It is getting boring writing about Amnesty International and its hatred towards Israel but Michael Weiss wrote a recent blog asking “Why is Amnesty hosting a Hamas-friendly publisher of racists?”
On May 23rd its London office is hosting Middle East Monitor’s (MEMO) “Complicity in Oppression: Does the Media Aid Israel?” event.
Weiss is Communications Director of the Henry Jackson Society and a spokesperson for Just Journalism.
As he points out in his piece MEMO is run by Dr Daud Abdullah who signed the Hamas-supporting Istanbul Declaration which calls on the ‘Islamic Nation’ to fight any ‘foreign warship’ attempting to block arms smuggling to Hamas. Presumably, such a ‘foreign warship’ could include one from the Royal Navy.
Weiss also quotes from a MEMO essay by Khalid Amayreh titled Netanyahu’s Lebensraum in which Amayreh denies that “these pathological liars from Eastern Europe…had any truly historical rights in the land of Palestine”.
Weiss signs off his piece asking us to ring Amnesty (02070331500) to ask why it is hosting this conference.
But according to Weiss Amnesty’s response is:
“Providing space for an event does not mean that we necessarily agree with all of the views of participants. The key point is that free debate takes place.”
Presumably, then, when Amnesty puts on its own conference it does “necessarily agree with all of the views of the participants”, like the one on April 13th where a photo was shown of a Palestinian teenager with a perfect Star of David, allegedly, tattooed on his forearm by an Israeli soldier using nothing more than broken glass.
Will Amnesty investigate this photo? Where is this Palestinian now? Surely, there would still be a scar on his forearm eventhough this incident happened some 8 years ago. I asked Ala Abu Dheer, who showed the photo, to email me details of the case so I could take it up with the Israeli Embassy, but I’m still waiting for the email.
But in response to Weiss’s piece MEMO has just posted an incredible rant by Khalid Amayreh titled Honest People can’t be indifferent to Israeli fascism.
Amayreh’s response is a slur on the 6,000,000 Jews executed by the Nazis. It has to be read to be believed and to see what Amnesty has become by hosting such a vile organisation like MEMO.
Here are some quotes from Amayreh’s piece:
“I have no problem comparing Israel with the worst criminals in history, including Hitler’s Nazis. It is true that Israel has not introduced gas chambers into Palestinian towns and villages (although relatively innocuous tear gas is often used in confined spaces, against the manufacturers’ recommendations, with often lethal results). However, gas chambers were never the only extermination method used by the Nazis. Israel has been killing and tormenting Palestinians in a variety of ways that, for sheer brutality and evil, don’t differ in substance from Nazi Germany’s murderous behaviour. Moreover, it is important to remember that the Nazi Holocaust didn’t begin with Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen…”
To compare the fate of the Palestinians to that of the 6,000,000 Jews slaughtered by the Nazis is vile and mendacious.
And he writes “The minute a Zionist Jew sets foot on Palestinian soil in order to live on land stolen from its rightful owners; or live in a house seized at gunpoint from its native Palestinian occupants, this Zionist Jew loses his sense of morality.” If someone wrote something similar about an immigrant African to the UK could they not be accused of inciting racial hatred?
Amayreh also talks of “hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims” having lived in “Palestine” when the Zionists arrived. He has wiped the many indigenous Jews already living there off the map.
He signs off by saying that “Zionists are the last people who are fit to lecture the Palestinians on the evils of terrorism…Israel represents ultimate terror…For arrogant Zionists to call us terrorists is, to quote Professor Norman Finkelstein, ‘beyond chutzpah’.”
But I do agree with his last words that “Palestine will be free”. Yes, free from the women oppressors and anti-Semitic Jew killers of Hamas who also execute their own, Palestinian, people by thowing them off the tops of tall buildings while their hands are tied behind their backs if they don’t follow Hamas’s strict religious and political doctrines.
This is the Hamas that is supported by MEMO and the MEMO which is being hosted by Amnesty.
RichardMillett's Blog 
Quoting Finkelstein puts one immediately beyond the realm of human morality. All the rest is just commentary.
I never said Jews had no right to live in Palestine, but Jews have no right to expell and murder millions of Christians and Muslims from the Holy Land just because these native Palestinians don’t belong to the “holy tribe.”
Today, unfortunately, racism is the de facto offcial religion of Israel…where leading rabbis teach in their synagorues that non-Jews are actually animals of burden created by the Almight in order to serve Jews.
As to Israel’s Nazi-like behavior, it is clear and conspicuous to those who have eyes and ears and senses.
In the final analysis, when Jews, or anyone else, think, behave and act like Nazis, they become Nazis. It doesn’t matter that some Jews control congress or control important media outlet in the US and Europe. The truth of the matter, which the shipyard dogs of Israeli hasbara are trying to obliterate, is that Israel is a criminal state, a crime against humanity, that must be ended for the sake of a more humane future for Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Here we have an Islamonazi calling Jews Nazis. A classic case of dispacement and projection. But that’s Islam’s game. No wonder Hitler and Himmler admired the Muslims so much……they suffer from the same deranged psychoses, self loathing and paranoia, with the Jews as their chosen scapegoat.
Millions of Christians and Jews? Millions? Here we have another characteristic of the demented Arab Muslim view of things…insane and over the top exaggeration, mendacity, deceit, invention, fantasy. All the features of schizophrenia in fact.
You are a very sick man Amayreh, as are your absurd co-religionists with their relentless, obsessive Jew hatred.
Reasoning with a braindead savage like you is a waste of time and it’s a good thing I’m not in the UK and able to attend these antisemitic hate fests that you participate in with ghastly groups like AL, otherwise I would be treating you with extreme prejudice and despatching you off to enjoy your 72 camels, whoops I mean virgins…no I mean raisins.
Khalid, I never said you said Jews have no right to live in Palestine.
The Jews originated there, they have always lived there, they have a right to be there. They have a right to a country and to make their own laws as to who should live there and who shouldn’t, just like other countries make their own laws. It’s a fact of life.
Half of the Israeli Jews are from Arab countries. They were indigenous but were thrown out of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt etc. They come from the Middle East! You don’t get it. Incredible.
Also, 20% of Israelis are Arabs. They would rather live there and be able to express themselves freely in all ways, unlike in other Middle Eastern countries. Look at Syria. The Assads are killing their own people. Libya. It is unbelievable.
And there are 57 Muslim states and 22 Arab states, but you won’t even allow one tiny Jewish state. That says a lot about you and your comrades who believe the same.
Most Jews didn’t originate in Palestine, the Israelites did. Jews and Israelites are not one people. Many, probably most Jews are not Semites. There are white Jews, black Jews, Chinese looking Jews, etc. Jews are not genetic carbon copies of each other and God is not a real estate dealer. Also, there are many Israelites who are Muslims and Christians. There are dozens of Arab tribes that can track down their ancestory to Jaccob otherwise known as Israel.
As to the Nazi thing, I didn’t say Jews were Nazis, but certainly Jews who act and behave like Nazis, e.g. Jewish settlers, can be compared like to Nazis. One Israeli intellectual called settlers youth in Hebron “Hitler youth.”
We must speak up and proclaim the truth without being intimidated by the shipyard dogs of Zionism. We are not semites and we are certainly against anti-Semitism just as we are against Islamophobia. However, anti-semites are from the Zionist perspective are no longer those who hate Jews for being Jewish but are rather those who criticize the criminal and nefarious entity called Israel.
In any case Jewish Nazism must be rejected by true Jews. You just can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist. Ultimately, the truth is stronger than Jewish money, power and hasbara.
Are you totally ignorant? Israelites are most definitely Jews – just read some history and you will know that. Most certainly those who did not emanate from the region are what you call “Palestinians”, the term coming into common usage after Arafat started his PLO circa 1964. There is no ancient land of “Palestine” – doesn’t exist and never did. In any event if you want to see how badly these “Palestinians” are really treated read what happened to them in the Kuwait war, or ask those who live in some of those 50 odd Islamic states why they are not granted equality with the locals. Then ask any Arab who lives in Israel where he would rather live and which passport he would rather have if ever the region he lives in became “Palestine” – you can bet he would rather have an Israeli passport as there he is free, he is not subject to the tyranny and dictatorship as are his co-religionists in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya – gosh I could go on but I hope you get the gist of reality here.
As to the Jew-hatred bogey, we must make the following distinction:
we certainly don’t hate honest, conscientious, humane Jews who have a sense of justice. But Nazi-like Jews who are indoctrinated in the Hitleraian ideology called Zionism, invite hatred from the rest of the world by virtue of behaving hatefully and maliciously toward the rest of mankind.
We salute good, peaceful Jews who display moral rectitude…they are our natual partners for peace. However, Jews who espouses the racist and criminal ideology known as Zionism have only themselves to blame.
I was going to question why you allow comments from this Islamofascist gangster but now I realise it is useful, albeit extremely distasteful, to see what exactly what kind of venomous and evil life form we are dealing with here. Amayreh, who I imagine is another champion benefits queen like Choudary sponging off the infidels for his jizya, is, again like Choudary,at least transparent and does not practise taquiya. His virulent hatred of Jews is classical Islam, indeed its raison d’etre, and straight from Mein Kampf…whoops I mean the Koran, but hell, what’s the difference? His psychopathic loser of a prophet, Mo the mass murderer and role model for all Islamonazi thugs, is probably grimacing with pride from the burning fires of hell.
One doesn’t become “deranged” and “demented” just because some shipyard dogs say so. We are all entitled to our view points.
As to the Zio-Nazi analogy, I believe it is legitimate.
In Israel, they are feverishly pursuingterritorial expansion at the expense of their neighbors, in Nazi Germany, they too, coveted non-German territory, they called it lebensraum.
In Germany, they believed in the master race mantra, and in Israel, you have to be a member of the “Chosen people” in order to have equal rights.
In Germany, they had ubermenschen and untermenscen, and in Israel they ask about the genes of your mother.
In Germany, Hitler thought that non-Aryans were inferior and ought to be exterminated, and in Israel Ovadia Yosef teaches in his Sabath’s eve homily that all non-Jews are actually animals of burden created by the Almighty solely to serve Jews. Remember, Yosef is not a lone lunatic, he has hundreds of thousands of followers.
So, please, don’t give me this rubbish about anti-Semitism and Jwe-hatred ago, none brings more shame and more hatred unto Jews than the Jews themselves.
it is Übermenschen and Untermenschen you half-educated incontinent loghorreic
and the Übermensch is not Nazi it is Nietzsche
you are as ignorant as the Nazis were when they tried to embellish their idiocies by stealing half-understood nutty to begin with concepts from Nietzsche.
You want to be a slanderer? you can’t even get your terminology right.
Zionist Jews are extremely irate and feel anxious and insecure when challenged.
Sometimes, they resort to name-calling, abusive language, swearing..etc.
Sometimes, they resort to silly jokes, red herrings, and obscene slurs.
For sure, this is an expression of moral bankruptcy.
Listen schmuck…I’m not a Jew. But yes I’m a Zionist, a radical Zionist. Why? Because I support and share the Jewish people’s love of life, freedom and progress and their right to defend themselves against a primitive, fossilised, genocidal ideology that worships death, slavery and backwardness.
Khalid, you just gave away your true thoughts in one sentence: “Ultimately, the truth is stronger than Jewish money, power and hasbara.”
This proves this has nothing to do with Zionism or so-called Zionist Jews for you. It has everything to do with Jews. Read your own sentence above you vile, nasty little man.
G-d, do i feel so so sorry for Gilad Shalit over what your vile Hamas brothers must be doing to him. You and Hamas are riddled with hatred. You don’t care about your own Palestinian people; your main concern being “the Jews”. I pity you.
At least you don’t feel confident enought to admit your Jewishness.
Anyway, I don’t give a damn whether you are a kike or not.
well, you seem to lie as often as you breathe. Fow how could you enslave, torment, savage, persecue and deny millions of people freedom while you claim to love freedom? you are simply fornicating with language. If you were a woman, you probably would be a whore.
you are obviously a burden upon youself, your family, and upon the Jews.
During a recent conference in Berlin they presented recently undug documents showing that a group of prostitutes – whores in your parlance – successfully hid a number of Jews thus saving their life.
Hail to the profession!
Kike? Oh dear, this isn’t looking good.
sorry about this, Roger. It is unbelievable, I know. This is Hamas though, through and through.
what is a Kike, do I qualify also?
if it is bestowed by this nutter as an insult I’ll wear it as a badge of honour.
No, Rich, you are wrong. We in Palestine tend to use “Jew” and “Zionist” interchangeably. It is wrong.
But, honestly, I don’t have any hard feelings against Jews as Jews. They come to my home, we dine together, we work together, I speak Hebrew.
We are only against oppression.
Then why use the term Zionist Jew in the first place if Jew means Zionist anyway?
I have heard this all before. “I said Jew but meant Zionist”. Yea, right.
Well, I wish Gilad Shalit would be free soon, along with hundreds of Palestinian freedom fighters and thought prisoners.
You know, in Israel they just detain people for years without charge or trial…just like any tyrannical regime does.
If I knew that Shalit was being torchured as you claim, I would do every thing in my power to stop it.
Torture is forbidden in Islam.
“If I knew that Shalit was being torchured as you claim, I would do every thing in my power to stop it.”
He has been kept in solitary confinement for almost 5 years. No visits from family, doctors, Red Cross. No one. That is mental torture.
Where do you live and how much power do you have? At least allow doctors to visit him, allow his family to see him. All Palestinian prisoners get this and much more. Prove that you don’t hate Jews and get some medical care and family contact to Gilad Shalit. At least try to do this.
Roger, when you call people names, you should expect reciprocity.
I belong to a new breed of people who won’t be intimidated by people like you. I think Israel’s hell has begun.
I belong to a new breed of people
now who was in favour of making that claim about himself? – Himmler I am pretty sure, but Hitler in all likelihood also – a bit of a megalomaniac he is our cute little evil Khalid.
I am not a member of Hamas, I never was and probably never will. As to using Jew and Zionist interchanegably, it is a matter of language. Just as the West uses the word “semites” to connote Jews when there are many Semitic peoples who are not Jewish.
As to Shalit, I hope and pray that a deal will be struck soon to free the detainees, including Shalit.
He was not an abductee, he was a soldier who was taken prisoner in battlefield. It is an insult to Shalit and his family to call him abductee, as the Israeli media does.
I live in G-d’s vast land, breathes G-d’s breeze and enjoy the love and grace of the Almighty.
I wish you wll.
if he were a soldier taken prisoner the Red Cross would be allowed to visit him.
I wonder what applies more to you: Liar or Ignoramus?
my oh my if I keep going like that, Daniel will get mad at me ;D
Asking me to prove I don’t hate Jews is an insult. Jews enjoy historical and religious legitimacy in Islam. In a certain sense, Jews are under more moral obligation to prove they don’t hate non-Jews, than the other way around. Level-headed people shouldn’t fall prey to the ravings and rantings of people like Roger. Try to be a little bit academic and objective.
