• Home
  • About
  • Concepts, Coins, and Terms
    • Anthropolitical Psychology
      • Civilizational Narcissism
      • Conflict – Language Uptake – Social Programming and Scripting – A Suggestion
        • Language Uptake – Programming – On Learning to Listen
        • Mouth –> Ear –> Mind –> Heart System
        • Social Grammar
      • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
      • Malignant Narcissism
      • Narcissistic Scripting
      • Normative Remirroring
      • Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation
    • FTAC – “From The Awesome Conversation”
    • God Mob
    • Intellectual Battlespace
    • Islamic Small Wars
    • New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left
    • Political Spychology
    • Shimmer
  • Library
    • About Language
    • Russian Section
  • Comments and Contact

BackChannels

~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

BackChannels

Category Archives: Regions

FTAC – “Occupation”? The “Middle East Conflict”, Preoccupation and the Power of Old Lies

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

anti-Semitism, Arafat, Hamas, KGB, MEC, middle east conflict, PLO, Russian disinformation, Russian political manipulation, Soviet anti-Semitism, The Occupation

Occupied by whom and what?

Regarding the origins of the PLO: https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/quote-manipulation…/

Hamas – Muslim Brotherhood (way out of step with Wasatia Moderation and Reconciliation) – and wealthy: Haniyeh and Mashaal have developed reputations as billionaires.

The “camps” of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt: Arab-created and managed.

For partial isolation in geopolitical space, the refugees of 1948 may become an ethnolinguistic cohort — a “People” — by (x) beliefs x calendar x customs x language (!) x rituals — but in clinical overview, the same have been abused by Arab powers and by Moscow.

In the efforts of the Soviet to establish and sustain power in the middle east, endemic Russian anti-Semitism became a message promoted by the same to encourage an Arab bond.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/ftac-tip-to-the…/

The Soviet Union self-dissolved almost 25 years ago, but the character of its political existence did not leave Russia, and continued disinformation plus promotion or tolerance for terrorism (Moscow has in recent years hosted PFLP and refuses to this day to designate Hezbollah or Hamas as terrorist organizations) have remained a part of Putin’s “neo-imperial” Russia.

The common bond and cause for a still reckless mythology — Jew hate and discomfort in general with “the west” — the generally higher-integrity, democratic, humanist, and open societies.

Fatah and Hamas have their “track records” as governments. Why they serve as the interlocutors of the Palestinians – now isolated and subject to the same post-Soviet and Muslim Brotherhood forces — should be a difficult question to answer in retrospect.


The twin basis for the middle east conflict: the “Zionists” stole their property from “The Palestinians” and Israel “occupies” the land.

The Ottoman Land Code of 1858 “brought about the appropriation by the influential and rich families of Beirut, Damascus, and to a lesser extent Jerusalem and Jaffa and other sub-district capitals, of vast tracts of land in Syria and Palestine and their registration in the name of these families in the land registers”.[8] Many of the fellahin did not understand the importance of the registers and therefore the wealthy families took advantage of this. Jewish buyers who were looking for large tracts of land found it favorable to purchase from the wealthy owners. As well many small farmers became in debt to rich families which led to the transfer of land to the new owners and then eventually to the Jewish buyers.

In 1918, after the British conquest of Palestine, the military administration closed the Land Register and prohibited all sale of land. The Register was reopened in 1920, but to prevent speculation and insure a livelihood for the fellahin, an edict was issued forbidding the sale of more than 300 dunams of land or the sale of land valued at more than 3000 Palestine pounds without the approval of the High Commissioner.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine – as viewed 7/21/2016

There’s more to the stories of indigenous Jewry in Palestine, the capitalization of agriculture in Palestine, and the purchasing – not stealing – from Arab leaseholders of serious tracts of property in Palestine. To overlook that part of history, one must lie about how capital and labor developed on the land and peacefully and productively changed its demographics, both Jewish and Arab.

As regards “The Occupation”, the comment tells the truth about the KGB, Arafat, and the PLO; about the role played by the famously anti-Semitic Soviet in the “winning” of the Arab world (for a short while); and about Hamas and its most famous billionaires.

