And for no particular reason, some photos of Persian-speaking Tajiks from the Tajik Autonomous Region, in Xinjiang province, China:
(These are not my photos.)
I haven't received anything from Haaretz.
15125. RustlerPike - 12/12/2000 3:19:06 AM
Pelle:
You wrote Ms. Pinch directly?
15126. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 3:38:49 AM
No, I used the feedback adress you posted.
15127. stostosto - 12/12/2000 4:01:24 AM
Rustler,
I resent it to the new address.
(I didn't hear from Haaretz about the address).
15128. stostosto - 12/12/2000 4:06:11 AM
If Ms. Pinch peeks in here, she'll be met with the message "RustlerPike censored by the Haaretz newspaper" at the thread list page.
I wonder about her level of delicacy.
15129. stostosto - 12/12/2000 4:49:19 AM
Perhaps the EU will have a 'post-factum' row as well, seeing how such a thing is all the rage in the ever trend-setting US of A.
European parliament may reject beleaguered Nice deal
That the FT uses the term 'beleaguered' surprises me. After all, it has only been a day since the deal was clinched...
Another surprise: The Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt (ring any bells? I didn't think so), is reportedly the hero of the negotiations. He fought rigorously and selflessly for the smaller countries' interests (Belgium with its 10m pop. is classified as 'medium sized').
A Belgian hero -- isn't that a first? Outside of Tintin, I mean. (Nah, I am probably just ill informed. I don't hope we have any Belgians present).
15130. stostosto - 12/12/2000 5:11:06 AM
The Commission and the European Parliament are highly disappointed at the treaty. They had what they dub 'higher ambitions'. And being, as they are, pan-European institutions with the pan-European agenda that flows from that, it's not surprising.
If one thing became once again crystal clear at Nice, it is that the heads of state are anything but pan-European. They have to answer to their electorates, and so, engage in a vigorous defense of their national interests, real and perceived. There is no European electorate, and there's no national electorate that cares much for the European project.
In fact, the Commission polls the Europeans once a year to gauge support for things EU, and they show a pronounced lack of enthusiasm all-round.
I have that EUROBAROMETER survey from Autumn 1999 at hand, and it shows:
* 51% of EU citizens deem their country's EU membership 'a good thing'
Ireland unsurprisingly tops the list with 82%, followed by Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Sain, Italy, Greece, Belgium and --- surprise! --Denmark, which at 54% is above average. (Though the percentage saying our membership is 'a bad thing' at 21% is only surpassed the Swedes (30%) and the Brits (24%).
(cont.)
15131. stostosto - 12/12/2000 5:11:21 AM
A bit surprising is that both France and Germany -- together forming the prime engine of the EU project -- have below average support for their EU membership, at 48% and 47% respectively saying membership is a good thing..
* 45% of EU citizens say they have a national identity only. 42% feel national first, European second; 6% feel European first, national second, 4% say they are Europeans only.
* 38% of EU citizens agree 'completely' or 'slightly' that there is a European cultural identity shared by all Europeans. 49% disagree completely or slightly. (The only country to have a majority agree is Ireland 43-42. Germany is tied). Finland is the strongest opponent to that statement with 65% of Finns disagreeing. (But with their language, how could they identify culturally with anybody...)
15132. stostosto - 12/12/2000 5:12:24 AM
It's an endearing name for a treaty, though: The Nice Treaty.
15133. stostosto - 12/12/2000 5:26:15 AM
Rustler,
you said to joezan:
"though christened Rustler Pike, I use a Hebrew name "
'christened'? Is that really the term for Jews? Or were you just being facetious?
15134. stostosto - 12/12/2000 5:27:18 AM
Donnerwetter, I think this place is going slow...
15135. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 5:36:13 AM
You are hyper-active today, sto. Here it is a slow day at the office. I think I'll pack up and go home and read a book on mental history and economics.
You said once that you had done studies on the Baltic states. Have you continued to follow economic developments there?
15136. RustlerPike - 12/12/2000 6:02:50 AM
sto:
Jewened?
15137. stostosto - 12/12/2000 6:06:52 AM
Rustler,
why not?
Pelle,
My 1992 M.Sc. thesis was about privatisation in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. But in the early 90s I followed developments in all the Central and East European transition countries. I don't do that anymore, not closely at any rate.
What do you want to know about the Baltics?
15138. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 8:02:34 AM
sto
Telia owns about a quarter of the former telecom monoplies in Estonia and Lithuania. We have benn asked to look at strategies, scenarios and whatnot, all the fancy stuff management jargon can come up with.
All observers agree that the economy in Lithuania is less dynamic than in Latvia and the accepted explanation is the Lithuania is a couple of years behind in the liberalisation game. I was wondering if there might be structural differences too. The Soviet planner were apt to locate tractor manufacture to one republic and, say, defense electronics to another. My thesis then is that if there are significant differences in the Soviet heritage they can explain some of the differences in economic activity. I know that this is not a very original thought, but my problem I that I cannot find any good information about these things.
15139. stostosto - 12/12/2000 8:41:02 AM
Pelle,
according to a major study of the Soviet economy done jointly in 1991 by the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and the EBRD:
Latvia --with 0.9% of the USSR population -- was in 1989 specialised in the production of
Radios: 17.4% of total USSR production
Electric irons: 8.4%
Fish and other sea food products: 4.9%
Equipment for live stock raising and fodder: 4.2%
Washing machines: 4.2%
Bicycles, children's: 4.0%
Hosiery: 3.7%
Synthetic fibres: 3.3%
Refrigerators and freezers: 3.2%
Lithuania with 1.3% of the USSR population was in 1989 specialised in:
Metal-cutting machines: 6.6%
Televisions, all: 6.2%
(colour: 4.2%)
Refrigerators and freezers: 5.5%
Hosiery: 5.0%
AC electric motors: 4.6%
Lard: 4.5%
What do you make of that?
I would have expected Lithuania to have a greater share of electricity output than the registered 1.7% of USSR production due to the infamous giant Ignalina nuclear power plant which made the republic a net exporter to other republics of that.
15140. stostosto - 12/12/2000 8:42:54 AM
I forgot:
Source: A Study of the Soviet Economy. February 1991. Published by the OECD, Paris.
(Hair raising stuff, huh?)
15141. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 8:58:06 AM
sto
The big share of radio production is interesting. Some support for my thesis there. Not that I think Soviet radios were terribly sophisticated, but it still involves semi-conductors and stuff. Thank you very much. This is good stuff to put in a report - intimates intimate knowledge of the issue at hand.
Another thing. Do you remember the question of the extremely high number of Internet hosts in Estonia relative to population? We hypothesized (if I recall correctly) that the availability of cheap, skilled technicians could be a factor. It now seems clear to me that it indeed is (1) but there are two more: (2) the availability - in 1996-97 - of cheap office space near the main telephone exchange in Tallin. (3) the means to take advantage of (1) and (2): optical fibre cables to both Finland and Sweden. Estonia was the first Baltic country to be hooked up to the West by high-capacity cables.
15142. joezan - 12/12/2000 9:29:43 AM
15143. joezan - 12/12/2000 9:35:32 AM
Rustler:
I was kidding.
I actually clicked on the e-mail link you provided a few messages back, started typing the note, and realized, Hey - they're not gonna know who I'm talking about, because I don't even know who I'm talking about.
I remember the other name, but did not know if that one was just a Fraymoniker. I will this very minute re-send. The text will be very close to what Pelle wrote.
Joe
15144. joezan - 12/12/2000 10:02:19 AM
Rustler:
Ok, here it is:
Dear Ms Niv,
As a co-member with Mr.Gil Ronen of an online forum, themote.com, I was very disappointed at his announcement that an article in your newspaper concerning the dispute over the village of Katzir was to be published only in Hebrew. The Mote is an international forum, and although we have contributors from many different countries, none of us (except, of course, Gil) knows any Hebrew.
Mr. Ronen has been reporting here on developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly those involving the Jewish settlements, for some time, and we were all excited to be able to read about some of these events "closer to the ground" as it were, and in a broader context than what we are used to, with our own Mr. Ronen as a source in that broader context.
I respectfully request that you reconsider, and publish the article in English.
Thank you.
Sincerely, etc.
15145. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 1:40:44 PM
Good letter, joe.
International protest storm led by elite forum hits Haaretz over Pike suppression
15146. stostosto - 12/12/2000 1:41:51 PM
Pike for Pres! Every Mote counts! Count every Mote!
15147. uzmakk - 12/12/2000 1:48:34 PM
Here here. Here here.
15148. cmboyce - 12/12/2000 1:52:29 PM
OK. Stostosto, you be an indented mote; Uzmakk, you'd be a good hanging mote, I think; and I'll be a dimpled mote. All other moties can fall in behind us, and then maybe we can get Ms. Niv to count us. Preferably without the assistance of anyone from Floriduh.
15149. stostosto - 12/12/2000 1:53:50 PM
The Diva -- a pregnant Mote?
15150. RustlerPike - 12/12/2000 1:56:08 PM
Thank you, thank you. I think I have to remind everyone that at this point I am limiting my international political ambitions to my position as Head Priest of the Linebreaker sect - the hot new Middle Eastern religion which is gaining new converts every day.
Very interesting Likud convention going on right now, btw. Sharon gave an excellent speech, I thought. He said as PM he would appoint Bibi Deputy PM and Foreign Minister and Barak Deputy PM and Defense Minister (the crowd booed). God, I hope he becomes PM and not Bibi.
15151. cmboyce - 12/12/2000 1:58:53 PM
Can (or will) the Knesset dissolve itself in order to let Bibi run?
15152. stostosto - 12/12/2000 1:59:07 PM
Break a line for Rustler Pike!
Break a line for Rustler Pike!
Break a line for Rustler Pike!
Break a line for Rustler Pike!
Break a line for Rustler Pike!
Break a line for Rustler Pike!
Break a line for Rustler Pike!
Break a line for Rustler Pike!
Oy ve!
15153. stostosto - 12/12/2000 2:00:09 PM
Where is Irving Snodgrass, btw?
He is so good at orchestrating elections.
15154. RustlerPike - 12/12/2000 2:02:56 PM
joe:
Excellent letter. I'll watch out for your pokerfaced humor next time.
15155. stostosto - 12/12/2000 2:05:54 PM
Rustler,
is it a given that Barak can't win reelection?
15156. RustlerPike - 12/12/2000 2:07:08 PM
Can (or will) the Knesset dissolve itself in order to let Bibi run?
It can, but hopefully it won't. A lot is up to Shas, which is promising to help Bibi back in. But I'm just hoping it breaks its promise: the polls show it stands to lose much of its power in new elections.
15157. RustlerPike - 12/12/2000 2:08:57 PM
is it a given that Barak can't win reelection?
I'd say it is, yes. He doesn't even look like he wants to win. And what would he do??? He'd be right back in the same mess.
15158. robertjayb - 12/12/2000 2:12:18 PM
.
stostosto,
Message # 15129
A Belgian hero -- isn't that a first?
nonono. You forget Inspector Poirot.
15159. stostosto - 12/12/2000 3:33:50 PM
Bobbyjay
Poirot, oui...
Héro... bof.
(Thanks for reading my Euro-posts, btw).
15160. stostosto - 12/12/2000 3:36:25 PM
Rustler,
"He doesn't even look like he wants to win"
That's a great deal more understandable than the fact that there are other people who seem hell-bent on becoming Israeli PM. Me, I would say no thanks. I'd choose Belgium any day over that mess.
OK, maybe not Belgium.
15161. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 4:23:34 PM
I think Rustler is on the right track here. Outsourcing government must be a winner in a modern market economy like Israel's.
15162. stostosto - 12/12/2000 4:33:23 PM
Yes. What's Carl Bildt doing these days?
15163. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 4:33:23 PM
Something completely different. All the world learns from democracy in America. The Economist:
Filipinos need to draw lessons from farther
afield. And in President Joseph Estrada’s case, the
impeachment trial of Bill Clinton offers three important precepts. One is that opinion polls matter just as much as evidence. Another is that hypocrisy is nothing to be surprised at. And perhaps the most important is that it ain’t over until the mistresses
testify.
15164. transient1a - 12/12/2000 4:40:18 PM
pseudoeramus
15084 >He curiously combines high intelligence and deep stupidity.<(For 'curiously''paradoxically'?)
But is it curious that you catagorize me as a defective idiot savant.
If you had deigned to read my posts then you would have realized that the expert's best guess is that the Pathans consist of an amalgamation which included a very large indigenous Jewish population.
Whether this is more or less interesting than substantiating Pathan legends depends one's personal preference.
Your comment in 15081 >What I contest, short of genetic proof, is the legendary Jewish ethnogenesis of Pashtuns.< is brain dead because no one knows -- or, for that matter, one can confidently say will ever know -- the genetic characteristics of the lost tribes of Isreal. (And, obviously, even the exact origins of the ancient indigenous Jewish population of Afghanistan is not known.)
Continued
15165. transient1a - 12/12/2000 4:45:42 PM
Continued
Here is an interesting site on genetic proof: Genetic Links
Unfortunately the article from which the following was abstracted no longer appears to be available:
>Jews Are The Genetic Brothers Of Palestinians, Syrians, And Lebanese
If a common heritage conferred peace, then perhaps the long history of conflict in the Middle East would have been resolved years ago. For, according to a new scientific study, Jews are the genetic brothers of Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese, and they all share a common genetic lineage that stretches back thousands of years.
"Jews and Arabs are all really children of Abraham," says Harry Ostrer, M.D.,Director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine, an author of the new study by an international team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Israel. "And all have preserved their Middle Eastern genetic roots over 4,000 years," he says.
The researchers analyzed the Y chromosome, which is usually passed unchanged from father to son, of more than 1,000 men worldwide.......<
15166. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 5:00:41 PM
That Jews and Arabs are related has been known for a very long time on lingustic grounds. Hebrew and Arabic makes up the Semitic language group together with ancient Egyptian whose name escapes me for the moment but it is now dead except as the liturgic language of the Coptic church.
15167. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 6:03:13 PM
Transient1a
You are an idiot. You did not name this "expert". His babbling about Jews in medieval Afghanistan is just that, babbling.
If you had deigned to read my posts then you would have realized that the expert's best guess is that the Pathans consist of an amalgamation which included a very large indigenous Jewish population.
Well, your "expert" said: "If it will ever be written it would probably reveal that the Pashtuns are NOT one of the lost tribes of Israil but that there were many links between Jews and Pashtuns, and that quite a number of real Bani-Israel had their due share in the very heterogeneous and complex ethnogenesis of the Pashtuns."
What I do agree with is that the Pashtuns are an amalgam, but I see no reason why an endogamous people like the Jews should have mixed with the Pashtuns all that much.
The most straightforward explanation of Pashtun ethnogenesis, short of some other evidence, is linguistic: Pashto is an archaic Iranian language (not of Iran, but of the Iranian language family), and therefore Pashtuns are descended from Aryan tribes that came from the Eurasian steppe. They later probably mixed with Indian, Dardic and Turkic elements. Many Pashtun tribes claim Turkic ancestry.
By the way, your "expert" does make one minor error: Ne'matullah was not a Persian, but a Pashtun scribe at the Mughal court who did not speak any Pashto.
And no one has ever thought otherwise than that Jews and Arabs are related.
15168. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 6:04:17 PM
Most "Arabs" are probably not descended from the inhabitants of Arabia anyway. They are indigenous people who were converted to Islam and then Arabised. Saddam Hussein, for example, represents a very recent example of this process. His entire al-Takriti clan is of Assyrian Christian extraction. That is probably the story of the entire Arab world outside the Arabian peninsula, i.e., Jews, Assyrians, Berbers, Egyptians and other Semitic peoples who were Arabised.
In fact, such a phenomenon is very common. Read Jared Diamond's chapter on "how China became Chinese".
15169. LadyChaos - 12/12/2000 6:17:24 PM
pseuder,
Are you going to Moscow for the Holidays, this year?
15170. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 6:26:02 PM
No. why would I?
15171. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 6:27:16 PM
we'll be in Peshawar, though.
15172. LadyChaos - 12/12/2000 6:34:55 PM
I seem to recall that your fiancee was working in Moscow. But didn't you get married, since then? Forgive me. I've been in law school, and I'm thus in something of a time warp.
15173. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 6:46:25 PM
we have been wed, and she has been liberated from the job in Moscow.
15174. transient1a - 12/12/2000 8:53:56 PM
PelleNilsson & PE
>That Jews and Arabs are related has been known for a very long time on lingustic grounds.<
>And no one has ever thought otherwise than that Jews and Arabs are related.<
These comments are completely irrelevant.
The key line was: >"And all have preserved their Middle Eastern genetic roots over 4,000 years,"
he says.<
Try reading what I post.
AND
Try going to the site I pointed to (Genetic Links) and reading its contents. You will then see why these genetic studies are of interest. The scientists doing the work are not complete nor even partial idiots.
PE
>What I do agree with is that the Pashtuns are an amalgam, but I see no reason why an endogamous people like the Jews should have mixed with the Pashtuns all that much.<
"you see no reason why" is not very strong evidence of anything except your bias. Obviously, you are in denial of your Jewish genes :-).
Mixing happens and it has happened. It is happening to North American Jews. It happened to the Spanish Jews. It happened to the Lemba. It happened to Jews who went to China. (As a matter of fact, some claim the Jews from Afghanistan all fled to China where they were subsequently absorbed.)
The key question is: Where did the Jewish population of Afghanistan go?
Your reasoning based on purely linguistic considerations is useful, but simplistic. Consider that Yiddish, not Hebrew, was used by European Jews. And as you have found: >Persian was once the language of Asiatic Jewry.<
ANYWAY
Enough conjecture.
PE, I thought you would be interested in the information or I would not have bothered to post it. However, it appears I have only bruised your tender ego.
Enough already.
15175. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 9:36:55 PM
#15174
"you see no reason why" is not very strong evidence of anything except your bias.
Transient1a, What evidence have you adduced? Nothing. The only thing your unnamed "expert" said was that there were a lot of Jews in Afghanistan. He didn't even show WHERE in Afghanistan these Jews were, except to say "central Afghanistan", where Pashtuns don't even live. Why don't you and your "expert" get a fucking clue.
There is a very good reason Pashtuns cling to their legendary Jewish ancestry. Pashtuns are extremely pious Muslims, and the thought of being descended from pagans is abhorrent to them. Thus, they strongly believe in their Jewish descent.
The key question is: Where did the Jewish population of Afghanistan go?
That is not a key question, just one which makes you seem ignorant.
A good number left at the time Israel was founded; the remaining left in the late 1970s.
Your reasoning based on purely linguistic considerations is useful, but simplistic. Consider that Yiddish, not Hebrew, was used by European Jews. And as you have found: >Persian was once the language of Asiatic Jewry.
Ridiculous comparison.
That Asiatic Jews spoke Persian has no meaning, because Persian and its older forms have been the lingua franca in Central Asia for millennia. At one time it was THE lingua franca from the
Euphrates to the Ganges.
Pashto contains the most archaic grammatical, phonological and lexical elements of the Iranian language family. Why the hell would Jews -- who were probably urban merchants, scribes, etc. -- adopt Pashto, the language of highland tribal bumpkins? It strains credulity.
15176. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 9:38:12 PM
PE, I thought you would be interested in the information or I would not have bothered to post it.
You've said nothing new or interesting. You are an habitual vomiter of irrelevant information. Why don't you go to Peshawar as a tourist. I will arrange for a Pashtun tribal posse to kidnap you and impale a knife through your left eye.
15177. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 9:43:00 PM
Linguistic evidence, by the way, is usually very sound.
It was linguists who initially posited that the Jews and the Arabs were related. And it turns out to be right based on genetic data. Linguists have held that the Basques were not related to other European peoples. Hematological evidence seems to bear them out.
Pashtuns speak an Iranian language with strong archaic features. Given the proven track record of linguistic evidence, the default assumption ought to be that Pashtuns descended from an Iranian tribe from the Eurasian steppe. Their tribal culture is also very similar to the Kurdish tribal culture, another highland people speaking an Iranian language with archaic features.
15178. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 10:14:33 PM
Either in this thread or in the Language thread, I've mentioned the Hunzakots of northern Pakistan (or the Borosho, as they call themselves). They are the Basques of Central Asia, i.e., their language has no known relative in the entire world. Here's what some of them look like:
And for no particular reason, some photos of Persian-speaking Tajiks from the Tajik Autonomous Region, in Xinjiang province, China:
(These are not my photos.)
15179. transient1a - 12/12/2000 11:01:15 PM
pe
Whether you like or not:
l
The Jews migrated to China were completely assimilated. This does not fit in with your theories. Maybe you can concoct a better theory?
2
We are NOT discussing what happened to Jews who were in Afghanistan in the 20th century. We are discussing Jews in medieval Afghanistan. You are terminally confused.
3
Linguistic analysis is very useful. As is an analysis of relic customs. Relic customs, not liguistic analysis, pointed to the Lemba as having Jewish ancestors. This has been authenticated by genetic studies. Relic customs point to the Pathans having Jewish ancestors. Genetic studies may be able to discern characteristic Semitic genes as an important component in their gene pool -- at least in some of the tribes.
Only time will tell, NOT your ranting.
BY THE WAY
Congratulations on your marriage.
15180. LadyChaos - 12/12/2000 11:16:20 PM
PE,
The conventional wisdom is that Hungarian and Finnish descended from the same language, and thus those two peoples descended from a common tribe. What I had not heard was the assertion recently made to me by a Hungarian-American colleague that the Koreans also descended from this common tribe. Have you heard of this? Any thoughts?
15181. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 11:30:13 PM
Chaos: Finnish and Hungarian belong to the Fino-Ugric family, which also contains many languages spoken in the Arctic region by Mongoloid Eskimo-like peoples.
Many linguists believe that Fino-Ugric and Altaic (a language family comprising Turkic, Mongolian and Manchurian languages) are actually one family.
For many years, it's been hypothesised that Korean and Japanese may also be Altaic, but very distantly.
Put everything together, and Hungarian and Korean may be very very very distant relatives.
15182. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 11:31:39 PM
#15179
The Jews migrated to China were completely assimilated. This does not fit in with your theories.
You are too stupid for words.
My theory is that urban Jewish scholars, merchants and scribes who converted to Islam would not have been assimilated into a highland tribal culture. Only an idiot could believe this. If the Jews of Afghanistan were assimilated into the local culture, it must have been with the Persians/Tajiks, who inhabited the major cities (except Kandahar, which is not in central Afghanistan).
Kaifeng, by contrast, was once a major centre of imperial China. Urban Jews could easily have assimilated there.
We are NOT discussing what happened to Jews who were in Afghanistan in the 20th century. We are discussing Jews in medieval Afghanistan. You are terminally confused.
The Jews of Afghanistan who left Afganistan between 1948 and 1979 had lived in that country as long as anyone can remember.
Relic customs point to the Pathans having Jewish ancestors
My family is Pashtun, Mardanr Yusufzai Pashtun to be specific. They have no Jewish relic customs. Your global Jew-hunters probably just found some eccentric tribe and embelled it.
Genetic studies may be able to discern characteristic Semitic genes as an important component in their gene pool -- at least in some of the tribes. Only time will tell, NOT your ranting.
Isn't this what I said? I would accept genetic studies as evidence, but not this shit about "there were lots of Jews in medieval Afghanistan, so Pashtuns must have mixed with them a lot".
15183. pseudoerasmus - 12/12/2000 11:31:58 PM
i mean by embelled = embellished
15184. LadyChaos - 12/12/2000 11:39:43 PM
PE,
I see. Thanks. Have you ever thought of giving up economics and devoting yourself to writing anthropological travelogues? Your anecdotes (I especially recall the one about New Year's Eve in Vladivostok) and mini-dissertations in this forum show incredible promise for some exciting reading. I can see myself taking a rickety train across Asia Minor with a dog-eared guide by PE clutched in my hands.
15185. cmboyce - 12/12/2000 11:52:33 PM
While I cannot imagine taking a rickety train across Asia Minor or any of the places PE has visited (I used to imagine such things, though), I too would certainly love to read the book.
Just think, PE: you could finance an endless (or ended) succession of trips by publishing.
15186. transient1a - 12/12/2000 11:59:13 PM
pe
A
>Isn't this what I said?<
Well no. You seemed to be interested in only confirming the 'Lost Tribe' theory.
B
You seem to be neglecting the turmoil caused by the Mongul invasions.
C
Anyway the expert I quoted is not Jewish and appeared objective.
Confirm you still have your rocketmail email address and I will send you his email address.
Out of curiosity, I would like to know the outcome of any correspondence.
15187. transient1a - 12/13/2000 12:07:18 AM
pe
A
>Isn't this what I said?<
Well no. You seemed to be interested in only confirming the 'Lost Tribe' theory.
B
You seem to be neglecting the turmoil caused by the Mongul invasions.
C
Anyway the expert I quoted is not Jewish and appeared objective.
Confirm you still have your rocketmail email address and I will send you his email address.
Out of curiosity, I would like to know the outcome of any correspondence.
15188. RustlerPike - 12/13/2000 2:03:18 AM
LadyChaos:
I'm sure I speak for all other Linebreakers when I say - welcome to our sect. Are you a born Linebreaker or a convert?
PS - I think it's about time for the traditional Appointment to Positions - an essential stage in any emerging sect. Obviously, Pelle is the Bishop of the Swedish Linebreaking Diocese, sto heads Denmark, etc. But there are other positions to be filled: Secretary, Spokesman, Speaker, Whip, Treasurer etc. Any suggestions?
15189. stostosto - 12/13/2000 3:33:57 AM
I think we ought to have some Linebreaker rabbis and mullahs.
15190. stostosto - 12/13/2000 3:34:50 AM
LadyChaos could be our Bohemian bishop.
15191. stostosto - 12/13/2000 3:46:25 AM
transient1a
A
Nice to see you here. Welcome.
B
The pseudoerasmus troll that you are debating is partly Pathan/Pashtun, so that might partly explain his fascination with things Pathan/Pashtun (though I am not sure if this particular fascination of his is all that large, relatively speaking). What's your story?
C
Where in the world are you based?
D
I must say, you have an interesting way of dividing your posts into sections. It very effectively sets you apart from any other poster I know. I am also glad it doesn't seem incompatible with the Linebreaker liturgy.
15192. RustlerPike - 12/13/2000 10:17:57 AM
sto:
Your Linebreaking fervor pleases us. Just don't go and found a breakaway sect. This would not please us at all.
15193. LadyChaos - 12/13/2000 10:30:41 AM
What the hell is a Linebreaker?
15194. RustlerPike - 12/13/2000 10:32:27 AM
Fascinating situation in Israel: Shas and One Israel (Labor) are trying to push through a law that would make it possible for Bibi to run in the PM contest, without holding elections for the Knesset as well. Bibi opposes this law furiously, because one thing he apparently knows he can't do is lead a unity government with Barak as his deputy. He's all about division, not unification. The law has been voted through in the preliminary vote, and should be finalized Monday or Tuesday.
Bibi wants general elections, so the Right can gain a solid majority. Shas is somewhat afraid of elections, and wants a unity government - as does most of the Israeli public.
15195. RustlerPike - 12/13/2000 10:35:49 AM
Chaos:
Thine, it seems, is an authentic, genuine Linebreaking faith: the best kind. Thou practicest the Linebreaking creed without even knowing that thou dost.
15196. RustlerPike - 12/13/2000 10:37:36 AM
[A Linebreaker puts an html line break - < br > - before the beginning of every post, to make the post more pleasant to the readers' eyes].
15197. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 10:45:34 AM
Greetings, homeboys.
A brief flying visit to plug a book I've just finished that some of you may find interesting. I particularly recommend it to Hooligan, though I haven't seen him around for a while.
It's called 'On the Missionary Trail' and is by a young writer named Tom Hiney. The subtitle is 'A journey through Polynesia, Asia and Africa with the London Missionary Society'.
In the late 18th century, this LMS repeatedly sent out a ship with families and single men to various far-flung points of the globe and dumped them there to spread the Evangelical word. To check up on these outposts and individuals, two worthies were then sent out in 1821 to visit and report on the ongoing activities. Hiney traces this rather remarkable trip through the South Sea islands, NZ and Oz, China, India, Mauritius and then Madagascar. On the journey, which took 9 years, they kept a detailed diary which Hiney uses as the base for his narrative.
The main interest to me (as always) was the account of the worlds these men travelled through, places literally in the throes of first extended contact with the Western world. However, it was also very very interesting to explore what kind of men these first missionaries were - the pair of protagonists and the scores of other missionaries they interacted with along the way. The characters run from base and venal to quite noble and brave and enlivened by faith. And Hiney does a very good job of searching out the historical record and juxtaposing it with his own opinions and those expressed so vividly in the diaries these two fellows kept.
Highly recommended.
15198. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 10:53:08 AM
What the hell, I'll also plug the other book I've just finished even though it's only peripherally "International."
Readers of the New Yorker magazine will be familiar with the name of Adam Gopnik. He's been writing there for almost as long as I've been reading the magazine religiously (15 years). Well, a few years ago he headed off to raise his newborn son for a few years in Paris because (he claims) of Barney's ubiquity in the USA. He then wrote an absolutely superb Paris Diary for the magazine for 5 years, it being my personal highlight of the magazine during that period.
Well, some of those pieces and other material have been put together in an absolutely delightful book -'From Paris to the Moon'. It's a Paris obsessive's Paris-obsessive book, but also a very charming portrait of a young family and of an openminded and charming New Yorker in Paris. It's genuinely touching as well as quite revealing of a Paris that even those of us who have lived there do not always get to see. In the end, I think it transcends journalism and becomes something more meaningful and quite beautiful.
Of all the books I've read this year, this one was the most delightful. Of course, I now want to raise my own infant son in Paris for 5 years like Gopnik did. If you check out this lovely book, you'll find out why.
15199. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 10:55:10 AM
I wonder if pelle or sto has ever seen/read the New Yorker. Don't let the title fool you, it has been a seminal and outstanding literary magazine plus plus throughout this century. Of all American periodicals, it is still the sole must-read. And it has GREAT cartoons too.
15200. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 10:58:27 AM
Lest, I mislead potential readers about Gopnik's book, it also contains some "heavy" bits such as an account of the Papon trial. Course, there are also lengthy bits on stuff like why Les Deux Magots is absolutely out of bounds to the intellectuals of Paris while - almost but not quite incomprehensibly - the next door La Coupole is mandatory.
15201. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 10:58:48 AM
misplaced comma.
15202. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 11:04:31 AM
And speaking of the NY, this issue has an excellent and lengthy look as Scheverdnadze's Georgia. Most interesting for the well-sketched portrait of the man himself and his lasting ties to the American foreign policy establsihment as well as the picture of a country steadily going to seed and riven by mafiosi.
15203. PelleNilsson - 12/13/2000 11:05:53 AM
marj
kuligin was recently seen in the Cafe where he announced the coming of his fifth (or was it fourth) child.
15204. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 11:10:14 AM
Thank you, Pelle.
Now, have you read the New Yorker ever? Do you know you can get an annual international subscription (it's a weekly) for as little as 24$ plus postage? I gave my godson one and it cost about $60 and he lives in Japan!
15205. PelleNilsson - 12/13/2000 11:12:03 AM
No. I shall take it under consideration.
15206. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 11:16:02 AM
Pelle,
I bet your nearest University subscribes, or go to a USIS (I assume they have them in Sweden). It's a very reliably good magazine, though it undergoes ups and downs. The current editor is David Remnick, a name Internationalists such as yourself should recognize.
15207. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 11:19:08 AM
Hokay,
In the general spirit of the season, I invite Pelle and sto and any other International member of our fraternity who has not seen a copy of the NY to send your mailing addresses to my hotmail address and I will drop a selected back copy or two of the publication into the mail for you as a gift.
15208. stostosto - 12/13/2000 1:08:39 PM
Hello, marjoribanks.
Welcome to International!
Thank you for your kind offer, it's very much in the spirit of this thread as you will soon find out.
15209. RustlerPike - 12/13/2000 1:21:30 PM
Expect a Pe rant about marj and the New Yorker deserving each other just about... now.
15210. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 1:54:29 PM
Eh, what's there to rant about?
But Pike, d'you want a copy or two as well? I'm sure I can find some with articles on Israel in 'em.
BTW, this week's cover by Art Spiegelman is quite amusing. I wish I could find it to post here. He's the cartoon editor, btw, and the guy who put out those justifiably lauded 'Maus' books. Know who I'm talking about?
15211. RustlerPike - 12/13/2000 2:02:59 PM
Yes, I remember Maus. I used to have one of them. Strong stuff.
15212. RustlerPike - 12/13/2000 2:10:26 PM
But Pike, d'you want a copy or two as well? I'm sure I can find some with articles on Israel in 'em.
Contrary to what you may think, I have some interests besides everything Israeli. My hobbies include macrame and horseback riding, and my dream is to take the cast of The Bold and the Beautiful on a guided tour of Ramallah, to be capped off by a skinny dip in the Dead Sea.
Which reminds me: is it true what they wrote here in one of the papers, that George W. said that the US would stand by Israel, and would never let the Arabs push the Israelis into the Red Sea?
15213. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 2:12:02 PM
I had to give away my Maus books, they were too gruelling to read. I think they're the only cartoon books I've read that truly qualify as literature.
A couple of weeks ago I bought and have read a cartoon book on Palestine by another "serious" cartoonist named Joe Sacco. It's mediocre, though I hear his book on Bosnia is quite good.
On an International note, I still relish going through Asterix and TinTin books.
15214. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 2:16:00 PM
I figured you had other interests, Pike. But the breadth and depth of them frankly leave me astounded. I meant that you may be interested in what a "thoughtful" US publication is printing about Israel.
About mental defective Bush, I wouldn't take any quote the man says about international matters seriously. Remember that James Baker speaks for him right now. Baker was not exactly an Israel-buddy at all costs. In fact, I genuinely believe that the Dems are more reliable from your viewpoint.
15215. stostosto - 12/13/2000 2:29:56 PM
marjoribanks
what is your hotmail address?
and what part of Belgium are you from?
15216. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 2:36:58 PM
Sto,
marjoribanks@hotmail.com.
BTW, thanks for the warm welcome. I'll try and make myself at home here now. But I'm afraid my strong views may make me a misfit among you peacful types.
15217. stostosto - 12/13/2000 2:53:11 PM
marjoribanks,
try us, we are used to a little bit of everything, as one Danish expression goes. (I'm Danish, could you tell?)
15218. andonly - 12/13/2000 4:38:50 PM
(aka Seguine)
Hello all, why is Sto welcoming Banks?
Marjoribanks,
I can't believe you like Gopnik that much.
I used to think he was fantastic when he was an art critic--insightful, funny, and just brilliantly concise about all the raging debates of the time.
Then he went to France and became boring; his humor went flat, he wrote about uninteresting things. Whether it was Frogs, fatherhood, advancing age or something truly sinister, something did him in, IMO. I never read him now.
(BTW, following some odd posts here from some days ago I scanned the Cafe and discovered not only that I have the hots for Sto but that your offspring is a future heartbreaker himself. What a darling!)
15219. stostosto - 12/13/2000 4:42:45 PM
Hey, seguine!!!!
Where have you been you rioutous babe?
15220. Fielding - 12/13/2000 4:46:03 PM
Banks:
"Lest, I mislead potential readers about Gopnik's book, it also contains some "heavy" bits such as an account of the Papon trial. Course, there are also lengthy bits on stuff like why Les Deux Magots is absolutely out of bounds to the intellectuals of Paris while - almost but not quite incomprehensibly - the next door La Coupole is mandatory"
La Coupole and Les Deux Magots are not even in the same arrondissement. Perhaps you mean Cafe de Flore?
15221. Fielding - 12/13/2000 4:49:14 PM
I have a bound set of the Maus books. A friend of mine knows Spiegelman, who not only dedicated them for me, but drew a cartoon of himself doing so on the inside cover.
15222. stostosto - 12/13/2000 4:50:22 PM
Fäldin in a Parisian mood?
Gauloises á la rive gauche.
Nice going, Thorbjörn!
15223. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 4:55:37 PM
Seguine,
hey, welcome back and thanks for the compliment re offspring. I've been spaming various threads with his tiny visage for months now.
I don't like Gopnik now that he's doing a New York Diary at all. but i do confess that his Paris version was like my favorite bit of the mag for all those years he did it. It was perfect, as far as I'm concerned. Check out his book, it's witty and heartfelt and well-informed.
Fielding,
My mistake. Of course you're right, Cafe de Flore it is across the way from the unfathomably unfashionable Les Deux Magots.
15224. stostosto - 12/13/2000 4:57:19 PM
Gopnik? Sounds like a good name for a couple dudes in the political threads...
15225. stostosto - 12/13/2000 4:59:22 PM
marj,
tell me, before I email you, which I will, why you think I, in particular, should read that particular mag?
15226. marjoribanks - 12/13/2000 5:09:08 PM
Eh, it's a good magazine sto. I've already extolled it perhaps more than the average issue deserves (it's a weekly after all) but the good issues are imo examples of the best such a periodical can be in this language. It's hard to describe if you haven't seen one and I'll be sure to pick a coupla good ones for you.
Now, i'm off.
BTW, about Gopnik, there was a delicious skewering of him (and incidentally la Brown's NY) in Salon last year or so. Maybe tomorrow I'll post it for some perspective even though I disagree with it strenuously.
15227. Fielding - 12/13/2000 5:14:11 PM
sto3:
Not every issue is great. Many are, and many have important cutting edge cultural issues. For example, they printed an article on Ebola called The Hot Zone which was so popular it was soon adapted into a book. They had an article on cannibalism by Southwestern Native Americans about a year before the evidence was made public. They have had a series of fine articles on such disparate topics as Buster Keaton, the letters of Joseph P. Kennedy, genetics and Hitler's living relatives. In addition, the cartoons totally kick ass.
I don't know how well it would play in Denmark, though.
15228. PelleNilsson - 12/13/2000 5:26:43 PM
Code translation:
I don't know how well it would play in Denmark, though. = I don't know if a Dane can appreciate the depth of American culture.
This is a joke, Fielding, but with a tiny bit of an edge to it.
15229. PelleNilsson - 12/13/2000 5:28:53 PM
andonly
Good to see you. sto's welcoming marj is a joke. marj is, unfortunately, a rather infrequent visitor these days.
15230. stostosto - 12/13/2000 5:43:10 PM
Ah, Pelle, Fäldin is a fine ex-Swede.
Fielding,
Thanks. It sounds interesting, alright. I don't take your comment the way Pelle seems to. I am much interested in this Maus thing as I am a closet cartoon aficionado who have somehow never managed to lay my hands on one of his works.
Do you know Tardi, the somewhat strange, but highly literarily (is that a word) ambitious French epic cartoonist?
15231. stostosto - 12/13/2000 5:44:03 PM
I realise pranks such as welcoming marj may give this forum a little too-inbred air. I will try to restrain myself.
15232. stostosto - 12/13/2000 5:57:18 PM
Tardi: Le mystère des profondeurs. Scene: Paris, 1922.
Click to see larger version. The site actually gives you all the pages of this album. C'est formidable!
15233. andonly - 12/13/2000 6:36:12 PM
Where have you been you rioutous babe?
[Oooooh, he spoke! Should I try to fix him up with my sister? No, she doesn't deserve him.]
I have been in the Israel threads over at Table Talk (as Kalithedes), and in a local forum in my town, and of course, in RL.
15234. RustlerPike - 12/14/2000 1:55:21 AM
Welcome, andonly!
And lets all give a warm welcome to His Highness, 
The Leader of The Free World!!!
15235. PelleNilsson - 12/14/2000 2:02:13 AM
Rustler
I doubt we will se that article in Haaretz. Can you give us the high-lights (without being too self-serving)?
15236. RustlerPike - 12/14/2000 2:21:10 AM
Pelle:
Let's wait until this weekend, OK? If it's not in the new issue I'll provide the highlights. In any case, the real highlight is that Herzlish photo of me, which took up an entire page in the print version, and only lacked a dashed line and instructions to cut it out and pin it up as a poster.
A Pound of Flesh: what we Jews use foreskins for!
15237. RustlerPike - 12/14/2000 3:13:02 AM
(OK - not a pound. An ounce of flesh?)
15238. RustlerPike - 12/14/2000 3:17:40 AM
Avigdor 'Ivet' Lieberman, one of Bibi's closest allies (and the strong man behind Netanyahu during most of his political career) says he thinks Bibi shouldn't run for the PM'ship if general elections are not called. God, I hope that's what happens.
A-rik, A-rik, A-rik!!!
15239. stostosto - 12/14/2000 7:18:20 AM
Rustler,
Message # 15234
you call Bush a doofus, then go around posting that picture as if that in and of itself somehow proved your point.
Well, it doesn't. Not strictly speaking, anyway. It's solely and wholly and purely circumstantial, no matter what you may think. It would never stand up in court. (But I admit it doesn't weaken your case).
The Mrs. seems nice enough, btw.
15240. Fielding - 12/14/2000 11:13:55 AM
Pelle:
"Code translation:
I don't know how well it would play in Denmark, though. = I don't know if a Dane can appreciate the depth of American culture.
This is a joke, Fielding, but with a tiny bit of an edge to it."
Dane? Danes can get American culture; they are very bright. I thought he was a Swede. :)
Seriously, that was not at all intended. There are often pieces in The New Yorker about strictly New York phenomenon, such as Rudy Giuliani's haircut and the Second Avenue subway. Those are the things that I don't know if sto would be interested in.
It seems like Americans have a real PR problem.
15241. Fielding - 12/14/2000 11:23:03 AM
sto3:
"Thanks. It sounds interesting, alright. I don't take your comment the way Pelle seems to. I am much interested in this Maus thing as I am a closet cartoon aficionado who have somehow never managed to lay my hands on one of his works."
They are two very good books. They are an autobiographical cartoon strip about Art Spiegelman and his father, who survived Auschwitz. One of the hooks is that the Jews are portrayed as mice (hence the name "Maus") and the Nazi's are portrayed as cats. The cartoon is surprisingly powerful. The surreal aspects allow you the psychological distance to explore and identify with real and horrendous events. I highly recommend them. Each book can be read in one sitting.
"Do you know Tardi, the somewhat strange, but highly literarily (is that a word) ambitious French epic cartoonist?"
Oh no! Even the Danes are starting to speak like the new American President! :) :)
I don't know of Tardi. I will check out your following post.
15242. Jenerator - 12/14/2000 12:24:44 PM
Why don't you go to Peshawar as a tourist. I will arrange for a Pashtun tribal posse to kidnap you and impale a knife through your left eye.
Is transientla a Christian Protestant missionary??
Rustler,
I hereby appoint myself as the Whip of Texas, thank you for your support.
15243. PelleNilsson - 12/14/2000 12:52:46 PM
But you didn't linebreak!
15244. RustlerPike - 12/14/2000 1:37:53 PM
He's right, Jen - I think you'll have to whip yourself for that.
The rest of us will have to watch, of course.
15245. RustlerPike - 12/14/2000 1:44:11 PM
Well, the new Ha'aretz supplement has a full-page response to my views from a (Jewish) Katzirite, who says my suggestions smack of Ku Klux Klanness and could lead to a Kristallnacht in Katzir.
Oy.
I've whipped off a response to the response. I'll fill you guys in on the details, of course, but not right now. And I'm still hoping Tali Niv will oblige us.
15246. RustlerPike - 12/14/2000 1:45:11 PM
(I don't know why I'm hoping. She isn't answering my e-mails).
15247. Jenerator - 12/14/2000 2:13:11 PM
Having whipped myself into compliance, I am the full-fledged Texas ambassador to this thread. You may call me Jen, Jenerator, or the Whip. Or, if you're Sto, you can call me at home.
(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)
Rustler,
How could a fellow Jew accuse you of resembling the KKK and then suggest a repeat of Kristallnacht? Was this person a complete moron or part of a fringe group?
15248. andonly - 12/14/2000 5:02:42 PM
a (Jewish) Katzirite, who says my suggestions smack of Ku Klux Klanness and could lead to a Kristallnacht in Katzir
Whipette: I got a suspicion the Piker is paraphrasing alliteratively. What the guy prolly really said to him was, "Ronen, don't be a putz. You're going to get somebody killed."
15249. andonly - 12/14/2000 5:14:46 PM
Incidentally, Pike, I am feeling slightly embarassed to be a Murcan right now, and that photo you posted of Dubya is like salt rubbed in the wound. So you just think on this, Little Buster: if there had been one or two extra feminists on the Supreme Court, Al Gore would more likely be our chief executive now and Israelis could rest easy about US commitment to their country's well being. But NO-O-O. Just not enough castrating bitches in power here.
(But don't worry. After I get done spending our family's Bush-delivered tax cut dividend on heating oil, the rest will go straight to AIPAC.)
15250. transient1a - 12/14/2000 11:06:12 PM
stostosto
Thanks for your welcome.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), I do not have the time to stick around. Hence the pseudonym.
My interest in the Pathans has been and is almost non-existent. This particular foray was just to satisfy my curiosity which was whetted by a previous exchange with pe. My interests mostly lie in science and technology. But I was disappointed to notice the metaphysics forum after it was put to rest -- and never had the opportunity to look at any of the posts.
All the best, David
15251. RustlerPike - 12/15/2000 2:51:05 AM
andonly:
That picture was no doubt chosen by an editor at AP (Reuters?) who did not vote for Dubbya. Expect many of those in the next four years. I think there will be people building awesome careers as Bush-hunters. Imagine what Stuttering John can do to Dubbya!
15252. RustlerPike - 12/15/2000 2:53:59 AM
Jen andonly:
No, the comparisons to the KKK and Kristallnacht were literal. But why is that so surprising? People here, in The Mote, have made similar comparisons. It's the conventional knee-jerk reaction to my stand on things.
15253. RustlerPike - 12/15/2000 2:57:57 AM
andonly:
I had prepared myself for the possibility that Bush would win by predicting it would happen (alongside a prediction that Gore would win). In both cases, I provided reasons why I thought the event would be good for Israel.
So you see - I may be short on foreskin, but I'm long on foresight. Now I can just smirk and say 'I told you so'.
15254. RustlerPike - 12/15/2000 3:00:38 AM
Well, it's final. Ha'aretz does not think the gentiles are mature enough to handle my views.
Stupid goats. You're embarrassed to be Murrcan? I'm embarrassed to be an Israeli.
15255. pseudoerasmus - 12/15/2000 3:53:16 AM
So you see - I may be short on foreskin, but I'm long on foresight.
That's hilarious!
15256. RustlerPike - 12/15/2000 4:29:37 AM
Bibi has announced he won't run for PM if there aren't general elections for the Knesset as well. Right now it looks like Shas won't support general elections. Goodie!
15257. stostosto - 12/15/2000 8:50:25 AM
Pelle:
Upthread I said:
"15162. stostosto - 12/12/00 9:33:23 PM
Yes. What's Carl Bildt doing these days?"
Funny, it turns out his party is asking the exact same thing. He is hardly ever present in the Riksdag (parliament), and the heat seems to be turning up over his earning a full MP wage...
(For those who may wonder: Carl Bildt is a former Swedish PM who has taken to international work in recent years. He held some high UN post in Bosnia, or something).
15258. RustlerPike - 12/15/2000 11:32:40 AM
'Upthread' is good!
Do you have anything like 'upstream' and 'downstream' in Danish?
15259. RustlerPike - 12/15/2000 11:56:39 AM
I used to think Mrs. Bush was good looking. But she seems a bit scary in the victory photos - like an ice cold woman. Perhaps I'm influenced by something someone said in the Elrction thread, about her murdering her first husband. Anyone know what that could possibly be about?
15260. RustlerPike - 12/15/2000 11:58:07 AM
Elrction = Erection, of course.
15261. stostosto - 12/15/2000 1:12:48 PM
Yes, of course. I think she murdered him over an erection.
15262. stostosto - 12/15/2000 1:31:30 PM
He definitely had an insufficient foresight-to-foreskin ratio.
15263. robertjayb - 12/15/2000 1:52:18 PM
The story goes that Missus Dubya, as a teenager, was involved in an auto accident in which her then boyfriend, occupant of another vehicle, was killed. And, of course, there has been unkind speculation that she ran him down on purpose. No word on a deceased husband.
15264. robertjayb - 12/15/2000 1:53:59 PM
.
Oooops! Linebreak violation.
15265. Wombat - 12/15/2000 1:55:51 PM
She was driving one of the cars. Perhaps they were playing "chicken."
15266. robertjayb - 12/15/2000 3:15:21 PM
.
Then she is definitely not to be messed with.
