Solidarity with Israelis

Reply back to WIBBS with apology for delay and inability to use those nice little boxes others seem to be able to !

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Originally Posted by Irlandese
Personally, I am fairly familiar with palestinian fears and misery and the deep corruption and abuse of power by their own leaders for generations. Arafat was the worst but certainly not the only disgraceful abuser of power in their history. I am lately learning more about the Israeli context. Now I am constantly comparing the opposing models of a secular, successful, would-be peaceful, gender-equal western society in an admittedly imperfect Israel to a backward, violent, misoginistic, extremist Islamic society that the Hamas zealots are trying to create in gaza.
For all your talk of objectivity, you've taken sides just as much as anyone else and this is how this tends to go down. The influx of devout/fundamental Jewish settlers are just as backward, violent, misogynistic, extremist bunch of zealots as the Islamic ones. While the west is more aware of and knowledgeable about Islamic fundamentalists, it seems to be largely ignorant of the Jewish version.


My Comment back >
Sorry I am late replying. I am just back. Thanks for a reasoned and polite commentary.
I have taken positions on a lot of sides, not necessarily always on the same sides, where for example Israel is very wrong on the blockade of Gaza but right to defend it’s citizens strenuously against Islamic extremists. Nothing in life is black and white. You also seem to ignore my stated opposition to Zionists and generally to settlers. The “generally” bit also hopefully shows some openness to seeing them have their own places and ways of living, but NOT at the expense of poor Palestinians being bulldozed from their rightful homes and farms. I think you are wrong too about the West not being aware of Zionist ( not Jewish, mind you ) extremism. After all, for years the UN cited Zionism as a racist doctrine.<


That awareness and indeed the rise of the Islamic version is actually quite a new thing. Precious few people would have had much of an opinion on Islam in the 70's, even with the PLO in the news on a very regular basis. That only started with the Iranian revolution. Even then it wasnt to the fore. The subsequent religious fatwa on Salman Rushdie would be the real kick off point, where the "Islamic religious nutbag" notion kicked off. It really kicked off after 911. People forget that when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, people were rooting for and admiring of the Islamic Mujahideen while watching Sandy Galls reports from Afghanistan. Western governments were throwing money at them too. How times change. They went from freedom fighter poster boys to the must be wiped out at all costs religious nutters in pretty short order, when it suited. The same people. So you will forgive my cynicism on this.


My comment back>
Islamic fundamentalism is a little more complicated and a lot older than this part of your post implies. My own opposition to the behavior of Hamas relates here to their terrorism against their own people first and their use of those same Palestinians as cannon fodder in their war with Israel. Which war, in turn, they are manipulating and keeping alive and as bloody as possible to further their religious bigotry and vision of a world controlled by misogynistic, medieval, ignorant murderers. IMV, you are introducing and confusing a lot of points here about US State dept. manipulation of these same manipulators, under, among others, Edward Peck, formerly that great humanitarian, Ronald Reagan’s Deputy Director of the US State Dept’s Counter terrorism ( read this as “ Wet work and really dirty deeds dept. ) who was a passenger activist on the ship boarded by Israeli commandos. His biased commentary to the media re that case begs all sorts of questions re who was manipulating who here. <




 
It can also be very easy to argue that the rise of Islamic nutbaggery is a direct result of Israel and the US influence in the region. I'm pretty much convinced that the ME wouldnt be the ME problem if Israel wasnt there. I dnot blame Israel so much. Or the US. I blame the old colonial powers that have fcuked over Arab and Jew in the region for the past 200 years. The French, the Italians, the British and the Germans. The latter of course really topped it all off.
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Yes, they are also wonderfully supportive of their people in many useful ways, but simultaneously terribly corrupting and violent in their promotion of Islamic extremism and violence through naked terror, onto their own people.
You could say almost exactly the same thing of the Israelis. Israelis are raised with fear and mistrust of "others" and a right to the land, any land they define as Israel as a constant companion in their lives. Just as brainwashed as their opposites. Zionist extremism is cut through the society like words in a stick of rock. Its gotten worse not better too. Again I recall in Ireland of the 70's much more tacit support for Israel, even with the PLO/IRA conenction. I knew a fair few people who traveled there and lived in kibuttzes and only one I knew was Jewish.

