Rover thinks that "protecting Israel" - which is to say, protecting the Jewish people from never-ending Arab aggression within memory of the Shoah sounds "like the worst Likud propaganda."
Right. For the Jews of Israel to wish to defend themselves from the Car Ramming / Stabbing / Knife Intifada or Iran's stated genocidal ambitions is merely Israeli propaganda. Karl Rover seems to suggest that Jews do not really care about protecting their children.
And they wonder why the Democratic Party is drizzling support among Jews.
That's really all that it is and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it represents a lie.
Israel is surrounded by apartheid states, but is not one.
The genealogy of this blog ultimately goes to Daily Kos.
I started my blogging career on Daily Kos maybe ten years ago. At some point I left and became a front-pager on Maryscott O'Connor's now defunct My Left Wing. After My Left Wing proved itself comfy-cozy with anti-Semitic anti-Zionism I faded out and basically started up this joint.
But in truth, I owe many Daily Kos people and many My Left Wing people a debt of thanks for teaching me that the western-left is entirely comfortable defaming not only Israel, but "Zionists" (by whom they largely mean Jews).
The first thing that any progressive-left Jewish person needs to understand is that their own political movement does not care in the least about the well-being of the Jewish people who they conceive of as privileged and white. Hard-right anti-Semitic conservatism, of the David Duke variety, is irrelevant in the United States today. Anti-Semitism in the United States is primarily a left-wing phenomenon and it is instructive to read what the grassroots political people say about Israel and "Zionists" at places like Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the Guardian.
A recent piece by someone who goes under the name of "bobdevo" is illustrative.
In Hillary attacks Bernie for not being a good enough Jew bobdevo tells us that Hillary Clinton published a piece in the Times of Israel on the eve of Passover.
In that piece, she wrote:
Protecting allies and partners like Israel is one of the most solemn duties of any Commander-in-Chief. Yet others in this race suggest we must remain ‘neutral’ in order to negotiate... (emphasis bobdevo's)For no elaborated upon reason, bobdevo believes that somehow this means that Clinton was attacking Sanders for not being "a good enough Jew."
The stupidity in such a conclusion is profound, but I am less concerned about bobdevo's attack on Hillary for allegedly attacking Sanders than I am in the nature of western-left discourse vis-à-vis the Jewish State of Israel.
The first thing to note is that bobdevo refers to the Times of Israel as "right-wing."
This is false.
Any fair-minded individual familiar with the scope of the Jewish press - or even the press out of the United States - would recognize that the Times of Israel is decidedly moderate. They publish people on both the Left and the Right. Further, chief editor David Horovitz - not to be confused with American conservative editor David Horowitz - is a moderate and reasonable individual.
So, why label the paper "right-wing."
I would submit to you that very many people on the Left think that any form of "Zionism," whatever they may mean by that word exactly, is "right-wing." All forms of struggle for ethnic self-determination and autonomy are welcomed on the Left, as part of the larger coalition, with the sole exception of the movement for Jewish self-determination and autonomy which is deemed right-wing racist. As an Israeli newspaper with a Jewish Israeli publisher it is hardly surprising that the editorial stance of the paper favors Israel's ongoing existence as the national homeland of the Jewish people.
For this it gets labeled by bobdevo as "right-wing."
The piece, itself, is not worthy of much consideration because there is "no there, there."
It is in the comments where we learn how so many of our fellow "liberals" feel about "Zionists" and Israel.
Ion
As a Jew (who lost family members in the Holocaust), I find Hillary’s blog in a right wing Zionist forum fucking disgusting.
She should be ashamed.
Notice the use of "Zionist." They have constructed a negative resonance around this word such that anyone, or anything, that is Zionist is considered bad on a visceral level. And, needless to say, As a Jew (who lost family members in the Holocaust), I find Ion's blog in a left-wing anti-Zionist forum even more disgusting.
Also, of course, we have the ever-popular "as-a-Jew" theme wherein Israel hating Jews give non-Jews the permission to likewise hate on Israel. After all, if I, as-a-Jew despise Israel why should not anyone else?
Finally, notice the shaming admonishment.
This is very common among anti-Semitic anti-Zionist Jews. Arabs and progressives have taught many progressive-left Jews to be ashamed of Israel, and her supporters, and therefore to remain in their good graces they wear that shame on their sleeves. In this case, of course, Ion is projecting the shame onto Hillary Clinton but it is the same principle.
Further comments under the diary, not surprisingly, descended into the usual mud-slinging between Hillary supporters and those that feel the Bern.
