Category Archives: Middle East

Link — A Real Corker! – National Review

19 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Links, North America, Politics, United States of America

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Of course, you may have been under the impression – perhaps from reading our quaint Constitution from those dark pre-Fundamental Transformation days – that We the People are sovereign, that our government must take its marching orders from us. To the contrary, President Obama is claiming in his Iran deal that he – unilaterally and without congressional advice, consent, or legislation – may huddle with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, the Chinese Communist government, some European leaders, and our Iranian enemies to devise enforceable law. We and our elected representatives are expected meekly to submit.

We must not submit.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421349/congress-must-ditch-corker-bill-and-treat-iran-deal-either-treaty-or-proposed

H.R.1191 – Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015

Charen, Mona.  “Obama: Witting or Witless?”  National Review, July 17, 2015.

Smith-Spark, Laura.  “Iran’s Supreme Leader vows no change in relations with ‘arrogant’ United States.”  CNN, July 19, 2015.

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Islam — A Note on Political Topology and Prejudice and Possibility

16 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions

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And here we are in 2015 choosing to believe the promises made by the leaders of Islamic Iran regarding nuclear proliferation despite the well-known Islamic policy of taqiyya-religious deception. Despite the fact that they have lied about their nuclear programme in the past. From the Qur’an – This verse tells Muslims not to take those outside the faith as friends, unless it is to “guard themselves” against danger, meaning that there are times when a Muslim may appear friendly to non-Muslims, though they should not feel that way.” (Here And here – “And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers.” If Allah is supremely deceitful toward unbelievers, then there is little basis for denying that Muslims are allowed to do the same. (See also 8:30 and 10:21) and here. From the Hadith: Bukhari (84:64-65) – Speaking from a position of power at the time, Ali confirms that lying is permissible in order to deceive an “enemy.” In other words, the word of a Muslim leader is not his bond.

Bederman, Diane Weber.  “Western Arrogance may lead us to Armageddon.”  Canada Free Press, July 16, 2015.

The vast majority of countries on Earth with nuclear programs do not possess sensitive nuclear facilities. Rather the fuel is provided by a more advanced nuclear power, such as Russia, France, or the United States. This eliminates the need for the spread of dangerous enrichment or reprocessing programs to new countries. Countries like Iran that insist on developing their own sensitive technologies for “peaceful purposes,” therefore, are tipping their hand and revealing a likely intention to build the bomb.

Kroenig, Matthew.  “Why is Obama Abandoning 70 Years of U.S. Nonproliferation Policy?”  Tablet, June 15, 2015.

Whether nations or women deceived, Islam and several of the states most representative of it would seem to have a big credibility issue.  For Jews, perhaps others who have taken note, serious betrayal — and signal of the complete absence of compassion, conscience, and empathy — begins with the legend of the mass slaughter of the Banu Qurayza men and the barbaric enslavement of their wives and daughters.

Muslim critic and reformer Tarek Fatah has derided and rejected the authenticity of the Banu Qurayza legend for finding it execrable as any sort of example of morality while the “anti-Jihad”, in general, maintains the same as a potent symbol of the character of Islam.

Today’s skinny brings the tale of the imam who lied to betray his wife and woo another woman (K. M. Lessing) into conversion and marriage.

Same thing, isn’t it?

First, lie; then exploit the lie: to get the woman; to get power over others.

From simple mass slaughter and the abuse of women inveigled into relationships, Islam’s apparently inherent interest in the possession of absolute power — unanswerable, unconscionable (well demonstrated throughout the Syrian theater and the military and political play that has been fashioned as “Assad vs The Terrorists”), and humanly conflated with the presence in concept of God Almighty — extends logically to the possession of nuclear arms and the associated ability and evident intent to threaten the annihilation of others in exchange for their cooperation, loyalty, obedience, subjugation.

Should one take it on faith that not all imam are like K. M. Lessing’s imam?

Similarly, should on take it on faith that not all ayatollah and senior clerics are like Ali Khamenei or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?  Or the Muhammad who allegedly slaughtered 800 self-surrendered, compliant, and disarmed fathers and sons?

What do the polls say?

Where are the social science measures of attitudes toward others from within Islam?

Here we are back at “Shimmer“.

