The State of "Palestine" Quiz

VivaPalestina

The quiz was made up by people who fear the word Palestine, how can you fear a word? You want to see a zionist shake? Say Palestine...they will literally have a physical reaction. I've seen it many times. More important than any question on a revisionist quiz, the question is why get so upset over a word? Is it because no matter how many walls are built, visits to the the UN and white house, PAC dollars raised, professors bullied in academia, that no one is buying new zionist history, I think even the original zionists would laugh at this quiz and the new narrative that the oppressors and thieves are trying to push onto the oppressed and the world.

"When the Zionists decided in 1897 to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, the Jews of Vienna despatched a delegation to examine the country for its suitability. The delegation reported back as follows: "the bride is beautiful but she is married to another man". They had found that Palestine to their dismay was already inhabited by another people." Norman Finkelstein

Jason P

keeponrockin wrote:

"Jews don't eat pork, Muslims don't eat pork...

Poor bastards ...

gimmesometruth27

Jerome230 wrote:

What good do the "palestinians" think is going to come out of sending 250+rockets into Israel this past week alone? Do you think Israel is going to sit idly by and not defend herself? Remember, the Israelis don't teach their kids how "honorable" it is to their family to engage in suicide bombings, either.

get out of the settlements and stop stealing land and perhaps it will stop the rockets. one is clearly a reaction to the other..

the oppressor is claiming to be the victim again...it is actually quite exhausting....

Jerome230

Pepe Silvia wrote:

Jerome230 wrote:

What good do the "palestinians" think is going to come out of sending 250+rockets into Israel this past week alone? Do you think Israel is going to sit idly by and not defend herself? Remember, the Israelis don't teach their kids how "honorable" it is to their family to engage in suicide bombings, either.

defend itself or illegal settlements?

Well, it was the Jews' land to begin with. Again, Palestine is/was the name of the region, NOT a people. Archaeological evidence shows that the Jewish people began developing its distinctive religion and culture some 4,000 years ago in Israel. For millennia, the Jewish people have had an unbroken physical presence—whether Israel existed as a sovereign state or under foreign domination.

NOT to get biblical, but as archaeology shows, Jerusalem is the religious and political focus of the Jewish people from the time King David, from the Tribe of Judah and the village of Bethlehem, made it his fortress and the capitol of a united Jewish nation called Israel around 1000 BCE. Additionally, a Hebrew University archaeologist discovered a Jerusalem city wall from the time of King Solomon (10th century BCE), and said the finding “is the first time that a structure from that time has been found that may correlate with written descriptions of Solomon’s building in Jerusalem.” Artifacts found inside excavations around the City of David and within the Old City, the Temple Mount and Solomon’s Stables date the Jewish presence in Jerusalem as far back as 1000 BCE, during the time of King David.

I find it amusing you're sticking up for those who danced in the streets and partied on 9/11.

Jason P

VivaPalestina wrote:

The quiz was made up by people who fear the word Palestine, how can you fear a word? You want to see a zionist shake? Say Palestine...they will literally have a physical reaction.

Much like the those on the opposite side react to the word Zionist. :geek:

Pepe Silvia

Jerome230 wrote:

Pepe Silvia wrote:

Jerome230 wrote:

What good do the "palestinians" think is going to come out of sending 250+rockets into Israel this past week alone? Do you think Israel is going to sit idly by and not defend herself? Remember, the Israelis don't teach their kids how "honorable" it is to their family to engage in suicide bombings, either.

defend itself or illegal settlements?

Well, it was the Jews' land to begin with. Again, Palestine is/was the name of the region, NOT a people. Archaeological evidence shows that the Jewish people began developing its distinctive religion and culture some 4,000 years ago in Israel. For millennia, the Jewish people have had an unbroken physical presence—whether Israel existed as a sovereign state or under foreign domination.

NOT to get biblical, but as archaeology shows, Jerusalem is the religious and political focus of the Jewish people from the time King David, from the Tribe of Judah and the village of Bethlehem, made it his fortress and the capitol of a united Jewish nation called Israel around 1000 BCE. Additionally, a Hebrew University archaeologist discovered a Jerusalem city wall from the time of King Solomon (10th century BCE), and said the finding “is the first time that a structure from that time has been found that may correlate with written descriptions of Solomon’s building in Jerusalem.” Artifacts found inside excavations around the City of David and within the Old City, the Temple Mount and Solomon’s Stables date the Jewish presence in Jerusalem as far back as 1000 BCE, during the time of King David.

