[wvns] Israel’s Growing Insanity

In the following article author Avigail Abarbanel mentions Ben Zion Netanyahu, who is the father of Binyamin Netanyahu.

I [the blog editor] discuss Ben Zion Netanyahu's pseudoscholarly insanity at the beginning of Jewish Financial Aggression, Worldwide Economic Nakba.

Israel’s Growing Insanity

by Avigail Abarbanel

I wrote this on 9th February 2009, the day before Israel’s election, after seeing an interview with Benjamin Netanyahu’s father on Israeli TV.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s father—described as “sharp as a razor” at the ripe old age of 99—gave a rare interview to Amit Segel of Israel’s Channel 2 to support his son’s election campaign (Channel 2 website. 7 Feb. 2009). At some point in the interview Professor Ben-Zion Netanyahu said,

“Today we are facing plain and simple, a danger of annihilation. This is not only the ongoing existential danger to Israel, but a real danger of complete annihilation. People think that the Shoah (Holocaust) is over — but it is not, it is continuing all the time” (My translation from the Hebrew).

The views of Netanyahu Senior do not represent a lunatic fringe, but the Israeli mainstream. When I was growing up in Israel, things were much the same. I and everyone I knew believed in earnest that we were always at risk of annihilation. Fear of annihilation is at the heart of Jewish, not just Israeli culture and it pre-dates the Holocaust. But the climate in Israel today is far more extreme than it was in my time, as Israel on the whole moves further and further to an irrational fanatic position.

When a person’s perception of reality is completely out of touch with reality itself, we begin to get an uneasy feeling that something might be wrong with his or her mind. Where is the evidence that the Jews, right now are facing a “real danger of complete annihilation”? Where is the evidence that the Holocaust, a systematic and deliberate plan to eliminate all Jews during the Second World War, is still being carried out? I would even argue that saying this is an insult to the victims of the real Holocaust. Israel is rumoured to have one of the most powerful military forces in the world but Israelis still believe that they are right now being annihilated. This is insanity. Someone is indeed facing a risk of cultural, economic, political and even physical annihilation, but it’s not Israel or Jews, it’s the Palestinians, and the annihilator is Israel itself.

Our politics and our economics are both a product of our psychology, not something separate. We make political and economic choices based on who we are and what we feel and believe. Many rational people search for a rational analysis—often political or economic—for what is happening in Israel-Palestine. But the only way to interpret Israel’s behaviour during the past 61 years is through understanding the psychology of its society and its leaders. To ignore Israel’s psychology is dangerous because it means that any intervention based only on political considerations, will miss the mark and risk being irrelevant. Indeed if you look at the history of diplomacy and ‘peace negotiations’ in the region, it is quite obvious that they have achieved nothing at all. Things seem to be progressing on a trajectory determined by something that to someone in my profession, looks more like a mental illness than a political plan, bearing no relation to any rational diplomatic efforts, ‘roadmaps’, peace plans or truces.

Israel’s behaviour is a direct product of its psychological struggle with the implications of Jewish identity, which in turn determines Israel’s very reason for existence. In his book Alternative to a Psychotic State Akiva Orr asks if Israel is a ‘Jewish state’ or a ‘state for the Jews’. Since it is clearly not a Jewish state—Israeli state law is different to religious law—then it must be a state for the Jews. And this begs the question of ‘who or what is a Jew’, and to that there has never been a satisfactory legal answer. Israel has no constitution precisely because it cannot resolve the question of who or what it wants to be. The de-facto, modern secular Zionist definition of a Jew is someone who would have been considered a Jew by Hitler. Effectively Jews are allowing themselves to be defined by those who hated them and sought their annihilation. In other words, this identity was formed as a reaction to a particular set of circumstances. But what happens if the circumstances change? What does that do to this identity? In other words, if the world is now safe for Jews and is no longer what Jewish people thought it was, then Jewish people no longer know who they are, in which case either Jewish identity needs to change, or you make sure that the world is back to what it was when the Jews were persecuted. That way there is no need to go through the difficult process of self-examination or live in a world that doesn’t make sense. The reason for the existence of the state of Israel is a direct result of Jewish self-perception as victims of persecution. Israel was created to offer a safe haven for Jews from persecution.

