a civil thread on Israel and the Middle East

[7anthea7]

how do a mother let do her son the human-bomb and be proud of it?

Old-style vengeance, frequently - with religious martyrdom (i.e. automatic entry into paradise) thrown in as a bonus. Mothers are not by definition any more rational than anyone else, especially if the prevailing culture a) defines them second-class citizens at best, yet b) exalts them for 'sacrifice'

Just to be clear on that, it was the same in Belfast, without the suicide factor (perhaps Catholicism had something to do with it...). It's been the same in many places, it just took modern weaponry and bugged-eyed fanaticism to come up with something so completely twisted

[eotunun]

Watch this. Not exactly a new one, but still worth seeing.
I wonder how many of the people you see in the two documentaries don't live anymore.
If they still live, how many, especially of the second part, will survive the current escalation.
That film's tough and beautyfull at the same time.

[DeWinter]

Still can't find anything about a historical Palestine, or a Palestinian Arab Muslim people..best I can find is "Palestina" a renamed Jewish settlement under Roman occupation named after a group of Greek-speaking coastal fishermen..
Maybe they mean the former Israeli Arabs who fought on the losing side and were herded into refugee camps by their Arab neighbours(What? No asylum for their Muslim brothers??).

I wonder if those condemning Israel realize the compliment they pay it by holding it to the values of the civilized nations, and what you say about their opponents by not doing so. The Israelis withdrew from Gaza once as a gesture of good faith and paid for it with lives. Why should Israel compromise and the Arab world offer nothing in exchange but promises they can't enforce even if the will was there?
Don't infantilise the Arabs, they are reasoning beings capable of making their own decisions and living with the consequences. They elected Hamas, knowing what they were, and what they would do. They will be regularly stirred up by the neighbouring Arab states to distract attention from their own problems periodically, and so it will remain untill either the Muslim world undergoes a radical change, or demographics make a Jewish state unfeasible.

[psichonaut]

how do a mother let do her son the human-bomb and be proud of it?

Old-style vengeance, frequently - with religious martyrdom (i.e. automatic entry into paradise) thrown in as a bonus. Mothers are not by definition any more rational than anyone else, especially if the prevailing culture a) defines them second-class citizens at best, yet b) exalts them for 'sacrifice'

Just to be clear on that, it was the same in Belfast, without the suicide factor (perhaps Catholicism had something to do with it...). It's been the same in many places, it just took modern weaponry and bugged-eyed fanaticism to come up with something so completely twisted

catholcism, you know, doesn't admit the suicede and until soe deade ago a suicide wasn't buried in the cemetry and the funeral mass wasn't celebrate....

[Suleiman]

Palestinian Arab Muslim people..best I can find is "Palestina" a renamed Jewish settlement under Roman occupation named after a group of Greek-speaking coastal fishermen..
Maybe they mean the former Israeli Arabs who fought on the losing side and were herded into refugee camps by their Arab neighbours(What? No asylum for their Muslim brothers??).

Why would you expect to find a Arab Muslim people at that time? Where was Goliath from? Never heard of the mythical Winston's hiccup?
Not all Arabs are muslim, especially in the fertile crescent.

I have to agree with Mark Steel. Condoleeza Rice and Tzipi Lizni seem to be suffering a condition called "Visual-Carnage-Responsibility-Back-To-Front-Upside-Down-Massacre-Disorder".

[Suleiman]

Evil Bastard,

Have you read Robert Fisk's "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East"?

Highly Recommended.

[Syberberg]

just as it was okay for Shakespeare to write about things in the same vein. It's an old problem, not a recent one.

That would be The Merchant of Venice.

Shylock's Soliloquy (from Act III, Scene I):"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

If the play had been set in Spain, the villain would probably have been a Moor.

[EvilBastard]

Evil Bastard,

Have you read Robert Fisk's "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East"?

Highly Recommended.

I have - it's a decent read, some interesting points, but I find Fisk is a bit too "up himself" for my taste. He tends to talk a little too much in the first person, and takes the view that he's the only person who's ever seen anything or been anywhere. Pity The Nation suffers from the same problem - unfortunate, really, as his style really detracts from the content.

[the_inescapable_truth]

Well it's debatable whether Shakespeare was actually anti-Semitic himself or rather just depicting the widespread views of that time. Indeed, while it may seem that the "Hath Not Eyes" soliloquy is stirring defence of the equality of all people, it could just be another example of how Shakespeare is able to put himself in the shoes of a persecuted man. And indeed, taken in the context of the whole play, it is not enough to redeem the overt greediness and selfishness of Shylock throughout the play.

Either way, I'm pretty much with the school of thought which says that it's silly to view Shakespeare through such narrow lens because there's so much else there in there since his plays are so morally ambiguous and universal. To avoid it completely is just silly.

[markfiend]

I wonder if those condemning Israel realize the compliment they pay it by holding it to the values of the civilized nations, and what you say about their opponents by not doing so.

