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France Welcomes Christians

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Clarissa

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France is offering asylum to Christians fleeing ISIS in Iraq. For some strange reason, whenever I say that the same can be done for Palestinians, people become annoyed and start twitching uncontrollably in mute anger.

Maybe that’s because Palestinians and Iraqi Christians are so fundamentally different that safety, shelter , good living conditions and a chance to settle in a very rich country is not something that can possibly interest Palestinians. No, they are above such trivial things. The real help to them consists of rich, well-fed people who live in complete safety marching in the streets, yelling “Death to Israel!” Christians, on the other hand, merit a more substantial aid than “Death to ISIS!” marches.

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52 responses to “France Welcomes Christians”

Shakti

July 30, 2014

Tetchy, tetchy.
France isn’t terrible welcoming to immigrants. One of my high school friends wrote a very sarcastic article about how nice the police were in following him around all the time. As a precaution, he and a couple other of the guys took to wearing suits on the flight from Paris to mute the “international terrorist” signal they radiated.

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 30, 2014
  
  Oh, I don’t mean Palestinians should be welcomed just by France. I am convinced that all of the people who are dedicating a lot of their valuable Facebooking time to expressing solidarity with Palestinians will be delighted to spend that time helping Palestinians move into their communities, find jobs, learn the language.
  
  I just saw a bunch of pro-Palestinian Facebook messages posted by somebody who has spent the last decade bellyaching about “those effing Arabs who keep moving into good neighborhoods and destroying them” but I’m sure that love for Palestinians will win out in the end.
  
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twicerandomly

July 30, 2014

For me, the difference is in the way agency is expressed. Your comment suggested people “bring over” Palestinian families, as if they are sacks of potatoes, while the statement from France claimed they were ready to “help facilitate asylum”, “if they so desire”. You may be expressing the same sentiment the French were, but it came across a little differently. Also, although I think developed countries should do more to help refugees (unlike the Harper government), the answer to these wars is not to have states break into smaller and smaller pieces, so that every little ethnic group has its own tiny little country. Or is it?

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 30, 2014
  
  Yes, I’m not a bureaucrat crafting a policy but that’s hardly the point.
  
  “Also, although I think developed countries should do more to help refugees (unlike the Harper government), the answer to these wars is not to have states break into smaller and smaller pieces, so that every little ethnic group has its own tiny little country.”
  
  – So you are against the two-state solution for Israel/Palestine? I also believe that although it is a good idea, it’s completely impractical and it’s time to accept that it’s not going to happen.
  
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  1. twicerandomly
    
    July 30, 2014
    
    I used to think the two state solution was a good idea, but, like you, I think it’s time to accept it’s not going to happen. I don’t know what the answer is. Often, people in the West are sure they know how to improve other countries, without really understanding the entire context. I used to think that Jews were right to want their own country, for safety, but now it seems obvious that having a country is not nearly enough to guarantee safety. There is no safety. Not just for Jews, for everybody.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      July 31, 2014
      
      The two state solution is not realistic at the moment. If we look at the map, it becomes obvious that this would require massive resettlement because there is no specific and concrete Palestinian territory. This is clearly not the case of, say, Catalonia or Quebec. This is more similar to the India / Pakistan Partition. And we all know how traumatic that was – and still is.
      
      As for safety, Israel is, tragically, one of the least safe places for Jews in the world (among places with massive Jewish populations.)
      
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2. el
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  First of all, people are not interested in having their own country only for safety. Second, there is no guaranteed safety anywhere, but having your country often helps with that. Today Jews are told to be careful with identifying one as Jewish clothing, if they visit France. Kosher slaughter is forbidden by Left (I suppose), while Right is always glad to blame the Other for all wrongs. Look at Hungary and France. A person visited Germany, while hiding he was Jewish, and while talking with people in pubs encountered horrible antisemitism. I don’t think without Israel it would be different.
  
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3. Shakti
  
  August 20, 2014
  
  On the topic of providing real substantive help to immigrants I Hate You For Making Me Look Like A Jerkhole
  A family takes in another immigrant family, and people angrily threaten them and their business.
  
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Stringer Bell

July 30, 2014

i have the feeling that people snap at you here not for your so-called solutions, but for your broader fence-sitting stance re: the Israel-Palestine issue.

You’re such a staunch defender of human rights. You were so proud of your 2 year old niece for constructing her own personal space at such a young age, and not letting strangers touch her. Yet, nary a peep from you at a whole population not being allowed the basic freedom of movement, being forced to live in sub-human living conditions at gunpoint by a nuclear armed state. “But hey, both sides”.