When it comes to Arab intransigence over the “middle east conflict” (never mind what’s going on in Syria and Iraq – the term obsessively refers to the conflict forced on Israel), one must suppose some fathers would rather lie to their children — and have their children lie as well — than disappoint them.

Addendum – Principal or Transactional Regard? – Choose Principal – Regard Will Come of That

Although the awesome conversation on the middle east conflict strives for “balance” Israeli and Palestinian interest, the actions of the old KGB and its approach to the manipulation of information plus, perhaps, the Arab leadership’s own language behavior across time have left the Arab world and the Palestinians arguing through the invention of multiple alternative narratives, all of which devolve to the delegitimizing of the presence of the Hebrews in the Land of the Hebrews.  Basically, if one does not recognize the “Palestinian People”, why should the same recognize the “Jewish People”?  The question begs for the “I’m okay – you’re okay” hug that it cannot and must not receive, the difference between the effects of “magical thinking” and empiricism and reason being what it is: one leads “the masses” in an abyss; the other keeps individuals en masse from it.

Also from the awesome conversation —

None contest links to the land by Arabs resident on it at the time of Israel’s chartering.

None contest the status of the same as refugees of war caught between armies, as none contest the role of the Arab armies as intending the annihilation of the Jews on the land, and thereby placing Jewish militia in the historic defensive position.

None contest the Jews as having for all functional intents militarily and politically secured _their_ state in 1948.

What happened to the proposed Arab state for the areas that are today “contested” — but not so much: Gaza, I’ve heard, has been “Judenrein” since 2005.

A “People” can be many things these days. After all, who are the “American People”? 🙂

Still, one might ask: how do the Palestinian People differ from the Arab People?

-33-

Also in Media: “Tunisia, The Only ‘Beacon of Hope’ Shining Out of The Arab Spring”

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Tunisia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, Arab Spring, MENA, political transition, Tunisia

The “Arab Spring,” by contrast, “was relatively tame” in Morocco, Feuer stated, a country that has pursued under its monarchy a “tried and true preference for a very gradual type of reform.”  She cited the expanded parliamentary powers and human rights provisions of the 2011 constitution, while Brown credited Morocco with MENA’s most “comprehensive Countering Violent Extremism strategy.”  Morocco’s security sector, anti-corruption, and rule of law reforms demonstrate that the government has attempted to “find chinks in its armor” and “close the doors that predatory groups in the region have managed to use,” he stated.  “The monarchy in Morocco has managed to stay ahead of the curve” of political unrest, Tadros concurred.

Read more by Andrew Harrod: Tunisia, The Only ‘Beacon of Hope’ Shining Out of The Arab Spring – 7/14/2016.

Also in Media: “Erdogan’s Islamist mobs know that their moment has finally arrived” | Coffee House

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in Fast News Share, Turkey

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, Erdogan, Islamism, Islamists, medievalism, Turkey, Turkish coup

The leader of HDP, the pro-Kurdish parliamentary party that Erdogan has accused of terrorism, and the CHP – the Kemalist party traditionally closest to the military – denounced the coup.

Now, looking back, questions abound. Whose coup was it anyway and were ‘the people’ in fact organised mobs of Erdogan supporters, pre-warned and ready to take control of the streets? Why did the junta take control of the bridges and airports of Istanbul and various government institutions in Ankara while leaving the President free to call for supporters to fill the public squares to defy the tanks and defend democracy?

Read more by Yvo Fitzherbert in The Spectator: Erdogan’s Islamist mobs know that their moment has finally arrived | Coffee House – 7/17/2016.

FTAC – Russia vs NATO – Freeze Frame

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics, Russia, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

foreign affairs, Russia vs NATO

Whatever the state of affairs may be, the staging is in for the next Administration.

Putin has reinvented Russia as a neo-imperial power with privileged classes anchored by the “New Nobility” (FSB) and the oligarchs with himself a level or two above all he has leveraged (in service to his own unlimited narcissistic supply).

The United States has managed to force Putin to attempt to produce a national economy based on other than oil revenues and skimmed proceeds from others states — and Putin has produced law for punishing the oligarchs from exporting their capital (capital flight in Russia over many years plus the loss of anticipated oil revenues plus sanctions have had good effects).

