Obama’s Cairo Speech – a Crass Exercise in Historical Revisionism
By Matthew M. Hausman
President Obama’s recent speech in Cairo has been extensively parsed, with critics challenging his linking the creation of Israel solely to the Holocaust, his failure to acknowledge the Jews’ ancestral connection to their homeland, his weak criticism of Arab support for terrorism, and his adoption of the dubious Arab historical narrative. Although vocally condemning the sins of colonialism in the Middle East (where the U.S. had no colonies), he ignored the history of Arab and Muslim colonialism in Europe and elsewhere. Based on his unbalanced presentation, some of Mr. Obama’s Jewish supporters have finally started questioning his commitment to Israel. While some are willing to chalk up his inaccuracies to benign ignorance, others have recognized them as knowing distortions meant to appease an Arab audience. Unfortunately, such distortions are consistent with historical revisionism, which is closely identified with antisemitism and hatred of Israel.
The danger in Mr. Obama’s revisionist approach to the Middle East is the implication that objective history means nothing and that it can be molded, misstated and misrepresented for political reasons. His subsequent speech at Buchenwald, in which he condemned Holocaust denial, was a cynical gesture intended to give the appearance that he stands with the Jewish people, while the distortions contained in his Cairo speech evidenced precisely the opposite. Moreover, by speaking at the site of a concentration camp, Mr. Obama emphasized the implication he made in Cairo that Israel was created by Europeans to atone for their crimes during the Holocaust, and that Jews do not have a historical pedigree in the Middle East.
The President’s flagrant disregard for objective history is consistent with the ongoing efforts of the political left to filter the Jewish experience, including the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel, through the prism of historical revisionism. The most outspoken proponents of this artifice include Noam Chomsky, Louis Finkelstein, David Irving and a cavalcade of Holocaust deniers and opponents of Israel, who represent the most politically radical practitioners of the form. Perhaps more insidious are those who do not appear to be as radical, but whose demeanor projects the image of objective, alternative viewpoints.
Essentially, there are two kinds of historical revisionism. The first legitimately seeks to correct historical stereotypes in light of newly discovered evidence or rational reconsideration of known facts based on new interpretative methodologies. The second type, also known as “negationism,” is the disingenuous effort to change historical perceptions based not on new evidence or techniques, but rather on political agendas, subjective advocacy or, in the case of Israel, antisemitic bias. This category includes Holocaust denial, the claim that the Jews have no historical connection to the land of Israel, and the canard that Israel was created out of the rubble of a country called Palestine, which supposedly had a thriving and distinctive culture for a thousand generations. This kind of revisionism is not grounded in fact and does not withstand empirical scrutiny, and its proponents are motivated by classical antisemitism or Jewish self-hatred.
Somewhat less egregious in intent but no less destructive in consequence is the advocacy of people who accept the revisionist positions as true because they have insufficient backgrounds with which to verify or debunk them. Presumably, neither Mr. Obama nor his speech writers are ignorant of Middle East history and the Jews’ place in it. But they were fully aware in Cairo that they were playing to an audience with a vested interest in a rejectionist narrative challenging the legitimate place of the Jews in their ancient homeland. Thus, the speech had a revisionist slant consistent with that of the negationists who deny the Holocaust.
Chomsky and Finkelstein, although Jewish, are known for their radical views and their compulsion to condemn Israel as a colonial power and terrorist state. They are equally known for their abject refusal to fault the Arab position and their support for terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Moreover, they give credence to the views of neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and left-wing dictatorships. Chomsky’s support of French antisemite and Holocaust denier John Faurissonneo is well-documented. But their treatment of Israel can only be understood in the context of a revisionism that enables them to turn history on its head and present Israel and the Jews as aggressors in a part of the world in which they were traditionally downtrodden and are in fact still the minority.
