Make If Americans Knew

Yes America does need to know the truth.
Countries all over the World are aware, We should be too.

but we choose to provide support for Israel b/c they share our democratic values.

Herd the indigent people onto reservations, kill those who resist, steal their land. That's the American way. No wonder we support Israel. They're just like us.

(a) You're no more of a real American than the other right above you.

(b) The Israelis have acted toward the Palestinians far differently than the Americans did toward the Native Americans during the 19th century (genocide coupled with mass ethnic cleansing, systematic land theft, herding the Natives into reservations or concentration camps).

(c) The treatment you cited that was dealt to the Natives is no longer the official "American way" (though serious problems -- consequences of having been confined to reservations -- do exist obviously), let alone the unofficial.

(d) The Palestinians aren't the indigenous people of the Land of Israel.


Please, why don't you make your inane sound bite comparisons on platforms like SF-IMC where they're actually respected as troves of wisdom (ha!...).

I think the collective Muslim world needs to give back the land -- about 1/5 of planet earth -- that they took from the people who had it before Islam even existed.

Would the anti-Israel maniacs support military resistence against the Islamic world in the 50+ countries on earth that presently exist?

Should Jews and Christians start blowing up buses in Syria, Jordan, etc. because Jews and Christians had that land before Muslims even existed?

They won't start blowing up buses, though. That's a Muslim thing to do.

Anti-Zionism is anti-semitism
by Emanuele Ottolenghi

Behind much criticism of Israel is a thinly veiled hatred of Jews

Saturday November 29, 2003
The Guardian

Is there a link between the way Israel's case is presented and anti-semitism? Israel's advocates protest that behind criticisms of Israel there sometimes lurks a more sinister agenda, dangerously bordering on anti-semitism. Critics vehemently disagree. In their view, public attacks on Israel are neither misplaced nor the source of anti-Jewish sentiment: Israel's behaviour is reprehensible and so are those Jews who defend it.
Jewish defenders of Israel are then depicted by their critics as seeking an excuse to justify Israel, projecting Jewish paranoia and displaying a "typical" Jewish trait of "sticking together", even in defending the morally indefensible. Israel's advocates deserve the hostility they get, the argument goes; it is they who should engage in soul-searching.

There is no doubt that recent anti-semitism is linked to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And it is equally without doubt that Israeli policies sometimes deserve criticism. There is nothing wrong, or even remotely anti-semitic, in disapproving of Israeli policies. Nevertheless, this debate - with its insistence that there is a distinction between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism - misses the crucial point of contention. Israel's advocates do not want to gag critics by brandishing the bogeyman of anti-semitism: rather, they are concerned about the form the criticism takes.

If Israel's critics are truly opposed to anti-semitism, they should not repeat traditional anti-semitic themes under the anti-Israel banner. When such themes - the Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, linking Jews with money and media, the hooked-nose stingy Jew, the blood libel, disparaging use of Jewish symbols, or traditional Christian anti-Jewish imagery - are used to describe Israel's actions, concern should be voiced. Labour MP Tam Dalyell decried the influence of "a Jewish cabal" on British foreign policy-making; an Italian cartoonist last year depicted the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as an attempt to kill Jesus "again". Is it necessary to evoke the Jewish conspiracy or depict Israelis as Christ-killers to denounce Israeli policies?

The fact that accusations of anti-semitism are dismissed as paranoia, even when anti-semitic imagery is at work, is a subterfuge. Israel deserves to be judged by the same standards adopted for others, not by the standards of utopia. Singling out Israel for an impossibly high standard not applied to any other country begs the question: why such different treatment?

Despite piqued disclaimers, some of Israel's critics use anti-semitic stereotypes. In fact, their disclaimers frequently offer a mask of respectability to otherwise socially unacceptable anti-semitism. Many equate Israel to Nazism, claiming that "yesterday's victims are today's perpetrators": last year, Louis de Bernières wrote in the Independent that "Israel has been adopting tactics which are reminiscent of the Nazis". This equation between victims and murderers denies the Holocaust. Worse still, it provides its retroactive justification: if Jews turned out to be so evil, perhaps they deserved what they got. Others speak of Zionist conspiracies to dominate the media, manipulate American foreign policy, rule the world and oppress the Arabs. By describing Israel as the root of all evil, they provide the linguistic mandate and the moral justification to destroy it. And by using anti-semitic instruments to achieve this goal, they give away their true anti-semitic face.

There is of course the open question of whether this applies to anti-Zionism. It is one thing to object to the consequences of Zionism, to suggest that the historical cost of its realisation was too high, or to claim that Jews are better off as a scattered, stateless minority. This is a serious argument, based on interests, moral claims, and an interpretation of history. But this is not anti-Zionism. To oppose Zionism in its essence and to refuse to accept its political offspring, Israel, as a legitimate entity, entails more. Zionism comprises a belief that Jews are a nation, and as such are entitled to self-determination as all other nations are.

