"President Trump said Thursday that U.S. aid to the Palestinians won't continue until they're willing to "sit down and negotiate peace."
At a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Trump said that the Palestinians "disrespected" the U.S. a week ago by not allowing Vice President Mike Pence to see them on his trip to the Middle East. He suggested, therefore, the aid money is on the table.
"This was never brought up by any negotiators," Trump said, "But it's brought up by me."
Mr. Trump alluded to his decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's official capital, breaking the U.S.'s longstanding policy that the city's final status should be determined by peace negotiations.
"We took Jerusalem off the table so we don't have to talk about it anymore," he said Thursday. "What I did with Jerusalem was my honor.""
———–
As I have written before Trump is a total disaster in the ME. He has no policy other than that of the extreme nationalist right in Israel. He is evidently completely in thrall to his daughter and her Zionist husband. Perhaps his toady behavior toward Israel is a combination of that influence and a desire to suck up to all the people in New York City who treated him with contempt and hostility for many years.
He told the world today, while sitting next to his soul mate Bibi that the Palestinians are not truly human, have no human rights and that he has "taken Jerusalem off the table" so that the Palestinians will have to settle for some portion of the Holy Land allotted to them by Bibi and company.
He took the Holy City off the table? Who gave this man the right to do such a thing? pl
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-holds-bilateral-meeting-with-netanyahu-at-davos-live-stream/
Blackmail and honey traps do wonders at times…….., and the egotistical desire to stand out and be counted by a fool and a buffoon at best, produce such Caco maniacal decisions.
I don’t like this New Look either. But at least it ends the charade that the foreign policy establishment in this country has been playing for five decades.
And it fits into a larger pattern of dissident rightwing politics in Europe:
(1) Stoke nationalism as a means to fight off open-borders globalists and nonwhite invaders
(2) Go all-in on Israel to in order to reassure (and divide) anti-nationalists who control the corporate media and most finance (those who you refer to as “all the people in New York City who treated him with contempt and hostility for many years”), as well as provoke domestic elements of the anti-Zionist left.
(3) Blunt the inevitable charges of “antisemitism” while pursuing domestic policies aimed at breaking the power of ATPINYC.
Macron gets it:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/macron-says-he-wont-recognize-palestine-in-response-to-trumps-jerusalem-move/
Meanwhile, in across-the-Rhine Germania, the CDU and SPD will either wane or be forced to move towards the AFD’s positions as a means of keeping it from entering government.
Colonel,
Several other events are upcoming that Trump may want to tweet about: On her 17th birthday, Ahed Tamimi will be convicted (97% rate) in an Israeli Military court. Her crime is slapping an Israeli soldier. She’s been called the Palestinian Joan of Arc so one wonders if she will be ‘shot while trying to escape’. The situation in Gaza is getting so dire the Israelis are getting worried. An epimiologist told me that if you confine people, starve them in poor sanitation, it isn’t if cholera breaks out, it’s when.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t Trump who did anything off the table. It was Israel in 1967, and it had started planning to do so in the middle of 1963 (Shacham Study Group).
Max Blumenthal said Kushner and Haley pushed for the cutting off of the aid to the Palestinians. It does seem as if Trump is a product of the extreme Zionist environment of NY, even if this conflicts with his instinctive isolationism, but then his circle does consist of these two contradictory groups. No question who has the upper ground currently.
So, the Palestinians have a right to our money? I generally love your ME background and information on the combatants, but your tone regarding anything Israel sounds shrill and suspect to me.
Skeptical Enlightenment
I will call you Hasbara #1. Do the Israelis have a right to our money? They don’t do a damned thing for us and never have. I was the head liaison to IDF GS intelligence for seven years. We never got anything from them that was worth anything. Their motto was “whatever you have is ours, and whatever we have is ours.” You want to call me an anti-Semite? Well, try to have the courage to do so. did they teach you in hasbara school not to do that? Ah, perhaps you ARE the hasbara operation in the Izzie foreign ministry. I will make things clear for you. Unless you are an Israeli, I probably have more direct experience of Israel than you do. I have been to the country about 20 times, led government delegations there, did commercial business there, etc. There was once some hope that Israel might be what people like you want to believe it is. It is now a mono-cultural, hyper-nationalist little country that wants to be the absolute hegemon of the ME and is absolutely ruthless about using Zionist political power in the US to bend US policy to those goals. Is that clear enough? pl
Col: The next steps will be interesting. Akin to the US government shutdown, will the US provide aid to Palestinian “security” forces, but not to teachers and other government workers?