Although one could argue that Mr. Obama’s speech was not as extreme as the drivel of Chomsky and Finkelstein, it was in a way far more insidious because its cogent presentation and oratorical flair gave the appearance of rationality, credibility and truth. And yet, the President’s rendering of history does not withstand critical scrutiny because, among other things, he failed to acknowledge historic Israel and the Jews’ connection to it. Moreover, he credited Arab and Islamic culture with far greater influence in shaping western society than it actually had, all the while blaming the friction between the Arab and Western worlds on European and American colonialism. One would have thought after hearing his speech that the United States, not France, had occupied North Africa, or that Arab and Ottoman colonialism never existed and had no impact on ethnic and religious tensions that continue to roil the Middle East and the Balkans today.
To those who have no background and do not know the history, the President’s equating of the Palestinian “dislocation” brought about by Israel’s creation, and his equation of the “daily humiliations [of] the occupation” with American segregation and slavery sound empathetic and rational. Unfortunately, these refrains are polemical and untrue, and were lifted almost verbatim from the Arab propaganda machine. Lost on the uninitiated was the significance of the President’s use of the term “occupation.” In the Arab world, “the occupation” refers to the entire State of Israel; it is not limited to the West Bank and certainly not to Gaza, which was ceded several years ago. The President’s use of this terminology without qualification was an affront to Israel.
The President failed to challenge his Arab audience to reject the fiction that Israel’s very existence is “occupation,” although he found it necessary to focus on Israel’s supposedly illegal “settlements” as a primary obstacle to peace. In so doing, he tacitly validated the blood libel that Israel stole Arab land and bears sole responsibility for the situation in the Middle East. It would have been inconvenient for him to acknowledge that most of the so-called settlements are actually legal under international law, that Arab rejectionism predates the existence of any settlements, or that there was no call for the creation of a Palestinian state between 1948 and 1967.
Furthermore, Mr. Obama’s homage to Islam as peaceful and tolerant ignores its historical treatment of those it considers “infidels.” The Sephardic communities who lived for generations in the Arab world, confined to ghettos and without equal rights, as well as the nearly 800,000 Jewish refugees who were dispossessed without compensation in 1948, have an entirely different view of so-called Islamic tolerance. The President’s selective imagery and silence regarding the traditional treatment of Jews in the Arab world is astounding for someone who claims to be knowledgeable about the Middle East and whose acolytes assure us that he is a true friend of Israel.
One cannot buy into Mr. Obama’s fanciful rendering unless one is ignorant of the historical record or willing to engage in the kind of revisionism espoused by the likes of Chomsky and Finkelstein. Although some justify the President’s performance on the theory that the Arab-Muslim world needs to be engaged on its own terms in order to effect change, such rationalization presumes that Arab society has the potential for a drastic cultural and religious metamorphosis. There is no indication that it is amenable to such change, however, and in fact the opposite seems to be true. Arab society knows no democracy and tolerates no dissent or diversity of opinion. Moreover, its regard for Jews is dictated by cultural and religious standards under which they are neither equal nor deserving of controlling their own destiny in their own homeland.
In light of the President’s education, it is difficult to accept that he is simply ignorant of world history and the cultural landscape of the Middle East. Rather, his Cairo speech suggests that he is well aware of history, but that he made a conscious and calculated decision to dispense with it in order to foster a rapprochement with the Arab world. In so doing, however, he engaged in historical revisionism worthy of the negationists. Although he seems to believe that his condemnation of Holocaust denial somehow rehabilitates the blatant revisionism reflected in his Cairo remarks, the irony is glaring and the moral inconsistency irreconcilable. If the ability to dissent is the hallmark of the American political system, now is the time to give voice and condemn the revisionism that seems to be directing U.S. foreign policy.
# # #
Pres. Obama is neither ignorant nor dim witted.
He is very deliberate in his joining the negationists as regards historical truths and realities as regards Israel and the Jewish people. Not only that, but Pres. Obama is drawing equivilences between Arab/Palestinian and regional Muslim Jew hatreds, their terrorism against Israel and Jews and the miserable and painful consequences to them for their hatreds and terrorism and the suffering of Israelis.
