Caroline Glick has this video up today. It’s apt for Americans, especially those of us who stand with the Jews.
We all tend to look at life through the “I” filter. Thus the impact of any disaster is directly proportional to how far away it is from us and those we love.
So for Americans with strong ties to the tri-state are devastated by Hurricane Sandy, and especially for those who live right there in the center of that literally moldering aftermath, the total focus of time and energy and concern has narrowed to the mess all around them. The aftermath is indeed their center of gravity and will be so for a long time to come.
For our Sderot friends the focus is more severely mortal, more imminently disastrous and nerve-wrackingly random. Those living in the border towns across from Gaza learn to live from moment to moment. Or rather they attempt to do so. No one can live that way for long, wondering if today is it — the day they are blown off this mortal coil. The alternative is to numb out and get on with a daily routine that can be — and often is — interrupted by incoming death.
They have been much on my mind, these victims of the times in which they live. There are also many others in this wide world, similar others who are suffering simply because they exist at all. How dare they refuse to lie down and die for someone else’s convenience? How dare they continue an existence which is an affront to the haters?
Show me what you love and I have an inkling of who you are.
Show me what makes you angry and I know what you are.
Show me what drives you to spittle-flecked hatred and I know your underbelly, the raw ugliness that fuels the engines of your fears and nightmares.
I agree with Beck’s sentiments in that video clip: I stand with Israel. I stand with a people who made the desert bloom, who not only survive but transcend the unceasing hatred all around them.
Shalom, Israel.
23 comments:
Israel is what Bavaria was 2000 years ago. The same kind of wall ran through Bavaria, to protect civilization from constant assaults by the barbarians, as Israel has been pilloried for. Israel is the front line of the same front in which we are the back line. Thus people who love the West and feel at least some connection with Christianity cannot but support that beleaguered outpost. People who shower it with skewed accusations and fabricated "evicence" or hobble it with fictitious never-die peace malarkey -- and that includes a large percentage of Jews and of paleo-conservatives -- are enemies not only of Israel but of the West.
The battle line seems to run through Sderot, but it really runs through Oslo, London, Boston, San Francisco and Sydney.
Takuan Seiyo
Israel was never a Roman Bavaria or even worth of being a shadow of Constantinople. This is pure agit-prop.
Countries are not popularity contests, that's for high school prom queen wannabes and politicians. To think otherwise is well, just silly.
Nor are countries friends - though they may share common interests.
The U.S. and England did however share a common culture which is rather unique. We were their colony after all. I do care about them.
As for Israel, it is a powerful military entity that's just behind China in terms of firepower. They can lay waste to Russia and the ME with a push of a button. No one can stand against their army except the U.S.
What they do in their part of the world is their business, not ours. If Jews from around the world want to help that's fine. But the U.S. should keeps it's nose out of that cesspit region. I really don't care what the rich, military avoiding power brokers at AIPAC and Kristol's decrepit Neo-Cons think. They don't fight and die, it's some poor schmuck from Boise who does. It's all a big game to them.
Yes, I am a old school American. I take what Washington and the other founders wrote about foreign entanglements quite seriously. Historically most interventions, have done nothing for us except generate tremendous hostility around the world and wasted trillions on maintaining a globe spanning military empire. Which we simply cannot afford any more.
To me America and it's people and needs come first. Israel is more than capable at taking the Muzzies to back shed for a tune up.
@ Anon 6:43
Your response to my post shows a high degree of ignorance, bias, and much imbibing of Kool Aid from tainted sources. Claims such as that Israel can lay waste to Russia are about equivalent to those that Planet Earth is run by ZOG. Likewise, you unnecessarily treat moral support for Israel as if it were a call to wage wars on behalf of Israel or do anything for Israel that is a net sacrifice for America. I have not made such a call, am not a friend of the Kristols of this world, or AIPAC, and have not seen in any Israel-supporting posts by the editors of this blog such proclivities either.
Whether America should go to war for Israel, or American taxpayers docked for financial or materiel transfers to Israel (or Libya, Syria, etc), is a valid topic, it should be discussed, and there are valid contra arguments that can be made. It is evident, however, that you are not equipped to make them.
