FOOLS_NIGHTMARE
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Gaza-Israel Conflict | 2023-2024
- Thread starter Ali_Baba
- Start date
FOOLS_NIGHTMARE
Elite Member
- Sep 25, 2018
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FOOLS_NIGHTMARE
Elite Member
- Sep 25, 2018
- 26,190
- 41,991
- Country of Origin
- Country of Residence
FOOLS_NIGHTMARE
Elite Member
- Sep 25, 2018
- 26,190
- 41,991
- Country of Origin
- Country of Residence
FOOLS_NIGHTMARE
Elite Member
- Sep 25, 2018
- 26,190
- 41,991
- Country of Origin
- Country of Residence
FOOLS_NIGHTMARE
Elite Member
- Sep 25, 2018
- 26,190
- 41,991
- Country of Origin
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Meengla
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I used to read Uri Avnery's articles many years ago. Just decided to see what he is doing these days and sadly saw that he passed away in August 2018. May his soul rest in peace. He was one of the Israeli peaceniks; he fought hard for the peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Below is his last article and they contain so many words of wisdom and warning to Israelis to mend their ways.
Israelis claim to own Palestine as their 'ancestral land' and yet also call themselves 'The Last Outpost of the West in the Middle East'. This article alludes to that stupid paradigm. Basically, it is a racist, exclusionary mindset which is already becoming Israel's rapid downfall.
YEARS AGO I had a friendly discussion with Ariel Sharon.
I told him: "I am first of all an Israeli. After that I am a Jew."
He responded heatedly: "I am first of all a Jew, and only after that an Israeli!"
That may look like an abstract debate. But in reality, this is the question that lies at the heart of all our basic problems. It is the core of the crisis which is now rending Israel apart.
THE IMMEDIATE cause of this crisis is the law that was adopted in great haste last week by the rightist Knesset majority. It is entitled "Basic Law: Israel the Nation State of the Jewish People".
This is a constitutional law. When Israel was founded during the war of 1948, it did not adopt a constitution. There was a problem with the Orthodox religious community, which made an agreed formula impossible. Instead David Ben-Gurion read out a "Declaration of Independence", which announced that "we are founding the Jewish State, namely the State of Israel".
The declaration did not become law. The Supreme Court adopted its principles without a legal basis. The new document, however, is a binding law.
So what is new about the new law, which at a first glance looks like a copy of the declaration? It contains two important omissions: the declaration spoke of a "Jewish and Democratic" state, and promised full equality between all its citizens, without regard to religion, ethnicity or sex.
All this has disappeared. No democracy. No equality. A state of the Jews, for the Jews, by the Jews.
THE FIRST to cry out were the Druze.
The Druze are a small and close-knit minority. They send their sons to serve in the Israeli army and police and consider themselves "blood brothers". Suddenly they have been robbed of all their legal rights and sense of belonging.
Are they Arabs or not? Muslims or not? That depends on who is speaking, where and what for. They threaten to demonstrate, to leave the army and generally rebel. Binyamin Netanyahu tries to bribe them, but they are a proud community.
However, the Druze are not the main point. The new law completely ignores the 1.8 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens, including the Bedouin and Christians. (No one even thinks about the hundreds of thousands of European Christians, who immigrated with their Jewish spouses and other relatives, mainly from Russia.)
The Arabic language with all its splendor, which until now was one of the two official languages, was demoted to a mere "special status", whatever that means.
(All this applies to Israel proper, not to the 5 million or so Arabs in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who have no rights at all.)
Netanyahu is defending this law like a lion against mounting criticism from within. He has publicly declared that all the Jewish critics of the law are leftists and traitors (synonyms), "who have forgotten what it is to be Jewish".
AND THAT is really the point.
Years ago, my friends and I asked the Supreme Court to change the "nationality" entry in our identity cards, from "Jewish" to “Israeli". The courts refused, stating that there is no Israeli nation. The official register recognizes almost a hundred nations, but not an Israeli one.
This curious situation started with the birth of Zionism in the late 19th century. It was a Jewish movement, designed to solve the Jewish Question. The settlers in Palestine were Jewish. The whole project was closely connected with Jewish tradition.
