david,

I welcome your honesty in admitting Palestanians are second class citizens, however I can't help but think your article perpetuates the myths of Jewish victimhood.

Jews have been persecuted throughout history, but so have countless other religions and minorities. From accused witches in the middle ages, to Protestants in Catholic countries and vice versa during the Reformation, religious minorities have always been persecuted. Gypsies were especially reviled and remain so to this day in much of Eastern Europe. That's before we look at the crusades and yje persecution of muslims. The sad fact is that human history is the history of suffering.

The Second World War claimed something like 50 million lives, yet if you ask a young person today they would only recognise the Jewish experience. Why do we get a Holocaust museum in every major city in the world yet see nothing for the 15 million or more Soviet citizens who perished? However heroic we feel our servicemen were, the simple fact is that without the unimaginable suffering of the Soviets, Hitler probably would have succeeded in wiping out the Jews. During this war hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed and millions of refugees created but it was only Jewish ones that were compensated 60 years later.

So why do we hear the constant bleating about Jewish persecution but nothing about the abomination of slavery; or about the thousands of children who die each day today due to preventable disease, or the billion or so people who endure grinding poverty every day of their lives? Why is it that only Jewish suffering counts?

We have a black president in 2009 while Britain had a Jewish PM over 150 years ago. It will be some time before a muslim becomes president or PM. Jews have long been integrated into the western elites and would have to be the most educated, best connected, wealthiest and powerful minority in the world. There is no Muslim Frank Lowy, Justice Spiegelman, or Michael Danby MP.

There is enormous suffering in the world today but it seems only Jewish suffering counts.

A thought provoking article, and one that indroduces aspects of the Palestine tragedy that are new to me.
Even so, the main driver as it were of the Palestine disaster is not Zionism per se, but the nonsensical religious views of the (largely American) fundamentalist 'right', amply supported by the catholic church whereby, we are informed, Christ will come again when all the Jewish people are 'home' once again in the land that god (allegedly) gave them. Accordingly, no price is too high to pay for such a wonderful outcome - providing of course that someone else pays that price.
The Jewish people have given much to the world and will, I believe, continue to do so. However, we could have done without the god of Abraham. Until the religious nutters see that there is no god, and christ is not 'coming back, and until the Jewish people themselves see that Palestine is not theirs by divine or any other fief, the obscenity that is modern day Palestine, and the tragic sufferings of both sides in the latest of any number of religiously driven conflicts, will continue at a theatre near you.
Prepare to see many more colourful scenes of children blown to pieces, heartbroken families, shattered lives and monumental destruction.

David, thanks for an interesting and practical way of looking at the problem. We need to know a lot of these things to rationalise the situation.

Tariq Ali recently wrote, discussing solutions: "[..] that the country and its resources be divided equitably, in proportion to two populations that are equal in size - not 80% to one and 20% to the other, a dispossession of such iniquity that no self-respecting people will ever submit to it in the long run. The only acceptable alternative is a single state for Jews and Palestinians alike, in which the exactions of Zionism are repaired. There is no other way."

It seems he hadn't considered that the Jews could leave Israel, which seems logical when trying to balance "tragedy", it would also be a good way of creating potential for a one state solution. His proportionate distribution of the land mass idea would require that "the exactions of Zionism are repaired". So it seems there are a few solutions; Dane's posting opens up the idea that solutions would rely on a mind-shift by the Israel government, and some Jews, of putting global suffering into perspective - an egalitarian consideration of "the other" - that others are as self-respecting as you, and need to be shown respect, as much as you do.

Maybe the Jews who understand this have already left for other countries. But I guess unless there is a protracted period of cessation of hostility it will be extremely difficult for "creative" thinking toward any solutions to take place.

Ask the real question about who resettled the jews and did the people who helped resettle the jews into palestine break every promise to the palestanian people.The people who resettle the jews put them back into a hell .

This is an excellent article . As an Australian Gentile ,until early adulthood , I knew no person whom I could clearly identify as Jewish , but I was brought up to regard Jews with a combination of pity [ because of the Holocaust and anti - semitic stereotypes in such literature as " the Merchant of Venice " and Australia 's Mo Mc Cackie ] and admiration . In particular , young men of my age spoke admiringly of the Israeli victories against the Arabs and of Moshe Dayan . As a socialist , I admired the kibbutzim and thought of spending time in one .

The reasons for Jews wishing to have a state of thir own are perfectly understandable , but , with hindsight , perhaps even the majority of Jews , inside Israel , begin to wonder whether it has been worth it , even for their own wellbeing , let alone the effect on the displaced Arabs . Certainly ,the Arabs do not have clean hands and there are many Arab groups which will never leave Israel in peace , despite any settlement which leads to a Palestinian state .

Probably , the least worst solution will be a viable Palestinian state , from which extremists will , somehow , have to be purged , alongside a smaller Israel . In the meantime , further immigrants to Israel , particularly from the USA and Russia , should be banned . US Christians who see Israel as being the fulfilment of a Biblical prophecy , should be deplored .

GYM-FISH erroneously writes as though God was the cause of our human problems. What about the oceans of blood shed by the atheists, secularists etc of the twentieth century.....Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot; atheistic Communism etc. God save us from the "no-God" and/or "God-hating" nutters

Interesting article...

It takes courage to write about this topic,
because it's usually too emotive.
Usually you pay a price to enter into any debate,
regarding Israel,look at people like Robert Manne,
Arnold Zable, and Antony Loewenstein. Their opinions
in the past have sparked a furore.

Congratulations David for being so open and honest.

Personally, I have always believed in the state of
Israel, but not at the expense of the Palestinian
people. I had always assumed that they could co-exist
side by side. Apparently they can't. But I had no idea
that there were problems among the Jewish settlers as
well.

I do remember reading about Alex Dafner (Yiddish show
on SBS Radio) who although he doesn't believe in
Zionism as an idealogy acknowledges that a state
is central to the Jewish people. However he was critical of
Israel in its current form:

"It's not socialist; there is real bigotry,
religious intolerance and a lack of respect for fellow
Jews. My friends in Israel say there is a need for
two or three states in Israel: one for religious,
one for secular and one for the in-between..."

Many secular Jews feel that since the end of
World War II, the place of Jews in all
Western societies has been unproblematic, and they
charge Israel with greed and arrogance for not
returning all of the occupied territories. Many
feel that it is a betrayal of their belief in
liberal democracy to believe that Jews are still
under threat and therefore need a homeland of
their own.

Should Jews leave Israel? That is a decision that
only they can make. But nobody would blame them if
they left such a troubled part of the world for
a better life elsewhere.

Where does I AM fit in all these words.

Americans must leave the US immediately because those hurricanes and tornadoes are simply unbearable and become ever fiercer with global warming.

Indonesians, Japanese and Peruvians should leave their countries immediately for the risk of earthquakes.

Chinese are reminded that with such air-pollution, their lives are going to be very short and miserable, unless the leave soon.

Those of low-lying countries such as Bangaladesh should leave immediately before the sea-level rises.

Are any Africans still there despite the hunger and disease?

Russians and Canadians - better forget about the cold!

Australians - well, in the north we have cyclones and flooding, while in the rest of the country we have terrible fires, and with climate-change it is going to get even worse: we better get out of here!

Do you know of any place on earth or beyond that is free of trouble?

So Israel has its wars, both the well-known external wars, and the less-known internal ones. It also daily faces difficult moral conflicts which most of the rest of the world does not need to contend with: nevertheless, it's a thriving, well-developed country whose standard and quality of life is way, as well as its humanitarian values and standards are well above the world's average.

I do not attribute this success to a miracle, but rather to hard work, determination and courage.

Should Jews leave Israel?

I find this a trappy question, such as "have you stopped beating your wife?": damned if you answer 'Yes', damned if you answer 'No'.

It is cruel and ridiculous to ask people to desert the beautiful country which they built by the sweat of their brow, where several generations grew up, the only place that lives their culture, the only place they can call home. On the other hand, it is about time for this archaic term, "Jews", to fade away.

David, you mentioned Herzl (the legendary founder of zionism), but the one thing this Herzl wanted more then anything is, to have a spot on earth where he will no longer be called a "Jew".

No

Dane, you say - We have a black president in 2009 while Britain had a Jewish PM over 150years ago it will be some time before a Muslim becomes president or PM.

If a Muslim is given the right by Western democracy to campaign to become president of the United States is it not then fair to ask the question when will an American or Brit be granted the right by the Arabs to become leader of one of their countries?

You are a bit one-sided I think in ignoring the blatant racism of the Arabs. America and the West although still struggling with these issues are centuries ahead of the Arabs when it comes to allowing other cultures to stand for leadership of their countries.

sharkfin,

No it is not fair to ask when will an American or Brit become president of a muslim country. Muslim countries don't claim to be liberal democracies and we don't treat them like fellow democracies. They claim to be Islamic states and that is what they are.

Israel, on the other hand, claims to be a liberal Western democracy. This is patently untrue. No liberal Western democracy would ever kill over 1000 innocent civilians for completely spurious reasons. No liberal Western democracy has Nuremburg-like racial purity laws where marriage to outsiders results in loss of citizenship. No liberal western democracy restricts land ownership for minorities, or delibrately provides minorities with second class healthcare and school facilities. While significant disadvantage exits among liberal democracies, nowhere is anyone treated as 'untermensch' with their rights and privileges restricted accordingly as in Israel.

The notion that Jews should leave Israel is a red herring too. It plays on this 'existential' threat hysteria that the Israeli PR machine spews out. Israeli is by far the most powerful country in the region and is going nowhere. If it weren't so sad it would be funny - 8 years and 20 Israelis dead versus 3 weeks of an Israeli offensive and over 1000 Palesinians dead. It would be frightening to think of the thousands and thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by Israel in the same 8 year time period. Yet every time we turn on the telly we get some hysterical Israeli spin merchant saying Hamas wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth! Then we see pictures of Israeli tank drivers giving the V for victory coming out of Gaze - they are proud of killing children; they feel strong again now.

It really makes you sick.

Hello Dane,

I understand that you don't like Israel:
I am not going to change your mind, but I'd like to correct some factual errors in your claims (not that it matters anyway):

"Israel, on the other hand, claims to be a liberal Western democracy"

- no, Israel claims to be a Jewish democracy

"No liberal Western democracy would ever kill over 1000 innocent civilians for completely spurious reasons"

- nor did Israel. Its reasons were not spurious: it was protecting its citizens from terrorists who were hiding behind civilans. And by the way, the number of civilians is smaller, and then even, many of them were killed by Hamas Kassam rockets that failed to reach beyond the Gaza borders.

"No liberal Western democracy has Nuremburg-like racial purity laws where marriage to outsiders results in loss of citizenship"

- nor does Israel!

"No liberal western democracy restricts land ownership for minorities"

- Land ownership is very restricted in Israel for everyone. The state owns 95% of the land and citizens may only lease it.

"or delibrately provides minorities with second class healthcare and school facilities"

- That's a problem for everyone living in the periphery, not just minorities: those leaving in the big cities receive better healthcare and schools.

"nowhere is anyone treated as 'untermensch' with their rights and privileges restricted accordingly as in Israel"

Israeli law discriminates against those who did not serve in the army.
All Jews must serve for 3 years, then in reserves. Minorities MAY volunteer if they wish. Personally, if I had the choice, I would never exchange my freedom, becoming a slave for 3+ years and risking my life and limb, for any such privileges. Better be poor, but whole, so tell me now - who is discriminated against?

