Let’s Be Clear Who We’re Still Dealing With Here – part II
So ‘E’s passed on! He is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!!
THIS IS AN EX-ARAFAT!
But we’re still stuck with Sharon.
Did you really just refer us to “electronicintifada.net” for the biogaphy of Ariel Sharon????
yes, i did. if you find anything in the linked article ‘problematic’ content-wise, i would love to know.
hmmm…. here is one…
“Only four months before his election, the ever-confrontational Sharon visited al-Haram ash-Sharif on 28 September 2000 and sparked off the Second Palestinian Intifada ”
I had no idea that Sharon was solely responsible for the second intifada.
Well ‘sparked’ can mean different things.
If you say, for example., the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand sparked WWI, it doesn’t mean it was the only cause of it.
Clearly the initfada was ready to roll- this “visit” was just chosen as their launch point.
Let’s be clear about who we’re dealing with here. Electronic Intifada is not a “progressive” organization. They are anti-Zionist. They, of course, have every right to be anti-Zionist. But it is arguably unwise for any group of Jews who may respect our equal right to national self-determination to make any kind of common cause with them.
That’s not what they mean, though, is it? They mean that he is the cause for the War. It’s not an intifadah.
I also can’t believe you linked to one of the most egregiously anti-Israel propaganda sites on the Web.
Their recommended reading list includes Fisk and Chomsky.
The Unit 101 killings at Qibya are claimed by Israel, to this day, to have been unintentional. The attack also didn’t happen in a vacuum.
The story about the 270 murdered Egyptian POWs exits on only 5 sites on the Net, all of them quoting…Electronic Intifadah. Benny Morris says there were about 36 killed. Time Magazine has the commander of those troops talking about killing 40 POWs because they couldn’t move their forces forward, and he adds that Sharon couldn’t have known about the incident. http://www.time.com/time/international/1995/950828/israel.html
We could continue, but I don’t understand how you can give those lying scum who only want the destruction of Israel, the kind of credibility you have. They are the worst enemies, not only of Israel, but of Jews outside of Israel. If you’re noticing a sharp uptick in the antisemitism you see around you, especially on the Internet, you can thank sies like Electronic Intifadah with their absolutely skewed view of this Arab-Israeli conflict.
God bless Sharon, his security fence and his unwillingness to meet with Arafat.
Oh, and it’s important to note that your comparison of Sharon to Arafat has to be one of the most heinous comparisons I can imagine. I’m not a fan of Sharon, but if Arafat had been in Sharon’s place, you’d have 10 times the number of dead in this war of the last 4 years.
to those expressing surprise that asaf equated sharon with arafat, and cited an anti-jewish/israeli site to justify his so doing, let me provide a little of asaf’s background: he deserted the israeli army a few short months ago, leaving his fellow teens, men and women to protect israel while he wallows in the comfort of ny and paris, e.g. he is a traitor. the expectation is he will soon convert to the muslim religion (sic), and a further rumor is that he has been trying on burkas prepatory to his sex change operation.
Fuck that “traitor” shit, Avi. We don’t need that.
sorry zionista, but a man who deserts his people and becomes a propagandist for the other side IS a traitor. there is a huge difference between objecting to specific policies of israel/jews, and joining the side of the palestinians. there are jewish boys and girls dieing in israel to in defense of her people – asaf chose to desert them and leave the burden of fighting off the murderers to his ex countrymen, and then to add to the crime by consistently siding with the murderers. that, zionista is called being a traitor
Holy cow, is this true? Is there a place to read about this in greater detail? Does this blog offer the juicy story?
Or should I be reading Avi’s posts with a jaded eye?
Never mind, I just went to Aron’s blog and got the skinny.
Man, do I disagree with their views!
1984 interview with Meir Kahane:
Kahane: we might get a dictatorship here, if the unemployment situation gets worse.
Q: In your opinion, who would be the best candidate as a dictator?
K: At this moment, Sharon, without any doubt. He has the best claim. But he is a very, very bad person.
Q: Why?
K: He is very bad! I’m not talking about his political views. I don’t judge him according to his views. He’s bad. He’s a liar. He has no moral principles. He has no ideals. He’s capable of doing anything, and I’m just as afraid of him as the Left are.
See, even Kahane.
