Do You Consider the Destruction of Israel a "Personal Tragedy?"

georgephillip

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Dec 27, 2009
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Less than half of young US Jews in a 2007 poll answered that question with a "yes."

"The(2008) Gaza massacre provoked unprecedented opposition around the world -- in Britain, students occupied buildings in more than a dozen universities across the country -- but, as Finkelstein documents in the second part of the book, this opposition did not come out of the blue.

"Rather, it 'marked the nadir of a curve plotting a steady decline in support for Israel', not only in Europe, where Israel consistently ranks among the least popular states in the world, but also in the US.13

"Most strikingly, American Jews are becoming increasingly ambivalent or even hostile towards Israel, to the point where less than half of young American Jews polled in 2007 answered that they would consider the destruction of Israel a 'personal tragedy'"

Jamie Stern-Weiner, "One Massacre Too Many"
 
BALONEY! But thanks for giving us something to laugh at while radical Islamists are killing themselves & us infidels all over the world today.



Less than half of young US Jews in a 2007 poll answered that question with a "yes."

"The(2008) Gaza massacre provoked unprecedented opposition around the world -- in Britain, students occupied buildings in more than a dozen universities across the country -- but, as Finkelstein documents in the second part of the book, this opposition did not come out of the blue.

"Rather, it 'marked the nadir of a curve plotting a steady decline in support for Israel', not only in Europe, where Israel consistently ranks among the least popular states in the world, but also in the US.13

"Most strikingly, American Jews are becoming increasingly ambivalent or even hostile towards Israel, to the point where less than half of young American Jews polled in 2007 answered that they would consider the destruction of Israel a 'personal tragedy'"

Jamie Stern-Weiner, "One Massacre Too Many"
 
Israel's greatest mistake was to make peace offerings to Palestinians, build a security fence & concede land to them so they can remain in Israel. Face it folks, no Arab country, who know the Palestinians best, ever treated them like Israel does.
 
BALONEY! But thanks for giving us something to laugh at while radical Islamists are killing themselves & us infidels all over the world today.



Less than half of young US Jews in a 2007 poll answered that question with a "yes."

"The(2008) Gaza massacre provoked unprecedented opposition around the world -- in Britain, students occupied buildings in more than a dozen universities across the country -- but, as Finkelstein documents in the second part of the book, this opposition did not come out of the blue.

"Rather, it 'marked the nadir of a curve plotting a steady decline in support for Israel', not only in Europe, where Israel consistently ranks among the least popular states in the world, but also in the US.13

"Most strikingly, American Jews are becoming increasingly ambivalent or even hostile towards Israel, to the point where less than half of young American Jews polled in 2007 answered that they would consider the destruction of Israel a 'personal tragedy'"

Jamie Stern-Weiner, "One Massacre Too Many"
Do you laugh at the number of Muslims who've been murdered for money and market share by the heroic US military since 1991?

Which country is the greatest purveyor of violence on this planet?
 
Actually yes, as much as I could appreciate a calamity like that. When you look back at their history over the past 3,000 years, the number of times they were taken from their own land and made slaves, their holy temples destroyed and their population scattered to every part of the world (even a population into India in 700 BC), and then the persecution and hostility they suffered as outcasts (burnings at the stake, ghettos where their people were locked up at night, not allowed to be on any street outside those ghettos, forbidden from riding a horse in a city street, forced to wear "badges" to be easily identified), the times their people were ejected again and again from countries which called themselves "civilized" (almost every country present or extinct) then I look at destruction of Israel, if it should occur, as a testament that the human race is violently self destructive, and I hope that will not be the case, for them and for all of us.
 
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Israel's greatest mistake was to make peace offerings to Palestinians, build a security fence & concede land to them so they can remain in Israel. Face it folks, no Arab country, who know the Palestinians best, ever treated them like Israel does.
Israel's greatest mistake occurred in 1948 when one-third of Palestine's citizens imposed a Jewish state by force of arms on a majority of their fellow Palestinians. Face it, fools, Israel was created to buy western weapons largely paid for by US tax dollars.
 
this may sound too american, but all i care about is the U.S.
Israel is swirling the same apartheid drain today that white South Africa was in the 1980s. Many of the same political forces in the US that labelled Nelson Mandala a "terrorist" then apply the same term to those resisting Israel's illegal occupation today.

Here's one way it could change without violence (more or less)

"If international civil society is serious about urgently ending Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights, including ending the occupation, then suspension of SWIFT transactions to and from Israeli banks offers an instrument to help bring about a peaceful resolution of an intractable conflict. With computerization, international banking technology has advanced dramatically in the subsequent 20 years since the South African anti-apartheid campaign.

"Although access to New York banks remains essential for foreign exchange transactions because of the role of the dollar, interbank transfer instructions are conducted through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which is based in Belgium.

