Hamas vs Fatah

The Times June 24, 2006

To allow Islamists to direct the post-7/7 debate was a disaster
Michael Gove
THE BRITISH State has come under severe criticism following the Forest Gate raid for its intelligence failures in the fight against terrorism. But the biggest failure of all in the battle against Islamist extremism has gone practically unnoticed.

Tony Blair has acknowledged that the fight against Islamist terrorism cannot be restricted to a police action against isolated individuals or small groups. Last summer he spelt out that a much broader effort is required to tackle, at root, the ideology of Islamism that has bewitched so many minds. But in the struggle against extremism the British State has failed to tackle the underlying ideological currents that favour Islamism. Organisations such as the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), whose members have shown sympathy for extremist positions, are rarely challenged, and certainly not publicly by the Government or its agencies.

For moderate Muslims the picture is dispiriting. They see the most religiously conservative and politically provocative groupings enjoy the lion’s share of attention and they wonder how serious the British State is about countering extremism. How can they convince young men within their community that the path of moderation brings respect and a voice in the nation’s deliberations when the most influential voices are seen to belong to those with radical agendas?

In Islamist circles a complementary message is absorbed. The British State does not have the courage to face down the advocates of political Islam. Islamists in Britain scent weakness. Just as Islamists abroad believe the West does not have the stamina to resist for long, so Islamists within the UK believe the momentum is with them. Islam’s Leninists have drawn the bayonet, probed, and found mush.

Proof of the British State’s institutional weakness came directly in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings. At the Prime Minister’s behest the Home Office established a series of working groups to tackle the threat of Islamic extremism. A variety of individuals were appointed whose past statements or current affiliations made them very curious conscripts in the struggle against extremism.

Among those appointed was Ahmad Thomson, a convert to Islam who has argued in the past that Hitler was supported by Zionist financiers and Muslims are obliged to want to live in an Islamic state. Another figure appointed was Ibrahim Hewitt, who sits on the ruling council of Respect, the political party founded by George Galloway, which fuses together the Trotskyist SWP and the Islamist MAB. Also invited to advise the Government was Professor Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Professor Ramadan is not, of course, obliged to follow in the footsteps of his forebears. But he gives it a good try.

Professor Ramadan has been characterised as a moderate because he has said that he “agrees with integration” of Muslims in the West. But he has also insisted that “we [Muslims] are the ones who are going to decide the content”. Bernard Kouchner, the French Socialist and former health minister, has described Ramadan as “absolutely a kook with no historical memory” and “a dangerous man”.

Given the presence of these and others with a similar perspective on the Home Office’s working groups, the conclusions were not that surprising. In so far as extremism was acknowledged as a danger it was attributed to the foreign policy of Blair and Bush. And in so far as remedial action was required, it seemed, again and again, to consist of more public money going to exclusively Islamic bodies that would be empowered to provide more Islamic solutions, in accordance with appropriate Islamic principles.

In my conversations with moderate Muslims, the folly of such a strategy is repeatedly underlined. Mainstream Muslims wish to participate fully in the life of our nation as equal citizens. Their faith is an important, integral, part of their identity but they do not wish it to be the exclusive route through which they relate to the rest of Britain. But the the approach of organisations such as the MAB and MCB, an approach reinforced by the working groups’ report, is to Islamicise every issue with which Muslims come into contact.

The success of the MCB, MAB and their allies in dominating the public debate, shaping public policy and driving the media conversation has been profoundly damaging. A narrow version of Islam has been privileged, theological conservatism reinforced and political radicalism given room to advance. A rising generation has been encouraged by those Muslims most prominent in public life to put their Islamic identity ahead of their British citizenship. That generation will have heard the Muslims most fêted by government pay tribute to terrorist leaders and fundamentalist ideologues as figures worthy of respect. That generation will also have had its sense of grievance nurtured even as its sense of separateness has been reinforced. For Islamists and their allies, it has been a golden prospect.

© Michael Gove 2006.

Extracted from Celsius 7/7, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on June 29 at £9.99. Order copies for £8.99 (free delivery) from The Times BooksFirst on 0870 160 8080

Visit http://www.timesonline.co.uk/books on Monday for more extracts from Celsius 7/7 by Michael Gove

 

Book extracts

Times Online June 26, 2006

The roots of Islamism
Michael Gove
In the second extract from his book Celsius 7/7, Michael Gove claims Islamism is not a campaign to restore piety but a revolutionary attempt to re-make society
Click here for extract one

The First World War began with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Second with the invasion of Poland and the Cold War with the Soviet blockade of Berlin. The War which the West now faces, the conflict which has become known as the War on Terror, began, in the eyes of many on September 11th 2001 with Al Qaeda's assault on America. But, like the Pearl Harbour attack with which it has been compared, 9/11did not mark the beginning of this global conflict, but rather its most audacious escalation.

Well before Al Qaeda succeeded in its efforts to bring its war so spectacularly onto American soil the Islamist assault had been advancing. In the decade before 9/11 Islamist fighters had taken possession of Afghanistan, as a base for their global operations, launched a campaign to take control of Algeria, used Sudan as a launchpad for jihad, attacked American embassies in east Africa and detonated an explosive which killed seventeen on the American destroyer, the USS Cole, while it lay at anchor off the coast of Yemen.

Prior to that assault, Islamists had planned attacks on other American targets including an attempt to sink the USS Sullivans in January 2000 and detonate a bomb in Los Angeles airport in December 1999.

Islamist operations against America date back as far as 1993, when the first assault against the World Trade Centre was launched. A bomb planted in the car park below the North Tower killed six and injured more than 1000 others but the bombers failed in their intention to collapse the tower.

America was very far from being the only nation to be targeted by Islamist terror. In Jordan, Al Qaeda members laid plans to bomb four targets at the time of the Millennium. They had identified the Radisson hotel in the capital, Amman, the border between Jordan and Israel; Mount Nebo, a Christian holy site; and a location on the Jordan River where John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus. These targets were selected in the hope of maximising casualties among visiting Western tourists.

Western tourists were also the victims of a series of attacks in Egypt.

Sixteen Greek citizens were killed in 1996, nine Germans and their Egyptian driver were killed in September 1997 and in November of that year 58 tourists and four Egyptians were massacred near Luxor.

Since the beginning of the 90s Islamist fighters have also targeted, among other nations, Indonesia, Pakistan, Israel, Qatar, Spain, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India, Australia and Kenya. Tourists, businessmen and travellers of almost every nationality have been victims of Islamist atrocities. Attacks have been planned, and terrorist cells established, in Germany, Italy and France as well as the United Kingdom and most of the Arab world. Nations with colonial traditions, and those which have never played the imperial game, countries which are Christian, Muslim or multi-confessional, nations which supported the Iraq war and those which opposed it, all have been visited by the shadow if Islamist violence.

