Jimmy Carter is planning a dialogue with Hamas.
And he’s remarkably unapologetic about it, despite requests from both Washington and Israel to cease and desist:
Former President Carter said he feels “quite at ease” about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel.
Carter seems never to have heard of William Lloyd Garrison’s handy guide to the art of negotiation:
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter…”
Carter’s faith that unrepentant terrorists such as the leaders of Hamas can be persuaded by the tools of reason or pleading, and that any positive responses they might come up with are truthful and not a form of strategic playacting for the gullible, is certainly nothing new. He has been one of Hamas’ biggest Western boosters for quite some time. And it wouldn’t be his first dialogue with Hamas.
Back in February of 2006, after monitoring the Palestinian elections in which Hamas gained power, Carter had a tete-a-tete with the new leaders. It was highly productive, as you might imagine:
Carter said “there’s a good chance” that Hamas, which has operated a network of successful social and charitable organizations for Palestinians, could become a nonviolent organization….The 39th U.S. president said he met with Hamas leaders in Ramallah, in the West Bank, after last week’s elections.
“They told me they want to have a peaceful administration. They want to have a unity government, bring in Fatah members and independent members,” Carter said.
Carter’s next sentence gave some evidence of a rare moment of sanity on his part (although not good grammar):
What they say and what they do is two different matters.
But Carter snapped back quickly enough to his dreamworld when he pointed out that:
…Hamas has adhered to a cease-fire since August 2004, which “indicates what they might do in the future.” He said Hamas is “highly disciplined” and capable of keeping any promise of nonviolence it might make.
Well, we all know how well that turned out, didn’t we? Then again, maybe the problem was that they didn’t do enough talking to the extraordinarily persuasive Jimmy.
In June of 2007, Carter went on to harshly criticize the US for not being evenhanded in dealing with internal Palestinian politics, and blamed divisions among the Palestinians on US favoritism for Fatah over Hamas:
Far from encouraging Hamas’s move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the US and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, has sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.
“That action was criminal,” he said in a news conference after his speech.
“The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah,” he said.
Yesiree, folks, if it weren’t for the meddling of the big old bad old US and Israel, Hamas and Fatah would be holding hands and singing Kumbaya. And Jimmy would be standing right in the middle of the circle of love, basking in the glow—and his own glory.
Carter would dearly love to return to the halcyon days when he was broker of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. That meeting must have strongly solidified his faith in the power of talk—the fact that formerly bitter enemies could change, if not into friends, at least into countries that are not in an active state of war. The special conditions and personalities that allowed that brokerage to happen have not stopped him from generalizing it to any and all enemies, any and all regimes, any and all dictators.
Carter especially has never retreated from the idea that this can happen on a much wider scale in the mideast, and that he, Jimmy Carter, is the one person who can do it (see, for example, the last paragraph in this article). The fact that Egypt and Anwar Sadat back in the late 70s were a far cry from Hamas today, which is sworn inexorably to Israel’s destruction and with no indication of an iota of movement from that position, is irrelevant to Jimmy’s faith in his own power to persuade.
When Carter says his current willingness to talk with Hamas is nothing new, “I’ve been meeting with Hamas leaders for years,” he isn’t just harking back to 2006. According to an interview he gave in 2006 to the Toronto Star, Carter was eager to negotiate between his good friend Yassar Arafat and Hamas ten years earlier:
As a personal favour to the late Palestinian leader, and in the spirit of the newly minted Oslo Accords, Carter went hunting for Hamas, to lasso them into the political process….A series of meetings ensued with various Hamas leaders in the Israeli-occupied territories…[T]here were indications Hamas might be ready to make the great leap forward into reason and rationality—and perhaps even to accept Israel as its legitimate partner in a future that would become two states living side by side.
Finally, a secret summit was arranged for Cairo involving every voice that mattered to Hamas. And just as Carter was preparing for the flight to Egypt, Hamas called it off.
“They cancelled the meeting. Either they decided no, or they decided I wasn’t the right person. But they cancelled,” said Carter.
You can almost hear the mystification and disappointment in his voice. I doubt Hamas came to the conclusion he was the wrong person; it’s hard to imagine they could have found a more useful idiot than Jimmy. My guess is that they were laughing at him the whole time.
As for the meeting with Hamas that Carter is currently proposing, these are his goals. l think you’ll all agree they are quite modest, realistic, and achievable:
I think that it’s very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire—things of this kind.”
For Hamas, “things of that kind” exist only in the fevered imagination of the likes of Carter. Hamas is not exactly the definition of an honest broker; even Neville Chamberlain at the time of Munich had more reason to trust Hitler’s word than Carter would have to believe anything Hamas promises at this point; we have a lot more evidence of their continued duplicity and bloodthirstiness over time.
Speaking of Chamberlain, he sounded almost like a harsh realist in his assessment of Hitler the first time he met him, as compared to Carter’s continuing tender regard for Hamas:
In spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I saw in [Hitler’s] face, I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word.
At least Chamberlain noticed the look on Hitler’s face in the first of his three meetings with him in Germany, negotiations which culminated in the get-together known as Munich. Prior to his departure for the Munich talks, Chamberlain said:
When I was a little boy, I used to repeat, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.’ That’s what I am doing. When I come back I hope I may be able to say, as Hotspur says in Henry IV, ‘Out of this nettle, danger, we plucked this flower, safely.’ “
At this point, Carter outdoes Chamberlain in perseverance, although he lacks his eloquence. In the end, it didn’t take Chamberlain all that long to realize that talks with Hitler were not going to have the desired effect, and that Hitler’s word was worse than meaningless:
Regarding his final impression of Hitler, Chamberlain said: “Hitler is the commonest little swine I have ever encountered.”
Too little, too late. As for Hitler, he had nothing but contempt for Chamberlain from the start:
Our enemies are little worms. I saw them at Munich.
My suspicion is that Hamas would say something very similar about Carter, if they were interested in speaking truth to powerlessness.
But after all these years Carter still believes—oh, how he believes! It’s hard to know exactly what he believes, though—is it the basic goodness and honesty of all humanity? The veracity of Hamas’ leaders themselves? Or is it the silver tongue of Jimmy Carter?
Why am I harping on this? After all, who is Jimmy Carter? Isn’t he just a dotty old man at this point?
He still can do damage. He still has an international reputation as a good guy and ex-President, and gives legitimacy to Hamas in the eyes of the world, affording them propaganda points both in his deeds and in his books.
He also sets an example for his philosophical heir Barack Obama, who appears to have the same misplaced faith in the power of talking to sworn and unrepentant enemies. Obama also has the same strange belief not only in the power of dialogue, but in the extra-special power of dialogue when he himself is one of the players.
Again, Chamberlain comes off ahead, I think. At least he didn’t think he had magical powers, as do Carter and Obama. And he certainly didn’t think so in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.
But his beliefs do sound awfully familiar. Read this still-relevant passage from “Chamberlain’s Perspective Lives On,” a piece written in 1988 by then Undersecretary of the Navy Seth Cropsey that appeared in the Wall Street Journal:
Today, in the U.S., politicians question preparations to deter conflict, including strategic defenses, as if we had not learned
what Chamberlain failed to grasp: Not everyone may share our view of war’s deadly disadvantages—and absent realistic signs of our determination, rulers whose regimes are based on force may view our respect for law, diplomacy and negotiation as a sign of weakness and not of strength.
Chamberlain was fascinated with the personal touch, something shared by many journalists and many politicians. His belief that misunderstanding, not aggression, causes conflict—his second great misjudgment—was reflected in the dogged devotion to the virtues of shuttle summitry and face-to-face assurances of good will and friendship: “The message … from Signor Mussolini was of a friendly character.” “Herr Hitler … said, again very earnestly, that he wanted to be friends.”
Can’t we all just get along? The answer, I’m afraid, is “no.”
April 14th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I’ve lived 50 miles or so from Plains Ga my whole life. I’ve yet to go there for fear there must be something in their water that made a Jimmy Carter.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Didnt Carters right hand man write a book where he realized that he was a “useful idiot”?
http://www.jfednepa.org/mark%20silverberg/jimmycarter.html
Carter’s reputation was that of melting in the presence of Communist dictators. As the “human rights president,” Carter noted that Yugoslavia’s Marshall Tito was “a man who believed in human rights.” Carter saluted the dictator as “a great and courageous leader” who had led his people and protected their freedom.” He reserved similar remarks for Romania’s (now deposed Communist) dictator Nicholai Ceaucescu.
