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A View from Nowhere
Kevin Williamson is one of my favorite National Review columnists. Few people are as deft as Williamson when it comes to making an argument in 1,000 words. So I’m going to use his new piece, which is up today at NR, to make some points I need to make about Palestine.
I’ve been mentally arguing with pundits in my head for the past few weeks now, so maybe it’s time to bring a bit of this to Ricochet. Some of you know that I lived there for about eight months in the year 2000. I spent the spring in at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute, which is in Jerusalem, but sits right on the green line bordering Bethlehem. (There was an Israeli checkpoint just outside our building.) We took classes both at Bethlehem University and at Hebrew University. Then I spent the summer teaching English in Gaza City.
While I was abroad, I talked politics constantly, both with Israelis and with Arabs. It’s like Washington that way; everyone wants to discuss politics. I found that most people on both sides were pretty prepared to hash things out, drink some tea and still be friends. I sat in the living rooms of Palestinians and told them that their ideas about “returning home” were totally unrealistic, and some people got mad at me but not mad enough to serve me cold tea. I guess when you’re used to wars of bullets, you’re not easily intimidated by wars of words.
When I came home though, a funny thing happened. I couldn’t talk to anyone about the Arab-Israeli conflict without getting into a huge, ugly fight. It didn’t matter what the person’s views were. For the residents of Palestine, this is their life, so they live with the moral ambiguities every day. For Americans though, it’s all about picking a side and digging in. Cheering on your team. Creating a manufactured “moral clarity.” After awhile I just avoided talking about it.
With the next tragic chapter unfolding now in Palestine, I keep reading the news and getting that same indignant feeling. I don’t want to school anyone in the geopolitics, because I’m certainly no expert there; nevertheless I can’t but notice that 90% of what I read is a more or less sophisticated reiteration of: it’s the other guy’s fault. He made his bed. That’s the kind of moral confidence that no one should have concerning this awful conflict. All of the relevant actors bear some blame for the situation in the Middle East, and justice in such a case is very, very elusive. But manufacturing a sense of justice by focusing all of our attention on the other person’s missteps just looks to me like moral cowardice.
Now, I believe that the United States has a serious responsibility to support Israel. They are our allies. The existential threat they face is very real. They are at the front lines in the West’s confrontation with the brutal forces of radical Islam. Also, as a conservative, I have a deep respect for the Jews, who have in so many ways been the authors and cultivators of Western culture. I have met Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe and other parts of Arabia who took refuge in the Jewish state and made new and wonderful lives for their families. That’s an amazing and wonderful thing.
Right now, the hellish conditions under which Israelis are living are causing many in the West to jeer, which is inexcusable. No one deserves to live that way, and heaping the sins of the past on the heads of Israeli children is no more fair than heaping it on the heads of Palestinian children. We should let Israelis know that we stand with them in a difficult time. We should certainly heap curses on the heads of Hamas and other terrorist leaders, whose tactics and objectives are both despicable, and cause indescribable suffering to innocents on both sides.
But we should not curse Palestinians. Their story is properly seen as a tragedy, and one for which Western nations rightly feel some guilt. History still hangs over the Holy Land and we can’t stop talking about it; conservatives, for their part, like to downplay Arab complaints by suggesting that in fact, Israel’s creation wasn’t a particular violation of the local (non-Jewish) population’s political autonomy, or at least no more so than “normal” political changes that happen all the time. Let’s look at Williamson’s account of this:
Until the day before yesterday, the word “Palestinian” referred to Jews living in their ancestral homeland. During Roman rule, Palestine was considered a part of Syria: The prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate, was subordinate to the legate of Syria, Palestine being a not especially notable outpost. (It is perhaps for this reason that no physical evidence of Pilate’s existence was unearthed until 1961.) That situation obtained for centuries; as late as the 19th century, the idea of an Arab Palestine distinct from Syria was a novel one, and one expressed in Ottoman administrative practice rather than in anything resembling a state as the term is understood. The notion of a Palestinian Arab nation dates to only a few decades before the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
He goes on to observe that the Western notion of statehood may itself be part of the problem, and this is a good observation. But using the complexity of history as a screen to dismiss the legitimacy of Palestinian grievances seems to me like a slightly low trick. No, the Arabs never had their own state in Palestine. They were under the administration of the Ottomans, and then of the British, before Israel was formed. The British tried to balance the interests of the long-standing Arab communities and the incoming Jewish immigrants (Jews were about 10% of the population at the start of 20th century), and mostly threw up their hands in despair. Then the UN “invited” the Arabs to give the (mostly) newcomers their own autonomous state (while themselves occupying their own, neighboring state). The Arabs responded, in effect, “over our dead bodies.” So the West obligingly forged a Jewish state over dead Arab bodies.
