Israel at 60: Zionism’s Fatal Flaw
How do you evaluate a whole nation when it turns 60? Even a nation as small as Israel is far too complicated for any simple evaluation.
Do you judge it by its vibrant democracy and independent judiciary, which tells even the highest officials and their families that they are not above the law? Or by its four decades as an occupying army, whose soldiers are now confessing that they routinely and brutally violate civilians’ human rights? Do you judge it by its world-class universities and world-class science and technology? Or by its growing gap between rich and poor, as the utopian socialism of the kibbutz experiment collapses before the juggernaut of neoliberal corporate capitalism? Do you judge it by its vibrant avant-garde cultural scene, or by the way it marginalizes its Arab citizens and its growing population of Asian “guest workers”?
Perhaps the only fair way to judge any nation is by its own ideals. Israel makes that task easier for us as it was built upon explicit and well-documented ideals. While many nations have grown up organically, or even accidentally, Israel was a conscious project, a product of half a century of very intentional thinking and planning. Israel’s elderly founding fathers had been Zionists since the movement’s beginning. They imbibed their ideals from the movement’s founders, whose ideals were set forth at great length-there is no mystery about what the Jewish state was meant to achieve and signify.
Zionist Ideals
In the first generation of Zionists, a large majority shared one overriding goal: They wanted to live as “normal” people in a “normal” nation. The Zionist project began when they asked why Jewish life in the centuries-long Diaspora had become so abnormal. Their answer was built into the question. As children of the mid-nineteenth century, the great age of European nationalism, they assumed that a normal nation has its own territory, is governed by its own people and institutions, speaks its own language, and thus shapes its own destiny. So the very fact of being in Diaspora was, by definition, an abnormal condition.
But their complaint was not merely that the Jews lacked a nation. The deeper problem, as they saw it, was that the Jews lacked nationalism. They had no movement, nor even any will, to become a nation. And the reason was plain enough to see: Centuries ago, under the pressures of Diaspora, the Jews had come to define themselves primarily by religion rather than national bonds. Torah (denoting in the broadest sense all of Jewish thought and practice) had come to take precedence over Israel, the national consciousness.
In fact for many of these first Zionists-most of them modernized, secular intellectuals-Jewish religion had become a burden. Seeing no other way to be Jewish except the religious, most might well have assimilated completely into their European environment. The first great leader of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl (himself a highly assimilated Jew), wrote in his classic pamphlet The Jewish State: “If only we were left in peace…” The ellipsis spoke more eloquently than words of the seemingly impossible dream of assimilation. Herzl immediately followed with the bitter premise of Zionism: “But we shall not be left in peace.” Anti-semitism, he argued, was a permanent fact of life for the Diasporic Jew.
Herzl’s close associate, Max Nordau, summed up their assessment for the First Zionist Congress: “The emancipated Jew… has abandoned his specific Jewish character [i.e., rejected traditional Jewish religion], yet the nations do not accept him as part of their national communities.” Further, Nordau implied, the nations would never accept him. Craving a normal life with a normal modern national identity, he had no choice but to create a secular nation of his own.
Thus the mainstream of Zionism assumed from the start that their “normalization” demanded not only independence and self-governing institutions, but a transformation of Jewish identity from a religious to a secular nationalist basis. As the famed Zionist writer Micah Berdichevski proclaimed: “Israel must precede the Torah, the human being before the religion.” This view was enshrined in 1948, when Israel’s Independence Proclamation promised to safeguard freedom of religion, and from religion, for every citizen.
These were the ideas and ideals that brought most of the early Zionists to Zionism-but not all. There was always a dissenting minority who saw Zionism as a way to not merely save Jews but, more importantly, Judaism. They expected the Jewish homeland (not necessarily a political state, but necessarily in Palestine) to be a platform from which Jewish renewal would be launched.
Proponents of a “spiritual Zionism,” like Ahad Ha’am and Martin Buber, hoped for a new kind of Judaism, maintaining those aspects of the tradition that could best be fused with the highest modern values. At the other end of the spectrum, “religious (i.e., orthodox Jewish) Zionists” hoped for a state that would establish halakhah-traditional laws for eating, praying, working, etc.-as the law of the land.
Both of these dissident wings agreed on one proposition: the Jews were a chosen people. God had chosen them not for special privilege but for a special responsibility to live up to a higher moral and spiritual standard than the rest of humanity. A Jewish homeland would give Jews a better chance to attain that higher standard. So “normalization,” far from undergirding the Zionist project, would undermine it. Martin Buber said bluntly: “If we want to be nothing but normal, we shall soon cease to be at all.” The great orthodox Zionist thinker Rav Kook said much the same thing.
From the beginning the secularists were clearly the majority. They remain so today. Judged against the ideal of transforming Jewish identity from a religious to a national basis, the state of Israel has been a smashing success. Certainly not all Jews understand their identity in nationalistic terms, but the idea that the Jews are a nation, and that one can be a “good Jew” without being religious or spiritual in any way, has now taken deep root throughout most of the Jewish community. Many in the orthodox minority may demur, but most orthodox Jews now embrace some modern nationalist values, even if they are not comfortable admitting it.
Zionism’s Trap
The logic underlying Zionism, however, has failed to play out as expected. A Jewish nationalism strong enough to overshadow religious identity has not made Jews in their own state feel fully normal. If anything, Israel has become an institutionalized mechanism for perpetuating a sense of abnormality. Why? Because the early Zionists, and most of their followers to the present day, overlooked the fatal flaw in their reasoning.
Zionism was born from the premise that anti-semitism is a permanent fact of life in the Diaspora-that in every land, sooner or later, gentiles will turn against the Jews living in their midst. Only in a country with a majority Jewish population could this fate be avoided. By this logic, the gentiles in the countries neighboring Israel had to be anti-semitic too. The neighbors did not have to demonstrate anti-semitic behavior to prove it, nor could they ever disprove it. Evidence was irrelevant. The neighbors’ anti-semitism had to be an unquestionable axiom-without it the whole Zionist enterprise would be called into question.
When Palestinians and other Arabs resisted the emerging Jewish state, most Jews viewed the conflict through the lens of Zionist thinking. They could not see opposition to Israel as the predictable result of political, economic, social, and cultural friction; but only as irrational anti-semitic hatred, which Jews had done nothing to stir up. So, the (sometimes unconscious) reasoning went, there was nothing Jews could do to remove or mitigate Arab antagonism.
All the Jews could do was to build up an invincible army and subordinate every other value to the overriding demands of Israel’s security. In the Jewish state all could be justified by the magic words bishvil bitachon (”for the sake of security”). Although it would take more than half a century for Israel to begin building a physical wall along its border (as determined by Israel itself), from the very start it had a psychological barrier separating it from its neighboring lands, a barrier symbolized by the ever-present military establishment.
If Israeli Jews truly believed that their military would keep them perfectly secure behind its barrier, perhaps they would have taken the risks and made the compromises necessary for peace. But, while they hoped for the best, most continued to fear the worst, just as their ancestors had in Diaspora. Six Israeli-Arab wars and two intifadas have proven that the state of Israel is secure against every plausible threat, yet the old myth of national insecurity still triumphs over present reality.
