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2009-11-14 16:46:11 UTC
Permalink: http://inyourface.info/ArT/Theta/Universal.shtml
U N I V E R S A L P A T H O L O G Y
Killer Instinct
Hate is a Universal Pathology, one which infects the human species especially,
whereas, with other animals we are not sure what they are thinking but I think
it is unlikely that you can call it hate. Killing usually accompanies an
evolutionary prerequisite that the father's genes survive - and includes
infanticide, rape, war to eliminate competing males, etc. With humans the
reasons may be different but the instinct is still there. The anthropologist
Raymond Dart interpreted primate fossils in Africa as evidential for the killer
instinct.
"The world hates us and always will," a neighbor said to me on the stairs
before wishing me a good day. "What more do you need than the Holocaust?" He is
Sephardi, without familial memory of Europe; but the bitter, new mood of
besieged Israel has penetrated everywhere. In a full-page newspaper ad urging
Israelis to boycott European nations that now refuse to sell Israel military
equipment, employees of the country's military industry wrote, "In the moments
of truth, we learn yet again that we can only rely on ourselves." Even the left
isn't immune from the growing sense of siege. In a recent interview, the
liberal novelist Amos Oz confessed he's haunted by his father's observation
that, before the Holocaust, European graffiti read, "jews to palestine," only
to be transformed in our time into, "jews out of palestine." The message to
Jews, noted Oz: "Don't be here and don't be there. That is, don't be." (Yossi
Klein Halevi, "How despair is transforming Israel: The Wall, The New Republic,
7/89/2002)
Terrorist Groups and the Palestinian Authority
It was reported in the press on August 23, 2005, that Palestinian Authority
said: "We Won't Disarm Terror Groups, We Will Continue Armed Struggle, Martyrs
Deserve Credit".
Musa abu-Marzouk, a senior Hamas leader, said, "We stressed during the meeting
with Qurei that the Palestinians have the right to continue the resistance
against Israel and that there would be no attempt to collect weapons from the
resistance groups. The weapons of resistance were founded to defend the
Palestinian people and resist the occupation. The Gaza victory was achieved
with the weapons of resistance, which is the only strategy to drive Israel out
of the rest of our lands."
* ZOA/press release
Hamas also vowed to bring terror to "Haifa, Tel Aviv, Safed, Acre and Ashkelon"
and pledged that soon "Israel will no longer exist." Mahmoud Zahar, another
Hamas leader, condemned "useless negotiations."
* Al-Arabiyya TV, Aug. 17, 2005
Qurei agreed saying, "there will be no calm until the establishment of a
Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capitol." Mahmoud Abbas, Holocaust
Denier and President of the PA added that the "Israeli disengagement from the
Gaza Strip was not enough and that Israel should withdraw to the pre-1967
borders." Abbas also called for "international pressure on Israel to implement
the Road Map and withdraw from the entire West Bank and east Jerusalem and to
stop construction of the security fence."
* ZOA
* ZOA
Abbas also addressed a gathering of injured and disabled Arabs and asserted
that "the credit of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza Strip and Northern West
Bank goes to the Palestinians who were killed, wounded and imprisoned during
the decades of struggle...the injuries and disabilities they carried were
medals of honor that are paid today with the exit of the last Israeli settler
from Gaza."
* PA - WAFA - 8/23/05
The ethnic cleansing of Jews from Gaza has so far energized terrorist groups
who seem now more than ever to be disposed toward violence against Israel.
For those who say Israel isn't doing enough they are simply ignorant of the
facts on the ground. Israel has made more than its share of concessions. Israel
has tried it all and nothing worked because it is simply a bad neighborhood and
the Palestinian Arabs are simply unwilling to live with Jews peacefully.
You cannot make peace when there are conflicting visions of what that means.
For Arabs that conflicting vision means no Israel. It does not mean Jews with
their own country. But the state of Israel is a fact and nothing is going to
change that and unless the Arabs can get over their intense hatred of the Jews
there will be no reconciliation, no peace, and no state for Palestinians.
The solution is as Ariel Sharon saw it, and for those who take his place - to
have a complete separation from the Arabs. The Sharon strategy is about
erecting a separation wall, to be a security fence, the purpose of which is to
keep the terrorists out of Israel and the only way to do that is to disengage.
The settlements in Gaza were a security problem. There was no inexpensive way
to guard the Jewish villages from the Arab villages; to separate them without
abandoning them so that is what had to be done.
Someone has suggested the Palestinians should build a statue to Ariel Sharon
for handing them a Palestinian State in Gaza and they should call him the
"Father of Palestine."
The Jews loved the land. Most of the land was not cultivatable but they paid
exorbitant prices for it anyway. Most of the cultivatable land was filled with
rocks and interspersed with intermittent mountain ranges or sand dunes. It was
a bleak terrain; soils were alkaline and semi-arable; there were obstructed
water courses, and marshlands. This was a land most Arabs did not want and many
who owed it sold it to the Jews.
No Retreat
For those who say Israel isn't doing enough for peace are uninformed. Israel
has made more than its share of concessions. Israel has tried it all and
nothing worked because it is simply a bad neighborhood and Palestinian Aras are
simply unwilling to live with Jews peacefully.
The Palestinian Authority did not disarm HAMAS or Islamic Jihad, who attack
Israeli civilians, it coalesced with them. The PA leadership met with Hamas and
the Islamic Jihad to negotiate a cooperation pack to continue their
belligerence and non-cooperation with the Israelis. And these are the folks
Israel turned Gaza over to:
Senior HAMAS leader, Musa abu-Marzouk said at this meeting: "The Gaza victory
was achieved with the weapons of resistance, which is the only strategy to
drive Israel out of the rest of our lands."
The pullout from Gaza was considered a retreat not only by the Palestinians but
also by those settlers who were expelled from their homes.
The Bush administration was making noise about Israel also abandoning the West
Bank but they have since stopped. Gaza should teach us that it does not pay to
capitulate to those who want to kill you.
Now the west wants to capitulate to the Iranians who are determined to have
their nuclear weapons program. Who will stop them?
Getting Rid of the Jews
"Within a few short years of the founding of Israel, the Arab world emptied
itself of its Jews. In some countries the process took a year or two, elsewhere
it took a decade. The Jewish community of Yemen had been in place since the
days of King Solomon, some 2,950 years ago, and may have had the longest
unbroken history of any Jewish community. The next oldest, in Iraq, was at
least 2,700 years old and had been the undisputed center of the Jewish world
for perhaps 1,000 years. In the whole history of humanity, there are only a few
communities that can boast of 2,700 years of creative existence, through war,
conquest, destruction, famine and pestilence. And then it was suddenly gone."
* Yaacov Lozowick, "Right to Exist" 2003
The world generally ignores the real catastrophes, the Brutal expulsion of
almost a million Jews from Arab countries, not to forget also the other
extermination of six million Jews from Europe which just preceded it. In Europe
Jews also lost billions of dollars in property never to be returned to them,
except for reparations which Germany pays to survivors but there are no
reparations or payback for the $11 billion worth of Jewish property and assets
stolen from the Jews in Arab countries.