The roots of the current jihadi assault are various. But, wherever Islamists strike, whomever they target, and whatever the interpretation placed upon their actions by commentators in the society which has been attacked, they are united in a single campaign by a common ideology.

Mohammad Siddique Khan's posthumously broadcast vindication explicitly linked his actions with the campaign prosecuted by Al Qaeda's leaders, Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. His enlistment as a soldier was driven, he explained, by his religion "Islam - obedience to the one true God, Allah, and following the footsteps of the final prophet and messenger Muhammad". The terrorists responsible for the Madrid train bombing were, according to Bosnian police, trained in Al Qaeda camps in that country. They were also, according to British intelligence sources, working in co-operation with a Syrian Al Qaeda fighter who, after leading operations in Europe, is now believed to be in Iraq.

Even where no explicit linkage between terrorist cells and known Al Qaeda operatives is established, the operational style, political rhetoric and ideological justification deployed by different Islamist fighters underlines their shared approach. From the Hamas killers in Gaza to Hizbollah terrorists in Lebanon and Islamist fighters across South-East Asia, from Indonesia to the Phillipines, there is a ruthlessness in the selection of civilian targets re-inforced by a willingness to embrace suicide bombing, a belief that Western influence needs to be cleansed from Muslim lands and a desire to see a narrow and highly politicised form of Islam imposed across the Muslim world.

The global, and inter-connected, nature of the Islamist terror campaign can only be understood by grappling with the totalitarian ideology which drives jihadist warriors. While they proclaim themselves soldiers for Islam they are not representative of majority Muslim opinion. Far from it. Islamists are a self-conscious vanguard who look down on other Muslims and consider the majority of their co-religionists as sunk in barbarity or error.

Islamism is not Islam in arms, it is a political creed which perverts Islam, just as fascism degraded nationalism and Communism betrayed socialism. Its animating spirit is not the pious devotion of the believer who finds in contemplation, charity and prayer both fulfilment and inspiration. Islamism appeals to that part of the human soul which has always been capable of being drawn to revolution, violence and the exaltation of the self through membership of the elect. There are aspects to Islamism which lend it the same appeal which seduced young men into the Red Guards or the Waffen SS, but there are also specific aspects to the ideology which attune it to the discontents and yearnings of young men in our time.

Rather than thinking of Islamism as a variant of a great and ancient faith it is better to view it in the terms defined by the Italian historian of fascism, Emilio Gentile, who explained that totalitarianism is "an experiment in political domination undertaken by a revolutionary movement that aspires towards a monopoly of power. It seeks the subordination, integration and homogenisation of the governed on the basis of the politicisation of existence interpreted according to the myths and the values of a political religion. (It) aims to shape the individual and the masses through a revolution in order to regenerate the human being and create the new man. The ultimate goal is to create a new civilisation along expansionist lines beyond the nation state."

Islamists believe in the re-ordering of society to secure total submission to a narrow, puritan and fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. They are conducting a civil war within the Islamic world designed to overthrow existing regimes, which they consider to be unforgiveably apostate, and replace them with a single and unified Muslim state, the restored Caliphate. Islamists believe that the sanctity and culture of Muslim lands are menaced and defiled by Western influences, from capitalism to feminism, which have to be eradicated.

That cleansing process must be accomplished by suicidal violence, because, in the words of Islamism's most influential thinker, Sayyid Qutb, "the death of those who are killed for the cause of God gives more impetus to the cause, which continues to thrive on their blood."

The bloodshed should not stop at Islam's current borders. Not just because those nations which are unIslamic constitute dar-al Harb, the House of War, which constantly threatens the security of the Muslim world. But also because Islamists are driven by a divine mission to ensure the whole earth, in due course, learns to submit to Islamist rule.

The belief that Islam's sovereignty over the whole globe is necessary and total was powerfully displayed on BBC TV's Newsnight in February 2006. Anjem Choudray, one of the leaders of the UK Islamist group al-Ghurabaa, rejected the suggestion that he might be happier pursuing his fundamentalist approach to religion and politics outside the secular and liberal political culture of the UK. England, he informed the viewers, "belongs to Allah". And just in case we didn't appreciate just how far short of Allah's, and his, standards, we fell, Choudray utterly rejected any notion of accommodating his beliefs and practices to the norms of our democratic society, arguing, "if you put me in the jungle, should I behave like an animal? Of course, not"

Choudray's openness in claiming England for Allah and condemning current Western mores as bestial may be shocking, but it should not be surprising. For there is nothing hidden or esoteric about the Islamist approach.

 

The scale, scope and ambition of Islamist thinking is not hidden in any secret protocol or encoded in obscure scripture. It is proclaimed, freely and fully, in the speeches and broadcasts of Islamist ideologues from Osama bin Laden to Anjem Choudray and it is outlined in the extensive texts of the founding ideologues of Islamism.

But there is a wilful blindness among many in the West who refuse to acknowledge the totalitarian nature of the ideology which drives jihadi warriors. Even though the shelves of every Western bookshop sag under the weight of texts which record the cruelties and barbarism inflicted by totalitarianism in the twentieth century, there seems to be a remarkable reluctance to accept that totalitarian thinking could be behind contemporary cruelty and barbarism.

Instead Western commentators attribute Islamist violence to specific, discrete, grievances such as the presence of American troops on Saudi soil, the failure to establish an Arab Palestinian state or the material poverty of Arab peoples. In every case the blame for Islamist violence is laid at the door of the West, for failing to deliver "justice".

It is a remarkable commentary on the state of analytical thinking in the West that when faced with mass-murderers, who loudly proclaim the ideological basis of their actions and prophesy victory on the basis of Western weakness, Western thinkers respond by denying the ideological motivation of their attackers and instead blame the West for stoking grievances.

The belief that Islamist violence can be explained by these factors is as flawed as the belief in the 1930s that Nazi-ism could be understood as simply a response to the perceived injustices of the Versailles settlement which could be assuaged by re-uniting Sudeten Germans with their Bavarian cousins.

That response, the classic appeasers' temptation, betrays a profound misunderstanding of the totalitarian mindset. The Nazis were not capable of being satisfied by the reasonable settling of border disputes. They were motivated by a totalitarian dream of a thousand year Reich, purged of Jewish and Bolshevik influences, in which Aryan manhood could flourish. Their territorial ambitions in the 1930s were not ends in themselves but mechanisms for testing the mettle of the opponents. Hitler's success in realising his interim territorial goals established, to his own satisfaction, the flabbiness of the West, emboldened him to go further and created a sense of forward momentum which silenced internal opposition.

