Integrity counts and truth matters and the two integrate with honest scholarship. “Simply put, the Jews fleeing Europe and the atrocities of Nazism, found a home in the mid-1940s in the newly-created State of Israel, while the Palestinians lost theirs.” It’s not true. It’s stated as true because it’s believed, easily comprehended, and perhaps troublesome to actually independently research. Even intending to “get into the books” may be complicated by questions like “how far back does one go?” Or “what should be taken into account and what dismissed?”
Zionism responds to centuries of European persecution, and in fact discrimination that targeted Muslims along with Jews. The leveraging of religious passion and supersessionary argument account for that (the Church has had its institutional subscription building and subscription-taxing interests too) as does ethnic minority status outside of one’s homeland.
Modern Zionism is also a 19th Century pursuit and the subsequent Jewish immigration and agricultural capitalization of what is today Israel far precedes the rise Nazi Germany.
The best scholars serve God because the attachment of mind to cultural and personal loyalties produces ephemeral research and dishonest and disingenuous findings. We should not see what we want to see but see what is to be seen, and doing that with clarity, we may then repair some things.
Source of the little bit of grit in this clam’s shell:
Proposed new approach: adopt empirical methods; adhere to good principles in ethics, morality, and scholarship; and let’s move on to get people settled without rancor in their various spaces and otherwise integrated, independent, and living as the free agents of their own destinies, not as the subjugated pawns of the destinies of piratical dictators or their mafias.
What I have been calling “The Islamic Small Wars” — the internecine competitions and interfaces within Muslim-majority political space running from Afghanistan to Yemen — have been wars about integrity — basic truth telling — requiring armies of poets and detectives for fighting and resolving.
______
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In this year, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Israel has chosen to make it a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people.
Moreover, they may be proven untrue, the Jews being the absolute worst genocidiers on the planet: before they kill you, they afford you basic services, emergency and sophisticated specialized health services (in which all patients are treated absent of politics), Internet access, freedom of speech sufficient to sustain adverse public relations and research organizations (like B’Tsalem).
What may be true is the greater the hate encountered in anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist cant (there is no difference between those two), the greater the opportunities for Israel’s expansion.
The Abbas speech may be investigated and laid out purple phrase by phrase (“Amidst a torrent of massacres and storms of massive destruction” — not one mention of the more than 10,000 rockets launched from Gaza since 2005 and every two to few years to launched at a tempo sufficient to call the same an assault against Israel’s children).
Sins of omission are not the only sins evident in Abbas’s speech before the UN.
Note the demonizing of Israel, the “reflections in a mirror” — a very dark and most primitive mirror in language — in such well-known canards as “However, and as usual, the Israeli government did not miss the opportunity to undermine the chance for peace” — never mind those tunnels illegally and surreptitiously built (with child labor, 160 accidentally killed or deliberately murdered in the process) to assault Israeli communities.
Add to that demonizing simple Arab refusal of just responsibility for the Arab refugees of 1948:
Israel refuses to end its occupation of the State of Palestine since 1967, but rather seeks its continuation and entrenchment, and rejects the Palestinian state and refuses to find a just solution to the plight of the Palestine refugees.
BackChannels no longer casually employs the term “Palestinian”.
As neither Egypt nor Jordan will absorb nor take responsibility for the constituents of (Judenfrei since 2005) Gaza, I refer to the same as “Gazans”).
Given the lying going on around Gazans — allegedly on their behalf but never beyond sacrificing them (individuals, family, finances, and property) as the pawns of Hamas’s supersessionary war against Judaism, one might expect them to become independent in their own right and to insist on the development for themselves of an independent, modern, responsible, responsive, and transparent democratic government.
Judea may be more complicated with its historic flow-down from the Soviet’s brand of poison (not only the Palestinian Liberation Organization, in spirit, remains present but a simple right-click of the mouse is all one needs to reach the airliner-hijacking Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the effects of the anti-Semitic New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left lingering long on the landscape, still leveraging the language of the refugees, which comes in the Abbas speech as, ” . . . against Israel’s policies of occupation, apartheid and colonial settlement . . . .’