The Arabs have no claim to that land. They never have, and they never will. PERIOD.

Besides, I find it amusing you're sticking up for those who danced in the streets and partied on 9/11.

some may have but many and more......

- The terrorist act was strongly condemned by every single Palestinian organization including Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, Workers Unions and Committees, Human Right organizations (AlHaq, Law, Palestine Center for Human Rights), student associations, municipalities, mosques and churches, etc.

- The US Consul General in Jerusalem reported that he has received a huge stack of faxes from Palestinians and Palestinian organizations expressing condolences, grief and solidarity. He himself was pained to see that the media chose to focus on the sensational images of a few Palestinians rejoicing.

- The Palestine Legislative Council condemned the terrorist attack on the United States and sent an urgent letter of condolences to Mr. J Dennis Hasterd, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

- Palestinians in East Jerusalem held a candle-light vigils on 12 and 14 September to express their grief and solidarity with the American families struck by this tragedy. Mr. Abdel Qader Al-Husseini, son of the late Palestinian leader Faisal Al-Husseini led one of the vigils.

- Jerusalem University students, along with the President of the University and the Deans of the various Faculties, began a blood donation drive in East Jerusalem. Students and professors went to hospitals in order to donate blood for the American victims who need it.

- The 1 million Palestinian students in the Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, stood five minutes in silence to express their solidarity with the hundreds of American children who have been struck by this strategy, which resembles in its shocking effects their daily sufferings. (see image to the right)

http://groups.colgate.edu/aarislam/response.htm

Pepe Silvia

also, are you implying there aren't any illegal settlements over there, jerome?

gimmesometruth27

Jerome230 wrote:

Besides, I find it amusing you're sticking up for those who danced in the streets and partied on 9/11.

are you referring to the palestinian children dancing in the streets holding up 2 fingers in a "V" to symbolize "victory"??

it has long been debunked that that footage was taken at a different time in a different context of children raising 2 fingers in "peace sign"...

gotta love how the western media distorts perceptions...it actually works... :evil:

Pepe Silvia

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

Jerome230 wrote:

Besides, I find it amusing you're sticking up for those who danced in the streets and partied on 9/11.

are you referring to the palestinian children dancing in the streets holding up 2 fingers in a "V" to symbolize "victory"??

it has long been debunked that that footage was taken at a different time in a different context of children raising 2 fingers in "peace sign"...

gotta love how the western media distorts perceptions...it actually works... :evil:

i noticed asking him questions doesn't really bring any answers....

Jerome230

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

Jerome230 wrote:

Besides, I find it amusing you're sticking up for those who danced in the streets and partied on 9/11.

are you referring to the palestinian children dancing in the streets holding up 2 fingers in a "V" to symbolize "victory"??

it has long been debunked that that footage was taken at a different time in a different context of children raising 2 fingers in "peace sign"...

gotta love how the western media distorts perceptions...it actually works... :evil:

I'm not sure as to what footage you're talking about.

Pepe Silvia wrote:

i noticed asking him questions doesn't really bring any answers....

...and I don't see you contributing anything that would require me to answer you.

gimmesometruth27

Jerome230 wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

Jerome230 wrote:

Besides, I find it amusing you're sticking up for those who danced in the streets and partied on 9/11.

are you referring to the palestinian children dancing in the streets holding up 2 fingers in a "V" to symbolize "victory"??

it has long been debunked that that footage was taken at a different time in a different context of children raising 2 fingers in "peace sign"...

gotta love how the western media distorts perceptions...it actually works... :evil:

I'm not sure as to what footage you're talking about.

Pepe Silvia wrote:

i noticed asking him questions doesn't really bring any answers....

...and I don't see you contributing anything that would require me to answer you.

i am talking about the footage of the palestinian children that was broadcast on american media, most notably on fox news, that shows them dancing in the streets holding up peace signs. american media portrayed it as them celebrating 9/11 and claiming "victory".

you are the one making the accusation, i would think that you would at least know about this before you start making false claims being passed off as facts...

Byrnzie

Jerome230 wrote:

...it was always JEWISH Palestine with a handful of arabs living there.

No it wasn't.