Jihadists today are not conducting a series of national liberation struggles which, if each were resolved, would lead to peace on earth and goodwill to all infidels. They are prosecuting a total war in the service of a pitiless ideology. It is only by appreciating that the enemy we face is a seamless totalitarian movement that we can begin to appreciate the scale of the challenge we must confront.

While many jihadist acts – from ritual beheadings to the invocation of scripture before battle – may seem to be throwbacks to medievalism, the Islamist belief system is as much a product of modernity as the capitalism, liberalism and feminism jihadists abhor. It is only by tracing its similarities with, and departures from, other modern totalitarianisms that we can develop an appropriate response.

Islamism is a twentieth-century phenomenon. Like its sibling ideologies, fascism and communism, it offers followers a form of redemption through violence. Like fascism, Islamism envisages the creation of a purified realm purged of toxic outside influences and internal corruption. Like communism, Islamism is not ethnically exclusive, it seeks to enlist new converts through proselytisation, political education and military advances. Like both, it reserves a special hatred for the West, for political freedom the separation of the public and private realms, dissent, sexual tolerance and a belief in the sanctity of individual life. And like both it finds a dark and furious energy in hatred towards the Jewish people.

Communism, Fascism and Islamism have all been responses, indeed reactions, to Enlightenment thought. The intellectual roots of Communism lie, naturally, in the works of Marx and Engels. But their work grew out of the ferment on the Left in the early nineteenth century and the ground laid by thinkers such as Proudhon. Marx and Engels' work, in turn, was developed by their disciples, from Lenin and Ho Chi Minh to Louis Althusser and Che Guevara. Fascism developed out of the racial "science" of the late nineteenth century, itself a form of perverted Darwinism, the anti-liberal thinking of German critics of the Enlightenment such as Herder and the celebration of violence advanced by Italian Futurists and German ultra-conservatives such as Heidegger, Schmitt and Junger.

The thinkers responsible for shaping Islamism as we now know it are the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood's principal theoretician, Sayyid Qutb, and the Pakistani ideologue Abul Al'a Mawdudi. Together they exercise a bewitching, and guiding, influence over the ranks of Islamist terrorists conducting the jihad we face today.

It is important to appreciate that Islamism is not the same thing as Islamic fundamentalism. All Islamists are fundamentalists, but not all fundamentalists are Islamists. Fundamentalism is a specifically religious phenomenon, Islamism is a political programme. It is informed by a view of mankind permeated by traditional, fundamentalist, religious thought.

But Islamism is given special force by its co-option of the revolutionary ardour common to other twentieth-century totalitarianisms.

Islam, like other great religions, has gone through cycles of growth, decline, re-interpretation and revival. At various points Islamic thinkers have drawn believers back to what they argue are the founding principles and fundamental truths of scripture.

In the ninth century Ibn Hanbal preached against innovations in Islamic law and thinking, calling the faithful back to traditional interpretations of the Koran.

In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century Ibn Tamiyyah led a similar rejection of attempts to update and re-interpret what he considered the essential and flawless truths of aboriginal Islam. And in the nineteenth century Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab led another campaign to purge Islam of innovations and restore it to the pristine purity of its foundational texts. Each of these movements, like parallel processes in Judaism and Christianity, sought to rescue believers from heresy by re-rooting the faith in its founding truths.

Contemporary Islamism draws inspiration from this puritan strain in Islamic thinking, but it is more than just a form of religious revivalism. It is a specifically political movement which sees the answer to every social, cultural and moral problem in the implementation of a political programme derived from strict Islamic principles and imposed at the point of a sword. Islamism is not a campaign to restore piety through teaching, preaching and encouragement to private devotion. It is a revolutionary attempt to re-make society, by argument certainly, but also inevitably by force, in order to secure total submission to a uniquely austere and militaristic divinity.

© Michael Gove 2006.

Extracted from Celsius 7/7, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on June 29 at £9.99. Order copies for £8.99 (free delivery) from The Times BooksFirst on 0870 160 8080 or here
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Exclusive: Hizbullah paying terrorists for Kassam attacks
By BY HERB KEINON AND YAAKOV KATZ
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Hizbullah is paying Palestinian splinter groups "thousands of dollars" for each Kassam rocket fired at the western Negev, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

According to Israeli intelligence information, Hizbullah is smuggling cash into the Gaza Strip and paying "a number of unknown local splinter groups" for each attack.

Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) sources said the Islamist organization paid several thousand dollars for each attack, with the amount dependent on the number of Israelis killed or wounded.

"We know that Hizbullah is involved in funding terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," a security official said.

"Palestinian terrorists get thousands of dollars per attack. Sometimes they are paid before the attack and sometimes they submit a bill to Lebanon afterward and the money gets transferred a short while later."

According to the officials, while Islamic Jihad was behind most recent rocket attacks - including the one on Tuesday night that critically wounded 14-year-old Adir Basad in Sderot - several splinter terrorists groups are also involved and have received direct funding from Hizbullah.
According to security officials, Islamic Jihad gets the money via its headquarters in Damascus while Fatah's Tanzim terror group and the Popular Resistance Committees receive payment from Hizbullah in Lebanon.

All of the money originated in Iran, the officials said.

Government officials said Hamas was not currently involved in firing missiles, but was doing nothing to stop those who were.

Also Wednesday, the IDF Operations Directorate relayed new orders to the Southern Command following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision earlier in the day to permit the army to once again target Kassam rocket cells.

This decision came after a meeting Olmert held with Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, and other senior security officials.

Following the meeting, the Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying that in light of the increase of rocket attacks, despite the cease-fire, "an instruction was given to the security forces to take pinpointed action against the launching cells."

At the same time, the statement said, Israel would continue to observe the cease-fire and to work with the Palestinian Authority to get it to take immediate action to stop the firing of the rockets.

Peretz told the cabinet on Sunday that there have been cases over the last month where the IDF spotted terrorists preparing to fire rockets, but - because of the cease-fire - did not act. The new policy would put an end to that situation.

In the past two weeks, OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant has recommended taking much more extensive action inside Gaza to stop the rocket fire, but on Wednesday - according to government sources - he was resigned to accepting the new policy.

According to the IDF, troops will not be allowed to operate inside the Palestinian Authority except when provided precise intelligence concerning a specific Kassam rocket cell.

According to government officials, Olmert argued at Wednesday's meeting that the cease-fire had strategic value, and that Israel's policy of restraint had earned it "a lot of understanding and appreciation" around the world that would provide "leeway" in the future.

Israel, according to officials in Olmert's office, can afford to continue to observe the "overall parameters" of the cease-fire, and can always take more forceful action down the line.