In fact, in his Cairo speech, he made no mention of any sympathy for the Israelis suffering from the hate fueled genocidal actions of the Arabs. His sympathy was solely for the poor Palestinians, attributing their suffering to Israel and not to themselves.
The negationists currently having the greatest stake in this regard are the Arabs, Palestinians and much of the Muslim world, the very people that Pres. Obama is seeking to establish better relations with. Pres. Obama would be taking the wind out of the sails of his Middle East/Muslim world initiative and would completely undermine and negate it, if he were to reject the negationists as regards Israel and the Jews.
It is probably this ugly truth about Pres. Obama, amongst some other ugly truths canvassed on these pages, that increasing numbers of American Jews are seeing and which they can no longer deny, excuse or rationalize away.
Not only American Jews should be coming together against Pres. Obama on these issues, but so too congressional and senatorial members regardless of what side of the aisle they are on and the media.
Pres. Obama may still be the darling of the media, but he is no darling.
If Pres. Obama was dangerous and lethal only for Israel, a Machiavellian might say, who cares about a few Jews, if America’s interests are advanced by fostering and supporting such lies? He is also dangerous and lethal for America.
Pres. Obama enjoys more personal support then does his policies. At some point, it should become clear enough that his popularity should match the popularity of his policies and if such is the case, Pres. Obama, the egomaniac is going to find his ego bruised and battered.
As Obama goes so goes America, but in reverse context the better he does in successfully implementing his policies the worse for America; Anyone who cares for America should hope he fails in just about everything he tries to pursue. In other words a successful Obama is Bad for America, Bad for Israel/Jews and bad for the world.., We are in a new era or Newspeak where we hope for failure for the good of the world and even mankind.
Feiglins comments are I think more to the point than Hausmans.
Trapped in a ‘Palestinian’ Tree
by Moshe Feiglin
Obama and the entire world are waiting.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech this week achieved a very important purpose. Egypt’s reaction to
The rhetoric with which Netanyahu opened his speech was music to most Israeli ears.
his demand that the “Palestinians” recognize the fact that Israel is a Jewish state made it clear that it, too, does not recognize Israel as such. All the prime ministers who preceded Netanyahu had totally ignored this essential fact. If he would have wanted to, Netanyahu could have ignored it as well. In this respect, Netanyahu has performed a tremendous service for the state of Israel and is deserving of praise.
Suddenly, Israelis learned that it is not just the stubborn “Palestinians” who do not recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state in the Land of Israel. It is also the Egyptians – with whom we have “peace.” Barack Obama’s entire ascent to power and his pressure on Israel, all the hostile speeches and political deterioration are not a price too dear to pay to crack the lie of the “peace process” and its stranglehold on Israeli society.
The rhetoric with which Netanyahu opened his speech was music to most Israeli ears. It is also important. It has been a long time since an Israeli leader has talked about our right to the Land of Israel. The problem is, though, that Netanyahu’s rhetoric contradicts the political conclusion at the end of his speech.
Actually, Netanyahu used the age-old tactic copyrighted by the Biblical spies. They began their speech by extolling the praises of the Land of Israel. But it was just a ploy to cajole the Children of Israel into accepting a conclusion counter to the praise. Journalist Ari Shavit most precisely summed up Netanyahu’s speech in his article in Ha’aretz: “The rhetoric of the speech was right of center, but the political conclusion was left of center.”
On the surface, it seems that Netanyahu has managed to alleviate the pressure on Israel and to duck Obama’s arrows. But let us not deceive ourselves. The sighs of relief released by Pinchas Wallerstein and the Judea, Samaria and Gaza Council, and the support of Effie Eitam from within the Likud, stem from – in the best case scenario – deplorable short-sightedness.
Nothing will remain of Netanyahu’s conditions for a Palestinian state, just like nothing remained of the 14 reservations he attached to his vote in favor of the expulsion from Gush Katif. But the basic principle that Netanyahu outlined in his Bar-Ilan speech – that there is a Palestinian nation and that the State of Israel recognizes the right of that “nation” to sovereignty in the Land of Israel – will cost us dearly.
