Showing posts with label self-death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-death. Show all posts

Sunday, February 05, 2023

With the announcement last week that Israel and Sudan plan to complete a signed agreement this year, Sudanese media has been discussing the pros and cons of normalizing relations with Israel.

Here's one that is very supportive by Salah El-Din Awdah:

And with logic we speak; And logic does not know the language of emotion; Rather, it is the language of the mind. And this language we respond to those who reject normalization.

Whether with Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan, or the Emirates, finally with Sudan.

From a religious standpoint, there is nothing that precludes the conclusion of peace treaties with the Jews. Our Holy Prophet himself did it before.

And from a political point of view, every treaty is possible with any side; Politics is the art of the possible.
From a moral point of view, there is no crime in such a step.

Nor can we Sudanese  be more Palestinian than the Palestinians. The Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords with Israel And that during the life of its late leader, Arafat.

My attitude towards the Jews is not new. 

I have praised their democracy as opposed to our government. I have said that they have a million reasons to be proud of it; they describe it as an oasis in the middle of the desert, a democratic and rustic oasis, in the midst of a totalitarian arid desert.

It is strange that among the things that these rejecters blame Israel for is its killing of the Palestinians. They do not blame Islamic regimes for the same thing. 

Israel kills those it considers its enemies and does not kill its people. As for these Muslim regimes, they kill their own people....even killing  because of a veil, as in the Iranian tragedy of Mahsa. Or because of a protest, as in Syria. Or because of a social grievance, as in Al-Bashir’s Sudan. Or because of opposition to the government, as in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Or because of a political dispute, as in Abdel Nasser’s Egypt.

Those who oppose any agreement with Israel belong with all these killers. They are either Baathists, Nasserites, or Bashirites or even Iranians, as the mullahs of Iran arm their people and kill Mahsa without her veil.

Then there is an argument: What do we gain from the relationship with Israel? As if this Israel is a charitable organization and  not a country like the rest of the world. 
We respond to their question with a counter- and logical question: Why do we not ask such a question when establishing a relationship with any other country? Are relations between countries based on this condition?

Welcome to the Jews!




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Monday, April 04, 2016

  • Monday, April 04, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:
Hamas' military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said Monday that one of its members had died in an accident during a "Jihadi mission" in the northern Gaza Strip.

The brigades said in a statement that 24-year-old Musab Muhammad al-Sheikh, from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, was accidentally shot dead by a bullet from his own gun.

Further details on the circumstances of his death and the nature of the "mission" were not provided.

Al-Sheikh's funeral was scheduled for Monday at 12 p.m. in Jabaliya refugee camp.

Members of the al-Qassam Brigades are regularly killed during training exercises or in Gaza's notoriously dangerous tunnel networks in the north and south of the blockaded coastal enclave.
Hamas still refers to him as a "martyr."

Here is Mr. al-Sheikh posing for the photo that only is released when he dies:


And here he is in a pose I like a bit better:





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Friday, October 02, 2009

  • Friday, October 02, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
I haven't been blogging all the PalArab murders and deaths from tunnel collapses lately, but I have been keeping track.

A few recent items include a mother who strangled her 16-year old daughter with a scarf while she was sleeping (don't know yet if it was an "honor" killing,) a 65-year old man murdered in a family dispute (both in Hebron), and a body found today in a garbage dump in Gaza City.

My count of violent deaths in PalArab territories this year is up to 198, roughly the same pace as last year.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Two Hamas members were killed in yet another "work accident" on Friday night in a "jihad mission" in central Gaza, Hamas announced.

The statement identified the victims as members of the Al-Qassam Brigades Osama Kamal Nabaheen and Bakr Jamal Nabaheen from Al-Bureij Camp.

Hamas announced deathd of the two activists over loudspeakers calling on Gaza residents to participate in their funeral processions on Saturday.
The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 121.