No, you see, when Kahane thinks somebody is bad, they are actually good.
sharon has no principles no morals. he is a terrorist and god bless the day when he is out of office.
we can learn so much from so little, takes nics post above: we know hes not jewishly religious, he spells out g-ds name. yet he does invoke g-ds name – is he xtiain, muslim, or jewish hoping to score points with the religious? “no principles no morals.” a reference to values, often invoked by those of a religious bent. “he is a terrorist” not something likely to be said by mainsteam jews, let alone religious jews. so to reconstruct, our poster speaks in religious/moralistic terms, invokes g-d in a non jewish manner, and despise sharon (but does not call for destruction of israel). conclusion – nic is a mildly believing xtian (or less likely a non religious jew surrounded by believing jews), is of the left but not totally anti israeli, still believes in democracy. on a scale of 10, with chomsky, asaf and adam shapiro as 10’s, nic probably comes in as a 6.5.
Avi-
there’s nothing wrong with writing “God” according to many religious opinions – spelling it out doesn’t make you non-religious or non-Jewish.
After all, “God” *isn’t* God’s name – God’s name (Y—) isn’t even writable in the Latin alphabet. Although i did just dash it out just in case. Even though it’s perfectly fine to type out you-know-what on a computer; it isn’t considered actually written until it’s been printed out. Which is why it’s mildly discouraged, even though typing it into the computer is fine – someone might one day print it out and then disrespect it.
shavua‘ tov from The Land!
Yeah. I mean, “God” is just the English word for deity. We use it in English similarly to the way someone teaching someone about a prayer but not praying would say “Hashem” instead of the Hebrew word that means “My Lord.”
Arafat and PLO analysis from the geopolitical point of view:
http://tinyurl.com/62qco
Thanks Adam, that was interesting.
Adam,
interesting article. Too bad reporters can’t read. They’re all talking about his legacy, and the people who loved him, and the struggle to lead a nation, blah, blah, blah.
So now were stuck with this newly created nation with no self-direction. Just perfect for the world to direct it to something it doesn’t want and try to pursuade it to accept the dump that Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are for them. We know they won’t be able to accept that.
Sigh.
The death of Yasir Arafat could prove the biggest accomplishment of the Israeli – Palestinian peace process. In my opinion, those that were in the streets when they brought his body for burial were clamoring to his casket to ensure he was really dead. I think they were so happy that he has passed away that they now know they have a genuine opportunity to create a Palestinian state.
Arafat is a man who manipulated thousands upon thousands of people to hate Israelis. Arafat encouraged and funded people (and their survivors) to strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves to pieces in order to achieve peace. Is that peaceful?
It’s so interesting to watch interviews with Arafat from the 70s 80s and 90s. The man was a terrorist from day one and he never changed.
Here is the question the Palestinian people should be asking. Why is Suha Arafat (his wife) rolling in million upon millions of dollars. If the Palestinian people are in dire need of funds why did their “leader†withhold millions if not billions of dollars from them?
Arafat created a situation where he could hold the money and blame the Israelis for the poor living condition. It’s brilliant. I will give him that. But now he is dead the Palestinian people should take time to examine what was happening for the past 20+ years. The Palestinian people have an opportunity to look inside themselves and ask the difficult questions. Is it better to make peace with the Israelis and begin a new life? Or, continue along the same path of living in despair. They will make that choice in the upcoming election. I hope they choose the former.
“continue along the same path of living in despair”
You are assuming that the Arabs/Palestinians are waging this war because of despair, poverty, hopelessness, occupation of terrirtories, checkpoints, etc..?
Usually, you keep fighting when their is hope that you might win, or you feel that you are winning. The Arabs keep up the terrorist attacks because they work. They achieve results, territorial concessions and change of leadership opinion.
You give up only in despair.
The Arabs aren’t giving up and know that time is on their side.
How much longer will we keep fooling ourselves?
Sharon can be democratically voted out of office. Make aliya and vote if you so think that.
On the other hand, the PA is anti-democratic and anti-human rights.
Israel has problems sometimes but there are democratic means of dealing with them and NGOs that have freedom to operate in Israel to deal w/ them that they do not have in the Palestinian Authority.
It’s that simple.
Right now the PA is trying to have elections in January.