If there is blame to be distributed here, I’m much more inclined to blame Western nations than Jews. The Jews’ motivations for returning to their ancient homeland were eminently understandable and admirable; Western nations’ motives were far more suspicious. That we now want to expiate our own sins by cheering the further suffering of Jews depresses me beyond belief. We owe them much better than that.
But I still can’t suggest that it was unreasonable for the Arabs to resent the Jews’ (Western-backed) demand for autonomy. I think it’s fairly impossible to understand from the standpoint of a 21st century American how exactly that must have appeared to them, but at least we should acknowledge that they weren’t throwing a fit over nothing. The fact that the Arabs didn’t have a modern, democratic state is hardly good reason for suggesting that their homeland and freedoms and sense of cultural identity weren’t all gravely threatened by the massive influx of Jewish settlers and by the West’s very evident determination, in the wake of WWII, to give them their own state. It’s sort of ironic how conservatives at this moment are simultaneously thundering on about our right to control our borders (which obviously has something to do with our desire to protect our home and society and culture), and also glancing over the situation of displaced Arabs in Palestine and saying, “Pshaw, stuff happens.”
But that is really where Williamson ends up. From near the end of his piece:
The story of humankind is that peoples move around and bump into each other, and the results are often unpleasant. Somebody wins, somebody loses, and, after some period of time, whatever temporary situation endures comes to be considered normal.
Is this just another way of saying that might makes right? Western nations were stronger, so they imposed their will on Palestine, and that’s that? We won, so we now get to tell you to stop your historical yammering and live where we tell you? Come on.
The thing is, I don’t think most Westerners are comfortable thinking of ourselves that way. We like to think that, as global powers go, we’re fairly benevolent. Bringers of freedom and democracy. Lovers of liberty and justice. We’re not the sort of people who get caught up in political ideologies and impose a political arrangement on a volatile region (over and against the strenuous objections of the majority of the current residents), relegating the displaced to tiny reservations for decades to come. Right?
Except in Palestine, that’s pretty much how it happened. And if the Gazans show a strong disinclination to accept the situation as “normal”, that’s partly because they’re still trapped in a tiny reservation (the whole Gaza Strip is about the size of Philadelphia) that they’ve never been able to see as home. Gaza City is a giant maze of concrete and corrugated tin. It feels like what it is, namely, a giant refugee camp that was thrown up in a hurry when hundreds of thousands of people were suddenly stuck there, with all their worldly possessions left behind. If you make any comment about the nature of the city, residents love to tell you that it’s not a city at all but rather, “the biggest prison in the world.”
I’ve recently read a number of reflections from conservatives suggesting that the Palestinians could have it pretty good there if they had used their aid and international goodwill to make Gaza into an amazing, beautiful coastal city, instead of building death tunnels into Israel. I’m not sure how possible this really ever was (the logistical obstacles seem formidable, and I have trouble picturing Stanford professors and world-class architects strolling the streets of Gaza) but I think it’s pretty clear that, given their situation, even trying it would have taken a pretty massive conceptual leap. The Palestinians regard Gaza as a giant holding cell. It’s a city of despair, where simple villagers suddenly found themselves herded into concrete bunkers, where they kept hope alive by cherishing the house keys and other tiny mementoes of their remembered homes. Perhaps a truly amazing leader could have gotten them past that, and kindled an enthusiasm for decorating their “prison” and embracing a totally new, urban, cosmopolitan lifestyle. It would have been awesome to see. But it would have taken a pretty extraordinary person to make that happen. A Perseus or a Cicero. Miserable, displaced people don’t re-envision their whole cultural identity just like that.
