GENIUS FORUMS

Tomas wrote:Now kids, calm down! Leyla has provided an avenue (by-way) to begin this from Day One. Granted, brokenhead is too stupid to refrain from opening his mouth and then coming back and whimpering to Dan (the man) that he is ignorant (note: rant) in many of these few threads that escapes his pea-brain of a parakeet brain .. this coming from someone who repeatedly brags about teaching graduate students (shades of Mikiel's 174-178 IQ) the facts of life.

You miserable, crotchety old weasel. I don't brag about anything, let alone repeatedly. Back up your accusation, asshole. Link to the posts where I brag. Linking seems to be your only talent. Just what the hell do you think you are contributing? All you do is surf the web all day and paste links here as if the rest of us don't know how to use Google. Then you snipe at everyone else without ever presenting a coherent viewpoint of your own, unless of course your viewpoint is that everybody else is full of shit, except Dan and the other board admins you always suck up to. The reason you snipe is because nobody reads any of your posts and it's the only way you can get the attention you so obviously are lacking in your life. You're just a lonely, pathetic old bastard that thinks his shit doesn't stink. Go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

Alex, are you now saying: it's none of our business? Even mainstream commentators all around the world would admit that the Israel-Palestine struggle is defining for the whole Middle-East stability.

There can be no progress with stabilizing and enabling the Middle-East and curtailing related radical ideological networks that are spreading to Asia, Africa and Europe as we speak, without addressing the shape and form of Israel and Israeli policies. Aligned to that the US policies regarding them and some other Middle Eastern regimes.

What's the stake for the average participant on forums like this? Perhaps the threat of radical Islam on the Western doorsteps, radicals who feel justified by the plight of the Palestinians and the rather obvious injustice in the amount of support (for example in the UN security council voting records) that one nation keeps giving, blocking the rest of the world in even raising a formal voice. One nation and some smaller allies hiding under its coat.

Perhaps the dependence of the energy market on the dynamics of that area. And the obvious consequences if the energy market will be threatened. Wars are often about energy, after all, if not religion. Energy = money times religion squared

Perhaps also friends and family some of us might have in places closer or in these tension zones. We're not all living in a bubble like you sometimes seem to reason from. As I wrote earlier, not in jest, we're all Jews now.

One correction though, you understood me in a wrong way earlier. I should have known because you have misinterpreted almost everything I said to you that goes against the pre-judgment you made on scanning this forum. Here's the item:

Alex Jacob wrote:

Diebert does not like the whole notion of 'Jewishness', and anything that comes from it.

Only as pure religion, bro. Only when applied universally to human beings, no matter which ethnics or gender. In that way I understand, live and breath Judaism, Christianity and a whole lot of other opiates.

I sympathize with your plight, sincerely.

No, you don't even understand: I meant I liked the whole notion, understand, live and breath it when universally applied to being human, thinking and suffering. Which should be obvious from a lot of other things I wrote. Which can only mean you have a huge readers block or a very tiny understanding of the things you like to pontificate about. You are clearly a loyal reader of books and a lover of writing but your progress as thinker seems seriously impaired. And really: seriously, compared to the level of writing you keep on demonstrating. But the thought that goes in clear writing is not of the same character as the thought that goes in clearheaded thinking. The latter can breed the first but the first cannot breed the latter.

Diebert writes:

"No, you don't even understand: I meant I liked the whole notion, understand, live and breath it when universally applied to being human, thinking and suffering. Which should be obvious from a lot of other things I wrote. Which can only mean you have a huge readers block or a very tiny understanding of the things you like to pontificate about."

Or that your writing was unclear. At the end of the paragraph I misunderstood, you tacked on 'a whole lot of other opiates'. As in, the opiate of the people, etc. When you speak in those terms---psychosis, hallucination, opiates---it is always with negative connotation, something you have to be cured of. Little wonder I misunderstood.

"Which should be obvious from a lot of other things I wrote".

No, friend, not everything is so obvious as you think, not in regard to you. My actual and honest perception is that the more that I press on you, and you-plural (Dan, David, Kevin, etc), the more that you receed, the more you disappear, the more that you cease to have tangible existence. I think it is perhaps the natural outcome of the philosophies you entertain and I find it quite curious.

Today is bath-day for me, my friend. My feathers a gummy, I smell like a gutter-parakeet, and y'all have given me a fucking head-ache, so I'll have to get back to you later about the rest.

.


Obama, world crisis and the new world order

-snip-

In order to change nothing, the appearance of everything has to change. In fact, only the surface has to change a bit; the new president's darker skin. For everything else, it was business as usual. Indeed the cabinet of the new president is made up of the same reckless people. Let's see! We have...

Old faces in Obama's new government:

-Click URL for complete article-

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13759&size=A

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Dan Rowden wrote:Unfortunately, "facts" are seldom facts. Basically, I don't buy the "Jews" as victims routine anymore than I buy the women as victims routine.

Well, facts are always facts, but I agree they are seldom just facts. You have to see the spin if you want to assess them fairly. And that is just my point. Look at who is doing the spinning. The most credible data we have for how the Holocaust went down is from the Germans, who are apparently anal-retentive documentarians. Most Germans today do not deny the Holocaust occurred or the extent of its enormity. They can't. They themselves provide the pictures and the footage and the detailed records - and that is just the material that survived the frantic last minute attempt to eradicate the evidence. If you have any doubt, go visit Dachau.

But I agree with what you say here about the "women as victims routine." Look at the bottom line: every year, there are more males born into the world, yet the number of women always exceeds that of men. Women live far longer. And women occupy exactly the same socioeconomic strata that men do - for every rich man, there is at least one rich woman, usually several of them getting to "maintain the lifestyle to which they have grown accustomed." The bottom line is that the female is the more evolutionarily successful sex because there are always more of them.

What I am trying to call your attention to is this:

It's their entire history they propagandize. I don't even take the WW11 events into account in my judgements.

Why not? If it was before your lifetime, it was only just so. The formation of Israel, however heavy-handed, came right on the heels of these very events which you are saying you don't take into consideration. I submit to you that the Jews who first streamed into the new state of Israel had little left to lose.

Look, I can agree that two political wrongs do not somehow equal political rights or entitlements. But you cannot just ignore causes when you do not like the effects. It is and has always been an unjust world. The facts are that though so many Jews were annihilated during the wars years, many more were not and yet were physically displaced from their homes and stripped of their belongings and forced to flee elsewhere to start over. Where is this elsewhere? What country flung it arms open wide to admit refugees?

