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Descendant of Swazi royals becomes rabbi
Anti-Zionism is Racism!
December 9, 2004 — 26 Kislev, 5765
Descendant of Swazi royals becomes rabbi
From Swazi student to rabbi: the journey of one African man
By Moira Schneider
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) – When a young black student of languages at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand found himself sitting next to someone who was “writing” from right to left in a funny script,” he could not have imagined the impact this would have on his life.
For Rabbi Natan Gamedze, that 1988 experience marked the beginning of an unlikely journey from his royal Swazi roots to the Orthodox rabbinate.
When the young man told him he was doing his Hebrew homework, Gamedze decided that he too wanted to learn the language. On approaching the university’s Hebrew department – as its only prospective non-Jewish student – “they accepted me with open arms, and that really touched me,” Gamedze told a gathering here earlier this month, held under the auspices of the Ohr Somayach yeshiva.
“The first warmth I felt from whites was from the Jewish community,” Gamedze said of the days when apartheid ruled in South Africa. “Friends started inviting me to their Shabbos tables. There would have been heavy penalties if they’d been discovered, but they refused to bow to the pressure.”
Gamedze said Hebrew conveyed “an inner dimension of truth” that he didn’t get from any other language – and the Oxford honours graduate in modern languages speaks 13 of them, according to his web site.
His knowledge of languages isn’t the only thing interesting about him.
Born Nkosinathi Gamedze, he is a descendant of a royal clan, but his family lost their rights two generations ago when the British recognized a rival clan as Swazi leaders. As consolation, his family was granted roles like diplomatic posts: his father was Swaziland’s former education minister and its high commissioner to the United Kingdom.
While completing his master’s degree in translation at Wits, as the Johannesburg university is known, Gamedze was approached by HebrewUniversity professor Moshe Sharon, who invited him to study for a doctorate in Hebrew in Jerusalem. He agreed.
Eighteen months later, friends from Johannesburg arrived to study at Ohr Somayach. They told him that it was his excitement years before at the writings of Maimonides that had propelled them on the path to Yiddishkeit.
When they asked Gamedze if he ever would consider converting to Judaism, Gamedze dismissed the idea, saying that he was upset with God.
“Why did he make me a non-Jew and give me such an interest in and love for Judaism?” he had asked himself. “There are so many Jews who don’t identify with their Judaism – why me?”
But his attitude changed when he started attending lectures in Jewish philosophy and “suddenly realized that the agenda I was interested in was Judaism.”
Experiencing an identity crisis, he attempted to escape his “destiny” by travelling to Rome, where, he told the audience, he thought to himself, “Baruch Hashem, I’ve escaped Judaism.”
But it wasn’t that easy. While marveling at the beauty of St. Peter’s in Rome, thoughts of the Inquisition and “the terrible things people did to get Jews to convert to Christianity” came flooding in.
He went back to his hotel room, covered his eyes and said the Shema.
“I felt a rush of energy and I thought, ‘Judaism is so powerful.’ But then cynicism took over and I thought, ‘This is for the Jewish people to deal with, not you,’” Gamedze said.
He continued touring Rome, but one day at breakfast something strange happened.
“I lifted the fork to put food in my mouth, but couldn’t eat it. This happened three or four times,” he told the audience. “I thought to myself, ‘Don’t tell me it’s because it’s not kosher that you’re not eating it.’”
He started thinking back to his Wits friends, who were prohibited from eating one day of the year. On investigating further, Gamedze discovered that it was Yom Kippur. After that, there was no turning back.
Returning to Israel, he went to Ohr Somayach and told them of his decision to convert. He began studying Rashi and Torah in a chevrutah, or learning partnership.
Gamedze went before a Beit Din in Jerusalem where he was asked by three rabbis why he wanted to be Jewish – after all, Jews suffered so much and were hated by all, they said.
“I answered them with a pasuk,” or passage “from Tehillim: ‘For me, the closeness to Hashem is good.’”
“There was silence for what seemed like ages,” Gamedze recalled.
But, unusually, he was accepted at his first attempt.
During all this time – a period of 16 years – Gamedze had distanced himself from his family.
“I didn’t want to have a ‘goyische kopf,’” he explains, referring to a non-Jewish brain. “I wanted to have a totally Jewish outlook on life without any outside influences.”
Today he lives in the northern Israeli city of Safed with his wife, Shayna Golda, and their two children, Menachem David, 4, and Shoshana, 4 months old. He teaches at the Sharei Bina Girls Seminary there and lectures around Israel on Jewish thought and his personal journey.
Explaining why he does this when some converts prefer not to talk about their path to Judaism, Gamedze says, “If it would open up the heart of just one Jew, it would be worth it.’’
Rabbi Natan Gamedze who is descended from Swazi royalty took a long journey to reach his destination.
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editor [at] jewishtribune.ca
B’nai Brith Canada
Descendant of Swazi royals becomes rabbi
From Swazi student to rabbi: the journey of one African man
By Moira Schneider
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) – When a young black student of languages at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand found himself sitting next to someone who was “writing” from right to left in a funny script,” he could not have imagined the impact this would have on his life.
For Rabbi Natan Gamedze, that 1988 experience marked the beginning of an unlikely journey from his royal Swazi roots to the Orthodox rabbinate.
When the young man told him he was doing his Hebrew homework, Gamedze decided that he too wanted to learn the language. On approaching the university’s Hebrew department – as its only prospective non-Jewish student – “they accepted me with open arms, and that really touched me,” Gamedze told a gathering here earlier this month, held under the auspices of the Ohr Somayach yeshiva.
“The first warmth I felt from whites was from the Jewish community,” Gamedze said of the days when apartheid ruled in South Africa. “Friends started inviting me to their Shabbos tables. There would have been heavy penalties if they’d been discovered, but they refused to bow to the pressure.”
