“This will poison everything”
Hillary is rushing to the Middle East to mediate the Gaza crisis, according to the NYT. Everything is being readied for her close-up. “Foreign diplomats who were briefed on the outlines of a tentative agreement said it had been structured in stages — first, an announcement at approximately 10 p.m. local time (3 p.m. E.S.T.) of a cease-fire, followed by its implementation at midnight, for 48 hours. That would allow time for Mrs. Clinton to arrive, and to create a window for negotiators to agree on conditions for a longer-term cessation of hostilities.”
But she can’t talk to Hamas. Even if she could it is uncertain whether they would listen.
Whether Hamas can enforce control over all of the militant Palestinian factions in Gaza to hold their fire during that period remained unclear. …
Mrs. Clinton will not meet with Hamas representatives on her trip, but with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, which is at odds with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip. “We do not engage directly with Hamas,” Mr. Rhodes said. Instead, Mr. Obama is focused on leveraging Egypt’s influence with Hamas to press for a halt to the rocket attacks. “We believe Egypt can and should be a partner in achieving that outcome,” Mr. Rhodes said.
However the damage has already been done to the narrative. According to the LA Times the conflict has derailed Obama’s hopes for the ‘Arab Spring’. “We will be put in the same corner as Israel,” said Kurtzer, now with Princeton University. “This will be an extremely awkward position.” It’s almost as if the administration which was ‘unconditionally’ supportive of Israel didn’t want to be.
In a region thrown into turmoil by the “Arab Spring” uprisings, U.S. support for Israel and its right to defend itself has been one of the few constants. That has not changed, despite the well-publicized rocky relationship between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But by all accounts, the damage to U.S. influence in the region is likely to grow if Israel sends ground troops into Gaza to stop the Hamas militant group from firing rockets into Israel.
“The bottom line is that this will poison everything the United States is trying to do in the region,” said Shadi Hamid, research director at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar. …
Washington has struggled to regain its influence in the Middle East since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 brought to power populist Islamist governments that are more wary of Washington and more responsive to pro-Palestinian public opinion.
In the last week, U.S. diplomats have implored Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. They want to steer Morsi away from taking sides in the conflict and putting at risk the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, which Washington views as a linchpin of peace and America’s strategic role in the region. Administration officials have praised Morsi for his efforts and his seeming eagerness to maintain the Camp David treaty …
Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to both Israel and Egypt, said the crisis appeared close to a tipping point. If Israel sends armored columns into Gaza, Washington would be caught between pressing Israel to stop a conflict that has Obama’s support, or being seen in the Arab world as complicit in the bloodshed.
At last the truth has been blurted out: the ‘Arab Spring’ has damaged Obama’s influence not enhanced it. “Washington has struggled to regain its influence in the Middle East since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 brought to power populist Islamist governments that are more wary of Washington and more responsive to pro-Palestinian public opinion.” This is contrary to the narrative peddled by the administration itself. That Obama led the ‘Arab Spring’, albeit from behind; that he led the drive against Khadaffy. That Morsi was his partner for peace.
Now this! A small, insignificant group like Hamas has been allowed not only to disrupt life for millions in Israel it has single-handedly “poisoned everything” by forcing Israel to react.
As the post The Last Turn of the Vise argued, Obama has at last been forced to choose between two contradictory policies: “he can no longer have it both ways”. He can no longer express support for Israel and those bent on its destruction despite the best efforts of the US media without people noticing the contradiction.
But he can still say one thing in public and another in private. As the LA Times noted that while Obama expressed ‘unconditional support’ for Israel, “Obama said at a news conference Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand, that it was preferable for Israel to avoid sending troops into Gaza, for the sake of both Palestinians and Israelis.” He is basically advocating a ground sanctuary for a group that his own administration cannot meet with because it is a declared terrorist organization.
Perhaps the reason Hillary is being sent to broker the ‘ceasefire’ is so in case things go bad Obama can let her hold the bag and disculpate himself from the fiasco. He can stand above the fray. But even if the ceasefire holds it will not have solved the fundamental problem at the heart of Obama’s policy. He’s promised the same vig to two different debt collectors and only has enough money for one.
The Gaza crisis has brought to the surface the underlying crisis in the administration’s Middle Eastern policy. In the conflicts between the Iran and the Sunni countries and the Muslims versus Israel you cannot be all things to all men. You cannot flash two green lights at the same intersection. You cannot flash a public green light and private red light simultaneously. You cannot ‘lead from behind’ and ‘lead from the front’. You cannot lie in public and lie private, as the administration has done in Bengahazi, Fast and Furious and on a whole host of other issues.
Sooner or later things catch up with you. And that time is now.
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“He is basically advocating a ground sanctuary for a group that his own administration cannot meet with because it is a declared terrorist organization.”