Monday, July 20, 2009

The Al Qassam Brigades website mentions another Hamas member who accidentally got offed while training to kill Jews, this time in Gaza City.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 119.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Usually so-called "honor killings" are against women whose actions embarrass their families by spending too much time with unrelated men.

Now there's a new twist: families who kill their own flesh and blood because they allegedly spend too much time with Zionists:
Fifteen- year-old Ra’ed Sawalha was tortured and hung by his family members who accused him of collaborating with Israeli forces, the Palestinian police reported Thursday.

Brigadier General with the police forces Adnan Ad-Damiri said several arrests were made, all of them family members of the slain boy. The men and women apparently admitted their crimes under questioning, but justified their acts by explaining that Ra’ed was a “spy” for Israel.
And as with "honor killings," any prison time will no doubt be vastly reduced because their crime is quite justifiable by their community's standards.

Meanwhile, another women was found killed outside Hebron, very possibly another "honor killing." Together with the "honor killing" of a woman yesterday in Gaza, the 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 101, with 20 of them being women or children.

UPDATE: We also have another Gaza smuggler tunnel death, this one where a man accidentally strangled himself with the rope he was using to drag his booty - weapons? motorcycles? TNT? - into Rafah. I count tunnel deaths in my self-death count, so the 2009 tally is now at 102.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

  • Thursday, June 04, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
Besides the PA policeman killed by Hamas this morning, the PA has killed two of the three Hamas men holed up in a Qalqiliya building:
A daylong standoff between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas gunmen has ended with three people dead in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya on Thursday.

PA security officials said they moved into the building where the clashes took place to find the dead bodies of two men, and a third injured, believed to be members of Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. The two were apparently gunned down.

The [PA] spokesperson did not confirm reports that the Hamas fighters were killed by waste water pumped inside a tunnel the men were hiding in, nor that poisonous gas was used against them.
Well, that's one way to recycle.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 95.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Ma'an mentions:
One fighter from Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades died Thursday during what leaders called a “special mission” in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

A statement from the group identified the man as 23-year-old Tala’at Ismail Al-Afefi, who reportedly died while carrying out a resistance attack from Gaza’s “playground of death.”
Since the report doesn't say he was killed by the Zionist entity, that means that poor Tala'at either blew himself up or was killed by one of his brave jihadist pals.

Also, a Palestinian Arab was stabbed to death near Ramallah on Tuesday.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 74.

Monday, April 13, 2009

  • Monday, April 13, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
From PCHR:
On Thursday, 9 April 2009, three members of the ‘Olaiwa family – including a child – were murdered in Gaza City. The police found three bodies belonging to Sufian ‘Arafat 'Olaiwa, 45, his wife, Miriam al-Majdoub (‘Olaiwa), 30, and his son, Jawhar Sufian ‘Olaiwa, 5, in their houses in al-Shoja’eya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. The victims were shot by several bullets to different parts of their bodies. On the same day, the police arrested three members of the ‘Olaiwa family for questioning. Yousef Abdul Wahab, Chief of the Police Criminal Investigation Bureau in Gaza, told PCHR that the crimes were related to ‘family honor’.
This is not a clan clash - this is members of a family killing other members of the same family for "honor." I'm not sure what heinous crime 5-year old Jawhar did, but it must have been a doozy.

Also, two weeks ago two Gaza boys were killed while playing with a "suspicious object" which exploded. The original stories concerning this made it sound like they were leftover Israeli ordnance, but PCHR says:
Palestinian police sources informed PCHR that they had opened an investigation into the incident, but they have not yet obtained any data about the suspicious object.
This is the Hamas police, of course, and if they are not blaming Israel immediately this means that the kids found one of the hundreds of booby traps that Hamas had seeded urban areas of Gaza with.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 66.
A 28-year old woman was dragged from her home to a field and smothered to death with a waterlogged towel in Deir al-Balah in Gaza.

