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
Monday, December 10, 2007
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.
Monday, July 3, 2006
The Kidnapping of Corporal Shalit (July 3, 2006)
The kidnapping of corporal Shalit may not be ambiguous to the author, Mr. Halkin, or the majority of Israel’s citizens. However, the Israel/ Palestinian conflict remains opaque for most of the western world, media included. And central to this confusion is the endless mantra everywhere repeated, that the violence in the Middle East is a never ending cycle, with Israel as the primary initiator.
This “cycle of violence” mantra gives further voice to that great invention of Arab and Cold War propaganda, the effective equalization of attacker and victim. For how can the stronger party be the victim, we are repeatedly persuaded - and the liberal humanitarians among us usually concur. Yet the might of the Israeli Defense Force does not target children, the elderly, the innocent - if it did, logically, it could decimate and expel all the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank in a matter of days: case closed. Yet it continually seeks focused and directed retribution for the daily attacks across all its borders.
Well meaning liberals appeal for meaningful negotiations - just exactly with whom must Israel negotiate? Hamas won the election, still claiming its right and intention to destroy Israel by any and all violent means and recovering all lands to the Mediterranean (including, please note, Israel pre-1967, which was never occupied territory).
Palestinian supporters disingenuously claims Hamas maintained a 15-month ceasefire. This would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. Hamas is in control of the Gaza Strip, it is the controlling party of the government and fields the largest extra-military army in the area. Yet over 750 rockets were fired in the last 15 months at Israeli towns and farms. Daily suicide bombers from the military wing of Hamas have been sent from the West Bank - all this is well-documented. According to these apologists, verbal disclaimers by the political wing trump hundreds of attacks by or with the tacit approval of the military wing.
It is often felt that Israel’s military response is excessive. Would those selective humanists prefer Israel to focus on pizzerias, buses and weddings, rather than deserted bridges, roads, and electricity generators?
Ultimately it is the bloodlust of the Jihadist extremists, in their all-consuming passion to rid the Middle East of Israel, that victimizes and degrades the Palestinian population. Israel, situated on less than 1% of the territory occupied by Arab nations, stands as the only true and free democracy in the Middle East - an embarrassment to those nations and a feared beacon of hope to all those wishing for freedom and equal rights.
Democracies are more than just voting booths - if elections were held free of fear, free of religious and familial coercion, free of a militarized state populated by more terrorist armies and groups than the United Nations has dictatorships, I would bet that the parents and women who inhabit the tragic landscape of Gaza and the West Bank would have accepted Israel's offer of 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza for peace; they would choose imperfect life rather than fanatical martyrdom.
Arafat was not, and Hamas is not now, in its current guise, the Palestinians' future - only the mothers are, only the children are.
End the Cycle of Retaliation
Marwan Bishara, International Herald Tribune
July 1-2, 2006
When the dust finally settles, Israel's offensive against the besieged Palestinian territories will have caused more destruction and death and left the Israeli government with the same strategic deadlock. Instead of lashing out against their neighbors, Israelis must end the vicious cycle of provocations and retaliations through meaningful negotiations.
The Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bases its campaign against Palestinian civilian infrastructure on three fallacies: that Israel does not initiate but retaliates to protect its citizens, in this case a kidnapped soldier; that its response is measured and not meant to harm the broader population; and that it does not negotiate with those its deems terrorists.
For one, Israel's offensive did not just start this week. The two-month-old Israeli government is responsible for the killing of 85 Palestinians, including many children, in attacks aimed at carrying out illegal extrajudicial assassinations. The Hamas government maintained a one-sided cease-fire for 15 months, but continued Israeli attacks made Palestinian retaliation only a question of time.
Since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, repeated Israeli bombardments and targeted assassinations against Palestinians have aggravated the violence and resulted in harm to more, not fewer, Israelis. In fact, most major Palestinian suicide bombings since 2001 have come in retaliation to Israeli assassinations, many of which occurred when the Palestinians were mulling over or abiding by self-imposed restraint.
To give only three examples: On July 31, 2001, Israel's assassination of the two leading Hamas militants in Nablus ended a nearly two-month Hamas cease- fire, leading to the terrible Aug. 9 Hamas suicide bombing in a Jerusalem pizzeria. On July 23, 2002, an Israeli air attack on a crowded apartment block in Gaza City killed a senior Hamas leader, Salah Shehada, and 15 civilians, 11 of them children, hours before a widely reported unilateral cease-fire declaration. A suicide bombing followed on Aug. 4. On June 10, 2003, Israel's attempted assassination of the senior Hamas political leader in Gaza, Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, which wounded him and killed four Palestinian civilians, lead to the bus bombing in Jerusalem on June 11 that killed 16 Israelis.
