Ando:
You're making that article up. The 'Jerusalem Dispatch'? Yeah, right. How gullible do we all look?
Also:
But you neglect to mention the important fact that Nick Tortelli was not only as unattractive and lubricious as a human being can be, but convinced of his own erudition.
What's this with vocabulary words like 'lubricious'? What the fuck is lubricious? Are you going psocko on us?
3961. RustlerPike - 2/12/2002 11:11:34 PM
Banks:
If you paid me enough I'd refuse to serve too.
3962. Andonly - 2/12/2002 11:24:48 PM
"You're making that article up. The 'Jerusalem Dispatch'? Yeah, right."
Not The Jerusalem Dispatch, Mister Suspicious. "Dispatches" are regular features in The New Republic, written from various places.
Lubricious, lubricious
Some vile, some delicious,
Jerusalem, Cairo,
Ramallah, Lahore.
If I am now Psocko
Then Pike is Menudo,
the Eel is the Hindooo,
and Hindooo's the Whore.
3963. joezan - 2/13/2002 8:02:23 AM
One of the keynote speakers at a conference I attended yesterday was some "widely read, highly respected" (or so the guy who introduced her assured us) Middle East journalist. (The other speaker was Ray now-too-much-of-a-hotshot-for-NPR Suarez, so it is fairly safe to assume I was in hostile territory).
Anyway, this woman presented on The Demonization of Muslims and Arabs in the American Media, and what a load of hooey it was.
I knew we were in for it when, less than a minute into her rant, she referred to the "American characterization of Arab women as "loose...promiscuous...little more than whores".
WHAT???!!!
During the course of her rambling screed, this woman uttered the phrase out of context well over a dozen times. The story "immediately picked up by American and Israeli media and beamed around the world" of the Pals celebrating the 9-11 attacks?
Out of context.
"These were children playing in the streets, for God's sake!"
And sure enough, there behind her on the big screen was a picture from the out of context celebration, of small Palestinian children jumping around as if playing - cropped right out of the photo that we are all familiar with. You could still see the clothing, up to about their chests, of the adults immediately behind them.
But I really loved it when she went off on a litany of Reagan, Bush 1, and Bush 2 State and Defense Dept. sins committed against Arabs. At the end of this litany she added, "One high-ranking State Dept. official, asked whether the US sanctions against Iraq were worth the estimated 500,000 children who had died as a result, answered, Yes, I do."
Of course, she conveniently forgot to mention who this high-ranking State Dept. official was - Madeline Albright.
3964. RustlerPike - 2/13/2002 10:41:26 AM
What kind of conference was it, Jozejan?
3965. RustlerPike - 2/13/2002 10:44:07 AM
ando:
Good poem. I still don't understand what lubricious means.
3966. mgleason - 2/13/2002 10:48:50 AM
But you neglect to mention the important fact that Nick Tortelli was not only as unattractive and lubricious as a human being can be, but convinced of his own erudition.
Sure, Andonly, you can afford to say this about the Pied Piper of TV repair now that he's off the air, but in his day no woman, six-pack, or fifty-cent word could resist him.
I very much enjoyed your literary efforts, btw.
3967. RustlerPike - 2/13/2002 10:54:10 AM
I recommend Jews, God and History by Max Dimont.
3968. marjoribanks - 2/13/2002 11:32:49 AM
Nonetheless, and despite everything, there are still some items on the balance sheet that could signal change. The most important we'll leave for last. One is a certain change, still difficult to measure, in the feelings on the street. There's a lot of unease, not so much from what Sharon has done, but rather from what he's not doing and the fact there's not even the shadow of political line. The proliferation of newspaper advertisements, the voluntary initiatives and the sprouting demonstrations are reminiscent of the anti-Bibi atmosphere when it first began. Another factor is the signs of a thaw in the behemoth known as the Labor Party. If things continue as they have, and the party continues to be a supplicant of the unity government, a top-notch group will leave the party for a new political entity. These two trends will strengthen in direct proportion to the madness gripping the extreme right. The Benny Elons and Effi Eitams are raving about transfer and reconquering the territories and other apocalypses that even an angry street won't be ready to buy.
But the best chance for a way out is in the hands of the Americans. Envoys won't help, certainly not when they're the likes of Anthony Zinni. The only chance to halt a deterioration to war is an insistent American demand for implementing the Tenet and Mitchell plans, which have already been accepted by both sides.
Gideon Samet
3969. marjoribanks - 2/13/2002 11:40:58 AM
Spike,
If you paid me enough I'd refuse to serve too.
Interesting offer. I had breakfast today with two young women who are raising and channeling funds for Seruv.org. I gave them a check.
But this direct participation is intriguing. What kind of support would you require? My partners and I (we had to go through a wrenching event directly linked to perception of US support of Sharon over the weekend) stand ready to support principled dissent.
How much, Spike? How much to sign Seruv's worthy statement and declare that you will not participate in the illegal and unconscionable subjugation of the Palestinians in their territories? I'm deadly serious that I will entertain a reasonable proposal.
3970. marjoribanks - 2/13/2002 11:42:16 AM
I will check in later, to see if there is a worthwhile response.
3971. RustlerPike - 2/13/2002 12:12:15 PM
$20K?
3972. marjoribanks - 2/13/2002 12:42:16 PM
Not entirely unreasonable, but too much to hand out without a tax write-off.
How about $1000, in exchange for a notarized and attested endorsement of the dissenters declaration? With further similar payments to be made as you lend your considerable propaganda skills to the worthy cause?
Seruv seems to be gaining momentum, and they need experienced trenchermen, by the way. At least that's what I learned today.
if you agree, I'll consult with my partners.
3973. marjoribanks - 2/13/2002 12:55:56 PM
Two unrelated but still connected things happened over the weekend.
1) My partners in a struggling-to-fly business venture finally struck a deal with the client we've been pursuing relentlessly for a year. We took a flier on something, expecting to turn it over for a tidy profit, but got waylaid (like everyone else) in the new economic climate. This client is the only possible buyer for our something, and if we don't sell it to him our partnership will probably collapse into bankruptcy.
The rub: the client refused to do business with our American entity. Not entirely unreasonably, he cannot be seen, by X and Y, to pay this price (the lowest we can go without taking a terrible hit) to an American company, that too with an Israeli founding partner.
I've mentioned this person before, he's beyond a business associate. A lawyer, an astute colleague, a fine family man. My family has spent time with his in Haifa. He's put almost two years of his life into this deal, and his precarious personal financial situation depended on it coming to fruition.
There is only one workable solution other than bankruptcy - and we took it. The deal has been cut with our Mauritian shell company, and the Israeli had to bow out of all of it. He has no options, and neither do we. The mutual future, which once looked rosy, is shot. The deal opens a small pipeline into markets which may actually make our partnership what the seven of us envisioned a while ago - but without him.
He took it gracefully, and we have put the very meager profit from the deal into a trust to pay off his daughter's next two years of college. But he is now going to have to declare bankruptcy, and his wife is going to leave him, and all this other shit.
3974. marjoribanks - 2/13/2002 1:05:14 PM
2) My brother got an unbelievable offer from a Dubai-based individual to run his overseas investments. The kind of deal that would enable him to become very wealthy in a couple of years.
The deal was on the table until they discovered that he was actually American. For some fucked reason, partly because he had been dealing exclusively with the Frenchman who was to become his predecessor, they had thought he was an Indian immigrant to France.
Heard he was American, with an American wife, deal withdrawn. Couldn't have a Yank handling those finances without opposition from significant quarters.
---
Both of these ugly little episodes would not have occurred except in a climate where a good part of the world both animatedly disapproves of Israeli excesses in the occupied territories and associates these excesses with the US.
As far as I am concerned, this matter has become quite personal. My business interests and family interests have been threatened by perceptions of US policy in the ME and I intend on doing what I can to (a) vocally distance myself from them and (b) lobby to change them. Also (c) - strongly support those in Israel who are similarly opposed to the current regime and its policies.
--
That, amigos, is the sum of it. I bid you all a good day, and promise that you shall hear from me on this topic in the coming months.
3975. marjoribanks - 2/13/2002 1:29:03 PM
Focused on his war against Osama bin Laden and now the larger targets of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, President Bush largely has ignored continued Israeli settlement activity. In the process, he has missed an essential point, namely, that without a reversal of settlement activity, the war against terrorism can never be won.
Few issues fuel more anger against the US and Israel. Few generate more sympathy for the likes of Mr. bin Laden, and not among Palestinians alone. Nothing breeds greater cynicism than the wide gulf that exists between the United States' historic affinity for the principle of self-determination and its willingness to turn a blind eye to Israel's systematic expropriation of Arab lands. Nothing undermines more thoroughly the credibility of the administration's protestations of interest in an eventual Palestinian state than its tepid protests over the continuing seizure of the very land that would constitute such a state.
Peace between Israelis and Palestinians must come at a great price to both. In addition to halting acts of violence against Israel, Palestinians will need to relinquish the "right of return" - their long-standing claim to property lost within Israel when Palestinian Arabs fled or were driven from their homes after the Jewish state was created in 1948.
For its part, Israel will have to abandon all or most of its settlements on Palestinian land. Pressure to do so will have to come from the US, which may need to use its annual $3 billion-plus aid allotment to Israel as leverage.
CSMonitor
3976. Wombat - 2/13/2002 1:43:02 PM
Marj:
Seems to me that you are getting angry at the wrong folks. Your problem has much more to do with intolerance, antisemitism, and nationalism in the part of the world you are dealing with than with US policies. The attitudes you describe are much more pernicious than whatever Israel is doing to the Palestinians. I note that Arab states continued to maintain the economic boycott of companies doing business with Israel even during the palmy days after Oslo.
Since you give the impression of being a crusader for righteous behavior, how do you square the fact that your family and friends cannot find work in some parts of the world because they have an Israeli on staff, or are married to an American, with your oft-stated desire for tolerance, etc. It is not the US that should change, but the Arab world. I am sorry to have you relate the moral contortions that you are going through because you want to do business in that part of the world, given how critical you are of US moral contortions in that area.
3977. Andonly - 2/13/2002 4:40:29 PM
Goodness, Spanks. Are you all in righteous crusader knots because you've got to find some Israeli to blame for your own inability to stand on principle?
Of course, no one actually expects you should go broke because of others' intolerance. One can't always choose one's customers. On the other hand, your fine and raucous parade of superior values looks rather dirtied from here.
You could just as easily advocate noisily for Arab concessions as Israeli ones. But you fixate on the crimes of the Jews and sympathize with those who disapprove of Israel. (Oh, and then you try to buy an indigent Israeli out of military service, as though paying him off wouldn't nullify any policial effect he might have by refusing to serve.)
So let's see... you sold out your business partner in order to save yourself, leaving him to bankruptcy and a ruined family. Exiled, as it were. In what way are you not like Zionists saving their own future at Palestinians' expense?
It's convenient and sensible that your partner accepted a bit of a payoff; too bad the Pals have always refused.
3978. Andonly - 2/13/2002 4:43:00 PM
Pike: lubricious means oily.
3979. Andonly - 2/13/2002 4:50:47 PM
"As far as I am concerned, this matter has become quite personal. My business interests and family interests have been threatened by perceptions of US policy in the ME and I intend on doing what I can to (a) vocally distance myself from them and (b) lobby to change them. Also (c) - strongly support those in Israel who are similarly opposed to the current regime and its policies."
None of which you would bother with if you were not convinced that your clients' anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism are perfectly justified.
3980. Andonly - 2/13/2002 5:22:11 PM
"Sure, Andonly, you can afford to say this about the Pied Piper of TV repair now that he's off the air, but in his day no woman, six-pack, or fifty-cent word could resist him."
Hah! (Ever notice how you could just about smell that character?)
3981. joezan - 2/13/2002 11:22:47 PM
Pike:
It was a Healing Racism Summit. I attended last year, and I think they asked me back because they needed a token Republican. (Not really).
Last year I was stuck with teachers and school administrators (bunch of wackos) for the breakout work sessions, and this year I finagled my way out of that and into the government group (this was a follow-up to last year's summit, with all groups reporting on progress made since then).
With the teachers, everyone insisted on their turn to whine, and after awhile it turned into a sort of see if you can out-do the last guy's moral indignation, White self-loathing, and commitment to changing things. (sort of like marj - he would've loved that group).
Of course, this year not even half of the original attendees from that group showed up, so I guess they must've felt they'd cured racism.
Or something.