The vast majority of Jews who survived went to Israel and many of their
persecutors are still trying to kill them. If noticed at all this "awesome
convulsion" as Lozowick calls it, has all but "disappeared from the world's
consciousness."
Half the Jews in Israel are not from Europe, they are from Arab countries from
whence they were expelled and cannot go back. These refugees are never
mentioned by human rights organizations or by a left which consistently sides
with Arabs who want to obliterate the Jews and Israel.
Israel gave them a home, whereas the Arabs gave Palestinians who left Israel
nothing but refugee camps, the intention being to make this an issue the world
obsesses and focuses on to the exclusion of the grave injustices done to the
Jews.
"The resurrection of the dead will not come until the Muslims will war with the
Jews and the Muslims will kill them;...the trees and rocks will say, `O Muslim,
O Abdullah, here is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."
* Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad
Jewish Liberation
Jews can make a home almost anywhere but Jews are never completely at home
anywhere except in Israel.
That is not because they don't want to be at home elsewhere, nor because they
don't try, but, because antisemitic myths never seem to die and the hatred
which fuels antisemitism has been promulgated for thousands of years. Having a
strong Israel insures that Jews can live more comfortably elsewhere. A strong
Israel is more than pride; it is Jewish centrality and does more to confront
the Jewish victimization complex than anything else could do so.
"Despite the claims of liberal democratic theory and the Utopian promises of
Socialists and Communists, the nationalisms of the nineteenth century, both
West and East, infiltrated all competing political movements and exacerbated
and radicalized European anti-Semitism. Zionism gave to many Jews a way of
thinking that enabled them to confront the anti-Semite on the street with
renewed pride. In their everyday existence, Jews could engage the hostile world
harboring the hope that they were citizens of a modern nation in the process of
being realized. They would not be condemned forever to being powerless and
exceptional."
* Leon Botstein-09-08-1997-The New Republic
Antisemitism as a universal pathology did not disappear with the
re-establishment of Israel which is why Israel is even more important today as
a refuge. Some non-Jews, to their credit have vigorously, and sometimes
heroically, countered antisemitism but all too often they are the exception.
Zionism?
Bernard Lewis says, "Zionism is not always easy to determine with any precision
or certainty. Even the terms are difficult to define, and are used with
multiple and changing meanings. What is Israel, what is Zionism, and who, for
that matter, are the Jews?"
"Of the three, Israel is the easiest. It is the name of a state which was
established on May 14, 1948, and since then has conducted itself as do other
states, in the pursuit of its own interests and the application of policies
designed to serve those interests. These policies may be good or bad, effective
or ineffective, compatible or incompatible with the interest of other states,
and opposition to them is not in itself a sign of prejudice any more than is
opposition to the activities of other states in the world that are involved in
conflicts. A clash of national or state interests may generate prejudice or be
affected by it. It is not in itself evidence of prejudice." (Lewis)
"To define Zionism is altogether a more difficult task. Originally, the term
denoted a certain analysis of the Jewish predicament and a prescription for its
cure. This was, briefly, that Jews were persecuted because they were strangers
everywhere and had no home of their own. The answer was to create a Jewish
national home which would eventually develop into a Jewish state. This would
provide shelter for those Jews who needed it, encouragement and if need be help
for those who continued to live elsewhere. It would also create a center where
Jews, without fear of either persecution or suspicion, could develop their own
Jewish culture and way of life. Above all, it would be one place in the world
where Jews could live as Jews, not dependent on the sufferance or tolerance or
goodwill of others, but as masters in their own home. Some argued that this
Jewish national home might be built anywhere in the world, where there was
empty land and a willing government, and attempts were made in Uganda,
Australia, Sinai, South America, and, under Soviet auspices, in the remote
Siberian province of Birobidzhan, on the border of Mongolia. Most of these
never got beyond the stage of discussion; none of them achieved any results.
There was only one place to which Jews felt they had an historic claim, and
which had an emotional appeal powerful enough to evoke the necessary effort an
endurance. That was the ancient land of Israel."
(Lewis)
Jewish Liberation
The Holocaust didn't just happen; it was totally premeditated by `enlightened'
people from various backgrounds, including intellectuals.
A Christian writer, Professor Claude R. Foster, a professor of history at West
Chester State College wrote that, "Throughout the nineteenth century, the Jew
sought desperately to identify himself with the European Christian Community
without converting. Many Jews accepted assimilation and some also did convert
in order to gain admission into European society."
In the latter part of the nineteenth century however, a violent racial
antisemitism appeared that rejected assimilation as a solution to the "Jewish
Problem."
The tensions among the Jews themselves: liberals versus orthodox and Zionists
versus assimilationist's, the economic crises, the need to find a scapegoat for
national humiliation, the identification of Jews with Marxists, and the swing
to the political right, all of which, helped to prepare for the outbreak of
violent racial-type Antisemitism, which led to the Holocaust. Professor Foster,
said, "The Holocaust in hindsight seemed inevitable," and indeed it did given
the need to find fault for a failed economy, losing the war, and the Christian
ideology of the day which found the Jews to be easy to hate and to blame and it
was not yet the 60s when the Catholic Church finally repudiated the calumny
against the Jews, of decide, the charge that they killed Christ.
Non-Jews resented the Jewish uniqueness and the overall resistance to
conversion by most Jews and even while Jews would abandon the religion of
Judaism, they still retained a distinct Jewish ethnic identity. Jews were more
liberal, more secular, and more modern that the Christians and most other
people and for this they were also hated.
Jews have been called "Internationalists" and a "disintegrating influence."
Heinrich Tritschke, a professor in Berlin in the late 1800s, in Documents of
German History, edited by Louis Snyder, wrote:
"The Jews at one time played a necessary role in German history, because of
their ability in the management of money. But now that the Aryans have become
accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of finance, the Jews are no longer necessary.
The international Jew, hidden in the mask of different nationalities, is a
disintegrating influence; he can be of no further use to the world. It is
necessary to speak openly about the Jews, undisturbed in the fact that the
Jewish press befouls what is purely historical truth."
The Jews were blamed for the existence and ideas of Karl Marx, who if not for
his father's Baptism into the Prussian state church in 1817, might have been a
rabbi instead of the father of communism. It is not unusual in those times to
be baptized or like the Marranos to be "secret Jews" while publicly accepting
the Christian religion in order to obtain civil rights or escape persecution.
Karl's father, Heschel Marx (1782-1838) was the grandson of a rabbi, the son of
a rabbi, the brother of a rabbi, and the son-in-law of a rabbi.
Jews in every country were victims of political and social crisis, subjected to
pogroms under every regime, and every political adventure, whether it was some
aristocracy or the Russian Revolution. It didn't matter who was doing the
persecuting, the Czars, the Whites, the Poles, the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, or
the Germans.
