Dean's World

Another Peculiar Institution

Moe Freedman

Lee Harris has written a remarkable essay that explores the depths of The West's sympathy for Palestinian Terrorism, and why phrases like "the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people," "Zionist occupation" and "the cycle of violence" do nothing but muddle our understanding of the situation.

Posted by Moe Freedman | Permalink | Technorati Trackbacks

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Mike "Veeshir" Fisher (mail):

Gee, ya think? Now why didn't anybody else ever think of that.

2.28.2005 1:18pm

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Moe (mail) (www):

Mike, before you sneer, read the piece.

2.28.2005 1:21pm

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Michelle Dulak Thomson (mail):

Amen, Moe. It's very good, especially the long Palestine/Algeria comparison.

2.28.2005 2:45pm

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Dean Esmay (www):

It's right on the money. It should be distributed on every campus in America.

2.28.2005 2:47pm

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Michael Berger (mail):

The Zionists believed that the solution to Jew Hatred was being "a nation like all other nations". Surprise... Israel is now the one nation in the world whose legitimacy and right to exist is called into question by every nation in the world, with the exception of the United States. (And a minority of individuals throughout the world.)

Remarkable. 100 years ago the prophecies in Ezekiel (and others) about the nations of the world gathering for war against Jerusalem seemed fantastical. Today they seem rather plausible.

2.28.2005 4:43pm

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Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

I support Israel 100%. An enemy of the only Jewish nation on Earth is an enemy of all Jews everywhere. An enemy of the only free, pro-Western nation in the Near and Middle East is an enemy of the West, an enemy of the United States of America, an enemy of freedom. An enemy of Israel is my enemy.

2.28.2005 7:19pm

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Michael Berger (mail):

Steven,
Amen. And Blessings and Success to you and yours.

2.28.2005 9:16pm

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Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

Dear Michael Berger:

Thank you! And bless you and yours also.

2.28.2005 10:11pm

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Dean Esmay (www):

Wait 'til Michael finds out that Steven's a tribadism-worshipping polytheist. :-)

2.28.2005 10:46pm

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Michael Berger (mail):

Dean,
I'm aware. But a friend is a friend is a friend...

2.28.2005 11:42pm

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maor (mail):

I think the piece makes a very common mistake. It fails to mention that the "Zionist Occupation" has, since about 1995, been limited to what is called "Area C", which is more or less defined as the places where Palestinians happen not to live. That is, the Zionists are occupying empty land and land inhabited by Jews. The Palestinians live in the autonomous Areas A and B, where the Israeli Army is forbidden to go (Area A) or may go only in joint patrols with Palestinian "policemen" (Area B). Of course, all the laws in these areas (such as the one about capital punishment for selling land to Jews) are made and enforced by the Palestinians themselves (or at least their dictator or local warlord).

Now, I realize that the Palestinians would prefer sovereignty and territorial contiguity to a non-contiguous autonomy (and who wouldn't?), and I don't doubt they feel they deserve all that empty land, but lack of these things does not make much of an "occupation". It's also an unusually poor excuse to kill people (particularly as they have been promised sovereignty by Bush and Sharon as soon they stop being so damn violent), which is why apologists feel obliged to talk about all this awful "occupation" going on.

3.1.2005 6:21am

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Mike "Veeshir" Fisher (mail):

My point was that these points, "the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people," "Zionist occupation" and "the cycle of violence" do nothing but muddle our understanding of the situation. have been flowing around the right side of the blogosphere for years.

Go to Little Green Footballs and type "cycle of violence" into the search box. He's been ridiculing that particular phrase for years.

I watch Mosaic on LinkTV (the HateAmerikkka channel 375 on DirecTV). It's news programs from the Middle East in English. Try it. On the Arab countries' news the Israelis are always, "Zionist occupiers", Palestinian terrorism is always defended with the "legitimate aspirations" crap as if it has been Israel who's been doing the oppressing instead of the Arafish and his coterie of thugs.

I was sneering that such an article is even necessary, not that he wrote it.

3.1.2005 7:06am

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Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

Michael Berger wrote:
"Remarkable. 100 years ago the prophecies in Ezekiel (and others) about the nations of the world gathering for war against Jerusalem seemed fantastical. Today they seem rather plausible."

Indeed. Here's one Old Testament prophecy that I agree with completely:

The Lord said to Abraham:
"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing:
"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
-Genesis 12:2-3

That refers to the Hebrews or Children of Israel, today known as the Jewish people, who obviously are a Chosen People. May their G-d (and all Gods and Goddesses) bless and protect Israel and bless and protect the United States of America, haven and protector of all Jews everywhere.

3.1.2005 1:52pm

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Photon Courier (mail):

A very worthwhile essay. Some of his thoughts parallel those of Ralph Peters, who has usefully distinguished between "practical terrorism" and "apocalyptic terrorism" (which is basically what Lee calls "terror for the sake of terror")

But here's a question that needs to be addressed: In the US, at least, those who sympathize with Palestinian terrorism tend to be members of certain professions. They are *not* usually welders or farmers or supermarket managers or computer programmers. To a very significant extent, they are university professors and/or writers of some kind.

Why?

3.1.2005 7:25pm

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Michael Berger (mail):

Photon,
Perhaps here's a piece of the puzzle:

Professors must generate new ideas to be worthy of their elite intellectual status. So they must show why nonsense isn't really nonsense after all - they must defy reality and common sense to prove their value. So they are always coming up with the stupidest and wrongest ideas and the most clever defenses of them.

3.2.2005 1:17am