In December 1977, Polish Communist boss Edward Giereck was ushered into the Oval Office. According to the White House transcript of the meeting, he told Gierek, “Our concept of human rights is preserved (ie: safe) in Poland. Carter actually “expressed appreciation for Poland’s support for the Helsinki Agreement and its commitment to human rights.” He offered no criticism of the Polish Communist government’s human-rights record - despite the fact that, one month earlier, the Polish secret police had attacked thousands of workers protesting food price increases. Four people were killed in the melee; hundreds of others were arrested and savagely beaten in prison.
It gets worse. As Jay Nordlinger notes in the National Review Online (October, 2002), “Carter has long enjoyed a reputation as a Middle East sage, owing, of course, to his role in the original Camp David accords. That reputation, however, rests on shaky grounds.” Nordlinger points out that Sadat and Begin had their deal worked out before ever approaching Washington. Why did they contact the White House? Prof. Bernard Lewis of Princeton University put it succinctly: “Well, obviously, they needed someone to pay the bill, and who but the United States could fulfill that function?”
No one quite realizes just how passionately anti-Israel Carter was. William Safire has reported that Cyrus Vance acknowledged that, if Carter had had a second term, he would have “sold Israel down the river.” In fact, in The Unfinished Presidency, Douglas Brinkley, Carter’s biographer and analyst writes, “There was no world leader Jimmy Carter was more eager to know than Yassir Arafat.” The former president “felt certain affinities with the Palestinian: a tendency toward hyperactivity and a workaholic disposition with unremitting sixteen-hour days, seven days a week, decade after decade.” The brutality, the corruption and the human rights abuses to which Arafat and his PLO subjected the Palestinian people were, at best peripheral, and at worst, the fault of the Israelis.
on another note (i didnt know where to put this), i found one of the others who were useful idiots, lived the cause, then woke up.
Freda Utley.. http://www.fredautley.com/
the reason i bring it up is that she wrote some stuff on the middle east.
WILL THE MIDDLE EAST GO WEST — 1956–About the Middle East after the Suez war in 1956. Brief history of European imperialism, beginnings of Arab nationalism, British, French, Israeli attack on Egypt, Suez Canal, Palestine, etc. “Her balanced evaluation of today’s problems and tomorrow’s possibilities in the world’s hottest danger zone is likely to prove as true and prophetic as her books on Japan, Russia, China and Germany,”
so it may be interesting to see what this person thinks about things…
however, the key story (and others like it) is
“the dream we lost”
THE DREAM WE LOST — 1940–The first thorough analysis of Soviet communism by an expert who lived in Moscow during the late 1920’s and 30’s. It was widely read by the (non-Marxist) American intelligentsia and established Freda Utley as one of the nation’s premier experts on communism
and
LOST ILLUSION — 1948–About the author’s personal life in Russia during the 1920’s and 30’s.
reading older histories and such tales is a big eye opener…
her tale as to her life in dreams we lost is agonizing, in its slow inevitable crawl…
in WILL THE MIDDLE EAST GO WEST, she makes interesting parallels that link things that today we forget.
In 1923 Sun Yat Sen turned to Soviet Russia for help in the liberation and unification of China, because the Western Powers and Japan refused to relinquish the imperialist privileges and powers which kept China impotent, divided and desperately poor. Thus he unwittingly opened the door to Communist infiltration, subversion and armed attack which a quarter of a century later delivered China over to Communist slavery and converted her into Moscow’s most subservient and powerful satellite.
Today, the Arab world in danger of following the same road to perdition. Once again the West is denying the legitimate national aspirations of a people with an ancient civilization – fallen behind in the march of technological, economic and political progress, and humiliated by past or present subjection to alien rule; but proud of their cultural heritage, longing for strength through unity and progress through reform, and seeking to free themselves from their colonial status, or from fear of renewed aggression and subjugation. In the Arab world, as in China three decades ago, the Western Powers have pursued policies calculated to impel the leaders of the people to call upon Moscow to redress the balance in their favor against old and new imperialisms which seek to retain, regain or win privileges and powers.
Thanks to America’s stand on Suez, the disastrous consequences to the Arabs and to the West of any such reliance on the Soviet Power have been at least temporarily averted. But since France and Israel, and to a lesser extent Britain, are today exerting their powerful influence on American opinion to prevent the United States Administration from pursuing an enlightened policy, the danger is by no means past.
History never repeats itself so exactly that its lessons are clear for all to read. Each drama in the continuing record of the “crimes, follies and cruelties” of mankind differs slightly, as the scene shifts, new actors play the leading roles, and the sympathies and judgment of the audience respond to personal and national prejudices, passions, interests and experience. Hence the truth of the cynical observation that the only lesson which history teaches is that mankind learns nothing from it.
Yet there is so close a similarity between the situation in the Arab world today and that of China yesterday that if the West is able to perceive the parallel, we may avoid repeating the errors of judgment and policy which only a few years ago lost almost half a continent to the Communists.
The tragic drama of modern China was long drawn out, and there were times when, as today in the Middle East, temporary periods of enlightened Western statesmanship promised a happier ending. The prologue to the tragedy, played out from 1920 to 1949, when she finally succumbed to the Communists, was similar to that of the Arab drama we are now witnessing, in which America and Russia are both vying for the role of the deus ex machina.
veddy interesting…..
April 14th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I guess I’m kind of confused here. OK, William Lloyd Garrison would never negotiate with “tyrants.” But Winston Churchill, FDR and Charles de Gaulle did negotiate with tyrants. JFK did too, especially at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Some people think they negotiated a way out of World War Three more than once. So, bully for Garrison, but I don’t think his word on the issue settles anything. Sounds pretty stupid, actually, when you consider the likely alternatives to failing to negotiate with an enemy who has a lot of access to firearms and explosives and plenty of friends in the area.
I also got thrown by the reference to “tyrants.” Isn’t Hamas the democratically elected government of the Palestinians? So who exactly are they “tyrannizing?” The three million Palestinians in the West Bank have been living under military occupation for 40 YEARS, but I don’t think it’s Hamas that’s tyrannizing them, is it? What do you think? Let ‘em live under military occupation, contrary to all international law and contrary to probably dozens of UN Resolutions for another 40 years and maybe THEN talk to them? Don’t wanna rush into things, do we?
Seems like a really crazy world when the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people are “tyrants” and the state which occupies them illegally for 40 years in defiance of international law is unwilling to talk to them on the grounds of “tyranny,” while settlement of immigrants from all over the world continues on the very lands that are supposedly to be “negotiated” if only the occupying forces had “someone” to talk to OTHER THAN the democratically elected government of its victims. Is that nuts or is that nuts?
April 14th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Chamberlain, at least, made one thing right: after all his hopes failed, he promoted Winston Churchill as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. I do not expect a like bit of sanity from Jimmy Carter.
April 14th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
The Palestinian Authority needs to be destoryed , not negiotated with.
Michael: You’re a damn fool. So utterly clueless about the intentions of Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Iran etc..
You dont negotiate with these people. And in any case, they’re not interested in negotiating.. there is nothing they intend to compromise on.. They’re on a religious mandate to destroy Israel and destroy America.
April 14th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Hamas became the ruler of Gaza not because of election, but as result of military coup. Hitler also was democratically elected, at least soon after he came to power. So we can not call him a tyrant? Have you read Hamas Charter, explicitly expressing genocide against Jews as its ultimate goal? What for negotiate with those who want to murder you? And drop this nonsense about international law. Arabs lost every legal ground for their claim on Gaza and West Bank, rejecting partition plan and starting, instead, a genocidal war. Now, embracing terrorizm, they have no leaders to talk with, and should be punished for this by becaming international pariah, with no rights at all, except for good will of their neigbours.
April 14th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
“Let us never negotiate out of fear but never let us fear to negotiate.”
Don’t know who said that but it makes a lot of sense. I have a lot of doubts (a) that Hamas is really all that interested in peaceful solutions or (b) that even if they are, that Jimmy Carter is the man who can hammer out the deal. At this point the Israelis have no more trust in the man and he’s no longer the President of the U.S.A. so they don’t HAVE to listen to him. The problem is they want the West Bank and it has to be given up for peace to occur. The Israelis want the West Bank more than they want peace, and anyone who tries to negotiate a “peace agreement” between the two sides will always run aground on this rock.
However, I don’t see much downside to it. If he fails, he fails and nobody’s any worse off for it than they were before. If the Israelis and their U.S. patrons sabotage Carter’s mission, they’ll always be on the defensive as the saboteurs of the peace that could have been. Whether it could have been or not.
April 14th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
West Bank. Right. By the way, how’s that plan to give Manhattan back to the Indians coming along?
Can we say “fait accompli?”
April 14th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
To people like Michael, and Jimmy “Dhimmi” Carter, I would suggest that they look up the meaning of two Islamic concepts and get some history behind them. Arafat used both terms liberally in his speeches in Arabic, so that credulous Westerners would not get a clue as to how Arafat was within the Islamic traditions revived by his uncle Amin al Husseini.
