Question: When are we as a nation going to start packing all the pro-Muslim anti-Jewish Baraka’s in this country, including the whole Nation of Islam, off to where they belong, the Middle East? American citizenship should be a privilage not a right, and vile scum such as Barak have no right to defile our country with their presence.

James Kirchik’s report is ample demonmstration that anti-semitism is indeed significant in the black community. No doubt, if I was in that room, I would have feared for my safety and the image of Yankel Rosenbaum would be clear in my mind. The reality of black students so fortunate to attend a school such as Yale would applaud the racist taunts of this Baraka low-life is a shame for the entire black community.

But if they cannot see it as a shame, then it is ever more shameful.

“The reality [that] black students so fortunate to attend a school such as Yale would applaud the racist taunts of this Baraka low-life is a shame for the entire black community. But if they cannot see it as a shame, then it is ever more shameful.” — David N. Friedman

You’re talking, of course, about people who have been taught by the left to have no shame — people who three generations ago, before the modern left got hold of them and cynically embittered them, were full of a natural, sincere respect, full of integrity, and full of gratitude wherever gratitude was called for.

The left (which has largely taken away many of the special redeeming qualities they used to have as a race) has taught them to have plenty of sullen demands, though. In that, they aren’t lacking.

Another absolutely horrifying example of what is going on in Academia today, and of what an utter joke it has become. One possible additional silver lining is the possibility of college-age Jews turning away from the leftism that has sadly been the de-facto religion of so many of their parents and grandparents in this country for the last 80 years.

This article has also been published at Front Page Magazine, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6367. At 324 words, it’s part of my campaign to publish the briefest opinion articles on the Web. David Horowitz once published as an article an e-mail I had sent him, on the death of Pim Fortuyn, that was under 200 words.

Mr. Auster says: “When a society starts veering into moral nihilism, the first target is almost always the Jews. But they’re only the first target.”

Although I’d rather not be compared to a canary in a coal mine (it’s there not just because it gets gassed first, but also because it’s not as important as the people whose lives are saved), I endorse that quote. In fact, here’s a datum to support it: Back in the ’40s I read an article by the prominent black Communist LeRoi Jones (now calling himself Amiri Baraka) in which he said something to the effect that he’d eradicate Mozart and all that —- [fill in an obscenity] before giving up one bit of black culture. I’m going to try to find the clipping (which if it exists is over half a century old), but right now I’m just broadly paraphrasing—the thing about Mozart is probably accurate; it’s why I clipped and saved the item.

What interests me is that when LeRoi Jones evolved into Amiri Baraka, his target narrowed from European or white culture in general to Jews. In those days Jew-hatred was out of bounds, and an American Communist, if antisemitic, kept his notions to himself; I don’t know whether Jones/Baraka hated Jews then too.

When a society veers toward moral nihilism, the process consists of people’s following the example of individuals who utter openly what many only think. What once was unthinkable becomes utterable. Jones/Baraka, like all good Communists, doubtless regarded himself as part of the Vanguard of the People. In a twisted and limited sense he may have been right.

Jews do tend to be the first in the crosshairs when liberalism moves toward radicalism. This can be explained by the (perceived or real) number of dimensions in which Judaism is radically at odds with liberalism. Jews are (or are perceived as) 1) traditional, 2) authoritatively ethnic, and 3) materially successful. All of those things are intolerable to liberalism; and Zionism is all three of those plus nationalist to boot. No other group, not even the Catholic Church, comes close in being by its mere existence such an overt blasphemy of liberal modernism. That may be why the Jews are viewed as almost magical by so many: how can such a thing even exist? The existence of the Jews is an affront to the very metaphysics of modernism.

There is still something of a paradox because so many actual Jews tend to be secular liberals. For a non-Jewish secular liberal that just makes the blasphemy all the more vivid; but I don’t know how a secular liberal Jew can see himself as anything other than suicidal.

But then that correlates pretty well with the theme of nihilism also.

Matt astutely says: “actual Jews tend to be secular liberals. For a non-Jewish secular liberal that just makes the blasphemy all the more vivid; but I don’t know how a secular liberal Jew can see himself as anything other than suicidal.

But then that correlates pretty well with the theme of nihilism also.”