Demographics in Palestine

Year Jews Arabs
1800 6,700 268,000
1880 24,000 525,000
1915 87,500 590,000
1931 174,000 837,000
1947 630,000 1,310,000

Jerome230 wrote:

There has never been a nation of Palestine as it is defined by the arabs today.

There was also never a nation of Israel as it is defined by Jews today.

Jerome230 wrote:

Resolution 181 gave what now is the country of Jordan to the arabs and the historical area west of the Jordan River in Israel to the Jews.

No it didn't. You really need to put down your 'Israel apologists handbook of 100 bullshit excuses for ethnic cleansing and Apartheid' for a second and address the facts instead.

Partition Plan Map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 47.svg.png

Jerome230 wrote:

The people who began calling themselves "palestinians" in the 1960's are simply arabs just as the other arabs in the middle east. All of the arabs came from the area of Arabia and spoke many dialects of Arabic. The arabs who lived in Israel before that time never had a government, never had a distinct currency, never had a capitol, never had any real accomplishments.

People who live in England, America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all speak English, therefore are they all English? Your use of the term 'Arab' to pretend that every Arabic speaking person in that part of the World is the same is just a lazy Orientalist fantasy.

Jerome230 wrote:

No other people besides the Jews have ever considered Jerusalem as their capitol.

Really?


Here are the groups that have the greatest claim to the city:

A. The Muslims, who ruled it and built it over 1191 years.

B. The Egyptians, who ruled it as a vassal state for several hundred years in the second millennium BCE.

C. The Italians, who ruled it about 444 years until the fall of the Roman Empire in 450 CE.

D. The Iranians, who ruled it for 205 years under the Achaemenids, for three years under the Parthians (insofar as the last Hasmonean was actually their vassal), and for 15 years under the Sasanids.

E. The Greeks, who ruled it for over 160 years if we count the Ptolemys and Seleucids as Greek. If we count them as Egyptians and Syrians, that would increase the Egyptian claim and introduce a Syrian one.

F. The successor states to the Byzantines, which could be either Greece or Turkey, who ruled it 188 years, though if we consider the heir to be Greece and add in the time the Hellenistic Greek dynasties ruled it, that would give Greece nearly 350 years as ruler of Jerusalem.

G. There is an Iraqi claim to Jerusalem based on the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, as well as perhaps the rule of the Ayyubids (Saladin’s dynasty), who were Kurds from Iraq.

Jerome230 wrote:

There has never been a distinct place called "East Jerusalem" before the arabs in Israel began calling it that for political reasons

Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967. This annexation is considered illegal under international law.

'The expansion of Jerusalem’s borders incorporated not only the Jordanian municipality of Jerusalem but also land from surrounding Arab villages comprising close to one and a half times the size of Israeli and Jordanian Jerusalem combined. This de facto territorial annexation was never recognized by the international community and was declared to contravene international law, inter alia, in UN General Assembly Resolution 2253 and UN Security Council Resolution 478 (both of which passed unopposed).'

http://www.diakonia.se/sa/node.asp?node=841
'Annexation by the use or threat of force is prohibited under international law, as set forth in Article 2 of the UN Charter. This principle was restated in GA Resolution 2625 (XXV) of 1970, which noted that states must not use force to violate existing international boundaries or to solve international disputes, including territorial ones.

In 1980, the Israeli Knesset passed "Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel" which, on a higher constitutional level, declared Jerusalem to be Israel 's "eternal and indivisible" capital including the occupied East Jerusalem territory. In response to this basic law, the UN Security Council (UNSC) affirmed that acquisition of territory, annexation, by force is forbidden according to international law and confirmed the continued application of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the areas annexed by Israel. It also called upon member states to withdraw their diplomatic missions from the city.'

Jerome230 wrote:

Today in Israel there are some 120 different languages and dialects spoken due to the influx of people coming home to Israel from all over the world.

Home? How is Israel the 'home' of someone born in New York or Moscow? Or Peru?: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/07/israel1
How 90 Peruvians became the latest Jewish settlers
When a delegation of rabbis travelled to Lima to convert a group of South American Indians to Judaism, they added just one condition: come and live with us in Israel. As soon as these new Jews arrived in the country, they were bussed straight to settlements in the disputed territories.
The Guardian, Wednesday 7 August 2002

Jerome230 wrote:

The majority of Jews in Israel do speak Hebrew and it is the official language taught in schools, commerce, government, etc. Even most arabs speak Hebrew and many Jews speak arabic because of their interaction.

