GENIUS FORUMS

They did? Whom?

Saint Simon of Trent. But...

In 1965, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church began to reinvestigate the story of Saint Simon and opened the trial records anew. Finally declaring the episode a fraud [citation needed], the cult of Saint Simon was suppressed by Pope Paul VI and the shrine erected to him was dismantled.

What an interesting Wikipedia page. it looks to have been written by someone endorsing the Blood Libel:

Simon of Trent (Simonino di Trento; born late 15th century, died c. March 21, 1475) was a boy from the city of Trento, Italy who was abducted by Ashkenazy Jews and killed for a blood ritual on Passover, a crime to which those responsible confessed, despite the insistence of modern hagiographers that such a thing could not have happened and that said confessions must have been obtained under duress.

Yeah, I noticed the messed up introduction. I thought of rewriting it, but I'd rather not deal with zealous anti-Semites.

There 60 Y chromosome lines in the Levant. Thus, there never was an "Abraham" or whoever for them all to descend from. There are 60 Y Chromosome lines in Europe, some of which are also found in the Levant. So, you cant sort out which are the "Semetic" lines.

When Cyrus freed the Jews, they didnt all go back to Israel. Many were already literate, and discovered how useful literacy was in business in a busy place like Babylon. But undoubtedly, they figured out there was money to made closer to the center of the Silk Road in Sogdia. There already were devotees of several religions traveling, doing pilgramages and evangelizing, so it'd be remarkable if some Jews didnt join the fray. And making some converts, which the historical record says eventually was a Sogdian king and his entire population. I can see the king converting, but Sogdian kings didnt have the power to convert an entire population; people were just too mobile.

Nevertheless, that Judaism, like so many other religions on the Silk Road, would have enjoyed a much wider following. The Torah, after all, dealt with this world, not the next, which made a lotta sense to the business minded. Then too, it presented a plausible history, whereas Confucian, Buddhist, Taoists, & Vedic texts spoke only of what was going on, not how we got there. And further, there were snippets of oral tradition that resonated with stuff like Noah's flood.

We see how the Jews that Trajan hauled off to Rome dispersed. Why would we not think that those taken to Babylon did not also disperse? But the Silk Road was a whole nother trip. No tyrant ever had much control over very much of it for very long until the whole show was shut down by the hegemonic greed of Islam. It was only the competition among independent city states that limited the cost of government, and when that government was united by Islam, it sucked out all the profits.

Which drove the Jews, both descended from Israel but mostly new converts, into Europe especially of those personality types who viewed the world as a materialistic struggle without any ultimate divine plan. Both the rise of Judaism and then the much more massive rise of Islam were the result of information cascade.
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Nr8 ... cd=3&gl=us

As is the official report on 911, which is coming under increasing pressure as boomers, who were in a position to know something in 2001 go into retirement, and therefore out of group think. The planners of 911 fucked up. Had they instead planted the explosives so that the towers would fall into each other, not only would it have made much better video, but it would have avoided the charges of controlled demolition. Nobody had ever brought down a building that way.

Just like the War in Iraq, they knew how to do shock and awe, but didnt really consider the psychological effects that would come after the immediate shock wore off. They didnt see the information cascade that would build on the Internet going against their plan any more than they saw the insurrection coming in Iraq.

vicdan wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:They are not just a religion, agreed. But they are certainly not just an ethnicity.

Nonetheless, we are an ethnicity, with all the corresponding rights as a people.

I surely hope you weren't assuming I was arguing for something else. What I did bring to the table were two items: the strong religious component of the ethnicity alongside the pure religious Jew which makes it a special case when reviewing the 'Jew' and his culture, and the choice of land to live in as a people.

Stalin supported it because Israel was being founded by Labor Zionists, who were socialists (albeit largely of the anarcho- variety), and Stalin thought that Israel could be added to the Soviet sphere of influence. He got disabused of that notion very soon, but that was the reason for his initial support for Israel.

That's a likely motive. It shows how geopolitical this whole proposition was and not as much humanitarian. The refusal of the Arabs to go along with the scheme, and the attitude of the Brits become even more understandable this way. The whole story is way more complex of course, and subject to many interpretations and likely outside the scope for now.

Next thing you want to give all the Kurds their own nation too, part of Turkey or Iraq.

As a matter of fact, I do. They are the largest people in the world without a country, and they have a right to one. now mind you, the right to political self-determination can be fulfilled by political autonomy rather than statehood, but that';s up to them to decide. I support free Kurdistan.