"8 years and 20 Israelis dead"

- which only shows that Israel knows how to protect its citizens and invested a lot there. Otherwise, do you believe that if Hamas performed better they would stop at 1000, 10000, 100000, 1000000? of course not, they would continue killing to the last Israeli. Israel, OTOH, did stop!

OK Yuyutsu has corrected Dane so I won't bother.

Are most of these anti-Israel posters anti-semetic in general..that's the question? Or just fantasists and socialist dreamers.? Hmmm. same thing really...

Since the pre WWII European Jews discovered that being fully integrated/productive/outstanding members of their societies came to nought when the socialists (the nationalist ones in Germany etc..the Internationalists in the USSR) decided to exterminate them, they probably don't feel as confident that the future would be so rosy if they reintegrated there. So where to?

The US? Australia? What about a homeland in the Kimberley, as was once proposed? Nuhh. Let's make them go back to wherever they came from originally..be it the Middle Eastern Arab Countries which tried to wipe them out (Please read up on Yasser Arafat's Uncle, Mohammed Amin al-Husayni. Grand Mufti of Jerusalem 1921-1948 Palestinian Nationalist and co-architect with Hitler of the final solution) or somewhere else where the inflamed muslim populations are currently attacking synagogues etc (France?).

Read up on "the Battle of Rorke's drift". Kinda like "the Alamo" but with a different outcome. Why didn't the Zulus just suggest the defenders leave the stockade so they could be slaughtered in the open? What a great idea!

Now I know all these lefties wanting an end to Israel don't want an end to Jews. They just want them to come out in the open and lay down their weapons...for a little "chat". Nothing wrong with that, eh?. Cheers.

Punter57...I don't think Rorke's Drift is a good example. A bunch of invaders were being assaulted by the owners of the land. And the invaders won, albeit in a fairly spectacular way. (and it made for a good movie). Are you suggesting that the Israelis are the one's baled up in the old hopsital fighting for their lives (ie..the invaders) or the ones surrounding the them and wanting the invaders off their land?

Dear Yuyutsu,

Your post, as always, is well reasoned
and valid.

I also hope that the state of Israel
will continue to exist, side by side,
in peace with its neighbours.

So many have died for the sake of this
homeland.

What is needed is a new leadership.
A leadership that does not have the "old
mindset of war" ( as the newly elected
American President described the past White
House enclave). Israel needs a leadership that
will give hope to its people, peace, and justice,
and co-existence with its neighbours.

It's not a big ask, but it will take bold
progressive leadership for that to occur,
with the support of the international community,
and the new leadership of the US.

Phil Matemain, Get a grip, and have a read. The situation was much more complex and analogous at RD with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict than you pretend.

The Zulus were NOT in KwaZulu. They had left KwaZulu to enter Natal to attack Rorke's Drift which was across the "border" (the river). After defeating an actual invasion force (not the garrison at Rorke's Drift) the king of the Zulus, Cetswayo, issued specific orders that the Zulus were NOT to enter Natal which he accepted as "British". He wanted a negotiated peace.

These warriors..somewhat like Hamas, had decided that all British must die regardless of where they were. The king was just a sellout....like Fatah. Fancy accepting peace and a "state" for each group!!

OK. So let's not get bogged down. Them's the facts. Had any dolt suggested the defenders leave their defensive positions it would've been suicide...and laughable. All I ask is that anti-semites stop being so pedantically and, spectacularly, muddle-headed in demanding that Jews offer themselves up for slaughter. Come up with something practical. Cheers.

Dear Francis

'God' hasn't done anything - there is no such thing.
It is the nonsensical, irrational, and totally unsubstantiated belief in the Abrahamic version that is largely the problem. As to the tired old 'what about' argument re Stalin, Pol-Pot etc, the argument does not merit considertion, except to point out that Hitler was a professed christian until the very end as were his many henchmen, and the outrageous excesses of the remainder were not religiously inspired - unlike the blood soaked ministrations of the church. The essential point for those who can understand it, is that religious belief and administration of power are two utterly seperate aspects of the human experience.
'The devil quotes scripture to his own ends.' - and frequently does!

The article is an interesting look at what should have happenned.

I have no doubt that if the holocaust had not happenned, neither would have Israel. The sense of nationalism would not have been created if the anti semitism had not been increased to such a level.

However, it did happen, and now Israel exists as a result.

It would be as easy to undo Israel as the holocaust.

Shouldnt the post be addressing the question:Should the Arabs leave Palestine?

Outrageous?
Then why are you asking whether the Jews should leave Israel?
The question has implicit in it the belief in the state of Israel as an established and accepted reality...Should the Jews leave ISRAEL ?If that is the case then why should the Jews have to leave what is acknowledged in the question...that there is a state of Israel? Who else should be entitled to live in a Jewish state. ?
Stupid question ill-thought out,I'd say.

*SIGN* I come back to OLO after a few months and I am hardly surprised to find that ignorance and dogma continue to thrive here. Back to work I guess!

Yuyutsu – “Israel claims to be a Jewish Democracy” You have that right! Its similar to the Democracy that was in Iran until it was overthrown in the 1980’s. Good example of Jewish democracy at work - http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966014.html

Israeli definition of a terrorist – A person or persons who fights back after being driven from their land and having their livelihoods and culture destroyed because of their ethic decent. An example of a terrorists is a cowardly Palestinian’s who fires rockets at Israel or attacks Israeli settlers who have taken their land without compensation. Another example are the cowardly Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto who in rose up against the Nazi in 1944. These Jews had their land and culture taken from them by the Nazi and are equally deserving of punishment like the Palestinians and should be considered terrorists.

The poor Nazi's must have suffered in the same way as the poor Israeli do today.

I guess all you people who support Israel’s attack on the Palestinians must also support the Nazi crushing of the Warsaw uprising?

Only Jews can emigrate to Israel (not that anybody else would want to live there) you have to proved that you have Jewish genetic component to get in! Whats the difference between white Australia policy and Jewish Israel policy? Why is white Australia so bad and Jewish Israel so good?

Only Jews can own land in Israel this a commonly know fact seeing that Jews live in the past and remember back hundreds of years ago when Jews where not allowed to own land in Europe! (Witches where also burnt at the stake during this time period.) Saying that the government owns the land is a technicality! Its like saying the Queen of England owns all the land in Australia. Technically correct but it would be impossible for the Queen to exercise her right to that land if she every wanted too

Yuyutsu quote “Israeli law discriminates against those who did not serve in the army.” LOL That’s great! Imagine if there was a similar law in Australia e.g. You must go to Church or its legal to discriminate against you! LOL

Can anybody on here take Yuyutsu seriously? What a hypocrite but then again Jewish and Israel culture is built on a backbone of hypocrisy which spans the millenniums.

Punter57 – “Are most of these anti-Israel posters anti-semetic in general..that's the question? Or just fantasists and socialist dreamers.? Hmmm. same thing really...”

Famous last words of a coward who cant win using facts so he reverts to worn out cliché’s and dogma! I don’t blame you punter57 for calling people who are anti-Israel racists! Its not like you can use facts to back up your stance! It puts you in the same league as people who say only racists would dare say that there is an alcohol, sexual abuse and petrol sniffing problem in the Aboriginal community.

Wake up and stop making a fool of yourself!

Shadow Minister and socratease I agree.

EasyTimes,

A terrorist is, as the name suggests, one who intentionally creates a feeling of terror among a civilian population. Was there any parallel in the Warsaw Ghetto?

"Only Jews can own land in Israel" - simply untrue. Many non-Jews own (and lease) land in Israel.

"Only Jews can emigrate to Israel" - not so: indeed Jews have a right for fast-track immigration to Israel, which is similar to the Australian "resumption of citizenship" clause that provides fast-track immigration for children of former Australians.

(I personally feel that it is now about time to start phasing out this clause)

About service in the Israeli army, you had the indecency to quote only my opening statement and place it out of context: what about the fact that non-Jews are allowed to volunteer, and then get the same privileges? what about the fact that conscription is a much greater evil then not-getting those privileges? thus discrimination is, in fact, IN FAVOUR of non-Jews!

(BTW, no section of the population in Australia is forced to go to church)

These are facts. If you ask instead for my personal opinion, I believe that it is about time for the whole concept of a "Jew" to fade out, as it already does in Israel, though very gradually, perhaps a bit too gradually for my own taste. The more secure Israelis are, the easier it is for them to let go of their "Jewishness", but treating Israelis as "Jews" can only push them, as a measure of protection, further into this definition. The Nazis did just that. Is this really what you also want?

Dane, You say Muslim countries don’t claim to be Liberal democracies. They claim to be Islamic States and that is what they are.

They are religious states in other words. This does not alter the fact that they use religion as a cloak for their racism and would quickly kill someone from any other race or country who tried to become leader of their Middle Eastern Countries.

You know that’s the truth as well as I do.

They are not different to any other race or people on the planet in that respect. The Jews as well. The West experiments with the idea of tolerance but it deludes itself.

I see both sides as hell bent on keeping control of territory as they need land and resources to survive just like every other species on the planet does. They are both fighting a war of survival. Especially as they are having 6to 10children and so need the land they already have, multiplied 6 to 10 times every 19years or so as those children mature and need a home and resources of their own.
Who can blame anyone for fighting to survive on either side. It is a sad unsolveable situation.

To have even a chance of achieving justice you need to have sufficient resources. The tragedy of Israel is only a foretaste of what awaits all of us unless we manage to develop a sustainable lifestyle. We see the same in Dafur - when the rains come the various groups live peacefully side by side; but when the rains fail it is a battle for the water and the limited pastures. No doubt there are other examples. Religion only serves to cloak the reality that people are fighting over limited and scarce resources.

GYM-FISH believes his/her own delusions.....perhaps that's what he/she wants to believe. Hitler was a professed Christian until the end! Ha! Ha! Where did you dig that one up from? Obviously you have done no reading/research around the matter. Better not let the truth get in the way of fantasy! Next he/she will have us believe that the barbarity of atheistic communism or Mao is the work of the Vatican. Does Gym-Fysh live in a world of fantastical conspiracies? I wonder. For your information Hitler came to loathe Christianity, accusing it of being a Jewish tool.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a religion but government with a society and culture where citizens mimic their King, Jesus the Christ. Pilate called him "King of the Jews". The people called him "Son of David"
Simon Peter called him "the Christ, the son of the living God".
What you call him is your choice. You have free will granted by God as your God given right. The Anzacs faught to preserve that right when men tried to take that right away. Be very careful people that some carasmatig man does not convince you with a sweet talking tongue to give up your freedom.
When I was young the culture of this nation was the culture of Great Brition. G. Whitlam replaced it with multigulturism, using the Law to make the change rejecting Gods Law given through Moses, a Jew. We have politicions today devaluing Life and chosing Death through abortion and euthenasia as our culture again using the Law to change the culture (what we think). We have the UN pushing their culture upon us. We have the multi media pushing the U.S.A. culture upon us. We have all religions and beliefs pushing their culture upon us, so many choices to make. Where is the way?

History will show that the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was a travesty of justice in which the UNO was manipulated by USA and Britain to cull out a state for Zionist Jews. The initial conditions imposed by Britain were NEVER observed by the Zionists led by Chaim Weizman (not sure of the last name!sorry) and that was that at every step of the planning the Arabs were to be consulted and that NOTHING should be done to leave the Arab majority at a disadvantage in life. Well...we all know what happened. Lord Balfour saw his so-called Balfour Declaration flouted so brazenly but kept his mouth shut.EVERYONE in power at the time knew what was transpiring but deliberately failed to stopo the injustice.

