From Taki's magazine:
A Separate Peace (Part One)
By Steve Sailer
Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid has been highly controversial due to its title, and not just for its puzzling lack of punctuation. (Isn’t Palestine Peace Not Apartheid missing a colon and a comma?)
When I heard it was being furiously denounced for anti-Semitism by all the usual suspects, I hoped that meant that the 82-year-old Carter had reached that highly entertaining stage of the Presidential life cycle identified in John Stewart’s America (The Book) as “The President as Angry Coot.” I was looking forward to another Plain Speaking, Merle Miller’s bestselling 1974 collection of the aged Harry Truman’s fascinating fulminations.
Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, however, turns out to be blandly suave, a reasonable and readable quick introduction to the well-known problems besetting the Holy Land, although hardly the final word on this convoluted and endlessly contentious subject.
The main evidence for Carter having given in to the cranky pleasures of Elderly Tourette’s Syndrome is his use of the A-Word in his title, which has given the Neocon Establishment fits. [More]
Part Two will be later this week in Taki's.
Noted foreign policy commentator Leon Hadar emails in reply:
In general, I probably agree with the main points you raised about the demographic problems that Israelis are facing (in fact, I had written two pieces on the topic for The American Conservative) and the need for "separation" or being "apart."
My main problem is with your insistence on describing Israel as a "European" outpost in the Middle East as opposed to say, a "Westernized" nation-state (like Singapore, for example). I'm not sure that the notion of a conflict between "settlers" and "natives" reflects the reality of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians which is not very different from the ethnic and tribal conflicts in most of the former Ottoman Empire, in the Balkans (no need to elaborate there) and in the Middle East (Kurds/Berbers/Maronites vs. Arabs).
In fact, some of the Shiites in the Arabian Peninsula are descendants of Persian "settlers" and there has been a large wave of Moslem settlers from Egypt and the Levant into Palestine during the 19th and 20th centuries (and let's not forget the population exchanges between Turkey and Greece).
Now. It's true that most of the founders of the Zionist movement were from Eastern and Central Europe. But the majority of the Israeli-Jews who were born in Israel since 1948 descend from Mizrahi/Sepharadi Jews or from mixed marriages between Ashkenazim and Sepharadim that has produced a Hebrew nation with its own territorial identity, language, culture that is not very different from that of Greece and Ireland and is also much "apart" from the American-Jewish community. In fact, as I pointed in my piece in TAC, some of the non-Jewish immigrants from Russia who settled in Israel are gradually becoming part of this Hebrew nation without converting.
In general, the problem in Israel/Palestine is more similar to what has happened in the former Yugoslavia, or Cyprus, or Iraq, in terms of a struggle between ethnic/religious groups over territory than to what took place in South Africa. The two communities will have to separate or to continue living in this never-ending civil war.
Certainly, Israel is becoming more of a Middle Eastern culture and less of a European one as time goes by.
Yet, that can't account for the extraordinary passions it excites around the region and around the world. In Lebanon, in contrast, local Christians, Muslims (of two kinds), Palestinians (Christian and Muslim), and Miscellaneous (Druze) pounded each other for 15 years from 1975-1990, but the world got heartily bored with the Lebanese civil war after the first year, with interest reviving only, tellingly enough, during Israel's 1982 invasion.
So, why the human race's obsession with Israel? First, it's the Holy Land. People really do get worked up over Jerusalem (e.g., the Crusades and the Jerusalem Syndrome that regularly causes manic episodes among tourists in Jerusalem).
Second, the Israelis are Jews, and people get heated up, pro and con, over Jews (e.g., no doubt the comments section of my blog will illustrate this!).
But third, Israel is the only new country of Europeans established outside of Europe since 1945. To much of the world, it looks like a Western colony, and the age of Western colonies is supposed to be over.
Now, you can point out that Israelis are listening to less Mahler and to more Oriental Jewish pop music, but as long as they keep winning wars like a Western power fighting natives, they'll be perceived as Westerners. (Of course, judging by recent Israeli trends -- military ineptitude against Hezbollah; pervasive corruption; the naked, drunken, pervy ambassador to El Salvador being recalled in shame -- Israel appears to be getting more Third Worldy, so perhaps it won't provoke such resentment among its dysfunctional neighbors in the future as it descends more toward their level of competence.)
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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86 comments:
What's it going to be Israel, tribalism or humanism?
Staggeringly brilliant article on Taki's, Steve. I'm used to you cutting to the heart of the matter, but that was masterful.
The always-fascinating War Nerd is very skeptical of Israel's military strength, especially as (not) shown in the most recent Lebanese incursion.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
"World on Fire" by Amy Chua describes Israel as a market dominating minority in a sea of Arab economic failure. There will always be tension when IQ disparities have to live side by side.
And, of course, there is the general intolerance of Islam in general. If the argument for the establishment of Israel is solely one of a guaranteed state for the jews, then why does it have to be in the holy land?
"World on Fire" by Amy Chua describes Israel as a market dominating minority in a sea of Arab economic failure. There will always be tension when IQ disparities have to live side by side.
Yes, this is what merits the comparison with South Africa and distinguishes it from the other ethnic conflicts mentioned by Leon Hadar.
Per capita income of Israelis is almost tenfold higher than that of the Palestinians. Not only militarily, but also technologically and economically, the gap is immense. In the putative One State, Israelis will dominate all fields of endeavor for generations to come. The One State would in practice be an apartheid state.
- Even preaching the One State solution is dangerous, since it legitimizes the eradication of the pre-1967 Green Line and the unlimited expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. If one advocates this solution, how can one object to Israelis living everywhere in the country?
- At this point in time, more Israelis than Palestinians live between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. One has indeed to be naive beyond belief to imagine that Israelis would accord the Palestinians citizenship and then passively stand by while Palestinians become the majority, thus effectively turning the state into another country where Jews are a tolerated minority.
- It is far more likely that in the joint state there would rage a perpetual civil war, making the present conflict look like a garden party.
No, the two-state solution, which my friends and I have advocated for the last 55 years (following the 1947 UN resolution to that effect) is not only the best solution, it is the only one. The alternative is not One State, but escalating bloodshed, ethnic cleansing and catastrophe.
http://www.zionism-israel.com/avnery_despair.htm
A very incisive piece from Steve indeed. I'm looking forward to the second part.
I also think it's correct to view Israel as the last outpost of European colonialism. Israel is an anachronism in the post-colonial age, and this is where Israel's problems stem from.
While European Jews and their descendants are a minority in Israel, there is no question that they are the ruling class, and Israel is based on the (political, legal, military etc.) institutions they brought from Europe. This is even true of religion, e.g. Israel is officially monogamous, because the Ashkenazim are, even though the Mizrahim as well as ancient Jews were polygynous.