And, Zionism was, at first, largely an expression by Jews who wanted to
participate in the world proletarian struggle to realize the socialist ideal.
Quite at odds with Marxism over Marx's rigorously internationalist conclusions,
it was a theory which never-the-less combined socialism and Jewish
nationalistic aspirations from which developed the idea of "Borochovism," from
its author, Ber Borochov, which became the official theory of Jewish
revolutionists for decades.
(* More about Ber Borochov: (1881-1917) He was a scholar, an author, a
theoretician, and the foremost Socialist Zionist of his time. He influenced the
merging Jewish labor movement and developed the concept of a unity between
socialism and Jewish nationalism. He synthesized class struggle and nationalism
when current Marxist theory rejected all nationalism. Borochov advocated a
pioneering effort in Israel, and these pioneering settlements in Israel were
Kibbutzim and Moshavim.)
Breach of Humanity
"They roped children together and forced them to stumble en mass across Iraqi
minefields to clear the way for advancing Iranian infantry. Each boy was issued
a plastic key that he was told would open the gates of paradise." (I.Brown,
Khomeini's Forgotten Sons: The Story of Iran's Boy Soldiers (London, Grey Seal,
1990)
The Sacred Rage of the Middle East
"We are not against the American people," said a young member of the Shi'ite
"Party of God" as quoted in Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam, by Robin
Wright [1985, and revised in subsequent printings - 2001] "We are against
oppression and injustice. The fire of Islam will burn those who are responsible
for these practices [against Islam]. We have been dominated by the U.S.
government and others for too long." A leading Shi'ite academic put it another
way: "The extreme expressions of fundamentalism are expressions of despair."
[Wright]
All religions are subject to extremist elements. Religion is inherently
extremist because it is philosophy and behavior based on faith for which there
is no concrete supportive evidence.
"The more people who die for our cause, the stronger we shall become."
--Ayatollah Khomeini
During the Iran-Iraq war in a speech the Ayatollah Khomeini gave to honor
Muhammad's birthday, he said:
"If one permits an infidel to continue in his role as a corrupter of the earth,
his moral suffering will be all the worse. If one kills the infidel...his death
will be a blessing to him. For if he remains alive, he will become more and
more corrupt." Those infidels he was referring to in this speech were Iraqis,
but all infidels are considered corrupters and deserve death according to
Islamists like the Ayatollah. As for war; war with Iraq or war with Israel - or
war with the United States, it is all the same. And he says:
"War is a blessing to the world and for all nations. It is God who incites men
to fight and to kill. The Koran says, `Fight till all corruption and all
rebellion have ceased.' The wars that the Prophet led against the infidels were
a blessing for all humanity... A religion without war is an incomplete
religion...A prophet is all-powerful. Through war he purifies the earth. The
Mullahs with corrupt hearts who say that this is contrary to the teachings of
the Koran are unworthy of Islam. Thanks to God, our young people are now, to
the limits of their means, putting God's commandments into action. They know
that to kill the unbelievers is one of man's greatest missions." (cited by
David Livingston Smith in The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the
Origins of War, 2007, St Martins Press)
"We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry `There is no
God but God' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle." (cited in
Sacred Rage Ayatollah Khomeini)
There has been a gradual and foolish erosion of resistance among Left wing
liberals to Jihadism. The threat is real. These are Israel's hostile neighbors
and since September 11th, it has been demonstrated that Jihadism can reach even
the United States. We all live within the context of jihad.
Palestinians Violence
Double Standards
ALL kinds of excuses blaming Israel can be made for the terrorism and the
Intifada but the crux of the problem is the real goal of Palestinians, which is
to achieve by violence what cannot be achieved by negotiations, and these acts
of violence, which has resulted in killing and the maiming Jews, and some
Arabs, are a deliberate Palestinian decision they made as their preference for
force over negotiations. The response by Israel is also deliberate and
expected, which has been to use force to discourage continued violence by the
Palestinians. Israel gets blamed for something they didn't start. Israel is
always blamed, just as some otherwise well-meaning "liberals" call themselves
anti-Zionists without a true understanding what that really means. Israelis
want peace but even their "get tough" hawkish positions have now been hardened
even more because of Palestinian violence.
In the real world you can't simply throw a switch and turn off a war. You can't
throw a switch and turn off irrational hatred which radical Islamists hold for
Jews, just as you can't convince people they are wrong if they have it in their
mind they are right, in spite of facts which prove them wrong. To go from the
real world to one that is the way you would like it to be It isn't that simple.
One side wants war, the Arabs, and only one side wants peace, the Israelis. And
in the Arab war against the Jews innocent people are hurt and killed - on both
sides. Sometimes those innocent people are other Arabs who had nothing to do
with the violence. It is an inevitable outcome of their Arab violence.
The Peace Summit at Camp David presented a unique opportunity to make
concessions by both parties to the conflict. That opportunity was lost by the
Palestinians. They walked. Someone once said the "Palestinians never miss an
opportunity to miss an opportunity".
Israel knows about concessions, having made many, first to reach an accord with
Egypt, and it has not been an easy peace, but Israel was willing to make
sacrifices and it was necessary for both sides to constantly work at improving
relationships. Peace is possible. There is also peace with Jordan and one of
Israel's best friends in the region is Turkey, another Muslim (not Arab)
country.
There are always other standards for Israel. When Israel fights terrorism the
U.S. contrary to what many think does not automatically come down on the side
of Israel. There is tremendous pressure on Israel to capitulate to terrorism,
which is not what the U.S. says it does itself but where Israel is concerned it
is expected that Israel will show restraint. An example of this was the
firefight the Israeli IDF had with terrorists at the refugee camp of Tulkarm.
The IDF confronted a number of armed wanted terrorists, who belong to the
Islamic Jihad terror infrastructure in Tulkarm, responsible for the suicide
bombing at the "Stage" Club in Tel Aviv, and for the one in Netanya on July
2005. The terrorists in Tulkarm opened fire at the IDF from two directions, in
addition to throwing an explosive charge at them from one of the houses. The
response from the U.S. by Trent Duffy of the Press Secretary's Office was to
tell Israel to exercise restraint. That is just what the U.S. would NOT do. And
neither should Israel be expected to show restraint in the face of terror. It
should not be expected to do what we would not do.
Obstacles to Peace
Arafat was an obstacle to peace and now he is gone. His replacement has been
another obstacle to peace. And HAMAS makes it impossible. A two state solution
should now be off the table. Any state solution should be off the table because
you cannot negotiate with those who are sworn by their very charter to destroy
you and bombard you with rockets. There is no good will, only the declared and
demonstrated intent to destroy Israel.