Although Israel's provocations don't justify suicide bombings, they demonstrate why the source of terrorism lies first and foremost in its military aggression and occupation. In this context, affected Palestinian civilians see themselves not as "collateral damage" but as victims of state terrorism.
As for the nature of Israel's "retaliation," one could hardly refer to Israel's destruction of the civic infrastructure of 1.3 million Palestinians as "measured." The Israeli Army began this week's Gaza offensive by bombing bridges, roads, electric and water supplies.
By its very nature the Israeli offensive is meant to punish, overwhelm and deter with disproportionate force regardless of the suffering of the general public. Cutting off basic services of a people is not only unjustified, it is collective punishment, which is illegal under the Geneva Conventions.
The asymmetry between Israeli and Palestinian fire-power mustn't be translated into asymmetry between the value of Israeli and Palestinian life. The Palestinians have captured one Israeli soldier, but Israel holds 9,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Regarding Israel's purported refusal to bargain with "terrorists," its dealings with Hezbollah paint a different picture. Among others, its bombardment of Beirut's electric generators and its all out offensive in 1996 leading to the Qana massacre, failed to deter the Lebanese resistance and eventually forced Israel to negotiate through a third party with those its deemed Islamist terrorists, and release hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners from its jails in exchange for the remains of dead Israeli soldiers.
Given that 39 years of attempts by Israel to tame or intimidate the Palestinians have instead lead to their radicalization, isn't it time for Israel to change course? In such a minuscule territory, Israelis will never be secure if the Palestinians are utterly insecure.
The ongoing saga has once again demonstrated the absurdity of unilateralism as a viable and secure solution. And yet the Olmert government is using the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier to undermine the historical agreement Hamas has just reached with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party over a unity government, de facto recognition of Israel and negotiations with Israel.
Whether you like it or not, Hamas, like Hezbollah, is mostly a byproduct of an oppressive occupation, and not the other way round. That's why refraining from excessive use of force and concentrating all efforts on a negotiated end to the occupation is paramount for security and moderation. Otherwise, Israel will only succeed in increasing Hamas's popularity and pushing it back to clandestinity and war.
This “cycle of violence” mantra gives further voice to that great invention of Arab and Cold War propaganda, the effective equalization of attacker and victim. For how can the stronger party be the victim, we are repeatedly persuaded - and the liberal humanitarians among us usually concur. Yet the might of the Israeli Defense Force does not target children, the elderly, the innocent - if it did, logically, it could decimate and expel all the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank in a matter of days: case closed. Yet it continually seeks focused and directed retribution for the daily attacks across all its borders.
Well meaning liberals appeal for meaningful negotiations - just exactly with whom must Israel negotiate? Hamas won the election, still claiming its right and intention to destroy Israel by any and all violent means and recovering all lands to the Mediterranean (including, please note, Israel pre-1967, which was never occupied territory).
Palestinian supporters disingenuously claims Hamas maintained a 15-month ceasefire. This would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. Hamas is in control of the Gaza Strip, it is the controlling party of the government and fields the largest extra-military army in the area. Yet over 750 rockets were fired in the last 15 months at Israeli towns and farms. Daily suicide bombers from the military wing of Hamas have been sent from the West Bank - all this is well-documented. According to these apologists, verbal disclaimers by the political wing trump hundreds of attacks by or with the tacit approval of the military wing.
It is often felt that Israel’s military response is excessive. Would those selective humanists prefer Israel to focus on pizzerias, buses and weddings, rather than deserted bridges, roads, and electricity generators?
Ultimately it is the bloodlust of the Jihadist extremists, in their all-consuming passion to rid the Middle East of Israel, that victimizes and degrades the Palestinian population. Israel, situated on less than 1% of the territory occupied by Arab nations, stands as the only true and free democracy in the Middle East - an embarrassment to those nations and a feared beacon of hope to all those wishing for freedom and equal rights.
Democracies are more than just voting booths - if elections were held free of fear, free of religious and familial coercion, free of a militarized state populated by more terrorist armies and groups than the United Nations has dictatorships, I would bet that the parents and women who inhabit the tragic landscape of Gaza and the West Bank would have accepted Israel's offer of 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza for peace; they would choose imperfect life rather than fanatical martyrdom.
Arafat was not, and Hamas is not now, in its current guise, the Palestinians' future - only the mothers are, only the children are.
End the Cycle of Retaliation
Marwan Bishara, International Herald Tribune
July 1-2, 2006
When the dust finally settles, Israel's offensive against the besieged Palestinian territories will have caused more destruction and death and left the Israeli government with the same strategic deadlock. Instead of lashing out against their neighbors, Israelis must end the vicious cycle of provocations and retaliations through meaningful negotiations.
The Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bases its campaign against Palestinian civilian infrastructure on three fallacies: that Israel does not initiate but retaliates to protect its citizens, in this case a kidnapped soldier; that its response is measured and not meant to harm the broader population; and that it does not negotiate with those its deems terrorists.
