BUSH AND IRAN, AGAIN
Editorial, Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2008
The Bush Administration is once again pointing to Iran as the source of trouble in Iraq, and rightly so judging by all the evidence. Note to the White House: The Iranians aren’t likely to stop unless the U.S. starts doing something about it.
Iran has long funneled men and materiel to insurgents and provided safe havens across the border. But now the Administration is saying that Tehran’s “malign” influence has reached a new level. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus told Congress last week that Iranian-supplied rockets have attacked the Green Zone in Baghdad, while Iranian-armed Shiites battled the Iraqi government in the Basra offensive. As General Petraeus put it, this Iranian meddling is a danger to U.S. troops and “the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.”
At a Friday press conference, Mr. Crocker added that Tehran is also developing “proxy” militias in Iraq that “are really instruments of the Iranian government” by way of the Revolutionary Guard. General Petraeus described these “special groups” as “funded, trained, armed and directed by” Iran. He testified that the U.S. has uncovered weapons caches from Iran and detained “senior leaders” of Iranian-supported groups who described how they “move to and from Iran, where they are trained, indoctrinated, how they’re funded, [and] how they bring weapons and so forth into the country.”…
These tactics will be familiar to anyone who has followed Iran’s history in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, backed by Iran, is trying to bring down the elected government. Or in Gaza, where Iran’s Revolutionary Guard trains and equips Hamas. “Iran is pursuing, as it were, a ‘Lebanonization’ strategy,” Mr. Crocker told Congress, “using the same techniques they used in Lebanon, to co-opt elements of the local Shia community and use them as basically instruments of Iranian force.”
This is all remarkable enough – a mountain of evidence that Iran is waging a proxy war against U.S. troops and our allies in Iraq. Still more remarkable, and depressing, is that most of Washington has reacted with a collective “So what?” It’s as if it’s understood that the mullahs can kill Americans and get away with it. Part of the fault here lies with the Bush Administration, which has previously spoken up about Iran only to shrink from doing anything about it.
Meanwhile, last week Tehran announced it has begun installing another 6,000 centrifuges at its Natanz uranium enrichment complex. After five years of deferring to Europe and the United Nations to keep Iran from going nuclear, President Bush’s diplomacy has reached an embarrassing dead end.
So: Iran is contributing to the death of GIs, is arming our enemies in Iraq, and is proceeding to ignore the world by enriching uranium for a nuclear weapon. Is the Bush Administration merely going to slink out of office with that legacy?
I don’t want Iran to get nukes but I don’t see it as being any more problematic than Pakistan. If Iran was led by someone like Kim Jong Il or anyone who was messianic or uber paranoid – then yes. But I think while they have mullahs, generals, supreme leader and all that wonderful stuff (Ahmadinejad has no power over military decisions) it isn’t a one-man show. If power is concentrated in one or two men, and that is coupled with a messianic attitude – that’s when it gets dangerous. (Hey, that could describe Bush-Cheney or Osama-Zawahiri!) I don’t think any nation having nukes is helpful, and I suspect most countries like India, Pakistan, or Iran want to develop them to demonstrate some form of technological machismo/national pride, than because of perceived security needs (Israel might be an exception). Iran’s youthful population which is quite pro-Western, is quite solidly behind the development of nuclear technology for energy. We could achieve a breakthrough if we offered to (1) drop all sanctions against Iran, (2) sign a non-aggression pact and normalize relations with them and (3) say we support their right to enrich Uranium for peaceful purposes, if the country signs an agreement that it will completely open itself to UN monitors and never develop weapons. They are in a stronger position than DPRK, so a more generous offer than what we gave the North Koreans is needed, I think.
Cheerleading us into another addle-headed war like the neocons did with Iraq will not be good for anyone who cares about Israel. We ratchet up pressure on Iran because they may want to build nukes, while ignoring the double standard of Israel having over 200 of them in the Middle East. The truth is – we just don’t trust a Muslim country with a nuke – even if they had modern safeguards in place, we don’t feel safe. We feel they shouldn’t have them (while we have thousands). Why is that fair? It is in many ways, racist (which is as much as a sin as antisemitism). We only tolerate Pakistan because they don’t actively defy us. And we are the only guys that have felt it’s ok to use them. We have zero moral credibility today. We have demonstrated a greater willingness to walk on their lands uninvited than they have on ours.
Why is that fair?
Your evenhandedness is breathtakingly stupid.
Repeat a lie enough, and its okay. Melvin- Israel is not a signatory to the NNPT. Therefore, it has no obligation to announce its nukes. Nor does it have any obligation to allow inspectors in. Iran is a signatory, but had been clandestinely running its nuclear program. They have violated international law, Israel has not. Further, why would they do it so secretively if not for the context of their rabid Jew-hatred? Israel has been trustworthy with the bomb, as seen by the fact that it has never used it. Iran consistently marginalizes Israel as subhuman- calling it a ‘parasite’ and that it will soon disappear. The distinction is obvious.
The Iranian Threat:
How bad can getting rid of the brutal tyrant Saddam Hussein (and his sons) be? But not anticipating the consequences has been horrible. The Shiite Iraqi Arabs, who have been persecuted by their Sunni Arab brothers for a thousand years, are far more loyal to Shiite Iran (non-Arab) than to the other Arabs. And the Saudi version of Sunni Islam (Salafi/Wahabi), which dominates the Middle East, considers Shiite Muslims to be heretics who have to be destroyed. Shiite Muslims do not feel much affection for Sunnis in return.
So by eliminating Saddam Hussein, we have allowed an out of control crazy Iran to become the greatest military power in the region. Iraq has subsequently fractured into three parts, and Baghdad and southern Iraq, with all its oil, is now under complete control of Iraqi and Iranian Shiites. Iran has now armed Shiite Hizbollah to take control of half of Lebanon, and has effectively destroyed Lebanon. Syria is currently controlled by a small minority tribe of Shiite heretics who are sympathetic to Iran. The Saudi oil fields are located just south of Iraq, and the “Saudi Arabs” who live there are actually Shiites that the Saudi Sunnis have always hated.
The Democrats/liberals/EU are just as blind to the Iranian threat as Bush was to the consequences of eliminating Saddam Hussein. Because of their hatred for Bush/Republicans/evangelical Christians, they prefer to see Iran win than an America led by Bush.
America does not have to invade Iran with even a single soldier in order to destroy it. With our air power, we can bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, its oil fields, its sole refinery, its power plants, anytime we want to. But apparently, Allah really does love Iran, because America is paralyzed politically. Our only hope is that Bush bombs Iran just after the November election.
#1
You are wrong in this. Ahmedinejad is the puppet of the Mullahs. Furthermore their ration is skewed by their religion. MADD may not be enough to deter them.
Sam, I agree.
The problem as I see it was that the US didn’t hold Syria and Iran accountable for their actions in destablizing Iraq. It should not have tolerated it. It should have punished them enough to create a deterrence. The same goes for their support of Hezbollah and Hamas.
I would like to aske some questions that don’t seem to be asked by anyone no less their answers.
Qeestion #1 what is min. definition of Democracy the America sees for Iraq?
#2 What do the Iraqi people want?
#3 Why does Iraq an artificially created state have to be kept as a single national unit and not divided along both ethnic and oil producing regions?
#4 Iraq was a major producer of oil and based on current market prices who is reaping the profits from existing Iraqi production?
# After over 5 years since the American Invasion Is Iraqi Oil production increasing along with global demand and if not why . If yes who is getting the oil and the money from its sale?
I don’t see Bush attacking Iran before the elections and I don’t see Bush attacking after them either as the potential fallout will have consequences for the next administration. These things are not done in American politics. I can see a window of opportunity for Israel right after the Nov. elections and before new administration is sworn in. There would be actually none in America with a clear mandate to do anything short of going to war if America were actually attacked.
Israel should very shorty open its nuke option with an overt threat to every enemy nation that we will use our option if we are attacked even with conventional weapons, no matter who the initiation country is: A new version of Arrow was tested fired from high altitude F15 and became ICBM quickly and effortlessly. |Hitting its target from from Israel.
Israel is the only country that should attack Iran as that will substantiate our overall deterrent as opposed to letting America do it alone Theoretically America can take out all or most of Iranian infrastructure with conventional weapons Israel will have to use tactical nukes The big threat will come then from Syria and Lebanon where thousands of different missiles and rockets will reign down on Israeli civilians and infrastructure Our economy will suffer, and casualties could be high.
mlevin I don’t even want to try to be nice to you as you are either 1 of 3 things extremely stupid, extremely misinformed, or a self hating Jewish liberal, commie,fagot that has no right to exist. You should know that you have been included on the Jewish peoples enemies list and at some time if the opportunity ever presents itself I hope you are treated to the same courtesy we extend to all our sworn enemies? It is only my hope though. I do believe in the principle that the friend of my enemy is my enemy as well. I see no possibility of excusing you, or elevating you to a position of importance to which anything you say or do brings a response, You are not important enough for that. Just know that I find you repulsive as a human being and a very stupid man.
Yamit – your response is full of personal invective, and very shallow on argument. Do try again, please. I hope you’re not a poster child for the settler movement – because then its prospects aren’t that bright.
Keelie – calling my evenhandedness “breathtakingly stupid” when I ask why something is fair would have been ok if you had explained why. You know, even stupid people deserve explanations. I explained why I thought that. I’m waiting for yours.
I’m still waiting for an argument.
Bauerskates – thanks for the only counter-argument I’ve heard here.