NATO has moved its machinery into place to stall additional inroads against former Soviet clients, and it has recently put on a demonstration of power against Russia’s own parading of nuclear might.

I got to tell you have so many years of tracking the Islamic Small Wars and discovering the “Phantoms of the Soviet” in contemporary foreign affairs, this is scary stuff!

Of course, there are “Phantoms of the Soviet” also in American domestic affairs.

Start with Black Lives Matter and the Chicago Coalition Against Racism and Political Repression along that line and end in the murky affection between V. Putin and D. Trump and the oddness of Trump’s having for his political advisor the same Paul Manafort as Ukraine’s deposed President Yanukovych.

-33-

FTAC – Turkey (and Hungary) – Medieval Absolute Power vs Modern Distributions

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eastern Europe, Politics, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Turkey, United States of America

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, authoritarianism, classical liberalism, Erdogan, fascism, foreign affairs, Orban, post-Cold War, post-Soviet Era, Putin

Let me suggest this: we see opposed medieval forces in “Russia vs Turkey” but we don’t so easily discern “Medieval vs Modern” in Russia and Turkey vs NATO (I know Turkey is a NATO member but it may no longer be what a NATO member should be — distributed power, secular, reasoning).

Peacocks vs The People

While NATO focuses on the military defense of the democratic open societies of the west, its opposition, including NATO members Hungary and Turkey, appear to focus on authoritarianism, corruption (encouraged), cults of personality, and the greater encouragement of medieval conflicts involving modern weapon systems.

Troika Putin-Assad-Khamenei-(Baghdadi) have produced a whole theater of politics and combat (BackChannels titles the production “Assad vs The Terrorists”, also “The Syrian Tragedy”), and while the analyst’s perception may be that of a wickedly callous totalitarian and tyrannical bid to control the public perception of events, the public appears to be buying it: those who have incubated ISIS have now to enjoy the glory of destroying it over as long a period of time as may please them.

With Putin having extracted an apology from Erdogan over the Turkish response to aggressive Russian piloting (akin to Netanyahu’s apologizing for the defense of Israel against the Gaza Flotilla and weapons stored aboard the Mavi Marmara), Erdogan has appeared to stiffen his resolve to destroy democracy in Turkey and replace it with himself.

Having alluded to Hungary’s Orban as being of similar “malignant narcissistic” type, two to a few recent titles might suffice for support: “Vladimir Putin’s Little Helper: Hungary’s Viktor Orban is abetting Moscow’s push to sow chaos in the European Union.  But at what cost?”  (by Paul Hockenos, The New Republic, April 19, 2016); “Putin’s Messenger Boy: Viktor Orban in Moscow” (Hungarian Spectrum, February 17, 2016). For good measure: Orban and Press Freedom; Orban and Corruption; Orban and Fascist Nationalism.


Posted to YouTube by “Russia Insider” June 24, 2016.

Listen / read what Putin has to say.

Also note the related YouTube feed.

By way of comparisons, what has the penultimate classically liberal democracy — my very own United States of America — to show for its values?

Hillary Clinton and Corruption

Donald Trump and Nationalism

This ain’t no Yankee Doodle election coming up.

However, it will still be free and fair with an entire electorate free to publish and speak as it may, demonstrate where it may wish (with equal and fair permitting and wondrous order, for the most part, considering the emotions involved), and talk itself through its own national issues and sense of purpose, which is not to “rule the world” but perhaps produce a world less given to self-aggrandizing tyrants.

I’ve reserved “Fascist” from “Nationalism” with Trump because . . . he’s an American: BackChannels expects him to reject his role in the development of his own idolatrous cult of personality and to put Americans first in the representation of the many cultures, manners, and personalities that have co-produced America’s magnificent tapestry and its related wealth.

Immediately Related on BackChannels

“Cold War? –> Cold Struggle”, March 15, 2016.

Countercoup – On the Immediate Aftermath

Morris, Loveday, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Souad Mekhennet.  “Turkey is expected to curb military power as purge expands.”  The Washington Post, July 19, 2016.