Unfortunately, many Jews readily throw stones, not realizing that their houses are of glass.
For example, do you know that Orthodox Judaism still doesn’t believe that Gentiles are fully human and that their lives have sanctity.
Read Shulahn Aruch, or, indeed, Hatanya of the Chabadis, and you will know what I am talking about.
You are no authority on what Orthodox Judaism believes or what is in the Shulchan Aruch.
You are wrong. Of course Orthodox Jews believe non-Jews are human. Fully.
“Jews are under more moral obligation to prove they don’t hate non-Jews, than the other way around”
Sounds like classic antisemitism to me.
Try to be a little bit academic and objective.
why don’t you take your own advice
and thanks galore for a really really good laugh (at your expense)
Stone throwing, stone throwing? ain’t that a specialty of the kids of Silwan if enough “journalists” with cameras are around hoping to fabricate another Pallywood movie?
Hello Khalid.
Are you this Khalid Amayreh?
http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2657.htm
The one who used to work for the Iranian News Agency (1995-2006) and contributes to the Palestine Telegraph edited by known antisemite Sameh Habeeb?
The one who ‘hates America’?
http://www.ptimes.org/Main/default.aspx?_ContentType=ART&_ContentID=11037910-8168-43bd-9478-75185b7956ff
Sorry, but if the above is your work – and judging from your comments here I suspect that is the case – you are achieving nothing except making yourself look exceptionally unhinged.
Israel is here to stay. You can either accept that fact, make the best of it and join with us in making the Middle East a pleasant and prosperous place to live for all its inhabitants, or you can continue as you have done for the last 63 years – shooting yourselves in the foot at every opportunity. The choice is yours, but nothing you can say or do is going to change the reality of a Jewish state in the Middle East.
he has a Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Amayreh
“As to Shalit, I hope and pray that a deal will be struck soon to free the detainees, including Shalit.”
“He was not an abductee, he was a soldier who was taken prisoner in battlefield. It is an insult to Shalit and his family to call him abductee, as the Israeli media does.”
Actually, Khalid, Gilad Shalit was kidnapped from inside Israeli territory, which I guess you actually know very well, but this is not the first time you have tried to spread that lie, is it? You tried the same trick in an article you wrote last year urging Hamas not to give in and release Gilad Shalit.
In that article you also wrote:
“In Israel, it is difficult to find an adult Israeli male whose hands have not been stained with Palestinian blood. After all, Israel is a society of murderers and child-killers. It is a society whose members Zionism has transformed into racists, cannibals and Nazi-minded murderers and child killers.”
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2010/06/30/hamas-dont-give-in-on-shalit/
You need to get a hobby, mate. And a therapist.
“Israelinurse” you are a little hairsplitter, Shalit was a crack soldier who was taken prisoner in battle field inside what you call Israeli territory and in what I call disputed Palestinian territory. I don’t recognize Israel just as you don’t recognize Palestine. Besides, if Israeli troops “had” the right to operate inside Gaza, Palestinian troops had a similar right at least to operate inside “Israeli” territory.
Also, you shouldn’t at all be surprised by the way I relate to a state that stole my country, murdered my people, destroyed our homes and dispersed my people to the four corners of the world.
Do Jews relate to their enemies, e.g. the Nazis, in a different manner.
Yes, the Nazis killed the proverbial six million…but Israel has been in the process of committing a slow-motion genocide by extripting people from their ancestral land on no other ground than that people being non-members of the so-called Chosen people. Whether you like it or not, Israel, for us at least, represents the Nazis of our time.
Khalid
IF Shalit is a prisoner of war then the Red Cross HAS to be allowed access.
Since it is not Shalit either doesn’t qualify as a prisoner of war or your side is running completely foul of any agreed between states and/or entities rules in place probably since the founding of the Red Cross and evolved and cherished and obeyed by all but the most depraved totally independent of any modern “niceties”.
Take your pick, either way it makes you look what you are, a bunch of common criminals of the most low down category.
Iro, I can easily produce a hundred Talmudic quotations proving my pooint as to the fact that Orthodox Judaism views Gentiles as infra human being or even animals. Don’t deny the obvious. Shall I open the affronting books Chesronot Shas and Hatanya, they are on the table in front of me!!
oh, yes please do, I’ve always wanted to know what all these trustworthy people with their excellent manners who treated me with all the respect I could dream of, were thinking of me and saying about me behind closed doors.
I am sure they and I will have a good talk about it or a good laugh, if it should turn out to be another of those forgeries your side is so fond of buying into and distributing.
If only you’d use your minds for some honest work, maybe you could do something to make life better for your unemployed multitudes.
Amayreh
In reality , you and your ilk are the natural descendants of the nazis.
Your poster boy , the mufti of Jerusalem husseni spent much of the war years in Berlin where he pleaded with hitler to extend his final solution to the Jews of Palestine
You claim you are not an anti-Semite yet you use the word kike , the label of choice for profound anti Semites
You say that your vitriol is reserved for Zionist Jews and yet your mentors Hamas make no such distinction . Doubtless you are aware of the Hamas covenant which quotes the Hadith calling for a final confrontation with the Jews .
Oh Muslim oh Abdullah there is a Jew behind me , Come kill him
Not a Zionist Jew , just a Jew
The fact remains that the evil you speak of is in your possession. It translates into planes flying into buildings , and murder and mayhem committed in the name of your religion on a global scale and when you are unable to kill those that displease you ,you kill each other as witnessed throughout the Arab world and of course in Iran
As a people you create nothing . More books are translated into Spanish in a year then has been translated into Arabic in 1500 years
But here is the heart of the matter.
Your propensity for evil and mendacity is at once the enemy of modernity progress and social development . Your backwardness and malign contempt for the rest of the world is our greatest asset
You use the term The Chosen People to demonise us
If we are chosen to be different from you then I give thanks to my maker for this distinction every moment of my life
I wish every Jew who calls for a rapprochement with Hamas could read Khalid Amayreh’s comments on this article. Leaving aside the ad hominem vitriol, he underlines one important point: the ‘occupation’ that the Palestinian Arabs vow they will continue resisting is not that of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem, but the whole of Israel. Their ultimate goal is to create a second Lebanon, where the rule of law is void and all live in fear of their lives. And yes, I am a Jew and a Zionist.
and I agree with everything you say and I am not a Jew
Ric
No one is fooled by the weasel words coming from the PA regarding a two state solution
It’s merely a device to bring a gullible western world on board
At least with Hamas , what you see on the label is what’s in the packet
However this recent act of reconciliation between hamas and the PA demonstrates once and for all the true face of Palestinian nationalism and its adherence to a fundamentalist and terrorist fuelled agenda
Well Khalid, you certainly have shown your true face here, and for that I suppose we should be grateful.
As Ric says above, it is clear that you do not recognise the right of Israel to exist, even within the ’49 cease-fire lines. In other words, you subscribe to the racist stance which claims that Jews have no right to self-determination.
You know, you seem like a reasonably intelligent and articulate man who lived for some time in the US and managed to get a Masters degree there. Don’t you ever get bored of playing the eternal victim card? Don’t you think it’s high time that your people took responsibility for their past mistakes and got on with building something positive for future generations?
Had you agreed to partition, you could be celebrating 63 years of a Palestinian state next month. Had you not – literally – blown up the Oslo accords, your state would have been long established by now.
But instead of that, you continue in a never-ending spiral of denial and the myths you propagate become more and more fantastical.
Israel did not, is not and will not engage in ‘genocide’ of the Palestinian people. The mere fact that there is a constant growth of the Palestinian population (one of the highest growth rates in the world) proves that.
As for ‘dispersion’ – again, you would do better if you faced up to the fact that your leaders and foreign patrons at the time had an awful lot to do with that dispersion. Many Palestinians did not leave their homes – how do you explain that? The Israeli Arabs who answered the call of the founders of Israel and stayed here are better off both financially and in terms of human rights that those anywhere else in the Arab world. They make a very valuable contribution to our society, reach the highest levels of public office and most Israelis, myself included, are very glad that they are here building our country with us.
Don’t your children and grandchildren deserve better than the endless stream of death and misery that you have given them so far? You know, this could be one of the best regions of the world in which to live if there was peace and financial and business co-operation. Don’t you ever fear that one day future generations will turn round and ask you why you continued bashing your heads against the wall entirely uselessly for 63 years when instead you could have given them a decent future?
Nothing good was ever built out of hatred. You can have your state tomorrow if you just let go of the silly idea that you are going to rid the region of Jews. You have tried numerous times, and lost more than you gained every one of them. Don’t you think that it’s your responsibility to try something new? Don’t you think that it’s time to stop blaming others for your misfortune and to take a long hard look at what you have done to create and perpetuate it?
Until you do that, your future will just be a replay of your past.
Rich, why is Israeli state not supporting agreement between Hamas and Fatah? I was reading the FT on the issue and thinking that it sounded a little cynical of Israel not to support it. I know it is difficult to trust Hamas given their beliefs but peace needs a functioning viable economic Palestine and this agreement, however tenuous, might help?
Hamas doesn’t want peace. It wants Israel destroyed.
Why should I recognize Israel when Israel doesn’t recongize you, Rich? Would you recognize some one who wouldn’t recognize you?
Also we don’t hate Israel because Israel is Jewish, we hate Israel because Israel is evil? unofortunately Jewish supremacists on this forum can’t bring themselves to see their own flaws. that is the problem.
I like that question mark after evil – should you be able to think like a rational human being after all? It would surprise me but as Toyota once memorably proclaimed in Germany “Nichts ist unmöglich” (nothing’s impossible)
Sorry I meant why should the Palestinians recognize Israel when Israel doesn’t recognize Palestine.
also, you keep saying I have exposed my real face….Do you think I am seeking a popularity contest on this forum?
Israel recognises Palestine being created on the West Bank and in Gaza. You want the disappearance of Israel despite the Jews having an unborken link to living in Israel and the West Bank. Jerusalem has had a majority Jewish population for hundreds of years; well before Zionism existed. You just cannot accept that.
why have you dropped your last name in your moniker?
getting shy or is shame a feeling not completely alien to you?
Atill, Israel is a pornographically hypocritical, just last week Israeili pm, this despicable liar and double-speaker and prevaricator said Israel can’t make peace with the Palestinians since they were divided and couldn’t settle their own differences…..and now, he is complaining about Hamas….because it doesn’t recognize Israel. Well, does Israel recognize Palestine? the anser is NO. Does Israel have fixed borders? The anser is NO. Does Israel want peace? The answer is NO. Does a country that truly wants peace keep building hundreds of colonies on occupied land and transfer hundreds of thousands to live on land that belongs to another people? the answer is again a big NO.
We need some honesty on this forum.
Khalid, Israel would negotiate all that. But it doesn’t matter anyway because you will never ever recognise that the Jews have a right to a country in the Middle East, from where they originally came. And you talk of Jewish power and money. That’s says everything about you.
“transfer hundreds of thousands to live on land that belongs to another people?”
It doesn’t ‘belong’ to any other ‘people’. Check your history. And I don’t mean Fascist Arab websites.
“We need some honesty on this forum”
Your presence here has lowered the level of honesty by 50%, since you post nothing but Nazi lies.
Harvey, you are fornicating with facts, history, and truth.
You are blaming the Palestinians for this conflict just as the Nazis blamed Jews for the holocaust. We didn’t go to eastern Europe to attack Jews and Khazaris there. It was the Zionist Jews who invaded Palestine, murdered its natives, destroyed their homes, bulldoze their fields, and expell its indigenous people to the four corners of the Globe.
And you have the guts to lecture us on peace and terror? this is indeed beyond chutzpah.
Rich, first recognize that the Palestinians have the right to have a state in Palestine, then you can ask for reciprocity. After all, you are the more powerful party, which happens to be in tight control of the policies and politics of America, and you would have nothing to lose!
But until you do that, we will continue to consider what you call Israel and we call occupied Palestine a disputed territory just as Israel considers the West Bank a disputed territory.
Fair is fair, isn’t it?
I have always accepted the right of the Palestinians to have a state, but you don’t recognise the rights of the Jews to have a state. You never will. You just talk of Jewish power and money. Instead of really wanting a viable, prosperous state for your own people you just want continued war and bloodshed. It is what drives you and MEMO. It is all you and MEMO have to offer the world. You have nothing else.
first let the Palestinians behave in a way that doesn’t suggest to the rest of us that all “we”‘ll be getting is another rogue state, closer to Somalia than anything resembling what I’d call a state.
Now I permit you to feel insulted but I feel that I have uttered a truth that is long overdue and needs to be said, if all the Palestinians can come up with are advocates promising mayhem on all issues like you do.
Silke, you must be a great psychiatrit, or must have been a frequent visitor to one. Or it seems that your finger tips and tongue function faster than your brain ever does. I feel sorry for you.
what is a psychiatrit – please explain – it sure sounds intriguing
Harvey, the real Nazis are you, Zionist Jews, because you think, behave and act like Nazis. I don’t become Nazi just because a Judeo Nazi tries to project his character on me.
Judeo-Nazism has been recognized by dozens of conscientious Jewish writers and intellectuals, such prof. Shahak, Prof. Finkelstein, Prof. Lilienthal, etc.
Even President Truman, made the following remarks:
“I fear very much that the Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on the top they are just as intolerant and cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath. I regret this situation very much because my sympathy has always been on their side.”
A few weeks ago, one Israeli cabinet minister remarked: WE ARE ALREADY A FASCIST STATE.
HARVY: Hamass has an anachronistic covenant, but most Jewish parties, eg. ha’bayt hayahudi, echu haleumi, Gush emunim, Shas, etc. have Mein-Kamph-like covenants. Why do you refuse to the Jewish shame? do I need to remind you of some Talmudic scandales?
This probably will be the subject of my next article
You mean, your next deranged antisemitic rant?
this Khalid begins to sound more and more like a poète manqué
these wannebe artists who can’t make and aren’t up to the fact that they just haven’t got it have quite some buddies in history.
I couldn’t help but notice the sexualised language that Amayreh is fond of using….pornographic, fornicating, whore. The puritanical mindset of the witch hunter and pogrom initiator that we have sadly encountered throughout history. We know what and who you really are and none of your hate filled verbosity will deflect our attention from that. You’re on the losing wicket of victim consciousness and your time is up mate. But the whinging and whining, the self pity, the compulsive blaming of others for your own failure is getting very tiresome to say the least. What’s to like? The only people who could possibly support your negative hate filled and violent agenda are other losers and marginalised failures on the political left,like the morons outside Ahava and members of Amnesty International.
pornographic, fornicating, whore
Good point and this hung-up-ness is common to the majority who suffer from the mind-set judging from those I have encountered.
So maybe it is just their lack of success in “cherchez la femme” or rather “trouvez la femme” that turns them into incoherent loghorrheics. Come to think of it, a skilled prostitute might cure the syndrome.
