Israel

[Peregrino]

It always pisses off my doctrinaire lefty friends when I say this, but I have nothing but the greatest respect for the state of Israel. I think the Palestinians deserve their own state, BUT I do not want to see Israel, the most culturally and institutionally advanced nation in the Middle East, go down in flames. (And yes, I will make that judgement call, as the mullahs and their suicide bombers have obliged me to do so!) . . . And no, I won't shed any tears for Hamas or Hezbollah losses, though I am indeed sobered by the civilian casualties on both sides.

 

Now, in the interest of fairness, I'm wondering about the recent news discussions of the "disproportionate" response of Israel to Hezbollah and Hamas: for all the civilian casualties the Israelis have inflicted, I wonder what the corresponding ratios are for anti-Israeli violence re: civilian to military casualties. It is my impression that Hamas and other groups kill a higher proportion of civilians in their attacks than Israelis do. Maybe I'm wrong--does anyone have any fact-based commentaries to clarify this issue?

 

Shalom,

Peregrino

[SheepishLord]

It always pisses off my doctrinaire lefty friends when I say this, but I have nothing but the greatest respect for the state of Israel. I think the Palestinians deserve their own state, BUT I do not want to see Israel, the most culturally and institutionally advanced nation in the Middle East, go down in flames. (And yes, I will make that judgement call, as the mullahs and their suicide bombers have obliged me to do so!) . . . And no, I won't shed any tears for Hamas or Hezbollah losses, though I am indeed sobered by the civilian casualties on both sides.

 

Now, in the interest of fairness, I'm wondering about the recent news discussions of the "disproportionate" response of Israel to Hezbollah and Hamas: for all the civilian casualties the Israelis have inflicted, I wonder what the corresponding ratios are for anti-Israeli violence re: civilian to military casualties. It is my impression that Hamas and other groups kill a higher proportion of civilians in their attacks than Israelis do. Maybe I'm wrong--does anyone have any fact-based commentaries to clarify this issue?

 

Shalom,

Peregrino

 

Since both Zionism and Islam share the same burning desire to take over the world, my only hope is that they destroy each other as fast as possible and leave us all that yummy oil to fuel the fires of FREEDOM!!!

 

[Smile]

Maybe I'm wrong--does anyone have any fact-based commentaries to clarify this issue?

I don't have anything against people of Israel but Israely government just like American's is on the borderline with fascism.

 

Check out these interesting websites:

http://fromisraeltolebanon.info/

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9335

 

From Israel with love....

[Lozen]

Let's just say that over one thousand (!) unguided missiles have been fired indiscriminately at Israeli citizens, tourists, women, and children. Lobbed right into town, with hopes of killing as many civilians as possible. The fact that there aren't more Israeli civilian casualties is because the missiles aren't very accurate and because Israel's intelligence is pretty good.

 

I don't have anything against people of Israel but Israely government just like American's is on the borderline with fascism.

 

I suppose if you call Israel's right to defend herself "fascism"...

[SheepishLord]

I don't have anything against people of Israel but Israely government just like American's is on the borderline with fascism.

 

NIGGA' PLEASE! THIS AIN'T THOMAS JEFFERSON'S AMERICA...

Edited July 20, 2006 by SheepishLord

[Smile]

Lozen,

I can see what you are saying but there are also many reason for palestinians being upset.

 

Famous Quotes By Israeli Leaders

[Lozen]

Yeah, of course, the Palestinians had some kind of exclusive rights to the land they wandered around in.

 

From an e-mail a friend sent me:

 

Starting in 1500BC (or so) the territory belonged to the Kush (Sudanese). Then, it belonged to Egypt. After that, it belonged to Alexander the Great and the Greeks. Then, it was Roman. Interspersed in there was Babylonian, Sumerian (I think, but I'm not sure on that one), Ottoman, etc. So, since many many races were there long before the tribes that call themselves "Palestinians," shouldn't we be thinking about giving Israel to the Greeks? How about the Italians?

 

Maybe we should give America to the Vikings or the Africans whose descendants crossed the ancient land bridge - you know, the ones who preceeded the "Native" Americans?

[Smile]

Hey, I don't really care. But when the people of a certain race are treated as sub-humans, why do we act all surprised if they use violence when all other means can't bring any tangible results?

[Lozen]

Hey, I don't really care. But when the people of a certain race are treated as sub-humans, why do we act all surprised if they use violence when all other means can't bring any tangible results?

 

Yes, of course. People shouldn't be held accountable for their actions. Other people are responsible for terrorism.

 

You don't sound very Buddhist today, big guy.

[Smile]

Yes, of course. People shouldn't be held accountable for their actions. Other people are responsible for terrorism.

