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Join Date 09/2004

American Hypocrisy, Israeli Criminality, and Christian Cant

Or, why I loathe Israel and its actions

Rightwinger, with whom I normally sympathise, recently posted an article (Link) concerning the current conflict in Lebanon. What follows is the comment I posted on that thread. Since I took a profoundly anti-Israeli, anti-Christian stance, I fully expect Rightwinger to delete my response from his thread (as he has every right to do).

However, I am so incensed, so angered and revolted by the gist of what he had to say, so profoundly and utterly disgusted by the responses of KFC in particular, that I am determined that my response shall not simply disappear into the ether of the blogsphere. I am determined it shall have an independent existence in its own right: hence what follows, which is an exact reproduction of my thoughts as I posted them to Rightwingers thread.

There are certain aspects of the Israeli action in Lebanon that I admire and respect. In particular its ruthless prosecution of its perceived interests - a ruthlessness that could very well be emulated by the present (and future) governments of America. I deny no one's right to defend his life, the lives of those he loves; nor even his right to defend his property. What I condemn in Israel is not the ruthlessness of its actions, but its hypocrisy. I condemn its perpetual refusal to acknowledge and obey the Resolutions of the UN Security Council. I condemn its practice of apartheid; I condemn its murder of Palestinian children; I condemn its expropriation of land, its illegal incarceration of individuals denied due legal process; its kidnapping of those who speak out against it; its sanctioning, promotion, and support for militias responsible for the most heinous and atrocious crimes - including the crucifixion, while alive, of women and children in the massacres that took place at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

I condemn its use of tanks and automatic weapons aginst stone-throwing youths and children; I condemn its illegal expropriation of land; I condemn with my whole soul the entire process, an example non pareil of racial hegemony and the vilest racial prejudice, wherby the State of Israel 'treats' with those populations unfortunate enough to be subject to its mis-rule. And I condemn also the unthinking, supine, anti-democratic and unjust support which the USA provides to Israel, since that support is largely, and directly, responsible for the continuing anarchy and unmitigated suffering of the peoples of the Middle East.

I say, without equivocation, that it is to America's perpetual shame that it provides such support to Israel in its repugnant, criminal acts, when the USA could and ought to compel the murdering dogs of Israel to take part in honest and just negotiations for a lasting settlement in that region. Israel is America's beggar. Without the continuing support of the USA Israel could not have acheived, nor could it maintain, its position of intransigent barbarity and criminality with respect to the other nations of the region. Israel could not be what it presently is without the continuing support of the govenment of the United States of America - which makes of every American citizen a willing accomplice in the murder of every Palestinian child killed by the State of Israel.

I accept no excuses. I accept no justification. There can be no acceptable reason, based upon the sufferings of a nation in the past, for the suffering inflicted upon innocents in the present - especially when the nation responsible claims, as a consequence of its past miseries, to be the custodian of the moral conscience of the world.

I have already testified that I accept the right of everyone to defend their lives when they honestly understand their lives to be under direct threat. Who is more directly threatened than those who suffer the tyrrany of Israel? Whose land is it that is constantly stolen? Whose leaders are constantly under threat of murder by Gunship? Whose children are killed in the streets of their hometowns by the armed military of an occupying power?

Do not bleat to me about terrorism and the right of the Israeli devils to defend themselves. There is no greater exponent of State terrorism in the Middle East, no more accomplished murderers, than the State of Israel. If I could I would expunge its vile existence from the face of the Earth, and I wholeheartedly support any act of resistance against its tyrrany. And if such acts of resistance are also barborous, and I do not deny that they are, then remember this; those who hold the balance of economic, military, and political power in any given situation are those who ought to use those resources in pursuit of a just settlement of any dispute. If they do not then those who oppose them, who are far weaker than they, ought not to be condemned if they, too, respond to barbarism with barbarism.

May God remember and hold to account all those who are responsible for the horrors which occur, every day, in that miserably unfortunate region of the world.

Bearing all of this in mind, here is what I found it in me to say to both Rightwinger and that vile creature, KFC:

"I loathe Israel. I abominate, despise, detest, and would happily dance on the grave of every reeking Israeli corpse (just so you know where I stand). I loathe even more deeply those (primarily) American apologists for a regime that was birthed in terrostic violence (ask the widows of those murdered British servicemen killed by the likes of the prating hypocrites Begin and Ben Gurion). Any regime that would routinely murder children (dear me they're throwing stones again, let's fire up the automatic weapons; after all, they might scratch the paintwork on the tank) and excuse such vile acts is not fit to be tolerated by civil human beings.