Support all you want but full autonomy within Iraq means civil war with the Arabs and Turkmen and autonomy in Turkey would mean a similar thing (it's there already since a long while in the terrorist pre-civil war stages). As an aside: it would be interesting to know who is training and arming the PKK last two years and why.

It isn't hard to see that aiming for full autonomy for the Jews in Palestine was a mistake. The price was too high, too bloody for all sides. The pipedream won't work there and neither for the Kurds, no matter how much force applied, square pegs do not fit in round holes.

But I was talking about the selection of Palestine itself which was the only location to be acceptable to the hesitating majority of (religious) Jews, if there had to be a location at all. The desire for self-determination doesn't have to equal a militant struggle to get a specific piece of land which already has other disagreeing inhabitants too. Not anymore in the 20th century.

That was the only option at the time -- and note that most israelis do not support the drive for biblical Greater Israel.

It was the only option mainly because of religious reasons, Vic. If you want I could dig that up for you. You're right that there was not much support for the Greater Israel.

No, they didn't live in "Israel". Perhaps I'm too subtle for you: the archaeological facts lead to a Kingdom of Judah, centered around Jerusalem. All ideas about the greater Israel are not yet proven

Well, good thing nobody sane is driving for Greater Israel then, huh?..

Ah, I see, I did write 'greater' Israel here not realizing for a moment that's also used as a very specific term. I meant greater than the Kingdom of Judah (like the 'Northern Kingdom' or parts of it). My bad.

All Judean history is contained in a few hundred years before CE

IIRC the oldest discovered written records of jewish habitation in israel date to about 11th century BCE.

I'd love to see your reference of anything beyond 700 BCE. The Torah itself is probably not constructed before 538 BCE using various sources which can only be reconstructed somewhat by analysis. Of course many of the events, people and places have older references but not 'Jew specific', in other words one cannot establish a certain Jewish identity attached to it as being significantly different from a more general Canaanite.

I hope you don't walk away again when someone calls your bluff.

The Zionists, in their desire to find a "safe haven" picked a spot which was mostly mythical if we follow the UN partition scheme.

the UN partition scheme was drawn according to population lines, not biblical lines.

And the population lines were based on.....? Right: rapidly growing settlements in areas where the Jews believed to have dominated in the past. They might indeed have lived there and certainly desired it but it's doubtful they ever had anything close to a state there. Anyway, the population was way too mixed to divide it all in that way, a recipe for disaster, a war waiting to happen with the strategical vulnerabilities. Sharing the land under one plural government would have been the only sane option. With perhaps one Jewish province, like the Kurdish province in Iraq which worked well if not for militant nationalist, or as some call them: terrorists, who aim for something more.

Looking at the population figures at the time, one could wonder about this 'safe haven' argument too. Did they really expect to find relative peace in that area when already in the first stages of immigration the reception was so bad? As such for 'Israel' or the Zionist desire for a state there, it cannot be else than a strong religious drive lying underneath any nationalist verbose. Or else it's just stupidity, hard to tell the difference at times.

have you noticed that jews in israel have proven themselves quite capable of keeping themselves safe? They repulsed every single attack, and now Israel is the regional superpower. Not that crazy, was it?..

They are absolutely unsafe and not self-sufficient and there's nothing to be proud of regarding the situation. Maybe if they can cut ties with the US and make peace with Syria, some progress could be made.

You are just trying to justify a pre-determined conclusion now, dude. The fact is that Zionist had been mostly driven by the secular nationalist sentiment all along -- Israel the land of our fathers, not Israel the land promised to us by the biblical god.

The God of your forefathers or the forefathers of that God? Think about it for a change.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Support all you want but full autonomy within Iraq means civil war with the Arabs and Turkmen

Why?

It isn't hard to see that aiming for full autonomy for the Jews in Palestine was a mistake. The price was too high, too bloody for all sides.

Nope. I disagree strongly. The price was jsutified. We have a homeland once again.

The pipedream won't work there and neither for the Kurds, no matter how much force applied, square pegs do not fit in round holes.

Nationhood, political self-determination, as a round peg in a square hole? What are you smoking?

It was the only option mainly because of religious reasons, Vic.

Nope, historical ones.

I'd love to see your reference of anything beyond 700 BCE.

I was actually wrong -- the earliest mention of israel goes back to 13th century BCE, 1213-1203 to be exact: the Merneptah Stele.

I hope you don't walk away again when someone calls your bluff.