Takuan Seiyo
@ Takuan S-
What you said. In spades.
Much has been said about the present Gaza conflikt already , so I only feel the urge to add two angles which can bee seen better from my kitcenwindow , here where I live in Zikim 5 km from the Gaza border fence .
The first one is that inside 48 hours ,75,000 israeli reservists (incuding one of my sons , I am proud to say) were called up and formed in several independent battleready strikecoloumns , ready for WAR , not just for a limited borderconflikt , but ready to conquer Sinai again for the third time if necesary . Leading each group would be the newest Mercava 4 tanks with active armour capable of repelling 50 antitank misils before reloading .
The second thing is the performance of the civilian population i southern Israel . Nobody here had anything but support for the goverments policies , as long as the war went on . Only when the ceasefire where anounced , did the israeli equivavalent of ''Joe the plummer'' speak up , and he was now VERY angry with the politicians for ending the war too early , and for not starting the groundwar at all .
Ole Burde
We do not need you to fight our wars for us, we've proved our abilities to do that ourselves for 65 years now.
In most of them, besides selling us weapons, your government's actions were actually damaging to Israel, instead of being helpful.
Should I remind you how you stood idly by in 1948, when we were attacked by 5 armies, but we made it, despite all the odds.
1954 - you stopped us from keeping the Suez - wouldn't it be nice now if it were under our control, what do you say?
1967 - you've warned us to stand down, despite all the intel of the imminent attack - I'm glad we didn't listen to you then.
1973 when it took you almost too long to get us the weapons we so desperately needed, although, credit should be given to you when it's due, in the end you came through. Your actions in Iran in 1979 will cost us dearly, the not so funny thing is that we'll save your hide too, spilling our blood in the process, when the sh**t'll eventually hit the fan.
1981 - Iraq reactor was taken out, we did not tell you until that was over and boy I am sure you've been quietly thankful for that in your ventures in the region, weren't you?
You've brokered Oslo agreements, the same ones which led to more than 2000 Israeli civilians blown up in buses, coffee shops, pizza restaurants, banks, malls, Passover celebrations, stubbed, run over by the tracks,shot at on highways and murdered in their beds , whole families wiped out.
We gave up Sinai and Gaza strip - you've brokered that too, as well as Gaza Hamas takeover - the result of the democratic elections, nice peace of diplomacy that one was, no? Our people are the ones who pay the price of your good intentions. 12 years under constant rocket fire, more than 10000 of them fired on us, some of it purchased on the money you gave Hamas, while UN (largely financed by you) funds their schools where Gazan children are taught to hate us and celebrate events like 9/11 and Fogel's family vicious murderers.
Sometimes I wonder, with the friends like you who needs enemies?
You constantly remind us of the money you "give" us - most of which we have to spend in US, buying your weapons to protect us from those you sponsor and in exchange we have our hands tied and cannot conduct our business as we see fit.
You enjoy the technology we develop in all areas of modern life including medicine, agriculture, hightech, chemistry and military.
And yet you cannot bring yourselves to recognize our capital.
You continue to try and force us into agreements which are suicidal for us and call it a peace process, while you support our enemies with money and weapons....Should I go on ????
And yet, we know that there are Americans, who deeply care for us and our future. Who have common sense and read history books and are able to discern right from wrong despite all the brainwashing.
I know that countries cannot be friends, but people can.
We don't need you to fight our wars for us, to die for us.
What you can do, is voice your support, as Glenn Beck does, Allen West does and some of the others
- do it loud and clear and consistently.
And I want to thank them, I am deeply grateful, as are all of the Israelis - it warms our hearts and strengthens our resolve in this long,unjust, seemingly unending and exhausting fight for our own existence , which most of you never experienced and thank God for that.
I just wish someone would explain to me why there are so few of you who are aware of how wrong the things I mentioned here are and are willing to say so?
@ Emmy Lee,
Believe me there are people living in Western countries who love and support Israel and her people.