Attempts to redress historical inequities are always fraught with contention. For instance, in America, when does Affirmative Action cease to be a solution and start to become more of a problem, even for African Americans? There is no clear-cut line and resentment has proven to be inescapable. But if it is true that when we forget history we end up repeating it, it is no less true when we deliberately ignore it.

The world falls for their viewpoint. If it didn't, I wouldn't care.

I don't believe for a second that the world has suddenly fallen for the Jewish statehood viewpoint and has for the first time in history become Zionist. If any non-Jew in the world has become a Zionist, it is only a manifestation of the NIMBY syndrome. I may even be guilty of NIMBYism myself, and yet I am not a Zionist. The UN hasn't carved up southeast Pennsylvania like it has Africa and Palestine, so I remain as neutral as possible. I have neither the desire nor the intent to defend Israel's expansionist policies, and why should I when many Israelis do not?

My only point in this thread is that to believe that the Jews have exaggerated their persecution in the last century is patently misguided. I don't think such exaggeration is even possible. You and I may get tired of hearing about it and seeing the ramifications of US hegemony in the Middle East, but to say there are no historical roots for the situation is to ignore, well, the facts.

But I'll confine any further thoughts on this to Leyla's thread.

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-samadhi-
I have no particular dislike of Clinton

-tomas-
Well Sam, I'll tell yuh somethin'. Some things never change. I've met her a few times, going back almost 30 years now. She's been pleasant every time. Last time was in early 1995.




-Thin Lizzy-
The one thing she did that makes me hope she does not win was right around when it first came out that she was going to run for Office. In an email, she asked her supposed closest friend Oprah Winfrey to be her running mate. Oprah thought it was a joke and jokingly replied "No, I'm used to being in charge. How about if I run and you be my running mate?"

-tomas-
[In hindsight] Wouldda been another winning combination!




-Our Thin Lizzy continues-
Hilliary blew up and ended their friendship.

-tomas-
Fake friends of a feather flock together..




-Thin Lizzy goes code red-
If one can not communicate well with one's friends and can't take a joke,

-tomas-
The back stabbers..




-Thin Lizzy muses-
I don't want that person to have their finger over the button of a nuclear weapon.

-tomas-
Shouldda voted for Sarah (what's her name, again)?




-Thin Lizzy admits-
Actually, I wouldn't trust that woman with a handgun,

-tomas-
Super Dave Hodges will get behind her .. and steady .. her quivering waist, er, wrist.




-Thin Lizzy-
much less trust her in the position of Commander in Chief over the US military.

-tomas-
Looks like she's the next Secretary of State :-)

PS - Lizzy-Belle, look on the bright side .. she's down-a-ways in the order of succession .. after Nancy Pelosi :-)

Democracy - what a beautiful choice :-/


Kevin Solway for president!!!

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Alex Jacob wrote:Dan, do you drool when you talk? Some of the shit you say is really, really stooopid.

Yes, you love to make this sort of statement, then follow it up with, precisely, nothing. You're really just all theatre, aren't you, Alex?

And while I am on the subject, jerk, you can ban me at any time, I will only laugh at you, you pathetic moronic loser!

I am not moronic.

In your 'argumentation' you say that the persecution of Jews arises from their 'dopey religion', failing to grasp that the persecution of greatest relevance came from Christians in the Western countries.

Jews have always persecuted and been persecuted (this tends to be normal for humans with idiotic beliefs in case you hadn't noticed). Certain forms of persecution they have suffered has arisen out of other dopey religions.

I don't think there is any other instance in any other history where a people---'the Jews'---was represented in sacred texts in such a way that, following the story-line, they are linked to a satanic force, and are of course hated and rejected---and made to suffer---for that reason.

Interesting that most Xian nations have actually invited Jews into their fold, mostly for reasons of their supposed economic prowess. When they go wrong, however, they really go wrong. It's funny that Xians need Jews so much, even if in the same way they need Judas.

The Roman dislike of Jews had limits, and arose more from the Jewish refusal to be ruled.

Yeah, so, what makes Jews special in that sense? Oh, I know - nothing whatsoever.

But I don't think it approached the later, European variety called anti-Semitism. I don't think, at least I have never heard it expressed that way, that Jews suppose they have been 'more persecuted' than others, what makes the difference is the nature of the persecution, the reasons for the persecution, and that the persecution arose in strange circumstances.

Persecution tends to be peculiar to circumstance. I'm not sure you said anything profound there.

If you had even a minimal sort of basic familiarity with the history, and with all the different ramifications of that history, you could not even formulate some of these idiotic statements you have just made.

I have a far better knowledge of that history than you imagine. It's just that I don't interpret like you do - i.e. as a sniveling, victim mentality Jew. Btw, I regard any form of victimhood as sniveling in nature.

You are an embarrassment to a true community of genius. I therefor insist that you wear the GF Dunce Hat for a week! It is for your own good.

I've never found you funny, witty, nor interesting, so spare me the attempts at these.

I do appreciate what you wrote above, Broke, in your first recent post, but with the rest (I suggest this as a possibility) you have engaged with someone who embodies, almost precisely, a skewed grasp of 'real history',

I'm so glad you parenthesized the words "real history".

and is a perfect ground for pure animus and something approaching hatred.

See, this is the exact sort of rhetoric I will not tolerate in this discussion. It is sad and pathetic and typically Jewish!

Just try to get to the bottom of that. The reason it is often referred to as 'the new anti-Semitism' is because it just keeps morphing and shifting, and yet it seems to arise with every generation.

Genuine, prejudiced anti-Jewishness and anti-zionism certainly exists, but as I said before, I will not tolerate it here as a retort to views that differ with conventional zionist views of Jewish history and reality. It is insulting, trolling nonsense. It is not an argument. It is an ad hominem fallacy of the very worst kind. It's right up there and almost identical to calling someone a misogynist because they differ from the conventional feminist view of history and reality.

[Why do I have this feeling that my days are numbered?

If you continue to use anti-semitism as a retort to posters who are simply making arguments with which you differ, your days will indeed be numbered. I don't care to have posters insulted in such a fashion. If you can't make an argument without resorting to that sort of stupidity, then you clearly don't have any argument and should recuse yourself from the debate.