Your comment sounds suspect to me. You must be either a Israel loyalist or ignorant of how the US Israeli Fifth Column has corrupted US ME foreign policy and destroyed whatever respect for the US that existed in the ME and other parts of the world prior to the abdominal US/Israel partnership.
matthew
Ah, you are asking of we might fund some “gendarmes” for the Israelis? pl
Gesine Hammerling
Trump has given them the green light for absolute intransigence. pl
No doubt if we are talking about pure diplomacy then Trumqs stance is certainly imperfect. Sadly we are probably not . Trump/Pence represent many Christians who believe that Israel right is God given and equally the Islamic world believes the same. The 2 religions are diametrically oppose. The Bible teaches that Jerusalem will become a Cup of Trembling (Zechariah 12:2) Perhaps this time is now finally sadly upon us
Given that we give Israel a minimum of three billion a year (actually more, including additional millions for their anti-missile defense systems), it’s obscene to ask if Palestinians have a right to our money.
Not to mention that the entire planet in the UN usually votes against Israel, and only Israel and the US vote for Israel, and the US vetoes every negative UN Security Council Resolution that Israel violates anyway.
“Israel” is nothing but six million fake Jews and a few fake Jew billionaires in the US. I use the term “fake Jews” because most of them have nothing Semitic in their background being Europeans who converted on orders of some king centuries ago. The real Semites are the Palestinians who converted to Islam centuries ago on orders of some king. So the descendants of the real Jews are being persecuted by fake Jews.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t for the cost in lives and US tax dollars and the threat of WWIII because of this racist, colonialist, imperialist, fascist, and terrorist state being run by Zionist fanatics.
Brian Weston
You don’t get it. this is not about f—–g diplomacy. this is about endorsing the continuing military occupation of a conquered people and abandonment of any sort of moral responsibility for that situation as the major funder and armorer of the occupiers. What is missed by many is the forever unwillingness of the Palestinians and behind them the Muslims world-wide to accept cession of Jerusalem by American fiat. pl
james
No. I heartily approve of Trump’s economic program and much of what he does in the world except for in the ME where he acts like a bloody baboon. pl
Trump/Pence represent many Christians who believe that Israel right is God given and equally the Islamic world believes the same.
In other words Old Testament (born-again) fanatical Evangelicals aka Christian Zionists–a fertile “soil” in the US for growing rabidly neocon constituencies, thus furthering Israel’s control of crucial American political institutions. 26 standing ovations to Bibi at joint session of US (???) Congress are a perfect illustration to the real state of the affairs in US foreign policy, which has very little to do with actual American national interests. But than again, what “nation”?
The Izze minders circle around the POTOS was so far successful to kicked out, or/and is kicking out the American nationalist circle around him, who well instrumental and useful to have Trump elected. In my observation this has happened in every recent election I have seen. The president gets elected on non interventionists FP/ and some BS internal ones. After election with help of media a cleansing period starts, which takes the first few months, onc the cleansing is done US goes back to continued interventionism FP and extreme pro-Israel policies. This country has been captured from whithin and by balls, by her own pro Israel ideologues and neocons, that is what is making a great number of flyovers very angry and very dangerous. Just check what happened with regard to Jewish Americans in a Montana village recently.
US Israeli Fifth Column has corrupted US ME foreign policy
It is not limited to just ME policy.
How did Trump’s remarks play with Erdogan and the Turkish “street”?
Turkey does appear to be “on the table”.
The Palestinians have no negotiating position except to accept that the Izzies will help them move to whichever Muslim country that will have them. If that is the only solution then all the Muslim countries have to be at the table. Good luck with that.
