The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. That selective claim now underpins world politics. It seems that since the war of 1967, with its stunning victory against all odds, Israel finally lost its “underdog” identity. The guilt-ridden post-Holocaust populations in Europe were now not any more coerced into feeling sorry for their decimated Jews. Anti-Semitism could once again afford to be fashionable. Thereafter Israel’s follow up victory in the Yom Kippur war of 1973, when attacked by overwhelming numbers on all sides, was a remarkable rerun of “David” effectively overcoming “Goliath.” Yet politically, the war finally buried the remnants of the underdog scenario as far as Israel and the Jews were concerned. The burgeoning wealth and unsurpassed success of America’s Jews, from then until now, gave further ammunition to those United Nations, NGOs, co-mingled human rights groups, incestuous leftists and Third World radicals to finally reverse common perception of Israel.
The magical sleight of hand, that perversion of truth, is now complete. Israel has become the fascist, the Nazi, the apartheid oppressing country and conversely Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and their compatriots have transmogrified into the underdogs. The transformation of Mephistopheles is finished – Goliath is now Israel whilst the symbol of David is assumed by all the poor, undernourished, undereducated, disenfranchised Arab refugees and citizens across North Africa, the Middle East and on into South East Asia. Five million Jews are now incontestably victimizing one billion Muslims and Arabs. There are no limits to the nefarious machinations of the conspiratorial Jewish puppeteers of Tel Aviv and Washington. All the world’s injustices and problems, inequalities and inequities are laid out at the foot of this latter day Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
And it will only get worse, as Israelis and Jews everywhere continue to fight adversity and do better, become more successful and refuse to be downtrodden, refuse to apologize for their normality. Their success is breeding their political ostracization, their success proves to the world that they are on the wrong side; it proves they are the oppressor – how else could it be? The logic is indisputable. And the oil rich Arab states understand this only too well – they keep their riches in Dubai and in banks, investing in Citibank, UBS and in Western stock exchanges, whilst keeping their populations and their women disenfranchised – ensuring their underdog image remains in perpetuity.
Their biggest export seems to be endless numbers of Madrassas and terrorists. They continue their century-old con by ensuring the continued existence and expansion of the refugee camps, home to millions of Palestinians, a unique phenomenon in the last 100 years. The partition of India and Pakistan created millions of refugees - all resettled. The creation of Bangladesh, millions more – all resettled. Mao Tse-tung, tens of millions – all resettled. The great east-west exodus after WWII, across the iron curtain – all resettled. Only in the Middle East, with trillions of excess oil dollars to invest in anti-Israel, anti-West, pro-jihadist education and mosques, and in the NASDAQ, in hedge funds – everywhere but into the refugee camps. And these Arab potentates know only too well the propaganda game of choice: exacerbate the indignity and tragedy of the refugee camps and it will keep the world infatuated with the Arab David conflicted with the Israeli Goliath.
Everything becomes upside-down in this Alice of Wonderland. Five million Israelis on 1% of the land in the Middle East with no oil and natural minerals are holding hostage to 300 million Arabs with 75% of the world’s oil reserves and an unbreakable majority in the UN councils.
These Jews must be very powerful, very sinister. But wait – is there not a major Arab investor in Fox News? Is not Arab money a partner in Citibank, the London Stock Exchange and a myriad of other western financial icons? Are not the riches of the West exchanged for Arab oil, going not for the improvement of Arab hospitals, schools and legal institutions, but to purchase the West’s leading companies and properties and to buy influence in Washington, Harvard and even at the Louvre. So whence cometh this secret power of the Jews? Perhaps it’s merely their seemingly magical survival over thousands of years, in spite of Torquemada, Hitler, Stalin and al Qaeda. This has become most irritating, most annoying to those who would like to see the back of the Jews. They defy the numbers, the logic and the will of majority. They insist on success, on not being the underdog. Most perturbing, most bothersome. They were, in times past, ‘untermenchen’, Dhiminis, second-rate non-citizens squeezed into European ghettos, powerless and dependent serfs limited to professions such as money lending. Now Israel has an unrivaled army – outrageous. Its desert is blooming amidst a sea of Middle Eastern deserts – provocative. Its women have equal rights, naked thighs, and become prime ministers – outlandish and obnoxious. Israel is the tiny pin pricking the bloated 18th Century Middle East that is still mired in its Dark Ages, desperate to retain its unchanging ways. And Israel is still only the Little Satan. Everyone knows the Jews also run the Big Satan. Why, Jews must own the New York Times and Washington Post, CBS and CNN, the State Department and the CIA, in spite of all the continual anti-Israel bias – more subterfuge.
And moreover, Bush is clearly controlled by Israel, in spite of his intimate handholding photo-ops with Saudi Arabian princes, and now more with Condi’s overtures to Iran and Syria – further devious camouflage, I imagine.
All in all, these Jews must be very clever, very shrewd: to cause 9/11 and the many suicide bombings and intifadas, to pretend to be under the whip of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas – most ingenious, to play at being the underdog when in fact, to all enlightened Jihadists and liberal Westerners, they are in fact the secret Goliath, the masters of deceit, even to the extent of six-million Holocaust deceits. Clever Jews, those people, clever magicians these Israelis.
Posted on Athos Blog: Chronicles of Atlantis
http://chronatlantis.blogspot.com/2008/07/neighborhood-bully.html
Friday, December 21, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
"Limits of Diplomacy – The Current Dilemma" (Dec. 13, 2007)
According to many of our presidential candidates, there are no limits to diplomacy. History however, as well as Psychology 101 proves otherwise:
a) Neville Chamberlain’s particular diplomacy in World War II gave Hitler an extra few years’ head start in building his genocidal war machine. Emboldened by appeasement politics, Hitler overran Czechoslovakia and Poland. Perhaps we did not offer The Fuehrer enough compromises; perhaps enough peace agreements were not signed; perhaps we did not exhibit enough understanding for Hitler and his Mein Kampf.