3982. joezan - 2/13/2002 11:22:50 PM
Pike:
It was a Healing Racism Summit. I attended last year, and I think they asked me back because they needed a token Republican. (Not really).
Last year I was stuck with teachers and school administrators (bunch of wackos) for the breakout work sessions, and this year I finagled my way out of that and into the government group (this was a follow-up to last year's summit, with all groups reporting on progress made since then).
With the teachers, everyone insisted on their turn to whine, and after awhile it turned into a sort of see if you can out-do the last guy's moral indignation, White self-loathing, and commitment to changing things. (sort of like marj - he would've loved that group).
Of course, this year not even half of the original attendees from that group showed up, so I guess they must've felt they'd cured racism.
Or something.
3983. joezan - 2/13/2002 11:23:46 PM
...ooops.
3984. RustlerPike - 2/13/2002 11:34:51 PM
Joe did a double post!
Na-na-na-naaa-nah!!!
3985. RustlerPike - 2/13/2002 11:43:17 PM
Well, marj, it's good that you've finally found the guts (if one can call it that) to come clean on your weird and annoying politics: I must say, you're the first person I know who admitted so forthrightly that his entire moral weltanschauung is really nothing but a financially motivated propaganda campaign. I applaud you for coming clean, I really do.
But what you're really saying is - 'I'm a coward, help me'. I hope you have some bounds to this cowardice: in other words - if it were a matter of selling your wife out in order to survive physically, rather than selling your partner and friend out in order to survive financially, maybe there would be a point where you would say 'no'.
But what makes you think I would sell my children's physical welfare out for your sake, for anything less than $20K?
3986. RustlerPike - 2/13/2002 11:51:23 PM
I highly recommend Jews, God and History, btw. It's brilliant.
3987. RustlerPike - 2/14/2002 12:18:14 AM
It's time to bully Ya'acov Amor a bit, btw. I want him to arrange a Likud endorsement for my candidacy here.
3988. joezan - 2/14/2002 7:39:17 AM
It appears marj has a real penchant for pissing away his money and siding with losers.
3989. RustlerPike - 2/14/2050 9:54:32 AM
All these months of being force-fed Fisk - and it was all fiscal.
3990. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 11:27:08 AM
.....and it was all fiscal.
Wrong.
My active participation is driven by practical concerns, that is all.
I am very interested in the ME, as I am very interested in parts of Latin America, France, the UK, and other points on the globe. I've spent not insignificant time there, a good portion of it in Israel, and have genuine visceral fondness for it.
But I don't try to meddle in affairs that are not directly related to my interests, because there are (a) very many places that pique my interest and (b) I have enough to do in terms of personal responsibility.
In a world where the US, my country, was not directly affected by Israeli excesses in the territories - I'd content myself with academic and moral ruminations.
But it is my business when American interests overseas, my interests, are negatively affected by an unconscionable support of a brutal occupation.
I want one thing only - that the US not be adversely affected by the Israel/Palestine situation. There are dozens of possible ways that peace could be imposed, and for the US to look better, and none of them exclude an end to the occupation of Palestine.
It is thus my duty, as I see it, to try and influence (to the best of my ability) events to reach the desired outcome - a distancing of the US from Israeli excesses.
3991. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 11:39:34 AM
how do you square the fact that your family and friends cannot find work in some parts of the world because they have an Israeli on staff, or are married to an American, with your oft-stated desire for tolerance, etc
Valid question. My partners and I (two are Jewish) have gone through this before and are still grappling with it.
The people we deal with, it is entirely clear to us, are pragmatic. They care about the bottom line first, what is workable second, and what can be sold, third. I can assure you that antisemitism is not a factor in any of these three.
Previous to Sharon's regime, we have done business with these people. The trouble is Sharon's regime, and the continuing escalation of violence in Israel. You cannot sell products to a people outraged by a perception of rank injustice, if those products are associated with the perpetrators of the injustice.
It is in no way different from the South Africa situation and the global half-on/half-off boycott of goods and services from the Apartheid regime. If you were a businessman whose interests lay in South Africa, you lobbied for an end to Apartheid - because that was the only workable solution in addition to the moral one.
Israel cannot win peace by force, the greater US goals in the War on Terrorism (which I've supported from day 1) cannot be won if Israel continues to occupy the territories and bulldoze settlements onto Palestinian land. American interests abroad are and will be hurt as long as this country is seen to back a nakedly unjust and brutal regime of occupation.
None of this is either new or unique to me. You know it, everyone knows it, and the longer we all dither the worse it gets for American interests overseas.
3992. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 11:39:57 AM
Finally, it is a crucial time - there is a growing ability to pressure the US to change its policy in this matter, and it is my intent to do my darndest to ensure that the changes made are for what I believe is the best.
3993. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 11:54:20 AM
From the Independent:
While Mr Straw was glad-handing senior Israelis – but not the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who cried off with flu – the Israeli army was rampaging through Gaza in its largest raid into the Palestinian-run strip since the start of the 17-month intifada. By mid-afternoon, its troops had killed five Palestinians and invaded a refugee camp and three towns, withdrawing from all of them later. Three of the dead were policemen.
Evidence at the scene of their death, near Deir al-Balah, suggested they been running away from their post when it was hit by an Israeli tank shell, packed with hundreds of "flechettes" – tiny, deadly, darts.
The latest reprisals by Israel began on Sunday after guerrillas from the Islamic nationalist Hamas movement fired two new rockets out of Gaza into Israel, digging craters in fields but injuring no one.
Israel's publicity machine moved into overdrive, describing the "Kassam II" missiles – makeshift, unguided weapons cobbled together in the back streets of Gaza, but with a range of up to five miles – as a dangerous escalation in the conflict. Their warheads carry about 13lbs of explosives, a payload that can blow the roof off a room. But they were dwarfed by the 1,000lb laser-guided bombs blasted into empty Palestinian security buildings in the heart of the densely populated Gaza City by Israeli F-16 warplanes in reply.
3994. mgleason - 2/14/2050 11:57:03 AM
It is in no way different from the South Africa situation and the global half-on/half-off boycott of goods and services from the Apartheid regime. If you were a businessman whose interests lay in South Africa, you lobbied for an end to Apartheid - because that was the only workable solution in addition to the moral one.
I don't know enough about the specifics of your own situation, but what you posted about your brother's does not fit this construct. Enemies of the US can point to any number of its own'excesses' without resorting to guilt by association. The attempt to marry plain old anti-Semitism and 'You made me do it-ism!' to principled objections about governmental policy is disingenuous even by Arab propaganda standards.
3995. Andonly - 2/14/2050 12:05:02 PM
"My active participation is driven by practical concerns, that is all."
Go lobby Iran.
3996. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 12:05:17 PM
What does anti-semitism have to do with a Dubai sheikh refusing to hire an Indian-American for a job because he cannot expect a continued flow of state funds to himself if an American is running his finances?
I find it absurd that the term would even be raised.
3997. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 12:07:16 PM
Absurd, but not surprising, that is.
3998. Andonly - 2/14/2050 12:18:43 PM
"But what makes you think I would sell my children's physical welfare out for your sake, for anything less than $20K?"
Keep negotiating, Pike, and when you get that $20K commitment, explain to Spanks a la Hairyfat that, per the Prophet's Hudabaiyah agreement, you are not bound to abide by deals made while you are the weaker party.
3999. Andonly - 2/14/2050 12:20:41 PM
You know, with 20 grand, you could sweep yourself and your family back to New Jersey, from which you could launch an anti-Spanksian lobbying campaign in support of the Yesha Council!
4000. mgleason - 2/14/2050 12:24:28 PM
What does anti-semitism have to do with a Dubai sheikh refusing to hire an Indian-American for a job because he cannot expect a continued flow of state funds to himself if an American is running his finances?
Ahem. You yourself tied this so-called pragmatic decision wrt your brother to America's ties to Israel. As I said, it is more than a stretch to blame 'excesses' by proxy for the failure to clinch the deal. It is no secret that the UAE, of which Dubai is a part, maintains indirect economic relations with Israel through third countries, and direct relations, as you know, with the US. Blaming the collapse of the deal on US support of Israel is a plot twist straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, yet you lay it before us in all earnestness. I submit that you need to refresh your memory as to the definition of 'absurd.'
4001. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 12:28:39 PM
The question was raised, in today's meetings, whether it would be worthwhile to help finance a media advocacy group, a la dishonest HonestReporting.Com.
My thoughts were - no, that kind of crap doesn't work, and it cheapens both the goal and the process.
However, it was pointed out that this is the way things work in the lobbying process - and you need to get the message out as aggressively as your opponents.
I'm unsure whether it would be the best use of our financial commitment. I think direct appeal to politicians and opinion-makers is better than chain-releases. Plus, dishonest HonestReporting is now notorious for its tactics and no one takes its releases without a shaker of salt. I've asked, even reporters on the ME from the NYTimes completely distrust therir stuff. Who needs that to happen to an entirely honest and worthwhile cause?
We may lauch a website though, that won't cost much.
4002. Andonly - 2/14/2050 12:32:42 PM
"What does anti-semitism have to do with a Dubai sheikh refusing to hire an Indian-American for a job because he cannot expect a continued flow of state funds to himself if an American is running his finances?"
He had no trouble dealing with you via your Mauritian shell, once your Israeli friend stepped out of the picture, did he.
By your account, the issue wasn't actually whether your sheikh would deal with an American, or an Israeli, but whether he would do so at the price you required.
Somehow, I imagine you could have gotten around dumping your partner.
4003. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 12:40:25 PM
Ms. Gleason,
I think interpretation of your #4000 is necessary (congratulations on the millennial, and also for managing to find a way on squeaking in the Protocols...)
I said that an American was not being hired because of a perception of US Middle East policy as skewed towards a brutal regime of occupation. And because of this, you pull anti-semitism from a trusty holster, and brandish it around?
I resent having to state this to an intelligent person - but are you suggesting that every aspect of US Middle East policy towards Israel has to be couched in crude terms of antisemitism or philosemitism? Is it not possible to fervently dissent from US policy in the ME towards Israel without being slapped with a canard of antisemitism?
I'd thought that this particular webspace was a bit more grown up than that.
4004. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 12:42:43 PM
4002 confuses two separate matters.
4005. Andonly - 2/14/2050 12:51:12 PM
Margarinespanks reminds me of some southerners I used to know who were superficially and in some cases even genuinely welcoming of black people as individuals, but not quite convinced of the necessity of black civil rights.
Spanks likes Jews and Israelis just fine, but he'll cold-shoulder a Jewish friend who gets in the middle of his lunge to shake on a deal with Dubai. Meanwhile, he figures Israelis should be unilateral pacifists and should recognize that they really can do without a Jewish state.
What a guy!
4006. Andonly - 2/14/2050 12:54:30 PM
"are you suggesting that every aspect of US Middle East policy towards Israel has to be couched in crude terms of antisemitism or philosemitism?"
I expect she figures it's no more absurd than that every business deal with America should be premised on anti-Zionism or philo-Zionism.
4007. mgleason - 2/14/2050 12:54:32 PM
Certainly it's possible to dissent from US policy in the ME without anti-Semitism being in the mix. However, the claim that your sheikh, who comes from a country which maintains direct relations with the US and indirect relations with Israel, pulled out of a deal because he feared official repercussions from dealing with an American, not an Israeli, is either disingenuous on its face, or an excuse to indulge in anti-Semitic wet dreams at no cost to himself.
4008. mgleason - 2/14/2050 1:00:12 PM
I expect she figures it's no more absurd than that every business deal with America should be premised on anti-Zionism or philo-Zionism.
Yes, that's an excellent way to put it.
4009. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 1:09:38 PM
MsGleason,
I'm afraid that you don't understand business, or the flow of state monies, or the Middle East.
Let me work an American hypothetical. Funds are granted from the center to states to individual contractors, yes? These individual contractors are required to comply with various hiring and regulatory codes, yes? A Klansman in Idaho is not likely to get one of these contracts, yes? He may be the best contractor, but since he is a Klansman, the state will not do business with him.
The Middle East sheikhdoms hand out vast sums of money to citizens, and even larger sums to crony members of the royal family. But these funds are handed out to those who comply with certain policies not terribly different, in conception, to the regulatory and hiring guidelines exercised in the US.
In this case, a minor but fabulously wealthy sheikh gets a flow of insider deals. They're meted out as long as he complies with a perception. A key part of that perception, in this case, is that the money is used responsibly and not to enrich those even tangentially involved with a moral outrage.