Hudna and
taqiyya
April 14th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Isn’t Hamas the democratically elected government of the Palestinians?
Yes.
And every time a Hamas member fires a missile into Israel, it is an act of war. Then there was the small matter of the, ummm, liquidation of the Fatah members in Gaza.
Maybe they plan on writing a book entitled How to make friends and influence people?
April 14th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Here are the options as I see them:
- Meet with Hamas and other Palestinian leaders to find some kind of common ground and negotiate a lasting peace.
- Pretty much let things carry on in the same manner they have for years, act tough, and maybe put some sanctions on them with the hope that they will change their views.
- Infilitrate their ranks, instigate a coup and set up a dummy government with CIA like propaganda and hope the Arab people in the region see the light and understand everything in a Western way.
- Go to war with them, kill as many as possible and maybe they will just follow orders.
Tell me which really has a chance of working?
Even Cheney has met with the Palstinian leadership - granted not Hamas. But they have won elections there and will probably continue to do so.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
The west bank?
The Israeli’s offered the Palestinians nearly *everything* they asked for in the west bank. And what was the response? The second intifada.
This war of attrition between Israel and Palestine has been going on for my entire life. My conclusion is that it will not be settled until one of two things happen…
The Palestinians start loving their own children more than they hate the Jews. Or one side completely wipes out the other.
I have to come to the defense of Neville Chamberlain. In 1938, England and the rest of Europe were barely 20 years out from WWI - the worst slaughter the world had known up to that point. Nobody - and I mean nobody - except maybe Hitler himself, wanted a repeat of that disaster. And most reasonable people would have done nearly anything to avoid it.
And Winston Churchill notwithstanding, Chamberlain at least, was acting in a way that the majority of Englishmen wanted him to. Unfortunately, he, along with that majority of his countrymen, was wrong.
Carter, however, is a rogue. He’s a loose cannon that could probably cause severe damage to our foreign policy. And I believe everything that can be done - within the law - to stop him from butting in where he doesn’t belong, should be done.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
And I believe everything that can be done - within the law - to stop him from butting in where he doesn’t belong, should be done.
So under your proposal a man is not free to go where he pleases on this Earth? He’s not free to meet with anyone he wants to meet for a talk?
Isn’t that a bit - I don’t know…UnAmerican?
April 14th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
The man is dangerous and meddling with dangerous forces.
He’s the Unamerican one… he’s the one endangering all of us.
He should be stopped.
I would love to live in this fantasy world that Democrats are living in. The most stupid group of people on earth involving themselves with the most irrational and diabolical forces on the planet. It’s lunacy.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
From time to time I go back and read the essay, below, by Eric Hoffer — this is one of those times.
____________________________
It bears repeating: Eric Hoffer on Israel
It was written in 1968, and perhaps you are familiar with it: Eric Hoffer’s piece on what he referred to as the “peculiar” position of Israel.
Hoffer’s essay is not only still astoundingly pertinent today, but it’s also notable for its brevity and clarity. So I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to present it here in its entirety, as food for thought.
ISRAEL’S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)
The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese–and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts and Jewish resources.
Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
[Via Pajamas Media.]
[ADDENDUM: Change “the Arabs and their Russian backers” in Hoffer’s essay to “the Arabs and Iranians and their (fill in the blanks) backers.”]
Eric Hoffer was a Non-Jewish American longshoreman turned into a social philosopher. He was born in 1902 and died in 1983, after writing columns for newspapers, nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
People fail to appreciate that Neville Chamberlain’s England was re-arming frantically in the late 1930s and knew that they needed time - - at least until 1940 or 41, when they and their French allies would achieve weapons parity with Germany and its allies. England desperately needed time because they had foolishly allowed the Germans to open an armaments gap (which did not develop on Chamberlain’s watch) and Chamberlain was pushing rearmament as fast as possible, so I personally think Neville got a bad rap and all comparisons between then and now are just totally irrelevant.
I think, unfortunately, that when it comes to a peaceful negotiated settlement, that train has now left the station. The Jews had a real possibility for a negotiated settlement of the land claims after 1967, but they blew it when they opened the Occupied Territories up for Jewish settlement, in direct contravention of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting settlement by an occupying power of lands taken by force of arms. From then until now, they claimed to anyone stupid enough to believe them that they were willing to exchange land for peace (which they probably were, as long as that land was not the West Bank) while all the time the ongoing settlement of the land they were supposedly willing to exchange for peace proceeded as fast as they could make it happen.
From time to time, Zionists will claim that the Arabs were offered “90%” or some similar portion of “all their demands,” which they stubbornly rejected, thus bringing down on their own heads all of the suffering and misery subsequently inflicted upon them by the IDF and the settlers. Well, that may be - - or not - - but I have never seen an official map or any written offer showing exactly WHAT the Jews’ best offer was. So we have a claim which is impossible to verify, and (I understand) for very good reason from the Israeli and American viewpoints, because the “90%” was clearly unacceptable. Apparently the “90%” was “honeycombed” with enclaves for Jewish settlements and militarized connecting roads between settlements, all under Jewish control, all cutting the “Palestinian Homeland” up into dozens of non-contiguous blocs like no other nation on earth. Has anyone ever seen a map anywhere of this supposedly “fabulous” offer that the Palestinians had the gall to reject?
April 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Calling Carter “Neville” would be unfair…to Chamberlain, that is.
Despite his misjudgments, Neville Chamberlain signficantly built up Britain’s defenses, especially the RAF. He also, in the end, declared war on Nazi Germany.
Not a great or even a good leader, but not in the same class of degeneracy with Carter.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I also wanted to correct Sergey’s statement that Hamas became the leader of the Palestinian people due to a military coup and not an election. That is just plain wrong. Hamas candidates won a majority in the 2006 Palestinian Parliamentary elections, which most if not all observers concluded were fair and representative.
Similarly Sergey’s statement about Hitler winning power in an election. In the run-up to the election, hundreds of anti-fascist organizers were murdered by Nazis and in the weeks immediately before the election, murders at the rate of several per week were going on. Virtually no Nazi assassins were ever prosecuted by the Republican police or the German state police for any of these crimes. Even so, Hitler did not win a majority government, and in fact the Communists had gained seats over the Nazis since the immediately preceding election. It was only after the Reichstag fire, when the Nazis were arbitrarily put in control of the Interior Ministry (including the police) by the President, that hundreds more anti-fascists and communist leaders were hunted down, tortured and murdered. During that time, the German police were ordered by the interior ministry not to intervene if Nazi SS or SA troopers were beating or murdering anyone, and to render assistance to them on request. After his enemies were physically eliminated, Hitler felt safe enough to call a new election and finally “won” his majority.
The hypocrisy of the U.S.A. in calling for “elections” and “democracy” as the key to Middle Eastern problems, and then doing all that it can to sabotage the first democratically elected government of the Palestinian people is mind-boggling. Elections, sure, just so long as “we” can control the result. More cynical than that it does not get.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
No one has answered my question.
What can be done to fix the problems of the Middle East? If it is wrong to meet Hamas and talk then what should be done?
April 14th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Matt, you already laid out a series of solutions, in order of increasing likelihood of long-term success.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
The fundamental problem with Carter is that he’s not authorized to speak for the U.S. government, having neither been elected to appropriate office nor appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
In other words, he’s now just another putz, and is in violation of Federal law in purporting to conduct foreign policy without such authorization.
That’s the problem.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Actually, I think negotiation could solve our problems in the Middle East.
I think the U.S. ought to propose a comprehensive international conference to settle all the outstanding grievances. Invite the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, President Assad of Syria, President Ahmedinejad of Iran, Moqtada al-Sadr from Iraq, a number of key religious leaders, and sit them all around a big table with Jimmy Carter at the head.
Then weld the doors and windows shut.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Put it this way: would you want Pat Buchanan speaking for us?
No? Neither would I (see, we agree!). I view Carter as every bit as deranged as Pat Buchanan.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
One thing in Chamberlain’s favor is that he didn’t have himself as an example to learn from.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
What can be done to fix the problems of the Middle East? If it is wrong to meet Hamas and talk then what should be done?
This seems to be a common rhetorical trick of Leftists in recent years.
It’s nothing more than preemptive surrender.
Evidently Matt feels that HAMAS is too formidible of a foe to confront and defeat. Why even contemplating destroying them sends dispair into his soul.
This feeling of helplessness is exactly the sort of mental warfare that Islam specializes in. “There are so many of us.. you have no chance to stand up against us”
Screw that. These people want to destroy us. Do you get it or not?