“Israel is not a signatory to the NNPT. Therefore, it has no obligation to announce its nukes. Nor does it have any obligation to allow inspectors in. Iran is a signatory, but had been clandestinely running its nuclear program. They have violated international law, Israel has not.”
I know that. I never said that Israel didn’t have the right to build its nukes. I meant to say that if any country has the right, all countries should have that right. Yes, Iran signed up to the NPT, but they may want to tear it up one day, just like the US abrogated the ABM treaty. And Israel has flouted more UN Security Council resolutions, and breaks international law with settlement activity – so we have no monopoly over virtue here. And just as a reality check, your statement “Iran is a signatory, but had been clandestinely running its nuclear program” – replace Iran with Iraq, and we had the same or greater degree of certainty about this – Mossad, CIA, etc back in 2003. What if you’re wrong, and all they want is a peaceful program, with the option of weapons one day?
“Further, why would they do it so secretively if not for the context of their rabid Jew-hatred? Israel has been trustworthy with the bomb, as seen by the fact that it has never used it. Iran consistently marginalizes Israel as subhuman- calling it a ‘parasite’ and that it will soon disappear. The distinction is obvious.”
Almost all countries develop this in secret before their first test! And by your logic – since US has used the bomb – are they now untrustworthy with the bomb?!
Anti-Muslim statements and sentiments may not be couched in as racist a way as the way Ahmadinejad speaks, but it’s there. We’re all the same – equally good and equally bad – in all cultures. In fact not to think so is racist.
mlevin, your comments certainly have gotten a rise out of people! Now why do you think that is? Is it because you speak truths and you figure others speak lies they want to believe?
Lets get to some basic facts.
You state:
You are incorrect on a few counts. First, while Pakistan does pose a potential danger, it is not presenting nearly as an immediate threat as is Iran. Iran not only threatens the security and wellbeing of Israel, but their game of brinksmanship threatens stability throughout the Middle East. That means not only is Israel imperiled.
Secondly, you may be correct that Ahmadinejad has no power over military decisions. As an elected President of Iran, he is subject to the will of his superior, being the grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Supreme Council, which is the final authority over matters of state. An example of where Ahmadinejad was countered and rebuffed by Khamenei was this past January when Khamenei ordered enactment of a law requiring the government to provide £500m of gas supplies from emergency reserve funds, which Ahmadinejad had refused to do.
That said, Ahmadinijad is the voice of Iran. It is noteworthy that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not rebuffed Ahmadinejad for his threats against Israel, America and the West, Ahmadinejad’s flouting of Western efforts to get Iran to curb their nuclear program and not move towards nuclear weapon capacity or Ahmadinejad boastfully telling the world that Iran is moving towards fulfillment of their nuclear program.
Absent evidence to the contrary, one can only conclude on these issues, Ahmadinejad speaks for the grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Supreme Council.
Further, you have no doubt read and heard, albeit, it does not seem to be registering that Ahmadinejad in speaking of destroying Israel and setting off a war in the Middle East often couches those words in the Shi’ite messianic vision of ushering in the return of the 12th Mahdi. Ahmadinejad’s words make clear that he cares nothing for his life and the life of his people, so long as he can be the instrument for the fulfillment of Shi’ite prophecy.
Here to, given no disagreement, censure or rebuff from the grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Supreme Council, one must conclude that Ahmadinejad’s words and belief are those of Khamenei and the Supreme Counsel.
Not caring for his own life or the life of his people and so many other innocent Muslims within the Middle East, so long as he can bring about with the destruction of Jews and Israel, the fulfillment of Shi’ite prophecy, makes Iran a far more dangerous nation then North Korea and Pakistan.
You next say:
I quite agree if we lived in an idyllic utopian world free of conflict and hatred bred by racism, jealousy and personal and national self interests that are mutually incompatible in many instances. Since we don’t live in such world, what can your words be characterized, but naieve.
Then you say:
The sanctions the U.N. imposed time and again on Iran have been virtually dropped. All the agreements the U.N. signed with Iran were broken by Iran before the ink was dry. Given Iran’s track record, the West and the U.N. have found that Iran’s word as regards its nuclear agenda cannot be trusted.
What you are saying is that we could achieve such breakthrough if we can regain the seed of the 1960′s feelings of peace and love for one another and we could once again get that seed to germinate at the corner of Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco and spead world wide.
Come on Mlevin. Get real.
Then comes your statement Mlevin:
Did you forget or just did not know that the intelligence information that ultimately led to America’s UN sanctioned war in Iraq derived from British intelligence and not American? You also forget that the Democrats, armed with the very same intelligence and additional information as the Bush administration voted for America going to war in Iraq.
So just where do you get off saying the war in Iraq was the work of neocons?
Next you say:
This statement boggles the mind. Given the rapid rise of Islamofacism throughout the Middle East, for which Muslim nations, other then Iran disingenuously proclaim, not us, its the other guys that are radical bad guys, just what kind of safeguards can the West trust these nations would put in place? As for not trusting a Muslim country with nuclear weapons, you seem either oblivious or willfully blind to all the historical and current event reasons why the West cannot trust Muslim nations with nuclear weapons.
When Iran says it wants to wipe Israel off the map and counters recent comments by Israel that Israel will not lay down and die, but will destroy Tehran, etc., with Iran will wipe Israel off the map, I and most other reasonable folks do and well should take Iran at her word.
Where does that leave you? In some make believe world you have constructed?
In your last post you say:
Clearly, multiculturalism has scrambled your brains and left you devoid of critical judgment. Multiculturalism prevents you from cherishing the value of your own culture. Multicultural intoxication keeps you from even asking why so many people from other cultures including Middle Eastern Islamic cultures, are so desperate to leave their culture and start a new and better life in Western nations.
To say that people that do not think like you are racist, is a belief that can only derive from a mind that has taken multiculturalim to insane lengths.
Mlevin, you really do need to come down to earth if you expect to be taken seriously.
Well done Bill.
I reject even handedness or equality. I am all for superiority when it comes to defense.
Excellent rebuttal, Bill.
Melvin:
Melvin: European Support for Bush and Cheney? Can it be? Might the stupid and blind liberal left in America be all wrong?
The Honorable Nirenstein
New York Sun Editorial
April 16, 2008
It’s not every day that a contributor to our newspaper gets elected to parliament, but that is what happened this week to Fiamma Nirenstein, who will become a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies following the landslide victory of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom Party. Ms. Nirenstein has written for our pages and for another New York-based publication, Commentary, from Israel and from the West Bank and Gaza about the struggle for freedom and democracy and security in the Middle East. Now she will have the chance to affect policy in Rome and Europe through more than her writing.
In the course of the campaign she endured anti-Semitic vitriol. The Anti-Defamation League rebuked a communist newspaper that ran a cartoon depicting her as “Fiamma Frankenstein” with a Star of David, a campaign button, and a fascist insignia. The voters did not fall for that, though; the communists won not a single seat in either house of the Parliament, for the first time since the end of World War II. When we reached Ms. Nirenstein by telephone yesterday to offer her our congratulations, she was upbeat, not only because of the result in Italy, but of the promise it held for Europe, which, in France, Germany, and now Italy, has installed a series of more pro-American leaders. “It’s a little signal, but it is a signal of change,” she said of her own election.
This is, among other things, a part of the vindication of President Bush, who has been derided for supposedly poisoning our foreign relations only to have one after another pro-American leader accede on the Continent. On top of that, Mr. Berlusconi has said he plans to make his first foreign trip as prime minister to Israel to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state, and Ms. Nirenstein has offered to accompany him. It would almost certainly be the first time an Italian prime minister visited Israel accompanied by a Hebrew-speaking member of parliament from his own party. Meanwhile, those pessimists who describe Europe as slouching irreparably toward Eurabia — well, let them meet the Honorable Nirenstein.
Jewish World Review July 15, 2003 / 15 Tamuz, 5763
How I became an ‘unconscious fascist’
By Fiamma Nirenstein
In 1967 I was a young communist, like most Italian youngsters. Bored by my rebellious behavior my family sent me to a Kibbutz in the upper Galilee, Neot Mordechai. I was quite satisfied there, the kibbutz used to give some money every month to the Vietcong. When the Six Day War began, Moshe Dayan spoke on the radio to announce it. I asked: “What is he saying?” and the comrades of Neot answered: “Shtuyot,” silly things. During the war I took children to shelters; I dug trenches, and learned some simple shooting and acts of self defense. We continued working in the orchards, but were quick to identify the incoming Mig-im and the outgoing Mirage-im, chasing one another in the sky of the Golan Heights.
When I went back to Italy, some of my fellow students stared at me as somebody new, an enemy, a wicked person who would soon become an imperialist. My life was about to change. I didn’t yet know that, because I simply thought that Israel rightly won a war after having been assaulted with an incredible number of harassments. But I soon noticed that I had lost the innocence of the good Jew, of the very special Jewish friend, their Jew: I was now connected with the Jews of the State of Israel, and slowly I was put out of the dodecaphonic, psychoanalytic, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth, Freud shtetl, the coterie that sanctified my Judaism in left wing eyes.
I have tried for a long time to bring back that sanctification, and they tried to give it back to me, because we desperately needed each other, the left and the Jews. But today’s anti Semitism has overwhelmed any good intention.