Why is this relevant to Americans? Because America is seen as a country bankrolling a massive injustice a few thousand miles away. For practical considerations, it is impossible to justify having an American in charge of your dealings even as you oppose American policy on principle.
It is a feat of prodigious contortion, but one clearly possible to you, to shoehorn anti-semitism into this equation.
4010. Andonly - 2/14/2050 1:11:01 PM
One thing about Spanks' views which must be kept at the forefront of any discussion about them is that Spanks considers his South Africa/apartheid analogy perfectly apt in every way. He not only wishes for an end to the occupation of the WB and Gaza, he wishes for an end to the Israeli state as it is now consituted--that is, an end to the Jewish state.
4011. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 1:11:46 PM
I expect she figures it's no more absurd than that every business deal with America should be premised on anti-Zionism or philo-Zionism.
Yes, that's an excellent way to put it.
No, it is a typically dishonest way to put it.
Kindly revisit the highly topical and entirely relevant example of South Africa and the international boycott of Apartheid-regime goods and services.
4012. Andonly - 2/14/2050 1:12:09 PM
"A Klansman in Idaho is not likely to get one of these contracts, yes? He may be the best contractor, but since he is a Klansman, the state will not do business with him."
You must be kidding.
4013. Andonly - 2/14/2050 1:15:21 PM
"But these funds are handed out to those who comply with certain policies not terribly different, in conception, to the regulatory and hiring guidelines exercised in the US."
Idiot. Anti-American and anti-Israeli Arab regulatory guidelines are NOT equivalent to American affirmative action guidelines. And as far as I know, it's illegal to discrimate here against racists when their ideological convictions have nothing to do with the jobs they've applied for.
4014. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 1:16:37 PM
It is part and parcel of tactics here to purposely mis-state views and to manufacture purported lines of argument.
4010 is example.
I shall return, briefly, later in the day.
Currently, I have to have an antisemitic lunch of pastrami and rye at the anti-semitic Second Avenue Deli with my two anti-semitic semitic colleagues and one anti-semitic non-semitic colleage, and further plan our anti-semitic activities wrt the proposed advocacy website.
Oh, anti-semitic advocacy website, I hasten to add.
4015. Andonly - 2/14/2050 1:18:13 PM
"A key part of that perception, in this case, is that the money is used responsibly and not to enrich those even tangentially involved with a moral outrage."
You're quite the raver, aren't you. As though "peception" in Dubai about "moral outrage" were a neutral thing quite free of Jew hatred.
4016. mgleason - 2/14/2050 1:20:22 PM
Marjoribanks,
I am definitely not in your class when it comes to contortions.
A Klansman in Idaho is not likely to get one of these contracts, yes? He may be the best contractor, but since he is a Klansman, the state will not do business with him.
I'm afraid your hypothetical doesn't hold water. Even if the state were able to disqualify your Klansman from winning a government contract, he'd still have to be identified as one. It would be impossible, not to mention very, very stupid, to disqualify all residents of Idaho because a number of Klansmen live there.
In this case, a minor but fabulously wealthy sheikh gets a flow of insider deals. They're meted out as long as he complies with a perception. A key part of that perception, in this case, is that the money is used responsibly and not to enrich those even tangentially involved with a moral outrage.
Ah. So he has no dealings with America at all, none, and neither do his other 'fabulously wealthy' peers, who apparently got that way through sheer virtue, not business. Please.
I haven't believed in fairy tales for a long, long time, however prettily spun.
4017. mgleason - 2/14/2050 1:25:42 PM
Kindly revisit the highly topical and entirely relevant example of South Africa and the international boycott of Apartheid-regime goods and services.
It's not dishonest at all, I suppose, to attempt to paint a refusal to do business with one American, while trade continues to flow between Dubai and the US, as a boycott, by proxy, along South African lines.
4018. Andonly - 2/14/2050 1:28:20 PM
"It is part and parcel of tactics here to purposely mis-state views and to manufacture purported lines of argument. 4010 is example."
I haven't manufactured anything, I've just put your on damned words in close proximity to one another so that your assumptions and biases are quite plain.
You have said outright that you wonder whether it is really necessary for Jews to have a Jewish state. You advocate ceaselessly for an end to the occupation, irrespective of any Arab acts that might predispose Israel to conclude it can or can't afford to end it. You label as outrageous every military act of Israel's, excusing meanwhile every Palestinian warmongering, every civilian attack, every antisemitic incitement as regrettable but understandable.
You quote the Israeli left to support your views, pretending to be a supporter of Israel but in fact endorsing, explicitly and implicitly, the transformation of Israel into something that not even the bulk of the Israeli left would countenance.
You ass, your glomming onto their arguments makes them look like Uncle Toms.
4019. rubberducky - 2/14/2050 1:50:37 PM
side line update:
'Margarinespanks' now equals 'Marzipranks' in my favorite made-up nickname department.
both always make me chuckle.
4020. Andonly - 2/14/2050 2:08:50 PM
"Oh, anti-semitic advocacy website, I hasten to add."
Dear Israelis:
Please refuse to serve in the territories, where your brutal government oppresses helpless lambs who would mean you no harm if only you would wake up and behave like the human beings you believe yourselves to be.
Also, I implore you to relinquish this nasty Jewish-state business. It's passe, it's intolerant. Europe, which wants to do business with Arab states who don't go in for Jewish rule in their lands, and I, who would like to do business with Arab sheikhs without having to dump my Jewish associates, really do know what's best. Best for you, best for the world!
Can't you see that the prosperity, the satisfaction--why, the very survival--of the whole world, especially America, where every day I have lunch with one of my many Jewish brothers, now depends on a Jewish sacrifice?
Think back to how proud you were when your own Jesus sacrificed himself to atone for the sins of mankind! Wouldn't you all feel much better if you saved the world now, instead of destroying it with your stubborn, unprovoked ruthlessness?
Please understand that we here at Spanks Unlimited want the very best for you. But we care about ourselves, too. And you simply must learn to think about the welfare of others, not just Jews, Jews, Jews. Once you do, the world will finally love you. I, Margarinespanks, personally promise that this is true.
Trust me: I love you guys. But let's focus on what's best for the majority, OK?
4021. Andonly - 2/14/2050 2:09:29 PM
just in case...
4022. betty - 2/14/2050 2:30:28 PM
It's interesting watching this exchange.
Ultimately, I suspect I fall very much in line with Marj, questioning the need to have a Jewish state (or arab or christian or religion x), and I can't help but think that the settlements are (looking at it from the perspective of someone not intimately involved with the struggles there) only asking for trouble. I have sympathy for both sides here but see the money/weapons given to Israel as a deciding factor...I would compare it more to a Vietnam set of circumstances...One side has big guns and money and support while the other is fighting a guerilla style war. there is an institution of War within the Israeli state but no comparable institution amongst the Palestinians because there is no state. there are organizations populated by Palestinians but there is a difference. I don't know how else to express it, but I'm not sure that I'm being clear.
there is a gross "uneveness" about this whole affair that makes me uncomfortable.
(for the record I've never been considered anti-semitic though i make no effort to hide my anti-zionist feelings. I don't think that opposing a "jewish state" makes one anti-semitic and I know lots of American Jews who join me in that opinion.)
4023. mgleason - 2/14/2050 2:35:03 PM
there is a gross "uneveness" about this whole affair that makes me uncomfortable.
Yes, I've always been staggered by the numbers involved in the Arab/Muslim coalition against Israel.
4024. Andonly - 2/14/2050 2:41:11 PM
"there is an institution of War within the Israeli state but no comparable institution amongst the Palestinians because there is no state."
There is an institution of Brutality within police departments but no comparable institution amongst street criminals because street criminals are not departmental.
4025. Andonly - 2/14/2050 2:45:25 PM
By the way: that poisoned water thing. You haven't answered anyone's queries about your assertion.
4026. betty - 2/14/2050 2:59:01 PM
Andonly,
It's no secret that water sources have been targeted by Israel...it's a common wartime tactic, and not one limited to the IvP conflicts (and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Palestinians had done the same, I just don't know about it).
I was thinking of you this morning when i was reading a "conspiracy" book on the CIA/OSS connections. It touched on the fact that former Nazi's working for the CIA helped train the first Palestinian resistance fighters. I'm gonna try and see if I can find more documentation on this but I've always thought that Neo-Nazi's must get a special joy out of what happens in the ME.
4027. Andonly - 2/14/2050 2:59:42 PM
"I don't think that opposing a "jewish state" makes one anti-semitic and I know lots of American Jews who join me in that opinion."
Lots? They must be a special population known only to you.
Not that all American Jews are Zionists. But I think most would view your opinions with kindly circumspection, a degree of suspicion, and perhaps the sort of tolerance one accords the heartfelt opinions of young children.
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but no one has called Spanks himself an antisemite. In bed with antisemites, deaf to antisemitism, convinced of his own moral righteousness, smitten blind with underdogism--all quite as bad, really.
4028. Andonly - 2/14/2050 3:02:31 PM
"It's no secret that water sources have been targeted by Israel"
Israel uses up water that could and should be shared with the Pals. You talked about poisoning. If this poisoning is not secret, disclose your sources.
It's "no secret" that Mossad masterminded the WTC attack, you know...
4029. Andonly - 2/14/2050 3:06:34 PM
"former Nazi's working for the CIA helped train the first Palestinian resistance fighters."
Betty, the Nazi-Arab connection is not exactly new.
Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, made every effort to conspire with Hitler to eradicate the Jews in Arab lands. Specifically, he approached Germany with a plan to "solve" the Jewish problem in Palestine, with German assistance, the same way Hitler had "solved" it in Germany.
The mufti made not one but two proposals to the Nazis (in 1940 and 1941), on behalf, he said, of an inter-Arab committee of government and non-government representatives. He said if the Germans would endorse a draft he had written espousing German-Arab common goals with regard to the Jews, he could guarantee public support.
Here's an excerpt from Husayni's proposed declaration (which the Germans never clearly endorsed, probably in part because they considered Arabs no less vermin than Jews):
"Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic (volkisch) interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy."
Note, Betty, that the Mufti of Jerusalem wasn't just talking about Palestine, or new Jewish immigrants there.
4030. betty - 2/14/2050 3:58:48 PM
But I think most would view your opinions with ...perhaps the sort of tolerance one accords the heartfelt opinions of young children.
yeah, Okay, then i have nothing to offer this conversation.
4031. Andonly - 2/14/2050 4:02:06 PM
Reuters via MSNBC:
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Feb. 14 — The World Court dealt a major blow to Belgium’s attempt to try Israeli leader Ariel Sharon by ruling on Thursday that government ministers charged with war crimes can be protected from prosecution by diplomatic immunity.
“The Sharon case, in my opinion, is closed,” legal adviser Jan Devadder told Reuters after the ruling by the United Nation’s highest judicial body.
The lawsuit against Sharon on genocide and war crimes charges has been delayed while a Brussels appeals court decides if Belgium has the right to prosecute the Israeli leader.
They will have to take into account today’s judgment. The judgment is clear: immunity for all ministers for all crimes while they are still in office” Devadder said.
“The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, ruled in a case similar to the Sharon one, that Belgium had no right to issue an arrest warrant for a former Congolese minister accused of human rights abuses as he was immune from prosecution.
“The immunities under customary international law, including those of ministers for foreign affairs, remain opposable (applicable) before the courts of a foreign state, even where those courts exercise an extended criminal jurisdiction on the basis of various international conventions on the prevention and punishment of certain serious crimes,” Gilbert Guillaume, president of the court, said in his ruling.
4032. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 4:06:18 PM
Perhaps it is the two Cel-Ray sodas speaking, but I actually enjoyed and smiled at 4020. Quite droll.
4033. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 4:08:43 PM
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but no one has called Spanks himself an antisemite.
No one could, without being a liar or a fool.
In bed with antisemites, deaf to antisemitism, convinced of his own moral righteousness, smitten blind with underdogism--all quite as bad, really.
I'd say, nope, nope, equivocally yup, nope, if you're keeping count.
4034. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 4:11:02 PM
I now think I must ruminate, pastrami-fuelled, on the very epithet -anti-semite - and its origins and use and misuse in American political discourse.
In a bit, that is.
4035. mgleason - 2/14/2050 4:20:29 PM
Stay tuned as our plucky hero attempts to defang and reclaim anti-Semite, the 'nigger' of the Arab world. In the style of Woody Allen, who exemplifies all that's right about anti-Semitism, he says,
Don't knock anti-Semitism - it's like sex with someone you love.