Brilliant analysis. The Won is testing the limits of being cool and likeable without a known set of beliefs. Something our fascist press allows to happen without comment. Obama’s blank slate upon which people may project their own beliefs works great until dissatisfaction causes the abused mark to project something far more negative than happy smoke and unicorn dust. But remember, Obama was Hamas’s chosen candidate so they can blame themselves if it turns out that they did not choose well.
He can still appear to have it both ways if Israel believes any of his reassurances. He could “promise” better support for Israel re: Iran if Israel will back off. But by now we all should have known that every promise of this sort has an expiration date.
Israel will not likely have any more leverage in the future than it has now. Hope they use it wisely. Once Susan Rice or some other like her becomes Secretary of State the need for the Clintons to stay on good terms with the pro-Israel community, such as it is, will vanish.
The time is coming but not yet. Israel will let it’s arm be twisted now in hopes for US aid in taking out Iran’s nuclear capability. I doubt that green light will ever be flashed by Obama and Bibi (as Biden so piquantly calls him) knows it. Israel and the Sunnis will be told to stuff it, Iran will emerge the hegemon and a majority of Americans will turn a blind eye, until the consequences catch up to them. But then, we will have free contraceptives, a President in office whose skin color is most pleasing and a “fairer” but nonetheless futile tax policy. You need an Auden to do poetic justice here.
I would say that Israel hardly needs the US for anything. Anything other than materials and commodities to keep up its negative trade balance. What they don’t need is the US as an enemy.
Because leftists have no actual core values, they are completely unprepared to deal with people who know their core values down to the molecular level, and on one hand, willing to defend them to the death, and on the other, to promote them to the death.
BLAH, BLAH, BOOGA BOOGA — ISRAEL!
The cost trade off for Iron Dome missiles vs the Hamas rockets is not a good one long term and Bibi knows it. Iron Dome provides a short term defense while the IDF readies a knock out punch.
A cease fire helps Hamas and gives them time to rearm while the IDF spends millions to replace their defensive shield. Israel needs to strike now while the fight is “hot” and once they have reduced Hamas leadership and arms stores then they can think about a cease fire, not before.
In a perverse way, I’m almost glad Romney lost. Now The One and his owners can deal with this mess all by themselves.
Re # 8. Jim M
“Now The One and his owners can deal with this mess all by themselves.”
Unfortunately they will try to pass it on you an me. With high degree of success.
Israel’s next move is not clear. If it were just Israel and the Palestinians then a scorched earth tactic in Gaza based upon infantry invasion would seem the best move. Doing so would clear out the remaining rockets. However there is the issue of Syria and Iran….
Truth to tell, we do not want the world MSM distracted by Israel stomping the Palestinians while the Syrian government slaughters its own population and thus solidifies Iran’s regional hegemony. Israel inflicting short and sharp punishment on Gaza’s population through artillery followed by an Egyptian sponsored cease fire maybe the best tactic. Doing so enhances Egypt’s status as a “moderate” Arab state and shifts focus back to Syria. One hopes that Hamas got a good price from Iran for setting up the Palestinians to be “whipping boys”.
Forgive me for asking a stupid question but can a woman be in the same room as the Hamas leaders and not be one of their wives?
#8 Jim M – unfortunately I feel the exact same way…however it will still always be blamed on Bush/Conservatives/Tea Party, etc.
Israel should not agree to a ceasefire, unless it has a death-wish.
Friends don’t let friends commit suicide.
a quote from – The Morally Reprehensible ‘Iron Dome’ – Hamas’s Best Friend
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/the-morally-reprehensible-iron-dome-hamass-best-friend/2012/11/19/0/?print
Iron Dome is the best terror-containing system known to mankind. The only problem is, containing terrorism is morally corrupt, and a society that dedicates its resources to continuing to live next-door to a community run by terrorists is inherently insane.
——————–
@11 – perhaps you are correct, but i really dislike the Hamas-terrorists getting away with it.
I think that Morsi prodded Hamas in order to smooth the IMF money in. Classic mob tactic.
First, Wretchard, you might want to check all the plugs and connections. All I can seem to get at #6 is some sqawks and static. Nothing coherent or worth listening to.
Second,
Assuming that one wishes to use Ockham’s Razor, does that not imply that he either is a supporter or associate of said terrorist group? Not that it comes as a surprise to about half of Americans. I rather suspect that HAMAS will not be able to stop all rocket attacks from Gaza or Sinai. Which means that there will be no cease fire.
Hillary’s involvement in this will be the perfect capstone for her planned end to her career as she goes under the bus to take the blame, no matter what happens. If the cease fire holds; it will all be due to the influence of “Teh Lightworker”; Bees Pee Upon Him.