Throughout the years, even people that, like me, who had signed petitions asking the IDF to withdraw from Lebanon, became an “unconscious fascist” as a reader of mine wrote me in a letter filled with insults. In one book it was simply written that I was “a passionate woman that fell in love with Israel, confusing Jerusalem with Florence.” One Palestinian told me that if I see things so differently from the majority, this plainly means that my brain doesn’t work too well. Also, I’ve been called a cruel and insensitive human rights denier who doesn’t care about Palestinian children’s lives. A very famous Israeli writer told me on the phone a couple of months ago: “You really have become a right-winger.” What? Right winger? Me? An old feminist human rights activist, even a communist when I was young? Only because I described the Arab-Israeli conflict as accurately as I could and because sometimes I identified with a country continuously attacked by terror, I became a right-winger? In the contemporary world, the world of human rights, when you call a person a right-winger, this is the first step toward his or her delegitimization.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0703/nirenstein_2003_07_10.php3 READ FULL ARTICLE
Hey Bill – thanks for a more thoughtful rejoinder than some of your more reflexive colleagues. Here are my responses:
“You are incorrect on a few counts. First, while Pakistan does pose a potential danger, it is not presenting nearly as an immediate threat as is Iran. Iran not only threatens the security and wellbeing of Israel, but their game of brinksmanship threatens stability throughout the Middle East. That means not only is Israel imperiled.”
Immediate threat? Huh? Pakistan has nukes. Iran doesn’t. It is true Iran is far more bellicose towards Israel in the war of words than Pakistan is. Iran also is also a target for retailation, because unlike a Pakistan, it will never have plausible deniability that the state wasn’t behind any hypotherical attack. Pakistan is a democracy (well much more than it has been) and any misuse of a Pakistani nuke (unlikely though it is) would be seen as something that was appropriated from the Pak arsenal by al Qaeda sympathizers. Given that Iran cannot defend itself against any attack by the US and Israel if it conducted a nuclear strike, it would be absolutely insane to initiate one. Dehumanizing one’s opponents to believe such things makes us miscalculate.
“Here to, given no disagreement, censure or rebuff from the grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Supreme Council, one must conclude that Ahmadinejad’s words and belief are those of Khamenei and the Supreme Counsel. Not caring for his own life or the life of his people and so many other innocent Muslims within the Middle East, so long as he can bring about with the destruction of Jews and Israel, the fulfillment of Shi’ite prophecy, makes Iran a far more dangerous nation then North Korea and Pakistan.”
Not necessarily. Khamenei might just be getting enough of a rise from seeing this awkward country bumpkin rattle the US and Israel, to let it continue. Even when you don’t agree with someone or the way they express themselves, you do draw satisfaction when that person provokes your opponents. And that silence you see as ominous could very reasonably be interpreted as satisfaction. I see him as a moderate Holocaust doubter – less of a “Hitler didn’t gas Jews & Gypsies” and more of a “why don’t the Jews get settled in Europe, since it was Hitler’s fault” kind of guy. That doesn’t make him a monster, with no regard for human life. Slightly possible – maybe. Likely? No. Most of the talk about “destroying Israel” is not about actually killing all Jews, or drowning them in the sea, but not having a state that is “Jewish” – with immigration laws that discriminate on the basis of religion. Destroying anyone there would destroy thousands or millions of Arabs, and that cannot be an acceptable outcome for Iran.
“I quite agree if we lived in an idyllic utopian world free of conflict and hatred bred by racism, jealousy and personal and national self interests that are mutually incompatible in many instances. Since we don’t live in such world, what can your words be characterized, but naieve.”
You mean naive. I just meant to say that when our conventional arsenals have become so potent, the relative utility of nukes as a deterrent have gone down. Also, since using them has become so abhorrent (on the same scale as slavery), whether or not you mouth the words “we’ll never take it off the table” using them would invite an unacceptably harsh response economically, terrorism-wise or militarily, that makes them just expensive toys in a museum.
“The sanctions the U.N. imposed time and again on Iran have been virtually dropped. All the agreements the U.N. signed with Iran were broken by Iran before the ink was dry. Given Iran’s track record, the West and the U.N. have found that Iran’s word as regards its nuclear agenda cannot be trusted. What you are saying is that we could achieve such breakthrough if we can regain the seed of the 1960’s feelings of peace and love for one another and we could once again get that seed to germinate at the corner of Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco and spead world wide.”
Have we tried this deal/grand bargain I suggested? No. The sanctions I speak of are the US sanctions which do make it very difficult for Iranian businesses and banks to do well. Have we tried to be respectful and meet bilaterally with them? No. Let’s try it first and see if you’re right.
“Did you forget or just did not know that the intelligence information that ultimately led to America’s UN sanctioned war in Iraq derived from British intelligence and not American? You also forget that the Democrats, armed with the very same intelligence and additional information as the Bush administration voted for America going to war in Iraq. So just where do you get off saying the war in Iraq was the work of neocons?”
The main casus belli was “Curveball”‘s lies about bioweapons and other weapons – and he was this Iraqi who relayed his lies to German intelligence. Going to war takes both some evidence and the political will. America’s prominent neocons whether in the think-tanks or in the Bush administration (Perle, Wurmser, Wolfowitz, Cheney) provided that political push. It had its roots from back when they were cheerleading for an invasion when some of them worked for Bibi. And yes – I agree that most of the Dems were equally gullible and responsible. They were (1) afraid to look weak on matters of national security, and (2) cowed by cheerleading by AIPAC and other evangelical and pro-Israel groups that raised the specter of a nuclear Iraq nuking Tel Aviv. Not too dissimilar by the paranoia I see here and at Newsmax about Iran. There’s a near messianic fervor about this.
“This statement boggles the mind. Given the rapid rise of Islamofacism throughout the Middle East, for which Muslim nations, other then Iran disingenuously proclaim, not us, its the other guys that are radical bad guys, just what kind of safeguards can the West trust these nations would put in place? As for not trusting a Muslim country with nuclear weapons, you seem either oblivious or willfully blind to all the historical and current event reasons why the West cannot trust Muslim nations with nuclear weapons. When Iran says it wants to wipe Israel off the map and counters recent comments by Israel that Israel will not lay down and die, but will destroy Tehran, etc., with Iran will wipe Israel off the map, I and most other reasonable folks do and well should take Iran at her word. Where does that leave you? In some make believe world you have constructed?”
About “Israel off the map” – see my earlier point about “destroying Israel.” You know, when you hear people feeling this strongly, you should examine why they feel that way. Don’t be lazy. Don’t just stop at “they’re radical bad guys” or “their culture is depraved” or “their religion teaches them that.” That’s the refuge of the intellectually lazy. Maybe they feel strongly because they see people they identify with, fellow Muslims, living under occupation in their own land. Maybe you would also feel strongly if you saw fellow Jews living under occupation in some other country. Maybe it would make you say “Never, again” – “Never again will I see a people subjugated and stand idly by, even if it is by my own people.”
So you take Iran at its word when they say they want to destroy Israel. Nice. You don’t take them at their word when they say they want no weapons. You give them selective credibility, depending on whether it suits your fear.
“Why we cannot trust” – So why should Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists trust the West with their nukes? The West has shown signs of aggression that go beyond mere words (“off the map” or “destroy” or “shock and awe”) and actually done it! Iraq, Vietnam, Hiroshima & Nagasaki. We are men of action, goddammit!
I’ve used examples. You loosely alluded to reasons why we shouldn’t trust them, instead of providing evidence of likelihood. Why, because your argument is in reality – “they are different from me, and hence I will never trust them with a nuke, even if they had democratic governments” – yes, that’s racist.
“Clearly, multiculturalism has scrambled your brains and left you devoid of critical judgment. Multiculturalism prevents you from cherishing the value of your own culture. Multicultural intoxication keeps you from even asking why so many people from other cultures including Middle Eastern Islamic cultures, are so desperate to leave their culture and start a new and better life in Western nations. To say that people that do not think like you are racist, is a belief that can only derive from a mind that has taken multiculturalism to insane lengths.”
I think you’re confusing seeing one ethnic group as superior to another with seeing one political & economic system as superior to another. I was referring to the first, and you’re talking about the second.
I think on the contrary, not being chained to having to champion one culture has freed me up to be more subjective and more of a critical thinker. I believe I am a human being first, and my race, religion, culture, country, and other affiliations come much much after that. You share far more in common with a Hamas suicide bomber than you do with your pet dog. You do, whether or not you like it.
It’s just easier to see ourselves as better than others. Makes us feel better.
People always want a better life for their families – when they are ruled by despots and dictators that stymie economic growth, it is natural for them to seek a more prosperous life in another country – but they would prefer to have that in their own countries, while being able to hold on to some of their culture and traditions which they can’t do in the West.
Yamit, I’m glad you wrote…and I’m discovering B-quote now…let’s see if this works.
That made me smile…never seen a message to me starting that way.
Whaa..? Well it’s nice to see you wish the death of millions of Americans (even if someone else does it) to “shelve the issue of (a) Palestinian state.” You just one-upped Osama supporters.
What you said after that was a bit too disjointed for me to respond to. Moving on…
I agree with you here.
Damn, you are paranoid. I feel sorry. You make friends by acting in a civilized way. By not encouraging discrimination. By not acting as occupiers. If you don’t want a Palestinian state, just annex it and let everyone vote. It may not satisfy those who wanted a Palestinian state, and it may not preserve pro-Jewish laws, but at least it will not rob millions of people of basic human rights.
mlevin:
You know, even stupid people deserve explanations.
It’s like the youngest of the 4 sons in the Haggadah.
To paraphrase it; some people are too stupid to understand explanations. In other words, if I have to explain, you simply won’t understand.
Go back to playing in the sandbox.
mlevin,
Last time I had to deal with someone with your mentality, I told this person that despite her moral pretensions, if an Islamist thug were to come running toward her with a club or knife in hand, to do her obvious harm, and there was a big gun on the table beside her, she wouldn’t be able to get to the gun fast enough to put a bullet in his head.