If, as we know by definition, apartheid is pure evil.
There's lots of common sense stuff that you and Carter seem to agree on. (I haven't read the book.) However, Carter would probably agree with the above statement, while you presumably do not. I don't think its a minor difference and he'd probably run screaming from the room if anyone linked him with your ideas on race.
It's interesting comparing Steve's take on apartheid's demise with Andrew Kenny's in The Spectator:
Each group is faced with a central contradiction which is at the heart of the disputes between them. The Afrikaner contradiction is physical and is now partly resolved. The African one is spiritual and is completely unresolved.
The problem for the Afrikaners was that they professed to believe in Western Civilisation, which implies democracy, but they were always a racial minority in the country they called their own. Eventually, to try to overcome this contradiction, they devised the tortuous nonsense of apartheid. This was acceptable to them when most of them were rural poor or working-class - as the `extreme rightwingers' are now. But when apartheid delivered high economic growth (a fact that makes liberals such as me squirm), it projected large numbers of Afrikaners into the wealthy, educated classes, where their middle-class consciences could not accept it. It was only a matter of time before one of their number, F.W. de Klerk, as it happened, ended the wretched system. Apartheid collapsed under the weight of bourgeois Afrikaner embarrassment.
The African contradiction is much more profound. It is this: most African leaders loudly denounce European values and praise African ones, but in their every deed they show that they worship everything European and despise everything African. They drive Mercedes, wear Savile Row suits and Gucci shoes, quote Shakespeare, send their children to Eton - and shout against 'Eurocentric' ideas. They are never more at ease than when they are attending conferences in Europe, surrounded by white diplomats, or less at ease than when in the African bush, surrounded by black peasants. Before colonialism, the literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa was zero, but African leaders now blame low levels of literacy on colonialism. They are saying simultaneously, `Why did you colonise us?' and `Why didn't you colonise us more?'
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200212/ai_n9155416
Good point, the third richest man is a Lebanese-Mexican.
It's worth mentioning that a two-state solution was offered by the UN in 1947 -- the Jews accepted it and the Arabs rejected it (they didn't call themselves "Palestinian" back then; that term connoted "Jewish"). The Arabs gambled that they could win all the land by force and they lost.
They remain the only group I can think of that started a war of conquest, lost it, and then begged for a mulligan for decades.
In 2000, they got that mulligan and were offered a two-state solution again. Again they rejected it.
What observers like Carter ignore is the lessons from Gaza. Israel gave the whole thing to the Palestinians. Wealthy American Jews donated money to buy the high tech greenhouses from Israeli settlers so they could be given to the Palestinians; Palestinians destroyed them.
Gaza remains and ungovernable hell-hole. Individual Palestinians may succeed as entrepreneurs and academics in the U.S. and elsewhere as a merchant class, but they don't have the talent to run the infrastructure of a modern society. Everything from the toilets to the high-tension wires was installed by Jews. All Palestinian government creates are patronage jobs for gunmen and school teachers who indoctrinate their children into hate.
Fred
From our perspective here, there are good points to be made on both sides of the Israeli national identity question. Unfortunately the perspective that matters most to the peace process is that of Israel's Arab neighbors, who find it very difficult to ignore the umbilical cord that connects the newborn state to what has proved to be a source of unlimited financial and military power.
From the perspective of an Arab, Israel's audacious settlement program exists for two very different reasons: the first, its smug sense of entitlement and superiority; the second, its bought and paid-for influence in Washington, DC.
From the perspective of an Arab, no Israel action or policy can be divorced from that connection. And in this, they are right, for it is that connection that fuels Israeli arrogance, hegemony, hypocrisy, and brutality. Cut the tie and put the baby to the test. Will it grow, learn, adapt? Or will it perish?
From the strategies most evident in Tel Aviv, it appears they assume the latter.
Thought experiment Steve:
WHY is Israel so different from say, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (which doesn't want the North back, really) or North and South Korea (ditto)?
I would submit that the issue is not Jews but ISLAM.
In Kashmir, in Southern Thailand (over 2,000 dead in two years), in Western China, in Central China (a campaign of bombing has quietly been underway for years, suppressed by the Chinese media but existing nevertheless much like the London 7/7 Subway bombers), and in the Philippines, Islam has shown it cannot exist butted up against non-Islamic nations.
It's made worse by the economic and technological gap between Israelis and Arabs. Israel has something like 2,000 patents originating out from it, including the Checkpoint Firewall and key mobile phone technology. Arab countries have ... zero patents.
If Stanley Kurz at NRO is correct and cousin-marriage among Arabs is as widespread as he thinks, then I'd push things a step further (than Kurz who didn't make this point): it might be that deleterious effects of 1,500 years of cousin marriage make the "talent gap" between the states impossible to close.
Of course ISLAM might also be a cultural and technological stifler. While Jews in Israel enjoy topless beaches, Eurovision song contests, gay pride festivals and the like, even among extremely religious jews, Muslims have nothing like the tolerance for secular space.
When Kemal Ataturk saw the devastation that Allenby's army put upon the Sultan's forces at Meggido (yes Armageddon) he knew it was not just the Army and Air forces but the society that produced the trucks, planes, artillery and skilled engineers who designed it, factory workers who built it, and mechanics who kept it running. And so tried to massively Westernize his country and threw off Islam (he died before it was a success).
The record of Islamic countries has been poor in all states of affairs, no one comes to them for medical treatment, weapons systems, cultural tourism, or any technology. Thus the Muslim world has turned it's back on modernity (because you can't be both Muslim and Modern) and is trying a massive version of the Sioux Indian Ghost Dances, hoping to kill enough of the "white man" (who also might be Chinese or Thai or Filipino btw) to intimidate modernity into surrendering.
Carter's book misses the point entirely. Muslims cannot tolerate the Wests existence ANYWHERE. Not in the US, or China, or Thailand, and certainly not in Israel. There is no "deal" to be made because a Muslim-majority state would soon slaughter the Jews as they would the Thais in Thailand. Already Muslims in Europe and America are demanding Sharia; Muslims in Minneapolis are refusing to take people with Guide Dogs or Gays or booze in taxi cabs and refusing to swipe pork at supermarkets.
This is a long, long conflict and Jews have IMHO very little to do with it, Islam's rejection of modernity and desire to destroy modernity (before Modernity destroys Islam in a sea of doubt) is the heart of the conflict.
Sorry Steve, too much wishful thinking.
What I've read elsewhere states that the IQ among Arabs (which is what the Palestinians were considered before Israel existed) is about the same as that in Latin America. There's a few Carlos Slims, but most people aren't like that. Islam/cousin marriage is an extra force holding them back.
The War Nerd's column on the lebanon war is not one of his best. I wouldn't take him as much of an authority on the Israeli military. He should be read for levity, not enlightenment.
