The moment one speaks out, one becomes a Rorschach test for every quarrelsome citizen with a laptop and the target of every ideologue’s wrath. But, to paraphrase Edmund Burke: All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men, (and women), to do nothing.
Ultimately, those who remain opportunistically silent tacitly end up collaborating with evil. Standing up and speaking out is our obligation as free men and women.
President Obama is failing that mission in his refusal to speak out on behalf of the Iranian people who are finally—finally!–risking their lives to protest the Iranian mullahcracy. President Sarkozy is to be congratulated for having spoken out so strongly on their behalf. This odd discrepancy has been duly noted both by our own Roger Simon and by Ralph Peters at the New York Post.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is also to be congratulated for his grave and carefully reasoned speech. Unsurprisingly, he is, of course, being attacked by some members of his own party and, as we knew all along, by Palestinian leaders who still wish to exterminate Israel more than they wish to create their own Palestinian state. If you don’t believe me on this, perhaps you’ll believe the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press on this.
And then there’s me, swimming vigorously along in my own small pond. Since 2002-2003, I have been pointing out that we live in post-Orwellian times, that the linguistic and propagandistic reversals of reality are as surreal as they are effective. As many of us have now said: things are no longer what most pundits say or think they are; in fact, they are often the very opposite; everything is upside down, we are on our own, with only our wits to guide us. Choose the wrong leaders and you might find yourself drinking poison-laced Kool-Aid.
Thus, terrorists are only “militant” freedom-fighters, the Israelis are the new “Nazis,” American Christians are endangering liberty and women far more than Islamic countries or Islamist death-eating gangs are, etc.
Thus, I decided to fight back by employing the language of lying propagandists in order to tell some incredibly suppressed truths. My blog yesterday was titled End the Illegal Occupation of Jerusalem. Many people have read this and many have posted interesting comments.
I scored a bull’s eye. This morning, I received an email from a prominent Israeli woman, someone I have known for at least 35 years. Yes, she has consciously modeled her work on that of American feminists and progressives who have long been the all-too-willing hostages of the Democratic party, but she is also a smart and accomplished woman. She is learned, eloquent, and does good deeds on earth. Unlike me, she has moved from “right” to “left.” (I am no longer sure such designations help us understand anything but that’s the subject of another blog). In truth, I believe she has been taken over by the “dark side”—and she would say the same of me. She writes, in response to my blog:
“I don’t know who Helen Freedman is or whence she derives her “facts,” but I would suggest that you not publish this kind of disinformation without checking its veracity and certainly not with such an inflammatory headline, so redolent of “yellow press.”
You should look at the Website of Ir Amim, an organization that aims at maintaining Jerusalem as a city for ALL its inhabitants, in which both Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, enjoy full equality in everything relating to town-planning, granting of building licenses, house demolition and the provision of basic services such as educational facilities and even garbage-collection. At present this is not the case, despite the fact that the non-Jewish population pay municipal taxes (unlike many haredi Jews). There is gross discrimination and THAT is what you should a) be informed on and b) write about.
And as for “Illegal settlements”, how about the land-grabbing by settlers and the state itself in the Occupied Territories, the illegal building, the harassment of Palestinian farmers, the uprooting of crops and even of centuries-old olive trees, which are often the major source of income for many of the local population?
I will be happy to introduce you to the right people, the researchers who, unlike Helen Freedman, have objective evidence of the realities in our troubled land.”
I answered her privately, as follows:
Racquel, Racquel (not her real name):
“This is not worthy of you. You might say hello first. Or, at least end with a civilized personal greeting. As you may recall, I was the one who first “faced you down” with unpleasant information about how Israelis were treating some female Palestinian prisoners in 1988. We have both traveled a far distance ever since.
As you know: I have already written, lectured about, “covered” the facts about the various inequalities between Jews and Palestinian Arabs for years. I do not see anyone in the Arab or Palestinian world talking about the existential danger that Israel is in, about the unfair demonization and increasingly dangerous isolation of Israel nor, with the exception of the Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents with whom I work, do I see Muslim people and leaders addressing Islamic religious and gender apartheid.