I think others may be interested in this appalling interview posted on Swissinfo, the news platform of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. I have complained again and again about their relentless demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel but to no avail. This interview is a typical example.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/the_arab_spring/Arab_Spring_brings_Fatah_and_Hamas_together.html?cid=30119032
Perhaps somebody would also like to contact Swissinfo and object to their obvious and brutal bias. I imagine I am the only one so it’s easier for them to ignore the grievance. More pressure needs to put on these hypocrites and their fake ‘neutrality’.
“As to Israel’s Nazi-like behavior, it is clear and conspicuous to those who have eyes and ears and senses”
Who is this disturbed little idiot?
Well, Khalid, you rather pull the rug from under your own feet when, on the one hand you state that pre-1967 Israel is also occupied territory on the one hand and on the other you berate the existence of Jewish towns and villages in Judea & Samaria.
What, pray, is the point of our dismantling those towns and villages as we did in the Gaza Strip in 2005 if all we get in return is Iranian rockets and anyway, as far as you are concerned Sderot and Tel Aviv are just as ‘occupied’ as Gush Katif and Efrat?
You know, when Ehud Olmert was elected in the spring of 2006 he ran on a platform of disengagement from Judea & Samaria. At the time, many Israelis – including myself – supported that position. Then your friends in Hamas taught us a lesson in what the consequences of disengagement and withdrawal are.
We will not make that same mistake again and the lesson we learned is entirely your doing.
“As to Israel’s Nazi-like behavior, it is clear and conspicuous to those who have eyes and ears and senses.”
Trying to argue with this hatemongering anti semite is utterly pointless. Would any self respecting person argue the merits of racial tolerance with Nick Griffin or the leaders of apartheid South Africa? Would we have a dialogue with Robert Mugabe on gay equality? As for his disgusting and glib use of the word ‘kike,’ should he not be reported to the police?
I noticed a typo in your MEMO article, Khalid.
You wrote: ‘Zionism is much more than criminal and nefarious. It is also genocidal, racist, rapacious, covetous, and of course utterly mendacious.’
Hamas is not spelt Z-i-0-n-i-s-m.
Khalid, all I can say is, is that you are clearly very prejudice and full of hatred. You are guilty of your own accusations, it is you who is talking like a Nazi when you talk about Jews and ‘money’. Whilst I won’t deny there are Arabs who have been victims of Israeli aggression, it is a fact that their leaders have refused every offer of peace and have in the past had the support of several national armies and lost in every war. Whether a Jew is black or Chineese, Mizrahi or Askenazi or a convert is irrelevant. European cities are full of people from all over the world, including millions of Muslims. If we are really dealing with here is a people who still see Israel as their country and who are trying every trick in the book to destroy Israel. I found Israel to be a truly magical place. My experience with ‘Palestinians’ there is with the taxi drivers outside Yad Vashem who were using all sorts of fake charm to get tourists into the vehicle, trying to convince myself to have them drive me to Tel Aviv when I only wanted to go to the Bus Station and the attempt to charge three times as much as an Israeli taxi.
Khalid, do you want a free and fair society that has religious freedom and diversity or do you want a state run under strict Islamic law? Is pointless asking you if you want a two state solution, because we know your answer that. Also, why is the Arab population in Gaza increasing at an alarming rate if their is a genocide and why do people who can’t afford to feed themselves have so many children?
On behalf of all those who are more interested in genuine dialogue than exchanging verbal abuse, I welcome Khalid Amayreh to this excellent blog.
Someone who insults the memory of my relatives murdered by the Nazis is a sick and sickening antisemite, is not interested in dialogue and is simply spewing bilious Jew-hatred. You can welcome this pond scum if you like: normal people do not.
Daniel – Should we welcome to this site someone who wishes to issue deranged rants against Jews under cover of political debate? Before you answer, consider his use of the word ‘kike’ and his repeated comparison of Jews to Nazis. Don’t tell me that we should demean ourselves by engaging with him….
The purpose of dialogue is to exchange opinions and to try and persuade or be persuaded. I don’t see how this will be facilitated by name-calling.
I can see logic in ignoring an opponent because one believes that there is no room for dialogue and no chance for agreement or progress. I can also the the logic in respectfully engaging another human being even if your views are existentially diametrically opposed. However, I just don’t see what is to be gained by name-calling and abuse. Do you?
The name-calling and abuse (‘kike’, ‘Jews are Nazis’) come from this pond scum. However, Daniel seems to derive pleasure quite regularly from prostrating himself before antisemites. It seems to give him the illusion that he is soooooo morally superior.
IMHO Daniel is highlighting a dilemma, a conundrum to which I for one have no answer.
On the one hand I cannot see how it is possible to engage with Khalid Amayreh in any meaningful conversation on the other hand I know that name calling etc. isn’t productive either.
Just ignoring him prevents him from exposing himself more fully. To engage him politely might produce the same results as name calling does.
If Daniel feels up to it, let him try. To accuse him prostrating himself is ridiculous and he IS morally superior.
Daniel marks
You say you welcome amayreh to this blog
Really ?
I suggest you take the time to scroll through his comments , and one in particular which refers to Jews as kikes.
This odious individual is nothing but an unreconstructed dyed in the wool anti-Semite and is symbolic of the rampant antisemitism and general racism of the Hamas entity
Richard is right to allow him to post here . His venal comments and evident visceral hatred of Jews exposes him for what he and his contemporaries are about
Perhaps a systematic and forensic dissection of his comments should be the outcome of a separate blog
Exactly right.
But see my comment above regarding Daniel’s attitude towards antisemites.
Harvey, if you can’t stand the heat of the debate, then don’t enter the kitchen.
Your are dozens of Israel-firsters and fanatics, I am just one individual who happens to have a different view point. Are you people that weak, that insecure?
Leah, you are dishonest and mendacious:
I didn’t say Jews were Nazis …..you are lying about this.
And the kike thing was a response to a jew who used an impolite epithet against me.
So, don’t lie…if you can argue like courageous people…then shut up.
A non-stop lying pond scum calls me ‘dishonest’ and thinks he is ‘courageous’ … pure comedy.
Jermy Havardi: if you want to be respected, you should respect othrs.
If you don’t want to be called names, don’t call other names.
a situation where a Jew can call a Muslim names while expecting no response is from a Muslim is unacceptable.
We are not children of a lesser God. If you call me one name, I will call you ten names. Period. If you respect me one fold, I respect ten fold.
‘We are not children of a lesser God.’ You’re not children of any God. You’re children of a psychopathic desert outlaw.
Leah, it is you who are insulting the memory of your relatives who were killed by the Nazis….by enthusiastically supporting and backing acts and policies that differ little from what the Nazis had done.
When Jews or Arabs or anyone else think, behave and act like Nazis, they become Nazis.
So don’t fret, dear. You are no superior or inferior than anyone else.
Mr. Amayreh
I’d really appreciate it, if you read up on your history. It might help you to come up with better analogies.
I am superior to lying, psychopathic pond scum like you, for one thing.
Hi steve: it is too late for the two-state solution, there are too many settlements in the West Bank to make any prospective PA state viable.
We probably need a unitary civil state (one not two) in which all people regardless of religion and race live in peace and equality and freedom. This is my opinion.
As to the genocide, it is a slo-motion genocide. People die every day, people are tormented, savaged, persecuted, discriminated against….. the holocaust or genocide doesn’t happen in one time..we have been subjected to a slow genocide for 60 year, I lost three uncles in one day.
You Jews call anyone who disagrees with you Nazi…Haredis call helonim Nazis, settlers call leftists Nazis, Orthodox Jews call reform Jews Nazis, and Chabadis call everyone else Nazi……You called Abdul Nasser Hitler of the Nile…and whenever a Palestinian cries out for justice and freedom…you lose your composure and shout..Nazis, auschwitz, triblinka, mauthausen…. Bergen Belsen….Gestapo…..six million….
it certainly is the first genocide in history where the people presumably subjected to it multiply.
it is a ridiculous assertion and that you can’t come up with a more adequate term is no testimony to your mental powers.
Steve, again, you should at least recognize that people may thoughtfully and sincerely hold different opinions.
As to Israel being sincere about peace as you suggest, I think any honest person under the sun would agree with me that a state that transfers hundreds of thousands of its citizens to live on land that doesn’t belong to them and which builds hundreds of settlements on occupied territory, doesn’t want peace. Are you honest enough to accept this.
Psychopathic pond scum like you, who calls Jews ‘Nazis’ and writes antisemitic lies with every post, has no concept of what “thoughtfully and sincerely” mean.
Hi Khalid,
You write that “the kike thing was a response to a jew who used an impolite epithet against me..” but what you in fact wrote was:
“At least you don’t feel confident enought to admit your Jewishness. Anyway, I don’t give a damn whether you are a kike or not.”
In other words you were using the term kike as a synonym for Jewishness or being Jewish.
Do you still stand behind the use of the word kike and consider it a respectful way to refer to Jewish people? If you do, I’d be interested in hearing why. If not, maybe it would be a good idea to apologize for having used that term, so we can all move on.
As you can see from Leah’s thoughtful comments above, it’s not always easy to carry out a meaningful dialogue and name-calling, especially the use of anti-Semitic abuse does not make anyone’s life easier.
Amayreh
You and others like you are the true blight and curse on the lives of the Palestinian people
Without you , the Palestinian people would have had their own state 63 years ago . They would have declared their independent state at the same time as israel and together both nations could have gone forward together to create an economic power house and a flourishing region for all
Instead you have used all your energy and all your resources to destroy another land and another people
You are nihilists who have no hesitation to sacrifice your own people and to use them as human shields in order to carry out your sacred duty that is to kill Jews
You allow your people to fester in refugee camps while squandering the tens of billions of pounds which has been pumped into your grasping
corrupt hands since 1948
Negotiating with you for a two state solution as dictated by a tired and naive west is utterly futile as we understand only too well that you are not to be trusted
silke, roger, you people ought to be ashamed of your vitriol and exasperation and spasmodic reactions, a few remarks by a less-than-average Palestinian individual make you lose your composure and resort to swearing and name-calling…. It means you know deep in your hearts that you have no cause..that mendacity and dishonesty and deception are your modus operandi….you have no future….Israel has no future…It will have to go..one day, I ‘ll give it 20-23 years.
Then perhaps a better future will meet both Jews and Muslims.
But Zionism must end…..the sooner the better.
“silke, roger, you people ought to be ashamed of your vitriol and exasperation”
From a vitriolic pond scum who calls Jews ‘kikes’ and ‘Nazis’, and is then too much of a snivelling coward to admit that he did it, so he lies about it.
“Israel has no future…It will have to go..one day, I ‘ll give it 20-23 years”
You have been having this wet dream since 1948 … It must be eating you inside to see Israel thriving and the Arabs sinking further and further into Medieval barbarity and poverty. I for one am delighted to see your impotent hatred eating you up.
Harvey, you speak propaganda not logic. Israel had planned the occupation of Palestine and expulsion of its people from day one. Read Pappe’s book “the ethnic of Palestine” or read my book “the Nazis of our time: The creeping Israeli genocide against the Palestinians.”
dear, don’t try to sell your stale goods to us…we have been through it all from creation to destruction.
Pappe? That’s pure comedy. The man has been exposed as a joke a long time ago.
And once again, this antisemitic lie about ‘genocide’, when the facts are plain to see and they expose you as a psychopathic liar.
Well, I feel confident enough to apologize for the Kike thing, but I don’t apologize in order to appease the Zionists on this forum, burt rather in honor of my own ethical standards.
Ethical standards? From a non-stop lying pond scum? Pure comedy.
Roger, at least my mother is not a shiksa….and my father is a noble man.
and my God, is the God of Abraham, and Isaac and Jaccob…..at least I don’t consider a man who urinated and defecated and was fully human as my God…Do you know any thing about Chesronot Shas. It seems you are too ignorant or happy-go-lucky to have deep knowledge about any thing. But you excel in name calling and idiocy…Is this the way your mom raised you? She must have done a very bad job raising you. Your mouth often smells very filthy..like….sorry, I can’t bring myself to say promiscuous words.
Daniel, you praise leah and her ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’
There is a saying here: they asked the fox who is your witness, it is my tail, he said.
have a good day or night everyone, but don’t backbite me while I am abscent.
I see it is about to get dark here in New York.
Good night Khalid,
Though I am uncertain whether I am the fox or his tail I referred to Leah’s “thoughtful comment”, this being in response to her spirited:
“Daniel seems to derive pleasure quite regularly from prostrating himself before antisemites. It seems to give him the illusion that he is soooooo morally superior.”
Maybe ask some New Yorkers there to explain about sarcasm.
Khalid’s use of the “Khazars” calumny is par for the antisemitic course. If I may borrow from my comment on the Engage blog…
Arguments about race are inherently distasteful, but it is important to establish that myths about most Ashkenazi Jews being Khazars… are pernicious nonsense. One of the happy consequences of recent advances in genetic research is to put the lie to such calumnies. It seems that the Jews are indeed a “people”, that they are genetically and ethnically well defined and they did, indeed, come from the Middle East. That’s not a political claim; it’s science. It doesn’t settle the Israel/Palestine problem, by any means, but it does, definitively, refute pretensions that the Jews are merely a “construct” and are somehow less indigenous to the land of Israel than the Palestinians, whose own history as a distinct ethnic group is measured in mere decades.
“Who are the Jews? For more than a century, historians and linguists have debated whether the Jewish people are a racial group, a cultural and religious entity, or something else. More recently, scientists have been weighing in on the question with genetic data. The latest such study, published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics, shows a genetic connection among all Jews, despite widespread migrations and intermarriage with non-Jews. It also apparently refutes repeated claims that most Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Central Europeans who converted to Judaism 1000 years ago.”
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/06/tracing-the-roots-of-jewishness.html
Other citations re Jews as a distinct and continuing people:
“Studies Show Jews’ Genetic Similarity”
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/03/the-dna-of-abraham-s-children.html
“This study demonstrates that European/Syrian and Middle Eastern Jews represent a series of geographical isolates or clusters woven together by shared IBD genetic threads.”
http://www.cell.com/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297%2810%2900246-6
“Jews’ Genetics Make Them A ‘Distinct Population’”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/jews-genetics-make-them-a_n_600384.html
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/06/genetics-the-jewish-question/
“The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people”
Nature. 2010 Jul 8;466(7303):238-42.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20531471
It’s strange but the older I get, the less I seem to care about zingers and one-liners and the more I’d like to think that our generation leaves a safer and better world than we inherited. Judging by the fact that Khalid is four years old than me and has stuck around despite all the abuse hurled at him, I suspect that he may be having similar thoughts.
Khalid writes:
“..it is too late for the two-state solution, there are too many settlements in the West Bank to make any prospective PA state viable.”
Frankly, I’m not certain that this statement fully reflects reality on the ground, but if it does, then joyful are the ears that hear these words. In my opinion, there is nothing that poses greater danger to the continued existence and growth of the State of Israel than the so-called “Two-State Solution”. I shall not even bore readers explaining why, unless anyone really does not know.