-33-

 

Dictatorships – Putin’s, Erdogan’s – ‘Different Talks – Same Walk’

17 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Political Psychology, Politics, Turkey

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

coup, dictatorship, Erdogan, malignant narcissism, NATO, Putin's dictatorship, Turkey

Seldom nor so perfectly has the pot called the kettle black as at this moment.  “Failed Turkey Coup May Signal Beginning of the End for NATO” crows Sputnik News:

The failed coup attempt in Turkey led by a faction of the military seeking the overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan citing the leader’s abysmal record on free speech, democratic freedoms, and human rights may be the final death knell for both NATO and the European Union who are holding onto the increasingly undemocratic leader for dear life.

Mirror, please.

When it comes to freedom of the press, Moscow fairly owns the other category — “state-controlled press” — and one may suppose poor Erdogan will just have to catch up (even though he may not have far to go).

Human rights?

Again, Russia (okay: Moscow-Damascus-Tehran) kills it (if it’s moving) in the Syrian Tragedy, the world’s most magnificent display — from Assad’s barrel bombs to Baghdadi’s beheadings — of contemporary barbarism.

How About “Rule of Law”?

Chaika.

Of course, it’s complicated and funny in a very serious way.

Also online:

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13489/putins-judicial-vertical-russian-rule-of-law-takes-a-step-backward – 1/14/2014.

As perhaps echoes the Egyptian experience with Islamism in force, factions of the Turkish military may have harbored more of the values of modern and democratic life than the democratically elected “malignant narcissist” brought into power and attempted a coup (if the situation was not manipulated by Erdogan himself to strain out of the military the last of his opposition in that estate).  Quite unlike the Egyptian experience, which appeared to have brought the very nation out into the streets in support of its military, the Turkish coup has failed, giving Russia finger-wagging power to point to NATO’s support of a dictatorship not unlike Russia’s own.

Putin’s Russian Nationalism : Erdogan’s Sunni Islamism: Different Talks – Same Walk.

Ak_Saray_-_Presidential_Palace_Ankara_2014_002.jpg

“White Palace” – “Presidential Palace”, Ankara, 2014 – by Ex13, Wikimedia Commons.

BBC Europe reports, “Turkey has arrested 6,000 people after a failed coup, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowing to purge state bodies of the “virus” that caused the revolt.”

Way back in March, journalist Dexter Filkins writing for The New Yorker had reported on “Erdogan’s March to Dictatorship in Turkey”.

“Not long after his initial election, Erdoğan’s agents embarked on a large and sinister campaign to destroy his political opponents, jailing hundreds—journalists, university rectors, military officers, aid workers—on trumped-up charges and fabricated evidence,” Filkins wrote — and wrote some more about the arrests of journalists, the taking over of opposition press, the delivery of arms to Jabhat al-Nusra (an al-Qaeda affiliate), the easy go with ISIS in favor of unleashing his military against Kurdish interests.

Other journalists have weighed in with similarly cogent observations.

Alon Ben-Meir, Consortium News, May 13, 2016:

Not surprisingly, once Erdogan assumed the Presidency, he continued to chair cabinet meetings and even established a shadow cabinet with a handful of trusted advisers. He pointedly sidelined Davutoglu, who quietly resented Erdogan’s usurpation of the role and responsibility of the prime minister as if nothing had changed.

The premiership became a ceremonial post and the ceremonial presidency became the all-powerful office without a formal constitutional amendment to legally grant him the absolute authority he is now exercising.

Reuters (with staff contributors listed at the bottom of the piece), January 20, 2016:

A Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced a female teacher to almost a year in prison for making a rude gesture at President Tayyip Erdogan at a political rally in 2014, local media reports said on Wednesday.

Insulting public officials is a crime in Turkey, and Erdogan, the country’s most popular but most divisive politician, is seen by his critics as intolerant of dissent and quick to take legal action over perceived slurs.

Today’s Telegraph UK has laid out the timeline of the attempted coup and listed the sorry statistics involving general arrests, the slaughter overnight (“265 killed”), soldiers imprisoned, and judges facing arrest.

Breaking in Fox News: “Detention orders were filed for 53 more judges and prosecutors while 52 military officers were rounded up for their alleged roles in the plot, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.”

-33-

Oh Gulen Again . . . .

