The Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood
The following is excerpted from a speech delivered September 22, 2011 in New York City at the conference “The Perils of Global Intolerance: The UN and Durban III,” sponsored by the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and the Hudson Institute.
The Arab-Israeli conflict, is not really a conflict, it is a war – a war of the Arabs against the Jews. In many ways, this conflict has been a conflict between narratives. We who strongly support Israel have done a poor job in formulating a narrative which will combat the story spun by the other side. We can do better.
The Durban conferences, the request for UN recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, and the general animus in the Middle East and elsewhere toward Israel and toward the Jews, what are they really about? Is the Durban conference and the claim that Israel is a racist nation really about reforming the people of Israel and curing them of their racism?
I think their real interest is to situate the Palestinian people within a narrative of victimization. This is their ulterior goal: to see themselves and to have others see them as victims of colonialism, as victims of white supremacy.
Listen to their language; it is the language of colonial oppression. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas claims that Palestinians have been occupied for 63 years. The word oppressed is constant, exploited. In this, there is a poetic truth; like poetic license, in a poetic truth a writer will bend the rules in order to be more effective.
I will give you one example of a poetic truth that comes from my group, black Americans. We make the following claims: America is a deeply, intractably racist society. It may not be as conspicuous today as it was before. Nevertheless, it is still there today structurally and systemically, and it still holds us back and keeps us from achieving the American dream.
To contradict this claim, one can come forward with evidence to suggest that racism in America today is about 25th on the list of problems facing black Americans. One can recount one of the great untold stories of America, namely, the moral growth and evolution away from that problem. This is not to say that racism is completely extinguished, but that it no longer prevents the forward progress of any black in the United States. There is no evidence to suggest that it does. Yet, this claim is still the centerpiece of black American identity – this idea that we are victimized by a fundamentally, incurably racist society.
Poetic truths like that are marvelous because no facts and no reason can ever penetrate. Supporters of Israel are up against a poetic truth. We keep hitting it with all the facts. We keep hitting it with obvious logic and reason. And we are so obvious and conspicuously right that we assume it is going to have an impact and it never does.
Wow, that piece is right on. I think you have developed that narrative after all. All that’s needed now is to pound it home in a high profile environment where it can sink into the zeitgeist of America.
Great article, but the premise – it’s a narrative problem – ignores most of the Muslim history of aggression against Jews and Christians.
Good point. Unlike black Americans, in the M.E., there is a longing for the day when muslims [I]were[/I] the colonial masters.
Yes, absolutely. Islam is an expansionist faith. For its territory ever to contract is an affront to Islam; for a country to reject Islam outright and drive it out is taken as proof of that country’s special wickedness. This explains the numerous references to Israel and Spain in al-Qaida literature.
craig – I would not call Islam a ‘faith’; I would call it an ideology.
You’re absolutely right, Jack – this world isn’t going to resolve the issues and problems with Islamic fascism unless and until everyone gets a bucket of cold reality dropped on them about the true nature of this so-called “faith.” And the proof in the pudding is the fact that Islamic leaders NEVER police their own; they tell the world that Islam is “peaceful”, but they never speak out against atrocities done in its’ name. To me, that means that the only proper responses to Islamic fascism are two things: law enforcement, and war. Period.
Craig, that component of Islam is just another example of what Mr. Steele is talking about. For Islam also teaches that Allah will order the world for the benefit of the faithful as long as their faith is sufficient. If Muslims can’t keep control of a country, then either the Muslim’s faith was inadequate, or the country is too wicked to live. Guess which alternative a victim ideology prefers?
Agreed.
The problem with Mr. Steele’s analysis is that he’s focusing on the Palestinians–whereas the problem is really Arab culture.
Take away the oil wealth and the entire Arab Middle East would be backward, seething with rage against the West for having outstripped them starting with the European Enlightenment.
Look at Saudi Arabia. They’re wealthy enough to send nearly all their young men to college. But when they get there, 80% of them major in “Islamic Studies” rather than science or engineering or medicine or something productive.
Take a look at some of Osama bin Laden’s rants against the West. He doesn’t start by ranting against 1948 (the foundation of Israel). He rants against 1921-22. What happened back then? The establishment of secular Turkey, and the final end of the Muslim Ottoman Empire.
It’s all Arabs that are wallowing in self-pity and rage, not just the Palestinians.
Until recently, the U.S. bribed Arab regimes to keep their people in check. But now with the “Arab Spring,” we’re going to see what their people are really like when they get going.
Correction – Arab MUSLIM culture.
I’m afraid Rocky is right. Sure they are repressed, sure they are uneducated but it is not Israel or the West doing it. Islam and it’s teaching of hate is keeping them back. A “religion” that is 1400 years behind the times telling them to shut up and obey and that they must hate and destroy anything not Islam. A “religion” that tells them they are worthless if they don’t obey the word of Mohammad exactly and kill everything not of Islam. Lie, steal, hate, destroy is all they know.
Now they see the West, prospering, free. They see it and want it for themselves but have no idea how to go about getting it. They can’t steal it and they have no concept of the fact it would be given to them freely if they would only ask. Islam has told them we are not to be trusted, we are holding them back. Keeping them from the promised land. They are taught that the only way is to destroy us and bring Islam to the promised land.