I swear, I smile whenever I hear that yet another of these murderous devils has been slaughtered and had I my way in such things Israel would, indeed, long since have been eradicated from the face of the Earth.

I grow ever more nauseated by the apologetics of apparently intelligent people for a regime which routinely practices extra-judicial killing by Gunship; which routinely targets the civilian populations of other nations for slaughter simply because they are unwilling to kowtow to the filthy swine that makes national policy of land expropriation, illegal incarceration, kidnapping (anyone remember Vannunu? I thought not) and which blithely sponsors the crucifixion of women and children because they happen to be of the wrong ethnicity (no one remembers Sabra and Shatila either, right?)

Do not come bleating to me of the wrongs suffered by the Jews throughout the ages. Are the Palestinians of the generation suffering illegal occupation in Gaza responsible for the deaths in the extermination camps? No. Are they responsible for the Czarist pograms in Russia? No. Are they in any way culpable for any past wrong done to the Jewish nation? No.

But still the sympathisers with State terror, the apologists for apartheid, the excusers of child murder, prate endlessly of the wrongs suffered by Jews in the past; as if this excuses, or worse still, legitimates, the wrongs perpetrated every day against those innocent of any other crime than being Palestinian now, today. Crimes perpetrated by those who possess overwhelmingly greater resources, who use F16 Fighters to bomb neighborhoods devoid of even the remotest intimation of terrorist activity, who claim to be bastions of civilization and democracy.

But what disgusts me beyond measure is the palpable xenophobia, the stinking self-seeking prejudice of abominations such as KFC. In the name of Christ they claim justification for child-killers because, so they believe, they bring Armageddon (and their own supposed sanctification thereby) that little bit closer. In the name of Christianity, and the supposed 'rapture' of like-minded hypocrites and idolaters, they espouse the exact antithesis of Christian morality. May your God remember it against you, KFC, and judge you accordingly, along with all your fellow-travellers in hypocrisy, cant, and moral perversion who also claim to be 'Christians'. You revolt me beyond any capacity of words to make plain.

The one nation on earth that could make a positive, creative, and ultimately successful intervention in that wracked and wretched region by compelling the rabid dogs of Israel to negotiate honestly, the USA, will not do so. It is the greatest shame, and the true mark of Cain, that America refuses to do what it so easily could: refuses, because it is besotted by the idiot myth promulgated by such detestable vermin as KFC, moral pariahs and murderers by proxy all, that support for criminals such as Sharon (indicted and convicted by his own people as being directly involved in the horrors of Sabra and Shatila) must be unthinking, devoid of any element of criticism, and absolutely unstinting - no matter what horrors are practiced by the State of Israel in the name of its 'security' - because to do so brings closer, by some infinitesimal margin, the hoped for apotheosis of Christian history, the Second Coming of Christ.

More simply put, 'christians' such as KFC support the subjugation of innocents because they believe they will profit from their misery, since it brings the return of Jesus that much closer. May the spirits of dead Palestinian children torment you in Hell, KFC. There is so little of Christ in you that you might just as well be Muslim.

I hope he does come back: and that when he does you learn (you, personally, KFC) the truth of that old Tshirt slogan - Jesus is coming and is he pissed. You are a poster-child for everything you profess to stand against.

And you, Rightwinger: do you support Islamist cells in their attacks on civilians? Did you rejoice when the Saudi Jihadis murdered 3000 in New York? No? Then why support those who deny judicial process through murder by Gunship? You lament and decry the inability of the UN to be effective: do you also decry the flagrant breach of every Security Council Resolution levied against it by Israel? No.

Instead you mouth nonsense such as this: "Isreal, at the behest of its Western Allies, such as they are, has spent decades in negotiation, talking and talking until it is blue in the face, to no avail."

Israel has talked for no other reason than to bamboozle the world with its stinking hypocrisy, and to secure for itself the unthinking support of American politicians and diplomats. In its refusal to implement the unending stream of Security Council Resolutions demanding that it cease from its barbarous and criminal acts it has marked itself, for all to see, as a criminal regime, an exponent and past master of State terrorism, and an exemplar of the most shameless racial hegemony, not seen since the destruction of the former apartheid State of South Africa (with whom it was the firmest of friends and allies).