Be disingenuous much?!.

I don't bluff, dude; and I certainly don't walk away from my claims.

And the population lines were based on.....? Right: rapidly growing settlements in areas where the Jews believed to have dominated in the past. They might indeed have lived there and certainly desired it but it's doubtful they ever had anything close to a state there.

it has nothing to do with prior statehood. Palestinains never had a state anywhere, yet they still have a right to political self-determination. What matters is where the home is, not which state controls it.

Anyway, the population was way too mixed to divide it all in that way, a recipe for disaster, a war waiting to happen with the strategical vulnerabilities. Sharing the land under one plural government would have been the only sane option.

Never. A major impetus behind the creation of israel was to create a jewish nation-state, a homeland where we could be safe. The one-state solution does not accomplish that, especially in light of arabic anti-semitism.

With perhaps one Jewish province, like the Kurdish province in Iraq which worked well if not for militant nationalist, or as some call them: terrorists, who aim for something more.

Kurds seem content enough with autonomy rather than full sovereignty, but it's their choice to make. They have a right to political self-determination, and nothing can take that away.

They are absolutely unsafe and not self-sufficient

They are safe enough, having achieved the status of a regional superpower and a nuclear state (oneof only four nuclear states on the world with a full nuclear triad no less); and very few states in today's world are self-sufficient, because globalization binds us all together. holding that against Israel smacks of a predetermined agenda to delegitimize it.

there's nothing to be proud of regarding the situation.

I find plenty to be proud of about Israel.

victor wrote:You are just trying to justify a pre-determined conclusion now, dude. The fact is that Zionist had been mostly driven by the secular nationalist sentiment all along -- Israel the land of our fathers, not Israel the land promised to us by the biblical god.

The God of your forefathers or the forefathers of that God? Think about it for a change.

Huh? I said 'the land of my fathers', not 'the god of my fathers'.

"One government" hasnt worked in Lebanon, has yet to work in Iraq without the iron fist of someone like Saddam, or in Afghanistan without the brutal zealotry of the Taliban, and it has yet to be tried for the Kurds. It wouldna worked in Palestine either. Islamic zealots would have been running around, as we see them do now in Iraq, murdering Jews, just like they now murder those they regard as Islamic heretics.

The ragheads still are what Aristotle said, "Chaloric". Which we now know is due to testosterone overdose. Which wouldnt be so bad, but their misogyny has driven most of the smart women out of the Islamic world, and now all they breed with are airheads. So, they still have the instinct to want to dominate as their forefathers did in establishing the Islamic empire with the sword, but now are not smart enuf to actually succeed at it.

Whereas the Jews came from Europe that has always had far more liberated and powerful women who were able to demand higher levels of self control in their men. Which Aristotle also understood about European men.

But we are where we are. Israel is not going away. The technology to control a border will keep on improving. The ability to track the money used to support terrorists will become more effective. Non-lethal means of stopping suspects will be used, and then new lie detection technologies will be used to determine if any given suspect knows anything useful. Torture is obsolete, and you cant run a terrorist organization with secrecy.

The notion of 'crime' will give way to "mental pathology". The zealot will be seen as demented, put on meds, and sent home to his momma to monitor his meds. If she cant control him, then they'll put his balls in a bag in a freezer. Studies of the DNA will be used to warn women about bearing a boy sired by a jackass.

daybrown wrote:

"I surprise myself every day. You get used to it. I dunno that I am ever as clear as I hope to be, which is to be expected existing in a projected, and somewhat ambiguous virtual reality. I am basically a Turing machine running on somewhat buggy software, that however, permits what passes for my thinking to run down unusual directions.

"The recorded database, ie history, that I have access to is not necessarily what is presented to you, or anyone else. But with regard to 911, Jewish control of the media was necessary, but not sufficient. *CHRISTIAN* cooperation was also required. If we did not have Christians in power, 911 would not have happened."

Generally speaking, I appreciate what you write, and it seems to me that you have learned to accept that perhaps the greater part of 'life' (human activity) is alogical, not logical. Well, that is what I think anyway, and it seems to me that you seem aware of this too. Oddly enough, in a significant way, that leaves one with 'irony' and a strange form of Machiavellian realism, oh and Art.