Karl RoverNot only are the "Palestinians" without a state, they do not even have an organic nationality.
Also, Israel is a state, and the Palestinians are stateless. That kind of makes the whole “protecting Israel” thing sound like the worst Likud propaganda.
The "Palestinians" were constructed by the PLO, with some advice from the Soviets, and came into being for the sole political purpose of undermining Jewish self-defense and autonomy toward the end of the twentieth-century. I, myself, am slightly older than "the Palestinians."
Karl Rover thinks that "protecting Israel" - which is to say, protecting the Jewish people from never-ending Arab aggression within memory of the Shoah sounds "like the worst Likud propaganda."
Right. For the Jews of Israel to wish to defend themselves from the Car Ramming / Stabbing / Knife Intifada or Iran's stated genocidal ambitions is merely Israeli propaganda. Karl Rover seems to suggest that Jews do not really care about protecting their children.
And they wonder why the Democratic Party is drizzling support among Jews.
MargaretPOAWhile it is, of course, true that Israel does not equal Judaism, it is also true that Israel is an ancient name for the Jewish people, as a whole, and for most Jewish people the rise of the State of Israel has a redemptive meaning. It is for this reason that the vast majority of Jewish people throughout the world relate to Israel. By falsely accusing Israel of apartheid, she seeks to rob Jewish people of our dignity thereby reducing us to the status that we had prior to World War II. The apartheid slander is meant to rob us of self-respect, the will to self-defense, and to whip up hatred among others toward us.
Israel does not = Judaism or vice-versa. I really don’t like Clinton’s unequivocal support for Israel’s government and their apartheid policies...
That's really all that it is and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it represents a lie.
Israel is surrounded by apartheid states, but is not one.
Joe Biden and J-Street
I am going to make this short and sweet because today is busy, busy.
So, VP Biden spoke to J-Street the other day and Jonathan Tobin wrote it up for Commentary:
According to Biden, the problem in the region is that “there is no will for peace” among Israelis or Palestinians. His argument was that both the Netanyahu government and the Palestinian Authority were equally responsible for the lack of progress. Their actions, he said, meant, “the trust that is necessary for peace is fractured on both sides.”There are two important things to consider here.
Feeding the liberal J Street audience what they wanted to hear, Biden excoriated settlements in the West Bank as “counterproductive” and a threat to Israel’s continuance as both a Jewish and democratic state.
The first is the lie that the Jews of Israel have no will for peace.
This is among the most mendacious notions out there. Of course, the Jews want peace! There is nobody in the region that has greater reason to see peace than the Jewish people of Israel. The problem here is not that Jews are the aggressors, but that the great Arab-Muslim majority ruled over us in the region for thirteen hundred years, until the fall of the Ottomans and the rise of Jewish nationalism in the early part of the twentieth-century, and - in part for religious reasons - the Arabs developed a taste for domination.
We are not the guilty party in this conflict.
We are not the imperialist aggressors.
All the Jews want is to be left the hell alone to litigate against one another and create various helpful medical and technological doo-dads.
The second is the racist focus on the notion that Jews should only be allowed to live in certain places.
How did we ever allow things to get to the point where so many of us honestly believe that allegedly well-meaning non-Jews, like Biden, have every right to tell us where we should be allowed to live on the very land that we come from?
Where is Jewish self-respect?
It is not Jews living in Judea that is "counterproductive," but Biden and his administration which are entirely so.
{Good Pesach.}
Thursday, April 21, 2016
I Love Passover
Michael L.
I just picked up our brisket.
We're having about 20 crammed into our little home.
Y'know, I want to write about SFSU President Wong and his support for those who incite genocidal hatred toward Jews, but I have to tell you this holiday comes first.
I am not a particularly religious guy but that does not mean that this holiday does not resonate in my heart.
Wong can wait until next week.
I will be at the head of the table and am responsible for conducting a Passover Seder, which is a significant responsibility.
I don't think that I quite realized that as a kid.
Anyway, to my mind, Passover is about freedom and fun.
It's about freedom and what can that mean if it does not include the freedom to enjoy yourself with your friends and family?
We drink leaning to the left.
Sounds like college!
Laurie and I have been conducting Passover Seders for maybe 8 or 9 years, now. And, as you will probably not be surprised to learn, the crew sitting around those seders over the years has been motley.
I need to make charoset!
{Paul is supposed to do it, but he moved home to Cincinnati, for chrissake.}
Good Pesach, my friends.
I just picked up our brisket.We're having about 20 crammed into our little home.
Y'know, I want to write about SFSU President Wong and his support for those who incite genocidal hatred toward Jews, but I have to tell you this holiday comes first.
