It’s hip to be Jewish, but not a victim
There has clearly been a revolution in the young Jewish self-image. Overnight, it seems, third-generation Jews are reshaping their culture.
Who are these Hebesters and what is the new sensibility? Here is what it is not: self-deprecating, dweeby, asexual or yearning for goyishe validation.
It is also no longer a ghettoised sensibility; if one thing distinguishes the “new Jews” from the thinking of their parents it is this generation’s impatience with the “chosen people” selectivity of their parents and grandparents that made for strong ethnocentric boundaries.
Naomi Wolf in The Sydney Morning Herald
I like the quote, but the article was weak!
She wrote ” We should not have to buy into the notion that Palestinians today somehow have to pay for the sins of the Germans 50 years ago.”
This is the sort historically biased blanket statement that makes her just a glorified Dear Abby with questionable journalistic ethics — neither a constructive critic of right wing Israeli policy, nor a liberal minded Zionist, nor a important voice in the politically progressive Jewish community.
No, 6 million dead innocent Jews does not compare to Israel fighting a campaign against terror, for their own survival. Naomi, the new Jews are not as what you depict. They are becoming more neo-conservative, they love Israel, and they don’t put up with politically correct bullshit. Go in front of a bulldozer please.
lou — you are incorrect — there is a divergence. jewry is splitting towards the left and the right, and that rift can be seen most clearly among class-lines.
only the more affluent jews are becoming neo-conservative and leaning rightwards, staunchly supporting israel, regardless of the nation’s obvious wrongdoings.
less wealthy-types are going further leftwards, and are coming out against sharon’s administration, and in favor of palestinian independence.
and apparently, as history has shown, wealthier folk are less sympathetic to the concerns of those outside their own class, if not their own ethnic group. they can afford to be bigots. poor people can’t.
i think i’ve got an idea for a bumper sticker: “god loves bulldozer blockers.”
65 year old German misdeeds are indeed not the jusification for rough Israeli treatment of Palestinians. 65 year Palestinian misdeeds against Jews are. But the notion that there is sweeping agreement about the legality/morality or socio-economic fault lines over which one side or the other of this arguement lie is far-fetched. That anyone would suggest all Jews of one type or another would more or less hold agreement on anything other than say, that FDR was elected at least once, is ludicrous, and hence, so is Wolf’s arguement that New Jews are ready to unify under a banner supporting a Palestinian State with Arafat as its Prophet. Shedding victimhood doen’t mean shedding common sense, or the the world capacity for imposing victim status on you. A more important arguement is that it is exactly our victimhood which allows us to realize thw wrongs of the world, especially when those imposed on us are imposeed on others. It is our history which illuminates the Jewish need for Tikkun Olam, not simply our Halacha. Without the May Laws, would e have opposed the draft? Without the ghettos, would we have recognized the horror of public housing projects? Without pogroms, would we have stood at Selma s we did at Sinai to oppose lynchings?
Mo’s arguement holds a similar sieve-like amount of water; there are plenty of older, richer Jews supporting Shalom Achshav, Labor, BTVS and other leftie Israel orgs. That’s simply a generational thing; former hippies who found wealth in the 80’s didn’t abandon their belief in the underdog. Wolf and Mobius are misguided, and circuitously, it does have something to do with German misdeeds towards Jews 65 years ago. And Ukranian misdeeds before that. And Crusader before that. And Spanish before that. And Roman before that. And Greek. And then we’re back to Falestini. Maybe I’m not New School, but the point is that neither is our persecution.
The only thing the world understands is power, and our faith is not incompatibile with the need to demonstrate it when our survival is in question. We were too late in learning this lesson in our history. Might doesn’t make right, it makes the ability to survive. Survival as a nation is not automatically the opporesin of another people, especially when they keep telling us how they plan to drive us into the sea.