I am still an advocate of Israel displacing the entire population of Gaza to Sinai, to meet their fate as Allah should decide. The violation of the cease fire would be a good excuse for this. Start by a bombardment that destroys the already sketchy semi-potable supply of water in the north of Gaza. People will leave within 48 hours, especially when the attacks are backed with warnings that things are going to get kinetic right smartly.
Move the process down Gaza in stages, occupying and scraping the ground bare as they go.
Subotai Bahadur
What is it about anti-semitism that drives people into incoherence and fury? There seems precious little love for Palestine in the Arab world. They were expelled from Jordan, cast out of Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War; they were confined to refugee camps in Lebanon. Egypt doesn’t want to open their borders to them.
So the big hoo-hah about Gaza hardly seems motivated by love. The designated role of Palestinians appears to be as the assigned victim of the Jew. That’s his role. An exhibit in an international freak show.
In the end what drives this big emotional engine isn’t love for Palestine. It’s good old fashioned Jew hatred. The day the Jew is exterminated no one will give a rat’s ass for Palestine.
Hate, not love, appears to be the most powerful motivation in modern politics. Man is a beast. Billions of dollars have bee poured into Gaza, whose area is about the same as Singapore’s and all they have to show for it is Hamas and Fatah, two of the most worthless, corrupt and bloodthirsty organizations on the face of the planet.
And the most amazing thing is that these thugocracies command the ‘support’ of Reporters, Celebrities, Politicans and even liberal churchmen. Is it because they like Hamas? Hardly. Do they imagine they are good at governance? Not even the most deluded think that. Incorruptible? Decent? Hell no. They don’t like Hamas or Fatah at all. Maybe at the bottom of it all they don’t even like the Palestinian people.
Something else is at work in the liberal support for Palestine. The human soul probably feels the need raise itself from tedium; to give itself an importance in the midst of daily drudgery. And that need is greatest in those who’ve denied the existence of their own transcendence. For after you’ve denied the numinous what else is there to live for but hate?
Where the flower gives no fragrance, nor the cry of infants comfort; where the sunset is just another nuclear furnace to be avoided and every evening just another night less to live, then why not drink up hate, the finest anodyne of all.
#12 – Very good read and sadly true.
I have always thought that a steady artillery response to every rocket attack was the answer that would end Hamas grip on power and it is much more cost effective than Iron Dome or air fired missiles.
w @16-
I am an agnostic, but this current conflict, and indeed your observations, are helping to turn me into a believer in the Torah.
There is a recent article I saw at WND -make of it what you will.
12th-century rabbi predicted Israel’s future
http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/12th-century-rabbi-predicted-israels-future/
——-
as an aside, any idea why my error in code in previous thread cascaded past my own comment and could not be fixed in subsequent comment tag closing the italics?
“For after you’ve denied the numinous what else is there to live for but hate?”
Thus my vapid observation, the US government is the world’s largest hate based organization.
The problem is not a lack of simple or slightly more complicated solutions. The “Palestinians” were created for a single purpose and until the world decides that the purpose isn’t worth a dime the show will continue. And it is not just Arabs and/or Muslims.
Israel was created on the ashes (and possibly shame) of WWII. And even than its creation was due to a tiny disbalance of after war politics. Now, almost 70 years later is a different story: Everyone “care” for “Palestine”, UN breeds a 3-d (or is it 4-th?) generation of Palestinian refugees actively resisting any attempts to resettle them, everyone wants (or professes to want) a 2-state (or is it 2-stage?) solution,… etc.
It was a very illuminating moment when Shri-Lanka was about to eliminate Tamils the UN urged them not do it on the ground that “they will have no one to negotiate with” if they proceed.
It looks like that nothing will be resolved until some serious calamity.
“Sooner or later things catch up with you. And that time is now.”
I hope you are right.
I fond myself in a strange mood after this election, for which I had great hopes that were truly “dashed” as if boats against rocks. There is gloom still upon he Land, and I see on Drudge there are the usual “let’s ban Christmas” from the secular paganry…
Rush said the other day that they only thing that will save us now are events.
I am a proud American. I feel like I love this country like mad.
But I want our “President” to fail. I want events to overtake him. To me, he is not a real American in spirit. To me, he wants to wreck America and he is doing so. To me, he feels, now, as if he has won a decisive close battle and is now quietly gathering his forces for the final take-down of the Nation. He is preparing – so that he will not fail – patiently and methodically for the last battle. He waits just outside the gates of the citadel with and unstoppable command or Orcs, so to speak. He aims to crush us and to sow salt in the earth afterwards.
I am hoping some event will slow his plans and progress.
I am hoping against hope some unseen rescue is just over the hill on its way.
To feel this way about the USA is….I don’t have the words.
Go Israel!
John Gault – call your office!
