Fwd: [Village Discuss] Israel
Steve the Ghost
I feel that the "Stop funding Israel, period." viewpoint is incredibly simplistic. The history of that conflict goes back for years and years - and NEITHER side is innocent in its continuance.
This discussion is going to be an even greater quagmire than the current Iraq war. Think carefully before you post invective. Carefully research your opinions. Is destroying friendships and relationships worth the stubborn adherence to your preciously held beliefs? (Think about how you react when listening to an ultraconservative radio show, for example....)
Some (many) people will fight, kill, and die before giving up strongly held beliefs; rather than look into background - especially if that background includes elements that disagree with dearly held opinions. Ask yourself: Are you that sort of person? Good Lord, look at the political "discourse" that we're having inside our own country right now. Iconoclasm and fundamentalism of any ilk are more dangerous to our liberty than any other threat out there.
All that said - there is room for an intelligent, careful discussion on this topic. Can we have it?
And my bias, to model Spiral in admitting them, is that the Palestinian position that they are innocent displaced refugees is about as believable as the whole "Weapons of Mass Destruction" argument put forth by Dubya to justify the Iraq war.
StG
From: Spiral Syzygy <spiral...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Village Post] Israel
To: glenn...@gmail.com
Cc: voluptu...@yahoo.com, village Post <villa...@googlegroups.com>
As I'm inviting people over to talk about a topic and acting as
moderator of the discussion, I should be upfront with my biases.. I
see nothing accosting of D's statement. It was statements about US and
Isreal and money and bombs. He never mentioned anyone by name and this
list has over 300 people on it and many are jewish. So I think it's
not really fair to assume it is an accost to anyone in particular. I
invite those who have already acted with personal attacks here because
I think everyone deserves a chance to participate in a rational and
reasonable manner, and if not, they deserve the chance to make total
fools of themselves in public. If they choose neither, they may want
to choose silence.
Spiral
On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 2:16 PM, Glenn Powers <glenn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I support Damian's statements. Replies to village-discuss, please. Damian's
> post may have been more appropriate on -discuss. But, since since Mike and
> Stephanie claimed they were "accosted" on this list, I felt a reply here was
> in order. If you see a message with "Israel" in the subject, it's probably
> going to be controversial. Get over yourselves.
> -glenn
>
>
> Stephanie Sack wrote:
>>
>> Dear D,
>>
>> This is nothing less than an uninvited and offensive polemic. If you
>> want further education on the State
>> of Israel and the Palestinian conflict, I invite you to contact us
>> offline.
>> We strongly feel your statements clearly and sadly betray your lack of
>> familiarity with real-world events and display and extremely simplistic,
>> inaccurate and biased distortion of what's happening on the ground, as
>> opposed to your cliched sound bites.
>>
>> Moreover, the preferred (and more efficient) alternative is for you to
>> stop using this message board to accost us with your anti-Israel vitriol,
>> and abide by the original ethos of the Village Post.
>> Finally, no public response is necessary.
>> Mike and Stephanie
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* D <sorc...@yahoo.com>
>> *To:* villa...@googlegroups.com
>> *Sent:* Tue, April 13, 2010 7:27:28 PM
>> *Subject:* [Village Post] Israel
>>
>> ----------------- The US needs to stop funding Israel.
>> PERIOD----------------------
>> The war in the middle east is fueled by Israeli arrogance and US
>> weapons. The citizens of Palestine and Israel want peace and can live
>> peacefully side by side. However, the Israeli way of doing things is to fire
>> rockets into apartment buildings full of innocent people. If your whole
>> family was killed by Israel you might pick up a rifle to defend yourself. I
>> would.
>>
>> THE UN DOES NOT RECOGNIZE ISRAELS RIGHT TO ACT AS THE OWNERS OF THIS
>> LAND!!
>> UN resolution 242. This is also the basis for an Industrial band I love
>> called Front 242, good stuff!!
>>
>> Anyways, many Jews do not support Zionism, the belief that the Old Testy
>> authorizes Israel to occupy the areas in question. And we need the money for
>> schools and hospitals here in the US. Does any one know how much cash we
>> give to Israel each year?
>>
>> Damian
>>
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Spiral Syzygy
Regardless of who's innocent or not, can you give a solid objection to
why we shouldn't stop funding either side? Is there a solid argument
for why we should fund them?
Spiral
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Steve the Ghost
All this is my opinion. So I don't know that it counts as "solid". Caveat: I can not solve this. I don't here. Hell, I don't even finish laying out my base answer.