According to the Mezan Center for Human Rights, this is the third "honor killing" in less than two months. This is one of them, and here are some details on the other one, from March 26th:
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, based in Gaza, reported on Wednesday that a 31-year old woman was stabbed to death on Tuesday at night. The woman gave birth to a child boy less than two weeks ago.

The Center added that on Tuesday approximately at 21:15, four young men came to the house of Ola Hasan Safi, 31, and then the neighbors heard screams coming from her house.

The police was called to the scene and found Safi repeatedly stabbed in her neck and back. Forensic examination showed several bruises on her back in addition to stab marks on her back, chest, abdomen, and neck.

The Al Mezan Center said that Safi gave birth to a healthy child less than two weeks ago, and that she was staying at her father’s home due to a conflict with her husband.
Remember, violence against women in Gaza is completely normal and should only be blamed on barbaric Israeli practices.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 61.

Monday, March 30, 2009

  • Monday, March 30, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:
A young Palestinian man was killed and six others were injured on Monday afternoon after a fight broke out between two families at Balata Refugee Camp east of Nablus.

Palestinian security sources said Ma’an that 25-year-old Saher Mahmoud Sawalmeh, a policeman, was killed after being injured in a clash at the camp as a result of being struck on the head with an iron bar. Shortly after his arrival at Rafidia Hospital he died, they said.

Sources added that six others were wounded in the clash and that Palestinian security services arrived at the scene and arrested a number of people who were allegedly involved.
The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 60.

Friday, March 27, 2009

  • Friday, March 27, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the PCHR:
According to PCHR investigations, at approximately 01:30am on Tuesday 24 March 2009, medical sources at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City pronounced the death of Jamil Naser ‘Assaf, 20, from the ‘Asqoula neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. ‘Assaf died after suffering severe kidney failure, resulting from beating and torture carried out by members of the Security Services. The injuries were sustained while Jamil ‘Assaf was being detained at al-Tufah police station on charges of theft.

The victim’s mother, Nuha Zaki ‘Assaf, 46, gave the following statement to PCHR:

“At approximately 09:00am on Sunday 8 March 2009, members of the General Intelligence Service arrested my son, Jamil, from his house. They accused him of theft and led him to an unknown destination. On 12 March 2009 we heard that Jamil was detained at al-Tufah police station on theft charges. The following day, 13 March 2009, Jamil was transferred to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He was unconscious. After medical checks, it was found that he suffered severe kidney failure after he had been severely beaten and tortured by members of the Security Services. He was immediately admitted to the intensive care unit due to the seriousness of his health condition. He died of his injuries on Tuesday, 24 March 2009.”
Keep in mind that, according to the PCHR, the Hamas "Security Services" who routinely beat and torture people - often for political reasons - are considered "civilians" for the purposes of trying to jack up the number of civilian casualties in Gaza at the hands of Israel.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 59.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

  • Wednesday, March 25, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the UN's IRIN news service:
The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Gaza, local Palestinian NGOs and mental health professionals are reporting increased incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault against women in Gaza since the beginning of 2009.

An unpublished UNIFEM survey of male and female heads of 1,100 Gaza households conducted between 28 February and 3 March indicates there was an increase in violence against women during and after the 23-day war which ended on 18 January.

“According to our staff, and through clinical observation, there was increased violence against women and children during and after the war,” said public relations coordinator for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP), Husam al-Nounou.

We can attribute this to the fact that most people were exposed to traumatic incidents during the war, and one way people react to stress is to become violent.”

GCMHP, which runs six clinics and treats an estimated 2,000 mental health patients a year, carried out a post-war assessment, interviewing about 3,500 Gaza residents, said al-Nounou.

This war was extremely harsh, people felt insecure, vulnerable and unable to protect themselves, their children and their families; when people were trapped at home this increased the stress and anxiety,” said al-Nounou.
No condemnation. No calls to seek justice for the abusers and rapists. No mention of Hamas, as the de facto government, being even slightly responsible.