I use the term “fake Jews” because most of them have nothing Semitic in their background being Europeans who converted on orders of some king centuries ago
Which king is this “some king”? Rsh?
Surely something has to break soon. Trump and his pro-Israeli and Israeli friends have smashed the shabby pretence that the US regime cared a jot for the fate of Palestinians, or was anything other than wholly in the Israeli corner, and that will put huge strain on the rulers of Islamic countries that have also been pretending (somewhat) to care about the Palestinians and about Jerusalem, whilst shamelessly collaborating with Israel in order to curry favour in Washington and protect themselves from the costs and dangers of standing up to Israel.
Since 1973 the muslims have refused to admit final defeat in Palestine, whilst the Israelis have steadily built facts on the ground that exploited their actual victory in that war and in the subsequent political and other conflicts over Palestine (in large part based upon their dominance in Washington).
Are we now building to a final crisis in which either the muslims must break, and face up to final abject and probably permanent, as much as anything ever is in this world, defeat in Palestine and in Jerusalem, or they must rise up in outrage and sweep away the Saudi and other collaborationist regimes? Trump and his Zionist friends clearly believe a little more pressure will achieve the former. There’s surely a chance that they might instead be rather upset with the actual results of their policies. If so, the corrupt and useless PA and the noxious Saudis seem likely to be first to the wall, with Jordan and Egypt close behind.
Comparing slapping some one, who did not punch back, to the myth of Joan of Arc is a bit of stretch.
Colonel,
I noted with interest that Trump thought he pushed the negotiations along by ‘taking Jerusalem off the table’. Having negotiating tactics for real estate deals doesn’t make up for an abysmal lack of knowledge about the mid east & the Moslem religion. I’m the with radical Palestinians that it’s a blessing in disguise; bye, bye corrupt Palestinian Authority & can you hear the ‘wailing & gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness’? That’s the sound of liberal Jews who can no longer pretend that they are not in a ‘basket to hell’ driven by Netanyoo. We’ll know in a couple days whether the first two corruption charges against Bibi proceed to court in Israel. In court so far it’s come that not only do Bibi & his wife want a lot of money, Bibi wants a steady supply of cases of cigars & whiskey delivered. Pretty good for a man who is said to see himself as God’s instrument to deliver the Jewish people from another holocaust!
Personally, I didn’t take Trump’s remarks seriously. The position of the Palestinians is already very similar to that of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. They have to live that to the end. The help is coming from far away, and slowly. One after another, the plans for breaking up the Middle East are failing. Sooner or later the Israeli policy of continual war will fail (see Avi Shlaim, the Iron Wall). Israel is already afraid of Hizbullah’s missiles.
Does the ChinaGov feel that China has enough money to fill a significant vacuum that the TrumpAdmin has decided to create? If China were to give the PNA all the money which the TrumpAdmin has decided not to give anymore, and keep giving it without any stated hope that PNA negotiate before a wiser President rescinds the TrumpAdmin’s Jerusalem decision; then China will have a strong and growing presence-of-respect in the Middle East.
It may be that Trump enjoyed kicking the Muslim world specifically in the teeth. It is certain that Trump enjoys bullying and dominating those targets which he perceives as being power-politically weaker than himself. He is emotionally hurt that the PNA hasn’t “respected his authoritah” so far. He will get only more offended and hurt as they continue to refuse to “respect his authoritah”.
About “fake jews”, my understanding is that people who convert to Judaism and are accepted to have done so are accepted by the Jews as being Jews. If the Jews of Europe are descended from Europeans who converted before the Christian Authorities applied a thousand years of heaviest pressure to get these Jews to convert to Christianity, then these EuroConvert Jews may be said to have earned their Jew stripes. In which case, the opinion that they are “fake Jews” for western-invented “blood quantum theory” reasons may well be a “fake opinion” based upon “fake understanding”.
That does not change the fact that the Jewisraelis are slowly but surely failing their Darwin Finals. Failing bigly.
Sorry, nq was Laguerre. Typo.