April 14th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I made this comment on a different thread on this blog yesterday but I’ll repeat it.. it’s my general framework for defending ourselves against Islam’s 3rd Global Jihad (the war we’re currently in):
Islam is a political-military ideology wrapped up in the trappings of a religion.
The first thing I would do is propose a Constitutional Amendment with an expiration date that authorizes the Government to have near unlimited power to fight against Political and Military Islam within our borders with strong criminal liablity for Cabinet-level officials or higher for any abuse of this power in their departments.
Next, we stop all flows of money and technology to nations whose laws are based on Islam.
Ban all Muslim immigration to the US.
Expel all Muslim non-citizens
Monitor every islamic structure (Mosque , community center)
Then tell the Muslim world that if we get attacked in a significant way by any terrorist group or a State due to religiously motivated reasons , we will nuke every Muslim country’s major ciites.
You do realize we’re in a war right? Either we die or they do. Or they could see the errors of their ways as their lands are cut off from the modern world and call off Jihad.
Of course none of this will ever happen.
We are committing suicide.
Our society’s social contract is essentially based on the Golden Rule. Islam has no such concept as the Golden Rule.. Islam is Submission. Submission is unacceptable in the United States.
Since Islam exists outside the boundaries of our culture we need to realize that are killing us with our own knife. They know our cultural weak points and are taking advantage of them.
We need to turn the tables.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Vince P
You’re world view isn’t even in the realm of reasonable or smart. It can’t be taken seriously. In fact, I think your proposal is irresponsible and incredibly dangerous.
But thanks for at least answering the question.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Matt:
My worldview is one of clarity and realism.
How do you propose to keep America protected from the 3rd Global Jihad?
April 14th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Matt,
I have a more (ahem) nuanced take on Vince’s suggestion. I wouldn’t support it as a plan of action, but as a proposed potential plan of action under discussion, i.e., a ploy, it has merit.
Right now both Islam (fulminant and benign) has nothing to lose by pushing us, and certain bedwetters (not looking in any particular direction, Matt - kidding) constantly assure them of that. Both groups need to believe that they have skin in the game, that if they push too hard, something bad - very bad - is going to happen to them. (I’d leave unspecified what that might be; personally, I like the idea of dropping pig crap on Mecca and Medina /g).
We need their abu-Matts to bleat about how irresponsible and incredibly dangerous it is to provoke us. Then - and only then - is there any point to negotiation.
And, of course, we have to be prepared to make good on the implicit threat, if absolutely necessary.
So, paradoxically, the harder-nosed someone appears, the less likely violence becomes, because he has street cred, while conversely the more earnest, sensitive, hand-wringing (dare I say, “liberal”?) one is, the more likely violence becomes - because the other side will not take that person seriously until he does something. People don’t mess with a Mr. T-type, who looks tough, and capable of doing anything; Woody Allen would have to actually shoot somebody before he’d be taken seriously.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Occam: Thank you for your analysis of my view. You are absolutely right-on.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Actually, I think the case for negotiations (though not necessarily led by Carter) is made admirably in these posts. There is an enormous amount of ignorance on display, particularly as to what the Arabs “really want” and of course all of it is negative, unsavoury and destructive in the extreme. To listen to these “experts,” one would have to think that no living Arab or Muslim has ever had a single constructive, positive or even harmless thought in his or her entire life. More than anything else, it reminds me of the kind of anti-Semitic propaganda that the Nazis used to spread about the Jews.
The real benefit of a conference with Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, Assad, el Sadr and all the other “bad boys” of the region is this: that for the first time, Americans will have the opportunity to hear from the Muslims themselves what their real concerns are, what their real objectives are, what they want to see happen in their region and what they don’t.
Since none of the posters here are capable of reading Arabic or Farsi (myself included) we are confined to a carefully selected reading of Arab “thought,” usually put together by “scholars” or “media watch” organizations with very strong ties to the State of Israel. Needless to say, the representative samplings are very strongly weighted in favour of the craziest and most violent speakers, no matter how obscure or unimportant they may actually be. Ancient religious texts are carefully picked over for the most insane anti-Semitic ravings that can be found - - something like trying to produce some insight into “the Protestant mind” by gleaning quotes from Martin Luther’s “The Jews and Their Lies” or the Henry Ford editions of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” However there are always plenty of “useful idiots” willing to mindlessly absorb the Zionist propaganda that they are fed and dutifully regurgitate its portrait of the Arab as murderer, as psychopath, as chronic underachiever, as “Islamofascist” etc.
There are obviously serious misunderstandings of the Arabs, their goals and even their recent history, almost all of them being created and circulated by people strongly sympathetic to the State of Israel. Strangely enough, the Israelis themselves are not as deluded by this crap as the Americans seem to be, perhaps because they actually may know some Arabs well enough to have interacted with them, even as jailer and prisoner.
A conference at which all players participate and are allowed to speak for themselves (and this includes, of course, the elected representatives of the Palestinians speaking for the Palestinians) may at least clear the air for some Americans and get them to see the Arabs and Muslims as they really are, and not as cartoonish stick figures cut to serve the interests of Likud Party apparatchiks and their powerful American patrons.
There is so much misunderstanding that a face-to-face meeting seems to be the ideal way to clear things up.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Michael: Since you are very informed on this issue can you tell us how the Koran is organized. Please be honorable and don’t go look it up if you dont know. If you dont know just say so.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
More than just dangerous your plans are not realistic because they would never happen.
No politician in his/her right mind would propose anything like this. Being tough only goes so far.
The proposal in my view is bonkers.
Why?
For starters because this is exactly what many terrorists want us to do. They want us to be so pissed off at the small percentage of Muslims that are terrorists that we would risk killing the larger percentage that aren’t. Why? Because they could recruit terrorists for at least the next 100 years. You think it is serious now? You think they would be afraid of us? Ha. Many of them have nothing left to lose. You start dropping nukes you have no idea what a gift that would be to Al Queda. It’s not like Japan during World War II. It is a very different mindset that bombs will not alter in the way you would want. You’re also dealing with multiple countries and various strands of the Muslim religion all of which would turn against America in ugly ways.
And btw if this war is so serious why do we not have a draft to relieve the soldiers we have there now? Why are we not implementing - not only your plan - but one that includes a bigger military presence? Why is there not economic sacrifice to fight the enemy? Why do most Americans want us home from Iraq?
Clearly Americans don’t think this war is that important.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
The Koran I read (which is the Penguin edition) is organized in chapters arranged in order of length, the first chapter being the shortest. In the beginning the chapters are very poetic and powerful, with incredible imagery, often drawn from the desert. It soon gets very boring and repetitive though. I never finished it.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I’m not super-knowledgeable about the Middle East but there are some great sources of information available, one being “If Americans Knew” at http://www.ifamericansknew.org/ for news which the U.S. media won’t print, although European and other media have no problem printing it, and another being Juan Cole’s blog www.juancole.com. Juan Cole is a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Univ. of Michigan.
I certainly don’t want to give the impression that the Arabs are the good guys and the Jews are the bad guys. There’s plenty of blame to go around for everyone. It’s a very complex situation. I personally think that the present generation of leadership on both sides is simply incapable of making peace. The only hope is for totally new blood, today’s 20-year-olds maybe 25 years down the road. I hope I’m wrong but I feel that the problem will only be solved by violence and in a way that is definitely not good for the Jews. The conflict is self-feeding in that every victim breeds a little cloud of avengers, so there is a sort of force multiplier projected in the future when all the bills come due.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
John: Your quran answer is not bad. Though it goes longest first.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Matt: So under your proposal a man is not free to go where he pleases on this Earth? He’s not free to meet with anyone he wants to meet for a talk?
He sure is, but that doesn’t allow him to negotiate or discuss issues pertaining to American state, and then solicit to volunteer to bring it up with us like a middle man that serves two masters. he is interfereing with affairs of state, and giving excuses so no one hollars loud enough about it.
Next time you sit to buy a house, or something big, let me know. I will then exercise my free ability to meet with the others in your meeting and discuss whatever I want with them.
Would you say that would have no effect, a little effect, a lot of effect, or an unquantifiable amount since it puts everyone off base?
Occam’s Beard,
Nice take. great explanation.
=============================
Here is the problem as I have seen it. we have taken our own rhetoric farther than it was meant to go.
The founding fathers would not have a problem with free men, but also would have the clarity to eject the seditious, and for those wishing to change us to another political system, their acts are seditious. The US was never meant to evolve to a different base of state.
At some point we arrived at some inane application that played with the spirit of the law, through the interpretations of the letter of the law. We lost our spirit and all we have left is word games.
Given that we have too many people who let radicals get someplace, radicalism has been a VERY productive way to elbow your way into the modern state, and take a legitimate seat at the table.