Just like you.
keelie:
I’m pretty sure my 160 IQ doesn’t quite gel with that. So “stupid” is probably not the right word you’re looking for.
Maybe “annoying”, or “frustrating” or “really messing with my worldview.”
No – I can assure you, that if anyone – whether that’s you, this so-called “Islamist thug” or a “fanatic settler” – were to come running at me with a club or knife to do me harm, I will shoot that person. Maybe your friend wouldn’t, but I would. Self-defense, baby. But I have the ability to separate the actions of that indvidual from that of the “group” he belongs to. I wouldn’t blame all settlers if you tried to kill me. I don’t practise guilt or judgment by association or birth. You apparently do. This attitude is no better than that of an antisemite, who is engaging in blood libel. It is equally racist.
Mlevin, you have done a fine job of convincing yourself in your post #15.
You have said far too much for me to want to take issue with. A few facts however that you seem to exclude from your thinking.
1. Pakistan is far too immersed in its own internal political strife to be concerned with attacking Israel, except for eg. by voting at the UN in favor of any OIC anti-Israel resolution.
2. You suggest that Pakistan would have plausible deniability if one of their incorrigible Islamists launched a strike at Israel. Do you really think Israel would give a damn about Pakistan’s plausible deniability?
Come on Mlevin!
Israel would launch nuclear weapons against any nation from which the attack against Israel came.
3. You say:
You seem to think that sane people are running the Iranian ship of state. What does it take to convince you that the Iranian Ayatollah Kamenie, his Supreme Council and their spokesperson Ahmadinejad, while perfectly sane by their standards are quite insane enough by our Western standards to launch a nuclear strike.
As for your comment,
I put to you that you have it ass backwards.
By our leaders humanizing our enemies who are inhuman by our Western norms, causes us to miscalculate and fail to take Iran at her word, because we would prefer to think it is so insane, they just won’t do it.
4. You say:
Neither Ahmadinejad nor Ayatollah Khamenei who pulls Ahmadinejad’s strings are country bumpkins. The Europeans and the Germans thought Hitler was a nutbar, until it was too late. If the West thinks like you, G_D help us all.
5. You say:
Mlevin, what does it matter that a person who hates your guts and tells you they are going to kill you first chance they get, spend a few moments explaining why they want to destroy you.
6. You next say:
Iran is Shia and the vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East are Sunni. Neither side has had any compunctions about throughout history murdering each other for their own particular interests, though they will always claim they did so in the name of their Shia or Sunni god, Allah.
Have you not noticed neither side has any compunctions of killing each other in Iraq?
Like Ahmadinejad and Khamenei care if millions of Arabs die in the holocaust they initiate in order to have the Mahdi return and fulfill Shia prophecy.
Mlevin, I just can’t believe you don’t know these things, so all I can figure is that you ignore them.
7. Next you go on to accuse me of having selective credibility with this flawed gem:
To make such a specious argument, I ordinarily would call you disingenuous, but in your case, I am starting to think you actually believe your nonsense.
8. As regards my comments about how multiculturalism taken to extremes perverts your thinking, you say:
No Mlevin, you are so far off base that we are not in the same ballpark.
I am a Westerner who cherishes my own culture and want it protected and preserved. Debasing my culture so that I can then say another culture is equal is not in my view protecting and preserving my culture.
By all Western norms of how we judge successful and unsuccessful, our Judeo-Christian culture is more successful then all other cultures.
Yes, I agree with you Mlevin that we Westerners are more successful politically and economically then other cultures. What you fail to grasp Mlevin is that we have achieved and enjoy that success because we have the culture that allows us to achieve that success.
9. You say:
So you say you are a human being first! That is so special. All those other things like your race, religion nationality, etc. you say come a distant second.
How very interesting.
I can agree with your describing yourself as being free to be a subjective thinker. That you have proven in spades. Telling me you are a critical thinker, is something I take great issue with.
10. You start your closing comments with the following description of me:
Wow! I guess you got so tired trying to keep your bent out of shape ideas from getting even more bent out of shape that you thought you would try your hand at character assassination and insulting me.
The only thing you have managed to prove Mlevin is your capacity for reason running the full gamut from specious, to twisted, to perverse and finally to absurd.
That’s about enough for one night, so I will leave it there.
Mevin with the 160 IQ? Let me try to put it in a way only someone with a 160 IQ will comprehend fully if not your claim to 160 might be suspect Lol!
The patriotic Maccabees were true to Torah while their Hellenized Jewish brothers betrayed faith and fatherland. Before Antiochus IV imposed the anti-religious edicts on the Jews of Judea, Menelaus and others of his ilk had already strayed from the Jewish path, instigated official repression of Torah observance, and proposed that Jerusalem be fashioned into a Greek polis. Thus, Seleucid cultural imperialism drew its mantle of legitimacy from the traitorous ‘court Jews’ and ‘temple officialdom’ who pushed for a complete Hellenization policy. This cosmopolitan Jewish elite favored assimilation, lacking the will and conviction to persevere as proud Jews within the larger cultural landscape of the East.
The history of the Jews is in its fundamentals internal history. The history of ‘the Jews and the nations’ constitutes a later organization of the historical materials as an enveloping layer of events surrounding the inner essence of matters. This inner history is twofold: 1) Between G-d and the people of Israel based on the Torah covenant of reward-and-punishment; and 2) Between Jews and Jews involving the solidarity or betrayal of unity and peoplehood. It is within these parameters that the entire panorama and drama of Jewish history is cast. According to this philosophy of Jewish history, the non-Jews are peripheral participants whose role is merely a consequence rather than a cause of all that affects the Jewish people over time.
It is the ‘enemy within’, or the renegade at odds with his own people that provides the leitmotif throughout Jewish history. In pharaonic Egypt, Datan and Aviram broke Jewish ranks and opposed the leadership of Moses and his mission to liberate the Hebrews from the yoke of servitude. On the edge of Cana’an, ten spies faltered on the political dividing line separating the realization of freedom from renewed slavery. With the return to Eretz-Israel from the Persian exile, Sanbalat inveighed against Nehemia who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem in the hope of re- establishing national Jewish independence. The Hasmonean rebellion against Hellenist persecution encountered the traitorous machinations of ‘fifth column’ Jews, like Eliyakim in Judea.
This is the shameful record: assimilationists under the guise of emancipated intellectuals, marxists parading a facade of humanitarian pathos and leftists posing their morality but in alliance with the enemies of their people. The inner malaise, I suspect, will be with us till the end of days.
The Maccabee tale is a warning on many fronts. It teaches that assimilation precedes and prepares the ground for catastrophe in ways that we cannot always decipher and foresee. Alien powers sometimes offer assistance and open their doors to Jewish participation but, in the end, become the insidious enemies of Jewish well-being. For the Romans granted Jewish autonomy, but later expelled the Jews from their land. The British declared their support for Zionism, but later turned on the Jews with bayonets and the hangman’s rope. The Americans contributed to strengthening Israel, but advocate the diminution of the state and the Arabization of the land. The Maccabee experience also implores us to understand that Jewish freedom requires Jewish power, because the power to rule serves to sustain the light of liberty.
The Hasmoneans were zealots for Torah and Zion when they launched their fight for freedom against the Greek imperialists in Judea. In the 1940s within British-mandate Palestine, a small but principled Brit Ha-hashmonayim namesake movement propagated a similar campaign against foreign rule in Eretz-Israel. Time had not altered the basic parameters characterizing Jewish existence in the homeland.
Melin 160?
In a Hobbesian world, man’s actions are taken to avoid a violent death or rather the fear of a violent death. . . . Gone is the notion that man’s actions are based upon rationally derived or divinely inspired fundamentals leading toward the fulfillment of his purpose. As truth became a relative concept based upon the understanding of the individual at a given point in time, the notion that man evolves within his lifetime from many men allowed for the ever changing, i.e., creative power, of man himself. Man was to overcome himself by redefining and recreating who and what he is.
finally: When all ideas are equal because man as the maker constantly seeks to remake himself, no ideas are “significantly” better than others.
Do you see yourself within my descriptions above? I do!
Yamit
Please stop attacking Mlevin personally. Just deal with his arguments or not. I happen to find his discourse totally appropriate and well informed. He is welcomed here.
I just had a long talk with my daughter. We may disagree on many things but we agree that no position is all right or all wrong. There are arguments to be made on both sides. We can argue whether or not to attack Iran and whoever wins the day may turn out to be wrong. The same goes for whether to capitulate or abrogate Oslo. No solution is a perfect solution and whatever is decided may be worse than what was rejected but we will never know.
She recounted many decisions that seemed right at the time but didn’t work out and had to be revised. This goes for globaliztion, welfare, free trade, . Whatever we choose to do doesn’t work well. Their are negatives and tradeoffs in every decision.