Jonst,
Ahed’s true sin that has so riled the Izzes, is that she was being filmed & the film went viral on the arab street. She has been a resistance icon for a while. Calling her Joan of Arc came from either her father, who can get an oped into Haaretz once in a while, or a dissident Israeli Jew – there are a few left. It’s an indication of how ground down & hopeless the Palestinian position is. Teenage girls are among the few Palestinians who can publicly resist for long. Ahed’s cousin, a 14yr old boy was shot in the face with a rubber coated bullet at point blank range the morning of the slap. The kid survived, just barely. The other dangerous thing about Ahed is that with that blond hair she looks like she could be my daughter not some dark, greasy arab!
Yes, Trump is a disappointment, but look on the bright side: this gesture is totally symbolic and doesn’t actually strengthen Israel’s position at all. As far as the fake ‘peace’ process is concerned, any halfway intelligent Palestinian figured out years ago that, as long as Washington is under the thumb of the Zionists, the only deal the Pallies will ever be offered is, in effect, ‘surrender or die.’ Now it’s all out in the open: the peace process is really a WAR process. This will either drive a wedge between Washington and its Arab vassal states, or else it will drive a wedge between Washington’s Arab vassals and their own subjects. Either will end up weakening our strategic position in the ME accordingly, and will hasten the day when we pull out and come home. And this is also a major propaganda victory for the Axis of Resistance, which is just coming off a major military victory in Syria. So this Jerusalem thing will temporarily soothe Bibi’s ego–and it might even win him re-election–but it will do absolutely nothing to help Israel’s declining position in the region (or ours).
If anyone is morally at fault, its the coterie of Jews from the centre left to the hard Zionist right infesting the power structures of Washington DC (media, NGOs, government etc). People like to blame it on evangelicals, but they are not a sufficient condition for America’s Israel policy. In large part, they react to effects by causal agents much higher up the food chain: “the lord [read Jews] miraculously beats back [read vast American aid to Zionists at the behest of Jews] Arab armies against Israel.”
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2005/12/01/the-protestant-deformation/
And yes, as Decameron accused me over in the last Palestinian thread, I am ‘indifferent’ to the Arab-Jew conflict in principle. I’m neither Jew, Arab, or Muslim. The Muslim hordes all but eliminated Christian dominion over the Levant, even as they tried to take Europe. Apparently I’m supposed to feel sorry gepolitics has now turned against them and another force has become ascendant in the spiritual centre they colonized. These are the natural processes of history, beyond the petty situational designations of ‘good and evil.’
You fight for your own country, and your own group, and your own culture, and your own civilization, at your own level, in your own time, and in your own way. And its particularly egregious to champion the cause of another when YOUR civilization is under attack. The same liberals wringing their hands about the poor Palestinians are often enthusiastic about their project of ‘diversity’ in the West, which amounts to the destruction of the way of being and lifeworld of their ostensible countrymen. London is now 55% non-European, but its ok apparently – because its happening legally according to mandated processes. When I walk down the main street of Auckland, its like we goddamn well LOST a war to an Asian power. So whatever emotional blackmail pro-Palestinians want to use, save it, I don’t care. Our civilization is cratering, hollowed out from the inside by forces both systematic and intentional.
If we take our own side for a moment, the problem with Zionists is clear. The Jews are trying to push us toward a false interpretation of Huntington’s Clash of Civilization thesis: that there will necessarily be a broad confrontation between ‘the west’ and ‘dar-al-islam.’ They leave out the bit that its *only when two disparate groups come in sustained contact the logic of necessity arises.* In their tendentious view, Israel is a beach-head for the West in the enemy’s territory. “The only democratic state in the ME.” Yet the clash will only come through Camp of the Saints style immigrant ascendancy of Islam in Europe. If Europe became serious about its ethnic basis and securing its borders, then it would matter not one whit what happens to the Jews or the Palestinians.
https://kek.gg/i/5FGPq4.jpg
Having read the comments it seems my own views are absolutely in line with our host, which i find reassuring.
I would imagine that Mr. Trump will have a lot of Zionists on the UWS and UES impressed with his ardor. A lot of guys in the NYC will owe him a hat tip now.
I doubt the ashkenazis are fake jews. I suspect some Palestinians are descended from jews.