Pretty good racket if you ask me. The Mullahs hold all the power and riches, the people get the crumbs if they are lucky and it all gets blamed on us.
“They see it and want it for themselves”. Wrong. They just want to destroy it.
“Islam and its teaching of hate is keeping them back.” Not only that, but the Arabs need their “oppressed brothers” to keep the flames of anti-Israel burning.
There’s more than enough land under Arab control (compare the area of Israel with the area of Arab lands) to settle every single Palestinian in comfort. Sure they might have to work the land a bit (as did Israel, when they turned a barren desert into a thriving country), but – that’s life.
Islam was spread by the sword and maintains its control by the barbaric medieval Shariah Law which punishes all dissent or questions and keeps women firmly in their place.
I disagree. Islam started out with that mindset, only placing it in such a way that the ‘converts’, whether voluntary or subjected, didn’t realize it, nor do they now. They feel themselves as victims and consequently need to act out. Muhammad acted out by attacking the Jews of his day, then went on to attack and subjugate anyone else who made him feel his inferiority. Since he was the perfect man, Islamist / Muslims, follow that pattern today and will continue to follow it for the reasons the article articulates. It makes them feel powerful even if that power is actually an illusion. Their power does not come from being earned or respected as honorable human beings, but from being feared by our weakened western idealist. We fear their reaction to honestly labeling them, since when we do, they increase their murder and pillage.
Coeurmaeghan in Twentynine Palms, CA
I agree. Islamic Jew hatred must be faced, acknowledged and fought by the world.
So must the fact that Islam hates everybody, not just Jews.
While this is a good article – and I am all for reshaping the narrative, Mr Steele – be careful of identifying the “bad faith” of the Palestinian Arabs only in terms of what you know ie what black people have faced in America.
It may seem comparable on the surface – and certainly there are many points of resemblance – but the real ogre to overcome is Islam and its enablers.
I was having this debate with someone who goes to a lefty church with all the usual sympathies– but hey, she’s my mom, I have to be nice to her– and she couldn’t believe that I wasn’t fully sided with the poor poor Palestinians against the oppressive state. I finally said, I am for them against an oppressive state– I’m for them against the fascist society they live in. I mean, what else could you call a society that produces pregnant women that blow themselves up? They meet all the definitions of a fascist nation, totally mobilized for war and nothing else, incapable of producing any sign of a civil society that isn’t directing itself toward hatred and annihilation of its enemy. Until we recognize that, that they are a war-focused total state, we cannot deal with the problem. I have sympathy for Palestinians because I see them come to America and open restaurants or whatever, and not go around blowing themselves up, and be normal, decent people. But the abnormal, indecent would-be state they live in has to be smashed and discredited as surely as Nazi Germany or Juche North Korea or any other total state.
Mike…you are 100% right. Unfortunately Shelby’s analysis and conclusive remedy does not make the connection you have that the religion and state are at the root of their problems and must be reformed and/or destroyed or these people will remain victims in perpetuity causing the rest of mankind untold and unnecessary grief.
You have missed the point of the article: this is about perception, enabled thanks to the West by Marxist Critical Pedagogy which posits that social context rather than individual ability define success. Together with Political Correctness, misanthropes among the black American elite and Islam have recognized this weakness in the West and take advantage of it like con men would.
Recent scholars have shown how deeply Nazi ideology has penetrated the Arab world, and it is commonly believed that Jews/Israel want to destroy them, just as they plotted to destroy Germany and the rest of the world in their own capitalistic or communistic interests. I don’t think that political correctness or critical legal studies have much to do with it, though both accept the premises of anticapitalism, believing that the state is corrupted by big business. There is a different dynamic at work in the Arab and Iranian worlds: I tried to lay it out here: http://clarespark.com/2009/09/11/oil-politics-and-obamas-view-of-israeli-history/. Shelby Steele was correct to link Palestinians and American blacks who have been propagandized to death by various elites.
Again, you miss the point. Steele is not saying the problem does not reside within Islam. He is saying that without the politically correct view of Islam and failure that generally emanates from the West, Islam would be even more of a conspicuous failure than it is; he is making a case for the West exacerbating the problem and commenters here can’t see the forest for the trees for some maddening reason. We are supporting failure and not success.
America funnels money to Gaza and the West Bank in it’s millions due to the Western Left’s belief that these spots are full of unlucky and oppressed rocket scientists; has has the most aid per capita given to them than any group in the world – get it?. Solutions are being offered for the wrong reasons based on perception and not reality; ergo the failures of black Americans in education are consistently blamed on white racism rather than values within the highly philosophical black community itself and so a solution never comes about due to the monstrous politeness called political correctness.
It is really disheartening to finally see incisive and spot on solutions to the Left’s dismal world view and see it so totally misunderstood by the very Conservatives who should be behind Steele on this 100 per cent.
Read Orwell’s “1984″: it’s not about Soviet-style idiocy – it’s about perception. Orwell even stops the novel in the middle to preach this – forget the specific fascism in the novel – it’s the same mistake people make that only then allows them to see racism in a hood and swastika – mistake Orwell and you only see fascism in traditional forms. Steele is making the same argument; it’s not about Islam but our perception on how to react to Islam. Without the West propping up the depraved values of Islam, they are no one going no where.