Why do we all have to point fingers and lay blame? try to come up with productive answers to our problems as opposed to just hating the opposision. its points of views like these focusing on the past that is preventing any sort of future. Yes, there were bad acts on both sides in the past, no one denies this, but why focus on them, why not move forward? israel and palastine are like two children fighting, only these children have real guns.
no one who focuses on the past can be truely objective, because no one knows everything that truely happened. true objectivity can therefore only take place in a situation where there is no POSSIBLE fact to contradict this opinion, such as the future. think about it
On 11/15/04 at 03:08am Josh [joshare.at.yahoo.com] said the following:
“The Arabs keep up the terrorist attacks because they work. They achieve results, territorial concessions and change of leadership opinion.”
Josh, what I hear you saying (please, please correct me if I am wrong.) is that is acceptable to kill innocent people because “it works.”
You should be ashamed of yourself. Your tacit approval of killing innocent people is scary, appalling and downright strange.
The Palestinians have had numerous opportunities to make peace the Israelis and avoid years of fighting. You really should check the history books. Here is one example: The United Nations partition plan of 1947. There would never have been a war in 1948 if the Arabs accepted this plan.
Josh, I was not implying that the Israelis created a life of despair for the Palestinians but instead Arafat.
I sincerely hope that militant Palestinians take this opportunity (the death of Arafat) and ask the important question: What now? Peace, which will lead to a better life for me and my children OR continued terrorists attacks and the same.
To the un-named contributor:
I have only one thing to say in response to your post: ” He who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it.”
The past is not objective, but it does influence the present as well as the future. Ignoring doesn’t solve problems. To solve the problem both sides need to acknowledge that there is a problem and that true compromise is required to solve the problems. Unfortunately the human psychology makes it difficult to ignore what one sees as a slight against them, the key is to find a way to rise above it. Right now the question is – Is either side ready to rise above the past?
“Right now the question is – Is either side ready to rise above the past?”
Bearing in mind the slaughter of Medina’s Jews during the time of Mohammed, through all the centuries of Dhimmi second-class status or worse, along with the occasional pogrom, and of course the twentieth century, with the hearty Aab approval of the Holocaust, the repeated attempts at genocide aimed at Israel and the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries from 1948-1951, the constant terrorist attacks, often aimed at children, through the current intifada with its suicide bombings — with all this in mind, and considering the power Israel has over the Palestinians if it so chooses, I would say the fact that the Israelis haven’t butchered the Palestinians wholesale testifies to the Jewish side being ready to rise above the past. This “either side” thinking is a gross insult and slander. You know how angry you would be if someone attempted to mug you or assault you or your family, and the policeman or judge referred to ” either side”.
J:
I am not saying that we don’t have every right to the positions we have taken. The real point I was trying to make in my previous post is this: If the Palestinians are ready to make a true and lasting peace (don’t ask me how we could know that) are we truly ready to do what may be needed. Frankly I know I wouldn’t be willing to do some of the things that were proposed by PM Barak when he was trying to make peace. Does that mean that that it can’t be done, I don’t know, and I certainly don’t have any idea what the answer will be.
And as to your postulation at the end – I have said for years IF someone would hurt a friend or family member the better hope to G-D that the police get there first, but if I do they will live long enough to go to court, they just will wish they hadn’t.
Well, OK. If you didn’t intend to equalize, I withdraw my criticism.
“And as to your postulation at the end – I have said for years IF someone would hurt a friend or family member the better hope to G-D that the police get there first, but if I do they will live long enough to go to court, they just will wish they hadn’t.”
Sounds good to me. Let’s extend that attitude to international relations, and we’ve got the beginnings of a moral, effective and successful foreign policy.
Aww, you two should get a room. 🙂
THIS is what I get for being conciliatory. ENOUGH! Back to the fire and brimstone!
T_M:
Just because J and I agree on one thing doesn’t necessarily agree on everything. From other threads, I have a feeling we have many more differences that similarities. But a big room with lots of food and a big screen TV with lots and lots of channels would be nice if someone would like to supply that for me. : ) (and maybe some reading material when all the TV stations have nothing on.(Can someone explain to me how I can have 80 some cable stations and there is absolutely nothing interesting on? I just don’t understand!))
Little Wolf: There’s always Iron Chef!
I can’t believe he brought up the Jews of Medina. Only fundamentalists think like this.
Since it was an actual event, you’d have to be a left-wing nihilist to have a problem with it. But if we can put aside name-calling, could you elaborate as to why “only fundamentalists think like this”?