But that, of course, is excusable since its Israel that does these things: may your God remember it against you also, and hold you to account. Where in the American Constitution does it say that those who murder children are to be praised and supported? Nowhere.

But it hardly matters that the most cherished values of American civilization are spat upon every day, does it? Not so long as these vile acts are carried on by Israel, that great friend to the American people, who until today was happily prepared to bombard the airport in which American citizens had taken shelter.

Does the word 'traitor' have any meaning for you? I doubt it."

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the USA could and ought to compel the murdering dogs of Israel to take part in honest and just negotiations for a lasting settlement in that region[\quote]

You had me until here. And then I laughed a lot. Israel is our penance for the holocaust, no matter if very few of us were alive then.

To hell (or wherever) with Hezbollah -- many think we denigrate the Israelis because we support their ilk. Not so.

There are those of us who hate them all. There is no "right" here, no "black" no "white."

Those people hate "us," too -- and we hate ourselves because "we" are "us". It's a damned shame, I suppose. Either that, or it's the last vestige of morality in existence. I haven't decided. Nor do I expect to.

Excellent article. When I hate what it says, I understand WHY I hate it. When I agree with it, I also know why.

This ain't no "attaboy" (the bloggers have been so concerned about them) -- it's just thanks for good writing.

Cheers.

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I fucked up quoting you. My apologies. The first bit was Emperor of Ice Cream's bit.

I hate that Wallace Stevens poem, by the way. They make me teach it everywhere I go.

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To: Myrrander

I don't like the poem either: it sucks. But, notheless, I am the Emperor of Ice Cream.

Israel may well be the world's penance, but not for the holocaust. What are six million dead Jews, compared to the fifty-odd million dead Russians killed by Stalin? If they are the world's penance it's simply because they are the living exemplars of what happens to a people when it exalts its own existence above any other consideration, and of what is involved for others when that inconceivable arrogance is tolerated as a matter of political expediency.

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Ah, shit, well, you've already hit it on the fuckin' noggin. Stalin didn't kill anybody important, he killed Russians, Ukranians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Poles, Latvians, etc. In other words, Stalin killed fuckers who were working the stockyards. Who gives a shit? The Americans were killing those fools, too.

But yup, the Jews managed a great feat: they convinced enough people that they were special that the world worshipped them and their god. The Jebusites? Nil. Sumerians? Nil. Generic Caananites? Nil.

But here are these people who managed to create not one...not two...but three separate religions in their name. And the beauty is, all these religions have fucking hated each other for a wonderful total of years. Well, I'll give you a couple of thoughts:

When I was a theist, I used to think that YHWH, needing sacrifice, had come upon the perfect plan: to create three separate religions that all worshipped him, and have them kill each other in His name. That way, no matter who killed whom, every bloody death would be in the name of the same god. It's the perfect perpetual motion machine for Godly power.

Well, the other idea is that they're all fucking idiots. And they're doing things for the exact same reason as above, but they're doing it for no purpose and just killing shit because that's what us smart monkeys do.

The Jews ARE the living exemplars of what happens to a people when it exalts its own existence above any other consideration. What they didn't expect was that the Christians and Muslims would use their example and ALSO exalt THEIR own existence above any other consideration. Then you get the sort of "king of the hill" bullshit you find among six-year-olds.

Should we let them fight it out? Or will we, as those outside that ideal, be burned with a fire that they couldn't produce from their god and so they decided to produce on their own?

I have no answer to that. But I'm a curious spectator.

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To: Myrrander

When I was a theist, I used to think that YHWH, needing sacrifice, had come upon the perfect plan: to create three separate religions that all worshipped him, and have them kill each other in His name. That way, no matter who killed whom, every bloody death would be in the name of the same god. It's the perfect perpetual motion machine for Godly power.

As my wife proved to me, God's favorite pastime is genocide. Now, just because that's true, it doesn't mean that humanity has to be a willing and eager accomplice in that pastime (though we almost always are) nor does it mean we have to be happy collaboraters in God's ongoing attempt to convince us that we were, in fact, made in Its image.

I like what Lovecraft had to say of us: that we're sufficiently aware of our condition to be able to appreciate its tragedy, and impotent to do anything to change it. God's a motherfucker. So are we. That doesn't prevent me, or anyone else, from being able to appreciate how we ought to behave toward one another, in despite of how we actually do behave.