15267. alistairconnor - 12/15/2000 3:49:40 PM
Russ : quoting from the article about skin grafts you linked Message # 15236
... foreskins are used because ... it has the remarkable ability to grow to many times its size, she said.
... I wonder how she knows this?
15268. alistairconnor - 12/15/2000 4:06:00 PM
Sto :
I'm familiar with Tardi's books. He's also done some excellent surrealist serials on radio, with Michel Boujut.
15269. alistairconnor - 12/15/2000 4:37:27 PM
I don't know if these two things have been covered already, but :
1) The Afghan government's crackdown on opium. They seem to be pretty serious about it; it looks downright suicidal for the economy, and for the regime. I'm sure the Pseudopath must have an opinion on this.
2) Turkish financial crash. Undoubtedly the Pseudopath / Dr Pangloss will tell us that all is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds?
15270. pseudoerasmus - 12/15/2000 4:52:06 PM
re (2), why would I say that?
15271. alistairconnor - 12/15/2000 4:54:42 PM
It just seemed to me that you expressed similar sentiments about the meltdowns of Mexico and SE Asia. But as this latest one is going to affect you materially, I'm very interested in your view.
15272. pseudoerasmus - 12/15/2000 5:27:26 PM
It just seemed to me that you expressed similar sentiments about the meltdowns of Mexico and SE Asia.
why do you even bother to read opinions in this forum? You simply interpret them according to your prejudices anyway.
15273. stostosto - 12/15/2000 6:43:51 PM
Rustler,
I must say I take some heart from the fact that your obsessive schemes are being vehemently opposed by other Katzirians, although I don't agree with their rhetoric of choice.
Why is it that you Middle Easterners must always invoke the horrors of times long past to argue your course of action? Holocaust, Kristallnacht, and, on the Arab side, Jihad, Saladdin and what not.
Do as George Robya: Chill out, calm down, go to the gym. All that legalistic language isn't going to do you any good anyway.
I also note that your pet warrior, Mr. Sharon, seemed to have the same advice for you.
So, how about it? Can't you find more constructive outlets for your excess energy? Sublimate, as I believe Freud would have it. Take up wrestling or something.
Concede gracefully, like Gore did. Not because he thought it fun, but simply to avoid poisoning the political atmosphere irreperably.
Alternatively, run for some office, try to rally people to your platform in a transparent, democratic, way. You have stated Katzir's mayor is an idiot (and I'm inclined to agree given that he attended your meeting with Sharon, but that's probably a different take than yours).
So, why not topple him at the next election? Why not let the people have the choice? Then, let's see if they deserve you. My guess: They don't. They'd probably go for the idiot again. Or some other idiot.
Just a couple of thoughts from your Danish political consultant.
15274. sakonige - 12/15/2000 7:13:03 PM
RustlerPike -
Is there a post that describes the views you mention trying to get published in #15254?
15275. sakonige - 12/15/2000 7:14:47 PM
Ok, I've just noticed the link to #15096.
15276. sakonige - 12/15/2000 7:20:53 PM
hhmmmm....I guess Message # 15096 doesn't have the text of RustlerPike's article after all. Is that online somewhere?
15277. alistairconnor - 12/16/2000 5:59:31 AM
Yeah Pseud, your pearls of wisdom would only be wasted on me yet again. So wisely, you have decided not to bother this time.
15278. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 11:53:49 AM
sto:
Actually, things are not as bad as I thought. I went to the swimming pool with some trepidation today, but the two people I met, both pillars of Katzirite society, one of whom is considered to be one of Katzir's most radical leftists, heartily supported what I was doing, including an initiative to have a security guard at the entrance to Katzir - the idea being that Arabs would have to undergo security checks, being security risks, and Jews would not: a perfectly legal way, I think, of making Katzir a less attractive option for Arabs. (Go ahead guys, maul me. I'm ready).
Also, it seems Pseudoerasmus may prove to have been unwittingly instrumental in causing Mr. Ka'adan to lose his job. I told a reporter for a Hadera paper about his anti-semitic comments to Salon, and now people in his (government run) hospital want him suspended from his job pending an investigation by the government's Employment Service. He denies having said anything like what was quoted, and threatens to sue Salon.
15279. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 11:55:44 AM
Also, sto, I'm not interested in being mayor of Katzir. Member of Knesset yes, but mayor of some little dumpy town - no.
15280. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 12:09:32 PM
OK, before you maul me: the security guard is primarily meant for security. There are cars with West Bank license plates coming into Katzir all the time, and a terrorist wanting to bring in weapons, sleep over at an Arab friend's house, eat his cornflakes in the morning and then go shoot our kids as they enter their kindergarten would not even have a challenge. That is why I want a security guard. But I would not be unhappy if having to undergo (legal) security checks discouraged Arabs from living here.
15281. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 12:10:12 PM
Now maul me.
15282. Electric Slide - 12/16/2000 1:09:40 PM
George Bush just nominated General Colin Powell to be his Secretary of State. After a great speech, Powell took three questions. The first was on the civil war in Palestine.
Great answer to the question. We'll help but the Arabs and the Jews are going to have to solve it themselves.
(Of course we'll pay for it.)
15283. sakonige - 12/16/2000 1:25:17 PM
Sounds like RustlerPike is a litte more concerned about his family and himself getting killed by his neighbors than he pretends. Well, he asked for it.
15284. sakonige - 12/16/2000 1:28:59 PM
litte = little
Happy holidays, RustlerPike. Too bad your neighbors hate your guts.
15285. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 1:43:51 PM
According to Ynet, Yediot's online site, there is extreme European pressure on the Palestinians to reach some kind of accord with Israel before the Israeli elections (Feb. 6th, I think), to prevent the Right from winning. The American bridging proposal calls for the Pals to give up their demand for thr the Right of Return for refugees (into Israel proper) and for Israel to grant the Pals full sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
15286. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 1:45:56 PM
And I say: I'll have a hairless ass and eat mangos when that happens.
15287. PelleNilsson - 12/16/2000 2:09:16 PM
The Europeans are not in a position to put "extreme pressure" on anyone.
15288. PelleNilsson - 12/16/2000 2:11:41 PM
Suppose the Arabs put up a security check outside Umm el Fahm to keep ot security risks, such as yourself?
15289. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 2:43:49 PM
Pelle:
When was the last time Jews planted bombs in Israeli-Arab towns or villages?
(answer: never ever ever that I can remember)
When was the last time a bomb was found in an Arab village near Katzir, apparently intended for delivery to a Jewish target?
(answer: yesterday, in Baqa el-Gharbiyeh)
15290. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 2:48:47 PM
The Europeans are not in a position to put "extreme pressure" on anyone.
Perhaps, but their support is very important to Arafat, who wants them to supplant the US in the 'let's pretend we want peace' process as much as possible. The article quotes Pal sources that said the Europeans refused to support Arafat's request for an international force to be sent to the Territories, in order to step up that pressure.
15291. RustlerPike - 12/16/2000 2:51:21 PM
(i.e., they pressured Arafat by refusing to support the idea of an international force).
15292. Fielding - 12/16/2000 3:51:54 PM
Rosie:
"The first was on the civil war in Palestine."
Wow, your stupidity is multi-lingual.
Interesting how you can be so conservative domestically, yet such a radical liberal pinko about Israel. I have my suspicions about the cause of this paradox, but I'll keep them to myself.
15293. PelleNilsson - 12/16/2000 4:18:57 PM
Rustler
It's not a question bombs but of principle.
If one group of citizens feels that it's OK to set up check points aimed at another group of citizens, is it then not right that the other group has a right to set up check points too.
And your point about Jews not having not planting bombs is moot. If the policies you endorse come into play it's just a matter of time. Face it Rustler. What you stand for has no future. And I think you know that. You are just enjoying the limelight.
15294. sakonige - 12/16/2000 6:39:15 PM
>And your point about Jews not having not planting bombs is moot.
Well, it's also bogus. He said he didn't know of any reports of Jews planting bombs in Arab-Israeli neighborhoods. He didn't say anything about Israelis dropping bombs on Palestinian neighborhoods.
15295. Electric Slide - 12/16/2000 7:44:14 PM
It is a civil war between two groups of people (with different religions) who both claim the same land. Unfortunately one group of people are most European.
And, the Israelis won't have any peace until they learn to share Jerusalem with both the Christians and the Arabs. Christian claims go back to the Crusades--and just as valid as others are valid.
I love Israel and hope to visit it one day but let's get real. Putting bunker housing units with fanatics on top of hills throughout the occupied territories in Palestine, and then expecting to keep the isolated roads open is just insane.
Americans presidents from Richard Nixon have been telling the Jews not to seed the Western Bank.
15296. Electric Slide - 12/16/2000 7:45:37 PM
mostly
15297. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 3:39:06 AM
Pelle:
If one group of citizens feels that it's OK to set up check points aimed at another group of citizens, is it then not right that the other group has a right to set up check points too.
Really, Pelle, think about what you're saying. If it's all about symmetry, then give me the right to plant bombs in their neighborhoods, or at least buy a house there. If it's about preventing carnage, them let me have my security guard. Besides, Jews are scared shitless of entering the Arab-Israeli towns since the riots, and since the lynches in Ramallah. When you have footage of a mob tearing a Jew limb from limb, you don't need a security guard for deterrence.
Palestinians enter Israel freely and are not molested. Israelis entering West Bank towns are dismembered. Yet you won't let me have a frickin security man at my gates. How fucking pro-Palestinian can you be?
15298. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 3:40:33 AM
Face it Rustler. What you stand for has no future.
They said the same thing to Herzl. And here I am, 100 years later.
15299. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 11:51:07 AM
Germany and France halt arms sales to Israel. Shit - how will we slaughter those defenseless Palestinian children now?
15300. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 12:01:13 PM
I was summoned to the local police station this morning. Mr. Jabareen from Umm El Fahm claims I entered his property and Katzir and removed that sign he had put up on his house, in Arabic and English. I was fingerprinted!!!
15301. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 12:02:13 PM
That should be 'entered his property in Katzir'.
15302. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 12:03:53 PM
This is getting ugly, guys. First Pe gets the Israeli government to investigate Ka'adan - and now this!!! A Motie suspected of sign molestation!
15303. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 12:17:50 PM
I promised you guys a synopsis of the 'censored' Ha'aretz article. The problem is, it was 4 pages long. I'm trying to get a hold of David Landau, who is the Chief Editor of Ha'aretz in English. I was told by someone there that he may not be aware of the whole matter, and that if I can convince him of the rightness of our cause, he'll put the article in despite the fact that it is 10 days old.
15304. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 12:19:05 PM
[But basically - there wasn't too much there that devoted Internationalists don't already know.]
15305. RustlerPike - 12/17/2000 12:26:05 PM
OK. I will now lower the adrenaline level in my blood through biofeedback.
90%...
80%...
70%...
60%...
50%...
40%...
30%...
20%...
10%...
0%...
Ahhhhh.
15306. robertjayb - 12/17/2000 2:43:03 PM
.
RustlerPike,
What's this about a sign? And have you been charged with anything?
You may take comfort and encouragement from the knowledge that our new president-appoint also has a police record. This may presage great things for you.
15307. robertjayb - 12/17/2000 4:22:07 PM
.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Embattled Prime Minister Ehud Barak stumped for votes in a low-income Jerusalem neighborhood Sunday, while his chief political foe Benjamin Netanyahu asked the right-wing Likud party for its nomination as candidate for prime minister.
Netanyahu has not yet cleared the necessary legal hurdles to run. But the former prime minister, who was soundly defeated by Barak 18 months ago, now has a double-digit lead over Barak in the polls.
Seeking to narrow the gap, Barak made campaign promises Sunday in front of a battery of cameras, telling two young working mothers that the government would either make mortgage repayments tax-deductible up to a certain limit or increase government subsidies for mortgages to low-income families.
Barak's resignation last week was widely seen as a move to keep Netanyahu from running. Under the present law, the prime minister is elected by a direct popular vote, separate from the parliamentary election.
15308. sakonige - 12/17/2000 4:42:24 PM
It's kind of hard to believe Israeli police would bother to investigate a property crime against an Arab in the occupied territories while the army is openly assassinating Arabs on their way to the grocery store.
15309. sakonige - 12/17/2000 4:43:53 PM
If Arabs in occupied territories are subject to extra-judicial killings, why would they be protected by any Israeli law?
15310. sakonige - 12/17/2000 4:57:02 PM
RustlerPike,
maybe you can accuse your sign making neighbor of instigating violence and have the army assassinate him.
15311. robertjayb - 12/18/2000 12:15:27 AM
.
For 'New Danes,' Differences Create a Divide...NYTimes
...the arranged marriage would collapse, undone by the sharp cultural differences between Bunyamin, a Dane in all but name, and his Turkish bride. For millions of second-generation immigrants in Europe, people who are often tugged between strict tradition and freewheeling Western habits, the failure is an emblem of the unsettling contradictions of their lives.
European governments, uneasy about an influx of foreigners, now say these immigrants must resolve the contradictions by embracing the culture of their adoptive lands. The bureaucrats have focused on arranged marriages as disastrous: they hinder integration, offend Western values and encourage immigrant ghettos, or so officials say. They also bring more immigrants because "family unification" is one of the few legal ways left to get into Europe.
15312. RustlerPike - 12/18/2000 3:38:28 AM
vanzetti:
Your mother lives in occupied territory. I live in Israel.
rjb:
The sign was put up by this dickhead attorney Jabareen on the exterior of the house he bought in Katzir. It was one of many provocations he has carried out here - like telling people he will 'evict us by lawful means' and shooting hoops as the sirens wailed on our Day of Remembrance for the IDF dead. The sign itself says 'Jabareen House, Jabal el A'as', in Arabic and English only. It mysteriously came down a few days after the Ramallah lynchings. Jabareen, btw, does not live in the house, nor does he rent it out, and it is completely neglected.
15313. Indiana Jones - 12/18/2000 8:46:22 AM
Euro Army?
Can a European give me the European perspective?
My sense has been that for at least the post-Vietnam era if not longer the US has had to drag the Europeans kicking and screaming into any defense spending/militarization. As a result, I've tended to view this initiative as very harmless, probably a good thing, and certainly no threat to US-European relations.
Is anyone in Europe talking about this force as something to be used for projection of European strength outside the continent?
Is there such a thing anymore as a French or German hawk (at least with hands close to the levers of power)?
15314. Indiana Jones - 12/18/2000 8:47:50 AM
By "hawk" I mean someone who favors military force as a way of resolving disputes and a way of acquiring regional/economic power.
15315. PelleNilsson - 12/18/2000 8:53:49 AM
Amira Hass, writing in Haaretz:
Presumably, neither the stones nor the Palestinian declarations will help. We will need a few more bloody years before a former chief of staff or ex-director of the Shin Bet - like de Gaulle in his time - comes along and says the inevitable: Excuse me, residents of Ma'aleh Adumim; we made a mistake when we encouraged you to move here and thought that the Palestinians would accept this apartheid existence forever. Excuse me, residents of Givat Ze'ev, we will have to find you houses with gardens elsewhere, within sovereign Israel. Or, alternatively, we could allow the residents of Ramallah and Abu Dis, for example, to move to Ramat Aviv and build a city in Tantura.
The full article
15316. glendajean - 12/18/2000 9:24:57 AM
Denmark makes the front page of the New York Times:
For 'New Danes,' Differences Create a Divide
(an article about Turks in Denmark)
15317. glendajean - 12/18/2000 9:25:46 AM
Damn. Sorry about that. Robert already posted it.
15318. PelleNilsson - 12/18/2000 10:10:02 AM
The new Danish proconsul for Kosovo
15319. stostosto - 12/18/2000 10:59:35 AM
Danes are making headlines in the world, I see.
Hækkerup will have his job cut out for him in Kosovo, that's for sure. But perhaps he is the type of character needed in such a place. He is ever-serious and well-prepared, absolutely non-flamboyant, very soft-spoken and confidence inducing. Despite a life time's career in Danish politics, I can't remember one single misstep of his. Nor anything particularly daring or visionary. But a rock solid type.
15320. stostosto - 12/18/2000 11:22:47 AM
Indy:
"Is anyone in Europe talking about this force as something to be used for projection of European strength outside the continent? "
France's President Chirac has come closest, I believe, with some remarks on this force being capable of "defending European interests" elsewhere than direct threats to their territorial integrity. There's little doubt that the EU honchos have been embarrassed about the European feebleness over Yugoslavia, Bosnia, and Kosovo - and also, I think, the throwing out of Saddam from Kuwait.
Tony Blair said in a grandly staged speech in Warsaw that the EU should be a 'superpower', though not a 'superstate'. And that it's purpose would be to 'project collective power'.
"Is there such a thing anymore as a French or German hawk (at least with hands close to the levers of power)?"
The French can talk rather hawkish (cf. Chirac's above-cited statement). But when push comes to shove.
The Germans are ever the pacifists, and I don't foresee any German top politician being hawkish in any way any time soon. Peace-keeping operations, yes. Support for Kosovo-style actions, also. But never opting or, even pushing, for military action on its own initiative.
One very difficult issue is how an EU defense arm would relate to NATO. We wouldn't want to scare the Americans away, and many Europeans feel that one way of retaining their presence is to stay militarily weak and divided. Here is a little bit on this dilemma (click on image): 
Also, the Americans seem sometimes equally indecisive. Do they want Europeans to take care of their own affairs more, or do they want them to remain junior partners in an American-run NATO?
15321. stostosto - 12/18/2000 11:23:35 AM
From the piece I linked above:
"At least until recently, this sort of terminology—crisis management, the promotion of stability and western interests and values—was being used by NATO strategists to describe the role which the alliance itself might take on in future. Since the Kosovo war, American enthusiasm for using NATO as an “out-of-area” policeman has waned, in part because of the sheer incompetence demonstrated by European forces during the fighting. In the medium term, the Union may improbably step into that role; but it remains without the military muscle, the skills or the clout for the job. "
15322. Indiana Jones - 12/18/2000 12:21:27 PM
Thanks for the info, sto. Once I've absorbed it and thought about it, I may have a comment or two.
15323. andonly - 12/18/2000 12:42:17 PM
Also, the Americans seem sometimes equally indecisive. Do they want Europeans to take care of their own affairs more, or do they want them to remain junior partners in an American-run NATO?
I wish Europeans would realize that the US executive periodically changes parties and thus foreign policy philosophies. There's nothing indecisive about us; we simply shift course depending on who is in charge. By now I think we should have become fairly predictable.
The new administration features as chief of staff and national security advisor Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice (an aside: to call her "Condi" Rice seems to impart to her a plausible-sounding but mysterious culinary aspect--is there perhaps some subcon edible out there known as condee rice?). Ms. Rice apparently favors pulling US peacekeeping troops out of the Balkans. Colin Powell's famous Doctrine could be characterized as Militarily Isolationist, Brutal: avoid conflicts at all costs but when you do go in, obliterate the enemy.
So, is this clear enough? The US, for the next 4 years, will be happy to stay out of European affairs militarily until there's something tangible to be lost by the US, at which point the US will flatten the offending upstarts/freedom fighters/nationalists/or whatever.
I have to say I'm really looking forward to seeing how Dub manages the charming subtleties of international politics, relying on this unsubtle outlook. Going to be darkly entertaining. Almost as blackly humorous as his attempts thus far to convince us that he really, really respects and admires Alan Greenspan, despite his disinterest in following the Chairman's advice re paying down debt. (Dub is "convinced" that giving wealthy Murcans a tax break right now is very, very important for keeping the economy strong.)
15324. andonly - 12/18/2000 12:45:45 PM
Actually, I imagine that little will change right away in US foreign policy.
15325. stostosto - 12/18/2000 2:24:50 PM
random, andon
I wouldn't call neither Clinton's administration foreign policy nor Bush's campaign waxing about same 'decisive' on much anything, particularly not on the relations between NATO and Europe.
I think the truth is nobody really knows what the hell this is going to be, so everybody tries to cover as many angles as possible.
15326. stostosto - 12/18/2000 2:29:51 PM
And, fwiw, I think many Europeans are fairly well-updated on the ins and outs of American foreign policy debates. It's not like it's unimportant to us. In fact, I submit the European talking heads are at least as well informed as their Murcan counterparts. And that this issue gets as much air time here as in the USA, so it's not unthinkable that the average Juan or Jean or Hans or Hasse is better informed on that particular part of Murcan politics than your average Texan equivalent (which wouldn't take much). At least the European part of it.
15327. stostosto - 12/18/2000 2:31:12 PM
At least the European part of American foreign policy, I meant.
15328. PelleNilsson - 12/18/2000 2:50:01 PM
andonly
I wish Europeans would realize that the US executive periodically changes parties and thus foreign policy philosophies
There is no need to be condescending. If there is something we Europeans know about the US, it is its foreign policy, probably more than most Americans. Moreover, the characteristic of that policy has been long-term stability with only incremental change of focus.
In the past the periodic calls from "official" Washington that the Europeans "must do more" have been code for "must pay more". The decision by Europe to "do more" by setting up its own force has been received with decidely mixed feelings in Washington. And I don't refer to the Clinton administration but to the whole foreign policy establishment. "Should we let the Europeans loose on their own"? was one typical comment I saw a couple of months ago. One smells an implied "mad" before "Europeans". But the fact is that Europe will not be able to deploy that force without the assistance of NATO (read the US) in the vital areas of transport, communications and intelligence. In addition Europe needs the help of NATO's planning function. All this will presumably be against a fee. A deal along these lines was blocked last Friday by Turkey which demands full insight into EU's decision making process for military deployment.
15329. glendajean - 12/18/2000 2:52:12 PM
Sto -- America's great power came during the cold war. We still are unsure how to deal with the intracies of international relations where the world is not divided into one or two (or three) camps.
The Germans are ever the pacifists, and I don't foresee any German top politician being hawkish in any way any time soon. Peace-keeping operations, yes. Support for Kosovo-style actions, also. But never opting or, even pushing, for military action on its own initiative.
This is comforting, given their history.
15330. PelleNilsson - 12/18/2000 3:03:11 PM
sto
Interesting X-post.
15331. stostosto - 12/18/2000 4:14:42 PM
glenda,
it's comforting alright. And one would be hard pressed to put a finger on German post-war conduct when it comes to nationalism and foreign policy weight-throwing. They foot most of the EU budget, their democracy has worked as well as any (i.e. they do have minor spots here and there, but so do others, witness Chirac's current quagmire), and they have taken in more than their share of refugees plus a lot of immigrants from Turkey and, since 1990 also hundreds of thousands ethnic Germans from all over Easter Europe, some coming from as far east as Kazakhstan.
They also have the toughest anti-Nazi laws. They also have a clause in their very constitution that puts restrictions on the use of their military. In fact they had a fierce row in parliament as well as in one of the government coalition parties in order to be able to send peace-keeping troops to Africa and Balkan as well as participate in the Kosovo action in some small (European) way.
Still, we are not fully comfortable with them Teutons. Fifty years of impeccable behaviour is all very well, but they also have much to atone for. And they remain by far the most populous country and biggest economy.
Personally, I am glad it isn't France that is the biggest West European country...
15332. stostosto - 12/18/2000 4:15:13 PM
Pelle,
she was a bit condescending there, wasn't she?
15333. Jenerator - 12/18/2000 4:20:21 PM
Average Texan is an oxymoron
15334. glendajean - 12/18/2000 4:26:10 PM
Jen -- quoting Betty Winsdor on her 1991 visit to Texas, Lesser mortals are to be pitied for having not been born Texan.
15335. Jenerator - 12/18/2000 4:29:38 PM
Glendajean,
One of my favorite bumper-stickers:
American by birth, Texan by the grace of God.;-)
15336. robertjayb - 12/18/2000 4:36:35 PM
.
Another:
I wasn't born in Texas...but I got here as soon as I could...
15337. stostosto - 12/18/2000 4:47:18 PM
I have a bumper-sticker saying:
I've never been to Texas. But I have a lunch date there on Feb 14th. Yeee-haw!
15338. robertjayb - 12/18/2000 4:49:00 PM
.
Not a bumpersticker, but Texas manners:
Never ask a man if he is from Texas.
If he is, he'll tell you soon enough.
And if he isn't...there's no point to embarrassing him.
15339. Jenerator - 12/18/2000 4:49:37 PM
You'll never want to leave.
15340. seadate - 12/18/2000 4:50:58 PM
And if he don't have bumperstickers on his pickemup truck, he ain't Texan.
15341. Jenerator - 12/18/2000 4:54:55 PM
Seadate,
It depends on what part of Texas you're in. Dallas is notoriously materialistic, where every other car is either a Mercedes, a Porsche, or a Lexus. In fact, the only other city I've seen as many Bentley's as Dallas, is London! BUT, if you leave the metroplex and go to any town, you'll see monster trucks in all assortments. I plan on leasing "Big Foot" for my lunch date with Sto.
15342. seadate - 12/18/2000 4:56:38 PM
Jen-
haha
Then you're apparently a native.
15343. Jenerator - 12/18/2000 4:59:13 PM
Seadate,
I'm a transplant from southern California.
15344. Indiana Jones - 12/18/2000 9:16:19 PM
I disagree with some of andonly's comments in 15323, but I'd prefer not to make this discussion an extension of the Politics thread.
As far as American ambivalence toward the Euro force, I'd say there are three impulses at work, two in one direction, one in the other. The first is that we would like to see Europe resolve its own problems (handle the Bosnias and Kosovos that come along) and be a stabilizing force on the former Soviet states, including Russia.
The two contrary impulses are that we don't want competition and we don't want to be drawn into another major European war. As long as Europe remains weak and anti-military, neither is likely to happen.
My personal opinion is the first impulse is much the wiser, given international circumstances: i.e., it's much more likely the utility of outcome one will come into play rather than the negatives of outcome two or three.
However, what is the downside of keeping the new force within the NATO structure and just increasing both Europe's commitment and decision-making input into the organization? From a European perspective, it would help keep American and European interests linked and make the force much stronger than it could be with just European resources; from an American perspective, while our role in and dominance of NATO might diminish, at least we would avoid the competition described above and have a voice at the table otherwise.
15345. Fielding - 12/19/2000 12:36:44 AM
Pseudoerasmus:
I have just completed your entire sub-thread. I prostrate myself before your magnificence. You are a man of great depth and learning.
I have many questions about your writings. May I send them to you by e-mail?
Thank you for sharing your experience and insight.
15346. PelleNilsson - 12/19/2000 3:59:30 AM
Indy
The answer to your last para is the overlapping circles shown by sto in Message # 15320.
Another cite from the article:
Britain also partially defused an incipient EU row over whether the Union’s new defence force will undermine NATO by setting up an independent military planning staff. This had become an even thornier issue after remarks made earlier this month by William Cohen, the American defence secretary, suggesting that the United States was uneasy about closer European co-operation on defence. In Nice, some ambitious French proposals for endowing the Union with a broad measure of autonomy from NATO were watered down under strong British pressure.
15347. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 4:37:27 AM
Bibi bows out (of political life, if you ask me). The clown. Good riddance.
15348. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 4:39:25 AM
Now, if I can only persuade Sharon to give me some kind of funding, I believe I can get him thousands of votes in Wadi Ara. From Arabs.
15349. PelleNilsson - 12/19/2000 4:45:00 AM
How old is Sharon?
15350. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 5:03:21 AM
Pelle:
My son asked me the same thing last night. All I know is he fought in 1948, so he's at least, oh, 72...
btw there is an entertaining photo of the young Sharon standing naked with a few other guys, near some waterfall somewhere. I wonder if they'll remember it now and publish it again.
15351. stostosto - 12/19/2000 5:44:02 AM
Rustler,
your son fought in 1948? You're older than I guessed...
15352. PelleNilsson - 12/19/2000 6:01:08 AM
He may have a health problem carrying all that weight (Sharon, not Rustler's son).
15353. stostosto - 12/19/2000 6:22:37 AM
Rustler guessed Sharon's age correctly; it's one bit of information in this, imo, quite informative Slate portrait of him (click on image): 
Excerpt:
"Sharon—part Douglas MacArthur, part Richard Nixon, part hand grenade—is the ultimate sabra: aggressive, smart, charming, and brutal. Born in Palestine in 1928, "Arik," as he is known, was raised on a remote desert farm by hardheaded Russian immigrants. Fear of Arab harassment haunted his childhood and set his worldview. Other early Zionist leaders were animated by complicated intellectual and democratic principles. The farm-boy Sharon was blunter: He believed in Jewish strength. Jews have the right—God-given—to do anything to defend their homeland. "
15354. Fielding - 12/19/2000 11:22:36 AM
Sto:
"your son fought in 1948?"
Nice.
15355. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 12:18:33 PM
sto:
Ya got me there. Steve is 16 btw, though his official ID says he's 15. This is because when he was 8 we wanted to register him for the SOS school (you guys know what SOS is?) in Eldoret and for some reason we had a better chance of getting him in if he was a year younger. So we made him a year younger (costs about 10$ in Kenya).
My wife was officially born on 22/2/1966 - but again, this is a fictitious date. She and some friends registered false birthdates when they went to get an ID card: she went for the 2's and 6's. She is somewhat younger, but we're not sure exactly how much.
15356. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 12:45:52 PM
Not a bad profile of Sharon there, I learned stuff I didn't know. But I don't think he was born on a desert farm - I think it was the Galilee. Maybe I'm mistaken. The Likud site says he's from Kfar Malal. Wonder where that is. 
15357. marjoribanks - 12/19/2000 12:48:22 PM
Hey, Pike, that's my birthdate too. And of Geoge Washington, btw.
15358. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 1:14:18 PM
Marj:
Really? 1966 as well or just the 22/2 part?
Kfar Malal is near Kfar Saba, not far from Tel Aviv.
15359. marjoribanks - 12/19/2000 1:36:58 PM
I was born in 68, Pike.
But, you should know that I've had numerologists/astrologers check out my numbers and the consensus has been that 2/22 is very auspicious in general. So (though I frequent these people strictly for amusement) your wife should keep it as her chosen birth date.
15360. cmboyce - 12/19/2000 2:06:27 PM
Bal Thackeray Offers A Policy Suggestion
INDIA: CHALLENGE ON MUSLIMS The leader of the extreme Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena Party, Bal Thackeray, challenged the government to disenfranchise India's 120 million Muslims, who make up 12 percent of the population. "Once the secularists know that the Muslims have no vote value, no one will bother about Muslims," he told the party newspaper. The Shiv Sena is part of the national coalition government, which includes secular- minded parties.
—Celia W. Dugger (NYT)
15361. marjoribanks - 12/19/2000 2:10:26 PM
Boyce,
You should know that Thackeray is the joker of Indian politics, though unfortunately one with some power since his Shiv Sena has on-and-off ruled Maharashtra. He is a former cartoonist, and honestly something like a stand-up comic in many ways. This kind of rhetoric is typical for him and will of course be laughed at and ignored by 99.99% of Indians. He's been producing equally outrageous "recommendations" for decades now.
15362. cmboyce - 12/19/2000 2:11:17 PM
Oh, I know about Thackeray, Marj. I posted it as entertainment.
15363. marjoribanks - 12/19/2000 2:12:11 PM
Also, I must caution you to outright throw out anything the NYT has to say about India in its features. The news reports taken directly from AP or AFP are okay - the rest is unmitigated dross and error-riddled. It's sad but true, and virtually every news correspondent sent out to India in recent years has been disastrously incompetent.
15364. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 4:51:52 PM
(though I frequent these people strictly for amusement)
No need to be surreptitious about being superstitious. It can be unlucky.
15365. stostosto - 12/19/2000 4:58:30 PM
Did you hear? An official Chinese historical study just found that China's civilisation (i.e. script-based society) is some 1200 years older than hitherto thought. Thereby it surpasses India!
The study was commissioned by I forget which high-ranking Chinese government politician.
It also disputes the widely accepted assumption that the earliest human beings lived in Africa. They were, of course, Chinese.
Have any of you heard this? I can't provide a cite right now, but it may come later.
The radio report in which I heard this also said that it was the largest such Chinese study ever conducted, and that participating scholars who dissented from the received version of events were consistently relegated to photo-copying status...
15366. cmboyce - 12/19/2000 5:05:43 PM
Sounds like the Soviet invention of baseball.
15367. stostosto - 12/19/2000 5:10:22 PM
cmboyce
Yes, and it sounds a bit disconcerting that they're heating up their nationalist rhetoric in such a blind-minded manner.
One foreign academic commented that this will poison Chinese history scholarly activity for many years to come.
15368. alistairconnor - 12/19/2000 5:26:44 PM
Hey Russ, I know what you mean about African official records.
I have some Nigerian friends whose daughter was born in France - in order to register her correctly here, they needed their own birth certificates. The French registrars are infuriatingly picky about details - the names, dates and places of birth on the certificates had to be identical to that on their passports. No easy business. Anyway, the mother had a "correct" birth certificate, but the French registry needed one which had been issued less than three months ago. So she sent the old one to a friend in Nigeria, with instructions to get the Nigerian registry office to issue a fresh one, identical in all respects to the old one.
When she got it back, it was indeed identical in all respects to the old one... including the date of issue.
15369. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 5:26:49 PM
Now, if I can only persuade Sharon to give me some kind of funding, I believe I can get him thousands of votes in Wadi Ara. From Arabs.
I take that back. I got carried away. Even I can't do that.
15370. RustlerPike - 12/19/2000 5:30:17 PM
When she got it back, it was indeed identical in all respects to the old one... including the date of issue.
Hmmm. Sounds like a simple mistake. But in Kenya - it would probably mean someone had not been paid his dues, a.k.a. 'kitu kidogo' ('a little something') and 'chai' ('tea').
15371. cmboyce - 12/19/2000 5:37:51 PM
Well, the idea that the humans of antiquity were distinctively of one's own nationality has been a commonplace in Japan for generations without damaging scholarship in other areas of study. The Chinese won't necessarily be fucking up Ming studies, say.
As for the advent of literacy, I think the recent discoveries do indeed push back the dating of it in China (though how this relates to India or elsewhere, I don't know).
15372. cmboyce - 12/19/2000 5:41:31 PM
Jeesh, fast thread. 15373. cmboyce - 12/19/2000 5:42:26 PM My 15371, that should have said. Sorry, didn't check for dust. 15374. alistairconnor - 12/19/2000 5:42:43 PM Apparently it's straightforward enough, they'll put anything you like on your birth certificate as long as you swear an affidavit, and pay the requisite fee. They throw out the records every six months, for lack of space. 15375. RustlerPike - 12/20/2000 3:44:06 AM 15376. RustlerPike - 12/20/2000 3:46:50 AM 15377. stostosto - 12/20/2000 3:46:55 AM 15378. RustlerPike - 12/20/2000 4:22:29 AM 15379. RustlerPike - 12/20/2000 4:37:36 AM 15380. RustlerPike - 12/20/2000 4:46:31 AM 15381. stostosto - 12/20/2000 5:00:53 AM 15382. pseudoerasmus - 12/20/2000 6:39:05 AM Schmóschm'schm' said: 15383. pseudoerasmus - 12/20/2000 6:41:36 AM Fielding, thanks. you can ask me what you like, though I leave Friday for a little less than a month for Germany and Peshawar. 15384. pseudoerasmus - 12/20/2000 6:45:38 AM I have updated, expanded, and reorganised my page on The Many Faces of Pashtuns & Afghans, such that it should now be more accurately called "The Many Faces of the Peoples of the Hindu Kush, the Pamirs, the Karakorum and the western Himalayas". The site is now divided into six separate parts/pages: Pashtuns, Tajiks, Afghans of unidentified ethnicity, Dardic peoples, Peoples of the Pamirs, and Miscellaneous peoples. 15385. stostosto - 12/20/2000 7:08:30 AM 15386. pseudoerasmus - 12/20/2000 9:15:15 AM I'm not saying you can't criticise Rustler or Israel. There are legitimate grounds for doing both. But you just have this facile way of moralising even though you live in a country as pathetically problem-free as Denmark, and even though you apparently go south of the Kiel canal only once every tenth lunar eclipse. Israel doesn't have the luxury and tranquility of total irrelevance. 15387. stostosto - 12/20/2000 9:50:02 AM 15388. pseudoerasmus - 12/20/2000 10:11:26 AM Schmoschm'schm said: 15389. stostosto - 12/20/2000 10:28:27 AM 15390. marjoribanks - 12/20/2000 10:43:37 AM Sto, the tribals seize high ground wherever they can see it. It's congenital, don't fuss or take it personally. They've done it forever. 15391. pseudoerasmus - 12/20/2000 10:52:35 AM I don't deny there are similarities with apartheid in the separation of Arabs and Jews in Israel -- although I think it's more apt to compare with what the USA must have been before the anti-discrimination laws in housing et al. were enacted. 15392. marjoribanks - 12/20/2000 11:15:25 AM Well, I for one have found the long time discussion/debate between Sto and Rustler to be both enjoyable and informative about each person's mindset. Yes, on the surface of it - they come from worlds so different that they could even be different planets. But, as we've learned, they can communicate as friends and occasionally as antagonists and both probably feel better for it. 15393. marjoribanks - 12/20/2000 11:19:16 AM Sto, 15394. PelleNilsson - 12/20/2000 11:42:29 AM marj 15395. marjoribanks - 12/20/2000 11:50:20 AM Vienna is the most overrated city in all of Christendom. The architecture is overblown, the people unfathomably grandiose, the food absolutely terrible. 15396. marjoribanks - 12/20/2000 11:51:08 AM yeah, I ate Sacher torte at the Sacher hotel. It was overrated too. 15397. PelleNilsson - 12/20/2000 12:02:35 PM marj 15398. marjoribanks - 12/20/2000 12:07:35 PM Yes, Pelle. 15399. PelleNilsson - 12/20/2000 12:19:01 PM 15400. robertjayb - 12/20/2000 6:53:15 PM . 15401. RustlerPike - 12/21/2000 2:53:11 AM 15402. RustlerPike - 12/21/2000 3:00:25 AM 15403. RustlerPike - 12/21/2000 3:17:41 AM 15404. RustlerPike - 12/21/2000 3:33:56 AM 15405. RustlerPike - 12/21/2000 3:42:45 AM 15406. stostosto - 12/21/2000 5:07:57 AM 15407. stostosto - 12/21/2000 5:32:23 AM 15408. pseudoerasmus - 12/21/2000 7:43:49 AM Rustler, I don't know why you're pairing me with that Schmo git. After all, I was the one who criticsed his references to apartheid. But there is informal residential separateness between Arabs & Jews in Israel, which is why I made the references to the pre-1970s USA. 15409. pseudoerasmus - 12/21/2000 7:51:55 AM 15410. pseudoerasmus - 12/21/2000 8:02:39 AM I've never accused you of racism, Rustler, so I don't know you felt the need to bring that up in the same breath as my name. Racism is not something I generally accuse people of. As for racist feelings, yes, I have them in droevs, particularly with respect to Chinese, Scandinavians and Hindooooos. 15411. stostosto - 12/21/2000 8:48:54 AM 15412. pseudoerasmus - 12/21/2000 8:57:08 AM #15411 15413. stostosto - 12/21/2000 9:04:23 AM 15414. stostosto - 12/21/2000 9:41:09 AM 15415. stostosto - 12/21/2000 10:34:56 AM 15416. stostosto - 12/21/2000 10:38:31 AM 15417. PelleNilsson - 12/21/2000 11:09:37 AM PE 15418. Fielding - 12/21/2000 2:06:24 PM Pseuder: 15419. pseudoerasmus - 12/21/2000 2:47:32 PM No, after that mammoth session I didn't have the fortitude to write more. 15420. Fielding - 12/21/2000 3:08:47 PM 15421. sakonige - 12/21/2000 3:50:57 PM 15422. sakonige - 12/21/2000 7:45:59 PM CNN is reporting that about 52% of flights leaving LaGuardia Airport are being delayed or cancelled. Jeez. 15423. sakonige - 12/21/2000 7:48:53 PM 15424. cmboyce - 12/22/2000 12:17:46 AM A Christmas tip (and, indeed, a tip for any time): stay away from LaGuardia. 15425. RustlerPike - 12/22/2000 3:28:41 AM 15426. RustlerPike - 12/22/2000 3:32:21 AM 15427. RustlerPike - 12/22/2000 4:29:31 AM 15428. PelleNilsson - 12/22/2000 7:51:21 AM To put Rustler's posts in geographical context, this is a map of northern Israel. Sorry about the quality. It's the CIA's fault. 15429. PelleNilsson - 12/22/2000 8:31:02 AM 15430. PelleNilsson - 12/22/2000 8:41:15 AM To end the Israeli excursions a table showing how Israeli Jews look at religion: 15431. Fielding - 12/22/2000 10:00:18 AM 15432. Fielding - 12/22/2000 10:01:44 AM 15433. RustlerPike - 12/22/2000 12:43:14 PM 15434. PelleNilsson - 12/22/2000 2:43:07 PM 15435. Jenerator - 12/22/2000 3:31:07 PM 15436. RustlerPike - 12/23/2000 3:06:35 AM 15437. RustlerPike - 12/23/2000 3:09:34 AM 15438. RustlerPike - 12/23/2000 3:10:49 AM 15439. PelleNilsson - 12/23/2000 5:09:48 PM 15440. Fielding - 12/24/2000 12:14:37 AM 15441. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 5:24:58 AM 15442. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 5:27:39 AM 15443. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 5:35:39 AM 15444. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 6:33:03 AM 15445. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 6:34:22 AM 15446. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 6:44:11 AM 15447. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 9:51:32 AM 15448. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 10:28:02 AM 15449. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 10:28:51 AM 15450. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 10:34:22 AM 15451. RickNelson - 12/24/2000 11:09:19 AM Gil, 15452. jexster - 12/24/2000 11:34:34 AM Powell -Yesterday's Man, Secty of State Lite 15453. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 10:52:20 PM 15454. RustlerPike - 12/24/2000 10:53:00 PM 15455. PelleNilsson - 12/26/2000 11:54:00 AM Rustler 15456. RustlerPike - 12/27/2000 2:29:57 AM 15457. stostosto - 12/27/2000 12:56:13 PM 15458. PelleNilsson - 12/27/2000 2:06:49 PM 15459. jexster - 12/27/2000 9:35:20 PM Pelle - 15460. Jenerator - 12/27/2000 9:59:40 PM 15461. PelleNilsson - 12/28/2000 4:45:25 AM 15462. stostosto - 12/28/2000 11:38:36 AM 15463. RustlerPike - 12/28/2000 12:57:38 PM 15464. RustlerPike - 12/28/2000 1:01:06 PM 15465. PelleNilsson - 12/28/2000 1:27:44 PM 15466. RustlerPike - 12/28/2000 1:55:10 PM 15467. RustlerPike - 12/28/2000 3:44:31 PM 15468. Ronski - 12/28/2000 3:46:35 PM I suppose Sharon is a certainty, now, yes? 15469. PelleNilsson - 12/28/2000 4:09:03 PM Rustler 15470. RustlerPike - 12/29/2000 3:48:23 AM 15471. RustlerPike - 12/29/2000 3:49:35 AM 15472. RustlerPike - 12/29/2000 4:11:39 AM 15473. stostosto - 12/29/2000 5:31:14 AM 15474. stostosto - 12/29/2000 5:32:42 AM 15475. RustlerPike - 12/29/2000 7:00:46 AM 15476. stostosto - 12/29/2000 7:07:17 AM 15477. RustlerPike - 12/29/2000 9:47:56 AM 15478. stostosto - 12/29/2000 11:12:14 AM 15479. transient1a - 12/29/2000 3:09:52 PM RustlerPike, 15480. RustlerPike - 12/30/2000 11:32:54 PM 15481. RustlerPike - 12/30/2000 11:38:10 PM 15482. RustlerPike - 12/30/2000 11:49:02 PM 15483. PelleNilsson - 12/31/2000 5:13:07 AM 15484. transient1a - 12/31/2000 8:18:27 AM RustlerPike, 15485. transient1a - 12/31/2000 9:34:03 AM RustlerPike, 15486. andonly - 12/31/2000 12:08:23 PM Eid mubarak to any lurking muslims. 15487. andonly - 12/31/2000 12:11:45 PM clarification: by arafat competitors i meant activist leaders, terrorists, radicals opposed to a peace settlement, not that any of these guys are/were necessarily seeking to replace the old fart. 15488. andonly - 12/31/2000 12:46:41 PM sto, pelle, 15489. RustlerPike - 1/1/2001 3:27:26 AM 15490. RustlerPike - 1/1/2001 3:30:12 AM 15491. PelleNilsson - 1/1/2001 5:16:08 AM Rustler 15492. andonly - 1/1/2001 11:59:52 AM Pelle, an excerpt from Blue Ear Forum for you to comment on as you will or won't: 15493. andonly - 1/1/2001 12:00:38 PM After the French presidency and the summit in Nice, a lot of unresolved matters are on the table for Goran Persson and his government. Besides the eastward expansion, the main problems are related to the power struggle inside the EU. Mr Persson will do great if he takes the position of an old owl in the battle between the big countries, while doing his best to unite the smaller countries inside the EU together with "will be" member states. 15494. andonly - 1/1/2001 12:01:02 PM Goran Persson is popular, but his party has lost a lot of voters to the Left. His best luck so far has been that the liberal middle-of-the-road parties and the right party, the Moderates, have been very weak as an opposition. And here the Moderates don't share the British Tories' fear of the EU. Instead, the party is the leading force behind all EU campaigns, as well as membership in Euroland. 15495. andonly - 1/1/2001 12:20:13 PM Pike, 15496. PelleNilsson - 1/1/2001 12:23:03 PM An ill-written article but the message is clear: 15497. andonly - 1/1/2001 12:24:29 PM Transient Slater, 15498. transient1a - 1/1/2001 1:32:50 PM RustlerPike, 15499. RustlerPike - 1/2/2001 3:38:11 AM 15500. RustlerPike - 1/2/2001 3:42:32 AM 15501. RustlerPike - 1/2/2001 5:02:18 AM 15502. transient1a - 1/2/2001 9:08:23 AM andonly, 15503. transient1a - 1/2/2001 9:30:27 AM 15504. RustlerPike - 1/2/2001 10:31:03 AM 15505. RustlerPike - 1/2/2001 10:36:13 AM 15506. andonly - 1/2/2001 1:44:47 PM Pike: "You - and many other observers - seem to see this struggle in a practical, power-structure, power-politics kind of way." 15507. andonly - 1/2/2001 1:45:40 PM I mean to say I don't disagree with you entirely. But I do believe leaders emerge from time to time who are capable of taking people toward the realization of necessary goals by the alteration of self-defeating objectives. Do I think Arafat is such a leader? No. Nor, I'm sorry to say, do I think he has the political or military ability to deliver an agreement of any kind. Unfortunately, he has the power to command international attention, and that's bad news for Israel. This fact dwarfs his role as the "will" of the Palestinian people, in my view, and that is why what happens behind the scenes interests me. 15508. andonly - 1/2/2001 1:46:35 PM "I don't think it's about Arafat vs. Barghouti or what George Tenet does or doesn't do. I think Arafat is, for all intents and purposes, the Palestinian Will, and that this Will is naturally allied with the Pan-Arabist Will, and this drama will play itself out regardless of any cloak and dagger ploys or diplomato-political machinations. See what I'm saying?" 15509. jexster - 1/2/2001 1:52:41 PM Saving Indonesia From Disintegration - Autonomy Laws Take Effect 15510. robertjayb - 1/2/2001 6:53:05 PM . 15511. cmboyce - 1/2/2001 7:23:36 PM Message # 15509 Very interesting development in Indonesia. I wonder very much whether Wahid's govt can make this more than words. And I wonder very much more what Irv's take on the current Indonesia is. 15512. RustlerPike - 1/3/2001 8:01:19 AM 15513. RustlerPike - 1/3/2001 8:06:55 AM 15514. RustlerPike - 1/3/2001 8:09:04 AM 15515. glendajean - 1/3/2001 11:38:11 AM Iraq Says Reports of Saddam Illness Are Absurd 15516. andonly - 1/3/2001 1:42:55 PM "OK, so Barak is calling Arafat's bluff. I totally agree with that - though I think he's doing it unintentionally, and you seem to think it's intentional." 15517. andonly - 1/3/2001 1:44:27 PM "So unless Arafat plops down and dies within the next few months, I don't think it'll matter that much anymore when he dies and is replaced by another. All-out war between us and the Pals can only end one of two ways: with most of us under Mediterranean water, or with most of them on the other side of the Jordan. You don't seem to see that." 15518. andonly - 1/3/2001 1:44:54 PM All in all, I'd say building a wall is the better plan, even though there will still be a certain amount of guerilla activity and retaliation, and far-flung settlers will need to be brought back within a defensible zone. I just don't see how that zone can be comprised of the whole West Bank. It would be like southern Lebanon all over again. 15519. Uzmakk - 1/3/2001 7:13:43 PM Pike: 15520. robertjayb - 1/4/2001 12:47:48 AM . 15521. RustlerPike - 1/4/2001 4:16:20 AM 15522. RustlerPike - 1/4/2001 10:04:15 AM 15523. RustlerPike - 1/4/2001 10:07:10 AM 15524. RustlerPike - 1/4/2001 10:15:49 AM 15525. Ronski - 1/4/2001 12:15:30 PM If Pelle be around, Reuters is reporting that the Soviets offered to trade Wallenburg for Soviet defectors in Sweden, that the Swedish government showed no interest in getting Wallenburg back (perhaps because of the necessity of turning over political refugees in return) and that the Swedish government is to issue a report on Jan. 12. Any comment? 15526. Ronski - 1/4/2001 12:23:27 PM The Palestinians may be counting on Bush to be better for them than Clinton due to the alleged anti-Israeli (some have claimed anti-Jewish) remarks of James Baker when Bush pere was president. But I have doubts that this will be the case. On the one hand, you have the oilionaires interest in good relations with the Arab oil states, but on the other you have the strong support which Israel traditionally receives in conservative (and hawkish) political circles in the U.S. 15527. CalGal - 1/4/2001 12:26:25 PM Ronski, 15528. Electric Slide - 1/4/2001 5:20:12 PM How unjustice that the Arabs must suffer for the sins of the Germans. 15529. Ronski - 1/4/2001 5:27:36 PM Jews: In Israel for 5000 years. 15530. Electric Slide - 1/4/2001 5:37:35 PM Let them begin by sharing Jerusalem then. 15531. Ronski - 1/4/2001 5:42:41 PM They already do share it. Arab citizens of Israel are free to live in Jerusalem. When the Arabs had East Jerusalem, however, they refused to let Jews even visit the place. 15532. Electric Slide - 1/4/2001 6:30:34 PM Come on, Ronski. You're looking out a very little window at a big landscape. 15533. Ronski - 1/4/2001 7:00:41 PM Slide, 15534. Ronski - 1/4/2001 7:02:17 PM (Btw, I think that Israel should abandon the West Bank, eventually, for their own survival. But the time is not right.) 15535. Fielding - 1/4/2001 10:05:13 PM 15536. robertjayb - 1/5/2001 12:08:06 AM . 15537. RustlerPike - 1/5/2001 2:25:33 AM 15538. RustlerPike - 1/5/2001 2:36:21 AM 15539. RustlerPike - 1/5/2001 2:40:32 AM 15540. jexster - 1/5/2001 7:41:31 AM Thomas Friedman NYT presents a case study in support of the views articlated in the New Republic recently about the atavism of Duhbya's foreign policy team -analysis and outlook fresh from the Ford Era with Ford-like clumsiness to boot! 15541. jexster - 1/5/2001 7:58:36 AM Reference Above To "Colin Powell: Yesterday's Man" 15542. andonly - 1/5/2001 12:20:15 PM "Arafat doesn't want an agreement. He was begging the Arab leaders to veto the agreement for him, and he purposely created the atmosphere which forced them to do so." 15543. Wombat - 1/5/2001 2:49:29 PM Rosie: 15544. robertjayb - 1/6/2001 1:09:06 AM . 15545. RustlerPike - 1/6/2001 10:59:04 AM 15546. RustlerPike - 1/6/2001 11:14:28 AM 15547. RustlerPike - 1/6/2001 11:16:48 AM 15548. RustlerPike - 1/6/2001 11:17:50 AM 15549. Electric Slide - 1/6/2001 11:21:19 AM Don't even talk about war, RustlerPike. In the end you're going to give them their land back. 15550. RustlerPike - 1/6/2001 11:26:24 AM 15551. Electric Slide - 1/6/2001 11:40:18 AM Wombat: Ha. With that reasoning, why not give southern France to the Jews. 15552. RustlerPike - 1/6/2001 12:16:56 PM 15553. RustlerPike - 1/6/2001 12:28:55 PM 15554. RustlerPike - 1/6/2001 1:16:28 PM 15555. PelleNilsson - 1/6/2001 1:56:17 PM I'm finally fed up with Arafat and the Arab regimes. First it was "nobody can deny us our sacred rights to the Holy Places". OK, that was a big one but still within the realm of the thinkeable, and Barak made big concessions. Now, it's "nobody can deny us our sacred right of return". That is unthinkable for obvious reasons, and Arafat and the others know it. 15556. PelleNilsson - 1/6/2001 2:06:46 PM Ronski --- Message # 15525 15557. alistairconnor - 1/6/2001 6:07:46 PM When one conquers a country that one knows belongs to another, one should not be totally surprised when the original owner shows up... 15558. Electric Slide - 1/6/2001 7:58:22 PM Bad example. Most of the Chechens don't live there anymore, either. 15559. RustlerPike - 1/7/2001 5:55:24 AM 15560. RustlerPike - 1/7/2001 5:58:19 AM 15561. RustlerPike - 1/7/2001 8:55:59 AM 15562. RustlerPike - 1/7/2001 8:58:14 AM 15563. Electric Slide - 1/7/2001 11:05:07 AM RP: Thanks for the invitation. Since mote's politics thread is falling apart, I'll take your advise and make this my home page. 15564. PelleNilsson - 1/7/2001 4:57:34 PM 15565. andonly - 1/7/2001 7:54:31 PM Pike: "I have no idea what I was trying to write in the second sentence of Message # 15546. However, the idea is that while the Arab regimes would undoubtedly like to solve their domestic Pal refugee problems, that is not the driving force behind the Pal struggle." 15566. andonly - 1/7/2001 8:04:22 PM "Arafat's natural allies in this suicidal Jihad mindset are Saddam, and possibly the Hizbullah." 15567. andonly - 1/7/2001 10:43:41 PM "Nor is evacuation of settlements going to be possible without a peace deal (even with one, it would be dang near impossible)." 15568. RustlerPike - 1/8/2001 5:54:03 AM 15569. RustlerPike - 1/8/2001 6:08:55 AM 15570. RustlerPike - 1/8/2001 6:18:00 AM 15571. andonly - 1/8/2001 10:13:04 AM "Also, I think you overestimate how much they care about solving their internal Pal problem. And you know they can clean up the refugee camps in two days' time if they want to, with a little financial help from Saudi and the Gulf states." 15572. RustlerPike - 1/8/2001 10:56:57 AM 15573. RustlerPike - 1/8/2001 11:01:59 AM 15574. PelleNilsson - 1/8/2001 12:41:05 PM Rustler 15575. CalGal - 1/8/2001 1:11:52 PM Why is it that reporters from other countries speak so loudly? Every time CNN uses one of their international reporters, the decibel level increases substantially. 15576. robertjayb - 1/8/2001 5:16:43 PM . 15577. robertjayb - 1/8/2001 11:21:03 PM . 15578. Jonesatlaw - 1/8/2001 11:53:57 PM I think that the Chinese response validates the papers. 15579. LohrM - 1/9/2001 8:46:23 AM Exposing divisions inside the Forbidden City goes against the whole Chinese idea of how a government should operate-- so of course the Chinese leadership is upset... 15580. LohrM - 1/9/2001 8:47:06 AM CalGal-- one thing I hate is the breathless, rushed, now-it-can-be-told voice that Brit reporters use... 15581. RustlerPike - 1/9/2001 11:59:55 AM 15582. CalGal - 1/9/2001 7:01:33 PM Lohr, 15583. andonly - 1/9/2001 10:03:24 PM "Your place or mine then?" 15584. RustlerPike - 1/10/2001 2:22:34 AM 15585. RustlerPike - 1/10/2001 2:25:08 AM 15586. RustlerPike - 1/10/2001 2:38:17 AM 15587. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 3:08:05 AM 15588. RustlerPike - 1/10/2001 9:05:58 AM 15589. cmboyce - 1/10/2001 9:11:21 AM Deadwood, Colorado. 15590. Wombat - 1/10/2001 9:22:33 AM "People wishing hotel dry cleaning, drop pants here." 15591. RustlerPike - 1/10/2001 9:39:30 AM 15592. transient1a - 1/10/2001 11:09:49 AM 15593. transient1a - 1/10/2001 11:12:35 AM Bad URL. So I will repost 15594. RustlerPike - 1/10/2001 11:18:41 AM 15595. transient1a - 1/10/2001 11:25:29 AM Finally, this works: 15596. RustlerPike - 1/10/2001 11:27:58 AM 15597. marjoribanks - 1/10/2001 11:31:59 AM That article made my head hurt in 15 seconds of reading. Why even bother to resort to such highly winded academic analysis to come to common sense conclusions? 15598. marjoribanks - 1/10/2001 11:33:47 AM Interesting sign from PE. No doubt it comes from one of the tribal areas in Pakistan which he's parading his bride through. No doubt the locals are disappointed that he didn't come about marriage the traditional way - through the kidnapping of an underage neighbor. 15599. DanDillon - 1/10/2001 11:34:50 AM banks, you fool. That's what academics do. 15600. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 12:30:17 PM Dearest Filthy Hindoooo, you've got it all wrong. The traditional method is through the kidnapping of an underage cousin. 15601. marjoribanks - 1/10/2001 12:43:41 PM Hahaha. 15602. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 12:47:41 PM I came back on Monday. 15603. marjoribanks - 1/10/2001 12:50:33 PM Oh. 15604. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 12:53:47 PM Recently I discovered a very convenient label for that part of Eurasia in which I take almost no interest: monsoonal Asia. 15605. PelleNilsson - 1/10/2001 12:56:08 PM 15606. marjoribanks - 1/10/2001 12:58:00 PM Not as accurate as the term you used before - "monsoony coastal". Don't forget that the monsoons sweep the whole of the subcontinent with varying degrees of might. Even Nepal gets a remnant of the SW monsoon. 15607. marjoribanks - 1/10/2001 1:00:25 PM In fact, I very much like the atmosphere of all port cities, even those only on rivers. It's the undercurrent of ancient and contemporary mingling that attracts me so, 15608. Uzmakk - 1/10/2001 1:06:59 PM Pike: 15609. PelleNilsson - 1/10/2001 1:12:05 PM 15610. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 1:17:54 PM I don't understand to which post Snipson refers. 15611. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 1:19:14 PM Message # 15529 15612. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 1:19:56 PM Message # 15538 15613. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 1:20:10 PM It's only because these things are in the past and irreversible, and the proposed remedy ("right of return") is totally impracticable, that I must generally agree with the pro-Israeli position. But the founding facts of the dispute, I think, are on the Arab side. 15614. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 1:30:27 PM 15615. PelleNilsson - 1/10/2001 2:16:36 PM 15616. Ronski - 1/10/2001 2:50:54 PM I think it goes without saying that Palestinian Arabs are, for the most part, an Arabized people who had genetic roots going back far more than 1300 years. 15617. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 3:02:20 PM 15618. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 3:17:02 PM or a non-observant, non-Hebrew-speaking American Jew. 15619. Ronski - 1/10/2001 3:17:16 PM But then one could also ask why any people who had not had a state for a thousand years or more, or had never had one, be awarded one through international agreement. Take the Czechs, who had not had one since the eleventh century. And like Israel the state they were awarded was also multicultural. It seems quite reasonable a practice to grant independence to peoples, as was done after WW1. In fact, more states should have been granted independence at the time, such as Ireland and Kurdistan. 15620. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 3:45:31 PM Message # 15619 15621. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 3:49:08 PM Would it be reasonable if Mexican immigrants declared an independent and separate state in California or Texas when they become the majority? How about declaring a separate state NOW in those continguous counties of Texas where they are already a majority? These people would have a much better claim than the European Jewish immigrants to Palestine: the territory of Texas formerly belonged to Mexico, and the immigrants, most of whom are mestizos, are descended from the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the New World. 15622. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 3:50:55 PM 15623. Ronski - 1/10/2001 3:54:47 PM I disagree. I believe it is quite reasonable for people to leave one land (Europe) and move to another (Palestine), that is their historical homeland, and to buy land, legally. 15624. Ronski - 1/10/2001 3:59:40 PM pseudo, 15625. transient1a - 1/10/2001 4:02:27 PM RustlerPike, 15626. Ronski - 1/10/2001 4:13:28 PM (My disagreement in Message # 15623 was with the last graph in Message # 15620, if that was not obvious.) 15627. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 4:15:47 PM The formation of a Jewish state in Palestine is not comparable with the founding of the Czech or the Irish state. But it would be analogous to a situation in which the Russians in one of the Baltic states (where they have constituted between 30% to 50% of the population, thanks to Soviet-era migration) decided they wanted to separate and 'reunite' with Russia. 15628. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 4:18:21 PM Message # 15623 15629. Ronski - 1/10/2001 4:19:58 PM I do agree with the assessment of how Arab states have failed the Arab Palestinian people. 15630. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 4:23:57 PM I disagree. I believe it is quite reasonable for people to leave one land (Europe) and move to another (Palestine), that is their historical homeland, and to buy land, legally. 15631. marjoribanks - 1/10/2001 4:25:50 PM Ronski is Jewish? I'd thought he is some kind of derivation of the earlier European founding fathers of the USA. 15632. Ronski - 1/10/2001 4:38:02 PM pseudo, 15633. Ronski - 1/10/2001 4:40:31 PM marjoribanks, 15634. Ronski - 1/10/2001 4:41:10 PM (Raised Lutheran.) 15635. Ronski - 1/10/2001 4:45:47 PM I understand the distinction about declaring statehood, and acknowledge that this was a goal going back more than a century. But this was also a period where much territory across the globe was ruled by others and was destined to become new, independent states. 15636. pseudoerasmus - 1/10/2001 4:54:22 PM Well, I have to go now so I can't respond to the last batch of Ronski posts until later. 15637. Ronski - 1/10/2001 5:00:33 PM pseudo, 15638. andonly - 1/10/2001 6:07:33 PM alistairconnor: "I'm going to gather up my Celtic tribe, and we're going home to the Caucasus, where we lived 3000 years ago." 15639. AceofSpades - 1/10/2001 11:51:38 PM 15640. RustlerPike - 1/11/2001 4:35:57 AM 15641. Rosetta Stone - 1/11/2001 7:25:52 AM The Jews of the world are always welcomed to settle in the United States. They are some of our most talented--and hard-working citizens. 15642. transient1a - 1/11/2001 9:30:14 AM 15643. transient1a - 1/11/2001 11:46:00 AM 15644. RustlerPike - 1/11/2001 11:52:14 AM 15645. RustlerPike - 1/11/2001 11:54:11 AM 15646. Uzmakk - 1/11/2001 12:13:17 PM Relax for a while Pike and tell me whether you can tie a nice ball end knot. While not a macramist myself I can think of atleast one project where the work of a skilled craftsman would be appreciated. 15647. transient1a - 1/11/2001 12:15:45 PM 15648. RustlerPike - 1/11/2001 12:16:46 PM 15649. Uzmakk - 1/11/2001 12:20:04 PM There is actually some kind of feature like that on the Mote isn't there? 15650. cmboyce - 1/11/2001 12:20:05 PM "It is just that sometimes I feel that I got off on the wrong planet at the wrong time." 15651. RustlerPike - 1/11/2001 12:20:29 PM 15652. cmboyce - 1/11/2001 12:21:08 PM Toys, goddammit! 15653. RustlerPike - 1/11/2001 12:21:26 PM 15654. cmboyce - 1/11/2001 12:21:53 PM (Sorry, Rus, that was intended for myself!) 15655. Uzmakk - 1/11/2001 1:24:18 PM Oops, sorry, wrong planet, or wrong thread atleast. Pardon. Carry on. 15656. PelleNilsson - 1/11/2001 2:13:14 PM 15657. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 2:53:39 PM Message # 15632: I think that if Russians in the Baltic states wanted to secede and join Russia...I would not object, though I'm sure ethnic Balts would. The Balts might have a moral argument against this based on what constitutes a viable state and historical mistreatment by Russians, though. 15658. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 2:56:56 PM Message # 15635: What I fail to comprehend, or to accept, is the resorting to violence and the inability to accept compromise, a sharing of the land. The Jews were using half of it for their state, not all of it. 15659. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 2:58:43 PM Message # 15637: I would just say that I can appreciate how Jews did not consider themselves newcomers 15660. transient1a - 1/11/2001 3:01:56 PM 15661. Ronski - 1/11/2001 3:17:34 PM If Germans in South America wanted to petition the Brazilian government for a peaceable secession, I would not object. I would object if they resorted to force to achieve their goals. Similarly, I would object if the Brazilian government used force to suppress pro-independence speech and organizing. 15662. Ronski - 1/11/2001 3:27:33 PM As for the African analogy, please remember that I think people should pretty much have a right to settle, peacefully, anywhere they please. I support immigration, with a small number of controls. As I've said of immigrants to my country, let 'em in. As long as they will work. 15663. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 3:39:47 PM Message # 15662: As for the African analogy, please remember that I think people should pretty much have a right to settle, peacefully, anywhere they please. I support immigration, with a small number of controls. As I've said of immigrants to my country, let 'em in. As long as they will work. 15664. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 3:42:34 PM Message # 15661: If Germans in South America wanted to petition the Brazilian government for a peaceable secession, I would not object. 15665. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 3:43:52 PM Message # 15661: 15666. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 3:45:30 PM Ronski, do you have any arguments which don't rely on incoherent libertarian notions to magically sweep problems away? 15667. sakonige - 1/11/2001 3:55:50 PM pseudoerasmus, 15668. Ronski - 1/11/2001 3:58:55 PM Christian Arab Palestinians are the ones that leftist Jews have always talked peace with, and are doing so today. They do not share the same antipathy to the Jews that Arab Muslims do, as a rule. 15669. sakonige - 1/11/2001 4:05:00 PM 15670. Ronski - 1/11/2001 4:07:11 PM I consider the British control over Palestine a fact, not a good thing. As for the Han in Tibet, I do not think that violence should be used to force the Han from their homes, just as I think the Balts should not expel the Russians. (The Czechs were equally wrong to expel the Germans from the Sudetenland, something they have apologized for.) 15671. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 4:09:32 PM Message # 15668: Christian Arab Palestinians are the ones that leftist Jews have always talked peace with, and are doing so today. They do not share the same antipathy to the Jews that Arab Muslims do, as a rule. 15672. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 4:11:46 PM 15673. PelleNilsson - 1/11/2001 4:23:51 PM 15674. Ronski - 1/11/2001 5:11:45 PM I know that there are plenty of Christian Arabs who are nationalists and that many want to destroy Israel. The fact remains that leftist groups in Israel, the peaceniks, have more ties to Christian Arabs than they do to Muslim Arabs. Because they insist on talking to these Christian moderates, they lull themselves into thinking peace is a possibility. They underestimate Arab determination to do away with Israel entirely. 15675. pseudoerasmus - 1/11/2001 6:01:41 PM Message # 15674: The fact remains that leftist groups in Israel, the peaceniks, have more ties to Christian Arabs than they do to Muslim Arabs. 15676. Jenerator - 1/11/2001 6:22:47 PM nothing we say here will make the least diference. So we might just as well as speakly unconstructively and dwell on the past, or something. 15677. AceofSpades - 1/11/2001 6:25:21 PM 15678. Jenerator - 1/11/2001 6:28:36 PM I know that darlying. 15679. rubberducky - 1/12/2001 9:33:50 AM Nuts Guy Saves Bacon 15680. Fielding - 1/12/2001 12:05:00 PM 15681. PelleNilsson - 1/12/2001 12:08:48 PM 15682. RickNelson - 1/12/2001 12:34:20 PM 15683. PelleNilsson - 1/12/2001 12:47:39 PM 15684. transient1a - 1/12/2001 1:20:06 PM 15685. transient1a - 1/12/2001 1:23:44 PM 15686. jayackroyd - 1/12/2001 1:32:40 PM In today's NYTimes Thomas Friedman argues that arab resistance to globalization is hurting the arab world, the chances for peace with Israel, and the future of arab children in a world that will be capitalist. Friedman 15687. Fielding - 1/12/2001 1:36:35 PM 15688. CalGal - 1/12/2001 1:37:34 PM I always thought that Stephenson overstated the tenets of multiculturalism--he confuses it with moral relativism. 15689. jayackroyd - 1/12/2001 2:00:15 PM Yeah, sure, Fielding. That's right, those are also threats to a religiously organized state, aren't they? But is Friedman right to claim that his notion of how children should be reared and societies organized is the only way to go? 15690. Fielding - 1/12/2001 2:11:33 PM 15691. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 2:13:00 PM Jay: That can be said about any political/social/economic critique. I think the point was that Arabs are not consciously making a trade-off between prosperity and cultural cohesion - they aren't saying "sure, we *could* get richer, but only at the risk of Disneyfication and having McDonalds' show up and offer a McHummus sandwich, and we therefore choose isolation and protectionism. In the absence of such a conscious choice, I think it is worth pointing out when such choices are being made implicitly. 15692. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 2:18:36 PM globalisation, particularly cultural globalisation, is the most OVERRATED phenomenon in the world. 15693. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 2:19:06 PM overrated in the sense that it's happening and will be happening much much less than is supposed. 15694. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 2:27:36 PM Friedman's "memo" (is there a more cliched genre than that now?) is incoherent: he can't decide whether he's addressing the Arab elites or the Arab masses. I see no evidence that the Arab masses are opposed democratisation; rather the West fears democratisation in the Arab countries because the expression of the popular will in most such countries is less palatable and predictable than the leaders. So the West supports corrupt and oligarchical regimes in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, and the Gulf. What the hell is Friedman talking about the Arab masses don't want democratisation. It is the West that is uncomfortable with the notion. As for economic liberalisation, the ONLY Western-supported Arab government poised to fully integrated with the world economy is Morocco, which hopes to gain associated status with the EU. Otherwise, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf countries all have bloated state sectors and elites uninterested in reforming them. So what the hell is Friedman talking about? 15695. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 2:28:42 PM and those non-reforming elites are supported by the West. 15696. jayackroyd - 1/12/2001 2:29:05 PM So you both share his belief that it's get on the globalist train or be mowed down? 15697. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 2:32:20 PM There's a McDonald's in Peshawar. Yet the local culture has not been conspicuously effaced. 15698. marjoribanks - 1/12/2001 2:37:09 PM Hmmm. It's been a while since I unreservedly supported Pseuders comments. Must check if it's a full moon. 15699. Fielding - 1/12/2001 2:38:19 PM 15700. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 2:38:23 PM "So you both share his belief that it's get on the globalist train or be mowed down?" 15701. Fielding - 1/12/2001 2:39:27 PM PE: 15702. Fielding - 1/12/2001 2:41:13 PM 15703. marjoribanks - 1/12/2001 2:45:20 PM Fielding, 15704. Fielding - 1/12/2001 2:48:19 PM 15705. PelleNilsson - 1/12/2001 2:53:18 PM 15706. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 2:54:35 PM Jay: Do you agree with Stephenson's take on the subject? I have thought him a good science fiction writer, but a bit of a flake when he steps outside technology. 15707. jayackroyd - 1/12/2001 3:00:04 PM Most Americans, for example, would certainly say in an opinion poll that they were in favor of increased Democracy in the Middle East. 15708. jayackroyd - 1/12/2001 3:05:05 PM Having been in Egypt recently, Rask, I do think he has a point. There is fundamental conflict between what Friedman calls globalization and contemporary Islam. We see it here at home all the time, like when the Kansas state board of education tries to get evolution off the state certification exam. 15709. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 3:05:25 PM And Pseudo:"globalisation, particularly cultural globalisation, is the most OVERRATED phenomenon in the world." 15710. Fielding - 1/12/2001 3:06:48 PM 15711. jayackroyd - 1/12/2001 3:07:41 PM One other thing. 15712. jayackroyd - 1/12/2001 3:10:24 PM Fielding-- 15713. PelleNilsson - 1/12/2001 3:11:42 PM 15714. Fielding - 1/12/2001 3:16:08 PM 15715. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 3:16:26 PM I usually avoid commenting on Middle East matters, particularly in this thread, because of my comparative ignorance on the subject, so I step in here at my peril... 15716. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 3:27:42 PM Well, there is a lot more evidence for the US supporting market economies in the third world than there is of support for democracies, and I can think of many more instances where the US has supported anti-democratic efforts in the third world than democratic efforts. But I think this is largely a function of the cold war, and the historical instability of elected third world governments. 15717. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 3:51:49 PM Message # 15705: No, I haven't changed my views on anything major recently. My views are so subtle that lesser beings like you see contradictions where there are none. 15718. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 3:52:08 PM Message # 15708: Having been in Egypt recently, Rask, I do think he has a point. There is fundamental conflict between what Friedman calls globalization and contemporary Islam. We see it here at home all the time, like when the Kansas state board of education tries to get evolution off the state certification exam. 15719. Fielding - 1/12/2001 3:56:32 PM 15720. Fielding - 1/12/2001 3:56:54 PM 15721. Fielding - 1/12/2001 4:01:01 PM 15722. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 4:03:30 PM Pseudo: a couple follow-ups. 15723. Fielding - 1/12/2001 4:05:47 PM 15724. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:09:23 PM 15725. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:12:51 PM Message # 15723 15726. PelleNilsson - 1/12/2001 4:14:10 PM Fielding 15727. PelleNilsson - 1/12/2001 4:16:50 PM PE 15728. Fielding - 1/12/2001 4:21:51 PM 15729. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:22:40 PM subtlety is not like an anile Swede: it does not break when handled vigourously. 15730. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:24:56 PM Fielding, you're like a skater who veers off course no matter the energy expended to keep straight. 15731. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:25:51 PM or Iraq at any rate, since SH wasn't in power for the whole time in the 1970s. 15732. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:28:10 PM My accusation was not that the West is hypocritical, but that Friedman misses the target with his seminal fluid. 15733. Fielding - 1/12/2001 4:31:47 PM 15734. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:42:14 PM A leftist? I am greatly offended. I have more than four years' worth of record as a neoliberal number-crunching fascist in the Fray/Mote, and I'n not going to let some unknown newcomer say that I'm not. 15735. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:42:47 PM ...democracy and other good things... 15736. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:45:08 PM ....Third-Worldist babbly.... 15737. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 4:47:32 PM I am always for Goliath in any contest with David. So need to worry. 15738. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 4:48:02 PM Pseudo: I think you are slightly twisting Friedman's emphasis. I can't verify his claim that Arabs are not in favor of democracy, but Friedman's best argument for this was in mentioning how Palestinians are more than willing to take to the streets and risk their lives over anti-Israel issues, but are evidently not willing to do the same over democracy and economic liberalization. He was generally questioning their priorities. 15739. PelleNilsson - 1/12/2001 4:52:04 PM PE 15740. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 4:52:05 PM But again, this is not my issue. For all I know there is a major pro-democracy movement in Egypt that I am completely unaware of. 15741. Raskolnikov - 1/12/2001 4:53:23 PM What I do think is a valid criticism is that Friedman seems to be over-extrapolating Palestinian to mean "Arab". His examples mostly seem to be Palestinian, but his general conclusions are "Arab". 15742. Fielding - 1/12/2001 5:03:36 PM 15743. Fielding - 1/12/2001 5:09:09 PM 15744. Fielding - 1/12/2001 5:14:43 PM 15745. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 5:26:14 PM Message # 15738: No, I don't think I'm twisting Friedman's emphasis. Friedman is addressing not just Palestinians but all Arab masses. Perhaps he failed to notice that with a few exceptions every Arab regime faces threats to its existence from disgruntled populist Islamist groups. That disgruntlement is in part about the woeful statement of Arab economic and social underdevelopment. 15746. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 5:27:57 PM I like to use anti-Western rhetoric when I'm arguing with guilt-ridden Western left-wingers. 15747. Fielding - 1/12/2001 5:47:55 PM 15748. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 5:49:27 PM Let me know when you find one. 15749. Fielding - 1/12/2001 5:55:41 PM 15750. pseudoerasmus - 1/12/2001 5:58:31 PM Can we then drop you into the ocean from 5000 metres? 15751. PelleNilsson - 1/13/2001 7:36:59 AM 15752. arkymalarky - 1/13/2001 10:42:33 AM Humpty Dumpty--you know, the world's biggest egghead. 15753. Jenerator - 1/13/2001 1:46:27 PM Bill Clinton used it a time or two. 15754. PelleNilsson - 1/13/2001 1:48:34 PM arky 15755. Jenerator - 1/13/2001 1:52:21 PM PE may have the personality of Humpty Dumpty, but he looks more like the scarecrow from Oz. At least, that's the image I make, the more I read from him. 15756. pseudoerasmus - 1/13/2001 1:54:02 PM I don't see it as contradictory for the Algerian masses to desire radical Islamism and democracy. 15757. Jenerator - 1/13/2001 1:58:26 PM I knew it would work, I have real powers for pulling PE out of his cave. 15758. PelleNilsson - 1/13/2001 2:27:56 PM Humpty 15759. pseudoerasmus - 1/13/2001 2:41:46 PM Snipson, I did not redine "democracy" as being "responsive to the masses", though that is surely one part of the democratic impulse. That is simply your incontinent inference. At your age do you wear nappies? 15760. pseudoerasmus - 1/13/2001 2:52:40 PM All the same, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and (though not Arab) Iran all do hold, and have held, regular legislative elections. The problem is that the regimes in power do not allow the legislature to exercise any real power. But these elections are proof indeed that Arab countries are not uninterested in democracy. 15761. pseudoerasmus - 1/13/2001 2:52:55 PM I mean evidence, not proof. 15762. jonesatlaw - 1/13/2001 2:59:56 PM PE- you really need to define what you would term democracy in an Arab sense. Clearly there is little or no call for democracy in the western sense in the overwhelming majority of the Arab world given your thesis that the Arab everyman is clammoring for a more Islamist state. 15763. pseudoerasmus - 1/13/2001 3:30:19 PM Clearly there is little or no call for democracy in the western sense in the overwhelming majority of the Arab world given your thesis that the Arab everyman is clammoring for a more Islamist state. 15764. pseudoerasmus - 1/13/2001 3:32:11 PM But I wouldn't say that an Islamist state is desired in every Arab country. 15765. pseudoerasmus - 1/13/2001 3:35:17 PM This looks like an interesting book, and relevant to the topic. 15766. PelleNilsson - 1/13/2001 3:42:50 PM Humpty 15767. pseudoerasmus - 1/13/2001 3:50:18 PM Who gives a fuck what you're tired of. I've always had contempt for your middle-brow semi-intellectual pieties. 15768. PelleNilsson - 1/13/2001 3:52:19 PM 15769. sakonige - 1/13/2001 6:02:27 PM 15770. sakonige - 1/13/2001 6:09:38 PM 15771. RustlerPike - 1/14/2001 2:17:14 AM 15772. RustlerPike - 1/14/2001 2:22:34 AM 15773. Jenerator - 1/14/2001 10:14:00 AM Sakonige, 15774. RustlerPike - 1/14/2001 12:44:56 PM 15775. sakonige - 1/14/2001 1:28:16 PM 15776. sakonige - 1/14/2001 1:48:28 PM 15777. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 3:07:54 PM Sakonige: It's amazing that no matter how much I rubbish you, you are still fawning all over me. 15778. CalGal - 1/14/2001 3:35:09 PM I mean that the Arab masses want both an Islamist state and electoral democracy (i.e., a system in which elections by universal suffrage decide the nature and character of government). 15779. Jenerator - 1/14/2001 3:38:11 PM sakonige, 15780. sakonige - 1/14/2001 3:53:08 PM 15781. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 3:55:39 PM Jenerator, you were too fawning all over me until I started savaging you! 15782. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 3:57:04 PM ...too were... 15783. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 4:00:32 PM A prominent Belfast Orangeman was on his deathbed. He asked to have a Catholic priest brought to him. When his puzzled relatives had complied, he told the priest that he wanted to convert. After the necessary formalities, the priest said: 'My son, you are now a Catholic. But what prompted you to seek reconciliation with the Holy Church?' 15784. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 4:01:43 PM A priest, a minister, and a rabbi are golfing. They're following a very, very slow foursome, and at every tee they have to wait longer and longer. After the first nine holes they go into the clubhouse and complain to the manager. The manager tells them that every golfer in the foursome in front of them is blind. 15785. CalGal - 1/14/2001 5:42:40 PM That last was quite funny. 15786. andonly - 1/14/2001 9:17:35 PM "Rustler: the one flaw in your dithyrambic set of ifs is that you exaggerate the connexion and attachment with Palestine of a people most of whom had become completely secularised, assimilated and cut off from their native roots." 15787. andonly - 1/14/2001 9:17:52 PM Or see Psalm 128: "The Lord bless thee out of Zion; and see thou the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life; and see thy children's children." Or Psalm 132: "For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for His habitation. 'This is my resting place forever...'" Or Psalm 137; "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget thee, O Jersusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chief joy." 15788. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 9:49:47 PM Blah blah blah. The foundation of a state hanging on a few lines in the Bible. Jerusalem was nothing but an abstract place for the vast majority of Jews. Just words. 15789. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 9:51:03 PM 15790. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 9:52:46 PM No, but the right of conquest has, and Isreal has conquered most efficiently. The Islamic claim for Palestine is no less one based on conquest, as was the British claim, although it was bolstered by the Mandate. 15791. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 9:52:56 PM (Besides, EVERY ethnos has some kind of legendary ethnogenesis. As I've said before, Pashtuns think they're descended from Jews. Traditional gypsy folklore has it that their nation came from Egypt. The Jewish connexion with Jerusalem is just more famous and louder, that's all.) 15792. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 9:56:30 PM 15793. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 10:00:54 PM 15794. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 10:01:25 PM Justice and fairness are the key to the natural law critique of the existing order. The foundation of Israel arises from the natural law critique of European treatment of the Jews. The Palestinian critique of the existing order- the Jewish nation, thus uses the same dialogue and confusion and confabulation reign. 15795. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 10:04:53 PM 15796. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 10:08:10 PM I've no idea what Jonesatlaw just said. 15797. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 10:10:17 PM The real rub here is tha the natural law argument made in favor of Israel is one which addresses in large part the inequities done by Europeans. If the state were erected somewhere where the losses were borne by Europeans, there would be a balance in the argument. Whatever inequities borne by the persons displaced or made a minority in their homeland would be counterbalanced by the past injustice done to the beneficiaries of the reparation. Here, the inequities done in the name of restitution for past wrongs are externalized and borne by third parties. 15798. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 10:13:23 PM PE the Holocaust is merely the last chapter in a long line of injustices done to the Jews at the hands of Europeans. The difference between the Armeneans and the Jews is that the Jewish claim fell on receptive ears in powers who were capable and willing to act on the critique. I would imagine if the Armenians were to find such an opportunity there would be a similar reaction amongst the Armenian disapora as the Jews. 15799. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 10:15:58 PM 15800. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 10:17:23 PM 15801. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 10:26:55 PM Rick- How far back do we have to go to find a Palestinian state? The Ottoman Turks held sway for quite awhile prior to the British occupation, and others before that. I'm not sure that I can think of a time when there was an independant Palestine ruled by the indigenous people since the Romans. 15802. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 10:40:47 PM jonesatlaw: there has never been a palestinian state, and there has never been an independent state centred around what territories in dispute. so what? 15803. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 10:41:27 PM other than the ancient Hebrew kingdoms. 15804. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 10:48:55 PM 15805. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 10:51:34 PM Well, while the historical claim by Isreal is ancient, it is nonetheless factual that Jews are a people who held this territory as their national state. The Palestinian claim is more personal than national. Without ever having established a Palestinian nation, how does one claim justice and fairness demand that the latest conqueror create one, or acquiece in its creation? 15806. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 10:53:11 PM Or for that matter- a divison between secular Israelis and those who cling to a religious state? 15807. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 10:57:41 PM 15808. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 11:00:07 PM 15809. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:00:53 PM Jonesatlaw: why don't you write like a normal human being instead of as a lawyer? 15810. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:01:44 PM Joneatlaw: please understand that this is the international thead, and we use international, not necessarily American, lexical standards. Don't use the word nation as a synonym for state. 15811. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:02:45 PM all the same, 2000 year old territorial claims are just absurd. 15812. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:03:20 PM how can you even talk legalistically, as joneatlaw does so cavalierly, about a state which existd more than 2000 years ago. 15813. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:06:22 PM Actually, I have no problem in saying that Jordan is a Palestinian state, since it is. I also see no reason why the West Bank must be given to the "Palestinians". It could just as easily be returned to Jordan, since it is a de facto Palestinian state -- except for the fact that Jordan has renounced any claims to the West Bank. 15814. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:07:27 PM Jonestalaw: when I question the legitimacy of Zionism, I only question it in the context of the period prior to 1947-49. It's a reality now, and I don't question it in today's context. 15815. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 11:09:32 PM 15816. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 11:11:26 PM PE- The distinction I was trying to draw is that of some recognition of nationhood and rights flowing from it and those of the individuals. There is no Palestinian state, and I would argue therefore no "Palestinian People." There certainly are people who live in Palestine and who have the same inalienable human rights as anyone else. But what makes them different from say, Jordanians? Is there something cultural, linguistic, political or something else that binds them together? I don't doubt that Israel denies them their rights in many respects, but is this their sole claim to a separate existence? I doubt that it is, in part because I can't see Palestinians accepting an existence under Israeli control even if their rights were as vindicated as those of Israeli citizens. 15817. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 11:11:50 PM 15818. RickNelson - 1/14/2001 11:18:04 PM 15819. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:22:44 PM Message # 15816 15820. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 11:24:22 PM I realize that I am treading heavily on thin ice, given that many of the nations in the area are largely colonial legacies more than a people united by culture, language and a sense of identity. 15821. andonly - 1/14/2001 11:30:02 PM "The foundation of a state hanging on a few lines in the Bible." 15822. andonly - 1/14/2001 11:30:23 PM "I was about to agree with you that Zionism has no suitable analogy, but then you mentioned the Roma and now I find them terribly apt. Zionism is as though the gypsies of the world gathered together to found a state in some random location in India." 15823. andonly - 1/14/2001 11:35:36 PM "The Palestinian Arabs want a separate state on the land they have lived on forever." 15824. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 11:39:54 PM PE-If I were a Palestinian Arab, I would consider Jordan my ethnic state and would be content that the West Bank be reunited with Jordan, But isn't it nominally a Hashemite kingdom? 15825. andonly - 1/14/2001 11:40:24 PM "What makes Americans different from Canadians? Or Australians from New Zealanders?" 15826. andonly - 1/14/2001 11:46:08 PM I'm off to bed, but I hope PE responds to this from Jones, since I provisionally agree it: 15827. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 11:46:11 PM What makes Americans different from Canadians? Or Australians from New Zealanders?" 15828. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:48:56 PM Message # 15820 15829. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:50:22 PM Plenty of extrabiblical sources as well, and tangible material, but you know that perfectly well. 15830. pseudoerasmus - 1/14/2001 11:51:38 PM Message # 15823 15831. Jonesatlaw - 1/14/2001 11:59:05 PM PE- there is more to the claim of Jordan as the Hashemite Kingdom than mere genology of the royal family. It is expressly Arab and more closely tied to the nomadic people of the area rather than the city dwellers and farmers along the coast. What are you doing in this thread if you're trying to bullshit me with the House of fucking Saxe-Coburg-Gothe? 15832. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 12:06:34 AM Jonesatlaw: the country today called Jordan was part of Mandatory Palestine until 1923 or 1924. It was Winston Churchill who detached the territory on the east bank of the Jordan river from the rest ( = Israel plus West Bank). Almost the entire population of Transjordan lived along the Jordan river and those who didn't were the Bedouin. 15833. Jonesatlaw - 1/15/2001 12:08:09 AM Well, who gives a fuck about Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. Ethnicity is still real in the world. 15834. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 12:10:21 AM The distinction between "Palestinian" and "Jordanian" that exists in Jordan is a relic of the 1923-4 detachment. In reality the settled Arabs on either side of the river are the same people. 15835. Jonesatlaw - 1/15/2001 12:12:45 AM PE- and I think the view of the rulers is that the Palestinians were attached to a Bedouin kingdom, and they have acted in accordance with that view for some time. 15836. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 12:20:39 AM Message # 15835: try again. In every new state -- Syria, Jordan, Iraq -- the Bedouins had to be brought under the control of the newly formed states. By no means was Transjordan established as a Bedouin kingdom. 15837. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 12:32:11 AM Message # 15833 15838. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 12:45:14 AM Summary: 15839. jonesatlaw - 1/15/2001 1:45:13 AM century had almost nothing to do with the ancient Hebrews, except for a few lines in some scripture whose language they didn't speak. The continuity between the ancestor and descendant peoples was theoretical and abstract. In essence, the Hebrew nation had ceased to exist, just like the Phoenicians or the Hittites. The modern Israeli identity is a recent invention. 15840. jonesatlaw - 1/15/2001 1:51:20 AM (3) ethnic-cultural: Palestine belonged ethnically and culturally to its Arab inhabitants. #3 is the most important consideration. 15841. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 2:16:51 AM Message # 15839 15842. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 2:17:57 AM Message # 15840 15843. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 2:18:08 AM 15844. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 2:20:12 AM This is really the crux of the issue: 15845. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 2:23:02 AM the genetic relatedness of most Jews is no more significant than that all human beings are genetically related. 15846. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 2:23:55 AM If Eastern Euroepean Jews had tried to carve out a homeland in Eastern Europe, where they have a longstanding cultural presence, I think that would have been quite legitimate. 15847. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 2:29:24 AM errata: 15848. RustlerPike - 1/15/2001 8:05:21 AM 15849. RustlerPike - 1/15/2001 8:12:55 AM 15850. RustlerPike - 1/15/2001 8:14:51 AM 15851. Fielding - 1/15/2001 10:40:43 AM 15852. Fielding - 1/15/2001 11:03:17 AM 15853. Fielding - 1/15/2001 11:12:08 AM 15854. cmboyce - 1/15/2001 11:33:31 AM For myself, I'm perfectly willing to take the claim of Jewish—or at least Israeli Jewish—ethnic cohesion at face value (while allowing that it may be a rather diffuse one), but why on earth should that constitute a claim on the land. I'm with PE, right of conquest, yes. Right of "traditional inhabitance", no. (Let alone right of assignment by god!) 15855. Fielding - 1/15/2001 11:36:10 AM 15856. andonly - 1/15/2001 1:02:41 PM "For myself, I'm perfectly willing to take the claim of Jewish—or at least Israeli Jewish—ethnic cohesion at face value (while allowing that it may be a rather diffuse one), but why on earth should that constitute a claim on the land. I'm with PE, right of conquest, yes. Right of "traditional inhabitance", no." 15857. jexster - 1/15/2001 1:05:09 PM Our foreign policy mandarins huddled and announced it couldn't be done. A parade of retired generals took to the airwaves with the same verdict. Congressional Republicans even tried to surrender. But in Kosovo Bill Clinton confounded everyone--probably even himself. For reasons having to do less with strategy than with domestic politics, he may have even stumbled onto a new precedent for the use of American military power. Not only did he win a war, he did it without an army. 15858. jexster - 1/15/2001 1:05:46 PM 15859. jexster - 1/15/2001 1:24:56 PM Clinton Changed the World [LAT] 15860. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2001 3:17:29 PM I thought I would introduce here some notes on how the Arab part of the Ottoman Empire (except North Africa) was transformed into the states and territories we know today. It all started during WWI and the central figure in the first phase was Sharif Husein bin Ali (1853-1931, descendent of the the prophet Muhammed (may peace be upon him), guardian of the holy places in Mecca and Medina and as such an influential figure in the Muslim world. In 1915-16 Husein exchanged letters with Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner of Egypt. McMahon promised that after the war an Arab independent state would be established except for portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo 15861. andonly - 1/15/2001 3:21:03 PM "My point was that a few lines and incantations make but a very tenuous cultural connexion. ... There is no Israeli claim. Yiddish-, Russian- , German-and Polish-speaking Jews of the 19th century had almost nothing to do with the ancient Hebrews, except for a few lines in some scripture whose language they didn't speak. The continuity between the ancestor and descendant peoples was theoretical and abstract. In essence, the Hebrew nation had ceased to exist, just like the Phoenicians or the Hittites. The modern Israeli identity is a recent invention. ... You could speak of the cultural characteristics of Polish Jews, or of German Jews, or of Greek Jews, or Jews living in Muslim lands, but there was no unity to this grouping akin to what we normally recognise as an ethnic and cultural unit." 15862. andonly - 1/15/2001 3:21:07 PM "My point was that a few lines and incantations make but a very tenuous cultural connexion. ... There is no Israeli claim. Yiddish-, Russian- , German-and Polish-speaking Jews of the 19th century had almost nothing to do with the ancient Hebrews, except for a few lines in some scripture whose language they didn't speak. The continuity between the ancestor and descendant peoples was theoretical and abstract. In essence, the Hebrew nation had ceased to exist, just like the Phoenicians or the Hittites. The modern Israeli identity is a recent invention. ... You could speak of the cultural characteristics of Polish Jews, or of German Jews, or of Greek Jews, or Jews living in Muslim lands, but there was no unity to this grouping akin to what we normally recognise as an ethnic and cultural unit." 15863. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2001 3:21:51 PM In any case Husein was satisfied enough to start the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in June 1916.The field operations were headed by Husein's sons Feisal and Abdullah. They were assisted by liaison officers despatched by McMahon's staff among them Thomas E. Lawrence to become known as Lawrence of Arabia. They also received some logistic support from the British Army. When the was ended, the Arab troops marched into Damascus. However, at the same time Britain negotiated with France about how to carve up the Middle East into spheres of influence. This resulted in the Sykes-Picot Agreement named after the chief negotiators. Its effect was to allocate present Syria and Lebanon to France and the rest to Britain. A little later, in November 1917, Britain also issued the Balfour Declaration in the form of a letter from the foreign secretary of that name to Lord Rotschild promising a Jewish homeland in Palestine provided that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. At the end of the war Britain thus found itself with a number of incompatible promises to various parties. The incompatibility between the Husein-McMahon Correspondence and the Sykes-Picot Agreement was solved by ignoring the former. As we know, the Balfour Declaration was to cause an increasing number of problems for Britain. 15864. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 3:22:52 PM Re Jerusalem and Judaism 15865. andonly - 1/15/2001 3:23:32 PM (sorry for repetition) 15866. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 3:24:39 PM Message # 15848 15867. andonly - 1/15/2001 3:25:02 PM "The distance between Levantine Muslim Arab culture and Levantine Christian Arab culture is much much less than between (say) German Jewish culture and Yemeni Jewish culture." 15868. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2001 3:25:08 PM In March a Syrian congress in Damascus met and elected Feisal king of a Greater Syria including Palestine (which in turn included today's Jordan). At about the same time, Iraqi nationalists, also meeting in Damascus, proclaimed Husein's other son, Abdullah, king of Iraq. The congress's decision was in violation of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the French did not want a king anyhow, so Feisal was promptly deposed in June 1920. This left Britain with a problem. Feisal had been instrumental in the Arab Revolt and needed to be rewarded somehow. The solution was to install him in Baghdad instead of Abdullah and to give the latter not a kingdom but an emirate (princedom) which became known as Transjordan and comprised Palestine east of the Jordan river. The formal dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire was prepared at the Conference of San Remo in 1920 and consummated in the Treaty of Sèvres in the same year. Apart from forcing Turkey to renounce all claims to Arab lands this treaty put down the seeds for future conflicts elsewhere. It provided for an autonomous Kurdistan, and independent Armenia and a Greek presence in western Turkey. However, the new government in Turkey, "the young Turks" refused the treaty and in 1923 it was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne where these provisions were removed. It remains to note that Britain and France were confirmed as mandatory powers in 1923 by the League of Nation. In the Mandate for Palestine the Jewish aspirations for a homeland were recognised. (see the preamble and Clause 4). Thus, the promises made in the Balfour Declaration became international policy. 15869. andonly - 1/15/2001 3:25:51 PM Jones observed that a significant portion of Jewish landowners seized the territory of Palestine by force of arms in order to achieve self determination. They were (reluctantly) allowed to do this by the force ruling the territory at the time. Arab Palestinians failed to achieve self determination. Who cares whether they were the majority "ethnos"? They didn't live in a democracy and they hadn't a sufficient sense of peoplehood or nationality to achieve a state (which their leaders certainly proposed, and well before partition). The Jews did. 15870. andonly - 1/15/2001 3:26:28 PM PE, what you keep missing--incredibly--is that Europeans (certainly in 1800s, and no less afterwards) would never have considered a European Jewish homeland legitimate. Nor could the Jews have defended such an establishment on cultural grounds, since neither they nor anyone else considered Jews rightfully established there. Nor on property ownership grounds, since Jews in Europe had historically been prevented from owning property. As for Jews living in the East, who supposedly had rights and did own property, they were summarily thrown out of Arab lands as soon as Israel was established. So your personal definition of legitimacy, depending as it does on the notion that the place where people happen to have a "longstanding cultural presence" is a greater indicator of their right to establish a state than is the prior existence of a state, seems rather fragile to me. 15871. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2001 3:30:24 PM It was so quiet here and suddenly things exploded! 15872. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 3:31:58 PM Message # 15853: There were/are plenty of commonalities among Jewish diaspora, including language, religion, drss, rituals, etc. 15873. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 3:32:22 PM Message # 15865 15874. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 3:44:11 PM Message # 15867 15875. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 3:44:35 PM And then if that ethnos gets (mostly) expelled and in the course of time becomes altered in any way, it forfeits forever its connection to the traditional land? Oh, well. 15876. Fielding - 1/15/2001 3:57:10 PM 15877. Fielding - 1/15/2001 4:00:43 PM 15878. CalGal - 1/15/2001 4:04:35 PM Pelle, 15879. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2001 4:08:56 PM CalGal 15880. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:09:27 PM Message # 15876: Perhaps I have gone off the deep end. Nonetheless, I should point out that be dress I meant things like yarmulkes and tefillin. As for language, I am not talking about native tongue, but rather Hebrew, which I understand was spoken in Germany, Yemen and Bukhara (indeed, by Jews throughout the world). I find it telling that when the State of Israel was founded, the national language chosen was not Yiddish (which would support your view), but rather Hebrew. 15881. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:10:04 PM Message # 15869: Who cares whether they were the majority "ethnos"? 15882. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:10:22 PM The "repatriation" of Liberia preceded the first Palestinian yishuv (that movement of religious Russian Jews who fled the Pale in 1882) by 60 years. Was Liberia, an African territory taken over by American slave emigrants seeking freedom and self-determination, where English was declared the official language and the de-Africanized newcomers expanded the fledgling territory through purchases financed from abroad, illegitimate? 15883. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:11:35 PM As for Jews living in the East, who supposedly had rights and did own property, they were summarily thrown out of Arab lands as soon as Israel was established. So your personal definition of legitimacy, depending as it does on the notion that the place where people happen to have a "longstanding cultural presence" is a greater indicator of their right to establish a state than is the prior existence of a state, seems rather fragile to me. 15884. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:17:00 PM errata Message # 15801 15885. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2001 4:17:28 PM 15886. CalGal - 1/15/2001 4:18:19 PM Pelle, 15887. RustlerPike - 1/15/2001 4:21:22 PM 15888. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:23:09 PM But "Swedish-Americans" aren't claiming sovereign political rights as Swedes. 15889. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2001 4:28:28 PM 15890. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:28:35 PM Message # 15887 15891. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2001 4:31:21 PM 15892. RustlerPike - 1/15/2001 4:31:37 PM 15893. RustlerPike - 1/15/2001 4:36:45 PM 15894. RustlerPike - 1/15/2001 4:38:37 PM 15895. Fielding - 1/15/2001 4:40:30 PM 15896. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:43:12 PM Message # 15892 15897. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:48:16 PM Notice that you seem to be especially fascinated by cultural and ethnic hybrids....I think you see yourself, or hope to see yourself, and your own very mixed identity, through these travels and observations. 15898. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:48:39 PM 15899. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:48:58 PM toys???? 15900. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:53:07 PM ....by trying to dismiss the very concept of identity. 15901. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 4:54:28 PM A Jewish identity very much exists today, and I have never denied the concept of identity in general. 15902. andonly - 1/15/2001 5:02:27 PM "No, I'm not being absurd. I'm being FACTUAL." 15903. andonly - 1/15/2001 5:11:27 PM "The identity was NOT maintained. That Europeanised Jews preserved many religious practises from the time of ancient Israel is not an argument." 15904. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 5:12:18 PM Message # 15902 15905. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 5:15:12 PM Message # 15903 15906. andonly - 1/15/2001 5:21:36 PM "It is YOUR understanding of Lebanon's civil war that is excessively tidy." 15907. andonly - 1/15/2001 5:25:06 PM PE, I'm going to have to get back to this later, duties call. 15908. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 5:28:29 PM Modern Jewish nationalism is typical of most other manifestations of nationalism, one aspect of which is to invent aspects of the past in order to legitimate the present aspects. 15909. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 5:31:08 PM But the continuity is more emotional than real 15910. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 5:32:09 PM That doesn't mean that the modern identity is not real! 15911. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 5:39:20 PM Today, some Native Americans, despite having 1/32nd native blood and speaking no native language, claim a unitary Native American identity spanning inhabitants from Alaska to Patagonia. The claim is not totally arbitrary, but it papers over the overwhelming and staggering diversity behind the putative label. 15912. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 6:34:31 PM Why do I always find myself in situations where I am arguing alone or almost alone with a dozen people? 15913. DanDillon - 1/15/2001 6:35:20 PM Yes, you really ought to take a close look at that. 15914. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 6:37:40 PM I defy the conventional wisdom and, titan-like, take on the whole world....? 15915. sakonige - 1/15/2001 6:39:26 PM 15916. ChristinO - 1/15/2001 6:40:48 PM PE, 15917. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 6:44:38 PM people, it was a joke; a deliberate excuse to claim titan status. 15918. ChristinO - 1/15/2001 6:51:52 PM a joke? really? you weren't upset? how's a body to know that? I'll have to remember this and work on my humor skills right after my fawning sycophant classes. 15919. andonly - 1/15/2001 6:58:40 PM PE, very quickly, before I get back to you in earnest, a question: 15920. mrsocko - 1/15/2001 8:45:58 PM Well, this PE fellow seems to be making an unremarkable point here. Culture is -- must always be -- man-made, which is to say created by the mind and one's own experience. People, including Jews, decide what kind of culture suits them; it's a nonsense to suggest that in this sense there's some kind of mystical bond uniting all Jews, or for that matter Indians, Turks, Maoris, or whomever. But race is a different issue -- the Semites are most certainly a *people* in this sense, and probably have more justification than most for presenting themselves as such. 15921. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 9:00:56 PM Ah the village idiot arrives just in time to muddle the picture here. 15922. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 9:04:22 PM There are two kinds of identities -- 15923. Fielding - 1/15/2001 9:08:50 PM 15924. MrSocko - 1/15/2001 10:18:15 PM "Before the Zionist movement materialised, I deny that Jews had either kind of identity. Today, both Israelis and Jews possess subjective identity." 15925. MrSocko - 1/15/2001 10:20:13 PM How many people have you fallen out with this month, PE? Or have you made a New Year's resolution to desist from behaving like an android? 15926. sakonige - 1/15/2001 10:28:49 PM The various pogroms were only made possible because the Jews were identifiable. 15927. MrSocko - 1/15/2001 10:31:00 PM How many people have you fallen out with this month, PE? Or have you made a New Year's resolution to desist from behaving like an android? 15928. sakonige - 1/15/2001 10:31:43 PM 15929. Jenerator - 1/15/2001 10:50:11 PM An excellent book related to the topic is Identity: Cultural Change and the Struggle for Self by Roy Baumeister. 15930. sakonige - 1/15/2001 11:02:55 PM 15931. sakonige - 1/15/2001 11:04:53 PM 15932. sakonige - 1/15/2001 11:06:03 PM 15933. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 11:15:52 PM Message # 15923: A distinctive facet of Jewish ritual is the study of Jewish History, and the Jewish religious texts include long historical passages....it would be similarly unreasonable to deny those aspects of identity embedded into the religion itself. 15934. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 11:17:52 PM Message # 15924: Well, that's silly and you should know it. The various pogroms were only made possible because the Jews were identifiable. Today, by contrast, Jewish identity is a far more fractured affair. 15935. MrSocko - 1/15/2001 11:33:34 PM Message # 15934: 15936. MrSocko - 1/15/2001 11:35:08 PM "Before the Zionist movement materialised, I deny that Jews had either kind of identity. Today, both Israelis and Jews possess subjective identity." 15937. MrSocko - 1/15/2001 11:36:31 PM "Before the Zionist movement materialised, I deny that Jews had either kind of identity. Today, both Israelis and Jews possess subjective identity." 15938. pseudoerasmus - 1/15/2001 11:53:19 PM Socko, saying something is "horseshit" is an attempt at a peremptory answer; some people are credible with peremptory statements, but I daresay you are not. 15939. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 12:02:40 AM Socko: What did Yemeni Jews, Bukharan Jews, and German Jews have in common that might make them a distinct and cohesive people? 15940. MrSocko - 1/16/2001 12:05:13 AM "The Jews are a 'race' in the very very very restricted sense that most can trace their genetic ancestry to ancient Israelites." 15941. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:08:58 AM I--and evidently, most or all the other Jews posting here--cannot grasp how you draw iron boundaries between religion, culture, ethnicity, and so on, without recognizing that they are arbitrary and not well agreed on. 15942. MrSocko - 1/16/2001 12:12:50 AM Here's an excellent link on the subject of Jewish genetics. Lord Haw-Haw has seen it already, but obviously has chosen to ignore its data for the sake of hair-splitting argument. 15943. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:13:40 AM An instance of pre-19th century Jewish cultural connection to Palestine, the following refers to one of Orthodoxy's bigwigs: 15944. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:16:33 AM Jewish messianism around the time of Jesus held that the moshiach would arrive as the "Prince of the Congregation". (See the Dead Sea Scrolls.) The messianic age was to be recognized as a supernatural event during which an "ingathering of the exiles" would take place: all the world's Jews, including the dead, would return to Jerusalem. Here's the standard orthodox view, which derives from the biblical Prophets and has been prevalent since at least the middle ages (note: Rambam=Maimonides): 15945. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:16:54 AM "The moshiach will be a great political leader descended from King David (Jeremiah 23:5). The moshiach is often referred to as "moshiach ben David" (moshiach, son of David). He will be well-versed in Jewish law, and observant of its commandments. (Isaiah 11:2-5) He will be a charismatic leader, inspiring others to follow his example. He will be a great military leader, who will win battles for Israel. He will be a great judge, who makes righteous decisions (Jeremiah 33:15). But above all, he will be a human being, not a god, demi-god or other supernatural being." 15946. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 12:17:47 AM Message # 15940 15947. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:24:01 AM The following religious requirements on Jews (codified from the Pentateuch and expounded on by Maimonides, not Herzl) CANNOT be met outside "Eretz Yisroyel": 15948. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:25:48 AM Pre-19th century non-Jewish reference to Jews as a "nation": 15949. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 12:27:00 AM 15950. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 12:29:47 AM Message # 15943 and thereafter: 15951. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:31:14 AM Precedent for multicultural Jewish self-governance, Europe: 15952. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:31:45 AM In addition to banking and trade, especially with the East, the Jews of Livorno developed diverse manufacturing enterprises. In the late sixteenth century, Maggino di Gabriele moved his glass and silk factories there from Pisa, in order to take advantage of the new freedoms. The Jews of Livorno established a monopoly on the Italian production of coral, which they frequently used to ornament their own liturgical objects. In 1632, they imported the first coffee into Italy and then opened the first coffee-houses. In 1650, Jedidiah Gabbai founded a Hebrew press in Livorno, giving rise to a major Jewish printing industry that supplied the Sephardic communities of North Africa and the Near East." 15953. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:40:54 AM "The identity was NOT maintained. That Europeanised Jews preserved many religious practises from the time of ancient Israel is not an argument." 15954. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 12:44:32 AM Andonly, those are very very interesting pieces of information, and they show that the Jews in the early modern era were much more connected culturally with one another at the time, because they had not yet assimilated into the European culture. 15955. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:49:29 AM "A person born to non-Jewish parents but who HAS undergone the formal process of conversion is a Jew. Isn't he?' 15956. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:58:10 AM "What's more, the Zionists themselves WERE secularised and assimilated who had lost connexion with the disparate Jewish communities of the world." 15957. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 1:02:40 AM Message # 15955 15958. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 1:09:29 AM Message # 15956: I don't understand the point of this post. How does this address the fact that no matter how many religious Jews were included in the Zionist project, the Jewish peoples in the 19th and 20th centuries were a motley collection separated by language, custom, dress, diet, etc.? 15959. andonly - 1/16/2001 1:53:08 AM "My point is that you can't call a group of people a nation if they don't share cultural traits as well." 15960. andonly - 1/16/2001 2:03:38 AM "We're not talking about legal citizenship here, and any analogy between ethnicity and citizenship is specious." 15961. andonly - 1/16/2001 2:06:59 AM (Sorry, chametz is bread, which Jews East and West ritually clean out of their homes before Passover.) 15962. MrSocko - 1/16/2001 2:17:40 AM Message # 15946: 15963. andonly - 1/16/2001 2:21:00 AM They were a motley collection united by Judaism, a particularly cultural religion, which even if you cannot accept as uniquely culturally based, you must accept as a "subset of culture" per your own definition of religion. 15964. andonly - 1/16/2001 2:48:05 AM "cultural links between Jews are frequently an oblique affair, unlike, say, the cultural links that bind the English or French." 15965. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:52:26 AM not just North American indians, all Native Americans, I said. 15966. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:54:23 AM First of all, let us not confuse terms. 15967. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:55:15 AM Message # 15960: The analogy between Judaism and citizenship in a nation is quite apt whether you recognize it or not, and it is applicable at any point in Jewish history. 15968. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:56:10 AM Message # 15962: Well, that would disqualify so many "groups of people" -- the Amercians, Canadians, Australasians, even Argentines, Malaysians, Indonesians and Singaporeans -- as constituting true nations. But you and I know this is not the case. So it's a matter of degree, right? 15969. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:56:49 AM Message # 15963: They were a motley collection united by Judaism, a particularly cultural religion, which even if you cannot accept as uniquely culturally based, you must accept as a "subset of culture" per your own definition of religion. 15970. MrSocko - 1/16/2001 3:10:21 AM I wonder if PE realises that the word ethnic,/i> can only ever, strictly speaking, be applied to Jews and Christians. This at least is how the word, and concept, came into being. I admit that this is nit-picking on my part but thought it worth tossing into the pot all the same. 15971. CalGal - 1/16/2001 3:11:50 AM 15972. MrSocko - 1/16/2001 3:12:03 AM I wonder if PE realises that the word ethnic can only ever, strictly speaking, be applied to Jews and Christians. This at least is how the word, and concept, came into being. I admit that this is nit-picking on my part but thought it worth tossing into the pot all the same. 15973. MrSocko - 1/16/2001 3:12:35 AM I wonder if PE realises that the word ethnic can only ever, strictly speaking, be applied to Jews and Christians. This at least is how the word, and concept, came into being. I admit that this is nit-picking on my part but thought it worth tossing into the pot all the same. 15974. MrSocko - 1/16/2001 3:13:23 AM Phew. 15975. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 3:20:51 AM (1) Etymology is not the same as meaning. 15976. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2001 6:08:26 AM I have read through this interesting discussion again. I find that both schools have good and in part similar arguments and I wonder why agreement is not possible. One reason is of course that PE argues that the Jewish identity is a late 19th century construct. The other side does not accept that because it would appear to undermine the Jewish quest for a homeland. But for the purposes of this discussion that is a moot point for, as far as I understand PE's intention (or mine for that matter), is not a post-facto delegitimisation of the state of Israel on the basis that it was founded on false premises. I think that a good deal of myth-creation took place in the formative years of Zionism and is well worth examining. Why should the Jews be exempt from a general European phenomenon? The Italians harked back to Rome, the pan-Slavists created their own set of myths and so on. The Germans were first out of course. Blame it all on Herder and Hegel, that's what I always say. 15977. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 6:40:01 AM Message # 15976: I agree with everything except.... 15978. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 6:41:24 AM it's Völker, not Völke. 15979. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 6:45:34 AM indeed, Albanians, Iranians, Bosniaks, and Bangladeshis might also be one Volk! 15980. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2001 7:06:26 AM 15981. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 7:12:33 AM But in the Zionist claim, genetic relatedness and nominal religious affiliation ARE the sole determinants. What other factors are there? Language? No. Racial type/phenotype? No. Dress? No. Music? No. Diet? No. The "other factors" have zero weight. 15982. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2001 7:13:32 AM 15983. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 7:22:01 AM I don't think the weighting is a matter of opinion. I mean, what did the disparate Jewish communities of the world share other than nominal religious affiliation and genetic relatedness? 15984. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 7:24:02 AM The modern Jewish nation is the most thoroughly invented and fabricated ethnos in the history of mankind. 15985. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2001 7:35:00 AM 15986. andonly - 1/16/2001 10:13:38 AM 15987. LohrM - 1/16/2001 10:28:48 AM The nineteenth-century Zionist definition of Jewishness was at least as much based on extrinsic factors-- what a Portuguese and a Moldavian Jew both had in common was perception by hostile outsiders as belonging to a single group and the lack of a defined territory where they would be a majority. 15988. Fielding - 1/16/2001 10:46:45 AM 15989. Wombat - 1/16/2001 11:09:36 AM Let's not forget modern Greece. 15990. andonly - 1/16/2001 11:18:15 AM "But in the Zionist claim, genetic relatedness and nominal religious affiliation ARE the sole determinants." 15991. andonly - 1/16/2001 11:19:00 AM Why do you think Jews later confined to shtetls and ghettoes in Europe, where they couldn't own property, made such a fetish of Torah study? Or are you even aware of this? Their descendents--the "yeshiva buchers" among the Chasidic orthodox, who live in New York (and Israel) the way their ancestors did in Eastern Europe--still put Torah study above all else, including making a living. That tradition (the males of the community spending vast amounts of time studying Torah) dates back to the time of the Mishnah, and before. It's quite well preserved in orthodoxy even today, and dominates all aspects of culture. 15992. andonly - 1/16/2001 11:19:17 AM Pelle: my understanding of these things has nothing to do with whether PE's bizarre (and thus far unsubstantiated) claim that by the 19th century Jews had ceased to exist as a people "would appear to undermine the Jewish quest for a homeland." I don't consider the degree of cultural unity he requires at all necessary to legitimate that quest: all that was required was that other people considered the Jews distinct, severely persecuted them, made them perpetual exiles, and liquidated them on the basis of their nominal Judaism alone, so that in order to survive (as individuals, let alone Jews) they had to reassert their cultural unity in the place where they came from. No other place on earth was more legitimate for that purpose than Palestine--including the US, which was considered (See "Auto-Emancipation", I forget the writer's name). 15993. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:49:52 PM PE: "First, I don't see anything which makes Judaism uniquely more cultural than Islam or Christianity.' 15994. andonly - 1/16/2001 12:50:11 PM But where Judaism differs from Islam is that Muslims do not and have never considered themselves a single nation; Jews have, by religious definition. Muslims historically sought converts among pagans (considering Jews and Christians partially enlightened, thus their dhimmi status under Islamic rule). But conversion implied nothing about belonging to a single people: Islam competed with Xtianity to spread around the globe, so took an appropriately catholic approach to conversion. But Judaism has never proselytized; it is and has always been the official religion of a multiethnic people--a nation, to whom, if one joined it, one was explicitly obligated under Jewish law. 15995. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2001 1:01:22 PM 15996. JJBiener - 1/16/2001 1:40:21 PM PE - Language and music were maintained between disparate groups of Jews. The History of Jewish Music tracks how the secular and religious music of the various groups evolved from the music that existed before the Diaspora. It also showed the similarities that were maintained between the groups. 15997. Fielding - 1/16/2001 1:43:57 PM It 15998. Fielding - 1/16/2001 1:44:06 PM is 15999. Fielding - 1/16/2001 1:44:14 PM now 16000. Fielding - 1/16/2001 1:44:23 PM mine! 16001. Wombat - 1/16/2001 1:46:14 PM JJ: 16002. JJBiener - 1/16/2001 1:54:41 PM Wombat - By the late Middle Ages, Jews in Europe and the Muslim dominated parts of the world were required to wear distinctive clothing, so that they wouldn't blend in. In Europe, they were also in ghettos, and kept apart from society. 16003. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2001 2:14:49 PM JJ 16004. Wombat - 1/16/2001 2:14:59 PM It wasn't until the 18th and 19th Centuries that Jews were emancipated in Western Europe. Emancipation was also linked with assimilation. It was at this time that jews began to see themselves as citizens of the countries they were living in, spoke the native language, served in the military, etc. 16005. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:32:21 PM Message # 15996: The History of Jewish Music tracks how the secular and religious music of the various groups evolved from the music that existed before the Diaspora. It also showed the similarities that were maintained between the groups. 16006. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:32:56 PM Message # 15996: Dress was not universally maintained for a number of reasons like availability of resources, climate and identification. Jews were persecuted almost universally. Dressing differently would invite further persecution, so survival depended on blending in. 16007. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:36:51 PM regarding assimilation: 16008. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:37:35 PM Am I going to have to restate everything I've said so far every time a new Jewish poster comes in objecting to my remarks? 16009. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:37:55 PM Message # 15988: How amusing to hear these words from a man with Pakistani roots. 16010. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:42:06 PM Message # 15992: my understanding of these things has nothing to do with whether PE's bizarre (and thus far unsubstantiated) claim that by the 19th century Jews had ceased to exist as a people "would appear to undermine the Jewish quest for a homeland." 16011. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:44:13 PM Message # 15993: Most of this post sounds like special pleading, but inasmuch as you cite specifically Jewish customs (prayer shawls, etc.), they are associated with religion and you can claim the same unity for Muslims. 16012. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 2:44:21 PM 16013. cmboyce - 1/16/2001 2:46:55 PM Having spent several hours reading all this, I only have time for a brief remark. The origins of all this hair-splitting over the nature of ethnos and whatnot was the proposition that Zionists (of whatever ethnic character) asserted (at least since 1915) a claim of political sovereignty in Palestine that was illegitimate, in that they were newcomers who held the relatively small amounts of land in Palestine that they held, by purchase only. After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948—ie, after the formal declaration of the validity of their claims (declared by themselves and others, mostly Western countries), they backed up the claim with arms. Right of conquest. It's simple, and the Zionist claims to legitimacy on Biblical grounds (which I believe, with PE (I think), are simply "ethnic" myth) are irrelevant. 16014. Raskolnikov - 1/16/2001 2:59:28 PM Very interesting discussion. My four cents: 16015. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 3:01:31 PM Yes, Boyce is correct. The larger question -- whether Jews or Zionists had a legitimate sovereign territorial claim to Palestine -- does not depend on whether the Jews are/were a valid ethnic unity. But the idea of Jews surviving as a single peole was initially brought up by Rustler Pike, and I think it's interesting as an issue in itself. 16016. Raskolnikov - 1/16/2001 3:02:45 PM I should amend that to say "perceived genetic relatedness". From the standpoint of subjective identity, it doesn't really matter whether Jews really were ethnically related so much as whether they *thought* they were. 16017. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 3:03:12 PM objective versus subjective identity, see Message # 15922 16018. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 3:03:35 PM I had my previous summary in Message # 15838. Which I change thus: 16019. Raskolnikov - 1/16/2001 3:05:27 PM Yes, I liked the distinction to raised, which is why I used it. 16020. Raskolnikov - 1/16/2001 3:06:05 PM <\b> toys 16021. Raskolnikov - 1/16/2001 3:06:27 PM 16022. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 3:06:29 PM toys 16023. Raskolnikov - 1/16/2001 3:06:36 PM toys 16024. ChristinO - 1/16/2001 3:20:21 PM Sorry to interrupt but I'm looking for a country that fits this address: 16025. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 3:21:55 PM the netherlands 16026. ChristinO - 1/16/2001 3:22:24 PM Thanks, PE. 16027. Raskolnikov - 1/16/2001 3:22:34 PM Netherlands? 16028. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2001 3:47:23 PM 16029. Jenerator - 1/16/2001 3:48:33 PM 16030. sakonige - 1/16/2001 3:59:40 PM 16031. Jenerator - 1/16/2001 4:01:29 PM I'm sorry, I missed your question. I speak a little and understand a little. I'm not fluent like Marshame, but I know enough to find my way. How about you? 16032. sakonige - 1/16/2001 4:05:06 PM 16033. sakonige - 1/16/2001 4:09:35 PM 16034. sakonige - 1/16/2001 4:11:52 PM 16035. Jenerator - 1/16/2001 4:13:07 PM 50% or more are Hispanic. 16036. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 4:23:21 PM ¿pórque estas chingados mandriles creen que son capazes de aprender el castellano? 16037. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2001 4:25:00 PM Jen 16038. sakonige - 1/16/2001 4:44:45 PM 16039. sakonige - 1/16/2001 4:46:46 PM 16040. Fielding - 1/16/2001 4:51:28 PM 16041. sakonige - 1/16/2001 5:04:45 PM 16043. Fielding - 1/16/2001 5:12:02 PM 16044. labwabbit - 1/16/2001 5:13:51 PM Medications available in the lobby. 16045. sakonige - 1/16/2001 5:25:51 PM 16046. labwabbit - 1/16/2001 5:26:49 PM There's a goal. 16047. Jenerator - 1/16/2001 5:34:43 PM PE, 16048. Jenerator - 1/16/2001 5:35:51 PM Do I pass? 16049. JJBiener - 1/16/2001 5:38:40 PM PE - I had forgotten the futility in trying to dissuade you from your erroneous conclusions. Thanks for reminding me. You obviously have no idea what it means to be Jewish, and apparently you aren't even interested. Prattle on. 16050. labwabbit - 1/16/2001 5:38:42 PM No...I'm afraid I'll have to keep you after class young lady. 16051. andonly - 1/16/2001 5:40:14 PM Wombat: "Zionism is/was a modern national/political movement. It was founded almost by mistake, when the Viennese journalist and assimilated Jew, Theodore Herzl, covered the Dreyfus Affair in France. ...Herzl was shocked that such a thing could happen in the "cradle" of liberty, and made a rather enormous logical leap." 16052. Jenerator - 1/16/2001 5:42:26 PM Sakonige, 16053. labwabbit - 1/16/2001 5:47:40 PM Fit for the military perhaps? 16054. Jenerator - 1/16/2001 5:54:43 PM The eunuch sqad, maybe. 16055. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 5:55:59 PM Biener: I see that you have not changed your ways, either, i.e., your arguments have no basis in evidence, just in ever louder assertions. Do you have any substantive arguments? I believe I am the ONLY person in this thread who has made some concession, viz., I conceded to Andonly that in the 1500s or 1600s the Jews of Europe and western Asia did appear to share many cultural traits. But this is not the case by 1880 or 1900. 16056. labwabbit - 1/16/2001 5:57:34 PM in the 1500s or 1600s the Jews of Europe and western Asia did appear to share many cultural traits. But this is not the case by 1880 or 1900. 16057. labwabbit - 1/16/2001 5:59:16 PM 16054... 16058. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 6:07:12 PM language notes, ladies. 16059. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 6:09:35 PM pedir means to 'ask for', 'request'. 16060. JJBiener - 1/16/2001 6:20:37 PM PE - What it means for a Jew to be Jewish is not at issue. 16061. pseudoerasmus - 1/16/2001 6:20:50 PM this is a handy summary: 16062. JJBiener - 1/16/2001 6:22:45 PM PE - Didn't we go to war in Kosovo to protect ethnic Albanians? 16063. andonly - 1/16/2001 6:24:35 PM Biener: "I had forgotten the futility in trying to dissuade you from your erroneous conclusions. Thanks for reminding me. You obviously have no idea what it means to be Jewish, and apparently you aren't even interested."
One wonders if anyone but the partyliners take this scholarship stuff seriuosly, though.
Well, Ha'aretz says they've sent me snail mail informing me that they will not publish the article about my Umm El Fahm initiative in English due to 'editorial considerations' or something to that effect. And now Salon doesn't seem to be very happy to cooperate regarding the De Preneuf article.
Tell me, Table Talkers: do you think Salon might decide not to stand by what was published in the article, just because it might serve the interests of the very people it called racists in most of the rest of the article? This is critical, because Ka'adan claims he never said any of those rabid anti-Jewish comments that Preneuf ascribes to him. Yet he also says the conversation was recorded. Apparently he and his lawyer are threatening Salon too.
Pe, I hope I haven't scared you away with my joking remarks earlier. I think it's too early for you to fear a fatwa, just because you told me about that article. I doubt you were even thinking about Ka'adan's racist quotes when you did that.
[Hear that, Yassir, you ugly corpse-kissing gnome?]
Rustler,
I don't know what all that Salon stuff is about. Is it too much to ask for a brief recap?
Stowe:
Mr. Ka'adan applied for a plot in Katzir 5 years ago, knowing he would be turned down because the plot was on land that had been transferred by the Israeli government's Land Authority to the Jewish Agency, which only sells its plots to Jews.
[This is the way Israeli settlements have been created over the years: land is bought or expropriated, often with military excuses like it'll be used for training grounds or something, then eventually it's turned over to the Jewish Agency. It's not pretty, but I think it is historically justified. Perhaps it isn't any longer. Perhaps it still is.]
Ka'adan presented himself as a nice guy who wanted to improve his standard of living by moving to a Jewish village, because Jewish villages are generally better off in terms of government-funded infrastructure: better schools, roads, parks, etc.
We figured Mr. Ka'adan was a provocateur who wanted to make a political point by pretending to want to live with us, when in fact he had no desire to become a part of our community (which would involve, for example, sending his kids to a school where Hannukah is celebrated and Ramadan is not). It is the PLO's time-hallowed tradition to equate Zionism with racism, while planning the next bomb attack on our schoolchildren.
>>>
>>>
The Ka'adan ploy worked beautifully. He won the court case and the Land Authority, while not specifically instructed to provide him with a plot in Katzir, is effectively forbidden from using the Jewish Agency as a go-between in future settlements.
At the same time, Ka'adan became an international media star. He has been interviewed every fucking where, and always he presents his smiling family, and the fact that he is a nurse in an Israeli hospital, and all the stuff you can read him saying in that Salon piece. And the press loves it and buys it hook, line and sinker (the Salon article is titled 'Israel's Apartheid').
This time, however, Mr. Ka'adan slipped. He told the reporter that thet Jewish people 'plagued the world like a cancer' and went into what she calls an 'anti-semitic diatribe' (which she does not quote any further).
I told some reprters here about that interview. One of them decided to write about it. Ka'adan's co-workers in the hospital are furious and the matter is under investigation in the Government Employment Authority (Ka'adan is a employed in a state-owned hospital - I guess he's what you'd call a civil servant). But Ka'adan denies having said what is ascribed to him, and his lawyer - a top dog in the Israeli Civil Liberties Union - is apparently helping him by putting extreme pressure on the news media that want to print the story, threatening lawsuits etc. My guess is he is pulling strings in the US as well, in an attempt to keep Salon from cooperating with requests to further confirm the story.
The Salon response to date has been that Preneuf is a very trustworthy reporter, but that she is away on some kind of journey and is unreachable. Since that communication, a few days ago, they have not been responding to my e-mails.
(That's Flore De Preneuf, who wrote the article).
Thanks, Rustler.
(I like 'Stowe', btw. It reminds me of Madeleine Stowe, one of my absolute favourite Hollywood actresses. Exquisite. Hmmm....)
Do you actually think that the Ka'adan fella would plant bombs in your kids' school, or do you just throw that in for effect?
The way I see it you'll have to bite your knuckles and accept that Arabs can live in Katzir and other Jewish neighbourhoods. You may think your quest for keeping out Arabs is different from apartheid because it's justified on security grounds (or, suspicious, or paranoid grounds, another way of putting it. I don't ascribe racial motives to you, just for the record). But it's apartheid just the same. (How did South Africans justify their apartheid, btw?)
And you'll just have to come up with other ways of providing security against terrorists than to put walls between Jews and Arabs all over Israel.
And no, I don't favour your idea of throwing all the Israeli Arabs out of Israel. (I still can't believe you actually seriously want that).
The way I see it you'll have to bite your knuckles and accept that Arabs can live in Katzir and other Jewish neighbourhoods..... And you'll just have to come up with other ways of providing security against terrorists than to put walls between Jews and Arabs all over Israel.
WHY, Rustler, why do you subject yourself to this rubbish? The way this Herring "sees it", being nice takes priority over vividly demonstrated security issues. It's amazing to read such cheap, idle, glib, impudent and presumptuous opinions on your life on the literal edge of the West Bank from some git comfortably ensconced in Denmark of all places, without any serious worries in the world other than (1) will Mrs Herring fuck me this month; (2) will my herring dosage tonight come from the Baltic or the North sea?; and (3) will the epic mass demonstrations in Copshaven demanding that the government use lower-voltage bulbs in the street lights for the sake of conservation, succeed?
I was reading in the Russian press that Schmóschm'schm''s herringkinsvolk the Norgies have sent an animal rights delegation to Tbilisi, Georgia demanding that the municipal government stop shooting stray dogs. (The outskirts of the city can be dangerous at night from rabid feral dogs.)
I say shoot a few Scandinavians while hunting.
Warning: it may be slow to load.
Fuck you pseuder.
Hiding in all that insulting bullshit, there's not one single argument, only the assertion that I think "being nice takes priority over vividly demonstrated security issues".
I didn't say that, and apparently there are other Israelis who see things differently from Rustler, not only in the Israeli high court, but also in Katzir. And I don't think they're all led disastrously astray by bleeding heart Scandinavians.
Pseuder,
you don't like moralising - neither do I, in fact - and you're quick to perceive any less-than-belligerent approach to any conflict as moralising.
What you say about the Danish level of problems is obviously true, and so is, lamentably, your remarks on my scarce travel activity.
I have many practical excuses for that, but, basically, I also tend to think travelling is incredibly overrated. (Most people I know can't believe that, but there you have it. I would like to live abroad for some part of my life, but I have never managed to get that reconciled with other considerations. Perhaps I will some day).
So, no question that I am an armchair commentator to what Rustler chooses to let on here. I don't think I have ever claimed otherwise.
Facile? Perhaps. But moralising? I don't "see" it that way.
Now, go fuck your own mrs. thoroughly and get your steam level down to more manageable proportions.
you're quick to perceive any less-than-belligerent approach to any conflict as moralising.
Not at all. But your "less-than-belligerant" approach, despite the multi-thousand-word volubility, is basically to say, "Rustler should be nice and get along with neighbours", with cheap and glib referenes to apartheid.
Israeli Arabs seem pretty well treated; perhaps even better treated than their coethnics in the neighbouring Arab countries; and certainly better treated than might be expected under the rather trying circumstances. And your apartheid reference is stupid. Did apartheid South Africa have a black supreme court justice?
I haven't said that Israeli Arabs are ill-treated.
Regarding apartheid, I am referencing that specific part of South Africa's system that devised special areas for blacks, special ones for whites. It seems to me that Rustler argues a similar course if he likes to ban Arabs from living in his village.
But I am willing to retract the apartheid comment and just say that Israel should uphold its citizens' right to live where they want, which it seems to me is exactly what the Israeli court decision does.
If people bother their neighbours, these neighbours are not required to be 'nice' but should obviously have appropriate remedies. If people engage in terrorism, well, there is police and Mossad for that.
I don't believe Katzir and other Israeli settlements are liable to be overrun by Arabs given such a policy. In practice people tend to cluster with their kind.
Anyway, I'll have to elucidate later - but the apartheid analogy is quite apt in this case. In fact, Israel and SA have long shared techniques as anyone who knows anything about either country will be aware. No one is saying that Israel's case is exactly like SA pre-Mandela. But to deny the similarities is as glib and facile as anything else said on this matter in this forum.
But I think Israel has better grounds for enforcing separateness than the pre-1960s or pre-Mandela South Africa.
Schmoschmschm always has these clean and clear, mechanistic moral solutions: people should do this, others should do that, and then you've got police to deal with any kind of messiness with might result from your recommendations.
It's entirely natural for Arabs to want to at least hurt Israelis and it's entirely natural for Israelis to want to live apart from them. Perhaps it's better for all concerned if they did live separately. You might call this 'apartheid', but the actors on the ground in Israel have got suspicions and grievances and urgencies based on real and recent events which cannot be wished away just because the moral sensibilities of some squeamish Scandinavians are offended.
It's unrealistic to expect them to live together as close neighbours, at least for now. Clearly, the situation of Israeli Arabs must be tied to the future settlement of the Palestinian question; and until then it's hard to imagine addressing the injustices.
Now, let's all sing 'We are the world'.
I have sent a package to you today and am quite excited about it. Three copies of the New Yorker (including the 2000 Cartoon issue) and one copy of India's Outlook magazine. I wanted to send some Indian goodies for your kids but couldn't get to the appropriate ghetto store.
I assume it'll arrive sometime between Christmas and New Year.
Also, I will be away from this forum for a week starting tomorrow. In Vienna. Unfortunately, it's the Vienna in Virginia. Actually, not that unfortunately since I hate the Austrian Vienna very much.
Why do you hate Vienna? Personally I don't like it at all. Too grand, to pretentious, a swollen head on a miniscule body. But the city I like the least of those that are supposed to be "nice" is Budapest because of all that jugend architecture. I cannot stand jugend.
I have spent a few weeks in that country and city and it is my heartfelt aim to avoid both again as long as I live.
I had forgotten about your generous offer. I'll send you my address now. marjoribanks@hotmail.com, correct?
But now you're going to have to wait until I come back from the holly-days.
No problem. Thank you.
Is Peres Israel's Ralph Nader?
JERUSALEM (AP) --Shimon Peres entered the race for Israeli prime minister late Wednesday, driven by the belief he has the credibility with the Palestinians to negotiate an elusive peace deal.
The 77-year-old Nobel laureate is a perennial loser in Israel's bruising election battles, failing to capture the office in five previous electoral tries. But polls show him running ahead of Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and in a virtual tie with right-wing hawk Ariel Sharon.
''Peres said he will run,'' Peres aide Yona Bartal told The Associated Press.
She said Peres made his decision after meeting with Yossi Sarid, leader of the dovish Meretz party, whose support Peres needs to back his candidacy.
Toys?
Sto:
And no, I don't favour your idea of throwing all the Israeli Arabs out of Israel. (I still can't believe you actually seriously want that).
Good, because I don't. I want the opposite, and you'd have known that if you had been listening, and aware of nuances like the difference between 'Israeli Arabs' (i.e. citizens of Israel, inside what were its pre-1967 borders), and Palestinians in the Territories. If Arafat gives us the excuse to do so, and I believe he will, I think we should do unto the latter what we did to the former in 1948: i.e., kick most of their butts eastwards, over the border.
I am trying with all my might to convince Israel's Arabs (pre-1967) not to take part in this war, because if they do (a) places like Katzir will be the first to come under attack, and (b) the following day, or that very evening, places like Umm El Fahm will be visited by F-16s and become history.
>>>
I think both sto and Pe (and probably most others here) have a misconception regarding the reality of this so-called 'separateness', which you think exists and which you think I am trying to further.
Israel's Declaration of Independence and its basic laws define it as a country with equal rights for all, regardless of ethnicity, religion etc. There are no apartheid laws, nor are there cities, towns or villages where Arabs or Jews are not allowed by any kind of law, nor are there schools or buses or any public institutions or places or vehicles where Arabs or Jews are not allowed, nor are there stores or businesses or theatres, etc., like that. This is a very important point, I think, when making comparisons to pre-Mandela SA and to the pre-King American South.
There are Arabs living in Tel Aviv and Haifa and Nazareth and Tiberias and Beersheba and every other city and large town in Israel. I do not think there is a city or large town in Israel that does not have Arabs living in it, though there are large towns like Umm El Fahm without a single Jewish resident. Arabs work in Israeli high-tech firms, they work in innumerable government positions, there are 17 or 18 Arab MKs, there are Arab ambassadors and a Deputy Foreign Minister.
>>>
>>>
The last thing I want is separateness. I enjoy the Arabs' proximity and I like having them as neighbors and friends. As those of you who have witnessed my anti-Feminist rants will expect, I like the fact that with the Arabs, women are still women and men are still men (though they tell me that their women have begun to turn into Jewish-style dominatrixes of late, exposed as they are to Jewish-Israeli influence). I like other things about them: they are not decadent like the Jewish Israelis. They do not have TV talk shows dedicated to the subject of female masturbation and do not elect people just because they look good on TV. They are less arrogant, as a group.
I do want the right to live in a village community made up of people like me, without being invaded by a politically led and motivated group of Arab settlers who want to change the character of my village and cause me to leave it. These guys are provocateurs. They do not want to join our community. They want to replace our community with theirs - and their leaders say as much.
They learned from our settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and are giving us a taste of our own medicine, except that even our settlers don't settle inside Arab villages. They either create settlements near Arab villages, or they settle inside large Arab cities like Hebron. They never settled inside a small village with the purpose of changing it from an Arab village to a Jewish one.
Is that clear? Maybe I should take some questions at this stage.
>>>
I think part of the reason that you - and some of my neighbors here - misread my motivation is that you - yes, you -are racists. It is not easy to kick the habit of racism: it takes much more than an ideological decision. It took me years to quit, years in which I lived with Africans, married an African, made kids with her - and I'm still not sure I don't have some racism in me. That's how it is: racism is an evil, but it's an almost natural evil. It's hard to get rid of it. It takes a conscious, prolonged, viciously difficult effort.
So you guys think my motivations are the ones you know that you would have if you were in my position (though you'd hide them, of course). But they're not. These are purely political, national, security motivations. Not a shred of racism in them. Not a droplet. You see - I'm not the racist. You guys are.
You guys would be willing to have an African housemaid, or a bank teller, or a boss, or even a lover. But none of you would have her as a wife. I don't think you would.
Rustler,
A few minor quibbles first:
First, let me say you have an annoying habit of projecting, or suspecting hidden motivations in others. You have previously deemed me Nazi-minded, so why should I trust your judgment of the Arab intruders?
Second, I explicitly said "I don't ascribe racist motives to you". And I don't. I know and understand that your concern is a security concern, and I also acknowledge that there is a legitimate reason for this.
Third, I am aware (I even was before PE ran amok) that I may sound as if I think it's a piece of cake to handle such issues as unwanted neighbours. It isn't.
Fourth, not at any time have I argued that you should swallow your antipathy against these people (that would be moralising, imo). I have argued against your proposed "remedy" of copying their provocation into Arab villages. (And I find myself in perfect aggreance with Ariel Sharon on that one, I am pleased to learn).
cont.
That said, I see that my "bite your knuckles" remark was misplaced. You obviously do not have a problem with Arabs in general living in Katzir, only these specific characters. So, I thought wrong of you, and I apologise for that.
In fact, I liked your speech very much.
I like Israel's policy vis-a-vis its citizens, Jews, Arabs, or whatever, the way you present it. Keep that up, I say, and even better: Export it to the Arab countries.
And while you're at it, I wouldn't mind it if you exported a bit of women's lib to them as well. Some of the Arabs and Muslims we have here are totally at odds with our gender roles, and there are too many hideous instances of forceful family oppression of girls and women. The latest craze here seems to be gang rape by teenage boys of immigrant background. ("But she asked for it!") Be a man about feminism, I say. It's good for you in the end.
Regarding throwing out Palestinians of the occupied territories (as opposed to Israeli Arabs from Israel, as I still believe you have previously promoted):
I don't get that. Would that bring you peace? I don't see how.
Some of the Arabs and Muslims we have here are totally at odds with our gender roles, and there are too many hideous instances of forceful family oppression of girls and women. The latest craze here seems to be gang rape by teenage boys of immigrant background. ("But she asked for it!") Be a man about feminism, I say. It's good for you in the end.
Perhaps you shouldn't have brought so many of them over. I don't see how you can avoid mishaps like that when you have so many of them.
Why do you fixate on Muslims and their attitude toward women? Are Kenyan or Jamaican or Brazilian or Chinese immigrant men notable for their ardent belief in feminism? Is "she asked for it" a pretext primarily and disproportionately uttered by immigrant-rapists from Arab and/or Muslim countries? Or is it that you just notice it more when Arabs or Muslims do it because, after all, their traditional culture is stereotyped as anti-feminist? (Gang rape in a Muslim society would be dealt with far more harshly than in Denmark, by the way.)
Pseud,
when I talk about Muslims, it's because they make up the bulk of our (non-western) immigrants, and because they're liable to defend some of their more offensive behaviours by referencing their Muslim culture (when in truth it's probably more like a traditional rural patriarchal kind of pattern). Like honour killings, and female circumcision.
Granted, they haven't done that in the case of gang rapes, in fact some have said much like you do "in our country rape is a very serious offense". What? It isn't here, then?
Plus, there is the whole line of "your girls dress in a challenging manner and our little boys can't help but take that as an invitation". And yes, that's been a standard line for all kinds of rapists in all cultures and times. But gang rape is a new phenomenon here. And I don't like it.
Perhaps you shouldn't have brought so many of them over. I don't see how you can avoid mishaps like that when you have so many of them.
I don't see why I should shut up about such "mishaps" just because the perpetrators are Muslims.
when I talk about Muslims, it's because they make up the bulk of our (non-western) immigrants, and because they're liable to defend some of their more offensive behaviours by referencing their Muslim culture (when in truth it's probably more like a traditional rural patriarchal kind of pattern). Like honour killings, and female circumcision.
It's true you can't justify them according to Islam.
Where the hell do your immigrants who perform female circumcision from? The Sudan?
Granted, they haven't done that in the case of gang rapes, in fact some have said much like you do "in our country rape is a very serious offense". What? It isn't here, then?
Obviously not! In Saudi Arabia you'd be beheaded. In Denmark you'd be sent to prison for 10 years, given a doctorate in sociology and a nice pension.
"Perhaps you shouldn't have brought so many of them over. I don't see how you can avoid mishaps like that when you have so many of them." I don't see why I should shut up about such "mishaps" just because the perpetrators are Muslims
Idiot. I didn't say you should shut up, let alone shut up because the perpetrators are Muslims. How can someone be so stupid?
I said you shouldn't have let in so many wogs.
Where the hell do your immigrants who perform female circumcision from? The Sudan?
Somalia.
Idiot. I didn't say you should shut up, let alone shut up because the perpetrators are Muslims. How can someone be so stupid?
I said you shouldn't have let in so many wogs.
Idiot right back at you. Your implication is that if we take in "wogs" we should expect some "mishaps", and not bitch about them when they occur.
marj #15392
Now, let's all sing 'We are the world'.
Only if I get to be Bruce Springsteen.
I am looking eagerly forward to receiving your christmas present. You are much too kind.
We are the world, you know!
Rustler,
there is an interesting piece in the Economist christmas issue on Theodor Herzl's vision of Israel as presented in his 1902 novel Altneuland.
I can't link it because their site is down for the time being.
And on these notes, I will recuse myself from this here Mote and take a few days off to celebrate Christmas in the traditional, exaggerated Danish manner.
Merry Christmas to those of you who use such. Merry whatever it may be to the rest. See you.
Gute Fahrt!
"Fielding, thanks. you can ask me what you like, though I leave Friday for a little less than a month for Germany and Peshawar."
I'll wait until you return, except for one (well, two):
Have you written up any of the other parts of your Iran-Pakistan-China-Russia trip (or any other trips), other than what is contained in your sub-thread? Do you have other travel-related writings?
Have a great time abroad.
But I have strewn in this thread and in the language thread some brief comments about trips I've taken subsequently, such as the Caucasus trip from this past summer and my honeymoon in Syria & Jordan in September.
Pseuder:
If I were a publisher, I would throw a large bag of gold coins onto your desk.
International travel to Europe the weekend before Christmas sounds like loads of fun.
Now they're talking about losing your luggage.
I shall myself, travelling by car. Less safe, statistically speaking, but less aggravating, temperamentally speaking.
But in any case, the festivities are upon us. See y'all next week.
Pelle:
Gute Fahrt!
Thanks! And a good fahrt it was!
(You weren't expecting that?)
Sto:
You obviously do not have a problem with Arabs in general living in Katzir, only these specific characters. So, I thought wrong of you, and I apologise for that.
Perhaps I need to clarify a bit more: there are about 150,000 (my educated guess) Arabs living in 8 to 10 villages and towns in Wadi Ara. There are about 3,000 Jews, in a single kibbutz and a single village (Katzir). Picture that first, before we go on.
Katzir is a small community. It is Jewish-Israeli: people go to the synagogue on Shabbat, they fast on Yom Kippur, they stand in silence when the sirens wail in memory of the war dead and the Holocaust martyrs (yes, martyrs). Our kids have Hannukah parties in school, they eat jam-filled sufganiot and levivot (Yiddish: latkes) and spin sevivonim (draydles).
The Arabs have their customs. They are now preparing for Id El Fitr. Their muezzins blast off from the loudspeakers on their minarets every morning of every day, at 5 am, making sure I hear them. That's OK with me. I've gotten used to it (though I admit the sound of that muezzin has become more troubling to me since the Ramallah lynches).
>>>
>>>
If Mr. Jabareen had bought a house in Katzir in order to make a point - i.e., "don't forget we Arabs are here too, and this was our land once" - I would have gone along with that. Moreover: if he had created a small exhibition in that house in which he honored the memory of Arabs who suffered as a result of the Jewish victories since 1948, or an office from which he coordinated his legal activities against land expropriation by the Israeli authorities - I would have gone along with that.
But with the demographic situation here being what I described above, the only Arab I would have accepted into Katzir willingly as a resident is one who, for some reason, wanted to live among us and become, for all intents and purposes, one of us. One who accepted the Jewish-Israeli identity and preferred it over his original one. This would include having his kids celebrate our holidays and sending them to serve in the army.
Any other kind of Arab presence in Katzir is no less provocative than a Jewish presence in Umm El Fahm. It is more provocative, actually, because of the demographics I presented above. We have Katzir and Mey Ami, on the mountain: that is all we have. They have the entire wadi and parts of the mountain.
(In many fascinating ways, Wadi Ara and Katzir are a microcosmic reflection of the Middle East and Israel.) 
Libak's weekly picture in Ha'aretz. 
And here is a detailed map: 
The place with the roads laid out in a peace sign pattern is the kibbutz. The distance between it and Katzir (Qazir) is about 4 km. The grey area is the West Bank and the places in blue are Israeli settlements. If you want to study the West Bank in great detail go here. 
Here is another map showing the outcome of the Oslo 2 accord. The dark areas (2.7% of the West Bank) are under full Palestinian control. The yellow areas (25.1%) are under Palestinian civilian rule but Israel controls security. The white areas (72.2%) will remain under full Israeli control. A Palestinian state along these lines would really be a patchwork of enclaves.
a. Ultra-orthodox (haredi) 3.9%
b. Religious (dati) 11.0%
c. Traditional (masorti) 26.8%
d. Secular but maintain some traditions
(chiloni hamekayem masoret) 23.4%
e. Secular (chiloni 30.3 %
d. Anti-religious 4.4%
Source: Moore and Kimmerling 1995:387
I took this from an article about Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and his "Culture War" in Israel. He is the leader of the Shas party.
Pelle:
I would say that the map would be more accurately described as "central" Israel.
Great stuff, Pelle! Thanx.
Approximate dimensions?
Happy Holidays to all in here.
Pelle:
It's a 1:1 rendition.
Jen:
Happy Holly-days to you too!
The Jerusalem Post reports that many Russian Jews are buying Christmas trees.
(That's Russian immigrant Jews, in Israel).
In today's parliamentary elections in Serbia Costumica's coalition will receive 60-65% of the votes. Milosevic is reduced to 10-15%, marking his final demise. On the other hand he will be a member of parliament and therefore have immunity against prosecution.
Pelle:
Maybe Mossad will kidnap Milosevic and arrange to have him tried for crimes against humanity.
Fielding:
Mossad can't even kidnap its own butthole right now without botching the operation somehow, it seems.
The article on Shas linked in Pelle's Message # 15430 appears spot-on, at first glance anyways. Shas is proving to be an amazingly important phenomenon in Israeli and Middle Eastern politics, deciding as it does the fate of Israel's governments.
There is a petition doing the rounds in Katzir in which I am named and (wrongly) accused of calling for the humiliation of Arabs at the gates to the settlement (if we ever get one) and comparing my recent moves to 'dark days in the Jewish people's past'. I am trying to convince the organizers to give me a fair hearing before they send it anywhere. It's libellous anyways - but they have more money than me.
This is a website I'm building for a company called Gomla. It's in Hebrew but there is a Flash animated story that is reasonably Gentile-friendly. It tells the story of how this accountant falls in love with TMR, which is the name of the software these guys make (which helps companies plan their budgets, do pricing and stuff), represented by the red fairy-figure.
(To reach the Flash story, press the button with red letters).
[The words 'if we ever get one' in message 15443 were meant to refer to a gate, not to a settlement.]
"I've been dreaming of a black Hannukah...": 
From my inbox: Hi Gil,
>>>
First, let me apologize that I'm writing in English - this is the onlyanguage my PC can understand (it is a bit provincial...). Second apology from me is about not returning to you after your phone call - I was a little bit busy.
(...)
Gil, the whole issue here is about perspective. You (and your friends) see all of the Israeli Arab citizens who live in Qazir an enemy - we (Daphna and myself) don't. You are afraid that the "Arab environment" will conquer Qazir - we don't. You think that a fence and a gate will make your life safer - we think it will be the opposite. I will not be surprise if somebody will shoot Kochav-Yair over its fence.
We believe that an Israeli Arab family who feel safe and welcome in Qazir is a better guarantee for "peace and quiet" than a barbed-wire fence.
We do not want to live in a cage - we prefer to catch the terrorists, drag-dealers, thieves and other criminals, and put them into a cage. Humiliation can be performed in many ways, and it is easier with people who feel inferior. Performing "security regulations" with Israeli Arab citizen family who lives in Qazir is equal to performing "security regulations" to the poor people from your neighborhood in the village supermarket. Yes, it is the same as saying: "All the poor people are potentially thieves".
>>> When you replace "poor" with "Arab" (or "Jew", "Asian", "Niger", etc.) then it is not only humiliation anymore - it is racism. I don't say you are a racist - I believe you are not. But, when you categorize people and suggest special methods that will affect them as a function of their category -you are using racial "tools". If you do not want people to treat you as such -you will need to avoid using those methods.
A friendly suggestion -every time you finish to write something, before publishing it, try to read it again while doing the above replacement.
Regards,
Avner C.
From my 'sent' box: Dearest Avner:
I think you are preaching to the wrong person. I have spent my whole life fighting racism. I founded 'Or Adom', an organization against police brutality which later became a part of the Aguda Lizhuyot Haezrah [Israeli CLU] and is credited with bringing about the formation of Mahash - Hamahlaka Lehakirot Shotrim [the Justice Ministry's Department for the Investigation of Police Officers]. If it weren't for Mahash, there would have been 60 or 70 Arabs dead in the riots, not 13.
I was the one who told Nahum Barne'a, my former boss at Koteret Rashit, about the spray-painted graffiti in Katzir and I was the one who stopped that phenomenon from going any further. I teach Arabs at my internet course and did more than anyone else I know here to further Arab-Jewish coexistence in Wadi Ara. And by the way - this is what my sons look like: (click here). I have the feeling you would never accept someone like my sons into your family - except perhaps as a live-in cook.
I really don't appreciate being slandered through the mailboxes by someone who came here recently from Ramat Hasharon and thinks he knows everything about our life here, when he seems to know very little. I also found it funny that you had the chutzpah to tell all of us that Sharon only created the Central Hill, when we all know Katzir was created as a mitzpeh and later became one of the kokhavim, both of which are Sharon projects.
I would appreciate it if you did not make comparisons between me and the KKK, the Nazis, etc.. I take that kind of thing personally and the next time it happens I will deal with it as libel - which is what it is.
Thank you, memsahib, for finding the time to answer me, despite my being a lowly Central Hill resident.
Gil Ronen
Best Wishes to you and Happy Hanuhkkah.
To your neighbors Hari Raya Adil Fitri, and Merry Christmas.
Here we will also have Kwanza. Kinda mixes all three. I would like to see a celebration of it, the dress I expect to be very colorful.
Best Regards,
Rick
'Memsahib' is the wrong term - I think sahib is the masculine. Oh well, not that it matters.
Thanks, Rick, Merry Christmas.
Jex:
I believe in yesterday.
Your sons are very good-looking. But what can I say about you? With your close-cropped hair and abundant beard you need only a baggy grey suit and a white shirt buttoned at the neck to pass as a junior Iranian mullah.
Please explain the following:
Koteret Rashit
mitzpeh
kokhavim
Pelle:
Am I at least a good-looking mullah?
Koteret Rashit: A lefty liberal monthly which came out in 1984-1988 (I think). I worked there as a reporter right after my service in Army Radio. Nahum Barne'a was co-editor of the magazine and is now Yediot's chief political correspondent.
Kokhavim (lit.: 'stars'): seven settlements created along the Green Line but inside pre-1967 Israel, in accordance with a plan formulated by Ariel Sharon, sometime in the late 80's. They include Kokhav Yair, where Barak resides, and Katzir (the northernmost 'star'). The Seven Stars is a reference to Herzl's proposed seven-starred flag for Israel, which in turn may have been a reference to something else.
Mitzpeh (lit.: 'lookout point'): the collective name for a series of small settlements created in the Galilee in the 70's and early 80's (I think) as part of a plan for the 'Jewification' of the Galilee (my translation of the Hebrew word yehud). I know you'll like that term, 'Jewification'. 
"Anytwo four elevennis?"
A great, great internationalist, and a countryman of Rustler's, mine, and the American Moties as well, passed away on Dec. 23.
Click on image to see a website Tribute to Victor Borge.
Victor Borge was the funniest minimalist that ever lived. I saw him live only ince, in the early eighties. I remember waking up at night, laughing.
Think Borge a funny act? Just wait! 
Rustler,
Your kids are cuties. I am going to shave off your beard, though! I can't see YOU under there.
I miss Irv and his reports from Indonesia. Things seem to be critical there after a series of bomb attacks on churches and with Gus Dur losing control.
In any case, Irv, if you read this I wish you a Happy Eid!
Ack!
"Anytwo four elevennis?" should be "Anytwo five elevennis?", of course.
How embarrassing! (Blush).
On the other hand, the inflation rate has gone down considerably since Borge coined that phrase.
"Anytwo five elevennis?"
OK - I don't get it. Sorry.
Oh - wait, now I get it... funny!!!
I begin to think that this latest round has been carefully designed by Barak and Clinton to demonstrate that Arafat cannot bring himself or the Palestinians to a peace agreement no matter what he is offered, thereby destroying his credibility in Europe.
Pelle:
I'll buy that, except I'd replace 'Barak and Clinton' with 'the Minister of History', or 'God'.
The Arabs were offered a partition in 1947 and chose to try and destroy us instead. They got driven out and we got bigger. The same thing is going to happen now.
(Notice how Sharon is smiling all the time lately? Heh heh.)
Do you really think the IDF will lend iself to large-scale ethnical cleansing on the West Bank?
Ronski:
Sharon seems to be a certainty, yes. Arafat is making sure of that. Israelis are stupid, but we're not that stupid. Kill enough of us and eventually we'll realize we're at war, not peace. Some of the more Orwellian Palestinian phraseologists have acually dubbed this latest phase of the war 'the Peace Intifadah'. Somehow, the phrase didn't catch.
Pelle:
I don't think the IDF will 'lend itself' to 'large scale ethnic cleansing', certainly not out of the blue. I think the Palestinians and Saddam (possibly Hizbullah too) will launch an attack on Israel that will make it awfully clear to us (and any onlookers) that the Arabs are again trying to annihilate us, and that there will be hundreds, maybe even a couple thousand, of Israeli civilians killed.
In a situation like that, I definitely see Sharon ordering Nablus, Ramallah, Gaza and the other Palestinian towns in the WB&G (a.k.a JS&A) to be shelled and/or bombed heavily (he did bomb Beirut, you remember), with the intent of causing the population to flee. Even if that is not the immediate intent - these things have their dynamics, you know.
I doubt the IDF will carry out Deir Yassin style massacres on the ground. I do see the settlers doing stuff like that though. Zionism has always used the settlers to do its dirty work in the Territories. If we need one last job - I'm sure they'll comply.
Jen:
Come now, we all know you've made your decision. You prefer sto's danish to my bagel. Be a woman about it.
btw:
A while back I quoted a study published in Ma'ariv which claimed that the IDF had carried out a massacre in the Arab village of Tantura in 1948. The person who carried out the study, some guy doing a master's thesis I think, was sued by veterans of the war. He has now retracted the claims and admitted that the eyewitness accounts he relied upon were apparently fabricated.
Rustler,
"I have the feeling you would never accept someone like my sons into your family - except perhaps as a live-in cook. "
Where do you get such feelings from?
(The quote in my last was from Rustler's answer to that e-mail he posted from one C. Avner).
sto:
I know the type. If my wife weren't African she would have gotten the job she applied for in the Village Council's nursery school staff. And the mayor's wife has hinted to me that we would not be accepted by the Union of Residents' Acceptance Committee, should we ever apply for residence in the Western Hill of Katzir. Out here, all these intellectual-liberal types are the worst racists.
Rustler,
You "know the type"? Good answer.
Sto:
If you're being facetious, you're too clever for me. I don't get it.
Rustler,
why not deal with Avner on a Rustler-to-Avner basis instead of a Rustler-according-to-Avner's-idea-of-what-kind-of-type-Rustler-is-to-Avner-according-to-the-type-that-Rustler-knows-that-Avner-is.
That's my point.
And, for what it's worth: I would never have guessed that someone of your "type", i.e. your 'Judeo-fascist' convictions (pseuder's term), could be so funny and often make so much sense.
Since you seem to very open, maybe you could clarify some things that I find puzzling (you have probably mentioned them somewhere before, but I have obviously missed them):
One the religious spectrum, where do you sit? For example: Do you accept the theory of evolution? Do you work on a Saturday?
What is your wife's ethnic and religious background?
sto:
Avner is a putz. But the thing you are missing, because I didn't tell you about it (because I feel like I'm hogging this thread as it is and besides I don't have that much spare time), is the original flyer which Avner and his wife Dafna put out, in which they mocked me (without ever naming me) and called me a racist (for instance, there was something about me being the type to frequent websites like 'www.kkk.org' - an allusion to my website, www.katzir.com, which I mentioned in my flyer and where I post my flyers, besides putting them in the mailboxes).
Their flyer was only distributed in the western hill of Katzir, the financially established hill, because evidently people with slightly less money aren't even worth Avner and Dafna's time of day. And the flyer hinted that people like me give Katzir a bad name, and make it a less attractive place in the eyes of Israelis - which in turn lowers the value of people's property here. In other words - the week of riots all around us didn't lower the value of the property. A terror attack agaist us won't lower the value of the property. But a guard at the entrance -God forbid!
You see what I'm talking about now? Anyhow, thanks for the compliments.
transient:
On the religious spectrum, where do you sit?
I believe in one God. Me.
For example: Do you accept the theory of evolution?
I did until I joined the Mote.
Do you work on a Saturday?
Yes. Otherwise they'll disconnect my electricity on Sunday.
What is your wife's ethnic and religious background?
She is a Presbyterian nun.
Sorry for being so mean, I haven't had my second coffee yet and I think I have to go buy some because I'm out of coffee here at my bomb shelter. I'm sure I'll be nicer later on in the day.
btw: Israel's Right - including me - is in a huff about a holiday greeting for Id al-Fitr sent by Ariel Sharon to Yasir Arafat. Is he going to be another Barak?
Opposition leader John Kufuor won the presidential election in Ghana and will take over from Jerry Rawlings who first came to power in a coup in 1979, was deposed but made a comeback. Jerry Rawlings is one of my favourites, not because of his politics which I know little about, but because he was Flight Leutenant Jerry Rawlings back then and he still is. Compare that to Sergeant Sammy Doe, the chap who started the rot in Liberia and advanced to Field Marshal in a few years time.
Talking about rot, it first spread from Liberia to Sierra Leone and now it seems to have hit Guinea-Conakry as well.
To quote you:
>If you're being facetious, you're too clever for me. I don't get it.<
On The Other Hand
Maybe you are just another confused schmuck?
Unfortunately
I do not see any evidence to the contrary. You seem to be hung up on racism. The attitude you project is ambivalent. And you do not even realize it. I wonder: What is the attitude of your wife's family and your family?
If
You feel so threatened living where you do and you are not religious (presumably, an atheist) why bother to live there?
To quote you:
>If you're being facetious, you're too clever for me. I don't get it.<
On The Other Hand
Maybe you are just another confused schmuck?
Unfortunately
I do not see any evidence to the contrary. You seem to be hung up on racism. The attitude you project is ambivalent. And you do not even realize it. I wonder: What is the attitude of your wife's family and your family?
If
You feel so threatened living where you do and you are not religious (presumably, an atheist) why bother to live there?
Pike,
Happy millennium, soon.
two questions:
i haven't been reading much foreign press about the mideast for a few weeks, but got the impression a few radical arafat competitors (not including marwan barghouti) had been rubbed out here and there by israel following secret talks with arafat. what's your take?
now we see a resumption of peace talks, sort of, with the proposal put forth by clinton. maybe i'm missing the press commentary that points out that nixing the pal "right of return" actually has strong political implications for Egypt, syria, and lebanon, which might have to sign off on such a deal even before the Pals do. Unless they already have?
Any thoughts?
(& apologies for the haphazard caps, my keyboard is giving me tsuris)
sorry to have annoyed your finely tuned european sensibilities last...whenever. my point was overstated.
i'm quite aware euros, of necessity, watch the US more keenly than murcans watch you. that's not the issue, and i don't know why a competition between states of global awareness needs to be brought up.
my point is, it seems euros tend almost reflexively to think of murca in monolithic terms. its as if empire equates in europe (and not just in europe but in the developing world) with monarchy. it's claimed especially by leftists abroad and here that there's no real difference between our competing political parties, that all political interests here barely conceal a big biznis oligarchy. now, i know you guys know that the devil is in the details. but still, the expectation of political simplicity comes through in such complaints as 'the US is unpredictable in its policy toward NATO'.
i guess i should have asked you just how predictable you expect a country of this size, and with our competing ideological strains, to be.
In any case, if i were you i would follow closely two trends. One is the developoment of NMD here. the other is the degree of control wielded over legislation by the republican party, which seems to be developing stronger and stronger libertarian tendencies. if the repubs manage to push through funding of a more elaborate nmd than clinton envisaged (which bush desires), and if they retain sufficient power in congress and the executive for long enough, then i bet there will be a move toward increasingly less manpower offered abroad--in the UN and probably in NATO as well.
(btw, the tnr piece that jexster linked offers an interesting crit of colin powell.)
transient:
If You feel so threatened living where you do and you are not religious (presumably, an atheist) why bother to live there?
Because I live here, and I'm no transient.
ando:
i haven't been reading much foreign press about the mideast for a few weeks, but got the impression a few radical arafat competitors (not including marwan barghouti) had been rubbed out here and there by israel following secret talks with arafat
Yeah, this is IDF's tactic of choice right now. They apparently have better intelligence capabilities than I had been willing to give them credit for, and are capable of pulling off such stunts again and again, throwing the Tanzim, Hamas and Fatah operatives into a state of ongoing panic. The good thing about this tactic is it doesn't seem to look or sound that bad in the international press. I used to think these operations were necessarily carried out with help from Arafat, but I doubt that now. Then again - who knows?
As for the 'peace process': I can tell you that, as a seasoned TV-watcher and paper-reader here, I can sense a definite and somewhat radical shift in 'public opinion' over the last 24 to 48 hours. It seems that, till now, the Left had still held out hope that there would be a last-minute deal with Arafat - but now that he failed to respond positively to the Clinton proposal, that hope has been dashed.
There is more and more talk of war now, and I think unless Sharon does Swan Lake in a tutu on the evening news desk, he's a shoo-in for PM. I'm hoping his greeting to Arafat was just a part of his PR team's ploy to try and sooth the Center and Left into not opposing him (the campaign motto is 'only Sharon will bring peace'), and deep down inside he's still his good old brutal self.
Pellegrino:
Is the guy who won in Ghana the guy who was disqualified because he wasn't native-born, or am I confusing Ghana with Sierra Leone?
It's worse - you are confusing with Ivory Coast, at least I think so.
Backgrounder
by Bo B Melander (Sweden)
Sweden starts EU presidency:
A fight for expansion
and smaller states
(JAN 1, 2001) Sweden's presidency of the European Union began this Monday with six months at the helm of the EU. Not since the former prime minister Olof Palme brought Sweden into World Politics during the Vietnam War era has the country been in such focus in international affairs as now.
The present social-democratic prime minister Goran (George) Persson is not an Olof Palme, but a skilled politician with close ties to Blair, Clinton and Schröder in the so called Third Way Economy. He is at the helm of a country with a good economy, great performance in new technologies, high taxes and all those social and political tensions that mark a western country in an economical & technical revolution of today.
The population was mostly critical of the EU because of a lack of the democratic insight that they are used to here. They still are very sceptical, and the country is not yet a member of the euroland plan under one currency.
Goran Persson is in many ways walking in the footprints made by Blair in Britain. And I would say that Sweden in many ways is going the British road in today's alternative paths for the EU. While neutral, the country shares the UK's tight links with the USA, in the sense that Stockholm is sceptical of the EU as a superpower and of French ambitions.
Like Britain, Sweden has asked for a speedy expansion eastwards for the EU, while working on good relations with Russia. The main areas where Sweden might differ with Britain are on defence and the smaller countries' influence over the EU in that and other matters.
At the same time, it is in the Swedish government's interest not to drown in EU affairs and to continue to build on broader international relations.
Certainly Sweden has a chance to deliver an EU presidency that solves some problems and moves the rest into the future, while not getting a backlash at home. But the risk for the present government, supported by the Left party (the former communists) and the Greens in the parliament, is that the public gets fed up with all EU affairs. That reaction hurt the government of Portugal during its presidency.
Ín broader foreign policy the parties are rather united, and Persson seems also
to have the media rather well behind himself so far in his handling of EU matters. But a lot of things can explode in the face of the government during this period. And the EU summit this summer, devoted by Sweden to the Environment, in Gothenburg, may attract the same protesters as in Seattle and Prague.
From that perspective, Person may well have problems with his support from the Left and the Greens. They might find it strategically okay to leave the support role for the government during the spring. So it's certainly with mixed feelings that the government of Sweden is entering the new millennium with an EU presidency. A lot can go wrong.
Bo B Melander, senior writer, foreign affairs. Sweden.
email:bo@sboa.se
my URL: http://www.sboa.se/
my weblog THE HARRY TIMES : http://www.sboa.se/harry/harryharry.html
my other weblog: http://www.egroups.com/group/harryharry
Thanks for the insights. As for Arafat's consent to knock off his opposition, I wonder whether something else occurred. You know how he stormed out of Camp David, prior to Sharon's walk on the Temple Mt., and in a later meeting said he'd be shot the day after he accepted the Barak proposal? Well, what are the odds Israel had been doing some sort of covert work on Fat's behalf, keeping the Pal radicals from overtaking him, and then decided to withdraw help in order to pressure Fat into taking a deal (finally)? Maybe that's what he was so irate about--losing his hold on power. Somaybe it wasn't a matter of Fat consenting to Israeli help. He may have begged for it.
But you know, who showed up in Sharm for talks after the intifada started raging? George Tenet. No word in the media since then, but what do you guess the CIA's role in all this has been, or will be...?
"unless Sharon does Swan Lake in a tutu on the evening news desk, he's a shoo-in for PM."
C'mon, Israelis have a better collective sense of humor than to dismiss Sharon's aspirations for something like that. No, he'd have to suggest dismantling a major settlement or withdrawing troops from around Ramallah or something. But come to think of it, he might actually gain votes if he were to dance Swan Lake in a pink tutu on the Haram.
"I'm hoping his greeting to Arafat was just a part of his PR team's ploy to try and sooth the Center and Left into not opposing him"
Well that's certainly how I took it, but I'm an American and we're used to far more unctious pandering.
Sweden takes over - regains its rightful position as Leader of Europe's Destiny
"If You feel so threatened living where you do and you are not religious (presumably, an atheist) why bother to live there? "
This struck me as such an odd question. I'm moved to ask, what would make you leave your country?
1
In the strongest sense of the word, we are all transients.
2
Your wife was only a transient in her country --and, presumably, to her religious and enthic roots.
3
You are immature enough that you persist nattering on about events and feelings that you experience, yet you are not sufficiently mature to be able to discuss them in a rational context. This severely undercuts your credibility -- as you appear both confused and conflicted.
4
Since you are an atheist, I am puzzled by your argument that allowing an Arab to live in your town may require the schools to also teach Islamic customs which would be unacceptable.
andonly:
You - and many other observers - seem to see this struggle in a practical, power-structure, power-politics kind of way. I don't see it like that: I see it as a struggle between deeply emotional peoples on deeply emotional cultural-historical-religious issues, thousands of years old, that are at the core of their collective essences. That's why I don't think it's about Arafat vs. Barghouti or what George Tenet does or doesn't do. I think Arafat is, for all intents and purposes, the Palestinian Will, and that this Will is naturally allied with the Pan-Arabist Will, and this drama will play itself out regardless of any cloak and dagger ploys or diplomato-political machinations. See what I'm saying?
transient:
Your wife was only a transient in her country --and, presumably, to her religious and enthic roots.
My wife is better connected to her roots than anyone I know, actually. Could you be confusing my wife with your mother?
Donno why, but when I log in to this thread I see "Messages 15500 - 15500 out of 15500" - meaning I see nothing.
A
A very brief answer to your question:
>I'm moved to ask, what would
make you leave your country?<
Is:
Not very much.
I am not nationalistic or tribalistic. I am a civic democrat. Any country which is a civic democracy is 'my' country if it has strongly institutionalized science and technology.
B
By The Way
Isrealis are leaving Isreal. One full professor in an American university explained that he left because academic competition in Isreal was just too fierce to allow him proceed up the academic ladder.
RustlerPike,
You wrote:
>Could you be confusing my wife with your mother?<
This must be classified as the weirdest response I have ever gotten.
For you information:
My mother died in November, probably at the age of 93. She was buried next to my father in an orthodox Jewish cemetary.
Anyway
This exchange is pointless.
All the best, David
Homeless Dave:
I had a feeling you were Jewish. Jews are the quintessential transients, aren't they? Israelis aren't. That's basically why I came back here at age 16, and didn't stay in the USA.
Sorry about your mother, though 93 is quite a ripe old age. I was trying to be mean but I may have succeeded a bit more than I had intended. Sorry. 
Anyone know what this is?
Sure, in part that's how I see it.
"I don't see it like that: I see it as a struggle between deeply emotional peoples on deeply emotional cultural-historical-religious issues, thousands of years old, that are at the core of their collective essences."
Isn't this sort of obvious? There's an equivalent sort of logic behind each side's emotionalism. Whether you come down on one side or the other depends on whether you're an Arab, a Jew, or a leftist. But to a certain extent being a leftist seems to trump being a Jew as a predictor of attitudes on the ME situation, even in Israel, so I think it's wise to keep an eye on power-politics dimension of things.
Also, I enjoy seeing Israel call the Arab bluff. Every time Barak offers a concession I cheer because it doesn't matter what Israel is prepared to offer, Arafat cannot accept. The more often this is demonstrated, the better. Once the world recognizes that the Pals do not control their own destiny--they're still the tools of Arab Big Men, and Israel remains the foil that deflects criticisms of those men at home--Israel may for a while have less need to defend itself against the criticisms of those who are sure that agreements between foes can always be reached given enough lofty goodwill.
Not really.
The situation is fluid. You assume the Arab-Israeli conflict is irreconcilable on terms either side will accept. For the time being that is true; but old men die and things change. Arafat will die in our lifetime.
From where I sit, Barak looks like a bloody genius. He's stacking up a litany of offers guaranteed to look saintly, especially in hindsight. So you'll soon get Sharon. Whatever Israeli "essence" he serves up to the Pals, they'll have had a more pleasant alternative and passed it up--or been forced to pass it up by their Brethren.
Thus proceeds the slow process by which pan-Arabism gets incrementally and completely discredited among Palestinians within and outside the territories.
A source of Africa reports that is new to me: allAfrica.com
Has anyone been in touch with him outside the Mote?
andonly:
OK, so Barak is calling Arafat's bluff. I totally agree with that - though I think he's doing it unintentionally, and you seem to think it's intentional. But now what? To me and many others, it is obvious that the alternative to peace is war - real war, pretty-much-all-out war, everything-except-for-nukes war, thousands-or-tens-of-thousands killed war. Because neither side can take this kind of heavy attrition for very much longer.
So unless Arafat plops down and dies within the next few months, I don't think it'll matter that much anymore when he dies and is replaced by another. All-out war between us and the Pals can only end one of two ways: with most of us under Mediterranean water, or with most of them on the other side of the Jordan. You don't seem to see that. 
Happy Id El-Fitr, Yassir.
Love, Arik.
I must say, close up Sharon looks less massive and his eyes have a certain dreaminess about them. Then again, he could have just been suffering from gas.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq Wednesday dismissed reports that President Saddam Hussein had suffered a stroke over the weekend.
Some media outlets in England and Germany have run reports based on claims from the exiled Iraqi opposition that Saddam is in intensive care after the stroke.
Shall we see pictures of him swimming ala Mao?
Yes, I think it's intentional. But I think Barak always has two or more purposes in mind (one defensive, one opportunistic) each time he makes a move--which is the best strategy anyone backed into a corner can manage.
"But now what? To me and many others, it is obvious that the alternative to peace is war - real war, pretty-much-all-out war, everything-except-for-nukes war, thousands-or-tens-of-thousands killed war. Because neither side can take this kind of heavy attrition for very much longer."
Why do you say that? I mean, beyond emotionalism and general feelings about things locally, why? I was under the impression most Israelis do not want a big fat war any more than they want a never-ending conflict of attrition. I thought most Israelis were more inclined to want to build a big wall between themselves and the Pals so the latter can go hang themselves. Isn't that, and not a massive mideast conflagration, what Sharon has in mind anyway?
Why do you say that? In fact, what I "see" is that all-out war will result in severe punishment of the Pals, who will lose the West Bank, precisely as you say. Israel will not, however, be pushed into the sea. And the war of attrition will continue, from the north, as Israel will have effectively handed over Lebanonese politics to the Hizbullah and guaranteeed Assad Jr. an unassailable position in Beirut. Syria may even begin an arms buildup with the money sure to flow in from its oil pipeline deal with Iraq. Political pressure from the US and Europe will continue or grow, once everyone has forgotten again that the Arab regimes refuse to be appeased with anything but an abjection and hobbling of the Jewish state, and at the same time any arms buildup in the region will be accompanied by increased US arms sales to Israel. Israeli trade with neighbor states will have to become increasingly covert, and attracting foreign investment will be tougher. The Israeli economy will suffer and political divisions will be hard to surmount.
As for the question of when Arafat dies... it isn't, as far as I can tell, a matter of how soon, but rather at what point in the gyrations he croaks. Imagine the difference between Arafat dropping dead next week, while Barak still has his hand out, and Arafat dropping dead on Sharon's watch after months of escalated conflict, the total ruination of the Pal economy, and the levelling of a West Bank city or two. It would be especially good if he were to die in bed, or while flying to Sharm in his personal jet.
Do you really do macrame(sp?)?
Wm. Safire has sharp shots for Barak, Clinton...
In negotiations that will probably resume now and conclude on the Friday before inaugural weekend, these two men in political extremis represent nobody but themselves.
Uzmakk:
Yes, I of course I do - but I don't remember when I publicly admitted as much. Or did you see me macrame-ing on the webcam in my office?
ando:
I thought most Israelis were more inclined to want to build a big wall between themselves and the Pals so the latter can go hang themselves. Isn't that, and not a massive mideast conflagration, what Sharon has in mind anyway?
No such wall is possible, any more than a wall between my liver and my appendix is. We are totally up each others' asses here. Nor is evacuation of settlements going to be possible without a peace deal (even with one, it would be dang near impossible).
As for Arafat croaking, or Saddam getting sick - all that is just wishful thinking on the part of reporters and/or intelligence people. These two guys are not the worlds' leading candidates for a natural death, if you ask me.
Ha'aretz chose this picture for its front page today. It denies any intention to compare Sharon to a Nazi. 
Danny Rubinstein on Arafat's latest semantic trick.
andonly:
George Tenet is supposed to be here to supervise security cooperation between Israel and the Pals, which seems to be practically nonexistent at the moment. What he's doing besides that - I don't know. Maybe jerking off in his hotel room.
Wow. The Wallenberg revelations keep piling up one after the other.
This quote is on the front page of Sunday's NYTimes Magazine:
"I will give all my children if that's what it takes to get our homeland back."--Afaf Abutayeh, mother of a slain Palestinian youth, Ahmed, age 16.
Arabs: In Palestine for 1300 years.
Jews have repeatedly made it plain -- since 1948 -- they are willing to share the land. Arab extremists have made it plain they want the Jews dead.
The Nazis have little to do with it.
If the Nazis hadn't killed the European Jews during WWII, the survivors would never would have been able to establish a homeland in Palestine.
So the Arabs got screwed because the Europeans committed genocide on the Jews.
There is never going to be no peace in the Mid East until the West Bank and Jerusalem are returned to the people who lived there for thousands of years.
I don't like the PLO or Arafat, but that doesn't change the facts.
There were 600,000 Jews living in Palestine in 1948. They deserve no consideration? You speak as if there were never any Jews there until after the war.
It wasn't just the Nazis. The Poles, the Russians, and countless other people have murdered Jews for centuries. It is entirely reasonable for the Jews to claim their historical homeland for their state, a refuge for themselves.
The fault lies with the Arabs for not being willing to share Palestine as originally planned after WW 2. The fault continues to lie with them.
Dammit Slide! Can't you limit your uninformed stupidity to just one thread? I don't want these nice folks to think that all Americans are as stupid as you.
Why Arab Moderates Killed Clinton's Plan...TIME
Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo Thursday rejected a key component of the Clinton plan, when they insisted that Palestinian refugees had a "sacred" right to return to their former homes in Israel. That position, and warnings by Egypt's foreign minister against any compromise on East Jerusalem, kicked the chair out from under Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who had on Tuesday accepted "with reservations" President Clinton’s negotiating framework. Although it was never made public, the U.S. proposal was said to involve Israel withdrawing from all of Gaza and 95 percent of the West Bank, and recognizing Palestinian sovereignty in parts of East Jerusalem, including the Islamic holy sites atop the Temple Mount, in exchange for the Palestinians dropping their demand that some 4 million refugees be given the right to return to Israel.
Barak campaign in Arab press uses photo from Sabra and Shatila.
Can the Arab refugees from 1948 who demand the right to return to their homes please explain why they tried to kill us then, instead of compromising with us over the land? And why they're doing the same thing all over again? Fer chrissake, if what they really wanted was a homeland, they would settle for 95% of the West Bank, 100% of Gaza, and some kind of shared sovereignty over the Temple Mount, wouldn't they?
And that TIME article is a load of rubbish. Arafat doesn't want an agreement. He was begging the Arab leaders to veto the agreement for him, and he purposely created the atmosphere which forced them to do so.
And btw, Jamil Hamad and Rula Amin are not the world's most objective reporters. Non-Arab foreign reporters in the Territories are subject to brutal intimidation, but the Arab ones seem to become Palestinian propaganda agents willingly. 
He's a mean one - Mr. Grinch.
Thus...
"Watching President Clinton's 11th-hour attempt to broker a Palestinian-Israeli deal, you feel as though you're watching a high-stakes poker game in which Mr. Clinton keeps doubling the bet. It's 4 in the morning now, all the money is in the pot, the room is thick with cigar smoke and the players are on their last hand. It's winner take all, and just before the cards are put on the table, Mr. Clinton turns to George W. Bush and says, "Say, would you mind takin' my seat?"
I'm glad Mr. Clinton has brought this Middle East peace game to a head. He has done the Lord's work, not only in clarifying what's a fair compromise but in clarifying who is up to it and who is not. In time, this will be seen as a real contribution. But for now, all this clarity is coinciding with a presidential transition, and the one thing that is not obvious is how the Bush team intends to deal with the hand it's inheriting....because Mr. Bush himself has no strongly expressed views, he's taking office with a vaguely defined foreign policy agenda, but with clearly defined problems.
Yes, the Bushies have position papers. They have more attitude than articulated views. None of the issues they have clearly articulated views on are urgent, and on all the urgent issues they have no clearly articulated views....
At the Congressional level, Republican foreign policy has been dominated by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Jesse Helms, a nasty isolationist who virtually never travels, is convinced that China is still Maoist and Russia still Marxist...."
I don't understand why you put so much stock in Arafat. There's no Arab head of state who does not desire the return of the refugees (and all their spawn) to Israel. They all want their local Palestinian problem to just go away. Support of Arafat is premised on his delivering this outcome.
This is what I meant by Arafat not being much of a leader himself. If he were, he'd take their money, then turn around and say, "Fuck you, you guys got us into this limbo, now we're going to have our state," and he'd make a deal with Israel. He'd say whatever he had to say to his own people, he'd crack radical heads, he'd ally himself fully with Mossad--whatever.
But he hasn't done that or anything truly like it. In fact, statehood isn't his priority, rolling back history is; and by the way, I'm glad to read in Jexster's post above that Thomas Friedman sees things as you and I do: the current negotiations have forced the Pals' hand, and this is a good thing.
I saw Kissinger on TV the other night saying dire (but somewhat contradictory) things, most notably that putting right of return and Jerusalem sovereignty on the table was a huge mistake because if the proposals aren't accepted they still exist in some sense and thus form the basis of all future negotiations.
But this strikes me as wrong; I'm sure Ariel Sharon will make it clear as soon as he takes office that all deals passed up became non-negotiable.
It would have helped a bit if some of the leaders of the Palestinians had actually helped the Allies in WWII, instead of siding with the Germans.
New Window on Tiananmen Square Crackdown...NYTimes...
Throughout the day on May 17, 1989, with student-led protests occupying Beijing's Tiananmen Square and paralyzing much of the country, several of China's most powerful figures dropped by the home of the most powerful of them all, Deng Xiaoping, to discuss what to do.
"If things continue like this, we could even end up under house arrest," Deng warned his old comrades, according to a book of documents that its editors describe as classified Communist Party archives smuggled out of China. "After thinking long and hard about this, I've concluded that we should bring in the People's Liberation Army and declare martial law in Beijing."
The documents, which number in the hundreds and have been deemed authentic by several experts, appear in "The Tiananmen Papers," which will be published on Monday. [Excerpts, Page A6.] They depict how China's rulers decided to order a military crackdown that in June 1989 killed hundreds and put China's present leadership in place. They also suggest how deeply divided the top leaders were and how close the country came to embracing political change rather than crushing it.
Jex:
I skimmed that article on Powell: I didn't know he was actually opposed to the whole Gulf War thing. Is this uncontested fact or is there credible evidence to the contrary? Also: I distinctly remember reading that Bush had Billy Graham over at the White House giving him spiritual succor during the war. Is this true? Who and what were the driving forces behind the war (besides Big Oil)?
ando:
No, I disagree with you. The Palestinian cause is perpetuated by the Arab regimes who want to be rid of their Pals. It is perpetuated by the spirit of Pan-Arabism, of global Jihad, which sees Israel's very existence as an insult to Arab pride, and uses the Palestinians as a weapon - both moral and physical - against Israel. The more moderate Arab leaders are scared shitless of what Arafat is trying to do - i.e., provoke a total Arab-Israeli war. And the Pal refugees can always be settled in the West Bank and Gaza - no need to settle them in Israel proper unless you simply want to destroy Israel.
Arafat's natural allies in this suicidal Jihad mindset are Saddam, and possibly the Hizbullah. I doubt any other Arab countries would join the fray unless (a) Israel suffered extensive damage and the smell of Jewish blood became too intoxicating for the Arab masses to control themselves any longer, and (b) Israel failed to respond decisively and the war dragged on for too long.
Whoops, big typo in that one: I think I meant to write 'the Palestinian cause in not perpetuated by the Arab regimes' etc. Sorry.
is not. Dang, this ain't my day.
ES: am I to gather from Wombat's post that you are the infamous Rosetta?
I just think another war is insane, especially since the Israeli are going to give up the land anyway, and the U.S. will pay for it.
BTW, I love Israel and our common legacy and want to take my family to visit the country. But not next summer. We're going to another hot spot. Ireland
RP: Call me Electric. At least until I find my password for RS.
ES:
I just think another war is insane, especially since the Israeli are going to give up the land anyway, and the U.S. will pay for it.
Well, you're in good company: marj called the recent outbreak of violence 'a hiccup' in the initial days, I think. But it's a war and it will become a full-fledged one, I'm afraid. And unlike a couple of months ago - the latest polls show most of the Israeli public agrees with me on that.
If the Nazis hadn't killed the European Jews during WWII, the survivors would never would have been able to establish a homeland in Palestine.
So the Arabs got screwed because the Europeans committed genocide on the Jews.
The Arabs started getting screwed when Herzl took charge of the Zionist movement. That was at the turn of the 20th century, when Hitler was still wearing diapers.
When one conquers a country that one knows belongs to another, one should not be totally surprised when the original owner shows up, homeless and bleeding, and asks to move in. Even if did take him 77 generations to return. They knew when they took Eretz Yisrael that this was the land of the Jews, and they knew all along we were still alive as a people.
I have no idea what I was trying to write in the second sentence of Message # 15546. However, the idea is that while the Arab regimes would undoubtedly like to solve their domestic Pal refugee problems, that is not the driving force behind the Pal struggle. Nor is the Pal desire for a homeland (or they certainly would have accepted the Camp David and post-Camp David compromises). The driving force behind that struggle is the Pan-Arabist desire to erase Israel.
What I don't understand is why Clinton can't come out and say that Israel accepted his compromises all along, and the Pals didn't. That there was clearly one side that basically refused to compromise on anything and another that kept on compromising, more and more. Maybe he'll do that when he leaves office. Or maybe not.
On the other hand I haven't seen a definition of just who would have that right. If it were those who actually fled in 1948 (and not their descendents) the problem might be maneagable. Does Rustler have any numbers on how many that survice today? And of those who do survive, the women no longer procreate.
I don't believe in a full-scale war. The Palestinians would lose and they know that. They are suffering about 100 death per month. They can sustain that, probably indefinitely. The greatest weapon of the terrorist, or freedom fighter, call him what you will, is his willingness to die. That was one of the lessons of south Lebanon.
Reuters is reporting that the Soviets offered to trade Wallenburg for Soviet defectors in Sweden, that the Swedish government showed no interest in getting Wallenburg back (perhaps because of the necessity of turning over political refugees in return) and that the Swedish government is to issue a report on Jan. 12. Any comment?
The fact, sadly, is that a succession of Swedish governments wished (and still wishes) that the Wallenberg issue would just go away, preferrably by the Soviets issuing an unequivocal statement that he is dead. It hasn't gone away because the Wallenbergs are Sweden's most prominent industrialists. Lately the election of Kofi Annan has also come to play a part, His wife is a Wallenberg.
Righto Russ. I'm going to gather up my Celtic tribe, and we're going home to the Caucasus, where we lived 3000 years ago.
Boy, are those Chechens going to be surprised.
(...but as the imperalist Russians are/will find out, they, too, have long memories...)
alistair:
I lived in Boston once, so I have a weakness for things Celtic (but my true passion was for the Bruins. It was the Bobby Orr era).
Pelle:
This seems to be a good link on the refugee stats.
Guys, I'm about to get myself in serious trouble. I'm writing an article for the principal settlers' magazine which is bound to cause a ruckus. Someone stop me!
ES:
(...but as the imperalist Russians are/will find out, they, too, have long memories...)
Speaking of outsized Russian mammaries - here is a true fact I learned when I was employed in a Tel Aviv advertising firm: according the bra manufacturer 'Triumph' (a client of the firm), the country where the women have the largest tits is Russia. Following the wave of immigration from Russia to Israel, Triumph Israel added the E cup bra to its Israeli catalog!
True!
(tune in to the International thread every day: you always learn something new!)
I have a lot of opinions. As my mother used to say to me: Be kind to dumb animals; they are kind to dumb people.
So, Rustler, you will become the mouthpiece of the settlers and their Eretz Israel ideology. How sad. But I guess the money is good.
Right, but I didn't say it was. I said Arab support for Arafat is premised on a tit for a tat: he's supposed to ameliorate their Pal refugee problem. Everyone hates the Pals, especially other Arabs. Sending them packing back to Israel accomplishes two important goals:
1) it gets rid of the Pals, and in such a way that the Arab regimes won't be expected to cough up cash to resettle them in squalid Gaza and the WB;
2) it satisfies the masses, who hate Israel and want it punished.
The latter, as I'm sure you know, is crucial to Arab governments' legitimacy at home.
"Nor is the Pal desire for a homeland (or they certainly would have accepted the Camp David and post-Camp David compromises)."
Again, we agree, and if I haven't stated as much here I've certainly meant it; as in: In fact, statehood isn't [Arafat's] priority, rolling back history is. Or, as you put it:
"The driving force behind that struggle is the Pan-Arabist desire to erase Israel."
But I believe moderate Arab regimes, which are a part of pan-Arabism, see some use in the existence of Israel as a regional economic engine. Such regimes include Jordan, Egypt, and minuscule but wealthy Qatar. Plus Morocco and some other teensy or poor states. It isn't the erasure of Israel that interests those regimes--and I am speaking of the regimes, not the street--it is the subjugation of Israel to Arab power. As for the hardline states--Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Iraq--they do want Israel erased, I think (maybe not SA, I'm not sure) but all of them have political uses for Israel's continued existence and its perpetual villainy. Especially Syria.
Yes and no. Saddam and Arafat both feed pawns to a thoroughly provoked opponent in hopes of garnering world sympathy. In this respect they're of the same mindset, but I wouldn't call it suicidal at all. More like sacrificial. Hizbullah is in another league. They've got, in Sheik Nasrullah, a very canny guy runnning their PR show. He's selling Lebanese sovereignty to Shiites (who are the largest majority in Leb at ~43%) along with political reform--both laudable goals. Neither objective is impeded by Israel, but rather by Syria. The Lebanese are powerless against Syria. But Hiz's ousting of Israel from S. Leb made Hiz the national savior, because Israel bombed the bejesus out of Lebanon. Hiz will keep villifying & provoking Israel to score political points at home, even bothering to kidnap soldiers and Mossad agents, claiming Shebaa Farms (an otherwise silly objective) and supporting the Palestinian cause (even though Nasrullah despises Arafat). Yes, Hiz officially wants Israel--excuse me, the "Zionist entity"--to vanish, but it far prefers Israel to exist and be the bad guy until it can come to dominate Lebanese government, or at least represent all Shiites. At the moment, it must share that honor with the now-moderate Amal party.
Point is, its alliance with the Pals is primarily strategic, not "natural".
Ultimately, if Hiz rose to power in Leb and got rid of Syria somehow, it would probably play both sides of the fence with Israel indefinitely. I mean, they have their ideology, but they've got practical objectives, too. And you know, I think this is part of why Israel has been so motivated to settle the Pal problem once and for all. Your guys know that a great deal of political clout will be siphoned off all kinds of nasty little reservoirs in the region if only the Palestinians can be deprived of their collective victim status.
Do you mean evacuation of settlements w/o a peace deal would send a signal to the Arabs that Israel is weak and ripe for a pummeling, and evacuation after a peace deal would be politically impossible for any Israeli leader?
Pelle:
So, Rustler, you will become the mouthpiece of the settlers and their Eretz Israel ideology. How sad. But I guess the money is good.
(a) I'm not their mouthpiece. They have enough mouthpieces and they don't need me for that. The publication is more of an internal settler thing, a forum for ideological discussions and such like. I doubt it has more than 5,000 subscribers.
(b) I'm not getting paid.
(c) I don't even know if they'll publish it or not.
Ando:
Do you mean evacuation of settlements w/o a peace deal would send a signal to the Arabs that Israel is weak and ripe for a pummeling, and evacuation after a peace deal would be politically impossible for any Israeli leader?
I meant that common wisdom here has it that the very bitter pill of evacuation could only be sold to the Israeli public if it were sweetened with a credible promise of regional peace. And even then, physically evacuating these guys would be an extremely difficult thing to pull off.
If the Pals weren't who they are, Israel could theoretically decide to pull out without dismantling the settlements, and let the Palestinians make their lives miserable by not supplying them with water, electricity etc., gradually causing them to leave. But the Pals are who they are, and abandoning the settlers to the Pal's mercy would mean a massacre.
In any case -it's all theoretical because Hairyfat doesn't want peace. He wants to kiss dead babies and fantasize about getting buttfucked by his pin-up boy, Sexie Saddam.
Ando:
We basically agree, though you are missing some of the finer details of the mideastern picture, imo. For instance, Saudi can never be put in the same category as Iraq and Iran, and the moderate Arab regimes are not a part of the Pan-Arabism I'm talking about, which is a Nasseristic, Mahdiistic, messianic type of thing. Also, I think you overestimate how much they care about solving their internal Pal problem. And you know they can clean up the refugee camps in two days' time if they want to, with a little financial help from Saudi and the Gulf states.
You're probably right about these points.
Ando:
Your place or mine then?
This piece by Danny Rubinstein addresses the subject we were talking about.
Message # 15564 was intended as a somewhat provocative joke. I guess only the provocation part worked. Sorry about that.
China's government says Tiananaman Papers are fake...
BEIJING (AP) -- Stung by newly published documents that vividly exposed how Chinese leaders split over the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, China's government on Tuesday rejected the papers and suggested they were fake.
``Any attempt to play up the matter again and disrupt China by the despicable means of fabricating materials and distorting facts will be futile,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said in a statement issued early Tuesday via the official Xinhua News Agency.
The crackdown was ``highly necessary to the stability and development of China,'' Zhu said, adding that the ruling Communist Party's ``correct conclusion'' about the 1989 protests would not change.
that's Tiananmen Papers.
Election in Bangkok ends in a Thai.
That's true! The Brits have that "oh, my lord, it's a tie game and we're down to the last 30 seconds" note, where as the continentals seem to think "THESE AMERICANS PROBABLY DON'T UNDERSTAND ACCENTS TOO WELL. PERHAPS IT WILL HELP IF I SHOUT."
First we should discuss your beard. My president wishes to propose a timetable in which you will accomplish the shaving of it. I have already agreed in principle.
Once the beard has been disposed of we can discuss my right of return to my spouse, which you will guarantee. Then you will give us your house.
ando:
My beard does not belong solely to me. It belongs to my forefathers and to my descendants. I cannot shave it without consulting them. When you have a beard like that - then we can talk.
I would be willing to consider trimming it on the sides, though - as long as I get to (a) grow it longer and (b) make you do something even more humiliating in return.
Sharon in an interview to a haredi paper: "when I said we would have to make 'painful concessions' I meant that we would abstain from reconquering Nablus".
What a card. 
Not a single spelling mistake on that sign. Where did Pe say he was travelling this time?
I insulted anise on one of the Mote's threads - but I just can't remember which one.
Just how important is RustlerPike's beard?
OR
Who is maybe what and perhaps why -- the game of Ethnicity:
How thick is blood? The plot thickens. . .
Just how important is RustlerPike's beard?
OR
Who is maybe what and perhaps why -- the game of Ethnicity:
How thick is blood? The plot thickens. . .
Lemme see if I can make that link work.
How thick is blood? The plot thickens. . .
Well, I've skimmed it and I'm not sure I see a connection to my beard there. Maybe you can explain, TransAm?
I was actually going to say that, but thought it would be too much.
Where are you Psood? Peshawar? I'm planning a nice month long subcon journey for February myself and have pencilled in a week in Sri Lanka. Can't wait.
So, where did you go? How'd the wife like Pakistan? Did she go around in shalwar-kameez like a good tribal bride or did she shock the natives with immodest attire?
I guess PE's post demonstrates the traditional hospitality of Peshavar.
I, of course, am quite obsessed with the monsoony coastal bits, especially those which qualify as entrepots. Delicious places, all.
Do you tie the monkey's paw, the monkey's fist, or a girdle knot?
The apparent stupidity of my #15605 is due to not refreshing for over an hour which is a stupid thing not to do.
Jews: In Israel for 5000 years.
Arabs: In Palestine for 1300 years
Ronski, do you think all these millions of 'Palestinians' are descendants of migrants from Arabia? Do you think the 'Arab' world is populated by people who came out of Arabia in the 7th century?
Obviously not.
The modern 'Arab' ethnos is the product of assimilation of indigenous substratum elements by Arabian conquerors. That is, most Morroccans are (probably) Arabised Berbers, most Egyptians are Arabised descendants of ancient Egyptians, and most 'Palestinians' are Arabised descendants of pre-Arab and pre-Muslim Semitic peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, including Jews.
So in this sense, it's quite wrong to say that the Palestinian Arab population has been in Palestine for only 1300 years.
Can the Arab refugees from 1948 who demand the right to return to their homes please explain why they tried to kill us then, instead of compromising with us over the land? And why they're doing the same thing all over again?
Rustler, you know that my sympathies are with Israel; and I think those who insist on this 'right of return' thing are being either disingenuous or insane. But I must own that if this were 1947-9 my sympathies would be pro-Arab.
The Arabs were not unreasonable in rejecting the UN partition plan for Palestine.
(1) The plan had no democratic basis whatever.
(2) It awarded more than half of the land in Mandate Palestine to Jews who were less than one-third of the population and most of whom were recent immigrants.
(3) In the Jewish part of Mandate Palestine, most of the land was not owned by Jews, but by Arabs.
(4) In most towns of that part of Palestine awarded to Jews, Arabs were the majority of the population.
(5) The Arab hostility to Jewish settlement in the 1930s stemmed from the fact that although Jewish settlers bought land legally from Arab landowners, the tenant farmers residing on the land were dispossessed each time there was a land purchase. This is because the Zionists, being socialists, worked the land themselves and had no need for Arab tenant farmers.
(6) Besides, the idea that buying up land confers sovereign political rights on the buyer is offensive to traditional practise and common sense. If the Japanese buy up all of Los Angeles, could they annex LA?
(7) What is the basis of the oft-repeated charge that the Arabs tried to kill all the Jews in 1947-49?
Don't forget that the monsoons sweep the whole of the subcontinent with varying degrees of might.
Not really. The Hindooo monsoon primarily affects Punjab, Kashmir and the eastermost districts of the NWFP. The rest of Pakistan gets little annual rainfall. Sindh and Baluchistan are mostly desert. Most of the NWFP, though not as arid, is brown.
Even Nepal gets a remnant of the SW monsoon.
But Nepal is very much part of monsoonal Asia.
It is a little-known fact that the monsoon also touches the southwest of the Arabian peninsula, specifically Oman and Yemen. Western Oman is in fact quite verdant.
What is ridiculous is to hear Palestinian apologists, such as the late Dr. Mehdi, an Iranian-born spokesman for the Palestinian cause in the U.S., claim that the Palestinian Arabs were the first people in the region, are really Canaanites, etc., a notion that is being heard more and more these days, and that this allegation justifies destroying or compromising the Jewish state.
The fact remains that Jewish culture in Palestine predates Arab culture by many centuries.
The fact remains that Jewish culture in Palestine predates Arab culture by many centuries.
It's a moot point today, but in the 1930s and 1940s one might have asked: so what? What does that have to do with anything? Since when are 2000-year-old sovereign territorial claims legitimate, let alone entertained? And the secular European Ashkenazi culture that provided the backbone of Zionism, I daresay, had very little to do with the culture of the kingdom of David and Solomon. Indeed one might even argue that the culture of Palestinian Arabs is closer to that of ancient Hebrews than that of a Polish Jew degreed in law at Krakow university.
My point is that despite Arab displeasure over tenant farmers being made to leave after land they worked was sold, a sharing of Western Palestine by the Arabs and Israelis in two separate states was a just compromise, and that Arabs acted badly by insisting on no self-determination for Jews. Today, Palestinian Arab extremists are claiming not that land should be shared and that there should be two states, but that there should be no Israel at all. Some things don't seem to change.
But then one could also ask why any people who had not had a state for a thousand years or more, or had never had one, be awarded one through international agreement.
You've answered your own question: It seems quite reasonable a practice to grant independence to peoples, as was done after WW1. In fact, more states should have been granted independence at the time, such as Ireland and Kurdistan. I agree.
But your overall analogy is ridiculous.
The difference between Israel and Ireland or Czechia is that the latter two countries are founded on peoples who had lived continuously in those lands for much much longer than the European Jews who began settling (or resettling) in Palestine in the 1880s. (The Jews of Jerusalem excepted.)
My point is that....a sharing of Western Palestine by the Arabs and Israelis in two separate states was a just compromise, and that Arabs acted badly by insisting on no self-determination for Jews.
No, I think the Arabs behaved quite reasonably. It's unreasonable that a group of foreigners should settle in another people's land and sixty years later declare a separate state -- particularly since these foreigners were given by a foreign authority more than half of the political territory for purposes of statehood in which they did not own most of the land and in which they were not yet even a majority!
Today, Palestinian Arab extremists are claiming not that land should be shared and that there should be two states, but that there should be no Israel at all. Some things don't seem to change.
Yes I agree.
The Palestinian Arabs seem unable to become reconciled to the reality: there will never be a return. Moreover, they are demanding something almost wholly unprecedented in human history -- the repatriation of refugees. There are many instances in historym of people becoming refugees after a conflict and then getting successfully absorbed into the life of other countries. For example:
Anatolian Greeks, expelled from Turkey in the 1920s, were resettled and reintegrated in Greece.
Indians and Pakistanis in the 1940s and 1950s.
Armenians of the Ottoman Empire (at least those not killed) were resettled in Russian/Soviet Armenia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon and the West and then made new lives for themselves.
Germans were expelled en masse from Eastern Europe but were absorbed by Germany.
The Palestinians stand ALONE in never having been absorbed by any country (except for a few guest workers in the Arab world as well as immigrants to the West) and in fantasising about a repatriation they will never be allowed. All because the Arab countries wanted to play politics with their lives.
As I've said, Arab claims were just in the 1940s, but the Arabs have treated their Palestinian brethren at least as shabbily.
No people is originally from anywhere, as far as I can tell. And the Arabs of Palestine never had a state of their own, either. They were ruled by Turks, then Brits.
The Palestinian Arab position over the past century with regard to the Jews reminds me of the nativist, xenophobic hostility to immigrants one finds among some of my countrymen today, or in parts of Western Europe.
I thought you might ask about Texas.
Although the numbers aren't anywhere high enough yet, if Spanish-speaking immigrants want to leave the Union, or for that matter if any state wishes to leave the Union, I would not object. There is some question of how this can be accomplished legally, however, given our recent Unpleasantness Between The States.
This is where international cooperation becomes useful. Israel is recognized by most nations. Turkish Cyprus is recognized by Turkey.
A little searching with Google found this 'non-academic' version of the previous article.
WIRED TO BE WARY Evolutionary
Origins of Ethnic Identity
Maybe it will be more enlightning -- about the connection with your beard.
ANYWAY
Maybe I see connections where, possibly, they are non-existent.
Like, I found your comment:
>I believe in one God. Me.<
Very funny. For, as you are implying you are an atheist, it implies you believe you do not exist.
An actual separatist movement of this kind exists in the Republic of Moldova, where the ethnic Russians in the Transdniestria region (again, migrants from Soviet times) have repeatedly called for separation from the republic.
Message # 15624
Although the numbers aren't anywhere high enough yet, if Spanish-speaking immigrants want to leave the Union, or for that matter if any state wishes to leave the Union, I would not object.
Somehow I doubt that most Americans would agree with you; and I have a sneaking suspicion that you as a Jew are catering your belief about separatism in the USA to the more important belief about Israel....
This is where international cooperation becomes useful. Israel is recognized by most nations. Turkish Cyprus is recognized by Turkey.
This example just shows how there is absolutely no consistency in "international cooperation". The Turkish settlers in Cyprus have been there for over 400 years. Yet their separate state is not recognised by the international community. Israel's separate state is, however. Since you've brought up international consensus as the legitimising factor, why don't you stop scrounging around for arguments from justice and fairness, and just settle for superior power as the source of legitimacy for the State of Israel -- as Rustler unabashedly does.
I disagree. I believe it is quite reasonable for people to leave one land (Europe) and move to another (Palestine), that is their historical homeland, and to buy land, legally.
You haven't really addressed #15617. Why did secularised, assimilated European Jews have a superior claim to an independent state in the land of a historical people who were merely their genetic ancestors?
No people is originally from anywhere, as far as I can tell. And the Arabs of Palestine never had a state of their own, either. They were ruled by Turks, then Brits.
It's true that the Palestinian Arabs had no state of their own, but it's a bit misconceived to say they had no local administration which was Arab in character. The Ottomans ruled indirectly in most of their empire; and Palestine was ruled by Arab elites from Damascus.
The Palestinian Arab position over the past century with regard to the Jews reminds me of the nativist, xenophobic hostility to immigrants one finds among some of my countrymen today, or in parts of Western Europe.
I think the point about xenophobia is correct. But then, once again, your analogy is ridiculous. Immigrants to Europe and America are not declaring a separate state!
I just think that Arabs, however they might have resented Europeanized Jews settling in Palestine, did not behave well in turning to violence at the time of partition.
You are missing a crucial clause. I said it was unreasonable for a group of foreigners to buy and settle in a land and then declare statehood.
I think that if Russians in the Baltic states wanted to secede and join Russia (and this is being discussed in the NE corner of Estonia, not just in Moldavia) I would not object, though I'm sure ethnic Balts would. The Balts might have a moral argument against this based on what constitutes a viable state and historical mistreatment by Russians, though.
Indeed, I'm sure most Americans would not agree with me about secession. I'm used to it.
I'm not a Jew, btw.
I agree there is no international consistency in these matters, but certainly an international consensus helps a state survive.
As for immigrants to the U.S. and Europe not declaring independence, Jewish settlers to Palestine, while Zionist, were yet not actually declaring a Jewish state in the 30s either, and were nevertheless attacked.
It is true that sheer power will perhaps decide this whole matter, but I would hope moral arguments, however complicated they may be at times, will play some sort of role in the unfolding of events, including compassion for Palestinian Arabs, who have also suffered through this whole miserable affair.
I do see a Palestinian state someday sharing the old mandate with Israel. But not any time soon.
Though I share an unusual affinity with the views of many of the Founders and Framers, especially the New England variety and their Transcendentalist decendents (sometimes called The Yankee Hindus), I am a third-generation, central-European interloper.
I also understand Arab unhappiness over this development. What I fail to comprehend, or to accept, is the resorting to violence and the inability to accept compromise, a sharing of the land. The Jews were using half of it for their state, not all of it.
It should be emphasised, by the way, that I am generally quite sympathetic to separatism and separatists (where they constitute a majority), whether it's Kashmir or Chechnya or Kosovo or wherever there is a separatist movement by an indigenous people. But it's altogether a different thing for newcomers to intrude and insist on a separate ethnic state.
Thanks for your time. I would just say that I can appreciate how Jews did not consider themselves newcomers, however the Arabs thought otherwise. And again, that this immigration and partitioning did not excuse a violent reaction.
As you should, if in the period between then and now your fellow diaspora Celts have been kept in ghettoes, subjugated, scapegoated, slaughtered, and in fact very recently had 50% of their population gassed and cremated in a country previously considered civilized. In addition to all this, if your Celtic religious literature has as one of its fundamental premises a return to origins, you should definitely go home and get yourself well-armed, since this is probably a better bet than relying on the kindness of those for whom you will always be an other.
(My mood concerning religious tolerance in the US darkens with each day the Supreme Court remains dominated by conservative political opportunists and george w. bush remains our appointed "leader". There are moments when I think it's only a matter of years before Muslims somehow migrate here en masse and with southern and midwest Xtian fundies join hands to shut liberal Jews out of all access to power in the US. But then I tell myself, No, no...)
My mood concerning religious tolerance in the US darkens with each day the Supreme Court remains dominated by conservative political opportunists and george w. bush remains our appointed "leader". There are moments when I think it's only a matter of years before Muslims somehow migrate here en masse and with southern and midwest Xtian fundies join hands to shut liberal Jews out of all access to power in the US.
But then I tell myself, No, no...
I'm guessing the liquor helps, too.
I don't have time to post anything substantial but I think the Pe -Ronski debate has failed to touch upon the most important justification, perhaps, for the Jewish claim to Israel: we have nowhere else.
Remember - Herzl would have even settled for Uganda, as long as the Jews had somewhere to call their own. In retrospect, one of the only Jews who acted out Herzl's Uganda Scheme was yours truly (the Uasin Gishu Plateau, which had been intended for the Jews, is now a part of Kenya).
We live in a Jewish neighborhood and moved here because of the quality of the school system.
I just read an interesting article in TALK magazine on your embattled prime minister entitled "Barak Under Fire". One of the things the story revealed in that Barak was willing to give sovereignty over the Christian and Muslim sections of Jerusalem and 90 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians.
Herzl and Uganda
Herzl never intended Uganda as a permanent homeland for Jews, but rather as temporary refuge:
Go to: Uganda: Anatomy of a Blunder
By the way here is an interesting article on Jewish ethnicity:
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel
The Problems of Ethnicity
Here is some insight into the dark complexities of problems facing Isreal:
Jewish History, Jewish Religion, By Israel Shahak
If so inclined, you can read all his articles in other issues.
I must admit to being highly conflicted.
There appears to be no rational approach to the problem -- let alone a coherent moral approach. The failure here is truly staggering.
At one time, the average IQ of a Jew in Isreal was 131. If this is the best that very bright humans can do perhaps we should just give up.
It is interesting to note that in North America
The Jews of the world are always welcomed to settle in the United States. They are some of our most talented--and hard-working citizens.
Yeah well, I'd like that in writing and approved by Congress before I see it as an option. By the way - if there ever was such an offer, I think a majority of Israelis would opt for it (fools that they are).
Herzl never intended Uganda as a permanent homeland for Jews, but rather as temporary refuge
True, but we have this saying: there's nothing more permanent than temporary solutions. Besides, as things stand, we have a solid claim to the land. If we were a bunch of honkies in Uganda, we'd be seen as little more than another white colonial venture. Imagine the Salon articles if we were in Uganda rather than in the Middle East.
Ugh, transient, what on earth are you babbling about? I thought you were a semi-serious person.
Semi-serious about what?
People are people are people.
Are you complaining that people behave like people?
It is just that sometimes I feel that I got off on the wrong planet at the wrong time.
By The Way
The uncompleted sentence in my last post should have been erased.
I was going to comment that about 7% of university students, in North American survey, stated that they would kill if thought God ordered them to do so.
Uzmakk:
I can't really macrame.
(There's a message for you there in invisible ink).
And so you did. As who did not? There is no right time.
That said, I gotta go get some work done. There may not be a right time, but there's a wrong one.
Israel Shahak is a bastard, a perverted turd, a collaborator with the enemy, and a liar.
Untoy me, you brute!
From time to time I've thought that I should formulate my position on Israel and its creation, but I have been too lazy. Now, luckily, PE has saved me the trouble. My views are not identical with his, but close enough.
The best argument against it is that ethnic Russians in the Baltic states are recent intrusive elements and cannot reasonably claim sovereign political rights. Those Russians were settled in the Baltics (as well as in all other non-Russian parts of the ex-URSS) by the Soviet Union in order to create demographic facts on the ground and to make the subjugation of the Baltic states permanent. Finding ethnic Russian separatism in Estonia (and Moldova and Kazakstan) acceptable is morally equivalent to finding Han domination in Tibet and Xinjiang acceptable. Beijing too has settled millions of ethnic Han Chinese in these provinces in order to undermine the legitimacy of Tibetan and Uighur national claims.
But Arabs just could not see any reason why they should be sharing the land with Europeans. I repeat: you can't just settle in someone else's territory and rightfully claim sovereign political rights. If Germans settled in Brazil in sufficient numbers and wanted to carve out a separate state called Bundesrepublik Brasilien from Bahia state, Brazilians would be right to prevent such effrontery by force of arms.
And within that half of the partition proposal, the Jews were not a majority and they didn't own majority of the land Why should Arabs accept a "compromise" in which they were to be made a minority in their own country? Where else does such a thing ever happen? Besides, the partition proposal was just railroaded through the UN.
As for violence (you're talking about incidents before 1948, presumably)....if the Zionist land buyers had been more attuned to local sensitivities and thought twice before dispossessing Arab tenant farmers from land they had lived on for generations --instead of being satisfied with the rank legalism that they had bought the land fair and square -- maybe they might have avoided the violent backlash that came later. You can't expect foreigners to come into a country, radically alter the patterns of society, and NOT expect a violent reaction.
(Admittedly the Zionists bought the land from two-faced insidious rich Arab landowners who later tried to exploit the grievances of the same poor Arabs whom they had betrayed.)
I suppose, for a libertarian like you, if the land is purchased legally that's the end of the story and nothing further need be said. Perhaps that's why you are not "comprehending".
Ronski, the Jews who began settling in Palestine in the 1880s were not some Hebrew-speaking or Arabic-speaking Jews with an intimate connexion with ancient Israel. They were for the most part assimilated and secular European Jews, educated in Europe, with European habits, with European thoughts. If these weren't foreigners, who then ever are?
The settlers' claim to Palestine was based on the fact of genetic descent from its inhabitants 2000 years ealier. This is tantamount to saying we all have the right to settle in Africa because all human beings are genetically descended from inhabitants of Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago.
RustlerPike,
Isreal Shahak appears to be truly strange.
Here is an article stating that he lied on a key contention:
Some interesting information about Israel Shahak
Unfortunately, the universe -- and, particularly, the Internet -- is full of disinformation.
One thing I do know: I definitely do NOT have the time, inclinaion or energy -- not to mention the ability or, perhaps, the divinity -- to try to disintangle fact (or semi-fact) from fiction (or semi- fiction).
I object to the invasion of Tibet by China, which was conducted by force of arms (as I object to the Russian invasion of the Baltics). But as long as these ethnic groups (Han and Russians) are settled in those places, I think they have a right to peaceably divide the territory, should it come to that.
As for Israel, when Jews migrated there it was with the understanding that the region was likely to be granted independence by Britain someday. The controlling legal authority (so to speak) was not another small, independent state but a colonial power set to relinquish control. (I don't support the terrorist acts, such as the bombing of the King David Hotel, which helped bring it about.)
As for Arabs not being a majority in the land originally awarded to Israel, Palestine included the state, Transjordan, which the British set up (and which no other country initially recognized). Eighty percent of Palestine was given to Arabs. If the Jews did a little better on their half of the remaining land that was to be aportioned between Jews and Arabs than their numbers might have suggested, I think it can be excused given the need for some sort of viability.
As for not comprehending things, I understand that people rape, murder and pillage. I don't comprehend why we should excuse political violence just because we understand the motivation.
You mentioned earlier that Palestinian Arabs were perhaps closer in culture to ancient Hebrews than modern European and American Jews, and that is true to an extent, but not true to the degree that religion plays a role in the lives of observant Jews and Arabs both.
There is a strong element in Islam that disregards any claims made by non-Muslims, or anything that happened before Mohammed. Those elements share nothing in common with Judaism, which they consider illegitimate. (And to be sure, I am equally annoyed with grandiose, and all too common, claims by some religious Jews that God gave them the territory and that is the end of it).
Your cranium must be denser than average. I repeat: I said one cannot just settle somewhere and expect to have sovereign political rights separate from those of indigenous people's. One need not be a nativist supporter of Le Pen or Buchanan to believe this. It is almost universally shared by people.
(By the way, the total freedom of settlement and immigrant is also unreasonable; and once again one need not be a nativist to believe that. I can't help it if you're a believer in an incoherent religion like libertarian.)
You mentioned earlier that Palestinian Arabs were perhaps closer in culture to ancient Hebrews than modern European and American Jews, and that is true to an extent, but not true to the degree that religion plays a role in the lives of observant Jews and Arabs both.
What part of the phrase "secular European Jews" did you not understand? Besides, before the founding of Israel, most of the world's observant Jews have lived in Muslim countries.
There is a strong element in Islam that disregards any claims made by non-Muslims, or anything that happened before Mohammed. Those elements share nothing in common with Judaism, which they consider illegitimate.
What are you talking about? Judaism is considered by Muslims to be a precursor to Islam.
Besides, you are falsely sectarianising the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Christian Palestinians were equally opposed to Zionism.
Of course you would. You're not a normal person, you're a libertarian. But most ordinary people feel and understand that there is a national, supra-individual ownership of territory. That is why Americans would be right to feel unhappy with a hypothetical annexation of Los Angeles by Japan following a complete buyout of the city's real estate by Japanese moguls.....
I repeat: immigration and land purchases do not confer sovereign political rights on the immigrants and the buyers.
I object to the invasion of Tibet by China, which was conducted by force of arms (as I object to the Russian invasion of the Baltics). But as long as these ethnic groups (Han and Russians) are settled in those places, I think they have a right to peaceably divide the territory, should it come to that.
I think that's disgusting. You are legitimising the brutal conquests.
As for Israel, when Jews migrated there it was with the understanding that the region was likely to be granted independence by Britain someday. The controlling legal authority (so to speak) was not another small, independent state but a colonial power set to relinquish control.
Who the fuck was Britain to award something they didn't own to anyone? As a libertarian you should consider the British control over Palestine illegimate.
As for Arabs not being a majority in the land originally awarded to Israel, Palestine included the state, Transjordan, which the British set up (and which no other country initially recognized). Eighty percent of Palestine was given to Arabs.
Irrelevant! The land apportioned to Jews contained an Arab majority, and those Jews were recent immigrants.
As for not comprehending things, I understand that people rape, murder and pillage. I don't comprehend why we should excuse political violence just because we understand the motivation.
I wasn't excusing anything. I'm just saying that if you dispossessed people, even if legally and even if morally according some obscurantist libertarian ethics, you would be extremely stupid not to expect a backlash.
Tell us about your trip.
Afghan refugees freezing and starving in Pakistan made the headlines of my local newspaper yesterday. There was a full-color picture of women huddling together for warmth in a refugee camp and a feature article on the wars and famine that have made them refugees. This winter is cruel over there. Did you decide to skip the ski trip?
Of course Judaism and Christianity were precursors to Islam, but Islam is ultimate and controlling, and Islamic extremists cite passages in the Koran to claim that Jews and Christians must serve Muslims.
Immigration to Israel was never limited to secular Jews. Religious Jews are among the most ardent supporters of Israel.
I understand the fact that people cannot simply move somewhere and expect to set up a new state, but I repeat that I don't believe that is quite what happened in the Middle East with the Jews. The indigenous people there included Jews, and the land there was destined to be given independence with an entirely new governance.
And I also understand that absolute freedom of movement among peoples is a practical impossibility. But maximizing that freedom is still a good idea.
urk, didn't mean to interrupt a fine rant. Carry on.
And I'm delighted you are not excusing the violence the Arabs have committed against the Jews.
Don't be so silly. Did you know that the famous Achille Lauro was hijacked and terrorised by Christian Palestinians? Christian Palestinians are represented in every aspect of Palestinian life, violent and peaceful.
Immigration to Israel was never limited to secular Jews.
I did NOT say that immigration to Israel was limited to secular Jews. But the great majority of Zionists were secular. Understand?
By the way, I believe most of the religious Jews in Israel today are from Arab countries -- who came AFTER Israel was founded.
I understand the fact that people cannot simply move somewhere and expect to set up a new state, but I repeat that I don't believe that is quite what happened in the Middle East with the Jews.
That is what happened. European Jews began arriving in the 1880s, the great bulk of them after 1918, and in 1948 they declared a state.
The indigenous people there included Jews....
There had always been a small Jewish presence in Jerusalem. So what?
And I also understand that absolute freedom of movement among peoples is a practical impossibility. But maximizing that freedom is still a good idea.
Why?
I consider the British control over Palestine a fact, not a good thing.
Right. Just as I consider Palestinian violent response to the settlers in the 1930s a fact, not a good thing.
You seem to pick and choose what to judge morally, and what to consider just a "fact".
Many of the most prominent Arab nationalists (and extremist) are or were Christians. PE has mentioned the Achille Lauro atrocity which was masterminded by George Habash, a Christian. The Arab nationalist revival was pioneered by a group of mainly Christian students at the American University in Beirut. One of them was Michel Aflaq, founder and chief ideologue of the Bath party, branches of which are now in power in Syria and Iraq.
As for any practical solution to the problem, I don't think anyone has one. Arafat was offered a good deal and refused it. He continues to say one thing in English and another in Arabic. They might as well continue talking, since that may mean less shooting, but Oslo is dead. Israel is destined to remain an armed camp for a long time suffering acts of terrorism which must be dealt with more or less as they are currently doing. Eventually, they will have to withdraw from the West Bank entirely. That is the only way they will retain the Israeli state.
And they may still lose Israel as a Jewish state eventually. I would just like to see something like that happen, if it does, with ballots not bullets.
As for what I judge and what I consider a fact, I oppose the initiation of violence on moral grounds, and consider a fact anything that can be proven to exist.
I think you're fabricating something ad hoc. If not, substantiate your "fact".
As for any practical solution to the problem....
Why do so many of us internet babblers succumb to the feeling that we must come up with practical solutions? The solution will get worked out on the ground in the Middle East and in the conference halls of diplomacy, and nothing we say here will make the least difference. So we might just as well as speakly altogether unconstructively and dwell on the past, or something.
As for what I judge and what I consider a fact, I oppose the initiation of violence on moral grounds, and consider a fact anything that can be proven to exist.
What was the British conquest of Palestine but an "initiation of violence"?
Why speakly at all?
PE's speaklying out of his hatlying.
'I Think He's Nuts'
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Moshe Bik, a Hasidic Jew, believes he was on a mission from God when he pulled the plug on a cellular telephone that was attached as a detonator to a bomb planted in his ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem.
Several minutes after the bearded, 36-year-old seminary student severed the connection on Thursday, the phone rang, a signal which police said would have triggered an explosion next to a school.
``I was the messenger sent from Heaven to neutralize the bomb,'' the Maariv daily quoted Bik as saying on Friday.
Spotting a knapsack on the pavement, Bik opened the bag and found two mortar shells connected by wires to a cellular telephone. So he gave the wires a tug and removed the phone.
Police believe the device was planted by Palestinian guerrillas -- and issued a warning to the public to leave suspicious objects to their explosives experts.
``I think he's nuts,'' Bik's wife, Leah, told reporters.
eh, so do i
How do you pull the plug on a cellular phone?
Using a cell phone as a remote control is scary stuff. I think I understand how it can be done. It's not difficult.
Fielding
Press the off button.
Cute, to cute.
And what would Derrida say of this?
Sorry, Fielding, I didn't see the pun. I'm a bit dense at times.
Rick
Derrida is famous for wordplays and puns but I don't know how well they translate (and I don't know how good they are - I don't read French at the Derrida level). I guess Dan does.
On/by Shahak
1
Isreal Shahak: his background
2
The New Israeli Historians and
1948, Israel Shahak 12 February 1995
(To get the flavor of the brilliant scholarship he is reporting, read the last few paragraphs first.)
Several brief comments:
I think that no one expected the Jews to win. If nothing else, they just did have the arms. As
mentioned, Communist countries sent the crucial arms. So, in a very real sense, Isreal was a
communist plot.
The British probably thought that, to avoid annihilation, Britain would have been 'invited' to end the
hostilities and so Britain would have remained in control of Palestine. Hence (as mentioned) the
Jordanian troops, under British command, did not go on the offensive nor did the British send
arms to the Arabs.
I understand Shahak's moral outrage and sympathize with it. But, I wonder what he would have
done in similar circumstances. War is war. (As the US was made fully aware of yesterday, and
Clinton did not apologize.) And survival is paramount.
In case no one noticed:
Yesterday, Lucien Bouchard, Premier of the Canadian province of Quebec, announced his intention to resign once a successor for him is found.
His separatist Party Quebecois was founded with idea that French Canadians are unique and should have there own country. The concept of 'pur laine' encapsulated the ethnic foundation of the movement.
In his resignation speech Bouchard spent a disproportionate amount of time commenting on the anti-semitic remarks made by Jacque Parazeau. (Their repudiation and condemnation had led to party in-fighting.) Early commentators on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation suggested that this was the deciding factor leading to his resignation. Strangely -- or, perhaps, not so strangely, later commentators choose to neglect to mention this aspect of his speech.
The official line in Canada is that tribalism is a good thing --especially, French Canadian tribalism.
In Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" he argues that monoculture promulgated by the west as "globalization" is a threat to (in particular) arab cultural values:
"To traditional cultures, especially word-based ones such as Islam, this is infinitely more threatening than the B-52s ever were. It is obvious, to everyone outside of the United States, that our arch-buzzwords, multiculturalism and diversity, are false fronts that are being used (in many cases unwittingly) to conceal a global trend to eradicate cultural differences. The basic tenet of multiculturalism (or "honoring diversity" or whatever you want to call it) is that people need to stop judging each other-to stop asserting (and, eventually, to stop believing) that this is right and that is wrong, this true and that false, one thing ugly and another thing beautiful, that God exists and has this or that set of qualities."
In short, the secular force of global capitalism, and with it, American popular culture, is a source of danger for Islam. Who's right? Can Islamic culture survive in a secular, materialist, Disneyfied world?
Jay:
"In today's NYTimes Thomas Friedman argues that arab resistance to globalization is hurting the arab world, the chances for peace with Israel, and the future of arab children in a world that will be capitalist."
Not just globalization. Democracy, education, free press, alignment with Saddam Hussein, etc.
That said, I thought his underlying premise is correct--that globalization eradicates a lot of differences and that this is a threat to cultures who rigidly define acceptable behavior.
Jay:
"That's right, those are also threats to a religiously organized state, aren't they? But is Friedman right to claim that his notion of how children should be reared and societies organized is the only way to go?"
Friedman did not advocate for a child rearing strategy. He advocated for literacy. You can teach your children to read without selling out to Disney. And if you can't than your civilization isn't worth a damn, and is destined to be History's roadkill.
Moral relativism is not infinitely elastic. I'm all for a culture's preserving their heritage, but not if that implies a lack of drinking water, literacy or hospital beds. And I think we can agree that a free press is a good thing and corrupt politicians are bad.
Thomas Friedman should be taken out to pasture before he babbles more about olives and Lexuses.
Friedman is an idiot.
PE:
The same criticisms that you make of Friedman are in turn true of your post. When you say that "the West supports corrupt and oligarchical regimes" or "the West . . . is uncomfortable with the notion [of democritization]" who are YOU talking about. Most Americans, for example, would certainly say in an opinion poll that they were in favor of increased Democracy in the Middle East.
I'm not really sure what your point is. Are you happy with the level of press freedom in the Arab World? The literacy rate? Do you disagree that most of the Arab World has fallen behind asia economically?
It is certainly a fact that Arab rulers have cannily used the conflict with Israel to distract their citizens from their own shortcomings.
I would never phrase it so crudely, and I don't think Friedman would either. Globalization isn't the cultural threat that your Stephenson quote seems to indicate, and I don't see who is going to "mow them down" if they don't improve their development pace.
The fact that Banks agrees with you is certainly a sign that you need to reconsider your position. :)
Rask:
If anything, I think Friedman would say that they've already been mowed down.
You're a curious joe. When you've been around this thread for a while you'll find that I have an uncanny track record of being right, on all matters, at all times.
I wasn't taking a position on whether or not you were correct. I merely pointed out that PE would be embarassed that you agree with him.
I too am experiencing the uncomfortable sensation of agreeing with PE in more than one instance. Must be that he has changed his views.
Yes, marj, one must admire your ability of being right. As when you confidently declared that the ongoing Quds Intifiade which so far has claimed some 350-400 lives "a mere hiccup".
If so, they haven't thought about it carefully, and their representatives have gone out of their way for most of the century, to prevent the entrance of representative government anywhere near large supplies of oil. How is the preservation of Kuwait's elite in the interest of democracy? The Brits set up those little monarchies in defense against the masses in Iraq.
IOW, I agree with PE (but I usually do).
Moreover, a point Stephenson makes later--that the next arab generation is being exposed to this globalized culture in ways that the current adult generation does not like--is also, imo, true. And I think it could lead to conflict.
I understand and agree with you with regard to cultural globalization, but I am not sure what you mean when you say that globalization in itself is over-rated.
Are you just referring to the limited extent to which economies become integrated - that this is over-rated, with the vast majority of most countries' economic activity occuring *within* the country, or are you speaking more broadly and including the role of foreign capital in economic development?
Jay:
"If so, they haven't thought about it carefully, and their representatives have gone out of their way for most of the century, to prevent the entrance of representative government anywhere near large supplies of oil."
That's right, its all America's fault that democracy doesn't flourish in the Middle East.
I'm not sure what you mean by not thinking about it carefully.
We (the Brits and the US, mostly) hve created an extremely unstable position wrt the oil producing countries. By taking some of the biggest fields away from the masses in Iran and Iraq, we have created a situation that can't be sustained indefinitely. The policy to date, of arming Iran and Iraq alternately, and getting them to threaten each other, won't work indefinitely. I imagine there's a fair amount of rank and file resentment of the US on the ground in Iraq today....
We set up those states. We arm those elites. The Shah was our guy. Wake up!! The US does NOT promote democracy in the third world. It promotes its "interests"--the flow of oil, among them. It's easier to buy off a few people than a lot of people, easier to make an elite extremely rich than to suffer the vicissitudes of representative governments.
The great democratisation dichotomy in the ME is found in Algeria where the Islamists' election promise was to cancel the democratisation programme, then in its infancy, and went on to win the elections which were duly cancelled, with the result we see today.
So you went to Egypt again Jay. On business or because you like it? Did you have any interesting experiences?
Jay:
Sorry to disappoint you, but the world is a complex place. Yes, the United States has had an ugly role in assisting dictators. No, money is not the only thing that drives US foreign policy. The United States does, among other less pleasant things, support the growth of democracy in the third world.
I will venture a guess that as we move farther away from the cold war, the US will be less willing to support repressive dictators solely for the purpose of Realpolitik.
"Having been in Egypt recently, Rask, I do think he has a point. There
is fundamental conflict between what Friedman calls globalization and contemporary Islam. We see it here at home all the time, like when
the Kansas state board of education tries to get evolution off the state certification exam."
I understand that point as far as the political power of Islam is concerned, but your initial post seemed more to be about the interests of the Arab people. PE claims that the Arab people's *aren't* opposed to democracy.
Message # 15699: I never asked WHO Friedman is talking about. I just wondered, in my usual haughty manner, WHAT the hell Friedman is talking about.
Of what relevance is the opinion of the Yankistani masses in this context? Inasmuch as they have an opinion at all about the Middle East, which they usually do not, it is banal: "democracy is good". The fact remains that Western governments fear democratisation in the Arab countries, because the populace may be more radical than the moderate but corrupt and oligarchical regimes in power. That may be a justified or unjustified fear, but the fear is real.
I'm not really sure what your point is. Are you happy with the level of press freedom in the Arab World? The literacy rate? Do you disagree that most of the Arab World has fallen behind asia economically?
Of what relevance are my (rather staggeringly ample) opinions on these issues? The POINT: Friedman took the Arab masses to task for these issues, but in fact it is the Western-supported Arab regimes which (1) depress press freedom; (2) underinvest in education; and (3) do not even attempt to reform their statist economies.
It is certainly a fact that Arab rulers have cannily used the conflict with Israel to distract their citizens from their own shortcomings.
Au contraire: I wager, if fully democratised and liberalised, Egypt would end peace with Israel and assume a radically hostile stance toward Israel.
What does that have to do with globalisation?
Message # 15709
I'm just saying that even those countries which are very much part of the global economy haven't lost their culture as a result of this integration. That global economic integration implies loss of cultural distinctiveness is a lie, a canard.
Are you just referring to the limited extent to which economies become integrated - that this is over-rated, with the vast majority of most countries' economic activity occuring *within* the country
This is interest. A country trades with itself much more extensively than with foreign actors. National borders are by themselves substantial barriers to international economic integration, no matter how much the formal barriers are broken down.
Message # 15710
That's right, its all America's fault that democracy doesn't flourish in the Middle East.
It's not Yankistan's fault, but Friedman's letter is stupid because it assumes that the Arab masses don't want democracy when in fact it is the ARab elites and the West which don't want it.
PE:
"Au contraire: I wager, if fully democratised and liberalised, Egypt would end peace with Israel and assume a radically hostile stance toward Israel."
Egypt is already radically hostiole to Israel. The only way it could be more hostile would be open warfare. I don't think Egypt wants to lose any more wars with Israel.
hostile
PE:
Message 15717: "I never asked WHO Friedman is talking about. I just wondered, in my usual haughty manner, WHAT the hell Friedman is talking about."
Message 15694: "[Friedman] can't decide whether he's addressing the Arab elites or the Arab masses."
Forgive my confusion.
1) How significant is US support in keeping Arab regimes in power? That is, without US involvement, could we reasonably expect Arab regimes to become democratic and economically liberalized? If the US pushed for democratic and economic liberalization, could we reasonably expect success?
2) I agree with you about cultural globalization in general, although I (rather ignorantly) suspect that if any part of the world would be significantly changed culturally by globalization, it is the non-secularized Islamic world. This is simply due to the role science and economic development have had in diminishing the power of religion in other countries.
PE:
"Of what relevance are my (rather staggeringly ample) opinions on these issues? The POINT: Friedman took the Arab masses to task for these issues, but in fact it is the Western-supported Arab regimes which (1) depress press freedom; (2) underinvest in education; and (3) do not even attempt to reform their statist economies."
There is certainly some "Western" support for these regimes, but you are exaggerrating it. The US did not prop up Assad or Saddam Hussein, and these are the two worst examples of what Friedman was talking about. The streets of Damascus should be running with the blood of revolution.
Raskolnikov: I've no idea. With Egypt, it's the US aid that keeps Egypt from imploding; in the Gulf, the USA props up the regimes through military assistance.
Well, if Friedman was confining his comments to Syria and Iraq, that's rather tendentious.
But Saddam Hussein was armed by all sides during the 1970s and 1980s.
Syria has not received much support from the West, but I'm not sure in what way Syria could be called among the worst in the Arab world? Worse than Egypt, which has waged a very costly war against Islamists, and worse than Algeria, whose Western-supproted war against Islamists has cost 100 000 lives?
I support these regimes, by the way, in the sense that they are better than the most plausible alternatives. But the West supports them too.
The US did prop up Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. US foreign policy is based on expediency, not on principle. That's true of most countries of course.
My views are so subtle that lesser beings like you see contradictions where there are none.
Hahaha! Yes subtle indeed and advanced with great delicacy and caution.
Pelle, Pseuder:
Of course, the US supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Iran was considered a bigger threat to American interests at the time. There is nothing immoral or hypocritical about this.
Of course, it would be pretty foolhardy to suggest that the US has "propped up" Saddam Hussein during the last ten years.
Of course, the US supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Iran was considered a bigger threat to American interests at the time. There is nothing immoral or hypocritical about this.
yes, so what? The only thing of importance is that the West did support SH in the 1970s and 1980s.
PE:
"yes, so what? The only thing of importance is that the West did support SH in the 1970s and 1980s."
Why is that the thing of importance? Friedman's article concerned the events of today. You sound like a Palestinian Leftist, whining about obscure ancient wrongs while his kids get shot at.
Fielding, you keep wanting to change the focus of Friedman's "memo". He's wondering why the Arab masses don't want democracy and good things. I'm saying that the Arab masses do want democracy (if not Westernisation) because they feel the Arab elites are corrupt and bad for them; and if there is fear of democratisation in the Arab world, it's amongst the Arab elites and the Western governments that support them.
Then you said I exaggerate Western support because the West does not support Saddam Hussein. Then I mentioned that the West once did just that. Now, in the context of Friedman's "memo", what's relevant is that the West supported Saddam Hussein at one point, not that the Arab masses mysteriously failed to make democracy appear in Iraq.
Now, all this seemed to have made you defensive about Yankistan's purity. But there is no need for you to get defensive. I am not on some crusade to accuse Yankistan of hypocrisy. I am generally reactionary by nature and I find this Third-Worlist bably blame-the-West posture rather offensive and pinkoish.
Anile is a good one.
You say the Arab masses ("masses" is a typical left-wing word. Have you sinned when you were even younger?) want democracy. What about Algeria then?
PE:
"A leftist? I am greatly offended. I have more than four years' worth of record as a neoliberal number-crunching fascist in the Fray/Mote, and I'n not going to let some unknown newcomer say that I'm not."
No offense intended. It just seemed so unlike you to recite the litany of American injustices against the poor Arab Everyman. I half expected you to invoke the Great Satan. :)
To the extent that you can blame the US at all in a few Arab countries for propping up repressive post-cold war regimes in the face of popular democratic movements, there are plenty of examples of the US opposing repression. As I said earlier, it is a complex situation that does not lend itself to easy black and white sloganeering.
PE:
"Now, all this seemed to have made you defensive about Yankistan's purity. But there is no need for you to get defensive. I am not on some crusade to accuse Yankistan of hypocrisy. I am generally reactionary by nature and I find this Third-Worlist bably blame-the-West posture rather offensive and pinkoish."
It is rather silly. I'm probably more sympathetic to the "Palestinian cause" than you. (At least I was until a few months ago). I just get ill listening to people complain about how literacy and hospitals are part of the secret American plan to conquer the world and destroy local cultures. That was the basis for my original post.
Rask:
"What I do think is a valid criticism is that Friedman seems to be over-extrapolating Palestinian to mean "Arab". His examples mostly seem to be Palestinian, but his general conclusions are "Arab"."
There is a reason for this. Friedman is mostly writing about the Palestinians, who are so monomaniacally focused on pushing Israel to the sea that they are missing their opportunity to build a nation. Nonetheless, this message applies broadly beyond the Palestinians to the greater Arab world. Accordingly, he fudges the column a little bit, sometimes meaning just Palestine, others the larger Arab world. It may not be precise, but this is an Op/Ed piece, not a serious academic paper.
There can be no criticism of Friedman on my watch, dammit! :)
Message # 15739: When I say Arab masses want democracy, I don't mean they've become good 19th century liberals. They do want governments more reponsive to them, that is for sure. In Algeria, the Islamists want democracy because democracy in Algeria means radical Islamism.
Message # 15742: I don't think I cited any injustices against the poor Arab everyman.
To the extent that you can blame the US at all in a few Arab countries for propping up repressive post-cold war regimes in the face of popular democratic movements, there are plenty of examples of the US opposing repression. As I said earlier, it is a complex situation that does not lend itself to easy black and white sloganeering.
Message # 15743: It is rather silly. I'm probably more sympathetic to the "Palestinian cause" than you.
This is apropos to the subtlety thing that Pelle missed. I am not sympathetic to the Palestinian cause at all! If this were 1947-49, I would be, but in 2000 I am not at all. The Palestinians are perpertual unrealists who keep shooting themselves in the foot and making their situation worse for themselves. It is poetic justice that they are helping Sharon to get elected. It's time they woke up to the reality.
PE:
"I like to use anti-Western rhetoric when I'm arguing with guilt-ridden Western left-wingers."
Let me know when you find one. I like to tell macho right-wing cavemen that they sound like whiny Palestinian Leftists when they complain about the US preventing democracy.
There are a few in this thread and a veritable plenitude in TT.
No one has complained that the USA prevents democracy.
PE:
I guess now I can go back to kissing your ass and telling you how great you are. :)
PE: In Algeria, the Islamists want democracy because democracy in Algeria means radical Islamism.
Who was it that said "Words mean what I want them to mean"? The Queen in Alice?
It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is', is.
Brilliant. pseudoerasmus = HumptyDumpty
Even Iran has a limited democracy.
In your Message # 15745 you appear to (re)define democracy as "government being responsive to the masses".
Radical Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizbollah are indeed responsive providing basic social services, primary health care and so on, and that is a big factor in their appeal to the man in the street.
These groups operate at the micro-level but what about the macro-level? Are radical Islamic regimes, like in Iran or Libya, equally responsive? Frankly I don't know. What do you say, you've been around Iran a bit. And what about the Taliban?
I don't think you can infer from the absence of democracy that there is no interest in democracy.
I mean that the Arab masses want both an Islamist state and electoral democracy (i.e., a system in which elections by universal suffrage decide the nature and character of government).
I see no reason why those things must be contradictory.
In fact, if open elections were held in every Arab country today, I wager only Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, and the countries of the Arabian pensinula would go explicitly Islamist.
I'm tired of you and your incessant sniping and puerile, vacuous insults.
Vidi.
Message # 15767
If you are not going to bother posting on this site any more, nothing here will be worth reading. No-one else here knows the world nearly as intimately as you do.
Table Talk is rumored to be in its final days as well. These bright windows that lit up the world for me seem to be closing.
Excellent and informative debate here the past couple days. I will have to read that Friedman piece. The guy seems to be turning - he used to annoy me but seems to be making contact with his Jewish side.
As for the silly comparisons between Zionism and all those imaginary scenarios:
If the Romans had expelled all the Carthaginians (which I think they did) and the Carthaginians then became a wandering, homeless and abused people for 77 generations, and
if in the meantime Carthage was conquered by Islam, and
if the whole world, including the Muslims who conquered Carthage and their descendants, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the place they had conquered was the ancient homeland of the Carthaginians, who still existed and had no other homeland and yearned for their ancient homeland and prayed to their God next to the ruins of their ancient Temple, over which Islam had built a temple of its own, and
if the modern Carthaginians - who, though secularized and Europeanized still clung to the most basic tenets of their national religion, i.e. that they were a nation and that Carthage was their homeland - then initiated and led a national return to ancient Carthage, and
if there was an unparallelled atrocity committed on the Carthaginians in Europe, which made it quite clear that the Carthaginians had to have a homeland of their own, and swayed even many of the nations which had victimised the Carthaginians over the centuries to recognize New Carthage an accept it into the United Nations,
then I think the Muslims living in Carthage, who had never had independence anyways, and the entire Arab world as well, would have been smart to just let the Carthaginians have their little sliver of land.
>>>
>>>
But if they decided to try and drive them into the sea anyways - well, they could expect the Carthaginians to defend themselves at all cost. And
if they kept their fanatical Carthage-bashing up for generation after generation, and turned it into their raison d'etre, well - they could expect to keep eating shit from the Carthaginians and their allies, in bigger and bigger lumps. And
if the Carthaginians had nuclear weapons and the Muslims didn't -well, even if I sympathized with the Muslims' anger at the way the Carthaginians consistently made them look like total fools and exposed their culture for the backward creature it had become, I know what side I'd want to be on if I were an onlooker.
Quit kissing his ass. Big deal if PE has been to a lot of different countries. His demeanor is nasty and everyday his conceit gets worse. At one time I was fascinated with his travels and insights, but anymore, trying to converse with him is like pulling teeth. I'd rather read a book than suffer through his constipated moods.
These bright windows that lit up the world for me seem to be closing.
Suicide is painless, Sakko. You owe it to yourself.
RustlerPike -
Are you sitting there on occupied territory thinking about how easy suicide would be again? Maybe you should increase your dosage of anti-depressants or move back to Brooklyn.
Message # 15773
Undoubtedly, world history isn't as important or interesting to you as it is to me.
Jenerator: I've no idea why you think the fact that I don't like you, that I think you are less than human, that you are quite breathtakingly stupid, and that your beliefs are evil, speaks to my disposition. There are about six people in the Mote whom I dislike rather intensely and for whom I make no secret of my contempt. You are definitely one of them.
Rustler: the one flaw in your dithyrambic set of ifs is that you exaggerate the connexion and attachment with Palestine of a people most of whom had become completely secularised, assimilated and cut off from their native roots.
That is my understanding as well. Over Christmas, I met some Egyptian friends of my father's who said much the same thing: that the average Egyptian wants a democratic state in which they could vote in support of what strikes me as a theocracy. I've never understood how they could reconcile such seemingly disparate goals.
Yep, you really figured me out. I'm so disinterested in world history that I'm teaching it in high school. I always do that with subjects I'm bored with.
PE,
I really don't care what you think about me or my beliefs. All I know is that within the last year, I have seen what little presonality you have had melt into some sort of hybrid robot. Save your petty insults and misplaced condescension for your wife. No doubt she finds you infinitely more interesting than I do, or not.
Lately you've been ruder than normal and I'm sick of people kissing your puny ass. You're like one of those punks in grade school who everybody thought was a bad ass, so they thought better to appease than to provoke. Only later did they find out that that same punk wet the bed and was terrified of everyone, just like you.
Message # 15777
What you think of me has no bearing on what I think of you or on the value of what you say. You too must have learned valuable lessons from teachers who despised you.
By the way, the word is "uninterested", not "distinterested". If you are going to claim to be a teacher, you should know the difference.
not
...were too....
'You see Father, I'd rather one of yours dies than one of ours'.
The priest says, "Blind! What an inspiring story! I'm going to go back to my parish and immediately propose a new diocesan charity to raise money to encourage more blind golfers."
The minister says, "I'm going home immediately to re-write my next Sunday sermon, and tell my congregation this uplifting story."
The rabbi says, "What, they couldn't play at night?"
It's beside the point whether they were assimilated (except to Arab xenophobes), but you're mistaken about the extent of Jewish secularization and certainly the extent to which European Jews were denatured.
Take a look at the Pentateuch sometime, which per ancient ritual is read in every synagogue, from cover to cover, once yearly. The story of the Exodus, which is retold at home during Passover, concerns not just the deliverance of the "chosen people" out of Egyptian slavery or the receipt of the decalogue in the desert. It's the story of a protracted period of statelessness followed by the Israelites reaching the promised land. That's not some unspecified plot of desert, of course, it is Canaan, much later known as Palestine. This story is central to Judaism. It's required that the story be conveyed to every Jewish child, even those too dim to comprehend it. Since the 1950s, I think, it has been common practice for Jews--including my assimilated, agnostic family--to add to the traditional final Pesach prayer recitations the phrase, "Next year in Jerusalem!".
This stuff wasn't tacked onto the Jewish psyche sometime after 1948. Were that the case, the secular European socialists you assume had lost all connection to their homeland could never have succeeded in convincing other Jews that the "promised" land was theirs.
Pike is right that there are no suitable analogies for Zionism and the establishment of the modern State of Israel. It was not merely an eruption of separatist nationalist fervor out of Europe.
It's not like some enterprising utopianist faction of the Roma suddenly deciding to establish a state in ancestral India, which the Roma do not recall.
I was about to agree with you that Zionism has no suitable analogy, but then you mentioned the Roma and now I find them terribly apt. Zionism is as though the gypsies of the world gathered together to found a state in some random location in India.
It's beside the point whether they were assimilated (except to Arab xenophobes)
Xenophobia? I repeat my question: when does buying up land confer sovereign political rights on the buyer? When has it ever done in history?
ancestral India, which the Roma do not recall.
Well, they know about it now!
No, but the right of conquest has, and Isreal has conquered most efficiently.
Jonesatlaw, yes, I agree. Please see the bottom of #15627. But if the argument is from power and conquest -- which is valid -- then why do people find it necessary to make the argument from justice and fairness? I would not be bothering to dispute it if the argument is from power and conquest.
then why do people find it necessary to make the argument from justice and fairness?
Good question, do you have a theory that relates to the current topic?
That it does Jonesatlaw, that it does.
This is all I mean.
If it's all just a question of power and conquest -- good. There is no need then to embellish this story with moral justifications.
After the Armenian genocide, the Armenian diaspora didn't go found some new state in another people's country, they settled in dozens of countries and built new lives for themselves.
I don't see any reason for special pleading based on the Holoccaust.
Yes, that view is established. If I may, my post, if you were meaning to be involved with it, concerns itself with the human nature of fairness as it relates to the current topic here in International. Not that the theory will be taken as literal absolute, the objective is to posit some idea of the opposing people's policies. I would forward that Isreal has no historical basis to the land it inhabits. That Palistinians have a right gives me pause, but they do have a case to argue. The Isreali case is now quite abstract and I'm convinced the crisis has no resolution.
I'm sorry, please reference my post(15799) to PE's post 15796.
hmmm... I have to give this some research if I want to respond thoughtfully. Though I do want to know the background, I'll subscribe to what I've gleaned in here recently.
The Palistinians have been there for generations. Equating this to, say the Kurds, then it gives (me at least) some reference for placing the Palistinians in an occupied, nationhood. Not that the Kurds give an example of nationhood, but that they are in many ways living a parallel existence in terms of refugee/ism. What I mean by occupied nationhood, is the Palistinians themselves give vociferous claim to nationhood and sovereignty to land. This in contrast to the Isrealis, whose claim is mandated, whose right is by conquest, whose reality is abstractly supported by such as the U.S.
If we rely on the rights of the existing inhabitants to band together to create nations based on their collective rights and culture, then we have a more complex split than we already acknowledge. The Jews are divided among observant and non-observant. The Palestinians are divided between Christian and Muslim, and a few Bedouin thrown in for good measure. Should we then be talking about a division of Jews on the one hand and everybody else on the other? Or is some acknowledgement of the further minorities in the Palestinian camp in order?
Good questions. My bias is on the one hand, to give support to a people who have been thrown to the wind, an analogy could be drawn by comparing the Palestinians to Native Americans. I'm sorry it's far fetched but it has some small comaparative value to say that the Palestinians are hurled about, as were the Natives in America. Then, perhaps on the other hand, this gives logical progression to what history has dealt the Native American, is just for the Palestinian. Say that they are given set boundried "reservations", land they must govern, but have exist within the context of another nation, namely Isreal.
My view of divisions within a state, is that it's natural and is in no way to be argument for dividing up a nation.
Well, while the historical claim by Isreal is ancient, it is nonetheless factual that Jews are a people who held this territory as their national state.
Well, their ancestors did anyway. This is if we deem the ancestors and descendants to be always the same people. But then since Palestinian Arabs are also descended from Semitic peoples of ancient Caanan, including Jews, we might make the same claim for them.
The Palestinian claim is more personal than national.
Meaningless.
Without ever having established a Palestinian nation, how does one claim justice and fairness demand that the latest conqueror create one, or acquiece in its creation?
I don't see why the one follows the other. Why must a Palestinian state have once existed for the Palestinians to demand one today? It is not as though the Arabs of Palestine had never had a state they had recognised as legimitimate and their own. The Ottomans, the Abbasids, the Ummayads -- these were all legitimate rulers of Arab Palestine, in the eyes of the Arab locals.
PE or Jonesatlaw,
Where will your view of Isreali nationhood be founded? Is it the abstract support of outside nations like the U.S. and the mandate which, I myself see as its base for nationhood? What else could their rationale be? Emotional connection? Which we agree is not a basis for nationhood.
I've left out conquest. That I agreed with before.
Is my post 15815 western bias? U.S.A. ego?
and who is Pelle talking about in the Quiz thread, naming which Motie has the other Scottish clan name?
The distinction I was trying to draw is that of some recognition of nationhood and rights flowing from it and those of the individuals. There is no Palestinian state, and I would argue therefore no "Palestinian People."
And this is an idiotic legalism.
But what makes them different from say, Jordanians?
What makes Americans different from Canadians? Or Australians from New Zealanders?
Are you so provincial as to believe all political states are nationally cohesive and unique?
Is there something cultural, linguistic, political or something else that binds them together? I don't doubt that Israel denies them their rights in many respects, but is this their sole claim to a separate existence?
Why are you asking me this question? What difference does an answer to this question make?
The Palestinian Arabs want a separate state on the land they have lived on forever. That's all that is necessary.
If I were a Palestinian Arab, I would consider Jordan my ethnic state and would be content that the West Bank be reunited with Jordan, just as if I were a Turkish Cypriot I would not demand a separate Turkish Cypriot state but demand unification with Turkey.
I doubt that it is, in part because I can't see Palestinians accepting an existence under Israeli control even if their rights were as vindicated as those of Israeli citizens.
You can't really be this naive and silly. The Palestinians don't want to be part of Israel because they want to Palestinians to be ruling Palestinians (and the Israelis don't want them either!).
I would argue that Isreal's best and most legitimate claim arises from the bootstrapping of the creation of the state. A significant number of people in the area claimed self determination and achieved it by force of arms. They were inhabitants of the land no less than their neighbors. To deny their claim of sovereignty on the basis that the land was purchased begs the question. What would be the basis for a Palestinian claim? Did they not purchase their land, or have it granted them by a sovereign?
Is there something more worthy of a grant from Ankara than London?
Plenty of extrabiblical sources as well, and tangible material, but you know that perfectly well.
"Jerusalem was nothing but an abstract place for the vast majority of Jews. Just words."
"America" is an abstract place for half the world's dreamy immigrants, just a repository for the idea of freedom. Zion was no different. But people manage to realize abstractions all the time, even when these sit on top of rather different realities; that is what Palestinian Islamists are doing now with regard to the Temple Mount. It's just that Jews have at least as great a claim on the site and on the city it's in.
Nonsense, the Roma may come from India but they have no tradition (that either of us knows of) connecting them to it. This simply goes to your point that Jews had become deracinated and retained no connection to Palestine, which is not true. Jews, whatever their level of observance or assimilation, have an unbroken tradition of belief in their national origins being in Canaan (Palestine). That belief is well supported archaeologically and in extrabiblical texts; it really isn't disputable.
Had the Roma maintained a comparable identity, that is, one linked to origins, and had there been enough of them, I'd say that after the Holocaust they might ought to have followed the Jewish example.
"Xenophobia? I repeat my question: when does buying up land confer sovereign political rights on the buyer? When has it ever done in history?"
I didn't say it did, so I don't really understand your inquisitorial segue. In fact I pretty much agree with your moral calculus about the wrong done to Palestinian Arabs prior to 1948 (probably for slightly different reasons). That doesn't mean Arabs weren't anti-european xenophobes then, just as they are now. It's just that back when Palestine was ruled by Europeans, they had better reason to be anti-european xenophobes.
They claim they came to the region from Arabia, but I have no idea whether there's any independent support for this idea.
In fact, some portion of them must be Arabised Jews.
I'm not surprised by your response, given that you can't tell a Canuck from an Yank or Kiwi.
Here is the crux of the problem. Both states are predicated that one must be ruled by a person of the same "tribe" as oneself. I don't acknowledge such a right. I don't believe in ethnic identity as a political right in and of itself. Americans, Canadians and others in modern immigrant states have forged an identity as a people surrounding a political culture, and not as a matter of bloodlines. To the extent that Israel is aided by the fact that it was created by armed rebellion/resistance it is a legitimate expression of the political will of the inhabitants of Palestine. To the extent that it denies Palestinians or Israeli Arabs the same rights as other citizens, it is illegitimate. To the extent that it occupies the West Bank and Gaza over the objections of the people there, and excludes them from either citizenship or self determination, it is equally illegitimate. IOW, it is not a historical claim, nor reparations for past wrongs, that can justify either sides claim to sovereignty. It is the consent of the governed, either express or implied and the recognition and vindication of their personal human rights.
Time.
"I would argue that Isreal's best and most legitimate claim arises from the bootstrapping of the creation of the state. A significant number of people in the area claimed self determination and achieved it by force of arms. They were inhabitants of the land no less than their neighbors. To deny their claim of sovereignty on the basis that the land was purchased begs the question. What would be the basis for a Palestinian claim? Did they not purchase their land, or have it granted them by a sovereign? Is there something more worthy of a grant from Ankara than London?"
The quality of their beer, in roughly reverse order.
I would argue that Isreal's best and most legitimate claim arises from the bootstrapping of the creation of the state. A significant number of people in the area claimed self determination and achieved it by force of arms.
You don't seem to be getting it. If the argument is from force and conquest, then I have no counterargument. If the argument is from things like territorial rights, then I have counterarguments.
To deny their claim of sovereignty on the basis that the land was purchased begs the question.
I did not say this. I said that it is unreasonable for foreigners to buy real estate, settle on it, and then expect to possess sovereign political rights within the span of a generation or two. Also the UN partition plan was unfair.
I repeat this question: if the Japanese bought 95% of Hawaiian real estate, have the Japanese right to annex the state? (Of course, 95% is generous: Zionist settlers owned no more than 10% of the land apportioned to them under the UN partition plan).
What would be the basis for a Palestinian claim?
Antiquity and ethnic territoriality. They'd lived there continuously for ever. The Jordan valley area is/was ethnically Arab land.
Nonsense, the Roma may come from India but they have no tradition (thateither of us knows of) connecting them to it. This simply goes to your point that Jews had become deracinated and retained no connection to Palestine, which is not true. Jews, whatever their level of observance or assimilation, have an unbroken tradition of belief in their national origins being in Canaan (Palestine). That belief is well supported archaeologically and in extrabiblical texts; it really isn't disputable.
But I didn't dispute that European Jews of the 19th & 20th centuries are descendants of ancient Canaanites.
My point was that a few lines and incantations make but a very tenuous cultural connexion. That a "tradition" (translation: a very very vague memory) exists, that a "homeland" is claimed, does not establish a right to that piece of land on which the homeland stood 2000 years earlier. In most respects, the Jews of Europe were European in culture, education, custom and habit. That they remembered that Canaan was their homeland does not confer a group of Europeans a territorial right to Canaan today.
As for the Roma, no, they haven't a tradition of India as their homeland. But educated gypsies certainly know about India today. If they established a tradition over the next two hundred years or more, they can then suddenly carve out a state out of the Indian Union?
"America" is an abstract place for half the world's dreamy immigrants, just a repository for the idea of freedom. Zion was no different.
How does this help your point? No one claims that the world's immigrants have a right to immigrate to America.
They claim they came to the region from Arabia, but I have no idea whether there's any independent support for this idea.
Well, it's impossible that all or even most of them came from Arabia. They didn't. The vast majority of the peoples of the present Arab countries outside the Arabian peninsula are descendants of indigneous peoples who were Arabised.
Message # 15824
But isn't it nominally a Hashemite kingdom?
Imagine I said: England is an English kingdom, and Jones said: but isn't England a Windsor kingdom? What are you doing in this thread if you don't know a Hashemite is?
Here is the crux of the problem. Both states are predicated that one must be ruled by a person of the same "tribe" as oneself. I don't acknowledge such a right. I don't believe in ethnic identity as a political right in and of itself. Americans, Canadians and others in modern immigrant states have forged an identity as a people surrounding a political culture, and not as a matter of bloodlines.
Well, who gives a fuck about Americans, Canadians, Australians, etc. Ethnicity is still real in the world.
It's called the Hashemite kingdom only because of Jordan's ruling house. The Hashemites, who had come from Arabia, were formly rulers of Mecca.
Colored by the recent devolution of your homeland? Only those Oragemen seem to be keen on Empire these days.
The point is that if the argument against Isreal is ethnic, it concedes the legitimacy of the ethnic Israeli claim. Then one must go to the historical claim.
If it is historic, then it is subject to being trumped by a earlier Israeli claim. Only if one rejects the common notion of "first in time, first in right" can the historical case be made. Then one is left with more recent in time, first in right. Now, Israel can argue both sides of that coin and be correct. Only if one can pare it down to- "most recent in time, first in right, and most recent doesn't count for X years" can you make a claim on the land historically.
Colored by the recent devolution of your homeland? Only those Oragemen seem to be keen on Empire these days.
???
The point is that if the argument against Isreal is ethnic, it concedes the legitimacy of the ethnic Israeli claim.
No it doesn't. "Ethnic Israelis" are a recent intrusive element, except for a handful of Jews who had always been in Jerusalem on welfare from diaspora Jewry. The idea that recent immigrants can claim sovereign political status is offensive to common sense and practise.
If it is historic, then it is subject to being trumped by a earlier Israeli claim.
What "Israeli claim"? There is no Israeli claim. Yiddish-, Russian- , German- and Polish-speaking Jews of the 19th century had almost nothing to do with the ancient Hebrews, except for a few lines in some scripture whose language they didn't speak. The continuity between the ancestor and descendant peoples was theoretical and abstract. In essence, the Hebrew nation had ceased to exist, just like the Phoenicians or the Hittites. The modern Israeli identity is a recent invention.
If a bunch of people suddenly revived the Hittite language and claimed a piece of territory in Turkey, I wouldn't recognise their claim either.
Then one is left with more recent in time, first in right. Now, Israel can argue both sides of that coin and be correct.
I keep telling you: I am arguing as though this is 1947-49. I don't question the legitimacy of the State of Israel TODAY. How many times do I have to say this?
In 1880-1900, the Arabs of Palestine had been living in Palestine forever. The ownership of this territory could be considered tripartite: (1) economic, i.e., individual parcels of land were owned by individual Arabs; (2) political: the Ottoman empire had political sovereignty over the territory, a sovereignty recognised by the locals; and (3) ethnic-cultural: Palestine belonged ethnically and culturally to its Arab inhabitants. #3 is the most important consideration.
Contrary to what Rustler claimed, the Jewish people had not survived as a distinct cultural unit. You could speak of the cultural characteristics of Polish Jews, or of German Jews, or of Greek Jews, or Jews living in Muslim lands, but there was no unity to this grouping akin to what we normally recognise as an ethnic and cultural unit. In 1900 a German Jew had a lot more in common with a gentile German than with a Russian Jew let alone with a Yemeni Jew. What they might have had in common were some religious practises and a memory of a common ancestral homeland. In other words, what survived was the Jewish religion, not the Jewish ethnos (which is more than a matter of genetic ancestry). The Jewish ethnos went the same way as the Hitties or the Phoenicians.
Now, you have a bunch of Russian and Polish Jews arriving in Palestine, an ethnically and culturally Arab land; buying up some land; and within 2 generations declaring a separate statehood. This is completely unreasonable. Palestine was traditional Arab land. It may have been traditionally Hebrew land, but the Hebrew nation had long ago ceased to exist.
Nonsense. 1. There was a continuity of religious belief and practice.
2. The educated did at least read the language and some spoke it. although it was not the language they used in day to day communication. Besides, were'nt you the one making the case above that not all nationalities are culturally cohesive?
3. There is genetic evidence to refute the idea of Jews as not having a separate identity in that European Jews share predispositions to certain genetic defects in contrast to the surrounding European peoples they lived among.
4. Comparing the occupation by the Ottoman Turks to self government or self determiniation is beyond stupid. The political precendent is for Ankara to be in charge.
This is merely argument by assertion. Palestine "belonged" to the Arabs culturally? Which culture- Christian Orthodox, Maronite Catholic, Nomadic Arab Muslims, settled arabized Muslims? How did their presence grant them this ownership? Sovereignty was foreign and had always been so since the days of the Hebrews. Land ownership? The Zionists owned their lands, too. Two generations is not enough? How many then are necessary for the land to belong to someone. What if outside forces compel you to share your land? Did Palestine belong to the Crusaders?
Nonsense. 1. There was a continuity of religious belief and practice.
A religion does not an ethnicity make. If it were otherwise, we should be able to claim that El Salvadorans, East Timorese, Austrians, and Goans are one people based on their shared Roman Catholicism. As I said, a nominally Jewish German of 1900 shared much much more with gentile Germans than with Jewish Yemenites or even with Jewish Russians.
Besides, were'nt you the one making the case above that not all nationalities are culturally cohesive?
No, that was not me. I said political states are not necessarily politically cohesive. Why is that Yankistanis always confuse state and nation?
3. There is genetic evidence to refute the idea of Jews as not having a separate identity in that European Jews share predispositions to certain genetic defects in contrast to the surrounding European peoples they lived among.
I do not dispute, and have never disputed, that most Jews are genetically descended from ancient Hebrews. I have even advanced this idea several times myself in various venues, and vigorously defend its validity. But since when does "identity" equal "common genetic ancestry"?
4. Comparing the occupation by the Ottoman Turks to self government or self determiniation is beyond stupid. The political precendent is for Ankara to be in charge.
I didn't compare Ottoman "occupation" to self-government or self-determination. I have no idea where you got this chestnut from.
By the way, Ankara became the capital of the Republic of Turkey in 1924, when the Ottoman empire had been abolished for several years. Get your history straight.
Palestine "belonged" to the Arabs culturally? Which culture-Christian Orthodox, Maronite Catholic, Nomadic Arab Muslims, settled arabized Muslims?
The distance between Levantine Muslim Arab culture and Levantine Christian Arab culture is much much less than between (say) German Jewish culture and Yemeni Jewish culture. In fact the difference between Christian and Muslim Arab cultures is slight. Muslim and Christian Arabs living in the same area eat the same foods, speak the same language, wear the same clothes, etc.
How did their presence grant them this ownership?
They just lived there. That's it. A particular ethnos lives in a territory for a long time and that territory becomes associated with that ethnos, i.e., it becomes their traditional land. That's the way it is all over the world, and this idea is recognised by everybody.
Sovereignty was foreign and had always been so since the days of the Hebrews.
Did you miss point #2 of #15838? But sovereignty had NOT always been foreign. The Ottomans did not take the area until the 14th century or so. Before that you had Arabs ruling Palestine from Damascus.
Land ownership? The Zionists owned their lands, too. Two generations is not enough? How many then are necessary for the land to belong to someone.
Are you being deliberately obtuse? In an economic sense, you own property the moment you buy it legally. But, as I now say for the nth time, that does NOT mean that economic control of land rightfully confers upon foreign owners political control of the land! Where does it EVER happen that ownership implies sovereign political rights for the owners???? Why don't you stop being such a cloaca and answer the question: if the Japanese bought up 99% of the real estate in Los Angeles or Hawaii, would they have a reasonable claim to the political annexation of LA or Hawaii? No, of course, they wouldn't.
land ownership does not, in any custom or law that I know of, imply sovereign political rights. why the exception in the case of Palestine.
Before the founding of the state of Israel, there was no such thing as a unitary Jewish culture.
You might, at best, speak of Ashkenazi and Sephardic and Asian Jewish cultures, but even that's a stretch. When most people talk about Ashkenazi culture, they mean the culture of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian Jews.
political states are not necessarily ETHNICALLY cohesive, as the USA, Canada, Australia, Russia and Israel show.
Pe:
I do not dispute, and have never disputed, that most Jews are genetically descended from ancient Hebrews.
A couple of years back you did dispute that, Pe, and then someone (slaterdr9?) linked to Prof. Ethan Vishniac's website, and only then did you accept that the Jews were indeed a single nation, in the genetic sense. You had earlier claimed that anyone looking at the various Jewish 'types' in Israel could see that they were not genetic relatives.
Yiddish-, Russian- , German- and Polish-speaking Jews of the 19th century had almost nothing to do with the ancient Hebrews, except for a few lines in some scripture whose language they didn't speak.
Those 'few lines' you speak of are in fact thousands of lines in the Bible and other holy books. The centrality of Zion in Judaism is so patently obvious and well known that I am starting to doubt your sincerity in this debate. Fuck - are there less than a billion people in this world who are familiar with the phrases 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem...' or 'By the rivers of Babylon...'?
The continuity between the ancestor and descendant peoples was theoretical and abstract.
Again - totally untrue. Being Jewish requires that you are born of a Jewish mother, and there is every reason to believe the matrilineal link was strictly maintained. As you may know, converting into Judaism is not easy and not very common.
Jews don't just know that they were descended from ancient Jews. They even know whether or not they are descended from Kohanim or Levites. That is a direct link, not only to the ancient Jewish nation but to specific castes within that nation. The distinction between Kohanim and non-Kohanim is of the utmost importance in Judaism, and not just to the religious: Kohanim - secular or not - are buried in separate plots in the Jewish cemeteries and are forbidden from marrying divorcees.
>>>
(The above is especially relevant because even secular Jews generally marry and bury according to religious practice).
But the ethnic connection is even more real for the religious (and the early Zionists were no more than a single generation away from their religious heritage in any case, and well aware of its basic tenets - which they realized through Zionism, the modern sublimation of messianic Judaism). The daily prayers involve different roles for Kohanim, Levites, and the rest (referred to as 'Israel' by the siddurim or prayer books).
Jewish religion is founded upon the premise of continuity. How could a phrase like 'the Chosen People' (to choose one you may be familiar with) have meaning otherwise? Why all those genealogical lists in the Bible? Why all the commandments and admonitions addressed to 'your children and your children's children'? Have you ever read the Bible? Do you know what it is about?
Really Pe, either you speak from total ignorance of the Jewish faith or you are deliberately distorting.
In essence, the Hebrew nation had ceased to exist, just like the Phoenicians or the Hittites. The modern Israeli identity is a recent invention.
So who invented it and why? And how could such an artificial invention succeed in accomplishing such an impossible task? Do you have any idea how difficult the Zionist venture was? It was viewed by 'rational' Jews and non-Jews - people like you - as lunacy!
>>>
>>>
You seem to think a couple of rich Jews just 'bought up' the land. Well, you're wrong. Zionism was a fervent belief, a religion for all intents and purposes. It was something people died for, whether in battle or from disease. The Jewish pioneers did much more than buy land. They claimed it and plowed it and dried up the swamps and cultivated it and brought in technology and fought the elements and defended the land and above all believed, believed in an ideal - something which you may be incapable of, and therefore unable to comprehend.
Rustler:
"I will have to read that Friedman piece. The guy seems to be turning - he used to annoy me but seems to be making contact with his Jewish side."
I don't think that this has anything to do with Friedman's "Jewish side." I think it has everything to do with frustration over Arafat's intransigence.
PE:
"My point was that a few lines and incantations make but a very tenuous cultural connexion."
Reductio ad absurdum. For many Jews around the world, their conection to Israel is little more than a few lines and incantations, with a dollop perhaps of ethnic jingoism. But for many other Jews, these "lines and incantations" are the most important things in their lives. A sizable number of Jews recite these lines and incantation every day of their life.
PE:
"Contrary to what Rustler claimed, the Jewish people had not survived as a distinct cultural unit. You could speak of the cultural characteristics of Polish Jews, or of German Jews, or of Greek Jews, or Jews living in Muslim lands, but there was no unity to this grouping akin to what we normally recognise as an ethnic and cultural unit."
Again, this is an oversimplification. There were/are plenty of commonalities among Jewish diaspora, including language, religion, drss, rituals, etc. Jewish diaspora may not represent a perfect cultural unity like Japan, or a perfect biological unity like Iceland, but that doesn't mean that their ethnic commonalities do not exist.
I wasn't taking a position on the debate. I was taking a position on oversimplification of complexity.
That isn't a "right" which is claimed by Rustler Pike, as far as I know. He is saying that the Jews have an undeniable and profound connection with Palestine which made that place the only plausible site for the re-establishment of a Jewish state. That state was a historical necessity for the Jewish people, who at the end of the 19th century were facing permanent subjugation in Europe and by the mid-twentieth were staring down the barrel of annihilation.
If people have rights at all, they have the right to survive. How much more moral justifcation do you guys think the Jews needed?
On the heels of the Kosovo victory, Clinton said it proved "that a sustained air campaign, under the right conditions, can stop an army on the ground." Such claims have been a staple of airpower devotees since the 1920s. American defense professionals, in particular, spent decades tantalizing themselves with the prospect of winning wars through bombing alone. The problem is, they'd always been wrong. Until Kosovo.
But if Kosovo showed that airpower--and, in particular, its stealth and precision components--can win wars, it also showed that "smart bombs" are only as smart as their users. This was not, after all, the first time the Clinton administration used airpower--just the first time it did so successfully. With their earlier fusillades against Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, the Clintonites had invited Americans to indulge in the conceit that military technology obviates the need for strategic thinking. In Kosovo, they finally learned the importance of using both.
cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should be excluded from the limits demanded. The wording is ambiguous. Where is the southern endpoint of this line? On the map shown in the linked document it continues south so that Palestine west of the Jordan river becomes part of the excluded area. However, in 1939, a joint Arab-British committee said that this was not necessarily the correct conclusion (you have to go down a bit in the document).
I can only echo Pike's distrust of your sincerety. Either he's right or you're displaying the single most gaping lacuna in your erudition that I've seen in four years.
"In other words, what survived was the Jewish religion, not the Jewish ethnos (which is more than a matter of genetic ancestry). The Jewish ethnos went the same way as the Hitties or the Phoenicians."
Really? Let's line up Hittites and Phoenicians on one side of the room and Jews on the other and see who makes the more convincing demonstration on behalf of his cultural continuity.
I can only echo Pike's distrust of your sincerety. Either he's right or you're displaying the single most gaping lacuna in your erudition that I've seen in four years.
"In other words, what survived was the Jewish religion, not the Jewish ethnos (which is more than a matter of genetic ancestry). The Jewish ethnos went the same way as the Hitties or the Phoenicians."
Really? Let's line up Hittites and Phoenicians on one side of the room and Jews on the other and see who makes the more convincing demonstration on behalf of his cultural continuity.
Yawn. Let's put it this. The Jewish connexion to Judaism is no greater, surely, than the Muslim connexion to Mecca. Yet I would not recognise that the latter gave sanction for Muslims from around the world to settle in and around Mecca and then to found a state around it.
The connexion of most Muslims with Mecca is theoretical. They may pray in its direction, its name may fill up every liturgy and prayer, it may be central to the religion, but most Muslims have never been there, the customs of the inhabitants of the region of Mecca are foreign to most Muslims, etc. The Muslim connexion with Mecca is abstract and theoretical.
The same with the modern Jewish connexion with Jerusalem or with ancient Israel.
"Palestine was traditional Arab land. It may have been traditionally Hebrew land, but the Hebrew nation had long ago ceased to exist."
And then it mysteriously resurrected itself by means that must remain opaque for one who has never troubled to read the Old Testament--or any of the voluminous commentary on it that informs Jewish culture--but is convinced that the Jewish ethnos is a modern invention.
"But since when does "identity" equal "common genetic ancestry"?"
When both identity and genetic ancestry are maintained over time by separation of a group from surrounding cultures, you can assume that identity usually equals common genetic ancestry.
Zionism asserts the right to self-determination for Jews. From its standpoint: just who are you to say European Jews had a significantly different "ethnos," for purposes of Jewish nationhood, than those living in the East? You're just another non-Jew with no claim whatsoever on the right to define Jewishness--as ethnicity, religion, nationality, or anything else.
A couple of years back you did dispute that, Pe, and then someone (slaterdr9?) linked to Prof. Ethan Vishniac's website, and only then did you accept that the Jews were indeed a single nation, in the genetic sense. You had earlier claimed that anyone looking at the various Jewish 'types' in Israel could see that they were not genetic relatives.
So you are criticising me for bending to evidence? I thought that was a praiseworthy act!
Besides, why should I accept the claim of genetic relatedness amongst a people of disparate physical appearances and culures without scientific evidence?
RP, as your greater elaboration on the genetic descent of modern Jews from ancient Hebrews, as I said before, genetic descent alone cannot licence a modern territorial claim.
You seem to think a couple of rich Jews just 'bought up' the land.
No, I don't. If you think so, you haven't been reading, since the linchpin of the criticism of Zionism was that Zionists bought land to work the land themselves and dispossessed the tenant farmers.
But the number and economic status of buyers of land is irrelevant.
The Jewish pioneers did much more than buy land. They claimed it and plowed it and dried up the swamps and cultivated it and brought in technology and fought the elements and defended the land
I repeat: buying land does not confer upon the buyer sovereign political rights. The amount of development on that land doesn't change this picture.
And yet Levantine Muslims and Christians fought a protracted civil war over control of Lebanon just as soon as the Muslims outnumbered the Xtians, whereas your culturally atomised Jews made a nation on the basis of something you seemingly can't perceive and therefore consider unreal. Is reality wrong, or is it your excessively tidy understanding of what makes a people that is flawed?
"A particular ethnos lives in a territory for a long time and that territory becomes associated with that ethnos, i.e., it becomes their traditional land."
And then if that ethnos gets (mostly) expelled and in the course of time becomes altered in any way, it forfeits forever its connection to the traditional land? Oh, well.
"land ownership does not, in any custom or law that I know of, imply sovereign political rights. why the exception in the case of Palestine."
But no one is arguing this, or that your theoretical Japanese should have sovereignty over LA. (Except that you seem to be arguing that Arab land ownership somehow conferred soverign political rights on indigenous Pals ruled by Brits!) What has been argued is that a distinct people with nationalist aspirations and a significant albeit recent presence in a place from which it originated has more of right to make its state there than in places where that people has no origins, property, or inalienable rights.
"If Eastern Euroepean Jews had tried to carve out a homeland in Eastern Europe, where they have a longstanding cultural presence, I think that would have been quite legitimate."
You're being absurd. The "repatriation" of Liberia preceded the first Palestinian yishuv (that movement of religious Russian Jews who fled the Pale in 1882) by 60 years. Was Liberia, an African territory taken over by American slave emigrants seeking freedom and self-determination, where English was declared the official language and the de-Africanized newcomers expanded the fledgling territory through purchases financed from abroad, illegitimate? Should it have been established in Mississippi?
My posts Message # 15860, Message # 15863 and Message # 15868 should hang together.
You must be joking. Other than a shared religion (which was not uniformly shared), there were NO commonalities amongst a German Jew, a Yemeni Jew and a Bukharan Jew. Dress and language? Fielding, you've gone off the deep end.
Message # 15856: I see no moral justification in that all. What I see is argument from force cloaked by a moral justification.
(1) A 19th century European Jew's connexion with Jerusalem was abstract and theoretical.
(2) That an independent Jewish state was a historical necessity for the Jewish people (a proposition I do not necessarily accept, by the way) does not overcome the obstacle that sovereign political rights do not accompany purchases of land.
When both identity and genetic ancestry are maintained over time by separation of a group from surrounding cultures, you can assume that identity usually equals common genetic ancestry.
The identity was NOT maintained. That Europeanised Jews preserved many religious practises from the time of ancient Israel is not an argument. Such an argument would be equivalent to saying Catholics or Arabs of different national backgrounds the right to found a state of their own somewhere.
just who are you to say European Jews had a significantly different "ethnos," for purposes of Jewish nationhood, than those living in the East? You're just another non-Jew with no claim whatsoever on the right to define Jewishness--as ethnicity, religion, nationality, or anything else.
My right comes from the observation of fact: in the late 19th century, the Jewish communities of the world shared no more in common with one another than Catholics or Muslims shared with one another.
And yet Levantine Muslims and Christians fought a protracted civil war over control of Lebanon just as soon as the Muslims outnumbered the Xtians, whereas your culturally atomised Jews made a nation on the basis of something you seemingly can't perceive and therefore consider unreal. Is reality wrong, or is it your excessively tidy understanding of what makes a people that is flawed?
Not really. It is YOUR understanding of Lebanon's civil war that is excessively tidy.
When Lebanon was founded, first as a colony separate from Greater Syria, and then as a separate state, the Christians were given an uper hand in the state. This caused tensions between Christians and Muslims. Later, the introduction of the PLO (after its expulsion from Jordan) broke the fragile situation in Lebanon.
Besides, how does the Lebanese civil war argue that the fact that Levantine Muslims and Christians share a common culture, other than religion?
The Jews of the world shared nothing but a common religion.
I don't think my picture of what makes a people is tiday at all. It is yours that is excessively simple and tidy: all these people are related by blood, and they share a religion. Presto! Forget the 800 languages and cultures contained therein, they are a people!
Actually, I have no particular problem with this view. I'm not arguing about the situation in 2000, but the one before the founding of Israel.
Except that you seem to be arguing that Arab land ownership somehow conferred soverign political rights on indigenous Pals ruled by Brits!
No, but the Pals had lived in Palestine for the longest time, continuously. And such a situation anywhere else in the world would be recognised as conferring sovereign political rights on the inhabitants.
What has been argued is that a distinct people with nationalist aspirations and a significant albeit recent presence in a place from which it originated has more of right to make its state there than in places where that people has no origins, property, or inalienable rights.
The people wasn't distinct; the nationalist aspirations were a fantasy; and the "significant presence" was intrusive.
PE:
"You must be joking. Other than a shared religion (which was not uniformly shared), there were NO commonalities amongst a German Jew, a Yemeni Jew and a Bukharan Jew. Dress and language? Fielding, you've gone off the deep end."
Perhaps I have gone off the deep end. Nonetheless, I should point out that be dress I meant things like yarmulkes and tefillin. As for language, I am not talking about native tongue, but rather Hebrew, which I understand was spoken in Germany, Yemen and Bukhara (indeed, by Jews throughout the world). I find it telling that when the State of Israel was founded, the national language chosen was not Yiddish (which would support your view), but rather Hebrew.
PE:
"The Jewish connexion to Judaism is no greater, surely, than the Muslim connexion to Mecca."
??? Perhaps you mean to substitute "Jerusalem" for "Judaism".
"Yet I would not recognise that the latter gave sanction for Muslims from around the world to settle in and around Mecca and then to found a state around it."
I thought that Muslims had settled in and around Mecca and then founded a state around it.
I thought your posts were great; thanks for taking the time to put them together.
Do you and Sto use the conversation function?
I'm ashamed to say I haven't learnt how to use it properly. I know how to put one together but not how to link to it.
Hebrew was only a liturgical language until the Zionist movement revived it. The Asian and European Jews who came to Israel didn't speak it!
I still don't see commonalities amongst Bukharan, German and Yemeni Jews other than a religion. And even in the realm of religion, things betray their different national customs.
Message # 15877: I thought that Muslims had settled in and around Mecca and then founded a state around it.
Can you really have missed the point? Would Muslims from Indonesia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, etc. rightfully have a claim to settle in or around Mecca? No.
I'm saying that the Jewish claim to Jerusalem is like the Muslim claim to Mecca.
Well, most people seem to accept that the wishes of the majority within a given territory are of great significance; and simultaneously accept the rights of recent intrusive elements are inferior.
Take for example Tibet. Most people would agree that Tibetans have the right of national self-determination, and that somehow Beijing settlement of ethnic Chinese in Tibet constitutes a violation of Tibetan rights.
People recognise this moral calculus everywhere, it seems, except in Palestine!
"If Eastern Euroepean Jews had tried to carve out a homeland in Eastern Europe, where they have a longstanding cultural presence, I think that would have been quite legitimate." You're being absurd.
No, I'm not being absurd. I'm being realistic. Eastern European Jews would have a more legitimate claim to a separate state in their indigenous areas in Eastern Europe than in Palestine. That the idea was totally unrealistic does not make it absurd.
Depends on what the indigenous people of "Liberia" felt about it.
Message # 15870: PE, what you keep missing--incredibly--is that Europeans (certainly in 1800s, and no less afterwards) would never have considered a European Jewish homeland legitimate.
I haven't missed this point; I accept it. But whether they would have accepted it or not, is irrelevant. I'm saying that a separate Eastern European Jewish state in Eastern Europe would have had legitimacy, as a matter of fact.
Besides, I think you exaggerate the European Jewish interest in a separate homeland (regardless of its location) before the 1930s. Most Jews were not thinking of emigrating until then.
It is NOT my personal definition. That a particular land is traditionally associated by inhabitance with a particular ethnos, is universally recognised, at least in theory.
That the Arabs violated the rights of Jews in the Arab countries, does not change the picture. Both the European Jews were wrong about Palestine and the Arabs of Yemen were wrong about Yemeni Jews.
No, I'm not being absurd. I'm being realistic
should be
No, I'm not being absurd. I'm being FACTUAL.
I agree that it is foolish to think that a German Jew in the 19th century had more in common with a Yemeni Jew than with other Germans. Religion, after all, is only a small part of most peoples lives.
On the other hand I think there is a sense of Jewishness which is stronger than say the sense of Swedishness felt by a third-generation Swede in the US, which I suspect is zero even if he or she retains some Swedish customs when it comes to things like food and ceremonial events.
I need to get cracking on the appearance of the page, but it's easy enough to link in. On the "Add Posts" page, there is a link called "View Conversation". Click that, and that's the URL you use.
A 19th century European Jew's connexion with Jerusalem was abstract and theoretical.
Perhaps, but it was also profound and highly emotional. You seem not to have any grasp of what religious feeling is, Pe. Have you ever been to church? A deeply devout Muslim friend of mine from Umm El Fahm has never been to Mecca, but he listens to the prayer sessions live from Mecca via RealPlayer every day. Why should he? If he were a rational Pseudoerastoid creature he could open the window and listen to the very same prayers from Umm El Fahm's minarets. But we are not all rational Pseudoerastoids! Some of us are intense emotional and ideological Middle Easterners!
Other than a shared religion (which was not uniformly shared), there were NO commonalities amongst a German Jew, a Yemeni Jew and a Bukharan Jew.
That is deeply false, as many Jews would tell you. Outwardly and superficially, yes, they looked different and dressed differently (though I'd venture to presume they all wore a head covering of some sort and had peot - those side curls - if they were religious). Also, they had a lot in common as far as facial features, hair color, skin tone etc. (as Adolph Hitler would tell you). They had a very profound common cultural denominator, and history, and heritage. And most importantly - they were Jews in a sense that defies rational explanation. Why did I hang out with other Jews when I grew up in the States? I don't know - I just did. Jews are Jews.
My right comes from the observation of fact: in the late 19th century, the Jewish communities of the world shared no more in common with one another than Catholics or Muslims shared with one another.
Catholicism is not a nationality or an ethnicity, nor is Islam.
>>>
I wager a German Jew in 1880 would have denied any connexion with a Bukharan Jew.
All this ex post facto Jewish unity and identity is an anachronistic and artificial function of the existence of the state of Israel.
But Rustler, a link I posted, perhaps last week, perhaps related to Shas, showed that a majority of Jews in Israel define themselves as secular.
A deeply devout Muslim friend of mine from Umm El Fahm has never been to Mecca, but he listens to the prayer sessions live from Mecca via RealPlayer every day.
And if your friend started claiming sovereign political rights in Mecca, I would tell him to get lost.
Why should he? If he were a rational Pseudoerastoid creature he could open the window and listen to the very same prayers from Umm El Fahm's minarets. But we are not all rational Pseudoerastoids! Some of us are intense emotional and ideological Middle Easterners!
Hence all the problems!
That [Bukharan, German and Yemeni Jews] is deeply false, as many Jews would tell you....They had a very profound common cultural denominator, and history, and heritage.
The power of nationalist ideology and mythos!
Also, they had a lot in common as far as facial features, hair color, skin tone etc. (as Adolph Hitler would tell you).
Please. I've seen German Jews. Russian Jews. Bukharan Jews. Yemeni Jews. They look nothing like one another.
Catholicism is not a nationality or an ethnicity, nor is Islam.
My point is that Judaism is not a nationality or ethnicity, either.
All in all I think that the Balfour Declaration is one of the most ill-advised documents ever issued by a government.
>>>
Pe, you are an American, I believe, and as such you suffer from the inability to define yourself. Forgive my psychoanalyzing, but I see your travels as a quest after identity. Notice that you seem to be especially fascinated by cultural and ethnic hybrids: signs in Chinese and Russian, Tatars with blond hair, stuff like that. I think you see yourself, or hope to see yourself, and your own very mixed identity, through these travels and observations.
I can sympathise with that (though my guess is you don't want me to) and respect that, but I can't accept your Dr. Strangelove-like robotically-rational approach to these things. You, and transient, and psocko, and others here have this need to deal with your own identity problems by trying to dismiss the very concept of identity. And since there is no better (and more stirring) illustration of the transcendent power of this concept than the story of the Jews, and their connection with each other, with their past and with their land - you have this need to pick at it and try to 'disprove' it somehow.
And Pelle is right about that deep sense of Jewishness. You see, Pe: Pelle, while suitably dour and humorless, is not an android. He is evidently capable of accepting emotional concepts, and not just pure reason, into his psychic palette. And he seems to have some understanding of what 'identity' means.
I am hereby excommunicating myself from the discussion for the remainder of the week. I must get some work done.
Carry on!
PS: if you decide to disestablish the state of Israel in my absence, please inform by e-mail, and give me 48 hours to pack, etc.
Who would have thought that Rustler would be an advocate of antidisestablishmentarianism.
The fact is, a unitary Jewish identity was invented in modern times, and at the expense of another people.
I don't think this is robotically rational. Nor is it robotically rational to say that people with hallucinations, are hallucinating.
As for my identity, I am a Pashtun.
By the way, I've never seen Tatars with blond hair.
There is no need for psychoanalysing. I've always stated that I've had an intellectual fascination for cultural hybrids, and surely one reason for this is that I have a mixed ethnic background. But I feel no identity other than Pashtun. So your theory collapses.
????
I haven't tried to dismiss "the very concept of identity".
What I've been saying is that this identity did not exist, was a fiction, in the late 19th century, and that it was invented for political purposes.
It may be very real today, because of things like the Holocaust and the founding of the state of Israel, but it was once a fiction, a fantastication, hallucination.
You're being "factual" in an engineer's-dream-of-Utopia kind of way. You admit into your formulae only those facts that don't contradict a nearly sterile, objectivist's sensibility about cultures. You leave out so much that the picture you make of the world is rendered incoherent.
"That a particular land is traditionally associated by inhabitance with a particular ethnos, is universally recognised, at least in theory."
Then count yourself lucky to have been alive to witness the upending of that theory and its replacement by the one Israel has realized.
I think the Palestinians don't yet see how lucky they are to have been subjected to the return of the Jews. All their nationalist rhetoric is cribbed from the Zionists'. Someday, it'll pay off for them.
"Besides, I think you exaggerate the European Jewish interest in a separate homeland (regardless of its location) before the 1930s. Most Jews were not thinking of emigrating until then."
Big deal. Until a few months ago most Palestinians didn't give a shit about the Temple Mount. Few political movements represent the expressed will of most of those they seek to benefit.
Again, Pike is correct. You seem to have no personal sense of what cultural identity is, certainly not Jewish identity, otherwise you wouldn't mistake "religious practises from the time of ancient Israel" for being something separable from an expression of it. Judaism is not like Catholicism or Islam in this respect.
You're being "factual" in an engineer's-dream-of-Utopia kind of way. You admit into your formulae only those facts that don't contradict a nearly sterile, objectivist's sensibility about cultures. You leave out so much that the picture you make of the world is rendered incoherent.
What are you talking about? You have a people, whose scripture makes a lot of mention of Jerusalem, and the same people pine (liturgically) for Jerusalem. No material or cultural ties to that land other than this.
That is the ridiculous and absurd formula which leaves out nearly everything we normally consider territorial entitlement.
"That a particular land is traditionally associated by inhabitance with a particular ethnos, is universally recognised, at least in theory." Then count yourself lucky to have been alive to witness the upending of that theory and its replacement by the one Israel has realized.
Hypocrisy is not refutation.
I think the Palestinians don't yet see how lucky they are to have been subjected to the return of the Jews. All their nationalist rhetoric is cribbed from the Zionists'. Someday, it'll pay off for them.
It could have been cribbed from someone else. If you haven't noticed, there is nothing particularly special about nationalism. Of course if it wasn't for the "return" of the Jews, there would probably just be two or three states in the Levant today, instead of the four or five.
otherwise you wouldn't mistake "religious practises from the time of ancient Israel" for being something separable from an expression of it.
I have no idea what this means.
Judaism is not like Catholicism or Islam in this respect.
Elaborate.
What, you wanted I should get all tangential on you? Anyway, the summary you provided is worse for being longer!
Pelle, sorry for interrupting your historical posts upthread.
You see this amongst Turks, for example. Before the 1880s (coincidence?), there was no concept of Turkness. There was recognised to be a people speaking a Turkish language, but the primary identification amongst Turkish-speakers was with Islam and Turkish ethnicity had no meaning. That changed with the pan-Turkish movement, the Young Turks, and the rise of Kemal Ataturk and the founding of the Turkish republic. Today, Turkish nationalists do not see the Ottoman Empire as a Muslim empire, which the Ottomans emphatically saw it as, but see it as a Turkish empire; and retro-date the founding of the Turkish ethnic identity to ancient times. Thousands of non-Turks served the Ottoman Empire in high positions, but today in some Turkish circles these people have all become "Turks".
I assert that modern Jews are denying the modernness, newness, and inventedness of their current identity; retrodating its foundation to ancient times; and fabricating a continuity and unity between the Jews of antiquity and the Jews of today.
This is all quite normal for nationalist movements, and it is absolutely unsurprising that Jews here would be vehemently asserting their continuity with their past. But the continuity is more emotional than real.
Lest I get accused of robotic sterility again, I mean that it's an invention they're feeling so intensely.
I do not deny the concept of identity!
That's what the Zionist claim of unitary Jewish identity in the 19th century is tantamount to.
Message # 15912
The ones who agree with what you are saying shut up and listen.
You didn't appear to need any help and mine is the kind of help you'd most likely prefer to do without so I'll just sit back and read and nod along.
If it makes you feel anybetter:
Yeah, what he said.
What evidence would satisfy you that your assertion in 15911 is erroneous?
No, I'm denying that Jews are or were a unitary people.
The difference between the 19th century and today is that, post-Holocaust and post-Israel, Jews have created for themselves an ideological identity as a unitary people.
subjective identity: a group of people consider themselves as a single unit, regardless of the facts of their material culture
objective identity: a group of people are a single unit, by virtue of, and according to, the facts of their culture, language and descent.
Before the Zionist movement materialised, I deny that Jews had either kind of identity. Today, both Israelis and Jews possess subjective identity.
PE:
"I assert that modern Jews are denying the modernness, newness, and inventedness of their current identity; retrodating its foundation to ancient times; and fabricating a continuity and unity between the Jews of antiquity and the Jews of today."
There is some truth to this, but it is grossly over-stated. A distinctive facet of Jewish ritual is the study of Jewish History, and the Jewish religious texts include long historical passages. While there is no denying the political advantage of a pumped up Jewish identity (especially to Israel), it would be similarly unreasonable to deny those aspects of identity embedded into the religion itself.
"This is all quite normal for nationalist movements, and it is absolutely unsurprising that Jews here would be vehemently asserting their continuity with their past. But the continuity is more emotional than real."
Who are these Jews?
Well, that's silly and you should know it. The various pogroms were only made possible because the Jews were identifiable. Today, by contrast, Jewish identity is a far more fractured affair.
Still as mean-spirited as ever, what?
Bunk. No one in the world,including Jews themselves, can distinguish Jews from non-Jews without some kind of identifying flag.
I know you know you have to stand up screaming "I am a Jew!!" or no one will notice that you are.
Jenerator,
Can you read and speak Spanish yet?
I love the way Spanish speakers fidget with their hands while they speak.
I love the way they touch eachothers' hair.
You're not listening. I haven't denied that a religious identity is common to most (though emphatically not all) Jews. But a religion is only one facet of culture, and culture is one fact of an ethnos or a nation.
Andonly: Message # 15786: Take a look at the Pentateuch sometime, which per ancient ritual is read in every synagogue, from cover to cover, once yearly. The story of the Exodus, which is retold at home during Passover, concerns not just the deliverance of the "chosen people" out of Egyptian slavery or the receipt of the decalogue in the desert. It's the story of a protracted period of statelessness followed by the Israelites reaching the promised land. That's not some unspecified plot of desert, of course, it is Canaan, much later known as Palestine. This story is central to Judaism. It's required that the story be conveyed to every Jewish child, even those too dim to comprehend it. Since the 1950s, I think, it has been common practice for Jews--including my assimilated, agnostic family--to add to the traditional final Pesach prayer recitations the phrase, "Next year in Jerusalem!".
I don't think even these minimal cultural aspects of being Jews applied to the Jews of the former Soviet Union. In the West, secular Jews circumcise their male infants; but in the former Soviet Union.
The classic Socko pattern: trundle into an argument in medias res and not have the vaguest clue about what's going on.
The fact that Russians could identify Russian Jews and the fact that Yemeni Arabs could identify Yemeni Jews, do not make the two Jewish groups into a common Volk.
(I'm going to use the word from now, Volk, because this German word best captures what I mean when I say "ethnos", 'nation', or 'people'.)
Message # 15925: Still as mean-spirited as ever, what?....How many people have you fallen out with this month, PE?
What people? Internet people are not people. In an online discussion forum, I behave without inhibition. If I want to call someone an idiot because I believe he is an idiot, I call him that.
"The fact that Russians could identify Russian Jews and the fact that Yemeni Arabs could identify Yemeni Jews, do not make the two Jewish groups into a common [group]."
Sure. And one could add French Jews, British Jews, North Amercian Jews, and so on, to your list, along with their respective national hosts. The problem with your thinking is that these groups still belong to a distinct racial group; they are Semites, and a very specific Semitic group at that. Ergo, the Jews have always had a shared identity.
"In an online discussion forum, I behave without inhibition."
Which is to say, you behave childishly. And I see you're becoming younger by the year.
Isn't this just so much horseshit?
Isn't this just so much horseshit?
The problem with your thinking is that these groups still belong to a distinct racial group; they are Semites, and a very specific Semitic group at that.
The problem with your thinking is that you are grotesquely ignorant.
The Jews are a "race" in the very very very restricted sense that most can trace their genetic ancestry to ancient Israelites.
But that's a very trivial and impoverished conception of nationhood, peoplehood, ethnos. Lots of peoples whom you would not classify as a single people can claim genetic relatedness. Most people claiming to be Native Americans, even if they're only 1/64th native, could probably trace their genetic ancestry to a common source. Mongolians and Turks belong to a common "Altaic" race (in your restricted and old-fashioned definition of race), though no one would suppose that Turks and Mongolians are one ethnos or nation. I can go on and on like that. In fact, all human beings can trace their ancestry to a common source.
Genetic relatedness does not a nation make.
Ergo, the Jews have always had a shared identity.
Even if genetic relatedness did a nation make, that would not constitute a "shared identity". As I said, Mongolians and Turks are both Altaic peoples, but do you think share an identity? Of course not.
You can't say common religious practises. Javanese and Nigerians share Islamic religious practises also, yet no one would call Javanese and Nigerians the same Volk.
You can't say genetic relatedness. Mongolians and Turks are genetically related as part of the Altaic ethnolinguistic grouping. Yet no one would call Mongolians and Turks the same Volk.
By the way, the genetic relatedness of Jews simply means that the ancestors whom Socko the Kiwi Jew shares with Schlomo the Yemeni Jew, lived more recently than the ancestors Socko shares with (say) Nelson Mandela. That's all it means.
The cultural differences between Socko and Schlomo are, however, so vast that that they can't be described as belonging to the same ethnic group, the same Volk, the same people, in any reasonable, commonly accepted sense of those terms.
Hey, Lord Haw-Haw, what the hell else constitutes a race if not a shared genetic ancestry? And why should such a definition be considered extremely restricted? The Jews share an ancestry, therefore they share an identity. That is my point.
As far as a *cultural* identity goes, there's probably a great deal to be said for what you're saying -- although what you're saying is really pretty obvious. A French Jew will not, culturally speaking, be the same as a British Jew or Canadian Jew. So what? Isn't this inarguable?
You, sir, are an intellectual oaf, and if I had you within my sights I'd box your ears.
For Jews, religion either is culture or is a strong enough component of culture that it differentiates us from other people no matter where we are, except in Israel. This has been the case forever.
Unlike Islam and Xtianity, Judaism is not only a religion. It is by definition half of a bargain with the deity, the reciprocal half being nationhood. A useful website on the subject of Judaism offers this, which is entirely in keeping with everything I've ever been taught as a Jew, and that includes rabbinical commentary dating from the middle ages:
"It is important to note that being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes everything that Orthodox Jews believe and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism, and a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox. In this sense, Judaism is more like a nationality than like other religions, and being Jewish is like a citizenship.
This has been established since the earliest days of Judaism. In the Torah, you will see many references to "the strangers who dwell among you" or "righteous proselytes" or "righteous strangers." These are various classifications of non-Jews who lived among Jews, adopting some or all of the beliefs and practices of Judaism without going through the formal process of conversion and becoming Jews. Once a person has converted to Judaism, he is not referred to by any special term; he is as much a Jew as anyone born Jewish."
"Ramban (Nachmanides; Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman) (1194-1270 C.E.)
"Ramban was the foremost halakhist [interpreter of Judaic law] of his age. Like Rambam before him, Ramban was a Spaniard who was both a physician and a great Torah scholar. However, unlike the rationalist Rambam, Ramban had a strong mystical bent. His biblical commentaries are the first ones to incorporate the mystical teachings of kabbalah.
He was well-known for his aggressive refutations of Christianity, most notably, his debate with Pablo Christiani, a converted Jew, before King Jaime I of Spain in 1263.
Ramban could be described as one of history's first Zionists, because he declared that it is a mitzvah to take possession of Israel and to live in it (relying on Num. 33:53). He said, "So long as Israel occupies [the Holy Land], the earth is regarded as subject to Him." Ramban fulfilled this commandment, moving to the Holy Land during the Crusades after he was expelled from Spain for his polemics. He found devastation in the Holy Land, "but even in this destruction," he said, "it is a blessed land." He died there in 1270 C.E."
"Belief in the eventual coming of the moshiach is a basic and fundamental part of traditional Judaism. It is part of Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith, the minimum requirements of Jewish belief. In the Shemoneh Esrei prayer, recited three times daily, we pray for all of the elements of the coming of the moshiach: ingathering of the exiles; restoration of the religious courts of justice; an end of wickedness, sin and heresy; reward to the righteous; rebuilding of Jerusalem; restoration of the line of King David; and restoration of Temple service. ... The term "moshiach" literally means "the anointed one," and refers to the ancient practice of anointing kings with oil when they took the throne. The moshiach is the one who will be anointed as king in the End of Days. The word "moshiach" does not mean "savior." The notion of an innocent, semi-divine being who will sacrifice himself to save us from the consequences of our own sins is a purely Christian concept that has no basis in Jewish thought."
[cont.]
"The land of Israel is central to Judaism. A substantial portion of Jewish law is tied to the land of Israel, and can only be performed there. Some rabbis have declared that it is a mitzvah (commandment) to take possession of Israel and to live in it (relying on Num. 33:53). The Talmud indicates that the land itself is so holy that merely walking in it can gain you a place in the World to Come. Prayers for a return to Israel and Jerusalem are included in daily prayers as well as many holiday observances and special events."
Hey, Lord Haw-Haw, what the hell else constitutes a race if not a shared genetic ancestry? And why should such a definition be considered extremely restricted? The Jews share an ancestry, therefore they share an identity. That is my point.
Well, no one uses the word "race" in the sense of Volk anymore. These days we say things like nation or ethnic group. But no one supposes that a nation or an ethnic group is merely a people with a shared genetic ancestry -- because all human beings share genetic ancestry! That's why "genetic relatedness" is a restricted criterion for nationhood.
Even in the old days, when the word "race" was used to mean "ethnic group", no one would apply that term to a disparate collection of people ranging from fair-haired and -complexioned German Jews to dark-complexioned Yemeni Jews.
As far as a *cultural* identity goes, there's probably a great deal to be said for what you're saying -- although what you're saying is really pretty obvious. A French Jew will not, culturally speaking, be the same as a British Jew or Canadian Jew. So what? Isn't this inarguable?
I thought so too! But all of you are arguing against me. My point is that you can't call a group of people a nation if they don't share cultural traits as well.
Socko, I've seen that link. But you're missing my point. Contemplate the Socko/Schlomo example some more.
Appointing a King
Appointing Judges and Officers of the Court
Assigning cities to the Levi'im
Not to eat unredeemed 2nd tithe of corn outside Yerushalayim
Not consuming unredeemed 2nd tithe of wine outside Yerushalayim
Not consuming unredeemed 2nd tithe of oil outside Yerushalayim
Not eating an unblemished firstling outside Yerushalayim
Kohein not to eat first fruits outside Yerushalayim
Not appointing a non-Israelite born King
Not to sell out holdings in Eretz Yisroel in perpetuity
Not to sell the open lands of the Levites
Excerpt (xlated from Italian) from a letter dated October 26, 1545 (see http://www.medici.org/jewish/jdoc8.htm): Giorgio Dati in Antwerp makes elaborate plans for inducing rich Portuguese Jews (Mendes family) to settle in Tuscany:
"..That Mendes who had come as far as Cambrai is said to have gone back to Paris or Lyons, and they would prefer to turn over the proceedings to some one else rather than come here in person. Something might be accomplished, however, by approaching them directly in Lyons, and if it were possible to attract them to Florentine territory, they could in turn attract many others of their nation, particularly those of means.
In this regard, I have spoken to one of that nation--a person of very great means--who came here [to Antwerp] from Portugal last year. He was told that I wished to speak to him, in order to communicate something to his advantage and to the advantage of his nation. He could speak freely with me, I told him, since they are a highly suspicious people, and they are now more afraid than ever of giving themselves away. Once we started talking, he opened up enough for me to convey your message, which I did with all due discretion, should he or others of his nation wish at any time to live elsewhere."
??? Religion is a subset of culture.
For Jews, religion either is culture or is a strong enough component of culture that it differentiates us from other people no matter where we are, except in Israel. This has been the case forever.
The same with Islam: any Muslim minority stands out anywhere at least as much as Jews.
Unlike Islam and Xtianity, Judaism is not only a religion. It is by definition half of a bargain with the deity, the reciprocal half being nationhood. A useful website on the subject of Judaism offers this, which is entirely in keeping with everything I've ever been taught as a Jew, and that includes rabbinical commentary dating from the middle ages: "It is important to note that being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes everything that Orthodox Jews believe and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism, and a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox. In this sense, Judaism is more like a nationality than like other religions, and being Jewish is like a citizenship.
What sophistry. A person born to non-Jewish parents but who HAS undergone the formal process of conversion is a Jew. Isn't he?
Therefore, Judaism cannot be a nationality. What you're calling the national element in Judaism is simply the matrilineal transmission of Jewry. Anyone born to a Muslim father is automatically a Muslim also.
All I can see is the elaboration of the previous religious argument. The same objections as before apply.
Message # 15948. Okay, some Jews felt a subjective identity as a nation before the 19th century. Most Jews did not feel this however. And subjective identity does not make an objective identity.
"In practice, Medici rule was characterized by a shifting balance of privileges and concessions, and for Jews in Tuscany the door was never as open nor as closed as it might seem. For example, some returned to live in Pisa only a few years after their expulsion and a Jewish community was permitted, even encouraged, to thrive in that great "special case"--the city of Livorno. In 1591 and 1593, less than a quarter century after Cosimo I ghettoized his Jewish subjects, his son Ferdinando I invited Jewish merchants to to settle in Livorno , granting them free residence, unlimited access to trade and extensive self-government in this new Medicean free-port on the Mediterranean.
[What would a mere religion need of self-governance?]
The Livorno experiment was a triumph of enlightened self-interest for both the Jews and the Medici. Indeed, this thriving commercial hub became so essential to the Tuscan economy that even Cosimo III (1671-1723), the most bigoted of the Medici Grand Dukes, had little choice but to respect Jewish rights there. Vast fortunes were made by an Iberian merchant aristocracy that gave Livorno Jewry its particular culture and character. However, the Livorno community also included "levantini" from Turkey and North Africa, "ashkenaziti" from Northern Europe and Italian Jews of various origins.
[These are Jews with no connection to one another other than a shared religion and distant ancestry?]
[These Jews are deracinated? Cut off from each other culturally? No longer a people ]
Livorno was a major center of Jewish commerce, second in Europe only to Amsterdam. It was also a leading center of Jewish study and mysticism, particularly under the influence of Rabbi Joseph ben Emanuel Ergas (1685-1732) and other proponents of the Kaballah. Indeed, business, religion, medicine and science could be complementary enterprises. The medical doctor Mose Cordovero was among the pioneers of banking in Livorno around the year 1600. Elia Montalto di Luna, in the early seventeenth century, practiced medicine at the Medici Court while writing treatises on ophthalmology, astronomy and comparative religion.
[Jews assimilated, secularised?]
Jewish religious practice is by definition the practice of being a separate people. This is what distinguishes it from Christianity and Islam. Don't you realize this? Christianity and Islam have holy places in Palestine. Judaism is the religion of the nation whose deity gave them Palestine. Although it has certainly been more important since the 1880s, this is NOT REMOTELY a recent addendum to Jewish beliefs.
(I'm giving you doctrine here, not describing my personal beliefs or the lack thereof.)
However I don't see how this advances the larger argument.
(1) By the late 19th century, when Zionism was born, most Jews in Europe had assimilated. What's more, the Zionists themselves WERE secularised and assimilated who had lost connexion with the disparate Jewish communities of the world.
(2) they were still foreigners to Palestine.
Message # 15953
Jewish religious practice is by definition the practice of being a separate people. This is what distinguishes it from Christianity and Islam. Don't you realize this?
I'm certainly unconvinced by this assertion.
Christianity and Islam have holy places in Palestine. Judaism is the religion of the nation whose deity gave them Palestine.
That's very nice, but the comparison with Islam is insuperable. The Jewish religous attachment to Jerusalem is no greater than the Muslim attachment to Mecca & Medina. But that does not confer upon all Muslims the right to create a separate nation-state around Mecca & Medina.
Yes.
"Therefore, Judaism cannot be a nationality."
Doesn't follow. A person born to Italians who formally takes American citizenship is an American. A person born to non-Jews who formally converts becomes a Jew, irrespective of his subsequent religious practice or even belief in God. I don't think this is true for Islam. And Christianity certainly requires belief.
The first yishuv, in 1882, was not secular, and being a ghettoized Russian/Roumanian population it was not "assimilated". The second was, and it succeeded in ultimately possessing Israel on behalf of all Jews. It's not like the religious were denied entry once the state was established. Had the secular Zionists lost all connection with their fellow Jews, they would have made themselves a state for atheist descendents of European Jewry or something. But that's not what they did.
Why, if they were not religious, did they forge a state for people who were--unless there was a connection all of them considered crucial?
Doesn't follow. A person born to Italians who formally takes American citizenship is an American.
No he isn't. We're not talking about legal citizenship here, and any analogy between ethnicity and citizenship is specious. An Italian who naturalises as an American does not suddenly become decultured as an Italian.
A person born to non-Jews who formally converts becomes a Jew, irrespective of his subsequent religious practice or even belief in God. I don't think this is true for Islam.
Of course it is. All you need do to become a Muslim is to say "Ashadu an La ilaha il Allah, Muhammad-ur-Rasool-Allah" three times and you're a Muslim forever. (of course that alone doesn't make you an observant Muslim, or a good Muslim, but you are a Muslim.)
By the way, even religious European Jews could not be said to belong to the same culture as religious Asian Jews.
By your own definition religion is a "subset of culture", which is to say it is culture, and therefore can form the basis of nationhood, as it (in fact) has done in the case of the Jews.
"The Jewish religous attachment to Jerusalem is no greater than the Muslim attachment to Mecca & Medina."
Mecca is in Saudi Arabia. Medina is too, isn't it? North of Mecca a few hundred miles anyway. So how are these cities relevant to Israel? Were you thinking about the Muslim religious attachment to Jerusalem, which is about as relevant to Muslims as the Xtian attachment to Bethlehem or Jerusalem?
Incidentally, Israel has long ceded to the waqf religious control of the Temple Mount (which to most religious Jews is so holy that Jews can't walk on it without risking transgressing ancient purity laws). I don't know why Palestinians think they have a special national claim to Jerusalem's religious sites, since Palestinians are not necessarily Muslims. In fact, the Palestinian claim to Jerusalem sounds, increasingly, purely Islamic and not based on prior residence at all.
The analogy between Judaism and citizenship in a nation is quite apt whether you recognize it or not, and it is applicable at any point in Jewish history.
"All you need do to become a Muslim is to say "Ashadu an La ilaha il Allah, Muhammad-ur-Rasool-Allah" three times"
But this is a statement of belief in Allah and his prophet Muhammad. The utterance of it confirms faith just as the pronouncement of faith in Jesus keeps Christians out of hell. For the third time: there is no faith requirement for becoming a Jew. In fact, medieval rabbis counselled doubters not to worry about faith but simply live and participate in the community of Jews. Through this it was thought that God would be revealed; i.e., the doubter would find God in the mundane, in ordinary interactions with other Jews.
"By the way, even religious European Jews could not be said to belong to the same culture as religious Asian Jews."
I don't belong to the same culture as my American Jewish grandmother. So what?
The religious difference between Ashkenazim and Sephardim are trivial. The beliefs of the Sephardim are generally comparable to the Ashkenazi Orthodox, with variances in custom. The most significant I can think of offhand is that Ashkenazim eat rice on Pesach while Sephardim consider it chametz, and the melodies of the liturgy are different.
Understand, per the Talmud Judaism officially accounts for variation in custom over both time and place, considering it not only permissible but binding (but less binding than law itself) on individual communities. This in no way diminishes those communities' belonging in the Jewish nation.
"I thought so too! But all of you are arguing against me. My point is that you can't call a group of people a nation if they don't share cultural traits as well."
Well, that would disqualify so many "groups of people" -- the Amercians, Canadians, Australasians, even Argentines, Malaysians, Indonesians and Singaporeans -- as constituting true nations. But you and I know this is not the case. So it's a matter of degree, right?
Muddying the issue, of course, is the fact that Israel is in something of a unique position among the world's nations, in that its self-definition is at least partly negative; by which I mean its Law of Return often deems those who are persecuted as Jews as being those who are eligible for citizenship. (Indeed, the Law of Return is one almighty mess of a national document. It defines Jewishness by religion, by background and by geopolitical circumstance.)
None of this, however, takes away from your point that cultural links between Jews are frequently an oblique affair, unlike, say, the cultural links that bind the English or French.
Incidentally, your question about Russian Jews and circumcision is a little bizarre considering that Judaism as religious observance was essentially outlawed in the Soviet Union. Jews there, as in many countries where they were persecuted, eschewed practices which identified them as Jews. Noncompliance with Jewish law to preserve the life of Jews is explicitly required in Rambam's rendering of halakha.
Of course, many Jews irretrievably lost their cultural connection in Russia. I'm (slightly) acquainted with a pair of Russian pianists who did not confess to each other that they were (assimilated) Jews until years after they were married.
I wouldn't have quarreled with that. His assertion has been that the Jews of the 19th century were no more culturally connected to each other than are North American Indians today; that is, they were in no sense a unified ethnos let alone a nation, were culturally assimilated Europeans, had ceased to exist as a distinct people, and had no cultural connection whatsoever to Palestine.
But he has also defined religion as a subset of culture (which it is).
When I say 'nation', I mean it not in the political or legal sense of 'state' or 'nation-state', but in the sense of Volk, ethnos, ethnic group, 'a people'.
Message # 15959: By your own definition religion is a "subset of culture", which is to say it is culture, and therefore can form the basis of nationhood....
First, it is not my definition. Everyone agrees that religious observance is part of culture and custom. But that hardly means that religious observance can be the extent of what defines a Volk. Everything else that defines a common ethnic culture -- language, dress, music, diet, etc. -- is missing. As far as I can tell, the "Jews" in the late 19th century were no more a single ethnos than Mongolians and Turks.
Mecca is in Saudi Arabia. Medina is too, isn't it? North of Mecca a few hundred miles anyway. So how are these cities relevant to Israel? Were you thinking about the Muslim religious attachment to Jerusalem, which is about as relevant to Muslims as the Xtian attachment to Bethlehem or Jerusalem?
No. I thought the analogy was clear. The fact that Mecca and Medina are holy to all Muslims does not mean that (for example) Javanese and Chinese Muslims can settle en masse in and around Mecca and then claim sovereign political rights in that territory. This is what Eastern European Jews did in Palestine.
Well, you certainly didn't show it was apt.
But [Shahadah] is a statement of belief in Allah and his prophet Muhammad. The utterance of it confirms faith just as the pronouncement of faith in Jesus keeps Christians out of hell. For the third time: there is no faith requirement for becoming a Jew.
You don't seem to understand. If you utter the Shahadah three times, regardless of whether you meant it, you are a Muslim.
"By the way, even religious European Jews could not be said to belong to the same culture as religious Asian Jews." I don't belong to the same culture as my American Jewish grandmother. So what?
My point was that religiosity in itself is not necessarily an ethnos-making factor, because even the very religious took on the cultural characteristics of the local culture. That's why Persian Jews spoke Persian and ate mostly the same foods as Persians. Even if the Persian Jews remained distinct from non-Jewish Persians, the Persianisation of the Jews prevented them from being of the same ethnos as the Russianised Jews, no matter how religious.
No. You're confusing "nation" in the sense of "state" or "country" with "nation" in the sense of "ethnicity". There exist no such things as Yankistani, Canadian, Indonesian, Argentinean or Singaporean ethnicities.
In Russian, the word russkiy refers to an ethnic Russian, not the citizen of the Russian Federation. A citizen of the Russian Federation would be called rossiyaniy.
Really old-fashioned Pathans maintain a similar distinction. The word "Afghan" used to be an ethnonym identical to "Pashtun" or "Pathan", not a citizenship designator. So old-fashioned Pathans distinguish between afghani (=Pathan) and afghanistani (citizen of the modern nation-state of Afghanistan who is not necessarily an ethnic Pathan).
First, I don't see anything which makes Judaism uniquely more cultural than Islam or Christianity. Second, I repeat: a religion does not an ethnicity make.
Incidentally, your question about Russian Jews and circumcision is a little bizarre considering that Judaism as religious observance was essentially outlawed in the Soviet Union. Jews there, as in many countries where they were persecuted, eschewed practices which identified them as Jews. Noncompliance with Jewish law to preserve the life of Jews is explicitly required in Rambam's rendering of halakha.
So what? What does that have to do with anything? It doesn't matter what caused the loss of cultural distinctiveness. What matters is the loss.
And yes, the comments in Message # 15968 have been noted. May I make a plea, however, for "Argentine" to be used here rather than "Argentinian." "Argentine" sounds so much more ... couth.
guessing on toy cleanup.
And yes, the comments in Message # 15968 have been noted. May I make a plea, however, for "Argentine" to be used here rather than "Argentinian." "Argentine" sounds so much more ... couth.
And yes, the comments in Message # 15968 have been noted. May I make a plea, however, for "Argentine" to be used here rather than "Argentinian." "Argentine" sounds so much more ... couth.
(2) the etymology you refer to is Byzantine. In classical Greek, "ethnos" means "race" or "tribe".
The identity of a Volk (I like that term) is obviously made up by a lot of factors such as religion, language, literature, geography, food, music, family values and what have you. It is possible, I think, that the relative importance of these factors differs between Völke. If so, one could posit that religious commonality has a higher weight in the Jewish identity than in for example the German one. It has been pointed out (by me too) that a large proportion of Jews is secularized. I'm not so sure anymore that that is an important point. When I think about it, and look at myself, an atheist, I find that on some very basic level I am a christian (the small 'c' is intentional). I'm not talking about Christian ethics and such. It is something much more diffuse, something not articulated.
The identity of a Volk (I like that term) is obviously made up by a lot of factors such as religion, language, literature, geography, food, music, family values and what have you. It is possible, I think, that the relative importance of these factors differs between Völke. If so, one could posit that religious commonality has a higher weight in the Jewish identity than in for example the German one.
I accept that different ethnoi or Völke could assign different weights to the traditional constituents of ethnicity. However, in the case of the Zionist claim of a Jewish ethnos, it was based exclusively on nominal religious affiliation and genetic relatedness, and no other factors.
If one cites (1) genetic relatedness and (2) nominal religious affiliation as the determinants of a Volk, then such a thing would result in all kinds of reductiones ad absurdam.
Yes, if they are the sole determinants. But that they are given higher weight doesn't mean that the other factors have zero weight. My point is that two observers can come to different conclusions on the identity issue depending on how they assign those weights.
And the somewhat trivial conclusion of my masterful analysis of this debate is of course that you and you opponents do assign different weights.
Of course that doesn't change the fact that today the identity is intensely felt today by Jews and is real to them.
After this one could write an essay on the lines of "Herzl as the Demiurg: Deconstructing the Jewish perception of identity". And on this note I have to log off.
Jewish art and Jerusalem; eastern Europe, 18th century.
Pelle:
"I find that both schools have good and in part similar arguments and I wonder why agreement is not possible."
I agree with this. I said at the beginning (200 posts ago) that there was some truth to PE's assertion. My objection was to his underestimating the worldwide Jewish sense of shared community prior to the 20th century. PE's way is to use hyperbole, which attracts attention and clarifies the argument, but which has the unfortunate side effect of being less accurate.
An example: "The modern Jewish nation is the most thoroughly invented and fabricated ethnos in the history of mankind."
How amusing to hear these words from a man with Pakistani roots.
Because the religion and the ethnicity themselves are
1. a claim of nationhood (quite recognized in Europe before the 19th century by NON-JEWS, as evidenced by the Italian quote I provided upthread)
2. a claim on the land
3. and not exclusively religious or racial, since anyone can join the Jewish people via conversion, which is not trivial and yet has no faith requirement.
Conversion, in fact, requires the learning and demonstration of understanding of the Torah, which in addition to being an exposition on ethics and religious requirements is the mythohistory of the Jewish nation.
From "The Transformation of Judaism from Philosophy to Religion", Jacob Neusner, which describes changes that occcurred in Judaism between 200 and 400 CE:
"The issue is whether successor writings make clear affirmations, beyond the one [here] cited concerning [rabbis] Tarfon and Aquiba, that compare land with the Torah [the Pentateuch]. For one thing, the Torah serves as Israel's deed to the land; therefore knowledge of the Torah is what demonstrates the right to possess the one resource worth having... [T]he this-wordly power of Torah-study make[s] explicit ... the conviction that study of the Torah yields concrete and material benefit, not just spiritual renewal. Thus R[eb] Huna states,"All the exiles will be gathered together only on account of study of Mishnah treachings.""
The devout Jews of eastern Europe did not assimilate, because they couldn't. They had not lost touch with their culture--they became interred in it! The thing that did distinguish them from Zionists of the 19th century was that they believed the redemption of the land of Israel would be brought about by the moshiach, not by a bunch of secular Jewish socialists.
But I also agree that conquest of the land by force of arms was sufficent to establish the claim on Israel, and yet the Palestinian residents at the time of Zionism's beginnings had a morally equivalent, though not an identical, claim on the land. Thus my dispute is with PE's contention that the Jewish claim was lesser.
Judaism, devoutly observed, invests every single human act or thought performed by Jews with religious and cultural significance. Judaism is a religion of community, which is to say it has rules for Jews that are considered non-binding on non-Jews. Jewish law dictates Jewish behavior on a level considered profound by Jews--more profound than language or material culture (which nevertheless DOES contain ancient middle eastern remnants, such as the prayer shawl worn by men, or figurative and sculptural representations of Jerusalem or the Temple). Judaism's proper practice (in ALL its branches, modern and historical) is in the home and among family, at least as much as in the synagogue, which is simply the center of the community and the central locus of rabbinic instruction of the community. There's a prayer for every act, a correct way to approach everything in life (including sex, incidentally, which is considered a woman's right and a man's duty to provide--let your wife know).
It is like devoutly observed Islam in many respects, and unlike most forms of Christianity. (I find the Koran mainly a screechingly dull set of rules of conduct, like an expanded version of the prescriptive portions of Exodus, or those awful books of the Talmud that elucidate in unendingly horrifying detail what is clean and what is not clean.)
You want to quarrel with whom the Zionists considered a Jew? OK, but a) you certainly are in no position to decide who is or was a Jew, and b) don't tell me "most" of the Jews of Europe were "assimilated" (a relative term in itself) or had lost all "cultural" connection to Israel by the 19th century. The Jews you're talking about didn't agree, as plenty of Jewish cultural evidence from the period in question attests.
Arabs see themselves as a single nation, an ideal that was betrayed by Britain and France after WWI and carved up into pieces. Arab nationalism developed at about the same time as Zionism. The focal point was the American University in Beirut.
Hebrew survived despite the efforts of various governments to destroy it. Even in Yiddish, many of the original words survived and the alphabet survived. In the languages spoken by Jews in Africa and Asia, elements of Hebrew were incorporated into their everyday speech. Hebrew continued to be the language used for religious observance.
Diet was dictated by what was available both physically and economically. Despite this difficulty, the dietary laws were observed and passed down.
Dress was not universally maintained for a number of reasons like availability of resources, climate and identification. Jews were persecuted almost universally. Dressing differently would invite further persecution, so survival depended on blending in. In spite of this, clothing for religious observance was maintained. Many Jews continued to wear traditional garments in spite of persecution.
When you look at genetics, religion, language, music and diet all having common roots, I don't see how you can make your claim. Unless you have the unrealistic expectation that Jewish culture must stay unchanged for 2000 years in order for them to remain a people.
By the late Middle Ages, Jews in Europe and the Muslim dominated parts of the world were required to wear distinctive clothing, so that they wouldn't blend in. In Europe, they were also in ghettos, and kept apart from society.
Hebrew as a colloquial language did not survive. It was reinvented almost from scratch in the late 19th Century.
Which makes PE claim that they had assimilated into the local culture rather silly.
Hebrew as a colloquial language did not survive.
It survived as a written language and as the laguage of religious observance. The alphabet survived in written Yiddish, many of the words in Yiddush came directly from Hebrew. Jews for the most part did not adopt the language of their surrounding culture. My grandfather came from Russia in the early part of this century and did not speak a single word of Russian. He was typical of the Jews of that era.
Wombat posts about the late Middle Ages and you say it makes PE's claim, which relates to the late 19th century, look silly. Maybe you should read this discussion once again, from the start
In the more backward parts of Europe, this had not yet happened, as JJ notes.
Zionism is/was a modern national/political movement. It was founded almost by mistake, when the Viennese journalist and assimilated Jew, Theodore Herzl, covered the Dreyfus Affair in France. He witnessed the official ceremony stripping Dreyfus of his rank and sword. This "degradation" was cheered by a mob of Parisians, who were shouting antisemitic slogans. Herzl was shocked that such a thing could happen in the "cradle" of liberty, and made a rather enormous logical leap. The irony is that, had Herzl stuck around a few more years, the case against Dreyfus unraveled (in large part due to efforts of Dreyfus' family and several officers who themselves disliked Jews, but were not corrupt), he might have come to a different conclusion.
Initially, according to Herzl, "Zion" could have been anywhere (Uganda was considered).
So you're saying in the 19th century the music of German Jews, Greek Jews and Bukharan Jews was the same or similar? I don't believe you. You must be speaking of some Ashkenazi community in Eastern Europe.
Hebrew survived despite the efforts of various governments to destroy it.
Hebrew didn't survive as an everyday spoken language. The native language of each and every Jew was the language of the area in which he grew up, and not Hebrew.
The use of Hebrew as a liturgical language amongst Jews is comparable to the use of Arabic as a liturgical language amongst Muslims regardless of whether they are Arabs. Muslims use bits of Arabic as indicators of faith on every single occasion, their daily life is suffused and infused with the Arabic language. Even the word for 'hello' in languages unrelated to Arabic yet predominantly spoken by Muslims is the Arabic loanword 'asalaam aleikum'. Had Einstein met a Yemeni Jew, the first words would not have been 'shalom', but 'Herr Schmidt, please translate'.
Diet was dictated by what was available both physically and economically.
Citing a cause for cultural differentiation does not mean the cultural differentiation didn't take place.
Despite this difficulty, the dietary laws were observed and passed down.
The observance of dietary laws is common enough to religious groups. Moroccan Muslims and Indonesian Muslims don't each pork or drink alcohol, but that doesn't mean that what they do eat and drink has much in common.
Citing a cause for differentiation does not mean the differentiation didn't take place.
When you look at genetics, religion, language, music and diet all having common roots, I don't see how you can make your claim. Unless you have the unrealistic expectation that Jewish culture must stay unchanged for 2000 years in order for them to remain a people.
I'm sorry, but you don't make the grade at all.
The few cited cultural commonalities amongst the disparate Jewish communities of the world are those that prevail amongst any disparate religious communities. So, once again, we are reduced to a situation in which nominal religious affiliation and genetic relatedness are the only criteria by which the Jewish "nation" was founded. This pair of criteria result in the absurdities of Message # 15977 and Message # 15979.
You're taking the assimilation issue far too much in insolation.
Assimilation or non-assimilation in itself is not the crux of the matter.
The crux of the matter is whether the disparate Jewish communities of the world could reasonably be called a single Volk by the criteria we normally assign to a Volk, an ethnic group.
And the answer is no.
So whether Biener's grandfather was assimilated or no, makes not a jot of difference. His grandfather's culture was very different from that of an Iranian Jew; or, their cultures were similar in the sense a Morrocan Muslim culture and Indonesian Muslim culture are similar, i.e., not very much.
Pathan, not Pakistani. But indeed 'Pakistani identity' is fabricated just as much as 'Jewish identity'. But the identity called 'Pakistani' or "Muslim Indian" has a unity far exceeding the "Jewish" one. Besides, in the context of the larger discussion, the vast majority of Pakistanis are indigenous to where they live today, unlike the Israelis.
But otherwise, Pakistan and Israel are very similarly conceived, Israel as a haven for Jews, Pakistan as a haven for Indian Muslims. But Israel fulfills its mission much better!
Message # 15989: Let's not forget modern Greece
Actually, this is just some Western tourist fantasy. The Greeks themselves base their modern nationhood on recent Greek history and the Orthodox Church. I don't think it's the fault of the Greeks that foreigners don't see past the Acropolis.
Message # 15990 amd Message # 15991: All very interesting, but how do these remarks address my objections thus far?
Unsubstantiated and bizarre? The disparate Jewish communities of the world had not in common (1) a daily spoken medium of communication; (2) a racial type; (3) cuisine; (4) music; (5) clothing.
Indeed nothing but a nominal religious affiliation and a genetic relatedness, a pair of critieria which would make Albanians and Bangladeshis to be the same people.
I don't consider the degree of cultural unity he requires at all necessary to legitimate that [Jewish] quest for a homeland....
I'm not sure I've required merely that a people be culturally unified in order for their claim to a land to be legitimate. The 19th century Zionist claim to Palestine as a homeland for Jews was illegitimate simply on account of the fact Palestine was no longer Jewish land, it was not Jewish-inhabited, and that the Jews were simply foreigners to the land. Please see my earlier comments about traditional association of a land with an ethnos by virtue of continuous inhabitance.
But I also agree that conquest of the land by force of arms was sufficent to establish the claim on Israel, and yet the Palestinian residents at the time of Zionism's beginnings had a morally equivalent, though not an identical, claim on the land. Thus my dispute is with PE's contention that the Jewish claim was lesser.
In the late 19th century, the Jewish claim to Palestine was completely zero and the Arab claim was total. If you use the argument by force and conquest to establish the Israeli claim, then you confer legitimacy on the 1948 invasion by the Arabs.
Message # 15994: But where Judaism differs from Islam is that Muslims do not and have never considered themselves a single nation
False! Until the 19th century, with the introduction of European ideas about ethnicity, the important distinction for Muslims was that between Muslim and non-Muslim. The only things recognised were Dar-al-Islam and the Dar-al-Harb, the House of Islam and the House of War, i.e., Islam and non-Islam. And this was recognsied in practise. When the Turks and the Greeks exchanged populations in the 1920s, the exchange was in reality not based on ethnicity or language, but on religion and nothing but religion.
Besides, both these Muslim and Jewish self-identification as one people was subjective and hallucinatory: in reality Muslims and Jews were divided into myrid linguistic and cultural groups.
don't tell me "most" of the Jews of Europe were "assimilated" (a relative term in itself) or had lost all "cultural" connection to Israel by the 19th century. The Jews you're talking about didn't agree, as plenty of Jewish cultural evidence from the period in question attests.
Well, assimilated or not, the fact remains that in the 19th century, the disparate Jewish communities of the world shared only two things: nominal religious affiliation and genetic relatedness (which wasn't even known for certain at the time).
But Judaism has never proselytized; it is and has always been the official religion of a multiethnic people--a nation, to whom, if one joined it, one was explicitly obligated under Jewish law.
So what? Whether Jews proselytised or not, the fact remains that its adherents were multiethnic.
See youz latuh! (NYC ethnic element)
I think PE wins the argument on objective identity, as genetic and religious Jewish identity doesn't seem to be any more cohesive than that of other groups that would never be lumped together as a single ethnic group. I see the best counter-argument to PE to be that Jewish genetic relatedness and shared religious practices are sufficient to make for a common "volk" in the 19th century. Basically, I see this as an empirical question, where we would need evidence of the level of subjective Jewish identity in the 19th century, and I haven't seen much evidence for this either way.
In 1880-1900, the Arabs of Palestine had been living in Palestine forever. This was Arab land by virtue of traditional inhabitance. This principle is universally recognised, for example, when foreign critics decry Beijing's settlement of millions of ethnic Han Chinese in Tibet in order to strengthen Chinese claim to the land.
Contrary to what Rustler claimed, the Jewish people had not survived as a distinct cultural unit. You could speak of the cultural characteristics of Polish Jews or Yemeni Jews or Kaifeng Jews, but there was no unity to this grouping akin to what we normally recognise as an ethnic unit. In other words, what survived was the Jewish religion, not the Jewish ethnos which went the same way as the Hitties or the Phoenicians.
Now, you have a bunch of foreigners arriving in Palestine, an ethnically and culturally Arab land; buying up some land; and within 2 generations declaring a separate statehood. This is completely unreasonable because nowhere in the world is it ever recognised that land purchases confer on the buyers sovereign political rights, let alone land purchases by foreigners.
Grevelingen ##
Alphen a/d Rijn, ZH
Holland
Northeastern Holland.
Jenerator, I missed your answer to whether or not you speak Spanish.
I got a tee-shirt today from the American Indian high school where I will be tutoring that has "EDUCATION FOR THE RED NATION" printed across the front. American Indian youth definitely see themselves as having a common ethnic identity.
Message # 16031
I've just begun to study the language. Much of the world that I want to explore is Spanish-speaking, so I hope to become fairly fluent.
Jenerator, are any of your students Spanish speakers?
The Netherlands is the official name of the country we refer to. Holland is its most important province and the country is often referred to by that name. Another province, by the way, is Zealand from whence you know what.
I don't really know what you want to say with your post but whatever it is, it is wrong.
Message # 16036
¿Con quién usted está hablando? No yo. No chingados mandriles around here.
Jenerator,
How can you teach the history of the Spanish speaking world if you can't read it?
Sakonige:
"How can you teach the history of the Spanish speaking world if you can't read it?"
What does one thing have to do with the other? You can be a world class history teacher without speaking Spanish.
Message # 16040
You can be a world class history teacher without speaking Spanish.
If you assume nothing written in Spanish is worth knowing. That's not a valid assumption for someone teaching Hispanic students.
Sakonige:
"If you assume nothing written in Spanish is worth knowing. That's not a valid assumption for someone teaching Hispanic students."
I make no such assumption. I didn't say that the ability to speak Spanish was useless. I merely disagreed with your specious claim that you can't teach a group's history without being able to speak their language.
You seem more intent on picking a fight than on winning it.
Message # 16043
I was just curious whether Jenerator had enough respect for the Spanish speaking kids she is teaching to bother to learn their language. It would improve my opinion of her if she did.
Pída a su esposa sobre chingados madriles.
Sakonige,
Estoy enseñando la História del Mundo -- el mundo francais/inglés.
Here we go again: Zionism as an unprecedented eruption of self-determination.
Herzl was not the first Jew to propose a return to the Jewish homeland, he was only the founder of the movement that sought to establish a state there after Jews had already started fleeing eastern Europe in hopes of colonizing Palestine. His logical leap (creating a Jewish state) wasn't all that enormous, since religious Jews had already made the physical "leap" decades earlier.
Section from a history of Jewish presence in Palestine (which has been uninterrupted since the Jews first ruled it):
"Aliya (Jewish immigration back to the Land of Israel) from North Africa took place in 1191-1198, and a trickle of Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition returned in the late 15th century. Others, fleeing pogroms in the Ukraine, came back in the mid-17th century. In the same century, a messianic movement arose under Shabbatai Zevi of Izmir, with some of its adherents resettling in the Land. They were followed in 1700 by hundreds of Hasidic Jews who arrived from Eastern Europe. The flow of Aliya in the 18th and the first part of the 19th centuries was significant enough to make the Jews of Jerusalem the largest religious community in the city by 1844. Thus the great waves of Zionist immigration, which began in 1882 and continued throughout the 20th century, were preceded over the years by small, sporadic influxes of Jews into Palestine."
Cease and desist from all PE fawning. You realize, I hope, what he called you and I? Then again, men hung like field mice do pick on strong women, so...
You obviously have no idea what it means to be Jewish, and apparently you aren't even interested. Prattle on.
What it means for a Jew to be Jewish is not at issue. Whether the Jewish ethnos exists according to criteria commonly accepted for ethnicity, is the issue.
Probably were working on development of a nation-state?
Are you asking?
Are you expecting a "do-tell"?
There is no need to use the Usted form in addressing people whose manhood you impugn. The tu form is not just more apt, it would be the only correct form in this case.
The locution ask about is conveyed not by the literal pedir sobre but by the idiomatic preguntar por: pregúntale a la esposa por chingados madriles.
Both of you overuse the estar + -ando form. "Enseño la história...." would be more apt.
Right. What possible relevance could that have.
Whether the Jewish ethnos exists according to criteria commonly accepted for ethnicity, is the issue.
Common to whom? You? You simply dismiss any evidence that disagrees with you so what's the point. Your "criteria" is ridiculous. It is more concerned with the outward trappings of culture rather than the culture itself. The things you happen to think are important were not the things Jews thought were important so they weren't the things that were preserved during centuries of persecution.
Jews have always identified themselves as a people apart from wherever they lived. They have always identified with their ancestral homeland. The values they hold sacred that are passed down from generation to generation are universal to Jews everywhere. These are the things that bind a people together. Not trivialities like language and dress. Those exist on the surface. They say nothing of who the person is inside.
You claim that in 1900 a German Jew and a Japanese Jew would have nothing in common or at least less in common than between a German Jew and a German Protestant. I dispute this claim. Once the barrier of language was surmounted, the two Jews would have far more in common in areas that matter to them. There would be a common bond that apparently you cannot understand. I don't know if it exists in other ethnic groups, but it does exist among Jews. You can't merely dismiss it and pretend it doesn't exist.
the slender criteria by which Jews are considered a coherent ethnic group (as opposed to a distinct religious group) would also mean Albanians and Bangladeshis are a coherent ethnic group.
Gotta go with Biener on this one.
There's only so many times I can explain the distinction between a religion that by its definition confers land-centered peoplehood, and religions which by their definition confer salvation but not peoplehood. Islam (read the Koran,