Khalid continues:
“We probably need a unitary civil state (one not two) in which all people regardless of religion and race live in peace and equality and freedom.”
Yup, that’s the kind of plan that I can get on board with. As long as the Palestinian leadership publicly and officially adopt this as their national policy and do not go in for any interim compromises or wishy-washy piecemeal deals along the way, we should all be fine.
I remember the Camp David summit in 2000 when Ehud Barak had effectively given up everything and many of us (the Israeli Right) were certain that all was lost. Although the deal was still not popular domestically we had no doubt that once it had been signed national cognitive dissonance would soon change the minds of all those still wavering. With tearful eyes we read Psalms in synagogue and implored of the Lord, from the depths of our despair, to send us a miracle.
And then , as if following the dictates of G-d of Israel, answered our prayers and our enemies rejected the deal. They had chosen instead to hang out for the last couple of kilometers, the rest is history. Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini thus followed in the footsteps of the Palestinian Arabs who had rejected partition and those of Assad who had refused 99% of the Golan. In his own stupidity he had saved us from ours.
On Pesach there is a song that we sing that “in every generation (they) rise up against us to destroy us, but the holy One blessed be He saves us from their hands”. Khalid who is a student of both Talmud and Tanya surely knows that many Rabbis over the years have reinterpreted the final line as “..but the holy One blessed be He saves us BY their hands”.
So extraordinarily, I find myself in a broad measure of agreement with my new friend from Hebron, the city of our common patriarch Abraham. I wish him G-d’s speed in spreading his vision among his people.
“Khalid is four years old than me and has stuck around despite all the abuse hurled at him”
The antisemitic abuse, non-stop and vile, came from the pond scum before anybody responded to him.
Once again, Daniel prostrates himself before an antisemite so that the antisemite might look kindly upon him. Quite a sickening sight.
Leah,
“Once again, Daniel prostrates himself before an antisemite so that the antisemite might look kindly upon him. Quite a sickening sight.”
I’m sure that you’re a nice lady and mean well, but with all due respect, you appear to be a little out of your depths in this discussion, and rather than finishing reading my comment and then commenting on it intelligently or otherwise, you content yourself with looking for an odd sentence taken at random and determining that it is sickening. Then you hurl abuse in all directions, hoping that something might make sense. I have to tell you that this time I’m not certain that any of it does.
Truthfully, I care not a jot as to who “looks kindly upon me” as you well know. I have my truth which I will say to whoever cares to listen; Jew and gentile alike. Neither does the fact that both you and Khalid have attacked me personally, though he in a much more subtle and sophisticated manner, make any difference to what I believe or the way in which I shall express myself. Yesterday I read “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” in the Torah and I shall continue endeavor to carry out this commandment whether that suites you or not.
Have a great week!
Leah
I’ve been reading Daniel very attentively for quite some time now and I feel certain that there is only one being in all the universes (plural) before who Daniel would prostrate himself.
Daniel
If being is the wrong choice of word, I apologize.
Daniel
I think I get your point but could you please ask your new-found friend if this is his idea of honouring the memory of your common ancestor?
Scroll down for pictures.
If it is then you’ll have quite a clash of culture ahead of you.
(Could it have been that they had a fumigating procedure in mind – I think some ancient cultures , long before Mohammed, did such things)
Hi Silke,
I couldn’t find the pictures. Could you provide a link?
ooops – sorry – here’s the link
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/04/photos-of-arabs-setting-fires-outside.html
“We probably need a unitary civil state (one not two) in which all people regardless of religion and race live in peace and equality and freedom.”
Aka – the one state ‘solution’. In other words – a denial of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination: an antisemitic concept, according to the EUMC’s Working Definition of antisemitism.
Now, let’s take a look at all the other countries in the Middle East in which ‘all people regardless of religion and race live in peace and equality and freedom’.
Oops…..there aren’t any, are there? The Jews were ethnically cleansed from the Arab nations, the Christians are persecuted and leaving the region in droves, the Kurds got gassed by their compatriots and the Armenians slaughtered. Even the Sunni and Shia Muslims can’t respect each other’s right to differing religious belief.
Not much of a confidence-builder is it?
That is my point, oh Israelinurse. The only reason the Israeli Left want to give away lands is to get away from them (Arabs) – they’re a bunch of racists really.
The “One-State Solution” is the only plan on earth that no Israeli electorate could ever accept. I’m not even sure that many Israeli Arabs would want to live in such a state. They’ve hardly been emmigrating to Gaza in their masses.
That’s what makes the “One-State Solution” so utterly brilliant.
So I had guessed you correctly from reading only the above.
Therefore I hereby congratulyte myself that I am pretty good at reading attentively.
Daniel, you have the guts to call your victims racist>
Just a few weeks ago, Ovadia Yosef claimed that all non-Jews were effectivelu donkeys and animal of burden created by the Almighty to serve Jews.
Read Jewish religious books and you can understand the depth of Jewish racism.
Read Hatanya, read shulhan Aruch, instead of hallucinating like a naughty boy.
There is no such a thing as Jewish genes. Jews are not genetic carbon copies of each other. Jews from Iraq for example have more genetic commonality with other Arabs than with European Jews.
Shlomo Sand, in his book the myth of Jewish people, says there is no such a thing as a Jewish people.
There are all sorts of races among Jews. Hence, claiming that Jews to belong to one race is a brash expression of ignorance.
“Jews from Iraq for example have more genetic commonality with other Arabs than with European Jews”
Jews from everywhere have genetic affinity with each other. It has been proved, so piss off aleady with your antisemitic lies.
“Shlomo Sand, in his book the myth of Jewish people, says there is no such a thing as a Jewish people”
Sand is an ignorant idiot, a professor of French cinema history with nil qualifications to make any sort of assertion in this field. Like you, he doesn’t understand the first thing about genetics. Probably failed Intro to General Science 101, just like you.
Khalid
as best I know, nobody is a genetic carbon copy (unless having been cloned which for humans seems to be still out of reach). Maybe Jesus is an exception unless the Holy Ghost made her a gift of some.
But maybe Islamic science has it differently. If so, I’d be keen to learn about it. Thank you!
Amayreh
” you speak propaganda not logic . The Jews have been planning the expulsion of Palestinians for years”
Unfortunately amayreh , you are the one who is the victim of the lies, propaganda and myths expounded by your predecessors and current leadership such as it is
In 1948 you rejected partition and elected instead to declare a war of annihilation on the nascent state of israel
Throughout the history of war , there have been resulting refugees . The vast majority are a result of the desperate need to flee the immediate battle field . Some are indeed pushed but this war ,your so called nakba witnessed your own leaders calling to their people to vacate an area so that they could cleanse it of Jews ,telling them to return once it was done.
Amayreh , you and those of your ilk are responsible for the Palestinian condition . You need to face up to the enormity of failing to declare a nation state back in 1948 when by now you would have had a thriving community ,a trading partner in israel and self respect.Instead of which your name has become synonymous with countless atrocities and outrages committed not just against israel but against the west as well . From Munich Olympics to PLO highjacking of planes to the murder of an elderly Jew on a cruise , your legacy will be murder and mayhem committed in the name of a spurious cause.
Do not mistake the banners of the far left and a few malign NGOs who champion your methods as the general support of the ordinary man on the street . He sees you as no different from al Qaeda . To him it is all the same , Arabs killing Jews Arabs killing us and Arabs killing each other as we see across the middle east and north Africa today
Do you seriously think we would ever embrace such a culture of hate and belligerence
As for your ridiculous mantra of expulsion , israel must be the first country where the population of those expelled has grown expotentially
As for apartheid – absolute nonsense . There is more apartheid here in London today where whites have chosen to flee predominately black or Asian areas then in the whole of israel and that’s without the blight of 63 years of war hanging over us .
Hi Khalid,
I think we may have a communication problem. I wrote:
“The only reason the Israeli Left want to give away lands is to get away from them (Arabs) – they’re a bunch of racists really.”
You seem to have misunderstood my proun usage. To rephrase in simpler English:
The reason why the Israeli Left are a bunch or racists is that they want to give away lands in order to get away from the Arabs.
Regarding your recommended bibliography I certainly appreciate the advice. Not being a member of the Hassidic movement Habad I have made no intensive study of the Tanya, although my daughter-in-law enjoys reading it.
As far as the shulchan aruch is concerned, though I doubtless do not share your expertise, I do study Talmud which incorporates Shulchan Aruch as well as Yad HaChazaka in its halachic rulings for a couple of hours a day with various friends.
I’d be happy to sit with you here next time you visit the West Bank, that we might delve into some of those beloved ancient texts together. I truly believe that it could be that in the study of both Judaism and Islam may lie the beginnngs of a genuine search for peace. Which volumes of the Shulchan Aruch have you already studied by the way?
Regarding Rabbi Ovadia Yosef I’d make two points. As you correctly said in an earlier posting he once called Netanyahu a donkey too, so I wouldn’t take it personally. I know that such abuse is quite alien to you and that Arabs never refer to each other in such tones, let alone machine-gunning each other in the streets of Syria. However, in his defense I would remind you that he was born in Iraq and as you know they can be a rather rowdy lot. Either way, he is not, nor has he ever been my leader or mentor and I feel no need to explain any statements that he makes.
Finally, I had no idea that naughty boys are more prone to hallucinate than naughty men or indeed polite boys. It’s been a long time since I was a naughty boy, but if my memory serves me correctly we fantasized more than we hallucinated and those fantasies never included late middle-aged, somewhat overweight, though doubtlessly attractive to many, Arabian gentleman called Khalid. I could elaborate, but such information would fall well outside the scope of this excellent blog and might later be used against me by the likes of Leah, Harvey or even your excellent self.
Now, may I once again suggest that we put aside personal abuse and name-calling and instead discuss the Middle East that we wish our grandchildren to one day inherit?
”I’d be happy to sit with you here next time you visit the West Bank, that we might delve into some of those beloved ancient texts together.”
I can see you back in 1939 say, inviting Julius Streicher for a nice cup of tea and biscuits, offering to study the Talmud together as well as his favourite and beloved texts like Mein Kampf and The Protocols, with the hope that it would be the beginning of a genuine search for peace. You out-Chamberlain Chamberlain with your craven appeasement. I find it very disturbing that, for someone living in the ‘west bank’ aka Judea and Samaria, the veritable belly of the beast, you don’t recognise evil when it’s standing right in front of you. Is it that difficult to understand the word ‘kill’?
to stay within your analogy:
this time Streicher has to enter Jewish sovereign territory
me thinks that makes a wee bit of a difference
like for example he will have to have his papers checked at the border – an image I love to envisage
Hi Roger,
Look, I live in the Middle East out of choice and I occupy 00.25 of its land area. What can I do? I am also a few million living among a few hundreds of millions, what can I do?
Were I living in Germany at the time you describe I wouldn’t be inviting Nazis round for tea, I’d be trying to get out of the galut and back home to Israel. Now I’m here and have no plans to go anywhere.
In my opinion either I’m prepared to talk to no Arab or to all of them. I don’t believe that the Fatah is good and the Hamas bad. I believe that they both have the same goal, but the former are better at disguising it.
Since I don’t think it is realistic to talk to no Arabs, I’ll talk to all of them. They are welcome to my house and, yes, I’ll politely serve them mint tea and muffins. Two years ago an Palestinian family from the West Bank joined us for a BBQ on Independence Day.
I will study Talmud, Shulchan Aruch or the Koran with them if they wish and when we reach politics I will clearly and politely explain my outlook. I will also listen to theirs. There, that didn’t hurt too much.
Well said as always, Roger.
Amayreh
70 years ago the nazi Mengele conducted experiments on Jews in order to prove among many things that we all were part of some homogenous grouping . Today you quote quasi scientific discredited sources that there is no such characteristic
Ultimately you are both the two sides of the same coin . You attempt to use science to validate your case against the Jews in order to demonise degrade and ultimately to wish away our people
But there is something you should know amayreh . There are those who have been trying for 3000 years . Jew haters such as yourself have risen up only to fall by the wayside . Some have managed to inflict great pain and tragedy on our people . Others like Nasser and the monkey sitting in Tehran today could only talk about what they would wish to do . The vast majority are empty vessels , sound and fury signifying nothing but unrequited paucity of hate . Ultimately you all wither like weeds in a field and like weeds destined to grow again in an endless cycle of hate . That is your epithet and your legacy to your children.
Contrast that with the Jewish people with israel today whose contribution to every field of human endeavor is without parallel in comparison to our numbers.
You spend your lives plotting and scheming on how best to harm our people instead of building a life of your own growing and expanding and giving to the world . That is your nature and your eternal legacy
Khalid,
who cares what Ovadia Yosef says? I certainly don’t, and whilst myself and my brethren occasionally delve into a bit of Talmud study, I don’t recognise it as the word of God, so really I feel no need to respond to this. Whether statements in the Talmud encourage some religious people to behave innapropriately is another debate. We could debate for hours regarding the virtues and ethics of many Muslims across the world and the way they treat the ‘kafir’, but I am not interested in tit-for-tat.
Your two responses to what I wrote are two of the better posts of yours here. I’m afriad I cannot accept your theories of genoice just based on the fact that A; The ‘Palestinian’ people are growing in number B; Many ‘Palestinians’ have returned to live in Jerusalem and the West Bank from countries such as the US which makes me doubt that there is a genocide of any sort C; The ‘Palestinians’ are suffering under harsh military conditions due to the sheer number of suicide bombers aimed at Israeli civilians.
Also, you seem obsessed with people’s race and the conduct and thoughts of Jewish people. Why don’t you repair yourself and your own culture before attacking others? You have the priviliege of living in New York. Don’t succumb to hatred, flourish and prosper.
“mint tea and muffins”
if you don’t have a kind of special muffin where you live and it is the sweet stuff on sale around here I consider that to be a major crime against culinary etiquette.
two points I would like to make: First, Ovadia Yosef is widely viewed as one of the most learned sages of the Torah in our time, and he has hundreds of thousands of loyal followers, so when he says that the Torah teaches us that non-Jews are donkeys and animals of burden in the service of Jews, it means there is some thing wrong somewhere. It is never enough to say “I don’t care about what he says.” Also, his remarks raise a few eyebrows in Israel….just anti-Semitic incitement in Germany raised very few eyebrows in that country in the early 1930s.
Second, it is not true that Jews don’t care about race. In Israel your mother has to be proven Jewish, otherwise you won’t be accepted as bonafide Jew. Even if your father was the greatest rabbbi in the world, you will still be viewed as a mumzer or bastard.
Islam doesn’t care about race, only obedience to the Almighty.