This is NOT a racist statement.Anyone who has read the history of the period knows that I am being objective and non-accusative.The facts must speak for themselves.

Ok so what?Half a century later we have a state that has stolen land to augment its size and has no de jure right to exist but by virtue of its present realities has forced on the world its de facto reality and therefore has to be recognised.There are tens of thousands of people who have come to Israel from all parts of the world and bought land and property and have a right to settlement if under Israeli law only.Sobeit. Now what has to happen is the creation of the state of Palestine and the acceptance by Hammas. Too many innocent women and children have been massacred in the struggle. I do feel sorry for Hammas and for its David-like stand against Goliath using his pathetically inadequate sling-shot of DIY rockets to take on one of the greatest military poweras in the world that is backed by the might of the USA even today.

Palestinians have lost the battle but will win the war eventually. Demography is destiny and there's nothing that the Zionists can ever do to prevent that eventuating.

socrates

socratease.

Good to find someone that takes pity on Hamas, since they do not take pity on their own people. On the rare chance that they ever win "the war", it would be the blackest day for the Palestinian people, whose overpopulation problem will then be solved by throwing most of them from rooftops.

"Palestinians have lost the battle"

No - Palestinians just won one battle (albeit, sadly, with many casualties), Hamas lost.

"but will win the war eventually"

If you refer to Hamas, they will not, because they have nothing constructive to offer, only hatred, murder and similar negatives.

If you refer to Palestinians, their win is the win of Israel as well. The true interest of Israelis and Palestinians is the same.

"Demography is destiny"

Using the womb as a weapon is a crime against the planet. The overpopulation it causes only serves to make its users impoverished, starving, having no water and dying of treatable diseases.

"and there's nothing that the Zionists can ever do"...

What zionists are you talking about? we are in the 21st century now. Zionism was a trend of the first half of the 20th century, you seem to still be living in those times. The people that live in Israel today, at least those under 60, were born there and seen no day under British rule (and even the older ones were too young to influence events). They just want to get on with their lives in the only place they can call home.

Israel was successful because it always strived to build and make the best of what it has. Those Arab locals (notably the Druze, Cherkesians, Christians, some Bedouins, but also others) that had positive goals and attitudes, joined in and became an integral part of the thriving Israeli nation. Reasonable Palestinians that join them now will also have a prosperous state, but those who only ever cared for the negatives of hurting others, have deliberately made themselves poor and miserable, trying to attract pity from people like yourself, and so will remain miserable till their last day.

Yuyutsu – I will take your word that non Jews can own land in Israel seeing that I did a quick search of the net and found no info to back up what I said. Point conceded!

If driving hundreds of thousands of civilians from there homes and threatening them with death or imprisonment if they ever try to return is not considered terrorism what is it called?

The Jews complain about being forced out of their homes and having their livlyhoods destroyed by the Nazi but then they say its ok to do it to the Palestinians. Jews are at the top of the list when it comes to the worlds greatest hypocrites.

Non Jews are as welcome to move to Israel as people who don’t marry Jews are welcome to convert to Judaism. In other words you are not welcome to move to Israel, the Jewish people don’t want you there and they will do almost anything to stop you but if you are pig headed enough you might just get in.

Yuyutsu would you volunteer to join an army which is occupying Australia? The Israeli are not stupid forcing the Palestinians to join their army is like forcing Aussie to join the Japanese army in 1943! I doubt if any Palestinians would join the Israeli army and if they did they would probably be shunned by their entire community. So the Israeli knowing that the Palestinians wont join the army use this as a way of discriminating against them and they have obviously fooled you into thinking that they have given the Palestinians a real option

Its intrinsic to Israel existence that they have conscription with out it they would have been wiped out a long time ago. So whether you think conscription is good or bad is irrelevant seeing that it’s a must in a country that does all it can to irritate its neighbors.

these people are the most selfish and arrogant culture the world has ever seen! The Jews would have gone the same way as the Saxons, Celts, Anglo’s and the rest of them if it where not for their culture of having contempt for all other people and having racism as a celebrated and intrinsic part of Jewish culture.

I do agree that Hamas is bad but we have to look at things from the Palestine’s prospective and Hamas is the only one offering a solution! Hamas solution is a stone age one but thanks to Israel the Palestinians are a stone age people with almost nothing in the way of education or help (Israel has made sure of this) so with that said we can all understand why Hamas gets the support it does because the Palestinians don’t know any better. So all we see are bearded loons yelling and calling for the death of all Jews simply because pain and suffering is all they have ever know at the hands of Israel. I am sure if bunch of Jews drove your family from their home, moved in and then called you a terrorist and dropped bombs on you if you try to question the Jews legitimacy in taking your home you would be very angry as well.

I bet every time a bearded Muslim is on TV calling for the death of all Jewsand the like the Israeli’s rub their hands with glee knowing that people like Yuyutsy will see it and believe that all Palestinians are blood thirsty monsters and deserve all they get! You could not be further from the truth

yuyutsu,so you thnk that zionism existed only in the first half of the 20th century? That's the trouble with airheads like you joining in discussions without any reliable information.THE LIKUD pARTY AND THE MINOR RELIGIOUS PARTIES ARE SELF-CONFESSED ZIONISTS IF YOU CAN BELIEVE THEIR OWN PUBLICATIONS ON THE SUBJECT.
About 40% of Israelis belong to the socialist parties and the Peace Now movement.Likud holds power in the Knesset ONLY BECAUSE they have the support of the religious right,zionists like themselves.Why not get hold of a book called " Israel & Palestine: Why they fight and can they stop?" It is written by the much respected Israeli historian Bernard Wasserstein. He'd know more about the zionists than you ever will.I base my observations on the writings of honest and objective intellectuals like them and from whom I draw my data whereas you depend upon your own pathetic and deluded misreading of the current history of Israel.

The fun will start bin earnest in the years ahead when the population od Israeli Arabs exceeds that of the Jews.They will then have to be disenfranchised and dispossessed of land and rights for the Israelis to have a "purfied" state of Israel. Yes.We would call it ETHNIC CLEANSING! The UN will have to take a serious stand then against Israel.That is what I meant by the saying:"Demography is destiny" and that is what I meant by Palestinians eventually winning the "Battle" "even if they lose the many skirmishes along the way.Israelis reached ZPG somewhere about 1999 or thereabouts:the Palestinian population grows at the rate of 4.5% You do the maths,pal.

Get some serious reading done before taking me on,yuyutsu.

socratease

EasyTimes,

Please check my definition above of a "terrorist". The intention matters, and Israel's intention was not to sew terror, but to survive.

Though I could, I have not enough words here, time or interest to discuss further Israel's distant past. What concerns me is today, not 60+ years ago.

I want the Israeli people to live, to survive, to keep their homes, culture and social fabric. I support whatever means they need for this purpose, including the recent-war, but I do not support any other purposes (e.g. Jewishness or zionism per-se).

I personally also don't like certain traits of Jewish-behaviour, which I like changed, but I claim (from reliable personal sources, which I will not disclose, Socratease) that those traits are already changing, declining, that Jewishness and zionism, despite formally still keeping their name, have been significantly diluted during Israel's decades of independence. I further claim, that the more Israel is oppressed, the slower these traits change, but when Israel has access to periods of relative calm, those traits change faster.

If Likud rises in the coming Israeli elections, it will be a direct result of the recent rockets-attacks. Obama's elections boosted Kadima and Labor, but as jounralists predicted at the time, "each kassam rocket would reduce this advantage in favour of Likud". Sadly, there were many rockets and their predictions seem true. Sadly also, Hamas and the Israeli "Right" share common interests.

No, I would never volunteer to ANY army. However, non-Jews have the option of doing civil-service instead, which gives them the same privileges. This would have been my own choice, but many Palestinians senselessly reject this as well. Other Palestinians do serve in either the army or in civil-service, then take their rightful place in Israeli society.

Conscription is evil. It amounts to slavery and I do not support it under any circumstances.

Socratease, the mistake in your gloomy predictions is to assume that ALL Israeli-Palestinians oppose Israel. A small-percentage does, but see how few votes the Israeli-Arab parties got! Loyal citizens do not pose a threat to Israel, only those who want to destroy it.

Before this discussion gets bogged down in tribalism we all need to get some serious reading done. I have supplied you all with a selection of URLSs taken from Historian Bernard Wasserstein. Yes,he is a Jew and a very much respected intellectual in the world,more than any of us could ever hope to be.And no, I havent tried including any Arab or Palestinian based URL because some of you would claim bias. Wasserstein is biased but the bias stems from his commitment to historical truths and objectivity.So look below and see if you can find any of these books in libraries. Then come to the discussion table and make it all worthwhile.

(1)
Oz Almog, The Sabra:The Creation of the New Jew(Berkeley 2000)
(2)Neil Caplan, Palestine Jewry and the Arab Question 1917-1925
(3)Baruch Kimmerling, The Invention and Decline of Israeliness
(4)David Kretzmer,The Occupation of Justice:The Supreme Court Of Israel and The Occupied Territories
(5)Walter Lowdermilk,Palestine:The Land of Promise
(6)Benny Morris,Righteous Victims:A History of Zionist-Arab Conflict.
(7)Demographic Hegemony,Nana Poku and David Graham
(8) Itmar Rabinovich,The Road Not Taken:Early Arab-Israeli Negotiations
(9)Anita Shapira,Land and Power:Zionists Resort To Force.(1992)
(10)Ehud Sprinzack,Brother Against Brother.

There are many other books I could recommend but if you can read even one or two of the above you will have a clearer idea of what is and has been really going on.

socratease

"Before this discussion gets bogged down in tribalism..."

But isn't tribalism the name of the game?

When someone tries to kill off your tribe, unconditionally, you don't go and look in the books to find what your and their grand-grand-fathers and mothers did, or even whether they were right or wrong: you just fight back, you defend yourself and your tribe, using whatever weapons you can lay your hands on. Once safe, then you can talk, but talk about what? about whether they grant you the privilege to be shot instead of hanged or eaten alive?

Socratease, you keep pushing through the back-door the concept of "Jew", trying to impress me that this-or-that author is "Jewish": why do you think should I care?

I re-iterate:

The people of Israel started off as Jews and zionists.
That generation is all but gone now.
The current population of Israel consists mainly of normal people like you and me. They really have no horns.

In Israel, the terms "Jew" and "zionist" are still mentioned from time-to-time out of habit, but they lost, and continue to lose, much of their original meaning. Except for the fanatic settlers and their supporters, who cling to the old racist ways, the closest practical definitions of those terms, as used in everyday life in Israel are:

Jew: someone whom we can trust to be friendly with our tribe, one who has no inclination to attack us, such as blowing him/her-self up in a bus/school/restaurant or shoot us, etc.

Zionist: someone who cares for his tribe, that contributes to society, that has good civil values and morals, that helps his neighbours, etc.

You see, ethnicity/religion doesn't come in at all. It is all about safety, security, about people who built their home defending against a mob from another tribe that want to throw them out to the sea.

I presume you will mention the Likud, but most of its voters do so only because they are afraid and want more security, they perceive Likud will reduce the rockets/bombs. I am not convinced, but that's sadly how they perceive it.

