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

To: michael97123 who wrote (158018)	2/12/2005 4:28:01 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi michael97123; Re: "Way it seemed to me too. Same with GST as well when he leaves his liberal internationalist, multi lateral approach to impugn the motives of just one group." I'm not "impugning the motives of just one group". Anyone who's read much of the 14,000 posts I've written on SI knows that I impugn the motives of pretty much all groups. Like I've said before, mankind is universally composed of sinners and liars. As far as the Zionists go, my reason for discussing their mythology in these several recent posts is that the US is allied with Israel, and I believe that this alliance is a bad idea as a practical matter. Israel has been in existence since 1948, but they have never once sent soldiers to fight alongside ours in any of the major wars we have fought since then. Going the other way, Israel has sucked many billions of dollars worth of aid out of this country. Some ally. In the absence of any practical use for Israel as an ally, the main argument for alliance with them is one of morality. For this reason, the morality of the Israelis must be examined. Hey, if Israel doesn't want us to look under its skirts, they can quit taking our money. From my point of view, the Israelis, like much of the old world, is still caught in ancient ethnic struggles where no one really wants peace, unless it is a peace with them as the victors. And every one of those ethnic groups are willing to let as many Americans die as needed for them to obtain that victory. I don't think we should play that game. Re: "I can be aggressive as hell here but i never attack folks on their ethnicity, gender, sexual preferences etc." No one here has been so attacked. Re: "It just seems to me that i spend an inordinate amount of time defending the actions of either israelis, american jews or now Masada Jews." No one made you defend the actions of the Masada Jews. You took it upon yourself. If you think that you made a mistake, then be a man and admit it. Everyone gets carried away now and then by good propaganda. Re: "Why does Bilow bring up Masada? I dont think he hates Jews." You are correct. Re: "I just think he thinks that Jews who support Israel are refusing to analyse history correctly." Not exactly. Every ethnic group puts a "shine" on their history, though American liberals seem to be trying to put a tarnish on American history. My complaint is having the US dragged into unwinnable ethnic wars because of arguments made by people who are refusing to understand history. Re: "Why then not attack the majority of Christian Americans (and i am not talking of the evangelicals) who belive Israel is more right than wrong as may jews do?" (a) I haven't attacked anyone. (b) If you were an evangelical going on and on about how moral the Israelis at Masada were, I'd respond to you in exactly the same fashion. (c) Forgive me for not keeping track of everyone's ethnicity, but I was unaware (or had forgotten) that you were Jewish until you mentioned it. It really doesn't matter to me. (d) I disagree with the evangelicals as to their influence on American policy in the Middle East, but now that I think about it, the Evangelical Christians are hardly in a position to defend Jewish morality. (e) Along that line of thinking, if Jesus had been at Masada, do you think he'd have killed his family. The simple fact is that the Jews at Masada appear to me to have been as much heretics (from the point of view of mainstream Jewish thought) as the Jews who followed Christ. If I recall, *the leader of the Sicarii had declared himself the Messiah and was killed by mainstream Jews*. The surviving Sicarii retreated to Masada and raided neighboring (Jewish) villages. It sounds an awful lot like a cult to me. What I have difficulty understanding is how Masada can remain an icon when all this is true about the defenders there. From reading on the web, it appears that these problems with the heroism of the Sicarii at Masada have been recognized in Israel and Masada has appropriately been played down. Most of the visitors to the site now are said to be foreigners and not even Jewish. The United States is less concerned with the details of early Holy Land history, and consequently the obsolete propaganda still plays well here. It is my opinion that Judaism was the beginning of civilization, and the world owes the Jews a lot for this. That said, I see Jesus, with his concentration on forgiveness, rather than revenge, as the beginning of modern times. Along this line, you earlier mentioned Ghandi and MLK. I feel that these two, who I revere, have a lot more in common with Jesus than with the cult at Masada. And I doubt that Ghandi or MLK, with their historic use of non violent means of protest, would have raided their fellow countrymen or killed their families, even under the incredible duress that must have happened at Masada. -- Carl