Gamedze said Hebrew conveyed “an inner dimension of truth” that he didn’t get from any other language – and the Oxford honours graduate in modern languages speaks 13 of them, according to his web site.
His knowledge of languages isn’t the only thing interesting about him.
Born Nkosinathi Gamedze, he is a descendant of a royal clan, but his family lost their rights two generations ago when the British recognized a rival clan as Swazi leaders. As consolation, his family was granted roles like diplomatic posts: his father was Swaziland’s former education minister and its high commissioner to the United Kingdom.
While completing his master’s degree in translation at Wits, as the Johannesburg university is known, Gamedze was approached by HebrewUniversity professor Moshe Sharon, who invited him to study for a doctorate in Hebrew in Jerusalem. He agreed.
Eighteen months later, friends from Johannesburg arrived to study at Ohr Somayach. They told him that it was his excitement years before at the writings of Maimonides that had propelled them on the path to Yiddishkeit.
When they asked Gamedze if he ever would consider converting to Judaism, Gamedze dismissed the idea, saying that he was upset with God.
“Why did he make me a non-Jew and give me such an interest in and love for Judaism?” he had asked himself. “There are so many Jews who don’t identify with their Judaism – why me?”
But his attitude changed when he started attending lectures in Jewish philosophy and “suddenly realized that the agenda I was interested in was Judaism.”
Experiencing an identity crisis, he attempted to escape his “destiny” by travelling to Rome, where, he told the audience, he thought to himself, “Baruch Hashem, I’ve escaped Judaism.”
But it wasn’t that easy. While marveling at the beauty of St. Peter’s in Rome, thoughts of the Inquisition and “the terrible things people did to get Jews to convert to Christianity” came flooding in.
He went back to his hotel room, covered his eyes and said the Shema.
“I felt a rush of energy and I thought, ‘Judaism is so powerful.’ But then cynicism took over and I thought, ‘This is for the Jewish people to deal with, not you,’” Gamedze said.
He continued touring Rome, but one day at breakfast something strange happened.
“I lifted the fork to put food in my mouth, but couldn’t eat it. This happened three or four times,” he told the audience. “I thought to myself, ‘Don’t tell me it’s because it’s not kosher that you’re not eating it.’”
He started thinking back to his Wits friends, who were prohibited from eating one day of the year. On investigating further, Gamedze discovered that it was Yom Kippur. After that, there was no turning back.
Returning to Israel, he went to Ohr Somayach and told them of his decision to convert. He began studying Rashi and Torah in a chevrutah, or learning partnership.
Gamedze went before a Beit Din in Jerusalem where he was asked by three rabbis why he wanted to be Jewish – after all, Jews suffered so much and were hated by all, they said.
“I answered them with a pasuk,” or passage “from Tehillim: ‘For me, the closeness to Hashem is good.’”
“There was silence for what seemed like ages,” Gamedze recalled.
But, unusually, he was accepted at his first attempt.
During all this time – a period of 16 years – Gamedze had distanced himself from his family.
“I didn’t want to have a ‘goyische kopf,’” he explains, referring to a non-Jewish brain. “I wanted to have a totally Jewish outlook on life without any outside influences.”
Today he lives in the northern Israeli city of Safed with his wife, Shayna Golda, and their two children, Menachem David, 4, and Shoshana, 4 months old. He teaches at the Sharei Bina Girls Seminary there and lectures around Israel on Jewish thought and his personal journey.
Explaining why he does this when some converts prefer not to talk about their path to Judaism, Gamedze says, “If it would open up the heart of just one Jew, it would be worth it.’’
Rabbi Natan Gamedze who is descended from Swazi royalty took a long journey to reach his destination.
Index | Letters to the Editor | Main Page | Op Ed | Photos
Send Letters To The Editor:
editor [at] jewishtribune.ca
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Please don't flame me, scream at me about being anti-semitic, or whatever, i'll just ignore you. You want to talk, though? Go right ahead.
As far as I know, Palestinians' rights depend on Palestinian Authority.
2. >>>"[the acts of generosity and solidarity from the jewish community] doesn't excuse the behavior of the current Israeli government towards the Palestinians in all cases, for all times."<<<
Indeed, there should be no blanket and automatic license for Israeli governments to mistreat Palestinians. So far so good. But the Palestinians aren't exactly the topic here.
3. >>>"Just as the same US government that opposed Hitler and fascism is now going down the road of hegemony and curtailment of civil liberties, so too the Israeli government seems to have shedded the entire concept of freedom for all when it comes to the Palestinians."<<<
This view -- and to your credit, I must say you chose your words with noticeable care -- you and your ideological buddies hold doesn't stand up to scrutiny, as demonstrated by a critical examination of the past decade plus' dominant events or merely those of the past year (e.g. Sharon's 'disengagement' plan).
My questions to CT and Gehrig (I'm sure he'll tune in soon enough--he always does) are as follows:
1) Do you support the Patriot Act?
2) Do you support the treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners?
3) Do you support infringement on Habeous (sic) laws as delinated in Clinton's "Counter-Terrorism...Act" and underlined in the Patriot Act?
4) Did you support the US invasion of Iraq?
5) Do you support American foreign policy generally?
6) How do you feel about the fact that Israel has played proxy to the United States in far away lands such as Guatamala (selling arms to the Guatamalan Army in the '80s as it destroyed village after village in its counter-insurgency war)?
Answering these question will help the uninitiated (in particular) get a handle on where you guys are coming from. Do you two agree on every issue issue? That's not a rhetorical question.