b) According to our liberal friends (or anti-Bush friends – the terms seem unfortunately easily interchangeable), we must talk even more to Iran, as though the last 30 years of on-off talking have been so tantalizingly productive. If, by way of example, a deranged ex-wife (not necessarily a relative of Ahmadinejad) takes out “a contract” on her former husband, even if he was perhaps indelicately unfaithful, do we set up arbitration proceedings and initiate empathic reconciliation – or do we contact New York’s best lawyers and the police?
c) If the PLO and Hamas declare openly in their public charters, their primary aim as the destruction of Israel and the killing or expulsion of all its Jewish citizens, should we not require the reversal of this central goal, their over-riding passion, prior to negotiations?
d) If the Arab world requires as a precondition for peace, the unlimited return of all the Palestinian refugees to Israel (including their voluminous descendants) should we not politely request the equivalent right of those Jewish refugees (of originally greater numbers than those of the Palestinians) to return to or receive compensation from the Arab lands from whence they were expunged in 1948. This would be an interesting quandary for these Arab states, especially since many are now effectively “Juden Rein” (Jew Free) and where non-Muslim prayer texts and religious establishments are often banned and a cause for riots or worse.
e) Israel and America went to Annapolis to talk, to negotiate. Would Obama have done so if he was required to enter the conference through the service entrance, if he was forewarned that certain participants would not deign to shake his hand? Is this a peace between equals, between men of honor?
f) If your neighbor (not necessarily a relative of Ismael Haniyeh) in downtown Detroit or Seneca, South Carolina was using your garden for his regular AK-47 shooting practice, your living room for his amateur but deadly rocketry, would John Edwards kindly send Ramadan greeting cards and offer to generously upgrade his neighbor’s personal militia as enticers to join their neighborhood peace conference?
Are there indeed no limits to diplomacy? Are there not enemies and situations that can profit from and abuse any and all diplomacies? Are there never preconditions basic enough, valuable enough to warrant their acknowledgment and attainment before diplomacy deserves initiation? Is not, ultimately, the unambiguous and sincere acceptance by opposing parties of the right of all to their respective religions, their countries, their existence, a minimum requirement for meaningful and fruitful negotiations?
It is said that one must prepare for war to engender a lasting peace. It may be reasonable to presume one must wield a big stick to activate successful negotiations. It is perhaps far better to be feared than reviled, far better to use one’s strong pre-eminence wisely than to collapse into self-flagellation and embarrassed supplications before an envious world.
If we do not respect ourselves, our country, our freedoms, then who will? If we are not worth fighting for, then the war is already lost.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Politics is Not Truth (June 22, 2007)
When I was young I would love to immerse myself in ideas, the grander the better, full of hope and solutions, bringing with them the seductive power of theory and projection, uncluttered by the mundanity of everyday pain and repetition.
Now I love just the Truth, the hard raw unassailable Truth, ignored by most and unattractive to the rest. That which conflicts with habitual thinking and comfortable prejudice is always inconvenient. Why be an outsider if one can follow the herd, bolster one’s communal identity and hard-earned security blanket?
But the Truth is that pure clear water that easily fogs up with prejudice, that clogs up with preconceptions. It’s that clarity that sometimes comes with age, when the ego recedes and time is short. Youth has courage, it has spit and polish, but age can grow wisdom, part the clouds like Moses and see the Promised Land, a land not of perfection, but merely Truth.
When God created Adam and Eve he gave choice with vision, vision to see the self and the world and the choice to understand the difference.
Prejudice is feeling the self and presuming the vision. Abraham, the world’s first Renaissance man, understood Truth to be greater than any ego, any emotion, any person and he thereupon divined the divine. He understood the purity of consciousness, the value of Truth and set the path that inevitably led to the Ten Commandments, that ambivalent love affair of an irascible tribe of wanderers with a punitive and caring God who never let His children forget both the existence and the pain of Truth.
The people of the Book, the texts brimming with lessons in the convoluted experience of personal Truth, have been burnt for millennia in the fires of untruth, the brimstone of hate and prejudice. Twelve million remain, a thorn in the side of every fundamentalist, every fascist, every tyrant. These 12 million are but one quarter of one percent of this varied and ever-changing world, yet they adhere to the Truth as a clam to its shell, unattractive to those peoples around, an irritating historical relic and an inconvenient Truth if there ever was one.
Hitler understood he could irrevocably persuade the German people to his Nazi Jihad - as for the rest they would merely cower or he would overwhelm them: Except for the people of the Book, those ancient acolytes who have no idols, no competing loyalties and no ultimate fantasies before God. Hitler understood he would never sway this ancient people, never bribe them all, never remove their veil of Truth and so he arrived at his Final Solution - the crossroads to his intended domination of the world.
Whether one be religious or secular, dark-skinned or light-skinned, Truth is the ultimate civilization, the ultimate mark of humanity, that essential aberration that brings always a minority closer to the divine, to our salvation and whatever preceded us all.
Now I love just the Truth, the hard raw unassailable Truth, ignored by most and unattractive to the rest. That which conflicts with habitual thinking and comfortable prejudice is always inconvenient. Why be an outsider if one can follow the herd, bolster one’s communal identity and hard-earned security blanket?
But the Truth is that pure clear water that easily fogs up with prejudice, that clogs up with preconceptions. It’s that clarity that sometimes comes with age, when the ego recedes and time is short. Youth has courage, it has spit and polish, but age can grow wisdom, part the clouds like Moses and see the Promised Land, a land not of perfection, but merely Truth.
When God created Adam and Eve he gave choice with vision, vision to see the self and the world and the choice to understand the difference.
Prejudice is feeling the self and presuming the vision. Abraham, the world’s first Renaissance man, understood Truth to be greater than any ego, any emotion, any person and he thereupon divined the divine. He understood the purity of consciousness, the value of Truth and set the path that inevitably led to the Ten Commandments, that ambivalent love affair of an irascible tribe of wanderers with a punitive and caring God who never let His children forget both the existence and the pain of Truth.
The people of the Book, the texts brimming with lessons in the convoluted experience of personal Truth, have been burnt for millennia in the fires of untruth, the brimstone of hate and prejudice. Twelve million remain, a thorn in the side of every fundamentalist, every fascist, every tyrant. These 12 million are but one quarter of one percent of this varied and ever-changing world, yet they adhere to the Truth as a clam to its shell, unattractive to those peoples around, an irritating historical relic and an inconvenient Truth if there ever was one.