Well, what I meant was that you raised it as if it were a living event, something that really moves and motivates people today in their daily lives. To believe that is to believe that other people are motivated by primordial identity formations, and are thus fundamentally inimical and impossible to change. It’s similar to an Islamist raising the point that the Bible mandates Jewish control from the Nile to the Euphrates, and quoting early Zionists who aspired to this goal, ignoring the fact that most Jews don’t go around dreaming of such a state.
We don’t need to rise above the bad relations between Mohammed and the Jews of Medina, because most Jews don’t even know about this unless someone calls it up to teach them about it for specific ideological purposes. Usually, this purpose involves engendering hatred for Muslims in today’s world as a way of shoring up support for exercises of Israeli power.
Sam:
The Muslim extremists (or Islamist or what ever you want to call them) are doing a pretty good job of creating a ‘hatred of Muslims.’
The fact that some one brought up the issue of the Jews of Medina MAY be for ideological purposes, but it may be for other reasons as well. The assumption that it is for ideological reasons can be taken as an indication of an ideological bend to. (Then again it could just be a comment, or for educational reasons. Or for any number of other purposes as well.)
I’m not saying there are no situations in which it makes sense to study the Jews of Medina. I’m saying that the particular context in which it is raised as an “issue in the past” that must be “overcome” to have peace betrays a fundamentalist mentality.
I studied the issue in a class about religious peacemaking. In that context, it was raised as a jumping-off point to discuss methods of religious peacemaking to deal with religious conflicts. There, it made sense. When it’s deployed for ideological purposes, moreover, I find that people tend to tell very one-sided versions of the story, only proving further that it’s being subjugated to their larger purposes.
Oh, and I agree about your comment on the Islamists. They’re committing chillul hashem for their own religion, which is why if I were Muslim I wouldn’t be one. But on the other hand, powerful western countries in relationships with less powerful muslim countries have never needed provocation to unleash their hatred. The whole history of colonialism shows that much.
Sam:
My point in my previous post was that the ideological underpinings of the mentioning of any topic of dispute can be used to gage where the person mentioning it is coming from. The situation you described above is an example of what I mean. I will guess that in a religious peacemaking class the ideology of the topic would be what would commonly be viewed as the ‘Left’ side of the political spectrum. J on the other had mentioned it in an ideological discussion from the ‘Right’ side of the political spectrum. I don’t have a problem with either, as long as the ideology of the situation is clearly understood. Unfortunately, even in what would generally be considered a nuetral discussion the ideology of the people in the discussion will always control the way the information in inparted and discussed.
The history of colonialism may be an issue, but Muslim/Islamic extremism predates, at least in part, the beginings of European colonialism. It seems to be easy to blame European colonialism or American colonialism for problems that exist today. I could just as easily try to say that the problems in the ‘Middle East’ stem from Biblical times, that they stem from pre-historic times. The differences that are being seen in the world today to have historical context, where you want to create the start of that context is the issue.
Sam:
My point in my previous post was that the ideological underpinings of the mentioning of any topic of dispute can be used to gage where the person mentioning it is coming from. The situation you described above is an example of what I mean. I will guess that in a religious peacemaking class the ideology of the topic would be what would commonly be viewed as the ‘Left’ side of the political spectrum. J on the other had mentioned it in an ideological discussion from the ‘Right’ side of the political spectrum. I don’t have a problem with either, as long as the ideology of the situation is clearly understood. Unfortunately, even in what would generally be considered a nuetral discussion the ideology of the people in the discussion will always control the way the information in inparted and discussed.
The history of colonialism may be an issue, but Muslim/Islamic extremism predates, at least in part, the beginings of European colonialism. It seems to be easy to blame European colonialism or American colonialism for problems that exist today. I could just as easily try to say that the problems in the ‘Middle East’ stem from Biblical times, that they stem from pre-historic times. The differences that are being seen in the world today to have historical context, where you want to create the start of that context is the issue.
Choosing a starting point for “context” is indeed the issue. For me, I look at the years in between the Islamic conquests and, say, the Mongols, and note that the extreme violence we associate with the Middle East today did not pervade the region for hundreds of years of relative peace, especially compared with Europe. Sure, you had your coups, and your switches of dynasty, but I think it’s pretty faulty to date “the problems of today” back to Biblical times. That makes it seem like there’s something inevitable about them, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth.
Oh, and I did leave out the Crusades because I was referring to “internal” problems of violence. But weren’t we trying not to blame things on Europe…?