"He (Arafat) allowed his territory to be a place where bomb factories could
exist with impunity; where suicide bombers could be recruited with impunity;
where there was no cost to Hamas or Islamic Jihad for carrying out murderous
attacks. To be sure, the situation given the anger among Palestinians made it
increasingly costly for him to look like Israel's policemen, but he had to know
that if he did not take decisive steps, that things were going to explode in a
way that they are now." [Dennis Ross, former Special Envoy to the Middle East]
But the mistake many make is to assume that because Arafat is now gone that
will be the end to hostility. The tension remains. And this is not the kind of
hatred one can simply turn off by giving in to terrorist demands. The hatred is
deep and religious. It is irrational hatred.
It is about their religion - and claiming to be superior to others. And
religion is why antisemitism has endured in Christian countries for two
thousand years and it is why hatred of the Jew endured so long in Muslim
countries. Christianity and Islam have their roots in Judaism and the Jews
would not convert to either of these newer religions. 1
The conflict really isn't just about the land. It is about existing in the very
same world with their Islamic religious fundamentalism. It is Israel's very
existence that Muslims object to no less so than the Nazis who wanted to
eliminate all the Jews on the planet. It wasn't just their presence in Germany,
it was their presence on the planet that Nazis objected to.
A Princeton University historian, and renowned Middle-Eastern scholar Bernard
Lewis wrote: "The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a
result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam." (Bernard Lewis, "The
Pro-Islamic Jews," Judaism, (Fall 1968), p.401.)
"Muhammad, the founder of Islam, traveled to Medina in 622 A.D. to attract
followers to his new faith. When the Jews of Medina refused to convert and
rejected Muhammad, two of the major Jewish tribes were expelled; in 627,
Muhammad's followers killed between 600 and 900 of the men, and divided the
surviving Jewish women and children amongst themselves." (Bat Ye'or, The
Dhimmi, (NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985)
The Muslim attitude toward Jews is reflected in various verses throughout the
Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith. "They (the Children of Israel) were
consigned to humiliation and wretchedness. They brought the wrath of God upon
themselves, and this because they used to deny God's signs and kill His
Prophets unjustly and because they disobeyed and were transgressors" (Sura
2:61). According to the Koran, "the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64),
have always been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and
the angels (2:9798)." (Michell Bard wrote in "The Treatment of Jews in
Arab/Islamic Countries")
"More than a thousand Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting during the 1940's
in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Yemen. This helped trigger the mass exodus of
Jews from Arab countries." (Bard)
The European Union, which often criticizes Israel often taking the Arab side
which is the side their oil is on; criticized Arafat's inaction against suicide
bombers and his total lack of resolve to stop the violence. But the EU blamed
Israel. The EU stated: "The following commitments must be taken ... the
dismantlement of the terrorist networks Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including the
arrest and prosecution of all suspects; a public appeal in Arabic proclaiming
the end to the armed intifada" but also included a demand for Israel's
withdrawal, as if that would end the cycle of violence, "The Israeli government
(must) withdraw its military forces and stop extra-judicial executions; lift
the (economic) blockade and all restrictions inflicted on the Palestinian
territories; freeze settlements." It is the old blame the Jews game all over
again to say Arafat didn't do enough but it is really the fault of the Jews. It
was the old double standard: The violence must stop but Israel can't go after
those who perpetrate the violence.
The Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath issued a reply stating that the
Palestinians had a "sacred right to self defense against occupation," which is
like pouring their oil into an open wound and winding the Palestinians up for
more violence. No wonder Israel responded with a full scale assault.
Former Israeli Defense Minister, Peres said military action was needed to
prevent further terrorism and "it's very easy for countries that don't have the
same problems to give advice" (he told a news conference). "We are a government
that must look after the lives of our citizens." The Palestinians are calling
it "Sharon's War" which is Israel's response to the uprising and terrorist
attacks on Israel. Arafat did nothing to stop the terrorist organizations and
there was no other choice but for Sharon to respond the way he did - and I
might add because he did respond by striking back at these perpetrators of
violence he is compared to Hitler and called a Nazi.
Not to have done what Sharon did, to use force against force, would have
brought down the democratic government of Israel.
Propaganda War
Arab propagandists use the lie that Jews drove out Palestinians and therefore
the world should not look with much sympathy when Jews are compelled to leave
their homes of 36 years in the Gaza. This is what Abunimah of Electronic
Intifada said on national television when the Israelis gave up their homes in
Gaza, where some of them had always lived.
"Many Arabs claim that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians became refugees in
1947-49. The last census was taken by the British in 1945. It found
approximately 1.2 million permanent Arab residents in all of Palestine. On
November 30, 1947, the date the UN voted for partition, the total within the
boundaries of the State of Israel (as fixed by the Armistice Agreements of
1949) was 809,100. A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs
living in the country after the war." (Arieh Avneri, The Claim of
Dispossession, (NJ: Transaction Books, 1984), p. 272; Kedar, Benjamin. The
Changing Land Between the Jordan and the Sea. (Israel: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press,
1999), p. 206.) (Bard)
"This meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees.
A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine arrived at an even lower figure
472,000." [Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine,
Submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the
United Nations, General Assembly Official Records: Third Session, Supplement
No.11 (A\648), Paris, 1948, p. 47 and Supplement No. 11A (A\689, and
A\689\Add.1, p. 5.] (Bard)
The debate is almost always over how many Arabs ("Palestinians") were forced
out by Jews, but very little is ever stated about equivalence; that is, the
numbers of Jews who were forced to flee Arab countries with barely the cloths
on their backs - except for an occasional specious argument, like the one
advanced by someone on the InterNUT that Zionist collusion led to a false
departure of Jews (from Iraq), whereas, they claim it was never the intent of
the Arab countries to rid themselves of their Jews. This argument has been
amply refuted and that is simply not the case. Anecdotal cases exist where some
Jews experienced difficulties in their countries of origin because of the
existence of Israel, but that is not the cause of their second class status in
Arab countries which was always the case and it was so long before a return to
Israel was ever imagined. Jews were "dhimmis" a condition dating back to the
Umayyads. Jews when they refused to be converted to Islam were treated with an
aversion which sometimes was worse and sometimes better, but were always second
class.
"The United Nations resolved that Jerusalem would be an international city
apart from the Arab and Jewish states demarcated in the partition resolution.
The 150,000 Jewish inhabitants were under constant military pressure; the 2,500
Jews living in the Old City were victims of an Arab blockade that lasted five
months before they were forced to surrender on May 29, 1948. Prior to the
surrender, and throughout the siege on Jerusalem, Jewish convoys tried to reach
the city to alleviate the food shortage, which, by April, had become critical."
(Bard)
Side Note* Today Judaism is much more about culture (and enlightened
modernization) than it is about religion and per capita Jews are less religious
than any other religion. Many Jews are atheists but observe Jewish tradition in
order to preserve the specialities of Jewish culture, which for many is
predominantly secular and humanist.
