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harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1254
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 4:10 pm: |     |
There is nothing anti-Jewish in my views, any more than there is something anti-Jewish in the views expressed in today's Haaretz editorial page. Montagnard is right to point out that in Israel Sharon's critics are not called anti-Semites, but it is also true that before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist, he was repeatedly called a Nazi and depicted as a Nazi in pictures in Israel while prominent Likud members did very little to dissaude it.
It's not like Straw's views are novel, and people who contradict them know that remarks like his are going to be among the responses. I don't imagine that other MOL posters, even those who most often treat my posts sarcastically, can't see through his tirades. But since such posts are clearly designed to intimidate other people from expressing their views, I'm glad other people stand up to them or encourage Dave to rethink why Straw is allowed to repeatedly use MOL as a platform for his personal attacks.
Oh, and here is today's Haaretz editorial page.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/LiArt.jhtml?contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSu bContrassID=0
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Grateful Straw
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1948
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 4:49 pm: | |
yeah, it's all Israel's fault, right harpo?
Just stop already. You've proven your hate so just drop it.
Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono like a crazy-quilt stargown through a dream night wind.
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J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 928
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 4:49 pm: | |
Israeli self-criticism does not give anyone license to single out Israel for condemnation.
The following was written by a guy named Michael Brenner, on an international forum where such discussions are carried on with a far greater degree of erudition than they are here. Brenner's comments were a rebuttal to a poster who claimed Brenner was insinuating he was an antisemite for the strength of his anti-Israel views.
Because I happen to agree wholeheartedly with Brenner, and because he's articulate on this subject, there's little need for my added commentary.
Posted 1/28/2003
"... What some have said, understandably, is that the singling out of Israel for such criticism has the same effect as anti-semitism. I don't fully concur with this point of view because I believe many of its adherents to be simply misguided, but it's certainly not devoid of logic. Israel is the only Jewish state in a post-Holocaust world where there are about 15 million Jews, a low number that is the result of the millenia of European persecution, culminating in the Holocaust. It is harshly criticized for being a Jewish state, even though it is literally surrounded by far more repressive, far more homogenous, far more religious Muslim states. The Arabs who level criticisms, many of them undeniably anti-Semitic (though these are excused by some Westerners as the ravings of an historically oppressed people) fail to level such criticism at their own leaders for treatment of the Palestinians that ranges from ethnic cleansing (Kuwait) to mass murder (Jordan and Lebanon) to historical injustice (failure to allow Palestinians to be citizens of their countries, Jordan excepted).
"The Europeans who criticize Israel both fail to acknowledge their own far more bloody colonial and domestic histories as Christian states, and the fact that Europe, 100% stable and over 90% Christian, and well-to-do, still has a far-right that seems to garner the support of roughly 15 or 20 percent of its people. The effect of the vociferous criticism, starting before Israel's existence, and resulting along the way in the legitimization of Arafat at the height of his career as a terrorist in 1974, the soft-pedaling of those responsible for the Munich Olympics massacres, the international condemnation of Israel for actions of clear self-defense like the bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor and even the Entebbe raid, the continued references to Israelis as Nazis, and willingness of European journalists to believe false stories like those told by Palestinian leaders about Jenin, all of these incidents, direct results of exactly the type of pressure we see being placed on Israel by groups like International ANSWER and its European counterparts, and biased journalists like those at the Guardian (whose correspondents have been making the same ridiculous complaints about criticism of Israel being labelled anti-semitism at least since the early 1970s) and the Independent, have had the effect of placing Jews in more danger, not less.
"You can love Israeli and Jewish people all you want. I'm telling you that those who criticize Israel unfairly, which does NOT mean all critics of Israel by any measure, particularly those who reject its right to existence both explicitly and implicitly, have, albeit indirectly, caused harm to Israelis and Jews." |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 929
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 5:43 pm: | |
Some additional succinctly put thoughts with which I agree, posted to yet another international forum, by someone named Earl Hartman, in February of 2001:
"It seems to me that arguments justifying Israel's existence can be broken down into the following categories:
1. Religious (G-d-given right)
2. Humanitarian (escape from persecution)
3. Historical (long, unbroken Jewish presence)
4. Political (Balfour Declaration/British Mandate/UN resolutions)
"People who object to Israel's existence in general, and who use Israel's actions as an excuse, would say in response:
1. Who cares? Who says your G-d has a right to give other people's land to you?
2. Maybe, but since it was only for humanitarian reasons, if you stop being worthy of our pity, that right is curtailed. If you know what's good for you, don't do anything to stop being objects of compassion, or we'll find some other victim-of-the-week to feel sorry for.