Sein Fein did pretty good eventually, no?
Rote Zora and their comrades did good, no?
Hammas, ended up where?
If I had the time I could list many more…
We have let this be a fast track to political position. We don’t negotiate with terrorists, we put them in state.
The west has lost its values, and spirit. It no longer can say that America is not for everyone. Yes Matt, America is not for everyone. Under the rights of self preservation and self determination, she can eject people who are not healthy to her and who intend to change her from what she is into something else. Doing that harms her.
There is a difference between USE, and ABUSE.
We have allowed the ABUSE of things for a long time.
Sedition is not a right.
Sedition is not the same as protest.
America was not intended to be freedom without responsibility, or judgment, or to harm.
If it finds an alien ideology harmful, it does have the right and power to eject it.
It probably won’t do anything like that till some event that removes ambiguity slams her so that her people will no longer tolerate that kind of behavior and teachings in their midst.
Maybe war backing up Columbia, in which the opponents have a hard link again to that favored provocateur and party animal of the last century. Or maybe backing up Israel against three or four states?
It may come after Iran closes the land transport path for mischief, and things finally settle down when things cant be maintained.
Since the beasties eat their own, its only a matter of time till brand X and Brand Y go at it, and things get a bit more real.
Its also only a matter of time till urban guerrillas start there games in large US cities.
MS13 has more than 20,000 members in the US and they send tribute back.
And the neat and peachy keen thing is that many are and have joined our military to get training in tactics, and weapons. http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/a/gangs.htm
The report, Gang Activity in the U.S. Armed Forces Increasing, dated January 12, states that members of nearly every major street gang have been identified on both domestic and international military installations. Members of nearly every major street gang, including the Bloods, Crips, Black Disciples, Gangster Disciples, Hells Angels, Latin Kings, The 18th Street Gang, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Mexican Mafia, Nortenos, Surenos, Vice Lords, and various white supremacist groups, have been documented on military installations. Although most prevalent in the Army, the Army Reserves, and the National Guard, gang activity is pervasive throughout all branches of the military and across most ranks, but is most common among the junior enlisted ranks, according to the report.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
VinceP,
Good question for Michael. We await his answer.
I knew that when neo-neocon posted a thread like this it would, as I’ve seen happen on other weblogs, bring out the Jew-haters, anti-Israelists, and conspiracy theorists.
Michael seems to think that we have no right to read the Qur’an if we don’t know Arabic or Farsi. Reliable translations exist in other languages. By the way, Michael, the Qur’an is written in Classical Arabic, a language that is no longer spoken anywhere. Muslims may be taught to recite it, but most Muslims do not know Arabic, let alone Classical Arabic. The only way they know what’s in it is when their clerics, scholars and imams let them know. We kafirs are, by Sharia Law, not permitted to study it or know what’s in it. Furthermore, Muslim apologists and propagandists will try to impugn our arguments by telling us that our English translations of the Qur’an are unreliable (they are not).
I would like to toss this question into the ring for everyone to consider. If large numbers of Arabs decided to leave territory inside and adjacent to Israel’s 1948 borders, on the encouragement and warnings from the Arab nations that if they did not leave they would be slain with the Jews, and they were not allowed to return, the traditional logic of war would seem to obtain, would it not? I mean, they bet on the Ummah and expected the Jews to be wiped out. But, it didn’t work out that way. Israel survived and won that war. To the victors belong the spoils. Same for the 1967 Six-Day War. Same for the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. Three times the Arabs tried to wipe them out and three times the Jews came away victorious, and with more territory added.
What is the logic by which the traditional rule of “to the victory belongs the spoils” somehow does not apply to the Jews?
I can assure you that if Israel had lost any of those wars Israel would have been wiped out. Murder on a massive scale would have ensued. And by the laws of war no one would have gone to the U.N., the World Court, or the European Community and tried to prosecute Syria, Egypt, and Jordan.
Given that by both the Islamic injunction to wage jihad and even injunctions in the Qur’an to kill the Jews, why should we expect mercy from the Arabs?
There are always double standards applied to the Jews.
Finally, as I’ve been following this discussion there is a strange air of unreality of perceptions on the part of some here.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
And what if the worthies you’ve assiduously assembled inform you that their real objectives are to kill people just like you, that what they want to see happen is that you become Muslim, and that what they don’t want to see is you alive and non-Muslim? (Because that’s exactly what some of them have said, and I think prudence demands that we take their pronouncements at face value.)
What then, my friend? Not every human dispute is ripe for resolution in the court of reason.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
First of all, I’m Michael, not John. The Penguin edition does go shortest first and I believe the intro said that that was the traditional format. I can tell you quite honestly if it had gone longest first, I would never have gone more than a couple of pages. The deeper you get into it the more boring it becomes.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Land for peace has not worked and not one phase of it has brought peace and security for Israel. Israel remains a non-recognized state by Muslim countries (except for Turkey).
The Arab nations have decided that the Palis are good canon fodder to keep on Israel’s borders as constant and boiling guerrilla fighters to enervate, terrorize, and weaken Israel.
There is not going to be a negotiated settlement because this is jihad and only hudna is permitted, for no longer than ten years.
Anwar Sadat was slain because he broke Islamic law on this score. His treaty with Israel was the primary reason the Muslim Brotherhood had him killed. He entered into a permanent treaty with an infidel, which is a serious offense. It rendered him an apostate and we know what the penalty for apostasy in Islam is.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
You don’t get it. Sounding bonkers is exactly the idea.
The politician in charge can present himself as restraining, with great difficulty and faltering grip, the lunatics who want to vaporize the problem, i.e., our Muslim friends, and thereby solve the problem permanently. That’s when we’ll make progress in negotiations, and not before.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Occam’s Beard - you may well be right. I think if the alternative is certain death and mayhem, you are obligated at least to TRY to resolve things peacefully, but there is no guarantee of success. Not to try would be criminal.
I even agree that one reason why the effort might fail is the pig-headedness of the Muslim reps (no religious disrespect intended.) But I think you should also be aware that another likely reason for failure is the Israelis’ fundamental reluctance to sacrifice the West Bank (”Judaea and Samaria”) due to sincere conviction and/or the power of the fanatical settler bloc.
We can’t know the end result - - but what can you lose by trying?
April 14th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Thanks, Michael. You’re coming around. Look at your last post - “no religious disrespect intended.” Stop pussyfooting around. Go ahead and deliver some religouis disrespect. It’s a free country - for now, at least. “Artists” can produce the “Piss Christ,” and we can all agree that Mohammed was a schizophrenic pedophile who founded a brutal, backward death cult that has held the non-Jewish Semitic peoples back since the eighth century. Some won’t like it, but that’s their problem, and it’s the truth.
We DEMAND the right to live by what we think is right. Period. The Muslims can live as they want, but if they a problem with our living as we think is right, then let’s settle this by force of arms. Now, before they get nuclear weapons.
One thing I’ve learned over the years: people problems, left to fester, only get worse. Never better. Deal with them asap.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
So Naive.
Iran uses “talks” to give false hope to gullible Westerners and to buy themselves time as they continue on with their nuclear program.
Thus you lose a lot by talking to people who ultimately want to destroy you.
Don’t believe me. Hear it straight from the horse’s mouth:
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/805.htm
Chief Iranian Negotiator on the Nuclear Issue Hosein Musavian: The Negotiations with Europe Bought Us Time to Complete the Esfahan UCF Project and the Work on the Centrifuges in Natanz
Are you really this blind and stupid?
April 14th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Hamas are a bunch of terrorists and Jimmy Carter is a meddling egomaniac who can only do harm.
As for Israel illegally taking someone else’s land, that is just absurd, it really is. If the Arabs wanted peace with Israel they could have had it years ago. If they put anywhere near the time and energy into improving the lives of the Palestinians as they have into using them as an excuse to kill Jews…we would all be better off.
The Palestinian culture is dysfunctional.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Michael Taylor,
If you think the West Bank is the problem and that the Jewish settlements there are the irritant in the oyster’s environment, then it’s obvious you don’t know the rules of war: to the victor goes the spoils.
What Israel won fairly in war in 1948, 1967, and 1973 they have the right to dispose of it as they wish. The Arabs lost those wars. If it had been the reverse I cannot fathom the Left in this country as I know it (and I used to be a part of it many years ago) arguing that the Arabs should have to give back to the Jews what they took from them in war.
The logic of craven appeasement is the only explanation for this obtuse grasp of the reality. Jimmah Carter is trapped within his own egotism, his craven appeasement-orientation, and his well known Jew hatred. When I was a Leftist most other Leftists I knew were, to varying degrees of subtlety, Jew haters and anti-Israel. And that was back in the late seventies and early eighties. It’s a LOT worse now. I tended to feel very alone in defending Jews and Israel back then. Nowadays, a Leftist who defends Israel is likely to be treated like a Leftist who left and went over to the Republicans: like a traitor.