If we show that we are prepared to throw our hands up and accept our slaughter WHILE our homeland is dismantled, then we deserve to be herded up and treated like cattle. Its happened before, which is why we’re the REMNANT of Israel. As a Jew, I hate walls. They kept us in, they kept us out, they most often kept us down. But sometimes they kept us alive. Sadly, that’s the truth now. If we could expect that even with the withdrawl of settlers and checkpoints, there would be a cease to the violence against us, walls wouldn’t be needed. They are needed and they are working.
I’m all for peace. I’m for tearing down walls and buildign wells where we can dwell and draw sustanance together. But there is limited stone in the quarry, and we must prepare for war and pray for peace, and do whatever we must to survive. That’s a situation forced upon us; defend yourelf or be killed, mercilously. We should not print bumper stickers admonishing victory for he who killed your brothers and sisters. There’s nothing new about that.
We can be irrevereant and proud to be Jewish, yes. But being a victim isn’t just a practical matter- its a state of mind, a matter of national self determination. If you take issue with this, consider whether Jews would be allowed to live long in a Palestinian state the way Palestinians live in the Jewish state. Victimhood isn’t something we can simply shed because it is not for us to remove that status alone. For us to stop being victims, others must stop victimizing us, especially the Palestinians. Causality, people. Until the only reason the Tzahal has to man checkpoints is to keep Ahmed Abdullah from Ramallah from smuggling 2 kilos of kind bud over the border to share with his pal Menachem Mendal from Meareh Shaarim, we’re on the defensive. Yeah, great; Wells not Walls. Cool, Bud not Bombs. But fore that, Reality not Romperland.
Lighting a candle for Palestinians on Hanukah is like lighting a candle for the Germans at Dresden; it was a terrible tragedy, but the firebombings were a consequence of the German Reich’s assault on Humanity. We can sympathize and note how terible it was, but not without noting the massive toll it took on us as well. Misguided attempts to show solidarity with Palestininan statehood are, while associated with the plague of inhuman terrorist activity, anti-semitisim and worse, the massive systemic corruption that rots that society, are revolting in that they are blind to the truth of facts, the truth of reality, the truth of history and our story. Quite the opposite effect of the lighitng of a menorah, and quite the opposite of the moral of the Hanukah story; they tried to kill us and we survived and drove them out of our homeland. At this point, we’re struggling with the ability to allow ourelves the first of those three. That’s the victimhood we’re stuck in- the idea that we’re the bully. We’re not. We’re just tryin to get along. If anything, that’s new jew.
Wolf’s piece, poorly written, attempts to hijack the new Jewish cultural identity, which does have something not everything to do with post-shoah mindset, as a cover for a left-wing political agenda which truly does not reflect the thinking of most Jews today, for reasons of idealism and more importantly reality. Now let’s put that in our hookah and smoke it.
adam, good column.
65 year old German misdeeds are indeed not the jusification for rough Israeli treatment of Palestinians. 65 year Palestinian misdeeds against Jews are.
adam–did palestinian misdeeds against jews start before or after the jewish agency for palestine began underhandedly acquiring land on which native arabs resided from their absentee landlords? did they start attacking jews before their disposession, or after?
when you displace 800,000 arabs, and then announce your intention to declare statehood in the land in which these people have resided for at least five generations, would you contend that arab hostility was baseless and non-retaliatory?
your statement, off the bat, completely neglects israel’s dark history and shifts blame for all of the current crisis onto the palestinians themselves.
well guess what dude–israel is NO saint, and has honestly never been one.
But the notion that there is sweeping agreement about the legality/morality or socio-economic fault lines over which one side or the other of this arguement lie is far-fetched. That anyone would suggest all Jews of one type or another would more or less hold agreement on anything other than say, that FDR was elected at least once, is ludicrous, and hence, so is Wolf’s arguement that New Jews are ready to unify under a banner supporting a Palestinian State with Arafat as its Prophet.
i agree with you completely — two jews, three opinions. you can’t get us to agree on anything.