Asking people to sign petitions to support Ukraine. Sneering at them for daring to express any sympathy towards Palestinians. “Solve the middle east crisis or shut the fuck up, you do-gooder hippies!”

Look, I’m sure you’re being rational and analytical here, but your curious silence in this matter has been disappointing to me, especially when you’ve had a long history for speaking out against crimes committed by the powerful vs the weak.

You’ll say ‘vile freakazoid’ at the drop of a hat, but your language towards Israel’s actions has been so restrained, it baffles me.

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1. Stringer Bell
  
  July 30, 2014
  
  Ha, I meant to say “I’m sure you think you’re being rational and analytical here”
  
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2. Clarissa
  
  July 30, 2014
  
  “i have the feeling that people snap at you here not for your so-called solutions, but for your broader fence-sitting stance re: the Israel-Palestine issue.”
  
  – Yes, I could court a lot of cheap popularity by posting and liking all those Facebook “Israel murders babies” pictures. Instead of engaging in that hugely important activism, I spend hours and hours with an actual Palestinian refugee listening to how she has been so harassed for wearing her hijab that now she stopped wearing it but everybody is still treating her like a pariah, and she has no friends, and she still has PTSD, and there are really bad problems in the family, and she is sorry for bothering me all the time but I’m the only professor who actually wants to listen. And I can’t get rid of the suspicion that it would do more good if every happy Facebooker spent at least ten minutes reaching out to actual Palestinians.
  
  “Yet, nary a peep from you at a whole population not being allowed the basic freedom of movement, being forced to live in sub-human living conditions at gunpoint by a nuclear armed state.”
  
  – We could keep peeping, or we could be doing something. I’m proposing the latter.
  
  “Sneering at them for daring to express any sympathy towards Palestinians. “Solve the middle east crisis or shut the fuck up, you do-gooder hippies!””
  
  – The problem is that I don’t believe there is any actual sympathy. And this is what drives me insane. I personally know people who pontificate about the evils of Israel for hours on end but who have never – and would never – sit at the same table with Muslims or have them over to their houses. You won’t deny that there is an enormous anti-Muslim prejudice in North America. I am convinced that Facebook activism is a safe, cheap and accessible way to distance oneself from this prejudice while still practicing it. Instead of participating in this weird game, I get students to read Koran in class every single semester and field off complaints that I “promote Islam in the classroom.” Yes, it’s not a lot but it is something.
  
  Let’s imagine a scenario where Russia manages to overrun all of Ukraine and 40 years later we see the same situation as we are now seeing with Israel/Gaza: Ukrainian speakers are marginalized, kept in a ghetto, hassled, bombed, everything. I promise to you that my anger at those who chirp “I hate Russia!” while not lifting a finger to do anything for actual Ukrainians will be as great as it is right now at those tweeters and Facebookers. Or the Christian-welcoming French today.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    July 30, 2014
    
    And to answer the question of why I can’t, in good conscience, say “Criminal Israel, I hate Israel,” that’s because I don’t believe I personally have done enough to deserve the right to say that. I would feel like a total hypocrite.
    
    Last night somebody rang my door bell at 1:30 am and the only thought I had was, “Thank God, I don’t have a gun.” I’m being honest here, that was my very first reaction. I cannot honestly say I would not have a violent and unhinged reaction if I lived in Israel and somebody started shooting rockets in my direction. And it’s the same thing for if I lived in Gaza. I know that in order to preserve my sanity, I’d do all I can to leave the situation.
    
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Stringer Bell

July 30, 2014

“anger.. .great as it is right now at those tweeters and Facebookers”

Ok, I think you’re terribly mistaken here. You’ve constructed a straw man.

Have you noticed a very slight media shift towards the Palestinian side this time? Why do you think that has happened? I mean, it’s not like Israel has been more brutal this time compared to Cast Lead or their other previous campaigns. They do what they’ve always done. Except this time the media is taking notice. Pictures don’t lie. Real time videos linked on Twitter don’t lie. You’ve had Roger Cohen of NY Times, and Jonathan Chait, previously an Israeli hardliner, saying that they’ve change their positions on Israel.

Just last week, NBC pulled a reporter from the field after he criticized Israeli shelling of schools (or was it a hospital? Not sure. They’re both legitimate targets anyway). No reason was given for this sudden change. There was so much noise on Twitter about this, NBC had no choice but to reinstate him. Imagine that, a billion dollar corporation and the biggest name in American news, reversing their decision because of **people complaining about it on Twitter**. I don’t give a shit that the majority of twitter and facebook users are total fucking idiots. I don’t care that their feelings are misguided, but if enough people retweeting about this incident causes NBC to change their mind, I’m all for it.