16 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Turkey

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

American-Turkish Relationship, despotism, Erdogan, Fethullah Gulen, kleptocracy, malignant narcissists, NATO, political absolute power

If there’s the sniff of a Clinton tie to corruption and crime, the conservative press will find it.  In the listings below, The Daily Caller shouts on that.

For any interested (including the FBI) in Fethullah Gulen, BackChannels has visited the presentation of the personality in online news at least twice (as listed) and somewhere on this blog there’s a related poem involving “winks ‘n’ nods” (you’ll appreciate it more if you find it on your own).  🙂

Erdogan the Malignant with the White Palace?

BackChannels has had some say (also as listed).

Psychological alignment: Erdogan along with Orban may share more with Putin as personalities than they may with other NATO leaders and the leaders of westward-leaning former Soviet states or clients.

That’s life with “malignant narcissists”.

Their people will be beaten up for a buck; their manipulated constituencies will drift toward fascist nationalism or some near equivalent (on this blog, keep in mind “Syndicate Red Brown Green“); but they will be glorious in wealth and treasure plundered from state coffers — just as Putin would have it (and has as much for himself as regards kleptocracy and absolute power).

Americans, often written off as being more concerned with Kardashians and sports scores, probably should immerse for a brief spell in Cold War and post-Soviet history, so as to get a grip not only on machinations driving contemporary foreign affairs but to check the state’s own Machiavellian preference for developing perhaps too much business and politics “behind the curtains”.

Appearances in BackChannels

Gulen

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/01/05/gulen-and-the-gulls-the-american-public/ – 1/5/2015

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/12/17/link-along-the-arc-of-the-malignant-narcissists-narrative-erdogan-vs-gulen/ – 12/17/2014

Erdogan

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/06/30/putins-swipe-at-nato-via-erdogan/ – 6/30/2016

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/04/19/turkish-autocrat-erdogan-on-track/ – 4/19/2016

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/11/19/ftac-erdogans-stuck-putins-just-gettin-started/ – 11/19/2015

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/06/12/link-erdogans-turkey-israels-image/ – 6/12/2015

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/01/23/link-erdogan-and-putin-wapo/ – 1/23/2015

Erdogan and Gulen

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/12/17/link-along-the-arc-of-the-malignant-narcissists-narrative-erdogan-vs-gulen/ – 12/17/2014

In the News Today or Recently

http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/13/new-ties-emerge-between-clinton-and-mysterious-islamic-cleric/ – 7/13/2016

-33-

Note: #Nice #Dallas – Central Post-Soviet Manipulation

15 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics, Russia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

#Dallas, #NiceAttack, feudal themes, Moscow, political absolute power, Putin, Russian medievalism

From the awesome conversation:

These attacks — Dallas, Nice / Black Lives Matter, ISIS (et al) — should not be seen separately. Each devolves to familiar Soviet / post-Soviet agitation, manipulation, and misinformation, at least. With “terrorist-type” “actions”, direct relationships (or “orders”) are not needed as “actor” compulsions pushed by incitements, and permissions plainly work to produce attacks.

Moscow’s Themes

Confusion Through a Massive Agitprop Press — e.g., Information Clearinghouse, Mint Press, RT, etc. — confusing or inverting issues — developing and promulgating disinformation that may weave into more moderate but still far liberal press like Democracy Now and Mother Jones, legitimate stalwarts on the west but perhaps also a little seduced;

Corruption, Kleptocracy, State Mafia — “Chaika” may be all that needs to be signaled to find the entrance to that rabbit hole;

Ends-Against-the-Middle throughout NATO-aligned and westward-leaning states — “Syndicate Red Brown Green” — Old Comrades, New Nationalists, Islamists;

Political Absolute Power — centralized governance; state aristocracy; sustained secret police state (read through the “Russian Section” of this blog’s library);

Terrorism – Moscow refuses to designate Hamas or Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, and in recent years it has hosted representatives of the infamous PFLP.