I don’t think that Trump is kicking the Islamic world in the teeth because of nudges or blackmail from that piece of fecal matter Bibi or because of the influence of his daughter and her husband. I think he’s doing it because, in the realm of personal temperament, it fits the sort of thing he often chose to/liked to do in the real estate business — tell some annoying “other” party to go —- themselves. There’s’ a good deal of evidence that Trump thinks such behavior has more often than not worked out well for him in the past; no less important probably (to repeat myself), it springs from/fits his character. That it absolutely doesn’t fit the world of the ME, well that’s our bargain with Trump. Some things that spring from/suit his nature one might like, other things one will abhor, but don’t bet on him doing much of anything that doesn’t feel good to him on a given morning.
Kooshy,
Terrible news about Montana. Is that in any way related to the largest anti-semitic campaign of recent years, the one waged by an Isreali teenager?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/23/israeli-police-arrest-man-over-bomb-threats-to-us-jewish-targets
better not mention that. Or that “BS” issue that got Trump elected: Immigration. I believe his hard core supporters want something Isreal has: a wall.
Or enough rope to hang themselves. Is there a point where anti-apartheid sentiments will sway the world to crack down hard, economically, on Israel?
There is something weird about the Kushner Trump relationship and how Trump literally fawns over Kushner. Something beyond the “family tie” …he doesn’t exhibit that fawning with his own sons.
Harry
I suppose LeaNder’s reference was to the Khazar conversion. pl
We already are in a Clash of Civilizations. The former Iranian President, Sheikh al Islam Khatami proposed a Dialogue of Civilizations instead in 1998. People made their choices then and we are where we are.
Are Haitians human? Nigerians? Mexicans? Muslims? Women?
In Christianity, The Accuser is Satan. I can’t be bothered to attempt to list all DT’s accusations. It’s what he does. It’s also what Satan does.
From Pilgrim’s Progress:
“SATAN. Thou didst faint at first setting out, when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of Despond; thou didst attempt wrong ways to be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldst have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off; thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice thing; thou wast, also, almost persuaded to go back at the sight of the lions; and when thou talkest of thy journey, and of what thou hast heard and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vain-glory in all that thou sayest or doest.
CHRISTIAN. All this is true, and much more which thou hast left out; but the Prince whom I serve and honour is merciful, and ready to forgive; but, besides, these infirmities possessed me in thy country, for there I sucked them in; and I have groaned under them, been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon of my Prince.
Then SATAN broke out into a grievous rage, saying, I am an enemy to this Prince; I hate his person, his laws, and people; I am come out on purpose to withstand thee.”
Nah, likely he likes Kushner more than he likes his offspring, not uncommon, I am afraid.
Funny little thing about the ME.
Other than when the Mongol’s came through, most of the local’s just converted to either the religion of the Conquers, or the “new” religion of the Oppressed.
That’s why the subjects of Dhu Nuwas, the last Jewish King, ( 519 AD) became first Christains, ( Nuwas was deposed by a joint Islamic/ Christian invasion from Ethiopia and Jericho over his slaughter of the Christian populations) became first Christians, then later Kindites, (1’ers) , Yuferids, ( 2’ers), Mahidids, (4’ers), then Yardzi’s, (5’vers).
Fred this on Whitefish MT I heard on NPR
https://thinkprogress.org/daily-stormer-armed-march-whitefish-richard-spencer-mother-c24e046d7973/
I think Colonel (by profession) is right on the mark, saying, Trump surviving/doing business in NY had and has to impress and work with jewish community. So is not just his daughter and son in law but his own relation and need to survive depended on having a pleasing relation with NY jewish community.
Which king is this “some king”? Rsh?
king Bulan (although possibly a govenor “bey” rather than a king “khagan”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulan_(Khazar)
“… a fool and a buffoon at best …”
Boris Johnson? Guy “Maidan” Verfhostadt? Look at what we have over here in Europe and count your blessings.
If that doesn’t work look at the Reichsbürgerbewegung or similar groups in France and count them again.
Any link for “Shacham Study Group”? I can not find nothing about it.
Islamic world = oil and terrorists living in the 12th century.