Dan, you can suck my dick. I have no intention of abiding by any ultimatums of yours, and I don't give a flying unholy fuck if you ban me or if you don't. Can I make this any clearer? If you want to ban me, then just do it, but shut up about it.

Be still! And know that I am Weisenheimer!

All of the comments in your post above belie your ignorance of the issues that surround these questions. In this conversation, right now, you are the troll. You have nothing to contribute to it, so why don't you bug the fuck out of it?

brokenhead wrote:

Dan Rowden wrote:Unfortunately, "facts" are seldom facts. Basically, I don't buy the "Jews" as victims routine anymore than I buy the women as victims routine.

Well, facts are always facts, but I agree they are seldom just facts. You have to see the spin if you want to assess them fairly. And that is just my point. Look at who is doing the spinning.

I know exactly who is doing it.

The most credible data we have for how the Holocaust went down is from the Germans, who are apparently anal-retentive documentarians.

Yes, that's an important point when considering the historical claims of the scale of death, which are undoubtedly exaggerated. One has to remember that a Jewish "holocaust", and one associated with the number 6, is part of Jewish eschatology. Jews were claiming a holocaust at the time of WW1, and no doubt multiple other times.

Most Germans today do not deny the Holocaust occurred or the extent of its enormity. They can't. They themselves provide the pictures and the footage and the detailed records - and that is just the material that survived the frantic last minute attempt to eradicate the evidence. If you have any doubt, go visit Dachau.

There's no doubt at all that a major tragedy took place - I won't use the term "holocaust" because that is part of Jewish propaganda (and another term they have appropriated). An enormous number of Jews - and others of course - were left to die of typhus and starvation in the camps we know so well, but I reject the idea of a systematic process of extermination by gassing and incineration. It's logistically absurd and for me utterly unbelievable for a nation desperate for resources to fight the various fronts of the war. Of course, it is seldom noted that the number of Jews that died in WW11 pales against the numbers of Russian and Chinese civilians that died. WW11 was a "holocaust" in and of itself, as all such wars are.

What I am trying to call your attention to is this:

It's their entire history they propagandize. I don't even take the WW11 events into account in my judgements.

Why not?

Because shit loads of people die in world wars for various reasons. European, and especially German Jews were eventually regarded in a similar fashion to the Japanese in America that were rounded up and stuck in internment camps. That those camps (European) turned into camps of mass death is a fact of history, but for me not one that stands out as greatly significant in the broader reality of the claim of the historical persecution of Jews. Many groups other than Jews offer WW11 as evidence of their historical persecution. I didn't mention the Gypsies just as a joke.

If it was before your lifetime, it was only just so. The formation of Israel, however heavy-handed, came right on the heels of these very events which you are saying you don't take into consideration.

It was merely a catalyst for the timing of the establishment. It was not the event that explicitly precipitated it. The argument for a Jewish state was well established long before WW11. "Zionism" was a political movement that emerged from Europe in the late 1800s. And I'm not sure 2 years later is quite "right on the heels".

I submit to you that the Jews who first streamed into the new state of Israel had little left to lose.

The fact that not all European Jews "fled" to the new Israel mitigates your point somewhat. But the events of WW11 certainly offered zionists a ready made argument for the necessity of the creation of Israel. Ironic, really, that those that so badly treated the Jews essentially provided them with the political impetus they needed for a state of their own. It's worth noting too that during WW11, right up till 1945 in fact, Germany was attempting to negotiate the repatriation of is Jewish population. No-one wanted them or was prepared to take them.

Look, I can agree that two political wrongs do not somehow equal political rights or entitlements.

I don't strictly view the creation of Israel as a political "wrong". I view its execution as inept and unjust to non-Jews. i.e. it should have been done very differently.

But you cannot just ignore causes when you do not like the effects. It is and has always been an unjust world.

Jews don't accept that. They believe in the concept of "the spoils of war" when the victories are theirs, but not when they lose.

The facts are that though so many Jews were annihilated during the wars years, many more were not and yet were physically displaced from their homes and stripped of their belongings and forced to flee elsewhere to start over. Where is this elsewhere? What country flung it arms open wide to admit refugees?

What did all those Jews do in the interceding 2 years? 2 years is a pretty long time.

Attempts to redress historical inequities are always fraught with contention. For instance, in America, when does Affirmative Action cease to be a solution and start to become more of a problem, even for African Americans? There is no clear-cut line and resentment has proven to be inescapable. But if it is true that when we forget history we end up repeating it, it is no less true when we deliberately ignore it.

We always end up repeating our mistakes because we never grasp why they were mistakes. That's how you get the Partition of India, the poorly conceived creation of Israel, or the creation of Yugoslavia. Basically, we are stupid and lazy.

The world falls for their viewpoint. If it didn't, I wouldn't care.

I don't believe for a second that the world has suddenly fallen for the Jewish statehood viewpoint and has for the first time in history become Zionist. If any non-Jew in the world has become a Zionist, it is only a manifestation of the NIMBY syndrome. I may even be guilty of NIMBYism myself, and yet I am not a Zionist. The UN hasn't carved up southeast Pennsylvania like it has Africa and Palestine, so I remain as neutral as possible. I have neither the desire nor the intent to defend Israel's expansionist policies, and why should I when many Israelis do not?

Not all Jews agree that Israel ought exist, either. Though, it's possible that they could reconcile their religious views on that by considering Israel to be a simple geographical and political protectorate for Jews rather than a realization of any Eretz Yisrael eschatology.

My only point in this thread is that to believe that the Jews have exaggerated their persecution in the last century is patently misguided.

I disagree. Jews exaggerate everything because persecution is part of their pathos, in the same sense as Xians whose identity involves persecution.

You and I may get tired of hearing about it and seeing the ramifications of US hegemony in the Middle East, but to say there are no historical roots for the situation is to ignore, well, the facts.

I really think that Muslim Iberian Peninsula descendants have a legitimate claim to that territory since they were persecuted, slaughtered and driven out by Xians.

But I'll confine any further thoughts on this to Leyla's thread.

Ok.

Alex Jacob wrote:Dan, you can suck my dick.

That's a very generous offer, but I hate the taste of graphite.

I have no intention of abiding by any ultimatums of yours, and I don't give a flying unholy fuck if you ban me or if you don't. Can I make this any clearer? If you want to ban me, then just do it, but shut up about it.

I'm giving you a chance to think about and reconsider your ridiculous behaviour. Can't you see that?