3. Who cares? There were more Arabs than Jews, and the Jews were, in the main, kicked out a long time ago. Can't you guys get used to it?
4. Who cares? The British and the UN had no right to intervene at all.
"I give most posters the benefit of the doubt when they say that they agree in principle to Israel's right to exist. However, they condition this acceptance on what they perceive as Israel's moral behavior and attach conditions for the exercise of sovereign self-defense that would make it impossible for Israel to defend itself. This is a standard that is applied to no other country.
British imperialism freed the Arabs from Turkish rule. It seems that Israel is a small price for them to pay in exchange."
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harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1257
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 10:52 am: | |
Jcrohn,
Are your posts directed at sbenois, who started this thread using the word "condemnation?" I posted my specific objections to using that language. I also posted to the link to Haaretz, not because I need it to justify my criticizing Ariel Sharon, which needs no justification, but to demonstrate that there is nothing anti-Jewish in anything I posted. Everybody has the right to criticize the current Israeli government or any other government if that is their view. You are welcome to disagree with the criticism, but not to undermine others right to free expression and to argue that it has the same effect as anti-semitism, which is devoid of logic as well as an historical basis in fact. The rest of what you posted is straw man arguing, purveying the comments of unknown others out of context as if they were related to the views MOL posters or germane to this thread. Nobody here is European, a member of ANSWER ot a journalist for the Guardian. Nobody insinuated posters here were anti-Semites. They posted those words and worse. And Fred Hartman's caricatures of discussions of Middle East policy are just that. You may find them erudite. I find them long-winded and ploughing through it a very unrewarding read.
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Grateful Straw
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1956
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 11:09 am: | |
Harpo,
I suggest you visit a local Synagogue and ask the Rabbi his opinion of your opinion. After you do that, I would very much love to hear the feedback you receive.
Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono like a crazy-quilt stargown through a dream night wind.
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harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1261
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 11:24 am: | |
http://www.rhr.israel.net/
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J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 930
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 12:02 pm: | |
"Everybody has the right to criticize the current Israeli government or any other government if that is their view."
Yes indeed, harpo, so maybe you could do us all a favor now and find another imminently world-destroying government to prattle piously about, or even another ethnic conflict that justifies your special attention.
"You are welcome to disagree with the criticism, but not to undermine others right to free expression.."
I'm sure I am "welcome," if only by those who see through your remarks to the vacuity beneath, to respond as I please. Yet I have in no way undermined your right to free expression. I have simply pointed to the heart of what your poorly considered remarks imply.
You don't like that. Too bad.
"...and to argue that it has the same effect as anti-semitism..."
The sorts of factually anemic arguments you adduce to lay blame for Israel's pariah status entirely at the feet of the current government have precisely that effect, whether you are wise enough to understand that or not.
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J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 931
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 12:46 pm: | |
Harpo, let me show you the locus of my antagonism to your views:
"Israelis are going to have to bury Sharonism politically, and the entire notion, laid bare by Benny Morris, that the state of Israel has a unique historic right to violate other people's human rights, whether or not Israeli lives are directly at stake."
Once again, Israeli self-criticism does not give anyone license to single out Israel for condemnation. That is what you've done in claiming, against the evidence of virtually every nation's founding and development, that "Sharonism"--or, most absurdly of all, Benny Morris--posits that "Israel has a unique historic right to violate other people's human rights, whether or not Israeli lives are directly at stake." On the contrary, the inevitability (there is no "right" involved) of that violation is not unique to Israel in any way. What is unique is the notion that there is some legitimacy in the claim that Israel's right to exist should hinge on its having a better human rights record than, say, France had in Algeria. Or than the US had in Vietnam. Or Turkey has vis-a-vis the Kurds.
To say that "most educated people" think Israel's existence should be so conditional, to claim that their views are merely a function of Likud policy, is either a dodge or else profoundly uninformed. One would think you haven't been alive and reading the papers for very long at all.
If you are honest with yourself--and if your personal sentiments are what you insist--you will at least attempt to rethink some of the statements you've made here. In any case, you will find few disinterested assessments of the mideast in the editorial pages of the Guardian. |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1263
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 10:01 pm: | |
People can read Benny Morris for themselves and come to their own conclusions and people can defend Sharon if they want. Neither is immune from crticism, nor is the state of Israel, and you don't have to live there or be an Israeli to do it quite legitmately.