For one, Israel's offensive did not just start this week. The two-month-old Israeli government is responsible for the killing of 85 Palestinians, including many children, in attacks aimed at carrying out illegal extrajudicial assassinations. The Hamas government maintained a one-sided cease-fire for 15 months, but continued Israeli attacks made Palestinian retaliation only a question of time.
Since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, repeated Israeli bombardments and targeted assassinations against Palestinians have aggravated the violence and resulted in harm to more, not fewer, Israelis. In fact, most major Palestinian suicide bombings since 2001 have come in retaliation to Israeli assassinations, many of which occurred when the Palestinians were mulling over or abiding by self-imposed restraint.
To give only three examples: On July 31, 2001, Israel's assassination of the two leading Hamas militants in Nablus ended a nearly two-month Hamas cease- fire, leading to the terrible Aug. 9 Hamas suicide bombing in a Jerusalem pizzeria. On July 23, 2002, an Israeli air attack on a crowded apartment block in Gaza City killed a senior Hamas leader, Salah Shehada, and 15 civilians, 11 of them children, hours before a widely reported unilateral cease-fire declaration. A suicide bombing followed on Aug. 4. On June 10, 2003, Israel's attempted assassination of the senior Hamas political leader in Gaza, Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, which wounded him and killed four Palestinian civilians, lead to the bus bombing in Jerusalem on June 11 that killed 16 Israelis.
Although Israel's provocations don't justify suicide bombings, they demonstrate why the source of terrorism lies first and foremost in its military aggression and occupation. In this context, affected Palestinian civilians see themselves not as "collateral damage" but as victims of state terrorism.
As for the nature of Israel's "retaliation," one could hardly refer to Israel's destruction of the civic infrastructure of 1.3 million Palestinians as "measured." The Israeli Army began this week's Gaza offensive by bombing bridges, roads, electric and water supplies.
By its very nature the Israeli offensive is meant to punish, overwhelm and deter with disproportionate force regardless of the suffering of the general public. Cutting off basic services of a people is not only unjustified, it is collective punishment, which is illegal under the Geneva Conventions.
The asymmetry between Israeli and Palestinian fire-power mustn't be translated into asymmetry between the value of Israeli and Palestinian life. The Palestinians have captured one Israeli soldier, but Israel holds 9,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Regarding Israel's purported refusal to bargain with "terrorists," its dealings with Hezbollah paint a different picture. Among others, its bombardment of Beirut's electric generators and its all out offensive in 1996 leading to the Qana massacre, failed to deter the Lebanese resistance and eventually forced Israel to negotiate through a third party with those its deemed Islamist terrorists, and release hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners from its jails in exchange for the remains of dead Israeli soldiers.
Given that 39 years of attempts by Israel to tame or intimidate the Palestinians have instead lead to their radicalization, isn't it time for Israel to change course? In such a minuscule territory, Israelis will never be secure if the Palestinians are utterly insecure.
The ongoing saga has once again demonstrated the absurdity of unilateralism as a viable and secure solution. And yet the Olmert government is using the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier to undermine the historical agreement Hamas has just reached with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party over a unity government, de facto recognition of Israel and negotiations with Israel.
Whether you like it or not, Hamas, like Hezbollah, is mostly a byproduct of an oppressive occupation, and not the other way round. That's why refraining from excessive use of force and concentrating all efforts on a negotiated end to the occupation is paramount for security and moderation. Otherwise, Israel will only succeed in increasing Hamas's popularity and pushing it back to clandestinity and war.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Extremism: America's Problem (June 22, 2006)
America’s problem is, by common majority logic and reasoning, that of extremism. Not left or right, not Democratic or Republican, not religious or agnostic, but our extremists on both sides of every fence.
An elegant solution, curiously not previously suggested, is inspired by physics and the laws of magnetism. When one combines a negative pole with another negative pole, these cancel each other out with dramatic and explosive effect.
We should find a viable way to cull the extremes from our great American society, thereby moderating and balancing our communities most effectively for future generations.
Let’s find a way to synergistically join our extremists with their oft-referenced brethren in Iran. Those included could indeed be:
- all who feel they live in an intolerably fascist USA, where the Patriot Act has decimated our freedoms
- all those who support the Iranian regime, raise and give charity to those terrorist organizations within their fold and those who see Iran (and its compatriots in arms Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong Il) as the guiding light of universal democracies
- those who find all solutions in increased multi-culturalism
- those who want Shariah law for our land and those, conversely, who feel threatened in our land by every manifestation of the Ten Commandments or God’s name in the public arena
- those conspiring militants, those confused about why and how the Twin Towers tumbled, those who have had sex with aliens, find transmitters in their teeth and feel Israel runs our country even when our government seems incapable of doing it for themselves
- those anti-smoking, anti-traditional marriage liberals who feel the hijab, clitoridectomy, and sexual slavery in the Middle East is an inspiring lesson in gender relations, respect, and freedom
- Rosie O’Donnell, Paris Hilton, Michael Moore, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the ACLU, Louis Farrakhan and assorted others who see the devil in our society as it is currently constituted, and would turn it inside out at the first chance they get.