It’s different today: the question had been, as stated by Daniel Pipes, “How Many Islamists?”  Now we’re being positioned to ask among the despotic and theocratic leaders of Islamic states, who else (in addition to Pakistan) will have nuclear weapons, how soon, and how many?

While it may be understood that the Religion of Peace contains the genuinely peaceful and now an emerged leadership complement of Islamic humanists, social progressives, and reformers, its other faces retain the power and punch of military generals and political autocrats, and those in Iran it appears the west may now be rewarding with increased access to capital and the further encouragement of license exceeding all limits.

Loosely Related Reference

Afshari, Ali.  “Khamenei preaches Shiite-Sunni unity against Islamic State, US.”  Al-Monitor, October 22, 2014: “High-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic have always talked about the importance of Shiite-Sunni unity and even dedicated a week each year to the issue. Their actions, however, have served to deepen the Shiite-Sunni divide, in particular their discrimination against Iranian Sunnis, including limitations on their religious activities, as well as efforts to propagate Shiism in the Middle East.”

Al-Muslimi, Farea.  “Yemen’s Houthis proxy, not ally for Iran.”  Al-Monitor, November 19, 2014.

BackChannels.  “Ali Khamenei and the Letter from Near Mosul — A Speculation.”  January 16, 2015.

Bender, Jeremy.  “Iran’s proxy war in Yemen just got exposed.”  Business Insider, May 1, 2015.

Council on Foreign Relations.  “The Sunni-Shia Divide.”

Daoud, David.  “Iran’s Khamenei Says US is Enemy to Both Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Middle East.”  The Algemeiner, May 18, 2015.

Frantzman, Seth J.  “20 Myths About the Iran Deal.”  Terra Incognita, July 15, 2015: “How a country that hangs people proudly and burns the flags of those it negotiates with has come to be so respected on the international stage is truly extraordinary. It is a testament to the soft racism of low expectations of the West.”

Karami, Arash.  “Iranian supreme leader doubles down on struggle against American ‘arrogance'”.  Al-Monitor, July 13, 2015

In September 2014, the U.S. began airstrikes in Syria that targeted ISIS, allowing Assad to perform an “economy of force“: Assad left the U.S. to attack ISIS in the east and focused on the moderates in the west. Assad has worked very hard to make extremists the face of the insurgency—for example between ISIS’ emergence and late 2014, Assad directed just six percent of his airstrikes against ISIS—and to present this as a binary choice between the dictator or the takfiris; this is a lie, but many believe it and it has worked to make the U.S. effectively Assad’s (Iran’s) air force in Syria.

Orton, Kyle.  “America Not Training Syria’s Rebels Isn’t “Failure”; It’s Policy.”  The Syrian Intifada, July 13, 2015.

Ross, Dennis.  “Iran Will Cheat, Then What?”  Time, July 15, 2015.

Starr, Barbara.  “Sources: Baghdadi may have been in Raqqa.”  CNN Politics, July 15, 2015.  Post includes video, story, and photo panel of “Leaders of deadliest terrorist groups.”

Former U.S. officials and Iran experts say Khamenei has a deep-rooted suspicion of the West and a streak of insecurity – he rose to power due to his loyalty to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rather than lofty religious credentials.

A sense of inferiority has dogged him over the years and it would be especially important for Khamenei to be seen as not folding under Western pressure to reach an agreement, they said.

Zakaria, Tabassum.  “For Iran talks, trying to divine supreme leader’s intent.”  Reuters, April 13, 2012.

The United States pushed forward with a sanctions-based approach largely because key administration officials believed that sanctions strengthened the credibility and leverage of those who wanted to engage Iran, while preventing more violent actions by Israel. They insisted that such an approach best addressed the myriad long-term mutual interests shared by the United States and Iran. President Obama himself reached the conclusion that there were too few negative incentives to affect Iran’s internal calculus, particularly regarding mutual interests.

Marashi, Reza.  “The Political Psychology of Obama’s Iran Policy.”  Muftah, January 6, 2012.

Khalaji, Mehdi.  “No Voice of Reconciliation: Khamenei Targets the West.”  The Washington Institute, May 21, 2015.

The Soufan Group.  “TSG IntelBrief: Khamenei’s Challenges and Unease in Iran’s Power Structure.”  November 14, 2013.

There’s not much on the web as regards “political psychology, Khamenei.”