That's all very quaint and self-serving, but when the Zionist movement began, Jews had no common language and their traditions were in many cases wildly dissimilar or simply abandoned altogether. Zionism was a movement that advocated not so much the defense of an ethnic group, as the formation of such a group in Palestine, where those who were thought to fit a certain semi-racial category were to find refuge.

Jerome230 wrote:

It appears you, Byrnzie, bought into the arab propoganda, hook line and sinker - but it seems to me like I won't be able to convince you of your error.

I don't deal in propaganda and bad history. I deal in the facts.

Byrnzie

Jerome230 wrote:

What good do the "palestinians" think is going to come out of sending 250+rockets into Israel this past week alone? Do you think Israel is going to sit idly by and not defend herself? Remember, the Israelis don't teach their kids how "honorable" it is to their family to engage in suicide bombings, either.

The rockets were a response to Israel's criminal extra-judicial assassination.

As for Israeli's supposedly existing on some moral high ground in relation to what they teach their kids, is this why Israeli settler children are encouraged to throw stones and rocks at Palestinian schoolchildren and spit at them?

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/49730
'Leaving school in the afternoon, the [school]girls are subjected to abuse and intimidation by settler youths as they walk home. At one point, a settler boy, face contorted with hatred, viciously hurls stones at the group, injuring one.
...A particularly disturbing feature of settler culture is the role played by children, often very young, in initiating anti-Palestinian violence.

“The usual incidents,” recalls one soldier in Soldiers’ Testimonies from Hebron 2005-2007 (published by Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence), “are when Palestinian children finish school and they have to be protected, because otherwise they get beaten up by the Jewish kids.

...Spitting in the face of Palestinian passers-by is a regular event often encouraged by settler parents: “I saw a (settler) child, about three years-old walking along the ‘Prayer Route’, and a little Arab child passed him by. Just a little kid. What does he know? Also about three years-old.

“So the (settler) child spits at him thickly, square in the face. Really extreme … And his father walks with him, hand in hand, saying absolutely nothing.”

In another typical incident, a group of looting settler children emerged from a Palestinian shop they had just trashed. They saw an old Palestinian man in the street and, as one soldier remembers, “literally sprayed his eyes with teargas and broke his cane”.


http://electronicintifada.net/content/w ... ltops/6812
Their children dodge sticks and stones -— from settler children (and their parents) -— on their way to school every day as soldiers watch on indifferently; I and several other internationals accompanied the students to document and even shield the settler kids’ attacks.

Out of one house came Jamilya, whose mother was recently attacked by a settler girl who incited a mob to come rip the family’s door off. Their windows are caged like all others on the street, to block stones; occasional cracks show where small rocks still get through. At the military station, Jamilya climbed a set of stairs to her right and then entered school via a narrow stone path that was just reconstructed for the third time. More kids came from the opposite direction on a dirt path, passing a Palestinian house with graffiti across the main gate: “Arabs to the Gas Chambers.”

...Last week one settler child ran down the street flailing his arms and throwing stones at Palestinians in every direction. Soldiers prevented internationals from photographing saying, “It’s ok, it’s Purim. He’s just drunk.”

...Settlers from the illegal outposts have poisoned village water sources with dead chickens and dirty diapers, and cemented over cave entrances. They run down the hills into villages wearing masks and carrying baseball bats or large guns.

Byrnzie

Jerome230 wrote:

The people who began calling themselves "palestinians" in the 1960's are simply arabs just as the other arabs in the middle east.

Read on:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/14/fearsome-words/
The idea that all Arabic speakers shared in being Arabs began life, like most ethnic nationalisms, as an almost literary adventure. It originates in Syria, where progressive Christians developed it to counter Ottoman rule. The British, through T.E. Lawrence ‘of Arabia’ quickly seized on it enrol some inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula in the same cause. After 1919, the Syrian and Arabian strains of this doctrine met in uneasy coexistence. The British installed Arabian rulers in Syria/Lebanon and Jordan, not without complaints that their new subjects were ‘not Arabs’! It was again the British, in the 1940s, who presided over the foundation of an ‘Arab League’, partly as a move to keep the French from re-establishing their position in Lebanon.