The lie that is self-aggrandizing speech is there in that portion: one wonders just how large the combined International and Palestinian Solidarity Movements really are.
Investigating consultant and journalist Lee Kaplan has told me about the seeding of these groups on America’s college campuses and their access to student activity funds, which is fair under the precepts of freedom of speech in a truly open democracy, but we didn’t get to how really small these movements may be despite their broad distribution and the money pumped into them for priming.
The phrase comes from the 1940’s film Gaslight, in which an abusive husband deliberately dims the gaslights in the house, but when his wife comments on it he tells her she’s imagining it, that the lights never dimmed at all.
Gaslighting is one of the most insiduous, viscious, nasty and effective forms of emotional and psychological abuse.
Transporting psychology — the study of individual mind and mentality — into politics may have inherent issues in both psychology and politics: for example, are we now going to filter or judge politicians in relation to our concept of “malignant narcissism”, which in turn would seem to inform the psychology of dictatorship? At the same time, what choice has the world suffering war between brutal and sometimes immense despotic personalities?
(Of Bashar al-Assad and opponent (in general terms) al-Nusra, I have often remarked: “Different talk — same walk”.
The two together, Assad and al-Nusra — and the advent of BadDaddy and the Islamic Hate represent where the path of the malignantly narcissistic winds up — have burned out and left scorched the middle humanity of the historic Syrian state — factually speaking, about 9 million Syrians have been displaced in the fighting between the tyrant and the zealots [about 200,000 souls have been separated from life altogether]).
What I have been calling “The Islamic Small Wars” — the internecine competitions and interfaces within Muslim-majority political space running from Afghanistan to Yemen — have been wars about integrity — basic truth telling — requiring armies of poets and detectives for fighting and resolving.
Some people lie.
That’s a sad fact of life, and criminals and politicians both often draw the pointing fingers on the basis of their affiliations, ambitions, and reputations. Less acknowledged and less stated: observations about culture-wide denial, dissimulation, false assertion, and hapless vulnerability to the beguiling and patronizing sweetness of an evil tongue.
Often, in many quarters of the world, if not most, a loyal lie may be preferred to an uncomfortable truth, for shows of loyalty may draw immediate rewards, from praise to patronage, while relaying a critical or damaging truth may be met with punishment, including that of a swift death.
“The truth is that this started as a war against Israel, but it turned into a war between the Palestinians,” Gazans tell me. “And it’s not a war between Hamas and Fatah anymore, but rather between factions within Hamas, factions within Fatah, between individuals.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4573441,00.html – “In Gaza, hatred for Hamas and resentment of West Bankers: They may be too scared to speak publicly against Hamas, but the signs are there; and they have not forgotten that protests from their compatriots during the recent fighting were conspicuous in their absence.” by Francesca Borri – Published: 09.22.14, 00:04 / Israel News
It’s just not news when a blogger creates a new category.
However, I think the last Hamas war with Israel amply illustrates all of the issues with the Muslim Brotherhood, its behavior in language, and its soul-deadening program.
Billionaire Khaled Mashaal seems at the moment somewhere between stays in Qatar and Tunisia or Turkey.
“Gaza Fortress” lies in ruins.
And if Gazans have not figured out anything else, they’ve got to be figuring out this: they’re on their own.
I have made “Gaza Suzerain” a category here because . . . it’s a theme I believe the realpolitik within Gaza will make clear.
Let the residents of Gaza — Gazans — become their better selves with the human rights afforded others in the world, and let them do that for themselves with greater security provided by Egypt and Israel both.
Welcome to modernity.
Gazans may come up with something better than Israel: i.e., their own internally autonomous, democratic, and tolerant culture and state.
The concept of suzerainty (and protectorates) has a life longer in history than any given YNet News article, but checking back on this piece, I was surprised to find the referenced key link broken.
What sent me to look?
Last week’s Gaza “boat people” drowning, which is being spun as having been motivated by (that tired old canard) “the occupation”, which anti-Semitic truth I refer to as “The Preoccuation”. Francesca Bourri’s article focused the spotlight where it needed to be focused: Hamas’s dismal record in governance and in war and the quite probably truth about the despair Gazans deal in their isolation between large forces: Israel, Egypt, the Arab world, the modern world.