It seems to me that the real power that runs everything, and I am not referring to some otherworldly metaphysic, is something that we just can't quite bring into focus, can't ever really examine, but that is closer to us than our own beating heart. Maybe to examine it is too painful? So we always have to lie. We humans may have idealism, we may even express it from time to time, but the real motive force that runs the world is power, just raw power. But it is not just in 'les autres' (l'infer, c'est les autres)to quote Sartre, it is also in us, because that is how we operate too, really. The better that we know ourselves, the better that we really understand the world. And there you have it, the world.

I don't really get into the debate (did all this qualify as a 'debate'?) about Israel and the Palestinians, or Jewish identity, or battling the anti-semites like Quixote battling windmills. But in terms of a computer program (to extend this metaphor), if you look at the Gospels, there was Jesus who had come down to Earth to lead the people of the Earth to Jerusalem. Everything might have gone alright were it not for those devilish Jews, the Scribes and the Pharisees, who are intimately connected to the Satanic force, that Satan who through Judas delivered the poisonous kiss, betraying all the possibilities of Heaven, God's good-will, and a heaven-scented future. Mel Gibson even jazzed up that crazy, crazy movie of his to show a mysterious, semi-physical serpant scurrying about just before Judas' betrayal.

Let me tell you folks, my gentile darlings, you tend to see that slithering snake still! oh yes! over 1000 years of creepy stories told to you by your priests in those Medieval hamlets, it informs your psychology, you still dream those dreams! One can hope you'll make the decision to wake up, someday. There are nicer dreams to dream.

But---and this is very interesting of course---you also had and you really must have a 'Rome' in there too, and Rome represents (or rather is) terrestrial authority, the state, but more than that 'Rome' means any sort of temporal authority that rules and directs men! All rulership (all good and time-tested rulership) is based on more or less the same principles of rulership, and these are hard, earthly rules that deal with crude and basic facts about life here. In all terrestrial management, the basic equation, the basic reduction, is to raw power and the way it is weilded. Granted, there are some strange excesses expressed by temporal authority on the planet today and much that can and should be critiqued, but I honestly do not think that the Christian idealistic dogma, and all the distortions that have arisen from it, can be of any real help to us in constructing a 'sane world'. It is all based on some unreal assumptions, and some very strange hallucinations!

But in this story, along comes God's representative who is betrayed by these terrible Jews, and those who work with and for 'the Jews', and right there too is the terrestrial authority, which by its very nature must needs be opposed to Jesusonian idealism and the coming Kingdom. It is all fine and dandy to utter some idealistic wishful thinking as you contemplate the realm you are right on the verge of leaving---or maybe you never really arrived? and maybe your leaving is a kind of suicide?---but it really seems to me that the whole machinery of Christian idealism is the problem from which we have to rid ourselves, because as it is the Christian mind will always, and does always, identify 'the Jew' as the essential agent of Satan who works in cahoots with 'Rome' to suppress the 'Kingdom of Heaven' which is HERE, spread all over the Earth yet invisible! What is it that keeps the Kingdom of Heaven (*genuflections*) from manifesting? Huh? What is it? Well, I'll tell you: it is the devilish capitalistic media-controlling Jew who has bought everything up, all the unholy malls on the way to earthly Jerusalem! World Jewry in cahoots with the now American Rome and jaded Pontius Pilate who washes his hands of evrything! but Judea all over again, at the forefront, just as pesky as ever, in the same dammed tele-novela as in Luke and Mathew and Paul!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sum total of the anti-Jewish 'argument'! And you heard it here, on a forum dedicated to Genius, from me, the GrEaT AshKenaaZ, one of a hundred disembodied intelligences that runs your world from a non-descript back room of a research facility at Tel Aviv University!

vicdan wrote:The price was jsutified. We have a homeland once again.

Altogether now! Kush mir in tokhes!

I like this version better. And you can kiss your own ass.

Sounds like the Chipmunks on steroids.

It's the Barry Sisters, dude -- famous Yiddish Jazz act from the 50ies. If you cannot appreciate musical authenticity, that's your problem.

They authentically sound like the Chipmunks on steroids.

<And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sum total of the anti-Jewish 'argument'! And you heard it here, on a forum dedicated to Genius, from me, the GrEaT AshKenaaZ, one of a hundred disembodied intelligences that runs your world from a non-discript back room of a research facility at Tel Aviv University!>
When you combine "information cascade" with mass neurosis, simple answers like the Jews running everything become credible. I find the Vedic notion of a 3D virtual reality filled with, as you say, "alogical" avatars, whose programming is even more faulty than mine.