Perhaps the reason the Jews played such an important part in the 20th century drama is because they were by accident the litmus paper of hatred; the McGuffin in the plotlines spun by the demagogues. Because so many of them were liquidated we think it was about them somehow. But that is not the case. Prior to antisemitism there were the engines of xenophobia and class hatred around which to build movements — for nothing unifies so much as hatred — but only the concept of the Jew provided supranationally binding force to gather threads together.
They were just the caboose on the train of 20th century hatred. The Jews didn’t cause Nazism as much as measured the temperature of the era. They were correlated with hatred — not its primary cause. Reasoning along that line, my main worry today isn’t about anti-semitism per se, although if I were a Jew I would be primarily concerned with that, but with what that anti-semitism represents.
To me it says that a fever is rising; a fever which though ostensibly directed at the Jew is much more than that. When the Guardian and the British left wing get all so hepped up about Israel and wax poetic over Hamas, it is not even Jew-hatred that we observe, but just plain hatred, of which Jew-hatred is only the easiest to articulate because it is such a trope. The other hatreds are on the tip of the tongue; less easy to say but nevertheless there just underneath the surface.
Thus I tend to see in Gaza not as an Arab-Israeli problem, but the signature of something far more virulent; something that will engulf the region, given half a chance. The Jews are nothing more really, than one minority in a region of minorities. They are the archetype of the greater problem. Take them away and there is are still the Copts, Kurds, Shia, Allawites, Druze and Maronites — all at daggers drawn with majority communities.
But we don’t see them clearly yet because the Jew is easier to see.
The biggest lie ever peddled was that the Middle East’s problems centered around the Arab-Israeli antipathy. That is but one swallow in the flock. The Middle East’s problems center around hate, fed by the hatred of the Left which really all about resentment. And we ain’t seen nothing yet.
wretchard (#16) “What is it about anti-semitism that drives people into incoherence and fury?” Hatred of God! Hatred and jealousy that there is a chosen people and those people seem to have survived and done well throughout history, this is also projected onto Christians, even those CINO have that burning hatred, it twists like a knife in their souls and they can’t understand it but they know something is wrong, horribly wrong inside, it blinds them, it rues their life… very few ever find relief (forgiveness).
“Israel was created on the ashes (and possibly shame) of WWII. And even than its creation was due to a tiny disbalance of after war politics.”
Good point. What separates the Palestinians and other bad actors in the ME from Europe is that the allies pummeled the later into a fine dust during WWII and the former, living in fine dust to begin with largely escaped a just punishment. Perhaps reestablishing Israel in their historic lands was the just punishment that Allies saw fit. What is clear is that the Palestinians lost and what they have desperately deserved since was thorough enough defeat to make the point stick, that they were and still are losers. Not as much as losers as the Germans, the Japanese or the Italians because they never had so much civilization to stake in the first place but they neither accepted the defeat that was roundly theirs and deserved.
For the sake of future Palestinians, the present people must be bombed and defeated mercilessly. It is the only way that future generations can get on with their lives and hope to be successful in their own primitive ways as Germany and Japan.
The bottom line is evil needs to be punished like a festoring wound should be cauterized.
It blinds them….
It binds them…
One Hate to rule them all, One Hate to find them, One Hate to bring them all and in the darkness bind them …
—
I heard that Anonymous is hacking Israeli sites. Great, a Left wing Cyber-Guerilla army. How long do you suppose until those shills start turning up dead?
annoy@19: ”…the US government is the world’s largest hate based organization.”
Liberals believe in equality, peace and the brotherhood of all mankind. Now if only they could rid themselves of those heinous conservatives.
yes… as long as they keep us from being free and can spend our money on their own narfarious pursuits, they are tolerant. We must in turn compremise with thier every whim. They are beneficient masters.
How can Hamas meet with Hillary? They can’t but the problem isn’t that ours, they are a listed terrorist organization. That is a problem of no consequence to this administration which has swept far larger concerns under the rug. The problem is theirs, that she is an infidel female. Now being old ugly and foolish provides some protection. It worked for Madeline Albright. To ensure though that her interlocutors feel no distress something more is needed. Hillary should collect a set of fatwas confirming that (s)he is a man. It would even make Hudna happy.
My comment on the prior thread holds. The “root cause” of the problem, there is a phrase beloved by the Left, is not in Gaza but Iran. If Israel dismantles the Mullahcracy then Hamas becomes something also favored by the Left, a “police problem.”
“We will bear any burden” – JFK
“I back him 1000%” – Mondale
“Unconditional support” – BHO
With support like Obama offers he deserves the sobriquet “Old Jock Strap.”
Subotai Bahadur 15,
Your plan for Gaza resembles mine which I have worked out in boring detail on these pages. I call it the “Toothpaste Tube” strategy, start at the far North-east and advance 1/16th mile each day that violence emanates from the Strip.
grrr 20,
I have made a similar observation about Sri Lanka. One correction, the Sinhalese government did not eliminate the Tamils, who are I believe doing better without Marxist terrorist overlords. They eliminated the LTTE in the teeth of pressure from the international Conflict Management community desperate to preserve a gravy train.