I could be wrong, I might be naïve, but I don’t believe that Israeli leaders are conscious that they are now hyping up more traditional forms of anti-Semitism—that is to say, I don’t think that they are consciously plotting to do it. They are operating without awareness and they probably believe in their own explanations for what they are doing, for example that they attacked Gaza to weaken Hamas.

But we must look at the real consequences of Israel’s actions in Gaza and three years ago in Lebanon for example, to understand Israel’s real motivation. If Israel’s actions lead to an increase in fanaticism and in anti-Jewish sentiment, this is because this is what Israel wants to achieve, albeit unconsciously. But why does Israel need more fanaticism and antisemitism? An increase in real anti-Semitism and attacks on Jews would bring current reality into line with the outdated imaginary reality, and would help keep Jewish identity unchanged. The reality is that Jews have not been victims, certainly not of a genocidal regime for over sixty years—the Holocaust is not happening now and there is no attempt by anyone to annihilate the Jews. The fact that Jews live in safety everywhere and are not persecuted makes Israel uncomfortable. If the Jews are doing well everywhere, then Jewish identity is being put to question, and so is the very reason for the existence of Israel. The very state that was created to save the Jews from persecution, now needs them to be persecuted again so that it can continue to exist. Escalating the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is one of the means to achieving this end.

The Palestinians, who are desperately trying to understand what has been happening to them, are caught in this madness and are the victims of it. It’s not because of who they are or something they did, that they are suffering. It’s because they had the misfortune of living on the land that a neurotic Zionist movement was determined to take for itself regardless of cost. I think many Palestinians are beginning to recognise this but the world leaders still believe Israel’s racist propaganda, which says that there is something inherent in the Palestinian people that means that they deserve what they get.

This is why it is essential that the world intervene decisively. I do not trust Israel to suddenly develop sufficient self-awareness to understand what it’s doing and put a stop to it. Israel’s growing delinquency demonstrates the exact opposite. The Palestinians do not have any more time to spare.

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[wvns] Gilad Atzmon on Secularism

Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shamir look at Western (Jewish) frameworks for analyzing the conflict over Palestine.

Atzmon On Secularism and Marxism

Gilad Atzmon

Introduction by Israel Shamir

These two most recent and angry texts of our friend Gilad Atzmon are united in his rejection of atheism, of enforced godlessness of the Left. Like other most radical and leading members of our small community, he has turned to God and to Faith, and had parted with barren antireligious attitudes of yesterday.

Fight against God was (is?) an integral part of Marxist doctrine for historical reasons, caused by heavy participation of secular Jews in the Left and Revolutionary movements of 19^th- early 20^th cc. After parting with Jewish faith, these persons could consider themselves ‘ex-Jews’, ‘no Jews any more’, like Marx did. This way was too difficult for many of them, so they preferred to construct a new identity, nationalist secular Jewishness, i.e. to become ‘secular Jews’. These ‘secular Jews’ demanded from other members of the Left to part with their faith.

The Left doctrine including its anti-religious component has been exported to the large world outside of Europe as preferable, progressive, working radical opposition idea. It won the day in Russia and China, and elsewhere. Only after collapse of the Soviet Union the new radical native movements sprung forth, totally independent of European influence: Hamas of Palestine, Islamic republic of Iran, Hezbollah of Lebanon, and to some extent the Bolivarian revolution of Latin America.

The Left is still burdened by anti-religious attitude: the Marxist Communist ruling party of Nepal navigated itself into a heavy crisis by trying to wean people away from their faith. They objected to the native Nepalese cult of Child Goddess Kumari, and have brought down their own government. Likewise, the Chinese Communists unnecessarily antagonized the Tibetans by trying to fight their religious life.