The early Zionists, filled with understandable fears of eternal anti-semitism, could not imagine a Jewish state with such predominant power that its existence would be absolutely assured. Most Israeli Jews today, haunted by the same fear of powerlessness, still cannot believe in that assurance.
People who are so preoccupied with their security-constantly on the alert for attackers, always fearing they might be “pushed into the sea,” feeling that their country is and must remain a psychological fortress-can hardly live a really normal life. Therefore, when judged by its own standards, the Jewish state fails to achieve its ultimate raison d’etre because it lives without “normalization.” So Israeli life remains trapped in a frustrating sense of failure; a failure compounded by the inability for most of its citizens and champions to understand how its own nationalist ideology has been largely responsible for it.
Yet the trap and the frustration run even deeper. Years ago, I heard one of the world’s most distinguished Jewish theologians say that, unfortunately, Israel had to maintain its huge military to fulfill the promise of “never again.” Someone in the audience was skeptical: Could Israelis really be sure that their soldiers would safeguard them against every threat? No, the famed speaker admitted.
But, he added, they could be sure of the most important thing: There would never be another Nazi-like holocaust, because the next time the Jews would go down fighting. The essential value was not security but nationalism and especially national pride, acted out in the willingness to die-and kill-for one’s nation. After all, in the modern world that’s what normal nations expect. So acts of military might would prove that Israel is indeed quite normal.
Surely not all Israeli Jews seek a sense of security and normality through the exercise of power. There is, in fact, a sizable peace movement in Israel which is deeply critical of its own militarism. But the majority of Israelis today, who do tilt toward power, block the path to peace. They see any genuinely conciliatory step by their government as a surrender, a return to political powerlessness, and thus a fatal blow to their sense of self-worth. So they want their government to continue on the path of confrontation as evidence of “normalization.”
Every exercise of Israeli power naturally evokes more Palestinian opposition and further enmity. Yet even when Palestinians offer clear evidence of change, like the recent announcement from Hamas that it is ready to accept a two-state solution, the Israelis reject it. Their axiom of eternal anti-semitism tells them that the Palestinians are and must always be their implacable enemy. The insecurity and violence tragically spiral on, deepening the sense that Israel is not yet normal.
Indeed, large numbers of Israelis seem convinced that the original goal of “normalization” is permanently beyond reach, or else a distant eschatological goal at best. Decades of war and occupation have forced them to confront the moral compromises they make to defeat their enemies. To ease their consciences, most reaffirm their conviction that none of this is due to Israeli policy; it is all forced upon them by irrational hatred from the other side of the border(s). Therefore, this thinking goes, they can do nothing to alter the sad situation. Ain breirah, they tell each other over and over again. “There is no choice.” Thus they convince themselves that they can never do anything to bring their nation closer to “normalization.”
The Alternative
Perhaps Israel would have been better off had all its people listened to dissidents like Ahad Ha’am and Buber, who rejected the whole idea of “normalization” because they wanted Zionists to live up to a higher moral standard. As early as 1892, Ahad Ha’am saw Jews committing violence against Arabs and warned that there would be terrible repercussions. In 1920, Buber told the Zionist Congress that Jews were far from powerless. Arabs would respond to the choices Jews made. “It depends entirely on us,” he declared, whether Zionists are greeted by Palestinian Arabs as hated conquerors or beloved friends.
There have always been Jews in Israel who recognized the prophetic wisdom in such words. Now they are being joined by growing numbers of Jews in the US and around the world, who are acting on the principle that it is never too late to change a nation’s goals, to put ethical striving above “normalization.”
Yet another wing of this Jewish peace movement argues that “normalization” is still a worthy goal. But 60 years of conflict shows that Israel has been pursuing the goal in self-defeating ways. Acknowledging Palestinian (including Hamas’) gestures of conciliation, and responding with conciliatory moves by Israel, is the only way to bring peace and security for Jews, and thus escape the trap of abnormality.
The one thing all sides do agree on is the uncertainty of the future. Israel at 60 is still a fledgling nation, a set of experiments, and a debating arena wherein many diverse voices insist that they know best how the next experiments should be carried out. Up until now, the majority’s experiments have led only to an abnormal situation marked by an endless round of violence and killing-the vast majority of it on the Palestinian side of the border.
The good news is that a growing awareness of futility is, slowly and painfully, pushing both sides to take more radical experimental steps toward peace. Only by traveling a new path of peace and reconciliation can Israel some day achieve its original goal: a homeland where Jews can feel like normal people leading normal lives.
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin.
©2008 Religion Dispatches
The author has given a sensitive and insightful examination of the developing Israeli psyche.
Unfortunately, he failed to deal with the issue of Israeli confiscation of Palestinian property for the ever expanding Israeli sittlements. Until that issue - like Palestinian violence against Israelis - is addressed effectively, all discussions of peace in this unhappy land will be futile.
jj
Einstein on Israel .. he had it right all along.
“I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain — especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state.”
In January, 1946, in a reply to the question of whether refugee settlement in Palestine demanded a Jewish state, Einstein told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry,
“The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-minded and economic obstacles. I believe it is bad. I have always been against it.”
http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/Einstein.htm
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983001.html
“Both of these dissident wings agreed on one proposition: the Jews were a chosen people.” And THAT’s the reason Jews have had such problems. Not my opinion btw. Read Bernard Lazar’s book “Anti-semitism”. He’s a Jewish writer from the late 19th century. He looked at the roots of anti-semiticism throughout history.
The important thing is that ANY group who held the belief that THEY were special and others were not would have problems, and would cause problems. (I wonder if you can think of any other groups that fit this description?)
A large number of Jews are atheists. How can they be “God’s Chosen People”? Is God an atheist?
Kent Shaw
Excellent article!!
There is no god. Once everyone accepts that fact we can all live in peace.
There is no “judaism”, “christianity”, “islamic/muslim”, “buddhism”, etc. Give it up and we can live in peace. It’s really simple.
I dont’ want Israel to exist; this does not make me anti-semitic. I don’t want ANY countries to be based on religion.
Rich Griffin - …and even if god DID exist, I’d think she’d be like any good parent. I.e. loves each of their children equally and absolutely, but would get angered if one child constantly went around saying “mom loves me more, mom loves me more”.
And also like a good parent, would want their children to NOT be totally dependent saps who call home a hundred times a day looking for advice!
Rich Griffin, I am an agnostic so I more or less agree with you. My comment above was rhetorical, cynical and sarecastic.
“There is no god. Once everyone accepts that fact we can all live in peace.”
It’s a fact? How can you PROVE it? You can’t! You can try to convince others of this “fact” but you can never prove it.
In other words, you’ve essentially said “There is no god. Once everyone accepts MY BELIEF we can all live in peace.”
And that’s 100% true. But it’s true of religions also.
I couldn’t get past the first five paragraphs which I felt didn’t have the ring of truth.
John,
Agreed, I especially found the comment:
“a large majority shared one overriding goal: They wanted to live as “normal” people in a “normal” nation.”
Well if you apply the US standard of “normalness” - affluent, “professonal” occuption, comfortable life in a leafy neighborhood, - and most importantly, white; then, there are few people in my home town as uniformly “normal” as it’s Jews.
And as far as a “diaspora”, what “diaspora” is Prof. Chernus referring to?
Certianly it was not not any purported scattering of Semitic peoples from from the Levant (eatern Mediterranean). In fact, most US/European Jews aren’t Semites at all! They are from the ancient Khazar kingdom where the modern day Ukrane and southern Russia now are. The Khazar Jews converted to Judaisim but whose claims to the holy lands of the Levant are no more ligitimate than those of Christians or mMslims.
A more constructive analysis might be to compare and contrast European Jews with the similarly perecuted European Roma (”Gypsy”) people, who originally came from India.
Hmmm anti-Semitism still is a BIG problem, I just quit an ostensibly left discussion group over on flickr because there was someone who was ranting like Hitler about the “Zionist” secret agenda to start wars and control U.S. politics completely and when I called him on it I was mocked by so called “leftists” So I DO see where jews would feel the need to have their own state where they can feel safe from persecution. OTH that state ought not to annex territory beyond it’s agreed on by law 1967 green line borders. IMO the solution is simple, grant a contiguous state to the Palestinians, and allow Israel to build a giant well defended wall to protect against terrorist attacks at it’s proper 1967 borders. This seems to be the logical clear and rational solution to many problems in the middle east, why can’t people see that?
P.S. Rich I am an agnostic too, in an ideal world you’d be right, OTH in a world that has seen many pogroms I don’t blame Jewish people for wanting to have a safe haven, again one IMO that ought to stick to its internationally recognized boundaries and ought to stop mistreating Palestinians, stop having Jewish only roads and stop making raids into Lebanon, it is my sincere hope that we can criticize the policies of the state of Israel without falling into anti-Semitism. Although I agree that neo-cons use the charge of anti-Semitism to skiffle legitimate criticism along the line of a Chomsky or Amy Goodman, I also think a few so called leftists sometimes do step over the line into theories about Jews controlling the world which are neo-Nazi in their origin and that ought to be confronted EVERY time it happens.
p.s. 11 responses slipped in, in the time it took me to type the first response, wow.
Some American Christians have “supported” Israel only through the lens of widely-varying speculations about “end-times” events, as pasted together in different scenarios by prophecy wonks and novelists. This is both dangerous and frankly unbiblical (for Christians.)
Christians (if we are serving and trusting Christ) are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. That is one of THE TWO most important commandments we are given—if we claim Christ rather than a bunch of religious malarkey favored by factions of men.
While we can decry the holocaust and work hard to make sure WE are not part of enabling another one, we ARE NOT called to favor Old Testament Judaism over Islam. We are to be insistent on fostering peace by being sure we indeed practice the love of our “neighbors” and we can exhort the other participants (Jews and Arabs) to do likewise. That’s it from the perspective of Christianity. Jesus came for Jews and Gentiles alike, and there are no longer any “chosen” people for Christians to be holding special.
Much of the rest of the secular issue of Israel is now (unfortunately) about projecting and maintaining military power in the region. Not surprisingly, there is little to no agreement on that.
IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO BE JUDGEMENTAL WHEN PERCEPTION IS SO DISTORTED.
IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO BE JUDGEMENTAL WHEN PERCEPTION IS SO DISTORTED.
Fatal flaw? Ira Churnus cannot allow himself to even think that Zionism is the mirror image of Nazism. We hooked up with the mass murderer, Stalin, to bring Hitler to heel, but we didn’t invite the Bolsheviks into our government to define our releationship with them. Zionism and the terrorist pseudo-theocracy of Israel should only be dealt with as regards it’s usefulness or, conversely the damage it may do to our Republic. When one lays down with Zionist dogs, one may very well arise with Zionist fleas.
This article brings out many Jewish points of view that need to be understood so that progressives worldwide can work with rather than against Israel: understanding can help to undo the fears that I think this article articulates, it illuminates the “compulsions” behind ongoing and increasing needless tragedy on all sides….Check out longtime Israeli journalist Richard Ben Cramer’s book “HOW ISRAEL LOST,” his perceptions and logic ring with the major points here. Cramer once said that an apology and reparations to Palestinians/Arabs from Israel “would make Israel not less Jewish, but more Jewish” and he may be right—more Jewish as a people whose heritage/identity is written in terms of the high exercise of conscience….Do not the ones who claim such a code and who possess such power have a responsibility to take the biggest and bravest steps?
May 14, 1948 The Declaration of the establishment of Israel proclaimed:
“On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations.”
If we have a friend we love and they cross the line into bad and self-destructive behavior-if we truly LOVE them, we will call them on it.
What is needed is a Global Intervention by those who claim to love and support Israel that a change of course is most needed.
Having been to Israel Palestine 5 times since June 2005; I attest it is APARTHEID!
I also suggest USA listen to the 21st century Jeremiah-Mordechai Vanunu, a Jewish convert to Christianity held captive in Jerusalem, ever since April 2004;
After being released from 18 years in jail for telling THE TRUTH; that Israel was already nuclear in 1986.
LEARN LOTS: VANUNU ARCHIVES on WAWA and WAWA Blog May 14, 2008:
On May 13, 2008 Vanunu wrote…
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=905&Itemid=200
I have never understood how people can consider the theocratic state of Israel a democracy. The rabbinical class holds far too much power over secular Jews, as well as over second-class citizens like Israeli Arabs.
Frankly I’m getting kind of sick of Israel. While I don’t deny their right to exist I do resent paying for it. I resent names like Friedman and Perle and Wolfowitz literally attempting to re-make my world in a fashion I’d just as soon die fighting against — and I resent Leo Strauss like all get-out.
Message to Israel — Join the rest of the world you xenophobic jerks!
eileenfleming, thanks, the declaration that you cite is shocking in its hypocrisy. The people who wrote that knew, at the time they were writing, that the people living within the borders of their planned Jewish state were mostly Arabs. They knew that their new state would not really be the state of its inhabitants, but the state of its Jewish inhabitants as well as the state of its Jewish non-inhabitants. It reminds me of the US founding fathers who used flowery language about universal rights but assumed implicitly that women and blacks were not included.
The fatal flaw is that Jews ever thought that any country would allow us to live and pray in peace outside of the biblical boundaries of Israel.
Palestine is a made up name for a made up land in a made up region of the world. It is Israel and has been for thousands of years. Jews live there now and have done so for thousands of years. Did I mention the thousands of years part?
Jews have been persecuted and killed and expelled from nearly every country on earth but you bigots won’t even allow us a decrepit little country where we can live in peace and not be hounded by the imperialist Arabs and Russians and Europeans and Americans and Chinese and Turks and Persians, etc., etc., who have tried to eliminate us throghout history.
We don’t proselitize like most of you and don’t kill any of you because of your beliefs. Many more of us were expelled from Europe and Arab lands than the number of Arabs who fled from Israel. We fought for a meager homeland because it was our only choice. It was fight or die at your bloodthirsty hands.
The fact that Arabs chose to flee rather than fight or better yet live in peace was their own choice.
The fact that many Arab countries have throughout history attacked Israel and Israel is still alive is a fact of survival and a miracle of the CREATOR, and far from a flaw and certainy not a fatal flaw. We are alive.
The only fatal flaw of Zionism is succumbing to people who would love to see us all massacred while they celebrated with their children over our demise.
NEVER AGAIN
msalfter; you say “Jews have been expelled from almost every country on Earth.”
Why? On another thread you say this has gone on Throughout History and Everywhere; WELL WHY?
You think maybe if everwhere you go there are problems, just maybe, just possibly, YOU’RE THE PROBLEM?
Hello? Hello? You may not get it, but the rest of the planet increasingly does-and Israel’s Murderous Butchery is hastening this process.
Shalom.
I know, your eyelash is worth more than fifty Arab Children’s Lives, I’ve heard it before mr salfter.
If Chernus wanted to plant fictitious comments to prove his points, he couldn’t do better than msaftler.
Even the darkest clouds have a silver lining of irony.
The fatal flaw is SO much simpler than that. Every habitable part of the world has been populated for thousands of years. So, for instance, if the Mormons or the Scientologists want to have a homeland somewhere on some continent where they will be the majority and escape persecution, then they will have to dispossess the current inhabitants. The dispossessed inhabitants, of course, will fight back.
Centuries ago, this kind of thing– more violent militarized peoples displacing the weaker and less organized peoples– was seen as an inevitable aspect of existence. That began to change with the concept of rights and international law, which reached a peak of influence in the mid 20th century.
So, Zionism is really a throw-back to old fashioned imperialism. They didn’t just take the heart of Palestine. Remember, they also tried to annex the Sinai, twice and both times were forced to give it back.
“We fought for a meager homeland because it was our only choice”
It was NOT and NEVER WAS the ‘homeland’ of more than even 1% of the Jews currently residing-there — as you (and all Ashkenazic leadership there) probably well-know. Which is NOT to say the Jews of modern-Israel haven’t the same Human-Rights and Entitlements to religious-freedoms that we ALL should proudly-share…and Grant.
Far from being a ‘persecuted-minority’ within our overall Western-civilization, Jews enjoy a “uniquely-privileged status and Protection” that they have well-earned since enabling and establishing (after translating Moorish&Muslim-scholarship, re-gifting us with our own Greco-Roman- heritage following our Dark Ages) the Renaissance and Enlightenment [just count the disproportionate-number of Jews in any Nobel-prise listing, or in the overall-positions of power&wealth within any/all English-speaking country’s!).
We ALL-OF-US can agree that another Holocaust should NEVER AGAIN darken our shared-History — but ‘who’, pray-tell, is even “threatening one”? [Against any Jews, whatsoever and anywhere(?) — not Iran, certainly, where ‘real’ Sephardi-Jews enjoy their Diaspora-homeland and disdain Ersatz-Israel, and certainly not the US, where Jews enjoy their rightful-places throughout our government, academia, banking, all-Professions, Wall-Street, Corporations, and in-general — as they do throughout all of North America/Europe/etc.]
I only regret the ‘brain-drain’ and Assets America and Europe has lost to Israeli-immigration. It has-been (and remains) only the ACTIONS of that Ersatz-Israel [its State&’regimes’] that ever receives and Inspires any ‘threats’ from anyone/anywhere, including from the majority of Israel’s harmed-Palestinians.
I personally don’t believe that _anyone_ (especially Jews and/or Democracy-loving people, anywhere) should be ’supportive’ of the State of Israel — until-and-unless it finally Issues an actual Constitution — and, thereby defines it’s own Borders and its ‘intents’, as well as establishes it’s Sovereignty. A Militaristic-and-Closed Theocracy, now a Nuclear-Bully and local war-monger, is abhorrent to decent/Free-people everywhere and to most Jews, in-particular.
Modern-Israel is now a ‘Fact’ — we and its inhabitants AND its neighbors need to recognize that, of-course. However, the pain and Nonsense/Mythos that occasioned its Zionistic and False/deplorable-’rebirth’ are leading it to a certain self-destruction, and outweighing all of that which CAN and SHOULD be proudly-held as the real-Heritage of this ancient&Seminal-Faith/tradition.
“So, Zionism is really a throw-back to old fashioned imperialism. They didn’t just take the heart of Palestine. Remember, they also tried to annex the Sinai, twice and both times were forced to give it back.”
They didn’t really want the Sinai (or any Negeb-style wasteland, ever) — you’ll note that they did NOT let go of the Sheba-farms nor the Golan Heights and parts of Trans-Jordan (nor will they forfeit Lebanon up to the Litani, once they finally ‘win it’ and that river’s Syrian head-waters).
As for ‘International Law’ — it is primarily based upon Biblical-scholarship-and-Fiction (and, as you’ll recall, Israel’s first-Founding was based upon a slaughter-of-Locals and a mythical-Rationale — which the Philistines or Canaanites and many-others never found ‘redress-from’, either).
“Might Makes Right” — as a certain ‘proof’ of G_d’s Will [So for America’s own-Founding and Manifest-Destiny (including famous Thefts from Natives, Mexicans, Hawaiians, and others), and So for either of these Israel’s…!]
mrraven500 wrote: “the [Zionist secret] agenda to start wars and control U.S. politics completely”
There is actually quite a lot of support for the theory that Jewish interests have been dominating U.S. foreign policy for a long time.
There is little doubt that the devastation of Iraq has greatly benefited Israel’s strategic position in the Middle East. Saddam was one of Israel’s major problems: instead of personally pocketing the revenues from oil, as any good U.S. puppet should have done (see Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, etc. etc.), Saddam did the unforgiveable: he actually spent the money on improving his country. As a result, Iraq became the most highly industrialized Arab country in the Middle East and a potential major threat to Israel. (That was why the Osirak nuclear reactor was demolished by Israeli jets in 1982.) We have almost completely shattered Iraq’s industrial infrastructure. The recent exodus of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi doctors, engineers, and scientists to other countries is final proof that the damage is permanent and thorough: the very people needed to revive Iraq as a modern country had given up. Israel, of couse, is delighted.
(I am not saying that Saddam wasn’t cruel; he was. But he also did his country a lot of good.)
Now I ask you all: if the purpose of the U.S. invasion was to benefit the Iraqis, why did we take so much care to ruin their industry, their water pipes, and their sewage systems? The only tenable answer is that the horde of Jews in the upper reaches of the Bush Administration wanted it. Their scorched earth tactics were supposed to ruin Iraq permanently as a modern power, and they succeeded.
This may be the biggest reason why the U.S. conquest of Iraq failed: the people there knew we were systematically dismantling their country, and they hated us for it. In ruining Iraq, we were sacrificing our long-term interests for the benefit of Israel. This is one very strong piece of evidence that Jews have been dominating U.S. foreign policy.
Why am I picking on the Jews? Before the invasion of Iraq I could not have cared less who the Jews were; as far as I was concerned, they were just another ethnic group. But during the long buildup to the invasion, it became clear to me that the neocons dominate much of the U.S. media: the TV networks, the newspapers, the book publishers, and the move producers. They control the country’s major information channels, which are as vital to a democracy as blood vessels are to a human body. Through their control of the media, they set much of the country’s agenda, including the invasion — to Israel’s huge benefit, and to our ruin.
You doubt their pervasiveness? Roger Ailes is president of Fox News; Les Moonves is president of CBS; Neil Shapiro is president of NBC News; David Westin is president of ABC News. Have I left out a major TV network? These people are all Jewish.
Now for the newspapers. The New York Times, of course, is owned by the Jewish Sulzberger family. The Washington Post is owned by the family of Eugene Meyer, former Chairman of the World Bank; Katherine Graham was his daughter. Sam Zell, a fervent Zionist, owns the Los Angeles Times.
The Jewish dominance is nearly complete in the movies. It is rare these days for a major film to have a non-Jewish producer. The movie “300″, for example, is pure propaganda: the Athenians were heroic; and the Persians (Iranians) were shockingly evil and cruel. The Jews are obviously preparing us for a war with Iran.
I have demonstrated the motive for Jewish dominance of U.S. foreign policy (to benefit Israel). And I have shown how they are doing it (by controlling the media). And I haven’t even touched the Jewish influence in the world of finance.
To be sure, the Jews are not solely responsible for the clusterfuck in Iraq; the empire builders, the oil companies, and the war-profiteers, for example, may actually have been larger factors. But all of the other forces combined would not have pushed the U.S. into war if the media had been honest. Iraq has never hurt us; the invasion of that country was a moral obscenity that should never have happened, and for this the Jews bear a heavy responsibility.
And they are at it again. As you may have noticed, all of the usual suspects are drumming up another war for the elimination of another enemy of Israel (Iran). They don’t seem to care that the cost of the invasion of Iraq is already ruinous, in blood, in treasure, in our moral standing in the world. They can only see the benefit to Israel. The Jewish neocons may appear to be American citizens, but they are not working for America.
nahida…
Let go of that Hate — it harms you far-more than it ever will any ‘occupier’.
Understand that there are even-less true ‘Zionist-Conspirators’ in Israel than there are Sephardi-Jews. 98% of the Israel’s are a fine-and-decent People (like Yours and Mine) — who have been ‘led from the Truth’ by a tiny-minority of those with “Interests” involved. In this-sense, they are no-different than the misled/propagandized suicide-bombers who [RARELY!] try to inflict harm upon those who have harmed-them — or any different than the American-teenagers who sit in safety in our Heartland ‘piloting’ drones which take the lives of innocent-Iraqi’s.
Violent-thoughts breed violent-Actions — regardless of One’s race/nationality/Credo or Faith (or lack-of-Faith).
“Errare humanum est”…but Forgiveness is Divine (and Inspires-others to consider the Same).
Since the Dawn of time, human-ignorance and misplaced-Trust has led to nearly-all of our Woe and Discredit — since we first settled into Patriarchal/Agrarian city-states. We’ve progressed painfully-little since then, allowing our innate-Need for Mythos to enable an Elite/’evil-doing’ minority to influence us all into Fear and Envy of all-Others (who, sadly, also fear/envy us). Someday, we’ll cull-our-Herd of these Oppressive-few…but until that Day, only the Law (and, perhaps, a more-equitable distribution of ‘wealth’) gives any-Hope for Peace — or Justice.
And Merek…you make the fatal-mistake of confusing “Jews” with “some wealthy and/or nationalistic-Jews”, and all of Those with “a very-few and insane Zionist-zealots, wealthy and/or Influential beyond-imagination, who were behind MUCH of modern-misery” — including the French and American and Russian Revolutions, most wars-since, American-Dispensationalism, Oil and Environmental Hoaxes/’scares’, and the return of Elitist-Aristocracy and Fascism.
Don’t paint your world-view with ’so broad a Brush’…(not all German’s were Nazi’s, or all Christians ‘Crusaders — any more than all-Muslims are ‘Terrorists’ or all-American’s are Imperialists!)
Yes there is a Palestine. The Jews fled Europe during Hitler and got the hell out and moved to PALESTINE and overtook the population and shoved the Palestinians to wherever they felt. They(Israel)refuse to define their borders, lay claim to the word Holocaust, call Palestinians anti-Semitic, although they are Semites, they lob a 40 year old bomb into Israel and are called Terrorists, then Israel drops kilotons of bombs on Gaza and justifies it by saying, “They did it first”. They refuse to accept the fact that they are committing Genocide upon the Palestinian population, as it were. They deny them food, water, medicines, electric, fuel in order to allow Palestinian children to die a slow tortured death.
anti-Semitic was a phrase coined in the first 1/3 of the 1900’s to be used expressly as applicable only to those that disagree with Jews only, just Jews.
i still don’t see them on the list of 10 that are permitted nuclear weapons, anyone?
sarcasm re; disagreeing, it was applied as a term for any that disliked Jews. Again though, it was used in the context of Jews.
Never was before that.
“The only crime that our people committed is that they existed on the land of their ancestors which you proclaimed as a God given-right to Jews only.”
Except of course, the Muslim citizens of Israel who make up 16% of the population. And all the Christians too.
my dear Nahida,
Of all the posters on this page you are the
least filled with hate, you reach out with
forgiveness time & time again.
You spoke with extraordinary power, eloquence and beauty tonight - your gifts
at writing are growing stronger, maybe it
helps to have truth in your words.
your budddy kate
Modern day Israel has no more “right” to the territory that they claim as “theirs” than do any of the other peoples who have inhabited the region for millenia. The only reason Israel exists is because the land was “given” to them by parties who had no right to do so. As a North American, I see in Israel’s current policies a sad echo of the way in which European settlers treated the Native North Americans. It’s called bigotry, bolstered by willfull ignorance, followed by attempted genocide. Any positive feelings that I may have had toward Israel died years ago when that psychopath Sharon had killed an aged Muslim, sitting in his wheelchair in front of his place of worship, with a rocket propelled grenade. What courage! What an admirable deed! Nahida is right, and right on!
And no, I’m in no way an anti-semite, never have been, and never will be. I simply despise the use of brutal force and oppression to foster a false dream.
Down with Israel, the racist, genocidal and colonial state.
fresh1 May 14th, 2008 4:47 pm
‘…Furthermore, they were not obliged to “win the war” (as Rothchild seems to imply) against a far stronger Zionist invasion force in order retain their natural human rights. Rights do not disappear because you are on the losing side of a war…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8733
Aggression is illegal period. And constitutes a War Crimes, and considering the time-line, it looks like the US and UN are co-conspirators with foreknowledge and at least connivance into complicity. I wonder what Prof Francis Boyle would state on that proposition.
opeluboy May 14th, 2008 7:45 pm
RIGHT-ON! and very regrettably, but in a small percentage, just as with, as Martin Luther King Jr., so eloquently stated it on the eve of his assassination, “some of our sick white brethren” and and they come in all shades, religions and nations. But, being defensive out of fear of group annihilation, is not an absurd or unjustified fear. And fear is inculcated religiously with the holocaust museums. Remember lynching of black men in the south was intense and totally racist, they could not deny being black, they were murdered. My grandfather was country preacher who went to stop a lynching, and was beaten to death by the KKK policemen, my father never got over that. He would cry about it when drunk, the pain is real and took it to his grave.
I can come to the conclusion, that the whole human race, is a series of victims, begetting victims, who beget victims. But, some of are taught it, maybe out of lies believed or just gone along with, for lack of courage to go against prevailing mindset. I heard racist remarks against Asians for the main part from as far back as I remember. First the Japanese, “they will shake your hand, with one-hand, and stab you in the back with the other!” I remember John Wayne in ‘The Flying Tigers’ saying in his airplane, “Let’s send those slant-eyed satins back to hell where they came form!”
I was foolish enough to enlist in the army, and was sent to Korea, there the names used were categorically racist, and I resented it, and at the same time the Civil Rights Movement was mounting, and I was supportive, and made the connection of my father’s grief, my grandfathers murder, and the mindset of the racist I soldered with. It was very disturbing.
Back in states I was stationed at Fort Ord, the Watts Riots broke out, and we were put on alert, weapons where drawn from the arms room, 2.5 tons trucks with trailers full of ammunition outside our barracks! … this is hard… We were to sent to back up the California National Guard and LAPD, that was unable to break the spirit of the righteous indignation fighting back manfully in the streets of Los Angeles. (my hands are actually shaking) Well, it was a real moment of truth, my heart was with the people, the black people in LA. And, for clarity, I am white. So, we began to discuss it, and decided we wouldn’t do it, and if necessary defend ourselves from the red-neck lifers who were itching to do it, and the whole troop was polarized, with my black comrades freaked out and were of the same mind. And that ladies and gentlemen, is why we were not sent, because we were unreliable, and they had a problem, a political problem on their hands. Could they just send white soldiers from Dixie?
What has to do with Israel? They do not identify with the Palestinians, they are segregated, indoctrinated, and must use psychological screening to pick cold-blooded killers to occupy the West Bank, to run over activist with bulldozers, to harass people at check-points, to shoot little girls in the head, to turn of electricity and starve people sadistically.
But let me share with an article I read today, that will horrify you too.
Beating the Drums of a Broader Middle East War
Israel, Syria, and Lebanon Prepare the “Home Fronts”
And the best case scenario is we can go on the wars of the past, for the one confronting us may foreclose that for just around everyone in the Middle East.
Merek - They were Spartans not Athenians.
The powerful and telling article that is the is the perfect follow-up to Ira Chernus, is:
‘Beating the Drums of a Broader Middle East War’
Israel, Syria, and Lebanon Prepare the “Home Fronts”. The Levant could be the starting point of a major international conflict, with global ramifications, which could quickly spin out of control. by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - on Global Research.ca
It runs 15 pages but has specific references that couldn’t been done in 5 for sure. The naming-names, end nuanced duplicity is what would be hard to read between the lines. Is exposes Carter is basically, an Israeli agent. The like scenarios for war, as a score card of how things might line up. The timeline is close at hand, this month or next, and one reference to give us hope it will not before the November election, and the pros and cons on that. It is more like if Chaney don’t do it, then McCain will, not one mention of Obama or Hillery Clinton, that I recall, it is stressful, but all of this stuff is, but more out duty than the playoffs! - Bill
How on Earth can any sane person take seriously the nutty notion that a God chose Jews?
A lot of Israel is just an extention of the white european colonial mentality of past and the present. Racism.
msalfter I hope you live in israel.
poor mind-centered people:
you do not tell someone in the middle of a violent attack
“to get over it.”
the 2 x 4 you also failed to consider is really gonna hurt.
additionally, how can someone list ALL MEDIA as jewish run,
and some helpful little nit jump up and attempt to diffuse
the statement with “don’t use too broad a brush…”
this is not the continued “colonial mentality” we are part of,
this is something far far worse. as present on Common Dreams,
amongst each of us, as in the daily and nightly murders ignored in palestine.
and this entire planet.
It is Greatly Heartening that at least a couple posters here
have bothered to figure this out clearly.
The real relief for the world’s persecuted will only come when the enablers, sorry ‘progressives’, realize that they truly remain most to blame.
All this brain power, wasted.
What words fit?
Heartless?
Soul-less?
Human-less?
So much you profess to know, so much you need to understand.
To many, Zionism is just about the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland in Israel. Fine, done deal, happy birthday, 60 years old. I am a Zionist, since we can not reverse history. But the borders I recognize include what was given Israel in 1948. To some Israelis, Zionism means an Israel with borders very much larger than what the UN gave them, or even beyond the territories they occupy. I am anti-Zionist in this regard. So I am pro Zionist, and anti-Zionist, depending on what borders we are talking for Israel. Read Illan Pappe for a different take on 1948 with Plan Dalet, in the The Ethnic Cleaninsg of Palestine.
What was the motivation for Zionism in the first place, as it began in the late 19th century, before the holocaust. Most do not know that at the time of the Zionist movement, there was little anti-semitism in Europe in the late 19th century. For much of the millenium, there had been religous wars and religous intolerance. If you lived in an area controlled by the Church, you had to be Catholic if you wanted to live well. Same in the Muslim World. When the reformation movement came, Catholics were not welcome in some areas. In fact, in the US in the early days, Catholics were prevented from running for office in certain states. Many Jews and Muslims in Europe became crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims. These were the main targets of the Inquisition. Many fled to the New World, it is estimated as many as 10% of Hispanics were descended from crypto-Jews who migrated to the New World to escape the Inquisition. So religous intolerance was not new to Europe, but in the 19th century, it was relatively tolerant.
Zionism was a political movement, not religous, and in it’s early days, many Jews in Europe were opposed to it because they were not being prosecuted, and were doing quite well. It took hold at about the same time as Communism, and political Zionism is directly linked to those behind the Communist movement, those who were behind the NWO movement, which I will attempt to show.
But where did the motivation to use tools such as Communism and Zionism to create a NWO come from? The globalization movement began with the Illuminati in 1492, who financed Columbus and sent him off to seek the New World. The Illuminati’s goal was all about globalization, and the end of faith based religion of a god who watched over each individual, and the end of nations. In 1776, the Illuminati made a return in Bavaria, just 2 months before our Declaration of Independence, and they infiltrated the Free Masons. Many of our founding fathers were Masons prior to the Illuminati infiltration. In Europe, freedom from religion was generally frowned upon, so you were either Jewish or Christian. Since life was hard on Jews in certain places until the 19th century, it became common for Jews to convert, or simply be crypto-Jews pretending to be Christian. The US on the other hand provided for religous freedom, even freedom from religion, and became a safe haven for those who wished to escape religous persecution, including many Jews from Europe and later from Russia. This globalization agenda was taken up by the British following their victory over Napolean and France in the early 1800’s. At this time, tolerance and treatment of Jews was quite good in Europe, unlike in prior years. Yes, even in Germany.
You had a number of things going on towards the middle of the 19th century. There was Marx and his Communist Manifesto preaching Global Communism. Then there was Darwin teaching the theory of Evolution, coupled with Thomas Malthus concerns on the global population 50 years earlier (both would be the foundation of the Eugenics movement in the early 20th century and continuing today under the name USAID). There was also an increasing belief in British Israelism where some thought the British were descended from one of the last tribes of Israel.
The British Empire in the late 19th century was forcing it’s Free Trade policies on the world, causing massive starvation in places like India, much to the Malthusians delight, similar to what is going on today. And behind the scenes, in the midst of all this, you had the Illuminati influenced Masons, and a form of central banking in London and Paris that made war profitable for the bankers, especially the Rothschild family. It was at this time moving towards the end of the century that the British were becoming aware of the need for oil in an increasingly industrialized world. Unlike the US and Russia, they did not have any access to oil. Both the US and Russia were also resisting establishing a BOE type Central Bank. which loaned money to government at interest and created all of the money. So we became targets.