It could be suggested that nationalism is a pernicious force. In which case one should oppose Palestinian nationalism as well. It could even be argued that though both claims are true and noble, it would have been better to pursue Jewish national rights elsewhere. But negating Zionism, by claiming that Zionism equals racism, goes further and denies the Jews the right to identify, understand and imagine themselves - and consequently behave as - a nation. Anti-Zionists deny Jews a right that they all too readily bestow on others, first of all Palestinians.

Were you outraged when Golda Meir claimed there were no Palestinians? You should be equally outraged at the insinuation that Jews are not a nation. Those who denounce Zionism sometimes explain Israel's policies as a product of its Jewish essence. In their view, not only should Israel act differently, it should cease being a Jewish state. Anti-Zionists are prepared to treat Jews equally and fight anti-semitic prejudice only if Jews give up their distinctiveness as a nation: Jews as a nation deserve no sympathy and no rights, Jews as individuals are worthy of both. Supporters of this view love Jews, but not when Jews assert their national rights. Jews condemning Israel and rejecting Zionism earn their praise. Denouncing Israel becomes a passport to full integration. Noam Chomsky and his imitators are the new heroes, their Jewish pride and identity expressed solely through their shame for Israel's existence. Zionist Jews earn no respect, sympathy or protection. It is their expression of Jewish identity through identification with Israel that is under attack.

The argument that it is Israel's behaviour, and Jewish support for it, that invite prejudice sounds hollow at best and sinister at worst. That argument means that sympathy for Jews is conditional on the political views they espouse. This is hardly an expression of tolerance. It singles Jews out. It is anti-semitism.

Zionism reversed Jewish historical passivity to persecution and asserted the Jewish right to self-determination and independent survival. This is why anti-Zionists see it as a perversion of Jewish humanism. Zionism entails the difficulty of dealing with sometimes impossible moral dilemmas, which traditional Jewish passivity in the wake of historical persecution had never faced. By negating Zionism, the anti-semite is arguing that the Jew must always be the victim, for victims do no wrong and deserve our sympathy and support.

Israel errs like all other nations: it is normal. What anti-Zionists find so obscene is that Israel is neither martyr nor saint. Their outrage refuses legitimacy to a people's national liberation movement. Israel's stubborn refusal to comply with the invitation to commit national suicide and thereby regain a supposedly lost moral ground draws condemnation. Jews now have the right to self-determination, and that is what the anti-semite dislikes so much.

· Emanuele Ottolenghi is the Leone Ginzburg Fellow in Israel Studies at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and the Middle East Centre at St Antony's College, Oxford

[Hi
by Muslims run 99.9% of middle east Tuesday, Mar. 01, 2005 at 3:43 PM

Anti-Zionism is anti-semitism
by Emanuele Ottolenghi

Behind much criticism of Israel is a thinly veiled hatred of Jews]

the article can be translated as "secularization is anti-semitism"

it's a nonsense notion, but people like the author of the article posted above keep repeating it with the hope that it will be uncritically accepted

for a much more nuanced analysis of Israel and its predicament, read the following:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1856_310/ai_n8700664

"Saving Israel from Itself" by Bernard Avishai, published in Harper's Magazine, January 2005

just another one of those self-hating Jews, I guess

--Richard

[Hi
by Muslims run 99.9% of middle east Tuesday, Mar. 01, 2005 at 3:43 PM]

another nonsense notion

actually, the US runs 99.9% of the Middle East, as any examination of the map of military bases throughout the region, as well as the recipients of US foreign aid, like Muburak, will attest

well, maybe not 99.9%, probably more like 70%

I wouldn't want anyone to accuse me of being prone to exaggeration like the Prof

--Richard

And there were no Christians before 33 AD......
And there were no Mormons before the 1700's.....
But the People and the ancestors of these people did exist...

So we have to live in the Present and look at the facts on the ground like they are Today.....

The area that is causing concern is Israel, West Bank and Gaza. The great number of Muslim who are living in the other areas already have a State. They have nothing to do with the People in Israel, West Bank and Gaza.

