On The Other Hand

I can understand your tortured feelings about this, but my attitude is that Israel made it bed, now they must lie in it.  For all the various Israeli governments’ soothing words about a “two-state solution,” their actions speak only of settlements, expropriation of land, conquest, and dispossession of the Palestinians.  Is it any wonder that lots of Palestinians support Hamas and terrorism?  They’re certainly not getting anything by being nice.

I’ve finally come to the conclusion that Israel has no intention of implementing a two-state solution or ending the Occupation.  They have succumbed to the lure of conquest, rule over the “lesser” races, and dispossession of the ones they rule. Those who rule Israel have played us for suckers, useful idiots who help them get support from the United States and other western governments.  The rulers of Israel can talk until they’re blue in the face about how much they want peace, but I won’t believe them until I see some Israeli soldiers with live ammunition and fixed bayonets start to clear out the hooligans in Hebron or Israeli construction crews start moving the separation wall to the Israeli side of the Green Line.  Until then, I’m finished with Israel. And if you think you’re “tortured,” my condition beats yours by an order of magnitude.  I used to be a Zionist, and I even considered making aliyah.  Israel was a very important part of my Jewish identity, but I refuse to be emotionally blackmailed by the current crew in power in Jerusalem.  (And I mean Kadima, Labor, and Likud, they’re all equally guilty.  After all, Saint Yitzchak Rabin did nothing to even slow the spread of the settlements, let alone reduce them.)

Yes, I am a Jew, and I don’t want to assimilate, but try being an active member of the Jewish community who opposes Israel.  Not the most comfortable place to be.  And this is the fine “gift” that the Zionist politicians have given us.  Groupthink that will, in my opinion, doom the Jews in the long run.

To Joel and Greg:

What is it about “You need a big oven, that’s what you need!” that you don’t understand?

Is Ft. Lauderdale (or Chicago or London or Paris) really so far from Baltimore that those places seem entirely foreign to you? As if, what is happening there cannot happen in your own city?

I don’t know what “banter” about jihad means in this context, though I think Rubin’s “jihad juice” characterization connotes “banter” far more than anything I’ve read in any publication that purports to be Jewish. “Jihad juice” is the single most egregious and reprehensible thing this journal has published at least in the past 4 years.

I recall the intention of a small number of American Nazis to march in Skokie, IL, in 1981. Jewish communities all over the US were far more galvanized by that event than any community is today. It is worth considering why that is so.

I would think that we, as Jews, would be more intellectually curious about what jihad portends, and to do so with more hard-headed realism, and almost no wishful thinking, utopian blather based on prayers, meaningless to muslims, for the safety of arab children.

While the death of children is always a shame, I can’t feel the same level of anguish for kids who at ages 2-3 are already being trained to hate and kill my people. Is that a normal way to raise children?

Ms. Kimberley Phillips is more than welcome to her own opinion but not her own facts. Hamas was elected with about 44% of the vote, not by a 90 +% margin as Ms. Phillips claims.

On another note, the question about whether or not Israel’s assault on Gaza was moral or immoral is irrelevant. Rather what we need to be asking ourselves is whether or not Israel’s actions are helpful. In my opinion the answer is a definite no. Israel’s attacks only serve to strengthen extremists among the Palestinians and do nothing to support moderates who are calling for a two state solution. The only way out of this awful situation is through negotiations.

Neil, I applaud your objective assessment of the situation and your empathy for the Palestinians reflects the greatest of Jewish values.  Every year at the Passover Seder, Jews mourn the plagues imposed upon our oppressors by emptying our glass.

Thankfully, today Israel acts out of free will.  Neil acknowledges the underpinnings of the action, but calls upon the Jewish community to live-up to its obligation of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, and mourn the losses on both sides.

The above entries posted by Kimberly and Stuart neither reflect Jewish values nor scholarship, or even secular scholarship.  They banter about jihad, without understanding.  No denying some of the references to the rise in anti-Semitism since the start of the conflict, anti-Semitism is neither synonymous with jihad nor inherently rooted in Islam.

Neil’s requisite message of understanding represents represents a precursor to peace.  Hate only generates more hate.  Personally, I prefer a solution of peace.

Why are the children of palestinians any more valuable than those of Jews or Christians?
Why is there the wringing of hands over civilians who willingly put themselves in the fray of battle?
Why do we, in the Western world, insist that the palestinians are being held hostage by hamas when they
elected them into power by a 90+% margin? 
Why do we send “humanitarian aid” to those sworn to our annhilation?
Why do we lose sleep over the destruction of an infrastructure built around propping up the jihad?
Why do we have angst over children who rather than having heroes like superman or batman instead dress up as suicide bombers and cry out that they want to be a shahid (martyr)?