One of the League’s founding members was Egypt. This might bring a smile to some of you who know the Middle East, because you have heard Egyptians make disparaging remarks about ‘the Arabs’ who frequent the nightclubs along the Nile, or listened to an elderly Egyptian tell you the story of just when he first discovered he was an ‘Arab’. But the myth of an Arab people is more than a successful British ploy. It took deep roots when Gamel Abdel Nasser fashioned it into a ideology of resistance to Western colonialism, not to mention a convenient tool for extending Egyptian power. As an oppositional creed, everyone from Berbers who hate ‘the Arabs’ to Egyptians who despise them to Palestinians who feel abandoned by them will proudly claim their Arab identity against the insults and depradations of the West.

Yet all know better. There are inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula who may plausibly be called Arabs. Most other Arabic speakers have little in common with these ‘Arabians’, and little sympathy for their culture or traditions. As for ‘Arab nationalism’, no longer is there a Nasser to fashion it into a progressive force; it has withered on the vine. Yet if Arab ethnic nationalism never gained enough force to harm others, it gained enough prominence to put the so-called Arab world at the losing end of moral ascendency.

The Arabs, understood as the ensemble of Arabic speakers, are by no stretch of the imagination ‘a people’. They pay a heavy price for this dubious self-description. On the one hand, it associates every Arabic speaker with every crime of every other Arabic speaker – this holds even for some whose native tongue isn’t Arabic but who live in officially ‘Arab’ countries. It is as if the Sudanese ‘Arab’ militias were the armies of a ‘people’ encompassing the Syrians of Tyre and the Berbers of Marrakesh.

Perhaps this bad press is a mere annoyance. But there is worse. Not only the rest of the world but ‘the Arabs’ themselves have come think they are somehow a hopeless case: why on earth can’t they unite? Why don’t they do more for the Palestinians? Why the endless bickering and mistrust? ‘The Arabs’ in these respects seem like perennial losers incapable of self-government, markedly inferior to ‘the Jews’. This impression is only partly countered by savvy remarks about an ‘Arab street’, always on the verge of rising up against their rotten rulers, yet never, it seems, more genuinely committed to the Palestinians than a fan club to their favorite football team. To the extent that unsustainable attempts at constructing an Arab identity have contributed to the decline of Middle East secularism, they have also contributed to the rise of fanatical religious extremists. This too has hurt the Arabic-speaking world.

Not only does Arab nationalism make ‘the Arabs’ look bad; it also obscures what is good. When Arab states support and sustain the Palestinians, it is much more from genuine altruism than from bogus racial solidarity. But to the extent that Arabs do not do all that is expected of them – do not take in the Palestinians, do not invite them in as fellow-Arabs, the reason is simple. The Palestinians are not fellow-Arabs. They have no home, no ‘homeland’ if you like, but Palestine. Wondering why their ‘brother Arabs’ do not to take them in makes as much sense as wondering why Northern Irish Protestants would not welcome as brothers their ‘fellow Anglophones’ from Dublin or Watts or the slums of Kingston, Jamaica.

Byrnzie

Jerome230 wrote:

Well, it was the Jews' land to begin with...
NOT to get biblical, but as archaeology shows, Jerusalem is the religious and political focus of the Jewish people from the time King David, from the Tribe of Judah and the village of Bethlehem, made it his fortress and the capitol of a united Jewish nation called Israel around 1000 BCE. Additionally, a Hebrew University archaeologist discovered a Jerusalem city wall from the time of King Solomon (10th century BCE), and said the finding “is the first time that a structure from that time has been found that may correlate with written descriptions of Solomon’s building in Jerusalem.” Artifacts found inside excavations around the City of David and within the Old City, the Temple Mount and Solomon’s Stables date the Jewish presence in Jerusalem as far back as 1000 BCE, during the time of King David.

Michael Neumann:
'In the case of a Jewish claim to Palestine, the claims are themselves dubious. Here it is not necessary to have decided on a truth, which may elude researchers forever. It is enough to show that there is serious controversy, and that is easily done. One account of recent findings can be found in 'The Bible Unearthed: Archeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the origin of It's sacred Texts'. It's authors are Israel Finkelstein, director of an archeological institute at Tel Aviv Uuniversity, and Neil Asher Silberman, director of a Belgian archeological institute and a contributing editor to 'Archeology' magazine. These writers display no political agenda and repeat to the point of saturation their admiration and respect for the Bible. Asher and Silberman introduce their work with the claim that:

"The historical sage contained in the Bible - from Abraham's encounter with God and his journey to Canaan, to Moses's delverance of the children of Israe from bondage, to the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah - was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of the human imagination."