I do not believe that we should "stop funding Israel, period." That's too simple an answer to a very complex, dirty situation. If we stop funding Israel then we should stop funding all the other projects in the Middle east. Do we then make sure that nobody else funds any of the other players, either? Oh oh.
However, I do wish that we'd spend more of our funding for all parties in developmental channels, rather than military.
I believe that we should continue to fund development projects - by which I mean: small business seed capital. Equipment. Education and training. This is for 'both' sides. Water projects - irrigation, desalinization, treatment, distribution. Land reclamation.
I feel that the best way to achieve peace and prosperity is to give people a place and a way to make a decent living, and the space to raise their families with some dignity and hope for the future. And that goes for Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and the displaced Palestinian peoples.
This is way too broad an argument - lots of things fall out of that... Cultural shifts, economic shifts, home ownership, governmental policies, literacy, intertwining of interests, etc etc. But that's the 'big' argument for continuing certain types of funding. We gain peace by helping give everyone involved the means to make full bellies and decent lives.
My other orguments as to why we should not cut off all funding for Israel, period, regardless of type or objective are more 'emotionally' based - at least for me.
Israel has been a staunch ally of the US since its inception. Many of the Arabic countries have been, also. But maybe not as 'staunch' (read some of the invective about the US in the English language versions of various middle eastern news sites.). You stick with your friends, even if now and then they piss you off. (Like Israel did to the US recently, or any number of countries have done in the past.) Nations don't have 'friends' - they have interest and allies. Stick with your allies.
By the same token, we (the US) grants major amounts of aid to many of the Arabic countries around Israel as well.
We have any number of treaties with ALL the governments in the region - to just cut any of them off would be damn nigh impossible, regardless of my opinion. We have to honor our treaties.
We cannot morally (in my view, remember!) cut off funding to any of these countries.
Unfortunately, complex problems rarely (ever?) find simple, painless solutions. And this is a doozy of a complex problem, for sure and certain. Sorry about that, but it is.
Cripes, you've asked me for an essay. The answers involve history, relationships, how governments have treated their own and refugee populations. And right now I don't have enough time to go into great enough depth. I gotta get ready for a concert festival w/ my daughter tonight. But hell, that's a start.
StG
Glenn Powers
> We cannot morally (in my view, remember!) cut off funding to any of
> these countries.
I generally agree that funding humanitarian projects is a Good Thing.
But, what about the fact the United States is BROKE? We're out of money.
We need to spend $2 trillion on our OWN infrastructure to keep more
bridges from falling down and more widespread blackouts from happening.
We (the people, local/state/federal gov) just don't have the money.
Printing more of it (no matter how complex the arrangements) will only
make things worse down the road.
Countries have "interests and allies" and sometimes they change.
-g
Spiral Syzygy
think it would be more accurate to state that we should not support
Israel militarily. I can get behind that. I can get behind us giving
out humanitarian aid. All that functions on the assumption that we
have the affluence to spread about in the way we do.. I'm not sure we
do and I'm not sure if the dollar will hold out or if we will be able
to continue support in foreign nations at all
Anyway, opinions are fine. We all have opinions and many are even
supported by facts. I think it's totally ok to express opinions and to
criticize the facts behind opinions.
People should know they are not defined by the opinions they hold and
as such, there is no benefit to criticizing people instead of the
facts behind their opinions. For opinions based on emotions.. well,
those can be expressed in a forum such as this, but you're opening up
to a more personal hit should they come under fire.
We often have reasoning for why we react emotionally as we do, we
often have opinions based on those emotions. To get to the reasoning
behind the opinion, you have to penetrate a layer of emotion and
people often identify strongly with those emotions. This can leave a
person feeling like attacks on their opinions are attacks on their
identity.
Spiral
Steve the Ghost
We're bankrupting ourselves on that damn thing. Hell, we already HAVE bankrupted ourselves on that. Our grandchildren will be repaying the debts from that little excursion. And we went in there on the basis of a lie. Crap. We're stupid.
--
Glenn Powers
"Our race is the Master Race. We Jews are divine gods on this planet. We
are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In
fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle
at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is
to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by
our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve
us as our slaves." - Menachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister to New
Statesman magazine on June 25, 1982
</flamebait>
Bill Doze
--
Bruce Gould
follow Ha'aretz every day, and I've talked to Israeli soldiers who refuse to
serve in the West Bank - face to face, not online. And I say - along with
many Israeli progressives and academics - stop funding Israel. Without going
into great detail, people in this country have no idea what's going on
inside Israel, which is turning into a right wing, quasi fascist apartheid
state. The proper place to discuss all this stuff is face to face, but until
that happens I'd like to suggest a few resources:
Ha'aretz, especially the opinion page. If you read this for 60 days you'll
find out stuff that will never appear in the mainstream American press:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/LiArt.jhtml?contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&
sbSubContrassID=0
Muzzlewatch:
Jewish Voice For Peace:
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
I would very much like to gather together with people who are interested in
this topic for real, live discussions.
