But Is It Good For Israel?
But is it good for Israel?...The now seemingly age-old refrain of American Jews whose support for Israel sometimes affects their reason. Now despite some anti-Semitic accusations, I don't know a single American Jew whose support for Israel EVER interferes with their loyalty and patriotism as American citizens. But sometimes American Jews are willing to make what seem to me to be idiotic alliances in the name of Israel.
Right wing Christian extremists, like Christians United for Israel (CUFI), have become supposedly ardent supporters of Israel and many American Jews have been willing to form alliances with these right wing Christian fundamentalists because of this supposed support for Israel. This despite the overall repulsive positions taken by groups like CUFI, which advocate the mixing of church and state and often advocate intolerance and use hate speech. The founder of CUFI is one of those right wing nuts who condemns Harry Potter books as advocating witchcraft, calls Russia and Islamic nations the Antichrist, and, of course, is anti-choice and anti-gay. He also is a scam artist who is one of the highest paid televangelist out there. His view on Free Speech is: "What is the point of having free speech if you have nothing to say?" His view on Hurricane Katrina: "All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that." And, for those Jews who love him, let's consider what he thinks of Jews: "If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket." (Quotes from Wikipedia).
The alliance between some American Jews and Christian fundamentalists (who think Jews will go to Hell) is disturbing and, in my opinion, quite foolish given the reason behind Christian fundamentalist support for Israel. They believe all Jews must move back to Israel before the second coming can occur. THAT is the reason for their support of Israel. To me it is insane to form an alliance with someone who feels you have to move to Israel for their messiah to come...after which you have to convert or be damned. What if I don't want to move? What if I don't want to convert?
Slowly more and more Jewish leaders are becoming uncomfortable with their fundamentalist Christian bedfellows. It has become increasingly clear that alliances with Christian fundamentalists are not only bad for Israel, but also bad for American Jews. Christian fundamentalists have started to participate in religious intolerance thatd directly threatens Jews in America, as in the Delaware Pogrom or in recent developments I wrote about here.
Now a leader within Reform Judaism is trying to wake up Jewish leaders to the threat of Christian fundamentalism to American Jews. He goes so far as to call the alliance Jewish leaders have made with Christian Fundamentalists "selling our souls." From Jews on First:
In a major development in the debate raging over participating in Christian Zionist "Nights to Honor Israel," the leader of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, has sharply criticized the involvement of local Jewish federations in the events. Yoffie, the president of the Union of Reform Judaism, wrote in the national Jewish weekly Forward that the federations' cooperation with Christians United for Israel (CUFI) is alienating the upcoming generation of Jewish community leaders.
Yoffie's op-ed appeared the Friday before two Conservative movement rabbis took part in a May 20th CUFI "Night to Honor Israel" in the Washington DC area...
CUFI and other Christian Zionist organizations support Israel because of a non-mainstream biblical interpretation that the end-times battle of Armageddon will take place in Israel and presage the return of Jesus.
Jews on First quotes from Yoffie's op-ed piece:
We know a great deal about Jewish young adults. We have learned from extensive research that these young people are often more socially liberal than their baby-boomer parents. They are pluralistic in their thinking, and they are tolerant of difference, especially differences in gender and sexual orientation.
They respond negatively to those who disparage other religious traditions and who make exclusivist religious claims. They are insistently centrist in their political views on the Middle East. And they are suspicious of a Jewish establishment that they see as too focused on money and insufficiently focused on values.
And so whom do we offer to these young people as a spokesman for Israel? John Hagee, who is contemptuous of Muslims, dismissive of gays, possesses a triumphalist theology and opposes a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. If our intention was to distance our young adults from the Jewish state, we could not have made a better choice.
I am glad that American Jewish leaders are waking up to the danger of trusting people who fundamentally believe that Jews are damned to Hell if they don't convert.
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christian fundamentalists | Israel | religious extremism | Jews on First
Balkans even worse
Submitted by mole333 on 22 May 2007 - 10:55am.
Israel/Palestine is bad enough. I am reading a book right now on the break up of Yugoslavia and the horrible wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Absolute insanity over absolute crap.
To me it is simple. You have two people who are closely related who have inhabited the land as far back as we can trace. Fine. In essence Israelis and Palestinians are the same ethnic group but mixed in with different outside mixes and having chosen different religious paths sometime in the mists of history.
You have an area that has been ruled by various warring empires from ancient Rome to 1948. No independent state during that whole time unless you want to count the very odd and short lived aberations of the Crusader states. The break up of the Ottoman Empire left this area in a no-man's land that the Brits got stuck with but didn't really want.
THe UN came up with a solution whereby the single ethnic group with two identities got two states to have those identities expressed. Fine.