I took Latin college because I knew I had no facility for language, or so my english teachers told me, and expected I'd forget it all fairly soon, which I pretty much did. But I did run across something peculiar. In Matt V, when Jesus suggests that his 'turn the other cheek' is more noble than the Torah's, "eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth", when you speak that last phrase in English or Hebrew, and compare it with Latin, which is "gene de gens, dene de dens", the rhythm to Roman ears forms part of the information cascade of Christianity that eventually over ran the empire.

But then, after college, I got around to actually reading the Bible. Cover to cover. Only, I started with the New testament, which put these incidents like that above fresh in my mind, then read the Old. Well, it turns out, there are only 3 places in the Torah where "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" is found.

In Exodus 21:24, we see that the phrase does not, in fact, justify revenge, but is the punishment for revenge. And in Leviticus 24:20, it means that the stranger shall be punished the same as the Jew. ie, equal justice before the law. Last, in Deuteronomy 19:16, we see that it means that the false witness in court shall suffer that which he had intended for another.

Huh??? I mean people have looked at the fucking book for nearly 2000 years, and nobody picked up on the fact that either Jesus did not actually know what the phrase in the law meant, or- that he knew, but let his audience go on with that misunderstanding of the law in their minds in order that he might appear more noble before them?

I asked a rabbi about this once. He said that Jews didnt like to make trouble. Gas chambers didnt make him rethink that? I can understand how Hitler and the Nazis wanted to destroy Christianity, but had not read the Bible. After all, they didnt read Nietzsche either. But there must have been some in Germany who picked up on this, and they never clued the propagandists?

No, no, none of that makes sense. What seems more reasonable, is that the few sentient beings, if there be any, are on a kind of stage, where only certain aspects of the plot are even conceivable. Its like asking questions of a video game avatar. It responds only when the question fits within the programming. All other questions are totally ignored.

The current issue of Hustler has some anti-Christian rants. I've tried writing to those people too, but got no feedback. I've posted the scripture on Christian lists, and again, the neurotic minds dwell on the meaning of some ancillary part of the context. The only diff between them and the psychotics I've seen in clinical settings, is that within the range of their programming, like working for a living, they are functional. Like androids.

I can do the same with 911, talk about the studies by Milgram & Bandura on obediance, Zimbardo on authority, Janis on group think, and now this business of "information cascade" to explain why the masses think they way they do, and how the manipulation of mass media actually works. But none of the defenders of the official 911 report are able to consider that it works with *them*.

Dan Rowden wrote:

vicdan wrote:The price was jsutified. We have a homeland once again.

Altogether now! Kush mir in tokhes!

Username: vicdan
Location: Western MA, USA
.7\()/@
...|| ;
....\\
___LL___

lol? O_o

D: And the population lines were based on.....? Right: rapidly growing settlements in areas where the Jews believed to have dominated in the past. They might indeed have lived there and certainly desired it but it's doubtful they ever had anything close to a state there.

V: it has nothing to do with prior statehood. Palestinains never had a state anywhere, yet they still have a right to political self-determination. What matters is where the home is, not which state controls it.

And, back one page, V: Yes, kiddo, palestinians have a right to political self-determination too (though not a 'right of return'). I support the two-state solution. That in no way negates the fact that jews also have a right to political self-determination, as a people, as recognized by UN ICCPR and ICECSR. Do try to keep to the topic, dear.

So, let me see how this ticks over in your Jewish head.

Palestinians and Jews (as peoples) have the right to political self-determination, by which we mean for the Jews a nation-state and for the Palestinians, sovereignty over their own people with a state to be defined (since they do not have the “right of return,” according to you) not by where their home is, but by where Israel decides their home should be because Arabs are “anti-Semitic?”

Wow.

[laughs] Seriously, that's fucking incredible!

Leyla,

Palestinians and Jews (as peoples) have the right to political self-determination, by which we mean for the Jews a nation-state and for the Palestinians, sovereignty over their own people with a state to be defined (since they do not have the “right of return,” according to you) not by where their home is, but by where Israel decides their home should be because Arabs are “anti-Semitic?”

Wow.

It's all fine when might makes right. That's what he believes, and when I called him on it, he told me I was ranting and to fuck off.

Iolaus wrote:It's all fine when might makes right. That's what he believes, and when I called him on it, he told me I was ranting and to fuck off.

I also told you that i was up for an actual discussion rather than ranting, but I see you refrained from taking me up on that.

I am not surprised. Ranting is much easier than understanding, and you, frankly, aren't smart enough to do more than rant.