This is the authors' exceedingly polite way of saying that the Biblical accounts are sometimes nonsense, sometimes deliberate lies, exaggerations, and distortions. The status of the Biblical Kingdom is particularly relevant to the Jewish claims to Palestine. One of Asher and Silberman's more devastating findings is that:

"The Biblical borders of the land of Israel as outlined in the book of Joshua had seemingly assumed a sacred inviolability...the Bible pictures a stormy but basically continuous Israelite occupation of the land of Israel all the way to the Assyrian conquest. But a reexamination of the archaeological evidence...points to a period of a few decades [in which Israel existed], between around 835-800B.C.E..."

In other words, they find that the "Great" Jewish Kingdom existed in something like it's fabled extent for a tiny fraction of the period traditionally alleged. Even then, their boundaries never came close to the "Greater Israel" of contemporary Jewish fundamentalism. The rest of the time. Judah and Israel are thought to have been, for the most part, very primitive entities, devoid of literate culture or substantial administrative structure, extending to only a small, landlocked part of what is now called Palestine. The great structures of the Biblical era are, all of them, attributed to Canaanite cultures. Moreover, the inhabitants of Biblical Israel and Judah seem to have been, for most of the time and for the most part, practitioners of Canaanite religions rather than Judaism, or of various synthetic cults. These "Israelites" were not, that is, "Jewish" in one important sense of the term. The authors refer to the Biblical Kingdom at it existed as a "a multi-ethnic society." The idea that such a past could validate a Jewish historical claim to Palestine is simply ludicrous, even if it could be shown - which it cannot - that today's Jews are in some legal sense, heirs to the ancient Israelite Kingdoms.'

Jerome230 wrote:

The Arabs have no claim to that land. They never have, and they never will. PERIOD.

Ethnic Nationalism and racism alive and well in the 21st century.

Jerome230

Speaking of ethnic nationalism and racism, one of your sources of information is the infamous Michael Neumann, the self-hating Jewish blowhard from Toronto University? He took great lengths to de-stigmatizing the term "anti-Semite" and all the while flew the flag of his true colors as blatantly anti-Semitic. The same guy who infamously wrote:
"If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don't come to light, I don't care. If an effective strategy [of helping the Palestinians] means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism, or reasonable hostility to Jews, I also don't care. If it means encouraging vicious, racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the state of Israel, I still don't care."

Hmm...just put an RPG in his hands and he'd fire on his own people without thinking twice, if afforded the opportunity.

Byrnzie

Jerome230 wrote:

Speaking of ethnic nationalism and racism, your source of all your information is the infamous Michael Neumann, the self-hating Jewish blowhard from Toronto University? He took great lengths to de-stigmatizing the term "anti-Semite" and all the while flew the flag of his true colors as blatantly anti-Semitic. The same guy who infamously wrote:
"If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don't come to light, I don't care. If an effective strategy [of helping the Palestinians] means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism, or reasonable hostility to Jews, I also don't care. If it means encouraging vicious, racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the state of Israel, I still don't care."

Hmm...just put an RPG in his hands and he'd fire on his own people without thinking twice, if afforded the opportunity.

Really pathetic attempt to smear the messenger with the old 'self-hating Jew' nonsense. Because any Jew who criticizes Israel's crimes must be a self-hating Jew, and their writings dismissed, whereas the writings of any self-loving Jew must be accepted at face value.


Michael Neumann clarified exactly what he intended by the above statement, published without his permission by 'Jewish Tribal Review' who Neumann regards as anti-Semitic:

'I will not self-censor my writings because they may be misused by antisemites, and it is only in this very particular and limited sense that I 'don't care' about encouraging antisemitism. Antisemites misuse all sorts of materials, including the statements of committed Zionists and of Mahatma Gandhi. It would be futile and impossible for me to tailor my writings to avoid such misuse.'

..and in more detail here: http://mneumann.tripod.com/cjctripo.txt

'...let me begin with the greatest absurdity, the claim that I am antisemitic. In rejecting this claim I do not hide behind my Jewishness; there may have been, on rare occasions, Jewish antisemites. But there is nothing even close to antisemitism in my opinions.