That deadlock is not eternal.
Gazans themselves need strengthening with reference to their unfortunate relationship with Hamas, which looks to me like showbiz — good script: it just hasn’t anything to do with humanity and its real aspirations, beliefs, needs, and wants — covering kleptocracy.
I’ve tweeted Borri and Ynet News. I want to hear how a story disappears from major Israeli media.
The talkbacks for the article still appear online:
Using the UK as a case study, Ms. Phillips addressed the prejudiced attitudes towards Israel from both Muslims and left-wingers and so-called liberals before criticizing the UK Jewish community for failing to respond adequately and preferring to keep their heads down.
She also criticized Israel’s failure “to grasp that information is a strategy of war on the battleground of the mind, and a strategy that has been used to enormous effect against Israel, and against which it doesn’t even seem to know that it is fighting.”
“Rather than falsely accusing Israel,” the letter continued, “one might have expected that as the executive head of the UN, you would have admitted responsibility of the UN for such abuse of its facilities, and instituted a thorough inquiry as to how and why UNRWA facilities were placed at the disposal of the Hamas terror organization, how and why the UN officials responsible for such facilities permitted this situation to occur, and why those rockets and other weapons that were discovered in such facilities were transferred to Hamas, for their continued use against Israel’s citizens.
“In permitting the storage of weapons, and in transferring such weapons into the hands of Hamas,” the letter asserted, “the UN has in fact permitted itself to become accessory to the commission of war crimes.”
The above passage has been added to the piece on this blog titled “United Nazis Workers Relief Agency (UNRWA)”, which appears to have been abused by Hamafia and Associates, and that to allowing its budget and facilities to abet the terrorist organization with its assaults against Israelis and, in essence by way of its tactic of putting noncombatants and civilian assets directly in the line of fire, Gazans as well.
It turns out that last night the representatives of the Palestinian Authority were putting forth a patently untrue story as to what Israeli and Hamas had agreed, when neither had. Unfortunately, all of the press (both Israeli and worldwide) reported the story as true.
. . . even if the obstacles erected by those who revolve in the Zionist orbit, aiming at obstructing the road before the Jihad fighters, have rendered the pursuance of Jihad impossible; nevertheless, the Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take.
Hear, oh Israel (and all others): with Hamas and what drives it — that deeply malignant narcissism that lends to each his own indulged and grandiose center of the universe — there is nothing to negotiate.
So Hamas does not negotiate in good faith, neither for peace and prosperity to be shared by Gazans nor for considerations having much to do, after all, with The All.
Why should Hamas or any other Jihad Joe group come equipped with an “off button”?
The enterprise clearly cons the public, makes a lot of money (which with “terror tunnels” and all would seem not to reach intended deserving recipients), and harms the principles not at all (although, perhaps, after all, Allah knows what they do — and, for now, has them getting away with it).
As ethical, apolitical, and professional members of the academic community, we find the open letter for the people in Gaza1 an outrageous diatribe lacking context and deliberate vilification of the sovereign state of Israel and, by extension, every Israeli. In publishing such invective, The Lancet has allowed itself to become a platform for distorted political activism, as has been previously noted by others.2,3 Because we are scientists and physicians who are accustomed to incorporating all data into the formation of educated opinions (even public commentary), we are obliged to redress the imbalance.
From now on, I will tell you what to do with your life (and
in addition to doing what I tell you to do,
you will pay me for the privilege of my leaving you alone).
*
I will tell you what to see and what to hear,
what to say and what to withhold.
When I tell you what is happening around you,
you are to believe me
and no one else.
I am your authority.
I am your only authority.
*
If you are in the news business, good — you can help me!
*
Every time out, you will make me look heroic (which, naturally, I am) and
not show anything to detract from that image.
*
Call me”Hamas”
Acknowledge that I am greater than you.
And I,
at any time, may
Arrest
Detain
Question
Torture
You
Without explanation.