A more important arguement is that it is exactly our victimhood which allows us to realize thw wrongs of the world, especially when those imposed on us are imposeed on others.
tell me, sir, in this day and age, how we are victims and how victimhood is imposed on us. demonstrate… give me a clear example, with the exception of sparse incidents of antisemitism committed by arabs and skinheads, of how we are victimized by institutions.
It is our history which illuminates the Jewish need for Tikkun Olam, not simply our Halacha. Without the May Laws, would e have opposed the draft? Without the ghettos, would we have recognized the horror of public housing projects? Without pogroms, would we have stood at Selma s we did at Sinai to oppose lynchings?
no, most certainly we would not. HOWEVER, look at modern jewry, particularly right-leaning jews, and ask yourself, would these people have turned out at selma? would they have opposed the draft (these, the same people who lobbied for war in iraq)? are they progressive on social issues? do they give a fuck about anything except themselves, their own families, or perhaps, at best, their own communities? no–once these people came to a level of comfort and affluence in america, they abandoned their victim-values. most of the frum people i know are rich, they shit on their employees, they LOVE rush limbaugh, champion george bush, disrespect black people (how many call their nannies and maids shiksas behind their backs), hate liberals, and demonize palestinians to the point of total dehumanization. tell me it’s not true!
they have subjugated themselves to the god of american conservatism–the almighty dollar, and have filed quietly behind the christian right in preaching and practice. thus i give you supply-side jesus.
Mo’s arguement holds a similar sieve-like amount of water; there are plenty of older, richer Jews supporting Shalom Achshav, Labor, BTVS and other leftie Israel orgs. That’s simply a generational thing; former hippies who found wealth in the 80’s didn’t abandon their belief in the underdog.
yuh huh. and of jewish philanthropists, what do they make up, all of 10%? seriously–the big jewish philanthropists pour their money into birthright and other programs meant to breed little zionists willing to go and colonize the west bank, not into progressive causes which champion the civil rights of palestinians. to suggest otherwise is to mislead intentionally.
Wolf and Mobius are misguided, and circuitously, it does have something to do with German misdeeds towards Jews 65 years ago. And Ukranian misdeeds before that. And Crusader before that. And Spanish before that. And Roman before that. And Greek. And then we’re back to Falestini. Maybe I’m not New School, but the point is that neither is our persecution.
no one said that our persecution is ‘new school’–what wolf said, and what i agree with, is that we’re not being persecuted anymore. look around you–the president of the united states (whose grandfather pushed us into ovens) is kissing jewish ass for votes; the governor of california (whos father pushed us into ovens) is now kissing jewish ass for votes; the fascist party of italy (who helped push us into ovens) is now kissing jewish ass to open up trade with israel; germany has made simply having a picture of a swastika a crime and it’s taboo to mention hitler’s name in public; they’re cracking down on neo-nazis over there like nobody’s business; the catholic church passed “nostra aetate” in 1965, clearing jews of any guilt or complicity in the death of jesus; fucking pat robertson is stumping for israel; time out new york is brandishing “super jews” on the cover declaring how hip it is to be jewish; and you fucking crybabies are still screaming victimhood.
we’re not victims anymore!
The only thing the world understands is power, and our faith is not incompatibile with the need to demonstrate it when our survival is in question. We were too late in learning this lesson in our history. Might doesn’t make right, it makes the ability to survive. Survival as a nation is not automatically the opporesin of another people, especially when they keep telling us how they plan to drive us into the sea.
yuh huh — here’s what a hizbollah leader had to say about yesterday’s attack on southern lebanon: “Israel’s cosmetic air show over southern Lebanon succeeded in doing absolutely nothing. The Israeli’s did not even succeed in appeasing internal public opinion with their lame show of impotence.”
so might makes what? makes us look like assholes? makes us look like the world’s biggest threat to peace? makes us into little jabotinsky-ite nazi assholes?
what?
israel’s creation necessitated the dispossession of 800,000 arab natives. like it or not, it’s a fact. an undeniable fact. the records of the u.n., the u.k., the u.s., the jewish agency–all of them demonstrate this fact. thus israel’s very existence does automatically equate with the oppression of palestinians. it’s just the truth. deal with it.