>>>"In this way Gehrig gets to eat his cake and eat it too--intimating that ardent support of Israel is the true expression of left-liberalism (rhetorically helpful in a forum such as this) while never taking a stand that might arouse the indignation of his zionist fellow-travellers *or* risk exposing his lefty credentials as specious. "<<<
I've seen on Santa Cruz IMC two leftists supportive of Israel. One is Becky Johnson who happens to fervently believe that lending Israel support is the genuine manifestation of leftism indeed. Just like gehrig, she has long sustained rabid criticism, taunts, teasing and been derided, not very unlike gehrig has been treated, even by the anti-Zionist whose remarks I'm commenting on now.
And get this: gehrig is no sidekick of mine. We think and post independently of each other. Too bad you've never noticed we originate from very different ideological backgrounds or starting points, despite what the antisemite JA would have everybody believe. gehrig is a Leftist Zionist who supports Yossi Beilin, his party and his Geneva Initiative while my sympathies are pretty much to the opposite of where all these three pull or purport to lead. I can think of lots of issues we don't see eye to eye on. Yet as far as I can tell, I believe gehrig and I try to set our differences aside in favor of the cause of illuminating poorly lit corners from which anti-Semites and anti-Zionists try to sway users on this site by unfair and dishonest methods and means.
As for aaron, is he capable of distinguishing between Left and Right Zionists, or between the different streams within each of these major camps?
As to Israel and its governments, I do my utmost to form my opinions on their deeds and policies on a case to case basis.
I admit I felt tempted on more than one occasion to take part in discussions that had nothing whatsoever to do with Zionism but shook the temptation; that was probably a mistake. But this is really unrelated to this thread's topic. My views on, say, the health merits of various food items or the invasion of Iraq have no bearing on the article that should be discussed, what with the poster's explicit wish that anti-Zionists share their thoughts on the article's content. aaron has made a clever attempt to divert attention from the article that should be focused on, and I for one won't lend a hand to his attempt. It's bad enough that we must contend with nessie's nearly incessant attempts to undermine discussion on threads such as these. Perhaps aaron should start another thread dedicated to what he wishes to find out.
Was the anonymous anti-Zionist above aaron? If not, does he have any input on the article?
this is because his ideology does much of his thinking for him-- recent-convert behavior, indeed.
Zionism is mixture of Israeli nationalism mixed with Jewish identity politics. All nationalisms are forms of bigotry since they value the lives of one group of people (citizens of a country) over another (noncitizens or those from other countries). Zionism is slightly worse in that it mixes identity politics with the nationalism saying that a country should exist for a specific people based off a religion. There are many other countries that have a bias in immigration policies where ethnicity and religion play a factor but few others with as strict immigration requirements as Israel. Iran and Saudi Arabia may be the most similar but they do not have the refugee issues from when they became religious states to test if accepting mass numbers of refugees would be rejected solely on religious differences. Another similar example to Israel would be the United States if one things of it as an English Speaking state with the right-wing "English Only" crowd being the American version of Zionists (since afterall many illegal immigrants in the US have more of a huistoric tie to the US than most US citizens).
One very similar historic example to Israel would be the partition of India with forced mass migrations based off religion. If many Hindus were stuck without land in refugee camps as a result of the violence of the partition and were demanding to return to Pakistan but were denied because they were not Muslims one would have something very similar to the Israeli example. Why does one not see such a desire for "right of return in this case"? One reason is that those who fled Pakistan didnt expect to be able to return, wheras many Palestinian didnt take much with them and assumed they were leaving until shellings ended in their villages. Another difference is that many neighboring countries didnt accept the Palestinians in. And a final reason is that one didnt end up with an occupation situation looking like the West Bank and Gaza. While Kashmir has some resemblance those living in Kashmir can vote in the Indian elections and are not stuck in the limbo state of those in the West Bank and Gaza (in fact those in Kashmir are much more comparible to Arab Israelis than to those in the occupied terrirtories). I guess one could also add to the list of differences the religious significance of Jerusalem, but while it may add to the dispute of the city it seems like the religious significance of the land is secondary for most involved with both sides of the conflict.
I explicitly held open as a possibility that CT and Gehrig may differ on many issues. As Gehrig never tires of letting be known, I'm aware that there are "right" and "centrist" and "left" zionists. (If one understands these designations as different strategies for administering a given system or set of institutions, likewise there are "right" and "centrist" and "left" capitalists, imperialists, colonialists, [etc., etc.])
So, while I accept that CT and Gehrig may differ politically, I maintain that they are for all intents and purposes "sidekicks" because they are virtually indistinguishable in the face of criticism of Israel--the only issue in this big-wide-world that they are interested in addressing.
The poster below CT thinks he's clever repeating the same canned line about his opponents being ideological. It failed the first time he used this "retort"--and it failed this time as well (what is this, the tenth time you've said the same lump of nothing--in lieu of an intelligent and substantive response--in the past two weeks?).
that is ideology-as-thinking. it was quite rightly and roundly discredited in the 20th century, but in all fairness maybe you weren't around for enough of that century to really notice. at any rate, keep doing it, you'll keep getting called on it.
It's the modern form of Jewish nationalism, but it's firmly connected to the millennia old Jewish desire for a homeland that pervades so much of Judaism.
>>>"All nationalisms are forms of bigotry since they value the lives of one group of people (citizens of a country) over another (noncitizens or those from other countries). Zionism is slightly worse in that it mixes identity politics with the nationalism saying that a country should exist for a specific people based off a religion."<<<
Here again, we witness the compulsive propagandist eagerness of this writer to disregard established facts and make ridiculous descriptions. There are quite a few current examples of national movements worse than Zionism in the sense the writer above alludes to, notably those that were and in some cases still are the breeding ground for today's rogue Arab regimes (including the PA), North Korea and China.
It's almost astonishing how people like the above poster think no one will notice their contentions' readily evident weaknesses.