If women are attacked and sexually assaulted in Gaza, the UN and other NGOs like the GCMHP bend over backwards to try to "understand" the circumstances that could lead to such abuse. The people were stressed, you see. When they are stressed, of course they become violent. And the unstated but implicit source of the stress was, of course....Israel. Hamas clearly is blameless, as are the Palestinian Arab men themselves.
Sahar (who wanted her family name omitted), aged 36, divorced her husband in February due to the physical and psychological abuse she endured leading up to and during the war.

“He beat me severely and I was fainting from the stress,” said Sahar. “He forced me to engage in sexual intercourse against my will.”

Sahar brings her two-year-old daughter to the Palestinian Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution (PCDCR) to visit the daughter’s father. The court ordered supervised visits after Sahar’s ex-husband and his brothers tried to take her daughter away by force.
He was just...stressed out! You have to be charitable to the abusers, after all. You need to understand where they are coming from. Just like you need to understand where terrorists get the idea that murdering dozens of civilians is a reasonable idea.

Has abuse of women increased in Sderot over the past eight years of stress under constant rocket bombardments?

Has any Israeli aggression even been excused, or contextualized, in a UN or other NGO article because the Israelis are under stress?

By the way, a women was stabbed to death in Gaza yesterday:
A Gazan woman from the Al-Maghazi Refugee Camp was found stabbed to death at her parent’s home Wednesday morning, officials said she was likely stabbed overnight.

The woman, who was 31-years-old, left the home of her husband following a violent argument and gone to stay with her parents; they found her bleeding and brought her to local hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Police said an autopsy was being performed, and did not identify any suspects.
A real head-scratcher, identifying a suspect. But whoever he is, you can be sure that he was under tremendous stress, so go easy on the poor guy.

The UN once again proves its utter depravity.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 58.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

  • Sunday, March 22, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
No honest observer can deny that Israel is held to a much higher moral standard than its neighbors by the rest of the world, both the West and even by Israel's enemies themselves.

The relevant question is, is this fair?

The people who criticize Israel justify this double standard on the basis of Israel's holding itself as a moral beacon for the world. As one commentator put it:
To start complaining that people actually hold you to the higher standards you claim for yourself would be hypocritical at best. It is frequently asserted that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East - a beacon of light in a region of darkness. Israel has a free press, and it claims to defend and uphold the rule of law. This should give Israel a moral edge over its enemies, including Hamas, and it does. But this coin has two sides: if you claim to respect higher standards than others, you should accept that others hold you to these higher standards. If the moral high ground is part and parcel of your reputation (some even say, your right to exist), then you should undertake every effort to safeguard it.
There is an interesting fallacy implicit in the part of the argument I bolded. Israel certainly claims to respect higher moral standards than her neighbors and enemies (others), but it is being judged by other Western nations (others.) The author conflates these "others" in making his (or her) argument, and once this is apparent the argument falls apart.

Even if all the accusations about Israel's behavior in Gaza are somehow true, it doesn't come close to putting Israel and Hamas on the same moral plane. Israel can still accurately claim to have the moral high ground compared to the Gazan terrorists.

Even without that fallacious use of the word "others," however, the more generalized argument in favor of double standards is that Israel, as a freedom-loving democracy, should be scrutinized against higher standards the same way that one would expect Mother Teresa to behave differently than Saddam Hussein.

There are three problems with this argument.

One is that when a person or a people set for themselves a higher standard, it is up to them to judge and enforce it, not third party observers. It is quite fair for objective third parties to judge Israel against the Geneva Conventions or any other standards that theoretically apply to everyone equally; it is quite unfair to hold Israel to any standards beyond that. One can observe that Israel falls short on occasion from its own self-imposed moral standards but it is quite hypocritical to judge Israel based on that. Only Israel has the right - and indeed the obligation - to judge its own people based on a higher moral code. When others do it, it is not based on morality; rather it is based on jealousy.