As soon as we accepted the principle of “Palestinian” self-definition, we accepted their basic claim.
Netanyahu scurried up the “Palestinian state” tree in order to escape from Obama. Right now, it may seem that we can rest a bit at the top of the tree. The columns of black-uniformed settlement destroyers have returned to their bases for a short break. But Obama and the entire world are waiting at the foot of the tree. We have nowhere left to run and the branches of the tree do not provide much cover against the arrows that they will yet shoot our way.
Netanyahu’s speech will intensify US pressure on Israel. Combined with persistent opposition from Israel’s Left, it will likely bring about the end of his government and his political career.
Narvey:Pres. Obama enjoys more personal support then does his policies. At some point, it should become clear enough that his popularity should match the popularity of his policies and if such is the case, Pres. Obama, the egomaniac is going to find his ego bruised and battered
My response
Where were you when his predecessor came this close to destroying the western alliance, the American economy, The international banking system, alienated much of the world, helped recruit many thousands to the radical Islamic cause through his mishandling of the war against terrorism,and finally almost destroyed the Republican party? And you are complaining about Obama. What unmitigated unadulterated chutzpah.What hefer dust. Pure B.S. I would expext this garbage from Yamit- He has become our cross to bear- but from you Bill.I should hope you provide a retraction for post 1- in the name of truth and decency . I must stop here, smoke is beginning to emit from my computer
Narvey:
Obama is only dangerous to both the Muslim and Jewish rejectionists who hate peace and reconciliation. Obama is dangerous to the religious extremists who piss in the same hole and are eminently deserving of each other.
Now I’m starting to hyperventillate.
Peskin, keep hyperventilating. Its about all you are good at.
Peskin, I have been away for a while but now that I’m back, I realize that your garbage is still stinking up the neighborhood. I guess that there is still trash after the picnic.
Narvey:
Just to let you know, we are patient folk, but we are waiting.
Peskin:
A Frenchmen you might have heard of: Jean-Paul Sartre, wrote in his 1946 Reflexions sur la question juive, published two years later in English under the title Anti-Semite and Jew, a work he later admitted to have written without reading one Jewish book. Sartre’s reflections on the “Jewish question” and, in particular, his essentialist (and some might say racist) remarks on the Jewish character have elicited various responses since they were published. Some implicit and some overt, some mild and some passionate. It appears that Sartre has cut the Jews off from their past; he has consciously permitted himself to accept the anti-Semite’s stereotype of the Jew. His disagreement with anti-Semitism reduces itself to arguing that these Jewish traits…are not so bad. Sartre is transformed in the third part of his essay into the antisemite against whom he rails in the first part.
Sartre’s essay, which sought to combat European antisemitism, seems, rather ironically, to have perpetuated a number of its stereotypes, including those of the Jew’s “obstinate sweetness” and passionate hostility to violence, stereotypes
that may arguably be seen as the modern equivalent of the Jew’s alleged effeminacy. Since medieval times, and especially in the early modern era, it had been widely asserted that Jewish men menstruate monthly, a charge that has been perceptively interpreted as suggesting implictly that “Jewish males . . . are, in effect, no longer men but women, and the crime of deicide has been punished by castration. Other scholars have linked the charge of male menstruation with the truncated (and thus less virile) phallus of the circumcised Jew.
I offer some Jewish History that contradicts such a stereotype that seems to fit you like a glove.
Kitos War:
In 115, the Roman army led by Trajan was fighting against one of its major enemies, the Parthian Empire. The diasporic Jews started a revolt in Cyrenaica that also involved Aegyptus and Cyprus. In Cyrene (Cyrenaica), the rebels (led by a Lukuas or Andreas, who called himself “king” according to Eusebius of Caesarea), destroyed many temples, including those to Hecate, Jupiter, Apollo, Artemis, and Isis, as well as the civil structures symbols of Rome, the Caesareum, the basilica, and the thermae. The Greek and Roman population was exterminated.