4036. PelleNilsson - 2/14/2050 4:22:06 PM
It is interesting to see, in the case of Andonly, who tries to project the image of a reasonably balanced commentator, how the varnish cracks as soon as the temperature rises a bit.
betty
Please substantiate your claim that Muslim women and children have been exposed to poisoned wells.
4037. Andonly - 2/14/2050 4:23:43 PM
MSNBC yesterday:
Israel also accuses Arafat’s Palestinian Authority of being behind a 50-ton shipment of arms from Iran intercepted on its way to the region.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress that Arafat had accepted responsibility as chairman of the Palestinian Authority for an attempt to smuggle the weapons.
However, Powell said that Arafat had not accepted personal responsibility for the operation, which Israel blocked on Jan. 3 by intercepting the ship in the Read Sea.
Earlier, Powell had described a letter Arafat sent him last week as positive, but he did not disclose the details.
After Israel revealed the smuggling attempt, Powell demanded that Arafat admit responsibility for the operation and said the Palestinian leader should have known about it.
Powell urged Arafat again Wednesday to make arrests and said suspects should not be permitted to avoid long detention through “revolving doors.”
Arafat all along has denied knowledge of the smuggling.
Meanwhile, tensions within Palestinians ranks were exposed in recent days in a spat between Arafat and his West Bank security chief, Jibril Rajoub. Palestinians said that at a meeting Monday, Arafat accused Rajoub of insubordination and waved a pistol in his face, then dropped it because he was shaking. Arafat suffers from an ailment that causes tremors. On Wednesday, Rajoub pledged his loyalty to Arafat.
4038. Andonly - 2/14/2050 4:27:39 PM
"Perhaps it is the two Cel-Ray sodas speaking..."
Yes. Part of our world domination strategy.
Unfortunately, our Dr. Brown's plot to infiltrate societies at every level was largely foiled by the Nazis at Coke and Pepsi.
4039. Andonly - 2/14/2050 4:32:39 PM
"I now think I must ruminate, pastrami-fuelled, on the very epithet -anti-semite - and its origins and use and misuse in American political discourse."
Sigh.
"It is interesting to see, in the case of Andonly, who tries to project the image of a reasonably balanced commentator, how the varnish cracks as soon as the temperature rises a bit."
I'm a Jew, not a Swede, you wilted aubergine. My partisanship is unambiguous and I've never made any bones about it.
4040. Andonly - 2/14/2050 4:42:58 PM
"No one could, without being a liar or a fool."
Well, anyone sufficiently perceptive could call your pompous self nigh onto a fellow-traveler.
4041. Andonly - 2/14/2050 4:44:58 PM
Margarinespanks: not an anitsemite, but NOFT.
Has a Yiddish ring, doesn't it.
4042. Andonly - 2/14/2050 4:46:17 PM
Noftische Spanks. Noftischespanks.
Hmm.
4043. ChadNeimim - 2/14/2050 4:47:04 PM
Hello everyone!
4044. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 4:50:05 PM
I wonder, in effect, if it is strictly correct to call someone anti-semitic if he/she does not care one way or the other about the Jews except when it comes to their botched and ugly relations with the Palestinians.
In effect, I have an Arab in mind. Strictly secular, mostly irreligious, totally commercially-minded. He does not give a crap about what the Koran says about anything. He does not give a shit whether you are Jewish, Hindu, Russian, or a Brazilian mulatto. Politically, however, he is incensed by what he sees on television, and knows from his Palestinian friends, about the Israeli occupation, perhaps to an extent by the very presence of Israel - which he considers an abomination foisted on Arab lands.
He hates Israel, he would like it not to have existed, he would like it to cease to exist.
is he an anti-semite? In this case, I'd say no.
Antisemitic is antisemitic, it is an easily recognized European Christian construct which has been transplanted to other lands, and has a similarly configured Islamist offshoot. Misusing the term cheapens its value as an accurate description of a real phenomenon.
4045. CalGal - 2/14/2050 4:53:15 PM
I thought that was anti-Zionism, what you describe.
4046. CalGal - 2/14/2050 4:57:09 PM
Hello, Chad. Welcome to the Mote.
4047. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 4:59:06 PM
I've written tens, even hundreds of thousands of words in this forum and its predecessor on Israel/Palestine, Judaism, Jewish history, my areas of interest in the Jewish diaspora, and other related topics. I defy anyone to find one line, even one word, which could be reasonably inferred to demonstrate that I harbor any anti-semitic thoughts whatsoever.
And, to give a small amount of credit where a small amount of credit is due, the correspondents I've dealt with here have not resorted to that old bludgeon-like tactic. But I see leanings, now.
--
Were I Jewish, I'd be similarly seeing leanings towards calling me "self-hating". This comes with the territory, I'm told. I think it would piss me off a lot more than being called anti-semitic.
4048. mgleason - 2/14/2050 5:01:33 PM
the very presence of Israel - which he considers an abomination foisted on Arab lands.
He hates Israel, he would like it not to have existed, he would like it to cease to exist.
That, in my opinion, crosses the line. How does he feel about the Ottomans? About the French? About the British? Why is it that the Jews perpetrate 'an abomination upon Arab lands?' Is it by virtue of the fact they're Jewish?
My guess is that you'll say no, that it's a principled objection to Israeli cruelty and brutality, etc. Your description, however, tells another story.
4049. ChadNeimim - 2/14/2050 5:03:28 PM
Hi CalGal,
What's this I hear about the Hamas blowing up a tank? Killing 3...
Know anything?
4050. Andonly - 2/14/2050 5:03:46 PM
Spanks, if fifty antisemites and fifty anti-Zionists got together and made 365 news reports demonizing Israel and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, which they claimed was an abomination responsible for all Arab ills, and then if a perfectly "neutral" guy watched little but these 365 reports for a year, and decided he hated Israel, wanted it gone, and wished it never existed, no matter the reason for its existence, is the neutral guy an antisemite?
Gosh, I don't know. Let's see: if I saw nothing but anti-Arab propaganda after 9-11 and therefore wished the US would go ahead and nuke Riyadh, Baghdad, and Cairo, would that make me anti-Arab or just anti-Saudi, anti-Iraq, anti-Egyptian?
It's funny you think you can tease out "political" from "irrational" hatred on the basis of what someone confesses to you.
4051. Andonly - 2/14/2050 5:05:33 PM
"Your description, however, tells another story."
Yep, but Spanks is a deaf man.
4052. ChadNeimim - 2/14/2050 5:07:48 PM
CalGal
(21:30) Large bomb kills 3, wounds 1 in Gaza
4053. ChadNeimim - 2/14/2050 5:09:30 PM
CalGal
trying again I see it didn't take the link before...
(21:30) Large bomb kills 3, wounds 1 in Gaza
4054. CalGal - 2/14/2050 5:09:44 PM
And--is there then no difference between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism, or are you saying that from a functional perspective they are much the same, so who cares?
4055. CalGal - 2/14/2050 5:10:42 PM
Chad, thanks for the link. I had just checked the NY Times site and hadn't seen anything there.
4056. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 5:13:14 PM
First of all, I'm open to a final decision on the hypothetical (based on a composit) Arab.
Do not misinterpret my comments I know that antisemitism exists, I have witnessed it, I have studied it at length. I will attest, at length, to personal experience of hearing antisemitic diatribe repeatedly many times, including in some very surprising circles. For some reason, antisemites think that I (a brown man) will be sympathetic to what they have to say, just as some racists think that I will condone their racism because I'm not black. In a business environment, even a fairly upscale one, neither phenomenon is very rare or very far below the surface.
Why is it that the Jews perpetrate 'an abomination upon Arab lands?' Is it by virtue of the fact they're Jewish?
That is a fair question. In this case, let us say that he considered all European colonialism on Arab lands an abomination, but not Ottoman rule since it was in the model of the caliphate. I'd say, without checking, that 90% of the Arabs I've encountered believe this.
He's not an anti-semite, is he? Unless he resorts to anti-semitic rhetoric, which - in my experience - most educated Arabs do not.
4057. Andonly - 2/14/2050 5:14:24 PM
AP's version:
Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Palestinians opened fire on a civilian convoy guarded by soldiers and set off a bomb. The Israelis sent a tank into the area and a huge bomb exploded under it, they said. The officials would not say whether the casualties were soldiers or civilians.
The bombing took place near the Netzarim intersection southeast of Gaza City, the officials said.
About 5,000 Israeli settlers live in Gaza among more than a million Palestinians. Israel controls the main roads through Gaza, and soldiers protect convoys of civilian vehicles entering and leaving the settlements.
The Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom sent ambulances to the scene of the bombing and the wounded were taken to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.
More at:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/677951.asp
4058. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 5:18:26 PM
if fifty antisemites and fifty anti-Zionists got together and made 365 news reports demonizing Israel and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, which they claimed was an abomination responsible for all Arab ills, and then if a perfectly "neutral" guy watched little but these 365 reports for a year, and decided he hated Israel, wanted it gone, and wished it never existed, no matter the reason for its existence, is the neutral guy an antisemite?
It depends.
Antisemitism requires hatred of the Jews, it is an objectively irrational psychological phenomenon. You cannot be a balanced, sane, individual and hate all Jews, or all Blacks or all Muslims, or all Sioux. It's a pathology, in my view.
4059. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 5:23:10 PM
Something intriguing -
The document details substantive negotiations over borders in the West Bank, and refutes charges that the Palestinians never presented a map of their own. Their map proposed Palestinian control of 96.9 percent of the West Bank (Israel proposed 94 percent), plus territorial exchanges to compensate for the remainder, which would be annexed to Israel. The parties essentially agreed Israel would evacuate Gaza.
The parties agreed that Jerusalem would be an open city, whose eastern part would be called Al-Quds and would be the capital of Palestine. The Palestinians agreed that most of the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem would remain under Israeli sovereignty, and both sides agreed to a division of the Old City. The document says "both sides were close to accepting Clinton's ideas regarding Palestinian sovereignty over Haram al-Sharif [Temple Mount]" and Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall.
Regarding the refugees, the parties agreed that a just resolution of the problem had to lead to implementation of UN General Assembly Resolution 194. There was no agreement on the number of refugees that would be allowed to enter Israel.
Unofficial EU document shows Israel agreed to pre-'67 borders
4060. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 5:25:15 PM
Anyway, a cosy menage awaits, it is Valentine's Day and I am outta here.
4061. mgleason - 2/14/2050 5:26:18 PM
He's not an anti-semite, is he? Unless he resorts to anti-semitic rhetoric, which - in my experience - most educated Arabs do not.
Anti-Semitic rhetoric is not a requirement. In fact, it is not unheard-of for anti-anythings to go to great lengths to disguise their inclinations, à la 'some of my best friends....' It's been my experience that educated people tend to avoid coming off as mouth-breathers, whatever their personal beliefs.
4062. ChadNeimim - 2/14/2050 5:32:27 PM
Well I will try this again another time... got to run!
4063. Andonly - 2/14/2050 5:39:57 PM
"is there then no difference between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism, or are you saying that from a functional perspective they are much the same, so who cares?"
Ther's surely a difference between anti-Zionsism and antisemitism in theory. But people aren't theoretical animals, and in reality antipathies overlap.
I really don't care what pseudo-academic blather Spanks dreams up in order to draw his imaginary bright line between the two impulses. What I care about is what Arabs say, and what they say is strictly antisemitic.
Again, this is not new. But no one who opposes the existence of Israel can claim he has not been influenced by antisemitic thinking if his rationales derive from Arabs' rage and pleadings of unique victimization at Israel's hands. Anyone who further discounts Jewish historical experience as irrelevant to the question of whether Jews have a right to a state... well, what is one to make of this?
4064. Andonly - 2/14/2050 5:44:21 PM
"In this case, let us say that he considered all European colonialism on Arab lands an abomination..."
No, let's not say it, because it isn't true. Jewish colonialism is worse: your friend believes it, and you should know he does.
4065. Andonly - 2/14/2050 5:46:46 PM
"Antisemitism requires hatred of the Jews, it is an objectively irrational psychological phenomenon."
Oh, so that's kind of like racism requiring the "hatred" of "all blacks," yes? Even though one doesn't actually dislike one's maid or one's child's nanny?
It's all clear to me now.