“14. Subotai Bahadur
First, Wretchard, you might want to check all the plugs and connections. All I can seem to get at #6 is some sqawks and static. Nothing coherent or worth listening to.”
I rather thought it was the most intelligent thing Victor’s ever said, myself.
I re: the business of hatred in general. Christopher Hitchens said it best. “Hatred will get you up in the morning.”. As far as hating Jews is concerned it has always seemed to me that there is a good reason -jealosy. In my experience in law, medicine and science, Jews as a group are smarter. They are also more articulate ,funnier, and more creative. I am not Jewish, or even religious. As far as Islamic hatred of Jews is concerned, I’ve read in their book and listened. Hatred and intolerance are required. It just looks that way to me. I contribute with some tripidation to the fine site. Thank you Wretchard. I liked your book
#25 Annoy Mouse
If the Men of the West are not to go quietly into the Long Night; all those who are attacking us, verbally and physically, under the assumption of perpetual impunity are going to have to be thoroughly disabused. Reason and restraint will not successfully counter visceral hatred. Nor will appeals to a better nature work to do other than encourage attacks from those who have no such nature. There has to be a degree of common ground between those who are at swords point in order to find a modus vivendi. If that does not exist, then only one will survive.
That applies to more than the Arab-Israeli conflict. A line will be crossed. It may be an official going beyond what the people will tolerate, or it may be a Defenestration; but once it happens it will go until it can go no more.
Subotai Bahadur
Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye: I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?
Anti-semitism runs right back in western culture to the late Roman Empire, when in the formation of the Catholic Church they were, along with pagans, Arians, and Gnostics of all kinds, to be suppressed. Jews in Europe under Christianity did a little better and a little worse than as dhimmis under Islam. Only post-Renaissance, and for that matter in America, and post WWII did anti-semitism become something widely condemned. Only when the evangelicals in the US suddenly decided that any western faith community was their friend after all, post-9/11, did it start to become rare in the US. In other words, yesterday. And this just as the Palestinians decided to hijack the entire Jewish story, the diaspora, the holocaust, the longing to return, the mistreatment by the world, the existence as a coherent culture and group in the first place. Given the history of Jews and Arabs in Palestine during the early days of Zionism, this is a sick joke. Now 1948 to 1967 seem like the good old days? OMG. Er, so to speak.
But my point, such as it is, is that to see widespread anti-semitism in western culture is hardly news, the real news is that it was absent, unfashionable, for a few years.
–
The actual doings of the Jews in Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (and the camps in Lebanon, and whatever is left up there today) for the last 60 years can and should be judged on its own. And it comes out 99.44% in favor of the Jews.
Re # 21. wretchard
“….And we ain’t seen nothing yet”. How true.
And wretchard, I do not remember reading such beautiful and poetic prose on a consistent basis for a long time (if ever).
Thanks.
Re #27. Blast From the Past
yes, you are right. I am sorry for a faulty memory: I do remember relevant facts and relations, but misnamed a particular bloody clowns.
bede 29,
Did you forget to note that Jews are also doting parents, valiant champions, talented cooks, snappy dressers and gifted with extraordinary endurance when making love?
The worst charge that can be leveled against the Jews is that they attract such a low class of enemy.
Ask Lara Logan about the peacefulness of this putrid crowd. I’m sure when she arrived, she believed she was safe since she’s certainly not Jewish. But a beast is not selective about the food pyramid.
Make them decide their own fate-”One more peep out of you cur-dogs and we’ll blow you back to the dinosaurs.” Of course our blank-slate, teleprompter-in-chief still thinks it takes just a well-calibrated oration. How’s that Nobel Peace Prize looking now?
Wretchard @ 22: “The Middle East’s problems center around hate, fed by the hatred of the Left which really all about resentment. And we ain’t seen nothing yet.”
It’s me against my brother, me and my brother against the family, me and the family against the tribe, me and the tribe against… and so on, a corrupt Russian Doll of nested hatreds all tracing back to the tribalism at the cores of the region’s cultures. Political Islam distils and crystalises this.
As you say Wretchard, once the Jews are gone, they will be on to the next target. Sharks can’t stop swimming.
“In my experience in law, medicine and science, Jews as a group are smarter.”
Let’s just say that any close encounter with Anthony Weiner, Barbara Boxer, Noam Chomsky, or Debbie Wasserman Schulz will prove, beyond all doubt, that Jews have provided more than their share of knuckle-heads to humanity.
It is said that only 10% of the Hebrews actually left Egypt at the time of the Exodus. The rest preferred slavery. The ones that did leave, died in the desert, so that a new and hardy people emerged.