Hank Roth
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Today is Saturday November 14, 2009
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Hank Roth (on the Internet since 1982)
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U N I V E R S A L P A T H O L O G Y
Killer Instinct
Hate is a Universal Pathology, one which infects the human species especially,
whereas, with other animals we are not sure what they are thinking but I think
it is unlikely that you can call it hate. Killing usually accompanies an
evolutionary prerequisite that the father's genes survive - and includes
infanticide, rape, war to eliminate competing males, etc. With humans the
reasons may be different but the instinct is still there. The anthropologist
Raymond Dart interpreted primate fossils in Africa as evidential for the killer
instinct.
"The world hates us and always will," a neighbor said to me on the stairs
before wishing me a good day. "What more do you need than the Holocaust?" He is
Sephardi, without familial memory of Europe; but the bitter, new mood of
besieged Israel has penetrated everywhere. In a full-page newspaper ad urging
Israelis to boycott European nations that now refuse to sell Israel military
equipment, employees of the country's military industry wrote, "In the moments
of truth, we learn yet again that we can only rely on ourselves." Even the left
isn't immune from the growing sense of siege. In a recent interview, the
liberal novelist Amos Oz confessed he's haunted by his father's observation
that, before the Holocaust, European graffiti read, "jews to palestine," only
to be transformed in our time into, "jews out of palestine." The message to
Jews, noted Oz: "Don't be here and don't be there. That is, don't be." (Yossi
Klein Halevi, "How despair is transforming Israel: The Wall, The New Republic,
7/89/2002)
Terrorist Groups and the Palestinian Authority
It was reported in the press on August 23, 2005, that Palestinian Authority
said: "We Won't Disarm Terror Groups, We Will Continue Armed Struggle, Martyrs
Deserve Credit".
Musa abu-Marzouk, a senior Hamas leader, said, "We stressed during the meeting
with Qurei that the Palestinians have the right to continue the resistance
against Israel and that there would be no attempt to collect weapons from the
resistance groups. The weapons of resistance were founded to defend the
Palestinian people and resist the occupation. The Gaza victory was achieved
with the weapons of resistance, which is the only strategy to drive Israel out
of the rest of our lands."
* ZOA/press release
Hamas also vowed to bring terror to "Haifa, Tel Aviv, Safed, Acre and Ashkelon"
and pledged that soon "Israel will no longer exist." Mahmoud Zahar, another
Hamas leader, condemned "useless negotiations."
* Al-Arabiyya TV, Aug. 17, 2005
Qurei agreed saying, "there will be no calm until the establishment of a
Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capitol." Mahmoud Abbas, Holocaust
Denier and President of the PA added that the "Israeli disengagement from the
Gaza Strip was not enough and that Israel should withdraw to the pre-1967
borders." Abbas also called for "international pressure on Israel to implement
the Road Map and withdraw from the entire West Bank and east Jerusalem and to
stop construction of the security fence."
* ZOA
* ZOA
Abbas also addressed a gathering of injured and disabled Arabs and asserted
that "the credit of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza Strip and Northern West
Bank goes to the Palestinians who were killed, wounded and imprisoned during
the decades of struggle...the injuries and disabilities they carried were
medals of honor that are paid today with the exit of the last Israeli settler
from Gaza."
* PA - WAFA - 8/23/05
The ethnic cleansing of Jews from Gaza has so far energized terrorist groups
who seem now more than ever to be disposed toward violence against Israel.
For those who say Israel isn't doing enough they are simply ignorant of the
facts on the ground. Israel has made more than its share of concessions. Israel
has tried it all and nothing worked because it is simply a bad neighborhood and
the Palestinian Arabs are simply unwilling to live with Jews peacefully.
You cannot make peace when there are conflicting visions of what that means.
For Arabs that conflicting vision means no Israel. It does not mean Jews with
their own country. But the state of Israel is a fact and nothing is going to
change that and unless the Arabs can get over their intense hatred of the Jews
there will be no reconciliation, no peace, and no state for Palestinians.
The solution is as Ariel Sharon saw it, and for those who take his place - to
have a complete separation from the Arabs. The Sharon strategy is about
erecting a separation wall, to be a security fence, the purpose of which is to
keep the terrorists out of Israel and the only way to do that is to disengage.
The settlements in Gaza were a security problem. There was no inexpensive way
to guard the Jewish villages from the Arab villages; to separate them without
abandoning them so that is what had to be done.
Someone has suggested the Palestinians should build a statue to Ariel Sharon
for handing them a Palestinian State in Gaza and they should call him the
"Father of Palestine."
The Jews loved the land. Most of the land was not cultivatable but they paid
exorbitant prices for it anyway. Most of the cultivatable land was filled with
rocks and interspersed with intermittent mountain ranges or sand dunes. It was
a bleak terrain; soils were alkaline and semi-arable; there were obstructed
water courses, and marshlands. This was a land most Arabs did not want and many
who owed it sold it to the Jews.
No Retreat
For those who say Israel isn't doing enough for peace are uninformed. Israel
has made more than its share of concessions. Israel has tried it all and
nothing worked because it is simply a bad neighborhood and Palestinian Aras are
simply unwilling to live with Jews peacefully.
The Palestinian Authority did not disarm HAMAS or Islamic Jihad, who attack
Israeli civilians, it coalesced with them. The PA leadership met with Hamas and
the Islamic Jihad to negotiate a cooperation pack to continue their
belligerence and non-cooperation with the Israelis. And these are the folks
Israel turned Gaza over to:
Senior HAMAS leader, Musa abu-Marzouk said at this meeting: "The Gaza victory
was achieved with the weapons of resistance, which is the only strategy to
drive Israel out of the rest of our lands."
The pullout from Gaza was considered a retreat not only by the Palestinians but
also by those settlers who were expelled from their homes.
The Bush administration was making noise about Israel also abandoning the West
Bank but they have since stopped. Gaza should teach us that it does not pay to
capitulate to those who want to kill you.
Now the west wants to capitulate to the Iranians who are determined to have
their nuclear weapons program. Who will stop them?
Getting Rid of the Jews
"Within a few short years of the founding of Israel, the Arab world emptied
itself of its Jews. In some countries the process took a year or two, elsewhere
it took a decade. The Jewish community of Yemen had been in place since the
days of King Solomon, some 2,950 years ago, and may have had the longest
unbroken history of any Jewish community. The next oldest, in Iraq, was at
least 2,700 years old and had been the undisputed center of the Jewish world
for perhaps 1,000 years. In the whole history of humanity, there are only a few
communities that can boast of 2,700 years of creative existence, through war,
conquest, destruction, famine and pestilence. And then it was suddenly gone."
* Yaacov Lozowick, "Right to Exist" 2003
The world generally ignores the real catastrophes, the Brutal expulsion of
almost a million Jews from Arab countries, not to forget also the other
extermination of six million Jews from Europe which just preceded it. In Europe
Jews also lost billions of dollars in property never to be returned to them,
except for reparations which Germany pays to survivors but there are no
reparations or payback for the $11 billion worth of Jewish property and assets
stolen from the Jews in Arab countries.
The vast majority of Jews who survived went to Israel and many of their
persecutors are still trying to kill them. If noticed at all this "awesome
convulsion" as Lozowick calls it, has all but "disappeared from the world's
consciousness."
Half the Jews in Israel are not from Europe, they are from Arab countries from
whence they were expelled and cannot go back. These refugees are never
mentioned by human rights organizations or by a left which consistently sides
with Arabs who want to obliterate the Jews and Israel.
Israel gave them a home, whereas the Arabs gave Palestinians who left Israel
nothing but refugee camps, the intention being to make this an issue the world
obsesses and focuses on to the exclusion of the grave injustices done to the
Jews.
"The resurrection of the dead will not come until the Muslims will war with the
Jews and the Muslims will kill them;...the trees and rocks will say, `O Muslim,
O Abdullah, here is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."
* Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad
Jewish Liberation
Jews can make a home almost anywhere but Jews are never completely at home
anywhere except in Israel.
That is not because they don't want to be at home elsewhere, nor because they
don't try, but, because antisemitic myths never seem to die and the hatred
which fuels antisemitism has been promulgated for thousands of years. Having a
strong Israel insures that Jews can live more comfortably elsewhere. A strong
Israel is more than pride; it is Jewish centrality and does more to confront
the Jewish victimization complex than anything else could do so.
"Despite the claims of liberal democratic theory and the Utopian promises of
Socialists and Communists, the nationalisms of the nineteenth century, both
West and East, infiltrated all competing political movements and exacerbated
and radicalized European anti-Semitism. Zionism gave to many Jews a way of
thinking that enabled them to confront the anti-Semite on the street with
renewed pride. In their everyday existence, Jews could engage the hostile world
harboring the hope that they were citizens of a modern nation in the process of
being realized. They would not be condemned forever to being powerless and
exceptional."
* Leon Botstein-09-08-1997-The New Republic
Antisemitism as a universal pathology did not disappear with the
re-establishment of Israel which is why Israel is even more important today as
a refuge. Some non-Jews, to their credit have vigorously, and sometimes
heroically, countered antisemitism but all too often they are the exception.
Zionism?
Bernard Lewis says, "Zionism is not always easy to determine with any precision
or certainty. Even the terms are difficult to define, and are used with
multiple and changing meanings. What is Israel, what is Zionism, and who, for
that matter, are the Jews?"
"Of the three, Israel is the easiest. It is the name of a state which was
established on May 14, 1948, and since then has conducted itself as do other
states, in the pursuit of its own interests and the application of policies
designed to serve those interests. These policies may be good or bad, effective
or ineffective, compatible or incompatible with the interest of other states,
and opposition to them is not in itself a sign of prejudice any more than is
opposition to the activities of other states in the world that are involved in
conflicts. A clash of national or state interests may generate prejudice or be
affected by it. It is not in itself evidence of prejudice." (Lewis)
"To define Zionism is altogether a more difficult task. Originally, the term
denoted a certain analysis of the Jewish predicament and a prescription for its
cure. This was, briefly, that Jews were persecuted because they were strangers
everywhere and had no home of their own. The answer was to create a Jewish
national home which would eventually develop into a Jewish state. This would
provide shelter for those Jews who needed it, encouragement and if need be help
for those who continued to live elsewhere. It would also create a center where
Jews, without fear of either persecution or suspicion, could develop their own
Jewish culture and way of life. Above all, it would be one place in the world
where Jews could live as Jews, not dependent on the sufferance or tolerance or
goodwill of others, but as masters in their own home. Some argued that this
Jewish national home might be built anywhere in the world, where there was
empty land and a willing government, and attempts were made in Uganda,
Australia, Sinai, South America, and, under Soviet auspices, in the remote
Siberian province of Birobidzhan, on the border of Mongolia. Most of these
never got beyond the stage of discussion; none of them achieved any results.
There was only one place to which Jews felt they had an historic claim, and
which had an emotional appeal powerful enough to evoke the necessary effort an
endurance. That was the ancient land of Israel."
(Lewis)
Jewish Liberation
The Holocaust didn't just happen; it was totally premeditated by `enlightened'
people from various backgrounds, including intellectuals.
A Christian writer, Professor Claude R. Foster, a professor of history at West
Chester State College wrote that, "Throughout the nineteenth century, the Jew
sought desperately to identify himself with the European Christian Community
without converting. Many Jews accepted assimilation and some also did convert
in order to gain admission into European society."
In the latter part of the nineteenth century however, a violent racial
antisemitism appeared that rejected assimilation as a solution to the "Jewish
Problem."
The tensions among the Jews themselves: liberals versus orthodox and Zionists
versus assimilationist's, the economic crises, the need to find a scapegoat for
national humiliation, the identification of Jews with Marxists, and the swing
to the political right, all of which, helped to prepare for the outbreak of
violent racial-type Antisemitism, which led to the Holocaust. Professor Foster,
said, "The Holocaust in hindsight seemed inevitable," and indeed it did given
the need to find fault for a failed economy, losing the war, and the Christian
ideology of the day which found the Jews to be easy to hate and to blame and it
was not yet the 60s when the Catholic Church finally repudiated the calumny
against the Jews, of decide, the charge that they killed Christ.
Non-Jews resented the Jewish uniqueness and the overall resistance to
conversion by most Jews and even while Jews would abandon the religion of
Judaism, they still retained a distinct Jewish ethnic identity. Jews were more
liberal, more secular, and more modern that the Christians and most other
people and for this they were also hated.
Jews have been called "Internationalists" and a "disintegrating influence."
Heinrich Tritschke, a professor in Berlin in the late 1800s, in Documents of
German History, edited by Louis Snyder, wrote:
"The Jews at one time played a necessary role in German history, because of
their ability in the management of money. But now that the Aryans have become
accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of finance, the Jews are no longer necessary.
The international Jew, hidden in the mask of different nationalities, is a
disintegrating influence; he can be of no further use to the world. It is
necessary to speak openly about the Jews, undisturbed in the fact that the
Jewish press befouls what is purely historical truth."
The Jews were blamed for the existence and ideas of Karl Marx, who if not for
his father's Baptism into the Prussian state church in 1817, might have been a
rabbi instead of the father of communism. It is not unusual in those times to
be baptized or like the Marranos to be "secret Jews" while publicly accepting
the Christian religion in order to obtain civil rights or escape persecution.
Karl's father, Heschel Marx (1782-1838) was the grandson of a rabbi, the son of
a rabbi, the brother of a rabbi, and the son-in-law of a rabbi.
Jews in every country were victims of political and social crisis, subjected to
pogroms under every regime, and every political adventure, whether it was some
aristocracy or the Russian Revolution. It didn't matter who was doing the
persecuting, the Czars, the Whites, the Poles, the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, or
the Germans.
