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


 

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Shabat shalom! Well, operation Day of Penitence is proceeding... - of course, 20 Palestinian terrorists are far more interesting to the world media than the 100+ people and terrorists the US offed in Samara yesterday but that's nothing to be in the slightest surprised about. Oh, and Tzahal foiled a terrorist attack when four terrorists sneaked into Israel from Aza. How did Tzahal know about them? The scum had set off the alarm on the anti-terrorist barrier. That's the same barrier the goyim at The Hague and elsewhere vituperate us for erecting. Fuck them.

OK, back to our dear Cliff. Did you knock up a few ideas on what to reply to his e-mail? See how they compare:
(Remember, for ease of keeping track, my comments are green while Cliff's are red.)

[MS:] Dear Cliff:

Well, I told you there were no simple answers! =D I don't want to
start to polemicize again but I'll review some of what you wrote; I
hope you don't mind.


[CJ:] There's some truth in a lot of what you say. My experience in Israel was around 1985 when I was 3 1/2 months in the country. [...] It's with Americans and Israelis that I have the most problems (with some exceptions, of course). Is it because both groups believe that they're God's chosen people?

[MS:] How sure are you that those you spoke with 20 years ago are representative of the majority of Israelis/Jews today? And if we are really so bigoted, then how do you explain the fact that the vast majority of Israelis are in favor of the Gaza disengagement plan, and that a significant majority believe Israel should pull out of all occupied territories? How do you explain the strength of organizations such as B'Tzelem, Peace NOW or the Labor, Meretz and Shinui parties; and many others? I also think you would find you way overgeneralize things: active consciousness of the supposed "chosenness" is not ubiquitous among Jews nor does it actively manifest in the lives of the majority of us. (Besides, the notion of "chosenness" can hardly be tied with Judaism or American political/military licentiousness: you will find it very much present among extremist adherents to most world religions and ideologies.) Also, I don't know if your opinion stems from talking to people mainly on the Internet but if it does, bear in mind that on the Internet you get a disproportionate number of radical and frustrated people who cannot plug their nonsense elsewhere and are for the most ignored in other arenas. (Eg. the presence of radical Jewish groups on the Internet is frankly frightening and while they account for maybe a couple of percent of Jewry, judging by the Internet you'd think a straight half of us thought like Kahan, Goldstein or Amir.)


[CJ:] Might I suggest you read a few articles on my site?

[MS:] Gladly. But I have to tell you I've seen most sites out there from all sides several times over.


[CJ:] 1. About the deliberate use of terror tactics to expel the Palestinians:
www.doublestandards.org/pilger2.html

[MS:] The Tantura saga is really a shambles and it is nothing short of laughable how desperate some Israel's detractors get. The short fact is that we have no way of knowing if a massacre there happened or not. But there are two considerations to be taken into account: (1) it is a little odd, to say the least, that the Palestinian side had been completely silent about what would be the biggest alleged massacre of Palestinians ever until this thesis was published. For someone able to reel off the minutest of details of other alleged massacres, they seem never to have heard of this, the biggest one--how come, if it really happened?, and (2) I take Palestinian accusations with a pinch of salt, especially those relating to the past. No, not because I blindly defend Israel or because I'm a Zionist or I don't know what but because of experience. Remember the "mass graves" in Jenin in 2002? Remember the "refrigerated trucks" that were "hauling corpses" away for secret burial "somewhere in haNegev"? Remember the "hundreds", even "over a thousand", killed Palestinians? Remember THAT "massacre" that never was? More recently, did you catch that snippet about a Palestinian boy murdered by Chamas terrorists when his family told them to take a hike and not use their house to launch rockets from? Did you notice how at first the PA tried to claim the IDF had killed him?