4066. Andonly - 2/14/2050 5:54:30 PM
And of course this is blazingly true and shouldn't have to be pointed out:
"Anti-Semitic rhetoric is not a requirement. In fact, it is not unheard-of for anti-anythings to go to great lengths to disguise their inclinations, à la 'some of my best friends....' It's been my experience that educated people tend to avoid coming off as mouth-breathers, whatever their personal beliefs."
4067. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 6:03:20 PM
I just started reading, on the PATH, an interesting rumination on jewishness by Adam Gopnick, in the new New Yorker. Good stuff, really, I may quote from it if I have time (and remember to take the copy) tomorrow.
--
4065 is silly. Siegman has something extremely worthwhile to say in that context, I'll quote from it tomorrow.
---
4065 is similarly silly. I wrote off the cuff. How about something like "in order to be antisemitic, you have to hate Jews for being Jews, it's a pathology etc etc." In fact, I think that's it - when you hate a black person because he's black - you're a racist, isn't it? So, if you hate someone because he's a Jew you're an antisemite.
---
I wish Spike got the New Yorker.
4068. marjoribanks - 2/14/2050 6:08:18 PM
Ms. Gleason's point is well-taken. However, it strikes me that you need some evidence before you can throw around epithets, especially very loaded and meaningful ones like anti-semite.
--
But no one who opposes the existence of Israel can claim he has not been influenced by antisemitic thinking if his rationales derive from Arabs' rage and pleadings of unique victimization at Israel's hands.
No one I know bases their opposition on these things. It can be a straight anti-colonial stance, and you know it.
Anyone who further discounts Jewish historical experience as irrelevant to the question of whether Jews have a right to a state... well, what is one to make of this?
Intriguing, intriguing, intriguing. I shall return to this tomorrow.
4069. CalGal - 2/14/2050 6:40:44 PM
What I care about is what Arabs say, and what they say is strictly antisemitic.
Yes, this I agree with.
I would describe myself as mildly anti-zionist--or at least I am completely unconvinced as to the value or historical right to a state. I don't wish to get into an argument about it because I also don't much care. What's done is done, the state is here, and while I don't see any inherent right to a state, I also don't much object to special consideration being given to Jews given their history.
This does not mean I set much store in Arab anger over Israel--for much the same reasons. What's done is done, get over it, etc. I used to have some sympathy for Palestinians; it was used up when Arafat turned down Barak's last offer. I have never had any sympathy for Arab hatred of Israel; it never made any sense to me--and in fact, made more sense when I viewed it as part of the larger picture of Islam gone awry.
Put in practical terms, this means my support for Israel is based on its value to American interests only, likewise my support for US ME policy, and I suspect I am reasonably representative of most Americans in this. But you'd probably have a better gut feel about this than I would.
I was interested in your linking the two (anti-semitism and anti-Zionism) because I am so completely out of touch on religion I wouldn't even know how to be anti-semitic. So far as I think of religions at all, Judaism seems more sensible than most.
(cont'd)
4070. pseudoerasmus - 2/14/2050 6:42:07 PM
I don't understand why such a big deal is being made about Arab anti-semitism.
Anti-semitism. Anti-semitism. It's a talismanic word apparently for westerners.
The Israel / Palestine thing is an ethnic territorial conflict, no different ultimately from the Graeco-Turkish, or the Indo-Pak conflict over Kashmir, or the various conflicts over Kurdistan, etc. Peoples enmeshed in ethnic conflicts develop racist and ethnic stereotypes about their opponents.
That an Arab should entertain anti-semitic beliefs & feelings is only natural and to be expected. (Just as some Israelis should entertain racist prejudices against Arabs.)
I really see no grounds for special condemnation of Arab anti-semitism. In the West the Holocaust has made anti-semitism a Big Deal. But outside the West, it's just another form of racism/ethnocentrism and shouldn't really be held up as some gross ethical dereliction. It shouldn't be viewed as any worse than, say, Greek Turcophobia.
4071. CalGal - 2/14/2050 6:45:10 PM
On the other hand, I have been worried about the dangers of Islam since 9/11, and consider US exhortations of tolerance to be misguided and potentially dangerous. For years I used to have vague worries about Arabs and their complete denial of reality when it displeased them, whereas now I wonder how much of that is due to Islam.
I wouldn't say my worries about Islam are prejudice; they are more a wariness of a belief system that seems to have failed to secularize. But whatever. I wonder how many anti-zionists are pro-semitic anti-Islamists?
4072. pseudoerasmus - 2/14/2050 6:51:43 PM
Message # 4048
"the very presence of Israel - which he considers an abomination foisted on Arab lands. He hates Israel, he would like it not to have existed, he would like it to cease to exist."
That, in my opinion, crosses the line. How does he feel about the Ottomans? About the French? About the British? Why is it that the Jews perpetrate 'an abomination upon Arab lands?' Is it by virtue of the fact they're Jewish?"
I think the crucial difference, if I may be so bold, is that the Turks, the French and the British left. I can't imagine why Arabs should be particularly antisemitic if there was no Israel in their midst.
4073. CalGal - 2/14/2050 6:57:30 PM
On a different subject--has anyone seen the documentary A Day in September, on the Munich Massacre? I have always known that the Germans handled the situation badly and that the Olympic committee was arrogantly dismissive in continuing the games, but I was stunned at what seemed to be completely new information. I was wondering how much was common knowledge that I just missed out on?
4074. CalGal - 2/14/2050 6:58:54 PM
One journalist mentions that no one thought for a moment that the Germans didn't have some crack commando squad who could handle this. I wonder, did the Israelis not know this either? Were they expecting it to be handled more efficiently? Or did they know and just write off the hostages as dead, planning their own revenge later? The chief of the Mossad had been flown over to observe things, and one of the documentaries major coups is their interview with him. His outrage is still palpable, 30 years later. So I wonder if Israel knew how completely they were handing the athletes to the wolves. Surely they would have demanded to intervene, or at least contacted other countries to help them out?
On the other hand, it was only a day. It's not like they had much time to react.
I realize this may not be the right thread, but I figured that Andonly or Pike might have more knowledge of what is commonly known.
4075. judithathome - 2/14/2050 7:23:12 PM
I knew about #2 but not the rest...don't know why I'd have known about that but I did.
4076. Andonly - 2/14/2050 11:10:10 PM
"I really see no grounds for special condemnation of Arab anti-semitism."
That's very brave and cosmopolitan of you, but no one here is proffering "special," as opposed to ordinary, condemnation of Arab antisemitism.
"In the West the Holocaust has made anti-semitism a Big Deal. But outside the West, it's just another form of racism/ethnocentrism and shouldn't really be held up as some gross ethical dereliction. It shouldn't be viewed as any worse than, say, Greek Turcophobia."
Yes, in the west, we with our silly post-Holocaust, post-civil rights era "western values" view racism with the derision it deserves. But no, antisemitism is not viewed as worse than anti-black racism, or any sort of racism.
It's a terrible affliction, isn't it, to consider racism bad and incendiary. I hope someday to visit the People's Republic of China for a long sojourn, where I will gradually be disabused of the whole ridiculous concept that attempting to keep ethnic hatred out of political conflict is a good idea. Then I'll be able to despise Arabs freely, the better to assist my countrymen by claiming as credulously as possible that Arabs poison wells and, oh, make sex slaves out of god-fearing Christian women.
But who cares about my epiphanies to come, let's focus on those who have already had all theirs: if you're a very pompous and self-righteous immigrant to the west who considers himself far, far above racism, and yet wants to do business with antisemitic sheikhs, you apparently must convince yourself that Arab antisemitism is either not quite real or else justifiable.
4077. Andonly - 2/14/2050 11:12:35 PM
"I would describe myself as mildly anti-zionist--or at least I am completely unconvinced as to the value or historical right to a state. ...What's done is done, the state is here, and while I don't see any inherent right to a state, I also don't much object to special consideration being given to Jews given their history.
This does not mean I set much store in Arab anger over Israel--for much the same reasons. What's done is done, get over it, etc."
A balanced and disinterested view, which I personally would not consider likely to be influenced by antisemitism.
4078. Andonly - 2/14/2050 11:19:43 PM
By the way, I'm mystified by Spanks' link to that Akiva Eldar piece which claims that the "newly released document" about the talks at Taba "refutes charges that the Palestinians never presented a map of their own". Everyone knows that the Taba talks were going well and that the two sides were very near agreement, certainly on most important security issues. I, for one, was holding out hope during them. That claim that Palestinians never presented their own proposal was made about Camp David, not Taba. I'm sure this stuff was written about extensively in the NYT or other Murcan organs, so it's implausible Israelis other than Eldar knew nothing of it.
4079. Andonly - 2/14/2050 11:28:08 PM
CalGal, I've never seen the documentary you mention, but I've read allusions to some of the things you mention. Perhaps Pike knows more.
4080. Andonly - 2/14/2050 11:33:02 PM
CalGal: "So far as I think of religions at all, Judaism seems more sensible than most."
Well, its modernist manifestations are quite sensible, but so are Christianity's and Islam's. Jewish Orthodoxy is exactly as stupid as orthodox Islam--they're only too similar, in fact--and the two together are either slightly more or slightly less stupid than orthodox Christianity, I haven't decided.
Then there's polytheism...
4081. innatysoe - 2/14/2050 11:46:28 PM
"States are established to protect the interests and realize the aspirations of those who create them" (Freeman, 1997:3).
Hence should the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbullah and the rest of the terrorist alphabet soup create a state in Gaza and West Bank, they will do so to realize their, not America's, aspirations and to protect their, not America's, interests.
Do you feel that the creation of such a state is in America's best interest?
4082. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 12:32:26 AM
Right now we're all trying to understand how they managed to blow up that Merkava. Seems the tanks was simply blown apart. The turret came off.
Big blow for Merkava fans like Jexster.
4083. CalGal - 2/15/2050 12:40:05 AM
And,
I recommend the movie; it won the Oscar for documentary last year in large part because they gamed the system, but once you overlook that sin it's well-made. Extremely upsetting, though. No one comes off well.
4084. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 1:27:07 AM
Message # 4076
"...no one here is proffering "special," as opposed to ordinary, condemnation of Arab antisemitism."
You all are, implicitly.
"Yes, in the west, we with our silly post-Holocaust, post-civil rights era "western values" view racism with the derision it deserves. But no, antisemitism is not viewed as worse than anti-black racism, or any sort of racism."
Rubbish.
Certain classes of racism, including antisemitism, are considered -- implicitly, de facto, tacitly, etc. -- worse, much worse, than other kinds of racism. Notice how goodnaturedly it's taken if someone tells a Greek joke, but Jewish jokes by non-Jews are beyond the pale. No one bats an eyelid if someone were to make references to filthy dung-covered Hindooo brides who jump into their husbands' funeral pyres, but imagine if classic stereotypes about Jews were aired.
4085. Al D - 2/15/2050 1:47:09 AM
No one bats an eyelid if someone were to make references to filthy dung-covered Hindooo brides who jump into their husbands' funeral pyres, but imagine if classic stereotypes about Jews were aired.
I batted both eyelids at the very thought. What kind of a world do you live in?
banks
do you imagine your friend Fisk might be a little tiny bit anti-semitic?
4086. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 2:15:33 AM
The point is that one gets ostracised for airing racist stereotypes only about some peoples but not others. I am not critising that disparity. I am saying it's only natural.
4087. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 2:16:04 AM
criticising
4088. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 2:18:26 AM
For example, I've called Marjoribanks a "filthy Hindooo" many times, and no one cared any more than if I had called him "fucking bastard". But if I had called Andonly a "filthy Jewess" I would have been reproved at the very least.
4089. concerned - 2/15/2050 2:27:10 AM
Now, if a good way could be found to effectively 'ostracize' Muslims for their racist stereotypes....
4090. concerned - 2/15/2050 2:33:20 AM
My god! I'm suddenly a nonagenerian!
4091. concerned - 2/15/2050 2:34:56 AM
4089. concerned - 2/15/2050 7:27:10 AM
4092. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 2:52:16 AM
Whoa! We've been transported in time! It's that Usama dude again! He's dropped the age bomb!
4093. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 6:59:34 AM
Anyhow - Ya'acov Amor says he isn't running in Katzir and if there are elections here he'll help me go to the Likud and get their backing.
That leaves me with the job of arranging Sandrov's ouster and the holding of new elections. We are to hold a rally at which Amor, Councillor Kashi, Ofra Cohen of Harish and I shall be speaking.