There are unfortunately plenty who do not; I was working with someone one day who started off equating Israel with the Nazis, one of the stupid ideas that seems to have gained traction among the brainwashed. I turned on him and said I was reading Max Hastings' book about the Pacific conflict. Outlined the similarities between the Japs, death cult, brainwashing children, beheading prisoners, superiority complex, etc - and Israel's enemies. And look what we did to the Japs! So don't stand there and criticise Israel with your asinine comparisons! Look at what they're surrounded by! Etc, etc. Give him his due, he admitted he'd never thought of it like that, & took it on board.
Anyway, just to let you know that there are some people who do things like support The Joseph Storehouse, CUFI etc, to try & help the people of Israel.
And btw, I've heard Americans again and again try to remind us Brits how they "saved" us from Hitler but none of them mention the price tag. The Yanks laid a massive invoice at Britain's door that more or less did Britain in, financially speaking. So did they help Britain? Yes, no question about it. Did they also serve their own interests? Absolutely. Stephen Ambrose makes this argument at the end of the ITV series, The World at War. And he's not wrong.
@Emmy Lee
That was a strong statement and I am not sure I am qualified to give you a full answer. One answer is already elucidated in my writings: the Jews are the eternal canary in the coalmine and litmus test for good and bad relative to all of humanity, whether it's 1400 BC or 32 AD, 1941 or 1948, and on to this very day.
Second, America's and the West's dependence on Arab (and other Muslim) oil is such that legitimate national interest issues have to be weighed against such national interest and moral issues as a pro-Israel position entails.
Third, there is the cowardice versus the force of 1 billion Muslims with major foothold now established in every Western country. This was set up by the spectacularly deluded mindsets and actions of European politicians in the 1950s, such as DeGaulle.
Fourth, there is the traditional antisemitism and romantic philoarabism in the foreign relations apparatus of all Western countries and most notable in the Arabist factions in Whitehall and Quai d'Orsay going back to the 19the century. In the U.S. too, and salient even in FDR and Truman (sic) administrations.
Fifth, you as an Israeli, and me as an American, have much to complain about American Jews as a group, and many prominent Jewish Americans as individuals. It's a large topic and I can't go into it here, but it is true that a disproportionate number of the neocon ideologues who have pushed America into Runaway-Empire lunacy, and are still pushing it so, and who oversaw the execution of that lunacy, are Jewish. The objectionable commenter above was not off the mark when mentioning Bill Kristol, and I could give you 50 more names here, including such as you wouldn't have thought of, e.g. Madeleine Albright and Wesley Clark. It's not wholly unreasonable for Joe Sixpack to develop a suspicion that a Jewish cabal is pushing the U.S. into wars for Israel's sake. Then, of course, you have the actions of the toxic anti-Israel Jews such as Soros and other leftist Jewish plutocrats whose anti-Israelism is unfairly forgotten but whose subversive activities to take down America and the whole traditional West taint flyover country's sentiments in an anti-Jewish direction that probably bleeds onto Israel issues too, though it shouln't.
Takuan Seiyo
To Emmy Lee:
I hang my head with shame as an American, reading what you wrote.
To answer your question on so few of us aware: the Israel haters have complete control of our media (helped by the Saudi Kingdom). The only Americans who know anything are those that bother to research the issue.
This American stands by you, and always will.
Takuan Seiyo: I am grateful for your comment.
Egghead
Anonymous, neither Albright nor Wesley Clark consider themselves Jews. Their policies were those of whom they served: Albright was a protégé and a disciple of Brzezinski, a Catholic and virulently anti-Semitic Pole and Wesley Clark, a part Jew was a part of the Clinton Democratic establishment. Soros, of cause, is an anti-Jew in his views, behavior.
It is common for anti-Semites to lach on to some Jews to justify their prejudices, and so, Jews are being seen as purveyor of Communism by one group, while another claims that they are dirty Capitalists who own all the banks and rule the economy.
And while the anti-Semites are busy hating Jews, the Muslims are gaining the control of the supposedly Jewish ruled press, buy controls of big banks, like Citi, try to buy the control over our ports and actually bought it in Europe, put their people a breath away from the President and the Secretary of State and in our Military.