But be it as it may; I don't understand the purpose of digging thru this. Did the Jewish forces in some instances behave immorally (bestially, even)? Yes. Truth be told, the Holocaust had just happened and they were fighting for their very survival against combined forces of seven Arab countries so they were hardly in the right mindset to conduct a crime-free war. It doesn't exculpate the perpetrators; it just invites viewing things from a different perspective. Also, I could equally furnish websites and sources detailing Arab atrocities (think: Hadasah; think: Gush Etzion; think: Galilee), confirming that a great number of Arabs left for reasons I had talked about previously, etc. What are we going to do: have a contest--your atrocity is bigger than my atrocity? Fact is: the war happened, Israel was established, Israel was recognized, some Palestinians were refuged and so forth. I'm interested in where we go from HERE and from NOW.

And incidentally, I'm sure you are rational enough to realize that just because a member of a group A describes that group as eg. an apartheid, the allegation carries no more weight than if someone else described it as such. Israel proper is objectively not an apartheid state.


[CJ:] and Palestine Remembered at
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story674.html
which quotes the Israeli historian Benny Morris.

[MS:] V. supra.


[CJ:] 2. About the "equality" of the Arab Israelis: Human Rights Watch at
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2/ISRAEL0901-01.htm,

[MS:] The same could be said of many inner city schools in pretty much every bigger "western" city which puts minorities living in the "ghetto" at a distinct disadvantage. While I would like all Israeli citizens to have equal opportunities and would like to see equal allocation of resources to all citizens, it is disingenuous to suggest Israeli Arabs are discriminated against. I can point you to many Israeli Arabs who hold very high positions in the Israeli society: Kneset, Supreme Court, IDF, Civil Service... Yes, there is room for improvement but the situation is hardly as dire as that in many parts of the world (why don't you look to your own Europe and eg. Croatia where Croatian Serbs are REALLY discriminated against?). Why is it that so many punters like to put Israel under such a microscope as they don't put even their own countries under? And Israel has for a while been mandating affirmative action which even most EU states do not. How many of those whose hearts supposedly bleed for the Palestinians (mind you, only those Palestinians who are in Israel and the territories; those in Lebanon and elsewhere don't count as we've seen) will be demanding that Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt or Syria institute affirmative action vis-a-vis THEIR minorities?


[CJ:] www.doublestandards.org/levy2.html

[MS:] "[N]o democracy is reserved exclusively for a particular religion or nationality. In a truly democratic regime, everyone enjoys his freedoms and rights in equal measure[.]"
And which, exactly, Israeli citizens are disenfranchized and from what? Allegations that non-Jewish Israelis do not enjoy democracy in Israel kind of have to be backed up in order to have credibility and Mr. Levy did not do so. They are "excluded from the democratic public discourse"?! How??? A newspaper of "theirs" was shut down? Yes, but the extreme right-wing aren't faring any better (thankfully): eg. Arutz Sheva still doesn't have its license not is it likely to get it (this, in great part, owing to the supposedly "racist" Supreme Court). I do agree that there are far too many imperfections within Israel itself but to present it as if it's the murkiest of tyrannies a la Syria is plain nonsense. Israeli Arabs are far better off than the vast majority of Arabs anywhere in the Arab world. There are inequalities but there are inequalities between minorities and majorities EVERYWHERE. Look at the position of Arab-Europeans in France. They're mostly confined to inner city ghettoes and are practically rotting away there. Does that make the French racist? When you're in London, go to the Whitechapel area and see how the Bangladeshi people live there. Does it make Britain a place of omnipresent institutional racism? Don't oversimplify and label just because you'd like to see a particular picture.


[CJ:] www.doublestandards.org/palchron1.html

[MS:] Oh yeah, pillory Israel for the Law of Return. (!!!) They may as well attack Israel for existing in the first place!! The whole point of establishing Israel was to protect Jews when they are attacked elsewhere by offering easy immigration and then the protection afforded by a nation state. Besides, a lot of countries have laws based on ius sanguinis: the descendant of a particular ethnic group can jump thru most of the immigration hoops. What else? Ah, the status of QUANGOs. Er yeah, and? Just because those organizations have the word Jewish in their name doesn't mean they only help or act at the behest of Jews!! Jesus, this is getting farcical. The Jewish Agency facilitates Jewish immigration. The WZO runs integration and "taster" courses for potential olim. The JNF owns very little land (about 5%) and yes, prefers Jews. However, 3% of the land is owned by the Arab Wakhf which gives preference to Israeli Arabs. The point is?