Jujutsyu
I am open about my sources which you are not.What we get are half-baked ideas of your own manufacture.
If I keep pointing out the "Jewishness" of my sources it is quite openly and not through the back door."Should I care" you say. You should because the sources are from learned people who are universally recognised for their views;they make comments that are widely respected.That doesnt seem to be acceptable to you.
You are softening your stand, I see..You can actually bring yourself to admit that the term "zionist" is not so widely popular these days in Israel.It must have been hard for you.How come?Have you quietly been educating yourself and discovered how off the mark you have been?But that's ok Yuyutsu, that'scalled learning.You are a little wiser now and better off for it.

Cheers,mate.

socratease

Socratease,

You say that I have softened, that I learned: I think that taking part in this forum and others has helped me sharpen my views on what's important and what's not. My views have not changed in essence, but got clarified.

I am soft about immaterial things, nonsense ideas such as Jewishness and zionism, but I am hard as ever when it comes to the lives of my family: I want everyone to live happily, including the Palestinians. I am not interested in territory either, I don't want to hurt anyone, but if it comes to that, I rather have a million Palestinians killed than one of my family lose a finger.

It is a tragedy that in order to survive, my family has to fight alongside those disgusting hooligan settlers, but what choice they have? they stand with their backs to the sea.

It is painful for me to see how each terrorist attack and each rocket fired into Israel strengthens the Israeli "Right", the settlers and their supporters. My family and I stand helpless, yet they keep being ostarcized by a world that bundles all Israelis together and does not understand the differences.

There is the "law of return": it is unjust, but it is the only means to ensure supply of loyal-population to defend the state of Israel against demographic overthrow (other than ethnic-cleansing which is worse). As far as I am concerned, those immigrants need not be Jews, they could be Koreans, or even better - why not take in the Kurds from Iraq, who would make excellent loyal citizens?

So what about the Palestinians?
I would like to accept them into the family, but sorry, their track-record is such that I could not trust most of them. I would like to give them as much as I can so long as it does not risk my family. If I see them changing their ways, then they should have everything they want, but sorry - my family comes first, and as it stands now, a strong Israel is the only guarantee for their survival..

David, what a thought provoking article.

Yutyutsu, it is all about tribes and all about history. History more ancient even than 60 years. Both for the Jewish people and the Palistinians.

You do not want a finger of your family harmed, neither does a Palestinian I imagine.

Like you do not want to be associated with the radical element in Israel there are likely Palestinians who do not want to be associated with the radical element in Palestine.

You claim Israeli's will be pushed into supporting the more extreme section of Israeli politics if there is to be criticism of Israel's actions. Why do you think Palestinians would react any differently when viewing their plight? They too will be pushed to the more radical element. 'The rest of the world does not understand us and the harm that is being done to us'.

It is ingenious of you to dismiss history. If young Israeli's are thinking like you are how very sad. They've been as hoodwinked then in their education of history as the Japanese educated after 1945. They too have a simplistic view of their history.

Israel will continue to exist. They will be supported to that end by many in the world, but it will be difficult to come to a lasting agreement with two foes hell-bent on hanging onto the victim status.

Who has suffered more? Are we only looking locally over the last 60years or are we going to include Warsaw ghettoes, the despicable complicity of the British turning back fleeing Jewish people in rickety boats trying to get to safety from Europe in the grip of Nazism? Who is the bigger more deserving victim and will therefore need most praise for consesions?

Sorry, I personally do not see this conflict as one between a good-guy and a bad-guy. Perhaps the rest of the world should step in tell both sides to shut up, do the colonial thing and draw a straight line in the middle of entire area.

Yuyutsu,
You perhaps travel to a slightly different drumbeat to that of David f, but nevertheless you have the legitimate desire for the survival of 'your own' with its inherent but also necessary link to a 'strong' Israel. The established 'Peace of Wesphalia' (1648), with its principle of territorial integrity will be largely forgotten in the 'West'. A more pragmatic view will prevail amongst a certain utilitarian elite, this being , 'it is good for a small, insignificant nation to be dissolved to promote & preserve the peace of the world'. An insidious 'doctrine' lurks beneath, akin to Jung's collective unconscious.

The truly horrific atrocities in human history - the enslavements, the inquisitions, the terrorisms, the genocides, have been perpetrated not in hot blood but in cold - not as a result of urgent and immanent feeling but in the name of a transcendent ideology and as a result of painstaking indoctrination.

The vast majority of Germans in World War II did not personally and passionately hate the Jews: they had never even met the men, women, children, and infants whom they would eventually butcher en masse. It was, for the most part, a methodically drilled-in ideology that powered the genocide machine, a machine that killed six million Jews despite the fact that the Germans did not hate them.

That Israel is the devil, the root of all evil, a criminal cancer that must be excised from the Muslim body politic - these propositions are not ephemeral feelings, lets say for instance, Iranian Muslims, but rather eternal truths that gradually, through endless, tantra-like repetition, have cloyed in the conscious mind while simultaneously installing themselves beneath the level of immediate emotion and awareness. This is the place where basic instincts, automatic assumptions, and ontological verities reside. When the time is right, and certain rulers have made it abundantly clear, the time is drawing ever nearer. Decades of propaganda will serve the same function for them that centuries of Christian anti-Semitism in Europe performed for the Nazis. Today, a similar ignorance, but in a differenct cloak, pervades.

To compare the Australian and the Israeli settlement process as similar is laughable.

Anansi,

I agree with you that the situation is sad.

I do not agree, however, that salvation will come by history:

Until recently, the main beneficiaries of history (other than those paid to write and to teach it) were the book-worms. With the advent of internet, however, even they don't get much feed.

Perhaps I exaggerated, but when the lives of your loved-ones are in danger, you don't go about opening books to try and prove that they are right.

I don't know about Japanese youngsters, but let me inform you: typical young Israelis hate history, in any shape and form (including the compulsory bible-study, which is considered history there). Once they finish their exams they don't want to hear about it again. They prefer to indulge in science/technology where they can get practical things done (and earn more as well). In general, Israelis tend to live in the future while Palestinians tend to live in the past - guess who's getting better results...

"You do not want a finger of your family harmed, neither does a Palestinian I imagine. "

I guess so, but then they don't act rationally. All they need is to stop launching rockets, then they will not be harmed. And yes, by such actions they also support the radical elements within Israel.

It is terror, not criticism, that strengthens the Israeli "Right". in-fact, constructive criticism can help, especially if you can provide reasonable alternatives, rather than hate-statements.

"Israel will continue to exist"...

Great that you can have that certainty. The feeling in Israel itself is 50%-50%.

"I personally do not see this conflict as one between a good-guy and a bad-guy"

I agree if you refer to the superficial conflict, supposedly between Israelis and Palestinians. However, the real conflict is between the good "normal" people and the bad "crazy" radicals on both sides.

"Perhaps the rest of the world should step in tell both sides to shut up"

By all means. Please step in and tell the bad radicals on both sides to shut up!

Yuyutsu,I salute your honest and heartfelt post.I have perhaps not been reading you clearly enough.I agree with all you have said. The real battlefield is demography.I cant see how the end is going to pan out.Idealistically I hope to see one state with Palestinians and Israelis living in accord under an independent police force and judiciary for a transition before there is no need for them as each community accepts the other and can live in harmony, temple and synagogue attended by worshippers alike in peace.
Wont come? Ah well,one can dream.

socratease.

Thank you Socratease,

A one-state solution is not such a good idea, even as an ideal. Some sort of a confederation is better.
Assuming we already solved the big, life-and-death issues, there are still very different cultures.

It comes down to practical day-to-day matters. To begin with, they speak different languages, and most cannot speak, read or write each other's language.

Take just as one example the issue of the weekly day-of-rest: observant Jews cannot work on the Sabbath - they need to be home from work before sunset on Friday. Israel is the only country in the world where no employee can be expected to work on the sabbath, where no-one can get sacked and no Centerlink payments stopped if one insists on stopping work earlier on Fridays (especially in the winter).
Muslims, on the other hand, have their day-of-rest on Friday, and their most important prayer is on Friday morning (Sunday, BTW, is the first day of a normal working-week).

That was just one example: there are hundreds of such similar issues, each looking small in relation to the life-and-death matters that we face now, but together determine the fabric and quality of life. It is unwise to force different cultures to merge. See Yugoslavia, Checheslovakia, and recently Belgium.

Yuyutsu, you are absolutely right in stating that no solution will come about because of history, but the fact of the matter is, whether you like it or not, that Israel exists and where it exists is purely because of history and the value that people, both the Jewish people and others, have put on that history.

You, as a person, and your family, are inherently no different to the Palestinians. It is simply not a case of rational Israelis and irrational Palestinians. Or simply complaining about 'radicals' on both sides. If only it where quite so simple.

Both sides see their reality from their personal viewpoint placed in their own view on history, both recent and ancient, and the importance thereof. There is not a single Israeli or Palestinian who does not.

Also, I feel a bit dismayed that you find that different requirements, such a different rest day as of any importance whatsoever.

By focusing on the Religious aspect of it, it becomes a particular source of irritation and focus of difference, when that shouldn't be the case at all. People with children, people studying part-time, people with a disability, the list is really quite endless, where there is a case of requesting special consideration.

There are many legitimate requirements that workers may have and in this day and age it is expected that the workforce are no longer seen as faceless drones who all need the same, feel the same, act the same.

And on another note, if there is indeed a 50-50 feeling in Israel that Israel may not survive, well-how effective is the campaign of fear then? Sorry, that is just not a realistic fear. You are being played by your politicians. How afraid do you think the Palestinians can be made to feel then? That must be an even easier cake-walk with the recent show of Israeli military might.

Anansi,

I know more and more Israelis who don't give a damn about history. I can only hope that it is the same on the Palestinian side.

Most of the world drives on the right side of the road, so the driver's wheel and controls are on the left. In Australia though, we drive on the left side and the driver sits on the right. Now suppose you wanted to unite Australia and the Philippines, you would face a serious and expensive problem.

I am not claiming that it is insurmountable, but when facing hundreds of similar issues at once, it is either sheer ignorance or sheer cruelty to try to forcibly bridge the gaps. What's the point in shaking up people's lives so violently? of course it can be done, it even happened before... in the Chinese cultural revolution and by Pol Pot in Cambodia. Do we need more of that?

I also mentioned the issue of language: for most people there is a short window of opportunity to learn a new language. If you haven't spoken a language before the age of 10, you will never feel natural and at ease with it as with the language(s) you grew up with. If you haven't learned a language before the age of 20, you will hardly ever speak it fluently.

Of course, when it is a life-and-death matter, if it is the only way to stop a war, then there can be certain sacrifices, but I don't believe this is the case. What is the point in such cruelty? would I ask you to marry and share your life with someone you do not like, who has totally different values and habits?
(arranged marriages? the Moonies?... is this your example?)

About the 50-50 feeling: the main fear is of Iran. The Iranian leadership is known to be irrational. They consider it a religious duty to wipe-out israel and are not afraid to die because they believe in the near "second-coming" of their hidden-Imam. Once they have nukes, they will not hesitate to launch them and/or hand them to Hezbollah/Hamas.