If we show that we are prepared to throw our hands up and accept our slaughter WHILE our homeland is dismantled, then we deserve to be herded up and treated like cattle. Its happened before, which is why we’re the REMNANT of Israel.
you do not have to throw your hands up and allow yourselves to be slaughtered to make real concessions for peace, and to facilitate positive change in the region. anyone who leads you to believe this point is simply taking advantage of your passion for your faith and heritage in order to advance their own agenda, just as islamic fundamentalists do oppressed palestinians. they blind you with religious fervor in order to lead you to commit grave acts of violence and other despicable nastiness.
As a Jew, I hate walls. They kept us in, they kept us out, they most often kept us down. But sometimes they kept us alive. Sadly, that’s the truth now. If we could expect that even with the withdrawl of settlers and checkpoints, there would be a cease to the violence against us, walls wouldn’t be needed. They are needed and they are working.
have the bombings stopped? have they shrunken in number? or has the wall simply given palestinians even more resolve to battle what they see as goliath?
I’m all for peace. I’m for tearing down walls and buildign wells where we can dwell and draw sustanance together. But there is limited stone in the quarry, and we must prepare for war and pray for peace, and do whatever we must to survive. That’s a situation forced upon us; defend yourelf or be killed, mercilously.
that shit wasn’t forced upon us! we brought it upon ourselves by displacing palestinians and treating them like second-class citizens. we brought it upon ourselves by rushing up in someone else’s neighborhood (the never-semitic white european turkish khazak conversos we are) and claiming it our own. we brought it upon ourselves when the world zionist organization decided to break the boycott against nazi germany in order to secure asset transfers to palestine. the palestinians didn’t do this to us–we did it to ourselves.
We should not print bumper stickers admonishing victory for he who killed your brothers and sisters. There’s nothing new about that.
que? the vast majority of homes bulldozed by the idf are not the homes of terrorists–they are the homes of normal people, like you and me, who simply can not afford real estate because of the grave conditions under which they have been forced to live, both by their external oppressor–israel, and their internal oppressor–the p.a., which takes advtange of their poor living conditions to further cement their people’s hatred for israel. does israel do anything to assuage this? no–they simply feed the delusion.
We can be irrevereant and proud to be Jewish, yes. But being a victim isn’t just a practical matter- its a state of mind, a matter of national self determination. If you take issue with this, consider whether Jews would be allowed to live long in a Palestinian state the way Palestinians live in the Jewish state.
nationalism is EVIL. nationalism is at the root of nazism and fascism. nationalism justifies xenophobia and racism. nationalism is horseshit–it imposes divisions upon people and causes them to see each other as “different” from one another as opposed to one being, togther. which is what i thought tikkun olam was really about–getting people to recognize their oneness with each other, with the planet, with hashem. but no–go and build your fences, your class distinctions, your nationalities, your sects, your denominations…keep shattering those fragments into even smaller pieces. by all means. go right ahead.
Victimhood isn’t something we can simply shed because it is not for us to remove that status alone. For us to stop being victims, others must stop victimizing us, especially the Palestinians. Causality, people. Until the only reason the Tzahal has to man checkpoints is to keep Ahmed Abdullah from Ramallah from smuggling 2 kilos of kind bud over the border to share with his pal Menachem Mendal from Meareh Shaarim, we’re on the defensive. Yeah, great; Wells not Walls. Cool, Bud not Bombs. But fore that, Reality not Romperland.