All of the comments in your post above belie your ignorance of the issues that surround these questions. In this conversation, right now, you are the troll. You have nothing to contribute to it, so why don't you bug the fuck out of it?

Because I don't have to. Ain't life grand?

This article echos my own views quite well on this particular issue.

I was going to say that if you got a bib you might not stain your shirts with drool, but then I realized that you likely don't wear shirts!

Here is a Wikipedia article on 'The New Anti-Semitism'. I personally only see the term 'new anti-Semitism' as a means to describe a resurgence of the old version, and I certainly accept---unconditionally---that criticism of Israel's policies is not in every instance 'anti-Semitism'. But I do accept that in quite a number of cases, when you actually examine the position (of those who oppose Israel, especially in its 'right to exist' or deconstruction of Jewish identity, etc), you find evidence of the standard anti-Semitism. The term and the conversation that surrounds it, is real and considerable, and has a place in discourse, even if some mono-maniacal Australian bearded gnome doesn't think so...

The atheistic position (thinking of the site Dan's article came from, and I assume some part of his own position) in regard to Jews and Israel (and Zionism) is problematic since Jews are mostly identified with religion and religious idealism, monotheism, ethics etc., and Judaism also gave birth to Christianity, which is a world-wide religion but which core ideas go so far beyond religion, and have penetrated into so many issues, ideas and concerns as to be inseparable from culture and philosophy (etc), so that there is no way to out-weave these religious-born ideas. It can be contested, of course, but as I see things the religious idea, the God-Idea, is ever-present---even in atheists!---and just keeps becoming more fine, sublimating and shifting. Yet it remains.

Atheists, it would seem, have no way to apprehend nor to appreciate the principal activity and achievement of Jewish culture, so with just one imperious flick of the wrist the relevance is cast onto the garbage pile. From the atheist's own position, of course, this all makes sense, but the atheist's position is not one of understanding, or even penetration into what the 'God Idea' means or could mean for humankind, and why it continually reasserts itself, and is in any case an existential fact. The standard atheist position is (as I understand it) a sort of juvenile reductionism in most cases, yet which derives from the energy of theism, and feeds from it (strangely enough). Atheism cannot assert itself over and against a theological position but must take its place alongside, as a member of the conversation.

To understand (in the broadest, historical and cultural sense) the Jews, their presence and activity in history, one has to engage with the God-idea as it has operated and as it still operates. Just to dismiss it, as if it doesn't exist, as if its existence is 'unreal', is something that can be done insofar as such opinions can be expressed, but it is not at all of help in penetrating to the core of the issue.

I guess what Alex is saying is that those of us who don't believe in God can never understand the Jews and their weird behavior. Well, that settles it. Now let's talk about the Arabs, their religion and culture.

Diebert writes:

"Alex, are you now saying: it's none of our business? Even mainstream commentators all around the world would admit that the Israel-Palestine struggle is defining for the whole Middle-East stability."

No, I am not saying it is none of your business. In the most general sort of way I say that those who show interest in this question must demonstrate a real interest, an unbiased interest, in understanding it and, after understanding is gained, then working toward proposing solutions. If one of the solutions is dissolving Israel, or defining Jews out of existence, then right from the start one easily recognizes that one is talking to some species of moron, and there can be no conversation. Indeed, one actually must resist such a moron, oppose him and discredit him.

It is true, the issue is politically, symbolically, economically, culturally and economically a terribly loaded basket. At a basic physical level though, a real quantum level, do you really think it has such importance? There are numerous oppressed groups, and who gives a flying fuck about them? I am not saying that this is right (to be oblivious to oppression of some out of the way group of people), but many note that there is a sort of exaggerated focus on the 'terrible' things that Jews in Israel do. Well, I have already presented information that one could consider as to why that is (the derivatives of standard anti-Semitic animus) so we don't have to repeat it. Yet, it seems to me that so much hinges on this because people find reasons to hang it all there. The so-called 'Arab Street' feels a need to focus there, not out of love for the Palestinians, but because it is a channel through which so many other heated issues can come to the surface and be expressed. Or, these terrible Israelis are agents of or symbols of this so-called 'clash of cultures' or 'clash of civilization' which is being resisted?

If there were a real good will it seems to me the issue would have and could have been solved long ago, or at least an acceptable settlement reached. Yet, I don't claim to know any more than you or anyone as to why this is impossible. If one listens to people like Chomsky, it is directly because of the evil policies of the US in cahoots with an neo-fascistic faction within Zionism. But Chomsky can have, for ideological reasons, no link at all with Zionism or any other political assertion that is not the near-perfect anarcho-socialism he envisions. His analysis, like much of the left, is offered from clouds on high and have little do do with existential reality. The Left is like that quite often, and you have to ask sometimes, What in the hell do they really want? Personally, I no longer trust the formulations of the Left perhaps in the same way I don't see the Sermon on the Mount, without serious revisions, as a useful document for structuring human relations. In spirit, yes of course; in fact and as such---it all needs to be carefully thought through.

"There can be no progress with stabilizing and enabling the Middle-East and curtailing related radical ideological networks that are spreading to Asia, Africa and Europe as we speak, without addressing the shape and form of Israel and Israeli policies. Aligned to that the US policies regarding them and some other Middle Eastern regimes."

It is not the Jewish intrusion (to satisfy you) into a ridiculously tiny piece of real estate that is the cause of all that. This radical Islam is another animal. Israel is not and cannot be held accountable for all that, and it is sort of unfair to suppose that it could or should. The reasons for the ascendance---and success---of radical Islam is a whole other issue, isn't it? But, and you seem dimply aware of this, it is a virulent creature, and a dangerous creature. And if you understand that---in your infinite mercy!---you might understand why the road has been quite rocky for Israel, and why it may remain that way.

"What's the stake for the average participant on forums like this? Perhaps the threat of radical Islam on the Western doorsteps, radicals who feel justified by the plight of the Palestinians and the rather obvious injustice in the amount of support (for example in the UN security council voting records) that one nation keeps giving, blocking the rest of the world in even raising a formal voice. One nation and some smaller allies hiding under its coat."

If 'they' were really concerned about this huge, social problem, I suppose they might make efforts or contributions to solve those problems, maybe at the least to understand them. You cannot possibly mean, yet you seem to imply, that this is somehow Israel's fault or responsibility. The last part of your above-paragraph is a sort of repeat of the Leftist position toward this horrible, illegitimate power in the mid-East. I do know that the US is hugely powerful and uses its power 'unfairly', but so do all polities. The political game is in essence shady and dubious.