When one starts to judge Israel based on arbitrary "standards" beyond what is expected from others, it quickly devolves into an exercise of demonization - especially when these standards are set arbitrarily high, even beyond Israel's own self-imposed standards. Too often, Israel is judged against perfection, while others are merely judged against the status quo or their previous behaviors.

A second problem is that the people who judge Israel tend to base their definition of morality exclusively by how Israel treats the enemy. In the most simplistic terms, they argue that all death is bad and therefore war must minimize the deaths of the enemy. They tend to disregard the higher moral imperative of self-preservation. From their perspective, all human lives have equal value so therefore Israel has no right to value its own people's lives above those of her enemies. They apply this incredibly simplistic formula to Israel's actions and then conclude that Israel must be immoral by valuing her own lives higher. In other words, they impose their own warped sense of morality on others, and the others who have a different or more realistic moral code inevitably fall short.

This "moral" perspective then says "Israel has the right to defend her citizens" but cannot find a valid way, in its universe, for Israel to do just that. These people often do not believe in the validity of nation-states to begin with and they reject the idea that any war can be just. To them, a "moral" nation under siege must turn the other cheek and let its own citizens be terrorized because they find the alternative too distasteful. This is, ultimately, immorality being passed off as super-morality.

To these people, how terrorists act is irrelevant. Sure, they are immoral, but that doesn't give their victims an excuse to stoop to their level. You cannot ever go on the offensive against terror.

Which brings up the third issue - the idea of a "fair fight." According to Israel's critics, when a moral party is in a fight with an immoral party, the moral party must consciously give the immoral party the tactical advantage of not being bound by the accepted rules of war. While Israel's critics wil never hesitate to remind the world of Israel's huge military advantage, they will not look at how much of Israel's military budget is dedicated to expensive devices and methods meant purely to minimize deaths of both the enemy and Israel's citizens. A Qassam rocket is cheap, a fortified playground is expensive. A mortar meant to kill as many Jews as possible is much cheaper than a smart bomb that can be deflected at the last second if a civilian appears.

The problem is not only that Israel is being held to impossibly high standards, but that Israel's enemies are being held to no standards at all. A single civilian death on either side is a victory for Hamas and there is no outcry and little criticism about this self-evident fact.

Israel is not allowed to win, because a victory is considered immoral. Yet the artificial prolonging of the conflict, the coddling of the terrorists and the sympathy for those who want to see a literal genocide agains the Jews of the Middle East is what is, in fact, immoral. The problem is not simply a double standard; it is the application of a fundamentally immoral viewpoint as if it is truly an ideal.

Israel must constantly walk the fine line between the morality of protecting her citizens and the morality of minimizing damage to innocents on the other side. Her critics are not nearly as concerned about one side of that equation. And that is the problem in a nutshell.

Friday, March 20, 2009

  • Friday, March 20, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
Two more Palestinian Arabs were killed in separate tunnel accidents, bringing the self-death count to 58.

I cannot find it, but a couple of days ago I saw an article in a Palestinian Arab newspaper saying that the tunnel smugglers are using boys as young as 10 or 11 to shepherd smuggled goods through tunnels, and Egypt arrested a number of them. The story was spinning it by saying how desperate the boys families are to force them to work in the tunnels, and how they were ideal for the work because they are small and can make it through partially collapsed tunnels. There was nothing in the article about how the smugglers and the boys' families were concerned over endangering their lives.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Two Fatah members were killed in Central Gaza in another apparent "work accident." Fatah said they were on a "special mission" and were killed by Israeli shells, but Israel denied any activity in the area.

Israel arrested ten Hamas leaders in the West Bank in an apparent attempt to use them as leverage for Gilad Shalit. Hamas responded that this endangers the life of Shalit, which effectively means that they are threatening to kill him. No comment yet from "human rights" organizations.

Have you noticed that none of the families of PalArab prisoners in Israeli prisons ever protest the Hamas government to release Shalit so their relatives could get released?

Members of the "World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace" have entered Gaza to distribute aid and try to teach Gazans about peace. I don't know much about them but they also visited Sderot and met with children there, so at least they have the appearance of being sincere.