You give a certain reality Yuyutsu, expressed from a secular viewpoint. It is not religious hypocrisy which is to be exposed by the abandonment of Israel as legitimate entity – but one coming from the purely secular. Many who join the defamation and delegitimisation of the state Israel certainly do so while claiming only the highest ethical motives - a list of American and European Jews of this class would also fill many pages. The militarism, of the Jewish setters, however, is not to be in any way condoned, as their own scripture might suggest, “…You eat with the blood and lift up your eyes towards your idols, and shed blood; and shall you possess the land? You stand upon your sword, you carry out disgusting deeds…and shall you possess the land?” (Ezekiel 33: 23-26)

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 brought with it the installation of a clerical regime that has sought to expand its influence by taking the lead in promoting Israel's destruction. This has presented Israel with a grave new threat. In terms of broader enmity in the Muslim world, however, the greatest factor has been aggressive Saudi export of Wahhabi fundamentalism, its preaching of virulent Jew-hatred (and hatred of other non-Muslims), and its ever increasing influence not only in once tolerant Islamic nations but also in Muslim communities in Europe, the Americas and elsewhere.

In terms of Israel's Palestinian Arab neighbors, Hamas and the other Islamist organisations continue to be committed to Israel's ultimate destruction. Whatever true moderates exist among the Palestinians, they have no political voice or influence. In addition to the animosity of the Arab world, Israel is faced with much hostile sentiment in Europe, fed by traditional anti-Semitism, by leftist anti-Americanism and association of Israel with America, by perverse, ahistorical leftist twisting of the Israeli-Arab conflict into Israeli colonialists brutalising the supposedly indigenous population, and by the European media being house organs for anti-Israel bigotry of all these pedigrees. Will Islamist hostility be appeased, if only Israel would make sufficient amends or simply disappear? – Hardly (if you have a reasonable grasp of history).

WHERE WILL THE JEWS GO IF THEY LEAVE ISRAEL?

There is the problem of where the Jews are to go if they leave Israel. This was why they ended up in Palestine after world war 2 because nobody else in the world wanted them in such large numbers even the British and American and Australians who fought to stop their slaughter. (ALTHOUGH,the West didn't really fight to save the Jews,they fought to save themselves from Hitlers everadvancing army especially when he took Poland and set his sights on France.

Well, where DO we resettle the Jews today? Maybe all the Muslim immigrants in Europe and the West could be sent to LIve in Israel and all the Jews resettled in Europe,America and Australia.

Their are millions of muslims in the West just as there are millions of Jews on Arab land. Let's do a swap. No. Why Not?
Because not only do the Arabs want Israel they want to eventually overrun Europe,America and Britain. As was stated in earlier posts either Demography or genecide will ultimately decide this issue,peace talks will not.

The Muslims and the Jews generate their own problems in host countries because they both practice segration and aparthied and will not marry outside of their tribes. (the ultimate racism).

That's what got the Jews killed in Germany and it is what causes the resentment of muslim immigrants in welcoming countries around the world.

Sharkfin,

We had portable-radios for some decades, now we also have portable-TV's, portable-DVD's, portable-phones, portable-computers, and the list keeps growing...

Are people also portable?

Well, you are right: Jews are portable, "Jews" is an object, and so are "Muslims", so you say: "where shall we move the Jews? shall we drop them in this corner.. no, perhaps to the other side, just push a bit to the left, slightly to the back.. in front the the Muslims, no, too far, slightly back...right! stay there!". Why does your suggestion so remind me of the Israeli far-right parties? whose agenda is to transfer all Arabs (including Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs) over to Jordan: just load them on trucks and drive them across the border...

It is insulting to be called a "Jew", this is why Herzl and other zionists wanted to have their own state, a place where they will never again be called Jews (just like black Americans are no longer called "Negros"). You seem to ignore the fact that the inhabitants of Israel are firstly PEOPLE.

Young and healthy people can move and re-settle, not that it is easy for anyone, but older people cannot. Shifting a population, even from one village to the next, is traumatic, let alone across the sea, into a different climate and where different languages are spoken. It also implies the breaking of inter-generation bonds, deserting the helpless older generations.

People have been working hard and building their houses all their lives, made them comfortable, planted trees, surrounded themselves with memories, relatives and friends, now all you can tell them is "Jews - go there, carry your pack once again".

So sorry mate, the Israelis are there to stay, on their land, and fight for it as necessary. In due course, I hope, over some generations, there will no longer be any Jews in Israel - not because the people will go anywhere, but because both they and the rest of the world will forget they ever were Jews.

Yuyutsu, I agree entirely with what you say. The article we are discussing prosposed the question, Should the Jews leave Israel.

I was merely hypothesising about the question.

I was reading the other night as you said, that today many Israelies are either moderate in their religion or not religious at all but this was not the case when they lived in Germany before World War 2 and I still say it was the Germans fear of losing control of their country as the Jews grew into millions that triggered world war 2 and not some vague hatred of the Jewish religion.

Sharkfin,

I just wanted to correct some of the facts that you stated, not that I can see how relevant it is to the current discussion:

When the Nazis came to power, the number of Jews in Germany was only half a million, not millions: the millions were in eastern-european countries, such as Poland, Lithuania, Russia and Hungary. Most German Jews were not religious, while most Jews of Eastern Europe were.

yuyutsu,in a previous post I didnt hesitate to admit the de facto state of Israel.As you say,Israel is here to say.That's fine for the Israelis, but does Israel have to keep setting up newer settlements in the West Bank by driving Palestinians from their homes? That is really theft of real estate isnt it? Over two hundred new settlements have recently been set up. NO ONE can honestly defend such settlements.Where and when does this end?

socratease

Socratease,

I warmly agree with you. Those settlements are disgusting. They should not have been there in the first place.

But please understand: I can't do anything about it, nor can my family. We stand helpless as those bloody settlers do whatever they want and nobody, including the Israeli government or the army has the guts to stop them.

The settlers bring shame on Israel, and I have a problem: my family is there, and they have done nothing wrong, they live in Israel-proper, they hate the settlers just as myself, but when the world condemns Israel for the actions of those settlers, my family is condemned as well; When the world places economic sanctions on Israel due to those settlers, those sanctions hit my family as well; When the world-opinion, due to those settlers, cripples Israel's ability to defend itself, the safety of my family is compromised as well.

I wish I had a magic wand, which I could wave and have the settlers and all their settlements vanish in an instant. Unfortunately I don't.

You have a way of presenting insights we can all learn from,yuyutsu.Thanks for a disarming and charming honest declaration of where you come from.

Do you think that a coalition of the socialist party and the peace now activists can ever win enough votes to do something about those theiving settlers?What is really behind the latest settler expansion?Is it some real estate scam under the disguise of religion?

socratease

"Do you think that a coalition of the socialist party and the peace now activists can ever win enough votes to do something about those theiving settlers?"

"Ever" is a long time... I think it will happen one day, but I am afraid that the next elections, in only 11 days, are doomed. This is due to fear: many Israelis are upset by the rockets launched from Lebanon and Gaza and by the Iranian threat, so they are looking for a "strong" leader who will, supposedly, protect them.

What is needed is a strong leader from the Left/Centre, but right now it is hard to find someone who is both strong AND not corrupt.

The person who most fits this description right now is... Obama...

"What is really behind the latest settler expansion?Is it some real estate scam under the disguise of religion?"

It is a mystical belief, specifically promoted by the late Rabbi Kook, that claims that the formation of the state of Israel is not a coincidence, but rather a stage in divine-intervention, part in a series of events that would culminate in the coming of the Messiah, who would redeem the nation. According to this theory, the nation of Israel is perceived as God's bride, and it is her duty to open the door slightly for her groom: once Israel, the bride, opens a slit in the door for her groom, God would open it wide... and according to this doctrine, opening the slit is done by settling the ancient land of Israel.

I believe that the reason why Rabbi Kook has so many followers, is the dismay of religious youth at the growing secularization of the state of Israel, which has not turned out to be as religious as they wanted.

Yuyutsu, I had read some where there were about 6million Jews killed or expelled during WW11 and I had assumed these were from Germany, obviously given that there were only 500.000 (approx) Jews in Germany at the time (as you pointed out) the rest must have come from surrounding territories.

Reading some of the history it appears that the Germans and Jews have been territorial rivals going back over many centuries. This is one paragraph I read.

‘The main rivals of the Jews since the 13th century had usually been the Germans the dominant group in Polish towns. Disturbances against the Jews in the cities were usually of German Making. The motives were economic rather than religious.’

It seems to me that there is a prevailing mindset around the world that the war was over religious intolerance and I was trying to make the point that these genocides are usually about territorial control rather than religion.

It was also stated that before the war started Germany was in a bad way economically.

Sharkfin, we are really diverting from the original topic.

There is lots of literature about European-Jewish history.
I am not an expert, but from the little I know, it is ridiculous to claim that Jews were rivals of Germans since the 13th century... and over what? land?!

These are the middle-ages. Most of the land in Europe was inhabited by bears, wolves and other wild creatures and the little that was inhabited by humans was divided among feudal barons. The vast population were analphabetic serfs. What is now Germany was divided into many small tribes. The Jews were the exception, the thin middle-class layer, and particulary, the only bankers, the only group that was capable of international trade. They created those jobs because they were not allowed to have land and work in agriculture.

Now bankers are very much liked when you want to get a loan, but not when it is time to pay it back. Add to that religious differences and superstitions (on both sides), and you have an explosive mix.

Jews lived in cities and continued to be part of Germany's middle-class even to the 20th century. They never had, or wanted to have land there.

When I was small, I was still told horror stories about gypsies that storm out of nowhere in a fast carriage through the street, pick up children and train them to work in the circus, never to see their parents again. The intention was probably to make me beware of strangers and cars, but when similar tales spread and get a life of their own, then reach a twisted warped mind, exacerbated by an economic depression, then you can get the kind of madness that the world saw in Germany.

Yuyutsu, The war between the Arabs and the Jews at the present moment is over land. Show me an historical account of any war in history and after I have read it I will pinpoint the territorial reasons( resources, land etc) for that war. Vilification is always part of the lead up to these massacres.

For example the aim of the Catholics was always to install a catholic queen on the throne of England and so take control of the country and all it's resources for the catholics, and so they branded the protestants heretics, thus giving themselves a holy excuse to commit slaughter

As for the The Jews being bankers in Germany. Well the purpose of money is to buy food, shelter,medicines etc. things all mankind needs to survive. These goods are territorial resources grown, dug, harvested, leeched, from the land. If the Jews had a tight control on the money supply then they also had the ability to confer or deny prosperity to whomever they chose. That is very much a form of territorial power

Well, Sharkfin, you seem to know everything already, so why do you ask me?

To summarize your insights:
1. Jews were always in control of the world.
2. Jews always acted coherently as one entity to achieve this control.
3. Jews are the devil behind each and every bad thing that happens on this earth and beyond.

OK.

Never mind that most of the people in the 13th century never knew how money looks. They ate what they grew in the fields, or what was left of it after giving their feudal lord his due. Medicines, oh well, if one was to see a doctor, it was probably the last thing they ever saw. Shelter? was normally shared with animals. Money? it was used by lords and barons for some luxuries that could not be obtained locally, to hire armies to conquer their neighbours and slaves to build their castles. Jews were an exception - neither lords nor serfs and well, they could also read and write, a skill which even many among the clergy did not possess. Those awesome territorial powers were often kicked out at short notice, killed or maimed at the local baron's pleasure (but I guess their lives were still slightly better than the serfs).

Now, if you want the Jews to leave their homes in Israel, pick up their packs once again and move to the next place, until such time that they are kicked from there as well, or better still, until a "final solution" is found, then why can't you say so? what excuses do you need and why? take the example of the wolf in http://www.aestheticrealism.net/poetry/Wolf-Lamb-LaFontaine.htm

Yuyutsu, with the wolf of course unendowed with the self-objecting to system man has we should see the wolf undergoing the doubts of a Julien Sorel or Rasholnikov.