>>>"There are many other countries that have a bias in immigration policies where ethnicity and religion play a factor but few others with as strict immigration requirements as Israel. Iran and Saudi Arabia may be the most similar but they do not have the refugee issues from when they became religious states to test if accepting mass numbers of refugees would be rejected solely on religious differences."<<<
Give us a break. How many Arab and Muslim countries have more lax immigration policies for either individuals or large groups than Israel's? Israel's are about as strict as the US as far as non-Jewish immigrants go.
>>>"Another similar example to Israel would be the United States if one things of it as an English Speaking state with the right-wing "English Only" crowd being the American version of Zionists (since afterall many illegal immigrants in the US have more of a huistoric tie to the US than most US citizens)."<<<
Your example is based on the language creterion rather than religion or ethnicity, so it holds no water. FYI, more than 200,000 non-Jewish immigrants have come to Israel from the former USSR, most of whom had never known a word in Hebrew. Many of the Jews had been totally or mostly ignorant of, and in some cases apathetic toward, Judaism. Anyway, your analogy is invalid.
>>>"One very similar historic example to Israel would be the partition of India with forced mass migrations based off religion. If many Hindus were stuck without land in refugee camps as a result of the violence of the partition and were demanding to return to Pakistan but were denied because they were not Muslims one would have something very similar to the Israeli example."<<<
Not so, because you would have to add the equivalent of the Arab League that has used the refugees and their descendents in addition to many Arabs who had hopped on the refugee bandwagon for UNRWA refugee benefits as a political blade to perpetually wield against Israel by ensuring they languish in refugee camps rather than rehabilitating them with petroldollars. You would also have to throw in the equivalent of Arafat and the PA whose antics in exacerbating the hitherto existing problem are well known by now.
>>>"many Palestinian didnt take much with them and assumed they were leaving until shellings ended in their villages."<<<
Many other "Palestinians" had been promised by Arab leaders they were leaving just for the time it would take to drive the Jews out of the land or kill them off.
>>>"Another difference is that many neighboring countries didnt accept the Palestinians in. And a final reason is that one didnt end up with an occupation situation looking like the West Bank and Gaza."<<<
Another difference is that the Muslim Kashmiri separatists have long enjoyed the support of Pakistan, not only diplomatically but even militarily, against India.
the same could happen with Israel and Palestine, if the same traumatic deed were finally done and the healing allowed to happen, by restraint of the warrior class on both sides. this will only realistically be achieved by including both nations in wider regional and global configurations-- just like with Turkey and Greece, or for that matter England and Ireland.
I for one am deeply suspicious of the anti-Israel crowd's inability or unwillingness to draw on readily-available, realistically analogous situations to envision a real long-term strategy for stable peace. it makes them look like they're looking for models bound to fail, as if their primary goal is a blame game where Israel loses, instead of a long term peace between two nations born of mutual hostility and requiring long-term alliance for mutual survival.
it's not nice and it's not fun, but it is a realistic strategy for the formation of a long term, stable peace that meets the needs of all parties. Greece and Turkey are proof of it. I think they even offer the appropriate cautionaries for some of the pitfalls of such an approach. they have been on the brink of war on and off for some time, and only EU expansion is significantly altering that...
The other part that entails uprooting all Jews from Judea & Samaria is mostly objected to by rightwing Zionists, and historically speaking, the rightist Zionists have been nearly always the ones to yield the way in those crucial moments when push came to shove, i.e. when Left and Right were staring each other down on the brink of a civil war.
So I'm afraid the practicality of such a vision is non-existent for the next few decades at least.
and as far as it goes, the division between Greece and Turkey was conducted by confession. Language, length of residence, kin, social position, none of it mattered-- the division was by religion.
there are many criticisms levelled at the Turkish and Greek states, but "apartheid" and "racist" aren't among them-- despite this population exchange occuring as recently as 1922.
I can't directly conclude that critics ignore them but brand Israel all these things merely out of antisemitism, active or passive. But I can certainly see it and thus infer...
Religious mythology just serves as an excuse - Karl Marx was right. (Was Marx anti-semitic too?)
Money is the God of all religious leaders and religious institutions. The ruling corporate class wants it so. End of story.
(For true spirituality one has to look towards the Native Indians and the primitive cultures.)
Jesus was a Jew but all Jews are not the Jesus types. Too bad.
> by everybody knows Friday, Dec. 24, 2004 at 7:22 PM
so you deny the fact that people can do things for irrational motives (for religious reasons, for example)??
> Israel wants it all - all the water in Palestine, that is. Plus : all the
> money war can kill for.
unlike, say, California?
> Religious mythology just serves as an excuse - Karl Marx was
> right. (Was Marx anti-semitic too?)
is a survival imperative irrational, just because it's expressed religiously?
> Money is the God of all religious leaders and religious institutions.
> The ruling corporate class wants it so. End of story.
well i'm glad you have your mind made up. we won't try to clutter it up too much with facts....
> (For true spirituality one has to look towards the Native Indians
> and the primitive cultures.)
so, you do make exceptions for, shall we say, "acceptable" religious expressions?
tell us, who died and left you in a position to decide which is which?
Jesus was a Jew but all Jews are not the Jesus types. Too bad.
just as well i missed it too. it's virtually a nonsequiter.
Since there already are Arabs living inside Israel proper (about 1,200,000 or so, this is a face that cannot be denied) then why not allow the settlers, if they so choose on their own, allow them to stay where they are.
Let there be Israel in its pre 1967 (Green line) border with a majority Jewish Population and 1,200,000 Arabs.
But let there also be Palestine for the 4,000,000 or so Palestinians along with the 400,000 or so Jews, in the whole of the West Bank and Gaza, which is a mere 22% of what is TODAY Israel, West Bank and Gaza, you would end up with a State with a majority Palestinian Population and 400,000 Jews.
