18 July 2006

Has Israel finally gone too far?

I hate hypocrisy.

I hate it when I get caught out doing it. And I do it a lot. I should not be considered a role model.

But I most especially hate it when whole countries do it.

Now, I should point out in advance that not everyone in the country is as much a bunch of pricks as the guys heading the place up, but, geez, this is pure evil on a massive scale. And I have met citizens of this country who are quite nice people. They are certainly not in power at the moment.

Evil imperialist cu^ts are in control, and there is seemingly no end to the idiocy that is manifest.

And I for one can see this one escalating out of control. Possibly even to World War 3.

So lets look at the country in question:

The State of Israel.

A nation of about seven million people.

One of the world's truly historical places.

It's capital, Jerusalem, is holy to three rather large religions.

And no matter how much Israeli apologists in the media such as Rupert Murdoch play Israel as THE underdog of the world stage, Israel still manages to come out of most situations looking aggressive and nasty.

Israel has been its own worst enemy and cannot do anything right. Its domestic policy since the late 1990's has been a disaster.

I mean, seriously, how in fuck's name can this country endorse such wonderful policy decisions as opening fire on a gang of rock-throwing kids?

Flattening an entire Palestinian town because two Israeli soldiers were lynched.

Jenin.

So there is this history of overreaction from the Israeli authorities.

And there appears to be no guilt. At no point does anyone in the Israeli government think, or say publicly, anyway, "This is massively, overwhelmingly wrong."

So we have three Israeli soldiers abducted by Hezbollah in the last week.

Sure enough, Israel goes nuts.

But this time, nuts is an understatement. They appear to have said:

"Let's just torch Lebanon to the ground. Hezbollah are Lebanese, aren't they?"

Notorious pro-Israeli trouser-wearer, Colin Rubenstein, Executive Director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council writes in Crikey the following:

"This war is not against the Lebanese people but against Hezbollah."

Really? Well then, why target Lebanese civilians in the process?

On the same day, Antony Loewenstein, blogger, journalist and author of the forthcoming My Israel Question wrote, also in Crikey, the following:

"The Jewish state aims to redesign the Middle East through the barrel of a gun, imposing its will through the killing of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure."

This may be overstating things a tad.

However, what we do know is that as long as Israel has the USA for backup, they will continue to go berzerk at every little thing.

And they do. Dubya's microphone gaff shows that in the eyes of the USA, nothing is ever Israel's fault.

Rubenstein appears to believe, along with most conservative Israeli commentators that Israel is not responsible for attempting to bomb Lebanon back to the stone age.

Rubenstein is clearly an idiot.

What is a concern, however, is that Israel likes to invoke the Mugabe defence whenever things aren't going her way.

It's always Syria's or Iran's fault. Or Hamas, or Hezbollah.

What makes it worse is the speed of the accusation of "antisemitism".

Antisemitism is an ugly word that is used as a particularly effective red herring. It stifles debate, and if you proceed with even legitimate criticism, you are tarred with a brush which colours any credibility you might have had in a light shade of mud.

Israel, and Israeli apologists are very much adept at using this red herring. And, as with Mugabe, it gets tiresome after a while.

And if Israel do it too often, people notice.

Methinks Israel doth protesteth too much.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one Dikkii...

You know, back in about 65 - 70ad, Vespasian took a legion or two of Romans to Jerusalem because Cesar had had quite enough of the Israelites. Refusing to pay their taxes and causing Rome all sorts of trouble in the region was not what Nero had in mind.

He ended up booting all the Israelites out and named the area for the people who actually built it. Palestina was what he called it.

Vespasian is credited with bringing peace and stability to the Roman empire after Nero. Hmmm... Is there a lesson to be learned from his actions?

Sorry Dikkii, another shameless plug. I wrote a piece called The City that loosley traces the various occupations of the area over the past 4000 years, if anyone's interested...

Dikkii said...

I can't believe I haven't read this one yet.

I'm not about to suggest, though, that displacing an entire people is the solution. There has got to be a better way.