"Perhaps the dependence of the energy market on the dynamics of that area. And the obvious consequences if the energy market will be threatened. Wars are often about energy, after all, if not religion. Energy = money times religion squared."

I would accept this argument. I would also look at it from a removed vantage, and from the 'perspective of empire'. A whole world system has been constructed that depends on that oil and it is political naivete to assume it would not be contested. The claw of empire---that is, the world system---will insert itself, and 'right' and 'wrong' become irrelevant, don't they? What do you have to say about this? What is the Dutch perspective, the guiltless perspective?
____________________________________________________

Dan, can you control your bitch please? She keeps piping up...

Dan Rowden wrote:This article echos my own views quite well on this particular issue.

This is quite a tame article and it seems to contain little with which one can disagree. I agree that you can be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic. In fact, many Jews are anti-Zionist.

Yet the article dismisses out of hand the possibility that anti-Zionism would be a natural stance for antisemites. Despite your repugnance at the term, Dan, antisemites exist wherever the Jews live in numbers.

I thought we agreed to continue this in its own thread?

Alex Jacob wrote: Atheists, it would seem, have no way to apprehend nor to appreciate the principal activity and achievement of Jewish culture

Don't forget to mention that Atheists seem to despise really all Abrahamic religions and any culture stemming from that and that they truly vomit at the sheer site of Eastern cultures, anything Buddhist and Hindu especially. These guys are so.... barbaric, so uncultured, uncivilized, unwell-read, insensitive, so.. notoriously unaccomplished; simpletons perhaps comes closest. So un-Alexian.

I'm not sure if you're reasonable enough to continue discussing worldly matters with, Jacob.

I mean: at the 'quantum level'? And: "There are numerous oppressed groups, and who gives a flying fuck about them?". You're really stepping outside meaningful discussion, as are the elites in Israel, the old dinosaurs have passed their shelf life, only kept up by a dumbed down, agressive new generation.

You should ask instead why so many global supporters are around, propping up this "ridiculously tiny piece of real estate" with money, protection, moral justification, weaponry, stealth nuclear weapon program (enough to turn the whole Middle East into an oven). If you can explain away that, perhaps we could talk about all the negative attention. Did you ever talk with citizens of surrounding countries there, how they are all completely aware of the (Jewish) bomb, like we were here during the cold war.

Perhaps you should think a moment about one of these "numerous oppressed groups" and what's happening while you're shrugging your shoulders.

November 18, 2008 - The Real Goal of Israel's Blockade

"on Thursday, the United Nations announced it had run out of the food essentials it supplies to 750,000 desperately needy Gazans. "

"Israel's large Bank Hapoalim said it would refuse all transactions with Gaza by the end of the month, effectively imposing a financial blockade on an economy dependent on the Israeli shekel"

"In the past week, all journalists were refused access to Gaza, as were a group of senior European diplomats"

Ehud Olmert, for example, has declared that Gazans should not be allowed to "live normal lives"; Avi Dichter believes punishment should be inflicted "irrespective of the cost to the Palestinians"; Meir Sheetrit has urged that Israel should "decide on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it" – the policy discussed by ministers last week.

Karen Koning AbuZayd, commissioner-general of the UN's refugee agency, warned: "Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution."

Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centers of Israeli escapism. - Avraham Burg

You misunderstood, most likely because you want to or need to. There are oppressed people in many, many states all over the world, possibly millions, and no one focuses on them because they have their preferred area of interest. Despite what you think, and no matter how you may decide to paint my view, which is personal, and based on my own grasp of things, by nature imperfect, incomplete, and that does not attempt to be 'official', I do not undervalue or diminish Palestinian sufferings, and I think they are real and considerable. There are 'ands' and 'buts' connected to that recognition, in my way of seeing things, with the causes of that suffering and the reasons why it persists, and all that is open to conversation. A full, open, honest conversation can touch on all the different elements, in much the same way that the video series I linked to touches all the different sides and views. With what I said I sought not to minimize Palestinian suffering, but to focus on why it is that this issue is so highlighted by people such as yourself.

I wonder sometimes what could happen if genuinely concerned people really were to educate themselves in a fair and balanced way, and if they made precisely the same demands on Israel's opponents as they make on the Israelis, and if there were a mechanism of enforcement that would satisfy real Israeli apprehensions. That is the road that could open up to solutions.

You seem to imply---or is this directly what you are implying?---that my views on this matter are exactly equal to a zealous Zionist youth who bursts in on a conference. That is not the case because, at the very least, I have read fairly extensively the opinions of people like Chomsky (and Chomsky himself). I know how the narratives run, and as I say I also believe that I understand where they commit certain omissions.

"You should ask instead why so many global supporters are around, propping up this "ridiculously tiny piece of real estate" with money, protection, moral justification, weaponry, stealth nuclear weapon program (enough to turn the whole Middle East into an oven). If you can explain away that, perhaps we could talk about all the negative attention. Did you ever talk with citizens of surrounding countries there, how they are all completely aware of the (Jewish) bomb, like we were here during the cold war."

The US is the only supporter I am aware of, but there are thousands and thousands of agencies and groups dedicated to a myriad of causes which receive money from Jews living abroad. With certain reservations I can definitively say that I am happy that The US has supported Israel like it has. I don't think I could ever offer you the explanation that you want, since (I assume) you would not have wanted that support to be forthcoming and are morally opposed to it. I see it as a terribly mixed bag (to have received that support), but I do also see Israel's situation as one of survival. It is after all only 60 or so years old. Personally---again personally, just my opinion, other opinions are possible---I am very, very happy that the Israelis have this weapon and not, say, the Iraqis or the Iranians. Absolutely! Notice that it has not been used.

I am really, really sorry that the world is as messed up as it is, Diebert. I sense that you want to hang so much responsibility for that on the Israelis. If I misread you then I will retract that assessment, but this is what I see in your writing.

A Norman Finkelstein Christmas Carol

Alex Jacob wrote:Dan, can you control your bitch please? She keeps piping up...

Don't press me, Alex. That comment deserves an apology to both parties.

brokenhead wrote:

Dan Rowden wrote:This article echos my own views quite well on this particular issue.

This is quite a tame article and it seems to contain little with which one can disagree. I agree that you can be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic. In fact, many Jews are anti-Zionist.