I posted this elsewhere, but I thought it would be useful for us to see where mainstream Jewish opinion lies – whether in Israel or in the US. There is wisdom in the crowds, and when we ignore it, we do so at our peril. Simply put, we miscalculate:
Jewish Israeli Opinion:
46% of Israeli Jews favor direct talks with Hamas over a ceasefire and Shalit. (Feb 2008)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/958473.html
The Geneva Accord folk list a bunch of polls that were conducted by other groups and universities. I’ll list a few.
http://www.geneva-accord.org/General.aspx?FolderID=45&lang=en
62% of Jewish Israelis believe the Palestinians’ demand for an independent state is justified. (Nov 2007)
http://www.geneva-accord.org/General.aspx?docID=2562&FolderID=45&lang=en
About half of all Israelis and Palestinians support a comprehensive final status agreement along the parameters of the Geneva Accord, and over two thirds on both sides would support full reconciliation efforts if a peace agreement is reached. (Dec 2007)
http://www.geneva-accord.org/General.aspx?docID=2596&FolderID=45&lang=en
65% of Israelis support conducting permanent status negotiations with the Palestinians. (Oct 2007)
http://www.geneva-accord.org/General.aspx?docID=2414&FolderID=45&lang=en
As to Jewish American Opinion:
Although pessimistic about Arab intentions on all fronts (some appeared to be leading questions to me, and the AJC is definitely more to the right of the Jewish public here) slightly more favor than oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state. (2007)
http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.3642857/
The same AJC poll, shows how unpopular the neocon worldview is among the American Jewish public. But it is popular among with AIPAC, ADL, etc.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/12/ajc_poll/
The full poll: http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.3642849/
Bill Narvey:
I completely agree. I had already said the Pakistan was “unlikely” to be a threat. Maybe you missed that. What I was saying is that if a Pakistani nuke was used, it would have a better plausible deniability argument than Iran, due to the old ISI-Taliban nexus, and the proximity of jihadis to those nukes. Still very unlikely.
Yes, Israel would give a damn. The US has significant interests in Pakistan – a $10 billion military investment, a need to find bin Laden and Zawahiri, and its officers working with Pak military – and its own soldiers right across the border within a whiff of radioactive fallout-laden winds. Even if a major Israeli city was wiped out, I believe the US, if it had no reason to suspect the Pakistani govt was behind it, would put enough pressure on Israel to stop it from punishing a Pakistani city for something some terrorists did. An Israeli nuclear attack on Pakistan would end all cooperation between US and Pakistan, lead to NATO troops leaving Afghanistan, and a win for the Taliban. However if Iran launched such a strike, I don’t think the US would hold Israel back.
Yes, I do. Maybe with a different worldview than you or me, but quite rational. Never underestimate your enemy – include their rationality. What is insane is initiating an attack that has decent potential to end up killing more people, including Israelis, than you want to lose. Think of Lebanon times 10,000.
What you say is possible, I’ll give you that. But there isn’t enough evidence to make it likely. What overt action have they taken that is illegal according to international law, or irrational? They are still loudly saying, as are their people – that we want peaceful nuclear energy. US is funding groups of armed men that expands its mission in Iraq, and so is Iran.
I meant that Ahmadinejad is not polished. Someone in his position could make a much more eloquent argument for his positions than he does. And he writes rambling letters to Bush that aren’t even proofread by someone in his administration who knows proper English. I did read one of his letters. What I glean from it is someone who is trying to persuade, trying to connect, and thinks that talking about the basic values of Christianity is the best way. That is the mark of an inartful person, but not a crazy one.
The usual chants of “Death to America” are equivalent to statements about “destroying Israel” – they do not jive with their recognition of our role in the world, and that of Israel’s. It reminds me of how an American anchorwoman (her name escapes me now) found herself in the middle of a rally in Tehran, where “death to America” was being chanted – so she then asked the people next to her, as to whether they thought Americans should die. The people were very affectionate to her and said no – but we wish American policies would die.
Nice segue from my last comment. Do you think that is Ahmadinejad or Khamenei or the average Iranian ruling councilman, if they were face to face with you, and they had a gun, and they wouldn’t go to jail or face any consequences – would shoot you? Or tell you that you should die at the hands of one of their soldiers? I really doubt it. There is a basic humanity in all of us, that we can glimpse especially when a conflict moves from the abstract of hating groups, to a personal 1-on-1 interaction.
Sure – there is less compunction for internecine Sunni-Shia killings. Not no compunction. Extremists and criminals, yes. You don’t have your average Shia man being willing to put a bullet in the head of an average Sunni man. What happens in the haze of civil war in Iraq is different from what the leadership of a nation does. It is more deliberative, nuanced and much less messianic than your average belt-wearing martyr. So don’t transfer the fervor of individuals in the thick of battle to that of national leaders.
Read Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” if you are willing to open up your conviction that Judaeochristian culture’s success (let’s say success of white people) has more to do with genetics or culture than pure accidents of history & climate.
I don’t see how respecting other cultures as equal is debasing your own. Each tradition is rich in mythology, wisdom, heroes, and life experience. That’s not to say that there are cults or excesses in each tradition. But each tradition has an internal consistency and logic to it. That’s why I describe a clash between two worldviews, as more often being one between right vs right than right vs wrong. If you grew up as an Arab, the set of facts that would inform your worldview would be very different. Each worldview has it’s own version of facts and history.
Your “culture” and that of others – whether they are Arab, Buddhist, whatever – will erode with time. Culture, the way you understand it is an endangered species. You may hold on to it in your lifetime. But with globalization, labor mobility, and the Internet – your children and grandchildren will have a much more cosmopolitan culture, that blends various languages, national identities and traditions…and they will intermarry. When the Irish first moved to the US that’s all they married. Now they’ll marry anyone, from any religion. Hindu-Muslim marriages were unheard of in India 50 years ago. Not anymore. There will be far more Muslim-Jewish marriages in your children’s generation, and even more so for your grandchildren’s generation. The arrow is pointing one way and things will inexorably move in that direction. Maybe you can slow it down in places, but that’s all you can do. You can’t fight the future.
Interesting? I think it just makes a lot more sense to be seen as human first and foremost. We also live in a world where things that happen to people in other parts of the world can affect us – either emotionally or materially.
Ahh – I did misspeak. All this writing, I am going to screw up! I meant to say that focusing on seeing all people as equal frees me up to be an “objective” and not “subjective” thinker. Sorry about that.
“You share far more in common with a Hamas suicide bomber than you do with your pet dog. You do, whether or not you like it.”
Wow! I guess you got so tired trying to keep your bent out of shape ideas from getting even more bent out of shape that you thought you would try your hand at character assassination and insulting me. The only thing you have managed to prove Mlevin is your capacity for reason running the full gamut from specious, to twisted, to perverse and finally to absurd.
Haha…well I didn’t intend to insult you. It’s not specious at all. It was a dramatic statement, even perverse, but to make a point – it is true under any type of analysis. I love dogs. And how is this assassinating your character? DNA aside, you share much more in terms of ability, human experiences and emotions with another human being than you do with a dog. Much more in common. Enough to actually communicate. Even if you don’t want to. You may be smarter than him. But you both care about your families, want to see them happy and safe, and want to do whatever you can to make sure your people have freedom – freedom to live your lives, freedom from oppression, freedom from fear. Recognizing that common humanity is not weak – it’s smart.
Talking is one thing, giving up Jerusalem is another.
These are not “my” polls. And you don’t have to be impressed by them. You should listen to them though. Even if I agree with your assumption that only Israeli Jews should decide the question of Israel’s borders – I did already show you such polls!
Here’s one of them – http://www.geneva-accord.org/General.aspx?docID=2562&FolderID=45&lang=en
That’s 62% of Israeli Jews saying that the Palestinian demand for an independent state is justified.
To double-check, I looked up the source report from Tel Aviv University. I’m going to quote from it:
I was about to remove #28 as not accurate. But you beat me to it. I will remove the first sentance.
The real and only question is whether Jews want to agree with the Saudi Plan requiring sharing of Jerusalem and the greenline. Two thirds are against it.
Sure – and I’m sure a majority of Pals don’t want to give up the right of return either. 85% of them wanted it in 2006. http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p20e1.html
But if a final status settlement is on the line, with normalization with all Arab countries, and the leaders on both sides are popular, they can sell it to their publics in a referendum. Abbas may not be charismatic enough. Marwan Bargouthi, if released, could do it. Sharon would have been a good one on the Israeli side.
Mlevin or Mark as I think you said in one of your posts, we do have a much different take on things.
As for your reference to the insult you hurled and which you weakly try to explain in your post # 26, I was not really insulted. The reference you made not only was perverse as you say, but hyperbole taken to extremes so that it was palpably absurd. I don’t know why you bothered trying to explain yourself, because you only dug yourself deeper. I don’t think I have to explain why because you seem like an exceedingly intelligent fellow and can figure that out for yourself.
I was just wondering why if it was so absurd that you would say it.
On the issue of whether Israel would give a damn about what America thought and Pakistan’t plausible deniability should some terrorist launch a nuclear strike from Pakistani soil, we will have to agree to disagree.
You stated as regards Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Supreme Council:
You seem to have missed my point altogether.
I am saying that while the worldview of Iran may seem insane to Westerners, they are not insane and irrational at all within their way of thinking. Thus if Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Council believe that destroying Israel is a necessary step in the fulfillment of the Shi’ite prophecy, it is perfectly rational for them to launch such an attack, even if it means the death of Israel and the deaths of a great many Muslims, including themselves.
The West must therefore assess the threat faced from Iran, not by Western logic, but by getting into their minds and seeing their view of the world, of Islamic manifest destiny and just how they bring honor to their Shia Islamic world by being the ones who bring about the fulfillment of their prophecy with the return of their Mahdi.
That the Iranian leaders are fully prepared to sacrifice their lives and the lives of their people to achieve their view of their Islamic destiny, makes them the most dangerous of enemies.
You asked me:
The easy answer is that neither would put themselves in that position. Killing me would not be a step to fulfill the next coming of the Mahdi.
On the issue of culture, I generally agree that each culture has its own interesting history, richness and is special to those who are part of their culture.