This is like saying mankind should banish sex from their lives by self-objecting to it,
Some could do it no trouble at all. Some could do it for periods of time, a big majority couldn’t do it ever. That is what we are dealing with when it comes to man’s territorial instinct. It is a basic instinct as strong as,and imprinted as deeply into man as the sexual instinct. Hence the holocaust and all the other genocides through the centuries.

Man gets around his self-objecting system by vilifying the other race in some way. It is not murder if you kill the infidel. They are of the devil and God approves of it. Or,they are heretics or They are guilty of some evil practices like stealing children,etc.etc.

I do not think the Jews should leave Israel they only want Land to survive the same as the lamb needed water to survive, but they are a victim of the harsh dictates of nature and the fact that mankind is as territorial as any lion in Africa.

I think david f has explored the Jewish ‘problem’ admirably and with quite some equanimity. I’m sure he’d join in (at least in part) with the famous French Muslim thinker Roger Garaudy, who wrote this on the subject : The worst enemy of the prophetic Jewish faith is the nationalist, racist and colonialist logic of tribal Zionism, born of the nationalism, racism and colonialism of 19th century Europe. This logic …inspired all the colonialisms of the West and all its wars of one nationalism against another…There is no future or security for Israel and no peace in the Middle East unless Israel becomes "dezionized" and returns to the faith of Abraham, which is the spiritual, fraternal and common heritage of the three revealed religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

It may in fact be sensible to distinguish between certain devout Jews and certain atheist Zionists and those who support for a return to the "Jewish ethic" of killing someone before he kills you i.e. the radically religious zionist. Many Jews do not hold such an understanding of either of these ‘Zionisms’. There are a great many Jews who oppose the atheist Zionism's crimes against humanity, who want Israel to withdraw at once from all the territory it has occupied, and neither do they want a racist ‘Jewish state'. Ideally, Israel should be a free state where all races and communities can live together in equality – a principle held in the west, even if improperly practiced.

Relda- Ideally Israel should be a free state where all races and communities can live together in equality.

Ideally is the operative word here. It is idealism and not reality. I too would like to see the Palestinians and the Jews live together in peace and equality but as your own post states this cannot occur while the Jews do not include Islamic beliefs in their faith(Judiasm, christianity and Islam). In other words the Palestinians could not accept the Jews if they do not believe in Islam in some form. Non acceptance by the Palestinians in other words.

Kind of blows the lovely idea of an equal state where people are accepting of each other to pieces.

French Muslim Thinker Roger Garaudy-: The worst enemy of the prophetic Jewish faith is the nationalist, racist and colonialist logic of tribal Zionism.

I think Roger should take his thinking outside of the Muslim box and have a good look at human anthropology on this planet.

He would find that all races(tribes,bloodlines) have fought never ending territorial wars across this planet since the earliest times.

The Palestinian –Jewish war is a territorial war with blood on both sides. The Arabs want the Jews off their land(territory) that is their stated goal. This IS tribal territorial warfare on both sides.
It is about bloodline not religion.

Sharkfin,
You demonstrate a kind of pragmatism which offers very little for the sense of a lasting solution and hope for either people. Many may well believe that the Israeli state epitomises Marx’s doctrine that power alone is the effective force – however, this atheistic creed is far from being the sole motivator behind Israeli politics – neither is the gain of mere territory an adequate enough explanation for the over-riding politics of the Palestinian. Herzl and other Zionist founders believed that if Jews had a nation of their own, the very fact would "normalize" their condition in the community of nations. At the moment of Israel’s birth, Palestinian Arabs lived on roughly 90 percent of the original Palestine Mandate – there were 800,000 Arabs living in Israel alongside 1.2 million Jews. At the same time, Jews were legally barred from settling in the 35,000 square miles of Palestinian Transjordan, which eventually was renamed simply "Jordan."

If a nation state is all the Palestinians desire, Jordan could be the solution - settling for 95 percent of one’s demands would seem reasonable. The Palestinians, however, continue to want to destroy Israel, this seems more related to a racist or religious ideology, and certainly not territorial scavenging.

Iranian commentator and blogger, interestingly enough, aptly confirms the Palestinians as currently more driven by an ideology, “..Not too long ago, Israel was a non entity. But life is different now. Israel is a reality. And a prosperous one too! It's not going any where. Palestinians need to realize they lost land by war and to superior political strategizing! The land is gone. How long are they going to resist and fight for what is no longer theirs? 1000 years? If so, then perhaps Iran should start claiming some land too! It just doesn't work like that.”– TheMrs (http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/themrs/advice-palestinians?page=1)

Relda- Thank you for your very intelligent reply and your search for a solution. My outlook IS cynical and does not see any solution but it is good that people like yourself are trying to find one.

There is a saying that the truth will set you free and I try to portray the true nature of mankind and why he is always at war as I believe it to be, in the hope that somehow if we allow ourselves to see the truth then in someway we will come up with real solutions to avert conflicts in the future and have the peace on earth that we all so desperately desire and despair of.

I guess it is my way of trying to arrive at a solution for the world in the long run but sadly it does not offer much in the way of short term solutions and those are what must be found at the moment

Sharkfin,

"There is a saying that the truth will set you free and I try to portray the true nature of mankind and why he is always at war"

Mankind is not always at war, only sometimes.

"somehow if we allow ourselves to see the truth then in someway we will come up with real solutions to avert conflicts in the future and have the peace on earth that we all so desperately desire and despair of."

If you see the truth, then you will avert all future conflicts within you and attain inner peace.

Not all of us desperately desire and despair for peace:
some have found it already,
others do not desire it at the moment,
yet others desire peace only partially and do not despair for it.

"trying to arrive at a solution for the world in the long run"

If it ain't broken, why fix it?
The world has NO solution,
it is perfect as it is!

Could God possibly create anything less than perfect?

If you really want the truth, look at both the half-empty and the half-full cup. Wars are part of this world, and so is all its beauty.

"short term solutions and those are what must be found at the moment"

You may find some short-term solutions at times, but it is not a "must". The world will continue regardless to be what it is, to serve its purpose, whether you like its ways or not.

To achieve long-term peace, if you are sincere and desperate, detach yourself, go beyond this world. People may still be fighting and having wars - let them, they are here because they need to learn their lessons, so smile as you go past this amazing big school and thank God for His infinite wisdom in which everything has its place.

relda, I applaud your balanced views on the Palestinian issue.I am glad you have escaped the temptation of falling into the same cynical rant and rave that our friend sharkfin seems to revel in.

I well and truly feel sorry for the plight of the true victims, the Palestinians who have been robbed of their land since 1948.. They are the de jure owners of much of the real estate that Israel has swallowed up. Ok.That said I have to admit that more than half a century has passed and history now tells us that all that land that Israel now occupies has become the de facto right of the occupying power, Israel. Yes.By virtue of conquest even though it abrogates the conventions of the UN Charter of Human Rights.It sets a very bad and dangerous precedent.I realise that. BUT that is the very basis of every country in the world that has done the very same thing over the millenia. You just have to accept it and move on. Most of those living in Israel have come from all parts of the world and you cant expect them to get out and go ....where? They havent been part of the dispossessing acts of piracy.They are innocent of it.
But,relda.The constant creation of new settlements that's going on even today because of the visions of some half-brain rabbi with a name like Kook!! This is impossible to defend no matter how you look at it.

How can you set up a two nation solution to the problem when you have the West Bank on one side of Israel and Gaza on the other? How wiil that help the administration and communication of Gaza and the West Bank? Who is going to pacify Hamas and get them to accept their future?Abbas certainly cannot.
socratease

sharkfin,
I agree, the illegal settlements are a blight on Israel’s credibility, but, and as Al Jazeera reported last November, "...the Israeli government has announced it will cut off all support for more than 100 "illegal" Jewish settler outposts in the occupied West Bank." The outgoing Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, branded the settlers as acting illegally, "There is a not insignificant group of outlaws that are behaving in a manner that is threatening the rule of law." The illegal Jewish settlement does impede peace in the region but is not the underlying obstruction. To reinforce the point a little further. During the period the Gaza Strip was held by Egypt there were no "occupied territories" or "settlements" or any of the other apologia used today to attack Israel – neither was there a peace. Palestinians and the neighboring Arab countries have continuously attacked Israel and worked for the destruction of the Israeli state.

Undoubtedly, there is a polarisation of views on this, and attached to some of those views there’s a mantra based on pure mythology. Believing the presence of a Mahatma Gandhi ‘look-alike’(or perhaps his total ‘re-incarnation’) in the Middle East might rescue the world from an escalation of violence in this region is something of pure myth, “...Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home." - Mahatma Gandhi, “The Jews in Palestine 1938," published Nov. 26, 1938 in Harijan. This seems to correspond very closely with Achmad Cassiem’s (National Chairperson of the South African Islamic Unity Convention) statement in 2002, "Our position is that even if the Zionist State [Israel] is the size of a postage stamp it has no right to exist. Occupied Palestine must be decolonized, deracialised and restored to the Palestinian people as a single sovereign state.”

A certain hypocrisy is revealed when ‘humanitarians’ fail in their principle for the ‘right self-determination’ of a people, whose symbolic but now also real embodiment rests in their statehood.

Relda wrote: A certain hypocrisy is revealed when ‘humanitarians’ fail in their principle for the ‘right self-determination’ of a people, whose symbolic but now also real embodiment rests in their statehood.

Dear Relda,

I wrote "Self-determination and Human Rights" which was published by the Indian Ocean Peace Institute of the University of Western Australia. It makes the case that self-determination conflicts with other human rights. When a state is established on the basis of an ethnic or religious paradigm those who do not share the basis on which the state is founded are almost always destined to become second-class citizens. I feel ethnic nationalism breeds oppression and that nations should not discriminate on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity. Self-determination which means drawing a national boundary around people based on their ethnicity or religion almost always ensures that discrimination.

I believe that self-determination may be a stopgap to relieve discrimination but should only be used as a stopgap. I oppose Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Marxist or any other state which promotes discrimination among its citizens. In electing Obama the US has shown that one need not be a member of the majority race to be president. That's great! One should not need to be a member of the majority religion or ethnicity either.

david f,
I have a similar understanding and would agree, “…ethnic nationalism breeds oppression and that nations should not discriminate on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity”. The events of world war II, I’d imagine, led to the ‘stop-gap’ measure to which you refer and the subsequent formation of Israel. Inherent in the original human rights declaration of 1948 was the idea of a culture requiring political protection and the strong prima facie case for recognizing the right of a ‘culture group’ to govern themselves. The charter and other resolutions did not insist on full independence as the best way of obtaining self-government, nor include an enforcement mechanism. Despite its universal aspiration, the declaration’s originating motive and spirit was prompted by a ‘need’ to preserve and protect the Jewish ‘people’.

Whilst the definitions for “people” often offered are based on the self-evident ethnicity, language, or history, etc., or defined by "ties of mutual affection or sentiment”, there is not yet a recognised legal definition of "peoples" in international law – and there is not likely for there to be one. Obama has arisen from a ‘people’ from within the nearest we have to a homogeneous nation-state. However, Very few (if any) nation-states in the world have a population reflecting an entirely homogeneous ethnic, cultural community to the exclusion of all others. The search for homogeneity may, in fact, be more likely to lead to repression and human rights violations than to promote the tolerance and plurality which many would claim to be essential values in the twenty first century and beyond.