That's true. Zionism, for them, is an apostasy that defies the idea that the "messiah" will establish the Jewish state.

Yet the article dismisses out of hand the possibility that anti-Zionism would be a natural stance for antisemites. Despite your repugnance at the term, Dan, antisemites exist wherever the Jews live in numbers.

I don't have any repugnance for the term per se, only its use as a substitute for argument and as an automatic salvo against anyone who criticises Judaism or Zionism or where it is used exclusively to refer to Jews (i.e. I find the appropriation of the term by Jews to be typical of their arrogance).

I thought we agreed to continue this in its own thread?

I didn't agree to anything. Leyla's thread will unfold as a separate entity.

Alex Jacob wrote:I am really, really sorry that the world is as messed up as it is, Diebert. I sense that you want to hang so much responsibility for that on the Israelis. If I misread you then I will retract that assessment, but this is what I see in your writing.

I'm gobsmacked. That you could have possibly seen that in his posts speaks to the problem that seems to be inherent in pro-Jewish commentary. Exaggeration and victimhood. Trust me, Alex, the Jews really aren't that important. We just happen to be discussing them at the moment.

Dan wrote:

"Don't press me, Alex. That comment deserves an apology to both parties."

She called me a 'pathetic asshole', isn't that more or less just as harsh? I was actually riffing of of Ali-G. (Someone here had to have chuckled when they read that, I mean I did when I was washing up, I mean it is so absurd really. 'Shut your bitch up, wilya!!!')

Oh alright. I, Alex Jacob, also known as Weisenheimer (etc) Katzellenbogen, Jew and Macaw, unrecognized genius, forthrightly apologize to both Dan and Shahazard for implying that she was Dan's 'bitch', and Dan had or has some sort of control over her, which of course he doesn't, they are just friends, and talk on Skype and that sort of thing. Despite the fact that Dan hates my mortal guts---and rightly so, and rightly so---I really sort of think Dan is okay, basically, but I don't think he really understands Jews, Jewish history, anti-Semitism or Israel. Nevertheless, the apology I offer here, which extends to friends, family and descendants, is offered sincerely. It is true: I can be an asshole, but I am an asshole with a sense of humor. I love both Panama and Australia and wish both these countries in an abstract and also concrete way every success and all good fortune. And I sincerely wish Dan and Shahazard, separetely and collectively, godspeed (if you-all will accept the use of such a loaded term).

Jesus, Alex, you really do belong in the theater. I don't hate or even dislike you; I simply find your views vacuous and theatrical and typical of any aesthete I've ever encountered. There's not enough of you to feel strongly about! The most impressive thing about you is the time you manage to spend at Youtube. There's got to be more than 24 hours in your day.

Dan Rowden wrote:I didn't agree to anything. Leyla's thread will unfold as a separate entity.

All right, I guess this post belongs here, then.

Yes, that's an important point when considering the historical claims of the scale of death, which are undoubtedly exaggerated. One has to remember that a Jewish "holocaust", and one associated with the number 6, is part of Jewish eschatology. Jews were claiming a holocaust at the time of WW1, and no doubt multiple other times.

Are you seriously contending that it matters if 5 million Jews were killed or 6 million?

An enormous number of Jews - and others of course - were left to die of typhus and starvation in the camps we know so well, but I reject the idea of a systematic process of extermination by gassing and incineration. It's logistically absurd and for me utterly unbelievable for a nation desperate for resources to fight the various fronts of the war.

Yes, I thought of the Gypsies as well, even before you mentioned them. How about the homosexuals and the Jehovah's Witnesses? That's another 5 million or so. Do you really think bringing up other persecuted groups mitigates what was done to the Jews? The Nazis were desperate for labor, and placed the camps near arms factories in many instances. The internees not able to work were killed for the very reason that resources were limited. And you are missing the origin of the concentration camps. The Jews, Gypsies, and other undesirables were being rounded up far before the war became dire for the Germans.

Listen, I have no agenda here. My heritage is German. I have been fired from a job by a Jew because I have blue eyes and a German last name. I have been sued by Jews. Yet I have never fired a Jew or sued anybody. If I had an agenda, it would be anti-Jew.

But I don't. What I do is try to learn what really happened. To this end, I read history from more than one source. I have visited Dachau personally. For anyone to claim that the Holocaust did not happen it requires some kind of motive. Because it did happen. You are arguing that the Jews appropriated the word? This is nonsense of the highest order. What word should they have used? And you can tell me that millions more Chinese died gruesome deaths at the hands of the Japanese in WWII than Jews at the hands of the Germans. My answer is, so what? What does that prove? It was wartime and the Japanese were slaughtering an armed enemy on enemy grounds - regardless of which side was in the moral right. The Chinese were never in danger of being totally wiped out.

The Allies dropped nukes on Japan and fire-bombed Dresden. Many of the dead in each case were civilians. Yet you can see the justification of the war-time actions. What justified Kristallnacht?

Because shit loads of people die in world wars for various reasons. European, and especially German Jews were eventually regarded in a similar fashion to the Japanese in America that were rounded up and stuck in internment camps.

Not that I defend the Japanese internment during the war, but you really can't see the difference? The Japanese attacked the US. Did the Jews attack Germany? Or France, that bastion of cowardice that turned away refugees in the 1930's? Whom did the Jews attack to warrant the methodical, efficient slaughter of more than three-quarters of the European Jews?

That those camps (European) turned into camps of mass death is a fact of history, but for me not one that stands out as greatly significant in the broader reality of the claim of the historical persecution of Jews.

Then I suggest you are ignoring not only 20th Century history, but the entire history of Western Civilization.

It was merely a catalyst for the timing of the establishment. It was not the event that explicitly precipitated it. The argument for a Jewish state was well established long before WW11. "Zionism" was a political movement that emerged from Europe in the late 1800s. And I'm not sure 2 years later is quite "right on the heels".

Listen, Dan - even if you are tracing Zionism only back as far as the late 19th Century, then that is still some fifty years, against which 2 years is indeed "right on the heels." And let's not forget that many European "Zionists" were not Jews, but were rather non-Jews eager to see the formation of a Jewish homeland so that all the European Jews could go there, that is, to leave.

It's worth noting too that during WW11, right up till 1945 in fact, Germany was attempting to negotiate the repatriation of is Jewish population. No-one wanted them or was prepared to take them.