There are some, like Robert Kaplan, who say that the "Long War" or "Global War on Terror" is more like the Indian Wars than the Cold War. The Indian Wars were won more by settlers than the cavalry. The U.S (and most of the West) is not doing any settling now, and the little Israel does is not sufficient for the task. If the analogy is right, it does not bode well at all for the outcome of this conflict. Lawrence Auster's "separationism" could be the only feasible option. In Israel that means a wall for Gaza & the West Bank. For America it means a wall with Mexico and a more selective immigration policy.
Good article, Steve. I'm looking forward to the next part.
Whatever happens in Israel I would be profoundly grateful if the USA could get Israels claws out of our country,drastically cut the money Israel takes--er,I mean we give,and the profusion of weaponry we give them (that winds up in the hands of our enemy,China...and why the hell did Nixon have to GO to China anyway and begin turning it from a backward broken down toilet,albeit one with nukes,to a juggernaut of modernity and hustling billionaire Chinamen,with nukes??.)The so-called anti-semitism that makes some people detest Israel would diminish greatly if those morons and their repulsive disgusting idot "spokesmen" who infest our government would stop Mel Gibsoning us into endless war and stop blowing up our towers!
What I've read elsewhere states that the IQ among Arabs (which is what the Palestinians were considered before Israel existed) is about the same as that in Latin America. There's a few Carlos Slims, but most people aren't like that. Islam/cousin marriage is an extra force holding them back.
Qatar is a perfect example of the fact that the rubric argument that "economic development" results in high intelligence, not the other way around, is false in spite of what the Tyler Cowens of the world might wish. Its GDP is about $20,000/year and it's highly urbanized, yet the average IQ, according to Lynn and Vanhanen, is on the order of about 80. Not much better (actually worse) than many other Arab nations.
Brian,
We invented humanism. It didn't keep us from getting killed. Now we're going with pragmatism. We'll leave tribalism to Arabs and white racist Vdare readers.
BTW, any book written by Jimmy Carter on the Middle East should have an index listing all the largess he has received from Arab billionaires since his retirement (yes, Jimmy: those family ski vacations to 'Prince' Bandar's ski house in Colorado go on the list too).
Israel
How do you quote other peoples comments,guys? I guess im a techno-phobe! can someone explain it to a poor doddering 36 yr old woman???
Funny that tggp should mention Laurence Auster because the post beginning Thought experiment Steve rather brought him to mind.
To recognise the wider problem presented by Islam does not, however, reflexively translate into support for Israel.
Quoting other posters has to be done manually, Lydia. Cut and paste the relevant text, and highlight it by using either italics or bold, via the html tags.
Israel is a European colony whose inhabitants haven't learned to start feeling guilty for ethnic nationalism. There's a nationalism among Israelis that I've met which seems to me to be almost missing in most Europeans and Americans I've met. It's like we're all ashamed of it.
Now, ethnic nationalism is behind some of the nastiest events in history--slavery, genocide, bloody conquest, raping and pillaging the conquered people, etc. There are good reasons to regard it with horror. Even if I could bring it back into vogue here in the US, I'm not sure I would. (I'm very sure I wouldn't bring it back into vogue in Germany or Japan. Those guys are scary!) But that seems like it's the thing that makes Israel hold together.
And they do treat the Palestinians like crap. And if they started reflecting on this, as a society, I suspect they'd lose the moral sanction they get from their ethnic nationalism, and they'd probably get pushed into the sea within a few years.
Second, the Israelis are Jews, and people get heated up, pro and con, over Jews (e.g., no doubt the comments section of my blog will illustrate this!).
And even within your own family, eh, Steve?
Lydia place your text in-between italics tags (the bracketed i and /i) as such:
<i>Enter your quoted text here.</i>
Always close your tags as indicated.
Anybody notice, but this comments thread is way more intelligent than the one on Steve's Barack Obama post, despite being on an even more explosive topic. Perhaps that thread is evidence of an orchestrated attack on Steve's Obama article.
Most Palestinian suffering is self-caused. Talk to anyone who visited Israel and the West Bank before the first Palestinian intifada started (before the mid-80's). There were no barriers or checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank. You could drive from Jerusalem to Jericho and check out the world's oldest city without incident.
There was actually peace in the Holy Land.
Standards of living in the West Bank weren't at Israel's first world level, but they were far higher than neighboring Arab countries. Palestinians worked freely in Israel. Palestinians also had more freedom than they did anywhere in the Arab world; plus more access to universities, etc. It was under Israel's occupation that Palestinians became the most educated Arabs.
Then came the first intifada, which represented a huge change in strategy for the PLO and a huge PR success: instead of a masked terrorist pointing a gun at an airline pilot's head, the dominant image of Palestinian nationalism became a teenage kid throwing a rock at heavily armed Israeli troops.
Israel relented and agreed to the Madrid Peace Process, which required them to allow 40,000 PLO gunmen from Tunisia into the West Bank. The rest, as they say, is history. There was a boom for a few years on the West Bank, as international aid flooded during the peace process, but by 2000 it was over. Then domestic terrorism at levels unheard of in Israel's history, brutal reprisal attacks by Israel, barriers and checkpoints, etc.
The salient point is that Israel has controlled the West Bank from 1967 until today, but the place only became a hell-hole in the last several years (Gaza is of course still a hell-hole, even though Israel completely pulled out of it).
Alan
The biggest hypocrite in the Middle East is the 'King' of Jordan. Anyone catch his speech to Congress last week? He was lecturing us on not doing enough to give the Palestinians their own state.
Meanwhile, he rules a country which, like Israel, was carved out of Britain's Palestine Mandate and is 70% Palestinian. And when the Palestinians fought his father for political power, his father used his British-trained army to crush them and send them fleeing to Lebanon.
Does anybody remember Gaza? Israel ended its "occupation" there two years ago. With the Israelis gone, what are the Palestinians there doing, building a decent society?
Nope: They're killing each other, proving they are no more ready for their own country than Iraqi Shiites.
No permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is possible for at least a generation. The best case scenario is for Israel to finish its separation barrier and then for the UN to authorize another country to "occupy" the West Bank until the Palestinians can develop the institutions necessary to govern themselves peacefully. Jordan would be the obvious choice, since they occupied the West Bank up until 1967, but I doubt the current king would want to touch that tar baby.
Hiram
Palestinians are Arabs; as such, they'll likely never amount to much. Worse, short of allowing all Palestinian refugees back into Israel proper, they'll always have a grievance with Israel and somebody to blame for their continued failure as a society.
It's a tough situation.
Israel might want to give complete abandonment of the West Bank a chance. Let the Palestinians have their own state. If the Palestinians don't remain peaceful, Israel can always take action against the Palestinians as one sovereign state against another, up to and including, annexing territory and expelling the locals if they act aggressively. In fact, that very threat should be held over the Palestinians head if they are granted their own state. Maybe, under such circumstances, Hamas will unilaterally declare an indefinite "truce" in their war against Israel.
