White Supremacists in Boston: Thank God for Israel!

[AGBF]

Thank God for Israel. I see many of its flaws and I believe that the Palestinian people have suffered greatly. On the other hand, when a decent person sees that anti-semitism is alive and well in the United States (surely one of the safest places for Jews to live), he must be glad that Israel exists!

Because Israel exists, Jews are no longer just victims of oppression, people to be pitied (by the kind) or reviled (by the bullies). Jews are also the strong, handsome, young Israeli soldiers, the rescuers at Entebbe.

Holocaust Remembrance Day has passed; so has the celebration of VE (Victory in Europe) Day. Israeli Independence Day is arriving; Boston is braced for it as the white supremacists from Arkansas wait there for it.

Here is Boston.

Deborah

 

[AGBF]

Date: 5/11/2005 2

4:11 PM
Author:AGBF
Jews are also the strong, handsome, young Israeli soldiers, the rescuers at Entebbe.

For those of you too young to remember the raid by Israeli commandos to rescue hijack victims in Entebbe, it was startling! We had become used to airline hijackings, but no one had ever done what Israel did on July 4, 1976! The whole world looked on in awe. At this site you can hear a news report about the raid.

Israeli Commandos Save Hijacked Passengers

 

[ammayernyc]

Go Jews!

 

[AGBF]

I lifted this posting from another thread because I thought that this thread could be used to discuss the roots of tension between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. I realize that the title may be construed as inflammatory by some, but the whole topic is inflammatory. My position is that Israel should exist...but that a Palestinian state must also exist. I also see the roots of tension between Muslims, Christians, and Jews being in the distant past, far before the creation of Israel in 1948.

_______________________________________________

Date: 6/10/2005 6:05:36 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 6/10/2005 5:34:51 PM

Author: Richard Hughes

Muslims got along just fine with both Jews and Christians until a political act, the founding of the state of Israel.

Well...this is not, in my opinion, strictly accurate. I see the turning point as being the end of the (very tolerant) Ottoman Empire and the rising nationalism in Turkey as well as the growing Arab and Jewish nationalism after World War I.


I know I haven''t explained this well-just thrown it out there-but I would be glad to describe what I consider the movement from Muslim tolerance to less Muslim tolerance if anyone cares.


Deborah

 

[widget]

AGBF:

Can you recommend a reputable site where the learning impaired (like me) can get better sense of the history of the region that is unbiased?

I just found this: www.palestinefacts.com which appears to be useful. I''ve only begun to look at it and have no idea if it''s skewed.

Actually, am I naive to think there is such a thing as "unbiased history"?

widget

 

[MINE!!]

There is a saying about history... "History is written by the winners."

UNbiased history is difficult to answer. There are many parts of history that are baised... yet there are others that are not. It is up to the person reading and studying something to cross reference and cross reference again to see the where the bais lay.

I once wrote a paper on King John. Many historians have bashed John and the ''state'' that he left his country in and all the ''bad'' things that he did. In research, however, one can find that John was an unfortunate victim of bad press. It is only with much research, from past documents, from many sources can one learn the real history.. and that in itself is the tricky part.. who is to say that it is the real history... yes.. unbaised history is a difficult history...

 

[AGBF]

Date: 6/11/2005 3:26:47 PM
Author: MINE!!
There is a saying about history... ''History is written by the winners.''

Despite some of our political differences, Mine and I share the viewpoint of the historian...and she''s right. There is no objective history. I suggest that you read as much as you can about any topic you wish to research. That does not mean that there is no "good" history written on a subject. There are certainly books that are lauded for good scholarship...and if you are to read ONE book, it might as well be one of those. But there are no perfect books.

The bulk of the reading I did on the history of the Middle East was in the 1970s. What I read is, therefore, dated. I will see if I can find a bibliography among my artifacts, however!