While Buchannan and Ryans is this World rave about Americans being dragged into Israeli conflict and dying for the Jews, the reality is that Americans are dying on behalf of ungrateful Muslims. Every single war Americans were involved in since Vietnam was in Muslim countries or on behalf of Muslims : Lebanon, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Desert Storm, on behalf of Saudies and Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq. Never on behalf of Jews or Israel.
And while the Israel haters see the aid to Israel, they nether bother to add of those trillions spent on aid and support in Muslim countries and wars fought for.
That said, Soros is a despicable, malevolent man who does a lot of damage and should be exposed and fought. But that said, why not remember that it was Jimmy Carter and Brzezinski who gave us Theocratic and dangerous Iran, where friendly Shah regime was previously, as well as Taliban and Bin Laden. The Jews were mentioned were merely Court Jews doing the Administrations' bidding not the policy creators. Bush I and Bush II didn't go to war with Iraq because of Kristol or Wolfowitz pushed them to do so, but because the Bush Family is a wholly owned subsidiary of the House of Saud.
Takuan Seiyo and others
I see this is a fixation issue with you and others. Much like abortion is with Evangelicals. There is no middle-ground or alternative either total obedience to the cause or you're the enemy.
But sorry I don't fawn over foreign countries because some ex-pat and other faceless ciphers say so. Nor am I a fan of you vilifying Americans who want to withdraw from foreign entanglements. Nor of your anti-Catholic bigotry.
It's repugnant. I expect that sort of vitriol from the Left.
And no ignorance involved in my previous post, you just didn't like Israel being portrayed as a military a**kicker instead of a helpless victim because it runs counter to peoples agenda here.
The Left would call that a "hate fact" - facts that they don't like but cannot refute. And it looks the like Right has it's own "hate facts" as well.
So stop with the self-righteous anger. I see it all the time on Fox News, it's so transparent, it's laughable.
The bottom Line:
Israel has anywhere from 100-400 nuclear weapons and even sub-launched nuclear tipped cruise missiles. Yeah it's a open secret. They won't let anyone inspect their nuclear facilities.
It's Army is the forth largest in the world. The Israelis are quite capable of conventionally defeating any aggressor state.
Go read Janes.
You don't like it? Tough. As for the PNAC crowd, it ain't my fault the signatories of the document read like a cross between Neo-Cons and the GOP elite. The Left see's it and is one of the drivers of their anti-Semitism and allegiance with the Muzzies not to mention their hatred of the GOP.
And people on the Right are blind to this dynamic. Man are you guys dense or what. Google some of the big Lefty names like Matt Tiabbi, Dailykos, Alternet, etc. And include Neo-con.
The number of hits will amaze you.
That said, as I wrote previously, Israel is strong enough to take of itself,especially against a bunch of half-wits.
But Israel won't get a bit of my sympathy or money. That's for my fellow American, I'm a American, not a foreigner like Tak or others here. Others can do as they wish but leave me out it.
But since that's apparently now seen as a bigoted and anti-Conservative position by counter-jihad elites. That's their problem.
Feh.
Not quite spittle-flecked, but definitely a litany of things you hate.
some of your generalizations miss the mark: e.g., we're not anti-Catholic.
As for dailykos and soros...well, life is short - growing shorter by the minute - and there's not time to waste looking at what they have to say.
I'm glad you're an American and feel strongly about that.I agree. However, none of your arguments convinced me that coming to the aid of those who need food and clothing and help for their chronic complex PTSD is mis-directed.
I'm glad I'm an American. I'm also a Christian whose faith is indebted to Mosaic Law and Greek philosophy. Thus, I stand with Israel.
If there were extant in Greece a body of Greek philosophy and teachers to pose Socratic questions - with much bickering and cries of "heresy!" - why, I'd stand with them too. Particularly if they were being persecuted by their neighbors. But there isn't so I don't.
Here's to the original genius of Mosiac Law, and here's to the flourishing of Socratic thought, and here's to the amalgam of Jerusalem & Hellenic energy which fused them into the Christian faith. Here's to the Roman forms it took. Andlastly, here's to the founding generation of America's constitutional government.