Then again, any new Palestinian state might quickly align itself with an eventually nuclear-armed Iran, complicating the situation even further.
I find the Israelis singularly unlovable and the power of their lobby in this country much too great.
However, they are a nationality now, by right of conquest if nothing else. What is often overlooked is that the number of refugee/expelled Arabic-speakers is roughly equal to the number of Jewish refugees/expellees from Arab lands who ended up in Israel. Try unscrambling that egg on an equitable basis.
The Smyrna Greeks and Sudeten Germans might like to go home again, but it's not likely to happen. The Palestinians aren't going home in any numbers, either, unless Israel is defeated in war, an event that would give rise to a nuclear exchange.
Better for us to push really hard for a deal.
Question from somebody who knows very very little about this stuff.
Why would the Arabs reject the obviously best 2 state solution? Is it because they view the part that would be Israel as their land?
Grumpy Old Man: Interesting point.
It's worth remembering that, after World War II, millions of people were forcibly relocated -- including German-speaking minorities in Europe. These German-speakers were relocated back to Germany to eliminate a pretext for another war. This wasn't considered illegal or immoral at the time; neither are the grand children of these German-speakers considered "refugees".
Israel's big mistake, in my opinion, was not forcibly expelling the Palestinians en masse from the West Bank in 1967. The Palestinians were packed and ready to go... and then bleeding heart Israelis encouraged them to stay and live in peace, and even turned over day-to-day administration of the Temple Mount to Muslim religious authorities.
"Peace" is illusory until there is someone on the Arab side with a monopoly on the use of force against Israel. Otherwise, it is pointless for Israel to negotiate.
Recall Steves quote of Moishe Dayans trenchant comment on assuring battlefield success: "Fight Arabs." Point? I am very anti-Israel,maybe to the point of paranoia(but like that Intel guy says,"only the paranoid survive!":) );anyway no matter how rotten a place Israel is,the Arabs act so badly they practically cede the argument to the Israelis.Its hard to pick a side,how 'bout None of the Above??
Another point: demographic projections are often made in linear fashion, but fertility rates in most places in recent years have changed over time.
There was something on the internet recently ("The Million Person Gap") that suggested that size of the Palestinian population vs. the Israeli had been overestimated, failing to take into account declining Palestinian fertility and increasing Palestinian emigration (would YOU stay in Gaza if you could move somewhere else and get help from relatives to start a business?)
It doesn't change one basic point, though--separation, but not a unitary state, is realistic. After all, if the Flemings and Walloons in a place like Belgium can't get along, why should we expect it of the Arabs and Israelis, who have been killing each other for generations?
"Why would the Arabs reject the obviously best 2 state solution? Is it because they view the part that would be Israel as their land?"
The first time the Arabs rejected a two-state solution, in 1947, was due to two factors: 1) The Palestinian national consciousness hadn't fully developed yet (the land had been a sleepy backwater of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years, followed by 28 years of British occupation); 2) The Arabs thought they could win all the land by force.
The second time a two-state solution was offered, in 2000 (and later in early 2001), it was rejected again. The ostensible reason offered by the Palestinian Authority was that they didn't like the terms of the agreement, including what they felt was insufficient contiguity.
Fred
The rapid growth of the ultra-Orthodox population in Israel will probably push the birthrate up for Jews over time. I routinely hear about the ultra-Orthodox having six, seven, or eight children per family. Meanwhile, the birthrates for Arab populations seem to be falling much more quickly than I would have expected a few years ago.
There was something on the internet recently ("The Million Person Gap") that suggested that size of the Palestinian population vs. the Israeli had been overestimated
Yes. This involved the double counting of the Arab population in East Jerusalem by the Palestinian Authority and then the use of that erroneous estimate by the Israeli government in population projections. As a result, the demographic situation that Israeli Jews face is not nearly as severe as was widely believed a few years earlier. As I mentioned in my last comment, due to the rapid growth of the ultra-Orthodox population and the declining fertility of the Arab world, the predicted demographic disaster may never come to pass.
Steve's eternal bug-up-his-ass about Israel strikes again...Until the day I die, I will never forget seeing Palestinians celebrate 9/11. I don't care what gripe people have about the overly-influential Jewish lobby, the Palestinians will never get one iota of sympathy from me. America should support for Israel, because it's worth supporting. No different than if the rest of the world woke up tomorrow hating Canada, the UK, or Japan - I'd want America to stand by them, defend them, and do what's right. Israelis have made endless contributions to humanity and the world. Palestinians have made none; and so far as I can see, there is not one redeeming quality I identify with Palestinians. I will certainly concede that many Palestinians run successful small businesses in the US, but I attribute that to individual ambition and a tight-knit network of other Arab entrepreneurs that do all sorts of shady things to acquire capital (I was a debt collection attorney in Brooklyn for 12 years, I've taken half of Atlantic Avenue merchants to court).
You have to be either delusional, ignorant, grossly misinformed, or yes *an anti-Semite* to think Israel deserves even 10% of the blame for the mess over there. Jimmy Carter is worthless - He never had any balls when he was President and he still doesn't. Doing the right thing isn't as important as being perceived as doing the right thing in his eyes.
By the way Steve - For all you've taught me (and you've enlightened me for years, I am very grateful), I'm still waiting for you to criticize the Christian right, the conservative Christian lobby, and all the fundamentalist Christians on George W. Bush's speed dial. I know, it's so much easier to blame AIPAC...Yes doing so might cost you some of your National Vanguard audience...
/An Italian-American Atheist in Brooklyn New York
And for the record, I have a very low opinion of the ultra Orthodox Jews. They don't contribute anything to society and are impossible to do business with. They basically use the American economic system to their advantage, but could care less about the rest of Americans and probably have no appreciation for this country...To their credit, they aren't violent, they don't behead people, and they don't blow up shit. That alone makes them 1000 times better than most religious Muslims who at least silently endorse those things...
/An Italian-American Atheist in Brooklyn
"An Italian-American Atheist in Brooklyn New York"
More like a kike pretending to be an Italian-American.
Perhaps I spoke too soon.
I have to laugh at the Jew lovers on this board. Israel looks out only for itself, and yet here are all of these "useful idiots" practically willing to throw themselves in front of a tank for Israel. Like I said, the power of the Jew media is amazing to behold.
Does being upset with Israeli influence in this country make me an ally of Muslims?No.It would be nice if we would greatly limit Muslim immigration.At the same time I wish we were allowed to remind U.S. citizens of Jewish descent that Israel is a foreign country.I have no sympathy for the Palestinians and however Israel deals with them is their business. Why should it be my country's business? Brian
Brian,
As an American and a supporter of Israel, I wish it weren't our business. I would like to see aid to Israel (and it's enemies) phased out. America and Israel would both be better off.