Deborah

 

[MissAva]

My favorite history text is one called Good Wives. It is written from diares, graves stones and town documents. I have found that when I read these sort of books I am able to find more reasonable information. They also have often good sources for you to find more and varied information. Or you might try doing serches on a universty library page since they will have many books and full text articles about many subjects, though again they are often biased.

 

[AGBF]

I had not heard of Good Wives, although I am always interested in new reading material (especially if it comes recommended!). I took a look at Amazon and decided that I would recommend a book by Bernard Lewis to Widget. He has been known as one of the foremost scholars on the history of the Middle East for decades.

Here is a link to the Amazon site where one of his books is described.

Bernard Lewis

Deborah

 

[MINE!!]

Date: 6/11/2005 11:05:12 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 6/11/2005 3:26:47 PM

Author: MINE!!

There is a saying about history... ''History is written by the winners.''

Despite some of our political differences, Mine and I share the viewpoint of the historian...and she''s right. There is no objective history. I suggest that you read as much as you can about any topic you wish to research. That does not mean that there is no ''good'' history written on a subject. There are certainly books that are lauded for good scholarship...and if you are to read ONE book, it might as well be one of those. But there are no perfect books.


The bulk of the reading I did on the history of the Middle East was in the 1970s. What I read is, therefore, dated. I will see if I can find a bibliography among my artifacts, however!


Deborah

At last... we have a connection...

 

[AGBF]

Date: 6/11/2005 11:51:39 PM
Author: MINE!!

At last... we have a connection...

I am *wounded*!!!! Did you forget the most important connection of all? Having daughters that play soccer! My daughter played two games today since it is the play-offs and will play another tomorrow .

Deb

 

[MINE!!]

Ah yes.. soccer... greatest connector of all. My daughter has State games next weekend. 2 games a day.. I feel you AGBF... but we love it soooooo!

Good luck to your daughter... hope the games go wonderful!!!

 

[widget]

Ah....connections....isn''t that nice!

Thanks you guys. AGBF...I''ll look for that book (or something) next time I''m in the bookstore. Don''t knock yourself out digging through your archives. As you may have already ascertained, I''m no scholar!

Matatora: Search on a university library page???? Moi???

I guess what I was looking for was sort of an "on line Cliff Notes"...something I could refer to quickly if this thread ever takes off. The site I linked above seems useful...lots of summaries, timelines, etc.

Mine!!!!!! Are you talking about Robin Hood''s King John?? That he really was a good guy??

There goes ANOTHER one of my dillusions shattered!

widget

 

[AGBF]

Date: 6/12/2005 12:17:42 AM
Author: MINE!!
Ah yes.. soccer... greatest connector of all.

This is hijacking the thread, but I wanted to share this. I don''t know if everyone does this, but in our friendly, not very serious, soccer league the parents make an arch with their arms after the kids win a game and the kids run through.

My daughter''s as yet undefeated team, today, played its toughest competitor yet. There was a 1-1 TIE. After the game, my daughter''s team made an arch for the other team to run through as victors. The other team was startled and it took them a long time to realize that our girls had made this arch for *THEM* and were calling them to come. They ran through the arch then told our girls they had been a great team and now THEY had to run through an arch, which they made. One of the other moms said to me, "THIS is what it''s all about". I was practically in tears!

Deb

 

[MINE!!]

Yeh, we do that too.. it is nice since it is so competitve. The kids always make sure that they do it for the other team, whether we win or lose. They are all focused on the soccer field, but when it is over.. they are just kids again, wanting everyone to be happy that they had the opportunity to play. It is heartwarming.

 

[MINE!!]

Date: 6/12/2005 12:21:44 AM
Author: widget
Ah....connections....isn''t that nice!


Thanks you guys. AGBF...I''ll look for that book (or something) next time I''m in the bookstore. Don''t knock yourself out digging through your archives. As you may have already ascertained, I''m no scholar!


Matatora: Search on a university library page???? Moi???

I guess what I was looking for was sort of an ''on line Cliff Notes''...something I could refer to quickly if this thread ever takes off. The site I linked above seems useful...lots of summaries, timelines, etc.