Hitler understood he could irrevocably persuade the German people to his Nazi Jihad - as for the rest they would merely cower or he would overwhelm them: Except for the people of the Book, those ancient acolytes who have no idols, no competing loyalties and no ultimate fantasies before God. Hitler understood he would never sway this ancient people, never bribe them all, never remove their veil of Truth and so he arrived at his Final Solution - the crossroads to his intended domination of the world.
Whether one be religious or secular, dark-skinned or light-skinned, Truth is the ultimate civilization, the ultimate mark of humanity, that essential aberration that brings always a minority closer to the divine, to our salvation and whatever preceded us all.
The Sir Salman Rushdie Hypocrisy (June 23, 2007)
When Yasser Arafat received the Nobel Prize should Jews worldwide not have rioted, issued fatwas demanding his murder and posted rewards for his execution? After all, Arafat was a self-acknowledged terrorist, complicit in the deaths of thousands of innocent Israelis, Jordanians, Lebanese and assorted others, including his own not-so-innocent followers who often fell out of Arafat’s inconsistent favour.
When the Wahabi version of the Word of God is absolute, when the radical Muslim world (now dominant and in ascendance) countenances no alternative views, no variations of subjective interpretation and mandates death for such apostasy, then the recent knighting of Sir Salman Rushdie does indeed smack of provocativeness. But how many prizes and decorations have been given to Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Who in the West should honestly not be provoked by this lauding of these foul-mouthed gangsters, of an Iranian president who denies the Holocaust and demands the extermination of Israel, the only fully fledged democracy in the Middle East? Should not every Holocaust survivor and family, every Israeli, every freedom-loving individual everywhere be taking to the streets?
An Iranian group offered a $150,000 reward for the killing of Rushdie. Why is it that only Muslims are entitled to be offended, and only the Prophet Mohammad worthy of protection from all blasphemy, all criticism? Is it perhaps fear of retribution that drives our appeasement and nothing to do with the validity of the issue itself?
If a fundamentalist Israel had tens of thousands of apocalyptic Jihadists ensconced in safe houses across the western world, if an implacable Israel controlled the pipelines and source of much of the world’s oil, perhaps we would hear outrage from Europe and the Left, from the United Nations, every time some dictator or terrorist threatened and attempted to destroy Israel or called the Jews sons of apes and pigs, good only for extermination. It seems justice nowadays comes only from the barrel of a gun, from the suicide belt of a Shahid.
The raison d’etre of the West was founded on a plurality of opinions, a profound respect for religious and cultural differences, and the right to express them, however it may bother sectors in our community. It is exactly this ability to tolerate dissent, diversity and individuality that defines our freedom as it also encourages the hate of every Jihadist, every Wahabi fundamentalist whose sole purpose seems to be to extinguish that freedom and expunge that diversity.
Yet our commentators, politicians and media personalities are not, in this conflict, overtly concerned about our survival as a free and democratic society – they seem to rather be competing in ever more creative ways of apologizing for our horrendous Danish cartoons, our devastatingly offensive knighthoods, our politically insensitive references to the Prophet Muhammad and his many radical and faithful adherents.
As a dog supplicates to its attacker, as a prisoner gives up control to the jailor, as the kidnapped identifies with the persecutor, so we in the West are weakening the foundations of our unrivalled civilization in a futile and pathetic attempt to placate those who would infiltrate and destroy us. And it makes little difference if public plaques of the Ten Commandments or conservative speakers on campus are banned, if Shariah law gets practiced in pockets of our society or another 9/11 is initiated, it all has the same result, namely, our increasing subjugation as meek and overly tolerant people in the face of an uncompromising all sacrificing enemy who has both time and acolytes to expend.
Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times on June 23rd, 2007 talks of a great silence in denouncing “all this homicidal nonsense.” He states that every editorial page in the U.S. should express unequivocal support for Sir Salman Rushdie. He clarifies further Ronald Dworkin’s admonition that “the only right you don’t have in a democracy is the right not to be offended.” Yet the United Nations is motivating for laws making criticism of Islam a crime (whilst the Holocaust and Christianity can be endlessly denigrated).
In silencing our communities we are becoming accomplices in our own castration, we are consigning women worldwide into the Dark Ages of the hijab, clitoredectomy and their ultimate enslavement as vassal appendages to uncompromising Muslim men – up and until, of course, their 72 virgins happen to appear.
Rutten concludes that in the ensuing silence the “only permissible sounds are the prayers of the killers and the cries of their victims.”
My deepest respect to Rutten and my thanks for his refusal to be silenced.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-rutten23jun23,12535413.column
Published on EuropeNews:
http://europenews.dk/en/node/12726
Posted on LockAndLoad Blog:
http://songdongnigh.blogspot.com/2008/08/exclusive-sir-salman-rushdie-hypocrisy.html
When the Wahabi version of the Word of God is absolute, when the radical Muslim world (now dominant and in ascendance) countenances no alternative views, no variations of subjective interpretation and mandates death for such apostasy, then the recent knighting of Sir Salman Rushdie does indeed smack of provocativeness. But how many prizes and decorations have been given to Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Who in the West should honestly not be provoked by this lauding of these foul-mouthed gangsters, of an Iranian president who denies the Holocaust and demands the extermination of Israel, the only fully fledged democracy in the Middle East? Should not every Holocaust survivor and family, every Israeli, every freedom-loving individual everywhere be taking to the streets?
An Iranian group offered a $150,000 reward for the killing of Rushdie. Why is it that only Muslims are entitled to be offended, and only the Prophet Mohammad worthy of protection from all blasphemy, all criticism? Is it perhaps fear of retribution that drives our appeasement and nothing to do with the validity of the issue itself?
If a fundamentalist Israel had tens of thousands of apocalyptic Jihadists ensconced in safe houses across the western world, if an implacable Israel controlled the pipelines and source of much of the world’s oil, perhaps we would hear outrage from Europe and the Left, from the United Nations, every time some dictator or terrorist threatened and attempted to destroy Israel or called the Jews sons of apes and pigs, good only for extermination. It seems justice nowadays comes only from the barrel of a gun, from the suicide belt of a Shahid.