You make passing reference to culture akin to the debate about the contributing factors of nature and nurture that makes up a human being. The argument as to which contributes more in making up each of us, can be extended in a parallel argument over the development of culture. I don’t see anything useful debating that however.
My point relates to my experience in Canada where multi-cultural values have been enshrined in our Consitution and our laws. Our politicians are wont to say that Canada’s identity is a cultural mosaic. Experience has shown our identity has been lost in a tattered mosaic where each culture vies for equal attention. Multiculturalism was brought into our socio-politic by PM Trudeau, many say with good argument that he did so to blunt the momentum of national self determination and demands for special status of Quebec which taken to its natural conclusion could well have led to the break up of Canada.
We are witnessing here in Canada as well as in the States and even more successfully in Europe the efforts by fundamentalist Muslims to transform the existing culture by having it adapt to their culture. I expect you are familiar with the writings of Bat Ye’or who popularized the word Eurabia to describe that ongoing transformation that is succeeding. Others have written on the subject as well, including Mark Steyn, whom I am sure you are also familiar with.
When I say I want to protect and preserve the culture that I grew up in, I am not saying that my culture is the best and better then other cultures.
Rather I am saying that my culture is the best for me and I do not want to change it one iota.
If Westerners cherish all the benefits and advantages their culture has to offer as compared to other cultures that by Western standards and norms, would offer them less, then I am saying Westerners must learn to fight to keep what they have and not be complacent that the culture they now enjoy, will always remain the same and immutable to the pressures of others who seek to transform our culture to be more compatible with theirs.
I am not sure if we are in fundamental disagreement on what I have just said, but if we are I trust you will explain why from your vantage point.
We had better wipe Iran off the face of the earth before Israel is wiped off the face of the earth.
But we must obtain Russian support to do so. That way, we can divide up Iran between China, Russia, the U.S., and all those who would like to profit from Iran’s resources once we remove another Islamic terrorist regime – and remove the Shahs.
We could also appoint IRANIAN REBELS who HATE IRANIAN terrorism to inherit the Iranian land. A new U.N. charter can approve of Iran NEVER HAVING NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY, but instead getting their energy from other countries willing to contribute those resources.
Iran will also have to accept the Jewish Sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the transfer of Palestinian refugees to Arabia.
YOUR QUOTE: “I am not impressed with your polls. First they are not of Israeli Jews. Only Jews should decide the question of Israel borders.”
MY ANSWER:
Ro 9:6 It is not as though God’s word e had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. f
Ro 9:7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 43 g
Ro 9:8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, h but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. i
Faithful Jews who DEFINE ISRAEL by the Torah’s Borders and aren’t willing to give up the Temple Mount are FAITHFUL JEWS. Not all Jewish people by BLOOD are Jewish by Faith, meaning JEWISH IDENTITY IS BASED ON TORAH’S DEFINITION OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL, GOD’S COMMANDMENTS SURROUNDING THIS LAND, and the requirements for the building of the First and Second Temples, which were formerly built right where the Dome of The Rock currently enshrines a barren, desolate rock.
I have an uncle who is Jewish by blood, but wears a little Buddha around his neck, follows New Age beliefs, but HATES THE GOD OF ISRAEL, HATES THE BIBLE, HATES anything to do with ancient or modern Israel.
He is not JEWISH because being a Jew is about FAITH and NOT FLESH!
Ro 2:28 A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, u nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. v
Ro 2:29 No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, w by the Spirit, x not by the written code. y Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.
So if you claim to be “JEWISH” you are not “JEWISH” without being a SPIRITUAL DESCENDANT of Israel!
Hitler was the bastard son of a Rothschild, who was Jewish.
Does this mean that Hitler was “Jewish” by Biblical definition? No, of course not. Therefore, all “Jews” who rise up like Hitler against the God of Israel’s commands have Olmert as their modern messiah and they also have Obama and Ahminijihad, who hate any “Jew” whether by blood or faith.
You are only JEWISH if you love and have FAITH IN THE GOD OF ISRAEL!
The Catholic Pope is not a follower of Jesus Christ, so long as he breaks the commands of God for the sake of his pagan religious beliefs. It’s not surprising that this devil puppet would seek unity, peace and love with other devil puppets – even some Jewish devil puppets who belong to the synagogue of Satan – such as Olmert and Peres do.
I wish someone would crown GERSHON SALOMON OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL TEMPLE MOUNT FAITHFUL MOVEMENT TO BE PRESIDENT OF ISRAEL!
There is a man of honor and a TRUE ISRAELITE!
Now Ted can better understand my hostile sense of humor against the God of Israel’s opponents and why I am so graphic – I am just a little bit more untraditionally passionate than most – and it all comes from a good place – and I’m convinced that Ted comes from a good place in his heart too. This is why I am taking some time to write some thoughts here!
I like his theme: THERE IS NO DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION!
I conclude: THERE IS ONLY A BIBLICAL SOLUTION DEFINED BY THE TORAH COMMANDS!
Bill…
You are one of the few thinking people I’ve seen here. But your response does puzzle me…I did not see myself in any kind of a logical hole. So I’ll keep digging! Maybe I was too disjointed and not direct in making the point. I was using hyperbole to make a point about things we have in common with our enemies, which are very easy to lose sight of in the fog of war. And that similarity is always an adequate platform to build bridges. This is what I was trying to say – we always underestimate how much we are like our enemies. In grad school I had some Indian and Pakistani friends who seemed to have a lot in common – food, movies, cricket – and while back in their homelands, their attitudes towards each other were quite hardened or even hateful, they realized in the US their communities, despite very different religious traditions, had far more in common than with the white folk around them. They just avoided discussing Kashmir! Thrown together, in an alien environment, they had more incentive to make an effort to connect with the other side, and found that the things they enjoyed (the food, et al) far outweighed their conflict. I’ve seen Greek and Turkish students act similarly. Prejudices and hard positions melt away in such settings. A sort of “Seeds of Peace” effect.
Ok. And I agree that you have to place yourself in other people’s shoes to figure out how they’d think. But I don’t think you can have an overly simplistic model of how people in that setting think. They are as complex thinkers as you and I. But you do make some very firm assumptions, which I question. You use a hypothetical…if they believe X, then it is perfectly rational to attack. How do you know how important X really is to the decisionmaker? Politicians often say things for domestic consumption. How much of a role does X play in an actual decision to attack? Is it 1%, 5%, 25%, 75% of the rationale? People make decisions based on a variety of factors, unless they are unthinking automatons. In the real world, pure doctrine (religious or political) almost never wins out.
Evangelicals want to support and protect Israel because of the Second Coming. According to biblical prophesy, two-thirds of the Jews will die by the final battle at Armageddon and the final third will convert to Christianity by accepting Jesus upon his return. This will begin Christ’s thousand-year rule. Not a happy ending for Jews. While evangelical acquaintances/leaders may say these things, I don’t assume that their belief/utterance of this prophesy, like the coming of the Mahdi, makes them monsters, and a threat. I believe in their basic humanity and do not believe they would actively try to hasten the death or conversion of every Jew. What I’m saying is how can you believe the prophetic threat of one, and ignore the other?
I agree – I don’t think you said anything about your view of culture that I had a problem with. I understand what you’re saying and where you are comfortable.
I just think that while you may not want that culture to change one iota, and you may preserve it in pockets, it is not immutable. Cultures are not static, and have evolved over the millennia, centuries and even decades. Right now they are undergoing more tumult because cultures which heretofore didn’t have to bump into each other are doing so. Whenever we are exposed to people from different cultures, it does change us. It is natural to resist, and you are resisting, as is your right. The Muslim Moors influenced what we see as “western” Spanish culture and music today. Hip-hop is seen as Western, despite its African roots. When fundamentalist Muslims live in an area where they have enough of a presence to be a political force in elections, lawmakers are going to listen to them more. Like the Mormons in Utah. That’s the nature of democracy. I don’t see it as a bad thing. I know it will create conflict. See the Sharia in UK controversy recently. But through conflict and clashes of worldviews comes understanding and eventually, a new worldview that is a child of both. I think that fits perfectly into the arc of human progress.
This process will be rocky. Even in this primary election it’s apparent – states that have almost no black people are quite pro-Obama, while in states of mixed populations, he has much lower white support. Prejudices come to the fore when one is exposed to or has to compete with people from another culture/group. The differences, especially if there are enclaves, can seem quite stark. However, in settings like colleges, where one has to actually desegregate and live in close quarters with people and engage in 1-on-1 conversations and relationships, prejudices recede. So I think we go through these stages of how we see other cultures depending on our exposure – (1) an intellectual curiosity, (2) an undesirable influence or threat, and finally (3) individuals like us. I do see things moving towards a more global culture, instead of a sharp mosaic. It’ll be a blurry quilt that will get blurrier. One day, maybe in 300 years, the whole world will look like 4th generation Americans who have a tenuous link to their cultural heritage, only a little browner, and slightly Asiatic in features. They’ll probably all know English, and speak dialects of it peppered with words borrowed from old languages. It is sad, but the traditions and languages will become fainter, given the pressures of business needs, connectivity and convenience.
Ted? what you are describing is essentially the Bradbury Butterfly effect:
By Obadiah Shoher
Policies are predominantly wrong because any given position in the complex adaptive system has myriad options, and any one option is likely to not be the best option. Complex adaptive systems resist policies but develop through painfully long series of micro-moves. At every stage, situation changes and needs adaptive response. Policies, on the contrary, tend to be fixed and self-perpetuating; otherwise, they are derogatory called ad hoc solutions and don’t amount to policies.