Thirty-six years of war should be enough for such a small number of people, when you consider the World Population.
Allowing the Palestinian People to have their small state in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza can solve this conflict.
There are 1,200,000 or so Arabs living inside Israel Proper.
There are 400,000 or so Jews living inside the West Bank and Gaza.
Trying to remove all the settlement can be an almost undoable task.
So Set the Borders for Israel to it Pre 1967 Border (Green Line) and have the State of Palestine inside the West Bank and Gaza.
If the U.N. can decide the Borders of Israel in 1948,
The U.N. can decide the Borders of Palestine in 2005.
You would end up with Israel with a majority Jewish Population and Palestine with a majority Muslim Population.
This would allow for the Israeli Military to Guard and Control the Israeli pre 1967 borders instead of confiscating Palestinian Land and Demolishing Palestinian Homes in the West Bank and Gaza that only goes to fuel the need for the Palestinian People to fight for their Freedom.
The Jews who do not like living in the new Palestinian State can feel free to move to Israel if they so choose.
The Arabs living inside Israel can feel free to move to the new Palestinian State if they so choose.
Almost every nation on earth has more then one ethnic group or religious group, so why not Israel and Palestine?
It would sure be better then the never-ending conflict we have right now.

Who has died and how in this struggle for Palestinian Freedom?
CLICK HERE > http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html

James Carvel; that angel is a real sleaze-ball

And there were no Christians before 33 AD......
And there were no Mormons before the 1700's.....
But the People and the ancestors of these people did exist...

So we have to live in the Present and look at the facts on the ground like they are Today.....

The area that is causing concern is Israel, West Bank and Gaza. The great number of Muslims who are living in the other areas already have States. They have a lot to do with the People in Israel, West Bank and Gaza.

Thirty-seven years of war should be enough for such a small number of people, when you consider the World Population.
Allowing the Palestinian People to have their small state in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza can not in itself solve this conflict.
There are 1,200,000 or so Arab settlers living inside Israel Proper.
There are 400,000 or so Jews living inside the West Bank and Gaza.
Trying to remove all the settlements can be an almost undoable task.
So Set the Borders for Israel to somewhat beyond its Pre 1967 Border (Green Line) and have the State of Palestine inside Part of the West Bank and Gaza.
If the U.N. could decide the Borders of Israel in 1947 and fail to protect the Jews from the Arab Attack that ensued,
The U.N. can not decide the Borders of Palestine in 2005.
You would end up with Israel with a majority Jewish Population and Palestine with a majority Muslim Population.
This would allow for the Israeli Military to Guard and Control the new Israeli Borders instead of confiscating Palestinian Land and Demolishing Palestinian Homes in the West Bank and Gaza, provided the Palestinian Terrorists stop trying to rob the Israeli People of their Freedom, which only goes to fuel the Israeli reprisals.
The Jews who do not like living in the new Palestinian State can feel free to move to Israel if they so choose.
The Arab settlers living inside Israel should feel free to move to the new Palestinian State if they so choose.
Almost every nation on earth has more then one ethnic group or religious group, so why not Israel and Palestine?
It would sure be better then the never-ending Conflict we have right now.

Who has died and how in this struggle for Palestinian Murder and Destruction?
CLICK HERE > http://www.ifamericansknew.org/misleadingstats/deaths.html

I'm not making the following remarks out of an antagonistic impulse; it's just that RWF's comment is inaccurate at best. The Arab states allied with the US (examples being Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia), including recipients of direct foreign aid, have much leeway to conduct their affairs as they see fit, often at odds with both principles of administrations from both US political parties and their designs, policies and interests.

As for the significance of the presence of US military bases has for gauging the extent to which the US runs different states in the Mideast, upon closer examination we notice some inconsistencies. For instance, Israel is run by the US to a greater degree than the Saudi Arabia, even though American military presence in both personnel and bases is greater in the latter.

If US "allies" were to follow American's in absolute lock-step they'd be in much greater danger of being overthrown than they already are. This is understood by the Americans, and explains why, for instance, "big talk" against Israel is countenanced (while little material support for the Palestinean struggle is provided).

I'd be curious to know why you think the US has military bases around the world.

>>>"If US "allies" were to follow American's in absolute lock-step they'd be in much greater danger of being overthrown than they already are."<<<

Pick any Arab US foreign aid recipient/ally at random and you'd realize upon thorough scrutiny of their conduct in most spheres that they don't feel forced into following the US's will except in *pretty* general, and rather few, lines.
Also, it's almost needles to say, but these Arab states invariably mostly do not tow the US line/s out of love for the US.

>>>"This is understood by the Americans, and explains why, for instance, "big talk" against Israel is countenanced (while little material support for the Palestinean struggle is provided)."<<<

The US has never sought to forbid anti-Israel rhetoric or criticism. Second, the fear of seeing the PA overthrown by intra-Palestinian strife plays a minor role, if at all, in the American considerations to provide the PA with little material aid. ("Palestinean struggle"? Wha...? Apparently aaron believes terror or other forms of violence against Israeli Jews are still called for at this juncture.)