I simply can't stand the smug self-satisfaction with which Israelis present what they do to the rest of the world, nor the collusion in the vilest contempt for what they profess to hold dear with which Americans accept that self-righteous view of things.

Ah well. C'est la vie - c'est la guerre.

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I don't delete posts from my threads. I'm not afraid of opposition, nor am I that petty. Good article, Emp, even if we do disagree.

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As my wife proved to me, God's favorite pastime is genocide.

But did she prove "God" to you? I respect her, but I wonder.

nor does it mean we have to be happy collaboraters in God's ongoing attempt to convince us that we were, in fact, made in Its image.

Then your wife has proven a new version of God -- perhaps one made in HER image? No problems there, chum, all gods are made in SOMEBODY's image. It's too bad that those fuckers die before we can eradicate what they have done.

That doesn't prevent me, or anyone else, from being able to appreciate how we ought to behave toward one another, in despite of how we actually do behave.

Nope, it doesn't, and most atheists feel the same way. The important question is this: Why do you feel the need to have a God above you to either excuse or provide a counter-point to that which you believe or do? Isn't it easier to just cut out the middle man and realize that humanity does what it does under no jurisdiction of God, but simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time?

I simply can't stand the smug self-satisfaction with which Israelis present what they do to the rest of the world,

Nor can I, because they base their superiority on a lie. Upon analysing Hebrew texts, we find that they worship two gods -- one this YHWH, and one this EL, and the scripture seems unable to differentiate between them. Of course, one is older than the other, but that's not important to God's chosen people, right?

That's life? That's war? Come now, that's simple. We needed to deify those things which we took for granted -- so you have gods and goddesses of Sun, Moon, Sex, Cattle, and Grain. Then we got all abstract and turned a war god -- Yahweh S'baoth -- into an ultimate God of everything. Is it any surprise that it was a war god which became humanity's ultimate deity? Of course not. Because in a paraphrase of the old Queen song, "we want it all, we want it all, and we want it now." War is the best tool for that, although in our current state of bullshit pussy war, it's not at all a good tool.

Tony Blair didn't teach Bush enough about Empire, maybe he didn't study hard enough at school.

But how can we blame "god" for this debacle? Or do you think Eris is in control? I admit that Chaos needs serve none nor provide sustenence for any. But I've yet to see any evidence of Eris or Yahweh or anything.

An empire destroys everything that stands in its way. Israel is our vassal, but stands in the way. Or rather, let us say what the Papal soldiers said when they went against the Cathars -- "kill them all, God will know his own."

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I had put this up on my site and I reproduce it for your benefit. I too got a lot of rude responses:

WHY CEASEFIRE IS IN ISRAEL'S INTEREST
The spreading fire in the Middle East

By Bahu Virupaksha
Posted Friday, July 21, 2006 on Discussion on History and Politics
Discussion: Politics

Isaac Deutcher, the Jewish historian whose entire family perished in the Holocaust made the following observation after the end of the 1967 six day war with the Arab states: "To justify or condone Israel's wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad service and harm its own long term interests". This statement is relevant today as Israel in a blaze of military tiumphalim is close to achieving abbolute mastery over Lebanon. The unrestrained use of firepower, and the highly self righteous rhetoric from Israeli leaders and the undercurrent of racist antagonism against the Arab population and the callous disregatrd for Arab lives--women and children-- not excluded.. all suggest that Israel is using the opportunity provided by the war on terror and the disturbed conditions prevaileing in the region to redraw the boundries to its advantage.

The offensive againt Hamas in Palestine has already cost hundreds of lives and now the war against Lebanon. Hamas, a Sunni outfit and Hizbollah a Shiaa outfit have now joined hands.. It is possible that Israeli military offensive could completely jeopardise the stability of the present regime and the large scale violence and bloodshed unleashed by Israel makes the Lebones population yearn for the days of Syrian occupation. The Maronite Christian and the Druze population were at the forefront of the struggle against Syria aznd having rid Lebanon of Syria, the people find themselves under seige by land, air and sea from a far more ruthless adversary. The Western powers used the pretext provided by the killing of Rafik Hariri to exple the Syrians from Lebanon and the Bekaab Valley. Now the world can see for itself the real gameplan behind the killing of Rafik Hiriri and the expulsion of the Syrians.