Here is why autotranslation does not work well for sports stories:
a leading Jaisp - matches concluded yesterday, the fifth week in a deferred annexation of neighboring institution beer and Orthodox Ramallah in the Premier Basketball League, organized by the Union of the Palestinian basketball sponsored by a mobile terminal and the martyr Ibrahim Ahtdhantha Lion in Far'a In the meeting on the progress of the outcome of the Orthodox versus 66 49 of the beer was cool and the game was marked by tension and lack of excitement.
At least the beer was cool.

A an Arab baby was born in Hebron with some baby teeth; Palestine Today regards this as a miracle and says "praise God." Natal teeth occur in about 1 in every 2000 births and could indicate a problem.

The 2009 Palestinian Arab self-death count is now at 56.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

  • Wednesday, March 18, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
From PCHR:
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 15:00pm on Monday, 16 March 2009, Zayed Jaradat was pronounced dead on arrival at Martyr Mohammed Yousif al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah city. The body was then transferred to the forensic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for further examination. Jaradat had been arrested by members of the police in the morning of Monday 15 March 2009. Police sources told PCHR that Jaradat had been detained in al-Quds Girls’ Secondary School, near al-‘Awda Square in the centre of Rafah. The police have been using the school as their headquarters since Israeli warplanes destroyed Rafah police station during their latest offensive on Gaza. According to the police sources, Jaradat was arrested on charges of drug possession.

A PCHR field worker, who visited the forensic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and took photographs of the body, witnessed traces of bruising throughout the body. The bruises were concentrated in the area around the neck and shoulders. The PCHR field worker also reported that Jaradat’s toenails had been removed. This indicates that Jaradat had been subject to torture during his detention.
Just another average day in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Perhaps George Galloway can add "toenail clipping"to his list of wonderful things Hamas does for Gazans.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 54.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

  • Sunday, March 15, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Los Angeles Times published two essays, both by Jews, about Zionism today. One was by Ben Ehrenreich, saying that Zionism is "the problem." The other is by Judea Pearl, asking "is anti-Zionism hate?"

One wonders if the LA Times would have an equally even-handed pair of essays asking whether assassination of newspaper editors is desirable or not. After all, there are two sides to every story, right?

Anyway, it is worthwhile to look at what Ehrenreich has to say, if only to expose the underlying errors in his thinking.
It's hard to imagine now, but in 1944, six years after Kristallnacht, Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, felt comfortable equating the Zionist ideal of Jewish statehood with "the concept of a racial state -- the Hitlerian concept." For most of the last century, a principled opposition to Zionism was a mainstream stance within American Judaism.
Indeed, not all Jews were Zionists in 1944. In fact, as Ehrenreich mentions, "Marxist Jews -- my grandparents among them -- tended to see Zionism, and all nationalisms, as a distraction from the more essential struggle between classes."