During the period after the Roman conquest, a new rabbinical based Judaism emerged, after again losing a large percentage of the population.
During the Crusades, ditto, large number of deaths.
20th century see previous history.
My point – a winnowing of a people, maybe the smart and lucky survived.
A history of 4,000 years will not be ended by a group of ‘goat-herders’.
There may be more winnowing – who knows -
but from my perspective, never, ever give up.
This goes as well for the US, never give up to the destroyers of mankind!
Re 36. MarkJ
“Let’s just say that any close encounter with Anthony Weiner, Barbara Boxer, Noam Chomsky, or Debbie Wasserman Schulz will prove, beyond all doubt, that Jews have provided more than their share of knuckle-heads to humanity”.
I think it is true. They seems to have thicker tails on both sides of the distribution. It looks like a blend of 2 distributions: smart and… political.
wretchard @ 15:
“What is it about antisemitism that drives people into incoherence and fury?”
Antisemitism has always baffled me. To me, Jews are just ordinary people who follow a different religion. What’s the big deal?
I don’t have time for the moonbat websites but do frequent ZeroHedge and BusinessInsider (I only lurk there and do not actively post). There are some serious Jew haters who often comment at those two websites. Oddly enough, no one bothers to shout down the antisemites after they make their offensive remarks. Perhaps I should but I subscribe to the notion that one should not argue with fools.
I just had a learning experience. I was reading the following Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini
I found the following:
“Jerusalem was the original direction towards which Muslims prayed, until the Qibla was reorientated towards Mecca.”
Again this is from Wikipedia so I have to assume it is a lie. Can anyone confirm that Moslems originally prayed to Jerusalem? There is another Wikipedia article that elaborates on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibla
Supposedly the decision to reorientate the Qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca happened while Mohammed was still alive. This story puts a different light on things, i.e. Jerusalem was formerly Islam’s holy of holies but was superceded by Mecca. Obviously the animosity between Jews and Moslems goes back to Mohammed. The Jews of Israel have planted themselves in a den of vipers. The decision to found the state of Israel in the former Ottoman Empire was incredibly unwise.
I did some searching on the Internet to find out something about the rockets Hamas is using and found some interesting bits of data.
Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have been known to object to rockets being launched next door to their homes. They feared IDF retaliation (and they should have feared being close to those homemade fireworks). Hamas killed them.
The “justification” to some for the rockets fired at Israel is the “illegal blockade.” But I believe the situation is similar to the “horrible sanctions” imposed on Iraq that supposedly cost so many children there their lives and health; food and medicine were never stopped from being delivered. Aside from that, it seems they can smuggle in 20 ft long rockets from Iran weighing over 2000 lb but not Twinkies, Cherrio’s and pureed peas for the kiddies.
Sudan is a source and a conduit for weapons going to Gaza, and the IDF recently has bombed both supply convoys and weapons factories there. I had no idea that was going on, but the NYT says so, so it must be true.
Wretchard #15:
Don’t forget that the Palestinians supported Saddam during Desert Storm and thus were summarily kicked out of Kuwait after the war. Arafat, Saddam, and a host of low lifes since then; they can sure pick’em.
Eggplant #39:
I believe that decision was made by Moses.
Subotai #14:
If you play No. 6 backward you hear “Paul is dead.”
RWE @ 40 said:
“Don’t forget that the Palestinians supported Saddam during Desert Storm and thus were summarily kicked out of Kuwait after the war.”
Also don’t forget that the Palestinians in Gaza were literally dancing in the streets in a state of rapturous joy after 2,996 innocent Americans were murdered by Islamic fascists on 9/11.
RWE also commented about the wisdom of locating Israel in an area surrounded by rabid antisemitic savages, i.e. “I believe that decision was made by Moses.” Despite Moses original choice, I suspect Baja California would have been a better alternative.
Josh @ 42 said:
“It’s curious, really, the temple had been destroyed 400 years earlier, the Jews effectively in diaspora, not to mention suppressed by the remnants of the late Roman Empire, so why pay attention to Jerusalem at all?”
This is a genuine mystery. After the Emperor Hadrian razed the Temple of Solomon to the ground, he built a Roman temple on its site. Supposedly the Roman Temple eventually morphed into a Christian church during the Byzantine Empire. If the Qibia story is true, the early Moslems would have been praying towards an old disused Greek Orthodox church.
io @ 37: It is said that only 10% of the Hebrews actually left Egypt at the time of the Exodus
Said by whom? It sure looked like more than that in the movie. I’d never heard this claim until pretty recently, from a newly “observant” Jewish friend. Their claim was that only those with true faith or the otherwise select, were the ones who left. This being a recommendation for those today to also cleave to the true faith, and a forewarning of doom on those who don’t.
egg @ 39: Obviously the animosity between Jews and Moslems goes back to Mohammed.