My comment back>
Here you are way out of line. Israel is a democratic, secular state with a well developed legal system and a strong code of law and public ethics. Mistakes are being made and people need to be held to account and will be. But to compare Israel to a gang of perverted, corrupt, misogynistic religious fundamentalist madmen ( yes, they are all men ) who cynically send children as suicide bombers to kill civilians, is beyond any limit of good sense or moral reasoning.<





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Remember Northern Ireland and then the Armagh bombing?? For Hamas, a rocket fired into Israel is not a success, unless it brings a helicopter gunship attack response, to hopefully kill a lot of hopefully "TV photogenic young and old" palestinians to force more teenagers to join their madness and more bloggers to support their insidious campaigns. Remember the Paul Brady song about cynically using the young to fight the wars of old men? ? He was singing about Northern Ireland, but now I only see the youth of the Intifada when I play it, alone at night, in my quiet home, far from their pain and rage and hopelessness.
Again you could say similar of the Israelis. It suits the Zionist hawks when palestinians lob bombs or strap semtex to kids. It gives them the moral high ground and the opportunity to steal, yes steal even more land and property from the arabs.


My comment back>
I answered this above. Next, you will be comparing Fr.Brendan Smith the paedofile priest to St Martin de Porres because they both wore robes . <


 
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I am now so convinced about the biased direction in which this international "anti - Israel at all costs" campaign is going that, despite being non-jewish, anti-zionist and generally anti-settler, I can clearly see the logic and the moral imperative for going there to fight to help Israel to survive and prosper.
Well I would suggest you think more on this and rejig your moral compass. Or realise that moral compasses rarely point to true north and if they do its only temporarily. If you feel you're anti Zionist and generally anti settler(whatever that generally means?) then it makes your moral mission largely redundant. At best the state of Israel is Zionist. Well duh of course it is. If it wasnt it wouldnt have even gotten started. Thats not the issue. The issue is that this Zionism has become more bloodied over time. With the huge influx of radical Zionists since the fall of the soviet bloc(and other things), the need for land to settle them has gone off the scale. They have been stealing land by violence and intimidation of the arab population.

My comment back >
I have commented above re some of your own inappropriate moral judgements re comparing Israel with that gang of madmen, Hamas. I respectfully and honestly suggest you need to read up a bit on Zionism and discover why and how Israel is still not yet a Zionist state and hopefully will never become one. This is too serious an issue for such inaccuracies.<


Do we really have to link this picture again? http://www.arendt-art.de/deutsch/pal...R/index.14.JPG Just look at the difference over time. Look how small the green bits get. Have the Palestinians died off through some weird disease? Are they having less children? Have they willingly walked away from land they lived on for generations? Forget if you can that its Israel. Forget Arab/Jew. Both those ethnic descriptions bring waaaay too much baggage. Baggage both sides are only too willing to carry too. Imagine that you're looking at Ireland. Imagine the white areas are Irish American's who decided after WW2 that they were the true sons of Eireann(tm) and had a right to settle en masse. A right to claim by force lands the indigenous population saw as their own and that population got squeezed into smaller and smaller areas. Ghettos by any other name. We are all too quick to point the finger at England for its abuse of this nation in the past and by god they tried this tactic, but it never went to that stage even at the height of Cromwellian planter thought. Not even close. If those green bits were Jewish settlements I would be signing up to fight in an international brigade.
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I have decided that I would volunteer tommorrow, to join a new International Brigade, a-la- the Spanish International Brigade fighting against Franco in Spain, to go there and defend their right to secure borders, were such a proposal to take legs.
Which borders? The 1967 UN mandated ones? With respect, you're having a laugh. Judging by the obvious is obvious demographic changes in Israel in the last 40 years they have little trouble securing their borders. Objectively its laughable TBH. They would have far less of a problem securing their borders, if they didnt keep moving them.
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To expand just a little, I would envisage that such a "Brigade" could clearly work with Palestinians too, in relevant administrative, legal, military and social activities, but only under the direct control of a secular Israeli command structure.
Which would have to remove the non secular religious/Zionist settlers from that structure by your own definitions. The Isreali command structure exists largely to back those people up. Do they protect existing Arab settlements from the land grabs? No. Do they facilitate such land grabs? Yes.
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Originally Posted by karma_
You invoke the spirit of the Spanish Civil war and then claim if the International Brigade were to organise nowadays it would be to go and protect Israel?

The Brigade was a left wing force, there is no way it could ever fight for a Right Wing government. I think the analogy you are seeking is from the Eoin O'Duffy perspective.
Indeed it is. The PLO were left wing, long before they were Islamist. They had many connections with marxist terrorists including the IRA. Conflating the international brigades with helping Israel is a bit of a stretch. Indeed I would reckon said international brigade types would be fighting for the Palestinians more than the Israelis.

My comment back>
More bad reasoning here. The current users of the title “IRA” are not Marxists, They are drug-dealing, child-molesting, ordinary citizen terrorizing fascists. The PLO was Arafats private gang and have their own dirty secrets to hide. They are very far from Marxist principles. <


I think I will not try to reply peacemeal to anyone again. I lost the box contents twice so forgive any errors or shortness of patience !