*
If you so much as breath in Gaza,
I
am your world
I
am all the world
You
will know
______
In Spanish, Gutiérrez, who is writing for Melilla Hoy, tweeted, “On Saturday, 9th of August, Hamas launched a battery of rockets from the press hotel. What was their intent? To provoke Israel to kill us?#SaveGazaFromHamas.”
“Since the war started, one population group in Gaza has disappeared from the streets: people in uniform…They work for Hamas and are targets of Israel… Only at the Shifa Hospital, the big hospital in Gaza City, are a few sitting in uniform. There, they feel protected from the Israeli bombings. In addition, that is where they monitor the international press to prevent it from doing ‘wrong’ things. Local camera crews know this, but foreigners do not: Hamas does not want that killed or wounded fighters appear on camera footage.
Yes, there are many civilian casualties and most of the inhabitants of Gaza live in fear, but Hamas likes to exploit this for its PR. ‘He does not dare to talk to you,’ says the wife of someone who has been placed under house arrest because he is known for criticizing Hamas. She too does not dare to tell his story, because ‘we are being watched’.”
The media have turned the civilian death toll into the only measure of the justness of the Israeli warfare. The New York Times and Haaretz, for instance, published the Gaza death toll on their front pages every day. The message is clear: The higher the number of civilian casualties, the more “war crimes” Israel is committing.
This measure is groundless. According to its distorted logic, Nazi Germany – which had one million dead civilians in World War II – was the victim of the aggressiveness of the United States, which lost “only” 12,000 civilians, and Britain, which lost “only” 67,000 civilians. This is a logic and ethical failure.
International media failed professionally and ethically in Gaza – http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4557962,00.html – 8/13/2014
The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month,” the statement said. “The international media are not advocacy organizations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground.”
An Italian reporter, after leaving Gaza, confirms that it was a Hamas rocket that hit a school playground, killing 10 kids, but Obama sent Hamas 50 million bucks anyway, while he cancelled tourist visa applications for Israelis.
1. The Gaza correspondent of Canada’s Globe and Mail, Patrick Martin, wrote in his article from 20 July: “The presence of militant fighters in Shejaia became clear Sunday afternoon when, under the cover of a humanitarian truce intended to allow both sides to remove the dead and wounded, several armed Palestinians scurried from the scene.Some bore their weapons openly, slung over their shoulder, but at least two, disguised as women, were seen walking off with weapons partly concealed under their robes. Another had his weapon wrapped in a baby blanket and held on his chest as if it were an infant.”
As The Guardian reported, the Hamas government in Gaza issued its ban on journalists co-operating or working with Israel’s media due to its “hostility.” It said “offenders will be prosecuted.”
Threats, physical violence and arbitrary arrest and detention by Hamas security forces are common. A score of journalists were arrested or roughed up during 2010 by the Hamas interior ministry’s security service. Such measures oblige Palestinian journalists to censor themselves. In mid-March last year, security forces harshly broke up meetings in the centre of Gaza City organised by the “March 15 Coalition” calling for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and arrested and beat journalists, including about 20 on 15 March 2011. Security forces raided many local and foreign media offices looking for photos of the crackdown.
After 15 days he was released. He then made a statement that it is clear that there is a systematic policy practiced by Hamas in the Gaza Strip with the aim of gagging the media by subjecting journalists to arrest, torture and detention in harsh conditions.
At least eight journalists were beaten by the Hamas police officers during the rallies. Some had their cameras and laptops confiscated, while others were taken into custody and made to sign a document pledging to refrain from covering such events in the future.
Hamas security services also arrested the journalists: Munir Al-Mawri, Ashraf Abu Khsewan and Mustafa Megdad without informing them of the reasons behind their arrest.
The Hamas’ Internal Security Agency summoned Sunday several Palestinian Journalists including Abdul Karim Haji and Hussein Abdul Jawad Karsou’, without revealing reasons for their arrest.
“The political struggle between Hamas and Fatah has inflicted a great deal of damage on the press in the Palestinian Territories,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Many media have been closed and dozens of journalists have been arrested. In the absence of the rule of law, they have no way of defending themselves. Mahmoud Abbas and Ismael Haniyeh cannot remain silent while this goes on. It is in their own interest to ensure there is room for free speech.”
BackChannels 