I, for one, would gratefully donate a good portion of my assets to convincingly support a one-way voluntary repatriation of these unhappy souls to Iran and Ahmadinejad, their savior on this transitory earth. Either our donated class of extremists would irrevocably change the mullahs and their followers for the better (as any change could not be for the worse) or our Iranian brethren would adjust our donation for all time (a change that likewise could not possibly be disadvantageous). Thus a negative and a negative might likely cancel each other out, a boon for both Iran and America, fermenting newly found friendships everywhere.
Think of the accolades we would receive as the donor country from the United Nations, having transferred the best and the brightest from our shores to the favorite country of the UN’s Security Council and their epiphanous Human Rights Council. We will then have further confirmation of our unrivaled generosity and of being a peace-loving country that exported not its bombs, but its universally beloved.
An elegant solution, curiously not previously suggested, is inspired by physics and the laws of magnetism. When one combines a negative pole with another negative pole, these cancel each other out with dramatic and explosive effect.
We should find a viable way to cull the extremes from our great American society, thereby moderating and balancing our communities most effectively for future generations.
Let’s find a way to synergistically join our extremists with their oft-referenced brethren in Iran. Those included could indeed be:
- all who feel they live in an intolerably fascist USA, where the Patriot Act has decimated our freedoms
- all those who support the Iranian regime, raise and give charity to those terrorist organizations within their fold and those who see Iran (and its compatriots in arms Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong Il) as the guiding light of universal democracies
- those who find all solutions in increased multi-culturalism
- those who want Shariah law for our land and those, conversely, who feel threatened in our land by every manifestation of the Ten Commandments or God’s name in the public arena
- those conspiring militants, those confused about why and how the Twin Towers tumbled, those who have had sex with aliens, find transmitters in their teeth and feel Israel runs our country even when our government seems incapable of doing it for themselves
- those anti-smoking, anti-traditional marriage liberals who feel the hijab, clitoridectomy, and sexual slavery in the Middle East is an inspiring lesson in gender relations, respect, and freedom
- Rosie O’Donnell, Paris Hilton, Michael Moore, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the ACLU, Louis Farrakhan and assorted others who see the devil in our society as it is currently constituted, and would turn it inside out at the first chance they get.
I, for one, would gratefully donate a good portion of my assets to convincingly support a one-way voluntary repatriation of these unhappy souls to Iran and Ahmadinejad, their savior on this transitory earth. Either our donated class of extremists would irrevocably change the mullahs and their followers for the better (as any change could not be for the worse) or our Iranian brethren would adjust our donation for all time (a change that likewise could not possibly be disadvantageous). Thus a negative and a negative might likely cancel each other out, a boon for both Iran and America, fermenting newly found friendships everywhere.
Think of the accolades we would receive as the donor country from the United Nations, having transferred the best and the brightest from our shores to the favorite country of the UN’s Security Council and their epiphanous Human Rights Council. We will then have further confirmation of our unrivaled generosity and of being a peace-loving country that exported not its bombs, but its universally beloved.
Saturday, February 4, 2006
Publication of Muhammad Caricatures (Feb. 4, 2006)
This is not a case of preference or taste, as it should be. It is now an issue of hypocrisy, coercion and intolerance; not by Denmark or their press, but by the vocal Muslim world. However tasteful your cartoons may or may not be, your right to discourse is inalienable and your fight to support same is admirable.
You courageously and uniquely saved the Danish-Jewish community from the Nazi ravages. Your love of honesty and truth likewise remains a beacon to all nations, one unfortunately not replicated by most supposedly free Western nations.
The critics in the Muslim world are generally guilty of absolute discrimination against Christians, Jews, their own women and moderates everywhere. So it’s presumably not such a stretch for them to extend their own internal fascism to Denmark’s newspapers. They will only be encouraged to modify their intransigence if Europe refrains from reducing its own freedoms.
You courageously and uniquely saved the Danish-Jewish community from the Nazi ravages. Your love of honesty and truth likewise remains a beacon to all nations, one unfortunately not replicated by most supposedly free Western nations.
The critics in the Muslim world are generally guilty of absolute discrimination against Christians, Jews, their own women and moderates everywhere. So it’s presumably not such a stretch for them to extend their own internal fascism to Denmark’s newspapers. They will only be encouraged to modify their intransigence if Europe refrains from reducing its own freedoms.
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