There are no simple solutions to problems of self-determination, either in theory or in practice, as undoubtedly you also recognise. Those who do seek to simplify it to either an oppressive and exclusionary Nationalism or individual autonomy are likely to be bound to ‘certain hypocrisy’.

socratease,
Sorry, I meant to address my previous to you rather than sharkfin.

Dear Relda,

The term, self-determination, has never had a legal definition. It was first applied in the Versailles treaty dictated by the victorious Allies after WW1. Woodrow Wilson who was the prime exponent of self-determination was an appalling racist. Under the previous administration a black man had no barriers to promotion in the US civil service. Since few had a good education it made little difference. However, it gave some hope and opportunity. Wilson ordered that they could rise no higher than clerk and segregated black civil servants from non-blacks.

The defeated Central Powers were treated differently. Territories were taken from the borders of defeated Germany. Self-determination was applied only to the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was broken up into nations organised on an ethnic basis. With the exception of Czechoslovakia they all went fascist between WW1 and WW2. I suspect Wilson’s motivation was, at least in part, that self-determination would make the Hungarians, assorted Slavs and Jews less likely to want to come to the US. I suspect that was part of the motive for the Balfour Declaration – fewer Yids in England. The Turkish Empire was also broken up, but there was no thought of self-determination for the former Turkish subjects. British and French mandates were good enough for them.

The differing treatments of Germany, Austro-Hungary and Turkey reflected the racist views of many of the academics and educated classes in northern Europe and the US.

Somehow, self-determination has been included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Considering its origins and the way it has been applied I don’t think it should be.

I have already admitted the awful mistakes of Balfour,the UNO in 1948 and other pro-Zionistas. Should never have happened but history proves me wrong.There is an inevitable factor that has to be taken into acciount and accepted however tragic,distasteful and painful it may be to others. The de facto reality of Israel.It isnt going away.Every attempt to erdicate it as anti-Zionists of every color and shape want will fail in the most awful bloodbath abd even in a nuclear obliteration of millions and that's not a wild exaggeration.Isnt that why Hamas is concentrating on sending its DIY Gards is that the name of their long-range and more sophisticated rockets? sorry.) into southern Israel hoping one may strike Dimona? If everyone sits down and works out a political compromise it can only mean a good life for the victims and for everyone else.There's so much to gain from it. I hope they vote for a good life and security and a denial of violence death and glorification of victimhood where there are NO winners.

Look at the historical examples in Australia and the USA where the indigenous people would like their land back as well.Look at Kashmir.Do Kashmiris really think that the Indians will go away and hand over Kashmir to them? There are many other examples around the world but how far back do you want to go into the historical past? Ancient Britain etc??

socratease

david f,
Whatever the motivation behind the Balfour declaration it was, as with ‘self-determination’, more an idea - both are valid and both subject to the possibility of corruption. The declaration’s stated purpose was that the establishment of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine shouldn’t “prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Ironically, anti-Zionist Jew Edwin Montagu, caused a dilution of the declaration’s original form – i.e. “ALL of Palestine is to become a national Jewish home”, to one of, “…the establishment IN Palestine …”

The Balfour Declaration was not a formal and binding commitment in any sense. It did not even promise that there would be a Jewish national home. It only stated that the British government "view with favor" such a home and would use their "best endeavours to facilitate it." I also doubt, as do you, that all of the reasons behind this declaration were purely altruistic. People in the British government are likely to have supported the Balfour Declaration for their own reasons. The most potent among them seems to have been guarding the Suez Canal, blocking French ambitions and personal commitment to restoration of Jews both as a religiously motivated policy and because the cause was thought to be popular in Britain. Had there not been a fusion of sympathy for Zionist aspirations with hard-headed calculations of national self-interest, a Jewish homeland under a British protectorate certainly would not have come into existence.

Interestingly enough, Lord Balfour shared some agreement with the cultural anti-Semites, where they believed the Germans of the Mosaic faith were an undesirable and demoralising phenomenon. He differed, however, on his diagnosis and prognosis of the ‘problem’.

I guess it is also true that for anyone who denies the Jewish character of Israel undermines the rationale for its continued existence. Barack Obama undoubtedly had this awareness by saying, “The idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience".

Relda wrote:

I guess it is also true that for anyone who denies the Jewish character of Israel undermines the rationale for its continued existence. Barack Obama undoubtedly had this awareness by saying, “The idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience".

Dear Relda,

As long as Christianity and Islam exist anti-Semitism will continue. Anti-Semitism is almost unknown in countries outside of Islam and Christendom. During WW2 Japan, a German ally, was a place of refuge for Jews who could get there.

I believe there is a necessity for the state of Israel at this time because of the existence of Christianity and Islam. I do not believe there can be justice in the Middle East for both Jews and Palestinians. All we can hope for is a minimum of injustice.

There are actually at least five groups with different interests in the area. Palestine is two entities: a West Bank majority, nominally led by the Palestinian Authority—but really by a secular business and professional class in Ramallah—and an Islamist minority, centred in Gaza, run by an arguably pragmatic but unarguably totalitarian Hamas.

The slim secular majority in Israel, a Hebrew-speaking republic centred in Tel Aviv profits increasingly from links with the outside world. It is vaguely committed to democratic norms and therefore to a peace process. It can imagine a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli one.

Israel's second state is a huge Judean state-within-a-state: anchored in Jerusalem, largely theocratic, and deeply implicated in the ongoing West Bank settlements. Judea is less educated than its Hebrew cousin and instinctively more tribalist. They see a return of Palestinian refugees to Greater Jerusalem—as the end of their way of life.

The fifth group is the Arab Israelis. A poll in 2008 showed, 77 per cent would rather live in the Jewish state than anywhere else. However, they would eliminate the Jewish character of the state.

david f,
I wouldn’t imagine, even for a moment, you believe that John Lennon’s utopia, one without religion, heaven nor hell, will in reality ever occur. Whilst heaven and earth remain, there is every likelihood a state of Israel will continue to exist – just as the religions of Islam and Christianity will remain. Ironically, it seems that the Jewish state, which would not have been possible were it not for the secularising of Jewish life, may possibly return to some form of pre-Enlightenment Judaism.

The much younger antecedent religions spawned from Judaism, Christianity and Islam certainly have shown an historical and deep antagonism toward the Jews – but I think your surmise is a little too simplistic. As you’ve noted in a previous discussion, I hold no illusion to historical Christianity or Islam for that matter. Jews, first and foremost, were branded with the most devastating of charges - Deicide. They were accused, of the stubborn refusal to accept Christ's Godhead and His sacrifice, which is all the more damning because they were of His very blood. They were pictured as consumed with a detestation of Christianity and defilers of its rituals and symbols. They were the agents of Satan and the future allies if not the progenitors of Antichrist. Their ultimate aim was to destroy the one true faith. The Judeophobia of Voltaire and other Enlightenment thinkers, however, attacked Jews for supposedly having certain characteristics, such as greed and arrogance, and for observing customs such as kashrut and shabbat. Secularist thinking is prone to loathe an exclusivity that cannot accompany their reason.

Israel is creating a kind of moral schizophrenia in world Jewry. In the outside world the welfare of Jewry depends on the maintenance of secular, non-racial pluralistic societies. In Israel, Jewry finds itself defending a society - in which the ideal is racial and exclusionist. That is the tension – however, a common humanity can never be achieved by destroying unique languages, or by annihilating separate peoples, or by cutting down cultures.

Dear Relda,

I do not believe that John Lennon’s utopia without religion, heaven nor hell, will in reality ever occur. However, I can believe that in a 100 years Christianity, Islam and Judaism may be no more and replaced by other faiths. I can believe people will find other superstitions to replace a belief in heaven and hell. Heaven and hell are not present in all religions. Buddhism does not contain those inventions. Religions like nations are human inventions. Manichaeism was a religion that once spread from Spain 
to China. It lasted 1,500 years to the eighteenth century. but it 
is almost forgotten. Perhaps by the year 2,100 Christianity will be 
a forgotten curiosity like Manichaeism. There might not be a year 
2,100 AD as the calendar might date from a more significant event 
than the birth of the mythical Jesus. It might be superseded by the 
year 195 AE, 195 years after Einstein came out with the scientific 
papers that revolutionized physics. In the heyday of the Roman Empire it is reasonable to assume few thought it would disappear. Antisemitism will disappear with the disappearance of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and they will all disappear.

You wrote: a common humanity can never be achieved by destroying unique languages, or by annihilating separate peoples, or by cutting down cultures. I don’t think a common humanity will ever be achieved, but languages arise and disappear, as do peoples. The Goths, Burgundians and Incas have all arisen, had their day and disappeared. According to Unesco’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing, a language is considered endangered when it is no longer spoken by children, moribund when only a handful of elderly speakers are left, and extinct when it is no longer spoken. The numbers vary by source, but even the most optimistic estimates are alarming, with half of the world’s languages struggling to survive. Some sources declare 5,000 of the 6,000 total in some state of endangerment.

Time passes. Human constructs arise and disappear.

"Time passes. Human constructs arise and disappear."

- and rightly so, but let it be done with grace, in a gradual, organic manner. Humans are frail, their days are short, their troubles and worries overwhelming as they are: see what nature is doing right now in Victoria - humankind has suffered enough, we do not need to add revolutions on top.

On another note, the common calendar is not based on Jesus' birth, but is a creation or Rome. Jesus is believed to have been born sometime between 2-7 A.D. (were he to be born in the year 0, King Herod would no longer be alive!), so please... we had enough hassles with Y2K - what need have we in another revolution of all computerized systems?

david f,
Of all the great ideas, the idea of God has always been and continues to be the one that seems to evoke the greatest concern among the widest group of people, as well evidenced by this forum. It is misleading, however,to suggest a strict correlation between superstition and religion, at least if one is to abide by empirical standards.

Recently the Gallup Organization, under contract to Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion, asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity - "What Americans Really Believe." From the empirical data, a conclusion was drawn – one not to be taken merely on faith: The New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won't create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it, it might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people attending a house of worship more than once a week did.

The above study is nothing new. Skeptic and science writer Martin Gardner in 1983 ("The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener”) cited the decline of traditional religious belief among the better educated as one of the causes for an increase in pseudoscience, cults and superstition. He referenced a 1980 study published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer that showed irreligious college students to be by far the most likely to embrace paranormal beliefs, while born-again Christian college students were the least likely.

Without attempting an oversimplification of the data, the direct inference gained is: Increased church attendance and membership in a conservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal beliefs, whereas higher education doesn't.

G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown character makes the ingenuous statement that all atheists, secularists, humanists and rationalists are susceptible to superstition: "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are." The simple and naïve (childlike) believer simply has more ‘protection’ than the sophisticated and highly cultured non-believer.

Dear Relda,

It is not surprising that a fictional character in the works of a devout Catholic author would claim that those not attached to religion would be given to superstition.

My observation of humanists and skeptics is that they less given to beliefs in the paranormal, new age, UFOs and other non-religious superstitions than religious people.

In connecting God with religion you have defined a particular kind of religion. Buddhism is a genuine religion which does not require a belief in God. Religion is one thing. Belief in God is another.

Have you any evidence to support Father Brown's contention that non-religious people are more given to non-religious superstitions than religious people? I don't think it is true, but I have no statistical evidence, only my observations, to support my contention.

They can’t leave Israel, even it would be a good idea . For them, it would be blasphemy. Religion has them in a bind.

"Religion has them in a bind."

Of all things, Oliver? religion?

