POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Gingrich
reaches new levels of the ridiculous here, reminding me a bit of the
time some years ago when apologists for Israel insisted no one should
use the accepted term, suicide-bomber, inducing George Bush to give a
speech in which he used the non-existent term, homicide-bombers. Of
course, it sounded ridiculous, but no more so than much of what George
Bush said.
Gingrich has always, always been a two-faced
politician, a slimy manipulator, and a man who has served various
special interests for a large enough wad of money.
Here he claims what is, is not.
Even the Bible speaks of the Philistines, albeit with a negative perspective.
And why does he do this?
To attract large campaign donations from The Lobby.
There is no other explanation, because Gingrich has always been a man of shallow and rather easily altered convictions.
What
an absurd business to inject into the political debate in America,
especially considering here is a nation with scores of serious problems,
but that's what a politician without ethics is willing to do.
And one has to believe The Lobby is desperate to the point of insanity to invite this kind of garbage.
The
world is becoming totally disillusioned with Israel: its behavior is
consistently aggressive, unethical, and malevolent, and no ignorant,
shallow words from Newt Gingrich or anyone else is going to convince
them that what they see daily is not the truth.
Israel's credibility with people all over the world keeps falling, and indeed has not much further down to go.
All
that rather than just make peace and treat its neighbors with respect.
It does say something very unpleasant about Israel that no blind
insistence by manipulated American politicians can overcome
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".
. . despite what some folks say, it turns out that Christians are VERY
open-minded. Doing whatever you want is perfectly OK with them ... as
long as once in awhile you say that you've sinned but have now -- SHAZAM
! like MAGIC ! -- been forgiven by God."
It's an aspect of one of America's favorite continuing themes: eternal youth and being born again.
Redemption is a concept repeated in America to the point of being sickening, day after day.
You can do anything - and Newt has done some disgusting stuff - and have redemption.
The
popular culture is replete with stories of drunken or drugged hillbilly
singers who find redemption, along with endless tedious stories of
sports figures and politicians.
There's always a new prospect for everyone so long as they just believe.
Believe in what?
Essentially believe that you are special, going to live forever, and truly cannot do anything wrong.
By
the way, Newt is not just a serial adulterer, one of his egregious
stupidities was announcing to his past wife, dying in a bed of cancer,
that he was divorcing her.
Doesn't that just say something
profound about this man's character? I do believe we are dealing with a
psychopath here, a relatively mild one but a psychopath.
That
being understood, how easy for him to deeply cut and hurt millions of
people already suffering decades of abuse from his campaign-fund
paymaster.
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"...Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:
"The
Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state
is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel
for our Arab unity."
What an abysmal comment.
First, how
in God's name can you honestly quote one man as representing the truth
on so profound a matter and speaking for millions of people? You cannot.
You might as well quote Mordechai Vanunu on the nature of Israel.
You are just repeating an immensely tiresome and deeply dishonest idea that Jordan is where Palestinians belong.
Jordan does not want millions of Palestinians.
Millions of Palestinians do not want Jordan.
No, the Palestinians just want the homes and farms they have resided in for centuries and centuries.
And
they don't want the migrants from Europe and America who pretty well
define the establishment of Israel stealing any more of their homes and
farms.
And what does Israel and apologists for Israel's abuse, like yourself, want?
To ethnically-cleanse millions of people, stealing all their homes and farms.
In a futile effort to make that palatable, you spew nonsense like this about there being no Palestinians.
The
existing apartheid situation in Israel and occupied Palestine is only
intended by Israel's establishment as a temporary one, intended to make
these poor people get up and go from endless abuse and deprivation.
Go where? Go anywhere so long as it is not in the territory of what has now become that malevolent fantasy of Greater Israel.
As
all apologists for Israel's abuse, you conveniently forget that all the
countries of the Middle East, including Jordan, have no long history,
but that does not render any of them invalid.
The shape of the
modern Middle East arose out of matters like the decline of the Ottoman
Empire and the imperial adventures of Britain and France.
And the
bottom-line truth is that all nationalism is pretty much a child of the
19th century. National states, as we know them today, virtually did not
exist before then.
Europe and other parts of the world were
divided into princedoms and empires everywhere, entities which included a
polyglot of languages, religions, and ethnic identities - the
Austro-Hungarian Empire being perhaps the most obvious example with its
Germans, Tyroleans, Italians, Hungarians, and many others.
Nationalism
is almost a virus that infected Europe in the 19th century with the
idea that Germany should be for German-speakers and Italy for
Italian-speakers, etc.
We saw where that virus led: in the limit, Hitler's Reich with its absurd racial theories is where blind nationalism goes.
The
early Zionists were infected with exactly the virus of nationalism
sweeping Europe, and today in few places of the world is there a more
backward-looking sense of identity than in Israel.
Israel for Jews. No room for others.
That sounds terrifyingly familiar.
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"It seems that the Jews of modern Israel are the invented people; not the Palestinians.”
Indeed.
A fine Israeli academic has written a serious and scholarly book on the Jewish people and Israel's identity.
Everyone concerned about the Middle East should read it.
You'll find my book review here:
http://chuckmanmiscellanea.blogspot.com/2011/10/review-of-shlomo-sands-invention-of.html
But
even were the findings of this research to prove inaccurate, there
still would be no excuse for Israel's abuse and oppression.
_______________________________________________
“
Clearly, the anti-Israel posters here have no real notion of the
history of the region and are simply parroting Palestinian talking
points."
I would be willing to match my knowledge of the region's background with you or any other apologist here for Israel's interests.
There
is nothing more intellectually dishonest than repeating endlessly the
same technically true but trite observation, an observation which is
meaningless.
Again, no country in the Middle East has less
historical basis than Israel, a place largely founded and governed by
Europeans and Americans.
And modern scholarship seriously
questions whether these founders and rulers even have any legitimate
connection with the place called Israel because they are likely not
descendants of the ancient Hebrews.
The Palestinian people most likely include most of the direct descendants of the ancient Hebrews.
The
Romans were known not to throw all the population out of their
conquests, and there is no record of them doing so despite the modern
notion that the Jews have been wanderers since being thrown out.
Both the Biblical stories and some Jewish notions of ancient history we know to be incorrect.
There
is for instance no record - and this among some of the world's great
past record-keepers, the Egyptians - of Israelis being enslaved or even
living in Egypt.
Moses is an Egyptian-origin name, not Hebrew.
And somehow or other I have doubts about Jonah living in the whale.
You
don't base boundaries and world affairs on myths and superstitions, but
if you do you get just the kind of mess we see today in Israel.