And at this point, “occupied people in diaspora” has become a central identity in itself. Compared with their cousins in the West Bank, Gazans had relatively little contact with Israelis. (Though when I was there, the settlements were still present, not accessible but eerily visible, like little heavily-guarded bits of Pleasantville dropped in amongst the concrete slums.) But of course they all appreciated the situation for West Bank Palestinians as well. The Palestinians I knew in Bethlehem dealt much more regularly with curfews and minor incidents of bullying (heavily armed young men don’t make great cultural ambassadors) and not being able to visit grandmothers 10 miles away because they couldn’t get the traveling passes. I witnessed some of these little indignities for myself (little insults, water bottles confiscated for no apparent reason, that sort of thing), and heard about many more. It’s just the day-to-day of occupation.
I fully realize that Israeli security concerns are not fanciful, and that a few stolen water bottles are small beans in the larger scheme of this conflict. But in our admiration for Israeli “restraint” (obviously heavily motivated by their desire to remain in the Western Nation Club) we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking that occupation is anything but ugly, or that Palestinians who have lived with it their whole lives, and been denied what we would regard as very basic civil liberties, can reasonably be expected to be placated by the observation that, “well you know, back in 1947, the Arabs fired the first shot.” From what I saw in 2000, it seemed that Israelis were a lot more anxious to win Western hearts and minds than Palestinian ones. Courtesy did not seem to be a point of emphasis for the IDF, at least in those days, and those memories of the little insults and petty acts of bullying (which have to be endured when the other guy has the gun) are burned into many Palestinian hearts.
Anyway, at this point the Palestinians have been infected by radical Islamists, who now use their reservations as a base of operations. These are despicable people with totalitarian aims, and it causes me tremendous grief to see the Palestinians used in such a way, and even more to know that some of them support it. At such a juncture Williamson is right: we can’t just ask Israelis to lay down and die in an act of expiation for the sins of the West. They have to take some action to defend their people, and we should recognize that right. The outlook for the Palestinians, individually and as a culture, is grim. I could offer you my dreams for Palestine (which wouldn’t involve anyone being slaughtered or forcibly displaced), but they’re only dreams, and there isn’t any point in dwelling on them.
But if we are indeed freedom-loving conservatives, we shouldn’t allow our justified anger over the sufferings of Israelis obliterate our pity and shame over what has happened to the Palestinians. Western nations interfered rather largely in Middle Eastern politics, and they ended up living under conditions that are dramatically less free and less dignified than what I as a conservative believe that humans deserve. In our justifiable sympathy for Israelis, we could focus all our attention on the missteps of others (“If only the Arab nations had… if only Arafat hadn’t…”), and of course many of those negative evaluations would be very fair. But that doesn’t change the fact that our (and our allies’) involvement in this mess was very significant indeed. Significant enough that we don’t deserve the comfort of shrugging off the fates of the victims as someone else’s problem.
Everyone in the Holy Land deserves a much better life than they currently have. For both sides life has become intolerable, in no small part because Western nations can’t stop litigating the history, holding one side or another accountable for historical sins. The history is certainly relevant, but with innocent lives at stake, nations have to be permitted to look beyond. At least in the United States, however, I think we may reach that point more quickly if we can discuss the situation with more perspective and evident compassion for suffering people on both sides. Preaching to the choir with oversimplified histories and thinly veiled assertions that might makes right will not, I think, win Israel broad-spectrum support. Sometimes, maybe, we do have to look at history and sigh that “the world is hard.” But when the incidents in question have happened in the lifetimes of living men, sponsored in significant part by our own nation’s aid, that sort of blithe hand-washing simply lowers us. The West does bear some responsibility here, and as virtuous people we should accept that for what it is.
Published in General
Nice, but who exactly is preventing the Palestinians from “looking beyond?” What if “they”, or enough of them to decide matters, don’t want to?
Peace (or at least peace in which Israel exists) is not the way of Hamas, or the “militant wing” of Fatah who seem to be the driving force of Palestinian ideology. Or of of Hizbollah, or of ISIS.
If that be true, perhaps what’s going on here is what Richard Landes calls “Liberal Cognitive Egocentrism,” which he defines as:
Landes goes on to describe other flawed thinking.
I am convinced that the only way to end any conflict between peoples is for there to be a clear winner and a clear loser. And by that, I’m talking about Sherman burning Atlanta kind of stuff.
If the Israelis were to do that (or be allowed to), then it would not benefit this generation of Palestinians, and maybe not the next, but the third generation would be able to leave the defeat behind, especially since Israel, like the United States was towards the South, would be mostly benevelent. Not perfectly so, but more than the Palestinians would be if the shoe was on the other foot.
If the Israelis had been allowed to do this three generations ago, then this generation of Palistinians would probably have moved on, either under Israeli’s benevolent rule, or have had the opportunity to leave altogether.
If you doubt their benevolence, then I would ask that you look at how they treat Arabs in Israel proper. They’re allowed to practice their Muslim faith, and they even are allowed to vote in their elections. They have Arabs in the Knesset. They’re the best treated Arabs in the Middle East, not only in the way they’re ruled politically, but economically. The average Jew in Israel may have more opportunities than the average Israeli Arab but the average Israeli Arab has more opportunties than his counterpart in the rest of the Middle East.
Let the Israelis win. More importantly, let the Palestinians lose. Their grandsons and granddaughters won’t thank them, but they will still be better off.
I think there have actually been quite a few efforts at non-violent resistance in Palestine. Just a little Googling gave me this, quite a recent piece on the subject. A young man I knew in Bethlehem, who helped me with some research I did on refugees, claimed that he had spent much of his adolescence in an Israeli prison because of his extensive involvement with a non-violent resistance group. He said they went on hunger strikes and so forth, but naturally the Israelis did not hold press releases about this.
Truth, or a story to impress the foreigner? No way for me to tell. But he did at least seem to understand the *logic* of non-violent resistance. “The Israelis need the world to believe that we are all violent savages, so they can get the West’s blessing to suppress us,” he told me. “That’s why they crack down hard on groups that seem to be taking the way of non-violence.”
Again, I can only offer my firsthand report.
I don’t think there’s any question, as Frank and Spengler say, that Israel is a more civilized, more developed nation. Obviously. Of course, things like the Prime Minister’s denunciation of child-killers don’t really tell you much about the actual moral sensibilities of Israelis, nor about the situation on the ground. Of course politicians understand the importance of giving their best face to the West.
In my time in Palestine, I met some amazing Israelis who seemed very serious in their concern for Palestinians, and deeply committed to peace. But I also, as I said, saw soldiers who took advantage of their power over unarmed Palestinians to bully them. Had an affable-seeming classmate at Hebrew University who I used to chat with, and when I told him I was going to Gaza, he said, “Oh, I did my military service there. Don’t go! It’s a hell-hole, and the people are garbage.”
The Palestinians now are in the grips of total despair, and that is dangerous and very ugly. It’s still very rash to talk as though they are all just itching to kill Jews at the first available opportunity (as soothing as that might be to our consciences). I always think, in this context, of September 11, when everyone was passing around pictures of celebrating Palestinians and talking about what savages they were, and I had emails from Gaza in my inbox, with people anxiously enquiring whether I and my family were all right.
I often hear conservatives say that “there will be peace in the Middle East when the Arabs want it.” Every single one? That sounds like a pretty pie-in-the-sky, koombayah requirement to me. Aren’t conservatives supposed to care about individual rights?
On the issue of individual rights, it’s interesting to me how often conservatives point out that, even if Palestinians aren’t all terrorists, “they support them”. They provide me with survey data suggesting that a majority of Palestinians would like Israel gone much more than a 2-state solution, and remind me that, after all, they elected Hamas.