@Anon 10:17
I think you don't see the whole picture. Anon 2:36 doesn't see the other side of the picture; he misses so much of it that I have to bow out from that one. But I would like to address the part that you miss.
The argument that Albright and Clark don’t consider themselves Jews and that they or other Bush “Court Jews” were just doing the bidding of their masters does not work. Same goes for the different of set of Jews now surrounding BHO.
Genrikh Jagoda, Yakov Sverdlov, Yakov Yurovsky and other vilest Bolshevik leaders and actual murderers (in Hungary and Poland too) did not consider themselves Jews either and were just doing the bidding of their masters. Their gentile victims, however, and their families and their people remembered that these were Jews, and as the number in such positions was vastly disproportionate to their ratio in the population, it would have been impossible for this not to stoke antisemitism.
You are evading the truth also by talking of Soros and “some Jews” and blaming the antisemites, when there are vast numbers of Jews who were and are the bedrock of the American Communist Party, and all of its Socialist parties including the current Democrats, and fomenting dissent and “community organizing” among the Blacks etc. There are at least 25 prominent Jewish names linked to the CV of Obama alone, without whom he’d probably never even have made Harvard Law, let alone the U.S. Senate and the White House. Or look a little more closely at the 35 or so Jewish names in the US Congress.
While you are right about the antisemitic mindset, and Muz-building wars that America is fighting, the truth about Jews remains that they are disproportionately concentrated in groups that an American patriot cannot but find repugnant. And the more aggressive these top-level Jews get, which they get even as I put these words on paper, the more antisemitism will grow. Sane Jews have to find the courage to look truth squarely in the face and declare somehow: these do not speak for me; the 78% of Jewish votes that went to BHO in 2008, and 69% in 2012, they do not speak for me.
Note that with all the above, Anon 2:36 sees ma as an un-American non-American vilifier of Americans, Zionist tool and anti-Catholic bigot. And he is very mild, I assure you. MacDonald & Co. consider me a tool of ZOG, and if you read some of the antisemitic hate mail I get, though I do not consider myself Jewish either, had a non-Jewish mother and am a Christian from birth, your hair would stand on end.
Takuan Seiyo
I stand with Israel.
Russia should stand with Israel too.
Takuan Seiyo: I am AGAIN grateful for your second comment.
Perhaps you should take the time to address Anon 2:36. People like me would be interested in your ideas.
Thanks again! :)
Egghead
@Egghead
Thank you for your kind remarks. It's a subject I have much to say about, to both sides, as I come from both sides, have a store of family experiences and historical info that comes from both sides, and, unlike Our Great Leader, I have not thrown either side under the bus.
Alas, it's not so simple. Dealing with Jew-and/or-Israel haters is a task so big -- for the hate is big and very old -- that one should really make it one's primary occupation in life, and be paid for it too. I could, for instance, refute the whole McDonald theory if I spent as much time on the refuting as he has on the constructing -- for it is a solid academic work reprehensible not in the myriad of researched facts it's based on, but in the myriad of facts excluded so that the theory hold. But why isn't one of the 1000 qualified Jewish professors doing this, on his paid university time?
I could also write a few more pieces critical of the American Jewish establishment, including explaining, for instance, why the ADL is not only incapable of refuting intelligent anti-Jewish voices like McDonald's or anti-Israeli voice like Buchanan's, but actually works hard to deepen such negative attitudes. But what's the market for such material? There are no American Jewish outlets I am aware of that would publish such material, and such as would, e.g. all things Occidental and "Alternative" Right, I would not touch with a pole.
Besides, by now we have to be concerned about survival of our entire civilization, and it's there where I'd like to make a contribution. I'll return to the issue of interest to you in suitable spots impinging on that larger issue.
Takuan Seiyo
To Takuan:
This is a small point but I don't think that Albright and Clark's activies in the Clinton Administration (the Balkans war) benefited Israel or was meant to--quite the contrary.