I'm sure if you read your source for this carefully, it was not Germany doing the negotiating, but rather those in it who were attempting to make concessions to end a war they knew they were badly losing. There were tentative separate peace negotiations going on all the time towards the end of the war.

The key part of your quote is "No-one wanted them or was prepared to take them." This was true from the early 1930's onwards. That is, with genocide in the air, the Jews - with the exception of the wealthiest among them - often had nowhere to go. Some 60,000 German Jews alone emigrated to Palestine during the 1930's. But these were Jews with assets that went toward the estanlishment of an Israeli economic infrastructure.

I don't strictly view the creation of Israel as a political "wrong". I view its execution as inept and unjust to non-Jews. i.e. it should have been done very differently.

No argument there. It was bungled from the get-go. What should have been a small scheme in the Negev Desert escalated far beyond any one's nightmares and totally out of control.

You know, I regard state-building with extreme misgivings. But this was a case study in what not to do, at least in hindsight. You had Churchill forming the Jewish Brigade in 1944, then in 1948 Britain was attempting to choke emigration to Israel while its erstwhile ally France is smuggling them weapons just to be contrary. The US is forced to defend the new state even though its prestige takes a hit from which it has never recovered.

Jews don't accept that. They believe in the concept of "the spoils of war" when the victories are theirs, but not when they lose.

This describes the majority of humanity, does it not?

We always end up repeating our mistakes because we never grasp why they were mistakes. That's how you get the Partition of India, the poorly conceived creation of Israel, or the creation of Yugoslavia. Basically, we are stupid and lazy.

Well, I can't argue with you there, either.

Not all Jews agree that Israel ought exist, either. Though, it's possible that they could reconcile their religious views on that by considering Israel to be a simple geographical and political protectorate for Jews rather than a realization of any Eretz Yisrael eschatology.

Which was the initial plan for the region, as I understand it.

But it's tough to get Jews to agree on anything.

I really think that Muslim Iberian Peninsula descendants have a legitimate claim to that territory since they were persecuted, slaughtered and driven out by Xians.

How do you feel about the Basque Separatists?

Islam was famously tolerant of other religions, especially that of the Jews and Christians, as they are considered fellow "people of the book." Therefore, great cities like Cadiz had huge Jewish populations which were also driven out. Can they come back, too?

You also don't "really" think that, because you have said that such claims based on religion are stupid.

It might surprise you, Dan, but I often do pay attention to what you write.

Dan, I guess you're right: Can't love a henid. You just wave 'em away, like mosquitos...

brokenhead wrote:Are you seriously contending that it matters if 5 million Jews were killed or 6 million?

I'm seriously contending that any significant exaggeration of history for political purposes is bad.

An enormous number of Jews - and others of course - were left to die of typhus and starvation in the camps we know so well, but I reject the idea of a systematic process of extermination by gassing and incineration. It's logistically absurd and for me utterly unbelievable for a nation desperate for resources to fight the various fronts of the war.

Yes, I thought of the Gypsies as well, even before you mentioned them. How about the homosexuals and the Jehovah's Witnesses? That's another 5 million or so.

Don't forget the Slavs. Everyone forgets the Slavs, even the Slavs.

Do you really think bringing up other persecuted groups mitigates what was done to the Jews?

It puts it into perspective and negates the idea that what happened to the Jews was unique.

The Nazis were desperate for labor, and placed the camps near arms factories in many instances.

The reality of the various camps was complicated and how people were treated tended to vary significantly depending on the location. But certainly labour was a factor for some. At least people didn't die from boredom.

The internees not able to work were killed for the very reason that resources were limited. And you are missing the origin of the concentration camps. The Jews, Gypsies, and other undesirables were being rounded up far before the war became dire for the Germans.

Yes, that's right. Undesirable types were certainly being targeted for various purposes, not unlike poor Americans who are targeted for cannon fodder.

Listen, I have no agenda here. My heritage is German. I have been fired from a job by a Jew because I have blue eyes and a German last name. I have been sued by Jews. Yet I have never fired a Jew or sued anybody. If I had an agenda, it would be anti-Jew. But I don't.

I don't have any agenda either, other than pro-truth and reality.

What I do is try to learn what really happened. To this end, I read history from more than one source.

That's the only way to read history, and even then it's sometimes not enough.

I have visited Dachau personally. For anyone to claim that the Holocaust did not happen it requires some kind of motive. Because it did happen.

Mass deaths happened. I do not accept the conventional notion of a systematic extermination program. The evidence for that is not compelling. The reasons against it make infinitely more sense. The reason that the actual truth about the situation is important is because of the political leverage that comes out of the conventional view. It doesn't make any difference to the simple fact that a tragedy took place. But then, as I said, the entire war was that.

You are arguing that the Jews appropriated the word? This is nonsense of the highest order. What word should they have used?

The Holocaust is an appropriation of a holocaust. And frankly, holocaust is a word more properly associated with fire etc.

And you can tell me that millions more Chinese died gruesome deaths at the hands of the Japanese in WWII than Jews at the hands of the Germans. My answer is, so what? What does that prove? It was wartime and the Japanese were slaughtering an armed enemy on enemy grounds - regardless of which side was in the moral right. The Chinese were never in danger of being totally wiped out.

Neither were the Jews, actually. "Enemy" is a slippery term in war-time. We decided German civilians were the enemy as well. Germany decided even before the war got under way that the Jews were a social enemy. The origins of that view are themselves socially complex and cannot be simply swept aside with glib remarks about anti-Semitism.

The Allies dropped nukes on Japan and fire-bombed Dresden. Many of the dead in each case were civilians.

Most were, in each of those holocausts.

Yet you can see the justification of the war-time actions.

Actually, no I can't. It's highly debatable as to whether either of those actions was justified or necessary. But then, in such wars justification goes out the window.

What justified Kristallnacht?

The answer to that is the answer to what caused the attitude against the Jews leading up to the war. How much time do you have?

Because shit loads of people die in world wars for various reasons. European, and especially German Jews were eventually regarded in a similar fashion to the Japanese in America that were rounded up and stuck in internment camps.

Not that I defend the Japanese internment during the war, but you really can't see the difference?

No, not really. Even before the war started the Germans (Nazis) has decided to perceive Jews as an internal threat. In that sense they are similar things (the perception of an internal threat).

The Japanese attacked the US. Did the Jews attack Germany?

The Germans would have answered "yes" to that (in both world wars, in fact). You'll have to dig into the history to find out why. I don't have time to outline it for you. This is not to say I agree with their reasons, only that they had them.