It’s ironic that you have such low opinion of social media, when you yourself have a very popular blog with more than two million views. Why are you selling yourself short? You’ve managed to change my mind on many things, and for that I am thankful. I’m sure there are others who feel the same. Your blog has power. So, if you think Israel is doing something wrong, you should write about it. Write a powerful article, maybe it’ll spread through social media. Maybe you’ll convince a couple of people. It’s not much, like you say, but it’s a start, no?

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el

July 30, 2014

\\ Last night somebody rang my door bell at 1:30 am and the only thought I had was, “Thank God, I don’t have a gun.”

Why “Thank God”? That you won’t shoot an innocent person out of fear, or that you won’t kill even if he is a murderer, in self-defense?

My first thought would’ve been “OMG, I don’t have a gun!” ( Especially, had I lived in kibbutzim near Gaza, which had been attacked by terrorists emerging from tunnels several hundred meters from the kibbutz in the last days. IDF soldiers stopped them, but in one case f.e. several IDF soldiers were killed in the process. People ask “how will we return with children there after the operation?” )

// I am convinced that Facebook activism is a safe, cheap and accessible way to distance oneself from this prejudice while still practicing it.

Is that the same reason extreme European Left is against Israel? And, by that, they also demonstrate to their governments they’re against their home policies (unconnected with Muslims / Jews).

// And to answer the question of why I can’t, in good conscience, say “Criminal Israel, I hate Israel,”

My reason is that imo Jews need a country, and Israel couldn’t be founded without displacing Palestinians. Israel is the only country which would accept all Jews in times and from places of persecution. I can’t be both for having my own country and be completely hypocritical with “Israel should’ve hurt nobody ever, while being founded” stance. Had I lived abroad (or if I ever live there in the future), I would still know Israel would always receive and protect me.

That said, I am for two countries and for Palestinians building better lives in their own country. If two countries and peace are possible, I am for that.

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Stringer Bell

July 30, 2014

“Last night somebody rang my door bell at 1:30 am and the only thought I had was, “Thank God, I don’t have a gun.” I’m being honest here, that was my very first reaction.”

There has to be a difference between thinking something and actually doing it. If you’re confessing here that if you had a gun you would’ve actually shot the person who rang that doorbell, then, well, you have problems.

“I cannot honestly say I would not have a violent and unhinged reaction if I lived in Israel and somebody started shooting rockets in my direction.”

Jesus, finally. THANK YOU! All the times I’ve read your writing on Israel I couldn’t help thinking “It sure doesn’t look like she thinks Israel is doing anything wrong here. Nah, man, couldn’t be that. But then maybe…”

Thank you for this very important clarification.

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el

July 30, 2014

// So, if you think Israel is doing something wrong, you should write about it.

Do you think if Israel were ready to peaceful two countries, it would really happen very soon? That peace depends 100% on Israel?

If not, then, to be fair, what about writing about Palestinians’ wrong things too? It’s not like there are many intelligent articles about the latter (or the former), unfortunately. I would honestly be glad to read an article, combining analysis of wrongs / mistakes of both parties.

// I would not have a violent and unhinged reaction

What would be not unhinged reaction? Before the operation, Hamas had attack tunnels and numerous rockets, which it would’ve used sooner or later. Should Israel not tried destroying the tunnels and waited till Hamas chose the day, killed numerous kibbutz’s inhabitants and kidnapped a few? If a new cycle of violence begins anyway, tunnels should be destroyed during it, at least. Israel offered cease-fires, but since it demanded the right to continue destroying the already found tunnels, Hamas refused. Why stop before destroying the tunnels, shortening the time till next operation (which probably would lead to more dead Palestinians than otherwise, btw)? Not destroying tunnels and rockets makes sense only if you thnk real peace is close, and Hamas is ready to stop attacking Israel during real peace negotiations.

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el

July 30, 2014

// I also believe that although it is a good idea, it’s completely impractical and it’s time to accept that it’s not going to happen.

Do you mean impractical because of lack of land? And Palestinians leaving to Europe or other Arab countries is what is going to happen? Or something else?

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1. Stringer Bell
  
  July 30, 2014
  
  Impractical because your dear leader very clearly stated that. Wait, I thought the Israeli government has always wanted to negotiate in good faith? They said so on TV!
  