Comments: It’s those secular, liberal Jews who are intermarrying to the point of extinction. So Matt’s reference to suicide is accurate, and it points to the double meaning of nihilism. The Orthodox and Conservative Jews tend to be traditionalist conservatives on social and political questions. They, the believers, are the ones who have kept this small people in existence for five millennia, while the assimilators have disappeared from history. There is every reason to believe that that will continue to be the case.

“When a society starts veering into moral nihilism, the first target is almost always the Jews.”

There’s something to this. In Plato’s Republic the transition from democracy to tyranny is a sort of collapse into obsession as spiritual order disappears altogether. Jews are a usual target for obsession, since they stand out in various ways, so it does seem natural they would come out badly in a moral collapse.

That’s a great observation from Matt about the Jews.

To explain the puzzle he mentioned, the paradox of the Jews is that (to quote one of the most illuminating remarks I’ve ever heard in my life which came from a friend years ago as we were walking through Midtown Manhattan) “the Jews are just like everyone else, only more so.” In the present context, what this means is that the Jews (like the rest of the human race) are both a people “designed for God,” and a people in rebellion against God. But because of the “only more so” factor, the Jews are not only the most traditional and non-liberal people, as Matt pointed out, but also the most leftist, secularist, and anti-traditional. And, still because of the “only more so” factor, when the Jews rebel from God (or rather from the whole divine/natural/social order including morality, family, nationhood, the profit motive, and so on), the rebellion is all the more perverse, ugly and destructive.

Fascinating. One would expect God’s original Chosen People to represent an ontic peak; to be the _most real_ of all peoples.

So I guess when Baraka is dissin’ dem Kikes he’s jes makin it real, niggah.

I’m not sure whether Matt means it straight or is engaging in ironic inflation when he characterizes my argument as saying that Jews are ontically “the most real of all peoples,” a notion that might seem to suggest racial supremacy. Whatever Matt’s intent, that’s not what I intended. I’m not speaking about relative degrees of ontic reality among different peoples but about an ineluctable spiritual mystery, namely the historic role and continuing existence of the Jews, that, feel as we may about it, we can’t get away from because it seems to lie at the center of human history.

The God we all believe in first manifested himself to Israel. Then the Son of God whom most of us believe in was born as a child of Israel, and his Jewish followers created the Christian religion and thus our civilization. And even today, thousands of years later, the Jews, who are about 18 million people out of a humanity of six billion—three out of every one thousand people in the world—still occupy the obsessive center of the world’s concerns and hatreds. All of this suggests that we’re dealing with a great mystery, a mystery that points us toward God’s purposes for all of us, not toward the supposed ontic superiority of one people over other peoples.

Also, the person who said to me, “The Jews are like everyone else, only more so,” is a right-wing Catholic with no Jewish ancestry.

I don’t think Mr. Auster and I disagree at all, as far as I can tell. I don’t believe that the notion of an absolute racial supremacy is coherent, let alone that it reflects anything real about the world, for one thing. There was certainly some irony in my post (mostly in the last line), but I think the mystery Mr. Auster describes is another way of talking about what the Old Testament calls the chosen people and what I called an ontic peak. (What could be more real than the obsessive center of all immanent concerns and hatreds, after all?)

Racial supremacy implies that being part of the supreme race is a categorical good; that everyone who isn’t one ought to want to be one. I am religiously Catholic. I am racially only an eighth Jewish (or so) and nobody would know it; but I imagine being one of the Chosen People is at best a mixed blessing.

If my little lapse into ebonics above was offensive to anyone I apologize. It was intended to be purely ironic and was written right after reading some of those fun-filled Baraka stanzas linked from the other article (he doesn’t actually say Kike; he says Hymie instead). Since I come from a mixed-race family by adoption I tend to be less sensitive to such things than the average white boy. The only time I’ve been called an in-bred cracker it was by my black brother (I think I had broken his BB gun or something, but who really remembers at this point?)

So anyway, my words were ironics, not actual ebonics.

Has Matt heard of the move by some elite private schools around the country to teach Ironics to their students instead of standard English?

Two points: First, I want to correct an error in my first post of yesterday: that statement by Jones/Baraka spewing hate on white culture (he named Mozart) couldn’t have been in the 1940s; the early 1970s is more likely.

Second, it’s factually wrong to characterize Jews as mostly liberal or secular-tending. That’s true of most Jews in the U. S. and South Africa and a couple of other countries. But in other countries they’re conservative and faithful to their religion. The difference has to do with where their immigrant ancestors came from and why they emigrated when they did. Political/social liberalism and secularism don’t come out of the religio-ethnic heritage of the Jewish people.