Instead of joining with local radical anti-imperialist movements, the Left fights them. Thus, Communists of Iraq practically welcomed the US occupation, Communists of Iran supported the richest man of the land, Rafsanjani, against Ahmadinejad, Cuban Communists were against Castro, Venezuelan Communists were against Chavez and Palestinian Communists are against Hamas. This schism has to be defeated, if the Left is to survive and flourish.

Criticism of Gilad is not always fair: though historically Jewish Marxists were responsible for this development, nowadays they do not lead anymore. The non-Jewish Palestinian Left is as anti-Islamic as the Jewish Left. In Ramallah and in Yasouf, I’ve heard more anti-Hamas talk than in Golders Green. We have to restore the anti-imperialist front, and this calls for containing militant secularism on one hand and militant anti-communism, on the other.

Gilad is mistaken when he postulates his two points:

1. The Palestinian liberation movement is basically a national liberation movement. By acknowledging this we lose the internationalist Left with its opposition to nationalism.

2. Due to the political rise of Hamas, Palestinian resistance is now regarded as Islamic resistance. This is where we are losing the secularists and rabid atheists.

Hamas and the Islamic resistance are an important part, but not the whole of Palestinian resistance. And the Palestinian liberation movement today may be seen as a civil rights movement aiming to provide equal rights to all dwellers of Palestine/Israel. Likewise, there was a Black liberation movement of Black Panthers with its religious component of Luis Farrakhan, but it was the US civil rights movement that won the day with Obama’s victory. Without Black Panthers and Farrakhan it may never happen, but they had to concede ground. We should strive for a similar shift in Palestine, by speaking more forcefully for One State solution.

Recently, one Hussein Ibish, an indecently obese American Lebanese lapdog of Mahmud Abbas, attacked the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement) asking: what BDS would be promoting: an end to the occupation or an end to Israel? ‘End to Israel’, like ‘end to slavery’ or ‘end to apartheid’ is the correct answer to Ibish’s query. And at this point we may find an agreement of the secular and the religious wings, both at home and abroad.

[Click here to read the entire article.]

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[JSF] Uncritical Consumers of Zionist Propaganda

Followup to Noa does a 'Benny Morris,' calls Hamas 'Nazi-like'

Next to Christian Zionists Israeli Jews of Arab background are some of the most uncritical consumers of Zionist propaganda.

BTW, to my non-native understanding of Modern Israeli Hebrew, I have the impression that the language is much harsher than it is being translated. For example at one point when the speaker says "son of a whore," the English rendering gives "son of a bitch." Modern Israeli Hebrew distinguishes the two phrases, and "son of a whore" seems much worse slur than "son of a bitch."

"Hitler was right", so say two angry (and ignorant) Israelis

Do you remember the controversy about the messaging of protests of the Gaza massacre one year ago?

So watch this.

What you see is passer-bys responding to Jewish protesters against the evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem. They shout "Hitler was right," express regret that the protesters have not been exterminated, and do the Nazi salute.

This is more complicated that it sounds to those not into Israeli sociology. The two Israelis, Jews of Arab origins, identify the protesters as Ashkenazi (Jews of European origin), and clearly intend their words as a slur for Ashkenazis. In Israel, Jews of Arab origins have been systematically discriminated against and oppressed since the beginning of the state. The great success of the Ashkenazi dominated Labor Party was to create a linkage between peace with Palestinians and intensified racism against Jews of Arab origin. This is the foul fruit of that achievement.

I wonder if the Anti Defamation League will have something to say about it. But I won't hold my breath.

PS. They also heap insults on the Oslo architect Yossi Beilin, with whom the protesters have in fact very little in common. With these insults I am in agreement.

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Holocaust Guilt-Tripping from MTV

The subtext of the following two video-shorts from MTV is Zionist.