Mine!!!!!! Are you talking about Robin Hood''s King John?? That he really was a good guy??

There goes ANOTHER one of my dillusions shattered!

widget

Mine!!!!!! Are you talking about Robin Hood''s King John?? That he really was a good guy??

There goes ANOTHER one of my dillusions shattered!

The historical story of Robin Hood really takes place about 100 years AFTER the reign of King JOhn.

There was a real ROBERT Hood in 1308 which was under the reign of Edward I.. he became the historical ''Robin Hood'' We know nothing more about him than he was fined for illegally collecting wood in the king''s forest. Yet his name became the basis for the Robin Hood Stories that grew over the years and that were organized around protests against the Royal abuse of the forests. Most of these stories would have been ballads or songs, which served as a form of social protest.

Legends of RH circluated through the MEdieval Period as critisims on how the royalty misused the forests. These complaints had existed all the way back to King John and beyond. i.e. complaints of the forest predated the RH stories. The reality is that the Robin Hood stories were invented to descibe and critize the reign of most medieval kings.. mostly after King John. THe Robin Hood movies are most heavily focused on King John for 2 reasons.

#1 King John is generally regarded as the worst King of England and is the best cHaracter for this form of protest... (but he WASN''T)
#2 Because King John did BREIFLY rebel against his brother King Richard and it is King Richard, who by contrast ,has the most heroic and KNightly rep... IN the popular mind.. (not in the reality)

In reality most medieval kings faced rebellions from their brothers or sons and were not out of the ordinary. But the current RH versions is just a way of taking advantage of their existing perceptions of these Kings in the popular mind.

So really, there was no ''Robin Hood'' as potrayed by fairy tales and pop culture, and Robert Hood and King John never met.

 

[AGBF]

This is why I am glad there is a state of Israel, although I think it has far to go in helping the Palestinians under its occupation to achieve a decent quality of life.

I am proud that my husband's great-nephew and great-nieces have all served or are now serving in the IDF. Never again.

Here is an excerpt from the article. (Read this at your own risk, although I did not quote the most graphic descriptions of torture in the article).

"Two strips of red-and-white police tape bar the entrance to the low-ceilinged pump room where a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, spent the last weeks of his life, tormented and tortured by his captors and eventually splashed with acid in an attempt to erase any traces of their DNA.

The floor of the concrete room, in the cellar of 4, rue Serge-Prokofiev, is bare except for a few packets of rat poison, a slowly drying wet mark and a dozen small circles drawn and numbered in white chalk, presumably marking the spots where the police retrieved evidence of Mr. Halimi's ordeal.

Mr. Halimi, 23, died Feb. 13, shortly after he was found near a train station 15 miles away by passers-by, after crawling out of the wooded area where he was dumped. He was naked and bleeding from at least four stab wounds to his throat, his hands bound and adhesive tape covering his mouth and eyes. According to the initial autopsy report, burns, apparently from the acid, covered 60 percent of his body.

'I knew they had someone down there,' said a young French-Arab man, loitering in the doorway of a building adjacent to the one where Mr. Halimi was held. He claimed to live upstairs from the makeshift dungeon but would not give his name or say whether he knew then that the man was a Jew. 'I didn't know they were torturing him," he said. "Otherwise, I would have called the police.'

But it is clear that plenty of people did know, both that Mr. Halimi was being tortured and that he was Jewish. The police, according to lawyers with access to the investigation files, think at least 20 people participated in his abduction and the subsequent, amateurish negotiations for ransom. His captors told his family that if they did not have the money, they should 'go and get it from your synagogue,' and later contacted a rabbi, telling him, 'We have a Jew.' "

article

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Tom Lehrer sang at The Hungry i in San Francisco in July 1965. The concert was recorded. One of the songs is called "National Brotherhood Week." Truer words were never spoken...

«Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Catholics hate the Protestants.
The Hindus hate the Moslems, and everybody hates the Jews...»

The song, speaking of a hypothetical "National Brotherhood Week" ends with the line,

«It''s only for a week so have no fear, be thankful that it doesn''t last all year.»

 

[sxn675]

nevermind, I don't feel like getting into it

 

[rainbowtrout]

I don''t know, I spend a lot of my time sighing at both sides in academia and being appalled at the real world. When it really comes down to it though I come down on the side of Israel for the simple reason that if it *didn''t* exist, flyfisher wouldn''t be here, his grandparents would have had nowhere to go, and what''s left of his family tree would never have existed in the first place.

Sometimes what''s done is done, and the Jews needed a country. I don''t like the idea that there were no people there (land without a people for a people without a land) or that they had some mystic right to the land---but I do recognize that they needed it, and they took it, and they''ve done a damned fine job holding onto it by whatever means necessary. Yeah they''ve screwed up, but let''s face it, it''s one of, if not the, best place to live in the Middle East.

 

[rubydick]

Date: 3/16/2006 10:54:33 PM
Author: rainbowtrout
I don''t know, I spend a lot of my time sighing at both sides in academia and being appalled at the real world. When it really comes down to it though I come down on the side of Israel for the simple reason that if it *didn''t* exist, flyfisher wouldn''t be here, his grandparents would have had nowhere to go, and what''s left of his family tree would never have existed in the first place.

Sometimes what''s done is done, and the Jews needed a country. I don''t like the idea that there were no people there (land without a people for a people without a land) or that they had some mystic right to the land---but I do recognize that they needed it, and they took it, and they''ve done a damned fine job holding onto it by whatever means necessary. Yeah they''ve screwed up, but let''s face it, it''s one of, if not the, best place to live in the Middle East.

This is an extraordinary idea. If Israel didn''t exist, flyfisher wouldn''t be here. Did anyone think about the opposite? That if Israel wasn''t here, that others might be?

I will not make the the obvious connections between dictators and their progengy and the family tree.

What can we draw from this? That might is right? That if the USA did not exist, that there wouid be no democracy?

I''d say this is a limb on the tree of knowledge that deserves to be cut off.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 3/21/2006 10:09:54 PM
Author: Richard Hughes
This is an extraordinary idea. If Israel didn''t exist, flyfisher wouldn''t be here. Did anyone think about the opposite? That if Israel wasn''t here, that others might be?

I am not sure what you are saying here, Richard, so I will address what you seem to mean.

That someone, be it flyfisher or a Palestinian, is not born is not-to me-a tragedy. I cannot mourn for an egg that was fertilized 5 minutes before that doesn''t make it. (See abortion threads.)

I cannot mourn for people unborn because they didn''t have a country. I am more upset by the suffering of people who have been born. When I have seen Palestinians stopped at Israeli barricades, unable to get medical help for sick children in their arms, I am deeply disturbed.

The centuries of European persecution of Jews disturbs me, too.

 

[rainbowtrout]

I thought I was pretty clear in pointing out that my feelings on the matter ARE purely personal and selfish. Guess not. There are people who would have lived/died either way, of course.

I'm allowed to have a personal feeling on the matter--if you look at some of my other posts on the issue you can see that in my more professional (for lack of a better word) mindset I see the problems on both sides. I imagine if I were Palestinian or he was I would feel differenly, and hopefully I would be able to find a middle ground between driving the Jews into the sea and rolling over dead.


ETA: Before someone beats me to it (unless Richard already did I am not sure) I'm also aware that if the Holocaust hadn't occured, his family would never have fled to Israel etc etc. Does this mean I'm glad it happened? Well, no. Does it mean I am would tap it with a magic wand and wish it undone? No, again, because I'm not smart enough to know what would have happened if it hadn't. On a certain level it's the same with Israel--I'm not smart enouhgh to know if wishing it never happened is the right choice.