Only problem is that once again outside empires (US and Soviet Union and Arab states) intervened and mucked it up. The real culprit were the surrounding Arab states who invaded and promptly refused to allow a Palestinian state to form until Israel was wiped off the map. Things have been kind of frozen there except chunks of land switched from Arab occupation to Israeli occupation and Arab states have quieted their rhetoric on wiping Israel off the map.
correction . . .
Submitted by Maxx on 24 May 2007 - 1:34pm.
Actually the "jews" who have pirated Palastine are not semetic. See: The Thirteenth Tribe written by a Jew, Art Koestler claims that the eastern European jews are not semetic. Which means that they DONT belong there. Ask yourself , do you know what a semite is ? What is the original derivation of this word before they polluted it? Israel was founded by jewish gangsters, kinda like Las Vegas . . .
All I have to say is Deir Yassin -
[Link removed - Ed.]
No...you are wrong
Submitted by mole333 on 24 May 2007 - 2:41pm.
I have read the Thirteenth Tribe and you completely misrepresent Koestler's thesis. He argues that a part of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage comes from the collapsed kingdom of Khazaria...something I have written about quite often, actually. He never argues that Jews in general (including Sabras, the Jews who ALWAYS have live in Israel, or Sephardim) are descendents of the Khazars or even that all Ashkenazim are descendents of the Khazars. Koestler himself was a Zionist, for that matter.
I have read many genetic studies in the scientific literature and they ALL indicate that Jews from all over the world are closely related not only to eachother, but also to the Palestinians. Palestinians are more related to the Jews than they are to the Arabs, who are also closely related to both. THAT makes all those groups Semites. If Jews don't belong there then neither do the Palestinians and visa versa. Truth is, genetic, archaeological and historical evidence all point to both Palestinians AND Jews being descendents of the native Canaanites, though both have mixed with other groups throughout their history.
Don't base your conclusions based on only one or two sources. I base my conlcusions on genetics (Palestinians and Jews, including Ashkenazim EXCEPT Askenazi Levites, are closely related), archaeology (both cultures evolved out of the native Canaanite culture), history (the earliest records of Israel and the Philistines indicate a contemporary evolution) and international law (regardless of origins both nations were created out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire by the same legal mechanism and have equal legal basis). I suggest broadening your mind and your reading.
its just common sense . . .
Submitted by Maxx on 24 May 2007 - 3:04pm.
that if you come from the North of the Caucus Mountains you are WHITE caucasian, not semite. Site your sources. My research almost always shows that books are almost always biased and have an agenda and can be disproven.
Even the rabbincal council of LA stated that %97 of those who call themselves Jews are NOT semetic.
This statement is a load of horseshit -
"I have read many genetic studies in the scientific literature and they ALL indicate that Jews from all over the world are closely related not only to eachother, but also to the Palestinians.
With this logic we are ALL semites, as the israelites scattered throughout Europe. You need to reread Koestler's FRONT FLAP , where he states that if they are NOT semites , they do not have the right to lay claim to Palastine. Period.
By the way he and his wife were both "suicided" .
Even if they werent semites, that would be a minor point. Its their racist supremacist attitude I abhor. But apparantly you subscribe and defend to this insanity ?
Pathetic
Submitted by mole333 on 24 May 2007 - 3:32pm.
My stand has always been that Palestinians and Israelis both have equal claim on the land both for historical and legal reasons and they had better just learn to get along.
As for the Khazars being white caucasians, no...they were a Turkic tribe that migrated into the region, just like all the other Turkic tribes North and South of the Caucuses. Their language is similar to the Bulgar language that was found both in what is now Bulgaria and near the Volga river. So you even have THAT wrong.
As to Koestler, he lived in Palestine during the 1920s, on a kibbutz. At the University of Vienna he was President of a Zionist student fraternity. He always supported Israeli statehood. He also was no expert on his subject. I have read the Thirteeth Tribe and liked it. But found it ultimately little more than an interesting theory. And to date there has been no real supporting evidence of that interesting theory.
As to genetic studies, they clearly show a dominant Middle Eastern origin of Jews, except for Ashkenazi Levites, who seem to have a German origin. Here are citations:
M. F. Hammer, et al, "Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes." PNAS, vol. 97, 6769–6774, (2000)
Thomas, et al, Y Chromosomes Traveling South: The Cohen Modal Haplotype and the Origins of the Lemba—the “Black Jews of Southern Africa.†Am. J. Hum. Genet. 66 674–686, (2000)
Picornell, et al, "Jewish population genetic data in 20 polymorphic loci." Forensic Science International 125 52–58, (2002)
Behar, et al, "Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries." American Journal of Human Genetics 73 768–779 (2003)
Behar, et al, "The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event". The American Journal of Human Genetics 78 (3): 487-97 (2006)
That's what I've read, anyway. There are probably more out there.