stop giving the palestinians a reason to want to blow you up!!! i am not some flaky hippie nor idealistic dreamer. it is the most logical and plausible solution to the problem. stop reinforcing their delusions by acting other than the manner in which you’re depicted by the corrupt palestinian leadership. stop bulldozing their houses, stealing their land for settlements, ripping up their olive groves, denying them work permits, using their children for target practice (yes, it fucking happens!), and treat them humanely! de-occupy, withdraw to the ’67 borders, give them rights, give them reparations for their homes lost before ’48 and after, give them self-respect and a living wage. give them the opportunity for statehood, and give them the opportunity for growth. make the p.a. liars in the eyes of their people. show them that you’re not who they say you are. then the people will stop beliving the lies of their leadership, and they’ll stop wanting to kill us.
Lighting a candle for Palestinians on Hanukah is like lighting a candle for the Germans at Dresden; it was a terrible tragedy, but the firebombings were a consequence of the German Reich’s assault on Humanity. We can sympathize and note how terible it was, but not without noting the massive toll it took on us as well. Misguided attempts to show solidarity with Palestininan statehood are, while associated with the plague of inhuman terrorist activity, anti-semitisim and worse, the massive systemic corruption that rots that society, are revolting in that they are blind to the truth of facts, the truth of reality, the truth of history and our story. Quite the opposite effect of the lighitng of a menorah, and quite the opposite of the moral of the Hanukah story; they tried to kill us and we survived and drove them out of our homeland. At this point, we’re struggling with the ability to allow ourelves the first of those three. That’s the victimhood we’re stuck in- the idea that we’re the bully. We’re not. We’re just tryin to get along. If anything, that’s new jew.
horseshit adam. we are ethnically cleansing palestinians. i could twist your analogy around in a way so offensive i don’t even want to do it. learn about the revisionists; learn about the jewish fascist vlad jabotsinky; learn about the assassination of chaim arlosoroff; learn about the history of the idf–how it was a terror group that bombed british and palestinian installations; learn how we invented modern terror ourselves and brought it to the region; learn about the origins of likud, sharon’s party–jabotinsky’s ideological heirs; and then maybe you’ll know what you’re talking about from a place other than the passion you have for your heritage and culture, which is the only source you’ve drawn on for your whole post.
did you know the israeli navy was provided by fascist italy? no, i didn’t think so. learn the history, and you won’t be so quick to cry victim.
Wolf’s piece, poorly written, attempts to hijack the new Jewish cultural identity, which does have something not everything to do with post-shoah mindset, as a cover for a left-wing political agenda which truly does not reflect the thinking of most Jews today, for reasons of idealism and more importantly reality. Now let’s put that in our hookah and smoke it.
i recognize also that there are many more jews shifting rightward than there are leftward these days and that wolf is misrepresenting the situation. not only are the new jews blindly in favor of israel, but young leftist jews, like myself, are more in favor of a binational state in which jews and arabs are equal citizens, than independant states.
but whatever. i didn’t say i thought naomi wolf was right. read what i wrote–there’s a divergence. affluent jews are moving right–which they are. and regular jews are moving left. the whole country’s doing it (with the exception of the meatheads in the midwest).
here’s the evidence.
mo, you are wrong on many subjects. The 800,000 arabs were displaced because they moved out themselves thinking they would come back to their homes with all the jews dead. And anyways, why would the Israelis kick out only 800,000 arabs and not the whole lot of them? Last time I checked 20% of Israeli Citizens are Arabs, and they have the highest standard of living in the middle east. Not to mention the Druze and other Arabs and Muslims who sided with the jews during the war of independence and are doing just fine and love Israel and would die for it. Your comments about Jabotinsky being a Nazi are ridiculous. He was one of the few who realized a disaster was coming to the Jews years before the holocaust. I guess you believe any Jew who fights for survival is just as bad as the Nazis. You’d rather see Jews going into gas chambers than Jews holding guns.
The 800,000 arabs were displaced because they moved out themselves thinking they would come back to their homes with all the jews dead.
er, no asshole–the 800,000 were displaced when the jewish agency bought their land out from under them BEFORE 1948.
And anyways, why would the Israelis kick out only 800,000 arabs and not the whole lot of them?
they didn’t kick out the 800,000 arabs–they just left them with nowhere to go.
Last time I checked 20% of Israeli Citizens are Arabs, and they have the highest standard of living in the middle east.
tho, compared to israelis they’re still 2nd class citizens.
Not to mention the Druze and other Arabs and Muslims who sided with the jews during the war of independence and are doing just fine and love Israel and would die for it.
which is why most suicide bombers are now israeli arabs inside israel.
Your comments about Jabotinsky being a Nazi are ridiculous. He was one of the few who realized a disaster was coming to the Jews years before the holocaust.
your ignorance about jabotinsky is astounding. here’s zev jabotisnky in his fascist uniform.
and here are some lovely quotes from his own books:
“Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native [Palestinian] population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop under the protection of a force independent of the local population –an iron wall which the native [Palestinian] population cannot break through. This is, in to, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy.”
“There is no justice, no law, and no God in heaven, only a single law which decides and supercedes all–[Jewish] settlement [of the land].”
“The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has become fond of them.” He later added, “Hitler–as odious as he is to us–has given this idea a good name in the world.”
why don’t you read the transfer agreement by edwin black, and learn about jabotsinky’s masterminding of the assassination of mapai leader chaim arlosoroff because he was negotiating the terms of a binational state with arab leaders.
you don’t know shit lou.
I guess you believe any Jew who fights for survival is just as bad as the Nazis. You’d rather see Jews going into gas chambers than Jews holding guns.
that’s horseshit lou. but fighting nazis, fighting oppression, fighting evil–this implies NOT using the same tactics used to oppress and kill us, because then we become like them.
also, if you ever want to accuse me of wanting to see jews die in gas chambers again, you’re going to have to come say it to my face so that i can knock your fucking teeth in right afterwards.
i shouldn’t even entertain your idiocy by responding to your posts.
Oh, what the heck.
In between all the charming no-you’re-an-asshole repartee, the kick-off line was to call Naomi Wolf on her We should not have to buy into the notion that Palestinians today somehow have to pay for the sins of the Germans 50 years ago.
Which is right — she’s basically mouthing one of the absolutely silly wish-it-were-so anti-Zionist canards. The unspoken idea behind it is that brutal, monstrous Israel is only allowed to get away with the evil it wreaks because of the tremendous reserves of sympathy out there for all those dead Jews.
Well, no. Jews’ desire to be part of the Westphalian world of nation-states and exercise the right of so-called self-determination predates WW2 by quite a bit. Whatever one’s position on whether Israel has a right to exist — hey, lots of Greeks are against the existence of a Greek nation-state, tons of Italians would no doubt like to see Italy abolished, so it’s hardly a surprise to see Jews militate against the Jewish right to self-determination — it’s really quite independent of Germany. Save, of course, in the details of its implementation. Which is something quite different.
not only are the new jews blindly in favor of israel, but young leftist jews, like myself, are more in favor of a binational state in which jews and arabs are equal citizens, than independant states.
Okay mo, here’s the thing: you’re stringing together a whole chain of equivalencies which, while it’d be nice, just don’t ring true. Namely: working-class Jews are just naturally leftist, leftists are just naturally for a “binational state” (really? binational state? only two?); rich Jews are just naturally rightist, righists are just naturally for uninational states, etc.
Here’s the thing. On political position as the automatic reflection of class — the opposite (poverty and working-class-ness leading to brownshirt fascism, racist white supremacism, etc) is equally common, while here in Quebec at least, our leftist movements, political parties, etc at the federal and provincial levels are certainly not from backgrounds of poverty. Far from it.
Which goes for the nation-state thing, too, and I say that as one of many young, lefist, Zionist Jews. It’s kind of charming to see Americans railing against nationalism, but the fact is that the Westphalian world is still one of nation-states. National self-determination is a dumb idea? Fine — but that’s still what makes the world turn, and I don’t see South Korea and Japan running to merge soon.
Democratic rights are more than possible in the State of Israel and, for that matter, the State of Palestine. An Israeli citizenship and a Jewish identity can certainly exist as separate, though linked; Israel identity can certainly include all its citizens without abandoning the special responsibility the state has to its national majority.
As for Arabs in Israel being second-class citiens — sure; there’s lots of work to do. Which goes for First Nations peoples in Canada and the U.S.; which goes for Palestinians, for that matter, living under the Lebanese and Syrian and various other apartheid regimes in the Middle East, where various lists spell out exactly which professions Palestinians are allowed to hold (not many), where they’re allowed to live (special camps), etc.
All of which is separate from the very necessary task of engaging with, critiquing, and following up with what Israel does. But which I include by way of demonstrating that these are things that need to be done, not poison-pill critiques that suddenly invalidate the existence of the Israeli state as the instrument of Jewish self-determination.
Oh, one more thing, while I’m on a roll. It’s great to critique Israel. But it’s more than a little bit disingenuous to see Jews shouting it loudly in public forums like high-circulation newspapers — using all the nastiest evil-Israel rhetoric they can think of, shouting loudly that most Jews (except them, of course) are walking zombies who are viscerally incapable of disagreeing with any policy the Israeli government ever puts out, etc.
Not disingenuous because it’s in poor taste though, of course, it is that; to follow up from my previous message, one rarely sees Lebanese-Australians or -Canadians writing op-eds to local newspaper about the need to smash the racist, fascist Lebanese apartheid state and the deep complicity of their local Lebanese- community in these war crimes … although all of those things are probably true.
No, it’s not so much the bad taste, as the fact that these folks seem rarely to have made more than token efforts — if any at all — to actually engage the Jewish community in the conversation. Pissed off about what other Jews are saying? Instead of standing in front of a giant crowd and berating them, maybe better to talk to them.
Which can be, hey, hard sometimes. But ultimately, I think, a bit more responsible. On which, props to the Jewschool project. It’s doing exactly that. I’m impressed and I’m appreciative.
Mo, I think your counterarguments are wrong. The 800,000 will never be allowed in israel. War is war, tough shit, and they were on the wrong side. Now you claim ze’ev jabotinsky is a fascist by his uniform. It looks like a standard uniform to me? what is he supposed to be wearing? Some sesame street stuff? I guess everyone in a uniform is a fascist to you? And his quotes don’t reveal anything fascist about his policy. He just wished for a jewish state even if the arabs living there disagree, yeah of course. so whats the big deal? I think everyone immigrating there knew that. The Jews didn’t have a problem with it, the Arabs did in numerous occassions before 1948 and after, and still. He gave credence to Hitler only because his evilness to the Jews gave the Jews the idea to move somewhere else, not because Jabotinsky actually liked him. Those quotes didn’t impress me. Why don’t you read more Hamas and Hezbollah funded Palestinian-propoganda and give me some more arguments, I’m ready.
yeah .. i’m moving .. i’ll deal w/you when i’m settled in at my new place
Sidebar:
Perspective counts for a lot. From where I sit, by which I don’t mean the top of the world or the greatest vantage point, I see Palestinians in Lebanon (and Syria, etc), meaning the refugees (yes, and their decendants), as Israelis denied their rights by Israel’s aparteid policies.
Mo, as a meatheaded midwesterner, I take exception to that. Perhaps I and the other 2 Million Jews living throughout the midwest don’t benefit from the reaking proximity of one another, but the benefit is that we, living within actual range of farms, DO know what horseshit smells like. And you column bares a faint, familiar odor.
You may think we’re simply slow on the uptake, but in truth we tend to be more cautious and thoughtful about our approach than those rash radicals on the coast.
You are quick to attack the religous and lump them with the right, and quick to dismiss the middle, both geographically and politically.
We are not brainwashed, and you rarely see anyone at a pro-Israel rally chanting Death the the Arabs. I know, having led them. They are pro-peace and pro-(political
)settlement. Arab demonstrations are quite the opposite, chanting for a death to Jews, an and to Israel and equation of nazi tactics with Jews. Which is basically what you’re doing. And you are wrong to do it.
If you think Nationalism sucks, try living as a Jew in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Lybia, Egypt, Syria or Iraq. Oh, that’s right, they took care of that problem for us. So much for your blind utopian view. Yeah, a binational state would sure fix all our problems, one more dictatorship for Arabs to proclaim Dhimmis in and persecute women. Puh-lease, Mo, stop injecting that liberal Susan Sontag Smack, it is killing us both. You’re so quick to think that if we gave the Arabs everything they want it would all end. It would all end, for us Jews, that is, and if you say I’m projecting victimhood, then go back and reread the aims of the various terrorist groups you think will lay down their arms when we do the same.
Israel is not ethnic cleansing anything. There is NO comparison between Jews/Sharon/Israel and say, Serbia 10 years ago.
The Italian navy supplied Israel with ships? Big deal. So what? Arms transactions take place all the time. What’s more concerning is their use. The Iranians and Saudis and Syrians have all armed terrorists that have mamed and killed thousands. The Jordanians have arms, and guess what, they use them to defend their frontier from being used as a terrorist base.
We’re not victims anymore? Have you been asleep for the last 10 years? Jews are being killed left and right for no other reason than being Jews, in Buenos Aires, in France, in Switzerland and oh yeah, Israel. Just because we know how to fight back and protect ourselves doesn’t mean the world has forgotten how to victimize us. To the contrary, I think most of our old enemies simply lie in wait.
As to your statement about when it all started and finger pointing, I would assert that Arab violence began after the LEGAL Jewish aquisition of land in pre-state Israel. If an adbsetee landlord sells his property, it is still a transaction whether the renter likes it or not, goodbye and get thee hence. If Arab landowners weren’t getting a good deal in selling they would have stayed put. The first violence, it should be noted, was not against Jews, but against Arabgs who sold their land (look it up in the jpost archive). So, *dude*, Israel may not be a saint, but what state ever is? The point is that Palestinian misdeed aren’t being directed against a state, but against civillians. And no Israeli state school books advocate tossing the Palestinians into the Yarden. But the opposite certainly is true.
I don’t know history? I’m speaking only from passion? Look in the mirror pal, you blindly accept that crap you picked up on campus. I know who Jabotinsky was and I also know he was considered a criminal by many.
So you can name the asarloff assassination and jabotinksy? So what. The Stern Gang, to which you refer about inventing bombings in the middle east, was vilified. So was the Irgun, which together with the Sternists were a minority. They were absorbed into the IDF, yes, but what about the Altalena, Mo? Can you say anything about that event where the IDF actually shelled the ship smuggling arms intended for use by Irgun? Or that the King David bombing was in retalliation for the hanging of Jews, and done only after 3 warnings?
You focus on the negative too much. We’re not a race of assholes and racists, and your insistance that Israel is a state founded on those principle gives creedence to the who say so, and to those who say that the Jews ought to be dealt with. That, more than anything, drives our victimization, not the need to protect ourselves.
Yes, the bombings have decreased in number thanks to the wall, but wall or not, nothing Israel has done in the name of protecting its own citizens within its borders comes close to the wholesale slaughter thar Arabs have perpetrated on Jewish in their lands nor shown the absolute depravity or lack of concern for innocent life as have Palestinian bombings.
And we’re not Khazar conversos. Talk about horseshit. The DNA testing proves otherwise. How esle would a middle German language migrate from west to east? Certianly not by coming from the south…
BONK!