Or France, that bastion of cowardice that turned away refugees in the 1930's?

Ah, ze pour French. You try being surrounded by Fascist arseholes! All they ever wanted to do was make croissants and kiss women's bottoms.

Whom did the Jews attack to warrant the methodical, efficient slaughter of more than three-quarters of the European Jews?

I don't agree at all with that characterization. Nor does/did the International Red Cross for one. Lots of people died in the camps. We know that. My view is that most died of typhus and starvation. Especially towards the end of the war, the German transportation system has been so utterly destroyed that the German population itself was in danger of such. I know this is contentious, but my reading of the evidence suggest this is the most sensible and non-propagandized view. It doesn't really change the scale of the carnage, it just puts in proper perspective (to me). The resources for this systematic extermination program just didn't exist. But, it's also true that what transpired in different camps in different locations differs markedly.

That those camps (European) turned into camps of mass death is a fact of history, but for me not one that stands out as greatly significant in the broader reality of the claim of the historical persecution of Jews.

Then I suggest you are ignoring not only 20th Century history, but the entire history of Western Civilization.

I don't get your point. The claim of the historical persecution of Jews spans their entire history. That's why events of the 20th Century don't leap out at me as being overly significant. A single event doesn't make that argument any stronger no matter what the numbers involved in that single event.

It was merely a catalyst for the timing of the establishment. It was not the event that explicitly precipitated it. The argument for a Jewish state was well established long before WW11. "Zionism" was a political movement that emerged from Europe in the late 1800s. And I'm not sure 2 years later is quite "right on the heels".

Listen, Dan - even if you are tracing Zionism only back as far as the late 19th Century, then that is still some fifty years, against which 2 years is indeed "right on the heels." And let's not forget that many European "Zionists" were not Jews, but were rather non-Jews eager to see the formation of a Jewish homeland so that all the European Jews could go there, that is, to leave.

Many European Jews were only Jews because they converted to Judaism. Christ, we'd need an entire forum to sort out the Middle-East v European (Khazar) Jews quagmire. You got time for that? I don't. But I agree in general that the politics is complex and that the difference in views between the euros and middle-easters has to be taken into account - assuming you can even unravel that unholy mess.

It's worth noting too that during WW11, right up till 1945 in fact, Germany was attempting to negotiate the repatriation of is Jewish population. No-one wanted them or was prepared to take them.

I'm sure if you read your source for this carefully, it was not Germany doing the negotiating, but rather those in it who were attempting to make concessions to end a war they knew they were badly losing. There were tentative separate peace negotiations going on all the time towards the end of the war.

No, Germany (or some Germans) did negotiate for the repatriation of Jews from various regions. It's a messy history, Broke. Jews migrated around Europe itself during the period because they were treated differently in different regions.

The key part of your quote is "No-one wanted them or was prepared to take them." This was true from the early 1930's onwards. That is, with genocide in the air, the Jews - with the exception of the wealthiest among them - often had nowhere to go. Some 60,000 German Jews alone emigrated to Palestine during the 1930's. But these were Jews with assets that went toward the estanlishment of an Israeli economic infrastructure.

Yes, many did migrate. The rest, sadly, got stuck in the middle of a shitstorm, along the way learning what? Nothing. But of course, all there was and ever is to learn is that people hate them for being what they are for no reason whatever, and that their own isolationist and superior attitude is not a factor. In my opinion, till the world alters drastically, the Jews will always be viewed with suspicion or derision by certain cultural agencies. I mean, call yourselves - and act like - the chosen of God and what the hell can you expect? Jews will be safer the saner the world becomes. The trouble is they will contribute exactly nothing to that sanity.

I'm prepared to accept an argument that Israel was necessary to protect them from their own bullshit and the way people tend to react to bullshit.

I don't strictly view the creation of Israel as a political "wrong". I view its execution as inept and unjust to non-Jews. i.e. it should have been done very differently.

No argument there. It was bungled from the get-go. What should have been a small scheme in the Negev Desert escalated far beyond any one's nightmares and totally out of control.

I think it could have been handled in such a way that all parties got a decent outcome, but some parties had more negotiating power than others. That hasn't changed.

You know, I regard state-building with extreme misgivings. But this was a case study in what not to do, at least in hindsight. You had Churchill forming the Jewish Brigade in 1944, then in 1948 Britain was attempting to choke emigration to Israel while its erstwhile ally France is smuggling them weapons just to be contrary. The US is forced to defend the new state even though its prestige takes a hit from which it has never recovered.

The history of alliances with Israel is like a comic farce, a not so funny pantomime. It started with the Ruskies (setting British involvement aside) and who knows where it will end up. Luckily for the Jews they have no loyalties to anyone but themselves so they're happy to play one group against another to further their aims. Hard to fault that, really, if you're being exploited yourself.

Jews don't accept that. They believe in the concept of "the spoils of war" when the victories are theirs, but not when they lose.

This describes the majority of humanity, does it not?

It used to, but not anymore (with exceptions). I think you'll find Israel stands against international sentiment on that one.

Not all Jews agree that Israel ought exist, either. Though, it's possible that they could reconcile their religious views on that by considering Israel to be a simple geographical and political protectorate for Jews rather than a realization of any Eretz Yisrael eschatology.

Which was the initial plan for the region, as I understand it.

It was a justification for the plan, but it didn't and still doesn't wash for religious Jews who find Zionism an apostasy.

But it's tough to get Jews to agree on anything.

Yes, that's true. It's a serious mistake to think there's any single "Jewish" view. Perhaps even that there's anything that is definitively "Jewish" anymore.

I really think that Muslim Iberian Peninsula descendants have a legitimate claim to that territory since they were persecuted, slaughtered and driven out by Xians.

How do you feel about the Basque Separatists?

Not sure, do they make good Paella?

Islam was famously tolerant of other religions, especially that of the Jews and Christians, as they are considered fellow "people of the book." Therefore, great cities like Cadiz had huge Jewish populations which were also driven out. Can they come back, too?

Sure, why not. Mind you, I was being sarcastic about the Iberian Muslims.

You also don't "really" think that, because you have said that such claims based on religion are stupid.

Yes, and frankly some facts of history simply cannot be turned around. Indigenous peoples and those with a long term territorial stake just have to accept this, I'm afraid.

It might surprise you, Dan, but I often do pay attention to what you write.

Get a life!