Once we have these two States and the Borders are set, any Arab who want to move to this new state from Israel Proper should be allowed to do so easily and on their own, not forced to move.
And any settler living in the State of Palestine who does not wish to live in Palestine can choose on their own, (with maybe financial help from Israel) to move to Israel.
This would be much better then mass closure of settlements and mass exodus of the people living there.
With today’s technology and the help of some international forces, there is no reason why this could not work.
To end the resistance to the occupation, you have to end the occupation that allows for the resistance….
We should remember that Zionism is a consequence of the persecutions of Jews in Europe. So the modern state of Israel was founded for the Jews to have a country of their own. And even so 12% Israelis are Arabs.
i mean, the Greeks don't get this broken-record treatment, and it's a what, 99.5% Greek Orthodox nation. where's the calls for dismantling the Greek nation? oh, right, they're not Jews...
Angel, yer fulla shit.
where is your sacred indigfnation over that outrage?
no, you folks just don't like Jews.
where are your calls to return the area to the Greeks, the Armenians, the Cilicians and the Bithynians, among others?
oh, i almost forgot-- you really only have it out for the Jews.
European nations are Christian in their majority. Who protests against it?
When Christian holy sites were under Arab rule (1948-67), Jordan undertook to Islamize the Christian quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem by enacting laws that forbade Christians to buy land and houses. It ordered the closure of Christian schools on Muslim holidays and required students to learn the Koran. Furthermore, it severely limited Christian worship and authorised mosques to be built near churches, thus preventing any possibility of enlargement. Jerusalem lost 61 percent of its Christian population during this time.
Given the situation, few Christians will live in Bethlehem by the end of this decade. A half-century ago, Bethlehem had a Christian majority of 80%. Today, under Palestinian rule, it has a Muslim majority of 80%.
The same is true of Nazareth and even of Jerusalem, where nearly 600 historic churches still stand. Only 2.5 percent of Jerusalem's population is Christian, compared with 30 percent Muslim and 67 percent Jewish. Similarly, Christians make up only 1.3 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza.
Even these small numbers are rapidly dwindling, primarily because of the radicalization of Islam an the resulting marginalization of Christians in the Middle East. Christians are not considered full citizens in Palestinian-controlled areas; in fact, they cannot exercise political rights in any country once conquered by Islam. One in three Christians considers leaving the Holy Land at any given time, despite a call by the Pope to "remain in these tortured places."
European nations are notoriously racist. White Supremacism is a European phenomenon. Indeed, it was European anti-Semitism (actually mixed with Jewish cultural exclusivity - the essential truth the original Bnai Brith article in this thread was attempting to mislead on, i.e. because the overachiever from African royal roots, an insinuation laden with racist /hierarchical values in itself, is accepted into the Jewish/Zionist fold, Israel/Jews are non-exclusive and therefore Israel is not a racist state is the reasoning - schmaltzy and dishonest) that supposedly justifies displacing the native population in historic Palestine. Good example to draw upon. It is the same one that revisionist Zionists publicly (and their "left wing" Zionist "opposition" privately) draw upon. Sharon, Shamir, and Begin (who changed the Betar uniforms to Brown from Back as a gesture of support for Nazi style fascist racism) are the ideological descendants of Jabotinski who feted Eichmann when he first visited Palestine in 1938 for his ability to "Armenianize" populations. Weizmann and Hertzl were friends and admirers of Rhodes and Smuts in southern Africa. Ben Gurion, on the left, wrote to his nephew in confidence that his dreams for Jewish national expansion exceeded that of the revisionists. The racism that permeates Zionism is rooted deep in its history. They neglected to teach me these things in Hebrew school in Toronto. We were too busy joining Kach and learning that Arabs were dogs that should be gassed.
One of the writers above chooses not to get it. I am an atheist and my mother is Jewish. My entitlement to become a citizen, own property, rent property, vote (in any meaningful way) and enjoy all the benefits of Israeli citizenship (and subsidies to colonize) are based on a racial formula not unlike that used by the Nazis based on "the blood". It is presided over by Rabbis in a "separate but unequal" civil "justice" system. It is not based on "religion" in the ordinary sense of the word. Zionism is racism.
The ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians was planned long before the Holocaust in the service of Jewish capital and ultimately European racist colonialists. This had scant little to do with Jewish attachment to biblical Israel (most Jewish thought and scholarship rejected a return to Eretz Israel before the coming of the Messiah and secular Jews were largely assimilated). You should read in their own words how little value was placed on Jewish life by those who organized the colonial project - and I am not writing about Christians here. The Zionists tried to whore themselves to every potential imperial power before they settled with England, and later its bastard progeny.
The sickest irony is Zionist collusion in the Holocaust - a topic Zionists and anti-Semites avoid with equal rigor. I won't write about that as there was so much of it, others have done an excellent job exposing it and its hideous rationale, and this post is already too long. Suffice it to say, Zionists should not be using the Holocaust to justify their extermination of another people. Of course, one could just deny that they are a people (Jabotinski acknowledged they were), or say they were of recent origin or kill or expel them.
That is the difference between Zionism and other forms of colonialism. Other settler groups have desired to exploit the native land and people. Zionists (like the Nazis) will exploit if necessary, but the ultimate goal is for the natives to disappear. Racist constructs and sophisticated justifications are required to hide the ugly truth.
By the way, Sefarad, European countries, as racist as they are, do not require that you be Christian to be admitted as a citizen (although they have other subtler subterfuges to keep undesirables out). Note that you compare unfavourably to the European racists you choose to compare yourself to.
As far as the, "well others have settled/invaded others land and raped and pillaged" and got to keep it by the passage of time argument - is that supposed to justify one's current support of genocidal (according to the traditional Hague formulation) practices. At least you reveal what side your on and how far you will go to rationalize colonialism and racism. Next you will complain about the barbarity of the tactics of the resistance to occupation.