I have not said anyone's views are a function of Likud policy nor have I condemned anything. People can read for themselves what I said.
Goodbye Jcrohn.
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sbenois
Citizen
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 10752
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 10:08 pm: | |
  ,
R   ???
---> Brought to you by Sbenois Engineering LLC <-
Let's Go Royals
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J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 933
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 10:36 pm: | |
"People can read for themselves what I said.'
They sure can.
***
Sbenois: That was pretty damned funny.
Especially the pecans part. |
Unhinged
Citizen
Username: Mem
Post Number: 2759
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 11:24 am: | |
J.Crohn won hands down.
Cheers! |
bobk
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 4711
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 1:14 pm: | |
Is that Dolly in the picture?  |
Grateful Straw
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1965
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 4:54 pm: | |
Jews are the best.
My lawyers Epstein, Epstein, & Epstein are 3 savages in the court room who take no crap.
My Doctor, Dr. Goldberg is kick ass and plays a mean round of golf.
Sandy Koufax, greatest of all time.
Albert Einstein, he was one smart Jew.
Famous Jews....let's list them!
Greenspan.
ok someone else go next.
Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono like a crazy-quilt stargown through a dream night wind.
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Dave
Citizen
Username: Dave
Post Number: 6412
Registered: 4-1998
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 5:22 pm: | |
Karl Marx |
Nohero
Citizen
Username: Nohero
Post Number: 2896
Registered: 10-1999
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 5:28 pm: | |
Yigal Amir |
sbenois
Citizen
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 10753
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 6:23 pm: | |
David Berkowitz
---> Brought to you by Sbenois Engineering LLC <-
Let's Go Royals
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bix
Citizen
Username: Bix
Post Number: 74
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 6:43 pm: | |
Jesus of Nazareth |
ML1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1575
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 8:08 pm: | |
Gene Simmons |
sbenois
Citizen
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 10754
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 8:17 pm: | |
sbenois
---> Brought to you by Sbenois Engineering LLC <-
Let's Go Royals
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viva
Citizen
Username: Viva
Post Number: 356
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 8:33 pm: | |
http://www.yahoodi.com/famous/actors1.html |
Grateful Straw
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1966
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 8:48 am: | |
3 stooges
Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono like a crazy-quilt stargown through a dream night wind.
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harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1264
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 10:15 am: | |
How about Natan Sharansky, who yesterday made a point of saying at a EU conference on anti-semitism that Europeans had every right to criticise Israeli government policies in the Palestinian conflict, just as much right as Israelis do -- and I can't imagine he doesn't see that right as extending to Americans in Maplewood. Sharansky said: "We can disagree on many things, about the line of the (security) fence, about settlements, about the right way to cope with the terror." He then went on to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel's policies with genuine anti-Semitism. Apparently he thought it was important to make the distinction, but maybe he's nuts too for speaking up. Or worse. Maybe he's an anti-Semite.
Also, The New York Times today revisits the interview Benny Morris gave to Haaretz quoting him as saying "there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing."
Like I said, people can read what Benny Morris said for themselves and not rely on others. I'll re-post the link.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1057399/posts
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Grateful Straw
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1969
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 11:10 am: | |
When Golda Meir held the office of Prime Minister, she tried to encourage Henry Kissinger to make Israel a top priority. He sent her a letter:"I would like to inform you that I'm first an American citizen; second, Secretary of State; and third, a Jew. She responded, "In Israel, we read from right to left".
Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono like a crazy-quilt stargown through a dream night wind.
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debby
Citizen
Username: Debby
Post Number: 105
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 6:20 pm: | |
Re : Anti-semitism - Criticizing Israel's actions in the Israeli-Arab conflict is not anti-semitic, as both Jews and Arabs are semitic. It may (or may not) be anti-Israeli, but it can not be anti-semitic.
Re: Arafat, and whether or not he can be a partner for peace - More than a year ago he addressed an international audience in English and spoke of cooperation and understanding, and of coexistence, and later THE SAME DAY addressed another crowd in Arabic and said "...the struggle must continue, if it takes one million martyrs, Jerusalem will be liberated."
Re: Sharon - Unilateral disengagement was NOT his idea. Left-wing Israeli intellectuals and politicians have been writing about it in the Israeli press for more than 2 years, and it was ignored by Sharon. In the last month, as the heat of a legal scandal has engulfed him and his son, evacuation of Gaza has become his brainchild. |
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