Take the material that has caused the most outrage, a private email correspondence allegedly reproduced on the Jewish Tribal Review site. I have never denied that such a correspondence occurred, but only said the truth: that the site is not to be trusted, and that, lacking the original emails, I cannot vouch for its accuracy. I am distressed that the CJC has made so much of the material, not because it embarrasses me, but because it legitimates a truly poisonous, truly antisemitic site. I will comment on the material as if it were accurate, because that is the only way I can refute the claims made on its basis. However at the same time I repudiate that material. No one has disputed that it was published, not only without my consent, but against my express wishes.

What is almost comical about the use of the Jewish Tribal Review material is its context. The correspondence exists only because I published an article called "Blame Yourself: American Power and Jewish Power". This article is entirely devoted to attacking the myth that Jews control America: I believe and hope it to be one of the most systematic and effective attacks on that myth published to date.

As a result of its publication, I received a good deal of hate mail. One message I kept, entitled "Neumann the Zionist", reads as follows:

"Neumann's Jewish stripes finally begin to show, as we all knew they would. The Jews commandeer American foreign policy and make it do their dirty work, then send their mole Neumann to tell the goyim that its all their fault. How utterly predictable. You, Chomsky, Bennis, you're all the same. Go pick up your paycheck from the ADL. Show me a Jew who criticizes Israel and I'll show you a Zionist who hasn't had his coming out party yet. You just had yours."

The Jewish Tribal Review is much more polite, but it was precisely their unhappiness with my contentions that provoked the email exchange.

In this exchange, two sentences have been quoted entirely out of context: it strains my conciliatory intentions to believe that the quoting was done in good faith. Both occur in the following passage:

"My sole concern is indeed to help the Palestinians, and I try to play for keeps. I am not interested in the truth, or justice, or understanding, or anything else, except so far as it serves that purpose. This means, among other things, that if talking about Jewish power doesn't fit my strategy, I won't talk about it. If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don't come to light, I don't care. If an effective strategy means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism, or reasonable hostility to Jews, I also don't care. If it means encouraging vicious, racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the state of Israel, I still don't care."

I am the first to admit, and regret, the disturbing and intemperate language of the paragraph, but in context its meaning is not alarming. My correspondent has reproached me for showing no interest in further investigations into Jewish power. Having failed to demonstrate that Jews control America, he nevertheless wants me to endorse open-ended, unsystematic investigations into Jewish ownership. He wants me, that is, to help him dig up dirt on the Jews, in the guise of pursuing The Truth.

In this context, it could hardly be clearer that my reply concerns my political writing, not my academic work. My political writing has a political, not an academic purpose; it is to help the Palestinians. For reasons detailed in the "Jewish power' article under discussion, I believe that the myth of Jewish control of America - an antisemitic myth - harms and discredits the Palestinian cause. So I say that, even if it is true that Jews own this or that or the other thing, I am not *interested* in such truths.

My correspondent takes this, in mock horror, as some admission that I habitually twist the truth to suit my political objectives; I regret to say that the CJC happily embraces this interpretation.
But my statement means what it literally says: that I am not *interested*, as I write on behalf of the Palestinians, in irrelevant truths, truths that don't further the Palestinian cause.
It does not mean that I am out to conceal or twist truths. It does mean - which is what I am saying - that I am not about t o climb on board in search of Jewish power when that project has nothing to do
with the welfare of the Palestinians. Later on I make clear that, in general, I do believe that political objectives may trump the obligation to be truthful, but go on to say that almost everyone believes this. Lies were used to hide Jews from Hitler, and indeed at times to defeat him; it is childish to believe that, in politics, one must always be truthful. But I have never seen any occasion to bend the truth on behalf of the Palestinians, and I take great care for the factual accuracy of my claims.

What then of the statement: "If it means encouraging vicious, racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the state of Israel, I still don't care"?

In the first place, as the preceding statements make clear, I am stressing the importance of the Palestinian cause by considering extreme possibilities. I first say that "if talking about Jewish power doesn't fit my strategy, I won't talk about it." In other words, I first say that I will not uncover truths detrimental to the Jewish people if that doesn't help the Palestinians. This hardly sounds like the project of an antisemite.