Perception folks: fascism can and is coming from the West – beware of Nazis in pig-tails allergic to scented products bearing flowers and wheel chair access; in their own way, they have shown themselves to be just as dangerous because they fly under the radar of perception and that is what Steele is trying to correct.
Nazi Germany and its propaganda machine learned from muslims.Islam had been around far longer and had already become experts at manipulation,control and domination using politics and religion.
Religion is islam’s tool/justification to steal other socities history,inventions,land and money.It is a parasitic society that has never advanced without war/crime.Notice they don’t create major “poetic truths” about poor societies,they just invade,force conversions and steal.
They are inferior and have no intention of self examination or self help.Islam guarantees their inherit superiority and riches as long as they are submissive to the idealism.They are victims of Muhammad,their leaders and their holy book.
By giving them financial aid you are verifying their self imposed pity,retarding their independence,supporting their aggression and encouraging their violence .
I think that this is one of the worst written articles I’ve ever read. You term “poetic truth” is totally meaningless and carries no weight. Using “inferiority”, race, white makes this article more of a journey into your ethos than a journey into the truth of the picture you try to present. The struggle in the Middle East is religion based, pure and simple. All other explanations to its structure pale when it comes to the edicts depicted by the Quran. Had Israel been a backward state on the same level as its surrounding neighbors, it would not change the nature of the conflict. What the Arab world sees is a 20th century version of the Crusades and can not cope with it. Until that mindset is changed in the Arab world, there can never be a true peace.
“I think that this is one of the worst written articles I’ve ever read.”
Just because you disagree with an article does not mean it is poorly written. I think the article is well-written, but even if I am wrong about that, if this is most poorly written thing you’ve read, I can’t believe you read a lot.
“You[r] term ‘poetic truth’ is totally meaningless and carries no weight.”
I thought it was an insightful approach. The comparison of the Black American experience with the Palestinian one had never occurred to me. Even if the analogy is not perfect, there are enough similarities to make it a useful perspective.
“The struggle in the Middle East is religion based, pure and simple.”
I disagree. Palestinians use religion as cover for a dispute about political power. That Islam is easily susceptible to interpretations justifying violence makes it a better tool than some other religions might be, but it’s a tool nonetheless. And motives can be mixed. While religious fervor no doubt was important to the Inquisition, I suspect a quest for political power also played a role.
“Had Israel been a backward state on the same level as its surrounding neighbors, it would not change the nature of the conflict.”
Palestinians still would have fought to get Israeli land and because they hate Jews. The difference is that they would have won a long time ago. Steele’s point concerns why the Palestinians continue the fight for so long despite repeated defeats. The “poetic truth” (Palestinian myth, if you prefer) offers a motivation and justification for the long fight.
To amend my comment that Palestinians would have won a long time ago if Israel were a backward state on the same level as its surrounding neighbors:
The Arabs generally would have long ago wiped out Israel in one of their wars. Whether the Palestinians would be any better off as a result of that is another question, and I doubt it.
I think the narrative may be useful despite the fact that the large majority of Palestinians do hate Israel and the Jews and their ethos is to humiliate and subjugate. This is because, I suppose, not all hold this ethos with the same level of conviction. The thought is that though many will continue to fight, die and teach their kids to do the same, no matter what, there may be others that want a normal life enough to dampen down their ethos in favor of pursuing such. They will never have a warm peace with Israel or like the Jews, but if enough are willing to accept them, a critical mass could possibly be reached whereby acts of terrorism are the abnormal and not the norm, and a sufficient peace could be established. It is only a hypothesis.
additionally, consider that it is not only the Pals that the narrative should be intended to sway, but also world opinion.
If the Middle East confict is purely religion-based, why the outsized emphasis among Arabs on the sso-called Palestinians? Surely there are deeper Arab cultural themes of inferiority and paranoia at work, as well. And the sympathies of the global Left with the Palestinians are entirely rooted in the victimhood narrative, as part of the campaign to undo the perceived pathologies of Western civilization.
You both are naive. Look elsewhere and you see the same scenario repeated: the Balkans, Russia, India, Burma, Sudan, the Phillipines and the list goes on and on. Its religious and on a grand scale.
This is an unintelligent reply to one of the brightest and most incisive articles about this subject that I have ever read. You’re projecting your own concerns onto a article that is about something else.
moj, if I were a college English teacher, I would rate this article a “C” in freshman English. It avoids the crux of the real underlying cause for the Palestinian actions. In what is now Israel, Arab aggression existed before there was ever a Jewish state. That same Arab aggression exists wherever you look in the Arab/Moslem world. It is used where ever they exist. Look at the United States post 9/11. All you could hear about was how badly the Moslems in this country were being treated. That same song and dance still is going on today. I have yet to see a terrorist attack perpetrated against anyone in the Moslem community. On the other hand, we see a steady repetition of such acts, granted on a much smaller scale, conducted by Moslems against the citizens in this country.
Andy, as much as I totally agree that Islam is the root cause of everything you’ve mentioned and a great deal more (imagine this world without that scourge), “poetic truth” is just a tool of the ideology. It maintains relentless pressure on Israel and keeps the big money coming in to fund the perpetuation of the narrative.
That’s because for some stubborn reason you insist on seeing the article you think should have been written instead of what was written.
It is not about the conflict per se: it is about how the conflict is perceived. What about that do you not understand?
I rate it an A plus.
Where are the Palestinian kings buried? What were their names? Where are their ancient coins? What are and where are their foundation stories and texts reaching back to antiquity? Where are their songs and ancient dances?
And important question that should be asked the next time some Palestinian take on their usual pose as the “rightful” owners of the Holy Land.
Bat Ye’or: The Palestinization of UNESCO
“What does Palestinization mean? Firstly, it means creating a people as a substitute for Israel, which takes over its history and therefore its legitimacy. From Palestinization (like the Nazification of Europe two decades before) comes the delegitimization of Israel, an intruder state in the region and in history, even in humanity. The Palestinization of history denies Israel’s identity, culture, historic and human rights within its homeland, including Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. For the OIC this process is part and parcel of Islamic theology, which regards the Bible as simply a falsified version of the Koran. According to Islam, biblical history is Islamic history, and the biblical characters we see represented in churches are all Muslim prophets who have virtually no connection with the facts reported in the Bible.”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/101486/sec_id/101486
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Nope.. It’s a war on the root of Christianity.. no Jews, no Jesus.. simple
They have already sought to rename Christian and Jewish historical locations with Muslim names.
The #OWS spectacle is a part of the same impulse. How noble to be a victim of someone else’s putative oppression than of one’s own delusions and poor choices.
The occupied victim narrative is pretty much a western thing. Most of the Palestinians realize they are not occupied.
To those Palestinians the situation is much more complicated. A lot of Palestinians have deeply conflicted and even contradictory feelings. They admire the Israelis for their industry and their tolerance and the rule of law while hating their own leaders for their sloth, intolerance and corruption. However, they also hate the Israelis for their industry and their tolerance and the rule of law and wish they could be rich, lazy, intolerant like their leaders.
And of course many are simply Islamic supremacists or paid agents of Islamic supremacists.
While I generally side with the Israelis in terms of the overall conflict, I do think part of the reason it remains such a cause for the Left (though surely not the only one) is that the Israelis often do fail to live up to their rule of law ideals in relation to the Palestinians. For instance, they practice eminent domain against people in East Jerusalem without adequate compensation and otherwise ignore Palestinian private property rights in the West Bank.
Undoubtedly, the Palestinian regimes are far worse, but Israel does not yet live up to its own ideals. Even if Israel cannot admit Palestinians as full citizens for reasons of demography, they should treat all innocent people within Israel (including the West Bank, but excluding Gaza) with due process and the rights generally accorded to Israelis.
One can be ruthless against the terrorists while still treating the innocent as you would be treated.
What private property rights? There are arabs in East Jerusalem because Jordan invaded in 48 and expelled the indigenous Jews who lived there. Same with Samaria and Judea.
Great article. About time. As Israelis will tell you, before Arafat came to Samaria, before Hamas came to Gaza, Israelis and Palestinians got along much better than Leftist media would have you believe, Israelis often venturing into Gaza, for instance, to buy fresh vegetables.
See also: feminism.
If all the Jews left earth and went and settled another planet, the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs would pick another foe to explain why they are poor, why they have nothing, why they are ruled by theives and thugs. They will do this because it is easier to pick an outside enemy than look in the mirror and say “The problem is me.”
Replace the word Palestinian with the word Muslim, the greater truth makes itself vivid. Something liberal apologists never understand. Once the victim-hood sense is removed, their own hatred and baseless self-aggrandizement stand revealed!
The happy news is Japan has never been colonized, and know that the poverty they experienced before globalization is theirs alone. Only through work and trade has that country made progress. Militarization led to failure and lost.
Work and honesty led to success and prosperity.
Let their example shine.
The Arabs are stupid. Iran, a non-Arab country, pays the Sunnis to kill Shiites,
pays Shiites to kill The Sunnis, Pays Alawites to kill both Shiites and Sunnis,
pays Hezbollah to kill Arabs in Lebanon, Hamas to kill other groups in Gaza, and
who do they blame, Israel of course. Abbas does not the refugee camps to empty,
even when a Palestinian state is established. As Abba Eban said “they never miss a chance to miss a chance”. Stupid.
The Palestinians are unique among arabs in that they have bound so much of themselves in European socialist/fascist dogma and their only coherency as a group comes from it. They became “Palestinians” when the Grand Mufti aligns them with the Nazis and implicitly accepted the Germans supremacist theories. They would not be as popular with the Left if it wasn’t for the PFLP and its Marxist ways. Imagine a violent OWS movement that would fall apart if it couldn’t create a fiction for itself and you have the Palestinians.
Imagine a violent OWS movement that would fall apart if it couldn’t create a fiction for itself and you have the Palestinians.
Imagine a violent OWS movement that would fall apart if it couldn’t create a fiction for itself and you have the OWS movement, too. It’s one of the reasons that the Marxists of the OWS movement are so eager to support the “Palestinians.”
Thank God for Shelby Steele and the Grace that God has so abundantly showered upon him.
I seem to remember a fairly wise though under-appreciated gentleman talking about, “The soft racism of low expectations.”
This seems to harmonize with that; the Palestinians in fact DEMAND that they be held to low standards because they supposedly have all these chimeric challenges to overcome, put in their path by the bogeyman.
By allowing them their demanded low expectations, they force us to become their oppressors so they can perpetuate their claim of oppression.
Another problem of the boast, “We love death like you love life” is that it has a particular resonance in the west. You are saying, almost literally, “We love shit like you love food.” However true it is that you no longer worry about food, we’re not going to treat you as grownups.
Mr. Steele’s views are quite illuminating, but do not cover the totality of the situation. The Arabic saying “Inshallah” or “God Willing” is embedded in the psyche and speech of most people in that region. It is an abdication of responsibility. It is utter fatalism. What happens happens. I do what I must because God wills it.
This is how strongmen and thugs take over in Muslim countries. Let one unholy band of thugs exist in the middle of a bunch of otherwise peaceful people and their very tradition and culture says to them that they’re not responsible for what happens.
There is very little personal responsibility in Islam. There is only obedience and submission. This is why the Arab world is in such disarray.
The Arabs have successfully swept all Jews from the Mideast except for Israel. Large Jewish communities going back thousands of years were wiped away.
Here’s some more perception for you. The mainstream media is touting a 12 yr. old American girl who’s built a couple dozen houses in Haiti.
Common sense tells you if a little girl from another country has to build your houses, you’re a moron.
Political correctness says Haitians are exploited and unlucky. This is the stark contrast Shelby Steele has so brightly limned.
It’s all about perception. Dems are idiots who are being conned by the Third World and the eternally angry, offended and disenfranchised in the West and that thought is the centerpiece of Steele’s take.
Don’t be led astray by thoughts Steele’s ignoring Islam or ignorant of it; he’s talking about how we perceive it as better than it is.
Comparing The Palestinians to Black American experience is ignoring the real truth about The ME. First of all The French and Brits were in The ME for short period of time (1918 to 1948). Actually the Arabs were colonized by their own coreligionist (The Turks) for over 500 years. And this one of the reasons The Arabs hate The Turks. Second The Jews have been the majority of Jerusalem population for over a century. Third most of the soo called Palestinians are Arab migrants who came to English occupied territories for economic reason after WWI. The Problem of the ME is not Israel or Palestinians. The problem of The ME is Arab nationalism vs sectarian Islam. Even if Israel didn’t exist the people of ME will still fighting each other. Unfortunately Israel is the one who unites the Muslims and the antisemite western left.
The problem is not that Israel has used too much power against its enemies- It is that Israel has not used enough power.
Israels’ enemies respect only one thing- force. The nations of the world also respect only one thing- force.
The problem is not one of ” narrative ” , it is leaving enough of the enemy alive to speak at all.
21. Menachem Ben Yakov
The problem is not that Israel has used too much power against its enemies- It is that Israel has not used enough power.
Israels’ enemies respect only one thing- force. The nations of the world also respect only one thing- force.
The problem is not one of ” narrative ” , it is leaving enough of the enemy alive to speak at all.
One of the reasons I favor the creation of a Palestinian state, is then their next terrorist attack on Israel won’t be an internal matter of the Israeli state; but an act of war by one sovereign state upon another. Which would allow a far stronger response on the part of the Israelis.
The ” Palestinians ” already have 3 states. The whole concept of ” Palestinian ” is simply nazism in a turban.
Andy Gump @ 4
Exactly right.
The ‘Palestinians’ are the anti-Israel, created and supported by the arab world to destroy Israel when conventional forces could not do so. These ‘weaponized’ fallen humans’ entire identity is built upon the negation and death of the Jews and the destruction of their reborn state.
Where are the Palestinian kings buried? What were their names? Where are their ancient coins? What are and where are their foundation stories and texts reaching back to antiquity? Where are their songs and ancient dances?
Their only king died of AIDS in a Paris hospital a few years back and is buried in concrete block in Ramallah.
This is a story of the Arab Islamic war against he Jews. The Palestinians are merely the latest vector.
An excellent article.
There is no such thing as a palestinian people. Tell that to them and they do not hear it. Ask them to name a pal before the Egyptian Arafat and they do not hear it. Ask them what currancy the pals used – their archealogical sites or written history and they do not hear it. The whole thing is a lie to steal Jewish history and their claim to the land. It’s utter hyposcrisy.
To the left in all western countries – ask them to demand that the arabs give back the land they’ve stolen over the last 1400 years and they don’t hear it. Ask them why they don’t demand that Persia be given back to the Persians – Egypt to the Egyptians (Copts) – Iraq to the Babylonians – Assyria and the rest and they make no answer. It’s utter hyposcrisy.
In Islam it is OK to lie to the Infidel. Plus, the god of the Kaaba, and Muhammad demand Muslims take back land that was once held by same.
Moon god worship is a curse on the world, and as the CFR American controled government continues to arm the PLO, America will be cursed with over the top storms, and earthquakes.
If the Palestinians laid down their arms there would be no more violence if the Jews laid down their arms there would be no more Jews.
Were I in charge the Palestinians would have many valid complaints about persecution. I would give the whole bunch 30 days to be clear of the borders of Israel and require Jordan, Syria and Saudi to accept all who wished to emigrate. The world would be on notice that an attack on Israel was an attack on the USA, and would receive a draconian(nuclear) response. The “Mideast Peace Process” would consist of arabs moving back to the desert to do whatever it is that arabs do in the desert. And they would have to do it unarmed, because all arabs with guns would be fair game;no tags or limits.Coupled with a $100 bounty many Israelis could make a decent living from that sort of immigration policy. I do have one question: Why, obnoxious as they are, did God make so many cockroaches, rattlesnakes and arabs?
Arabs are the children of Ishmael. They plaque the world because Sarah and Abraham disobeyed God and tried to get around what God promised them – a child. They just figured they knew better than God and this is the results of that disobedience.
I think people often conflate human rights with ‘national rights’ or rights to a country.
The Arabs who call themselves ‘Palestinian’ have human rights (though Israelis think they do more so than the actual ‘Palestinian’ leaders).
By what stretch, however, are they entitled to ‘national rights’?
The UN’s recognition of Israel in 48 did nothing to guarantee its existence. She would have been wiped out at birth if not for a successfully waged war.
The UN can express its belief that a people deserve statehood, but it is up to the interaction between those people and their neighbors that will determine if a state is actually born and survives.
It should be obvious that the ‘Palestinians’ are among the least deserving people on the face of the earth for a state. In this little bit of territory, the ‘Palestinians’, by being openly genocidal, have made this conflict over land into a zero sum game.
They will never win.
They don’t want a state and have openly said so. It’s just part of the long-term plan to destroy Israel. Should they reach their goals they have openly stated that the entire landmass of Israel would be called Jordan and they would call themselves Jordanians.
On the attitude of teh “West” and Western media to ward the Palestinians, Trak Fatah pu it very well.
He calls it “The racism of reduced expectations”
Heaven forbid that the Palestinians be called on their racism and antisemitism – one can’t expect better of them…
Perhaps one can ascribe to this attiude the avoidance of the contents of the Hamas Charter (all lands conquered for Islam are a holy Muslim Wqf for all time – Spain, Greece, the Balkans, etc; The tree and the rock: “O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come kill him”), and of the PLO Charter of 1964 (in which they renounce all claims to the West Bank and Gaza), constant incitement to Jew hatred (descendents of apes & pigs), refusal to negotiate in good faith, and constant returning instead of peace for land, more murders of innocents.
there’s clearly a large amount of pro israeli ego flying around here and until such time as people learn to be more humble, forgiving and loving towards their neighbours then this charade will carry on in-perpetuity.
All this boils down to is israel STEALING and making Palestinians HOMELESS – where’s the religious connotations in that? Thats Right, THERE IS NONE!
They attack Palestine constantly and then have the audacity to tell the rest of the world that Palestine attacked them, SERIOUSLY???
How can you POSSIBLY even compare racism in america with the murder, victimisation, invasion and theft of palestinians and THEIR land.
I wonder who will be the first to call me anti semitic? funnily enough a term concocted by israelis to be used against anyone who went against their agenda/beliefs!
All this boils down to is israel STEALING and making Palestinians HOMELESS – where’s the religious connotations in that? Thats Right, THERE IS NONE!
At the same time as the Palestinians left the Mandate – on the urging of their “leaders”, the Arab World was expelling all the Jews that resided in their various states. Somehow, someway the tiny state of Israel has managed to absorb all their coreligionists (sort of like Germany absorbed the millions of ethnic Germans expelled from Central Europe). Meanwhile the Arabs could find no room for their “brother Arabs”.
They attack Palestine constantly and then have the audacity to tell the rest of the world that Palestine attacked them, SERIOUSLY???
How can you POSSIBLY even compare racism in america with the murder, victimisation, invasion and theft of palestinians and THEIR land.
I wonder who will be the first to call me anti semitic? funnily enough a term concocted by israelis to be used against anyone who went against their agenda/beliefs!
Your anti-semitism is obvious. But so is your God awful historical stupidity. You’re exactly the kind of person Steel was talking about. Though I seriously doubt that you’d be able to understand why.
I don’t read minds so I don’t know if you dislike Jews or not; the point is that unless you can contextualize such a post with mentioning the thousands of rockets that have flown out of Gaza against Israel, you are guilty of the same decontextualization you accuse us of.
Again, this article is about perception, something you have just miserably failed at. Jews came to the Mandate of Palestine because they hated Arabs? Palestinians are guilty of at least equal hatred and the only reason they look good to you now is because they lost and are helpless. They had a chance to win and tried to and it is easily surmised that Jews would’ve suffered much more in the aftermath of Arab victory than Jewish since there are no human rights in Islam that would’ve stayed victorious Arab hands.
As far as racism in America, there are far more murders committed by philosophically segregated (95% Obama) black folks in America each year than doled out by Israelis and the deaths in Gaza and the West Bank look like nothing in comparison. Get your comparative logic and semantics on straight and a few facts may follow in your wake and stick to your mudflaps.