Again, for those who failed to get the memo: Not one instance of attempting to trade land for peace and security has yielded anything for Israel. And it will never be a fair trade because the Arabs are just as committed to the destruction of the Zionist entity as they ever were.
Many Leftists DO hear the rhetoric from the Muslims, but they choose to ignore it because it just is so discordant with their alternate reality.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
And btw, Hamas did win an election and from what I have seen the Palestinians might be regretting that. But the point is that Hamas does not want to negotiate. They want to push Israel into the sea.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
“… due to sincere conviction and/or the power of the fanatical settler bloc…”; “… but what can you lose by trying?”
The moslem-nazis figure they have time and numbers on their side, in addition to effective control of 20% or more of the entire surface of the earth, and the greatest energy fortune in recorded human history. With all of that their world achievements in the last several hundred years amount for the most part to initiating and consumating several failed wars with Israel, and one (so far) with America, as well as building cities and some energy processing facilities mostly by contracting to the Europeans and the West. It’s the long slow squeeze of a boa like hydra… Ever notice the “smile” on the face of the friendly moderates? They may not want to become shaheeds, but they’re very confident about the ultimate outcome of events.
What can you lose by trying? Oh, 250 million people in the most painful kind of way… That’s an incredibly stupid question, when time is of the essence, and the answer is so painfully obvious. The “fanatical settler bloc”? Sorrry bozo, this is a tiny group of holdouts who refuse to give up their rightful place on a piece of geography, based on several thousand years of history, and incidentally as the foundation ultimately of Christianity… Otherwise, you might well be on your hands and knees five times a day, and your daughter and your wife would have had their clitorectomies…. Go to the web site for the Jewish Community of Hebron, search the site and the history, and if you can’t come up with a better take on those people, then you are stupid or dishonest, which is it? The moslems started the nazi agenda 1400 years ago, allied faithfully with the WWII Axis, but when the Germans, Japanese, and other world fascists abandoned their quest from WWII, the arab moslem bloc kept right on truckin… We can’t know the end result? Are you kidding, 9-11, 4000 fatalities in Iraq, a considerable fortune, and the degradation of all our lives at airport lines, ad-infinitum are the end result of endless negotiations, just since the dabacle in Iran when the dhimocrat “ass”Carter capitulated to Khomenei… Hindsight is 20-20; Obviously, taking care of business with Iran and Iraq back then would have been much cheaper than the price we’re paying now, and the price we may pay if the Mahdi’s get their nukes. Get your head out of your butt, read Atlas Shrugs, my other favorite blog besides this…
April 14th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
This is from a HAMAS sermon last week. These are the people our Leftists here want to “negiotate” with. negiotate what? These people need to be destroyed:
A sermon last Friday by a prominent Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament openly declared that “the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital,” would soon be conquered by Islam.
The fiery sermon, delivered by Yunis al-Astal and aired on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV, predicted that Rome would become “an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe.”
“Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion,” al-Astal preached, “so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da’wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world.
“Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad,” he added.
Al-Astal last June preached how it was the duty of Palestinian women to martyr themselves by becoming homicide bombers.
“The most exalted form of jihad is fighting for the sake of Allah, which means sacrificing one’s soul by fighting the enemies head-on, even if it leads to martyrdom,” he said in a June 23, 2007 interview.
“When jihad becomes an individual duty, it applies to women too, because women do not differ from men when it comes to individual duties,” he said, calling Jews “the brothers of apes and pigs” who should “taste the bitterness of death.”
Friday’s rant repeated that theme: “Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam.
“I believe that our children, or our grandchildren, will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and, Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them.
“Today, we instill these good tidings in their souls – and by means of the mosques and the Koran books, and the history of our Prophets, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity from the hellfire at whose brink they stand.”
April 14th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
What does it say about Carter, that he is willing to talk with the bigoted terrorist thugs of Hamas, but he refused to debate Alan Dershowitz at Brandeis?
Perhaps: ” I will talk only with enemies of freedom.”
Perhaps: ” I will talk with those who wish the destruction of Israel, but not with someone who wishes the preservation of Israel.”
April 14th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I wish it were possible in the case of Carter to adhere to the old rule and simply “follow the money”.
It undoubtedly applies to WJ Clinton, too, at least to the Marc Rich pardon. How much will a billionaire pay for a full pardon and retention of all his ill-gotten gains? 50 mill (
April 14th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
CONTINUES
(
April 14th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
3RD TRY
50 mill, less than 5 percent? 100 mill?
April 14th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Jimmy Carter’s think tank in Atlanta is Saudi funded. When the Dhimmi himself published his controversial book a couple of years ago at least a few members of the Board of Directors quit in protest.
Carter clearly is suffering delusions of grandeur, since he really does think he has the magic touch when it comes to diplomacy. I believe that he really believes his own bullshit. He thinks he can go to the Paleosimian leadership and obtain some kind of promise or at least a list of things that are negotiable, and then go to the Israeli leadership and plunk it down on the table for them to act on. But I think the Jewish leadership is finally catching on to that act. Long experience of broken promises by the Palis is finally having the rational effect on them.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
What a load of crap - - I can’t even figure out where to start, so anywhere will do, I guess.
“To the victor belong the spoils” is no more a rule of international law than “an eye for an eye” is a rule of criminal law. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which is binding international law, Article 49 clearly states that it is ILLEGAL for a state to settle its own citizens on territory captured in war. This is a legally binding treaty ratified by Israel, the U.S.A. and most of the other countries on this planet.
Another crazy Arab (er, make that “prominent Muslim cleric”) makes a speech and because he’s a Hamas Member of Parliament, suddenly he’s invested with the authority to speak for the Palestinian people - - NOT!! Who gives a damn what this nut claims? Pat Robertson is a “prominent Protestant cleric” and does he represent American Protestants in his screwball ravings? When I advocate talking to the Palestinians, that does NOT mean talk to the craziest amongst them, it means talk to their leaders - - their prime ministers, their foreign ministers. He’s not one of their leaders - - why are HIS speeches translated and floated out over the web? Do your own homework - - where did you find the quote, whose website is it and what’s their connection to the State of Israel? WHO BENEFITS from this particular speech being translated and posted, rather than some eloquent plea for peace from an Arab mother who just lost her daughter to Israeli tank-fire?
Perfected Democrat (nice name by the way) you’re in a class by yourself when it comes to fanatical bullshit, shrieking hysteria over non-existent threats, misrepresentations of history and general craziness, but I’ll try to address at least SOME of your concerns - - Muslim-Nazi is a new term of racist vilification for me, but I’ll assume it’s the same idea as the more popular “Islamofascist”; I think over-use of the word “Nazi” devalues the evil inherent in the concept of Naziism and makes Nazis more acceptable to the general public. If everybody’s a Nazi, how bad can the Nazis really be? I’d reserve use of words like “Nazi” for REAL Nazis, and not apply it freely to anyone having a beef, particularly a well-justified beef, with the State of Israel.
Since the Iranians are some years away from producing even ONE functional nuclear weapon while Israel presently has hundreds of them and the U.S.A. thousands, I’d say your concern over losing “250 million people” if we stop to negotiate with them for a few months is the intellectual equivalent of the hysterical shrieking of teenage girls encountering mice in the shower. Get a grip, man. Let’s talk about these issues rationally, from the perspective of people living in the real world.
I wasn’t really impressed with your shallow grasp of the history of the Arabs, their lack of accomplishment, etc. over the years - - very little of your analysis seemed devoted to foreign aggression and exploitation as a contributing factor to their alleged failure, after all they were attacked by Crusaders, incorporated into the Persian, Turkish, British and French Empires at various points in their history, and generally ripped off and exploited by stronger forces of much more populous and industrialized nations including recently the U.S.A. You seem to be using their past victimization as some kind of excuse to further victimize them in the present, and that ain’t right.
“Ever notice the smile . . . ?” Oh, I’m not even going to go there. That one was beyond silly. WAAAY beyond.
The fanatical settler bloc is the reason I’m not on my knees facing Mecca five times a day and my female relatives don’t have clitorectomies? And MY name is Bozo? I don’t really know what it is that you’re smoking, my friend, but I’m not about to send those bigoted murderous fanatics a thank-you note anytime soon. And their so-called “rightful place” based on “thousands of years” of history is a total crock. The Iroquois Nation has a much better claim on my house and yard, and they’re not getting that either.