They decided on a strategy to take back control of America. It was to cause a Civil War, and after the destruction of the North, the French would take control of the South and Mexico, and the British would take control of the North and Canada. Lincoln however surprised them by issuing his own debt free money, preventing the North from being detroyed financially. And Russia intervened on our behalf, preventing the British from blockading shipping to the North. After the war, we were forced to buy Alaska as compensation, knowns as Sewells folly.
Lincoln was punished and assasinated by a Masonry affiliated group out of Europe, and the Scottish Rite Masons of the south were believed to have established the KKK to stir up racial hatred against the freed slaves. The celebrated Confederate general and Freemason Albert Pike, elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite’s Southern Jurisdiction in 1859 forecast three world wars in order to achieve the NWO.
Russia was then punished by assasinating the Czar, Lenins brother was involved and executed. The Czar had been very favourable to the jewish population at the time. Russia had the worlds largest Jewish population. The new Czar, believing the assasination was a Jewish movement, began taking harsher measures against the Jews.
This set the stage to bring out Communism and Zionism (and with it anti-semitism) as weapons or tools of globalization, which would be used to give us the 3 world wars predicted by Albert Pike..
The first attempt at a Communist revolution in Russia was in 1905, financed by Rothschild agents in the US and Britain, with a large number of Jewish leaders in the revolution, coupled with the release of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and thus Zionism, Communism and Rothschild banking methods thus became associated with a Jewish conspiracy, when nothing could be further from the truth. It was a conspiracy, but not a Jewish conspiracy. It was a conspiracy of the Luciferian power elite run out of London. The attempt failed, but it weakened Russia so it would be unable to withstand a 2nd attempt which would require WW I, financed by the same people.
The Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917, but agreed to in 1916. Edwin Montagu, who represented British Jewry, opposed it. Non-Jews, some of whom may have been anti-Semites, saw Zionism as a way to advance British imperialism, and their New World Order which included taking back control of the US. Montagu regarded Judaism as only a religion , and viewed Zionism as a “mischievous political creed”. The Balfour Declaration was instrumental in getting the US into WWI on Britain’s side, and we had no business taking anyones side. Germany was trying to negotiate a peace, which Britan would have accepted if we refused to enter the war.
The Jewish community was split on Zionism. The Samuels and the Rothschilds favored the Balfour Declaration; Cohen, Magnus, Mountefiore and Montagu were against it.
Non-Jewish Zionists were the deciding factor, Arthur Balfour, Lord Milner, Lord Lothian (Phillip Kerr) and Lord Robert Cecil. Chaim Weismann recognized that Zionism was part of a larger game: “To Cecil, the re-establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine and the organization of the world in a great federation were complementary features in the next step in the management of human affairs…” The non-Jewish Zionists pressured Wilson to support Great Britain so they could control Palestine, which was close to the Middle Eastern oil and the Suez Canal. At the time, the young Turks were in the midst of an Aremenian Christian Holocaust, and Wilson was a devout Christian, and that may have influenced his decision as well.
Americas entry into the war meant the end of Germany and the Ottoman Empire, and gave us the British and French Mandates behind so much of todays disorder in the Middle East, and the unfair Versailles Treaty which ensured a 2nd World War would be fought. America still had a sense of being a Republic, and resisted the League of Nations that was a first attempt at One World Government. Communism and Zionism emerged as partial victors in WW I. The Soviet Union quit the war too early and did not occupy the land in Eastern Europe that they were supposed to occupy, and Zionism needed anti-semitism to take hold in Europe and America to get support.
Zionists, jewish and non-jews, used anti-semitism as a tool to promote divisions between Christians and Jews. It was these Zionists who spread propaganda materials such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which was translated and distributed in Europe and North America in 1920 which served to fuel anti-semitism. Coupled together with Jewish Financiers role in creating Communism in Russia, and international financiers role in destroying Germany’s economy under the unfair Versailles Treaty, and all the conditions were necessary from someone like Hitler to come to power and justify in his mind only his actions against the Jews. His Mein Kampf publication certainly showed his beliefs.
Yet another Democrat came to power in 1933, who like Wilson before him, would be open to a World War, following the attack on the global economy by international financiers of the NWO movement which induced a global depression. Who recognized Stalin after he had just starved 7 million Christians in Ukraine over a 1 year period and helped them build up their military ? It was FDR. Who funded Hitlers buildup from 1933-1939? America and British finance and industrialists, despite the depression, with no restrictions by FDR. Who turned away ships with Jewish refugees, forcing them to return to Europe before we enetered the War? You guessed it, FDR.
And then after the war, we miraculously lose China to Communists (thanks to Harry and the IPR). The same international financiers and industrialists who supported Communism and Zionism, to create the war between 2 Christian Nations, a battle between Fascism and Communism, both of which we created, that killed 20-30 million Christians, while killing 6 million Torah following Jews, and millions of Asians, leaving most of Asias population either Communist or aligned with Communist nations, and 1/2 of Europe under Communist control . Who won WW II? Communism and Zionism. Thus Israel and the UN were born, and today we now have Globalization and Free Trade destroying the World in WW III.
The Jewish people are victims of political Zionism used to globalize the world, as are the 100 million Christians killed in the last 100 years by wars, genocides, famine and disease.
The center of the conspiracy lies in London. Israel, and America are simply instruments that do the dirty work, gearing us up for the final stage. Both are held hostage by the same enemies . Both have leaders in government who are traitors to the people they govern, who terrorize their own people into surrendering their liberties and support perpetual war, sometimes even staging the attacks that kill their people.
Do not be deceived, the monster hiding behind the curtain is not who you think. American and Israeli Jews, and Christians and non religous in both places, have a common enemy, and should unite, and not play into the hands of those who divide and rule us. The enemy is Globalization and their supporters.
Plunk a bunch of white people down among indigenous brown people and give them authority over the natives, and they will earn the hatred of the locals in a very short time.
Right on stepfour.
The Israel/Palestine problem is a colonial one, disguised as a religious one because the later is more marketable.
Finding Obama Guilty of Insufficient Devotion to Israel
14/05/08 “Salon” — -The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg conducted what he’s calling an “interview” with Barack Obama regarding Israel, but it sounded much more like an inquisition. Goldberg repeatedly demanded that Obama swear his devotion to Israel and affirm prevailing orthodoxies
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19919.htm
Thanks, MiMiCcs. On a variety of topics here at CD, including this one, you always are willing to bring some extra and worthwhile depth to a discussion.
A charitable exercise for Rosh HaShanah
with apologies to Stan Freberg
Take a Palestinian to lunch this week
Let him sit right down and munch this week
Show him you’re as liberal as can be
Show his that he’s almost as good as we
Take a Palestinian to dine this week
Stifle that accusatory whine this week
You’ll find that homicidal wahoo
Is almost as sweet as Netanyahu
When you take a Palestinian
(Not talkin’ about just anyone)
When you take a Palestinian
To lunch
“Gods choosen people”?
Says who? A history of the Jewish people, written by the Jewish people, for the Jewish people! Sounds objective to me. In any event assuming an identity that presupposes superiority to those around you is not conducive to friendship.