” I wonder who will be the first to call me anti semitic? ”
I will.
You are also someone who I would bet does not have a library card in his wallet.
I love this kind of post. You’re dead wrong and know it. Still, you have the testicular fortitude to make such a statement. Please when you make such statements back them up with some substantial argument, give me numbers or facts. I would love to debate you on this or any other topic provided that you are not bombastic and be factual.
Andy, You may find it fun to debate someone like Paul and thats ok but you have no chance of changing his opinion. How can you when it is based on fantasy and falsehood? His mind is immune to facts and logic.
For myself I prefer the position of Maimonides, who came to the following conclusion 1,000 years ago-
” I seek no victory- for the honor of my soul and character consists in deviating from the paths of fools but not in conquering them. ”
MBY
The late 20th and early 21st centuries will be remembered as the age of victimhood. It pays to be a victim. As long as it pays, things won’t change. Thanks for a very lucid essay.
C
There is just one point in your interesting article I’d like to question.
You write … because the Western world was once colonial, was once racist, did practice white supremacy, and is so ashamed of itself and so vulnerable to those charges, that they are not going to say a word. They are not going to say what they really think and feel about what is so obvious about the circumstances among the Palestinians.
So whereas the colonialism along with the racism was in Africa and Asia where is the Western World’s concern about the oppressed Africans in Darfur, the Christian communities of Nigeria and other places, to assuage their ashamed psyche?
Why does this behaviour only occur with regard to the Palestinians? Perhaps because Jews are involved?
It is interesting to read former Sudanese child slave Simon Deng’s speech at the Durbin Conference:
United Nations: Accessory to Slavery and other crimes against humanity
So because the Western World is ashamed for colonialism and racism it helps the Arabs blame Israel?
They feel no need for truth because they closed the gates to escape from death for millions of Jews in Europe, because of bigoted and hypocritical behaviour.
First of all, the English had a famous disdain for the French in the 19th century and wars over land in France for centuries before that. Was that racial supremacy? Of course not. Why then is any conquest or cultural disdain if a skin color is different considered some evil racial supremacist notion? The English admired technology and advanced cultures and if their had been one that just happened to be black and if it successfully defended itself against all comers, it is unlikely the English would have considered themselves endemically superior.
Secondly, there are no pure Arabs in Northern Sudan. This is a myth based on a cultural Islamic conceit that values the idea of Arab blood but which in fact is not present except in a highly diluted form. In effect, it is black folks against black folks, religion against religion. The racial aspect is overstated and the cultural and religious difference understated.
There is no Arab regime in Khartoum; there is a regime that plays at and styles itself Arab. In fact, Africans in the North are oppressing Africans in the South.
The word oppressed is constant, exploited
this is quite purposeful because aggression in warfare, murdering the “other” in ISLAM is only Allah Approved if Muslims feel “oppressed”
the truth died long ago-those who heard it know and remember- those who did not hearit, will never hear it becasue they are (spiritiually and factually) deaf.
The big lie worked many times- it is working now
………………………….
I am diasspointed in this essay as it assumes the lie told is real- the co-opting of racial struggle as a weapon- the fact is JEWs are multicolored and brown as Arabs – and thereis nothing racist about resisting people who want you and yours “in the sea” for wahtever reason – it has never been about land or the lands offered and given would have brought peace, it has never been about race-
as for being humiliated the Fakestinians are only humiliated by their OWN- the Muslims keep them in degradation and Israel does not. Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Libya- theyare less than 2nd class and not citizens even though BORN THERE. FAkestinains are just a weapon of the larger UMMAH it’s the ISLAM- not changed since they occupied MEDINA and stole the JEWS lands in 666.
You are disappointed in the essay because you simply don’t get it and the Gump below here still hasn’t figured out, even after consulting with his wife, that an exercise in perception in and of itself has nothing to do with writing and his criticism of the essay nothing to do with the essay.
You’d better put on better goggles than this if you want to beat Obama because the danger of the Dems isn’t about what they do but how they gerrymander those facts to look like something entirely different. If Obama’s corrupt rise to power in Illinois and his 20 years in a racist anti-white church was simply accepted at face value, he wouldn’t be President in the first place.
Steele is talking about the spin the Left puts on anything they favor that makes bad and incompetent people look moral and like saviours. In fact, many the Left favors as a default position are depraved examples of failure, corrupt values and sometimes simple stupidity.
Well I was assailed last night by my wife chastising me for not seeing that this was a “good” paper and made some real points. Although I still don’t see it, however I have to defer to my wife being that she is NEVER wrong. I have decided to re-grade your effort and now give it a “C+”. Welcome to the world of the writer. There will always be somebody who disagrees with you or fails to see your point. Don’t despair, it comes with the territory. I would like to make one suggestion. That is don’t be afraid of creating controversy. Its a lot more fun that way.
There never was a Palestinian country. However we know that Israel and Judea have lived in that part of the world for centuries. I am so tired of the white race being blamed for the ills of the world. The first black slave in America was owned by a black man. You can still; go to Africa and the Middle East and still buy mostly black slaves being sold by other blacks and the same with the muslims!