Leyla Shen wrote:So, let me see how this ticks over in your Jewish head.

'cuz everyone know, jews have different head-tickers from everyone else, right?..

leyla Shen wrote:Palestinians and Jews (as peoples) have the right to political self-determination, by which we mean for the Jews a nation-state and for the Palestinians, sovereignty over their own people with a state to be defined (since they do not have the “right of return,” according to you) not by where their home is, but by where Israel decides their home should be because Arabs are “anti-Semitic?”

Close, but not quite.

They have a right to their state in region mutually agreed upon. ideally, it would have been the 1947 partition that would determine it, but as history has shown, the 1947 partition was not viable for Israel's survival given the enmity (and yes, outright anti-semitism) of the neighboring arab states.

The basic point is this. The rights of peoples, just like the rights of individuals, are often mutually infringing. There is no clean, mutually-exclusive partitioning of rights. There is no easy solution. The fact that such conflicts exist is not a demerit of the rights or peoples in question, but an artifact of the real world. Your amazement stems not from the problem with the situation as I outlined it, but from your abject misunderstandings of the situation and the relevant factors (such as nationalism, human rights, ethnicity, etc.)

There is no easy solution here. Palestinians do have a right to their homeland, and that right does not exist on Israel's sufferance. Nonetheless, jews have such a right too, and Israel had a right to ensure its continued existence. Any solution, if it ever emerges, will be a compromise, with all sides losing something. I have no idea what that compromise should be.

Now take your disingenuous amazement, wrap it up until it's all sharp corners, and stuff it where the sun don't shine -- and come back to me when you are prepared to deal with the reality on the ground, not the fantasy in your deluded head.

It seems to me that Israel will never, ever allow any homeland for Palestinians that could ever become a platform for significant violence against Israel. You sort of have to start from some simple basic facts. You have to put yourself in other people's shoes, and you also have to see that you wouldn't allow such a thing either, if you were in a similar position. I guess this fact is hard for some people, or doesn't seem 'fair', but the more that I have looked at the issue, the more it looks to me that the people who demand this sort of 'fairness', in fact don't really care at all about Israel or about Jews and their historical problems, and so their 'good-hearted recommendations' are actually manifestations of their contempt of Jews, who they in fact would really like to see destroyed.

Again, I personally think it stems from those dreary Gospel narratives, so destructive to Jewry, such a terrible frame-up. Because Pontius Pilate asked 'the Jews' who they wanted to live, Barabas or Jesus, and they clammored for Barabas, but even Pilate warned them, and had them affirm and reaffirm the decision, that they would take the blood of Jesus onto their heads, and their childrens heads, and their childrens children, on down the line, and what this means is that the Jew is supposed to suffer, and if he is not suffering, this is almost intolerale to the Christian sense of justice, and if he is not suffering, well, he can be made to suffer, and so Christians become the agents of Jewish suffering, and this is somehow in accord with the Divine Order.

This pretty much describes the last 1500 years of Jewish experience in Europe, and that is why I keep recommending Trachtenberg's The Devil and the Jews and also Malcom Hay, Europe and the Jews. If you want to understand Israel, and Jewish relationship to Israel, you have to understand this material, I submit.

Personally, I think there is a dark and bad-faith game that is being played, and everyone seems to play into it. Like, all this crap about Justice for the Palestinians (form out of the moths of Lefty type Westerners) and all this raising of banners and marching about in protest of what the (now) Nazi Jews are doing, these evils more evil than evil ('ah ha! we busted them! we know what these lying Jews are about! we see them!'). I think it is really a series of mascarades, and neither the Arabs or the Israelis are fooled, really. The Arabs are pretty clear that they want Israel destroyed, and if they could do it, they would. But they couldn't, they missed their opportunity, and they too could only see the Jew as a miserable being while he dwelled int heir lands, and they would perhaps deign him to exist if he were sufficiently miserable, and sort of downtrodden, but if he rises out of that condition, the Jew is a direct and visible abomination to Mohamed Himself, and the very sight of a successful Israel boils the blood of so many Arabs.

But there s always hope, now isn't there? History is a long process and who knows how things will turn out? Right now, things go well for Israel, but we all know that things could change fast, and history itself is no friend of the Jews, now is it?

So, Israel and Jewry basically understand these facts, and they are visceral, physical facts, no playing in daisy fields of childish idealism and vain illusions, it is a basic knowing that doesn't require much rationalization, you see. Israel exists as a Jewsih homeland, and everything will be done to protect Israel as a homeland, and no state shall come into existence that (*duh!*) could be used as a staging ground for its anihilation, and for Jews it is indeed that serious, as it would be for you if you were in a similar situation.