“The Muslims started the nazi agenda 1400 years ago?” Tell ya what - - when ya find a Muslim Auschwitz and a Muslim Treblinka with crematoria and gas chambers, let me know. When ya find a set of Muslim Nuremburg laws blocking the Jews from the liberal professions, from teaching, from racial intermarriage, etc. let me know. When ya find Muslims burning “Jewish and degenerate” literature in public bonfires, let me know. When ya find one instance of Muslims killing Jews in the quantities of the Spanish Inquisition, the Ukrainian Peasant Revolt, the Eastern European pogroms or the Holocaust, let me know. Until then, maybe you should just stop embarrassing yourself with such ignorant crap.
9-11, the U.S. casualties in Iraq, etc. are consequences of attempting to negotiate with the Muslims? You are not misinformed, you are just plain nuts. 9-11 was NOT the result of a failed negotiation, 4,000 U.S. dead in Iraq are the direct result of a pack of lies coming from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair and their agents and flunkies. Your take on these disasters resulting from a failed negotiation or series of negotiations is unbelievable.
Your analysis of Iran is totally bullshit. The crisis - - which in the first place was ultimately due to the CIA overthrowing the democratically elected Mossadegh government in the 1950s to punish it for expropriating the assets of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. (now BP or British Petroleum) began when Carter, on the ass KISSINGER’S advice, AGAINST the protests of Ayatollah Khomeini, allowed the deposed Shah of Iran into the U.S.A. for cancer treatments on “humanitarian” grounds. Carter caved in to Kissinger, not to Khomeini. Every detail of that story that you could possibly get wrong, you got wrong.
The Iranians’ nukes won’t make a God-damned bit of difference to the U.S.A., which could answer any strike with a devastating counterstrike, delivered from ships, subs, ICBMs or planes. There is no way in the world any of those nukes would be fired at the U.S.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Whoa, Michael, chill.
No way…if the people on the other side are rational actors, view death as an undesirable outcome, believe that a nuclear bomb exploded in the U.S. would necessarily be attributed to them, and are convinced that we would override our liberals and retaliate.
If.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Beard - - there is no realistic chance that Iran’s nukes will be controlled or fired by irrational actors. If they’re capable of engineering nukes, they’re capable of engineering fail-safe systems and safeguards. Contrary to what Americans might think, the Iranians are just as intelligent and rational as anyone else, they come from an ancient civilization and they don’t want to die any more than anyone else does. The military is NOT under the operational control of the ayatollahs. Neither are science or energy.
I believe that any nuke can be identified, even by the signatures they leave after successfully exploding.
Your liberals were never able to stop you from attacking countries that didnt’ even attack you, how could they stop you from attacking one that did?
April 15th, 2008 at 1:26 am
MT,
1. Arab Expansion: Arabs conquered much of what had been the Eastern Roman Empire, Spain, Sicily, even reaching the Indus valley, by 750 AD. If the Battle of Tours had been lost, Christianity would likely be a minority religion. The Arabs sacked Rome in the 840s. Arab attacks on Europe were constant, with the Turks to follow. The first Crusade was as much a response to all this as to the slaughter of approximately 100 pilgrims in the Holy Land and the onerous tax the Muslim leader, forget his name, imposed on the pilgrims. The Arabs, like all warlike people concerned with treasure and having a universalist religion, have done there misdeeds also.
2. Holocaust: Approximately 100,000 Bosnians and Albanians, the number may be twice that, served in the SS and were instrumental in the round up of Slavic Jews for the concentration camps. They were all Muslims. I haven’t seen numbers on how many they sent to the death camps, but it was likely considerable. There are some recorded instances prior to the Crusades of Muslims slaughtering Jews, likely for the same reason the Romans hated the Jews: they just don’t know their place. As an aside, Muslims spent most of their slaughter quota on poly-theists and Buddhists. And let’s not mention the slave trade, the Atlantic slave trade was much the smaller of the two. Saudi Arabia finally “banned” slavery in 1962.
3. Spanish Inquisition: Given that there is no real number on the death toll from that 360 year reign of terror, it varies from 4000 to 50 million (wacked), there is no way to compare.
4. Racism: Please, please don’t call hatred of a religion “racism”. The term is so abused now that its near meaningless, like Nazi. Universalist religions can’t be considered a “race”. As for obscure Islamic clerics being quoted, I’m sorry, but I’ve seen quotes from major clerics, Sunni (Saudi) and Shia (Iranian) that are quite vile.
5. “pack of lies coming from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair and their agents”: Also from the French and Germans. For example, Der Spiegel recently ran an article regarding Curveball and the German contribution to the WMD bad intelligence. Also, Saddam himself admitted that he purposely misled to keep alive the belief that he had WMD still as a counterpose to Iran. He never thought the USA, et al, would act.
6. Hitler: Well, here your dead on. Hindenberg was a very tired, old man in 1933 (Shirer) and made one of the worst blunders in history. OK, Petain and Maginot are right in there too. If its Friday, it’s Belgium.
7. Nukes: I never trust the rationallity of any oligarchy, theocracy, or dictatorship, especially one that used about 40,000 children to clear minefields. Nukes do leave a signature, but I can’t remember the isotopes/impurties that are markers. Iranian nukes would be aimed at Europe not the USA. At least the French think so.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Carter’s plan is more sublime than you give him credit for. He intends to help Hamas perform “dry runs” against the Secret Service detail he’ll be dragging along with him on the trip. They’ll learn how the Service operates, with inside information provided by Carter himself, and possibly even find ways to penetrate the US President’s last line of defense.
He hoped he could convince the Shin Bet to come along too, so Hamas could experiment with ways to penetrate their security as well. Olmert, to his credit, saw right through the ruse, and publicly announced that Carter would have to rely on his own security, if he persisted in his meeting with Hamas.
Now all we can hope for is that some overly enthusiastic Hamas experimenter fails to resist the temptation to turn the dry run into a live one…
April 15th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Michael, you’ve succeeded, deliberately I’m sure, in missing entirely the historical basis, context and intent of my comments… Start at the beginning, mass murder as a program for domination, 1400 years ago, don’t spin it or gloss over sweeps of history for convenience. There are thousands and thousands of pages of well founded background, the historical record is there, the truth must hurt…
April 15th, 2008 at 3:10 am
By the way, Michael, the Qur’an is written in Classical Arabic, a language that is no longer spoken anywhere. Muslims may be taught to recite it, but most Muslims do not know Arabic, let alone Classical Arabic. The only way they know what’s in it is when their clerics,
What laughable statement.
FredHjr from,were you got this untruthful info?
Most Arab countries teaching Arabic language (Classic Arabic not local spoken accent) further more all the writing in Arabic almost in classic Arabic and grammar.
All newspaper books and TV radio is almost written and spoken in classical Arabic
Coming here for faking the facts.
BTW, Farsi. not like Arabic and the Koran translated to many language include Farsi.
Looks FredHjr dont know the difference between Arabic and Farsi?
FredHjr Go and get a life man.
Michael Taylor, Arabic my mother language
April 15th, 2008 at 4:36 am
“Elections” in Gaza were held in just the same atmosphere of mutial hatred and violence between rival gangs of terrorists, as elections in Weimar Germany, with exclusion of everybody else except two groups of terrorists, officially recognized as such by most democratic govenments. To ascribe any legitimacy to such elections is absurd. The very idea to held such election under pression of US is a grave mistake of Bush administration.
There are near 6000 languages on Earth, but only 150 nations. This means that only one in 35 existing ethnicities has capability to build a state: this a elite club, not everybody right. This “right” is also completely utopian, because it is impossible to divide land to 6000 continuous ethnic enclaves. And so-called Palestinians are not even ethnicity: they are indistinguishable from other Arabs by language, culture or religion.
So the only possible solution is not 6000 national states, but much less number of multy-ethnic empires, with borders defined by overarching cultures, not ethnicities.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:17 am
MT claims the Iranian govt is rational. Oh what a hoot and a holler.
MT thinks that Iran is deterred by MAD. Oh what a hoot and a holler.
MT shows the real “racism”. He dismisses the Twelver Shia Cleric’s stated intention. They are not worthy of being taken at their word. He thinks that their nearly 1000 year wait for the return of the 12 Imam is just some cosume they wear for the EPCOT center.
I ran across these 4 quotes over the past four years:
commandant of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, said on state television, “The final goal of the [1979] revolution is to create global Islamic rule and a regime of law to be led by the Imam Mahdi”. “God willing, the 21st century will see the defeat of the U.S. and the Zionists, and the victory of freedom-seeking nations of the world”.
Commandant of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, said on state television. “God willing, the 21st century will see the defeat of the U.S. and the Zionists, and the victory of freedom-seeking nations of the world. The final goal of the [1979] revolution is to create global Islamic rule and a regime of law to be led by the Imam Mahdi”.