But once a second generation of settlers grew up, they felt uneasy about being just Jewish, like Jews in Brooklyn or Krakow. They felt that they were something new, different, special.
The most extreme were a small group of young poets and artists, who in 1941 formed an organization nicknamed "the Canaanites", who proclaimed that we were a new nation, a Hebrew one. In their enthusiasm they went to extremes, declaring that we have nothing to do with Jews abroad, and that there was no Arab nation – Arabs were just Hebrews who had adopted Islam.
Then there came the news of the Holocaust, the Canaanites were forgotten and everybody became remorseful super-Jews.
But not really. Without a conscious decision, the popular language of my generation adopted a clear distinction: Jewish Diaspora and Hebrew agriculture, Jewish history and Hebrew battalions, Jewish religion and Hebrew language.
When the British were here, I took part in dozens of demonstrations shouting "Free Immigration! Hebrew State!". I don't remember a single demonstration where anyone shouted "Jewish State!"
So why does the Declaration of Independence speak of a "Jewish State"? Simple: it was alluding to the UN resolution which decreed the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. The founders simply stated that we are now setting up this Jewish state.
Vladimir Jabotinsky, the legendary forefather of the Likud, wrote an anthem declaring "A Hebrew is the son of a prince".
ACTUALLY THIS is a natural process. A nation is a territorial unit. It is conditioned by its landscape, climate, history, neighbors.
When the British settled in America, they felt after some time that they were different from the British they had left behind in their island. They became Americans. The British convicts sent to the Far East became Australians. In two World Wars, Australians rushed to the rescue of Britain, but they are not British. They are a proud new nation. So are Canadians, New Zealanders, and Argentinians. And so are we.
Or would have been, if official ideology had allowed it. What has happened?
First of all, there was the huge immigration from the Arab world and Eastern Europe in the early fifties – for every one Hebrew there were two, three, four new immigrants, who considered themselves Jews.
Then there was the need for money and political support from the Jews abroad, especially in the US. These, while considering themselves full and true Americans (try and say they are not, you bloody anti-Semite!) are proud to have a Jewish State somewhere.
And then there was (and is!) a rigorous government policy of Judaization of everything. The present government has reached new heights. Active – even frantic – government actions try to Judaize education, culture, even sports. Orthodox Jews, a small minority in Israel, exert immense influence. Their votes in the Knesset are essential to the Netanyahu government.
WHEN THE State of Israel was founded, the term Hebrew was exchanged for the term Israeli. Hebrew is now only a language.
So is there an Israeli nation? Of course there is. Is there a Jewish nation? Of course there isn't.
Jews are members of an ethnic-religious people, dispersed throughout the world and belonging to many nations, with a strong feeling of affinity with Israel. We, in this country, belong to the Israeli nation, whose Hebrew members are part of the Jewish people.
It is crucial that we recognize this. It decides our outlook. Quite literally. Are we looking towards Jewish centers like New York, London, Paris and Berlin, or are we looking towards our neighbors, Damascus, Beirut and Cairo? Are we part of a region inhabited by Arabs? Do we realize that making peace with these Arabs, and especially the Palestinians, is the main task of this generation?
We are not temporary tenants in this country, ready at any moment to go and join our brother and sister Jews around the globe. We belong to this country and are going to live here for many generations to come, and therefore we must become peaceful neighbors in this region, which I called, 75 years ago, "the Semitic Region".
The new Nation Law, by its clearly semi-fascist nature, shows us how urgent this debate is. We must decide who we are, what we want, where we belong. Otherwise we will be condemned to a permanent state of impermanence.
Israelis claim to own Palestine as their 'ancestral land' and yet also call themselves 'The Last Outpost of the West in the Middle East'. This article alludes to that stupid paradigm. Basically, it is a racist, exclusionary mindset which is already becoming Israel's rapid downfall.
| Who the Hell Are We? |
| 04/08/18 |
I told him: "I am first of all an Israeli. After that I am a Jew."
He responded heatedly: "I am first of all a Jew, and only after that an Israeli!"
That may look like an abstract debate. But in reality, this is the question that lies at the heart of all our basic problems. It is the core of the crisis which is now rending Israel apart.