  “Three days after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the current war in Gaza, he held a press conference in Tel Aviv during which he said, in Hebrew, according to the Times of Israel, “I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.””
  
  What I always say.
  What I always say.
  What I always say.
  What I always say.
  
  Whoops, there goes your two state solution. Permanent ghetto 4 LYFE!! Sorry suckers!
  
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  1. el
    
    July 30, 2014
    
    First of all, Israel is a democracy. Unlike Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t in office for life. After intifadas and results of Israeli disengagement from Gaza (*), Israelis moved to the Right. If Jews on the street felt they’ve a reason to believe true peace is possible, you will see somebody different in office. We has Izhak Rabin and Oslo agreements, after all.
    
    Second, I never said that we *always* wanted to negotiate in good faith and recently even gave some examples to the contrary. I hope you don’t claim Palestinians are always ready to negotiate in good faith, since it’s simply untrue.
    
    (*) ” The Israeli disengagement from Gaza was the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza, and the dismantling of all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005. […]
    Those Israeli citizens who refused to accept government compensation packages and voluntarily vacate their homes prior to the August 15, 2005 deadline, were evicted by Israeli security forces over a period of several days. “
    
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  2. el
    
    July 30, 2014
    
    Tunnels and terror make people afraid and not ready to trust we won’t get something worse than now (better missiles, chemical weapons, airports not working, etc), if Israel relinquishes security control of *any* territory. People say “Israel did so in Gaza and hasn’t done so in PA. Currently, we’re in a horrible war with Gaza, while PA is pretty peaceful and doesn’t shoot any rockets.” (We also don’t kill hundreds of people in PA and Palestinians there live much better than in Gaza.)
    
    What Benjamin Netanyahu says isn’t what next PM may say. But to get a different saying from our PM, many Israelis must regain the belief in peace. It can’t be without stopping the ceaseless terror and violence first, in my opinion. I think Hamas is hurting Palestinians by moving further away the day they’ll get a country. And I am losing from it too a great deal.
    
    Recently Hamas’s speaker said on Palestinian radio “we’ll take down Israeli plains with rogatka, once we’re in PA”. What % of Israelis would support a different saying from PM at this point? I think, in practice, the question of control is decided at negotiations’ table: who controls what, for how long, when the passing of control happens and under which conditions (accepting Israel, no terror for X time, etc).
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      July 31, 2014
      
      This is a very interesting question. Why is there such a difference between Gaza and PA?
      
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  3. Sister
    
    July 30, 2014
    
    You suggest they relinquish security control? To be attacked again? And again? And again?..
    
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el

July 30, 2014

// Do you mean impractical because of lack of land? And Palestinians leaving to Europe or other Arab countries is what is going to happen? Or something else?

Forgot to add, I don’t believe Europe or USA will accept Palestinians. Or even that Arab countries around us will at last give citizenship to Palestinians living there for generations.

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  Of course, Europe,US, Australia will not accept Palestinians. Their citizens are only supportive of those Palestinians who remain very far away.
  
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el

July 31, 2014

What do you think about the following?

Israeli university rebukes professor who expressed sympathy for both Israeli, Gazan victims. ‘The matter will be handled with appropriate seriousness,’ says ‘shocked’ Bar-Ilan University dean after students, parents complain.
http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.607888?v=2E5EDB2B54F99F4D315F0539F0B55ABE

To explain the context better, Bar Ilan is a religious university, unlike Tel Aviv university and others. It is seen as Right wing (Tel-Aviv – as Left).

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  I was going to blog about this today. Of course, I’m horrified. What this professor wrote was the mildest, most inoffensive message in the world. This goes against everything that constitutes academic freedom. I don’t know how one is supposed to work in such an environment.
  
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  1. el
    
    July 31, 2014
    
    // What this professor wrote was the mildest, most inoffensive message
    
    I don’t say you are wrong, but just to make sure everybody understands:
    
    In the article is written (caps lock is mine):
    
    // saying that he hoped the message “finds you in a safe place, and that you, your families and those dear to you are not among the hundreds of PEOPLE that were killed, the thousands wounded, or the tens of thousands whose homes were destroyed or were forced to leave their homes during, or as a direct result of, the violent confrontation in the Gaza Strip and its environs.” //
    
    What it says (caps lock is mine):
    
    // by saying that he hoped the message “finds you in a safe place, and that you, your families and those dear to you are not among the hundreds of PALESTINIANS that were killed, the thousands of PALESTINIANS wounded, or the tens of thousands of PALESTINIANS whose homes were destroyed or were forced to leave their homes during, or as a direct result of, the violent confrontation in the Gaza Strip and its environs.” //
    