These officials also said that even when Israel did employ more force in Gaza it was unable to stop the rocket fire, and that the 64 rockets that have fallen during the monthlong cease-fire were only one-quarter of the number of rockets fired in the month preceding the agreement.

 

Olmert has argued in recent days that a strong military response would only unite Hamas and Fatah.

Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza alluded to this when he expressed the hope that renewed fighting with Israel would help end internal Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip.

A Kassam rocket hit near Sderot after the security meeting. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, with Abu Hamza saying it was a response to Israel's arrest of operatives in the West Bank, which is not covered by the cease-fire.

According to the new orders, the IDF is allowed to fire at Kassam cells before and after they launch rockets at Israel. The rules of engagement are dependant on intelligence, primarily on the location of the cell and whether there is a possibility that Palestinian civilians would be harmed. Terrorists often use urban areas to launch sites the rockets.

"We are aware of the sensitivity of the situation," said an officer in the Southern Command. "We do not want to cause diplomatic problems."

According to the officer, the IDF is also allowed to target Kassam launchers if no people are present. Based on the government decision, the IDF will continue to refrain from targeting Kassam workshops and will only fire at people if they are "ticking bombs" - terrorists on their way to, or in the midst of, an attack. Armed gunmen who approach the Gaza security fence were also, the officer said, legitimate targets.

"When there is a danger, we will not stand idly by but will open fire," he said. The IDF plans to utilize the air force to target the Kassam cells and launchers.

"The terrorists need to feel like they are being hunted," said one officer. "We intend to make that happen."

AP contributed to the report.

 

Radical Islam
The Symbiotic Conjoining of Liberalism and Militant Islam

by Seton Motley
Posted Dec 29, 2006



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We are now five years into our more pronounced focus on the perverse ideology of the global collective that is the waging of jihad and the push to Caliphate. There are facets of this latest bit of evil that are stridently reminiscent of characteristics of evils past, and to paraphrase the old George Santayana saw, we who do not recognize history are condemned to repeat it.

The recidivist similarity that most readily leaps to mind is the anti-Semitism and Holocaustic intent of Nazism then and Islamism now. It is more than difficult to delineate quotes culled from Adolf Hitler and his minions circa World War II from those emanating from a whole panoply of mullahs, sheiks and Muslim thugocracy representatives and publications currently plying their Jew hatred all across the planet today.

The all encompassing oppressiveness of the my-way-or-the-highway brand of Islam that the likes of Sunni al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or Shiite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad practice and seek to put into practice makes one wax redolent to the means of Communist implementation of Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot.

(But, to quote Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, to make an omelet one must crack a few eggs.)

And anyone taking in the current leftist rush to the defense of the Caliphatists and their machinations no longer need be surprised by their apparent insistence on committing suicide via jihadist proxy.

(The problem—a problem—is that these people are also choosing to end our lives for us, without inquiring as to whether or not we are yet finished with them.)

The rectification of this shock and awe is quite simple, really. The global left and the global Caliphatic movement fulfill a reciprocative symbiotic need; the former is in perpetual search for the next mascot to champion, another shibboleth to shake at a Western culture they revel in but revile. The latter, in search of our ultimate end, is more than happy to be but the latest to fill that bill.

And as in the Soviet days of yore, those on the port side of things could not be more utilitarian in their idiocy.

The left has also long been domestically practicing its victimology craft. To cite but one exemplar, we have our inner cities.

In reality, these rollicking train wrecks are the legacy of the liberal welfare state; as the recently late, tremendously great Milton Friedman noted, when you pay people to be poor, you will get a whole lot more poor people.

But according to the causes with a cause, these tacit war zones have been strip mined as a result of the inherent racism and prejudices of America’s “Haves,” exploiting their economic and cultural advantages to keep down the ghettoed “Have Nots.”

That the denizens of these societal backwaters engage in rampant drug use, crime and the full cadre of anti-social behavior on parade therein, and are in actuality remunerated by the government for so doing, has NOTHING to do with their circumstance, apparently. (Nor does the fact that these “underprivileged” are predominately white undo the ongoing “America as racist nation” storyline.)

No matter where one turns, no matter how many self-incurred wounds one finds, there will always be one more liberal racing to the fore to dismiss the culpability that should attend the damage done (and thereby again postpone any hope that these tragic talismans will extricate themselves from their concentric hell; why rectify when one can instead justify?).

Fidel Castro murders and tortures his populace, and renders a Caribbean paradise 90 miles to our south a floating jail, but it is all totally dandy with liberals because the islanders have health care and rice steamers.

For they are the excusers, for any and every failing they can find. And the worldwide jihadist network watches, and learns.

How else to explain last month’s Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) dramatic reenactment of the cinematic classic “Snakes on a Plane”? I am referring, of course, to the six imams bound from Minneapolis who insisted on drawing as much negative attention to themselves as was possible; loudly heaping praise on bin Laden and roundly bad-mouthing the U.S. for ousting Saddam Hussein, all done during and after fanning out in the fuselage 9/11-style.

Inside of 30 seconds of their rightful aeronautical ejection, they had already fully lawyered up, and CAIR was there with press statements and (un)righteous indignation at the ready.

The ACLU could not have executed the play any better. But they have done as much, as well on behalf of a great many militant Islamists “detained” in places like Guantanamo Bay (for little things like killing some of us, or trying or plotting to do so) and a whole host of other people and causes over the decades that all share the hope of our undoing. The route for CAIR to follow was well traveled and well illuminated.

In fact, jihadists have been playing the “Poor Me” card back home for at least as long. Yasser Arafat made an inordinately prosperous career of it (think Jesse Jackson in fatigues and a turban). The Israeli “occupied territories” are but Arab welfare areas (think South Central Los Angeles), identical to and incepted at the same time as was our Great Society, with similar egregious results.

A great many Muslim nations sit atop nearly incalculable reserves of the No. 1 commodity of the 20th and 21st centuries (that would be oil), yet they are almost to the last economic wastelands, rife with poverty and ruled by thugs.

As with any failed state, or state of things, a bogeyman must be named to blame, to avoid the painful and far more accurate look within.

The Jews and Israel will do, and often have, in explaining away the dictatorial overlording done by the Middle East powers that be. But the Great Satan gets a great deal of the “credit” as well, and it is here that the Islamists and the leftists find common cause.

It is difficult to demarcate daylight betwixt Ahmadinejad promising to “end Anglo-Saxon civilization” and the 1960s-era Berkeley mantra (alive and in play on campuses today), “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ. has got to go”.

They meant, and mean, from much more than merely the curriculum, and those chanters and fellow travelers of yesterday are the likes of the ACLU doctors of jurisprudence for the Islamist defense today.