I am not a particularly religious guy but that does not mean that this holiday does not resonate in my heart.
Wong can wait until next week.
I will be at the head of the table and am responsible for conducting a Passover Seder, which is a significant responsibility.
I don't think that I quite realized that as a kid.
Anyway, to my mind, Passover is about freedom and fun.
It's about freedom and what can that mean if it does not include the freedom to enjoy yourself with your friends and family?
We drink leaning to the left.
Sounds like college!
Laurie and I have been conducting Passover Seders for maybe 8 or 9 years, now. And, as you will probably not be surprised to learn, the crew sitting around those seders over the years has been motley.
I need to make charoset!
{Paul is supposed to do it, but he moved home to Cincinnati, for chrissake.}
Good Pesach, my friends.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Things that we must insert into the narrative
Sar Shalom
Last week, Vic blogged about what we have to do in order to assert our self-respect in public diplomacy. Included in that blogpost were four messages that must be promulgated, according to Vic, no matter what the liberal intelligentsia says. I would like to suggest some different messages that we must promulgate in order to change the terms of the debate.
The first point is the most critical one. If the public believes that the Palestinians are fighting for self-determination, then we will be behind the 8-ball in any attempt to explain Israel's actions. However, if the public believes that their real motives are restoring the old social order and that claims about denying historical rights are nothing more than a smokescreen to justify doing so in whole or in part, we will have a freer hand to deny their demands. Convincing the public that that is so is no small matter. The point should be that the only solution that would satisfy the Palestinian national movement would be for the Jews be accept their place as good little dhimmis and that anyone who supports that solution is a racist.
The first step would be to repeat the history that relates what that social order was. This must be accompanied by how the mufti Amin al-Husseini labored against the erosion of that social and and promulgated that tolerance of that erosion constitutes treason. The second part is critical because taking the first step without the second would seem like holding a grudge for what the Palestinians' ancestors did, which can never be ameliorated, when the reality is that today's Palestinians seek to do as their ancestors did. This is something which can change and changing it would be a necessary condition to bring peace.
Point 2 answers the critics, who claim to be Israel's friends, yet insist that Israel must capitulate to their demands because they claim there is no other way to preserve Israel as both a Jewish state and a democracy, most recently by Joe Biden and the JStreet gala. Palestinian sovereignty in Areas A and B would provide that, meaning that no amount of Israeli activity in Area C would endanger Israel's status as either Jewish or democratic. Point 3 challenges those demanding that Israel do more than what is required to answer point 2 to say why they do so.
Last week, Vic blogged about what we have to do in order to assert our self-respect in public diplomacy. Included in that blogpost were four messages that must be promulgated, according to Vic, no matter what the liberal intelligentsia says. I would like to suggest some different messages that we must promulgate in order to change the terms of the debate.
- The conflict is about Arab irredentism for the social order that existed in the Levant until the mid-19th century.
- A sufficient number Palestinian Arabs must be allowed sovereignty over themselves in order to allow Israel to remain a democratic and Jewish state
- The Palestinian Arabs have no inherent right to any land that is not required for item 2.
The first point is the most critical one. If the public believes that the Palestinians are fighting for self-determination, then we will be behind the 8-ball in any attempt to explain Israel's actions. However, if the public believes that their real motives are restoring the old social order and that claims about denying historical rights are nothing more than a smokescreen to justify doing so in whole or in part, we will have a freer hand to deny their demands. Convincing the public that that is so is no small matter. The point should be that the only solution that would satisfy the Palestinian national movement would be for the Jews be accept their place as good little dhimmis and that anyone who supports that solution is a racist.
The first step would be to repeat the history that relates what that social order was. This must be accompanied by how the mufti Amin al-Husseini labored against the erosion of that social and and promulgated that tolerance of that erosion constitutes treason. The second part is critical because taking the first step without the second would seem like holding a grudge for what the Palestinians' ancestors did, which can never be ameliorated, when the reality is that today's Palestinians seek to do as their ancestors did. This is something which can change and changing it would be a necessary condition to bring peace.
Point 2 answers the critics, who claim to be Israel's friends, yet insist that Israel must capitulate to their demands because they claim there is no other way to preserve Israel as both a Jewish state and a democracy, most recently by Joe Biden and the JStreet gala. Palestinian sovereignty in Areas A and B would provide that, meaning that no amount of Israeli activity in Area C would endanger Israel's status as either Jewish or democratic. Point 3 challenges those demanding that Israel do more than what is required to answer point 2 to say why they do so.
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