THE IMMEDIATE cause of this crisis is the law that was adopted in great haste last week by the rightist Knesset majority. It is entitled "Basic Law: Israel the Nation State of the Jewish People".
This is a constitutional law. When Israel was founded during the war of 1948, it did not adopt a constitution. There was a problem with the Orthodox religious community, which made an agreed formula impossible. Instead David Ben-Gurion read out a "Declaration of Independence", which announced that "we are founding the Jewish State, namely the State of Israel".
The declaration did not become law. The Supreme Court adopted its principles without a legal basis. The new document, however, is a binding law.
So what is new about the new law, which at a first glance looks like a copy of the declaration? It contains two important omissions: the declaration spoke of a "Jewish and Democratic" state, and promised full equality between all its citizens, without regard to religion, ethnicity or sex.
All this has disappeared. No democracy. No equality. A state of the Jews, for the Jews, by the Jews.
THE FIRST to cry out were the Druze.
The Druze are a small and close-knit minority. They send their sons to serve in the Israeli army and police and consider themselves "blood brothers". Suddenly they have been robbed of all their legal rights and sense of belonging.
Are they Arabs or not? Muslims or not? That depends on who is speaking, where and what for. They threaten to demonstrate, to leave the army and generally rebel. Binyamin Netanyahu tries to bribe them, but they are a proud community.
However, the Druze are not the main point. The new law completely ignores the 1.8 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens, including the Bedouin and Christians. (No one even thinks about the hundreds of thousands of European Christians, who immigrated with their Jewish spouses and other relatives, mainly from Russia.)
The Arabic language with all its splendor, which until now was one of the two official languages, was demoted to a mere "special status", whatever that means.
(All this applies to Israel proper, not to the 5 million or so Arabs in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who have no rights at all.)
Netanyahu is defending this law like a lion against mounting criticism from within. He has publicly declared that all the Jewish critics of the law are leftists and traitors (synonyms), "who have forgotten what it is to be Jewish".
AND THAT is really the point.
Years ago, my friends and I asked the Supreme Court to change the "nationality" entry in our identity cards, from "Jewish" to “Israeli". The courts refused, stating that there is no Israeli nation. The official register recognizes almost a hundred nations, but not an Israeli one.
This curious situation started with the birth of Zionism in the late 19th century. It was a Jewish movement, designed to solve the Jewish Question. The settlers in Palestine were Jewish. The whole project was closely connected with Jewish tradition.
But once a second generation of settlers grew up, they felt uneasy about being just Jewish, like Jews in Brooklyn or Krakow. They felt that they were something new, different, special.
The most extreme were a small group of young poets and artists, who in 1941 formed an organization nicknamed "the Canaanites", who proclaimed that we were a new nation, a Hebrew one. In their enthusiasm they went to extremes, declaring that we have nothing to do with Jews abroad, and that there was no Arab nation – Arabs were just Hebrews who had adopted Islam.
Then there came the news of the Holocaust, the Canaanites were forgotten and everybody became remorseful super-Jews.
But not really. Without a conscious decision, the popular language of my generation adopted a clear distinction: Jewish Diaspora and Hebrew agriculture, Jewish history and Hebrew battalions, Jewish religion and Hebrew language.
When the British were here, I took part in dozens of demonstrations shouting "Free Immigration! Hebrew State!". I don't remember a single demonstration where anyone shouted "Jewish State!"
So why does the Declaration of Independence speak of a "Jewish State"? Simple: it was alluding to the UN resolution which decreed the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. The founders simply stated that we are now setting up this Jewish state.
Vladimir Jabotinsky, the legendary forefather of the Likud, wrote an anthem declaring "A Hebrew is the son of a prince".
ACTUALLY THIS is a natural process. A nation is a territorial unit. It is conditioned by its landscape, climate, history, neighbors.
When the British settled in America, they felt after some time that they were different from the British they had left behind in their island. They became Americans. The British convicts sent to the Far East became Australians. In two World Wars, Australians rushed to the rescue of Britain, but they are not British. They are a proud new nation. So are Canadians, New Zealanders, and Argentinians. And so are we.