Freedom, schmeedom…there is no freedom in the world, there are only welfare states which _require_ the politico-economic oppression of every wage earner for the benefit of politicized thieves. Since enriching thieves with the honest earnings of working people cannot fail to produce the welfare state’s typical social animosity and economic disaster, stereotypes are necessary to blind the population as to cause of the chaos.
Some class or ethnicity must be stereotyped as “oppressors,” along with the corollary “victim” class/ethnicity stereotypes to artificially validate the paycheck welfare state’s “redistribution;” otherwise the welfare state’s paycheck confiscation would be recognized AS oppression, not its remedy. The stereotype of “oppressors” artificially validates the enforced political theft and the stereotype of “victims” encourages taxpayers to vote for welfare state politicians, who they believe need the confiscated paychecks to establish”justice and equality,” although the actuality is that these political elites are funding their own outrageous lifestyles, not to mention buying votes with food stamps and ethnic favoritism and campaign contributions with corporate favoritism. The stereotype of “oppressors” also serves as the typical welfare state scapegoat, taking the blame for every welfare state adversity, from job loss to ethnic hate. The choice of every person in every welfare state is NOT what to do with one’s non-existent freedom, rather when welfare state politicians are encouraged by an ignorant majority to confiscate whatever they need, to control everything they want in the name of “justice and equality,” the only choice is whether to waste one’s life working for thieves or become one.
“Resolving oppression” with the welfare state’s paycheck confiscation and redistribution, money that travels primarily from honest working pockets to political pockets, is the only means by which oppressive political scum can get their hands on EVERYONE’S money. The shame of their global success has nothing to do with income or ethnic differences but with the conniving greed of the elite few and the monumental stupidity of the rest.
We keep hitting it with obvious logic and reason. And we are so obvious and conspicuously right that we assume it is going to have an impact and it never does.
I think people know that the Palestinian As Victim trope is largely artificial and contrived.
And choose to suppress what they know to disguise anti-Semitism, or in the name of having a victim, an underdog.
These narratives, these poetic truths, are the source of their power. Focusing on the case of the Palestinians, who would they be if they were not victims of white supremacy? They would just be poor people in the Middle East. They would be backwards. They would be behind Israel in every way.
That’s true. The 2005 film Paradise Now demonstrates that in spades, whether or not that was the intent of the filmmakers.
This is the real story of the Palestinians and of the Middle East. They will never be reached by reason until they are somehow able to get beyond bad faith, to get beyond this sort of poetic truth that they are the perennial victims of an aggressive and racist Israeli nation.
Refreshing truth.
It is always the Palestinians who suffer, and will continue to suffer, because all of their energy is going into the avoidance of their situation rather than into being challenged by it and facing into it.
The exact situation of the American liberal.
As Osama bin Laden claimed: in the West, you are all afraid of death, but we love death.
“We love death as much as you love life.”
Morons.
I think fighting the myth is OK, but IMO it ignores where the myth came from. To put it another way “Why is there a Palestinian Narrative”?
When Israel was formed they were attacked. This created refugees and the refugee issues were resolved. Some refugees stayed in Israel, many went back to their countries. If we were transported back in time and were witnessing these events, whatever side one was on in the contentious aftermath, there would be no notion of Palestinians and the word, and the narrative, Palestinian would not be part of anyone’s thoughts, arguments or discussions.
This would also be true if we were transported back to any of the times at the end of any of the Wars fought between Israel and other countries – up to and including the Wars that resulted in the Israeli control of the Sinai and the former Jordanian territory called the left bank in 1964. Many arguments, many sides – either pro or against Israel- many refugee issues to solve for better or worse. But no word Palestinian and no Palestinian Narratives.
This would change after the 1972 Wars. For here the Palestinian Narrative is created and born. In 1972 a new group – a Western and European left-wing radical group named Black September fresh from its actions against Israeli athletes, comes to Mideast and renames itself Al Fatah. It is a radical group of the Western doctrinal Left and spent most of its time in Europe blowing up cafes in Germany and France. It worked closely with the Baader-Meinhof group and was part of the Red Army Faction.
But in 1972 they establish their Mideast presence by attacking Israeli athletes and come to the Mideast and rename themselves Al Fatah. Here to go to several Mideast Countries – Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon – recruit followers and try to over throw the Arab Governments.
In each case they lose, are violently expelled from the countries and settle in Gaza and the left bank. And it is here that the Left, the Western Left, all on cue pull off one of its greatest Popular Front operations and deceptions. Now are these refugees Palestinians and an historic narrative is created establishing an identity going back to the founding of Israel, and covering all the prior resolved refugees issues by making them part of the history of the Palestinians.
Never again will any actual and future refugee issues be solved. And now all over the World the left is busy doing all it can – especially in academia – to support their Left comrades.
The Palestinian Narrative is but one operation of the Left against Israel. A new historic revisionism comes into being, thousands of human rights committees, associations and organizations are formed.
The left takes the driver’s seat. And they hold it until the growth of Iranian power, Hamas and Hezbollah.
But, of course, there are no Palestinians. And that we are discussing it and but a sign of the Left’s Dominance.
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