tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271382.post112196346945148524..comments2023-10-30T06:05:06.407-05:00Comments on Keep On Keepin' On....: Antiwar Unity and The Debate over PalestineCarl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271382.post-1145326331723599702006-04-17T21:12:00.000-05:002006-04-17T21:12:00.000-05:00What is burningman's obsession with the "European"...What is burningman's obsession with the "European" part of "European Jew"? How are continents relevant? Do Asians and Middle Easterners have an inherent right to the land that others do not? Hmm, that doesn't sound very socialist to me. That sounds a lot like land ownership based on ethnicity and ancestry, doesn't it?<BR/><BR/>But if you insist on making this a matter of origin in Europe or the Middle East - don't the Jews as a people historically originate in the Middle East? They are European only because their ancestors were driven out of their homeland in Judea by the original Euro-facist empire, The Romans.<BR/>But if that history is too ancient for you to consider relevant, then perhaps you and Carl would both do well to consider the fact that a large segement of the Israeli Jewish population, if not a majority, is of direct Middle Eastern origin. Neither they nor their ancestors have anything to do with Europe. They came from Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia. Roughly 900,000 of them were driven out of the Arab and Muslim lands where their ancestors lived centuries before the arrival of the Arabs. The anti-Jewish riots and mass public executions that unfolded in places like Iraq following Israel's founding are forgotten. Somehow, these refugees never enter into the equation when we talk of those who were driven from their homes. European Zionists created Israel, but for many Israeli families Europe is as foreign as it is to any Arab. How can neither of you even mention that fact in passing?<BR/><BR/><BR/>As for historic imperialism, the Arab and Turkish Muslims once and for centuries ruled over the greatest imperial empire in the world until the rise of Europe. The Turks ruled over all of eastern Europe and were as imperialist as any European nation until their defeat in World War 1. The struggle between European and Islamic imperialism has not been a one-sided affair by any stretch of the imagination.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271382.post-1127857512337017972005-09-27T16:45:00.000-05:002005-09-27T16:45:00.000-05:00Anyone who wants can read your stuff and make up t...Anyone who wants can read your stuff and make up their own minds about your perspective on the future of Jewish people living in Israel, Burningman. <BR/><BR/>Here's the Url to your site, if the quotes in my log aren't adequate:<BR/><BR/>http://burning.typepad.com/burningman/2005/08/the_outrageous_.html<BR/><BR/>There is no 'right to conquer' for any nation, BM, that's an oxymorom. But as I recall, a good number of Jews came to the Mideast more as refugees than as conquerors. You might make an analogy with the dumping of the Scots-Irish prisoners and bondservants in the New World. They came under conditions of injustice, but there's no way to run the clock of history in reverse.<BR/><BR/>That's why I argue that the most probable and least bloody way to peace in the mideast is for Palestinians and Israeli Jews to come to terms with each other, not to persist in the illusion that either side can vanquish the other.<BR/><BR/>That's not a prospect that you find valuable, I understand. <BR/><BR/>But I don't think you've come up with anything better. <BR/><BR/>And it doesn't do much good to carry on about a secular state, which I would find preferable, when a majority on either side is not interested in secular states, uninational or binational, at least in the forseeable future.<BR/><BR/>I'm curious about one thing, though. If the PA is not the representative of the Palestinians, as you assert, what organization or body is?Carl Davidsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7271382.post-1127854297901368192005-09-27T15:51:00.000-05:002005-09-27T15:51:00.000-05:00Supposing Carl lets this stay up...It is basely di...Supposing Carl lets this stay up...<BR/><BR/>It is basely dishonst to make the claim that I promote or believe in the physical destruction of Jewish people because Zionism must fall.<BR/><BR/>That's a cheap shot, and gross at face value when it is, in fact, Palestinians who are being surrounded by concrete and barbed wire fences, whose leaders are murdered and jailed and whose "democratic rights" are obviously null and void in a world dominated by imperialism, and a region under the thumb of Zionism.<BR/><BR/>And, on a historical footnote, when Saladin marched into Jerusalem, liberating it from the Crusasers -- there was not mass bloodletting. This was in marked contrasted to the slaughter the Christians brought. Read up a little before you go all Bernard Lewis on us.<BR/><BR/>I guess Carl is no more interested in historical accuracy than political principle.<BR/><BR/>The basic contention is whether European Jews have the "right" to conquer Palestine, expel its indigenous inhabitants and illegally prevent their return to the lands they come from.<BR/><BR/>Carl believes that a "Jews only" state is okay. I don't. <BR/><BR/>I very much believe that Jewish people have every right to citizenship in a secular Palestine.<BR/><BR/>That is the difference. If Carl can't understand it, it's because the cost to his position in the gooey left is too much to pay.<BR/><BR/>And if he thinks for ONE SECOND that the PA represents the Palestinians, he is more than confused. He is a dupe.<BR/><BR/>It is the sell-out of revisionists like Davidson that has led so many younger Palestinians and Arabs to embrace militant forms of Islam. The masses there go with those who fight the settler state -- not those who prevaricate and loot Western bribe funds for their own edification.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com