Gibbon, quoting Dion Cassius, states of Jewish insurrectionaries: In Cyrene they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the blood and twisted the entrails like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. [c. 32] p.1145.[1][2]
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia on the Cyrene massacres, “By this outbreak Libya was depopulated to such an extent that a few years later new colonies had to be established there (Eusebius, “Chronicle” from the Armenian, fourteenth year of Hadrian). Bishop Synesius, a native of Cyrene in the beginning of the fifth century, speaks of the devastations wrought by the Jews (“Do Regno,” p. 2).
Then Lukuas moved towards Alexandria, entered the city abandoned by the Roman troops in Egypt led by governor Marcus Rutilius Lupus, and set fire to the city. The pagan temples and the tomb of Pompey were destroyed. Trajan sent new troops under the praefectus praetorio Quintus Marcius Turbo, but Egypt and Cyrenaica were pacified only in autumn. The situation was pacified also in Cyprus, where Jews led by Artemion had taken control of the island. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, “Under the leadership of one Artemion, the Cypriot Jews participated in the great uprising against the Romans under Trajan , and they are reported to have massacred 240,000 Greeks (Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32).” The Roman army reconquered the capital and the Jews were forbidden to live in the island.
A new revolt sprang up in Mesopotamia, while Trajan was leading his troops against the Parthians, in the Persian Gulf. Trajan reconquered Nisibis (Nusaybin in Turkey), the capital of Osroene Edessa, and Seleucia on the Tigris (Iraq), each of which housed ancient and important Jewish communities. After the end of the revolt, Trajan was uneasy with the situation, and sent the Mauretanian general Lusius Quietus, to kill Cypriot, Mesopotamian and Syrian Jewish suspects, appointing him governor of Iudaea.
The insurrection of the Jews of Cyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt in the last years of the emperor Trajan had not been entirely suppressed when Hadrian assumed the reins of government in 118. The seat of war was transferred to Iudaea, whither the Jewish leader Lukuas had fled. Marcius Turbo had pursued him, and had sentenced to death the brothers Julian and Pappus, who had been the soul of the rebellion. But, according to indications present in the Talmudic tradition, Turbo was himself executed upon special orders sent from Rome, and the lives of the brothers were saved. Lusius Quietus, the conqueror of the Jews of Mesopotamia, was now in command of the Roman army in Iudaea, and laid siege to Lydda, where the rebel Jews had gathered under the leadership of Julian and Pappus. The distress became so great that the patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II, who was shut up there and died soon afterward, permitted fasting even on ?anukkah. Other rabbis, such as the peace-loving R. Joshua b. Hananiah, condemned this measure. Soon afterward Lydda was taken and masses of the Jews were executed; the “slain of Lydda” are often mentioned in words of reverential praise in the Talmud. Pappus and Julian were among those executed by the Romans in the same year.
“The Vengeance of the Jews Was Stronger Than Their Avarice”:
Persian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614
Jewish violence against the Christians in Jerusalem after the Persian conquest of the city in 614:
“Every Christian church,” “was demolished; that of the Holy Sepulchre was the great object of furious hatred.” In 614 “the vengeance of the Jews was greater than their avarice” was highly significant, for, as Gavin Langmuir has noted, avarice as the essence of the Jew, for whom “to acquire largely, whether fairly or not, was the highest ambition.” The nineteenth-century stereotype of the feminized Jew was evidently potent enough to allow someone as learned as Lecky, who had read and praised Milman’s work, to describe the Jew as “naturally a pacific being, hating violence and recoiling with a peculiar horror from blood.”
If in nineteenth-century Europe writers such as Lecky could distinguish sharply between the ready capacity of pre-modern Jews for bloody vengeance and the hatred of violence that characterized contemporary Jews, then this dichotomy was far less obvious to Western observers in nineteenth-century Jerusalem. The engineer Ermete Pierotti, who spent eight years in Palestine during the mid-nineteenth century, noted that the Protestants of Jerusalem “call the Greeks and the Latins heretics, idolaters, heathen; and they stir up still worse feelings by sermons in which they ridicule their services, their processions, their worship of the Virgin and the Saints.” Pierotti offered a similar observation about the Jews, who “do not show more moderation when speaking of their oppressors . . . and revenge their injuries when they get a chance.”