Why is it that liberalism seeks to find good where there is only evil and evil where there is good?
Why is it that the BJT insists on trawling out this drivel?

Could it be because they are unwilling to see reality for what it is and they think that if they are friends with the enemy that they will somehow be saved?  Guess what the history of jihad, if you care to read and understand it doesn’t work that way.  These are a bloodthirsty savage barbarians hell-bent on your annhilation—not just destruction ... annhilation.  They think that bastard hitler didn’t go far enough ... what will it take to get you away from drinking liberal limeade?  hmmm?  Tell me is it comfortable out there in the state of delusion?

Israel needs to cut off all humanitarian supplies—we need to shut down the UN because they are complicit in the jihad.  It isn’t Israel killing the UN workers, it’s hamas.  Put hamas into a state of seige.  No mercy for jihadists.  This is a world war against militant Islam.  It is a war being fought on many fronts ... Russia vs the chechnyan muslims, serbia vs the bosnian muslims, Britain vs an increasingly militant muslim immigrant population, China vs the uirghr muslims, Somali Christians vs muslims in Darfur, Indian Hindus vs pakistani muslims ... The United States vs militant islam in iraq and afghanistan.  What on earth is it going to take to get you to realize that this is a war of the civilized vs the barbarian? 

If you care to read more see Ben Shapiro’s excellent essay here: http://townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2008/12/03/enough_of_radical_islam
and the writings of muslims who escaped the tyranny of islam and courageously write about the subtle ways the militants take over Western countries here:
http://www.islam-watch.org/Others/Stages-of-Islamization.htm

Unfortunately for Jews in the United States and the State of Israel, Neil Rubin hasn’t got the first clue about the nature of the islamic war against Israel or the threat posed by muslims to Jews (and Christians) in the US and elsewhere.

Neil’s formula here is: when in doubt, worry, first, about the children (also note: this approach is mirrored in Phil Jacobs’s formula: when in doubt, blame the Orthodox community). Perhaps by this journalistic sleight of hand, Neil hopes no one will notice that he does not understand the nature of the islamic war - which is called jihad - and he does not see the threat muslims pose to all of us.

Or, and this is worse, he does understand these things, but he cannot bring himself to write about them, because they run counter to his liberal ideology, and thus are too psychologically painful for him to address.

Why do I say this? Because on July 16, 2008 Neil used the expression “jihad juice” to suggest that, somehow, the jihad is not real, like the metaphorical formulation “drinking the KoolAid,” and Jews with, in his words, “active brains” won’t allow their kids (again, the children) to be poisoned by it.

However, it takes a Jew in a state of almost comatose denial to write what Neil has written. The evidence of the jihad is all around us. One need only point to the Mumbai massacre, where muslims literally went out of their way in a city of 19 million to find an inconspicuous Chabad House on a side street to kill Jews.

What we see today should be undeniable to anyone with eyes to see. Jews in Europe are being physically attacked; in the United States, muslims are verbally threatening Jews and attacking Jewish buildings. On December 30th, a muslim “protestor” in Fort Lauderdale, FL, was videotaped yelling to Jews, “You need a big oven, that’s what you need!”

Not a word from the “Jewish Times” on any of these “events,” which, by the way, have also been downplayed by the mainstream media (NY Times, CNN, etc.) but fully covered by the “new media” that journalists like Rubin, (and Jacobs and Buerger) hate - talk radio and the bloggers. (Those interested in following the news may do so here http://www.jihadwatch.org/ and here http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ and here http://www.debbieschlussel.com/)

Lastly, Neil’s seeming even-handedness in the war against Israel masks a fearful unwillingness to choose. If his heart bleeds for arab children, he can feel good about himself. Only a blind, comfortable Jew, however, can fail to choose now.

We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel. Now. Today. We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters in the United Kingdom, France, Holland, Denmark, and Canada. Now. Today. We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters in Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and anywhere and everywhere Jews live. Now. Today.

We must choose, and, six decades after the Holocaust, the choice is, or ought to be, very simple.

I don’t give a damn about arab children, who are indoctrinated from birth to hate Jews, any more than I give a damn about German children in Dresden in 1944-45.

This about sums it up. What a mess.
Still, one wonders why Israel can’t have a ceasefire now, having made its point and pressuring the international community to respond.

It is good they’re having another three-hour pause today to let in relief supplies.