Oh, and they conveniently forgot to mention that while Israeli Arabs are not obliged to serve in the IDF, they are more than welcome to which would ensure they got all the benefits. But of course, their not serving in the IDF attracts certain privileges in a different way: they get to go to college earlier and are ahead of their Jewish peers with education by the time the latter are finished with their conscription. They then start working earlier which is why a greater proportion of Israeli Arabs are employed in High Level jobs than Jews (especially Russian Jews). A bit of a problem that, for the Arab Association for Human Rights, isn't it. I agree concerning budgetary allocations.


[CJ:] 3. You may find the section on Some Jewish Voices at
http://www.doublestandards.org/pales.html#voices also interesting.

[MS:] Not really. I'm not interested who criticism comes from; just whether it's objective and constructive. Take Neturei Karta for instance. They are ultra-Orthodox Jews and the reason they oppose Zionism is that they think only the Mashiach (Messiah) has the right to re-establish Israel and rebuild the Temple, and hence the Zionist idea is, per them, against G-d. Oh, and, if you want racism, look no farther than these guys. One more thing, being anti-Zionist did not spare them: Palestinian terrorists staged no fewer than two homicide bombings in the Meah She'arim and Shmu'el HaNavi (ultra-Orthodox) neighborhoods of Jerusalem--one more proof, if any was needed--that the aim of terrorists is not "freedom" but decimating the Jewish population, whoever those Jews may be, even if they're their "allies".

As for Oona King's resolution, it would be interesting to find out if she's also boycotting Syrian, Russian, Moroccan, Chinese, Pakistani (including all the curry houses in her constituency), Indonesian, etc. etc. products. Want to hazard a guess as to whether she does?

En passant, there actually exist groups like "Arabs For Israel"--what does it prove?!


[CJ:] 4. You may like to take the quiz at
www.doublestandards.org/quiz2.html.

[MS:] Heh, ironic really that you should suggest I had a look at this (presumably to prove something) and then in the very next breath decry MEMRI and PMW for supposedly latching onto bombastic and most extreme statements taken out of context.


[CJ:] The memri and pmw sites are notorious for translating mainly extreme articles. It's like translating articles from British neo-Nazi newspapers into Arabic to give the impression that this is the way the British think.

[MS:] Hardly. They translate articles from mainstream Arab press. And TV broadcasts are from state (PA) television (one of only TWO available in the territories) or, again, mainstream Arab television stations. And they're not some blue movies but prime-time viewing. And what SHOULD they translate in order to meet your standards of objectivity: the weather forecast?!

I find it amusing that just above you give me works by equally notorious, what some would call, Israel-haters (eg. Pilger) but dismiss these organizations out of hand because they say things (actually, merely TRANSLATE things) that don't fit in with the kind of picture you'd like to see of one or the other side.


[CJ:] I understand what you are saying about the difference in motivation being important. But I do think it's splitting hairs. If country A invades country B and in the process kills lots of civilians, a consequence that was obviously known before, how is this morally better than a suicide bomber deliberately targetting civilians?

