Name:     Michael L. S.   [E-Mail]
      Location: 
      Website:  Middle East Resource Center


 

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To all my Jewish friends:

לשנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו


Shalom, shalom, shalom! The New Year is upon us and, being the generous person that I am , I couldn't let the festivities pass without bestowing a gift on y'all. So, here comes "something for Rosh haShanah"!

Now, you know I do not normally talk about the correspondence I conduct concerning politics and similar to any significant degree, let alone quote it here. However, I will now make a wholesale exception here for reasons outlined below. The picture I posted in my previous entry I had found on a website. I was keen to get as much information about it as possible, so I sent the webmaster of the self-styled "DoubleStandards.org" (Cliff) the e-mail below:

Dear [Cliff]:

I came across a picture on your website: http://www.doublestandards.org/kikpal.html and was wondering if you had any background details on it including the source because I'm interested in putting it up on my blog. My impression is that the attackers are settlement residents but would appreciate any further information.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely yours,

Michael Steiner.


--
עם ישראל חי - Israel Lives!
http://locham.blogspot.com/
http://www.me-rc.info/

BUSINESSES: Help the besieged people of Israel
http://www.export.org.il/

Pretty inncuous, one might think. And he replied in kind. However, he could not resist having a dig at what one might think was a pretty insignificant feature of my message. Here is the reply I received:

Dear Michael,

Thanks for writing.

I'm afraid I'm not sure where the picture came from, but I thought it was relevant at the time, and so added it to my site.

I had a quick look at the sites you link to, and I found them rather racist.

My parents were both killed in the Jewish attack on the King David hotel in Jerusalem on July 26, 1946. The leader of the terrorist group, Menachem Begin, later became the prime minister of Israel, so you must forgive me if I am a little cynical when the Zionist propaganda machine talks about the Palestinian terrorists when they are merely reacting to their land being stolen.

Kind regards,

Cliff []

I could've left it at that--but most of those who know me are aware that I'm never one to pass up an opportunity to have a good old argument. See my response the the preceding a bit further down.

What I've resolved to do is post my exchange with Cliff verbatim. Why? For several reasons. Firstly, this is one of the few intelligent discussions I've had on the issue of the Middle East in quite a while. Most other punters are at best semi-literate, bigoted, racist ignoramuses--and I don't mean just the pro-Palestinian ones either. Secondly, I want my friends and novices to the debating arena to see how a typical discourse on the Middle East conflict might unravel and how to respond to questions raised. (Of course, you can only use my responses if you agree with my views--that means leave pre-conceived notions, appeals to religious sensitivities, racism, black-and-white/with-us-or-against-us type of variables, etc. at home.) And thirdly, perhaps crucially, I want to show how even those who may prima facie appear to be educated and temperate and who even affect to seek justice and fairness will ultimately resort to repugnant postulates which disclose their true colors and will seek to rehabilitate notions and acts which they would find utterly reprehensible in any context other than the Middle East.