"So, instead of New York — as in the period when sanctions were applied on South Africa– Belgium is now the pressure point.

"SWIFT links 8,740 financial institutions in 209 countries. Without access to SWIFT and its interbank payment network, countries are unable either to pay for imports or to receive payment for exports. In short, no payment — no trade"

Terry Crawford-Browne: To end the occupation, cripple Israeli banks | Israeli Occupation Archive
 
At the time Israel was created your theory had no applicability.

The Truman administration -- in an often told tale -- was deeply ambivalent, though ultimately American support was vital. On the one hand, as early as June 1945, President Truman adopted a proposal recommending that 100,000 European Jewish refugees be admitted immediately to Palestine. He communicated this to the British government, which remained quite unwilling to implement the proposal on the grounds that this would alienate opinion in the Arab world. (3) Ultimately, President Truman's support for partition of Palestine and recognition of Israel came at the very last minute and against the advice and wishes of the Departments of State and Defense. At a bitterly contentious White House meeting on May 12, 1948, Truman's advisor, Clark Clifford, argued strongly for immediate recognition of the Jewish state. However, Secretary of State George C. Marshall was strongly opposed and told Truman that if he "were to follow Mr. Clifford's advice and if in the election I was to vote, I would vote against the President." (4) After some confusion and disarray between the White House and the American delegation to the United Nations, the United States did announce de facto recognition only minutes after the announcement of Israel's existence on May 14, 1948. However, the administration did not at first lift an arms embargo, and an Israeli loan request was, as Steven L. Spiegel notes, delayed by the bureaucracy until January 1949. (1949)

Only very slowly did the special relationship between Israel and the United States evolve. Over a period of time, this has come to rest on deep-seated factors, including historical memory, Judeo-Christian values, the Holocaust, societal ties, strategic interests and the tenacity of Israel. But despite these underlying dimensions--many of which were warmly invoked during celebrations of Israel's fiftieth anniversary--the development of the American-Israeli connection was far from a steady progression of close collaboration or patron-client relations. Indeed, at first the relationship was very much at arms length, and Washington was slow to provide military assistance or economic aid. Crises in the relationship took place in 1953 and especially in 1956-57 over Suez, when the administration of President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles applied great pressure on Israel to withdraw from the Sinai peninsula which its troops had captured from Egypt in the October 1956 war.

No additional significant foreign aid was forthcoming until the provision of $86 million in 1952. During the 1950s and early to mid-1960s, aid levels remained quite low. As late as 1967, the annual aid provided to Israel amounted to just $13 million. However, in the aftermath of the Six Day War aid began to increase sharply, with the United States providing $76 million in 1968 and $600 million in 1971. (6)

SOURCE
 
this may sound too american, but all i care about is the U.S.

Absolutamundo! I agree with you wholeheartedly. we need to clean our own back yard for a while. it's not like we don't have anything to do...
I agree with your assessment; however, I think you need to be clear about how others define our "back yard." It's likely the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down because it is no longer feasible to fight wars on the opposite side of the globe with borrowed money.

That still leaves Mexico, which we've invaded three times already, and many in the military/industrial, congressional complex firmly believe Mexico is part of our backyard.

Someday Mexicans (who are Americans) may well be dying at the same rate as Pakistanis are today from US drone strikes. If so, that will bring "The Long War" much closer to home for 99% of US citizens.
 
Actually yes, as much as I could appreciate a calamity like that. When you look back at their history over the past 3,000 years, the number of times they were taken from their own land and made slaves, their holy temples destroyed and their population scattered to every part of the world (even a population into India in 700 BC), and then the persecution and hostility they suffered as outcasts (burnings at the stake, ghettos where their people were locked up at night, not allowed to be on any street outside those ghettos, forbidden from riding a horse in a city street, forced to wear "badges" to be easily identified), the times their people were ejected again and again from countries which called themselves "civilized" (almost every country present or extinct) then I look at destruction of Israel, if it should occur, as a testament that the human race is violently self destructive, and I hope that will not be the case, for them and for all of us.
There seems to be a pattern of behavior engaged in by some elite (read rich) Jews over the centuries that results in the historical calamities that you document. It is worth pointing out how Jews were also known to inflict many of the same sufferings on their victims ranging from the Canaanites three thousand years ago to Palestinians today. The choice facing Israel today (imho) is whether it wants to exist as a Jewish state or as a democratic one. If it chooses the latter, the four million inhabitants of the occupied territories must receive the right to vote in Israeli elections.
 
At the time Israel was created your theory had no applicability.