Vespasian's displacement solution may have, in fact, indirectly caused the problems we're seeing at the moment.

Interesting stuff - and how funny is it that Jerusalem used to be called "Jebus"?

And did you see the movie Kingdom of Heaven? And if so, is it any good? I have heard that the Director's Cut is excellent.

Anonymous said...

You're spot on! Displacement not working is probably the main lesson I think. You can take it back as far David and Solomon though. They're just as guilty and it works both ways to an extent.

The latest episode of displacement that's caused the current problems happened in 1947 with the UN's Parition Plan (the famous Resolution 181) that resulted in the first Jewish - Arab war in 1948 and has been going pretty much ever since with only an occasional lull, or so it seems...

No, I haven't seen Kingdom of Heaven but it sounds good. I hope they've done Saladin justice, he did win it (Jebus..:)) and any number of other Crusader Cities back from the Christians after all.

Anonymous said...

Dikkii,

I read the Anthony & Tammy thing and tried to post a comment myself. Alas, I couldn't because I'm not registered at blogger. Here it is anyway. Feel free to use some or all of it over there if you want (although I doubt you need any help from the likes of me...), I'll be following this one with interest...:)

Hi Anthony & Tammy,

That was certainly an interesting article. I will have to agree with Dikkii to an extent though. Anyone can quote verse and twist it to their own purpose.

To me it reads almost like a declaration of war, which seems to contradict itself with this simple statement, talking of faith; "just as surely as a Christian who refuses to treat others with Christ-like love, kindness, and respect is violating his."

Where is his "Christ-like love" in this article? I can't seem to find any...

I would also like to take exception to your assertion that God cannot be divided. After Jesus, does God not become a triumviate of The Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Up until that point he was Yaweh, a single entity. After Christ, divided. It seems quite logical to me.

Dikkii said...

I'll say this, Ted.

By deleting my last post, which, by the way, wasn't offensive, rude, abusive, or even name calling and then sticking in all that irrelevant rubbish about Iraq they've certainly shown their true colours.

I take back what I said about them being nice - they've shown themselves to be outright bigots and unable to accept criticism. Typical for members of the American Taliban.

Now Alan Keyes, who wrote the blog they referenced in the first place is an interesting bloke.

Keyes is unafraid to use the Mugabe defence, usually by playing the race card, whenever legitimate criticism is directed his way.

Anonymous said...

Well, there you go. I didn't expect that sort of rhetoric there. Like you, I even found myself thinking that they were nice.

They weren't quite quick enough though...:) I was doing night shift last night and I saw yours appear there early this morning (it prompted me to put mine here). I thought you were quite eloquent, not to mention polite, in your acceptance of their ground rules and I also thought you'd addressed the points they'd made as best you could given their response. So much for following it further...

I see what you mean about Keyes. I'll have to read some more tonight when I'm more awake...:)

Dikkii said...

I'm going to have to work out how to use the Wayback Machine and also, how to access it through my employer's firewall.

I thought I had a good response.

Anonymous said...

I don't really have an opinion either way regarding this conflict, as I don't feel I know enough about the situation yet to form one. It's just a bloody nightmare over there.

Regarding these wackjobs, what did you say that prompted them to remove your message?

Dikkii said...

Adam wrote:

Regarding these wackjobs, what did you say that prompted them to remove your message?

Made a well-reasoned and balanced argument that made it crystal clear that Alan Keyes was nothing more than a bigoted kook.

Anonymous said...

Having seen it, I have to agree with Dikkii. I thought it was an exellent argument and was looking forward to seeing what they'd had to say. Alas...

I think they suffer from "Matthew Richmond Syndrome", as it's become known around here...:)

Dikkii said...

Ted wrote:

"Matthew Richmond Syndrome"

LOL.

Anonymous said...

"Matthew Richmond Syndrome"

Bloody brilliant. Perhaps the poor guy has left a legacy (rather than a coherent argument) after all.

It's just so pathetic when this kind of thing happens. It does make it pretty obvious who is right though.

Dikkii said...

I thought he tried hard.