Most of the citizens of Israel are not religious, yet there is a lot that binds them to Israel, including:

* The homes they built
* The trees they planted
* The jobs they have
* The schools where their children go
* Their friends, family and neighbours
* Their language
* Their culture
* A variety of community activities
* Familiarity with the place, shops and services
* The climate they got accustomed to
* Their memories
* The older generations which are no longer able to migrate (for health reasons if nothing else)

On the other hand, many Jews do not live in Israel, but do not consider it "blasphemy".

I am left to wonder what else you were told about the people of Israel, perhaps they have horns or tails?

david f,
To the ‘devout Catholic and author’ G.K. Chesterton and his overview add the findings of the skeptic, Martin Gardner (1983) and the empirical ‘evidence’ of the Galup Poll, as given – did you happen to skip my first four paragraphs?

Against the statistical and presumably more objective evidence, your observations prove to be incorrect.

Buddhists concern themselves primarily the Dharma, which is not a god or gods. - It is "truth" or "reality." The tendency is toward a ‘non-theism’. This need not need be a contradiction to 'belief in God' - there are in fact Buddhists who have a belief in God. The whole emphasis on ‘righteousness’ perhaps makes it theistic in essence, without a creator-God but atheistic in approach. Unlike staunch atheism, however, there is sufficient ambiguity within Buddhism to allow for theism.

Where God is a mere supernaturalism, belief in God and religion are one and the same – often quite separate from any reality or ‘truth’.

Dear yuyutsu,I dont expect absymmal ignorance to ever be able to cope with the views you and Relda have been putting out.Why bother to respond?It isnt going to do any good because they have to be first understood and understanding is not Oliver's strong suit.

Sorry,Oliver, but you led with your chin. Get an education.

socratease

Dear Relda,

Please accept my apology. I did what you accused me of doing. I read your last paragraph citing Father Brown and not the forgoing paragraphs. You wrote a well thought out post, and I responded only to what caught my eye.

Just discouraging religion, as you have written, won't create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings.

I belong to the Australian Skeptics who try to promote critical thinking and foster the growth of skeptical, enlightened beings. AS has encouraged the setting up of classes in critical thinking in Australian secondary schools including religiously sponsored schools. The AS charter involves “investigating pseudoscience and the paranormal from a responsible scientific viewpoint.”

In my reaction to your post of Monday, 9 February 2009 12:20:10 PM I was not behaving like a sceptic but more like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

My father was a religious man, and his comment regarding those who believed in unsupportable propositions was, “They’re educated beyond their intelligence.”

I could be one of the people he was talking about.

Dear david f,
How can I not accept such heart-felt apology? You generally write very intelligently and I enjoy your critical approach. Perhaps our ‘drum-beat’ is different, with our differing traditions and identity, but I find the philia (or friendship) that might exist, to be a comfort.

My father too was a religious man, ‘a man of the cloth’, so to speak – alas, I did not follow ‘his path’ nor have I frequented many Church buildings since his sudden death, some 33 years ago. As with your father, mine also occasioned certain clarity – he was a ‘quietly’ intelligent man and I’ve never forgotten his particular legacy.

Sometimes I feel we are a little like the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, whose ‘Ta Panta Rei’ ("Everything Floats") embodied the concept of constant change where everything is in a state of perpetual flux. He attacked popular religion with its concepts and ceremonies. The philosopher ended his days as a hermit, trying to live off the grass on the ground. When this failed he tried to cure himself by sitting on a pile of warm dung, where he died – frustrated, no doubt, at something he was powerless to transform (and it wasn't the dung).

I think the smile of a skeptic is appropriate – in fact I could only laugh, when picturing Heraclitus as he sat, haplessly, upon his final throne

Heraclitus died sitting on a pile of dung. Was he interred where he died?

No not interred... as legend would have it, it gets worse – he was consumed: “So, having ordered his servants to plaster him with the dung [to cure his dropsy], he stretched out in the sun to dry - and was quickly devoured by a pack of ravaging dogs.”

At the recent sitting of the UNO,the delegate from Israel rose to speak.He began his address thus:

A long, long time ago when the children of Israel were wandering about in the desert Moses struck a rock with his staff and a spring of water gushed out. So he took off his garments and had a bath. Unhappily when he had finished he got out to put on his clothes only to find that a thieving Palestinian had stolen them.

The PLO delegate jumped to his feet and protested vociferously.

"I object to such a racist joke. It's no laughing matter,Moshe. We werent even there then."

Moshe : " Quite right and now that you have made my point we can get that out of the way and get on with the rest of my address."

Nice one,Moshe, but the joke is on you guys. Touche.

The really sad part of this crude joke is that there was never such a person as Moses nor were there any such people as the children of Israel.

And I'm no racist.Im just reporting from the book written by Israel Finkenstein and Neil Asher Silberman, "The Bible Unearthed" published by Simon and Schuster in 2001.Silberman and Finkelstein are archaeologists and anthropologists working at the University of Tel Aviv. They had spent many years digging for relics and ruins for any of the "sacred sites" mentioned in the Old Testament but were never able to unearth any such trace.
What are we to make of this?

socratease

At the recent sitting of the UNO,the delegate from Israel rose to speak.He began his address thus:

A long, long time ago when the children of Israel were wandering about in the desert Moses struck a rock with his staff and a spring of water gushed out. So he took off his garments and had a bath. Unhappily when he had finished he got out to put on his clothes only to find that a thieving Palestinian had stolen them.

The PLO delegate jumped to his feet and protested vociferously.

"I object to such a racist joke. It's no laughing matter,Moshe. We werent ewven there then."

Moshe : " Quite right and now that you have made my point we can get that out of the way and get on with the rest of my address."

Nice one,Moshe, but the joke is on you guys. Touche. The really sad part of this crude joke is that there was never such a person as Moses nor were there any such people as the children of Israel.

And I'm no racist.Im just reporting from the book written by Israel Finkenstein and Neil Asher Silberman, "The Bible Unearthed" published by Simon and Schuster in 2001.Silberman and Finkelstein are archaeologists and anthropologists working at the University of Tel Aviv. They had spent many years digging for relics and ruins for any of the "sacred sites" mentioned in the Old Testament but were never able to unearth any such trace.
What are we to make of this?

socratease

socratease,
Blake said that ‘the Whole Bible is fill’d with Imagination and Visions’. Whether Moses lived or not is not the point of the story. The deepest truths are conveyed in symbols and if those symbols drive the narrative identity of the community, they are constellated in myth.

An ancient people wandering in the desert, certainly with some factual basis, is surrounded by legend. The theme of the ‘Tribes of Israel’ is vast, rich in myth and fable. It is a great repository of history and belief, and a point of origin for many very special cultural entities whose background links them on either the theoretical or the empirical plane with the ancient Israelite monarchy. Strangely, if we accept all the current theories regarding the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, then many would pertain to groups which currently go beyond the bounds of Judaism. For example, the Mormons of Utah, the Black Hebrews of Chicago, who claim to be the real Jews (the lighter-skinned ones being a corruption of the original), and the Jamaican Rastafarians, such as the famed reggae singer Bob Marley, who believed to have been descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, exiled first to Ethiopia, and then torn from their homes and brought to the Americas as slaves. This perhaps bears an interesting implication for a real ‘Jewish right of return’.

Artifacts, as found from geological diggings, often only deepen a legend and add to the tapestry. It is only through the understanding of a culture and the symbols surrounding it that we come nearer to finding the truth. A “culture” is the only sphere in which you cannot do the giving, in which you cannot easily push hidden agendas and vested interests, because this is what belongs to the people, it IS the people and not something that is handed to us via politics, religion, or war. However, a truly pluralistic society must determine what stands the test of rationality, and to what is "civilised". The banning of polygamy (here) and the ritual of cow slaughter (India) are perhaps two different but good examples.

Foxy, as one who has studied the importance of power balance in maintaining a democratic world, one does worry how the nuclear arming of tiny Israel has truly upset what has been a necessary balance for peace in the Middle East, even as Henry Kissinger long ago pointed out to President Nixon.

It is also tragic that our leaders have lost faith in a United Nations - refusing to believe in the reasoning of Immanuel Kant who disgusted with the empirical change of Napoleon, wrote about a troubled world needing not just one strong power for perpetual peace, but a number of powers forming a democratic union.

Thus of course from Kantian Reasoning came the League of Nations, ruined by too much interference from Britain, and the UN of course, messed up also by big power intrusion.

The lesson of course with trying to manage a too powerful little Israel plus being backed by Pax Americana is no way to manage a modern World.

Democratic multi-power is the only answer, as was so strongly talked about during the Korean War, even having the UN with its own emblem on the multi-power supplied defence equipment.

Do believe such should have come about to protect israel rather than turning her into an atomic militistic stat

Dear bushbred,

I agree with your post with one exception. Our leaders have considerable faith in the United Nations. That is why they block it. They realise that it would limit their ambitions if it was given the power to do so. I am for a stronger United Nations that would lend security to all nations and also block power grabs.

Back of militarism may be fear of attack. Israel at its foundation was attacked by five Arab nations and had the memory of the Holocaust. Even though they are a tremendously strong power currently many of its people still think of themselves as powerless victims. As Faulkner said, "The past isn't even past."

Dear Relda
As much as I admire and respect your posts that usually contain moderation and balance, it pains me to refute two points that cant be substantiated and must be questioned.
Talking about Moses and the Children of Israel, the Israeli archaelogists/anthropologists I mentioned are quite clear that in none of the places mentioned in the Old Testament where they extensively dug and excavated THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE FOUND that those places ever existed!! So that rules those stories out as far as regarding them as "HISTORY" is concerned. The OT must be regarded as a collection of mythological short stories that were meant to inspire rather than become the basis for history which is what they WERE NOT.

Sorry.Really.

socratease

Dear socratease,
As initially expressed in my previous post, ‘the Whole Bible is fill’d with Imagination and Visions’. I would therefore entirely agree with Finkelstein and Silberman and maintain that "the historical saga contained in the Bible . . . was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of human imagination". These authors also argue the Bible's integrity and, in fact, its historicity, do not depend on dutiful historical "proof" of any of its particular events or personalities – as I've also indicated (i.e. ‘Whether Moses lived or not is not the point of the story.’).

Finkelstein and Silberman also say that the power of the biblical saga stems from its being a compelling and coherent narrative expression of the timeless themes of a people's liberation, continuing resistance to oppression, and quest for social equality. They say it eloquently expresses the deeply rooted sense of shared origins, experiences, and destiny that every human community needs in order to survive. As my previous post should infer, I would agree with this also. So I’m unable to see which part or ‘points’ that I've made you take exception to.

Dear Relda

As usual you have cleared up a whole lot of misconceptions I may have laboured under.Thanks for being so frank,candid and honest as you always have been.

I am equally confused re. the recent Right Wingers victories in the Israeli elections.Lets wait and see.The next move must come from Hamas.

There is some truth in what Nathaniyu said...that peace will come to the area if hamas put down their weapons;if Israel put away its weapons that would spell the end of Israel.

I,ll say it once more for the last time - the de jure owners of Palestine are the Palestinians,Arabs and Jews; the de facto rulers will be the Arab Palestinians. There should be only one state.PALESTINE, where everyone can live and grow to their full potential under one law. How far back do we have to go to prove de jure ownership of land. As far back as to dispossess white Australians to hand back the land to the indigenous Australians. And the same applies to the American Indians. Wont happen.

Hamas should acept the verdict of history and get a life of their own for its people andaccept the beast deal on the table.

socratease