The [Iranians] President’s chief strategist, Hassan Abbassi, has come up with a war plan based on the premise that “Britain is the mother of all evils” – the evils being America, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, the Gulf states and even Canada, all of whom are the malign progeny of the British Empire. “We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization,” says Mr Abbassi. “There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them… Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover.”
The IRGC chief warned that Iran was seeing through “critical days” and “fate-determining years”. He described the purpose of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution as the “Salvation of Muslims” from the hands of the “oppressive U.S. and Israel”.
===
If Iran’s intention is to destroy Israel dont think for a second that they dont also intend to destroy us.
Israel is the Little Satan.. how much more motivated do you think they are to destroy us, the Great Satan. They are just as motivated to remove from us our ability to project our power and policy so that they can advance their Caliphate dreams.
They already have stated that based on their reading of history that the United States has no will to fight a real war. That the Leftists in this country are so unwillign to risk or sacrfice anythign that if Iran pushes us hard enough or hurts us bad enough that the Left will succede in causing us to withdraw and effectively end our Superpower ablity.
Iran has the will to procede wiht their agenda , they have concluded we have absolutely no will to stop them.
The idiots on here like MT are exactly the sorts of people Iran is counting on.
This is why I said before I think the Democrats will eventualy perceptate the need for the military to remove from power lest the country gets annihilated from thier irresponsiblity and cravenness.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Iran etc…..You dont negotiate with these people.
Vince P working hard to make the case of Iran looks rial enamy.
For some hidden reasons he ignoring that US negotiate with Iranians!! although Iranians call America the Great Satan while US call them Axis of Evil?
Its very clear here Vince P mangling and mixing things to darken the picture more to make the redaer to believe in his hypocrisy.
For more details of secret Iran US talk google to find and these are few of them.
The most interesting one that Israelis buying their oil from Iran through Swiss companies although Israelis publicly band any relation with Iranians and all you know the big noise made by Israelis about Iranian ahmadinejad said on Israel.
Iran and U.S. said to have been holding secret talks for 5 years
By Haaretz Staff
Talking with the Enemy
Report: Israel Is Secretly Importing Iranian Oil
B>Israel’s Tehran connection
April 15th, 2008 at 7:04 am
As history unambiguously shows, any Western “peace initiative” in Arab-Israely conflict never leads to more peace and ALWAYS leads to more violence, providing terrorists with new incentives to wreak havoc and so stimulate West to apply new pressures to Israel. So the best course for everybody sincerely interested to reduce violence in ME is NOT to launch any peace initiative, but, instead, clearly declare unconditional support of Israel and give Israel free hand to retaliate. Only this policy can rein in terrorists and bear hope for Arabs in disputed lands to come up with new leaders untainted by association with terrorists.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:16 am
The stupidty of Israeli or American government has nothing to do with my opinion.
Calling me a hypocrite is absurd.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:27 am
They playing their games in ME together:
Shiite militants not Israel’s only problem
April 15th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I think we can better understand the Arab Worlds opinion of us if we consider our own opinion about chickens.
Now there are a few among us who are vehemently opposed to our consumption of chickens. They will even point out how cruel we are with our warehousing and slaughter system that leads to the chickens demise.
But the fact is, the overwhelming majority of us like eating chickens more than we are concerned for the chickens well being. Its ingrained in our culture and chopping off chicken heads ain’t gonna end in any of our lifetimes.
I submit our demise has been ingrained in Islamic cultures for centuries. They are just now getting around to aquiring the technology to kill us much more efficiently than even we can kill chickens.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:55 am
“Truth”
You are a rascal. I do indeed know the difference between Classical Arabic and Farsi, even though I do not speak them. I roomed with an Irania Shia during the last two years when I was an undergraduate.
I have not lied about anything regarding Islam and the Middle East. Ask VinceP. He’ll back me up. You are upset about what I’ve written because it’s an uncomfortable truth. I’ve seen the likes of you elsewhere: Muslims who are trolling the web for discussions about Islam and when you find them your job is to interject your taqiyya for the sake of sabotaging them and attempting to kick sand in the eyes of the kafir.
You’re just doing your part for Allah, fighting the jihad in the way you know how.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:58 am
And “Truth” YOU are the one who needs to “get a life.” I invite you to abandon Islam, convert to Christianity, and repent of your jihad ways. I already have a fine life, thank you.
I think the Pope is doing the right thing asking us to pray for the conversion and repentance of the Muslims and their shaheeds. And so, I will include you in my prayers.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:44 am
“But in the wake of two US-led invasions, Tehran is taking advantage of regional instability and a Shiite revival to push its nuclear and other ambitions.”
When did the US invade Tehran? You’d think it would be on the news, or something.
Or are you referring to the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan? Funny how willing you are to treat the entire Middle East as one monolithic bloc when it comes to your grievances, but not when it comes to your responsibilities.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:57 am
“All newspaper books and TV radio is almost written and spoken in classical Arabic”
LOL. Yes, my newspapers are almost written in Shakespearean English too. In fact, all English speakers almost speak in Shakespearean English. Some of us almost speak in Chaucerian English too.
MT, notice that “If Americans Knew” carefully avoids revealing who is responsible for the site. I’ve known about the site for something like 2 years and it hasn’t changed much. The statistics page is accurate, again proving the old adage that one can lie with statistics. The Arabs of Palestine have had a homeland since the beginning of this mess, it’s called Jordan, but were denied by their fellow Arabs. The Hashemite King killed about 10,000 of them when they got uppity. And by the way, Obama was a LEGISLATOR when Rezco helped him buy a house. Obama has been a LEGISLATOR since the late 90s. Bugs Bunny had a phrase for you.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Wonderful Michael Taylor:
“The Iroquois Nation has a much better claim on my house and yard, and they’re not getting that either.”
Thereby totally PROVING that he agrees with Israel’s right to the West Bank and the insanity of “negotiating” with anybody.
What a maroon.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Truth,
Just in case you missed my point, Shakespearean English, which is considered to be in the period of Early Modern English, which means we can read it but it is difficult. Chaucerian English is in the Middle English period and requires translation to really understand it. Beowulf comes from Old English, which is essentially a different language.
I realize Arabic is fairly fossilized compared to English, a very dynamic language, but not that fossilized.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:38 am
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 04/15/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:39 am
A few Ahmadinejad quotes
And my personal favorite:
I believe we were discussing rational actors…
April 15th, 2008 at 11:40 am
To Ariel - I would definitely call Nazi anti-Semitism racism. There is nothing religious about it. The proof of that is that even Jews who converted to Christianity were not spared. If you read Mein Kampf, which I have (total pile of garbage and bullshit) you will see Hitler’s racial theories set out very clearly: the Jews are an inferior race of sub-human vermin whose greed and lust drive them to seek the downfall of the pure and virtuous Aryans (Germans, Scandinavians, English,) who are all that stand in the way of Jewish world domination. They (Jews) believe in nothing but their own right to dominate the world, using “Bolshevism” in the East and “capitalism” in the West to achieve their nefarious ends. He felt that their religion, while weak, contemptible and pathetic, was not reason enough to exterminate them, but that a racial battle was underway in which either the “Jewish race” or the “Aryan race” would emerge victorious or die. England and America, once Aryan nations themselves, had been corrupted and ruined by “the Jews,” so it was up to Germany to carry on the battle on behalf of all Aryans everywhere. If it weren’t for the tragic consequences, the whole thing would have been hilarious. At one point he explains how Jews in the fashion injury have perverted and debased true German culture - - German men had traditionally worn leather shorts, but because Jewish male legs were allegedly scrawny, twisted and knock-kneed, the Jewish-controlled industry decreed that all German men would abandon shorts in public in favour of long trousers, so that Jews would not be naturally disadvantaged in seducing Aryan women. Almost all of Hitler’s examples of so-called Jewish “inferiority” were based on alleged or imaginary “racial characteristics” that would be transmitted genetically from parent to child regardless of religion.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
In fairness, Michael, Judaism is a special case. As a non-proselytizing religion, religion and ethnicity/race coincide, which is why certain genetic diseases (e.g., Tay-Sachs syndrome) are found among Jews.
By contrast, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestanism are all proselytizing religions, and consequently their adherents differ in ethnicity (and therefore do not share common genetic diseases).
So it is appropriate to refer to anti-Semitism directed at Jews as racist, it is not appropriate to characterize criticism of Muslims as such, because Muslims comprise any number of races.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Occam’s Beard,
Exactly. And the reason I used “universalist” to describe the other religions. I don’t know if Hinduism is universalist, but Buddhism certainly is.
The words Nazi and racist are words to be used very carefully, if at all.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Ariel, you clearly showedth