Perhaps BackChannel’s approach with “malignant narcissism” aligned with the “Syndicate Red Brown Green” feudalism and associated anti-Semitism / anti-Zionism / anti-westernism will fill the bill: I believe Khamenei’s interests continue to reside with the possession of political “absolute power”, capricious justice, piratical leadership, militarism expressed through “war by proxy” and the cultivation of Daesh as a Sunni-aligned foil for Iraq’s Shiite militia (advised by Revolutionary Guard), and the long-term survival of Sunni vs Shiite teleological rivalry and related hot conflict as stage-managed from Tehran.

World Nuclear Association.  “Nuclear Power in Iran.”  Updated May 2015: “After two years delay due to Iran’s reluctance to agree to returning used fuel to Russia without being paid for it, two agreements were signed early in 2005 covering both supply of fresh fuel for the new Bushehr nuclear reactor and its return to Russia after use. The Russian agreement means that Iran’s nuclear fuel supply is secured for the foreseeable future, removing any justification for enrichment locally.”

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FTAC – Twitter Choice

08 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Journal, Middle East, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Yemen

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Following, for a while. As with so many others incapable of rejecting a sect (in its entirety) within a religion of which one is not a part and over a conflict that is distant and — and I will assign blame to Khamenei and others of feudal mind and ambition — archaic, I don’t want to weigh on the scales. I’ve found the same divide in Shiite and other circles where claim is made about being “the Jews of islam” (and persecuted by Sunni Muslims). Nonetheless, one understands: where this kind of conflict is hot — the bullets are flying and the bombs are going off and lives are being ended, shattered, or threatened in the most direct ways — polarization is as unavoidable as it is destructive and seemingly impossible to repair.

The place where the bullets are flying: Yemen.

The drift of sympathy: against the Houthis as representative of Ayatollah Khamenei’s War by Proxy that in turn defends feudal absolutism and seeks to expand the regime’s power against Sunni interests.

In another and now increasingly distant age — even 25 or 50 years ago may now seem like centuries — the Yemeni part of the Islamic Small Wars would been played as a clipping in the back of the “A” section of the newspapers, a remote tribal war to be overlooked by western indifference.

Those days are gone.

Our Facebook friends are either there or have family and friends who are close to live fire — not only in Yemen but everywhere being razed and ruined by these forces — and we’re watching without recourse to choosing a good and bad side except against the “al-Qaeda Typicals” and the “Hezbollah Virus”, i.e., operations with military wings so awful that the good of the planet would seek to shut down regardless of other disagreements stemming from nominal affiliations and associated cultural, political, and religious self-concept.

Instead, some of us seem to be standing by friends on both sides and hoping the theme of “The Medieval vs The Modern” will catch on before the medieval world, which some are working hard to sustain, swallows the modern.  That outcome may not be possible across continents, but it seems to be proving possible in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe (with Putin-Khamenei as the hub from which so much chaos, destruction, and political confusion emanate).

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The Big Fade – Or Not? Where Goes the Phantom of the Cold War?

23 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Iran, Lebanon, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Syria, Ukraine

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Yesterday left off with “Putin, Erdogan meet face to face, but don’t see eye to eye” (Al-Monitor, June 19, 2015).

Trouble in “Hellidise” for the world’s most fabulous feudal lords?

Hmm.

Should some friction not attend Syria’s fragmenting implosion brought about by the implied bloody script this blog has referred to as “Assad vs The Terrorists”?

Sanctions have been up for a while; oil prices have been down for a while: such broad conditions brought about by large maneuvers, like “North American energy independence“, may have effects.

As a trading partner, Erdogan may have a little more edge with Putin these days; as a Sunni Muslim looking over the border and watching Daesh and other al-Qaeda-type groups continuing to rough up and tear apart Syria’s landscape, he has cause to let the scouring continue.  The teleology on which he has campaigned pits him against Putin-Assad-Khamenei’s interests on the Hezbollahian (militant Shiite) side of the great divide most immediately applicable to the continuing Great Struggle of Evil Against Evil in Syria, the modern and moderate, whoever they may be (ye shall know them one still distant day by their pro-Semitic / pro-Zionist lingo), having been killed, dispersed, rendered irrelevant, or otherwise sidelined for some years now.

This day appears to be closing (for me) with tomorrow’s news (gotta love the International Dateline): “US to deploy heavy weapons on NATO’s eastern flank” (AFP, Yahoo, June 24, 2015).