Like I said earlier, what's done is done, and I don't think eradicating Israel now is any solution. Are my personal feeling of preferring it totally without flaws? Certainly not. Does their democratic, western oriented view that just happens to mesh so well with our values and excuse for what they have done to the Palestinians? No. Am I allowed to prefer one set of values over another, yes. I've spent a considerable amount of time in Morocco and while it's a beautiful culture and I respect it, I am allowed to prefer my own...

Anyway, I have to go do Arabic. Sorry for the ramble.

 

[rainbowtrout]

Date: 3/21/2006 10:09:54 PM
Author: Richard Hughes

Date: 3/16/2006 10:54:33 PM

Author: rainbowtrout

This is an extraordinary idea. If Israel didn''t exist, flyfisher wouldn''t be here. Did anyone think about the opposite? That if Israel wasn''t here, that others might be?


I will not make the the obvious connections between dictators and their progengy and the family tree.


What can we draw from this? That might is right? That if the USA did not exist, that there wouid be no democracy?


I''d say this is a limb on the tree of knowledge that deserves to be cut off.

Last note. re: might makes right. It''s more than I don''t see how Israel should have allowed the nations attacking it to win. I do think that trying to wipe out an entire group of people, when its accompanied by virulent racial discourse, constitutes genocide. I also admire the fact, from a purely military standpoint, that this little bitty nation managed to defend itself (I admire gengis khan in this way to, has nothing to do with his moral worth!).

If I thought Israel stood for terrible/evil values, then no, I would probably still admire their military prowess but not grieve their loss as much.

 

[indecisive]

I see what you are saying and where you are coming from, but Israel was able to defend itself with weapons and support from the US, along with much more money and means than the Palestinians have or will ever have. I don''t think there is any right side or easy conclusion though

 

[rainbowtrout]

very true....Israel does indeed survive off US money. Still find their strategies and whatnot interesting just from a military hist POV.


But YES, I think more of us need to realize what you said, that there is no easy solution.

 

[U2Forever]

There was no "land without a people," to start with -- Muslim Arabs,
Christian Arabs (still 10''s of thousands there) and a small number of
Jewish inhabitants populated ALL of Palestine when Balfour was put into
affect and Palestine became the new state of Israel overnight (though in the
makings since early in the century, long before the 1917 Balfour Declaration
was drawn up).

In some ways, Israel, because of the government''s and the IDF''s actions,
makes the world a dangerous place for Jewish people who live in any corner
of the planet. Millions upon millions of Jewish people disagree with Israel
-- its actions -- even its existence -- these are very religious peopel who
demonstrate in NYC practically every month -- funny the news doesn''t ever
cover it.

http://www.nkusa.org/
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/index.htm

What''s done is done -- so un-doing will only be messier -- -- but I for one
don''t like my tax dollars to go to Israel, then be used in several ways:
IDF; to make some people very rich; to return to the US and pay off ''535 of
our finest'' in Wash DC.

And on the IDF and other machinations -- these things are not covered in the
so-called main-stream press -- to wit: when there was a "cease fire" (approx
2 years ago), for six months, not a single Israeli man, woman, child, or
soldier was harmed during this period -- but what was NOT in our wonderous
press was the fact that over 80 Palestinian men, women, and children were
killed -- and two were school girls shot in the head (separate occasions) as
they sat in their classrooms -- the IDF during target practice. But we
never got headlines for these.

And with personal ties to the US military, my husband wonders how the IDF
could kill 34 US sailors on the USS Liberty, wound nearly 170 more, and
"apologize" and walk away. My husband says this was another attempt at "The
Lavon Affair," where Israeli intelligence blew up US interestes in Egypt in
the 50''s or something like that, trying to get the blame pinned on Egypt --
but it backfired. So the Liberty was in international waters and un-marked
Israeli planes attacked it -- my husband says -- in order for the US to
think it was Egypt in this early part of the 6-day war.

All I know is: I''ve met and broken bread with both Jewish people and
Palestinians -- both were and are great.