    We have lost more than 50 soldiers and 3 civilians in this operation, and some Jews left their homes, if they were close to Gaza. Technically, the message could be read as about both parties, but everybody understands it’s not really about Israelis. When a society is at war, any society, it doesn’t tend to react well to expressions pitying the enemies. I don’t justify it, but it’s true. Think about America during Iraq war, and people describing the horrors Americans done there. How well would American students and universities react? I don’t know enough American history to know what happened during Vietnam war and others.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      July 31, 2014
      
      “Technically, the message could be read as about both parties, but everybody understands it’s not really about Israelis. When a society is at war, any society, it doesn’t tend to react well to expressions pitying the enemies.”
      
      – I thought the enemies were Hamas, not the Palestinian civilians. What are those poor folks guilty of?
      
      “Think about America during Iraq war, and people describing the horrors Americans done there. How well would American students and universities react?”
      
      – First of all, the professor’s message didn’t describe any horrors. But leaving that aside, I find any attempts to police the communications between a teacher and students (a doctor and patients, a lawyer and clients, a priest and parishioners, etc.) to be deeply, offensively, bizarrely wrong. How is this scholar, or any scholar, expected to create any intellectual product in this kind of environment? What is the, the freaking USSR???
      
      If there is a group of people that can’t afford such things it’s the Jews. If you relinquish that part of the Jewish identity that has to do with the life of the intellect and striving for constant intellectual improvement, what’s left?
      
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el

July 31, 2014

// This is a very interesting question. Why is there such a difference between Gaza and PA?

In June 2005, there were 3,900 factories in the city employing 35,000 people, and in December 2007, there were 195 factories remaining, employing 1,700 people. The construction industry was also affected, with tens of thousands of labourers out of work. The blockade damaged the agriculture sector and 40,000 workers dependent on cash crops were left without income. Unemployment was compounded when Israel ended its reliance on cheap labor from the Gaza Strip in 2005. In September 2000, 24,000 Palestinians crossed out of Gaza daily to work in Israel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Gaza_City

The blockade of the Gaza Strip refers to a land, air, and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip by Egypt and Israel from 2007 to present (July 2014). Israel said that it relatively eased the blockade for non-military goods in June 2010.[1] Egypt reopened the Rafah border crossing in 2011 for persons and goods.[2][3] However, the entry of building materials was suspended after the uncovering of a tunnel on October 7th 2013.[4] 2006 Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election, triggering the 2006–07 economic sanctions against the Palestinian National Authority by Israel and the Quartet on the Middle East. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a Palestinian authority national unity government headed by Ismail Haniya. Shortly after, in June, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in the course of the Battle of Gaza,[5] seizing government institutions and replacing Fatah and other government officials with its own.[6] Following the takeover, Egypt and Israel largely sealed their border crossings with Gaza, on the grounds that Fatah had fled and was no longer providing security on the Palestinian side.[7]

Israel maintains that the blockade is necessary to limit Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on its cities and to prevent Hamas from obtaining other weapons. Prior to its 2011 opening of the Rafah crossing, Egypt maintained that it could not fully open its side of the border since completely opening the border would represent Egyptian recognition of the Hamas control of Gaza, undermine the legitimacy of the Palestinian National Authority and consecrate the split between Gaza and the West Bank.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

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el

July 31, 2014

“Blockade of the Gaza Strip” entry is quite interesting, even if wiki is not necessary the best representetive of all truth on controversial issues. Would love to hear your opinion about it all.

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el

July 31, 2014

// If you relinquish that part of the Jewish identity that has to do with the life of the intellect and striving for constant intellectual improvement, what’s left?

I think it’s your part of identity, not of Israel as a state, which is as any other state.

What is left in other states?

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  “I think it’s your part of identity, not of Israel as a state”
  
  – And what a tragedy.
  
  “What is left in other states?”
  
  – Russians are proud of being big. Americans are proud of their talent in the area of economics. Canadians base their identity on being non-classist and non-racist. The British are proud of their sense of humor. Ukrainians are proud of their centuries-long dedication to democracy. Argentineans are proud of being the most European of all Latin Americans. Etc, etc.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    July 31, 2014
    
    To be completely fair, Russians are also proud of their language and literature which they, for some bizarre reason, consider rich and glorious.
    
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el

July 31, 2014

// – I thought the enemies were Hamas, not the Palestinian civilians. What are those poor folks guilty of?