But Judaism is a strange religion. In Islam if you deny the Prophet, you are no longer Muslim, in Christianity, if you deny Jesus, you are no longer Christian, but in Judiasm, even if you don’t believe in God, you are still a Jew. Is this what Moses taught?
in Judiasm, even if you don’t believe in God, you are still a Jew
when I read that first, I thought, if there is one religion I could subscribe to and by whose rules I might volunteer to live it is Judaism
No pyres, no inquisition, no thought police just adherence to rules that assure social cohesion
Please, if I should be wrong, don’t enlighten me – the idea is very dear to me 😉
I make them myself. Recently we have stopped using margarine preferring the healthier butter. They have sugar, eggs, butter, banana, chocolate chips and walnuts half white flour, half whole-wheat, baking powder and baking soda and are quite delicious.
A new slogan:
WEST BANK SETTLERS BAKE TASTY MUFFINS!!
oh I have no doubt that both mint tea and especially your muffins are delicious – separately!!! – it is the combination that somehow gives me the shudders
Good you got off margarine – though I guess in your climate Butter has to be handled with quite a bit of care – some years ago it turned out that there is a correlation between margarine and heart attacks. It was something about some fats in margarine being too alien to the human body . Do you get Kerrygold in Israel? If yes, they are the brand that spreads on bread easily right out of the fridge. But oh it’s Irish – but you don’t BDS them back or do you?
In the farming village I lived the women who were all into competing on who came up with the most spectacular cakes they kept on using margarine despite they milked their cows twice a day. They claimed that margarine makes for nicer cakes but I am such a fan of butter that I’d easily “tolerate” a less “fluffy” cake.
I’ll keep the headline in mind to spread on occasion. It certainly is another proof that one needs to be weary of these people.
“70 years ago the nazi Mengele conducted experiments on Jews in order to prove among many things that we all were part of some homogenous grouping . Today you quote quasi scientific discredited sources that there is no such characteristic”
Don’t try to outsmart yourself. Israeli scientists did the same thing in the 1950s and 1960s. They applied these sciences on Yemeni Jewish children.
As to the canard of anti-Semitism, it is a stale weapon. More and more people are coming to the conclusion that it is a cheap tactic used by Zionism to maintain Jewish fascism in Palestine.
You must not use the holocaust to justify commiting genocide in Palestine. Besides if criticizing Israel is anti-Semitism then anti-Semitism becomes a moral obligation upon all mankind.
Again don’t cheapen anti-Semitism by hurling it at every one criticing the shitty state called Israel.
“More and more people are coming to the conclusion that it is a cheap tactic used by Zionism to maintain Jewish fascism in Palestine”
Actually, more and more people are realising that the demonisation of Israel is antisemitism in its purest form, and that pretending to hate only Zionism is also antisemitism in its purest form.
West Bank settlers = Hitler Youth
These kookians follow Abraham kook, the racist rabbi who said that difference between a Jewish soul and Gentile’s soul is greater than the difference between humans and beasts.
So, who is emulating Nazism? Who are the Nazis of our time?
Speak up! be honest! Done’t let the tribal loyalty seize you and enslave you.
West Bank settlers = Hitler Youth
Are you implying that you don’t have enough backbone of accepting Daniel’s invitation to mint tea and muffins?
Something tells me that just the opportunity to test Daniel’s kitchen art would make the visit a delight for you.
“So, who is emulating Nazism? Who are the Nazis of our time?”
Your lot, by wishing to keep J&S – or indeed, in many cases, Tel-Aviv also – Judenrein.
“Speak up! be honest! Done’t let the tribal loyalty seize you and enslave you”
Dripped by the Jew-hating poison pen of a dishonest, tribally loyal racist liar.
“tribally loyal”?????
would a tribally loyal person not to take utmost care not to murder their own?
and if yes, if “they” blow themselves up in one of their favourite places how do they make sure, none of their tribe is around? Sending an SMS maybe?
I meant, tribally loyal to the deranged Arab death cult. Not tribally loyal to any sort of sane culture, let alone human progress and even human life.
Leah
sorry, I got confused with the system – I was addressing Khalil of course
and thanks for the reminder that “they” claim to be proud of their tribal loyalties – one day I hope I’ll get an answer how they justify that under the Koran, especially since as best I know they don’t even grant those killed by their own the honour of according them martyr status as they do to the killers.
It shouldn’t be hard for them to do since they have already come out with the “brillant” ideas that Israeli babies are legitimate targets since they might one day be called to serve in the IDF.
Even if you are poor and have little money, you have no right to steal.
Palestine belongs to the Palestinians.
even if you are poor and have little money you have no right to blow yourself up with the intent of killing as many innocents as possible and don’t give a hoot, if your own are amongst them
There is o ‘Palestine’ and no ‘Palestinians’. Your own PLO said so.
It’s Israel, it belonged to Jews long before Arabs – let alone ‘Palestinians’ – were invented and invaded from Arabia, and if you think Jews are going to submit meekly to the murderous hordes from Arabia, why, that is just part of your juvenile and psychotic wet dreams.
There is no ‘Palestine’ …
Khalid
aren’t you a bit impolite to the other victims of genocide besides Jews?
If I were Armenian or Rwandan I would feel terribly hurt and insulted by your peddling the word the way you do.
If there were no Palestine, why would Israel be contemplating recognizing a Palestinian state.
Today, there are more Palestinians than there are Jews in mandatory Palestine. The Jews are fleeing to New York and to Germannnnnnnnnnnny
Don’t you people have a sense of shame!!!!!!!!!!!!
The two things are totally different, as any sane person with an IQ in 3 digits would know. A ‘Palestinian state’ would be a new invention with the aim of achieving peace, a concept deranged people like you have no time for.
Being lectured by a deranged disciple of Hitler on ‘shame’ …
Leah
I think 3 digits are too high a bench mark, I think the higher 2 digits are perfectly suited to the task.
Leah…even if it is a myth for you and other deformed people, Palestine is a reality in todays world.
We were supposed to evaporate and be obliterated by Zio-Nazism, but we have survived despite history. A proof of our enduring vigor is the madness and convulsion I see on this forum. You people are so anxious….so worried…so insecure…like a thief who is about to be caught.
Khalid
really you shouldn’t start smoking so early in the morning – provided you really are in New York of course
Yes, the Jews are ‘deformed people’, the basic mantra of Nazism.
Insecure? You are utterly deranged. Israel is thriving despite the efforts of your Medieval murderous friends for the last century. It’s you who are stuck in poverty and degeneration.
The current Islamonazi spewing his filth all over this thread is a troll whose whole purpose is to bait. The way to deal with such organisms is to ignore them and they eventually go away.
you are right but on the other hand I kind of like to get all those opinions neatly collected in one place
it might come in handy in talks with one of the saccharines – who knows…
Silke, Jewish Nazim produced suicide bombings among Palestinians.
Zionist Jews gave Palestinians two choices, either to die at the Jewish slaughter house, or die as a suicide bomber in the streets of Israel.
Beside don’t you glorify Samson in you schools and synagogues?
and that’s why they are willing to kill indiscriminately the members of their own tribes, family, loved ones?
the bombers presumably get martyr status for their action but what about those of their own tribe or the ummah they take with them? Do they get properly honoured and memorized or are they just fodder for the jihadis dust bin?
Some Irate Jews here think that name calling and joke-making can make up for an intelligent conversation. They are so bankrupt, morally and intellectually….Just like the Nazis ….Just keep invoking bankrupt, discredited mantras.
This really gives us more confidence in the justice of our cause.
Khalid
one thing I notice around here with great pleasure – every single one of “us” has the quick wit, the intelligence, the nimble mind and the knowledge to be really really INTENTIONALLY funny.
On TV I have seen Muslims claiming that they have a sense of humour and then tell a joke – it invariably fell flat and whether you believe it or not, not for my lack of trying to laugh at it – it would be a great relief to me, if I could find just a wee bit of the brillance of what distinguishes Jewish jokes from one of you guys.
Again inadvertently doesn’t count, it has to be done intentionally.
Talking of jokes:
A Muslim dies and finds himself before the Pearly Gates.
He is very excited, as all his life he has longed to meet the Prophet Muhammad. Having arrived at the Gates of Heaven, he meets a man with a beard.
‘Are you Muhammad?’ he asks.
‘No, my son. I am Peter. Muhammad is higher up.
And he points to a ladder that rises into the clouds.
Delighted that Muhammad should be higher than Peter.
he climbs the ladder in great strides,
climbs through the clouds coming to a room where he meets another bearded man.
He asks again, ‘Are you Muhammad?
‘No, I am Moses. Muhammad is higher still.
Exhausted, but with a heart full of joy.
he continues to climb the ladder and, yet again,
he discovers an even larger room
where he meets another man with a beard.
Full of hope, he asks again, ‘Are you Muhammad?
‘No, I am Jesus…You will find Muhammad higher up.
Muhammad higher than Jesus! The poor man can hardly contain his delight and climbs and climbs, ever higher. Once again, he reaches a larger room where he meets a man with a beard and repeats his question:
‘Are you Muhammad?’ he gasps,
as he is, by now, totally out of breath from all his climbing.
‘No, my son…I am God. But you look exhausted.
Would you like a coffee?’
‘Yes, please, my Lord’
God looks behind him, claps his hands and calls out:
‘Hey, Muhammad, two coffees!’
roger
this is not coffee but cacao and it is currently on sale in Germany, the come on being nostalgia – the Sarotti Mohr=Maur has been their trade-mark I don’t know for how long.
this new picture of him trying to revive the old style I dislike intently because cute little kids as in all likelihood unpaid servants if not slaves I find hard to stomach
oops I forgot say
LMAOROTFWL
and thanks – it sure is a good one
BTW did you know that in Germany Peter is considered to be in charge of the weather? So if you are in need of rain maybe it might be good to sneak into a Catholic church and light a candle, after all one never knows ;D
Sometimes it pays to humour those on the bottom of the hierarchy
Well observed, Silke. How can people who embrace a Nazi death cult have a sense of humour?
If there were no Palestine, why would Israel be contemplating recognizing a Palestinian state.
once upon a time there was no Germany, why would all its near and far neighbours over time “contemplate” recognizing a German state?
maybe it had something to do that they had managed to cobble something together which one could recognize as a reliable and by the standards of the time predictable partner
Roger, start with yourself….It seems you can’t ignore truth when said straight in the eye.
It is provocative, it bitter, it is piercing …and it makes you mad.
Be rest assurd pal, Jewish Nazism won’t prosper!
Jewish Nazism won’t prosper!
for once I agree with you Khalid with all my heart
what exists, if at all, only in such minuscule numbers would need extraordinary never before have happened miracles occur for it to prosper.
The very definition of a paranoid schizophrenic. A complete inversion of reality.
Well Palestine is getting more and more relevant….more states are recognizing Palestine….while Jews are fleeing…they die to become German citizens….while in Israel hardeim are chasing the helonim while orthodox are chasing reform Jews from the Western Wall…..
You people have no future….your certainty is that you will disappear, not as Jews, but as a state, a Judeo Nazi state that has no connection with God or with the message that Moses brought.
as best I know, nobody has to die to become a German citizen, in fact I think that after death has occurred it is impossible to acquire citizenship in the country.
“You people have no future….your certainty is that you will disappear, not as Jews, but as a state”
What people like you have been shrieking like deranged banshees since 1948. Now let’s see … Israel is prospering, the Arabs are sunk in Medieval barbarity, poverty and degeneration. Hmm, I wonder why that is.
Suicide bombers must have learned their tactics from the Talmud which teaches that in war there is no difference between combatants and civilians…This is the fetwa or edict of Mordechai Elyahu, Israel’s former rabbis who died a few months ago.
Don’t deny the obvious, other wise don’t argue with intellectuals.
in war there is no difference between combatants and civilians
now let’s assume for a moment, that that might be correct would the members of your own tribe, family, loved ones also qualify as desirable victims of your i.e. Palestinian endeavours to kill randomly as many as possible?
How many Muslims were there in the Twin Towers altogether?
This ignorant pond scum imagines himself an ‘intellectual’.
I never smoked in my life…nor drank wine…..But I was trained to catch, expose and silence patholgical Zionist liars.
ah, then you are into mushrooms — Aldous Huxley wrote a very interesting book on the experience – either that or something is wrong with your morning coffee – you seem a bit in need of clear focus right now i.e. you are making it too easy for me – come on you can do better than that.
Prove that you are a match for Daniel’s sophistication and become a delight to read like he, more often than not, happens to be.
Khalid
one more advice – I happen to be good friends with a guy who grew up in a traditionally communist family (no mean place to be in pre-war Germany) and got the whole communist higher education in the former GDR.
It might do you a world of good to find a teacher from their ilk on how to argue since your training has left you, I am sorry to say, with extremely poor, catching, exposing and silencing skills.
In fact by now I am convinced that it is awarenes that your skills are not up to scratch which makes you ignore Daniel’s gracious invitation.
Or is it because you are a coward?
how could you apply for Germany’s citizenship? what happened to the memory of the Six million?
Shame on you…you are so cheep
who applied for German citizenship?
btw Germany has an excellent and very extensive social security system (the oldest state-run in the world) that probably can be milked quite profitably by people so minded.
I don’t think Jews would ever do that (Muslims have been caught at it as have German Germans) but how I’d love to see Jewish lawyers applying their considerable skills to the task and get every last penny possible out of the system for any and all robbed blind during the Nazi-era plus extras galore for the others.
Zionism= Jewish Nazim
Zionism= Chosen people
Nazism= master race
Zionism= settlement expansion
Nazism- lebensraum
Zionism= talmudic exceptionalism and superiority
Nazism- Aryan exceptionalism
In brief Zionism + Nazism = tweedledee and tweedledum
Well, let us be clear about one thing:
Zionism= Jewish Nazim
Zionism= Chosen people
Nazism= master race
Zionism= settlement expansion
Nazism- lebensraum
Zionism= talmudic exceptionalism and superiority
Nazism- Aryan exceptionalism
In brief Zionism + Nazism = tweedledee and tweedledum
as I said Khalid be careful with what you imbibe – maybe you chew – now you resort to double-comments – a dangerous sign.
Do people still want to hear from this vile man? I think we get the drift of what he is. Just happy he is in NYC surrounded by 4 million Israel-supporting Jews. The problem is that his vile organisation MEMO has linked up with the once respected Amnesty International to turn it into an equally vile organisation.
Richard
it is your blog, you are the host, but if you want an opinion. Here is mine:
I think he has posted all in all the variations he has on offer, but I would like to hear Daniel about it. If Daniel wants to go on with him, it’s fine by me, if he doesn’t that’s it. (the reason is that Daniel might feel in the mood of comingup with another of his zingers and I don’t want to miss any of them – it is the kind of humour I like most)
Silke, you’re so right about Daniel. I especially enjoyed this comment:
“As you correctly said in an earlier posting he [Ovadya Yosef] once called Netanyahu a donkey too, so I wouldn’t take it personally. I know that such abuse is quite alien to you and that Arabs never refer to each other in such tones, let alone machine-gunning each other in the streets of Syria. However, in his defense I would remind you that he was born in Iraq and as you know they can be a rather rowdy lot.”
yeah, that sure is a good one, my favourite though is this one
Hi Khalid,
I think we may have a communication problem. I wrote:
“The only reason the Israeli Left want to give away lands is to get away from them (Arabs) – they’re a bunch of racists really.”