And, Zionism was, at first, largely an expression by Jews who wanted to
participate in the world proletarian struggle to realize the socialist ideal.
Quite at odds with Marxism over Marx's rigorously internationalist conclusions,
it was a theory which never-the-less combined socialism and Jewish
nationalistic aspirations from which developed the idea of "Borochovism," from
its author, Ber Borochov, which became the official theory of Jewish
revolutionists for decades.
(* More about Ber Borochov: (1881-1917) He was a scholar, an author, a
theoretician, and the foremost Socialist Zionist of his time. He influenced the
merging Jewish labor movement and developed the concept of a unity between
socialism and Jewish nationalism. He synthesized class struggle and nationalism
when current Marxist theory rejected all nationalism. Borochov advocated a
pioneering effort in Israel, and these pioneering settlements in Israel were
Kibbutzim and Moshavim.)
Breach of Humanity
"They roped children together and forced them to stumble en mass across Iraqi
minefields to clear the way for advancing Iranian infantry. Each boy was issued
a plastic key that he was told would open the gates of paradise." (I.Brown,
Khomeini's Forgotten Sons: The Story of Iran's Boy Soldiers (London, Grey Seal,
1990)
The Sacred Rage of the Middle East
"We are not against the American people," said a young member of the Shi'ite
"Party of God" as quoted in Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam, by Robin
Wright [1985, and revised in subsequent printings - 2001] "We are against
oppression and injustice. The fire of Islam will burn those who are responsible
for these practices [against Islam]. We have been dominated by the U.S.
government and others for too long." A leading Shi'ite academic put it another
way: "The extreme expressions of fundamentalism are expressions of despair."
[Wright]
All religions are subject to extremist elements. Religion is inherently
extremist because it is philosophy and behavior based on faith for which there
is no concrete supportive evidence.
"The more people who die for our cause, the stronger we shall become."
--Ayatollah Khomeini
During the Iran-Iraq war in a speech the Ayatollah Khomeini gave to honor
Muhammad's birthday, he said:
"If one permits an infidel to continue in his role as a corrupter of the earth,
his moral suffering will be all the worse. If one kills the infidel...his death
will be a blessing to him. For if he remains alive, he will become more and
more corrupt." Those infidels he was referring to in this speech were Iraqis,
but all infidels are considered corrupters and deserve death according to
Islamists like the Ayatollah. As for war; war with Iraq or war with Israel - or
war with the United States, it is all the same. And he says:
"War is a blessing to the world and for all nations. It is God who incites men
to fight and to kill. The Koran says, `Fight till all corruption and all
rebellion have ceased.' The wars that the Prophet led against the infidels were
a blessing for all humanity... A religion without war is an incomplete
religion...A prophet is all-powerful. Through war he purifies the earth. The
Mullahs with corrupt hearts who say that this is contrary to the teachings of
the Koran are unworthy of Islam. Thanks to God, our young people are now, to
the limits of their means, putting God's commandments into action. They know
that to kill the unbelievers is one of man's greatest missions." (cited by
David Livingston Smith in The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the
Origins of War, 2007, St Martins Press)
"We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry `There is no
God but God' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle." (cited in
Sacred Rage Ayatollah Khomeini)
There has been a gradual and foolish erosion of resistance among Left wing
liberals to Jihadism. The threat is real. These are Israel's hostile neighbors
and since September 11th, it has been demonstrated that Jihadism can reach even
the United States. We all live within the context of jihad.
Palestinians Violence
Double Standards
ALL kinds of excuses blaming Israel can be made for the terrorism and the
Intifada but the crux of the problem is the real goal of Palestinians, which is
to achieve by violence what cannot be achieved by negotiations, and these acts
of violence, which has resulted in killing and the maiming Jews, and some
Arabs, are a deliberate Palestinian decision they made as their preference for
force over negotiations. The response by Israel is also deliberate and
expected, which has been to use force to discourage continued violence by the
Palestinians. Israel gets blamed for something they didn't start. Israel is
always blamed, just as some otherwise well-meaning "liberals" call themselves
anti-Zionists without a true understanding what that really means. Israelis
want peace but even their "get tough" hawkish positions have now been hardened
even more because of Palestinian violence.
In the real world you can't simply throw a switch and turn off a war. You can't
throw a switch and turn off irrational hatred which radical Islamists hold for
Jews, just as you can't convince people they are wrong if they have it in their
mind they are right, in spite of facts which prove them wrong. To go from the
real world to one that is the way you would like it to be It isn't that simple.
One side wants war, the Arabs, and only one side wants peace, the Israelis. And
in the Arab war against the Jews innocent people are hurt and killed - on both
sides. Sometimes those innocent people are other Arabs who had nothing to do
with the violence. It is an inevitable outcome of their Arab violence.
The Peace Summit at Camp David presented a unique opportunity to make
concessions by both parties to the conflict. That opportunity was lost by the
Palestinians. They walked. Someone once said the "Palestinians never miss an
opportunity to miss an opportunity".
Israel knows about concessions, having made many, first to reach an accord with
Egypt, and it has not been an easy peace, but Israel was willing to make
sacrifices and it was necessary for both sides to constantly work at improving
relationships. Peace is possible. There is also peace with Jordan and one of
Israel's best friends in the region is Turkey, another Muslim (not Arab)
country.
There are always other standards for Israel. When Israel fights terrorism the
U.S. contrary to what many think does not automatically come down on the side
of Israel. There is tremendous pressure on Israel to capitulate to terrorism,
which is not what the U.S. says it does itself but where Israel is concerned it
is expected that Israel will show restraint. An example of this was the
firefight the Israeli IDF had with terrorists at the refugee camp of Tulkarm.
The IDF confronted a number of armed wanted terrorists, who belong to the
Islamic Jihad terror infrastructure in Tulkarm, responsible for the suicide
bombing at the "Stage" Club in Tel Aviv, and for the one in Netanya on July
2005. The terrorists in Tulkarm opened fire at the IDF from two directions, in
addition to throwing an explosive charge at them from one of the houses. The
response from the U.S. by Trent Duffy of the Press Secretary's Office was to
tell Israel to exercise restraint. That is just what the U.S. would NOT do. And
neither should Israel be expected to show restraint in the face of terror. It
should not be expected to do what we would not do.
Obstacles to Peace
Arafat was an obstacle to peace and now he is gone. His replacement has been
another obstacle to peace. And HAMAS makes it impossible. A two state solution
should now be off the table. Any state solution should be off the table because
you cannot negotiate with those who are sworn by their very charter to destroy
you and bombard you with rockets. There is no good will, only the declared and
demonstrated intent to destroy Israel.