Pierotti’s remark would seem to echo the famous words placed by Shakespeare into the mouth of Shylock (“And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that”), words that clash rather dissonantly with the comments of Sartre on the Jew’s hostility to violence. But whether or not Pierotti consciously alluded to Shylock’s speech, his remark is buttressed by other reports from nineteenth-century Jerusalem. For example, following the arrival in 1841 of Jerusalem’s first Anglican bishop, the Jewish-born and bred Michael Solomon Alexander (né Pollack), tensions between Jews, Anglican missionaries, and missionized Jews began to erupt into violence; in October 1842 three European-born Jews who had expressed interest in conversion were forced to seek shelter, fearing “personal violence in consequence of having declared their belief in Christianity.” In addition, the artist William Bartlett reported that, shortly after his return to Jerusalem in 1853, a clergyman connected with the Anglican Mission “in the exercise of a zeal certainly more fervent than prudent . . . had repaired to the Jewish quarter, to preach the Gospel in the open street.” Shortly after he began to speak “certain of the Rabbis . . . instigated their followers to drive him from the spot with a storm of stones and dead cats.” Bartlett’s sober judgment of the missionary’s “zealous” action is quite striking: “However disgraceful this violence, it was surely not a little imprudent thus to arouse the fanaticism of the Jew
Revenge, violence, and fanaticism were words used by these Christian observers to describe Jewish behavior in Jerusalem–not in the seventh century but in the nineteenth. In fact, certain key events of the past seem to have served as prisms through which those of the present were regarded. Dominant among these were the aforementioned acts of violence against Christians and their churches during the Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614. Reciprocally, living in nineteenth-century Jerusalem could help to open one’s eyes to the capacity of the Jews for religious violence in the distant past.
Peskin are you like the Jew of History or one like in the stereotype Girly boys of Sartre? I think we all know the answer.
Peskin = simpleton – gullible fool.
Re: Your #4 – Your comment unmasks your short term memory problems. I had lots of criticism for Pres. Bush on a number of issues, be it as regards his Middle East policies, his policies as regards the EU, his economic and immigration policies. As for the latter my criticisms had to do more with his failing to secure America’s borders from illegal aliens, failure to fence the border with Mexico, failure to hire adequate border patrols and his taking no action as regards illegal aliens which only allowed the problem to fester.
Obama’s solution? Sign a bill to grant illegal aliens amnesty and the illegal alien issue/problem disappears. Now that is real intelligent!
You obviously have forgotten -ie memory problems or due to your simplistic and off the wall approach to reasoned analysis, you singled out a vague memory of some positive things I had to say about Bush, completely ignored the negatives and thus found it so obvious to a simpleton like you that I must therefore have been pro-Bush all the way.
re: #5: You proudly display your ignorance, thinking it is a sign of intelligence.
Your premise here is that only Obama and his followers believe in peace and reconcilliation as between Israel and the Palestinians/Arabs and anyone who disagrees with their approach, must therefore be against peace and reconcilliation.
Are you that intellectually feeble that you cannot distinguish between the goal of peace and reconcilliation between Israel and the Palestinians/Arabs and the path to peace and reconcilliation?
It is not Obama’s goal of peace and reconcilliation that has so many worked up. It is his path to peace and reconcilliation that riles many here. I should add that Obama finds it necessary to buy into the Arab revisionist history that Israel came into being solely because of the Holocaust, which to them means that Europe assuaged its guilt by taking land from the Arabs and giving it to the Jews.
That revisionist view of history is galling to anyone who has a wit of objectivity and knowledge about Middle Eastern and Jewish history.
Peskin, you are incapable of balanced informed opinion, because you are unbalanced and ill informed.
Bill, now tell us what you really think.