They are again from within seeking league with our latest enemy without.

Mr. Motley is an essayist who writes for NewsoftheDay.org, a publication of The Less Government Foundation.

 

Anti-Israel "rabbis" face fallout from Jewish world
Thu Dec 28, 2006 5:00 PM GMT

By Jonathan Saul

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Jewish leaders from across the globe have decried the sight of six Jews with beards and black hats embracing Iran's president at a conference questioning the Holocaust, believing their gesture hurt the faith.

The Nazis' mass murder of 6 million Jews remains one of the most sensitive issues for Jewish people. Israel was partly founded as a haven for Holocaust survivors.

Jews continue to be alarmed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who since coming to power in 2005 has sparked international condemnation by terming the Holocaust "a myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

Despite this, a small cluster of Jews took part in the December conference. They say they went under the banner of Neturei Karta, a fringe ultra-Orthodox movement estimated by many commentators to number around 100, which does not recognise the state of Israel, and seeks its demise.

They believe Jews must remain stateless before the coming of the Messiah, and view the Zionist movement -- which established Israel -- as an abomination before God for founding a state prematurely.

Even before the Tehran conference, the movement had angered many Jews by supporting former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and having ties with Islamist group Hamas.

The six Jewish visitors to the conference in Iran regard themselves as part of the Haredi community -- a very conservative branch of the Jewish faith, whose name in Hebrew means those "fearful" of sinning.

"PROPAGANDA TOOL"

But even in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Mea Sharim neighbourhood, home to many detractors of the Jewish state -- including some who share Neturei Karta's anti-Zionist beliefs -- many residents said those who attended the Tehran conference went a step too far.

"While we do not agree with the secular state of Israel, these people have desecrated the name of God," said Haim Freid, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who lives in Mea Sharim. "They do not represent us."

A spokeswoman for Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance body, said the group was "an unfortunate caricature that has been used as a propaganda tool by the Iranian regime".

Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger called on rabbis worldwide to ban the Jewish participants -- who were from the United States and Europe -- from synagogues.

Agudath Israel of America, which represents tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the U.S., said despite their Haredi garb, the six were a "disgrace" and "dangerous" to Jews.

The two-day Iranian government-sponsored conference was also attended by Westerners who have cast doubt on the Holocaust, even though some of the countries they come from have made it a crime to deny that it happened.

At the conference, Neturei Karta Rabbi Aharon Cohen said Germany had carried out "a catastrophic policy and action of genocide" on the Jews, but said it was open to question how many millions had perished.

Neturei Karta's leader in Israel, self-styled Rabbi Yisrael Hirsch, said while it "hurt when people deny the Holocaust happened" the Jews' participation in Tehran was important.

"The purpose was to reveal to the whole world that the Iranians do not have any hatred to Jews, they only oppose Zionism like we do," he said, surrounded by volumes of sacred Jewish scriptures at his modest home in Mea Sharim.

"We wanted to show that Zionism does not represent the Jewish people."

Hirsch, a 51-year-old U.S. citizen by birth who rejected Israeli citizenship, said he was unable to go to Tehran because he lived in Israel. Iran does not grant entry to visitors with Israeli entry stamps in their passports. Hirsch's father Moshe, a New York-born rabbi, was Arafat's adviser on Jewish affairs.

ANGER

Neturei Karta, Aramaic for "guardians of the city", was formed in Jerusalem in the 1930s as a bulwark against the growing Zionist movement in what was then British Mandate Palestine.

The large and influential Satmar Hassidic sect, which also opposes the state of Israel and believes Zionism is an "idolatrous temptation", is a traditional Neturei Karta ally but has increasingly distanced itself from the movement.

Satmar's United States-based rabbinical leadership described the Jews' attendance at the Tehran conference as "acts of madness" and called on Satmar disciples and others to shun those who "give the go-ahead for the spilling of Jewish blood".

Many in the ultra-Orthodox world believe Moshe Hirsch, now taking a back seat in the movement, steered Neturei Karta away from its principles and represents a breakaway sect by drawing it closer to militant Muslim figures opposed to Israel, like Hamas.

Israel Eichler, a former Israeli lawmaker and well-known Haredi commentator, described their activities as "anachronistic" and "anarchistic".

"Even the most anti-Zionist rabbis have declared that in facing the outside world we need to show a united front (with the state of Israel)," he told Reuters.

Yisrael Hirsch is undeterred by those arguments.

"The majority of the Haredi world opposes Zionism in principle," he said. "We are sure one day Israel will cease to exist just like the Soviet Union did."

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
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Group's Dalliance With Deniers Outrages the Orthodox
December 28, 2006

Jacob Berkman
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NEW YORK
"When you're at a Holocaust-deniers convention, you don't want to be the guy ordering the kosher meal," host Jon Stewart joked on his "Daily Show."

But the Orthodox world is hardly laughing at the participation of a fringe Chasidic group, the Neturei Karta, in a Holocaust-denial convention in Tehran earlier this month.
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss (left) of Jews United Against Zionism speaks with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at the international conference of "Review of the Holocaust: Global Visiony."

The group drew immediate censure when video footage from the conference showed several members of the group in ultra-Orthodox garb, long beards and sidelocks embracing and kissing the conference's host, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America -- two Orthodox groups -- both distanced themselves from the Neturei Karta, emphasizing that Orthodox Judaism in no way condones Holocaust denial or the political stance of Ahmadinejad, who has called repeatedly for the destruction of Israel.

"They are not on our radar screen -- not any part of our constituency or the constituency of any Orthodox organization, including Agudath Israel to our right," said the O.U.'s executive vice president, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb. "They are a small group that is often very vocal. They are embarrassing."

The Neturei Karta -- Hebrew for "guardians of the city" -- believe that a Jewish state should be formed only when the messianic age arrives. Thus, they consider the Israeli government heretical, and believe that the Israeli rabbinate is used only to "ornament their state with a clerical image," according to the Neturei Karta's Web site.

The group has no official central office and no supreme leader. But it has synagogues and yeshivas in Jerusalem, Brooklyn, England and in upstate New York, said spokesman Chaim Soffer.

'Undo Some of the Damage'
According to Neturei Karta philosophy, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem two millennia ago, Jews lived well under Arab and Muslim rule. By meeting with the likes of Ahmadinejad, the Neturei Karta say they are working toward a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That solution includes a non-Jewish state in place of Israel, where Jews can live under Arab rule, he said.

"We are trying to establish a dialogue with those who are the enemies of the Jewish people," explained Soffer. "We want to undo some of the damage that was done."

The Neturei Karta, which has a membership estimated at up to 5,000, aren't the only religious Jews who are anti-Zionist. One of the largest Chasidic sects, the Satmar, takes that stance.