Now, that we are energy independent, who needs them?
Everything I know about Islam I learned on 9/11/01.
Kooshy to Fred @ 44 —
The Whitefish incident dates from December 2016? Why is NPR reviving that typecast and overacted political performance piece now?
I have no idea, I heard it for the first time last week on NPR they interviewed the lady rabbi. But I can feel within the white redneck type nationalist an anti foreign including JEWISH sentiment is growing.
“Everything I know about Islam I learned on 9/11/01.”
Funny, I gained a greater understanding and appreciation about Islam and Arabia after that second Tuesday in September by reading the writings of John Bagot Glubb.
Two key points of so many learned:
Muhammad did God a favor by getting all the people on the Peninsula to acknowledge infanticide as a Sin.
Ali lost his Caliphate when he failed to muster a militia.
I suppose LeaNder’s reference was to the Khazar conversion
Not me, let’s get this right, Pat. 😉 Mind you I haven’t read the book. You feel I should?
I surely can understand its legitimization as challenge from an inner Israeli debate perspective, if it wasn’t about high publication numbers only, but does it serve to deal with all traces in European history? Does it help us to understand? I ask as Zionist troll? Remember?
#Rsh15“Israel” is nothing but six million fake Jews and a few fake Jew billionaires in the US. I use the term “fake Jews” because most of them have nothing Semitic in their background being Europeans who converted on orders of some king centuries ago. The real Semites are the Palestinians who converted to Islam centuries ago on orders of some king. So the descendants of the real Jews are being persecuted by fake Jews.
ooops, I might have just stepped into a trap.
I’m referring to the standard theory that most Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazar Empire. Ashkenazis comprise 8 million or so of the 13 million Jews worldwide.
However, that theory is under assault from genetic analyses of DNA. The most recent conclusions is that Ashkenazi Jews descended from a core of Jewish males who emigrated to Europe and then intermarried with European women who converted to Judaism. So the male side appears descended from Middle Eastern Jews while the female side is descended from Europeans.
The telling DNA, however, is that Palestinian DNA appears to be similar to the descendants of the European Jews, indicating as I said that Palestinians are indeed as much “Jewish” as these European Jews.
In any event, just because European Jews may have some genetic link to ancient Israel Jews clearly does not support the idea that they have some current right to occupy Palestinian lands.
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=579884628
this is what was on npr on 1/23/18
Check this article out. Apparently it’s pretty well decided that Palestinians and Jews are very close to being identical.
The shared genetic heritage of Jews and Palestinian
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/epiphenom/2009/01/shared-genetic-heritage-of-jews-and.html#LCSEmK8FT4Al89Vb.99
It’s apparently not certain that Palestinians are descended from Jews who converted to Islam, as forced Islamic conversions of non-Islamic populations were rare, although they did occur at various times and places. But the genetic evidence clearly shows similarity, so that pretty much answers the question.
It remains true that European Jews who rule Israel today are persecuting Palestinians who have as much or more “right” to the country than they do.
TV: Everything I know about Judaism I learned at Deir Yassin.
Col: Yes.
james
The economic benefits of his program are quite obvious in spite of the nonsense from Schumer, Pelosi and the other rich Democrats. pl
Educate me, please.
The hundreds of millions of Dollars spent on the Palestinians by the US and Europe have made little difference if not alleviate living conditions for some of the poorest Palestinians. Ghazza however is still a concentration camp despite apparent Western sympathy and munificence.
Palestinians are a corrupt, venal, horribly tetchy and divided people. Palestinians are the first not to like Palestinians and the various factions will trip each other up with great glee at any given opportunity.
Some of the greatest financial fortunes in the world are concentrated in the hands of Arabs most of them adherents of the Muslim faith. If any of them really gave a hoot about Palestine, they could easily make up the shortfall in contributions to the Palestinian cause precipitated by US$ policy.
In the past 60 years, for whatever reason, both the US and Europe have clearly come down on the side of Israel. This is a sovereign prerogative.
In the entirety of human history, never, not one single time, has independence and self determination ever been given to anyone by a third party.