Narvey:
And you Bill, the Oracle, can say with 1000. percent certainty that the path taken by Obama is destined to fail?
How can you predict anything when the enviroment in the mid-east is undergoing change at this very moment, referencing the present Iranian crises- a major player in the mid east conflict?
what earthly importance is there in what Obama says? – it is future results that count. And that is impossible to forecast at this stage in the game.
Just for the sake of the discussion, you are an attorney called in to act as a mediator in a land dispute between two very angry parties. Both claim to be on the side of righteousness and rectitude. Just how effective can you be if you take sides and indicate that you favor one side over the other?. There was nothing in Obama’s speech that showed that he prefers the Palestinian position over the Israelis. He tried to be even handed. But that is precisely what you object to. You are concerned that he believes there is “moral equivalence” in the position of the both parties. I know you’d rather he
adopt a good guy- bad guy attitude. But that would surely spell failure.?
The only really effective mediator in the long history of the emnity between Arabs and Israelis was Billy Carter. He was steadfast in his objectivity and determined to obtain a settlement. He literally placed both parties to the dispute under “house arrest” until they concluded an agreement.
But that agreement was subject to a very important condition- that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute be settled. Over the years this condition has been almost forgotton. Most everyone now believes it is time to correct the omission.
Bill, stop pretending you are objective. We both have our biases- the only difference between us is I have the honesty to admit it.
Peskin this is not a Land dispute and never was. It is above all a religious dispute and a Pan Arab dispute. Islam has never and will never accept a non Muslim entity to have any sovereignty within any territory once under Islamic Sovereignty. Pan Arabism is the other side of the coin and views all Arabs as a single national entity regardless of post colonialist nationalism where artificial national states were created mostly with no ethnic and historical basis. The peace process will not lead to peace: Peace is not a proper objective. Jews moved to Israel to fulfill religious and nationalist objectives. If peace and security are the utmost objectives, Israelis should move to Canada., America or any other safe western country.
A peace process does not lead to peace. Making concessions to Arabs and imploring them for a peace treaty only provokes them to last-ditch fighting. That correlation has been clear at least since the Oslo accords.
A peace process cannot lead to peace. If history has any lesson for us, it is that peace is only achieved after the unconditional capitulation of one’s enemy.
A peace process is highly unusual. Every other nation destroyed whatever people happened to live on the land that nation chose to build a state.
A peace process is illegal. The original mandate for the Jewish state included Transjordan, but the British illegally cut it off. Then the UN further partitioned Israel to accommodate Palestinian Arabs.
A peace process is immoral. Palestinian Arabs don’t constitute a nation. Offering them a state is a plot against Jews.
The Arab-Israeli peace process doesn’t offer safety. Jews need a secure state—not a beach strip fourteen miles wide.
The Jewish-Muslim peace process runs against Judaism and Jewish history. Jews are attached to the land which the conductors of the peace process would give to the Palestinians: Judea, Samaria, Hebron, Schem, and the Temple Mount. The coastal areas of modern Israel are irrelevant to Jewish religion or history. Jews could just as well settle in Uganda or in Arizona.
The Israeli-Arab peace process is not for real. The Israeli government employs the peace process for the sole objective of destroying Jewish religious and nationalist opposition to its rule. Neither the security of the Jewish state, nor the fulfillment of Jewish objectives are the peace process’ goals.
The Palestinian-Israeli peace process is pointless. Israel can reach a settlement with the Palestinian government, but a sufficient number of Palestinian Arabs would always resent what they think is Jewish occupation of the land of their ancestors. Thousands such Arabs would always be there, and would employ terrorist tactics to attack Israel.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process fails to address the major issue of Israel’s Jewishness. Israeli Arabs already constitute more than a third of Israeli youth. Arabs constitute a majority in many important areas of Israel. The area of Lod near Ben Gurion airport is as hostile to Israel as Gaza. Israel’s real problem is not the Palestinian Authority, but the Israeli Arabs who will be able to field the largest faction in the Knesset ten years from now.