“[I]t’s factually wrong to characterize Jews as mostly liberal or secular-tending. That’s true of most Jews in the U. S. and South Africa and a couple of other countries. But in other countries they’re conservative and faithful to their religion. The difference has to do with where their immigrant ancestors came from and why they emigrated when they did. Political/social liberalism and secularism don’t come out of the religio-ethnic heritage of the Jewish people.” — Frieda

Born and raised in New York City, I call that an extremely bold, extremely startling
pronouncement. It also happens to be a quite true one, notwithstanding the fact that not a few Jewish-Americans, including not a few rabbis, professors, and public Jews of prominence, would strenuously disagree with it as everyone knows — in the gravely mistaken belief that the religion of the Jews is “Liberalism-plus-one-or-two-annotated-references-to-the-Old-Testament,” forgetting that not one Old Testament prophet would hesitate to call down the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah on this country, did they have to spend so much five minutes here in the year 2003.

I was being a bit rhetorical just now, of course, in calling it so bold and startling in a time when such as Michael Medved, Rabbi Lapin, the man who edits that great Web site, www.JewishWorldReview.com (darn, I can’t think of his name just now!), and many others, have so eloquently spoken up about this very theme. I suppose what made me “wax rhetorical” was how startlingly nice it always feels when one hears this truth repeated.

Unadorned: The man who single-handedly runs JewishWorldReview is Binyamin L. Jolkovsky, a young Orthodox (not Chassidic) Jew who lives in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn and evidently supports the Web site (barely) on contributions from readers.

Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones writes: “Rape the white girls. Rape their fathers. Cut the mothers’ throats.” in one of his “poems.” These and other gems by Baraka/Jones were well known at the time of his appointment as poet laureate for the state of New Jersey. Only after his 9/11 comments has he become controversial and the governor of New Jersey suddenly embarrassed by this appointment. Being on the anti-white Left means never having to say you’re sorry. I wonder how well received a poet who advocates raping the “non-white women” would be received at Yale and as a New Jersey poet laureate?

> I wonder how well received a poet who advocates raping the “non-white women” would be received at Yale

Considering the following from the Wall St. Journal about the leader of Yale’s “Divest from Israel” campaign, alumnus Rod Swenson, I’d say it might not be received too badly—-

======

Who Is Rod Swenson?
Wall St. Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110002640

At Yale, as at several other Ivy League colleges, there’s a fringe movement to divest the university from Israel. The Yale Daily News reports that the “alumni spokesman” for the divestment campaign is one “Rod Swenson MFA ‘69.” According to the Web site of the defunct punk-rock band the Plasmatics: (http://www.plasmatics.com/CoupLiner.html)

With credentials that included an MFA from Yale, and creation of the legendary Captain Kink’s live sex show theatre in Times Square, the Plasmatics was put together in 1978 by radical anti-artist Rod Swenson around lead singer Wendy O. Williams.

Williams, who died in 1998, “was a shock-rock queen who rose from the ranks of the porn industry where Rod Swenson, her companion of over 20 years, featured her in the live sex shows he promoted,” according to this biography. (http://www.cln.com/archives/atlanta/newsstand/041898/v_musicg.htm)

S., I think is trying to take the “sting” out of the anti-white Left by showing how absurd they can be with all sorts of women. However, I don’t think it works. Surely S. would agree a distinction can be made between a “poet” who advocates the violent rape of women based on racial hatred versus a “porn star” who call herself an artist.

Lawrence Auster

The reason for me bringing this, somewhat off-topic, question up is the fact that you once again claim that Anti-Semitism (which I understand as an irrational hatred of Jews, for the sake of them being jews, if you have another more inclusive definition I’d like to here it), and criticism of Israel is one and the same. I shall make but one attempt to ask this question, and try to keep the tone as non-combative as possible, so as to avoid the usual rants about “anti-semitism”.

There has been plenty said about “victimology” by mr Auster, especially in response to the theory of secret jewish conspiracies ruling the world. With this I can but agree; it is of course insane to try to claim that the problems of the European/American communities stems from some “eternal Jew” lurking in the shadows. This is exactly the same as for instance american blacks blaming their problems on previous white opression (in fact, it might be even worse). However it is interesting to note when mr Austers consistent treatment of the matter ends: at the border of the state of Israel.