No ethnic minority has a right to self-determination as refugees in another’s land under international norms. The UN has never granted a state to anyone but the Jews for these reasons. It is an ongoing tragedy for the Palestinians. The Israelis will come to regret the unwise decision of concentrating geographically and pissing off all their neighbours. To be fair, many Jews wanted to immigrate elsewhere, but the Zionists and anti-Semites prevented this. So much for a people pining for their mystic homeland of yore. Gag.
please, do some thinking and get back to us, okay?
bonus clue: will-to-reality does not equal reality.
No, the real pity is that 'everybody know' and his/her ilk haven't yet learned or realized the image of Jesus emerging from the NT is an almost complete later-day fiction of the Church founders.
Isn't racist what you say about European countries? Countries cannot be racists. In every country there are racist and non-racist people. And it is true not only of Europeans but also of Africans or whoever. Isn't it racism that Mugabe confiscated the farms of the white farmers just because they were white? And in some African countries you can be killed for the only reason that you are white.
Are you meaning that I am racist because I am European? And you are anti-racist, I guess.
And what do you call the killings of Christians and Jews committed by Muslims just because they are non-Muslim?
According to what you say, the Palestinians are entitled to blow themselves up killing Israelis, while the israelis have to let them do.
And, yes, I am European and Christian, and I am white, and I don't hate people of other religion, color, continent, etc. You cannot say the same, JewBoy. And I support Israel and the Jews, and so what?
And I am so good that I remind you that in Muslim countries not only other religions are banned but being an atheist is a crime punished with the death penalty.
Do you mean that the Jews had never had a country before the foundation of the modern state of Israel?
You say the UN has never granted a state to anyone but the Jews for the same reasons.
Could you mention some other minority who has suffered persecution for so long?
And do you support the right of the "Palestinian refugees" to have their own state?
The Arabs have been killing Jews in the area since long before the foundation of the modern state of Israel.
Now Israel is being attacked by Islamic fundamentalists (Hamas, Jihad and others). You say the solution is that Israel stops retaliating. Do you want the Israelis disappear?
As for oppressing people, Israel is a democratic country. Some of its citizens are Arabs, with the same rights as the other citizens.
Can the same be said of the PA-administered territories?
Sort of a clever attempt to sidestep the point.
>>>"If the Israelis don't want to be blown up, they should stop oppressing the other people of Palestine. Otherwise, the resistance will continue, and the Israelis can do nothing to stop it. Kill one, another gets though. There's plenty more where he came from. Israel is creating terrorists faster than they are killing them."<<<
The days when Palestinian terrorists were able to strike at Israel's rear with relative impunity while the IDF kept its distance from Palestinian inhabited areas are long over. You would do well to get used to this reality.
>>>"The Palestinian resistance's single most potent recruiting tool is the IDF. Everywhere they go, they create new enemies."<<<
Not so. Especially not where Hamas and Islamic Jihad are concerned. You're either uninformed or incredibly deluded.
>>>" If they occupied your town, you'd fight them, too."<<<
What a pity the intifada was the Palestinian response to a statehood offer and was deemed preferable to negotiation.
>>>"If they occupied your town, and little Tommy Jones from around the corner threw a stone at one of them, you could expect to come home from work that night to see your home and every other home on the block demolished, and your family and neighbors homeless. That’s how these guys do business. They’re terrorists in uniform. No wonder people want to kill them."<<<
False bullshit representation and equally deceitful conclusion. The writer himself knows he's wildly exaggerating.
Technically thats true as some people from one group are wont to kill some from another at any point in time, but I am curious to hear proof of historical violent antiSemitism in the Middle East. I know Herzl mentioned Palestine as being a good spot for Jewish state becaue of less antiSemitism in the region than in other parts of the world so I would wonder if those pointing to specific incidents are not reading more into specififc antiSemitic incidents and rulers (based on present circumstances) than really existed.
http://www.middleeastfacts.com/Articles/jewsinarabcountries.html
http://www.netanyahu.org/jewinarcounb.html
http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/arabnazi.html
More on killings of Jews by Arabs
http://www.jbuff.com/c062002.htm
During the First Alliya there were no major conflicts and I wonder if the Jewish settlements were looked upon with more favorable light by the local population than would settlemenst by other ethnic groups (like Turks or even Christians). I'm currently reading a history book by Khaldun from the late 1300s and one sees quite a bit of racism against Africans and Slavs by him but his discussion of "houses" in the middle east compares the decline of Jewish dynasties with the decline in the stature of Mohammad's decendents and while I wouldnt be surprised if at some point he says somethings anti-semitic (since he says plenty of racist things againts Beduins and other groups) it is interesting to see the main focus on Jews in Muslim countries being in their special status and descendents of Solomon and Davide etc... Khaldun obviously doesnt reflect the views of all in the late 1300s but with both Muslims and Jews in Spain facing the Inquisition in Spain in the following century and other parallels in how Muslims and Jews were treated by Europeans I would expect that feelings of solidarity between the two groups would have grown rather than lessened in the following century.
Some of the discussion by Herzl about whether a state should be in Palestine or Argentina suggests that Palestine was the less antiSemitic of the two, but I am still trying to find some other references by him where he mentions Palestine as being a region traditionally friendly to the Jewish People. "Friendly" would of course be a comparison with other regions and not a statement that no antiSemitism existed or that there had never been past incidents or even ocassional Muslim rulers who were very antiSemitic.