Problem is, all this is interfering humungously with my being able to do any kind of old fashioned work in the meantime.
4094. PincherMartin - 2/15/2050 8:31:19 AM
For example, I've called Marjoribanks a "filthy Hindooo" many times, and no one cared any more than if I had called him "fucking bastard". But if I had called Andonly a "filthy Jewess" I would have been reproved at the very least.
When I first saw "filthy Hindooo" in one of PE's post a few years back, I was honestly shocked. But I knew -- or thought I knew -- PE was Pakistani. I just assumed it was a subcon-thing, sort of like how only black men can call other black men "niggers."
This was reinforced later when PE told Marj his pidgin Hindi would never compare to PE's poetic Urdu. I thought there must be some sort of subcon rivalry going on between the two of them. Certainly, if other people habitually called Marj a "filthy Hindooo," I never noticed.
Of course, I had no idea at the time what a Pathan was. I also didn't know that, anthropologically-speaking, a Pathan is as far from a Hindu as a German is.
So what PE assumes was the rest of us not caring what he said about Marj, was really -- at least in my case -- more a matter of not understanding the context of the insult.
I have a sneaky suspicion I'm not the only one who misunderstood the context.
4095. Andonly - 2/15/2050 8:38:31 AM
"No one bats an eyelid if someone were to make references to filthy dung-covered Hindooo brides who jump into their husbands' funeral pyres, but imagine if classic stereotypes about Jews were aired."
Pseudoerasmus, you are as usual out of touch with what people think, at least in th US. What you're describing sounds like a British paradigm.
Frankly, I can't think of a social situation in the US where it would be appropriate among right-thinkers for you to drop some Anglo schoolboy derision of Hindus into the conversation.
We know you here, we all understand your proclivities, but if some subcon were to take offense after all these years I can't say I'd blame him. Particularly under circmstances where such a person's background or association with a country was the subject of routine slander or political harping, I could see someone taking offense, and I expect most of us would sympathize.
But he likely would avoid saying anything here, for fear of being judged unsporting, just as you fear annoying Jews because you might be labelled an antisemite.
4096. Andonly - 2/15/2050 8:59:36 AM
"...no one here is proffering "special," as opposed to ordinary, condemnation of Arab antisemitism."
You all are, implicitly.
No.
Arabs and those who sympathize with anti-Zionism strenuously deny Arab antisemitism, deceiving both themselves and part of their audience (Europe). The importance of convincing Europeans in particular that there's a dstinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism has been occasioned by the Arab need to overcome Euro guilt and moralizing about the Holocaust: otherwise, no Frenchman, Englishman, or German could afford politically or socially to sympathize with Arabs.
Thus the criticism of Arab antisemitism (from this corner) is not only that it infests Arabs' political claims and should open them to closer scrutiny, but that the belief by moralizing gits like Spanks that it doesn't is pernicious.
It will be pointd out by someone here eventually that Israelis also hate Arabs (for being Arabs). Of course this is perfectly true--of a relative minority of Israelis. But Israelis have mostly adopted western notions concerning racism. Compared to the intensity and scope of Arab Jew-hatred, Jewish Arab-hatred is trivial. Which is why Israel has Shalom Achshav and B'tselem and Haaretz, and the Arabs have rampant paranoia about Jews and Israel, and an increasingly immoderate street.
4097. Andonly - 2/15/2050 9:05:25 AM
"When I first saw "filthy Hindooo" in one of PE's post a few years back, I was honestly shocked. But I knew -- or thought I knew -- PE was Pakistani. I just assumed it was a subcon-thing, sort of like how only black men can call other black men "niggers." "
Pincher's reaction was identical to mine, PE. And Spanks never took you to task, so...
4098. Andonly - 2/15/2050 9:12:08 AM
PE posted to Maria that Arab anti-Zionism might be more intense than Arab anticolonialism in general for the simple reason that the other colonialists (Ottomans, Brits, and French) left and the Israelis didn't. I'll address this suggestion if Maria doesn't get around to it.
4099. mgleason - 2/15/2050 9:45:56 AM
Gahead, Andonly.
My musings ran along the lines of the offer by the Mufti to solve the 'Jewish problem' (which consisted of two Jews and five guys who looked Jewish to the Mufti), four hundred years of Ottoman rule with no real sense of 'abomination' visited upon the Arabs, and the hysteria that you mention. I'm sure you'll do a better job.
For the record, Pincher describes my thoughts as well.
4100. Wombat - 2/15/2050 10:12:12 AM
Many Arab official publications and governments have taken on board the "analysis" provided by publications such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and derive their statements on the role of Jews in the United States from them. The "street" takes an even more extreme tack in re 9/11.
In my experience, there is a narrow band of antizionist belief that avoids antisemitism, but the border between the two is easily and often crossed.
What the rest of the world needs to understand about the US and Israel is that there are a number of affinities that bring the two together in a way that does not exist with the US and other countries in the region.
1) They are liberal, multiethnic, democracies (with the strengths and contradictions thereof);
2) They share a similar founding story (or myth, if one wants to be uncharitable), which is actively propagated by Israel, and which has been very successful in garnering support from non-Jews in the US.
3) The influence of the religious right(which one would think would be a hot-bed of ntisemitism --and sometimes is), which apparently sees the state of Israel as one of the precursors of the revelations, armageddon, etc., on the Republican Party.
4101. Andonly - 2/15/2050 10:21:14 AM
Well, I'd cover the same points, emphasizing that the Turks didn't exactly leave right away, but that Arabs mostly accepted them because they adopted Islam and ruled in its name. And because prior to the Turkish conquest Arabs had already influenced Turkish culture to some extent; Turks were not considered beneath them, as Jews have always been considered beneath them. (Which is understandable, given the absence by then of a thriving Jewish city-state or empire; this touches on one of Hertzl's central insights, by the way.) Beyond that the comparison is probably inapt because we're talking about Arabs who, philosophically and politically, bear a pretty distant relationship to Arabs today.
As for the Brits and the French, if a background racism were not in play one would think Arabs should feel more loathing for the Europeans, not less, as both powers meant to own all of Arabia, not just a piece of swampland the size of New Jersey in which, prior to the Zionists, there lived maybe one million people. Did not the French maintain influence in Lebanon after the creation of the state? Were the Brits not interested in Israel as an outpost when it was created?
Where is the contempt of Europe that Arabs express toward Israel--or to put in in Osama bin Laden's apparently well-received words, "the petty state of the Jews"?
Finally: what has Israel got to do, materially, with most Arabs, not to mention Iranians for god's sake? It must surely be an insult for Jews to occupy a sliver of "rightfully" Arab land. But all things considered, insult is a pretty trivial thing over which to wage years and years of war, ensure economic instability, promote political extremism, and enshrine popular misery.
4102. Andonly - 2/15/2050 10:21:34 AM
There is nothing in the pan-Arabist attitude toward Israel that doesn't seem congrous with the attitudes of white southerners toward blacks in this country. In the sixties and seventies, even the eighties, they were still pissed about the fucking Civil War. It was a matter of honor, and contempt for the niggers who got over at the expense of their own great glory. You understand, no one today defends slavery. But for racist southerners, blacks should never have taken a place in "white society," in a land "rightfully" dominated by white people.
4103. Wombat - 2/15/2050 10:27:47 AM
Perhaps many Arabs have yet to successfully intellectualize how a people who had been tolerated as weak and contemptible dhimmi could suddenly become so powerful and aggressive toward them.
4104. Andonly - 2/15/2050 10:31:05 AM
My 4101 was in response to MG's 4099.
I agree with Wombat, with the caveat that the surprisingly positive influence of fundamentalist Xtianity on US attitudes toward Israel is, I think, fairly small, even in the halls of power.
And I would add that post 9-11, US sympathy for Israel apparently has grown, fertilized by OBL's virulent attitude toward Israel and his undisguised contempt for Jews. If a Muslim zealot will kill civilians over the perception of the US and Israel as Satanic, then Israel must be even more like the US than Americans would otherwise assume...
4105. Andonly - 2/15/2050 10:34:43 AM
"Perhaps many Arabs have yet to successfully intellectualize how a people who had been tolerated as weak and contemptible dhimmi could suddenly become so powerful and aggressive toward them."
As I understand it, this is the way they've intellectualized that phenomenon: the contemptible Jews were helped by imperialist America, which they control, just as they control nearly everything in the world outside Arab lands. Just as they intend to control all of the Arabs' lands eventually.
4106. Wombat - 2/15/2050 10:39:23 AM
The main benefit of the religious right is that it has obviated potential Republican party hostility toward Israel ("Socialist," an obstacle to relationships with oil-rich countries, etc.)
4107. mgleason - 2/15/2050 10:39:27 AM
Perhaps many Arabs have yet to successfully intellectualize how a people who had been tolerated as weak and contemptible dhimmi could suddenly become so powerful and aggressive toward them.
Yes, I had the same thought after reading Andonly's post. There is a palpable outrage, doubtless fueled by anger and humiliation over Islam's long slide away from the power it enjoyed in its salad days, but different in quality and intensity from that evoked by the Western infidels who have provoked so much more humiliation.
4108. Andonly - 2/15/2050 10:40:20 AM
The thing is, Jews are quite influential in the US. Far beyond our numbers.
In fact, I think the reason it's increasingly hard to identify Jewish "types" in the US apart from other people is not altogether because Jews have assimilated. It's because America has absorbed aspects of "Jewishness".
4109. Andonly - 2/15/2050 10:42:03 AM
"The main benefit of the religious right is that it has obviated potential Republican party hostility toward Israel ("Socialist," an obstacle to relationships with oil-rich countries, etc.)"
Yeah, I'll concede that's exactly right.
4110. mgleason - 2/15/2050 10:57:10 AM
Andonly,
Not related to the current discussion, but what do you think of the growing interest in crypto-Judaism in the Southwest? I know a woman in another forum who converted, along with her husband, because of his researches into his background (Spanish/Catholic), and his conviction that his family had tried to maintain the faith in an underground manner.
4111. Wombat - 2/15/2050 11:00:27 AM
From what I have read, it is based on myth rather than actuality.
4112. Andonly - 2/15/2050 11:06:48 AM
I haven't heard more than that a few years ago, lots of Xtians in New Mexico began discovering that their families once had been Jewish.
What's the long version, Wombat?
4113. mgleason - 2/15/2050 11:07:19 AM
That's what I've read, too, but she's highly insulted by that point of view. I can't talk to her about it.
4114. Wombat - 2/15/2050 11:11:23 AM
I read a piece in Harper's a while ago. Apparently what little physical evidence was provided was false or ambiguous, and ethnographers had trouble accepting it as anything other than a orally propagated myth.
4115. ronski - 2/15/2050 11:29:44 AM
Andonly,
What aspects of Jewishness would that be?
4116. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 11:54:11 AM
What I don't understand is why we are waiting for Iran, Iraq, Syria etc. to get nuclear weapons. It's not totally unlike the way the world waited for Hitler to rearm and strike before doing anything about it.
4117. ronski - 2/15/2050 11:59:21 AM
From what I'm seeing coming out of Washington, I suspect the Bush Administration is decidedly not waiting for Saddam to obtain nukes, for the fear that he will surreptiously give them to terrorists for detonating in the U.S.
4118. Andonly - 2/15/2050 1:25:45 PM
"What aspects of Jewishness would that be?"
Culturally, a lot of little things. Bagels and cream cheese are pretty ubiquitous nowadays, as are all-beef hotdogs.
But more than that, Jewish humor and expressions have infiltrated the mainstream for years, especially certain inflections and ironic takes. And there's Yiddish. By the time they've been to college, even farmgirls in the midwest can pull out a few Yiddishisms without having any idea where they came from: "chotchkes", "schmear", "schlep". I don't know any adult black person on the east coast who doesn't use the lingo. Now, of course, "Jewishkeit" has been so mainstreamed it's been eclipsed in importance by black culture, which has taken some of Jewishness's old outsider cachet and modified it to include a more visceral rebellion.
4119. Andonly - 2/15/2050 1:34:09 PM
Then there's Hollywod. Hollywood since the '60s has historically been chock full o' Jews, and they brought Jewish notions with them into what they did. Consider the television phenomenon which was Star Trek, a weekly moral sermonette whose creator, several writers, and the two starring actors were Jewish. At least two episodes of Star Trek dealt with Nazis or the Nazi era. One episode featured the first-ever interracial kiss on television. Nearly every episode pitted the droll southern doctor against the proxy Jew, Mr. Spock, a hyperintellectual whose culture was remote and incomprehensible to outsiders. Even Mr. Spock's trademark hand salute, with which he intoned a quintessentially Jewish "live long and prosper", was invented by the actor who played him. Lepnard Nimoy used to peek through his 2nd and 3rd fingers when his face was supposed to be covered during the recitation of the prayer over the lighting of Shabbos candles.