This move will force some sort of departure and it puts paid to the notion that the West gives a flying bat’s @ss about the Palestinians or their cause.
(married to a Palestinian)
“Other than when the Mongol’s came through, most of the local’s just converted to either the religion of the Conquers, or the “new” religion of the Oppressed”
Then the big mistake Israel has made was that it did not convert Palestinians in occupied territories to “Secular Jews,” i.e give them Israeli citizenship with full and equal right? The state of Israel = modern day Mongol horde, at least as far as that little corner of ME is concerned?
I suspected as much but advances in dna analysis have made it clear that there is a suvstantial ME component to Ashkenazis. Some western european dna mixed in as well but definitely a semitic component.
KHC
The Palestinians do not want to be “secular Jews” even if the Israeli Jews would accept them as that. This brings to mind the plight of my French Canadian ancestors after France gave them to the Brits after the Seven Years War. B. Franklin told the British government of the time that they should not worry because in fifty years the Canadians would be English speaking Protestants. Quebec’s motto is “Je me souviens.” (I remember) pl
I am deeply disturbed by Trumps use of the words “My honor” if in fact he said them.
“Honor” got us some of the worst wars and battles including the Franco Prussian war, WWI, WWII and Vietnam.
So babak how are things coming along in iran.will we see the mullahs swinging from lamposts.is there a possibility pistachio nut supplies to israel will cease.could this lead to regime change in iran.monocultural hyper nationalist countries like israel and vietnam understand that a people have to do whatever it takes to survive.however a line has to be drawn in the sand when it comes to nuts.whether it be pistachio or your enemies
I can’t believe I’m reading some of the comments on this thread.
1. What on earth does it matter who’s got what DNA? If it could be proved past doubt that all Jews were descended from Jews who lived in Israel an age ago, would that mean the Palestinians must be dispossessed?
If it could be proved that there was a great Jewish Kingdom in Biblical times would that mean that the Palestinians must be dispossessed?
The answer to both questions is no. Therefore to argue such points is to give the argument away, not to win it.
If I may refer to our host in this context, the Colonel’s bleak and accurate description of the situation is all that is needed. Therefore all ethnic and historical debate is redundant.
LeaNder – I respect your desire to get things right, but you are you not also entering into an argument that has no true bearing on the Palestinian tragedy?
2. Those of us who are foreigners and who are permitted to comment on this site never make the mistake of blaming ALL Americans for the disastrous course American foreign policy has taken in this respect. Nor am I as an Englishman responsible for the disastrous course the foreign policy of my own country has taken. It is surely incorrect to blame ALL Israelis for what their government is doing. And plain foolish to blame all Jews.
What is happening and has happened in Israel is not, pace Babak, the result of some inevitable civilisational conflict in which we are all involved. It is the result of grubby manoeuvrings by out of control elites. Of course there are fanatics and cranks in all countries, but from what I know of the matter personally the normal average Israeli is no more responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians than I am.
3. Not responsible, but as we will not the average Israeli will bear the consequences. There is no long term future for Israel as it exists now and possibly not for Israel at all. The question surely is, how to ensure the least amount of deaths, on both sides, while that is being played out.
So, the Donald has now stumbled into your area of expertise. He arrived in mine, accompanied by Marla Maples in a loose white knit top with black bra (prominently visible through the sweater) and mini skirt in 1988, the pair doubled the amperage of our staid architectural practice for several afternoons. And then made such a mockery of our practice, which in vanity we still presumed an “art”, that we declined the commission for the eight or nine towers now built between 60th and 68 in Manhattan on the West Side Highway, all with giant TRUMP logos, without our aid but to our master plan.
I’m likely wrong but my advice is don’t despair: the process is likely to feel like a disaster to everyone but him, but, if we all survive, wait and judge the result when he’s fired who he will fire, dodged and weaved through the thicket of his own ambiguous and self contradictory pronouncements and made the totally path dependent decisions he will make in the dynamic of crisis to once again define himself a winner. His genius is ego and opportunism, his peculiarity is a real patriotism that from my perspective as not the worst leftist is likely to be his saving grace.