Two groups would be worse off if America cut out its aid to Israel: Domestic defense manufacturers like Raytheon where a lot of those aid dollars actually get spent, and the Arabs.
Once Israel isn't a recipient of American aid, it won't have to go along with America's disasterous foreign policy ideas, like the Madrid process. And Israel would be forced to cut the welfare for the ultra-orthodox and embrace more pro-growth policies that would make it the Singapore of the Near East.
Since 1488 won't answer Angelo's questions, I'm going to take a stab at them. 1488, tell me how close I am.
1) What's your ethnicity?
- Of Eastern or Southern European ancestry.
2) Did you grow up around any Jews?
- No.
3) Do you work with any Jews?
- No.
4) What state do you live in?
- West Virginia (or maybe Delaware).
5) Do you go to church each week?
- No.
6) What's your occupation?
- Forklift operator at Wal-Mart (or some other blue collar, but non-unionized job).
7) Have you served in the military?
- No.
- 1766
I must quote:
"Haaretz website reports that police found Mr Refael in the Israeli embassy compound where he had been found bound, gagged and naked apart from sado-masochistic sex accessories"
......relieved "for behavior unbecoming of a diplomat"
That is like something from a scene in Quentin Tarnetino's Pulp Fiction. Can you IMAGINE the ribbing that guy gets back home? I hope he has good friends who can laugh with him over a beer in some nice sea-side Tel Aviv gin mill, but I kinda doubt it. Why do I think he's divorced and in financial distress now, and feels like the most embarassed SOB whose ever walked this earth.
Too funny NOT to be untrue.
I prefer Jews to Muslims(as collectivities) and favor the Israelis over the Palestinians, but I can't help being somewhat suspicious of Israel. Why? Well, things like the Lavon Affair, the attack on the USS Liberty, the Pollard Case, unauthorized Israeli resale of US miltary technology to the PRC, and the Israeli govt pressure that resulted in the pardon of inrernational gangster- and fugitive from justice- Marc Rich.
I also think it's correct to view Israel as the last outpost of European colonialism. Israel is an anachronism in the post-colonial age, and this is where Israel's problems stem from.
No. Israel's problems stem from founding an independent state in what used to be dar-al-Islam, a territory ruled by Islam. Nevermind that Israel is in ancient Jewish homeland with thousands of years of continuous Jewish settlement.
Islam is pure fascism disguised as a religion. While too much Jewish influence in the West is to be watched out for, I acknowledge that Israel is useful to the West as a thorn in the jihadists' flesh. If it weren't for Israel, the jihadists would turn their energies and attention to the rest of the world in full. Eternal state of war against unbelievers, the possibility of temporary truces, is at the core of Islam. There can never be lasting peaceful and co existence between Islam and unbelievers. Islam is an evil that must be contained and never appeased.
"Until the day I die, I will never forget seeing Palestinians celebrate 9/11."
You know, lots of people celebrated it: http://www.counterpunch.org/ketcham03072007.html
With its aid and moral support for Israel, America has made enemies of the world's 1.4bn Moslems,people who would otherwise be friendly or neutral towards it.I can't think of any country in the history of the world that pursued such a criminally self-destructive foreign policy.
With its aid and moral support for Israel, America has made enemies of the world's 1.4bn Moslems,people who would otherwise be friendly or neutral towards it.
Islam is a totalitarian and expansionist creed that has been hostile towards all of it's neighbours throughout it's existence for 13 centuries. Christians in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Hindus, and Buddhists all share having been victims of aggressive Islamic supremacism.
The basic relationship between Islam and other creeds is war or subjugation. Only the pretexts vary.
Mass scale Muslim immigration into the West (or anywhere outside the Islamic world) at least combined while allowing Wahhabi funded radicalism is a catastrophically stupid idea. Islam should be contained.
It's amazing how every single corner of the Internet which discusses Israel is immediately besieged with waves of Jews telling all sorts of anti-Palestinian lies. The goal always seems to be to drown out the naysayers via sheer volume of "pro-Israeli" commentary.
For example, the guy who said "We invented humanism, we'll leave racism for others". I mean, how can one read this and not laugh out loud at him? Is there any tribe in the world that has clung more tenaciously to the notion of their tribe's exclusivity than the Jews?
The major flaw in Jimmy Carter's book is that he denies that Israel is an apartheid state. In fact, it is. Every single aspect of Israeli society discriminates against Gentiles (primarily the Palestinians). This matter has been thoroughly documented and is no longer even worthy of debate. However, it has been well hidden from even the well-informed sector of the public.
One topic that has not been studied satisfactorily is Israel's abject economic failure. Jews are economically successful in a wide variety of societies, yet they can't seem to maintain their own economy without significant artifical props. This would be an interesting thread to pursue.
"I remember the Palestinians celebrating 9/11 also. "
Remember this too?
http://www.counterpunch.org/ketcham03072007.html
"Is there any tribe in the world that has clung more tenaciously to the notion of their tribe's exclusivity than the Jews?"
Considering that 50% of American Jews marry non-Jews, and considering that Israeli Jews run the spectrum of coal-black (Ethiopian origin) to pale-white (Northern European origin), I'd say yes.
I'd say yes.
who?
Italian-American,you really got people going. Most readers I would venture to say are not very interested in the excrutiating details of Arab/Jewish history,agreements,proposals,demographic shifts,etc. What they are interested in is the power of jews in America to hijack our government and plunge us into worthless and wasteful wars,they are outraged that that big fat bloated lump of feces whose brain is now thankfully rottting away,(if only it could have come much much sooner!)named Ariel sharon--that this animal proposes to send OUR nation and our guys into a war,and it happens!!!! And that a slimey filthy crook like Marc Rich is pardoned on orders from that Israeli P.M.,the one who cant even talk right,the one with the speech impediment,(Too many ball gags in the mouth??)and goes on to make billions off Iraq oil,while his LAWYER(!!!!) is running Americas foreign policy! And thats why the talk shifts from,"Gosh amighty,those dear sweet Israelis,theyve tried SO hard to be fair, done so much for the poor Arabs,but -feh-no gratitude"...to "Screw the kikes!!!" :) BTW,the Italian guy putting in his name and addrss and inviting guys to come and fight him(?) or something?!? Dont be such a drama queen! :)
Considering that 50% of American Jews marry non-Jews, and considering that Israeli Jews run the spectrum of coal-black (Ethiopian origin) to pale-white (Northern European origin), I'd say yes.
All very recent developments.
When the U.S came to the aid of Muslims in the Balkans, did bring us any goodwill from them?