All this stuff was Jews, incidentally or intentionally, getting Gentiles to sympathize with and internalize with American Jewishness, with the way Jews saw their own and others' place in the US. It popularized Jewish American values and gave common Jewish concerns a prominence in American conciousness that they might not otherwise have had. Certainly wouldn't have had in the same form.
4120. Andonly - 2/15/2050 1:35:06 PM
Yes, the character of the outsider was popularized early, especially by James Dean, but the outsider was even more outside when he was Leonard Nimoy, Lou Reed, Bobby Zimmerman--not just outside psychologically, but constitutionally exotic in some undefined way way. These guys all disguised their Jewishness, went walking in America as people freed from something, and became icons at different levels of pop culture. And here were all these white American kids identifying with guys who had shucked off the trappings of traditional Jewish culture--Jews freed from old Judaism, but not unmarked by it.
Apart for the influence of Jewish pop or middlebrow culture on Americans, there has been highbrow culture. The opinions of lots and lots of influential Jews--people whose values include both the strains of traditional diaspora Jewish tolerance (Michael Kinsley) and the Talmudic defensiveness that commands us to kill first anyone who means to kill us (Charles Krauthammer)--these opinions are now American opinions. They've found purchase and been integrated into American thinking. And we don't hear in the (white) US, as we might in South Africa or Italy or some other country strongly suffused with Christian values, too much about turning the other cheek and forgiving sinners. In--what to call it? Post-Jewish America?--it's understood that some sinners you can't afford to forgive.
4121. CalGal - 2/15/2050 1:44:25 PM
Hollywood since the '60s has historically been chock full o' Jews
I wouldn't disagree with the rest of your essay, but Hollywood has been chock full o' Jews since there was a Hollywood. Every major studio was started by a Jew--Goldwyn, Mayer, Warner, Cohn. Producers: David O. Selznick, Irving Thalberg. I think the only major non-Jewish producer was Darryl Zanuck.
Interesting that the 60s were the first decade in which the studio system was dismantled, giving the Jewish studio heads a lot less power. And of course, it was Zanuck who made Gentleman's Agreement. I think I've read that the studio owners were actually terrified that their loyalty would be called into question, and bent over backwards to avoid such problems. Cellar would know more about this.
4122. mgleason - 2/15/2050 1:48:51 PM
Some of my first non-Spanish words were in Yiddish. We'd moved next-door to a retired teacher whose grandchildren lived in California, so I became a surrogate.
I don't know about other schools, but I went to liberal Catholic ones in NY where books like The Diary of Anne Frank and the novels of Chaim Potok were staples. For a long time I thought that the entire world was made up of Catholics and Jews.
4123. Andonly - 2/15/2050 2:27:15 PM
"Hollywood since the '60s has historically been chock full o' Jews"
Sorry, that was an incomplete deletion of a side remark about academia since the 60s...
4124. Andonly - 2/15/2050 2:35:46 PM
Innatysoe: ""States are established to protect the interests and realize the aspirations of those who create them" (Freeman, 1997:3).
"Hence should the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbullah and the rest of the terrorist alphabet soup create a state in Gaza and West Bank, they will do so to realize their, not America's, aspirations and to protect their, not America's, interests.
"Do you feel that the creation of such a state is in America's best interest?"
1. Who is Freeman, why do you quote him, and what text are you obliquely referencing?
2. In answer to your question, I'll pose one: what are America's interests?
4125. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 2:42:37 PM
Ando:
Aren't you reading a tad too much into Nimoy's character? Are you saying Jews have big noses and pointy ears?
4126. Andonly - 2/15/2050 2:47:38 PM
"Some of my first non-Spanish words were in Yiddish."
Yesss. That's how we work it.
First a few words of Yiddish, next you're using phrases like "God forbid" and "...,you should pardon the expression,...". After a few years of this you become ironical and then it's just a short step to poisoning wells.
4127. Andonly - 2/15/2050 2:50:50 PM
"Aren't you reading a tad too much into Nimoy's character? Are you saying Jews have big noses and pointy ears?"
Yes, that's it, that's all I'm saying. Jews have big noses and pointy ears.
4128. mgleason - 2/15/2050 2:51:52 PM
See what a good job she did?
4129. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 3:11:25 PM
Hmmm, yes, I see.
Well, I agree with the observation about America having become a lot more Jewish. Look at the popularity Seinfeld enjoyed: that was a series not just by Jews but also about Jews. It was all very Jewish, and the Jews weren't trying to be gentilish, or masking their Jewishness - they were being very Jewish. Yet it was a mainstream smash hit. More mainstream than any Woody Allen film ever was.
4130. marjoribanks - 2/15/2050 3:15:29 PM
I don't give a shit, and have never given a shit about the terms thrown around by the tribal savage.
You have to realize who they're coming from, you see. I know the twerp, quite well, and have spent thousands of hours online fighting with him, and I dismiss it particularly since I'm familiar with his background.
I also, you may have noted, never throw around the array of terms available for those of his own background (s). I also never ever slash at his (or anyone else's) wife, children, parents, grandparents, or ethnicity.
That's because I prefer to restrict my namecalling to the individual, and I like to be amiable, perhaps occasionally cheeky.
--
I have many comments wrt the posts made here in the last several hours, but you will all be sorry to hear that I have no time and may only return to this space on Tuesday.
4131. marjoribanks - 2/15/2050 3:17:46 PM
Gopnik waxes on about the Jews, America, Jewishness and even Seinfeld in the article I mentioned yesterday.
4132. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 3:18:13 PM
Of course, if we include Star Trek I insist on analyzing Gilligan's Island as well. Gilligan was the Jew, of course: not pretty like the professor, not burly and strong like the captain - slim and slight and doofy, yet somehow more charismatic than all the other characters. His hat, of course, is a permutation of the Hasidic shtreimel.
Then there was the robot from Lost in Space - what could be more classically Jewish than the hysterical, cerebral helplessness of 'does not compute! does not compute'?.
And there's the Indian character from F Troop, of course.
4133. Property of Jesus - 2/15/2050 3:23:31 PM
Seinfelt wasn't so much about being Jewish, it was about being a New Yorker.
4134. Andonly - 2/15/2050 3:47:04 PM
"Seinfelt wasn't so much about being Jewish, it was about being a New Yorker."
Are you kidding? Every one of the regular characters was a Jewsh stereotype. (Maybe with the exception of Kramer. Maybe.)
Spanks is right about that Gopnik article, one of his most insightful in a long time. And Gopnik does make the same point Pike has made; it's not exactly news.
4135. Andonly - 2/15/2050 3:49:26 PM
"His hat, of course, is a permutation of the Hasidic shtreimel."
HAHAHAHA! Bob Denver: Chasidic Jew!
This would be fine Mad TV material, you know.
Hey, Pike. I think I've hit upon the solution to your financial woes.
4136. mgleason - 2/15/2050 3:54:07 PM
Seriously. That's one of the funniest things I've read in a while.
4137. Andonly - 2/15/2050 3:55:37 PM
"I also, you may have noted, never throw around the array of terms available for those of his own background (s). I also never ever slash at his (or anyone else's) wife, children, parents, grandparents, or ethnicity."
Congratulations, Margarinespanks, you superb human being. Surely you are unique in all the Mote. May the Divine One Blessed Be He inscribe you forever in the Book of Life.
4138. CalGal - 2/15/2050 4:04:24 PM
I'm sure that your Jewish business partner appreciated the amiable, occasionally cheeky, way in which you unceremoniously kicked him out of the company when his background became inconvenient. Enduring these little indignities is so much easier when ethnicity isn't mentioned.
4139. Andonly - 2/15/2050 4:23:55 PM
"Hmmm, yes, I see."
Really, Pike, of all the actors that could have been chosen to play Mr. Spock, why did they pick a guy a) who couldn't act but b) aside from the pointy ears and Vulcan haircut looked for all the world like he could've just migrated to the US from Yemen via Lithuania?
Mr. Spock was a Jew. He couldn't even marry outside the tribe. They had a gal at home picked out and waiting for him. Sure, he got some non-Vulcan/alien nafke pussy now and then, but only when he was drugged or insane or otherwise not himself.
Oh, and I forgot: he was the product of an intermarriage. His mother was a particularly goyische earthling who "converted" to Vulcan, as it were. Spock's recurring identity crisis--a half Vulcan, by choice separated from his closed and arcane culture, surrounded by space's dominant culture, Earth--was one of Mr. Spock's main character traits. In the alien Earth Federation/American culture, Spock makes good, becomes famous, and makes all the Vulcans back at home, especially his mother and father, proud of him. But all along, he's lonely, and although he keeps apart, he's never quite sure who he is. He overcompensates with the Vulcan-ness (in one episode, his mother asks plaintively, "Is there nothing of me in you?"), but being Second in Command and Captain Kirk's closest confidante (the Court Jew with the ear of the King), he finds himself assimilating in little ways.
And--keeping in mind that this character was written by Jews--Spock is loyal. Boy, is he loyal. Loyal to Kirk. Loyal to the Federation. And a stickler for the letter of the law.
Jew. Spock is a Jew. I've noticed it since I was a kid, I can't believe you never have.
4140. Andonly - 2/15/2050 5:09:11 PM
Meron Benvenisti in Haaretz:
It's not easy to explain how the ostracism and house arrest imposed by his sworn enemy - the one who regrets not killing Arafat in Beirut long ago - has turned into an almost universal boycott of the leader of the Palestinian people. The "awakening campaign" by those Israeli groups who visit him day after day in his besieged office to cheer him up only emphasize the artificiality of his "independent" status in the shadow of Israeli army tanks.
Under other conditions, the brutal siege of a national leader would have resulted in enraged reactions at home and abroad that would only have bolstered the besieged leader's stature. Instead, everyone important is keeping their distance, finding good reasons not to answer his desperate phone calls. One is angry because Arafat betrayed him, another holds a grudge because Arafat tried to undermine him, and a third wants to stay as far from possible from people the Americans don't like.
4141. stostosto - 2/15/2050 5:09:39 PM
Seinfeld is Jewish?
4142. concerned - 2/15/2050 7:17:53 PM
The influence of the religious right(which one would think would be a hot-bed of ntisemitism --and sometimes is),
No, one wouldn't think that, unless one was grossly aware of the fact that some of Israel's strongest non-Jewish supporters are fundamentalist Xtians.
4143. concerned - 2/15/2050 7:18:35 PM
Correction:
No, one wouldn't think that, unless one was grossly unaware of the fact that some of Israel's strongest non-Jewish supporters are fundamentalist Xtians.
4144. transient1a - 2/15/2050 9:50:48 PM
Message # 4119
Andonly,
.."live long and prosper".... Lepnard Nimoy used to peek through his 2nd and 3rd fingers when his face was supposed to be covered during the recitation of the prayer over the lighting of Shabbos candles.
What??
Feminist revisionism!!
Lebt lang und Erfolgreich!
The members used to turn away from the Cohen, while he practiced the Duchan – the priestly benediction – because it was forbidden to see proceeding. Nimoy couldn’t suppress his curiosity and turned cautiously around, unseen by his father, so that he could see the risen priests hands. The whole proceeding had something mysterious, magic for him since then, an attitude that he wanted to introduce to the Star Trek series, to give the Vulcans this mysterious touch. Since then, they open their hands to the Hebrew letter shin, which is the abbreviation for Shaddai – Almighty.
4145. transient1a - 2/15/2050 9:56:41 PM
Message # 4141
stostosto,
Seinfeld is Jewish?
YES. Could he be otherwise?
4146. Al D - 2/15/2050 10:10:22 PM
As I understand it, this is the way they've intellectualized that phenomenon: the contemptible Jews were helped by imperialist America, which they control, just as they control nearly everything in the world outside Arab lands. Just as they intend to control all of the Arabs' lands eventually
Do you suppose there is some large group in America that has this view? Anybody care to make a suggestion? Nah, too politically incorrect.
4147. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:15:39 PM
I haven't denied Arab antisemitism, and I haven't denied that antisemitism is mixed up intimately with anti-Zionism. What I did say was that Arab anti-semitism was hardly surprising and not such a big deal.