In the second place, the statement is neither antisemitic, nor does it encourage antisemitism. It raises a remote possibility, and says that, should what I do - my writing - encourage antisemitism, that will not deter me. As I said in my letter to the National Post: "I will not self-censor my writings because they may be misused by antisemites, and it is only in this very particular and limited sense that I 'don't care' about encouraging antisemitism. Antisemites misuse all sorts of materials, including the statements of committed Zionists and of Mahatma Gandhi. It would be futile and impossible for me to tailor my writings to avoid such misuse." The notion that I would even contemplate deliberately cultivating antisemitism is absurd, not only because my family has been decimated by (Nazi) antisemites, but also because I have argued, at length, that Zionists manipulate antisemitism to their own purposes.
(The Israeli commentator Ran HaCohen, in http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h-col.html, is of much the same
opinion.)

Finally, the import of the passage can be understood by making a substitution in some of it. Suppose a committed defender of Israel had said:

"My sole concern is indeed to defend Israel, and I try to play for keeps. I am not interested in the truth, or justice, or understanding, or anything else, except so far as it serves that purpose. This means, among other things, that if talking about Jewish power doesn't fit my strategy, I won't talk about it. If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don't come to light, I don't care. If an effective strategy means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism, or reasonable hostility to Jews, I also don't care. If it means encouraging vicious, racist anti-Semitism, I still don't care."

Of course I have left out the part about the destruction of the Israeli state, but that cannot be considered an antisemitic comment. It should now be clear that a willingness to tolerate these extreme consequences is neither antisemitism nor encouragement to antisemitism. Indeed the noted Israeli dove, Uri Avnery, has accused Zionists of exactly the same refusal to be deterred by antisemitic reactions: see his essay, "Manufacturing Antisemites". Like me, Zionists certainly care about the reactions - they won't just let such reactions stand in their way...

The notion that I am antisemitic or racist becomes even more absurd in the light of my repeated claims that Israeli crimes endanger and discredit the Jewish people - not because Israeli crimes ought to be blamed on all Jews, but because they are committed in the name of all Jews. (Many Jews object to this: hence the dissident Jewish organization called "Not In My Name".) Why would an antisemite care about this? Why have these repeated assertions, readily available to the CJC, never made it into their polemics?

...This is not to deny that my criticism of Israel is savage; I do indeed call Israel "an emerging evil". But I have no hatred of Israel, pathological or otherwise. Israel is an abstraction; to hate it would be foolish. Like all nations it contains wonderful and awful people; it is far too complex and heterogenous to hate.'

Byrnzie

Seems perfectly reasonable to me:

Michael Neumann: 'In short, the real scandal today is not antisemitism but the importance it is given. Israel has committed war crimes. It has implicated Jews generally in these crimes, and Jews generally have hastened to implicate themselves. This has provoked hatred against Jews. Why not? Some of this hatred is racist, some isn't, but who cares? Why should we pay any attention to this issue at all? Is the fact that Israel's race war has provoked bitter anger of any importance besides the war itself? Is the remote possibility that somewhere, sometime, somehow, this hatred may in theory, possibly kill some Jews of any importance besides the brutal, actual, physical persecution of Palestinians, and the hundreds of thousands of votes for Arabs to be herded into transit camps?"

In February 2009, Neumann and his brother Osha Neumann asked the Israeli president to remove their grandmother’s name from the Yad Vashem because of the 2008-2009 Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. Neumann wrote that

'I do not believe that the Jewish people, in whose name you [i.e the israeli president] have committed so many crimes with such outrageous complacency, can ever rid itself of the shame you have brought upon us. Nazi propaganda, for all its calumnies, never disgraced and corrupted the Jews; you have succeeded in this...you blacken our names not only by your acts, but by the lies, the coy evasions, the smirking arrogance and the infantile self-righteousness with which you embroider our history... You will never pay for your crimes and you will continue to preen yourself, to bask in your illusions of moral ascendancy.'

Byrnzie

Jerome230 wrote:

Hmm...just put an RPG in his hands and he'd fire on his own people without thinking twice, if afforded the opportunity.

Why? Because he stands up for the rights of the Palestinians and criticizes Israel's crimes?

This may come as some surprise to you, but not all Jews support Israel's crimes. There are many Jews in the World, such as Michael Neumann, Norman Finkelstein, Uri Avnery, Henry Siegman, e.t.c, who have the decency and integrity to oppose Israeli Apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

even flow - question mark

Reading through this reminds me of the good ole days, facts and fiction and then pride getting in the way of sense.

Byrnzie in a landslide.