The Truman administration -- in an often told tale -- was deeply ambivalent, though ultimately American support was vital. On the one hand, as early as June 1945, President Truman adopted a proposal recommending that 100,000 European Jewish refugees be admitted immediately to Palestine. He communicated this to the British government, which remained quite unwilling to implement the proposal on the grounds that this would alienate opinion in the Arab world. (3) Ultimately, President Truman's support for partition of Palestine and recognition of Israel came at the very last minute and against the advice and wishes of the Departments of State and Defense. At a bitterly contentious White House meeting on May 12, 1948, Truman's advisor, Clark Clifford, argued strongly for immediate recognition of the Jewish state. However, Secretary of State George C. Marshall was strongly opposed and told Truman that if he "were to follow Mr. Clifford's advice and if in the election I was to vote, I would vote against the President." (4) After some confusion and disarray between the White House and the American delegation to the United Nations, the United States did announce de facto recognition only minutes after the announcement of Israel's existence on May 14, 1948. However, the administration did not at first lift an arms embargo, and an Israeli loan request was, as Steven L. Spiegel notes, delayed by the bureaucracy until January 1949. (1949)

Only very slowly did the special relationship between Israel and the United States evolve. Over a period of time, this has come to rest on deep-seated factors, including historical memory, Judeo-Christian values, the Holocaust, societal ties, strategic interests and the tenacity of Israel. But despite these underlying dimensions--many of which were warmly invoked during celebrations of Israel's fiftieth anniversary--the development of the American-Israeli connection was far from a steady progression of close collaboration or patron-client relations. Indeed, at first the relationship was very much at arms length, and Washington was slow to provide military assistance or economic aid. Crises in the relationship took place in 1953 and especially in 1956-57 over Suez, when the administration of President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles applied great pressure on Israel to withdraw from the Sinai peninsula which its troops had captured from Egypt in the October 1956 war.

No additional significant foreign aid was forthcoming until the provision of $86 million in 1952. During the 1950s and early to mid-1960s, aid levels remained quite low. As late as 1967, the annual aid provided to Israel amounted to just $13 million. However, in the aftermath of the Six Day War aid began to increase sharply, with the United States providing $76 million in 1968 and $600 million in 1971. (6)

SOURCE
JFK and Gore Vidal have their own theory on why our recognition of Israel happened so quickly:

"Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president.

"Then an American Zionist brought him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. 'That's why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.'"

Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years
 
Get serious. The majority of Palestinians residing on Israel's land came from the West Bank & Gaza after the Arab/Israeli wars. Nearly 4 million.. A bunch of squatters rejected by their own Arab brothers in Jordan & Egypt.



Actually yes, as much as I could appreciate a calamity like that. When you look back at their history over the past 3,000 years, the number of times they were taken from their own land and made slaves, their holy temples destroyed and their population scattered to every part of the world (even a population into India in 700 BC), and then the persecution and hostility they suffered as outcasts (burnings at the stake, ghettos where their people were locked up at night, not allowed to be on any street outside those ghettos, forbidden from riding a horse in a city street, forced to wear "badges" to be easily identified), the times their people were ejected again and again from countries which called themselves "civilized" (almost every country present or extinct) then I look at destruction of Israel, if it should occur, as a testament that the human race is violently self destructive, and I hope that will not be the case, for them and for all of us.
There seems to be a pattern of behavior engaged in by some elite (read rich) Jews over the centuries that results in the historical calamities that you document. It is worth pointing out how Jews were also known to inflict many of the same sufferings on their victims ranging from the Canaanites three thousand years ago to Palestinians today. The choice facing Israel today (imho) is whether it wants to exist as a Jewish state or as a democratic one. If it chooses the latter, the four million inhabitants of the occupied territories must receive the right to vote in Israeli elections.
 
Get serious. The majority of Palestinians residing on Israel's land came from the West Bank & Gaza after the Arab/Israeli wars. Nearly 4 million.. A bunch of squatters rejected by their own Arab brothers in Jordan & Egypt.



Actually yes, as much as I could appreciate a calamity like that. When you look back at their history over the past 3,000 years, the number of times they were taken from their own land and made slaves, their holy temples destroyed and their population scattered to every part of the world (even a population into India in 700 BC), and then the persecution and hostility they suffered as outcasts (burnings at the stake, ghettos where their people were locked up at night, not allowed to be on any street outside those ghettos, forbidden from riding a horse in a city street, forced to wear "badges" to be easily identified), the times their people were ejected again and again from countries which called themselves "civilized" (almost every country present or extinct) then I look at destruction of Israel, if it should occur, as a testament that the human race is violently self destructive, and I hope that will not be the case, for them and for all of us.
There seems to be a pattern of behavior engaged in by some elite (read rich) Jews over the centuries that results in the historical calamities that you document. It is worth pointing out how Jews were also known to inflict many of the same sufferings on their victims ranging from the Canaanites three thousand years ago to Palestinians today. The choice facing Israel today (imho) is whether it wants to exist as a Jewish state or as a democratic one. If it chooses the latter, the four million inhabitants of the occupied territories must receive the right to vote in Israeli elections.
Ever heard of Al Nakba?