Or would have been, if official ideology had allowed it. What has happened?
First of all, there was the huge immigration from the Arab world and Eastern Europe in the early fifties – for every one Hebrew there were two, three, four new immigrants, who considered themselves Jews.
Then there was the need for money and political support from the Jews abroad, especially in the US. These, while considering themselves full and true Americans (try and say they are not, you bloody anti-Semite!) are proud to have a Jewish State somewhere.
And then there was (and is!) a rigorous government policy of Judaization of everything. The present government has reached new heights. Active – even frantic – government actions try to Judaize education, culture, even sports. Orthodox Jews, a small minority in Israel, exert immense influence. Their votes in the Knesset are essential to the Netanyahu government.
WHEN THE State of Israel was founded, the term Hebrew was exchanged for the term Israeli. Hebrew is now only a language.
So is there an Israeli nation? Of course there is. Is there a Jewish nation? Of course there isn't.
Jews are members of an ethnic-religious people, dispersed throughout the world and belonging to many nations, with a strong feeling of affinity with Israel. We, in this country, belong to the Israeli nation, whose Hebrew members are part of the Jewish people.
It is crucial that we recognize this. It decides our outlook. Quite literally. Are we looking towards Jewish centers like New York, London, Paris and Berlin, or are we looking towards our neighbors, Damascus, Beirut and Cairo? Are we part of a region inhabited by Arabs? Do we realize that making peace with these Arabs, and especially the Palestinians, is the main task of this generation?
We are not temporary tenants in this country, ready at any moment to go and join our brother and sister Jews around the globe. We belong to this country and are going to live here for many generations to come, and therefore we must become peaceful neighbors in this region, which I called, 75 years ago, "the Semitic Region".
The new Nation Law, by its clearly semi-fascist nature, shows us how urgent this debate is. We must decide who we are, what we want, where we belong. Otherwise we will be condemned to a permanent state of impermanence.
Meengla
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It is not beyond Israelis to engineer something in America or kill American soldiers based in the Middle East. It is not beyond Israelis to drop mini nukes in Lebanon and blame them as some 'dirty bomb' of Iranian origin accidentally exploded. And I believe, as much the CIA and FBI work with the Israelis, those agencies must be aware of the Israeli desires for such events.
If I can find a video where a respectable analyst is saying something like 'No question Israel is on its way to destruction; but my main worry is what they would do in the short term before that happens'. [Paraphrased].
BHAN85
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China is the big enemy of USA, and maybe for that reason, USA decided not to face China, and instead give things to them, to calm down them, to share the world peacefully with China, as USA drops empire provinces (Europe, Israel, GCC).
e.g: Ukraine war means a endless source of Russian natural gas for China, after nordstream blasts, that non-bought gas by Europe, it leaves free to be bought by China.
We must learn lessons from Iraq and Libya war to try to foresee future USA war movements.
Forget what USA says, because it's all lies, and observe what USA does, and never believe they make errors, they dont do, if you believe USA is making errors is because we lack information about USA true intentions.
Iraq and Libya war taught us that USA doesnt need domination to win in a war, they just destroy a country and that's enough to liberate resources consumption like crude oil to be bought by other countries.
In short: In this century USA wins wars just destroying things, they dont need to dominate, because survivors will fight each other to keep selling things to USA and USA partners.
Mehmed Beg
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I wouldn't be completely sure about Nixon
Mehmed Beg
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Major General at 37? Like this M F er was Galland or Molders.
Anyway he is in good hands now
Meengla
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Thought provoking post. You post like a true Eurasian! You, unlike several 'useful idiots' from Europe in this forum know that the fires ignited by the American Neo Cons in far off lands--Europe, Middle East, East/Southeast Asia-- benefit the Neo Cons at the expense of those other regions.
And if I were to be a cold, calculated person, then any boost in the American economy would ultimately help me. But I can't be that person! I would rather live under a bridge then to promote destruction of people anywhere! The vicious cycle of the Neo Con led war economy benefiting America/Americans need to be broken! America is inherently a very blessed nation, in both men and material. It doesn't need wars to sustain its riches.
A bit like Pakistan and Bangladesh
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