The raison d’etre of the West was founded on a plurality of opinions, a profound respect for religious and cultural differences, and the right to express them, however it may bother sectors in our community. It is exactly this ability to tolerate dissent, diversity and individuality that defines our freedom as it also encourages the hate of every Jihadist, every Wahabi fundamentalist whose sole purpose seems to be to extinguish that freedom and expunge that diversity.
Yet our commentators, politicians and media personalities are not, in this conflict, overtly concerned about our survival as a free and democratic society – they seem to rather be competing in ever more creative ways of apologizing for our horrendous Danish cartoons, our devastatingly offensive knighthoods, our politically insensitive references to the Prophet Muhammad and his many radical and faithful adherents.
As a dog supplicates to its attacker, as a prisoner gives up control to the jailor, as the kidnapped identifies with the persecutor, so we in the West are weakening the foundations of our unrivalled civilization in a futile and pathetic attempt to placate those who would infiltrate and destroy us. And it makes little difference if public plaques of the Ten Commandments or conservative speakers on campus are banned, if Shariah law gets practiced in pockets of our society or another 9/11 is initiated, it all has the same result, namely, our increasing subjugation as meek and overly tolerant people in the face of an uncompromising all sacrificing enemy who has both time and acolytes to expend.
Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times on June 23rd, 2007 talks of a great silence in denouncing “all this homicidal nonsense.” He states that every editorial page in the U.S. should express unequivocal support for Sir Salman Rushdie. He clarifies further Ronald Dworkin’s admonition that “the only right you don’t have in a democracy is the right not to be offended.” Yet the United Nations is motivating for laws making criticism of Islam a crime (whilst the Holocaust and Christianity can be endlessly denigrated).
In silencing our communities we are becoming accomplices in our own castration, we are consigning women worldwide into the Dark Ages of the hijab, clitoredectomy and their ultimate enslavement as vassal appendages to uncompromising Muslim men – up and until, of course, their 72 virgins happen to appear.
Rutten concludes that in the ensuing silence the “only permissible sounds are the prayers of the killers and the cries of their victims.”
My deepest respect to Rutten and my thanks for his refusal to be silenced.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-rutten23jun23,12535413.column
Published on EuropeNews:
http://europenews.dk/en/node/12726
Posted on LockAndLoad Blog:
http://songdongnigh.blogspot.com/2008/08/exclusive-sir-salman-rushdie-hypocrisy.html
The Similarities of Jimmy Carter and bin Laden (Aug. 15, 2007)
A most unlikely match most would say; certainly ex-President Carter’s supporters would wax eloquent on the patent absurdity of this suggestion. Look at the comparison a little more closely and surprising similarities spring forth, mostly centering around the single-minded, zealous self-righteousness of both men that manifests to such a degree as to blind them both to all moderate alternatives and promotes indifference to the plight, humanity and needs of those who differ from the hallowed paths chosen by these two unexpected “comrades in arms.”
Carter sought to weaken the American military and handcuff its security institutions – so does bin Laden. Bin Laden seeks to further humiliate the conservatives, the republicans and the patriotic in America – so does Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter’s dislike of George Bush seems to know no bounds, so much so that he has significantly diverged from tradition and every president before him in openly and internationally criticizing Bush and his administration – bin Laden’s antagonism to Bush, his nemeses, his primary opposition, has been profusely evident in his many pronouncements and writings.
Bin Laden’s radical fundamentalist style demands blind obedience from his cohorts and manifests a preference for adoring acolytes – Carter’s intolerance for dissension and normal ideological variation is also well known.
The latter’s propensity for half truths and selective memory to better serve his self-righteous machinations has caused a flight of professionals from the Carter Foundation – Al Queda’s founder is also a past master at turning defeat into a propaganda victory (Afghanistan), adapting narrowness reminiscent of the Dark Ages into popular culture and catalyzing moderates into legions of self-destructive radicals.
Bin Laden vies for the affection and support of tyrants around the world – Carter, with incredible copycat passion, traipses around the globe paying self-serving accolades to Hugo Chavez, Bashar al-Assad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and assorted other anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic and nihilistic dictators.
Carter has conceivably been the most destructive US president of all time: consider the Iranian debacle and his many less than memorable non-accomplishments (even unaffiliated Merv Griffin once remarked that he believed Carter was absolutely the worst of all American presidents) – bin Laden has single-handedly helped push Afghanistan back to the 7th Century, is likewise doing his best with Iraq and Pakistan and hopes to wring destruction out of Saudi Arabia and assorted other Arab potentates.
And they both fervently believe they will get a special place in heaven for their zealous efforts (72 docile virgins notwithstanding).
An unlikely match made in heaven?
Carter sought to weaken the American military and handcuff its security institutions – so does bin Laden. Bin Laden seeks to further humiliate the conservatives, the republicans and the patriotic in America – so does Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter’s dislike of George Bush seems to know no bounds, so much so that he has significantly diverged from tradition and every president before him in openly and internationally criticizing Bush and his administration – bin Laden’s antagonism to Bush, his nemeses, his primary opposition, has been profusely evident in his many pronouncements and writings.
Bin Laden’s radical fundamentalist style demands blind obedience from his cohorts and manifests a preference for adoring acolytes – Carter’s intolerance for dissension and normal ideological variation is also well known.
The latter’s propensity for half truths and selective memory to better serve his self-righteous machinations has caused a flight of professionals from the Carter Foundation – Al Queda’s founder is also a past master at turning defeat into a propaganda victory (Afghanistan), adapting narrowness reminiscent of the Dark Ages into popular culture and catalyzing moderates into legions of self-destructive radicals.
Bin Laden vies for the affection and support of tyrants around the world – Carter, with incredible copycat passion, traipses around the globe paying self-serving accolades to Hugo Chavez, Bashar al-Assad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and assorted other anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic and nihilistic dictators.