It does seem like a great many people with stellar careers are of Jewish background or have some Jewish ethnicity. So Jews are conspicuous.
I'm not conversant with Jewish publications but I know that The Jewish Tribune in Toronto trends conservative and might welcome a rebuttal to MacDonald or even an article critical of the ADL.
Also there are some websites owned by Jews including David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com and Pamela Geller's AtlasShrugs.com which have been critical of leftwing and liberal Jews and Jewish groups.
I'm sure there are other Jewish publications in print and online that are conservative. Like you, I don't have the time to do the research.
Probably NewEnglishReview.org would print much of what you write (since they've already done so) but I don't know how much of an audience they have.
At least one commentator sees the Jewish vote flipping and becoming conservative with 15 years or so due to changing demographics. See http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/romney-won-%90-in-jewish-orthodox-new-york-districts/
I'm sorry Baron and Dymphna, I can't seem to do a hyperlink and shorten the URL.
I'm not suggesting that you undertake such works--I agree that this should be the job of tenured, Jewish professors who have light teaching loads. But, alas, like the rest of our educated elite, they are liberals who seem to have lost the ability to respond rationally to political, religious, historical and cultural realty.
@Anon 1:53
The question “What’s good for Israel” is separate from “What’s good for the Jews,” and both are different from “What’s good for America-and-the-World per the Progressive Script.” Jews are hyper-active in all three areas even though most of their activities in all three are spectacularly destructive to America, to Israel and to themselves, plus the latter two categories comprise agendas incompatible with the first. Albright/ Clark clearly belong in the 3rd category, which is no comfort.
The other items you mentions are obvious. If you’ve read anything I have written you should know that I am already aware of things like that and it’s been taken under consideration. Horowitz’s efforts are great; he is doing a fantastic job. However, like NER, Commentary and other outlets run by “conservative” Jews or publishing articles by “conservative” Jewish authors, they stay away or inveigh on the wrong side in all that relates to race, ethnicity and immigration – and these happen to be the three major fissures into which America is sinking.
There is actually superb work done in this area by a few samizdat journalists of Jewish origins, and even professors, e.g. Nicholas Stix, Paul Gottfried, but to get published they have to go to publications that are hostile to Israel, to Jews, or to both.
Takuan Seiyo
"The question “What’s good for Israel” is separate from “What’s good for the Jews,” and both are different from “What’s good for America-and-the-World per the Progressive Script.” Jews are hyper-active in all three areas even though most of their activities in all three are spectacularly destructive to America, to Israel and to themselves, plus the latter two categories comprise agendas incompatible with the first."
This is how I see it. But, the destruction entails the entire West rather than only America.
The other major point is that the barest whisper of awareness and/or criticism of the destructiveness is immediately and 'conclusively' labeled to be anti-Semitism - even when awareness is crucial to stop the destruction and criticism is well-warranted.
Egghead
@Egghead
The Bible describes many instances of this syndrome of Jewish resistance to criticism and rebuke, with disastrous consequences, to them. That's what almost all the Jewish prophets / spiritual revivalists were about, the most salient of which, in the rebuke they received, were Jeremiah and Jesus. In more recent times, Spinoza.
However, I have just visited the other side of this syndrome, and it really felt like being in a can of crazed worms. And it's not on some secret Nazi website but the comments section of Zerohedge.com. You have to be educated and intelligent to hang out at Zerohedge, yet one article after another dealing with the Gaza issue is filled with comments by lunatics of the most egregious kind: ignorant and hateful.
To give you a small sample: Palestinians are the Philistines, i.e. the original inhabitants of Israel in Biblical times. For another one, the Palestinians are the real Israel, the ten tribes. For quite a few, the Jews are not the Jews; they are an unholy mixture of Khazars and other Turkoman people plus some dregs from the Caucasus and the Balkans. Their ancestors had never lived in Israel, and the whole setup of a "Jewish" state in 1948 is a fraud. On and on in every possible permutation, and in tones and vocabulary that are almost certainly not by Muslim authors.
Messy business, all that.
Takuan Seiyo
Takuan Seiyo: Thanks for your elaboration. :)
Egghead
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