Uh, yeah. As in mass-murder (and celebration thereof) of the Jewish communities as written in the Koran. Yes also on the two Qibla business, the Jewish hierarchy didn’t respond to Mohammed so he decided to go his own way.
It’s curious, really, the temple had been destroyed 400 years earlier, the Jews effectively in diaspora, not to mention suppressed by the remnants of the late Roman Empire, so why pay attention to Jerusalem at all?
egg @ 41: Despite Moses original choice, I suspect Baja California would have been a better alternative.
As I believe was at least briefly considered circa 1890, when the entire region was still pretty wild and wooly. Site for the New Jerusalem. The wisdom of the original Zionist project, and the exact details of how it was approached, especially whether and when it would if ever result in an independent country, always attracted a lot of second guessing.
Have to figure the center of Jewish life was Europe at the time, Jerusalem had the historic priority, and Baja was a long way away.
krontekag@35: “As you say Wretchard, once the Jews are gone, they will be on to the next target”
Administrators, scribes, money lenders and bookkeepers, Jews have long been the silver screen upon which the angst of the elites has been projected. In all of these roles, the Jews have proven to be superb players, second to none.
The past few decades have been the only time in history that the outright extermination Jews has been seriously contemplated. Perhaps the establishment of the Titan Moon Trading Company will turn our focus outward.
Subotai @14: Bees Pee Upon Him.
Oh Christ! Coke nasal… unfair!!
42. Josh
one example of the many opinions of how many left Egypt.
YMMV
http://www.nishmat.net/article.php?id=92&heading=0
an interesting take -
Op-Ed: Hamas Takes Israel’s “Poison Pawn”
It is a chess game with life and death stakes.
Israel’s seeming strategic decision not to destroy
Hamas once and for all is simply a response to the
changing geopolitical circumstances.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12465#.UKwlVoawXqw
Eggplant #39:
I believe that decision was made by Moses.
I think you will find it was Abraham actually … at first any way.
… and as for baja california being a better spot … its interesting to note that in the westeren US as in the holy land there is a large body of very salty water connected to a smaller body of fresh water by a river called Jordan. the difference is that the salty body is to the north and the fresh body to the south and both are at high elevation in the USA where the orientation is reversed and the elevation is quite low in the holy land. its even got a city built around a temple with walled off grounds, and the mormons once staged an “exodus” to the place way back in the day. go figure.
Re 37. impeach 0bama, 42. Josh
“It is said that only 10% of the Hebrews actually left Egypt at the time of the Exodus”
Our sages put the figure at 20%, based on Exodus 13:18, which includes a double entendre alluding to the figure 1/5.
In all fairness to the ones who stayed, Egypt had just been hit with 10 divine plagues and the Egyptians were cowed before the Israelites. Still, the message is don’t get assimilated. I do wonder if American Jews would do any better than 20%.
Re 46. El_Heffe
“I think you will find it was Abraham actually … at first any way.”
Abraham went to the holy land at the urging of G-d, the Almighty Creator, see Genesis Chapter 12. Abraham was apparently from Kurdistan, as he was there when commanded to leave his homeland and relatives behind.
“How long do you suppose until those (Anonymous) shills start turning up dead?”
Um, not soon enough??
Folks, I have it on the authority of the 2000-year old man that Moses was a shmo. For if he’d turned right, instead of left, then the Jews would have all the oil… and the Arabs would have the rocks.
However, now that oil shale and sub-sea deposits have been discovered in massive amounts… it may be that the 2000-year old man was premature in his judgment.
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There is a real reason to suspect that only a minority of the Hebrews made the trek: they had to get out of town in such a hurry that they couldn’t even wait for their bread to rise. (Seder tales)
In which case, it would seem that only those within close range could make the break.
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Classic anti-Semitism often occurred in conjunction with the brutal interest rates charged by Jewish lenders to the European nobility. (The common man was not credit worthy, of course.)
Some cases became infamous: Shakespeare, aka the 17th Earl of Oxford, got behind on the vig and had to be bailed out by the Queen. He then scribbled some venom in Hamlet and elsewhere. The Queen tossed out his two lenders: they had to leave England within 72 hours. (That was some sprint to the coast!)
Rosenkranz and Güldenstern were obvious ‘fictive’ dodges as he aimed at the widely hated Rosenstern and Güldenkranz. (At least in noble circles) Not, too subtle, I’d say. Oh, well, they were out of town, out of the country, and had a death threat on their heads, should they return.
Their killer compound interest rates almost killed them. (The Queen took exception to 2% per week vigorish against a proxy for the Crown — her quasi-nephew. The Earl was raised by her Lord Chamberlain, IIRC. He’s the true source for Polonius’s dicta on lending and borrowing: that tract was mounted at the end of the house’s hallway.)