The ideological principles of Zionism in short:

1) Everyone has always persecuted and tried to exterminate the jewish people. This especially goes for the white europeans, who are famous for their intolerance and bigotry (on the pro-Israeli left this is usually completed with some statements about Europeans repressing blacks, homosexuals and women as well, to really prove the point).

2) This calls for radical action. A state must be formed to save the Jewish people from this terror, and at any cost. While the location of this state should correspond to traditional jewish faith, it must no longer be founded by G-d, but by colonial powers oozing with guilt for the acts committed by Germany during World War 2 (worldly powers restoring Israel is obviously almost unspeakable blasphemy, as certain orthodox jews will most likely inform you).

Basic Zionist history lesson, not including the military conflicts:

1) Through mass immigration to an inhabited area and the most extreme social engineering ever seen on the face of the earth the state is founded.

2) But, lo! The very same Eternal Anti-semitism is found in this new homeland! While the Islamic community (communities) previously has allowed the Jewish people to practice their faith, during the same period that many Europeans were of the opinion that Jews ate babies and poisoned waters just for the hell of it, Islam all of a sudden proves to be just like the White European devils! They attack without mercy, unprovoked. American traditionalists immediately rush to the aid of the new state to explain that this is in the nature of Islam.

3) Any criticism of the behaviour of Israel is met with accusations of anti-semitism and racism; a legitimate way to handle this problem, since discussion can only be motivated by the usual racism of the repressive Europeans (and now also Arabs).

Most of us would agree that mass immigration and social engineering based on guilt and victimology usually poses a problem, and that this is one of the root causes for many social ills. Also, most of us seem to believe that it should be legitimate to discuss these matters in the cases of immigration, homosexuality, feminism and African-Americans (the latter being of less interest to me, as I’m not an american), without being called “racists”, “sexists or “homophobes”. These terms we would like to see reserved for those who express one dimensional, stupid sentiments like “women is bitches, ya know”, or “I hate them goddam jiggaboos, they’s tryin’ to steal the TV from ma mommas’ trailer”. In the case of Israel all these considerations seems to have vanished into thin air. All of a sudden anything but unconditional support for this prime example of global Affirmative Action has it’s root in hatred and bigotry. Why is this?

Imagine a large part of Alabama being given to a community of black people, as compensation for the slave-trade and other wrongs. Would anyone be surprised if problems followed? If this state for one reason or another came in conflict with surrounding “white” american states, or with the white Alabama boys still living within it, would it be a great shock; impossible to explain by conventional traditionalist and conservative theory? Would we consider the Alabama residents fighting it to do so solely out of their bigotry and general disposition for terrorism? Most probably not; the mechanisms at work would be obvious, the root causes for the problem being the usual stupidity of “radical humanism” and it’s way of dealing with matters like this.

The analogy is far fetched, in part because the arabs had virtually nothing to do with the Holocaust and thus are compensating for something someone else did, but the principle is quite the same.

Now, if mr Auster would kindly ignore the somewhat corny aspects of the post above and simply answer me the essential question: why is it that the usual principles of guilt/victim based policies being bad, and unfounded accusations of racism in discussions being equally bad, does not pertain to the case of Israel and the debate around it? Given the fact that mr Auster has proven himself intelligent, to say the very least, in almost all other matters (including matters in which I do not agree with him at all, which are many), I can’t really grasp this.

As I said at a previous blog, based on a whole string of his statements, Martin is “a Jew-hater, pure and simple.” I have nothing further to say to him, and he is wasting his breath trying to start a discussion with me.

But as a reminder for those who may have forgotten, here is one earlier comment by Martin that seals the case as far as I’m concerned:

Flash: Buchananites admit that neocons do not control Bush
http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/001175.html

Martin wrote:

“The jibberish about ‘suicide killers’ is pointless; the total amount of deaths due to suicide bombings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extremely small. Most Israeli deaths is caused in regular armed conflict; not to mention the fact that the absolute majority of ‘murdered’ people, both civilian and military, are palestinians.”