From my portion of The Awesome Conversation:

While generally attaching Erdogan to Putin-Khamenei as another medieval-minded autocrat with strong interest in sustaining feudal models of power against the democratic west, there may be some unraveling within this drift as depressed oil revenues (for Russia), other punitive measures (like sanctions), and some military repositioning take place in response to Russia’s aggression in Crimea. For Erdogan, whether he likes it or not (I’m starting to appreciate that phrase), Turkey remains a NATO member with a significant modern constituency. While Erdogan wants his White Palace — I think he’s moved in, I’m not sure — the whole world is watching in an open and robust global information environment. For that, both leaders may have a little less operating room as despots than they may have had 25 years ago.

&

The “big picture” — how the feudal world may change as the modern one moves around it — is easier (for me) to see today than was the case just a few years ago.

From an amateur’s perspective, the smaller pictures might require country specialization and language ability. It’s just easier following heads of state than the numerous personalities, agencies, and committees involved in producing the world’s political landscapes and their narratives.

The long diplomacy and now evident maneuvering have been dangerous, of course, but even portrayed as playing poker against Obama’s chess, Putin’s own programming has a predictable aspect to it.  Via the day’s e-mail feed, World Affairs promoted “Imperial Ambitions: Russia’s Military Buildup” (May/June 2015):

In September 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted that he could, at will, occupy any Eastern European capital in two days. This apparently spontaneous utterance reveals, probably more than Russia’s new official defense doctrine, Moscow’s true assessment of NATO’s capabilities, cohesion, and will to resist. In an echo of Soviet tactics, it also reflects Putin’s reflexive recourse to intimidation—e.g., unwarranted boasting about Russian military capabilities and intentions—as a negotiating strategy. In 2014 alone, Moscow repeatedly threatened the Baltic and Nordic states and civilian airliners, heightened intelligence penetration, deployed unprecedented military forces against those states, intensified overflights and submarine reconnaissance, mobilized nuclear forces and threats, deployed nuclear-capable forces in Kaliningrad, menaced Moldova, and openly violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987.

Much of Putin’s tenure has been about a Russian feudal revanche complete with “New Nobility” and a $51 billion winter spectacle (Sochi, while Syria’s Assad was barrel bombing millions of Syrians out of their lives and homes to make way for The Terrorists by refraining from doing the same to them at the time).

As noted in passing, while Khamenei may be going gangbusters with wars by proxy, one may wonder today how much the same have cost him by way of the continuing faith and loyalty of those patronized.  The public talk-and-walk by Nasrallah may not change much, and, indeed, if the enemy nearby is Daesh or another of the type, the situation demands that he inspire and prepare his community for greater challenges to come, and that he keep his backers happy, but the same now take place in an atmosphere of stalemate over a wartorn landscape.

Such combat proves not a fast game but an agonizingly slow grind.

Where the finger-pointing takes place — how could it not be taking place offstage? — some portion must point back to Moscow and Tehran — Putin and Khamenei — for perverting a mild people’s revolution in Damascus to hold together the Ghosts of the Soviet and the maintenance of old and new privileged through time-honored and familiar but perfectly despicable feudal practices.

Sideways and Forward

Laub, Karin (AP).  “New think tank in Jordan watching Israel shows discreet, growing ties between countries.”  U.S. News & World Report, June 22, 2015.

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FTAC – Summation – Syria and Red Brown Green

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Syria

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The schematics I feel I’ve observed over the years:

Post-Soviet –> neo-feudal Russia that has been quietly addressed (by sanctions; by a precipitous drop in oil prices and related revenues) as an extension of the former era.

“Putin-Assad-Khamenei” as an arc of power in the region and “Putin-Khamenei” as a hub for the greater development of political absolute power elsewhere.

“Syndicate Red Brown Green” — Putin’s Russia, KGB-to-FSB; new national socialist movements (Hungary); Islamists.

The cultivation of Daesh, self-generated but perhaps manipulated by Khamenei to serve as a Sunni foil for his regime’s Shiite expansion, serves narrative artifice that has been “Assad vs The Terrorists” — an horrific piece of political “theater of the real”.