Agreed. Whatever we believe the proper course of action might be, let us not delude ourselves into thinking we will earn the affection of the Muslim world regardless of what we do.
The major flaw in Jimmy Carter's book is that he denies that Israel is an apartheid state.
This actually brings up a funny point. A few years ago, Palestinian apologists were complaining that Jews just wanted the Palestinians around as a source of cheap exploitable labor. As the second intifada rolled along, Israel cut off the flow of Palestinians workers inside Israel almost entirely and has basically phased the Palestinians out entirely. You might think that the Palestinian proletariat would be overjoyed (or, at least, a little less alienated). Hardly. Instead it has led to complaints that Jews are making life hard on the Palestinians by denying them work in Israel.
Palestinians: you can't live with them, you can't live without them. Well, at least, you can't do either without having to listen to their incessant whining.
In fact, it is. Every single aspect of Israeli society discriminates against Gentiles (primarily the Palestinians).
With good reason in the case of the Palestinians. As far as other gentiles, I don't know what you are referring to exactly. If you are talking about extremist Jews who dislike and discriminate against non-Jews personally then, by that definition, South Africa remains an apartheid state. After all, I'm sure many white South Africans don't particularly care for blacks either.
This matter has been thoroughly documented and is no longer even worthy of debate.
Declaring a controversial topic beyond debate is a tired tactic.
It does seem to be the case that the Israelis had their agents in the US tracking the muslim legal immigrants-some of whom were breeding and creating a muslim gene-line in overcrowded South Florida- who went on to knock down the twin towers.
And don't forget the USS liberty. We really don't know the full extent of Israeli penetration of the US goverment at the highest levels.
Jewish control over the US congress is nearly total.
It is not unreasonable to say that Jews are dictating US foreign policy.
Two days ago, the Isareli controlled US congress gave the degenerate homosexual and traitor George W Bush the green light to nuke Iran.
If Bush nukes Iran, the gates of hell will be opened and it will take a very long time to the shut them.
Do the jews who post here support the continued subsidization of Israel by American taxpayers?
How many of them would support a strike on Iran?
If Bush does nuke Iran, Jews in America will be blamed.
Scott Ritter said recently that if Bush nukes Iran, we should pick an American city and expect it to be nuked. I think this kind of obvious.
The nuking of a major American city will be the direct consequence of the passage of the 1965 immigration reform act which opened the door to large scale legal muslim migratiion to America.We can thank Jews-and the filthy Kennedy clan-for the passage 1965 immigration refrom act.
Do any of the Jews who post here disagree with the following:
vote Democratic everytime
vote Republican everytime
Israel wins all the time
Remeber the USS Liberty
warmest regards
Jupiter
"It is not unreasonable to say that Jews are dictating US foreign policy."
If Israel were dictating American foreign policy, we would have never invaded Iraq. Iraq was hardly a threat to Israel. That's why most American supporters of Israel opposed the war in Iraq. Also, we would never have forced the disasterous Madrid process on Israel.
1766
Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I present to you "Steve Sailer: Evil 'Far-Right' Columnist".
Media Matters Link
You've hit the big time, Mr. Sailer!
Steve, has an MSM outlet ever mentioned you without referencing the Pioneer Fund, etc.? You might want to consider adding it to your CV.
At any rate, I'm sure we can expect a deluge of indignant mindless lefties, in between Keith Olbermann broadcasts and feeling a need to satisfy their daily quota of moral outrage, to stop by within the next few hours/days.
(And please note that I said "mindless lefties"; I'm not attempting to disparage all people whose views fall left of center, though I may disagree with their politics.)
We're talking about the crowd that spends their days figuratively hunkered down at the homepage of Media Matters, a particularly retarded and shrill organization--like the SPLC if the SPLC were run by 18-year-old Marxists (instead of 50-year-old charlatans)and couldn't decide what its opinions were.
("Do we like Hillary? I mean, sure, she's ostensibly a neocon, but she's also a woman. We can't be against a woman--can we?")
Here's some intriguing reading for anyone interested, liberal or conservative, about David Brock, the founder of Media Matters.
David Brock Bio
David Brock, LiarA lifelong habit proves hard to break.
The Real David Brock
The Unreal David Brock
Northern and Western European-origin Americans, and I assume most commentators here are, lack a sense of historical development. The regions that many commentators scorn as being decadent and backwards - the Middle East, was the more economically developed part of the world for all but the past 500 to 800 years or so. If I take the hidden assumption contained in many of the postings here - namely, that economic development is an indicator of IQ, then the Middle East was far smarter then compared to Europe. If you go back further, to say pre-Roman Europe then the disparity is even greater. Written language became commonplace in Britain, for example, with the entry of the Romans in the 1st Century BCE.
I've traveled all over the world and your average American is just as stupid, if not more stupid, than your average street Arab.
As for the other annoying premise presented by someone - namely, that the number of patents indicates high IQ. Three hundred years ago, there were no patents being created anywhere. Now there are. China recently entered the modern world with its focus on intellectual property and its number of patents is growing at a much higher rate than most Western nations. A precondition for patents is a certain amount of general economic development and a certain notion of property rights.
17766
At the present point in time, there is a mountain of documentation that removes any doubt about the collaboration between Jewish neocons in the Bush administration and the Israeli goverment.
The Israeli agents were tracking the legal muslim immigrants who were hell bent on killing thousands of Americans.
The Israelis witheld this information. The Israeli goverment is guilty murdering of hundreds of Americans.
The scale off death and destruction would have been much greater if the Indian point nuclear power plant had been a target.
If you have evidence that a majority of American Jews opposed the Iraq invasion, present it here.
It is well known that the jewish neo-cons and the Israelis were loooking for a way to get the US to take out at least three muslim goverments.
I blame the majority of American Jews for the current war in the middle east that could easily escalate into a world wide nuclear war.
If the Bush administration nukes Iran, it is very likely that the Russians will place their nuclear weapons on a automatic launch and alert system. We will then only be a flock of geese away from the annihilation of the human species.
American Jews have never tolerated honest criticism of Isarel. As a consequence, every Euro-American Christian family may be doomed.
warmest regards
Jupiter
previous Anon
The whole IQ tests/gentic reductionism stuff disgusts me also.
I really hoping that the true believers make a full frontal assault and push this garbage out into a wider debating venue.
I am fully confident that the Bell curve genetic reductionists will be obliterated in debate.
warmest regards
Jupiter
Lysander Spooner,
Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I present to you "Steve Sailer: Evil 'Far-Right' Columnist".
David Brock is the definition of a moronic, hysterical twit.
Funny piece though:
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, writing on National Review Online's The Corner weblog, condemned Sailer's "shockingly racist"
Roll out JPod. Which is funny because Media Matters has, itself, accused Podhoretz of misrepresenting facts in the past. Of course, Media Matters has also condemned Podhortez for characterizing Hillary Clinton as a "bitch." But his judgment is pure gold when come to Sailer, apparently.