Now, I understand this if the point is, “it’s tragic, but given that we’re in a state of war, we just can’t give people the rights and individual liberties that they should really have. There’s no reliable way to separate hostiles from lawful citizens, and the threat to Israel if we start letting Palestinians move and organize as they will is too great.” That makes sense.
But sometimes people seem to mean much more than that, something along the lines of, “They deserve what they get. They want Israel gone and elected Hamas.” To me this attitude is very alarming. People deserve to be stripped of their civil liberties, and even to have their homes bombed or invaded, based on how they voted or what they said on a survey? Are there any conservatives around, or have I wandered into HuffPo?
I am not claiming that Palestinian and Israeli cultures are in an equal state of moral health. That would be absurd. But the question is: do the Palestinians have legitimate claims of justice against Israel and the West? Have they been legitimately wronged? I think the answers are, yes and yes.
I’m not making policy recommendations on this basis; again, I acknowledge the grim necessity of Israel responding to such serious threats to their civilians. But this false moral comfort that we give ourselves is undeserved, and in my view, potentially destructive to Israel’s cause. We can’t convince their detractors to soften their perspective if we seem too stuck in our own to acknowledge the real moral complexity of the situation.
I see it this way too.
Here you repeat the old canard that without some outside restraint, Jews will act in the most vile and evil ways possible. IDF restraint has nothing to do with wanting to be accepted in the club of Western nations. The restraint comes from Jewish law and the fact that the IDF is a conscripted army in a democratic nation with a very strong sense of right and wrong. IDF soldiers pride themselves on their morality and know that they do everything possible to avoid unnecessary innocent casualties. Does the IDF burst into randomly chosen homes and kill everyone there and then return to a heroes welcome? I guess you feel that they would without wanting to join the club.
A little more googling would have brought you to this video interview with Mustafa Barghouti. This reporter wasn’t throwing softballs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqpF5fINI8
FYI: The old Palestine Mandate included what is now Jordan as well as Israel. Though Jews had lived on both sides of the Jordan for 3800 years, they agreed to accept partition on the west bank of the Jordan only. The Arabs rejected even this and attacked. The U.S. embargoed all arms shipments and the Jews had to fight it out on their own. There was hardly any Western involvement.
The PLO was founded in 1964. Where was Palestine then and from whom were they liberating it?
In your piece you don’t define ‘Palestine’. If you mean the West Bank and Gaza, those areas were controlled by Jordan and Egypt respectively. Were those areas occupied at that time?
One final historical note. The name Palestine was given to the area by the Romans in the 2nd century to obliterate any memory of the Jews in the land because of the Jewish revolt. It used to be called Judea: the Land of the Jews. Palestine was the Roman name for the Philistines. The non-arabic peoples who the Jews defeated centuries prior.
In reality Israel is a country manly populated by either persons or their descendants from the Middle East or North Africa. These two groups make up > 50% of the Jewish population. Nearly all of this group is result of the Jews being expelled from their countries of origin in which their families had lived for centuries. In the case of the Ethiopians, Israel paid nearly $30M in ransom to bring about 25,000 ancient Jews to the country. There are now > 100,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Given the moral bankruptcy that the West is now exhibiting, I would suggest that Israel is the last Western nation because it has a true understanding of good and evil and it is willing to fight and die for it. Perhaps the Western nations should be trying to join Israel in the club and not vice versa?
I am surprised to read an article by Rachel Lu full of sloppy thinking, imprecision, and glaring omissions, all of which are used to generate a sense of moral equivalency, at a time when Israel’s security is threatened by a regime devoted to Israel’s annihilation. Among many other things, Lu’s assertion that the cultural identity of Arabs was threatened by Jewish immigration is preposterous. Also noteworthy is the condescension, disguised as sympathy, that Ms. Lu shows towards the citizens of Gaza. Her suggestion that the Gazans could only have bettered their territory (as opposed to turning it into an armed camp) after Israel left in 2005 if they had been ruled by a Perseus or a Cicero is groundless. It would not have taken a world-historical figure to use the concrete supplied by the international community to build schools, hospitals, new housing, better roads, etc. To suggest otherwise is to diminish the agency and abilities of the Palestinians. Finally, I am left speechless by Lu’s assertion that the creation of Israel is a result of Western sin.