"The 1948 Palestinian exodus, known in Arabic as the Nakba (Arabic: النكبة*, an-Nakbah, lit. 'disaster', 'catastrophe', or 'cataclysm'),[1] occurred when approximately 711,000 to 725,000 Palestinian Arabs left, fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Civil War that preceded it.[2] The exact number of refugees is a matter of dispute.[3] The causes remain the subject of fundamental disagreement between Arabs and Israelis."

1948 Palestinian exodus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Yeah well, so lets blame Israel for the Arab countries convincing the Palestinians to leave until the Arabs wipe out Israel & bring back the Palestinians.





Get serious. The majority of Palestinians residing on Israel's land came from the West Bank & Gaza after the Arab/Israeli wars. Nearly 4 million.. A bunch of squatters rejected by their own Arab brothers in Jordan & Egypt.



There seems to be a pattern of behavior engaged in by some elite (read rich) Jews over the centuries that results in the historical calamities that you document. It is worth pointing out how Jews were also known to inflict many of the same sufferings on their victims ranging from the Canaanites three thousand years ago to Palestinians today. The choice facing Israel today (imho) is whether it wants to exist as a Jewish state or as a democratic one. If it chooses the latter, the four million inhabitants of the occupied territories must receive the right to vote in Israeli elections.
Ever heard of Al Nakba?

"The 1948 Palestinian exodus, known in Arabic as the Nakba (Arabic: النكبة*, an-Nakbah, lit. 'disaster', 'catastrophe', or 'cataclysm'),[1] occurred when approximately 711,000 to 725,000 Palestinian Arabs left, fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Civil War that preceded it.[2] The exact number of refugees is a matter of dispute.[3] The causes remain the subject of fundamental disagreement between Arabs and Israelis."

1948 Palestinian exodus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Or we could blame Zionists for inflicting a Jewish state by force of arms on two-thirds of the population of Palestine in 1948. Jews owned 7% of the land of Palestine in 1948 yet received 55% from the UN partition plan. Zionists made it clear they wanted all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan for decades before the UN got involved.

What's next...Damascus?
 
Or we could blame Zionists for inflicting a Jewish state by force of arms on two-thirds of the population of Palestine in 1948. Jews owned 7% of the land of Palestine in 1948 yet received 55% from the UN partition plan. Zionists made it clear they wanted all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan for decades before the UN got involved.

What's next...Damascus?
Get yer facts straight,Georgie.
78% of the Palestine Mandate was given to the Hashemites of Saudi Arabia (the rulers of what is known as the Kingdom of Jordan now.) for their helping the British in World War I. The other 22% was supposed to be divided in half -- 11% to the Jews, 11% to the Arabs. The Jews accepted this, but the Arabs didn't and that is why all those Arab armies tried to destroy Israel in 1948. Are you by any chance trying to change history?
 
Less than half of young US Jews in a 2007 poll answered that question with a "yes."

"The(2008) Gaza massacre provoked unprecedented opposition around the world -- in Britain, students occupied buildings in more than a dozen universities across the country -- but, as Finkelstein documents in the second part of the book, this opposition did not come out of the blue.

"Rather, it 'marked the nadir of a curve plotting a steady decline in support for Israel', not only in Europe, where Israel consistently ranks among the least popular states in the world, but also in the US.13

"Most strikingly, American Jews are becoming increasingly ambivalent or even hostile towards Israel, to the point where less than half of young American Jews polled in 2007 answered that they would consider the destruction of Israel a 'personal tragedy'"

Jamie Stern-Weiner, "One Massacre Too Many"
Polls? You spoke about polls? Try this one for size.

Israel/Palestinians
 
Or we could blame Zionists for inflicting a Jewish state by force of arms on two-thirds of the population of Palestine in 1948. Jews owned 7% of the land of Palestine in 1948 yet received 55% from the UN partition plan. Zionists made it clear they wanted all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan for decades before the UN got involved.

What's next...Damascus?
Get yer facts straight,Georgie.
78% of the Palestine Mandate was given to the Hashemites of Saudi Arabia (the rulers of what is known as the Kingdom of Jordan now.) for their helping the British in World War I. The other 22% was supposed to be divided in half -- 11% to the Jews, 11% to the Arabs. The Jews accepted this, but the Arabs didn't and that is why all those Arab armies tried to destroy Israel in 1948. Are you by any chance trying to change history?

You are rewriting history. No Arab country attacked Israel in 1948.
 

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