MeAlsoToo wrote: And Merek… you make the fatal-mistake of confusing “Jews” with “some wealthy and/or nationalistic-Jews”
I will distinguish “Jew” from “Neocon” when I hear that the majority of the Jewish people were against the Iraq invasion before it started. It hardly matters that most of them are against it today; it is too late now to revive the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed in the war.
As I wrote in my previous posting (#39), the Jews bear a heavy responsibility for this war. They did not take over all the major TV networks in the U.S. by accident; it was clearly planned. (See my previous posting, #39, for a list of the Jewish presidents of Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC.) The neocons may not have been organizationally or financially the strongest supporters of the invasion, but all of the non-neocon forces combined could not have pushed the U.S. into war if the media had been honest. Since the Jews have a stranglehold on the media, they bear much of the blame for the moral catastrophe that is still unfolding in Iraq.
Goose2, you’re right. Leonidas and his 300 were Spartans indeed. For some reason, “Greek” means “Athenian” to me. lol
Just how many people hold elected office in the USA yet hold two passports? What proportion of those hold both US and Israeli passports? Does it bother noone that while a non-citizen in the US cannot vote, a person whose national loyalty is split between two sovereign nations can not only vote but can actually hold office, including very high office? Forget about conspiracy theories about “Jews running the country” and actually COUNT the number of Dual Nationals who work in Federal, State and Local government.
Israel is not based on religion.
It is a colonial settler state based on exlusivist ethnicity grounds.
Religion wil be used when it suits (albeit the Israeli hardline religious now want to use rather than be used).
Israel has been using the population of Palestine as a human shield for many years now. This must end immediately. My advice to any surviving “sub- human” Palestinians a thousand of which are not worth the little finger of a “jew”, is to run for your life from Palestine as fast as you can, take nothing with you and take the fastest route out. Australia will arrange to take as many refugees asa possible, just as we did for the Jews during and after the World War 2. They have now had a fifty year run of living strictly for themselves, making considerable fortunes in many cases while all along laughing at us chumps for falling for their “exclusiveness” and other outrageous privileges in our very tolerant Democracy. Our Government should then offer all of them that carry dual citizenship with Israel a free passage “home” and a cash settlement for their accumulated goods and shattels. Any who do not want to take up this offer are then subject to the laws of the Australian Democratic system which trumps any “laws” of any imported religion, which must obey the strict Democratic rule of separation of church and state.
KaneJeeves - your second post was so funny. I need a laugh now and then.
My message to the Zionist leaders of that illegal 60 year old phantom state called “Israel”: Justice, you bastards!
nice theory Presence,
… In a perfect world not ruled by satan worshiping demi-gods.
Gandi’s non-violence worked out just as well in todays India.
I believe paying attention works better than praying for peace.
presense~
…but we speak here of Man.
And crystalized now as ego identification,
this entity refuses Life and revers Death.
Even going so far as to term it ‘redemption’.
But to kill to survive It’s pending genocide,
is this not reverence?
for Life?
It, as does Ego, simply vanish - Their purpose complete.
But can Man understand that this Ego no longer enables survival?
Control destroyed Rome, as competition threatens the same of our world.
Once realized, one stops and adapts.
Our Leaders represent Us, and so we continue unabated.
For now We Ourselves are that Genocide.
The lesson shall be self-inflicted.
There is no other.
Peace.
RE: MiMiCcS May 15th, 2008 5:10 am
Great elucidating post. For anyone interested further in the information of which MiMiCcS writes I suggest this link:
http://www.iamthewitness.com/doc/RothschildsTimeline-filer/frame.htm
Here is another link that will verify Merek’s claim, to wit:
“Since the Jews have a stranglehold on the media, they bear much of the blame for the moral catastrophe that is still unfolding in Iraq.”
http://www.natvan.com/who-rules-america/
Keep in mind, though, that not all Zionists are Jews, & not all Jews are Zionists; certainly no Zionist can be considered adherents of the Jewish faith. See link:
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/notjews.cfm
Zionists hold all religions as contemptable, and only a tool to be used to divide populations against their better interests. Zionists are secular & political, not religious & ethical. Contempt for them is well merited by their prior actions, and their utter destruction a necessity for world peace.
RE: Takamine2002 May 15th, 2008 7:33 pm
Guitar player (Takamine), a count HAS been done of dual US/Isreali citizenship holding highly placed people in this administration, and the number I saw was 200, including Michael Chertoff head of DHS (how non-sensical is that?).
PaulMagillSmith May 18th, 2008 11:19 am
“Zionists hold all religions as contemptable, and only a tool to be used to divide populations against their better interests. Zionists are secular & political, not religious & ethical. Contempt for them is well merited by their prior actions, and their utter destruction a necessity for world peace.”
Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
There are different streams within Zionism.
Labor Zionism, (Socialists, such as Ben Gurion, and the Kibbutz movement)
Liberal Zionism, (Such as Chaim Weizmann,)
Revisionists Zionism (Right)
And even Religious Zionism.
How in hell do you see Zionism, which is a nationalistic movement that includes many different streams, as one that “hold all religions as contemptable”
Your call for the Genocide of millions of people who happens to be Zionists, with the naive belief that such a holocaust will bring world peace - is somewhat troublesome.
presence_aka_Namaste May 19th, 2008 4:23 pm
“It’s not funny, and I do not see such other than in the ZIONIST side of inconsiderate suffering and death of millions.”
You can manipulate the truth and the numbers all you want. The fact remain that death of millions occurs in Sudan, Iraq and Congo.
Since 2000, The casualties list in the Israeli Palestinian conflict was less than 8,000. (And not all of them of Israeli hands)
http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp
http://www.btselem.org/English/Inter_Palestinian_Violations/Death_Penalty_statistics.asp
presence_aka_Namaste “guess this means that you as representative of ZIONISTS, and central bankers in general, have nothing at all to do funding pogroms ( & revolution ) in russia, inciting Communism, Nazism, and other atrocities to manipulate world history over the last 150 years or so ”
I have a huge mortgage, and a tiny bank account. This is the only relationship I have with banks. I go to work in public transportation, (Since I can’t afford a car) yet I’m not complaining.
I don’t know which planet you’re coming from, but I have no representatives in central banks. And the claim that I funded pogroms in Russia, incited Communism and Nazism and manipulated History is just as ridicule.
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presence_aka_Namaste “YEAH, I WAS WRONG, hand grenades ( at the base of the tree ), as they are hardly sporting for ZIONISTAS, you love the extra ummfff of aerosolized air-fuel mixture daisy cutters, right ? Yeah, let’s take out several square kilometers at a time.”
Unlike 90% of Americans, I don’t own a gun nor hand grenades or aerosolized air-fuel mixture.
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presence_aka_Namaste “Hiding under the skirts of poor innocent jews is just so manly and courageous, I can hardly hold myself back in admiration of your wicked stealth and avaricious “honor”, much less the pure bravado of creating the holocaust — just to have more reason for your twisted existence. It just makes me feel warm all over, just thinking about you and bankers in general — I guess that must be the ovens heating up again.”
Sure, whatever you say. I created the holocaust, and I’m going to take over the world. Wahahahaha.
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=Dr.+Evil&um=1&ie=UTF-8