Both of the following points are true:

1. Hamas won elections there. Hamas’s members are members of numerous Palestinian civilians’s families, not aliens dropped from the sky. Without popular support for terror and radical ideas of Hamas’s charter, Hamas wouldn’t be there in the first place. Not to be hypocritical, I wouldn’t say “IDF, not me, is bombing them now, I am an entirely unconnected civilian” either. Or that I am not connected to some things Israeli government does, even if I am very against them.

Like in Russia / Ukraine case, the enemies are all Russians who support invasion, not only the invaders themselves. Read this today:

И Украина, и Израиль живут в тесном соседстве с куда более многочисленным народом, народом, создавшим великую империю, которая распалась. И этот народ, по крайней мере в лице своих элит, грезит об историческом реванше.
И этнически, и лингвистически этот народ является ближайшим родственником. Однако при этом он не признает права соседнего «меньшого брата» на самостоятельное государственное существование. И в силу этого является постоянной угрозой.
http://trim-c.livejournal.com/179260.html

If somebody wants to say that Palestinians are poor innocent kidnapped people, in hands of a terrorist organization they don’t support, then moral imperative is to free them by destroying Hamas, no?

2. All Palestinians don’t have to be guilty. Hamas rules Gaza in practice and is a real danger. There are numerous reasons for Israel to react at some point to rockets, tunnels, attempted kidnappings, etc. But we can’t react without hurting Palestinians, some of them – civilians. (Btw, Hamas classifies all dead as civilians, not giving information about number of its members vs civilians killed.)

All around the world, Palestinian suffering is used to pressure Israel not to react against Hamas. At least, not in any way which would hurt Hamas’s rocket supplies and tunnel system. Since to do the latter requires a quite wide operation (which we’re having now). That’s why discussions of real Palestinian suffering during war are seen as a political stance of “we must stop the operation now, without achieving XYZ goals, since Palestinians are suffering.”

I know many innocent Palestinians are suffering, and I honestly dream about living as two peaceful neighboring countries together. However, as long as there is no peace, I can’t say “we can’t do anything if it’ll make innocents suffer.” Such stance logically leads or to leaving Israel and losing Jewish country, or committing both personal and national suicide.

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1. twicerandomly
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  Here is an interview with Henry Siegman, el. I would be interested in your comments.
  http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/30/henry_siegman_leading_voice_of_us
  
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el

July 31, 2014

Israelis are proud of surviving and gaining independence after 2000 years. Of Jewish people coming from all over the world and being one people again. Of reviving a dead language. Of turning a desert into a garden. Of our hi-tech and other industries.

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  “Of reviving a dead language. Of turning a desert into a garden. Of our hi-tech and other industries.”
  
  – Exactly. All of which requires an extreme intellectual investment.
  
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  1. Stringer Bell
    
    July 31, 2014
    
    The Shifting Israel Debate
    
    He quotes a Tony Judt piece that is worth reading.
    
    “We can see, in retrospect, that the victory of Israel in June 1967 and its continuing occupation of the territories it conquered then have been the Jewish state’s very own nakba: a moral and political catastrophe. Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza have magnified and publicized the country’s shortcomings and displayed them to a watching world. Curfews, checkpoints, bulldozers, public humiliations, home destructions, land seizures, shootings, “targeted assassinations,” the separation fence: All of these routines of occupation and repression were once familiar only to an informed minority of specialists and activists.
    
    Today they can be watched, in real time, by anyone with a computer or a satellite dish – which means that Israel’s behavior is under daily scrutiny by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The result has been a complete transformation in the international view of Israel. Until very recently the carefully burnished image of an ultra-modern society – built by survivors and pioneers and peopled by peace-loving democrats – still held sway over international opinion. But today? What is the universal shorthand symbol for Israel, reproduced worldwide in thousands of newspaper editorials and political cartoons? The Star of David emblazoned upon a tank.”
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      July 31, 2014
      
      A very interesting article.
      
      “Seen from the outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: consumed by a brittle confidence in its own uniqueness; certain that no one “understands” it and everyone is “against” it; full of wounded self-esteem, quick to take offense and quick to give it”
      
      – Yesterday, I read an article that was almost word for word identical to this one but it was about Russia. This is what absolutely all countries with a weak national identity are like.
      
      “Curfews, checkpoints, bulldozers, public humiliations, home destructions, land seizures, shootings, “targeted assassinations,” the separation fence: All of these routines of occupation and repression were once familiar only to an informed minority of specialists and activists. Today they can be watched, in real time, by anyone with a computer or a satellite dish – which means that Israel’s behavior is under daily scrutiny by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.”
      