They train the Western non-Jewish viewer that he must identify primarily with the alleged Jewish victims of the Holocaust to the exclusion of any other identification that might decrease sympathy with Jews anywhere in the world or - to be more specific - with Israeli Zionists.

The clips are impressively ahistorical.

The Holocaust could have happened to people of other ethnic groups if outrageously disproportionate numbers of people belonging to such ethnic groups were

• engaging in massive worldwide financial fraud and white slaving as well as
• committing targeted assassinations, sabotage, terrorism, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide on epic scale
  

throughout the Czarist and Soviet empires or in historic Palestine while they were simultaneously

• subverting or
• spying on
  

governments throughout Central Europe, Western Europe and the Americas.

In reality the false narratization of the Holocaust corresponds almost exactly to the Jewish-Zionist-incited treatment of Arab and Muslim immigrants to the West over the last decade.

The videoclips also recall Pastor Niemöller's superficial and decontextualized sound-bite analysis of German Nazi policy.

The idea that the Holocaust happened to people just like us was an implicit theme of The Holocaust series in which Meryl Streep starred. This trite Hollywood TV production had such a large impact on German pop culture that it tremendously affected German domestic and international politics.

Without such constant ongoing Jewish Zionist propagandization, decent human beings would certainly sympathize entirely with the native population of Palestine and with those non-Jews, whom Jews have historically abused and exploited since the beginning of the Middle Ages.

The entire human race should scorn racist murderous genocidal Jewish Zionists, who have no problems with support, participation, or benefit from the conquest, the ethnic cleansing, and the plundering of Palestine.

Drôle de message qu'a voulu faire passer MTV avec cette Vidé

by gloubi77

Drôle de message 2 qu'a voulu faire passer MTV avec cette..
by gloubi77

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[Malaysia Insider] ‘Allah’ ruling is not a challenge to Islam — Leslie Lau

Followup to [Herald Malaysia] Malaysia, Allah, and God.

‘Allah’ ruling is not a challenge to Islam — Leslie Lau

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 — Amid the uproar over the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s ruling allowing Catholics to describe the Christian God as “Allah” is the implication made by some Muslim leaders that the Islamic faith is under threat.

The underlying theme of the criticisms against the High Court ruling is that Muslims will be confused by the use of the word “Allah” by Catholics and that it is an insult to Islam to allow non-Muslims the right to utter the word “Allah.”

This morning’s Mingguan Malaysia suggested that it is is because Muslims are not united that they have come under this major threat to their way of life.

Many of these critics are missing the point, perhaps disingenuously so.

The point is that East Malaysians and some communities in peninsular Malaysia have been using the word to describe the Christian God for years.

This is because a large majority of East Malaysians use Bahasa Malaysia during their worship as the national language is the lingua franca of the region.

For most Malay-Muslims in West Malaysia, the exposure they have to Catholic and Christian churches has perhaps led many to somehow conclude that Christianity is a Western concept.

After all, many churches they see appear to only use English in their services. So why can’t they continue using English words like “God” or “Lord” in their services?

Herein lies the problem when there is not enough effort made to ensure inter-faith understanding. In this regard both Christians and Muslims alike should strive harder to understand each other and their respective beliefs.

The fact is Christian services in Malaysia are conducted in various languages, including Bahasa Malaysia, English, Chinese, Tamil and even French, to serve the different communities.

If there was an Arabic Christian community in Malaysia, there would be no doubt that Arabic language services would have been started by the churches. And the word “Allah” would indeed be used to describe the Christian God as it is used in churches in the Middle East.

The fact is Islam, Christianity and Judaism are the three major Abrahamic religions with common origins and values.

Instead of stoking the fires, it would be perhaps wise for both Muslim and Christian leaders to live up to their respective religious values to ensure there is no strife over the use of the word “Allah.”

It is important to note that the court ruling does not mean that the Christian hordes are at the city gates ready to subsume and take over all that Islam and Muslims value and treasure.