VDARE.com was described by the Rocky Mountain News on July 15, 2006, as a "white nationalist Web site."
Featuring such notable white nationalists as Michelle Malkin, George Borjas, and David Yeagley.
Northern and Western European-origin Americans, and I assume most commentators here are, lack a sense of historical development. The regions that many commentators scorn as being decadent and backwards - the Middle East, was the more economically developed part of the world for all but the past 500 to 800 years or so.
Before 1750, the entire world was basically agrarian, so it's absurd to characterise any country or civilisation as being far more economically developed than the others.
If you go back further, to say pre-Roman Europe then the disparity is even greater. Written language became commonplace in Britain, for example, with the entry of the Romans in the 1st Century BCE.
Huh? The vast majority of the world's population were illiterate before the 18th century, so again, everyone was essentially in the same boat. Knowledge was passed on through oral conditions.
Found drunk, naked, with sex toys. Steve, this isn't Third World behavior. This is run-of-the-mill British Tory politician behavior.
^that's cute, a white nationalist - maybe people will take your kind seriously when you denounce Hitler...
Do you guys support the troops or just the white ones?
This actually brings up a funny point. A few years ago, Palestinian apologists were complaining that Jews just wanted the Palestinians around as a source of cheap exploitable labor. As the second intifada rolled along, Israel cut off the flow of Palestinians workers inside Israel almost entirely and has basically phased the Palestinians out entirely. You might think that the Palestinian proletariat would be overjoyed (or, at least, a little less alienated). Hardly. Instead it has led to complaints that Jews are making life hard on the Palestinians by denying them work in Israel.
Of course, the problem is that Israel co-opted the Palestinian economy, giving them only one economic outlet - to serve as cheap labor. This was explicitly stated as the goal of the 1993 Oslo agreement. Taking away that one economic outlet is like taking away moldy bread crumbs from a starving man. And you're laughing at the starving man for being deprived of his food.
Remember earlier on this thread when we were instructed that Jews "invented humanism"? LOL!
Svigor said: Okay, not much of an analogy, but still you gotta admire how fast the liberal crib sheet gets pocketed, and out comes der Sturmer...
LOL, best line of a wonderful post.
aceflyer,
Of course, the problem is that Israel co-opted the Palestinian economy, giving them only one economic outlet - to serve as cheap labor. This was explicitly stated as the goal of the 1993 Oslo agreement. Taking away that one economic outlet is like taking away moldy bread crumbs from a starving man. And you're laughing at the starving man for being deprived of his food.
I'm laughing at the apologists who will say anything regardless of its truth content, not at the Palestinians generally. However, the Palestinians could have had a state by now if they had acted in good faith over the last few years.
With the withdrawal from Gaza, we heard all this nonsense about how the Palestinians intended to continue growing the crops in the greenhouses and how they wanted to set up an amusement park in one of the settlements. Of course, anyone with a realistic view of the Palestinians knew the likelihood of them doing anything productive with the abandoned settlements was nil. Sure enough, they just ransacked the place and used it as a base to launch further missile attacks into pre-1948 Israeli territory. If they had any sense, they would at least declare a moratorium on attacks originating from Gaza and started to work on opening up the Strip and making the it economically productive. In fact, the Palestinians had a campaign a few years ago to promote tourism in Gaza. They've got a strip of land there on the Mediterranean that could be a rather nice tourist destination, but it doesn't help when even Palestinian sympathizers are regularly kidnapped amidst ceaseless inter-tribal feuding.
rob,
Apart from the Barbary pirates 200 years ago, Arabs or Muslims never bothered America until America started supporting Israel and fighting its wars.
Well gee, how many opportunities were they given to do that since the decline of the Barbary states?
Israel right now is in the position of the "300 Spartans." Not an easy place to be in. Some rabbis believe that every problem the Jews encounter is a lesson from God, so we'll see what can be learned here.
For all we know, the world will look a lot like Israel in the future. iSteve readers against Mexican immigration to the USA might find themselves brothers to the Israelis in not much time.
So the Palestinians complain of being exploited as cheap labor, and then when the jobs get cut off, they are complaining of "their economic aspirations" being thwarted. What a laugh. It's the same old song we've heard before. Big difference between keeping someone down and upstaging them.
Nobody likes a whiner, and Israelis are not whiners. To their credit, the Arabs are not really whiners either. Ultimately, war isn't about who is right. It's about who is most organized, capable, and competent. It's a moral test.
It's worth remembering that, after World War II, millions of people were forcibly relocated -- including German-speaking minorities in Europe. These German-speakers were relocated back to Germany to eliminate a pretext for another war. This wasn't considered illegal or immoral at the time . . . .
Actually, a lot of people did -- and still do -- think it immoral. British publisher Victor Gollancz, for example, said, "If the conscience of men ever again becomes sensitive, these expulsions will be remembered to the undying shame of all who committed or connived at them . . . . The Germans were expelled, not just with an absence of over-nice consideration, but with the very maximum of brutality." Robert Murphy, an American diplomat, said in a cable to the State Department, "Here is retribution on a large scale, but practiced not on the Parteibonzen, but on women and children, the poor, the infirm. . . . Knowledge that they are the victims of a harsh political decision carried out with the utmost ruthlessness and disregard for humanity does not cushion the effect. The mind reverts to other mass deportations which horrified the world and brought upon the Nazis the odium which they so deserved. Those mass deportations engineered by the Nazis provided part of the moral basis oil which we waged war and which gave strength to our cause. Now the situation is reversed. We find ourselves in the invidious position of being partners in this German enterprise and as partners inevitably sharing the responsibility."
When this sort of stuff is done in the Balkans today, it's called "ethnic cleansing" and generally regarded as an atrocity.
See http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/deportations.html
Oh, yes, a few others who at the time considered the expulsions of the Germans from Eastern Europe to be immoral: George Orwell, Sen. William Langer (R-N.D.), George Kennan (see www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/vardy/vardy.doc (pp. 247-48, 259-60))
Also, a correction to my earlier post: Robert Murphy wasn't a diplomat, but rather political adviser to General Eisenhower.
To the extent that relocating the ethnic Germans back to Germany eliminated a pretext for a third German-initiated World War in less than a century, it was the moral and logical thing to do.
Nevertheless, that has nothing to do with what happened to the Palestinians. The vast majority of Palestinians left what became Israel because they were encouraged to do so by Arab leaders, and led to believe that they would be able to go back as soon as the Arabs had pushed the Jews into the sea.
For example, this is what the Iraqi Prime Minister had to say in '48:
"We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."
-- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said
And this is from the memoir of his Syrian counterpart:
“Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.”