Israel's supporters, particularly in the US, definitely try to paint Israel as part of the Western complex of democratic, civilised nations. If they want to wear that mantle, they have to be judged to the same standards as the rest. The Palestinians, and Hamas in particular, are probably more in the mould of a resistance to an occupying power than of a democratic state. (The Jewish people themselves have been in a similar position more than once themselves, particularly under the Roman occupation. And that didn't exactly end well for them. I consider it one of life's more bitter ironies that an area sometimes known as "the Holy Land" has been soaked in the blood of its peoples for over three thousand years.)

The Israelis withdrew from Gaza once as a gesture of good faith and paid for it with lives. Why should Israel compromise and the Arab world offer nothing in exchange but promises they can't enforce even if the will was there?

Surely two good reasons to compromise are the continued survival of Israel itself, and (hopefully, eventually) peace in the Middle East. The notion that dialogue with terrorists is impossible (whatever one's definition of "terrorist") is given the lie by the political resolution to the "troubles" in Northern Ireland. To abandon even the idea of compromise, well, if a tree won't bend before a storm, it will break.

Don't infantilise the Arabs, they are reasoning beings capable of making their own decisions and living with the consequences. They elected Hamas, knowing what they were, and what they would do. They will be regularly stirred up by the neighbouring Arab states to distract attention from their own problems periodically, and so it will remain untill either the Muslim world undergoes a radical change, or demographics make a Jewish state unfeasible.

You seem to be contradicting yourself here: "capable of making their own decisions" yet prone to be "regularly stirred up by the neighbouring Arab states"? You can't have it both ways.

[Syberberg]

Well it's debatable whether Shakespeare was actually anti-Semitic himself or rather just depicting the widespread views of that time. Indeed, while it may seem that the "Hath Not Eyes" soliloquy is stirring defence of the equality of all people, it could just be another example of how Shakespeare is able to put himself in the shoes of a persecuted man. And indeed, taken in the context of the whole play, it is not enough to redeem the overt greediness and selfishness of Shylock throughout the play.

Either way, I'm pretty much with the school of thought which says that it's silly to view Shakespeare through such narrow lens because there's so much else there in there since his plays are so morally ambiguous and universal. To avoid it completely is just silly.

I agree and thanks for clarifying.

[sultan2075]

Surely two good reasons to compromise are the continued survival of Israel itself, and (hopefully, eventually) peace in the Middle East. The notion that dialogue with terrorists is impossible (whatever one's definition of "terrorist") is given the lie by the political resolution to the "troubles" in Northern Ireland. To abandon even the idea of compromise, well, if a tree won't bend before a storm, it will break.

How do you negotiate with Hamas, a group whose charter specifically rejects approaches other than jihad? The Hamas charter pre-emptively condemns all such proposals. From Article XIII: "Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the nonbelievers as arbitrators in the lands of Islam...There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility."

I'm not that knowledgeable about the Troubles, but to my knowledge the Irish groups didn't take it as a point of theology that Britain had to be destroyed. A negotiated settlement may be possible for the Palestinian problem, but it won't be made with the current Gazan government, which is controlled by Hamas. In fact, if you read the Hamas charter, I think the idea that they're simply a resistance movement becomes difficult to maintain. It has a nationalist dimension (see article XII), but that nationalism is not a western nationalism. It is a theological nationalism that embraces both militant struggle and fundamentalist religious reform. Thus the the geographic area is a Waqf: it is land that had been ruled under Sharia law in the past, and is therefore Muslim until the day of judgment. In this regard, see Hamas charter article XI: "Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection. Who can presume to speak for all Islamic Generations to the Day of Resurrection? This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection." This, incidentally, would also apply to Spain--thus even Osama bin Laden has at times lamented the loss of al Andalus to the infidel.

So... a peaceful, negotiated settlement may be possible, but Hamas cannot and will not be part of it. Thus, a peaceful solution becomes possible only when the Palestinian people turn their back on Hamas (which is not an unreasonable hope: there have been reports that Fatah, for example, has been helping Israel under the table in this engagement, and that the Egyptian government even provided a bit of disinformation to Hamas at the start of the campaign)

[Suleiman]

It is a theological nationalism that embraces both militant struggle and fundamentalist religious reform.

Sounds just like Zionism.

This article sounds sane...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e21630.htm

[EvilBastard]

Well it's debatable whether Shakespeare was actually anti-Semitic himself or rather just depicting the widespread views of that time. Indeed, while it may seem that the "Hath Not Eyes" soliloquy is stirring defence of the equality of all people, it could just be another example of how Shakespeare is able to put himself in the shoes of a persecuted man. And indeed, taken in the context of the whole play, it is not enough to redeem the overt greediness and selfishness of Shylock throughout the play.

Either way, I'm pretty much with the school of thought which says that it's silly to view Shakespeare through such narrow lens because there's so much else there in there since his plays are so morally ambiguous and universal. To avoid it completely is just silly.

I agree and thanks for clarifying.