So, there is all sorts of 'discourses', there are reams and reams of 'useless' conversation, all manner of 'debate', but for us (I really feel) the issue is so much more simple, so much more basic. Israel exists and will continue to exist. True, 'you' might be able to engineer its destruction, or to subconsciously cooperate with mortal enemies of Israel, and maybe 'you' could contribute to real damage to Israel, to some new slaughter, which you'd propbably like to see, if the truth were told, and it would satisfy your sense of Justice. If that is what you want to work for, then by all means have at it.

But I don't think you want to go there. I mean, don't go there. You are not going to be successful in pulling off what was pulled off 50 years ago, so disabuse yourselves of the hope.

You want peace and stability, work within the context of the present to create it, and don't just pretend you want it, like intoning some meaningless slogan, not knowing that your left hand wills one thing while your right hand wills another. Let's stop the stupid pretense. I really believe, although the Jew Haters here will see this as an outright and bald lie, that Israel wants peace and is very capable of living in peace. Jews live very nicely in many different countries and bring many benefits, far more benefits than deficits, as I see things. But Jewry doesn't have any illusions about the dangers in the present, and rarely lets its guard down, for obvious reasons: it knows how to distinguish its friends from its enemies.

Those are my thoughts on the matter, more or less unedited.

vicdan wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Support all you want but full autonomy within Iraq means civil war with the Arabs and Turkmen

Why?

Since they are living in the same area as the Kurds, many of them since many ages and while not minding being a minority in a shared territory they will rise up the moment the Kurds would declare a state in any manner. Luckily many Kurds are aware of this but already violence is flaring up in that area by the very thought of it happening.

The pipedream won't work there and neither for the Kurds, no matter how much force applied, square pegs do not fit in round holes.

Nationhood, political self-determination, as a round peg in a square hole? What are you smoking?

It's a matter of writing oneself into ones own history and call it nationalism. That never works for long.

It was the only option mainly because of religious reasons, Vic.

Nope, historical ones.

It were (believed) historical ones for the secular nationalists because their religious scriptures listed national heroes, kingdoms and conquests in that area. But for a majority decision also the more traditonal religious people had to be on board and they approached it from an even more religious perspective.

I'd love to see your reference of anything beyond 700 BCE.

I was actually wrong -- the earliest mention of israel goes back to 13th century BCE, 1213-1203 to be exact: the Merneptah Stele.

That says not even one iota about "Jewish habitation in Israel". Now you're changing the evidence to a completely different issue of the existence of the name 'Israel' in relation to certain Canaanite tribes or people, or nomads. If you'd think about it a moment longer you'd realize that 'Israel' as hieroglyph could only be translated by comparing it with later references to a certain area in or inhabitants of Canaan using the same glyph. So we don't even have a literal word 'Israel', we have some label given and also used in later times for specific Hebrews or Canaanite tribes which is only suspected to coincide with biblical history of the Jews. It would be interesting to have more detail on the labeling of 'Israel' in Egyptian records through the ages and I'm willing to look into it if someone is interested.

This is what your Wikipedia article says by the way:

...the hieroglyphs which refer to Israel instead employ "the determinative sign reserved for foreign peoples: a throw stick plus a man and a woman over three vertical plural lines. This sign is typically used by the Egyptians to signify nomadic groups or peoples without a fixed city-state, thus implying a seminomadic or rural status" for Israel in Merneptah's Year 5

Really, when it comes to these matter there's hardly any fact to base decisions or claims on. And it's amusing you throw the same stuff around as the average uninformed bible basher in discussions. I'm sure it's just coincidence.

I don't bluff, dude; and I certainly don't walk away from my claims.

Excuse me for assuming you'd walk away here with another convenient 'headache'. I've had quite a few biblical discussions over the last decade or so with many biblical teachers and rabbis and they all had to eat their words or left in disgust without answering the challenges. Why would you be any different? How much is invested? I've seen it all before and learned all the weasel words.

And the population lines were based on.....? Right: rapidly growing settlements in areas where the Jews believed to have dominated in the past. They might indeed have lived there and certainly desired it but it's doubtful they ever had anything close to a state there.

it has nothing to do with prior statehood. Palestinains never had a state anywhere, yet they still have a right to political self-determination. What matters is where the home is, not which state controls it.