That’s a nice little history from Martin. Too bad it doesn’t reflect what objectively happened when the British and Ottoman empires unwound. The idea that the government in 1919 over the 1.2 million Arabs and 700,000 Jews in the area now called Israel was somehow so much more valid than the government there now must require a pretty interesting theoretical justification (unless Martin proposes a return to subjection to the British Crown, or perhaps establishing a protectorate of Turkey? — I doubt the Brits would have them though, and the Turks aren’t precisely the hereditary heirs of the Ottomans). I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to the recent history of that region — it isn’t one of my interests — but even I can tell a propoganda piece as blatant as that when I see it.

I do tend to think that “anti-Semitism” is a less than useful term: highly charged yet used so broadly and differently by so many people that it adds to the noise, not the signal. I can understand some who want to stand their ground on it in an uncompromising fashion, though. This is the same Martin who said:

“The jibberish about ‘suicide killers’ is pointless; the total amount of deaths due to suicide bombings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extremely small.”

That sort of statement doesn’t decrease the noise level any more than someone jumping up and down yelling “anti-Semite!”

It is a little odd though. If I were Osama bin Laden or some other radical Moslem, shouldn’t I see the current situation of the Palestinians as just desserts? After all, they broke from the Ottoman Empire in the first place through an alliance with those infidel Brits. If the Brits turncoated them it just goes to show that there is no honor among thieves or infidels.

Lawrence:

Great surprise. I wasn’t even trying to begin a discussion, I would just like you to explain how you fit these things together. You’ve answered that well enough with this post, thoush: you don’t.

Matt:

Of course that isn’t what “happened”, but the state of Israel wouldn’t have come to be in the form it is today without the factors I pointed out; I think you can grasp the essence of my post and not reduce it all to hair-splitting.

“That sort of statement doesn’t decrease the noise level any more than someone jumping up and down yelling “anti-Semite!”“

Well, it is a correct one that I stand by, even though I admit it was somewhat tactless in it’s formulation. Given the insane statements about Islam constantly posted on this site I don’t see how anyone can be offended by it, anyway.

Also, it is a relevant one since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn’t first and foremost about suicide bombings, and the constant attempts to reduce it to “Israelis fighting terrorism” is absurd.

Furthermore, I have so far only once sunk to personal attacks; that is when I claimed that you and Auster “hated Islam”. This was also confirmed by you, and I am STILL talking to you. Thus mr Austers attempts to dismiss me as an “anti semite” is deeply insulting, especially since he has recently participated in lengthy discussions with people claiming that “the Jews control america”, and accepts any absurd statement about Islam.

I suppose I should clarify my post of March 3, 2003 05:40 PM. I said:

“That sort of statement doesn’t decrease the noise level any more than someone jumping up and down yelling ‘anti-Semite!’”

That might lead someone to believe that in my view calling someone an anti-Semite is the moral equivalent of saying that objecting to suicide bombers is “jibberish”. They are by no means equivalent acts. The former can be unjust and can be done with the intention of silencing legitimate discussion, but it does in principle have a just and true application. The latter attempts to deny the relevance of murder and is not justifiable under any circumstance I can imagine.

Martin writes:
“I think you can grasp the essence of my post and not reduce it all to hair-splitting.”

I think I understand the essence just fine. Israel is a modern state with all that implies, and I am by no means an enthusiastic zionist. I’m against democracy in general and I abstain from voting on principle, so how could I be? Indeed it might not be exagerration to say that Israel is like every other modern state, only more so.

The essence of Martin’s post though is to paint a picture of the justice of the situation in which the zionists on the one side were categorically in the wrong and the Palestinian cause is just. He has to be basing that on some concept of justice applied to the history of the polity and the parties in the conflict. Discussing that history is hardly “hair splitting”.

Martin writes:
“This was also confirmed by you, and I am STILL talking to you.”

I only speak for myself, of course. I do hate Islam in the sense of thinking the world would be a better place without it; in fact in rank order I think the world would be better off without liberalism first and Islam second. It is a rather clinical sort of hate though and it doesn’t translate into a hatred of any actual people. I wouldn’t advocate hateful acts to bring about the end of liberalism or Islam, and in fact I would oppose such acts to the point of standing shoulder to shoulder with Moslems and liberals to prevent it depending on the proposed acts. I’ve given away household items and other things to Moslem families in need (post 9-11 if it matters), without attaching strings or using it as a platform to aggressively prosletyze; and I recommend that others do the same. So it might not be accurate to just say “Matt is an Islam hater” and leave it at that, though again I stipulate that there is some truth in the assertion.