"He (Arafat) allowed his territory to be a place where bomb factories could
exist with impunity; where suicide bombers could be recruited with impunity;
where there was no cost to Hamas or Islamic Jihad for carrying out murderous
attacks. To be sure, the situation given the anger among Palestinians made it
increasingly costly for him to look like Israel's policemen, but he had to know
that if he did not take decisive steps, that things were going to explode in a
way that they are now." [Dennis Ross, former Special Envoy to the Middle East]
But the mistake many make is to assume that because Arafat is now gone that
will be the end to hostility. The tension remains. And this is not the kind of
hatred one can simply turn off by giving in to terrorist demands. The hatred is
deep and religious. It is irrational hatred.
It is about their religion - and claiming to be superior to others. And
religion is why antisemitism has endured in Christian countries for two
thousand years and it is why hatred of the Jew endured so long in Muslim
countries. Christianity and Islam have their roots in Judaism and the Jews
would not convert to either of these newer religions. 1
The conflict really isn't just about the land. It is about existing in the very
same world with their Islamic religious fundamentalism. It is Israel's very
existence that Muslims object to no less so than the Nazis who wanted to
eliminate all the Jews on the planet. It wasn't just their presence in Germany,
it was their presence on the planet that Nazis objected to.
A Princeton University historian, and renowned Middle-Eastern scholar Bernard
Lewis wrote: "The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a
result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam." (Bernard Lewis, "The
Pro-Islamic Jews," Judaism, (Fall 1968), p.401.)
"Muhammad, the founder of Islam, traveled to Medina in 622 A.D. to attract
followers to his new faith. When the Jews of Medina refused to convert and
rejected Muhammad, two of the major Jewish tribes were expelled; in 627,
Muhammad's followers killed between 600 and 900 of the men, and divided the
surviving Jewish women and children amongst themselves." (Bat Ye'or, The
Dhimmi, (NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985)
The Muslim attitude toward Jews is reflected in various verses throughout the
Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith. "They (the Children of Israel) were
consigned to humiliation and wretchedness. They brought the wrath of God upon
themselves, and this because they used to deny God's signs and kill His
Prophets unjustly and because they disobeyed and were transgressors" (Sura
2:61). According to the Koran, "the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64),
have always been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and
the angels (2:9798)." (Michell Bard wrote in "The Treatment of Jews in
Arab/Islamic Countries")
"More than a thousand Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting during the 1940's
in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Yemen. This helped trigger the mass exodus of
Jews from Arab countries." (Bard)
The European Union, which often criticizes Israel often taking the Arab side
which is the side their oil is on; criticized Arafat's inaction against suicide
bombers and his total lack of resolve to stop the violence. But the EU blamed
Israel. The EU stated: "The following commitments must be taken ... the
dismantlement of the terrorist networks Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including the
arrest and prosecution of all suspects; a public appeal in Arabic proclaiming
the end to the armed intifada" but also included a demand for Israel's
withdrawal, as if that would end the cycle of violence, "The Israeli government
(must) withdraw its military forces and stop extra-judicial executions; lift
the (economic) blockade and all restrictions inflicted on the Palestinian
territories; freeze settlements." It is the old blame the Jews game all over
again to say Arafat didn't do enough but it is really the fault of the Jews. It
was the old double standard: The violence must stop but Israel can't go after
those who perpetrate the violence.
The Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath issued a reply stating that the
Palestinians had a "sacred right to self defense against occupation," which is
like pouring their oil into an open wound and winding the Palestinians up for
more violence. No wonder Israel responded with a full scale assault.
Former Israeli Defense Minister, Peres said military action was needed to
prevent further terrorism and "it's very easy for countries that don't have the
same problems to give advice" (he told a news conference). "We are a government
that must look after the lives of our citizens." The Palestinians are calling
it "Sharon's War" which is Israel's response to the uprising and terrorist
attacks on Israel. Arafat did nothing to stop the terrorist organizations and
there was no other choice but for Sharon to respond the way he did - and I
might add because he did respond by striking back at these perpetrators of
violence he is compared to Hitler and called a Nazi.
Not to have done what Sharon did, to use force against force, would have
brought down the democratic government of Israel.
Propaganda War
Arab propagandists use the lie that Jews drove out Palestinians and therefore
the world should not look with much sympathy when Jews are compelled to leave
their homes of 36 years in the Gaza. This is what Abunimah of Electronic
Intifada said on national television when the Israelis gave up their homes in
Gaza, where some of them had always lived.
"Many Arabs claim that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians became refugees in
1947-49. The last census was taken by the British in 1945. It found
approximately 1.2 million permanent Arab residents in all of Palestine. On
November 30, 1947, the date the UN voted for partition, the total within the
boundaries of the State of Israel (as fixed by the Armistice Agreements of
1949) was 809,100. A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs
living in the country after the war." (Arieh Avneri, The Claim of
Dispossession, (NJ: Transaction Books, 1984), p. 272; Kedar, Benjamin. The
Changing Land Between the Jordan and the Sea. (Israel: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press,
1999), p. 206.) (Bard)
"This meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees.
A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine arrived at an even lower figure
472,000." [Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine,
Submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the
United Nations, General Assembly Official Records: Third Session, Supplement
No.11 (A\648), Paris, 1948, p. 47 and Supplement No. 11A (A\689, and
A\689\Add.1, p. 5.] (Bard)
The debate is almost always over how many Arabs ("Palestinians") were forced
out by Jews, but very little is ever stated about equivalence; that is, the
numbers of Jews who were forced to flee Arab countries with barely the cloths
on their backs - except for an occasional specious argument, like the one
advanced by someone on the InterNUT that Zionist collusion led to a false
departure of Jews (from Iraq), whereas, they claim it was never the intent of
the Arab countries to rid themselves of their Jews. This argument has been
amply refuted and that is simply not the case. Anecdotal cases exist where some
Jews experienced difficulties in their countries of origin because of the
existence of Israel, but that is not the cause of their second class status in
Arab countries which was always the case and it was so long before a return to
Israel was ever imagined. Jews were "dhimmis" a condition dating back to the
Umayyads. Jews when they refused to be converted to Islam were treated with an
aversion which sometimes was worse and sometimes better, but were always second
class.
"The United Nations resolved that Jerusalem would be an international city
apart from the Arab and Jewish states demarcated in the partition resolution.
The 150,000 Jewish inhabitants were under constant military pressure; the 2,500
Jews living in the Old City were victims of an Arab blockade that lasted five
months before they were forced to surrender on May 29, 1948. Prior to the
surrender, and throughout the siege on Jerusalem, Jewish convoys tried to reach
the city to alleviate the food shortage, which, by April, had become critical."
(Bard)
Side Note* Today Judaism is much more about culture (and enlightened
modernization) than it is about religion and per capita Jews are less religious
than any other religion. Many Jews are atheists but observe Jewish tradition in
order to preserve the specialities of Jewish culture, which for many is
predominantly secular and humanist.
Hank Roth
All (if any) quoting per the Fair Use Doctrine
for educational and discussion purposes pursuant to
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, Copyright Law.
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Hank Roth (on the Internet since 1982)
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