You seem to have misunderstood my proun usage. To rephrase in simpler English:
The reason why the Israeli Left are a bunch or racists is that they want to give away lands in order to get away from the Arabs.
In Germany we believe that f..rts that make no noise smell best 😉
I disagree. This is Richard’s blog, and it’s his decision. It’s not Daniel’s blog, he is just another poster (and one whose craven appeasement is viewed with contempt by at least two of us).
I vote to boot this vile man into the long grass.
Incidentally, Amnesty is now as vile as he is, but HRW is not far behind (if indeed it is behind). And War on Want.
Leah, with respect, I think you might be missing Daniel’s teasing. I don’t take his comments as appeasement in any sense whatsoever–and certainly not craven. On the contrary, I think Daniel’s quietly scoring some excellent points (see above for a couple of examples).
Well, cba, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I am with Roger. Affording a platform to Nazi ideas is all very nice and English and playing the game and gentlemanly and cricket and so on, but it has never so far produced a positive outcome. I don’t think it ever will.
Richard
I think this scum bag has had enough air /
cyber space time to well and truly expose him for what he is and the wretched cause he champions
Time to turn the anti Semite off
We have enough on him
I agree wholeheartedly with the lovely Leah that this is Richard’s excellent blog and he should decide. However, since he has asked our opinions I strongly urge that Khalid be allowed to continue to comment.
Firstly, I have always supported free speech believing that we have nothing to fear in the free market of thought and ideas. The only exceptions I would make would be when somebody was inciting to violence and there was a real risk of his being listened to. I hate cheap insults and personal abuse, but I do believe that free speech means affording the podium to those whose views you despise, not only those you agree with or like.
Secondly, I think that Khalid, though he is clearly making a very decent living from the suffering of his people, is a genuine Palestinian voice. It would be nice if all anti-Zionists on this blog were moderate, articulate and knowledgeable, but we don’t get to choose them. If we were to sit around and wait for a nice Palestinian to turn up, it could take some time. It’s not that there aren’t any decent Palestinians who want to live quietly and in peace, I believe that they are the silent majority. It’s just that they’re not the types to come blogging here in English.
Finally, Khaled has asked a very interesting theological question as to why a Jew stays a Jew even if he stops “believing” in his G-d. I’d love to have a chance to address that that point but would not dream of doing so if Khaled had not the opportunity to freely respond. It would hardly be cricket.
Anyway, do as you see fit. Your judgment has always been excellent about such matters and I’m sure that on this occasion it will not forsake you.
I don’t need your patronising comments, thanks all the same.
Richard,
For what it’s worth I vote to leave him on.
It’s much more fun that way.
Just look at how many comments his postings generate.
It’s a bit boring everybody agreeing how terrible all the anti-semites are.
I think we need to be sensitive towards Khalid today as he must be in mourning.
I sincerely hope that he resorts to teeth gnashing whenever he pauses in his wailing and that he gnashes so hard that his dentist bill will be enormous.
All the more reason not to be …
It’s Khalid’s obsession with Rabbi Yosef that gets me. I could easily quote hundreds of comments from Muslims about people who non-Muslim, homosexual or Jewish. I am not interested in doing so as it is childish. The point at hand is Amnesty International.
According to Yaacov Lozowick Rabbi Yosef is also spearheading ways into modernity – a most interesting figure – but of course the MSM are interested in him only when he says what they are eager to hear.
It’s his pathological obsession with Jews that gets me.
We went to pick Esther Roth up this morning. Esther is a holocaust survivor who was speaking at my wife’s school because it is Holocaust Day. “Have you heard the news?” she said “They got Bin Ladden.” I saw tears in her aging eyes. Someone who has been through Bergen Belsen has a far deeper different perspective on the killing of one who wished to destroy us.
Then we entered Jerusalem, Mea Shearim, Rehov Haneviim, guess what I saw….nothing.
There were no cars honking and no children handing out candies. There was not a Jew in the street whose heart was not glad, but that was it. We turned on the radio and heard of the new Yorkers celebrating at Ground Zero – good luck to them. That is their way it is not ours.
Later I arrived at my school, one of the most religious and right wing in Israel. No champagne was being drunk and there were no balloons. There was a dark room with pictures from the Holocaust and sad music. My students cried as they thought of the giants of Torah whose voices will never be heard again and the children who would never grow up to serve their maker. I cried too and went to the staff room.
Nobody was celebrating because that is not our way. We celebrate life not death. Bin Ladden was the very embodiment of evil. I doubt that Obama was right when he said that the world is a safer place without him, but I know that the world is a better place today. However, he was also a creation of the Almighty G-d.
The midrash tells us that when the Children of Israel left Egypt the heavenly angels saw the Egyptians drowning and wished to sing songs of praise, G-d scolded them and said, “The work of my hands is drowning in the sea and you are singing songs!?”
when the news broke all I wanted to know was whether the Seals got away unharmed – they apparently did, then I rejoiced and I continue to be glad that for once none of them got injured or killed
The pomposity … the self-congratulatory smugness …
Leah,
On this page alone you have commented 34 times without having voiced a single positive thought and without having or a good word to say about anyone or anything. I do not know where to start but, though you clearly favor the terms “pond scum”, you also offer the reader variety with frequent references to mental health. Alas, these amalgamations occasionally produce rather grotesque mixed metaphors such as “psychopathic Jew-hating pond scum”, doubtlessly a category new to students of Chlorella.
A partial list for this page would include; “beyond the realm of human morality”, “deranged antisemitic rant”, “disturbed little idiot, pond scum”, “I am superior to lying”, “psychopathic Jew-hating pond scum”, “a psychopathic liar”, “Quite a sickening sight”, “an ignorant idiot”, “tribally loyal racist liar”, “deranged Arab death cult”, “juvenile and psychotic wet dreams”, “a deranged disciple of Hitler”, “Medieval murderous friends”, “paranoid schizophrenic”, “craven appeasement”, “vile Nazi”, “patronising”, “pathological obsession”, “pomposity … the self-congratulatory smugness”.
I am neither a psychiatrist nor indeed a gynecologist, and have no idea what makes you need to express yourself in such an angry and often seething manner, neither am I sure that I wish to be enlightened. As I have already stated on this excellent blog, I do believe deeply in free speech, so far be it from me to attempt to inhibit your expressing your “point of view” in any way you see fit. I would, however, respectfully make two points.
The first is that I believe that anyone on the receiving end of such verbal hostility, Jew or gentile alike, would have little choice but to respond in type. This in turn leads to you calling them “pond scum” again – a circumstance hardly conducive to constructive dialogue.
Secondly, on a more general note, there is much good in the world and many reasons to be positive and optimistic. We only live once, so why be consumed with rage and forever trying to think of new ways to offend and upset other people? Besides everything else, it can’t be good for your health.
We are currently in the week between Holocaust Day and the day we remember our fallen soldiers. During such a period I have no intention of getting into any kind of angry exchanges with you. So instead, may I humbly suggest that you call me a few more offensive names if you feel the need (to which I shall not respond) and then quietly, when you are alone and when the time is right, give this issue some serious thought?
Have a great week,
Daniel
since I know you as a stickler of absolute accuracy I want to point out that
I seem to remember that at one point Leah said something nice to or about me.
😉
I think she said something nice about me too. But then I’m not pompous. Just right. And..er..succinct.
but roger
I am on record of being an unapologetic admirer of Daniel’s style of zingering.
“when you are alone and when the time is right, give this issue some serious thought”
Daniel thinks he is some sort of great guru, sharing his profound insights in huge great gobs of smug verbosity. If he only knew how funny (but not in a nice way) he is in this image he has of himself.
The fact is that non-Nazis are better than Nazis. The fact is that Nazis are psychotic pond scum. Has nobody ever explained similes, metaphors and analogies to you?
Roger, I have said nice (and well-deserved) things about you on quite a few occasions, I think. And yes, that’s because you are not pompous, not verbose, and (as far as I can recollect at this moment) always right on this blog.
Thanks Leah. One of my principles is to never post a comment unless I’m right. And for anyone with their eyes open and who sees the reality of Isamonazism and the religious war it is waging against the Jews, it is hard to be wrong.
Not forgetting that it is waging war against the whole free world.
Daniel
Nobody was celebrating because that is not our way.
Yaacov Lozowick told us that during Purim after the Dubai event people were featuring tennis rackets and baseball caps. I understood it at the time to be ALSO a show of solidarity with and hommage to Mossad.
Dancing waving flags in the streets may not be customary in Israel but I am glad that some know how to make the point by other means.
You remind me that in 1977 when Rabin resigned he decided to delay his announcement until after a Tel Aviv baseball team had taken part in the finals of a Eurpean tournament. He announced it minutes after the game (they won).
The story is told that Kissinger arrived that night in Israel and saw the crowds celebrating. In shock he remarked, “I never knew that Rabin was that unpopular!”
We always celebrate Purim by dressing up and have for thousands of years. We celebrate the victory of good over evil and the few over the many. I didn’t see the costumes that you mentioned, but I have no problem with the description. On Purim we do not celebrate in the death of Haman, who wished to kill us all. We celebrate the fact that G-d in His great mercy saved us from his hands.
A Fox-reudian slip for anyone who missed it.
I read somewhere that it actually happened to one of Merkel’s press guys when he tweeted the news …
must be these modern devices …
btw in modern Greek you would pronounce Obama Osama with a soft S.
Didn’t know baseball was so popular in Israel.
Basketball, I stand corrected.
Interesting to note that Arabs prefer living in Israel and
if their neighborhood became part of Palestine, 40 percent said they would likely move to Israel. Apparently, the occupation isn’t that bad after all!
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/05/05/Poll-says-East-Jerusalemites-prefer-Israel/UPI-41761304608417/#ixzz1LZ6JD0Fw
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/05/05/Poll-says-East-Jerusalemites-prefer-Israel/UPI-41761304608417/
Going back to being occupied is what I’d chose every day …
Germany became a real state again only on May 5, 1955, so I spent the first 13 years of my life under real occupation and lots of time afterwards under quasi occupation. To this day we gladly house foreign troups and moan and lament it loudly and credibly every time some decide to leave, at least those who aren’t infected by ideological nutterism.
If the “mob” is open to reason (in our case it took quite some drastic efforts but in the end they brought the desired results) and capable of perceiving its own advantage and the occupier behaves with reasonable considerateness and isn’t just into enriching himself regardless of his own best interest, being occupied is wonderful, one has lots and lots of benefits free of any obligation or responsibility whatsoever.
Leah
As I’m sure you are aware we all have the greatest respect for your brillaintly thought out postings and your eloquent and creative writing style.
After having known Daniel for many years I think that I can unequivically assure you that Daniel in no way thinks he is “some sort of great guru”
Yes.
When he posts an opinion he does believe he is right, as do we all.
If you disagree you would do much better by arguing with his opinions rather than his character.
If you feel that you have no rejoinder to his remarks you may be wise to simply ignore them and move on to the next subject.
And when I feel the need to be lectured to pompously by you, Michael, be sure that you will be the first to hear about it. Hell may freeze over first, but everything comes to those who wait.
Do Jews have hell? If yes, do they imagine hell like Christians do, i.e. like that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Florence_Duomo_Ceiling.jpg
Somehow that wouldn’t sync with all the rest you’re telling me about yourself.
It’s called a figure of speech, Silke.
Daniel as a guru
mmmh might make me susceptible to guru-ism 😉
seriously I think arguing it out with him and finding out, if my views needs a bit of calibrating here or there should be time exceedingly well spent.
Even though I don’t believe in an afterlife I have set myself the goal to leave this earth in as all-encompassing as humanely possible peace with myself and acceptance of myself (zufrieden), having forgiven myself all my misdeeds as I would forgive them my neighbour and liking myself for everything I may have done just right as I would my neighbour.
“When he (Daniel) posts an opinion he does believe he is right, as do we (Michael et al) all.” – Michael Goldman
Just to be clear, “as do we all” means that each one of us thinks that he or she is right, not that “we all think that he (Daniel) is right.”
Though he died almost a century ago I believe it was Elbert Hubbard who summed up this discussion best, “If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.”
Like Michael, I have also known myself for nearly half a century and frankly that is more than enough for me. A colleague recently began giving courses in self awareness and asked me if I’d be interested. I replied, in my characteristically blunt manner that as I near 50 I am not on the lookout for new mates and if I was they wouldn’t be me. In short, there is no person who I wish to get to know better less than myself.
For this and many other reasons I have no interest in making my personality or character the subject of this very excellent blog. I am aware that I am liked by some and disliked by others, and that is all I need to know. I do not, nor have I ever, considered myself to be a guru. I am neither Hindu nor Sikh, and I know nothing their teachings or philosophy. I defy anyone to find a single instance in hundreds of posting and comments in which I have either contended otherwise or claimed any kind of superior wisdom or understanding on any matter. On occasions, I simply endeavor to express my opinions on various issues, and make every effort to show respect both to those who agree with me, and with those who don’t.
However, as I have explained ad nauseam, there appears to be a distinct tendency among one or two of our younger commentators to prefer to attack their opponents than the views they present. This is, to my mind, a somewhat sluggish approach to the dialectics of debate, as it enables them to disregard what their opponent has said and instead fall back on “one size fits all” responses such as labeling all critics of Israel anti-Semites or worse. Admittedly, there is a short-lived infantile satisfaction of having “gotten the last word in”, however witless that word was, but otherwise these verbal assaults do nothing to promote much needed dialogue, instead they invariably arrest it altogether.
When dealing with commentators such as Michael or themselves who refuse to blindly tow the party line and verbally abuse all opponents, they attack us for “craven appeasement” and then when we try to explain our desire for an exchange of ideas rather than bilateral verbal abuse, we are dubbed condescending.
I have always suspected that when Hubbard said, “If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.” his intent was to be sardonic. Sadly, one or two of us seem to have adopted his words as sterling advice, if not, a philosophy for life.
As I am amongst those who on occasion certainly gets great pleasure out of calling people vile names I am amazed that you, Daniel, restrict your criticisms to the young ones.
As you well know age-wise I could easily have a son your age and older so your so I feel entitled to label your excluding me from your admonishment as a clear instance of ageism. ;-)))))
“such as labeling all critics of Israel anti-Semites or worse”
That is a lazy – and thoroughly stupid – assertion. Neither I, nor Roger, nor anybody else on this blog to the best of my recollection, have/has ever labelled ‘all critics of Israel’ antisemites (or ‘worse’).
Did Hubbard also say: “If you can’t answer someone’s argument, make up some lie and attack them for it as though they’d actually said it”? If he has, that would fit you nicely. If he hasn’t, evidently he never met you.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, I have never, to the best of my recollection, criticized Roger or his style of writing.
Though I may not agree with everything he has said, I consider him to be bright, witty and well informed. It is always a pleasure to read what he has to say.