It follows, that whatever a government does, it likely does wrong. Bismarck weaved the most excellent policies, but they laid a foundation for the two world wars. The League of Nations was a great idea, but it legalized the inaction which allowed Germany to re-arm. Partitioning states to satisfy both political camps seemed a viable strategy, but partitioned Vietnam fought a bloody war, and other cases proved equally unsustainable. Bleeding the communists in Afghanistan was a nice thing to do, but the aid to mujahedeen created the Islamic terrorist threat. It is not an overgeneralization to say that all policies are wrong. There are no examples of fruitful policies under the heaven.
Policies differ from methods. Working is good, though no work plausibly makes an average person billionaire; work is method, enrichment is a policy. Methods are useful in themselves while policies serve external goals. Methods can be described as derivative of policies, or as very short-term policies. Occupation of Iraq with the aim of making it democratic is a policy – wrong; punishing raid with the immediate aim of removing Saddam is a method – right. Method is a historically standard modus operandi: countries attack when threatened, punish offenders when they can, and secure their own habitat. Almost everyone agree on methods: both Jews and Arabs believe that offenders must be punished; punishment is a method. Methods have only immediate goals.
Methods rely on very short actions and are unlikely to create the Bradbury’s Butterfly effect of unforeseeable remote consequences. Most often, methods reinstate or secure status quo ante. Less frequently, methods prevent the unforeseeable developments: European settlers massacred Red Indians so that no significant minority is left to claim their ancestral lands.
How absurd it is to imagine a lion that enters a camp of gazelles to teach them manners, self-defense, or agriculture. No, lions are satisfied with the immediate goal of satiation – if at the gazelle’s expense. Peace process is of the same stock. Israel tried rejecting the Palestinian demands, succumbing to them, and every option in between. Nothing worked – because policies never work. The Middle East’s ecosystem is a textbook example of complex adaptive system. Any policy would be wrong here. Who could honestly predict that Arafat would refuse statehood which Barak gave him on the silver plate? Who knew Nasser’s mind in 1967, when he wanted to attack Israel? We don’t know whether Iran develops nuclear weapons or merely defends its right to conduct nuclear enrichment. There are myriad inherently unknown variables in the peace process equation. If Israeli Arabs are loyal, that calls for one solution; if they are not, the solution must be entirely different. If Palestinian Arabs want to live in peace with Israel, that’s one situation; if Gaza’s refugees would never accept a Jewish state, that’s a totally different situation. Would Egypt pursue a hostile peace with Israel, or would its Muslim radicals come to power and opt for a war?
Mid-term economic planning proved a communist failure, but democratic states plan something incredibly more complex than economy – human societies. The peace process will invariably fail. The only solution to Israeli-Arab conflict is to stop seeking a solution. Jews settled in the Middle East’s equivalent of inner town slums. Former residents can be sent to jails – or refugee camps – but they will keep coming back.
Mlevin, Leftists are not necessarily selfless philanthropists. Just like other people, they sue in court those who infringe on their property and they refuse to open their houses for free use by the needy. Yet the leftists demand that Israel gives the land away to Arabs and allows Arab migrant workers into Israel. Leftists routinely defend property, but they don’t view the land of Israel as Jewish property. Land is unquestionably an asset, so in effect the leftists have no notion of Jewishness. Rational leftists don’t comprehend the subtle, irrational concept of Jewishness. The land is equally fine with them whether in Jewish or Arab hands. Talking to Jewish leftists is as senseless as trying to convince Polynesians: both have no idea what Jewishness means. For both, Jewish nation is not a subject of property rights.
Some leftists identify themselves with Jews. Though they lack the notion of Jewish property, they have the idea of “my property.” They defend the land as their own asset. Good enough. Still others resent to be bullied by the West into concessions to Arabs. That’s also an acceptable motive. Generally, however, leftists multiply their cowardice by the absence of a goal to struggle for, and sue for peace – at any price always at the Jews expense! People brought up in the rationalist tradition of Enlightenment seek to understand causes. They are fine with failing to comprehend wave-particle dualism, but sure that social systems are comprehensible. They ask the destructive question, Why?
Why Jews should not intermarry? Why shouldn’t Raskolnikoff rationally kill the old usurer? Why Muslims fight Israel?
The question Why gives a false impression that differences can be understood and settled rather than ignored and fought over. Academics with silly theories of the real world perpetuate the Why fraud. Straightforward theories fail to explain myriad complex interrelationships. We cannot explain why the oil price today is such rather than another, but everyone seems an expert of the conflict history. The Muslim resistance to Israel stem from the interplay of many factors: Koran pronouncements on Jews, Mohammed’s battles with Jews, Jewish collaboration with Muslims and Christians, social upheaval in Muslim societies, demographic pressure, nationalism, fear, arrogance, xenophobia, jealousy, insult – you name it.
The urge to understand one’s enemies is modern phenomenon. Previous generations did not consider national aspirations, human rights, and wishes of others. Understanding leads to compassion leads to defeat. The Allies neither agonized over legitimate national aspirations of German people, nor studied their racial doctrines to find some flaws and persuade the opponent.
Nothing can be farther from Jewish mindset than Why. Jewish way of life was always about deeds, and rabbis reject attempts at explaining the rules. The rules can be explained, but an attempt to do so undermines their authority. Likewise in politics. The moment Jews start arguing about the Arab roots or legal rights to land in Judea, the fight is lost.
Why is irrelevant. Because.
I think its time for America to talk to Iran; and for Israel to talk to Iran. And for Iran to talk to Israel. And I think the US should make it a condition that if there are any talks with Iran, then Israel should be in the room.
In fact, I think the next President should propose joint sit down; America, Israel and Iran agree to recognize each other unconditionally, and have a pow wow in Jerusalem to discuss peace and regional security.
I’m sure the US and Israel would go for it; but how ’bout Iran? Well, let’s call their bluff and see who the real “obstacle to peace” is.
Yamit –
Any land that ever was owned by individuals should belong to someone who has a legal claim to that land, because they either bought that land or their parents/grandparents did. The religion of that person shouldn’t matter. That’s just fair.
I do comprehend wave-particle duality. “Why” is not a “destructive question” as you think it is – but one of the most enlightening questions for human and western civilization. Without asking that question, we would have never gotten to Einstein or Galileo or wave-particle duality. Jews, and others should be free to intermarry. It’s a basic human right.
They also stem from that elephant in the room – occupation, and the creation of refugees. You need to try harder to see what is front of your eyes.
For a good reason. Modern phenomena usually happen because there is a good civilizational/evolutionary reason for it. I thought running away from modernity is what you thought the Muslims were good at.
That’s lovely. These pesky human rights! Compassion is so terrible. Being compassionate isn’t equivalent to stupidity. The Allies saw that the Germans were invading countries and occupying them, lands on which it had no legal rights. It disagreed with those racial doctrines, even though they were aware of them – enough to not think that this land grab should go unopposed. “Legitimate national aspirations of the German people” as you put it, are not legitimate when they include occupying France or UK for that matter – quite different from Arabs in Israel, who have been living there for centuries. The Allies should have also fought back based on compassionate grounds for the what was being done to the Jews and Gypsies.
You’re talking about blind faith, unquestioning blind faith. That’s religion, not politics. All clerics at some point can’t answer any more questions, because they just don’t have good answers.
APS:
Interesting idea, but it’s not clear to me why Iran would go for it. Israel “recognizes” Iran’s status already as a legitimate country. Iran doesn’t, or does so barely. So I don’t see what Iran would gain from such a public comedown, just for the benefit of a meeting with the US leadership. That’s like saying “recognize one of your primary opponents, so you can gain an audience with another opponent.” I think there first would have to be movement on the Palestinian issue and on settlements – that would create adequate political cover for such a meeting.
And Iran could legitimately say – we want to discuss our mutual issues bilaterally with the US. Why should Israel be there? How often does a superpower bring a regional player to a meeting? Does the US bring the Kosovo President to Belgrade? Or bring the Indian PM to Pakistan?
It would also reinforce the perception that Israel and the US are joined at the hip. It plays right into what people in many countries already believe. To make progress, we need to offer things that are unexpected.
Israel has only one thing to say to Iran, stop it. Israel has nothing to give Iran. What’s to talk about. Israel can live without recognition by Iran.
Mark, Mlevin, further to my post # 32, you have made some statements in your post to Yamit # 40, that should be addressed more fully, for you state positions or generalities that provide no answer, but raise more questions.
You stated in response to Yamit’s question, “why should Jews not intermarry?”:
I don’t disagree, as far as it goes in stating the obvious, but really that is no answer to Yamit’s question. Human rights attach to individuals. Whether an individual’s human rights are or are not given effect to, is what such person is entitled by such right to do within their society.
No person however is an island. In the case of a Jew who feels no attachment to his heritage and faith, it is an easy matter to marry outside his faith whereas the opposite is true of the right of a Jew who does feels such attachment to marry within his faith.
There are 14 million Jews in the world. The birth rate is at about 0 and the Jews have not regained their pre WWII numbers, which I seem to recall was 19 million.
For those Jews who do care about their faith and heritage and want it to continue, they too have the right to prevail upon Jews to marry within their own faith, have children and ensure the children and grandchildren carry on the faith, traditions and heritage of Judaism.
No one is an island. With all our essential individual human rights and freedoms in the West where individual human rights and freedoms find their greatest expression and reality, we are all assailed by others who wish us to define and exercise our human rights and freedoms in a certain way.
While individual Jews of course have an individual human right to choose to marry outside their faith and feel no connection to their faith and heritage, it is the right of individual Jews wishing Judaism to survive long into the future to band together as a segment of society and to seek to impose their will upon individual Jews to marry within their own faith.