There is no war or crusade that is about to happen.

The Christian churches in Malaysia do not have any plans to bombard young Muslims with Christian literature using the word “Allah” to confuse and attract Muslims to leave their faith.

On New Year’s Day, millions of Muslims attended Friday prayers a day after the court ruling. They went to the mosque just as they have been doing for years.

Today is Sunday and hundreds of thousands of Catholics in Malaysia attended Mass just as they have been doing for years. And in Bahasa Malaysia services they used the word “Allah”.

In English services the word “God” was used. In Tamil and Chinese services the respective words for God was used.

This has been going on for many years since before the country gained independence, until the authorities got into the act and issued restrictions.

The Catholic Church then went down the legal route and the High Court has ruled in its favour.

Many Umno leaders, and even some from PAS, are now trying to portray this issue as a great challenge by the non-Muslims against the Malay/Muslims. It is incredible that Umno politicians consider Sabah and Sarawak as a vote bank but they are now supporting a denial of the constitutional rights of East Malaysians.

Suggestions have also been made that a lack of Malay unity has caused this court ruling to happen.

But simply put, one has got nothing to do with the other.

The Christians and Catholics are just asking that they be allowed to use the word “Allah” during their services and in their literature in Bahasa Malaysia. “Allah” will not be used in any other language.

Because for the Christians, this has been an issue about language — in Bahasa Malaysia the word for God is “Allah” while the word for Lord is “Tuhan”.

Instead of raising the alarm over the matter, politicians must now consider toning down their rhetoric.

Leslie Lau is consultant editor to The Malaysian Insider Sphere: Related Content

[Herald Malaysia] Malaysia, Allah, and God

Sheila Musaji mentions a sort of convergence of Islamophobic and Muslim chauvinist thinking in the article below.

Columbia Professor Joseph Massad has described a similar sort of convergence of Gay International (Umgeschlechtungsbewegung) ideology with modern conservative Islamic thought in the context of homosexual identity politics. See Origins: Zionist Gay Pubic Diplomacy.

Malaysia, Allah, and God
Published On December 30 , 2009
by Sheila Musaji

Back in 2007 when Malaysia The Malaysian Catholic Herald, a publication by and for Catholics in the country, was told that it could no longer use the word “Allah” to mean God because Allah was a “Muslim” term for God, The American Muslim (TAM) published a number of articles about this ridiculous non-issue. It is amazing that both Muslim extremists and Islamophobes hold the same beliefs on so many issues including this one. It seemed likely at that time that the government of Malaysia would be so embarrassed by the world reaction to this ban that the case would be dropped.

Backgrounder on the word “God” in Arabic and English, Joachim Martillo

Do Malaysian Muslims understand what ‘Allah’ means?, Farish A. Noor

Do Malaysian Muslims understand what ‘Allah’ means? Part 2, Farish A. Noor

Islamic Marcionism in Malaysia: Is Allah Equivalent to God?, Joachim Martillo

Just this week, this sad saga has a new chapter - The publisher of the Malaysian Catholic Herald has been told that it cannot challenge the home minister’s prohibition on the use of the word “Allah” in its publication, the High Court heard today.

The Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) says it supports the Catholic Church’s fight to overturn a government ban on the use of the term ‘Allah’ to describe God in Christian texts. “I personally believe and PAS as well believe the way forward for a mutually respecting religious relationship, especially in a plural, multi-racial and multicultural society like Malaysia, is not to deny the right of others to use the name of Allah,” Zulfikar Ahmad, a PAS official, said.

The Malaysia High Court is to issue a final ruling on this Christian ‘Allah’ Case on December 30th. The government of Malaysia needs to hear from as many American Muslims as possible to let them know that there is no justification for such a ban. Please send them an email.

Embassy of Malaysia, Washington, D.C.

Malaysian Consulate, NYC

Malaysian Consulate, LA

Permanent Mission of Malaysia to the U.N.

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