Agudath Israel was against the formation of the State of Israel before 1948, according to the group's spokesman, Rabbi Avi Shafran, but gave up that position after the country was founded, and decided to work within the political system to make it a more religious state, he explained.

The Neturei Karta routinely make common cause with noted anti-Semites and anti-Zionists, and appear at pro-Palestinian rallies. The Israel Defense Force found that the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat paid the group, whose support helped blunt accusations that the PLO was anti-Semitic, more than $50,000.

Most felt the Neturei Karta went too far in taking part in the Holocaust-denial conference.

Agudath Israel typically just ignores the group, which tends to garner press coverage because the image of Chasidic Jews embracing anti-Semites is so striking, said Shafran. But he called the Neturei Karta's public display of affection for Ahmadinejad "graphic and disgusting."

"They have given legitimacy to Holocaust denial, and, it is the parents and grandparents of these people who suffered the most," he said. "They have given aid to and abetted the enemy."

The Satmars, with whom the Neturei Karta most closely associate, issued a harsh statement that didn't name the Neturei Karta, but clearly was directed toward them.

"We call and warn all to whom the honor of God and the holy Torah are precious in His eyes to distance themselves from them and to condemn their actions, and not to give them any encouragement, because by doing this you are helping desecrate the name of Heaven, and in the future will be held to account," went the Hebrew-language statement.

'Not as Enemy of the Jews'?
Yisroel Dovid Weiss, one of five Neturei Karta rabbis who took part in the conference, said the Jewish world had misunderstood their actions.

Speaking from the Iranian capital on Dec. 18, he said that his grandparents had been killed in the Holocaust. He was not in Tehran to give credence to denial, he said, but to draw a distinction between Zionists and Jews.

Prestate Zionists set themselves up as the enemies of Hitler, and in doing so helped push Hitler to kill millions of Jews, said Weiss. He added that his group was trying to make sure that the same thing didn't happen with Ahmadinejad.

"He is not an enemy of the Jews. He never was," said Weiss. "He is a God-fearing man, as far as we saw. He respects the Jewish people, and he protects them in Iran."

But if the Zionists keep painting Ahmadinejad as an enemy, he warned, "eventually, God forbid, he could become an enemy."


See more articles in: Nation & World

 

Dec. 18, 2006, 8:25PM
Let's be clear: Orthodox Jews deeply pro-Zionist
Shame on pretenders who attended Tehran conference

By RABBI BARRY GELMAN
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Last week the Chronicle ran a curious and disturbing picture of a Chassidic Jew embracing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a conference of Holocaust deniers.

The picture has outraged Jews all over the world. That embrace represents a betrayal of Jewish sensitivities and a disgrace to the victims of the Holocaust. As the rabbi in the picture appears to be ultraorthodox Jews, it is important to set the record straight as to what authentic Orthodox Judaism teaches on this issue.

The rabbi belongs to a group called Neturei Karta that believes that Zionism is a heresy. They base their views on various Talmudic statements and the warped theological view that the Holocaust was a punishment from God brought about by the advent of political Zionism. In this group's view, only God can create a Jewish commonwealth in the Land of Israel. Any human attempt to do so is viewed as a lack of faith in God. Furthermore, according to their view, the fact that Israel was established, in the main, by nonobservant Jews, forever taints the Zionist endeavor. As such, they believe that the state of Israel is illegitimate and should not exist.

According to them, Israel belongs to the Palestinians. They attended the conference to show "solidarity" with an individual who shares their views.

This view is a distortion of Jewish law as well as a misrepresentation of the sentiments of the vast majority of Orthodox and Ultraorthodox Jews.

Judaism is profoundly Zionist. The Bible, Talmud and the daily prayer service are filled with references to Israel and Jerusalem. For ages, Jews living in exile have longed to return to Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.

In order to back their claim that Zionism is heresy, the Neturei Karta quote isolated sources and interpret them in ways contrary to most rabbinic authorities. It is a basic premise of Jewish legal theory that certain statements in the Talmud are legally binding (Jewish law) while others are categorized as aggadic (nonlegal) discussions. While important, the aggadic sections are not meant to be normative. This fringe group is so alone in its view that all classic codifiers of Jewish law ignore its arguments. It is important to note this so readers are aware that this group in no way represents Orthodox Judaism.

As far as the issue of showing a lack of faith in God in creating the Jewish state, the members of this group adopt a patently anti-Jewish approach. Of course Jews have always believed that God is the author of history and that he guides the destiny of every person. This, however, is not meant to be an excuse for passivity. Judaism teaches that human exertion to improve the world is not only appropriate, but also necessary. A sick patient is not meant to believe that going to a doctor would deny God's providence. In fact, if he refuses medical attention, he will have violated Jewish law.

The fact is that most prominent Orthodox leaders have accepted and embraced Zionism. Among the Orthodox signers to Israel's Declaration of Independence are the two leaders of the Ultra Orthodox Agudath Israel movement, Rabbi Yizchak Meir Levin and Rabbi Meir David Lowenstein, as well as Rabbi Kalman Kahana of Agudath Israel's labor movement and Rabbis Wolfe Gold and Yehuda Leib Maimon, leaders of the religious Zionist Mizrachi movement.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, one of the most prominent American Orthodox leaders of the 20th century, not only embraced Zionism but also considered the establishment of the state of Israel a divine communication God was literally knocking on the door of the Jewish people. The state of Israel was not to be viewed as heresy, but rather a joint endeavor between God and the Jewish people.

This group has crossed the line by attending the Tehran conference and embracing the monster Ahmadinejad who blatantly says that he wishes to carry on where Hitler left off. Shame on them for betraying their own people. Shame on them for spurning God and his gift of the state of Israel.

In my opinion, despite their dress and outward appearance, they have lost any right to call themselves Orthodox Jews. Perhaps we should even go further and declare about them what Maimonides has said: "The following individuals do not have a share in the world to come — those who separate themselves from the community. A person who separates himself from the community may be placed in this category even though he has not transgressed any sins. A person who separates himself from the congregation of Israel and does not take part in their hardships — but rather goes on his own path as if he is from another nation and not Israel — does not have a portion in the world to come." By abandoning the state of Israel and betraying the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, this group has indeed separated itself from the rest of the nation of Israel.

Let there be no mistake about it: The vast majority of Jews, of all denominations, fully reject the religious and theological views expressed by the Neturei Karta.

Gelman, rabbi of United Orthodox Synagogues, is treasurer of the Houston Rabbinical Association and a member of the Board of the Houston Jewish Federation.

 

Talking to yourself? :mouth:

 

Ruben, give us a paraphrase on that.