Carter has conceivably been the most destructive US president of all time: consider the Iranian debacle and his many less than memorable non-accomplishments (even unaffiliated Merv Griffin once remarked that he believed Carter was absolutely the worst of all American presidents) – bin Laden has single-handedly helped push Afghanistan back to the 7th Century, is likewise doing his best with Iraq and Pakistan and hopes to wring destruction out of Saudi Arabia and assorted other Arab potentates.
And they both fervently believe they will get a special place in heaven for their zealous efforts (72 docile virgins notwithstanding).
An unlikely match made in heaven?
Reincarnation Banned? (Aug. 24, 2007)
According to Newsweek (August 20-27, 2007 issue), “In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission.” Al Queda too issues regular pronouncements on the limits and directions of its adherent’s thoughts and behavior in this current life as well as, more importantly, on their relationship to the afterlife. Certainly their definitive offer of 72 virgins attempts to institutionalize, as does China, management of the ‘world to come’ as well as one’s ultimate resolution of mortality – suicide bombings notwithstanding. An abundance of fatwas demanding the death of all disrespectful opposition, of all non-believers, of all sacrilegious iconoclasts further fine tunes their inordinate attempts to micromanage who lives, who dies and who inherits heaven or hell.
In this microcosm of certitude it seems that America’s commitments to freedom, democracy and individualism are becoming ever more passé in this world, a 20th Century relic consigned to the dustbin of New World experimentation, now that our world is increasingly dividing into the apologists and the Jihadists. It remains fascinating to watch China, as well as assorted other ‘economic tigers’ such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia and others as they vacillate between totalitarianism and functioning democracy – they may indeed end up being the balancing act that finally empowers or denatures radical Islam, once and for all.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/
In this microcosm of certitude it seems that America’s commitments to freedom, democracy and individualism are becoming ever more passé in this world, a 20th Century relic consigned to the dustbin of New World experimentation, now that our world is increasingly dividing into the apologists and the Jihadists. It remains fascinating to watch China, as well as assorted other ‘economic tigers’ such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia and others as they vacillate between totalitarianism and functioning democracy – they may indeed end up being the balancing act that finally empowers or denatures radical Islam, once and for all.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/
Ruth R. Wisse's "Jews and Power" LA Times Article Reviewed by Ruth Andrew Ellenson (Aug. 30, 2007)
The review covers much interesting, valid and informative territory, collapsing into the reviewer’s personal prejudices only towards the end: “Yet to witness what is done in Gaza in the name of security is to doubt the morality of such a stance.” Is not the author aware that Israel unilaterally removed itself at great emotional cost, political pain and security risk from 100% of Gaza?
To further compare a targeted killing of terrorists in the processes of planning or executing a rocket attack to a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, as though these were moral equivalents, is an absurd expression of moral relativism and confusion. The reviewer implies Jews cannot exercise political power morally: I suppose the 250 million Arabs in the area have an impeccable record Israel should alternatively follow. Holding Israel to a far higher standard than the rest of the world is both a tired and somewhat racist habit in which both many Jews and non-Jews seem to revel.
Ms. Ellenson states that the book makes no claim on objectivity as she implies thereby that its claim on truth is spurious - quite the opposite, in fact. Ms. Wisse’s exposure of this age old Jewish quandary is long overdue. Only by refraining from being apologists for their continuing survival and existence, only by pride in and support for a valid, rational and reasonable expression of power and security, can Jews worldwide and their symbiotic partner in Israel attain normalcy, safety and a fair claim on their future without being an unwitting catalyst in the scapegoating and genocidal tendencies of most of their neighbors and those supporting the hoped for dissolution or annihilation of the only real free democracy in the Middle East.
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/books/la-bk-ellenson26aug26,1,6820720.story
To further compare a targeted killing of terrorists in the processes of planning or executing a rocket attack to a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, as though these were moral equivalents, is an absurd expression of moral relativism and confusion. The reviewer implies Jews cannot exercise political power morally: I suppose the 250 million Arabs in the area have an impeccable record Israel should alternatively follow. Holding Israel to a far higher standard than the rest of the world is both a tired and somewhat racist habit in which both many Jews and non-Jews seem to revel.
Ms. Ellenson states that the book makes no claim on objectivity as she implies thereby that its claim on truth is spurious - quite the opposite, in fact. Ms. Wisse’s exposure of this age old Jewish quandary is long overdue. Only by refraining from being apologists for their continuing survival and existence, only by pride in and support for a valid, rational and reasonable expression of power and security, can Jews worldwide and their symbiotic partner in Israel attain normalcy, safety and a fair claim on their future without being an unwitting catalyst in the scapegoating and genocidal tendencies of most of their neighbors and those supporting the hoped for dissolution or annihilation of the only real free democracy in the Middle East.
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/books/la-bk-ellenson26aug26,1,6820720.story
America's Naive Courage - An Iraq Post Petraeus Primer (Sept. 20, 2007)
America is courageous yet irrevocably naïve. Old Europe is cowardly, understanding yet fearing evil. The Arab world is, ironically, an erratic and changing amalgam of all the above. Their foot soldiers will blindly sacrifice themselves for Jihad whilst their leaders and handlers unerringly never lead from the front, these masters of propaganda, savoring their privileged life in advance of the world to come and its 72 virgins. Furthermore, in their grand Jihadist experiment this Wahabi world realistically fears and abhors the ever-creeping risks to their uncompromising fundamentalism that western secularism, democratic culture and Hollywood liberalism brings.
America empathizes with the bald eagle’s endangerment; it sensitively allocates foot basins for Muslims in college washrooms. America protects the right of genocidal Ahmadinehjad, Mephistophelean Chavez and the pistol-packing master terrorist Arafat to address the United Nations in Manhattan with many acolytes and accolades in tow.
America is squeamish when it comes to wiretapping of foreign callers linked to terrorism. It imagines in a Chamberlain-like fugue of fantasy that isolationism and temporary appeasement can roll back the 1000-year-old passion for a universal caliphate that is the essential “raison d’etre” of today’s Wahabists. These are the Saudis who are spending 50 billion dollars a year to build radical mosques and madrassas, to clone their Jihadist children, maintain their prodigious birthrate and to buy and influence friends. And all in their backyard as well as ours.