That ‘coincidence’ and others proves that the 17th Earl of Oxford was the only man on Earth who could’ve written Shakespeare’s works.
Yes, the Earl was a spendthrift. He was a ‘river’ to the thespian community. The Queen put the Earl on retainer — an otherwise inexplicable £1,000 per annum — and the rest is literary history.
============
Famously, infamously, the Jews were blamed by the nobility for financing many, if not all, of the European wars of that ancient time.
Of particular distinction were the Jewish lending syndicates that kept the Spanish Monarch on the field of battle long after his funds ran short — particularly Philip II — the biggest sovereign deadbeat/ defaulter of that or any other era. (They not only advanced the money — they delivered it to the battlefield — that is, a contract in Madrid caused monies to be advanced to parties up in Holland and such.)
Handling him established most of the modern norms WRT sovereign lending syndicates — lasting up into the modern banking era.
This facility cut both ways: it was Jewish liquidity that kept the Duke of Wellington in the field fighting Napoleon — in Spain, no less.
Such business was fantastically profitable. Ultimately, the Philip could drain the New World of metal and make good on his debts — losing more than a few treasure fleets along the way. In the meantime, he didn’t have any options WRT interest rates. He was being charged gangster rates, of course.
It was in this way that loot from the New World ended up moving right through the monarch’s fingers into the hands of weaponeers, bankers, and soldiers. (BTW, this was the first time a monarch had so much Hard Money that he could maintain standing armies of paid-for-their-time warriors: soldiers.) (Even Caesar ran a loot-based enterprise — with enslavement a huge factor in the equation.)
========
The other well of Western anti-Semitism was the re-writing of the Bible by the Romans.
You don’t really believe that Constantine would permit a revised and promoted New Testament to blame Rome for the death of Jesus, do you?
Of course not. That’s why the New Testament has this or that agitprop re-focusing Christian rage upon the Jews. It logically make no sense at all, of course. Jesus was turned in by his own intense disciple Judas, a Christian, then.
He was wrongly tried by Rome. He was executed, wrongly, by Rome.
And, yet, after all of that, there’s plenty of agitprop in the New Testament to shift the moral blame onto a people that had zero influence on Roman occupation policy.
The Romans liquidated any and every dim threat to their social order wherever and whenever it occurred. While Jesus is remembered, such as his treatment was meted out to hundreds of unknown souls.
The Romans were as barbarous as the Nazis, let’s not kid ourselves. Caesar’s accounts tell of liquidating 400,000+ Celts in one afternoon — just for the economic advantage of it. He stole from the dead so much he was in clover. This particular atrocity was high up on the list of reasons why civilians in Rome feared him — and wanted him dead.
In the end what drives this big emotional engine isn’t love for Palestine. It’s good old fashioned Jew hatred. The day the Jew is exterminated no one will give a rat’s ass for Palestine.
Wretchard, my brother’s best man at his wedding was a Kuwaiti who was a Gorky fan, among other things. . . . He said the arabs consider the Palis “the nig***s of the Middle East.” And not in a pitying way.
They (the other moslems) despise the Palis, but they use them as a knife to the hated Jews’ throats. Actually, those two things go together: the other moslems don’t want to let the Eternal Refugees[TM] into their countries anyway.
#50.
Well, maybe, but I’m not sure I’d rely on what Kuwaitis think of Palestinians, given what happened in 1990-91.
On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d rely on what Kuwaitis think of anything.
In any event, way too many of them seem not to have forgiven the US for saving their asses in 1991.
(I guess it’s what happens when you find yourself sitting on way too much oil for your own good.)
The very basic, elemental, no-frills tribalism at work in Araby is probably the simplest answer to why the West doesn’t seem to understand a thing about the region.
File under: But they’re just like us…. (or actually, given the amount of lying and psychosis that’s been going on in the West for so long now, maybe we’re on the way to becoming just like them?…)
The secret to control of the Arab Street is water. Whoever controls the water controls the Arab Street. If you want a demonstration tomorrow with 100% turn-out with men screaming, weaping, rending their clothes, vowing deadly revenge – turn off the water tonight and take down the names tomorrow of those who get their water restored. Give extra rations to those who give the best performance. This is how Hamas gets instant obedience. This is who the PLO got obedience. Water is scarce in the desert towns.
Israel should sieze the water works and call for an anti-Hamas demonstration.
Well maybe, but Mohammed wasn’t even a squirt of daddy’s sperm when the Jews were into their second millennium in the Holy Land. Given all that Islam has contributed to the world in 13 centuries, it’s rather about time that they oriented their prayer rugs towards Washington DC.
Josh (31),
Evangelicals became pro-Israel only after 9/11? Good grief, where have you been?