The military operations against the Hizbollah will only serve to intensify the problem in the middle east. A parallel with Iraq is obvious. Just as US occupation of Iraq fuelled an isurgency that has now gone out of control, the Israeli presence in SDouthern Lebanon will only intensify the resistance. Isral has gone in for prisoner swaps earlier, why not now. Obviously it wants to use this opportunity to consolodate itself in souther Lebanon and create what it calls a "buffer zone" there. USA has shown lack of political understanding when on the one hand it admits that Israel has used dispropotionate force against the civilian population and on the other uses the threat of veto on the question of a UN sponsored ceasefire

Is rthere any evidence that Iran has instigated the Hizbollah in order to divert attention from the nuclear tangle? In fact the dispropotionate use of air power against the civilian population by Israel itself will be a major talking point that Israel and the USA understand only the language of military might making the solution of the issue more difficult. So far Israel has provided no information about a possible Iranian link except the inuendo that since Hizbollah is a Shiaa organisation it must be a surrogate of the Iran. The logic of such statements is similar to Joseph Macarthy's famous aphorism" It walks like a duck, squacks like a duck so it must be a duck. Unfortunately the Iranian angle to this crisis has not been established. Syria is belamed for everything that happens in Lebanon. In fact it was Syria that brought peace to the war torn country and inspite of the UN intervention it has not been establishe that Syria was involved in the Rafik Hiriri assasination. The Katuysha rockets are of Soviet vintage and there are no signs of direct military support to Hizbollah by Syria. It is obvious that Israel is making thse accusations in order to widen the amit of conflict and draw the US directly into armed confrontation with Iran.

The response of the Arab nations to this unfolding catastrophe has been timid, tepid and spineless. Of course there is no love lost between the Arab powers and the Hizbollah but when Arabs are being killed in such numbers it is a shameless act of perfidy on the part of Arab Governments to remain silent spectators. However on the ground there is overwhelming suppot for the victims of Israeli aggression and that is a dangerous factor in the violent social and political undercurrents of the Middle East.

USA must suppot a ceasefire as desired by the government of Lebanon in the interes of peace and to stem a spiralling humanitarian cris in the region."

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The topic you have chosen is a tricky one because anyone accusing Israel of acing in a brutal and uncivilised manner against the Arabs gets shouted down as an "anti semite".For more than 65 years this fear of being labeled antisemite has enabled Israel to pursue, with US complicity a brutal and repressive policy against the Arabs,and now with the so called war on terror, Israel has taken full advantage of the situation and as i have said in my thread seeks to redraw the map of the middle east. Having said this one must add that a m,eaningful settlement of the Istraeli-Palestine issue is possible only if suicide bombing, and random acts of terrorism are stopped.

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It seems hard for me to put this article into context knowing what you have espoused yourself. You call yourself the (prince, king?) of arrogance. You happy espouse the eradication of one's enemy. You talk about bombing the middle east into glass. I've never seen you espouse the equivalent to the 'humanitarian' values I see above.

So why do you expect them of Israel? Aren't they just behaving as you (and I, to a point) have proposed people behave in war? If you want to know why people think you come off as anti-semitic, it is because you seem to be condemning them for behavior you embrace.

You'll forgive me if I furl an eyebrow at the benevolent EoIC who would be restrained in war. You gladly propose the Christian and Jewish God to be one of genocide, and then you are confused when Israel behaves genocidally and Christian support them? What gives you the idea that religions that praise the killing of every man, woman, child and goat of the philistines have a problem with genocide?

I can see someone like Aeryck being weepy over a strong nation bombing a weaker one that pissed them off, but not you. So I have to wonder what is special about Israel that draws you venom. Is it any wonder that people suspect you are anti-semitic in that light?

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I mean "those who deny judicial process through murder by Gunship"??? Come on. I'm sure the Emporer of Ice Cream would wait for a UN tribunal before he'd splatter his enemies flat, and back off if they had so much as a kitten on their lap. I'm growing to like you a teeny bit, believe it or not, but this comes off as pretty hypocritical to me.

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No hurry at all. I'm needing a nap myself.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

In the name of Christ they claim justification for child-killers because, so they believe, they bring Armageddon (and their own supposed sanctification thereby) that little bit closer

In its refusal to implement the unending stream of Security Council Resolutions demanding that it cease from its barbarous and criminal acts it has marked itself, for all to see, as a criminal regime, an exponent and past master of State terrorism, and an exemplar of the most shameless racial hegemony, not seen since the destruction of the former apartheid State of South Africa (with whom it was the firmest of friends and allies).

what happens to a people when it exalts its own existence above any other consideration, and of what is involved for others when that inconceivable arrogance is tolerated as a matter of political expediency.

combine the above with israel's refusal to sign international nuclear, biological and chemical weapons treaties as well as israeli defense forces' fascination with and employment of the masada site and you've got my 'a' list of reasons why i believe israel is currently the 2nd most dangerous nuclear power on the planet.