It is indeed most ironic that we, who wish all the animals and peoples of the world well and who contribute more charity and deed than any other nation in support of these laudable goals, fail in large measure to fully comprehend the nature of evil, even after 9/11. It’s as though the world remains divided into those capable of prosecuting evil and those incapable of perceiving evil. We in the “New World” desperately protect our rose-tinted glasses from all historical lessons, all cynicism, all contemporary realities. We hope that if we ignore evil long enough it will just go away. We are prepared to see evil in George Bush but not in bin Laden or Ahmadinejad.
We imagine somehow that America has stolen the oil fields of Iraq. Rather our $70 per barrel and much of the hundreds of billions transferred to the Middle East’s oil markets continue to service an anti-American and anti-West Jihad. We have given the new Iraq control and ownership of 100% of their oilfields – yet we suicidally help finance our fanatical enemies through our oil addiction. We disrespect our soldiers, disdain our freedoms and even dislike, at times, our unique and successful country whilst remaining infatuated with primitive and fundamentalist cultures, endlessly inventing excuses for their rabid chauvinism, their expansionist terrorism, and their limitless fascism as though these are wayward children merely finding their temporary opaque path to accommodation and modernity.
The truth is otherwise and until we develop some of Europe’s realism and a modicum of the Arab world’s self-interest, we will continue to bare our idealistic chest to an adversary this is both implacable and totally indifferent to our freedoms, our democracies, and the future of our children.
America empathizes with the bald eagle’s endangerment; it sensitively allocates foot basins for Muslims in college washrooms. America protects the right of genocidal Ahmadinehjad, Mephistophelean Chavez and the pistol-packing master terrorist Arafat to address the United Nations in Manhattan with many acolytes and accolades in tow.
America is squeamish when it comes to wiretapping of foreign callers linked to terrorism. It imagines in a Chamberlain-like fugue of fantasy that isolationism and temporary appeasement can roll back the 1000-year-old passion for a universal caliphate that is the essential “raison d’etre” of today’s Wahabists. These are the Saudis who are spending 50 billion dollars a year to build radical mosques and madrassas, to clone their Jihadist children, maintain their prodigious birthrate and to buy and influence friends. And all in their backyard as well as ours.
It is indeed most ironic that we, who wish all the animals and peoples of the world well and who contribute more charity and deed than any other nation in support of these laudable goals, fail in large measure to fully comprehend the nature of evil, even after 9/11. It’s as though the world remains divided into those capable of prosecuting evil and those incapable of perceiving evil. We in the “New World” desperately protect our rose-tinted glasses from all historical lessons, all cynicism, all contemporary realities. We hope that if we ignore evil long enough it will just go away. We are prepared to see evil in George Bush but not in bin Laden or Ahmadinejad.
We imagine somehow that America has stolen the oil fields of Iraq. Rather our $70 per barrel and much of the hundreds of billions transferred to the Middle East’s oil markets continue to service an anti-American and anti-West Jihad. We have given the new Iraq control and ownership of 100% of their oilfields – yet we suicidally help finance our fanatical enemies through our oil addiction. We disrespect our soldiers, disdain our freedoms and even dislike, at times, our unique and successful country whilst remaining infatuated with primitive and fundamentalist cultures, endlessly inventing excuses for their rabid chauvinism, their expansionist terrorism, and their limitless fascism as though these are wayward children merely finding their temporary opaque path to accommodation and modernity.
The truth is otherwise and until we develop some of Europe’s realism and a modicum of the Arab world’s self-interest, we will continue to bare our idealistic chest to an adversary this is both implacable and totally indifferent to our freedoms, our democracies, and the future of our children.
Ann Coulter – Genius or Bigot? (Oct. 19, 2007)
So Ann Coulter says Jews would be better off as more refined Christians. So what?
Whether that’s comedic hyperbole, provocative marketing or innate belief is beside the point. A fair proportion of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, yes even secularists, would prefer Jews to be more like they themselves.
“So what?” I say to all of them, too. It’s been like that for 5,768 years and will be so until the end of time.
What is rather more of serious concern is not people’s valid or misguided, justified or bigoted beliefs – it’s their violent, coercive and lethal attempts to enforce these ideas that is ultimately at the heart of today’s clash of ideologies, the Jihadist wars and Islam’s attempt to enforce Sharia and then thereafter their Caliphate worldwide.
Whilst most of the world is peacefully evolving to a tolerant state of diversity, with all its attendant tensions, the Muslim world is, in its overriding manifestations, evolving in the opposite direction, one of fundamentalism and the undiluted imposition of their beliefs on all Muslims and non-Muslims worldwide. Contrary to what most ivory-towered Americans believe, this is not a negotiable conflict. The Wahabi Jihadists, the suicidal Ahmadinejads, are only interested in converting or destroying all heretical mutations of Islam, just as much or more even than all non-Muslim groups. They will either end up dominating their uneven playing field or indeed they will implode with the help of realistic and courageous moderates everywhere.
Whether Ann Coulter is crass or funny, bigoted or a media genius is not relevant. She does not and has never motivated for clitoredectomies, beheadings, stonings, honor killings or genocide. She has her opinions just as we all do. The pleasure of our enlightened America is we can choose to listen or not as the case may be. I feel perfectly safe and content to live amongst the Ann Coulters of the world. She is not the problem. Behavior and not ideas is the problem. We must rather look eastward and do so with a clear and realistic vision.
Tim Rutten’s Los Angeles Times Article 10/13/07 can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-rutten13oct13,0,1859447.column?coll=la-home-center
Whether that’s comedic hyperbole, provocative marketing or innate belief is beside the point. A fair proportion of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, yes even secularists, would prefer Jews to be more like they themselves.
“So what?” I say to all of them, too. It’s been like that for 5,768 years and will be so until the end of time.
What is rather more of serious concern is not people’s valid or misguided, justified or bigoted beliefs – it’s their violent, coercive and lethal attempts to enforce these ideas that is ultimately at the heart of today’s clash of ideologies, the Jihadist wars and Islam’s attempt to enforce Sharia and then thereafter their Caliphate worldwide.