Immediately Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/07/15/ftac-its-not-islam-its-moscow/ – 7/15/2016

Fast Related Reference

http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=37199 – 2/3/2009 – “Media Manipulation and Political Control in Russia”;

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/shadow-economy-and-media-control-russians-fed-up-with-putin-s-manipulations-a-818930.html – 3/2/2012;

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/has-vladimir-putin-always-been-corrupt-and-does-it-matter – 4/16/2012;

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880/ – 9/9/2014

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/how-the-media-became-putins-most-powerful-weapon/391062/ – 4/21/2015;

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/11/17/russia-hamas-hezbollah-democratic-not-terrorists/ – 11/17/2015

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/vladimir-putin-corruption-five-things-we-learned-about-the-russian-presidents-secret-wealth-a6834171.html – 1/26/2016;

http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/01/28/expert-putin-and-assad-support-hezballah-terrorism/#arvlbdata – 1/28/2016;

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/opinion/why-putin-tolerates-corruption.html – 5/15/2016.

-33-

← Older posts
Newer posts →
  • Compassion
  • Empathy
  • Justice
  • Humility
  • Inclusion
  • Integrity
____________

Caution: The possession of anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist thought may be the measure of the owner's own enslavement to criminal and medieval absolute power.
___________

Recent Posts

  • X’d Out
  • All At Once–War
  • On X: Final Comment on Trump-Putin
  • On X: American State of Affairs: Notes to Anders Aslund.
  • On X: Cowards and Criminals Negotiate Russia v. Ukraine
  • The Destructive Power of Lies: Active Measures and Destabilization and Influence Operations

Categories

  • 21st Century Feudal
  • 21st Century Modern
  • A Little Wisdom
  • Also in Media
  • American Domestic Affairs
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Asides
  • BCND – BackChannels News Day
  • Books
  • Conflict – Culture – Language – Psychology
  • COVID-19
  • Epistemology
  • Events and Other PSA's
  • Extreme Brown vs Red-Green
  • Fast News Share
  • foreign aid
  • Free Speech
  • FTAC
  • FTAC – From The Awesome Conversation
  • International Development
  • IRT Images Research Tropes
  • Islamic Small Wars
    • Gaza Suzerain
  • Journal
    • Library
  • Journalism
  • Links
  • Notes On Reading BackChannels
  • OnX
  • Philology
  • Philosophy
  • Poetry
  • Political Psychology
  • Political Spychology
  • Politics
  • Psychology
    • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
  • Qualities of Living (QOL)
  • Referral
  • Regions
    • Africa
      • Central African Republic
      • Guinea
      • Kenya
      • Libya
      • Mali
      • Morocco
      • Nigeria
      • South Africa
      • Sudan
      • Tunisia
      • Zimbabwe
    • Asia
      • Afghanistan
      • Burma
      • China
      • India
      • Myanmar
      • North Korea
      • Pakistan
      • Turkey
    • Caribbean Basin
      • Cuba
    • Central America
      • El Salvador
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Mexico
    • Eastern Europe
      • Serbia
    • Eurasia
      • Armenia
      • Azerbaijan
      • Russia
      • Ukrain
      • Ukraine
    • Europe
      • France
      • Germany
      • Hungary
      • Poland
    • Great Britain and United Kingdom
    • Iberian Peninsula
    • Middle East
      • Egypt
      • Gaza
      • Iran
      • Iraq
      • Israel
        • Palestinia
      • Jordan
      • Kurdistan
      • Lebanon
      • Palestinian Territories
      • Qatar
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Syria
      • United Arab Emirates
      • Yemen
    • North America
      • Canada
      • United States of America
    • Norther Europe
    • Northern Europe
      • Sweden
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Columbia
      • Ecuador
      • Venezuela
    • South Pacific
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
      • Papua New Guinea
      • West Papua
  • Religion
  • Spain
  • Syndicate Red Brown Green
  • transnational crime
  • Uncategorized
  • Visual Data

Europe

  • Defending History
  • Hungarian Spectrum
  • Yanukovych Leaks

Great Britain

  • Stand for Peace

Israeli and Jewish Affairs

  • Chloe Simone Valdary

Journals

  • Amil Imani
  • New Age Islam

Middle East

  • Human Rights & Democracy for Iran
  • Middle East Research and Information Project

Organizations

  • Anti-Slavery
  • Atlantic Council
  • Fight Hatred
  • Human Rights First Society
  • International Network Against Cyberhate
  • The Center for Victims of Torture

Meta

  • Create account
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

Archives

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • BackChannels
    • Join 356 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • BackChannels
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar