Mostly, I bring it up in reaction to official Arab promotions of Nazi anti-Semitism as a belief and a weapon in their struggle against Israel.
On a very visceral level this is ultimately what makes such people my enemy. I have no particularly strong attachment to my religion as such but somehow the tribal connection is so strong, it defies all logic. Suffice to say that I have enough history in me to understand the words “never again”.
In the face of the apartheid regime, it was more than a bit ironic to be growing up as a Jew in a country run by a bunch of guys who had been interred by the British during ww2 for Nazi sympathies. They pretty much left the jews alone though, who as a community by and large were thankful to just get on with their lives without being persecuted and to send money to Israel, and letters of protest to the Soviet Union, in increasing amounts every year, creating network effects. There was quite a bit of inter generational stress because in addition to the normal stuff the young guns could not understand why the elders were just going along with the overall plan.
It is impossible for me to reconcile my own experiences without acknowledging the legitimacy of Palestinian Nationalist Aspirations. The anti semitic stuff however pushes me to the edge of the cliff, and for the sake of the Children (we do like to play <g>), it is a jump I will not make.
The Socio-historical Background of Holocaust Denial in Arab Countries:
Arab reactions to Roger Garaudy's The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, by Goetz Nordbruch
sicsa.huji.ac.il
Jewish anti-Arab racism may certainly exist, but it doesn't hold a candle to the officially promulgated Arab anti-Jew variety.
The gulf between the Official views held by the respective parties is most telling, one of the few instances in politics perhaps where this is indeed the case. Jewish anti-Arab racism definitely exists though, face it, deal with it, fight it, these are your people. With a bible in your hand anything is possible including lending a false legitimacy to racism. I’m not sayng this is always the case, but if it walks talks and quacks, it probably is or is at the least close enough so as to not make any practical difference.
What is particularly galling to me is the steady refusal of most of the American press to even report its existence,
here the author is a pissed off Serb, so beware the bias
I’m not familiar with the history so any comments would be appreciated.
Islam Under the Swastika
The Grand Mufti and the Nazi Protectorate of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1941-1945, by Carl Savich
serbianna.com
Too much truth is a burden, and it’s no fun seeing it being suppressed just because it is so outrageous that it’s exposure is considered counterproductive under the circumstances. You may fervently disagree but then the issue in question is not the truth. You know that however well written and factual any piece may be, there will be accusations of hate mongering and shit stirring, hornets nest and all that.
This is such a tough story for the press, because in the overall picture it asks for a clarity which may not exist, firstly because we all know what the press is good for, and secondly because the Palestinians haven’t defined themselves, well ok they have but not in any way shape or form that promotes their cause in the eyes of the US or Israel which is all that really counts at this point in the proceedings.
This lack of definition is not just the lack of a plan, it is an identity crisis, an ideological defficiency. Arafat’s duplicity is the terrorists best friend, it confuses the enemy but it provides neither paradigm nor prescription for an emergent state. This is how you tell the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter, and it proves that a terrorist can be something other than the word used by oppressors to describe the oppressed.
Arafat has bitten off more than he can chew, he is choking and needs to puke it all up. His friends, if he has any are going to have to clean up the place and if they can’t, we will help. I just wish the PA would get their shit together. I know this is hard, and to this end, I have long felt, cold as it is, contradictory as it is, that these folks need to get on with some war amongst themselves, their own internal clash of civilizations. If they have gotten to where they are now because they have been downtrodden and humiliated by the west for so long, I don’t see how humiliating them any further is going to help us, it’s just something they’re going to have to do for themselves. Too bad for them that our culture has taught us to do our part, and whether or not our actions will ultimately be construed as helpful or not... well, as LB says, thats politics.
The reason I say this is because without a clear enemy I don’t know where I stand, and that forces me to assume a worst case scenario. The turf is negotiable, but my life is not. Prove to me that this is not an existential threat and we can do business, if you can’t then all bets are off. If I am going to do business, as opposed to just going gambling, which is Arafats game, I need the name & address of the boss once they have decided amongst themselves what they are trying to sell me. Sharon too has a responsibility to define his position. The point is to all get along, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way.
leaving an incorrect impression of Arab moderateness with the American public.
somehow I don’t think that the impression here in the US is altogether one of Arab moderateness, unless your pov is not representative of the massess! - knowledge can be a dangerous thing, got any statistics to prove your point. Overall I think there still is moderation towards those Arabs living here, but this is changing and wrt those Arabs living in faraway lands I think the impression is quite different. Sorry no science, just common sense. I do think however that you have put your finger on an important button and that is how difficult it is to evaluate an enemy.
You're going to have to explain to me what code you think Mandela was actually using. Remember, I'm an American, and we have our own traditions of racism to define our terms, with a very definite racial divide between "white" and "black", none of which conceivably applies to the Mideast.
At the best of times just a single word can cause immense confusion and when you put two or more of them together you are dealing with unintended consequences, in this case a conflation between race and place. So much for reality.
Where I grew up if you were White you were European, no matter where you were from geographically. If you were not you were non-European, except for those of mixed descent who were called Coons and for a while were considered White and had the vote, but when things started getting sophisticated some changes were made to reflect the realities on the ground. Europeans was changed to Whites, non Europeans was changed to Blacks, the Coons were disenfranchised and became known as Coloreds. Some, but not most Asians were known as Honorary Whites as were some of those from places in the Middle East like Lebanon, unless they were too dark. Israelis, no matter their shade were considered proper whites. I think this is the basis for Mandela’s reference. Today the Black European is a normal feature of everyday life, so you might excuse the old man if he doesn’t make himself perfectly clear, he’s really not the crazy one. Does this picture ring a bell, however faintly.