Whilst most of the world is peacefully evolving to a tolerant state of diversity, with all its attendant tensions, the Muslim world is, in its overriding manifestations, evolving in the opposite direction, one of fundamentalism and the undiluted imposition of their beliefs on all Muslims and non-Muslims worldwide. Contrary to what most ivory-towered Americans believe, this is not a negotiable conflict. The Wahabi Jihadists, the suicidal Ahmadinejads, are only interested in converting or destroying all heretical mutations of Islam, just as much or more even than all non-Muslim groups. They will either end up dominating their uneven playing field or indeed they will implode with the help of realistic and courageous moderates everywhere.
Whether Ann Coulter is crass or funny, bigoted or a media genius is not relevant. She does not and has never motivated for clitoredectomies, beheadings, stonings, honor killings or genocide. She has her opinions just as we all do. The pleasure of our enlightened America is we can choose to listen or not as the case may be. I feel perfectly safe and content to live amongst the Ann Coulters of the world. She is not the problem. Behavior and not ideas is the problem. We must rather look eastward and do so with a clear and realistic vision.
Tim Rutten’s Los Angeles Times Article 10/13/07 can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-rutten13oct13,0,1859447.column?coll=la-home-center
Cents & Sensitivity – Harvey Morris’ review of J. Mearsheimer and S. Walt’s “The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy” Financial Times Nov.1, 2007
The implied presumption that political influence by Jews is unfair, unpatriotic and even dangerous thoroughly permeates both the book and the sympathetic review. It’s as though the multitudinous lobbyists and national interests everywhere represented in Washington are normal and expected, reasonable and balancing – as long as they do not peddle the nefarious and deceptive manipulations of Zionists cabals, Jews and Israelis who could clearly not possibly share many of the same visions and hopes as large sections of America’s democratic public.
The Saudis, whose lobby budget dwarfs that of AIPAC’s and every other Israel-simpatico group combined, are allowed their extensive pressures and influences. No mention in either the book or the review is made of the oil lobby, clearly the most compromising, manipulative and successful of all the lobbies. Just which influences are indeed preeminent in Washington: Taking an unimpaired look past the opaque blinders of Walt and Mearsheimer, one notes that America supports Egypt to the tune of $2 Billion a year and supplies F-15 and F-16 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, whilst all the countries surrounding Israel publish and promote and educate using genocidal and hate-filled propaganda directed uniquely at Israel, without any limiting pressures from the Unites States.
Iran’s Ahmadinejad races towards nuclear weapons and his promised annihilation of Israel with the USA seemingly stymied about any effective response.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad send rockets and mortars daily into Israel’s civilian areas with impunity, a result of America’s insisting on what seems to be a suicidal restraint by Israel, who as victors of the last four wars, are being endlessly pushed to trust and rely on peace initiatives with terrorist groups and leaders whose charters still openly advocate the destruction of Israel.
Are these all signs of a toothless Washington and a uniquely influential Jewish lobby? If it indeed were so, monies flowing to Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, et al., would be directed to Israel; oil would be $40 per barrel. Ahmadinejad and Iran would be defanged, Assad and Nasrallah deposed, Gaza dumped back at Egypt’s door and the West Bank donated back to Jordan with Jordan correspondingly being the declared Palestinian homeland (as it should be then with its Palestinian majority).
In short, I would take great comfort in seeing a more successful AIPAC and Jewish lobby, one that would not just try and hold the wolf back from Israel’s borders but one that also turns back the relentless tide of anti-Semitism, of Jihad and Islamic radicalism that has Israel in their sights, and one that allows Israelis to live without losing their sons and daughters to Katyusha, suicide bombers and intermittent intifadas and allow these Israelis to start contributing to democracy and freedom in the Middle East, which is ironically Israel’s strong desire and not of those many feudal countries that surround it.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aa155d92-8114-11dc-9f14-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
The Saudis, whose lobby budget dwarfs that of AIPAC’s and every other Israel-simpatico group combined, are allowed their extensive pressures and influences. No mention in either the book or the review is made of the oil lobby, clearly the most compromising, manipulative and successful of all the lobbies. Just which influences are indeed preeminent in Washington: Taking an unimpaired look past the opaque blinders of Walt and Mearsheimer, one notes that America supports Egypt to the tune of $2 Billion a year and supplies F-15 and F-16 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, whilst all the countries surrounding Israel publish and promote and educate using genocidal and hate-filled propaganda directed uniquely at Israel, without any limiting pressures from the Unites States.
Iran’s Ahmadinejad races towards nuclear weapons and his promised annihilation of Israel with the USA seemingly stymied about any effective response.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad send rockets and mortars daily into Israel’s civilian areas with impunity, a result of America’s insisting on what seems to be a suicidal restraint by Israel, who as victors of the last four wars, are being endlessly pushed to trust and rely on peace initiatives with terrorist groups and leaders whose charters still openly advocate the destruction of Israel.
Are these all signs of a toothless Washington and a uniquely influential Jewish lobby? If it indeed were so, monies flowing to Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, et al., would be directed to Israel; oil would be $40 per barrel. Ahmadinejad and Iran would be defanged, Assad and Nasrallah deposed, Gaza dumped back at Egypt’s door and the West Bank donated back to Jordan with Jordan correspondingly being the declared Palestinian homeland (as it should be then with its Palestinian majority).
In short, I would take great comfort in seeing a more successful AIPAC and Jewish lobby, one that would not just try and hold the wolf back from Israel’s borders but one that also turns back the relentless tide of anti-Semitism, of Jihad and Islamic radicalism that has Israel in their sights, and one that allows Israelis to live without losing their sons and daughters to Katyusha, suicide bombers and intermittent intifadas and allow these Israelis to start contributing to democracy and freedom in the Middle East, which is ironically Israel’s strong desire and not of those many feudal countries that surround it.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aa155d92-8114-11dc-9f14-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
"The Ultimate Enemy - Jews Against Jews" - A Post-Annapolis Perspective (Nov. 29, 2007)
Netta Kohn Dror-Shav authored a still very relevant 1998 policy paper for the Ariel Center for Policy Research titled "The Ultimate Enemy -- Jews Against Jews." In it, she explores several defense mechanisms through which Jews drift toward their enemies.