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GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

I just spent two and a half hours crafting a detailed, thoroughly argued, general response to everyone. Then I hit 'close' instead of 'minimise' and lost it all. So this is the SHORT version.

1. Apologies are due to Rightwinger. The man is OK. So I apologise.
2. I hold two equally true (in a personal sense) but profoundly opposed points of view at the same time: a) I'm always going to support the underdog in any situation; and b) I admire the political realpolitik and ruthlessness of nations and individuals that seek their own interest first no matter what. I both admire and despise the Israelis in almost equal proportions.
3. God is. I am. The entire universe exists between those two statements, whether you believe or not. As the Bible has it, "the fool hath said in his heart there is no God." Deal with it, as I have had to do, along with the fact that God is fond of genocide; as fond as It is of asceticism. Blood and inner body parts are as attractive to my God as are the prayers of saints and the sins of sinners. If that makes no sense to you, too bad.
4. There is no hypocrisy in espousing realpolitik on the one hand and natural justice on the other. A conflict, yes, but no hypocrisy. Such conflicts are agons, creative tensions between mutually opposed points of view. They aren't for everyone but such is the way I make sense of the world - to the degree that I'm concerned to make sense of it at all.
5. Call a spade a spade (or a digging implement a digging implement): when a State behaves as Israel does it identifies itself for all to see as a criminal regime, an exponent of State terrorism, a racial hegemon, and a brutally efficient regional tyrant. From the point of view of realpolitik there is nothing wrong with any of that. From the point of view of natural justice such a state is an abomination and ought to be destroyed. The agon between those two stances is the point at which civil discourse originates, its trajectory being the confinement (not the resolution) of the conflict which develops from it. To see both sides, experience both sides, and synthesise (ala Hegel) both sides into some new state of being is not hypocrisy; it's being an evolved politically adult human being.

Which doesn't mean that my inner Motherfucker isn't going to combine with my support for the underdog in a sense of visceral anger and outrage. Men in tanks should not kill stone-throwing children: it's unfair.

6. Nothing in this whole debates revolts and infuriates me more than the response to it by such vile, detestable creatures as KFC. Let the Jews kill Arab children - it'll bring the Second Coming of Christ closer and then we can all go to heaven while the rest of them go to hell. I was once a Christian and believed in the justice of Christ. There is very little of justice, and even less of Christ, in the opinions of such... insects... as KFC.

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"5. Call a spade a spade (or a digging implement a digging implement): when a State behaves as Israel does it identifies itself for all to see as a criminal regime, an exponent of State terrorism, a racial hegemon, and a brutally efficient regional tyrant. From the point of view of realpolitik there is nothing wrong with any of that. From the point of view of natural justice such a state is an abomination and ought to be destroyed. The agon between those two stances is the point at which civil discourse originates, its trajectory being the confinement (not the resolution) of the conflict which develops from it. To see both sides, experience both sides, and synthesise (ala Hegel) both sides into some new state of being is not hypocrisy; it's being an evolved politically adult human being."

...or you could say they are finally just shrugging off the weak, mealy-mouthed crap that other nations are choked with, and doing what is in the interest of their nation and the rest be damned. I think you'd have been happy as a clam if the US had just made Fallujah a parking lot instead of catering to the cretinous bastards, as would I.

Yet... when it is Israel it becomes about "Arab children". If you were neutral toward Israel and the whole post-WW2 Jew thing I could see it as just a "conflict". When it is accompanied by what appears to be a clear bias against a particular people, though, wouldn't that make it hypocrisy?

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To: Bakerstreet

Yet... when it is Israel it becomes about "Arab children". If you were neutral toward Israel and the whole post-WW2 Jew thing I could see it as just a "conflict". When it is accompanied by what appears to be a clear bias against a particular people, though, wouldn't that make it hypocrisy?