So does the fact that many Jews embraced Marxism in the 1930s and 1940s automatically make their beliefs relevant today? Ehrenreich might not have noticed, but there are precious few Communist states prospering today. Yet by his logic, the fact that many Jews didn't embrace Zionism sixty years ago is somehow an important fact today, I suppose in order to give him a pretext to hate contemporary Zionism and not feel quite so guilty about it.
To be Jewish, I was raised to believe, meant understanding oneself as a member of a tribe that over and over had been cast out, mistreated, slaughtered. Millenniums of oppression that preceded it did not entitle us to a homeland or a right to self-defense that superseded anyone else's. If they offered us anything exceptional, it was a perspective on oppression and an obligation born of the prophetic tradition: to act on behalf of the oppressed and to cry out at the oppressor.
So his ignoramus parents and grandparents knew nothing about what Judaism is, and Ehrenreich internalized this ignorance and now uses it to justify his bizarre beliefs? In his world, Jews must remain the eternal victims, always begging the powerful goyim for crumbs, until the wonderful day that Jews can become fully assimilated and disappear in the superior gentile culture. What a great representative of Judaism!
For the last several decades, though, it has been all but impossible to cry out against the Israeli state without being smeared as an anti-Semite, or worse. To question not just Israel's actions, but the Zionist tenets on which the state is founded, has for too long been regarded an almost unspeakable blasphemy.
No, in the case of Jews like Ehrenreich, just unspeakable ignorance.
The problem is fundamental: Founding a modern state on a single ethnic or religious identity in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse leads inexorably either to politics of exclusion (think of the 139-square-mile prison camp that Gaza has become) or to wholesale ethnic cleansing. Put simply, the problem is Zionism.
Interesting observation. Which areas in historic Palestine have no Jews and which have no Arabs? The people who claim that Zionists are "ethnic cleansers" never seem to mention the answer to that question.
The fate Buber foresaw is upon us: a nation that has lived in a state of war for decades, a quarter-million Arab citizens with second-class status and more than 5 million Palestinians deprived of the most basic political and human rights.
Notice the sleight-of-hand: if Israel has been in a state of war, the reason must be because of the Zionists! The Arabs would love to live in peace, if it wasn't for those pesky Zionists. While I of course am not allowed to mention this, this exactly mirrors the arguments of anti-semites: since Jews have been hated and kicked out of other countries for millenia, they must have done something to deserve it.
If two decades ago comparisons to the South African apartheid system felt like hyperbole, they now feel charitable. The white South African regime, for all its crimes, never attacked the Bantustans with anything like the destructive power Israel visited on Gaza in December and January, when nearly1,300 Palestinians were killed, one-third of them children.
Here the LA Times lets lies get thrown into the mix. No reliable source counts more than 280 children under 18 as being killed in Gaza, and many of the "children" were hardly innocent. Besides the fact that, according to Ehrenreich, Israel has literally no right to defend itself against Qassam rockets, which means that he believes that Israel is the only nation that has the moral imperative to let its citizens be killed with impunity.
Establishing a secular, pluralist, democratic government in Israel and Palestine would of course mean the abandonment of the Zionist dream. It might also mean the only salvation for the Jewish ideals of justice that date back to Jeremiah.
Ehrehreich seems to be blissfully ignorant of how peacefully Jews and Arabs lived together before Zionism. He seems to have forgotten that the victims of the 1929 riots were not Zionists, but Jews whose families had lived in Palestine for centuries. He is painfully unaware that the Arabs before 1948 never said "death to the Zionists" but "death to the Jews."

And, unbelievably, he thinks that his thought processes have something in common with Jewish prophets of old.

The worst part is that he believes that the accident of birth that caused him to be genealogically Jewish somehow makes him an authority of Judaism and on Jewish ideals. More sickening is that the LA Times believes the same thing.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

  • Thursday, March 12, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:
A young man from the West Bank town of Habla, south of Qalqiya, strangled his younger sister to death on Wednesday night before handing himself in to the police.

Qalqiliya police said the body of the 18-year-old girl in Habla. The police said that the 21-year-old suspect went to the police station in Qalqiliya and confessed to the killing.
Of course, the reason he did this must have been because of the "occupation," according to Amnesty International.

Together with a student being stabbed to death yesterday and a Gaza man being stabbed to death on Monday, the 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 53.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

  • Sunday, March 08, 2009
  • Elder of Ziyon
Another man died from a tunnel collapse a month ago.

The Corrie family is in Egypt en route to Gaza to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death at the house she was "defending."

George Galloway's aid convoy has made it to Rafah after its incredibly long journey from England.

Hamas is said to have had a meeting with Islamic Jihad to clarify their policy of firing rockets at Israel.

Hamas is denying that there are any secret prisons in Gaza, inviting human rights agencies to visit - the non secret prisons.

Morocco severed diplomatic relations with Iran, based on Tehran's territorial ambitions towards Bahrain as well as Shi'ite proselytizing in Morocco.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 50.

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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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