Thus, with a heavy heart, I draw certain realistic and necessary conclusions that you either refuse to draw—or with which you disagree. Fine. But you really should not adopt such a high-and-mighty tone with me.
You and your many allies in the Israeli media and university system and among all their European, North American, and international counterparts, can simply continue to write the articles that you write. Keep it up and you will become the most successful fifth column that the Jewish people have ever had. You can criticize me or Helen Freedman or Aaron Klein all you want—but it will not help Israel, the Jews, the West, the cause of liberty, or even the Palestinian people one little bit.
I would be happy to talk to your allies who have different information and a different point of view but I usually find that leftists and feminists, (my old groups), are, sadly, highly intolerant, demand absolute obedience to their point of view on each and every issue and, if they fail to get it, start name-calling and then cut off all contact.
Really, with whom shall I speak?
Raquel: How is your family? Yourself? Congratulations on your latest award.”
All best,
Phyllis
I await her answer. But I also sent her one of the comments at my blog. I reproduce it here for all to see.
“One needn’t be right wing, nor a Zionist, or even Jewish to understand what animates those who fulminate over Jewish ’settlements’. One only has to ask the right (no pun intended) questions to understand what their agenda really is. For instance – since there are many, many more illegal Arab buildings/settlements in E. Jerusalem and ALL over Israel, are the people who are clamoring for Jewish ’settlement’ to cease, also calling for Arab demolitions? Further, while 20% of Israel’s population are Arabs with full citizenship, why is the PA allowed to demand that Judea & Samaria become Judenrein, all in the name of ‘peace’?
These type of questions to a fair minded person would be answered in a fair minded manner. However, when the agenda is fueled by anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic nuances, these same (righteous) questions become nothing more than a hindrance to ‘peace’ efforts.
There is nothing more important within this framework than to expose the hidden prejudices of the (in)human rights brigade.
I say: Better this kind of an exchange of views over the internet than the booing, jeering, and physical menacing of lecturers and audiences that we see at the hands of western leftist bullies and masked pro-Palestinian Muslims in university auditoriums when the lecturer is not sufficiently left and pro-Islamist; better this exchange than the more violent ones at street demonstrations in which the violent perpetrators literally perceive the peaceful Jews as “raging and violent.” The psychological projection is wild, out of control.”
Note to the Reader: I chose the title for this blog after reading Paul Eidelberg’s article on the subject. Hat tip: Barbara Sommer.
Very interesting. I am really learning a lot here.
But please don’t tell me that Rorschach was also Jewish. You Jews make the soup, are in the soup, and distribute the soup too. Enough with “them Jews” shrinks (borrowing Reverend Wright’s phrase).
Your “freund” from Israel drinks the famous Kool-Aid (to be renamed soon Obama’s Kool-Aid), she’s got lots of chutzpah.
As for the blogger you quote, also from Israel, but American before Aliya, she boldly used the Nazi-impregnated word “Judenrein”. Being a humble student of the Shoa, this is like saying that Israel will submit Gaza to an “endlösung”, or that the Palestinians will be given “sonderbehandlung” or that members of Hamas are disappearing into “Natch und Nebel”.
Using the Fuhrer’s 2 favorite words for these post-Orwellian times: Vernichtung! Ausrotten!
No, no…see, they’ve got it all wrong. “No Illegal Settlements” doesn’t mean no Jews in the Middle East; it means no muslims! It is muslims who have settled in areas given to the Jewish people by God himself (uh…refresh my memory: what are the land boundries that allah gave muslims in the koran? Oh, that’s right: NONE!) and it is time for Israel to take ALL of them back (yes, that means Jordan, too, which — to paraphrase the Palestinians when they speak of Israel — has no right to exist). It’s time to clean house. Jews, Christians, Hindus, Bhuddists, etc. are not safe as long as there is a son of Ishmael left standing. God instructed Israel to wipe the Amalakites and other tribes from the face of the earth. These are the people who, today call themselves Iranians, Saudies, Egyptians, Afghanis, and occupants of the various countries whose names end in “stan.” As long as they continue to exist, no non-muslim can sleep in peace. To all who think “It’s only the Jews,” think again. The Jews will merely go first. The rest of us will follow. Think I’m a racist or some other “ist” for writing this? Wait 10 years. It won’t even be 10.
What is happening in Iran today is of concern to all women everywhere, all Jews everywhere, all Americans and all Europeans. The most openly anti-woman, anti-Semitic, anti-gay and second-most anti-democratic (after Kim Jong-il) leader on earth is facing opposition. When it comes to tactics, i don’t know what will work. But I am reminded of the time when I was living in China in 1989, during Beijing Spring, and my students at Hebei University asked me “Why doesn’t President Bush say something?” Old Bush and Obama seem very similar at this moment.
First, one little point. It’s a good quote but Edmund Burke did not say “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Somebody invented it, probably after 1938, and whoever it was must have had the Nazis rise to power in mind. In fact there were probably no events in Edmund Burke’s lifetime that would have elicited that quote. The French Revolution, didn’t really work that way.
This quote was popularized by the League of Women Voters in 1944, when they printed a lot of pamphlets or something and used the quote as an argument for people to vote. John F. Kennedy also popularized it later.
But don’t stop using it. The only thing is this is not Edmund Burke – this is pseudo Burke. No larger context for this quotation has ever been fond even though Bartlett’s once wrongly attributed a date and source to it. It would be an interesting literary detective story to find out who faked that and how. Why it was faked, we know.
The thing about speaking out, is that Obama spoke out, it might have some practical effects. Perhaps speaking out, and other things could the probability of success for ending the regime by as much as 30% And all the arguments for not doing this really don;t apply. It’s possible that Obama doesn’t want a repeat of Hungary 1956 or Iraq 1991, but there is no Russian army here ready to step in, and no loyal to the regime army as in Iraq – or for that matter, Burma. This revolution really can succeed. Even Chinese advice may be of no avail. They won’t even be able to stop the western press from writing about this (just like Poland 1981, the only other case where the Western press pursued a story after being cut off. Unlike Poland 1981, the odds of success are much better.)
Settlements are of course a fake issue. It only exists as an issue because it is something that the people strategizing Arab propaganda think can be a wedge issue – something where Israel may be stubborn on but which sounds eminently reasonable to outsiders the other wedge issues are usually various security measures, and don’t seem to work that well with the U.ZS. government.
If anyone was concerned about real Palestinian Muslim Arabs they’d be talking about other things – but the problem there is, Israel might concede the point, and they’d have no more issue. In this conflict, the (alleged) reasons are not causes but consequences. that is the first thing that anyone who wants to study the Middle East must understand.
Part of the problem here is that some people have a notion – worse than a notion – a doctrine – that when you ask people why they oppose Israel, they tell you the truth. The United States has got to stop listening to people. People rarely tell you the truth, if the motives are not honorable. Instead they invent other motives. Obviously nothing can ever be solved by attempting to deal with what arabs tell you are their concerns. A U.S President has to act on the basis of what is REALLY motivating them, and hope that the CIA or somebody can give hard, real information, and if not, GUESS. No U.S. Presidemnt has really acted that way. They’ve tried sounding out Arabs and never get told the truth. The only difference between Presidents s that some find the explanations more or less good reasons. If they find them bad, they attempt to persuade the Arabs to change their objectives, and often teh arabs drop it or change something about their objections, if they find it reasonable they attempt to pressure Israel, usual;ly rather lightly really. But they do NOT call the Arabs to account.
Now actually it would be very easy for a “liberal” to find great fault with Netanyahu’s propsal. Asking for an Arab state to be demilitarized pre-supposes a great inequality between the Palestinian state and Israel. But since most people know the history, they don;t find that so bad and their efforts would be directed to find some kind of restriction on the putative state that both Israel and the Palestinians would accept.
What you have to do about the settlements is make the point, over snd over again, that calling for a complete stop to any increase in I’m not sure what – settlement population? area? – is a completely phony issue. There is no reason for any Arab to want that. If the United States found that as unreasonable as calling for immediate shrinkage the Arabs wouldn’t be asking for that. That is the truth. It is purely a wedge issue – and it sounds like a compromise – freezes often do. The practical problems are not obvious. The whole thing is a distraction.
Let me say something else. The minimal points that we seem to have settled on, are really not enough. What you need is an end to hatred. What you need is not merely condemning terrorist attacks – you need an Arab government vowing to wipe it out. You need , instead of punishing “collaborators”for “collaborators” to get award, and for an Ara government to announce that it too is collaborating. You don’t need a demilitarized state – you need a state that is in a full alliance with Israel, like the Druze are or Southern Lebanon was for a while.
[It’s a good quote but Edmund Burke did not say “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”]
Yes, but the Isha Upanishad, one of the shortest scriptures of mankind (it has 18 Shlokas only) yes says in Shloka 5:
“That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.”
Avidya or Ignorance is defines as:
THE PERCEPTION OF THE NONEXISTENT OR THE NONPERCEPTION OF THE EXISTENT.
Avidya or Ignorance is further explained as:
Man habits earth for enjoyment and possession. The Cosmic Spirit, likewise, possesses and enjoys the universe. Yet, man, being essentially one, divine, and free, feels limited, divided from others, subject to Nature, her laws and sport; and further enslaved to death, ignorance and sorrow. So man becomes frustrated, unable to savor possession and enjoyment due to his limitations. This frustration is produced by Avidya: THE IGNORANCE OF ONENESS. The knot of this Ignorance is egoism.
Corollary:
The ego is the cause of Avidya, the cause of the nonperception of oneness, or the perception of separateness.
Lebensraum.
Judenrein.
Appeasement.
Not much changes in human affairs.
I long ago realized that the anti-settlement rhetoric of the Palestinians is the result of outright bigotry. They simply don’t want Jews living near them. It’s as simple as that. They are similar to the white bigots in the United States who didn’t want blacks living next door. The radical Palestinian leadership will never be satisfied until all Jews have been kicked out of the Middle East. These thugs should be compared to leaders of the Ku Klux Klan. It is also unfortunate that the Pals don’t possess blue eyes and blond hair. Their dark skin intimidates the “elites.” Non-white individuals supposedly can never be racists. They are always to be perceived as victims of white imperialism.
What’s up David? I was missing your posts. Also, Frau K, that Yeke old woman from Israel.
Yes, them dark-skinned folks are certainly planning an “endlösung” of the white folks. Palestinians need “lebensraum” in Judea, and are finally learning (like Hezbollah) the “schwerpunkt” tactics of the IDF.
Interesting blog and learning a few more things about the problems on that side of the world.
It does look insumountable. No matter what the Israeli government decides they end up in a weaker position with either Western governments or their Muslim Arab neighbours.
To the woman named “Raquel”:
You also fail to mention how many Jewish settlers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza were murdered by Arabs in the last 20 years. I implore you to read Aaron Klein’s book. In it you will read of the heinous murder of Hillel Lieberman, a Brooklyn born rabbi who moved to Israel and was murdered by Arabs on Shabbos while attempting to protect the Torahs, siddurim and other religious articles in Joseph’s Tomb in Schechem after the Arabs rampaged through it (September 2000)destroying everything in site.
You can also read of Jewish settlers who have had their children murdered. On March 26, 2001, 10 month old Shalhevet Pass was murdered by a Palestinian sniper’s bullet as she sat in her stroller in Hebron. Shalhevet’s father, Yitzchak Pass, who was pushing the stroller, was also wounded by the same bullet.
And let’s not forget the April 2009 murder of 16 year old Shlomo Nativ by an axe wielding Palestinian terrorist at the settlement of Bat Ayin.
You also fail to mention the Arabs who steal entire flocks of goat and sheep owned by Jewish settlers in such Samarian settlements as Yitzhar, Tapuach and Elon Moreh.
You speak of “land grabbing” by settlers and the State of Israel, but you fail to remember that no Arabs are displaced when Jews build settlements and that any settlement illegally built by Jews is demolished within days. Just ask the courageous hilltop youth who have tried.