Diplomatically mandated peace is not viable in our case. After the peace treaty with Egypt, Israel continued immense military spending. Egypt continues anti-Israeli propaganda and builds an army whose sole target is Israel.
Peskin:
Billy Carter was James Carters Brother, remember the one who was on the payroll of the Saudis and and the Libyans? This may have been a Freudian error on your part but most telling.
Peskin, your sophistry will not carry the day.
1. You are now advancing the argument that because I cannot know the future, I should not be critical of Pres. Obama’s path to peace and reconcilliation between Israel and the Arabs/Palestinians. Because he might succeed, I should support him and cannot say his path will fail.
Really Peskin that is an argument that does not even qualify as good sophistry.
No one can predict with certainty what the future holds. It leaves us to make our best guesses on what facts are known and go from there.
Informed and reasoned analysis leading to a personal decision from which washing machine to buy or which political candidate to support is made by everyone daily. The likelihood that our decisions are correct depend on how good our information is and the level of our inherent reasoning skills and abilities to deal with those facts.
Even those possessed with all the facts and blessed with superior and objective minds have no guarantee their decisions will turn out to be correct.
Sometimes, even using our best efforts we miss facts or wrongly assess certain facts are insignificant, engage in mistaken analysis or unforseen circumstances come to the fore or any one or more of these, that ultimately reveal what we predicted did not come to pass.
I thus have never taken the the view that I am certain Pres. Obama’s path to peace will fail.
Indeed, I have predicted that if Pres. Obama’s current efforts to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians/Arabs that fit in with Pres. Obama’s policies, he likely will succeed in forcing peace upon Israel and the Palestinians/Arabs. In that regard, I have predicted such peace, if achieved would be shortlived and Israel will find herself again locked in an existential battle that she will be much less able to win.
2. Your argument premised as it is on the fact that no one can predict the future, if a valid starting point, leads to the conclusion that no one should bother with trying to make informed and educated guesses. Rather, they should ignore facts, objectivity, reason and logic and just make decisions that are based on their particular biases.
That of course is ludicrous.
3. In speaking of whether Pres. Obama’s path to peace will likely fail or succeed, it is imperative that such prediction include a definition of what constututes failure or success. You have completely ignored this Peskin. I have addressed it time and again.
4. Referencing the role of an impartial mediator who to be effective in aiding parties to resolve their differences, makes no sense in the context of the Israel-Palestinian/Arab “peace process”.
Pres. Obama is not an impartial mediator. He is an advocate and activist with the power to impose his will to achieve his vision. Pres. Obama and America have very material interests in both how the peace process proceeds and what the eventual outcome will be.
5. Peskin you say:
Peskin, it is clear to me that you have not bothered to read any of what I or others have said very specifically as to why we find Pres. Obama’s speech, by which I presume you mean his Cairo speech, was not balanced and was objectionable on a number of levels.
All you have done is note that your take is contrary to my conclusions and those who are likeminded with me and from there rail about how your thinking is superior to mine or you just condemn me for my views.
6. Finally I will respond to your following words:
On this score Peskin you are the only one who is dishonest.
Of course we all have biases. The issue is not our biases. The issue is how well we objectively and rationally make out our respective cases in a way least affected by our particular biases.
As noted before, I have in just about all my posts to you and others, explained what facts and circumstances I deemed relevant in reaching whatever conclusion I came to.
Whereas I make the effort to fairly and objectively make out my case, you rarely, if ever do. In your posts your biases rule. Thus you state your opinions, without any effort to make out a case to support those biased opinions and from there you criticise me and others including baselessly accusing me of being biased for the views I have not only expressed, but explained how I got there.
No Peskin, the only one dishonest is you, but you refuse to see that in yourself and instead you project your own dishonesty to me and unscrupulously and baselessly castigate me.
You are thus Peskin condemning me for dishonesty that I am innocent of and only you are guilty of.
A little honest introspection on your part Peskin might open your eyes to your own self delusions and you will be the better for that.