At the risk of thread derailment...
Retrial for Shakespeare's Shylock

[the_inescapable_truth]

From London's anti-Israel demo:

[/img]

[Suleiman]

From London's anti-Israel demo:

[/img]

What do you make of that?

[Syberberg]

Ok, I know I said I wasn't going to get drawn any further into this discussion...well, I'm not sure if supplying a few reliable sources of information out of Gaza that isn't part of the MSM counts as I'm not giving an opinion, but anyway, for those who need and want to know a bit more detail:

http://www.btselem.org/English/index.asp

http://gazaeng.blogspot.com/ This one includes a link to the UNOCHA report of the first 3 days' of airstrikes.

Please bear in mind that all through this, the UN has maintained that there is a humanitarian crisis ongoing in Gaza. While the Israeli government have maintained that this is not the case. Read the reports you are not getting and make your own minds up as to who is telling the truth. Thank you.

[JeffDub]

it is always sad to see that civilians are getting killed by war.

but do you think that the rockets sent by hamas to Israel were aiming anything else than civilians ?

go figure...

[EvilBastard]

it is always sad to see that civilians are getting killed by war.

but do you think that the rockets sent by hamas to Israel were aiming anything else than civilians ?

go figure...

Depends what you mean by "civilians":

A combatant is a person directly engaged in hostilities.

Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm.

The fact that most Israelis serve in the military justifies attacks on civilian areas.

Sourced from this article.

Rather sounds as if no-one can claim the high-ground here - if we're splitting hairs, Hamas' rockets have killed 18 Israelis in 7 years, while Israel's have killed 500 in 8 days. Draw your own conclusions.

[JeffDub]

Depends what you mean by "civilians":

my definition of a civilian is simply "normal people like you and me", you know, your local butcher/baker/school teacher/mechanic/clerk/... as a potential oppressor/soldier/terrorist, there is probably something wrong with you.

[nowayjose]

From London's anti-Israel demo:

[/img]

What do you make of that?

If they had carried a Fathers 4 Justice(1) banner, they'd have been arrested...

(1) A fathers' rights organisation.

[EvilBastard]

From London's anti-Israel demo:

[/img]

What do you make of that?

If they had carried a Fathers 4 Justice(1) banner, they'd have been arrested...

(1) A fathers' rights organisation.

This is in fact a picture of a recent demo in London staged by the Dyslexic Rodent Keepers Association - they don't believe that rodents should be used in medical experiments, and in solidarity with the rodents they claim oneness with them. That banner actually reads, "We Are Hamsters" (well, I did say they were dyslexic...)

[7anthea7]

This is in fact a picture of a recent demo in London staged by the Dyslexic Rodent Keepers Association - they don't believe that rodents should be used in medical experiments, and in solidarity with the rodents they claim oneness with them. That banner actually reads, "We Are Hamsters" (well, I did say they were dyslexic...)

Hamstas totally rawk...

[EvilBastard]

Hamstas totally rawk...

As do chinchillas...

[euphoria]

Oh well, after some weeks I couldn't resist anymore to join the thread. But I won't spread my views, partly because I'm not quite sure what they are.

First of all, I hope very much that Andrew and Co. can make both gigs - I think that would indeed be UBG. I'm convinced if it was only up to he'd play those concerts no matter how "intense" the situation would be. In fact I think he'd like it.

Then I also want to thank for some very interesting posts in this thread - there have been stupid ones too, but many from which I have learned new facts

I have just finished reading a few letters which almost feel like some kind of "Israel for dummies". A great read, as it's written by an American guy so he can compare with life outside of the jewish state. Even if you don't share his views for some reason, I can really recommend it. A perfect introduction to the issue and to that unique/strange country Israel.

A sample snippet:

How Israelis React

In light of the increasing cynicism and pessimism, Israelis are responding in different ways. Some turn to God: the number of Orthodox and charedi followers (the latter category is the ultra-Orthodox Jews I described in my first letter) is increasing. Some lose their faith: the number of Israelis who are completely secular is rising. The middle ground is disappearing.

Some Israelis turn to drugs. Judaism has traditionally discouraged alcohol consumption except during religious celebrations, but that stigma is disappearing here. Bars and clubs have always existed, but they seem to be becoming more popular. The Jerusalem Post recently ran a story on Alcoholics Anonymous chapters in Israel and how they are becoming increasingly accepted. In addition, I’ve seen more marijuana use in the seven months I have lived in Israel than I did in the nine years that I lived in Boston during and after college. People openly smoke pot in bars or in public, and no one seems to mind. I once saw someone snort cocaine in a restaurant bathroom stall with the door open, and no one around flinched except me. While an acquaintance of mine was lighting a joint as he sat on a couch, he joked, “We do a lot of drugs to get away from the conflict.� (His laugh revealed that he was only half-joking.) I can count on one hand the number of twenty-something and thirty-something Israelis I know who do not smoke cigarettes. Many Israelis are on some form of anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication as well.