      – The well-fed Westerners love to titillate themselves in this way. What else is new?
      
      “Indeed, Palestinians have now displaced Jews as the emblematic persecuted minority: vulnerable, humiliated and stateless. This unsought distinction does little to advance the Palestinian case any more than it ever helped Jews,”
      
      – Exactly. This is what I’ve been saying only forever.
      
      OK, I think I need to write a separate post about the article.
      
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Stringer Bell

July 31, 2014

“The well-fed Westerners love to titillate themselves in this way. What else is new?”

I love how you can’t ever condemn the “Curfews, checkpoints, bulldozers, public humiliations, home destructions, land seizures, shootings..” but have so much vitriol for those images being shown on TV. Also, those images on TV are not only showing in the west, but all over the world, in the poorest of countries. You’d have to come up with some other motive. Do the well-fed people in the Indian villages love being titillated, too?

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  I can just imagine how fascinating my blog will be to read if I started repeating, “I condemn public humiliations, home destructions, land seizures, shootings. And today is Thursday.” :-))) What’s the point of stating the painfully obvious?
  
  “Also, those images on TV are not only showing in the west, but all over the world, in the poorest of countries. You’d have to come up with some other motive.”
  
  – I don’t speak about what I don’t know.
  
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  1. Stringer Bell
    
    July 31, 2014
    
    “What’s the point of stating the painfully obvious?”
    
    Well, in this very thread you said you can’t bring yourself to condemn Israel for its actions because you would probably have a violent, unhinged reaction, too. So, yeah, it may be painfully obvious for me, but it is definitely not for you.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      July 31, 2014
      
      “Well, in this very thread you said you can’t bring yourself to condemn Israel for its actions because you would probably have a violent, unhinged reaction, too. So, yeah, it may be painfully obvious for me, but it is definitely not for you.”
      
      – I also can’t guarantee that if I had been born in Russia and lived my entire life subjected to the endless barrage of anti-Ukrainian propaganda, I would remain immune. And if you can guarantee you would, I don’t think you are being entirely honest with yourself.
      
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  2. Clarissa
    
    July 31, 2014
    
    If I don’t have anything original or unexpected to say on a subject, I don’t say anything at all. If the mass media were inundated with, “Russian terrorists have invaded Ukraine. There is no such thing as Ukrainian separatists,” I would be looking for a different angle on that issue.
    
    Because otherwise, what is the point?
    
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Stringer Bell

July 31, 2014

“I also can’t guarantee that if I had been born in Russia and lived my entire life subjected to the endless barrage of anti-Ukrainian propaganda, I would remain immune. And if you can guarantee you would, I don’t think you are being entirely honest with yourself.”

This reasoning can be used to condone any heinous action, therefore it is dangerous. “If I were as fucked up as that chainsaw murderer I’d probably do the same”. “If I grew up in the same environment that George Bush did, I would’ve totally invaded Iraq, so I can’t oppose the Iraqi invasion”. And so on.

I grew up in India. Many members of my highly educated family don’t like muslims. People in my neighborhood are proud that it’s been 50+ years since they rented an apartment to a muslim family (you can forget about selling, that would be unthinkable). India has faced real terrorism from Pakistan, and I’ve seen politicians and the media using that to breed hatred for muslims all my life. I’m not especially noble, but it never occurred to me that I should fall for it.

Plus, wasn’t it you who said you choose what media you consume? It’s like all this imagined pressure from ‘society’ to be thin, which is probably true if all you read is Cosmopolitan magazine.

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  Of course, I ultimately believe in individual responsibility. Falling for the Russian propaganda because of living in Russia is ultimately a choice. I’m just honestly confessing that it could have been a choice I might have decided to make. It’s not an excuse for anything, of course. But for me, “stupid Russians who fall for this crap” is not the end goal of my analysis of the issue. It is a lot more valuable to analyze why Russians so massively choose to fall for this propaganda. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m in the process, and I will blog about it when I have something to say.
  
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Stringer Bell

July 31, 2014

By the way, I didn’t ask you to condemn the way el thinks, for instance. She’s a victim of her state’s propaganda. I asked you to condemn the Israeli government’s actions. Surely, the same argument doesn’t apply, because if anything, it’s the government itself that’s brainwashing its citizens. It’s not brainwashing itself.

And surely you can’t say that condemning Israel’s actions is useless because it’s painfully obvious that they’re terrible actions, and then claim that you’re not sure you wouldn’t do the same. That tells me you’re conflicted about Israel’s actions. Which is ok, but at least acknowledge it.