“The latter attempts to deny the relevance of murder and is not justifiable under any circumstance I can imagine.”

In reaction to an exaggerated focus on this particular form of murder, I think it is. I’ve had the very same reactions to my descriptions of Israeli humiliation of and violence towards Palestinians, and no-one seemed to care about anyone “denying the relevance” of what I said. If smearing feces on people’s walls and shooting people on mere suspicion or less can be a matter of “national security”, then suicide bombs can be a matter of what ever. And, once again, my intention was to point out that the suicide bombings are not at the center of the conflict at all, thus they are not particulary relevant to the whole of it. I have never said that suicide bombings in and of themselves are not horrible for those who get bombed (in fact, I believe such a reservation was included in the post you are refering to, or in addition to it), just that they are not the main issue of the conflict.

“and the Palestinian cause is just.”

Not necessarily. The behaviour of many Palestinian organizations are of course improductive and at times brutal, and that can be discussed. The reason why my views tend to become one-sided in the discussion here is simply that I have never seen a place were this question is handled in this extremely biased way (apart from certain fundamentalist Islamist sites). Personally I felt that the essence of my post was to say that I cannot understand how the intense sympathy with the modernist state of Israel can be combined with traditionalism, regardless of the situation of the Palestinians. My views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and it’s parties were supposed to be secondary, even though it can be interesting to discuss these matters as well (as we previously have done to death).

About the “hatred of Islam” from your side I wasn’t trying to score points of that - just point out the fact that I can respect your attitude in this matter, whereas I am denounced by mr Auster as an anti semite, even though I haven’t expressed sentiments in this direction, and even taken special care to define my views on the matter. To no avail, I might add.

Martin writes:
“Personally I felt that the essence of my post was to say that I cannot understand how the intense sympathy with the modernist state of Israel can be combined with traditionalism,…”

It isn’t “intense sympathy”. It is recognition of the fact that the intifada, with its wanton murdering of innocents, is wrong. It would be (and IS) just as wrong if it were perpetrated against Russia despite the deeply flawed nature of that polity; or America despite its deeply flawed nature. It is recognition of the clear fact that the Moslems will not make peace on any terms other than the complete extermination of Israel for starters, and subjugation of the entire world to Dhimmitude ultimately, at any cost. The fallenness of the nations in question, and their own desperate need for repentance, doesn’t magically transform the Palestinian cause into something that justifies wanton murder of children.

This isn’t a case of one side being responsible for their actions with the other side, as victims, not responsible. Both sides are responsible for their actions, and for the consequences of their actions. The de facto Palestinian position — that the elimination of Israel is the only acceptable outcome — is at this point the single primary reason (though by no means the only reason) that a peaceful settlement has not been achieved. The political ruling of that territory has been a mess since the collapse of the British and Ottoman empires (the latter of which was helped along by the Palestinians in alliance with the former), and to view the Palestinians as innocent victims who are just responding understandably to having their rights violated is just as wrong as viewing zionism as the embodiment of goodness and light.

There is a fundamental assymmetry though: Israel acknowledges a Palestinian right to exist, while Palestinians call for the extermination of Israel. Maybe Martin sees acknowledgement of that objective assymmetry in emotional terms as “intense sympathy”. I wonder why?

Martin wrote:
“If smearing feces on people’s walls and shooting people on mere suspicion or less can be a matter of ‘national security’, then suicide bombs can be a matter of what ever.”

I am not familiar with the feces incident, but murdering uninvolved children in response to vandalism is clearly disproportionate. Furthermore, the targeting of known terrorists isn’t morally equivalent to deliberately targeting innocent women and children; they aren’t even in the same moral universe. If the “massacre” at Jenin is indicative of the sort of thing Martin attempts to equate to suicide bombings then the comparison is ridiculous on its face.

“It isn’t “intense sympathy”.”

In your case, I know. But my first post wasn’t directed towards you.

“It is recognition of the clear fact that the Moslems will not make peace on any terms other than the complete extermination of Israel for starters, and subjugation of the entire world to Dhimmitude ultimately, at any cost.”