Denial, she wrote, "leads to avoidance of recognizing the actual inherent dangers, and causes a virtual cognitive distortion of reality."
Basic lack of security, she wrote, causes many Israelis and Jews to grasp at any offer for peace, disregarding the enemy's conduct in favor of its temporary rhetoric.
Anxiety, Dror-Shav wrote, propels Jews toward "a resolution -- any resolution -- that puts an end to the uncertainty and thus serves to relieve the anxiety in some way."
Lack of confidence, dependency, passivity, guilt, the "good child complex" (the need for approval from everyone), and Jewish self-hatred are also categories Dror-Shav includes in her report. But the most striking one perhaps was this: identification with the aggressor.
Identification with the aggressor is "pernicious", she wrote, because it causes us to abandon our own sense of self and identity, and instead live vicariously through our enemy's struggle because we dangerously project the righteousness of our own struggle onto our foe, as though all struggles are equal, as though passion equates to morality.
And what comes with our enemy's righteousness is the seemingly sinister character of those who still cling to the original Jewish struggle, in this case Zionism (and even patriotism).
Anything that gets in the way of our enemy's acceptance (those darned settlers!) and the subsequent security (come on, it's not like there are that many rockets falling on our heads) is considered, as Dror-Shav called it, "the ultimate 'enemy'."
All in all a uniquely Jewish problem and a uniquely self-defeating perspective, one that belongs in the European ghettos of the past where it germinated, one that contemporary Jews and Israelis should discard as a nation and country equal amongst the world of nations and countries.
*Edited from The Jewish State article November 9, 2007 by Seth Mandel, Opinion & Commentary: Muslim Choudhury Continues to Defend Zionist Views
Denial, she wrote, "leads to avoidance of recognizing the actual inherent dangers, and causes a virtual cognitive distortion of reality."
Basic lack of security, she wrote, causes many Israelis and Jews to grasp at any offer for peace, disregarding the enemy's conduct in favor of its temporary rhetoric.
Anxiety, Dror-Shav wrote, propels Jews toward "a resolution -- any resolution -- that puts an end to the uncertainty and thus serves to relieve the anxiety in some way."
Lack of confidence, dependency, passivity, guilt, the "good child complex" (the need for approval from everyone), and Jewish self-hatred are also categories Dror-Shav includes in her report. But the most striking one perhaps was this: identification with the aggressor.
Identification with the aggressor is "pernicious", she wrote, because it causes us to abandon our own sense of self and identity, and instead live vicariously through our enemy's struggle because we dangerously project the righteousness of our own struggle onto our foe, as though all struggles are equal, as though passion equates to morality.
And what comes with our enemy's righteousness is the seemingly sinister character of those who still cling to the original Jewish struggle, in this case Zionism (and even patriotism).
Anything that gets in the way of our enemy's acceptance (those darned settlers!) and the subsequent security (come on, it's not like there are that many rockets falling on our heads) is considered, as Dror-Shav called it, "the ultimate 'enemy'."
All in all a uniquely Jewish problem and a uniquely self-defeating perspective, one that belongs in the European ghettos of the past where it germinated, one that contemporary Jews and Israelis should discard as a nation and country equal amongst the world of nations and countries.
*Edited from The Jewish State article November 9, 2007 by Seth Mandel, Opinion & Commentary: Muslim Choudhury Continues to Defend Zionist Views
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Election - A Synergistic Primary (Dec. 4, 2007)
Let’s do a deal, in advance of the primaries: Hilary will squeeze out Obama; power, money and savvy manipulation being the Clintons' unsurpassed epitaph, and to her ultimately ego-driven regret, she may forego offering Obama the vice presidency.
In that event, Giuliani should be planning to offer Obama reconciliation across the aisle, a nonpartisan vice presidency. Imagine the political courage and energy created in one fell swoop. This unbeatable combination would put Giuliani in charge of decreasing taxes, cutting spending, security and foreign policy (including the military) - his forte. Obama could then competently and compatibly focus on social security, healthcare and local issues but with strict financial discipline imposed by Giuliani. The best of both imperfect worlds, a meeting at the center of the country, in every meaningful way. These two men are each eminently capable of compromise, realpolitik aficionados who could marry the extremes and finally unite a great country, enabling us to strengthen ourselves and weaken our enemies, so that our kids could one day inherit the greatness our ancestors bestowed on us, without appeasement politics and ultimately without fear of nukes and weapons of mass destruction.
Politics is the art of compromise – for too long we have been distracted by both democratic and republican extremists, agenda-driven drama queens who represent the fringes of our diversified communities and who highlight our differences rather than our invaluable commonalities. We need true leaders who can focus on the enemy outside of our democracy, rather than seeing the devil within the other party, the other religion, the other perspective, as all the agenda-driven Cindy Sheehans would have it.
In that event, Giuliani should be planning to offer Obama reconciliation across the aisle, a nonpartisan vice presidency. Imagine the political courage and energy created in one fell swoop. This unbeatable combination would put Giuliani in charge of decreasing taxes, cutting spending, security and foreign policy (including the military) - his forte. Obama could then competently and compatibly focus on social security, healthcare and local issues but with strict financial discipline imposed by Giuliani. The best of both imperfect worlds, a meeting at the center of the country, in every meaningful way. These two men are each eminently capable of compromise, realpolitik aficionados who could marry the extremes and finally unite a great country, enabling us to strengthen ourselves and weaken our enemies, so that our kids could one day inherit the greatness our ancestors bestowed on us, without appeasement politics and ultimately without fear of nukes and weapons of mass destruction.
Politics is the art of compromise – for too long we have been distracted by both democratic and republican extremists, agenda-driven drama queens who represent the fringes of our diversified communities and who highlight our differences rather than our invaluable commonalities. We need true leaders who can focus on the enemy outside of our democracy, rather than seeing the devil within the other party, the other religion, the other perspective, as all the agenda-driven Cindy Sheehans would have it.
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