It is a reality that in the USA if one airs Jewish jokes or stereotypes (or anti-black jokes or stereotypes), one gets rebuked or ostracised. In the USA anti-oriental jokes or stereotypes are beginning to achieve the same taboo status (the intensity depends on where in the country). But in general, one can air racist jokes or stereotypes about almost all other ethnic groups in the USA with impunity. Of course I'm not talking about frothing at the mouth about race-wars and Lebensraum and genetic inferiority. I'm talking about airing jokes and stereotypes which would be thought racist when spoken about blacks and Jews.
Message # 4095: "What you're describing sounds like a British paradigm."
What you call the "right-thinking people" in the UK are punctiliously more PC than people in the USA. The British are simply insufferable in this respect.
"But Israelis have mostly adopted western notions concerning racism..Compared to the intensity and scope of Arab Jew-hatred, Jewish Arab-hatred is trivial.."
So you say. I think you're just tuned into some westernised PC elites of Israel.
4148. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:16:21 PM
Message # 4099: "My musings ran along the lines of the offer by the Mufti to solve the 'Jewish problem' (which consisted of two Jews and five guys who looked Jewish to the Mufti)..."
What's so special about that? It is only natural that the Mufti of Jerusalem had sought an alliance against Jews.
During the Second World War, Finland and Bulgaria (which didn't cooperate with the Germans on their Jewish policy) still joined the German invasion of the Soviet Union because they shared the anti-Soviet animus of the Germans. If the Germans had reached the Caucasus and Central Asia, Armenians and Georgians and Central Asians would have sided with Hitler against Stalin too. So what? People seek allies against their enemy.
Certain people are always citing the Mufti of Jerusalem's pro-German sympathies as some major indictment.
"....four hundred years of Ottoman rule with no real sense of 'abomination' visited upon the Arab...."
MGleason the expert on Arab-Turkish relations. Arab-Turkish relations are very hostile, and manifest themselves in territorial disputes between Turkey and Syria & Iraq. But obviously Turks do not generate the hostility among Arabs that Jews do, since the few outstanding issues between Turks and Arabs really can't compare with the issue of Palestine.
4149. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:17:03 PM
I am not one of those loony lefties who say Israel is an apartheid-state, and I certainly recognise that Israeli Arabs can vote, do sit in parliament, participated in the Barak governing coalition and have got one of theirs in the Supreme Court.
Israel is a democracy of sorts, but it is a not western-style liberal democracy, as many people regularly claim.
There are several chracteristics of Israeli society which are distinctly illiberal and undemocratic in a very non-western way:
(1) Israel does not have any civil marriage laws. In other words, because Israel has no civil marriage laws, a Jew and a Muslim wanting to marry must either go abroad to get married (Cyprus is an apparent favourite); or one of them must convert to the other's religion.
(2) Non-Jewish citizens of Israel face systematic institutional discrimination. Many social benefits of the Israeli state, such as public employment, public housing, places at educational institutions, mortgages, etc. are conditioned on military service. Israeli Arabs are not required to do military service and therefore do not benefit from such services. However, Jewish Israelis such as religious students are also exempt but do qualify for social benefits.
[continued]
4150. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:19:11 PM
(3) And the property rights of Israeli Arabs are grossly restricted:
After independence the areas in which 90 percent of the Arabs lived were placed under military government. This system and the assignment of almost unfettered powers to military governors were based on the Defense (Emergency) Regulations promulgated by the British Mandate Authority in 1945. Using the 1945 regulations as a legal base, the government created three areas or zones to be ruled by the Ministry of Defense. The most important was the Northern Area, also known as the Galilee Area, the locale of about twothirds of the Arab population. The second critical area was the socalled Little Triangle, located between the villages of Et Tira and Et Taiyiba near the border with Jordan (then Transjordan). The third area included much of the Negev Desert, the region traversed by the previously apolitical nomadic beduins (see fig. 4).
The most salient feature of military government was restriction of movement. Article 125 of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations empowered military governors to declare any specified area "offlimits " to those having no written authorization. The area was then declared a security zone and thus closed to Israeli Arabs who lacked written permission either from the army chief of staff or the minister of defense. Under these provisions, 93 out of 104 Arab villages in Israel were constituted as closed areas out of which no one could move without a military permit. In these areas, official acts of military governors were, with rare exceptions, not subject to review by the civil courts. Individuals could be arrested and imprisoned on unspecified charges, and private property was subject to search and seizure without warrant. Furthermore, the physical expulsion of individuals or groups from the state was not subject to review by the civil courts.
4151. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:19:22 PM
Another land expropriation measure evolved from the Defense (Emergency) Regulations, which were passed in 1949 and renewed annually until 1972 when the legislation was allowed to lapse. Under this law, the Ministry of Defense could, subject to approval by an appropriate committee of the Knesset, create security zones in all or part of what was designated as the "protected zone," an area that included lands adjacent to Israel's borders and other specified areas. According to Sabri Jiryis, an Arab political economist who based his work exclusively on Israeli government sources, the defense minister used this law to categorize "almost half of Galilee, all of the Triangle, an area near the Gaza Strip, and another along the Jerusalem-Jaffa railway line near Batir as security zones." A clause of the law provided that permanent as well as temporary residents could be required to leave the zone and that the individual expelled had four days within which to appeal the eviction notice to an appeals committee. The decisions of these committees were not subject to review or appeal by a civil court.
Yet another measure enacted by the Knesset in 1949 was the Emergency Regulations (Cultivation of Waste Lands) Ordinance. One use of this law was to transfer to kibbutzim or other Jewish settlements land in the security zones that was lying fallow because the owner of the land or other property was not allowed to enter the zone as a result of national security legislation. The 1949 law provided that such land transfers were valid only for a period of two years and eleven months, but subsequent amending legislation extended the validity of the transfers for the duration of the state of emergency.
4152. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:19:35 PM
Another common procedure was for the military government to seize up to 40 percent of the land in a given region--the maximum allowed for national security reasons--and to transfer the land to a new kibbutz or moshav. Between 1948 and 1953, about 370 new Jewish settlements were built, and an estimated 350 of the settlements were established on what was termed abandoned Arab property.
The property of the Arabs who were refugees outside the state and the property expropriated from the Arabs who remained in Israel became a major asset to the new state. According to Don Peretz, an American scholar, by 1954 "more than one-third of Israel's Jewish population lived on absentee property, and nearly a third of the new immigrants (250,000 people) settled in the urban areas abandoned by Arabs." The fleeing Arabs emptied thriving cities such as Jaffa, Acre (Akko), Lydda (Lod), and Ramla, plus "338 towns and villages and large parts of 94 other cities and towns, containing nearly a quarter of all the buildings in Israel."
To the Israeli Arabs, one of the more devastating aspects of the loss of their property was their knowledge that the loss was legally irreversible. The early Zionist settlers--particularly those of the Second Aliyah--adopted a rigid policy that land purchased or in any way acquired by a Jewish organization or individual could never again be sold, leased, or rented to a nonJew . The policy went so far as to preclude the use of non-Jewish labor on the land. This policy was carried over into the new state.
4153. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:19:58 PM
At independence the State of Israel succeeded to the "state lands" of the British Mandate Authority, which had "inherited" the lands held by the government of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish National Fund was the operating and controlling agency of the Land Development Authority and ensured that land once held by Jews-- either individually or by the "sovereign state of the Jewish people"--did not revert to non-Jews. This denied Israel's non-Jewish, mostly Arab, population access to about 95 percent of the land.
I am not talking about Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, but about Israeli citizens who are Arabs.
From the Library of Congress's Israel: A Country Study
Now, what is western and liberal about these practises?
4154. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:20:51 PM
Message # 4101: "As for the Brits and the French, if a background racism were not in play one would think Arabs should feel more loathing for the Europeans, not less, as both powers meant to own all of Arabia, not just a piece of swampland the size of New Jersey"
Arab nationalism of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s was directed very much against French and British imperialism. Nasser's Egypt fought a war against the British and the French. Algeria fought an extremely bloody war of independence with the French. But both powers left.
Why on earth there should be more animosity toward powers which have already left, than toward the (in Arab eyes) oppressive power still in their midst?
Also, the idea that Palestine was mostly undeveloped barren desert that the Jews transformed into the land of milk and honey, is just an Israeli national myth.
"Finally: what has Israel got to do, materially, with most Arabs, not to mention Iranians for god's sake?"
It's ethnic & sectarian conflict. That Arabs and Muslims far from Israel care about their brethren in Palestine is entirely consistent with the psychology of ethnic conflict around the world.
4155. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:22:39 PM
Message # 4102: "In the sixties and seventies, even the eighties, they were still pissed about the fucking Civil War. It was a matter of honor, and contempt for the niggers who got over at the expense of their own great glory. You understand, no one today defends slavery. But for racist southerners, blacks should never have taken a place in "white society," in a land "rightfully" dominated by white people."
Message # 4103: "Perhaps many Arabs have yet to successfully intellectualize how a people who had been tolerated as weak and contemptible dhimmi could suddenly become so powerful and aggressive toward them."
Message # 4107: "Yes, I had the same thought after reading Andonly's post. There is a palpable outrage, doubtless fueled by anger and humiliation over Islam's long slide away from the power it enjoyed in its salad days, but different in quality and intensity from that evoked by the Western infidels who have provoked so much more humiliation."
There is an obvious, apparent, self-evident and ready explanation for the Arab hatred of Israel and Jews, but our retarded trio say to hell with Ockham's Razor and concoct a gimcrack psychonalytical cause for Arab hatred. One of the trio, flush from reading a best seller, now confidently pontificates on the "anger and humiliation over Islam's long slide away from the power", which is just a more upscale version of the officially created & demotically embraced "they hate us because they hate our freedoms and way of life" mythology.
Arabs hate Israel and Jews because their perception, right or wrong, is that Jews stole their land, created millions of refugees and currently oppress them. That is the parsimonious explanation that fits the facts.
4156. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 10:25:52 PM
Well - transient's link clinches it, Spock's Jewish. One reason I never noticed it, I guess, is that I was never really American-Jewish. I was always an Israeli, though I was only seven when my family arrived in Boston and I was seventeen when we returned to Israel. I was already very Israeli and very proud of it when we arrived, and I never let go of that Israeliness, it seems.
Of course, when we returned I found that I didn't fit in here either. That's when the world started spinning, and then it all came tumbling down.
4157. pseudoerasmus - 2/15/2050 10:26:04 PM
Andonly's white southerner analogy is particularly stupid. A much better analogy for Arab antisemitism is the mutual contempt held by Greeks and Turks, or really that held by any groups locked in ethnic conflict.
4158. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 10:57:43 PM
Also, the idea that Palestine was mostly undeveloped barren desert that the Jews transformed into the land of milk and honey, is just an Israeli national myth.
Read Innocents Abroad By Mark Twain and look at some David Roberts lithographs. This place was composed of desert (in the south), barren mountains and swampland, mostly. I'm not a search monster but there are population and geography stats that back this up.
The measures you cite against Israeli Arabs were measures taken after the 1948 war, which itself was a measure taken by all of the Middle East's Arabs to annihilate the Jews physically. They were aimed at seizing control of the land, because it was assumed that the Arabs would keep on trying to annihilate us, and we had better solidify our gains when we could. The restrictive measures on Israeli Arabs -who had participated actively in the fighting against Israel's Jews - were gradually lifted over the decades.
The bit about measures 'prohibiting Arab labor' which you cite (from where, btw?) reeks of Arab propaganda. The early Jewish settlers had a work ethic of avoda ivrit - 'Jewish labor' -which was one of their ideals. The idea was to get the mostly European Jews to revolutionaize their attitude towards life, and to engage in physical labor rather than the traditional cerebral Jewish professions. The idea was to create Jewish farmers, rather than bankers. But we're damned if we do and damned if we don't: if we employ Palestinian labor you say we're exploiting them. If we insist on working ourselves - we're racist.
4159. RustlerPike - 2/15/2050 11:05:45 PM
Israel does not have any civil marriage laws. In other words, because Israel has no civil marriage laws, a Jew and a Muslim wanting to marry must either go abroad to get married (Cyprus is an apparent favourite); or one of them must convert to the other's religion.
This is largely an internal Jewish problem, rather than something directed against Arabs - matter of fact, it's the first time I've heard the issue mentioned in that context. There are hardly any Arabs marrying Jews anyhow. My wife