I am confused by why its important for people to find a history of hatred? Is it because this explains away the current conflict as less important? Is it because by portraying the current cofnlict in an intractible form its easier to feel less bad about the status quo? By 1948 antiSemitism was already pretty strong in much of the Middle East, so its not all a reaction to the refugee crisis, but one can find roots for the antiSemitism of the 40s that are in the much more recent past (and more tied to views about Europe, colonizers and conspiracy theories propagated by Ford and other antiSemites than anything deep rooted in Islam or the local culture)
First you asked for evidence of killings of Jews by Arabs before 1948. Now, when you have evidence, you say the past is not important. I am puzzled.
On the other hand, don't anti-Zionists justify the killings of Jews because of the "occupation"?
The killings of Jews come from long before the "occupation" and the proclamation of the state of Israel.
"Palestine" is the name of the land of the Jews. The moment they proclaimed the independence, they adopted the name of "Israel".
More:
The UN wanted two states: a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs refused because they wanted to push the Jews to the sea. The "Palestinians" never recognised the right of Israel to exist.
In the Camp David talks, the Palestinians got 98% of what they had been asking for. Everybody, even some Palestinian officials, said that it was the best agreement they could have got. However, the Palestinians left the conversations and the second intifada started.
jumps from examples from biblical times to the 20th century in many of the countries where it talks about traditions of antiSemitism (and the only real examples it uses that are between the 1st century AD and the 1900s is in Yemen and Morocco and both are left rather vague). I guess the mention of Islamic taxation laws in Iraq under Islamic rule do describe a tradition of discrimination but in that case wasnt it a tax imposed on all minority groups? If the only religious massacres in Muslim countries between the Romans and the 1900s were the few mentioned in this link, one couldnt call that a tradition of antiSemitism (anymore than one could call Hulagu's sack of Baghdad a tradition of Budhist antiMuslim hatred). None of the other links even attempt to find examples from before th late 20s (except for the Netanyahu link which is just a repost of a portion of the same thing from middleeastfacts)
The Nazi stuff in the one link about the Mufti is the usual out of context links one always sees between one group or another and the Nazis. One can trace a lot of the alignment of Middle Eastern views in the 30s to the dividing up of the Ottoman Empire by the European powers and one could try to blame that for the rise of hatreds but causality and blame are always more complicated and just as one cant blame Hitler solely on the treatment of Germany after WWI, the Middle East during the 30s was a product of many factors ranging form colonialism, political alignments of the former Ottomans, growing Arab nationalism following the end of Turkish rule, economic moidernization, ....
Excuse me. I think you have some confusion about Spain and the Inquisition. But that's another matter. You said the past shouldn't be important for what's happening now.
Only some observations about the Inquisition:
The inquisition was an institutions which existed in every European country.
The inquisition tribunals were softer and with more guarantees than secular tribunals at the time.
The inquistion tribunals not only tried Jews and Muslims but also Christians.
In fact, the most famous cases tried by the Inquisition were against Christians: Giordano Bruno or Galileo, in Italy; the Spaniard Miguel Servet in Basilea, Switerzland; and in Spain, Luis de León, Carranza, and doctor Cazalla.
The talk from my part was just about facts. I didn't say there was a general feeling against Jews,which I don't know.
I don't know either if many Arabs wanted one state or one. But what happened was that, as soon as Israel proclaimed its independence, several Arab countries attacked it.
Israel has always been searching for peace. Both sides have signed agreements,which the Palestinians have always breeched.
Yes, on this site there are jumps in time. I only wrote down some links, but there is lots of information in the internet if you are curious about the matter.
I dont think the history of conflict between ethnic groups has much bearing on morality of current conflicts but I do think that people try to write naratives into history where they do not exist to make sense of the present and this is often done through the manipulation of history. Issolated incidents of antiSemitism and the tyrany of the past (with serfdom. slavery, and lack of basic freedoms everywhere) can be woven together to make the current Palestinian Israeli conflict look less toubling. Egyptian hostiilty towards Israel must be tied to a past that included the slavery of the Jews before Moses (as one sees in one of the example links above) rather than being explained in terms of current conflicts and the scapegoating of people for current political reasons.
Do antiZionists do the same thing? Of course, everyone does and the linking of groups to the Nazis is the most common way they do so. Nessie uses issolated examples of "Zionists" who coorperated with Nazis to get Jews out of Europe to demonize Zionists as Nazis. Did such incidents occur? maybe, but does it matter anymore than the Nazi ties of one Mufti? Bush is a horrible leader who has done terrible things and his grandfather may have made money off the Nazis (as did many Americans), but the tendency to create the present by manipulating the past creates a desire to create a demonic imperial familly rather than seeing it as almost completely unrelated to the present President. People want to explain Iraq by Skull and Bones conspiracies. They want to see business leaders engaging in satanic acts at Bohemian Grove. Why? Because its easier to deal with hardship and pain if one builds a myth of the existance of evil. I dont think many people could deal with meeting the worst "monsters" of history and realizing that they were just people acting on normal human instincts (although Arendt's book on the banality of evil does deal with this a little).
The mythology woven from real historical facts of Arab hatred towards Jews is an attempt to make the present more bearable for those who live in or support Israel. Just about everyone thinks the occupation should end and if you really could get everyone to trust each other there wouldnt be that many people who wouldnt be happier with an outcome almost everyone says they want (two states, an end to violence, a better economy, ...) So why must it be so hard to get from here to an outcome people can come close to agreeing upon? For those who dont trust Palestinians, Arafat was used as a reason and Im guessing that if its found that hatreds are worse in the general public than one found in Arafat this new myth that Arab hatred for Jews is just an umovable part of history will grow. For those who dont trust Israelis, Sharon serves as a stand-in for Arafat but since he was elected one already have myths about Zionism, racism and the like to explain why peace is not possible. Zionism and the belief that Arabs have always been antiSemitic are mirror image excuses used to make the other seem more evil, less rational and tied to all the evil events of the past (its a strange mythology probably of Christian origin that requires all evil be tied back to a single source so Zionists are Nazis to many Palestinian supporters and supporters of Palestinians are Nazis to many Israeli supporters).
