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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sir Francis Drake who wrote (54217)	10/23/2002 3:22:01 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

But are you denying that the discourse in Israel has become more hate-filled (where folks like Rabin can be called Nazis by settlers)? This EMPHATICALLY did not use to be the case 20 years ago. Ask anyone in Israel. It is frightening, and quite resembles the kinds of political rhetoric one finds in those nasty Arab regimes. Moderate voices have become almost silent these days - where is Peace Now "now" (LOL!), compared to the past? Rabin's assassination (7 years ago, now) was indeed very shocking to all of Israel, and caused a very considerable pull-back and rethinking in political discourse. The Israelis I talk to and read about are sad, resigned, resolute -- not hate-filled at all. It is the Arabs who are really good at hating. The Israelis say, "I can understand why they hate us." It doesn't work the other way around at all. Nor does the rhetoric of the newspapers bear the slightest comparison -- not the slightest. As for Peace Now, their hopes have been proven to be illusions. They will revive the instant there is any sign of a moderate Arab camp, even a hint. What do you expect after two years of suicide bombings whose only discernable purpose is to kill as many random Jews as possible? What moral law of the universe entitles you to hold the Israelis to the most rarefied of ethical standards in the very face of barbarity -- barbarity whose existence you admit, but which you think should have no bearing on the case?

To: Sir Francis Drake who wrote (54217)	10/23/2002 3:49:27 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

So too with the Arabs. Yes, they are a hopelessly failed civilization, and failed states - corrupt, lacking in freedom, filled with every kind of flaw you can imagine, atrocious treatment of women etc., etc., etc., - indeed, I would never wish to live there, nor would I wish that system upon anyone. I could write a book on why I hope to Heavens that the West survives and Islam does not touch us. But that still does not take away from the fact that Israel has done wrong in occupying another people, however inadequate their society. It is not Israels, nor indeed anyone's right to determine how Arabs wish to live their lives. As long as they don't tell me how to live, I won't tell them. So how does your argument apply any less to the existence of Israel inside the Green Line? "Right of Return", "al Nakba", all that? All your arguments point to a conclusion you deny -- that Israel doesn't deserve to exist. Do "vicious colonial states" deserve to survive in any form? Is "apartheid" ok in smaller borders? The questions answer themselves, when you put them that way (which is why I talk about codes). As Bibi says, the world judges regimes by three standards -- a low one for dictatorships, a high one for democracies, and a special rarified one just for Israel. It is not possible to show someone upholding these triple standards that he is being anti-Semitic -- that's not his intent -- it just works out that way. Nowhere is this clearer than in a judgment that says, the Arabs have failed societies but Israel should just get out of their face and leave them alone. Sorry, it's not possible while Israel exists in the Mideast in any borders. As an educated Saudi said to a pundit friend (I forget the exact source, but the quote stayed with me), "Israel represents the castration of Islam. That is why Israel must be destroyed."