[MS:] The motive and intention is VERY important. In most judicial systems the difference between first and second degree murders (or murder vs. manslaughter) is the difference between a couple of years in a medium-security jail and a lifetime in a top-security slammer (in some parts of the US it's the difference between life and death). It IS important whether you send a squadron of airplanes to drop all the explosive they can carry on the most densely populated area they can find (a strategem perfected by the late Hafiz al-Asad at Chamah--but we're not interested in that since Israel was not the bad guy or even A guy, right?), as opposed to killing a dozen civilians in the course of trying to get to a criminal hiding among civilians, particularly if the civilians are killed as the result of faulty intelligence. If you cannot see the difference and importance of that difference, then I regret I cannot do anything for you there. Look, if ever it comes out (doesn't matter if it will or not; I'm saying for myself) that an Israeli pushed a button knowing his action is going to result in a number of innocent deaths, then I say throw his ass in jail for a long time. If one does it negligently, imprison him and then kick him out of the Army.


[CJ:] (BTW, nearly all Israelis are technically in the military until their 55th birthday, so there is not always a clear line between "civilian" and "military" targets).

[MS:] Ah, see: little by little you're revealing your true colors. That's the exact same (non-)argument used by terrorist outfits. It basically says: hey, why should we look for a barracks to blow up; since almost every Israeli (except Israeli Arabs and, yes, the ultra-Orthodox) serve in the IDF, all Israelis are fair game so let's strike them anywhere--and the more the better! Well, if I was a lowlife piece of feces who accepted such an argument, I could retort: since terrorist acts are committed with the support of a large corpus of the Palestinian populace, since many provide direct support to conduce the commission of such acts, and since a lot of them have the propensity to turn into terrorists, bomb them all to kingdom come!!

Of course, I don't accept that "doctrine" and I could never fathom condoning such an act.


[CJ:] I certainly do not defend the killing of Israeli civilians by suicide bombers, but unless you believe that the Arabs are subhuman, ask yourself what depths of despair and hopelessness would drive a human being to such extremes.

[MS:] You know, I did. And the answer still eludes me: EITHER the Palestinians are THE single most oppressed, brutalized, raped, robbed, enslaved, murdered, etc. people ever to have existed on the face of this planet (I mean, forget Colombia, Mauritania, Sudan, Chechnya, Lebanon, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Kashmir, Tamil Eelam, Tibet, North Korea, Indonesia... ... ... hey, forget the Warsaw ghetto or the nations of Occupied Europe... - no, no: it's the Palestinians who lead with their plight both now and within the entire history of the human kind).

OR there is much more to this than meets the eye. You make your choice; I think you know mine.


[CJ:] There are two sides to most problems, but the fact does remain that the Israelis are free to travel abroad and live at a level not far from that in Europe, while the Palestinians are kept in the world's largest open Prison (Gaza), soon to be the second largest when the West Bank wall is completed, in squalor and abject poverty, and liable to get killed in the "cross-fire" or by bombs dropped from F16-s or Apache attack helicopters.

[MS:] Yes, there ARE two sides to most problems. Here there are many more than just two. I would ask you who started it but it doesn't matter. What matters is who perpetuates it. Who reneged on their (his!) promises? Who lined up his pockets with international aid and let the refugees and other Palestinians continue living like dogs? Who walked out of negotiations and started the Intifada in stead? Who has been nurturing a culture of war and hatred thru the media and manipulation of other factions who were more than happy to play along?


[CJ:] What would you do if you had been born there?

[MS:] I don't know. And neither do you. However, precedents and parallel case studies very strongly suggest I would not be blowing up civilian centers while I had purely military targets staring me in the face. Oh, and while I had the option of DIPLOMACY staring me in the face.


[CJ:] It's been 37 years now. Isn't it up to Israel as the occupying power to make the first move?

[MS:] I think it is and that is why I hope Arik Sharon perseveres with the disengagement plan from Gaza and northern Samaria. I hope he will be succeeded by someone with even more courage who will withdraw from the territories completely--not because we're cowed or afraid but because it's the right thing to do. But bear in mind, it's not as simple as telling the Army to pick up their stuff and move behind the Green Line.

Take care,

Michael

And something nice for the end: a poignant story about two German students who bicycled from a former Nazi concentration camp near Berlin all the way to Yad VaShem in a reconciliation effort between Israel and Germany. Read about it here.

Have a shavua tov...

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