You lost me at:
Creating a manufactured “moral clarity.”
“Their story is properly seen as a tragedy, and one for which Western nations rightly feel some guilt.”
If, by “tragedy” you are referring to a downfall brought on by one’s own failings and wrong actions, then perhaps I could agree with the first part of your sentence.
If Western nations feel guilt over the plight of the Palestinians, it should be because they have too often kept silent in the face of their (the Palestinians’) repeated rejections of all civilized behavior and their repeated embrace of barbarity. Worse, many Western nations have openly supported them in this cause. By all means, let France, for example, feel some guilt for this.
I am at a loss to understand your point in this piece. Frankly, I am not sure I can find it. You assert that some Palestinians are nice and peaceful, Jews are often big meanies, we cannot hold Gaza responsible for its own elections, and Western powers are ultimately to blame for something or other.
If this is intended as a response to Judith Levy, I have to add that, though we are all big boys and girls here, I think it is in poor taste.
This comment is snide and insulting. Israel could flatten Gaza in a matter of seconds. Instead, Israel notifies Gaza’s residents of its own imminent attacks by flyer, by text, by phone, by bullhorn, in short, by all possible means. They have never targeted civilians. They punish crimes, even those committed by Israelis against Arabs. This is not “restraint;” this is RESTRAINT. As others have written, their motivation is not Western Nations Club membership, but Jewish law, the laws of war, and common humanity.
In contrast, the Palestinians always target civilians, including their own. They rejoice in the deaths of Israeli innocents. If the Palestinians had Israel’s weaponry and might, do you believe they would show restraint?
Do you mean this? I don’t think Hamas and its supporters deserve anything beyond what they are getting now. Palestinians threw their lot in with Hamas. I hope they have learned to regret it; if they have they can withdraw their support and lay down their arms. As Netanyahu said, “The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.”
I can’t see what the West’s “litigating the history” has to do with this basic truth.
Much becomes clear. The first faculty member listed by the Tantur Evangelical Institute is Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, the director of director of “Sabeel, the Palestinian Liberation Theology Center.” Sabeel has been one of the drivers of the BDS movement; the recent actions of the Presbyterian Church is a fruit of Sabeel’s efforts.
Yusuf Natsheh is another faculty member. He is the top archeologist for the Waqf at the al Aqsa mosque, and has been instrumental in destroying archeological evidence of Jewish antiquity in Jerusalem in support of the Palestinian campaign of Temple denial.
Rachel Lu chose to be educated by sophisticated, polished antisemites and, though they pose as Christians and are accepted by mainstream churches, by those who seek to deny the Jewish connection the Eretz Israel and otherwise delegitimize the Jewish State.
Here you repeat the old canard that without some outside restraint, Jews will act in the most vile and evil ways possible.
Well, most of this is just jeering and not worth responding to, though I do think it’s disturbing that some want to discredit anything I say or think, simply because I have had contact with Palestinians and some of their supporters. (I don’t know the particular person at Tantur that you mentioned.) I have lots of contact with Israel’s supporters too, obviously. And if I believed everything my teachers told me, I’d obviously be writing for a very different forum, given my background and education. Are we that afraid of any real contact with people of a different perspective? For shame.
But the above quote deserves particular mention because it so egregiously unfair and misrepresentative. Of course I do not think that Jews behave “in the most vile ways possible” absent supervision. That is ridiculous and very offensive, and I suggested nothing of the kind. I did suggest two things. First, Israelis just like Palestinians know that the world is watching, and that affects their strategies and also how they present themselves. That’s not a smear. It just proves they’re not idiots. But intelligent people are cautious about attributing virtues to people based on politically-motivated statements and actions.
Second, I suggested that in the day-to-day of occupation, then yes, Israelis do sometimes pick up ugly attitudes or behave in reprehensible ways. I have seen this firsthand. I don’t conclude on this basis that they’re an awful people, of course! Just that they are people. Like Americans. Like Palestinians. Some are virtuous and high-minded, and others less so. And, I think occupation takes its toll on the soul of an occupying nation too. It would be hard to go through this kind of extended conflict without some people on both sides giving way to hate, even if Israel’s rule of law and culture and general situation makes it far less likely that people will act on that hatred in murderous ways.
Finally, I will say that my title did have something to do with Judith’s, but my sole intention was to acknowledge that my authority to speak to the situation was much less than hers. That’s all. I wrote the whole thing before even seeing her post, but then saw it right before posting, and wanted to make clear that I wasn’t trying to one-up her. If people drew exactly the opposite conclusion, very sorry.
Though you did not use the word “vile,” you placed the word “restraint” in quotes; the clear implication is that you don’t think the Israelis are acting with restraint.
How do you think the Jews would behave “absent supervision?” I and others have stated that their conduct is governed by Jewish law and by the laws of war. You reject this as you reassert, in the last sentence of the above quote, that the Jews’ statements and actions are politically motivated, and thus we shouldn’t think they’re any great shakes. So what you do think the Jews would do if nobody were watching?
For the record, I’m Jewish and my husband is Iranian. No one here is afraid of real contact with people of a different perspective.
GK Chesterton on the endless cycle of violence from Islam
“There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets.”
Probably the greatest tragedy that has befallen Israel in recent history was the untimely stroke that incapacitated Ariel Sharon. Sharon had the gravitas to make essentially the same arguments as Lu without being considered a squish or an appeaser. It is not moral equivalence to point out that occupation is coarsening to those that have to enforce it. One example, it’s been reported by reliable sources that the SOP at the many checkpoints and roadblocks Israeli solders sit in lawn chairs and stall for about an hour whenever a Palestinian ambulance is trying to take someone to the hospital. Israelis do not want to do this to themselves forever.
Doug Watt
“The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets.”
Like this Mahdi the Expected One brought to life by Olivier..
In a word, yes. BTW, all the homeless Palestinians could easily have been absorbed into Jordan, but the Jordanians wanted nothing to do with them. Ironic considering the current Queen consort of Jordan is of Palestinian descent.
I think Israel is responding to “supervision” from a power higher than America, Europe and the insane Media. Israel is no theocracy and permits secular thought, but the basis of their laws and faith come from God. I believe in general they act with that kind of supervision in mind.
Well, the end of the world will be quite unique, but it does seem Islam spreads a form of apocalypse in our midst. Whether it be the final one is yet to be seen.
So, Rachel, you posted again and I cannot help but notice that you continue to wring hands and cast blame without offering a solution. Is that because you don’t have one, or because you know we won’t like it?
Just came back on 30 July from several weeks in Israel (from 06 July — my 25 July scheduled flyback to Boston was delayed by the Oval Office Shakedown Artist’s FAA chicanery).
Good thing I didn’t read this revolting OP until *after* Shabbat.
Strongest thanks to Liz, Mareich555, SoS, Ontheleftcoast, Bryan G. Stephens, A Beleaguered Conservative, Annefy, and several others (apologies for not making specific call-outs!…).
Your responses were superlative and — not to get grandiose or anything, but — works of elevation of the Holy Name.
It’s a shame — I used to think highly of what Rachel Lu had to say on this site.
No longer: I can only marvel at the hole she keeps digging herself here — almost on the order of a multi-meter-deep Hamas tunnel, of the sort whose excavation began in the back room of an “innocent” Gazan Arab’s home.
Rachel, just a small word to the wise:
The “Palestinians” for the most part are from fellaheen clans that came pouring over the Egyptian and Syrian borders starting in the 1890s — indeed, often from much later on — as the Jewish pioneer communities, who *paid* for their homesteads, ushered in unprecedented economic growth.
I hate to disappoint you, but it gets worse.
Well based on some of the sentiments I have read on this site one doesn’t get much credit for any comments or thoughts that aren’t unequivocally affirmative of Israel and its actions both past and present.