Yamit spoke of reasons for Arab/Muslim rejection of Israel being bound up in their faith, culture and domestic and foreign strife due to their culture, to which you countered with:
In making that statement as if it were a statement of incontrovertible fact, express and implied, you immediately reveal you are aligned with those who see the Israeli occupation as wrong or illegal, which must be rectified and secondly that you align with the Palestinian/Arab/Muslim claim that the Palestinians are refugees entitled to see their claimed “right of return” given effect to.
Let me first respond to your point here by having you read Melanie Phillip’s article posted at Israpundit http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=768#more-768. Be sure to read as well the article by Aref Alwan to which a link is provided in Phillip’s article.
In terms of the occupation, as to whether it is legal or not, we could go around the mulberry bush on that one. To fix a reference point however to such discussion, consider U.N. Resolution 242. The gist of that resolution is that Israel shall go out of occupation of territories, not (all) the territories as part of an overall peace agreement recognizing Israel and her secure borders.
Such peace agreement has not occurred, not for want of Israel’s efforts to bring such peace about, but because of the Palestinian efforts with the tacit and/or tangible support of their Arab brethren to keep that from happening, lest that sound the death knell to the Palestinian/Arab dream that Israel be destroyed and the lands of Israel revert to Islam.
As for the refugee issue, here again as I recall the Palestinians claim a right of return by virtue of the 1948 UN General Assembly Resolution 194. If memory serves, reference to the refugee situation was one of 19 other recommendations for implementation within that resoltuion. UN Resoltuion 194 being a recommendation only that has no force of law and the fact that the Resolution was not implemented by law, means that no right of return accrued.
There are two UN agencies that are concerned with helping refugees. There is one solely concerned with Palestinians called UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and one for all the rest of the world’s refugees, being UNHCR, UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
As for UNRWA, it defines a Palestinian refugee as the actual refugee, the children and grandchildren in perpetuity of such original refugee, be they within Gaza, J & S or Israel or anywhere else in the world.
Daniel Pipes explains the UNRWA definition of refugee as:
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1206
At a Muslim website, the UNWRA definition of Palestinian refugee is stated as:
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html
Under UNCHR, a refugee is defined as:
A refugee is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…”
http://www.unhcr.org.au/basicdef.shtml
Without getting into the details, suffice it to say certain geopolitical realities existing in 1948 and which have continued to impact and influence perceptions, has led to this disparate definition of “refugee”. Secondly, it should be noted that UNWRA in administering their responsibilities have been accused not only of perpetuating the so called Palestinian refugee problem, but have been rightly accused of having played both a tacit and active role in perpetuating the focus of Palestinian discontent and rage at Israel.
I ask you Mark, is that fair?
Is it fair Mark that in 1948 there were about 650,000 Arab refugees, whose numbers have swelled to millions because of the UNWRA definition and that so many billions in welfare have been showered on them, whereas about 850,000 Jews who were forced out of Arab lands to become refugees have hardly been noticed?
Is it fair Mark that the original Arab refugees of 1948 came to be such because of the 5 Arab nations that attacked Israel and of which a great many of those so called refugees supported in the genocidal aim of destroying Israel and driving all Jews into the sea?
As for your reference to an elephant in the room, you have failed to acknowledge that the biggest elephant in every room that has trampled any chance of Israel reaching any peace deal with the Palestinians has been intractable and unmitigated Jew hatred that is seared into the Palestinian psyche and which operates to perpetuate the Palestinian culture of death and Jew hatred.
I just don’t get your ignoring the inherent evil in the Palestinian/Arab Jew hatred and the fact that again for geopolitical self interest reasons, the West makes itself willfully blind to that evil as it pushes Israel to concede more and more in return for nothing but Palestinian lies and empty promises.
You mock Yamit’s comments about compassion. Obviously the quality of compassion per se is admirable.
Compassion for the unfortunate Palestinians that is blind to the fact that their leadership has used and abused them for their own Jew hate filled goals and dreams and that by most polls cited in the last several years, most Palestinians share such goals and dreams borne of their own Jew hatred and support their leaders to that end, will contribute nothing towards the Palestinians being able to find a way out of their misery.
It is not however compassion, or at least not compassion alone that moves the West to do far more for so called Palestinian refugees then it does for all the rest of the world’s refugees of far more limited defined ambit.
So Mark, why do you think the world’s compassion for the Palestinians, that moves the world to do far more for them out of you say I guess, compassion and I say out of furthering Western self interests in the Middle East, is the right sentiment for the West to feel and express?
Thus far we have borne witness over the years to the annual unending stream of welfare money to the Palestinians to ease their burden of grinding poverty and to build their state politically and economically.
Those welfare monies keep coming, in spite of the fact that these monies year after year go to purchase munitions, to feed the appetites for corruption of Palestinian leaders, to reinforce the Palestinian Jew hatred in the current and successive Palestinian generations, to make war, not peace and the rest is squandered or thrown down the Palestinian toilets?
Not a dime of that welfare goes for the purpose of Palestinians building their own state.
With all that Mark, are you still high on your feeling the need for you and the rest of the world to have blind compassion for the Palestinians?
Hey everybody.
I am not having fun. It takes too much work to keep up with these long disputations. Can you not reduce the size of the comments in some fashion. For my part it is too much for me to read let alone answer.
Bill,
I’m with Ted…the fun is going out…and I need to get a life! But you did make some thoughtful points, and I always appreciate “is that fair?” questions….
I agree. And it is fine for individuals to ignore that call, or vote against anything that can become a legal restriction on them. No one likes to be controlled and people naturally are wary of other people who try to “impose thir will” upon others. That could apply to Arabs or Jews who don’t buy into your worldview of what should be acceptable.
I don’t give two hoots about which side I’m perceived as being on. I do care about taking a position that values human beings equally, and is fair. What I’m saying is not a rare viewpoint. Most neutral observers of this conflict see it as an occupation that started in 1967, and that refugees need to be given some form of a right of return or compensation – a “just settlement” – it’s not different from UNSC 242:
A settlement happens when the concessions by one side go far enough to create enough pressure by the international community (US & Arab world) on the intransigent party to agree to them. Blaming the occupied party for foot-dragging isn’t fair when settlements and outposts that are illegal under international law grow steadily, and get tacit or active support from the Israeli govt. Changing the facts on the ground through a “might is right” attitude isn’t a signal of willingness to make a deal. Withdrawing from Gaza is.
I’m glad you ask. I’m not sure why you called the UN website and definition a “Muslim” one. I understand why you see the UNWRA as a biased party, because if it didn’t exist, these 4.4 million refugees would have melted away into various countries, and wouldn’t be a moral eyesore. I see the UNWRA definition as being a more specific version of the UNHCR one, which doesn’t address the descendant issue explicitly. One could argue that “refugees” includes their families (not just their family “at that time”). In addition to the “refugee” aspect, there is the “stateless” aspect, especially for the descendants – where do these descendants belong? Let’s do a thought experiment here – you would have much less of a problem with a right of return, if say, the number of living original refugees had dwindled to a small number, let’s say 10,000, and they had only 10,000 descendants instead of 4.4 million. So do you object on principle or on numbers? Is it about scale or fairness? The son of a refugee should have as much of a moral right to return (whether or not it is politically tenable) whether he is among 10,000 or among 4.4 million.
No, it isn’t. Which is why I support a right of return for all former refugees who can demonstrate evidence, whether or not they choose to take it. If any Jews want to live in any of their former Arab homelands, those Arab countries should allow that right of return. I would also suggest a free market solution to this. If there are partisans who don’t want to see more Jews in say Jordan, or Arabs in Israel, they can put their money where their mouth is – fund a marketplace where compensation is paid to a refugee family willing to give up the ROR + a financial incentive to whichever country that is accepting the family. The family can set various prices for various countries they’d emigrate to. This would give that family the choice, and it would give those who don’t want what is “fair” because of their nationalism/other beliefs a chance to financially persuade countries and refugees to do something else. The relative skills & education level could also be factored in to how much their presence is valued at. I’m not sure this would be politically palatable…but it would empower everyone – those for or against a return of refugees.
It was not as straightforward as you make it sound. But even if I accept your premise that the 5 Arab nations were “genocidal”, it does not follow that Arab residents should have been made refugees. The sins of a nation shouldn’t become those of individuals in another nation. No Jew in the US or in another country should be held responsible for Israel’s actions. The same applies to Arab refugees.
When we were at war with the Germans & Japanese in WWII – there were plenty of very racist things we said to put them down. And it wasn’t easy with the Germans, because we look like them. But we still did. It is a time-honored tradition in human culture to be racist about, demonize and foment hatred towards someone you are locked in a conflict against. And see them as evil. It is not something unique to Arabs, Jews, Serbs, Bosnians, or Africans. So right now you see their practices as evil, and they see you the same way. Communities that are socioeconomically lower on the totem pole are a particularly fertile ground for dissemination of hate speech or conspiracy theories. They have more to be angry about. See the high % of black Americans who believe provably false things about the govt and HIV: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg18mar18,1,5266046.column
Nobody has a monopoly on hate. It’s deep in all our genes.
I am not for welfare. If Israel made enough concessions that was acceptable to enough influential parties, to in turn pressure the Pals into accepting something less than what they want, then this would be over. Israel is the stronger party and the one with the cards, and can write its future, even if it doesn’t match up with some ideal of a biblical Israel. Sure – each country in the west or the Arab world has its own agenda. As they should. I am not for anything blind – hatred or compassion. It should be objective, fair, and firm – and value people equally.