If he was really talking about European-style democracies vs. Third-world dictatorships, I don't see how I'm "bluffing" to say race has nothing to do with the case.
If you were light skinned Portugese from Brazil you were European, I mean White, but if you were a little darker than that you were Colored, or else Black, in which case you would be called a Kaffir, which is what many people called Mandela, an Afrikaans word which ironically sounds, and is spelled, the same way as the Arabic word meaning infidel.
btw, a high percentage of the high profile white revolutionaries were jewish and were called commies.
All through this, Mandela never played the Race card, and in this you are correct that race had nothing to do with it. Unlike Arafat, he harboured wisdom, and not the hatred required to bring the existential threat to the table.
.I see the Israeli/Arab conflict as fundamentally religious, since apart from the very real issues of borders and autonomy, what makes the conflict intractable is the universal Arab/Muslim belief that, once Arab land, always Arab land.
perhaps, despite the fact that it took a millennium or more for the Vatican to renounce its hostility to Judaism. But that they did so has in my understanding functioned as one of those hidden philosophical markers that draws Palestinian Christians closer to the secular as opposed to the fundamental. I would only dare describe it in the vaguest terms as an ideological struggle mostly because the Palestinians don’t have one and are struggling to find one. in WW2 the Nazis suffered from the same delusion, the rest is history.
If the Arab population of Palestine had been universally Christian, the conflict would have developed along quite different and more tractable lines imo; in fact, Israel has always gotten on much better with Arab Christian communities than Arab Muslim ones.
Palestinians of all stripes would deny this, as indeed Hanan Ashwari has. In the Arab world such sentiments would be vehementaly attacked as being Zionist/Israeli propoganda. I think that she is delusional because dhimmi subjugation exists well outside the narrow confines of the disputed territories and as long as Islamism has any say in the political arrangements, it always will.
The Palestinian Christians are a marginalized group beset by an impossibly complex position that reflects the entire pandoras box of problems, which is a tough nut to crack in a nutshell. To pare this down, basically whats happened here is that the Christians have two enemies, the jews and the muslims. Palestinian Christians living in Israel, do not enjoy full rights in an imperfect democracy, if ever there was one. All politics is local, all politics is about power and democracy is a concept, not a thing.
They are not christian enough to be supported by the christians in the west (except obliquely), the so called secular world, and they are not muslims so they will always and forever be infidels to the Islamic cruise missiles. In the territories in the meantime what the PA desperately needs to make happen is the transition to Secularism. This is why the Palestinian Christians are in such a pickle. Their only way out is to pursue nationalism, but they pretty much have landed up having to throw in their lot with a bunch of Islamic fascists who unfortunately have come to prominence precisely because the secular experiment of Nationalism which the P. Christians need so badly, failed so badly in other parts of the Arab world, ergo Saddam Hussein who we are now dealing with in an altogether different time phase. The past, present and future are simultaneously coexisting at the same time, its right here right now staring you in the face, why do you folks have such a hard time believing me -:}
The perimeter has caved in on Jerusalem and the Cradle of Civilization is up for grabs. Every attempt at Peace so far has failed. In the meantime muslim fascists will just keep up their low key understated spontaneous shit stirring and discrimination against the Palestinian Christians. In sleeping with our fundamental enemy, Arafat has gone undercover of darkness to the foot of the bed where the Christians will find that they are infidels, and if anyone doubts what this means please look it up. This is about as much as GWB needs to know.
And Arafat and his thugs have taken revenge on the Christians for that history -- check the Christian Palestinian emigration rates from PA territory since 1993, they're huge.
More specifically check the decline in the christian population in places like Bethlehem and Nazareth. Not only here but also in places like Iraq, Egypt etc, basically wherever Islamic Fundamentalism can be found. Arafat has managed to do some pretty stupid things. His denial of Jewish Jerusalem implies that Jesus is a hoax. If the place was never there how could jesus have been there. In this respect you might remember that the 2nd Millenium Anniversary celebration in Bethlehem was cancelled. This is more than GWB needs to know so in the face of overwhelming complexity he’s decided to cut to the chase, install democracy in Iraq and let Israel get away with murder. This is how it is.
The fight we are in is about the separation between Church and State, this is the thread that runs all the way into bin ladens ass, through the middle of Arafats gut and out of saddams ear. An ideological commitment to violate what we consider to be a fair implementation of this this principle is our enemy No.1. Lifes not fair but this does not mean that we should just accept it. This ideological threat is coming at us from two directions, from opposite sides of the faultline, simultaneously at the same time. Al queda wants to collapse the state into the mosque, and Saddam wants to collapse the mosque into the state. The PA is completely bewildered and doesn’t know what the hell to do and all we can see is a big pile of rubble where two tall institutions should be standing. There is only one label for a situation like this, and that is Political.
The only sensible reaction to all this is outrage and moral indignation but this will only go so far if you fail to acknowledge that not all Marriages are made in Heaven, they are made between men, sorry ladies but this is especially true in places like New York and Afghanistan <g>. Denial is not a river in Egypt, when you stick your head in the sand, my ass is in the air and on 911 it very nearly got kicked. I am all for peace light love and harmony (and cdma) but for now, I would sincerely appreciate it if all you Christian Soldiers out there would join me in this fight.
Thanks for your help so far, #43 will not be stopped because he is on a mission from god, and he knows that his State is at stake.
and with that, a final word on race and religion from Dick Gregory.
I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark. - |