 

You don't sound very Buddhist today, big guy.

Lozen, please don't draw your own conclusion from my statements and assign them as my own.

[Lozen]

Lozen, please don't draw your own conclusion from my statements and assign them as my own.

 

I wasn't--just reading between the lines.

 

I love it how people throw the term fascism around all the time, too.

[Smile]

I love it how people throw the term fascism around all the time, too.

Hehe, isn't it what jews call anybody who questions their motives?

 

I'm against violence in any form. My comments were to present a view that there are no innocent sides in this confrontation. At the end, the head men of both sides will survive but thousands of innocent lives will be lost. No winners.

[Lozen]

Hehe, isn't it what jews call anybody who questions their motives?

 

You don't see me throwing the term around, do you?

 

 

I'm against violence in any form. My comments were to present a view that there are no innocent sides in this confrontation. At the end, the head men of both sides will survive but thousands of innocent lives will be lost. No winners.

 

I much prefer Tibet. Oh, wait...

[sean]

In spiral dynamics terms Israel is primarily green (which puts it developmentally higher than the US actually) while the Arab states are almost exclusively red. Higher development doesn't mean right or wrong though, in the same way as a child is perfectly capable of making a more ethical choice in a situation than an adult. Obviously both sides have blood soaked hands. But spiral dynamics does highlight a vastly different value hierarchy between these nations that is nearly unbridgeable outside of waiting, say, 40-100 years for red to slowly integrate with the rest of the world and move up to blue (fundamentalist. red is not even at fundamentalism yet. pretty bad) to orange (scientific, entrepreneurial) to green (communitarian) and on upward. It's scarier in todays world though when adolescent rebellion is armed to the teeth.

 

Sean

[Peregrino]

A lot of those monabaker.com quotes are radically taken out of context! Not that Israeli leaders and soldiers never sin, but sheesh, they are surrounded by people who want to wipe them out completely. Here's a nice analysis of why negotiative rather than distributive justice is the way to go when addressing legitimate Arab/Palestinian grievances, without appeasing any appalling ideologies.

 

Regarding oil: I strongly believe that Western countries need to get off the fossil fuels crack pipe, for MANY reasons, but a big one is so that we stop bankrolling all those nutjob theocracies.

 

I really admire the anti-Islamofundie scholar Wafa Sultan. (Notice how I avoided using the word "fascism," i.e. "Islamofascist"? Har har har! Shalom . . . But if you really want to look into real ties of Islam with fascism, look up the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and founder of the Arab League, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, a notorious Nazi collaborator who supplied Muslim (PALESTINIAN) troops to fight for Hitler!)

 

Here on this great site[/url] (clip #1050) Ms. Sultan debates a radical mullah and gives him a severe tongue-lashing. Imagine an outspoken Arab woman telling Muslim countries why they should imitate Israel! She also makes the inconvenient point (to radical Islamic apologists) that Jews have managed to do far more constructive things, given their lot in history up to the Holocaust, than to launch suicide bomb attacks in German restaurants!

 

The Memri site is great for Middle East news in general. I'll grant that it comes with a pro-Israel bias--although a lot of the radical Islamic wackjobs really don't need much goading to condemn themselves from their own mouths, as the Memri clips from Al-Jazeera show. Unlike the Monabaker.com quotes, there is no distortion from the context--radical Islamic designs for Israel could be no clearer than in the Hamas charter itself, which calls for the complete destruction of Israel, and quotes the friggin' Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

 

Wafa Sultan really is a site to behold in debate, but in case the video link doesn't work, here's a transcript from the debate I mentioned:

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: There is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century

 

Following are excerpts from an interview with Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan. The interview was aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 21, 2006

 

.

Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.

 

[...]

 

Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

 

Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.

 

[...]

 

Host: Who came up with the concept of a clash of civilizations? Was it not Samuel Huntington? It was not Bin Laden. I would like to discuss this issue, if you don't mind...

 

Wafa Sultan: The Muslims are the ones who began using this expression. The Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations. The Prophet of Islam said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and His Messenger." When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to stop this war, they must reexamine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels.

 

My colleague has said that he never offends other people's beliefs. What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the "People of the Book," and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians "those who incur Allah's wrath." Who told you that they are "People of the Book"? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them "those who incur Allah's wrath," or "those who have gone astray," and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?

 

I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it.

 

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: Are you a heretic?

 

Wafa Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural...

 

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran...

 

Wafa Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you.

 

[...]

 

Wafa Sultan: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.

 

[...]

 

Wafa Sultan: The Jews have come from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.

 

Edited July 24, 2006 by Peregrino

[Smile]

Interesting post, Peregrino but I'm not going to continue with this discussion as I already stated my point of view on this conflict.