Let's take into account just recent events:
Israel recognises the right of the Palestinians to have a state.
Several accords are signed and there are conversations (Madrid, Oslo, Taba, Camp David...). Israel makes concesions. What do the Palestinians do? Every time the become harsher at attacking Israel.
The core of the matter is that the Palestinians don't want to recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel.
Second line:
"(...) the aim of this manipulation is the DELEGITIMATION (...)"
7th line:
"Every time THEY become harsher (...)"
I have always been for the recognition of Israel in its pre 1967 borders and my main reason for this is that there is a majority Jewish population there even though there are 1,200,000 or so Arabs living there.
Now if the Palestinians had a true and just offer of the Whole West Bank and Gaza so that they could have a true Viable State for their 4,000,000 or so majority population they just might agree like so many Arab State have agreed to recognize Israel. End the Occupation and Oppression and you just might end the conflict.
If you can have 1,200,000 Arabs living in Israel proper, what reason can you not have 400,000 or so Jewish settlers in the State of Palestine in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza.
Once you get to this reasonable point, the Jewish settlers who do not like living in Palestine can choose to freely move to Israel.
Once you get to this point the Arabs who do not like living in Israel may choose on their own to move to the new Palestinian State (once it is a Viable State and free from the Israeli Military Oppression) A true fair and just offer has never been offered, there has alway been some kind of catch to make the offer bad for the Palestinian People.
I have always been for the recognition of Israel in its pre 1967 Borders and my main reason for this is that there is a majority Jewish Population there even though there are 1,200,000 or so Arab settlers living there.
Now if the Palestinians will be made another true and just offer of the Whole West Bank and Gaza so that they could have a true Viable State for their 4,000,000 or so majority Population they just might agree like other Arab States have agreed to recognize Israel. End the Palestinian Murder and Destruction and you just might end the Conflict.
If you can have 1,200,000 Arab settlers living in Israel proper, what reason can you not have 400,000 or so Jews in the State of Palestine in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza?
Once you get to this reasonable point (once the Palestinian terrorists stop murdering and destroying), the Jews who do not like living in Palestine can choose to freely move to Israel.
Once you get to this point the Arab settlers who do not like living in Israel may choose on their own to move to the new Palestinian State (once it is a Viable State and free from the Israeli Military Oppression). Other true fair and just offers have been made, but leading Palestinians have always thought there was some kind of catch to make the offer bad for the Palestinian People. This is the real problem.
What's your opinion about this?
http://www.command-post.org/gwot/2_archives/011120.html
by ANGEL Monday, Dec. 27, 2004 at 4:37 AM<<<ANGEL imposter at it again>
Dear ANGEL imposter if you are so very sure about your ideas and so sincere about what you have to say? Posters to this and other sites want to know why you have such a fear of posting these ideas and beliefs in your own name or handle?
Are you even so very afraid to answer this simple and very straight forward question? Why are you afraid?
By the way if the offers made were truly just and fair there would be no conflict today.
Lets make a true just offer and see if the Palestinians will recognize Israel.
I have always been for the recognition of Israel in its pre 1967 borders and my main reason for this is that there is a majority Jewish population there even though there are 1,200,000 or so Arabs living there.
Now if the Palestinians had a true and just offer of the Whole West Bank and Gaza so that they could have a true Viable State for their 4,000,000 or so majority population they just might agree like so many Arab State have agreed to recognize Israel. End the Occupation and Oppression and you just might end the conflict.
If you can have 1,200,000 Arabs living in Israel proper, what reason can you not have 400,000 or so Jewish settlers in the State of Palestine in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza.
Once you get to this reasonable point, the Jewish settlers who do not like living in Palestine can choose to freely move to Israel.
Once you get to this point the Arabs who do not like living in Israel may choose on their own to move to the new Palestinian State (once it is a Viable State and free from the Israeli Military Oppression) A true fair and just offer has never been offered, there has alway been some kind of catch to make the offer bad for the Palestinian People.
by ANGEL Monday, Dec. 27, 2004 at 4:37 AM<<<real ANGEL>
>>>It all comes down to fair and just
by ANGEL Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004 at 2:08 AM<<<ANGEL imposter at it again>
Dear ANGEL imposter if you are so very sure about your ideas and so sincere about what you have to say? Posters to this and other sites want to know why you have such a fear of posting these ideas and beliefs in your own name or handle?
Are you even so very afraid to answer this simple and very straight forward question? Why are you afraid?
By the way the offers made were truly just and fair and only because they were not recognized as such there is conflict today.
Let's make another true just offer and see if the Palestinians will recognize Israel.
I have always been for the recognition of Israel in its pre 1967 borders and my main reason for this is that there is a majority Jewish Population there even though there are 1,200,000 or so Arab settlers living there.
Now if the Palestinians have a true and just offer of the Whole West Bank and Gaza so that they could have a true Viable State for their 4,000,000 or so majority Population they just might agree like some Arab States have agreed to recognize Israel. End the Murder and Destruction aganst Israel and you just might end the conflict.
If you can have 1,200,000 Arab settlers living in Israel proper, what reason can you not have 400,000 or so Jews in the State of Palestine in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza.
Once you get to this reasonable point (when Palestinian terrorists stop murdering and destroying), the Jews who do not like living in Palestine can choose to freely move to Israel.
Once you get to this point the Arab settlers who do not like living in Israel may choose on their own to move to the new Palestinian State (once it is a Viable State and free from the Israeli Military Oppression) A true fair and just offer has been offered, but Palestinian leaders have always believed there was some kind of catch to make the offer bad for the Palestinian People.