I like Cliff--as I said, I found talking to him intellectually stimulating. Unfortunately, I also feel sorry for him because he thinks he's got it and he so sadly has not. (You'll see what I mean when we get to the fourth or fifth installment.) Along with so many others, he doesn't realize that uncritically espousing faux-liberal dogmas can get you to end up just as dogmatic as the most bigoted of right-wingers. Don't think you have found the provenance of wisdom just because you follow Michael Moore as opposed to Christopher Hitchens, or Bobby Fisk rather than Melanie Phillips. If your tenets are ossified, if you embraced them for reasons other than deciding they were meritorious following lengthy, in-depth study and analyses, if you do not CONTINUE to critically assess them, you are no more enlightened than "the masses"; you continue being a nondescript singularity within a gullible crowd of "sheeple." Do you think being anti-US means you're revolutionary, progressive and "independent"? It doesn't. Do you think being anti-US and anti-globalization makes you such? Again, it doesn't... - no more so than being a neo-Nazi. Without meaning to sound like an Oriental sage, but true independence of thought is achieved only when you divorce yourself from all prejudices and expectations, and absorb information from all sources--whatever the perspective of the author--and THEN make up your mind using the talents you have. Yes, it's difficult and most people haven't the time or desire to do it. Most are happy to see a few emotive pictures of "kids throwing stones at tanks" and find out they're meant to be anti-Israel because they're anti-US and since Israel is a US ally and aid recipient... - well, you see how it goes. And once they're anti-Israel, all it takes is visiting "lectures" and "independent" websites which only confirm what they already supposedly "know". And then, of course, they boast of how they haven't fallen under the phantom spell of the "pro-Israel media", "Zionist propaganda" and similar while not realizing that they've fallen prey to a different kind of propaganda: one which is not pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel for any mundane reason (such as that it perhaps emanates from Palestinians or Misrad haKhutz themselves) but rather one which presents--even mandates--being anti-Israel as part of a bigger package. You're against colonialism or racism? Since Israelis are of a lighter complexion than the Palestinians and most are of the European descent (wrong on both counts), you have to be anti-Israel. You're anti-globalization? Well, since the US is the embodiment of globalization plus there's the lingering grudge against it from the Cold War, and Israel is such a bosom-buddy of the United States, you have to be anti-Israel. Think of any permutation involving the environment/ecology, war, imperialism, economy, defense, media, trade, etc, etc, throw in a bit of anti-Semitism and you will find a way to become anti-Israel because "progressive" ideology stipulates you MUST accept one or more precepts along the line of "reasoning". You're against the war in Iraq? That's in the Middle East as is Israel. The US is the one you oppose, and US and Israel are connected. Israel militated in favor of the war. [It didn't but never mind that.] People from the Middle East who are standing next to you are sporting Palestinian flags. So, the ME conflict IS part of the war in Iraq and if you're opposed to that war, then by G-d, you've gotta be anti-Israel, too! All the while, your knowledge of any of the above (ie. environment/ecology, war and so on)--not to mention the conflict in the Middle East--is sketchy at best.

But back to my exchange with Cliff. See my response to his response below. Before that though, may I say a huge

MAZEL TOV!
to our Rosh haMemshalah, Maj-Gen. Dr. Arik Sharon. Arik is despite fierce opposition from the crackpot brigade persevering with the implementation of the Aza disengagement plan. Yesterday he bulldozed the outline of the operation and the preliminary measures necessary thru the Security Cabinet.

So, my response to Cliff:

Hi Cliff:

Thanks anyway; I'll post the picture all the same because it has to be shown.

I am perplexed as to why you should find the sites racist since the third site deals with trade, the second one says little other than that the real site will be up sometime in the future and the first one is my blog which reflects my opinions. And if I'm racist in any manner by way of my views, thoughts or life practice, then there's not a person on this planet who isn't. I don't think becoming pro-Israel after studying the Middle Eastern conflict for several years qualifies me as being racist.

Regarding King David, you may not like to hear it but that was the military and police headquarters of the Britisher mandate administration, so it can hardly be considered to have been a civilian hotel. And if you want to talk racist, perhaps I may point you to the dastradly actions of the Britishers: (1) prohibiting immigration into the Mandate in the latter half of the 1930s, ie. when Jews needed it more than ever in order to escape Nazi persecution or (2) not only shooting at Jewish refugee boats trying to reach the Mandate after WW2--and killing quite a few unarmed and desperate refugees on board--but then arresting and interning these people for years, oftentimes in former Nazi concentration camps (and remember, these individuals had just come OUT of Nazi concentration camps where most had spent YEARS). I do regret your loss--to me every life is worth the same--but perhaps you might want to try to look at things more objectively.

As far as the Palestinians fighting for land that was "stolen" from them, I'll just leave that. Maybe if you've the inclination and interest, you might one day invest some time into really, seriously looking into the ME conflict, and then you'll have slightly ifferent opinions.

Anyway, do take care and all the best,

Michael Steiner


--

עם ישראל חי - Israel Lives!
http://locham.blogspot.com/
http://www.me-rc.info/

BUSINESSES: Help the besieged people of Israel
http://www.export.org.il/

I know it's corny, but lets us hope the new year brings us all the good that this one didn't.

Lashanah habaa!!

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