No. It would make it a conscious prejudice. The only Jew I ever knew was a black-haired, black-eyed girl. And her Jewishness had nothing to do with why I liked hanging around with her. Conversely, her Jewishness didn't deter me from wanting to hang around with her either. I may well be an anti-Semite, if 'Semite' is to be identified with the nation of Israel, its policies and practices. And I certainly am opposed to the policies and practices of Israel, and have been ever since it ceased to be an underdog and became a regional super-power. Much will, and ought to be, demanded of those to whom much is given.

That is, I may well be an anti-Semite when 'Semite' is considered as a collective noun. And if that's so, it's so. At the level of the individual man or woman, handsome is as handsome does. I am however anti-Israeli, and will be till they stop posing as the world's most attractive victim and fess up to the fact that they are racially bigoted towards the people with whom, unless they go the whole hog and set up extermination camps of their own, they must perforce share the region.

I admire their grasp of their own interests and their willingness to follow through on those interests. I despise their covert racism and their continual playing of the victim card. They may well be ruthless, and ruthlessness can be an admirable political attribute: but is there any rule against cowards, liars, racists, murderers, and hand-wringing apologists for the cult of the victim being ruthless? No.

But I will say this of them. They are more honest, and more admirable, than those such as the... creature... KFC, and they are more admirable than those unthinking apologists for natural injustice who support them in America, precisely because they honestly do what they believe to be necessary and do so without apology or regret. I say 'honestly', but what I actually mean, I think, is publically. Whatever their protestations of innocence, virtue and victimhood, in the end, despite whether the world sees them for the liars and hypocrites that they are, they do what has to be done in order to ensure their survival.

And that's something my inner Motherfucker is always going to cheer for.

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I think you'd have been happy as a clam if the US had just made Fallujah a parking lot instead of catering to the cretinous bastards, as would I.

I'd be happy if we made the entire region a parking lot (so long as prices to park there were reasonable). I truly and honestly believe that if America were to wake up tomorrow and realise that these intractable, intransigent, murdering and murderous sonsofwhores (and I include the Palestinians and the likes of Hezbollah in that definition, along with Israel) are nothing but a thorn in our side, a waste of our money and time, and nuked all of them, including Israel, back to the stone-age in which they belong, the world in general would be a much happier and prosperous place.

Please, someone, explain to me the basis of the American fascination with Israel. Ever since I became politically aware (not politically educated, not politically sophisticated, but aware) at eight or nine, as a consequence of European coverage of the Vietnam war, I've followed America's love-affair with Israel with fascination.

At first, in the days of the Six Day War (which no one can deny was an absolutely heroic and entirely stunning military campaign - no one can say that that the Israelis don't kick ass in the region under their control) that infatuation seemed perfectly reasonable. America has always been, to me, the home of the defenders of the underdog. But now... What is it about Israel, other than an imagined guilt for not saving Jews from the Nazis (there were far more important things to do at the time - like defeating the Wehrmacht) that has led to this abominable and disgusting symbiosis?

I confess, it eludes me.

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To: Bakerstreet

or you could say they are finally just shrugging off the weak, mealy-mouthed crap that other nations are choked with, and doing what is in the interest of their nation and the rest be damned. I think you'd have been happy as a clam if the US had just made Fallujah a parking lot instead of catering to the cretinous bastards, as would I.

I do say this. And part of me is entirely in awe of the political realism that allows them to behave as they do. That doesn't mean that, in another mood entirely, I agree with or approve of what they do - I do not.

As a matter of simple human self-interest (my simple human self-interest; my interest in having access to the resources and facilities that will allow me to do what I want to do) an accommodation of some kind must be reached between the Arabs and the Jews - and the Jews and the Persians, the Medes etc., ad nauseaum ad infinitum) because too much of what the world needs to make itself work is located in that region.

This selfishness is at the root of much of my disgust and outrage related to American policy (if such it can be called) in the Middle East. Our (yours and mine) most vital interests have been hijacked by a sentimental, uber-religious, grotesquely superstitious lobby, that believes its own supposed eschatological interests trump those of the rest of us who live in the real world.

Unbelievably (unbelievable when considering the evolving catastrophe that is oil-depletion and scarcity of natural and vital resources) this situation is locked in the hands of those who, like that vile worm KFC, believe that chaos in the Middle East will bring back Jesus Christ.

Screw Jesus Christ. I'm not interested in the superstitious longing of religious imbeciles - I'm interested in being able to gas up my car without it breaking my bank account. And so is most of America. But who dares say that, who dares challenge the incorrigible blindness of every American government since WW2 to its natural interest, when faced with the trump-card of the accusation of anti-semitism?