The nationalist movement had everything to do with the supposed glory days and its heroes. They were its very fuel, totally merged with Jewish national identity and pride.

Anyway, the population was way too mixed to divide it all in that way, a recipe for disaster, a war waiting to happen with the strategical vulnerabilities. Sharing the land under one plural government would have been the only sane option.

Never. A major impetus behind the creation of israel was to create a jewish nation-state, a homeland where we could be safe. The one-state solution does not accomplish that, especially in light of arabic anti-semitism.

Yeah, the two-state solution really addressed this antisemitism. Now every unfriendly nation with a nuclear program has to be feared, no, nuked just to hide from this ever rising 'antisemitism'. Why not just admitting the Israeli regime is judged by their actions and the anti-Zionist movement is a combination of political and national movements instead of invoking the ghost of antisemitism (which plays a part similar to Islamofobia - it's a superficial problem, one of the dumb masses).

With perhaps one Jewish province, like the Kurdish province in Iraq which worked well if not for militant nationalist, or as some call them: terrorists, who aim for something more.

Kurds seem content enough with autonomy rather than full sovereignty, but it's their choice to make. They have a right to political self-determination, and nothing can take that away.

Conscience, ethics and a general peaceful attitude can indeed be great stumbling blocks for a people;s self-determination. But don't let that get in your way, I don't care. I do care about it getting into truth's' way.

They are absolutely unsafe and not self-sufficient

They are safe enough, having achieved the status of a regional superpower and a nuclear state (oneof only four nuclear states on the world with a full nuclear triad no less); and very few states in today's world are self-sufficient, because globalization binds us all together. holding that against Israel smacks of a predetermined agenda to delegitimize it.

Might doesn't make right. Terrorism annihilates any aspirations globalists might dream of. This is in my view unavoidable, no matter how I despise terrorism from any state or people.

there's nothing to be proud of regarding the situation.

I find plenty to be proud of about Israel.

I especially admire their agricultural and aquacultural achievements. [I thought I'd say something positive for a change].

victor wrote:You are just trying to justify a pre-determined conclusion now, dude. The fact is that Zionist had been mostly driven by the secular nationalist sentiment all along -- Israel the land of our fathers, not Israel the land promised to us by the biblical god.

The God of your forefathers or the forefathers of that God? Think about it for a change.

Huh? I said 'the land of my fathers', not 'the god of my fathers'.

You don't have much sense for poetry, do you, crippled as it may have been? It was a play on the crucial (for the religious Jew) biblical saying about the "God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob".

Anyway, I meant to imply that all of your 'fathers' claimed any form of Israel historically on religious grounds and inspiration, and that it was not just about living there and sharing the land. And the most famous forefathers in the Jewish culture are still mythical, religious icons, not historical.

Alex Jacob wrote:Personally, I think there is a dark and bad-faith game that is being played, and everyone seems to play into it. Like, all this crap about Justice for the Palestinians (form out of the moths of Lefty type Westerners) and all this raising of banners and marching about in protest of what the (now) Nazi Jews are doing, these evils more evil than evil ('ah ha! we busted them! we know what these lying Jews are about! we see them!'). I think it is really a series of mascarades, and neither the Arabs or the Israelis are fooled, really. The Arabs are pretty clear that they want Israel destroyed, and if they could do it, they would. But they couldn't, they missed their opportunity, and they too could only see the Jew as a miserable being while he dwelled int heir lands, and they would perhaps deign him to exist if he were sufficiently miserable, and sort of downtrodden, but if he rises out of that condition, the Jew is a direct and visible abomination to Mohamed Himself, and the very sight of a successful Israel boils the blood of so many Arabs.

Ah, you seem to get it! I had written about it in some length here -- the intransigence or arab opposition to israel, the origin of this opposition, and its modern context; as well as how this relates to the evolution of faith through the entire abrahamic family of religions, from judaism to islam. I am obsessed with getting to the underlying causes...

But there s always hope, now isn't there? History is a long process and who knows how things will turn out? Right now, things go well for Israel, but we all know that things could change fast, and history itself is no friend of the Jews, now is it?

yes, there is hope, hopefully of a good kind. As they say in Russia, hope rides on hope using hope for reins -- hope is everywhere, it's all we got at the moment when the region comes to question. Me, I hope that the muslim societies will change enough to allow them to abandon their current corruption by faith.

I also hope for peace on earth and a chicken in every pot, did i mention that?