Hi Silke,
When I said that as I near 50 I am not on the lookout for new mates, I make an exception when it comes to you. You are one of the most fascinating people I have ever met in a long time and you know that I am quite devoted to that strange (in a wonderful way) Germany lady. I cannot recall you ever initiating any kind of verbal abuse, though you have often been on the wrong side of too many unmentionable adjectives.
Regarding my age, and on a vaguely related note, I have been told that my sweetheart of 37 years ago (when I was 13) is now a great-grandmother!
Daniel
I return the compliment without reservation
– but believe you me, I am as ordinary as they come, I am a perfect example of what in German is disparagingly called a HalbGebildete (half-educated) and my formal education probably doesn’t even entitle me to that denomination which of course doesn’t prevent me one moment from picking fights with anybody willing provided the physical surrounding isn’t threatening.
that said – you’d be sorely disappointed to find out how swampy the ground is on which I try to pick my way from tiny islet of certainty to the tiny islet which is still unconquered (by me at least).
Great-grandmother – lemme see – first child at 16, grandmother at 32, great grandmother at 48
I picked 16 because I think that’s the age when “it” becomes or at least became legal marriage-wise of course. But oops I calculated from the date of birth, if you do it from the date of conception the time-line becomes really impossible i.e. 48 plus 27 months is 50 plus one month.
I think when I was young there was a special dispensation for girls to lower “it” to 14 and for boys to lower it from 18 to 16, but since then the sexes have of course been equalized.
Daniel
not to come across as fishing for compliments – one important reason why I am so interested in the class/group I belong to is that as best I know nobody has ever had a close look at us and our doings during our Nazi-era.
Yes there is the Traudl Junge (Hitler’s secretary) saga but she is a bit too high up in the food-chain for what I am interested in. Yaacov Lozowick has written a book on the middle management of the RSHA and below them could have been my work-place i.e. where somebody controls that invoices for the cattle cars are correct and get paid on time or that the cattle cars are available when and where needed. (I’ve had such jobs in industry but never in government)
Now amidst that layer beneath the middle management there is a lot of lawless anarchy and fury at the nutters one has to “yes, sir, no, sir” to make a living.
Just to spite the people they really dislike (there are few likeable bosses amongst middle management, maybe it is the stress of trying to climb the latter and out-sucker-up their competitors for one of the real jobs) they might be worthwhile to cultivate, to woe.
Of course we are also the ones adhering stricter than anybody else to following the rules and if we are really mad then it is called bureaucracy and empowers us to anger just about everybody. But just this power and awareness that we can fight back by sticking to the letter and claim innocence i.e. we only followed your order, sir, if they managed to make something go wrong, makes them/us a group one should consider to draw on Israel’s side. (imagine what if the ones in the RSHA back then would have passed on all the info they had on let’s say schedules) The more the educated ones pontificate about Israel behaving to ancient rules (alt-testamentarisch=old-testamentarian=biblical was very much in fashion to describe the US’ taking out of OBL) the more susceptible the other ones might become to take a different stand.
As best I can tell Anti-Semitism or a knee-jerk reaction that Jews are doing things wrong more often than not is more common with the formally educated despite all their finely tuned to walk the line choice of words. I’ve talked with every shop woman or man I could get a hold of, all were on the side of the people of Sderot, everybody made the connection that they wouldn’t tolerate a rocket in their front yard. And everybody held it against the Marmara “peace” activists that they had sawed the reling to pieces. Vandalism is a strict no-no with us “lower” classes.
“As best I can tell Anti-Semitism or a knee-jerk reaction that Jews are doing things wrong more often than not is more common with the formally educated”
Certainly that’s the case on this island. The ‘formally educated’ are the ones turning it into a sewer of Jew-hatred: the BBC, Channel 4, Guardian, Independent, SOAS, LSE, Exeter University, Law Society and more.
In contrast, the Sun is an oasis of sanity.
I am never certain who among our opponents are motivated by anti-Semitism and who not. In recent months three fierce critics of Israel have appeared on this excellent blog; Gert Meyers, Tony Greenstein and Khalid Amayreh.
Gert has views that are similar to those of many left-wing Israelis, indeed he often cites their articles. He accepts the existence of the State of Israel post facto and believes in a “Two State Solution”. Indeed, the only reason that I might consider him anti-Semitic is his self confessed obsession with Israel. Syrians may be revolutions all over the Middle East but Gert will forever choose to focus on Zionism. Gert has no discernible literary skills, invariably cutting and pasting other peoples’ articles and his knowledge of the conflict has been acquired exclusively from surfing various sites. All that having been said Gert is not a fool and should not be underestimated. He also has some humor and is not unlikeable as a person.
Despite his being Jewish and claiming that his father was a rabbi, it is much easier to make a case for Tony Greenstein being an anti-Semite. He does not support the “Two-State Solution”, but instead dreams of the day when the whole Middle East will become a workers’ paradise under the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc. While his vision if realized would be far more existentially threatening to the existence of the Jewish People, it is so outlandish that in my opinion it is of no threat. Tony is a decent writer, though hearing him talk reminds one of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. As a person he is also quite affable and in both him and Gert I detect certain lonely characteristics of the kid who didn’t have many friends. This may be my imagination.
Khalid appears to be the nearest thing to the professional anti-Israel propagandist that we have. Arguing with him reminds me of an Israel-Egypt chess match that took place in the late 1970s in celebration of the Peace Accords. Israel was asked to leave her better players at home in order to give her neighbors a chance. He is not ineffective in slanging matches, parroting selected bits of trivia about rabbis, etc, but falls to pieces quite quickly when confronted with facts and logic. I believe that he hates Israel, Israelis and Israel’s supporters abroad passionately; however I doubt that he is an anti-Semite in the purest sense of the term. I never really got a chance to get to know him as a person before he did his runner, so I can’t comment.
Daniel
I am rather ignorant whether any of the three qualifies as anti-semite or not – I perceive all three of not regarding Jews or rather these days Israelis as people with equal rights and equal entitlement to decent and polite behaviour and most objected to by me to derive a certain amount of sick pleasure from pricking you with needles small and big.
None of the three IMHO is crackable by reason – I don’t play billard, I don’t even know the rules but I am fascinated how they make the ball score by not taking a straight path but by bumping here and there in most ingenious ways and that’s what I see as the only way to get at them.
Now since (thank heavens) democracy is all the rage, it is the masses who really count. But the “masses” are not getting told that they have a right to have stuff explained to them properly. To the contrary they are more or less told through the flower (durch die Blume) that they are too dumb to understand things anyhow.
Since it isn’t in Israel’s or any of our powers to empower them to demand answers to their questions and explanations for the things they don’t understand until they understand them (most are not too dumb they just need another angle or more time or have been taught that asking makes them look stupid) the path to their hearts is through seduction.
That’s IMHO the path that bloodthirsty idiot Hitler took and mostly the communists and some religious and some decent ones who had their own firm points on earth to stand on proved immune to it. Lots of the others indulged in all kinds of theories how he’d dismantle himself. But there also were the large number of those feeling helpless (like I do currently). Those at least those who hadn’t the language to read discourses of the higher ups may have been fooled by the 1936 Olympics i.e. if the world approves who are we to object.
In case I’ve managed to make myself clear I say what we need is an Olympic of woeing the “simple” people to favour Israel. That can’t be done by reason at least not in any numbers (reason is not very good at going viral) but it can be done by imbuing them with solidarity for the people of Sderot, for the almost there pregnant mother shot at again at close quarter, for the baby slaughtered with the killer having its smell in its nostril and stabbing out nonetheless.
I wish I had the ability to write romances with Israeli heroes who make the women fall for them like Rodolfo Valentino as Sheikh once did. I keep getting told that it is the women who decide elections and if they want politicians who are nice to their heroes and their co-outraged then things may change.
Chances are slim, but if you know somebody who has it in her or him to write chick-lit, the British publishing house Mills&Boon is said to dominate the market. My next sitting in the sun enjoying life book will be one by a British MP who has said nice things in favour of Israel and who came to prominence as chick-lit author before being elected MP – and yes she apparently made it the traditional way, not like that muslim baroness who became a somebody by getting ennobled. (why do the Brits whom I admire so much, do such things to me?)
If I knew of (trash or nearly trash or soft porn or nearly soft porn) novels who are similarly beloved by boys I’d read them also. Another gateway to hearts would of course be homestories.
Ahava had kind of one some weeks ago with the most popular German women’s magazine but apparently they negotiated the terms so “rationally” that a Palestinian soap manufacturer was able to catch the top place for super-desirable humanity.
Are Israelis too trusting????
“I perceive all three of not regarding Jews or rather these days Israelis as people with equal rights ”
Sounds remarkably like antisemitism to me.
Leah
I try to avoid throwing around “isms” as much as possible because avoiding them and replacing them by not-scientificized everyday language usually makes me lose the emotional distance and keep in touch with real life.
Once upon a time I mused for a long time trying to find a reason why Oscar Wilde may have chosen to describe his Alfred (in De Profundis) as shallow and not as superficial. After a while I noticed that shallow creates an image for me, it makes me connect it with an image, while superficial does not.
Writing hate makes me see an image, anti-semitism does not.
Hi Leah
Sorry I haven’t been able to reply to your brilliant rejoinder but I’ve been busy carting my daughter and family back to Zfat.
I must however admit that your razor sharp reply of
” Hell may freeze over first, but everything comes to those who wait.” certainly put me in my place!
The way the words melt together to create an uncanny effect of harmony is possibly unrivaled in post modern literature.
A mixture of Leo Tolstoy and George Eliot.
Have you considered a writing career?
Please please never stop writing it would be a sore loss for humanity!
Dan
Thanks for clearing up any discrepancy that may have arisen from my “as do we all” remark.
On reading the charitable words that M. Goldman has bestowed upon one commentator’s literary and linguistic prowess, who could not have been reminded of how, a century ago, Maxim Gorki bemoaned the fact that that the Zionists had “stolen” Vladimir Jabotinsky away from Russian literature where an illustrious literary future had awaited him?
Michael, don’t give up your day job. You may imagine you are up there with Art Buchwald, but how shall I put this politely … you are not.
Your retorts just get better all the time!
Seriously Michael, don’t get dragged down to that gutter.
There are many excellent discussions worthy of your inestimable knowledge and insight. Leave the lady be!
Hi Silke,
As ever, you raise many interesting points. “I am rather ignorant whether any of the three qualifies as anti-semite or not – I perceive all three of not regarding Jews or rather these days Israelis as people…..None of the three IMHO is crackable by reason..”
I agree wholeheartedly, but in these situations the intention has never been to alter the attitude of the person with whom you deliberate. Were Khalid to acknowledge that he is wrong, what would be his next step? To convert to Judaism!? He, quite literally, has far too much invested in the struggle of his people. The same applies to Tony and Gert though to lesser extents. Incidentally we Zionists are also for the most part “uncrackable” for similar reasons, related to cognitive dissonance. The intention has always been to win over the bystander, the proverbial man in the street, the “floating voter”.
Such people who attend debates or frequent blogs in which dialogue takes place are more often than not there to learn and be impressed or otherwise. In a debate over the future of the State of Israel they invariably want to hear about just that. Were they to have wished to hear cursing or simple verbal abuse, they could have seen a cheap movie, gone to a skin head conference, a football match or something else of the like.
Incidentally, there seems to be an underlying assumption behind many discussions that while being an anti-Semite is ethically reprehensible and morally inexcusable, to be an anti-Zionist is somehow justifiable or legitimate at the very least. Therefore, we have Zionists who are forever endeavoring to prove that their opponents are Jew haters, while the latter defend themselves, defiantly arguing that they are only anti-Israel. I wonder if it is already too late to challenge this paradigm and ask in what way an individual who wishes to turn seven million people into unwanted refugees, at best, is morally preferable to another who does not like Jews.
“Incidentally we Zionists are also for the most part “uncrackable” for similar reasons, related to cognitive dissonance”
There is nil ‘cognitive dissonance’ in believing in a Jewish state, and in recognising that it’s there and is not going to commit suicide any day soon.
The cognitive dissonance is in believing that because you hate Jews and don’t want them to have a state, if you shout loud enough they will shut down shop just to please you. That is why I say that antisemites are pretty much all psychotic.
Daniel
if you give the Zionist and the Anti-Zionist equal rights to their opinion something seems to be wrong i.e. what Carl Zuckmayer reports his housekeeper as having said i.e. in trying times one finds out who is a decent person and who is not and the decent ones become just a little more decent. Or as that one Greek guy looked at life, i.e. it is either “good for the life” or “not good for the life”. And none amidst our threesome shows any sign of being capable of ruling over something that will be predominantly “good for the life”.
That famous fence sitter who must be woed everybody is talking about I still have to come across the first of them. Either people are for treating Jews/Israelis with the same disinterested decency they are treating others then they don’t sit on the fence because they realize that what is happening in and with Israel is important to the style of life they love.
BTW since I am probably one of the fringe people you think must be won over and may have been won over successfully by decent debate I must tell you the impression is wrong, I have been prejudiced via romance from my teens on or maybe even earlier.
Whether I may rightfully call myself a Zionist I still don’t know and I am not very interested in finding out. From all I have ever read you have a right to be where you are and you have paid dearly for any bit of land you control with labour and blood, so also by that standard also it is yours, period and whatever you decide to do with it it is for you to decide and nobody else.
When fringe-me had her second wake-up shock that something of the old “it” was going on during the Lebanon-war of 2006 (the first having been the M&W piece in the LRB) I started to click on the links in the only mainstream blog I knew for sure as being pro-Israel. And it is disgust and outrage at the slanderers in their own voice, that feeling of getting into contact with something sticky and putrid that convinced me that it is them who have to change their ways first.
Of course there is the problem that you have to live with them that they are your neighbours who seem to act as capriciously as any Parisian fin de siècle kept woman did which makes me think of Churchill who as best I know didn’t hate Germans per se but he still concluded that we are of the kind one either has under one’s boot or at one’s throat.
I know that for anybody who cares about holding up even the most basic ethical principles that is revolting to contemplate but that’s probably why I never managed to amount to much … (I am not angling for an ethics crown here, with me it is probably just indolence)
“if you give the Zionist and the Anti-Zionist equal rights to their opinion something seems to be wrong ” (etc)
Yes, I think this is a similar point to the one I made above regarding cognitive dissonance.
And yes to the point you make below regarding callousness. I have seen it a lot. Basically, “Jews should know their place”.
“..if you give the Zionist and the Anti-Zionist equal rights to their opinions..”
To be clear if I am to give the Anti-Zionist unequal rights to his opinion, I must give him no right to it. Freedom of speech and expression are hardly quantifiable, and I can’t give him 65% or 99% of the freedom that I give a Zionist. They must either have an equal right or none at all.
I have no idea where to begin in explaining why an Anti-Zionist cannot be denied freedom of expression. Firstly, who would define what Anti-Zionism is? Indeed, who would define what Zionism is? In Israel many Zionist right-wingers maintain that leftists, by virtue of their preparedness for territorial concessions are not really Zionists. The Left argue that the Right have betrayed the original Zionist dream years ago. Perhaps they are both right, perhaps neither. Should we deny them both freedom of speech until that point is cleared up?