This is hardly a clear fact, and I can’t really understand how you can put it that way. First of all because a certain portion of the Palestinians are NOT muslims, but christians (not to mention a variety of atheist constellations, such as PFLP). This is constantly ignored in this forum, because it might hurt the impression of Islam vs Israel/the West. In fact, of the Palestinians being driven out/escaping during the first Israeli-Arab war 50% were christians, and there is still quite a large number of palestinian catholics in the area. About ambitions to “conquer the world” I have so far not seen one statement in this direction by any muslim, not even by Osama bin Laden. The fact that the Quran does say that the muslim world is “the world of peace”, and the rest of the world the “world of war” doesn’t make it much different from christianity. Both religions wants to win the world over; that doesn’t mean any one of them is trying to do so by force.

“If the “massacre” at Jenin is indicative of the sort of thing Martin attempts to equate to suicide bombings then the comparison is ridiculous on its face.”

No, but for instance the massacres at Sabria and Shatila, where Ariel Sharon (then Minister of Defence) ordered Falangist lebanese into the refugee camps, thus causing the murder of thousands of Palestinians, in themselves killed more than all suicide bombs put together. Also, the fact that Israeli soldiers has murdered a significant amount of innocent palestinians (including women and children), in addition to demolishing hundreds of palestinian homes, makes the notion that Israel is only targeting “terrorists” silly beyond belief.

“Ottoman empire[..] (the latter of which was helped along by the Palestinians in alliance with the former)”

Not entirely correct. The jewish minority in Palestine AND the palestinian Arabs fought the Ottoman, and it was to achieve this the Brittish promised the Palestinians a state early on in WW I, and later did the same to the Zionists in the Balfour declaration. Of course the downfall of Empires always causes problems, but I think you would agree that both the Brittish and the Ottoman empires had more or less emptied their possibilities already.

“There is a fundamental assymmetry though: Israel acknowledges a Palestinian right to exist, while Palestinians call for the extermination of Israel.”

Ariel Sharon has repeatedly stated that he will not accept a Palestinian state that includes Gaza and the West Bank, and large portions of the Israeli population doesn’t accept the notion of a Palestinian state at all. As I personally know a number of Palestinian refugees, most of which accepts Israel’s existance, I can’t really relate to your statement at all, and I simply don’t find it believable. Of course many of the actions taken by Palestinian extremists are not “legitimate responses” to Israeli repression - it’s not the disco going youngsters that arrests and tortures their fathers without evidence - and I don’t see where I’ve said anything of the sort. Palestine doesn’t have a functioning government at all, even though Arafat, before he was stripped of all authority by the Israeli “counter terrorist” operations, had proven to be perfectly possible to negotiate with. At times he was even capable of stopping large portions of the violence, since organizations like Hamas usually prioritize national unity to armed resistance. With Arafat’s power shut down, and he himself humiliated, the possibility for extremists to gain popular support skyrocketed.

Once again: the suicide bombings are not the main part of the issue, it is not the foremost form of Palestinian armed resistance, and it is not the foremost reason for Israeli attacks on the palestinian population. That was my only point with my statement, which I hardly find any more provoking or shocking than the idea that Islam is trying to conquer the world.

Martin:
“No, but for instance the massacres at Sabria and Shatila, where Ariel Sharon (then Minister of Defence) ordered Falangist lebanese into the refugee camps, thus causing the murder of thousands of Palestinians, in themselves killed more than all suicide bombs put together.”

What happened in the Sabra and Chatilla massacre may never be known, but one factiod is that the massacre was stopped by Israeli soldiers. I don’t know enough about Sharon to either defend or accuse him, although my general impression is that like most highly successful military men his political and moral contribution is mixed.

Always on the Palestinian side of this argument it is innuendo. Nothing can be proven, but underneath every incident is a hidden zionist conspiracy to genocide the Palestinians. On the other side we have a long endless string of clearly proven deliberate murder of civilians by Palestinians, and a culture that openly celebrates it.

“Also, the fact that Israeli soldiers has murdered a significant amount of innocent palestinians (including women and children), in addition to demolishing hundreds of palestinian homes, makes the notion that Israel is only targeting “terrorists” silly beyond belief.”

Another example of the nonsense. Palestinian terrorists train their children to attack and provoke Israeli soldiers, and hide themselves among their women and children, and then blame others when those women and children are killed during attempts to get the terrorists. What kind of sick twisted people trains their own children to pretend they are attacking soldiers with bombs just so that those children will end up dead, for the purpose of public relations? The kind of people who do this to their own children, who celebrate when their children deliberately attack armed soldiers and end up dead, cannot be reasoned with:

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020517-7676084.htm