All of that may be breaking up through the fragmenting of Syria, but nothing is near over, and, indeed, the anarchy and chaos developed in the space will have to be addressed on multiple levels, from combat and counterterrorism effort to some kind of refugee management and resettlement. Count out “Putin, Assad, Khamenei” as being of any help at all.

I had just seen a group of pictures featuring starved Syrian children, the latest in “war porn”, and it had featured an image of a starving adult man bearing a resemblance to President Obama.

Agitprop?

Not only agitprop, but propaganda from what appeared to me to be an anti-western, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist “news agency” promoting victimization on one hand while isolating itself on the other.

BackChannels has been to this evil place before: “It’s Hard Helping You When You’re Anti-Semitic, Among Other Things” (March 19, 2014).

Written about the “Obamastarvingman” and the more evidently starved youngsters:

I don’t like the top figure’s resemblance to Obama — it smacks of propaganda, an attempt at not quite subliminal suggestion.

While “Syndicate Red Brown Green” put together the political theater that may be titled, “Assad vs The Terrorists”, the children shown, and of course noncombatant adults as well, were the kind of Syrians killed or punished by, in essence, their own feudal lords.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights may have additional information on the casualties of the breathtaking disaster that has taken place in Syria in the post-Soviet and now feudal context managed by Putin, Assad, and Khamenei. Obama watched; NATO watched; we watched. However: the continuing promotion of anti-Semitism, anti-westernism — basically hateful and undemocratic rhetoric (because it’s dishonest and disingenuous speech) — leaves the Syrian victims of Assad’s grandiose play (“Assad vs The Terrorists”) disenfranchised, helpless, and isolated.

No surprise: no one has yet “Liked” the comment.

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Link – MEF – Summer – ” . . . that death is not death . . . .”

18 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Links, Political Psychology, Psychology, Religion

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Suicide terrorism has become so commonplace that it is easy to overlook how relatively new and suddenly popular the phenomenon is. Between the end of World War II and the Iranian revolution, there were no suicide attacks in the world. Yet only months after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini solidified power and formed the Pasdaran and Basij, suicide attacks began to appear in conflicts involving Shiites (Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq war) and then took root among Palestinian Sunni groups.[3] It eventually became the preferred tactic of Islamist terror organizations.

Khomeini selected specific passages from the Qur’an and hadith (canonical collections of Muhammad’s alleged sayings and actions) to craft his suicidal version of radical Islam. His two-part rhetorical plan necessitated convincing Muslims that suicide is not suicide and that death is not death.

Caschetta, A. J.  “Does Islam Have a Role in Suicide Bombings?” Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2015.

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Link – Erdogan’s Turkey – Israel’s Image

12 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, Political Psychology, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Turkey

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A large number of the citizens of Turkey, a NATO member, see Israel and the United States as enemies.

A survey conducted recently in Turkey found that nearly half the country’s citizens (42.6%) see Israel as the biggest security threat, followed by the United States (35.5%), and only then Syria (22.1%).

How do they visualize Israel, a country with which they have made several military and trade agreements, as being a security threat? Do they think Israel would ever invade Turkey? Bomb Turkey? Nuke Turkey? This view seems to be based on either religion-induced paranoia caused by Islamic anti-Semitism, or else their understanding of reality has been distorted Nazi-style by Turkish leaders and the media.

Bulut, Uzay.  “Turkish Journalist Uzay Bulut — Turkey’s View of Israel.”  IsraelSeen.com, June 10, 2015.

Turkey was the first – and for decades the only – Islamic country to recognize the Jewish state, opening diplomatic relations in 1949. While Turkey became a member of NATO in 1952, and Israel served during the Cold War as a Western ally to counter Soviet alliances in the Arab world, relations between the two states were low-key through the decades of wars fought between Israel and the Arabs. Yet Turkey never severed the relationship despite Arab pressure to do so. With the end of the Cold War, Israel and Turkey emerged as the most democratic and economically dynamic states in the region. Their foreign pro-Western orientation and their self-perception as bastions of democratic and free market values in an unruly neighbourhood placed them, as was the case during the Cold War years, in the same strategic boat.

Inbar, Efraim.  “The Resilience of Israeli-Turkish Relations”.  11:4 (591-607) Israel Affairs, October 2005; reprinted by The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 63; posted as a PDF online.

Given the neo-feudal and fascist will of Syndicate Red Brown Green, the resilience of Israeli-Turkish relations has not looked good for some years.