A trump-card which is knowingly played by both Israel and its idiot sympathizers. No one, no one, who aspires to actual political power in America can afford to criticize Israel (you are more likely to be forgiven for calling a Black a nigger on prime-time TV than you are to be forgiven for accusing Israel of wrong-doing). And until that changes, American policy in the Middle East is going to be hamstrung and castrated by America's attachment to a bunch of xenophobic desert-dwelling religious bigots with the savvy to exploit the gullible sentimentalism of others at every turn.

Am I an anti-Semite? No. But I'm profoundly opposed to Israeli interests, precisely because they run counter to my own.

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Actually, that was my drunken weary ass responding to my wife, not little-whip talking to herself. Duh on me...

V^^^^^^^^V bites

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I don't think you are an anti-Semite, firstly. You have the trappings of such, and people who don't read much of what you write might jump to that conclusion, but if they hang in there they'll see that you hate everyone equally. You don't want to lord over any particular race, you'd prefer to lord over them all. You don't blindly offer discrimination to the minority in the favor of the majority, you'd discriminate against everyone.

(and I mean that in the nicest possible way...)

Second, our infatuation with Israel dates back to the rush by all the old empires to raise flags in the Middle East. We in America got there really late after Spain and France and the rest had divided the place up. Then, in WW2 Arab leaders decided to back Germany, which basically doomed them when the time came to start feeling bad about the Holocaust.

Then, they converted their love of Nazis to opportunistic alliances with the Soviet Union. Israel became a foothold in an area that had been bought out by our enemies. Now, instead of Nazis and the Soviet Union, it's fundamentalist Islam that hates us. In the end, we always pick Israel because they are the ones that hate us the least, like anything else.

You over-estimate religion's influence on our policy. Conservative preachers translate our Machiavellian international politics into religious terms to satisfy voters, or to enrage them if it is a non-conservative president. Leftist presidents usually find themselves on the outs with preachers, are less apt to hold commie grudges in the middle east, and are more apt to be tolerant of fundamentalist Islam...

You see it is always granting the benefit of the doubt to the one that hates us the least, even in INTERNAL US religiously motivated politics. Even when you talk about KFC, you point out that she's basically working in HER self interest. Isn't this the dog-eat-dog world you love?

Granted, everyone could be honest and admit why they do what they do, but we have to indoctrinate our kids gently, lest their juvenile Disney mentality makes them into sympathizers, right?

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Wow! This is so different than watching the O'Reily Factor. I have read(not word for word)all of the responses to this post and find it amazing that Israel doesn't come by and kill you who say those bad things about her. You atheist and god haters will have to deal with God eventualy, and that's only right. The outer darkness,where you will probally end up at, is like the trillion times gazillion megabyte hard drive in space where you can rant on about how unfair God is (IS being the key word)and never have to worry about how God worked everything out in the land of eternal life without including you. No one will hear you. It is so vast and dark that you all will be there alone, with only your sad fate to contemplate, and not the fading memory of God's glorious Light that you rejected. In fact, you were to be included up until where you made that wrong turn, where you for some un-godly reason turned away from the Light. Come on, everyone take a few deep breaths and calm yourselves.
You of course know that 'Israel' means one who 'strives' with God, right? If you are reading this response, you really need to think about that. It is the core substance of the Judeo-Christian reality that the world is. Believe me, the outer darkness sucks. Vote republican in '06 and '08.

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" You of course know that 'Israel' means one who 'strives' with God, right? If you are reading this response, you really need to think about that. It is the core substance of the Judeo-Christian reality that the world is. Believe me, the outer darkness sucks. Vote republican in '06 and '08."

If that isn't a sneaky Democrat propagandist I can't imagine them doing a better job. If you want our Republican candidates to win, the best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut and associate your ilk with them as little as possible.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

You of course know that 'Israel' means one who 'strives' with God, right?

if you're truly of a certain age (like old enuff to be anyone's forefather), you of course know seruatan spelled backwards is natures.

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and now with the so called war on terror, Israel has taken full advantage of the situation and as i have said in my thread seeks to redraw the map of the middle east

---Bahu

I'm not much into the whole End of Days stuff, but many theologians accept it as one condition, or sign, of the return of Christ that God will restore Israel to its original borders.
This would include, unless I'm mistaken (and I probably am, since I'm not looking at a map of ancient Isreal), modern-day Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Let the dissing commence........

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