Fuck off
Submitted by Michael Bouldin on 24 May 2007 - 7:28pm.
Oh, and I've removed your link. Goodbye.
Want to know Judaism ?
Submitted by Maxx on 24 May 2007 - 1:56pm.
study the Talmud and its racist/bigoted/misogynistic/pedophiliac filth that is scribbled within its horrid pages. No nominal human being with a modicum of moralilty would ever stand for what is expressed in the encyclopedian Talmud. You would be shocked.
So IF we all are here to knock Christians and Muslims we MUST included the Talmud in the debate, and only then can we have scholarly debate.
ANY Christian who supports Israel and jews is a fucking psychotic fool.
Hmmm...
Submitted by mole333 on 24 May 2007 - 2:47pm.
Well, seems to me if you read practically ANY ancient or medieval religious text, whether it is Islamic, Jewish, Christian or Hindu (Buddhists may be the exception here) you will find some stuff objectionable to modern readers.
As to scholarly debate, it seems to me that you are merely being an anti-Semitic fool, and one with little actual knowledge of your subjec, so I doubt you are capable of a reasoned, scholarly debate. At no point did I bash Islam or Christianity. I bash fundamentalist extremists of ANY stripe...and will include extremist anti-Semites in that as well because I have little patience for idiots who believe crap like the Protocols of Zion or blood libels or any of the rest of the BS that has been used to bash Jews for centuries. Those ain't scholarly. They're crap.
not semites . . .
Submitted by Maxx on 24 May 2007 - 3:15pm.
So I cant be an "anti-semite" stop regurgitating the nutritionally deficient and blatantly wrong information you get from mainstream zionist media and YES that means the endless books that are factually WRONG.
Show me in the New Testament where you are allowed to fuck little girls under 3, or that women are "shagetz" or an abomination or that its OK to kill gentiles? Show me . . .
Yes...Semite
Submitted by mole333 on 24 May 2007 - 3:35pm.
Stop misquoting things you don't understand, little boy.
Oh wow
Submitted by Michael Bouldin on 24 May 2007 - 7:24pm.
A Jew-hater...
Go back to Stormfront, Counterpunch or the International Solidarity Movement, pal.
Well put!
Submitted by NanceConfer on 22 May 2007 - 11:02am.
"Absolute insanity over absolute crap."
Nance
Nazi = Jews
Submitted by Maxx on 25 May 2007 - 10:53am.
who the hell do you think financed hitler ? Who the hell do you think is running this country into the ground? Ill give you a "hint" . Chertoff, Doug Feith, Bremmer, Wolfowitz, and that lying sack of shit Scooter Libby at $535 dollars an hour, all these fucking assholes are lying zionist pigs. Who the fuck do they think they are to LIE about iraq, just to get America over there and be the stupid shabbos goys for the zionist supremacists and do there dirty work?
So take your stupid stormfront comment and get lost yourself. I dont subscribe to nazi ideology, its purely jewish. Hitler , Eichmann, Goebbels were all jewish. Streicher was half jewish. Dumbass.
Okay, ZAP!
Submitted by mole333 on 25 May 2007 - 11:02am.
This kind of assinine, ignorant, "Protocols of Zion" style crap is not accepted at this site. You hereby earn my very first banning.
At the risk of repeating myself...
Submitted by Michael Bouldin on 25 May 2007 - 11:10am.
...Fuck You, you Nazi pig-fucker.
To quote the Dead Kennedys
Submitted by mole333 on 25 May 2007 - 11:18am.
"Nazi Punks, Nazi Punks, Nazi Punks
FUCK OFF!"
I wish
they'd wake up to how nonsensical all of this sounds. Dying for what? Again?
While watching the Palestinian refugee camps being bombed yesterday (not really camps in the typical sense because they've been there for decades and are now buildings on top of buildings instead of tents -- or maybe this morning it's all rubble and it doesn't matter; TV seems to have forgotten to cover Lebanon this morning) I Googled away to remember what I never really knew and still don't have a firm handle on . . . all the changes of ownership of that strip of land between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
What a bolluxed up mess. And everyone so vehement that they have a stake in some right to this or that because their fantasy guy in the sky said so.
And the pols and organizations intervening to help, or not, at various times. All going along with the religious story because . . . why? . . . they have their own religious story? We are supposed to respect each other's religious stories? Bah! Not when it leads to this much carnage for this long.
If you are picking your friends and your fights based on which pew they sit in, you need to rethink your own thinking. It's all long-standing irrationality from this angle.
Nance