This is a subject that you know a lot about, but your deeply held views seem cast in cement (no matter what anyone says you will not change your mind). I do not follow the issue as closely as you do but from my POV Isreal are not without fault.

 

Kind of reminds one of The Father Land doesn't it?

 

Nobody in a free society and no free people should have to fall on a sword because ofsomones misplaced sense of apeasement. The Jews have been plenty restrained under the cricumstances. Given their rights and the threatm they would be perfectly justified in a more violent and permanent settlement to the ongoing problem.

Ruben

 

As a student of histiory, Rueben has a point. The Jewish people have fought longer against tyrnany than any other's I can recall and they've got the (historical paperwork) to back it...

 

You see that's the problem with theologically based societies. It's the self-endowed God-given rights that are perfectly justifiable and usually infringe upon the rights of some other group and in this case another theologically based society with the same type of perception of their own self-endowed God-given rights. How can either side ever see anything other than their own perspective and feel their own sense of self-righteousness. It's a recipe for a perpetual struggle with an extremely long history of atrocities and enough motive for revenge to keep the hostilities going indefinitely. History has proven this to be true with regard to this conflict again and again yet we do not learn from the lessons of the past and the conflict rages on. Now we are being suckered into the fight that will outlast even our most distant descendants.

Now as Rube has pointed out, we are supposed to feel an allegiance to his side because of the existence of a relatively recent "Democracy" that Israel has presented itself as for the last 60 years or so. Being a young Democracy ourselves for only a scant 230 years we are supposed to feel threatened if this new Democracy in the Middle East falls because they have such a long history of Democracy and human rights for other groups. I believe that becoming a Democracy was more of a conversion of convenience and Israeli Democracy would evaporate into nothing if they thought it would give them some sort of strategic advantage that was better than allying themselves with the world's only superpower.

The only allegience we should feel for either Israel or Arab countries is one with the countries that promote the rights and freedoms of all it's citizens and neighbors. When we support a country that inflicts it's will militarily or economically or culturally on weaker populations, we cheapen the ideal of Democracy. We sell out our very principles and morals in the process. In a complicated political world we need to pick and choose our friends and enemies with greater thought and with an emphasis on the future of our own Democracy. We can't support anyone that decides to call themselves a Democracy while their behavior proves to be anything but democratic. When we are smarter about our allegiences, we will enjoy greater respect for our way of life and inspire more countries to emulate us.

 

This thread has continually demonstrated that this is not a quality that the antagonists consider worthy of any kind of sacrifice neither politcal, let alone military.

Ruben

 

very well said...I wish to see both sides put aside religious and historical agendas...there are MANY people who have been displaced in history that do not get back what they lost, To say that the Jews deserve to have their so called 'homeland' and to quote ancient scripture as proof that it is theirs by right would be like saying western descendant people who live in the Americas should leave as this was the Indians homeland not so long ago. It just isnt realistic and taking into account the reality of this situation. I do not feel that religious and historical 'homelands' to be relevant nor do I feel killing (on either side) or any action to deny the other side their right to their homes, to be denied equality, to be expelled (either side mind you) as the correct way. But the fact is what is done is done...Israel is there now and isnt going anywhere and there is a muslim population there who treat this area as theirs by right as well.

The fact is that whether it is considered by Jews to be theirs by right of god, the simple fact is that at the time of the creation of the new state of israel there were both Jews and Arabs living there...the western powers that be sided with one over the other and conlict arose because of actions taken.

Without doubt surrounded by aggressors Israel took steps to isolate themselves and safeguard themselves by expelling the Arabs and the few who stayed were pretty much a cheap labor force. Do I blame Israel? yes, I think they hold some blame...do I blame the Arabs? yes...Do I blame colonial powers? yes...In all cases I believe because of intolerance by extremists, action by those who did not see the ramifications of what they were doing, and simply an inability to coexists this never ending conflict continues and although we have paid 400+ billion in taxes to Israel, lets not forget that we have also paid money to Palestinians for relief of their staggering poverty.

Do I think animosity would be less if the west hadnt so conclusively supported one side over the other? I cant say, certainly israel is a big bone of contention and a constant stated reason for bad blood...but who knows, extremists will always find a reason...ALL religious extremists will...be they Christian, Muslim, or Jew. Most likely nothing will have changed.

Do I think that the west would be in MORE danger without an Israel? no...worst case scenario I think we would be facing the same threats, just one less bone of contention. Would Muslim still hate Christian and Jew? Would Christian and Jews still hate Muslim? Most likely

Religion is used to justify killing and agendas and have been through history. I fear the world has taken steps back in that religious based movements with extreme rhetoric are now trying to justify terrible actions.

I know Jews, Muslims, Christians...all are nice people and do not approach things in this way...I fear for us all when I hear a christian talking about how all Muslims are evil, or when I see a Muslim justifying killing and violence.

In my opinion a large amount of radical movements in the middle east, africa, and other so called third world areas have been brought about by western aggression. It is not such a coincidence that so many countries that find themselves to be breeding grounds for extremists are countries formerly held (often brutalized and raped) by the west.

As I scan and post coins from around the world I read and summerize histories of these nations and of their revered heroes...One thing I find is very constant is that often the guy on the coin of a former colony is a guy who is a hero because he opposed the west. I recently did a history of Indonesia and the national hero on their coinage Diponegoro...He is a hero because he opposed the notoriously brutal Dutch occupation of Indonesia for 300 years...I then see people wonder why Indonesia is a breading ground for anti western sentiment. When your history books up to 1950 tells of subjugation to western powers, do you think that the west will be beloved? The British held palastine, India and what is now Pakistan, Iraq. etc.. Almost every African nation was held by brutal colonial powers who killed raped, and treated the locals like animals at best...and then we wonder why they have problems now? why they might be anti-western? They might not even be able to vocalize WHY they are mad, or WHY they have such problems...because they are often poor, uneducated, and tools to others with agendas...but I think I see the root cause. I see this repeated over and over again...

The only places that DO NOT still have serious problems from the native population after colonization are places where the native population was slaughtered to the point of genocide. Westerners made sure that America would never go back to the Indians by committing genocide on the native population, killing them to the point where there are few full blooded natives left, in essence the American Indian cannot continue as a race as the population was decimated (the rest were given reservations), same in many parts of south America and Australia...though in the places in South America where natives DO survive....you still find some movements and resistance. At one time the west seemed to think it was entitled to anything it found regardless of whether there was already someone there...

I hear a lot about history but I also see a lot of people avoiding the elephant in the room and that is the west's history of violence, death, killing, taking of lands to enrich themselves, brutal colonization, carving up land masses with little concern to the inhabitants...The attitude in the west of being better, knowing better, and treating the map like a game of risk with disregard for native populationsthey feel were inferior...