Secondly, on which subjects are anti-Zionists to have unequal right to their opinions? In all areas or only on topics relating to Israeli politics? Let us take for example the idea of bombing an Iranian atomic reactor. Would the opinions of Anti-Zionists be listened to because the issue affects them too? Or should they be silenced because it chiefly affects Israel? There are many other questions as to how this policy would be enforced and by whom, but I shall not even broach them.
Because we are strong and not weak and because this strength is a function of our belief in the fundamental truth, rightfulness and validity of our Zionism we have no need to silence our opponents either by denying their freedom of expression or calling them silly names, rather than answering them in a firm, clear and rationale and..yes, polite way. You do not believe in our ability to persuade those you call “fringe people” – I do, not always, but often. However, they will never be won over by our presenting ourselves as foul-mouthed excitable ignoramuses who prefer to attack our opponents than refute their opinions.
As I have repeatedly said name-calling is the last refuge of the weak and the powerless. Thank G-d, as Israel enters her 63rd year of independence, we are anything but those.
Daniel
I can’t explain it yet or calibrate it correctly but I perceive this free speech absolutism, which currently is the fashion, as another good thing that has gone into excess.
Once upon a time rules of courtesy counted for something and there were things one just couldn’t say. That became excessive and people started saying lots of formerly unsayables and considered deeply private things.
Now the Zeitgeist exaggerates in the other direction.
And please name me a prominent Israel must do this and Israel must do that fence-sitter who converted convinced by reason.
Good post, Daniel.
Richard
Anything known about this event yet?
Press and guests who come to the ‘Jewish Nakba’ event in London on May 15th will have the opportunity to make up their own minds. They will meet and listen to Jewish refugees from Arab countries and the first 50 guests to register will receive a free copy of the film: The Forgotten Refugees. Please contact the author for more information: michellehuberman@mac.com
Commenter Sylvia on that blog who is a voice that I listen to worries at what might happen at the event – normally Sylvia is all for promoting knowledge of that hardly ever talked about ethnic cleansing
http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2011/05/london-event-remembering-jewish-nakba.html?showComment=1304907896751#c2039711683384600554
in what respect, Silke? i don’t think it is going to take place in a demonstration format but just in the form of a talk, so i am not too sure how dangerous it can be. I will ask Michelle though. Thanks.
as best I understand Sylvia she thinks it possible that “they” are getting into gear for a (violent) show-off – but if it isn’t a street demo it’s probably alright
I trust Sylvia’s instincts because she is from an Arab country or knows everyday life in an Arab country very well and her predictions are more often than not very accurate.
Daniel
if you care for a real good example of a candidate for becoming the perfect example of the fence sitter who can be won over by reason I recommend reading this lady
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2011/05/what-makes-a-good-lecture.html
when she talks about Romans and Greeks she is most interesting (her husband is a Byzantinist btw) – when she has lashed out in error she has the grace to blog her change of mind after somebody knowledgable has explained things to her as she did with the Baghdad museum looting.
But I have come across remarks from her on Israel or rather the “conflict” which made me abstain from her for a while and still make it hard for me to get the pleasure from her I would normally expect. I have read 2 of her books and she writes even better than she speaks.
When Jews are concerned a certain callousness crops up which I find otherwise amongst the rich judging on the poor all through the ages i.e. discardable material.
Now if there is one thing that might just might make Mary Beard examine her judgement on the “conflict” (i.e. Israel who has to …and only Israel has to …) it would be confronting her with the filth of our 3 darlings and they are far from the worse. Gert suffers from a crippled mind, Tony is so in love with his own eloquence that he has lost all contact to reality and Khalid reminds me of what I read about labour movement agitators of old i.e. the guys on the soap box who are never around when the blood starts flowing i.e. the OBLs of this world who left his buddies to fight it out in Tora Bora while he went for a life in suburbia.
Daniel
as an example of “good” free speech:
currently I am following the discussions taking place on this blog because in a roundabout way what they are discussing concerns IMHO Israel very very much http://www.lawfareblog.com/
the demand to keep up politeness with the slanderers all the time reminds me a bit of the demand for keeping non-violence up all the time. Admirable but
It just isn’t possible – it is always a question of finding the right balance and sometimes one miscalibrates, so what, there is always another day, and btw not everybody is as brillant as you are at serving insults with such a sharp blade that they cut through to hitting the core almost unnoticeable. Others need the baseball bat to express themselves. But IMHO it needs all kinds.
I for one try to keep always in mind what Sebastian Haffner*) said of the Nazi-opposing left (socialists and communists) i.e. that they couldn’t get their act together, they couldn’t find unity over doctrinal matters and thus made it easy for the Nazis to pick them off in street fights one by one, because the Nazis acted in a focussed manner.
*) Haffner studied law and became a journalist and historian. He left Germany because he was unwilling to give up his Jewish girl-friend/fiancée and had a rough time making it in England.
And how successful one can get by rogue behaviour in a way nobody would have considered possible is described brillantly and in great detail in Mark Twain’s report from the goings on in Vienna’s parliament, especially how helpless the law abiding ones were in controlling the situation.
Daniel
here is another example of freedom of speech, pictures from a conference held in the German town of Wuppertal – somehow the courts were unable to stop it.
The banner is “nice” and really really harmless but if you scroll down to picture no. 8 you see a German MP with a lovely scarve who last year took a cruise on the Marmara and since then speaks here and there about the experience. Recently she hosted an Israeli co-tourist MK whose name I reognize when I see it, but refuse to remember.
http://abedkhattar.com/news-action-show-id-6842.htm
In London, though the Foreign Office knows only a General Delegation the website URL claims to be an embassy and PLO and PA and whoever else shares that address posing as an embassy.
The idea that free speech is unquantifiable is absurd, and the idea that freedom of opinion is unquantifiable is almost as absurd.
Freedom of speech is trumped by the prohibition on shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre, let alone by the prohibition on incitement to murder.
Freedom of opinion is fine as long as it’s in your head. When you express an opinion such as ‘All Jews should be kicked out of their country and those who resist should be killed’, and when that opinion can reasonably be expected to cause some people to go and kill Jews, then it is trumped by the same prohition.
Or is Daniel telling us that in his opinion, there should be complete freedom for neo-Nazis to parade in Waffen SS uniforms down Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda Street?
Leah,
I am not certain that you understand the word “unquantifiable” and have apparently confused it with “unrestrained”, “unrestricted” or “unconstrained”. Simply put, something that is unquantifiable cannot be easily counted or measured. That was why I illustrated my point using numbers, etc.
If you are trying to say that freedom of speech cannot be unbridled or unlimited, then doubtlessly we all agree. However, the principle that an individual has not the right to shout, “Fire, fire!” in a crowded movie theater has nothing to do with the question as to whether one group, namely anti-Zionists should have less free speech than Zionists. Neither the former nor the latter, nor those who live in Timbuktu have the right to endanger others by an irresponsible exercise of their freedom of expression. This, of course, has nothing to do with their being Zionist, anti-Zionist.
Hag Sameach
Daniel
there is an important difference – “Anti-Zionists” tend to advocate for schemes which if implemented would mean the annihilation of a rightfully existing state.
For me that is on the same level as, let’s say, somebody advocating for the re-introduction of slavery by for example coming up with a scheme that would give jobs to all those unemployed Arabs
i.e. clad as much in the garb of overwhelming human kindness as my “darlings” love to do
I liked Netanyahu’s speech, the one with all the quotes – it is in the download-version on the right of this site.
http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/PMSpeaks/speechtachmoshet080511.htm
thinking of you …
Silke,
I believe that we are very privileged to have Netanyahu as our prime minister. He is extremely clever, unreliable internet sites credit him with a 180 IQ, which puts him somewhere between Albert Einstein and Gary Kasparov. Whenever one hears him talking in either language the reaction is, “I wish I’d have thought of that.”
Netanyahu is loathed by the Israeli Left, perhaps more than any other politician (Lieberman included) because he beats them at all their own games. Before him all leaders of the Likud, namely Begin and Shamir, had something eccentrically European and 1930s about them. This made them an easy target for parody and scorn. Bibi is as Israeli as any Israeli and as cosmopolitan as any foreign leader. He served in the best IDF unit and graduated in the best US college, there is not much about him to mock.
How history shall judge him is another question and will doubtlessly depend both on what he does, or doesn’t do in the next few years and, as importantly, who writes the history books?
Wife has just returned with fresh rosemary, so I should get the barbeque burning.
Rosemary – I keep one plant on my balcony each summer just for the pleasure of running my hands through it and smell at them afterwards
History is not a good judge, so much of the outcome is luck, sheer luck
and thus I wish any of your politicians in power that they may have heaps of it.
BTW I also have reason to believe that Lieberman is not a bad diplomat – may luck smile upon him also
My best dream for Israel is that amidst all the turmoil your neighbours are in it may acquire the status of the Switzerland of the Middle East
I seem to remember that Lebanon was once called that, so it has happened before
The story is told that Reb Zusha (of Anipoli) told his students: When I come to Heaven and they ask me “Why weren’t you like Abraham our forefather?” I will answer: “because I wasn’t Abraham.” If they inquire: “Why didn’t you match the greatness of Moses?” I can answer that I wasn’t Moses. Even If they try to compare me to my brother Reb Elimelech, I can still say that I wasn’t Elimelech. However, If they ask me why I wasn’t the way Zusha needed to be… to that I have no answer.
I have no wish for Israel to be like Switzerland. I wouldn’t exchange Switzerland and all her beauty for one dunam of Judean desert or a single field of the Galilee. Israel is a tiny country, poor in resources and surrounded by enemies. All I want is for Israel to be the way Israel needs to be.
Daniel
I find to be like Switzerland desirable for one fact only
– that it’s belligerent neighbours left it alone for how long now? and will probably leave it alone should they decide to go for it again.
That’s all, you may also call it my eye of the storm dream or wish
I don’t wish Israel to change her way or do this or that, that is all for you to decide and none of my business
I wish for her neighbours to realize that they have a jewel to be cherished and treated with respect in their midst.
Amen Silke, amen!
Daniel
as it happens here is a snippet from Orwell saying in a few sentences what I tried to get across above
The result of long training in this kind of thing is that whereas the bourgeois goes through life expecting to get what he wants, within limits, the working-man always feels himself the slave of a more or less mysterious authority. I was impressed by the fact that when I went to Sheffield Town Hall to ask for certain statistics, both Brown and Searle [his two local miner friends]—both of them people of much more forcible character than myself—were nervous, would not come into the office with me, and assumed that the Town Clerk would refuse information. They said: “he might give it to you, but he wouldn’t to us.”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/26/intimate-orwell/?pagination=false&printpage=true
the nicer amongst our “betters” tell us, that this is something easy to overcome i.e. just do it. But I claim that they have no idea how off-limits that upper world is to us.
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http://www.xpis.ps/About.aspx
Khalid,
Greetings Khalid my inscrutable Oriental friend.
Where have you been? Don’t tell me you were visiting the old occupied West Bank and you didn’t pop to see your mate Daniel.
Have a lovely Independence Day!
Hi Khalid,
Welcome back.
I congratulate you on advertising your personal details.
I had army reserve duty in Dora during the second Intifada and was very impressed by the your youth’s stone throwing.
El Fuah resident were however much better than you guys.
Hope you had a good Nakba.
Just to ally Sylvia and Silke’s fears, the event you were concerned about on Sunday 15 May at 5.30pm is not a counter-demonstration, it is a meeting in a hotel. To book visit Harif website (www.harif.org) and click on ‘events’
Elder of Ziyon has undug a beautiful video from the time when I was 20 and since I keep telling you guys how effectively we got woed way back then here it is
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/05/yom-haatzmaut-1962-narrated-by-frank.html
I can’t remember this one but others of the same kind would be shown in the newsreels which would precede the main movies.
That they, the Israelis, manage to march in a parade and look so different from what I was used to, so civilian, maybe it’s because the music is different and of course that women were allowed to serve
The romantic appeal of it was very powerful …
Khalid Come Home!! – We miss you.
Ooh you teaser Silke, from the first line I was sure I’d see you in the clip. Alas, it was not to be.
I have left a short but touching comment on Khalid’s excellent blog urging him to return.
http://www.xpis.ps/comments.aspx
I trust that if he does so, we will all behave to him in a much more congenial manner than on the last occasion.
If anyone browses the aforementioned blog and reads “…Daniel, you are a pornographic liar…” be assured:
1. I am not the Daniel being referred to.
2. I have no idea what a “pornographic liar” is.
3. If a pornographic liar is someone who denies about using pornography, but really does, I am not a pornographic liar, but I suspect that one of my neighbors is.
4. If a “pornographic liar” is someone who appears in blue movies, but tells lies, I suspect that there are many, but my neighbor is probably not among them, though I suspect he’d like to be.
5. If a “pornographic liar” is someone who lies in a pornographic fashion, perhaps while naked or worse, I have no idea if such characters exist, but if they do, am sure my neighbor is not one.
now you are teasing Daniel
as to no. 3 – what makes you suspect your neighbor – please tell and leave out no detail …
when I was kid I was quite free to read what I want but wasn’t free to replace my sleeping hours with reading hours – books said reading with a flashlight under the cover might help – it did but I didn’t have the money to provide the batteries.
I assume your neighbor is better of than I was back then therefore my first question is, does he do it with the flashlight?
Silke,
I too recall after being told to turn off the light and go to sleep, that I would read with the help of a slender ray of light afforded me because the door was not fully closed. Regarding pornography, I would imagine that in 2011, most is acquired online rather than in books or magazines.
Regarding my neighbor, and without giving too much away, we study together Talmud which, as our readers doubtlessly know, covers all areas of life including sex. I have noticed that rarely does the subject arise without him going to great lengths to convince me that he never indulges in that kind of surfing. For this and for other reasons I so surmise.
Richard,
I have been in touch with my new buddy Khalid who writes:
“Hi Daniel, He wouldn’t receive my messages. I tried to send some messages but to no avail. I kept getting a message saying “I couldn’t have access..” ”
I wrote back that my impression was that he had not been banished from this excellent blog and that I would do all I could to clear the matter up. I believe that I speak for many who miss Khalid sorely, and would relish nothing more than a good bit of dialogue with him.
Daniel
I am fine without having to read the filth Khalid comes up with – of course I could not read him when he shows up here but distorted minds hold their own fascination for me – I don’t search for them intentionally but if they kind of happen to me I am curious and no matter how boring and repetetive I tend to find them those taking them on manage once in a while to come up with retorts even the greatest of writers wouldn’t be ashamed of. And I savour them both, the crude and the refined.
And that why I think it is a pity Khalid has chickened out after such a short time of trying to match you, let alone not answered your invitation with one of his which if his professions of peaceful intents were true, would be a minimum requirement for polite people.