You also don’t mention the horrific brutality perpetrated against Jewish protestors by Israeli border police and IDF soldiers against protestors at the settlement of Amona in February of 2006 when the Supreme Court of Israel gave the go ahead for government forces to demolish nine homes there. As you recall, hundreds were hospitalized in the riots that ensued.
You say that you’ll be happy to introduce Dr. Chesler to the “right people” who have “objective evidence of the realities in our troubled land”. I suggest that you try to be objective as well and realize that that the “realities” that you speak of have another side to them.
I think why this is something of a wedge issue should be explained better:
For Europeans what gets them is the idea of territorial integrity and no change in borders due to war or maybe even no changes at all like the Helsinki agreement said. Hammond and Rand McNally show the 1949-1967 borders a sthe borders of Israel, therefore that is what the borders are by them.
The Europeans also seem to have bought the concept that they are illegal, but that is a great distortion of the Geneva Convention protocols of 1949. They had in mind FORCED transfer of population. And in addition of course there is I think the fact that Israel never signed on to that (I’m not sure) and that this is actually territory that belongs to no state at the present time.
When you say something is illegal, saying that the illegality should be removed – ALL of it – is a powerful point, and it is easy enough to ignore practical issues.
The United States has never, not even Obama here, said the settlements were illegal, but merely “obstacvles to peace” because of the ideda that territory or some of it would eventually be given away, and if you have Jews living on it, you can’t give it away.
You can’t give it away of course because no Jews’ life let alone property and civil rights, would be safe.
The argument about the settlements also carries some weight in the United states because of the argument that the settlements cause problems for the Arabs. But the only reason they cause problems are because of the attacks!
I actually don’t think this is a big issue of conflict between Israel asnd the United States. Israel doesn’t do what the United States would prefer – but nothing will change. What’s bad is the thinking by the United States government – the thinking about what you need to do to get peace – the thinking about the urgency of it – that it affects other things – that it is the reason some Arab states do not co-operate in thuis or that – that’s really bad. And then there are things the united States might do because of faulty thinking – that’s also bad and what the United Sta tes does NOT do.
The House of Representatives has voted 405 to 1 to support demonstrators in Iran. Who was the single dissenting voter? It was Ron Paul, the most anti-Israel member of Congress. Sarah Palin once described him as “cool.”
Phyllis, I though you rested, and never posted anyone, on the Sabbath. I got you, bad Jew! ha, ha, ha. I guess you made an exception with Professore Emerito Cinese Dr. J.
“It was Ron Paul, the most anti-Israel member of Congress. Sarah Palin once described him as “cool.”
I also consider Ron Paul “cool”—when it comes to economics. He is, by far, the most economically knowledgeable elected official in either house of the U.S. Congress. Unfortunately, he is a total idiot regarding foreign policy matters. Paul is also similar to the great libertarian theorist, Murray Rothbard. The latter gentleman got so goofy that he adored Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution.
My friends, as I was telling you the other day about Avidya and the Isha Upanishad (thanks to Phyllis’ goodness in allowing on her blog my often dithyrambic posts), you can study, ponder, cogitate, and meditate on the 18 Shlokas of this Upanishad for years. It is designed to move you from one realization to another, and its language is that of intuition (above the intellect).
I had confided to you that Avidya is caused by the ego’s nonperception of oneness. There is more. This separation is inharmonious. The Ego (who obscurely knows himself to be the Lord), falls into relativity, unable to realize himself. The result is discord with oneself and others, weakness, obscuration, the quest for passion, wasted energy, and further death and disintegration. Thus addictions are a quest for wholeness, in a lesser manner we daily play with smaller addictions, expecting to find wholeness from titillation and a little tingling of the nerves (ha, ha, if you know what I mean).
No coincidence that often the same word is used to define total opposites. As such, alcohol, a most depraving poison, in Latin is “spiritus”, the same lofty definition that for the substance of the Lord. Thus, Jung, 3 months before his death, defined the winning formula against alcohol addiction as, in Latin: “spiritus contra spiritum”.