-- Syrian Prime Minister Haled al Azm
The bottom line: The Arabs rejected the partition of Palestine in '47 because they thought they could get the whole thing by force; they couldn't, and they've been whining about it ever since.
Er,yes,but wasnt it their country in the first place?? :)
"Er,yes,but wasnt it their country in the first place?? :)"
In the first place, it was the Jews' land. That's why the Jews, not the Palestinians, are blamed for killing Jesus.
That's ancient history, of course. In modern times, the land was controlled by the British from 1917 until 1947 under a League of Nations Mandate; prior to 1917, the land was controlled by the Ottoman Turks for four hundred years.
One salient point to remember is that, as recently as the 19th Century, few people gave a shit about the Holy Land. It was sparsely populated because it was so uninhabitable -- swamps and deserts. Don't take my word for it: do a Google search for photos of the Holy Land from the 19th Century -- you'll see weeds sprouting from the stones in front of The Dome of the Rock.
Or look up Mark Twain's first hand account from "Innocents Abroad" (e.g., "Palestine lies in sackcloth and ashes...").
Seems like we're set for a re-run of Joan Peters vs Norman Finkelstein.
"Seems like we're set for a re-run of Joan Peters vs Norman Finkelstein."
If we are, perhaps the Kevin MacDonald acolytes will take note: On every conceivable political issue, you will find articulate Jews on all sides. Therefore, claims that all Jews band together to advocate the same policy you disagree with are false.
"Canada, Britain, and Japan aren't white ethnostates."
And Israel is a "white ethnostate"? That's why it imported tens of thousands of coal-black Jews from Ethiopia?
Don't forget that Japan is an ethnostate (try getting Japanese citizenship if you don't have Japanese ancestry).
You're getting sloppy, Svigor.
Svigor,
"Damn nigras, I told everybody if we freed them they'd just go on welfare, regress to African polygyny, and turn violent, but would anybody listen?"
First of all, please spare yourself the effort of having to find creative ways to spell well-known words and just use the "nigger" instead. I'm no fan of political correctness. Second of all, nobody has enslaved the Palestinians. However, I'm glad you did highlight a few obvious parallels between American blacks and Palestinians; namely, they both are their own worst enemies these days and they both prefer to scapegoat others rather change their self-defeating behavior.
"The Caananites are Jews now?"
I hope you're not implying that the long extinct Canaanites are the ancestors of the modern Palestinians. While Palestinian propagandists have asserted this in the past, anyone not completely ignorant of history can see that it is plainly ridiculous. (Along with the equally nutty notion that the Palestinians are descended from the ancient Philistines.) Whatever the fate of the Canaanites might have been, they were long gone as a separate people even by the time Josephus wrote his "Antiquities of the Jews."
Anonymous,
BTW, great line about the Cannanites too. They were there before the Jews. So the land should be theirs, as soon as someone can round up some Cannanites.
Well, dig them up then. They don't exist as a people anymore. In actuality, most secular archaeologists believe the Hebrews, in spite of their contrary religious claims, were merely a group of Canaanites that became politically preeminent among neighboring Canaanite tribes. Eventually the entire lot of Canaanites became absorbed into the Jewish nation. So, if you're are looking to give the land back to the Canaanites, you don't have to look far. They are already there.
Tim Robbins in Team America:
"Let me explain to you how this works. You see, the corporations finance Team America. And then Team America goes out and the corporations sit there in their, ih in their corporation buildings and, and and see that's, they're all corporationy, and they make money."
David Brock on Media Matters:
"Let me explain to you how this works. You see, the racist Sailer writes for American Conservative. And Sailer used he used the word 'mulatto' and on VDare he sits there with ah white surpremacists like Borjas and er Malkin according to this Colorado newspaper, and this this article it's not completely Messiahy, and AmCon pays Sailer money."
Svigor,
Oh I dunno, a good liberal could make quite a few parallels. And what's the difference between slavery and apartheid in the liberal mind anyhow?
Sure, but many of those same liberals routinely fail to distinguish between George W. Bush and Adolph Hitler, so I wouldn't rely on them for too much substantial thinking.
I'm glad you're glad. The difference is, of course, that Jews still put halos over black heads whenever they can, but at best ignore the Pals.
My criticism of the Palestinians is no defense of American Jews.
No, I can no more prove that than you can prove otherwise.
The Romans were meticulous record keepers and would have noted the presence of a taxable population in the province of Judea distinct from the Jews. Even more so, when that population, the K'naani or bani kan'an (what Phoenician populations called themselves), bore the same name and spoke the same language as their ancestral enemies, the Carthaginians. The Romans failed entirely to note such a population and Jews like Josephus, speaking of the Canaanites, mention them as a population long lost. There isn't a shred of evidence to indicate the survival of a remnant Canaanite population during the time of the Roman Empire, let alone long after. The burden of proof is upon you.
Indeed, most of what I've read seems to suggest that Phoenicians, Caananites, Hebrews, Carthaginians, Lebanese, etc., are all the same lot.
The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Canaanites were all of the same ethnic stock (the kind we usually call "Phoenicians"). The modern Lebanese are probably significantly descended from such people. Tyre was an ancient Phoenician seaport, for instance, and Lebanon has been remained much more fertile over the millennia than its neighbor to the south, allowing for continuous sedentary habitation. The Hebrews were a distinct people speaking a related, but different, language. All Semitic people, be they Assyrians (Iraqi Christians) or Arabs or Jews, when examined genetically, have a close relationship. In fact, even non-Semitic people in the Mideast, like the Kurds and Turks, all cluster reasonably close together. There is nothing particularly mysterious about that. Northern Europeans cluster tightly too in spite of differing languages and cultures. Conquerors have came and went and sometimes imposed their language and other cultural practices in the process but, genetically speaking, peasant and nomad underbelly in the Mideast has remained fairly undisturbed.
The Phoenicians actually weren't Semitic. They were of Southern European origin. They migrated to the city states they founded in places like Tyre by sea. This leads to a little confusion about the Palestinians.
You may be confusing the Phoenicians with the Philistines. The Phoenicians were definitely Semitic speakers. Their exact origins are not entirely clear, but most presume a Middle Eastern origin. (There are other theories, many of them likely quite fanciful, placing the origins of the Phoenicians in Mediterranean Europe or even India. How they would have acquired a thoroughly Semitic language remains unexplained in such theories.)
Today's Palestinians are of course Arabs, who are Semites. Arabic has no consonant "P",
The Philistines were a different people who's origin is much debated. The most popular hypothesis currently is that they were a Mycenaean Greek tribe. Very limited evidence suggests an Indo-European language for the Philistines and some of the cultural artifacts, such as pottery, have a distinct resemblance to those in the Aegean at the time.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper "Trau" (March 31, 1977), PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said,
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism."
Freddy
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