Don’t just hand wave it away by saying it’s such an obvious thing that you can’t be bothered to write about something so obvious. It’s not obvious! You’re conflicted about it!

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1. el
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  // By the way, I didn’t ask you to condemn the way el thinks, for instance. She’s a victim of her state’s propaganda.
  
  There is no need to infantilize me. And your previous reactions to me showed you don’t share “she is a victim” view.
  
  // it’s the government itself that’s brainwashing its citizens. It’s not brainwashing itself.
  
  I don’t think you are 100% right. Who is in the government, if not former and future citizens? Many Right and Left politicians believe what they say themselves.
  
  If you care about Palestinians, what about offering your take on what they should do to get a country as soon as possible? I would be interested in reading it.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    July 31, 2014
    
    Just let me interject once again that the idea that every ethnic group needs a separate country is not set in stone. The world has existed without this idea pretty much forever. The Québécois in Canada are doing phenomenally well, in spite of their occasional grumbling. But compared to Palestinians, they are in freaking paradise.
    
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2. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  Oh, of course, the Israeli’s government’s brainwashing of its citizens is shameful and horrible. There is no excuse to keeping your own people – not the enemy but your own people – in the state of horrible terror all of the time. I have said time and again that Israel is now the most dangerous of all places with a sizable Jewish population to be.
  
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el

August 13, 2014

This article has some interesting info about the roots of anti-semitism in France:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/the-anti-zionism-of-fools/

Since it’s long, I’ll quote most interesting parts:

The majority of the French Left, beholden to a republican ideology that stresses an exclusionary form of secularism, abandoned any attempt to organize in the banlieues where French Arabs live, long ago, after the indigenous-led March for Equality and Against Racism in 1983.
…
Together they formed a toxic complex, in which Dieudonné’s undoubted charisma and popularity helped bring antisemitic conspiracy theories from the far right into the most oppressed communities in France. The statistics for the Liste Anti-Sioniste (Anti-Zionist List) for which Dieudonnéran in 2009 show that it was most popular in the most deprived, economically dilapidated areas.

The ideological content of their antisemitism had a strong populist element. Alain Badiou thus gets at a part of the truth when he adverts to the class dimension of racism, arguing that while much traditional antisemitism had an anti-popular animus identical in structure to the hatred incited against “gypsies” and immigrants, the antisemitism of many banlieue youths was directed exclusively against a group perceived as being powerful. To “prove” the reach of “the organized Jewish community,” he could cite the censoriousness over Palestine. He would also invoke laws against hate speech and Holocaust denial to show the power of “the Jewish lobby.”

It wasn’t that Dieudonné outright denied that Jews had been victims of oppression, although he appeared on television with Holocaust-denier Robert Faurisson, but rather he claimed that the cultural recognition of the Nazi holocaust and the realities of antisemitism had been allowed to crowd out the field of victimhood, such that the injustices of the slave trade, colonialism, and anti-immigrant racism were ignored in the media and school curriculums. There is a strange irony in all this. Dieudonné’s antisemitism ultimately invokes the French model of secular assimilation against Jews, who, in a loaded language, he accuses of behaving in a “tribal” way. Given that much of his audience reviles assimilationist discourse, this is a strange point on which to pin one’s antisemitic case.

There may, however, be an underlying logic. In Houria Bouteldja’s decolonial analysis of the Dieudonnéphenomenon, it is suggested that in a way what many of his supporters wanted from France was to be recognized as legitimate, as equals, as French citizens. The competition with Jews for recognized victimhood can thus be interpreted in part as a struggle for legitimacy from white society. Soral is canny enough to offer this — recognition as French citizens in an alliance with the far right, which nonetheless respects the specificity of indigenous cultures. Thus, pro-Palestine politics and “anti-imperialism” are linked in a particular way, through antisemitism, to the material and symbolic interests of individual communities.

This is the terrain on which those who genuinely want to combat this sort of antisemitism are intervening.

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el

September 17, 2014

\\ France is offering asylum to Christians fleeing ISIS in Iraq. For some strange reason, whenever I say that the same can be done for Palestinians, people become annoyed and start twitching uncontrollably in mute anger.

After Gaza op, more and more Gazans are attempting to flee Gaza through Egypt into Europe – recent boat crash near Malta which saw over 500 people go missing or die highlights perils Palestinian face en route to new life in EU.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4572058,00.html

I found this on Israeli site. Don’t know whether European fighters for Palestinian rights mention this.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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