What may be looking forward, however, is how well humanity-adverse and anti-Semitic drives and manipulations may be overviewed on the World Wide Web.  Not only may pro-democracy true progressives in the west do the homework on the Putin-Erdogan relationship, brave and independent souls in Turkey (and elsewhere worldwide) may search up “Putin, Erdogan, Democracy”.

Other cool related searches: “Putin, palaces”; “Erdogan, white palace”.

After a while, in the same fashion as the Reuter’s piece on Khamenei, these reports that develop online — and they do add up thematically — create a certain impression and, perhaps, also leave a lasting impression.

Additional Reference

Martel, Frances.  “Erdogan’s Putin-Style Internet Trolls Blamed for Turkish AKP’s Election Losses.”  Breitbart, June 10, 2015.

Sadar, Claire.  “Dreaming of Russia in Ankara: Is Erdogan Following in Putin’s Footsteps?”  Foreign Affairs, February 12, 2015.

Tisdall, Simon.  “Erdogan plan for super-presidency puts Turkey’s democracy at stake.” The Guardian, March 25, 2015.

Relevant on BackChannels: “Anthropolitical Psychology“

I fear to see the term “anthropolitical” take off, but it could happen: in a New Age Strange Way, we’re all going to be part of distinct and meaningful legacy (and ethnolinguistic) cultures, but any will have the option at all times to overview the same rapidly — to see their world mirrored in real time — and inquire into its intellectual arrangements.  From that may come greater discrimination in preferences in values plus an active delineation of “desirable universals” and “critical positive” cultural and intellectual assets.

The English x persons x language shall not rule the world: the worlds of the world must rule themselves differentially even if and while wrapped in a unifying global communications environment.

Addendum – June 15, 2015

Efraim Inbar, a professor of political studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), is not optimistic about AKP’s imminent political downfall and does not expect a change in Turkey’s attitude toward Western nations and Israel.

“The struggle over the soul and identity of Turkey continues,” Inbar told JNS.org, explaining that while “the election is definitely a blow to the AKP, [the party] still remains the major political force in Turkey.”

JNS.org via The Algemeiner.  “Will Erdogan’s Election Setback Mean Improved Relations With Israel?”  June 14, 2015.

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FTAC – ” . . . an inculcated hate”

12 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Israel, Politics, Religion

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“We maintain that Jews and Judaism have no conflict with Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians or any other group.” True.

“It was complete obedience to the Will of the Creator.” False. We do not endorse blind obedience, and many of us believe God’s test of Abraham was a test of conscience and courage — a test to see if Abraham would speak back to God over His demand that Isaac be murdered by his father — rather than of obedience. Abraham fails. The evidence from such an interpretation can only come from careful and close reading, but that is exactly the kind of reading and thinking the Torah demands.

While they may profess a sincere identification with Judaism, they are within the Jewish community considered and treated as a cult.

In the service of Palestinian anti-Semitism: http://972mag.com/anti-zionist-jews-are-no-friend-of-the-palestinian-national-struggle/61002/

Daniel Pipes reported on NK’s taking payments from Iran back in 2004.

More recently, members have been indicted and jailed for spying.

http://www.jta.org/2014/01/28/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/israeli-neturei-karta-member-sentenced-for-spying-for-iran

What may bond you to them, despite now knowing that Khamenei uses them as token Jews, and that they are reviled by the vast majority of the Jewish community, not only in Israel but worldwide, is that they too would wish to annihilate Israel and probably all of Jewry but themselves. That bond involves an inculcated hate.

Neturai Karta. “The Difference Between Judaism and Zionism.”  Speech Presented by Rabbi Dovid Weiss of NKI at the Islamic Center of Long Island on January 14, 2001.

Anti-Zionism is an inherently anti-Semitic doctrine. In calling for the fall of the Jewish state, anti-Zionists are engaged in a racist endeavour. Jews should feel no hesitation whatsoever in calling out those who challenge Israel’s right to exist as anti-Semites, with all the attendant implications.

None of this should be controversial. “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” is part of the EU’s working definition of anti-Semitism (or was, until the EU inexplicably dropped it). This article is concerned with articulating the intellectual foundations for this proposition, rather than somehow presenting a new idea.

Asian-Levy, Eylon.  “Why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.”  The Times of Israel, December 8, 2013.

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