Bruce Gould
“The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across The Jewish/Arab Divide” by Susan Nathan.
An Israeli Jew goes to live in a large Palestinian town inside Israel – which isn’t even on the map! – and relates what she discovers.
Bruce Gould
Re the flamebait that Glenn posted, it ain’t flamebait: Jews are completely normal people, capable of all the egotism, cruelty and stupidity that everyone else is capable of. There are three Jewish groups in Chicago that are highly critical of Israel: Brit Tz’edek, Jewish Voice For Peace and Committee For A Just Peace In Israel and Palestine, and I can say that all the people I know who are in these organizations would smile with recognition at Glenn’s quote.
More to the point, Israelis themselves can be quite aware and critical of their own bad tendencies. See Avram Burgs “The Holocaust Is Over”:
Ora Uzel
Bruce Gould
I’m don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but right now Jeff Halper, an Israeli Jew who founded the Israeli Coalition Against Home Demolitions (the title says it all) is being interviewed on NPR’s Worldview (Friday, April 16):
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/program_wv.aspx
Halper works with Palestinians virtually every day, and he has much to say about the present situation. You can listen to the interview online anytime.
Kathleen Ellis
"beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the
white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior
that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
US Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, Scott v. Sanford, 1857
Even if that Begin quote were rooted in veritas (this is still an open
question for me, Bruce's insightful comments notwithstanding), every
country and creed has its radical and irrational elements - even among the
lettered and learned.
I oppose the Gaza invasion, the settlements, and the apartheid state of
Israel. At the same time I oppose antisemitic propoganda. Check your
sources VERY CAREFULLY before passing them on when it comes to this issue.
If you can only find it corroborated on blatantly anti-semitic/White Power
sites, consider it highly suspect. Ditto with radical anti-Arab sites.
>> .
>> http://groups.google.com/group/village-discuss?hl=en.
>>
>>
>
>
--
"Utopia is a matter of innermost urgency."
- Slavoj Zizek
"Life is short and truth works far and long; let us speak the truth."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Ora Uzel
John Stoner
far enough that you can't see the places subject to negotiation, maybe
in orbit around the moon or something. Just to impress on the
negotiators the puniness of their disputes. The word 'humiliation' has
two senses--the familiar sense of debasement, and another sense
meaning 'the instilling of humility.' I think space could have that
use too.
I have imagined a t-shirt design, black, with a picture of a distant,
tiny Earth (maybe including the Moon too) set against a field of
stars, and a caption, 'my Israel,' or 'my promised land.'
On Apr 23, 4:31 am, Ora Uzel <sacredexo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One distinction that I wish people would make more often when it comes to
> this issue is this:
>
> There is anti-Jewish, which is against a religion.
> There is anti-Israel, which is against a state.
> There is anti-Zionist, which is against an specific religious ideology
> within a larger religion.
>
> These are all different.
>
> Anti-Semitism comes from a term that included Palestinians, Arabs,
Bruce Gould
(Since the topic is still open) I realized I can be a bit more articulate about why I called Israel an apartheid state. First, tho, I should have checked the Menachem Begin quote but I didn’t because many Israeli leaders have said bizarre things over the years – Golda Meir, for example, once stated that there was no such thing as the Palestinian people.
( http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Golda_Meir )
Ha’aretz reported a month or two ago that very close to 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinians, a fact little understood by most Americans. It bears repeating: a fifth of Israelis are Palestinians, and close to a quarter of the Israeli population aren’t Jewish. This population suffers extensive discrimination, and full rights and obligations are only held by the Jewish sector of the population. But the ultra-Orthodox are often given dispensation to not serve in the army and receive subsidies. In other words, Israel divides its citizens into various categories depending on their religion and ethnicity, and accords them different rights; I don’t know what other definition of apartheid there is.
For documentation on the situation of the Israeli Palestinians a good place to start would be “The Other Side of Israel” by Susan Nathan. All of this can be checked by the statistics collected by many Israeli civil rights groups. (B’tselem, Machsom Watch, Rabbis For Human Rights, and so on).
For another view of Israeli society and history, I recommend “Politicide: The Real Legacy of Ariel Sharon” by Baruch Kimmerling.