I went to Nigeria (abuja) for business and it was like I was walking into the old south, blacks were still labor while british business men played golf and drank and played golf at country clubs with blacks a caddies (a black person here and there might be there and not working, they were few and far between)...the rest of the population was in dire circumstances...hungry and and desparate...the guy who took my baggage CALLEd ME MASSA!!! I swear to god! Nigeria is just one example that shows that STILL the west has an unofficial control of much of the wealth of these nations with token native populations allowed to share the wealth as long as they work with us...now Nigeria is having problems again, anti-western...and muslim...shock! Mostly likely because colonialism is STILL an underlying issue that was never truely resolved...Many western nations have grown fat and are where they are now because of the rape of other nations and then they withdraw and say...'its the past, why do you hate us...we left! (just dont ask us to give what we took back) Why are you having such a problem? We gave you a good example to follow right? Why are YOU so brutal...

There are plenty of people all over the world (like in the middle east) that were told how grandpa was strapped to a cannon for disobeying the British masters...hell...it wasn't much more than 50 years ago when the US finally gave blacks equal rights...and of course whites didnt just up and say 'welcome brother' just because its the law!! Yet there are people who refuse to see that the actions of the not so distant past effect us today...I see European colonialism as no different than Americas treatment of blacks post civil war....the blacks werent free...they were still treated like animals and killed...and now blacks have been equal under the law for 50+ years and now some just cant understand why they might still have problems in a nation that, since its founding, was controlled in every way by whites, every power structure is white...what's wrong with them? why might there still be problems for them in this society? I see the same attitude to former colonies like Indonesia, african and YES middle eastern nations...whats wrong with them? why cant they get their act together? Why do they hate us so? hell...they have had 50-80 years to catch up to our 300 years of dominance!!

There is a lot of history in this thread but only one side. I have read too much history to just say Israel is just and Muslims are evil, committing violence for no reason and Israel did nothing wrong ever. Nor would I say israel hold all the blame...I see more than enough blame to go around to keep the fires burning.

Call me an antagonist if you will but I have never said in this thread ONCE that Israel holds all the blame in anything or shouldnt be where they are nor have I EVER said that I hate either side nor have I attempted to vilify ALL Muslims, Jews or Christians because I simply know too many of them that also see things as I do, that this is a problem of religious fanatics, killing and fighting and stealing in the name of religion and history on both sides that in the end drags us all into it and compels me to write long rambling posts like this one or causes Mr. Brooklyn to cut and past diatribes 5 posts in a row.

In the end all I would like to see is peace and understanding of the plight of both sides and a middle ground to be reached and until people stop the rhetoric, stop drawing lines and talking in black and white absolutes...stop factions driven by agendas...and start seeing us all as humans (ON ALL SIDES) there simply will be no peace. In the end we need to learn from the past instead of using it as an excuse.

Sometimes I think we live in the golden age and sometimes when I read fanatical rantings and or I see a Christian post that we should kill all Muslims until they shape up...Or see a muslim call jews pigs I think that maybe with all our advances that in many ways we havent progressed much further than the middle ages. Maybe I am just lucky that I am of Christian heritage, married to a Muslim, with a Jewish best friend, and other friends, from all over and we can all get together and be friends and see eye to eye on most things and that I am simply not exposed to extremists of any kind, I see them on the web and on TV and it baffles me why they cant be like we are.

Take care to all of you and I wish peace to be upon you all. Honestly. I will try to make this my last post to this thread as I dont think these threads accomplish anything as people have set their agendas and do not read or if they read they read only to find fault and a new reason to bicker and this problem will not be solved on the cointalk forum...

 

Dude, you'd have us believe that only Jew's live in Israel. Here are some interesting numbrs on the ethnic makup of the country according to the CIA World Fact-Book.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/is.html
Jewish 76.4% (of which Israel-born 67.1%, Europe/America-born 22.6%, Africa-born 5.9%, Asia-born 4.2%), non-Jewish 23.6% (mostly Arab) (2004)

Over one million Arabs live in Israel and practice Islam there.

 

Yeah - you keep saying this even though its not true. Neither the US nor the West is responsible for all the genocide and radicallism in the world, unless you want to make the case that the US (forget that Europe will will do this) is supposed to occupy ever country on Earth and rebuild them as moderate Democracies, while scrubbing the native facist and racist cultural morés from all native societies on earth.

Frankly, its just a stupid, and discredited, point of view. And it leads you to stupid and hateful conclusions.

It also leads to the stupid and false view that all history starts somewhere after 1750 and that all other history has no affect on world society, nor does it have any legal standing. And that is also wrong.

Lastly, there is the complex problem of the classical liberal political theory which essentially believes that all peoples, individuals and societies, given their own druthers, would chose peacable and happy living conditions for themselves and their neighbors. You have to be emotionally sick to continue to cling to that belief in the face of the endless number of failures in regard to this since the first writings of John Lock. Individuals and whole societies commit suicide and spiteful hatered to neighboring peoples and themselves all the time, and line up and volunteer for such duties every day. Such civic and individual behaviors continue to need to be TAUGHT, and sometimes forced on peoples until the benifits can be demonstrated, which often has led to Free Nations to war, even if it is far less war, and far less destructive results from war, than the tract records of every other type of society.

Ruben

 

see what I mean you just tried to interpret something I said (and failed to get what I mean) so you could continue to insult me, call me stupid, and bicker...I didnt say the US or the west should go in and rebuild these nation as democracies...I said the fact that the west thinks that they should is part of the problem...the fact that they have waltzed into these countries and taken what they wanted in the most brutal ways possible for hundreds of years through colonialization is what I was talking about and it has shaped these peoples opinion of the west. And yes...more recent history, of course, will always have more effect on people because it is more recent and fresh in peoples minds....seems like common sense to me. I know...how stupid of me to think that humans can live in peace with each other and not constantly kill each other over religion or some other concept...silly me.

and bonedigger, I never said only Jews live in Israel, but israel will always ensure that they are a minority, wrong or right, it will ensure that certain people will always be the majority and control that country...

I will try my very best to allow Mr. Broklyn to insult me and insinuate that I am a racist biggot, evil, stupid, etc... without defending myself because I honestly dont see the benefit of continueing discussion with a person who strikes out and people in this manner when people dont bend to his opinions nor do I think this discussion is productive. I have tried to make it clear that I do not hate jews or think israel shouldnt exist...but this does no good, I am a moron unless I completely agree that israel and the west is blameless in all things and muslims are evil violent people with no reason. I am a moron who would rather try to find common ground with people and not bash and bicker.