So, you’re saying the Israelis caught him in a honey trap? Because I sure don’t see his actions as being in Russia’s interest. I wouldn’t even be surprised if KSA caught him, although they more likely are just using money.
A member of the AFD leadership recently converted to Islam! for real.
This thread indicates the breakdown of the Discourse of Enlightenment Tradition and we are back to Racialism and Religion. Who is responsible? Everyone and no one.
To answer your question: “Never”.
Iran is a multi-ethnic polity of religious people that are glued together by the Shia Islam. When Shia Azeri Turks created Modern Iran, they also deliberately revived the appellation of “Iran” and connected their kingdom to those of pre-Islamic Iran.
Since then, during a long process of historical pain and suffering, Iranian people have given the Shia Doctors or Religious Sciences of Islam the right and duty to define Islam and what it means to be a Muslim – as opposed to Sunni Muslims who lack such a centralized authority.
The mullahs have been active in Iranian politics for over 150 years, from the Tobacco Movement to the Constitutional Revolution, to the regime change from the Qajars to Pahlavis, to Oil Nationalization and finally to Islamic Revolution. Expecting them to disappear from the scene is not even childish; it is like detesting the color “blue” of the Sky and pining for Magenta or some other color.
Ignorant Iranians and Foreigners with their own anti-Iranian agenda never seem to be able to grasp or otherwise acknowledge such salient facts of the Iranian culture and history. One of those facts is that Regime Change in Iran can only happen if the Doctors of Religion in Iran agree to it. That is not in the cards at this historical juncture; in my opinion.
In my opinion, strategic settlement with Iran is still the best option for both the Western Fortress and for Iran and allied powers rather than day dreaming about regime change in Iran which would usher in a democratic secular republic in Iran.
I think “secular Jew” is not apt, “non-Observant Jew” is probably more accurate.
In an analogous manner, in Iran, on would use the word “متدین” for the observant Muslims.
This has been the bane of Islamic Republic of Iran – the desire to make every one “متدین” – even through oppressive practices – while significant numbers are non-observant Muslims and deeply resent this intrusion of state into what they consider to be private spheres of individual choice.
The resentment among so many is so strong that they have become militantly anti-religious and anti-Islamic. They seek refuge in their dream space of Ancient Iran; regardless of the historical facts pertaining to that period.
For non-observant Jews, I should think, there is not even that possibility, if Rabbinate eventually takes over the rest of the State in Israel, there is no place for the non-observant.
“Come to the Revolution and we will make you like Strawberry with Cream”
Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Algeria, the Gulfies can collectively enforce a naval blockade of Israel or break through it – they have enough naval assets to do so.
Muslims states have not done much since 1973.
jsn
Which of my areas of expertise are you writing of? pl
Babak
IMO you are exaggerating the level of centralization of Islamic religious authority in 12er Shia Islam. The mujtahids must seek consensus (ijma’) in the Hawza in order to achieve a significant result. The structure is certainly looser in Sunni Islam but ijma’ is still necessary within sects of the Sunni. pl
Yes, you are correct. I was trying to be brief.
Later, with the introduction of the Office of the Supreme Jurisconsult, the power to suspend primary and secondary precepts of Islam (in the interest of the expediency of the Islamic Government) was vested in that office.
I do not know how this innovation, in practice and in theory, would work (or is working) with the existing practices of rulings of Grand Ayatollahs.
I heard that Ayatollah Sistani, while not opposed to Velayat Faqih, did not support it in Iraq since he thought that its introduction was unworkable with so many millions who followed Tariqat – mostly Kurds.
Response to Comment 57.
The problem with these gene-studies is their sample-sizes. They are far to small and are sometimes selected in a manner which raises questions about the results.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/science/ashkenazi-origins-may-be-with-european-women-study-finds.html?_r=0
Personally I can’t see any relevance when it comes to genetics. If Jews see themselves as a people then they are. Ditto with the Palestinians.
Zionist Jews can proclaim that there is no Palestinian people all they want the only thing that matters is that the Palestinians see themselves as a people.
I agree.
Col,
That was my attempt at sarcasm, at the post I was responding to.
The more substantive point was that the state of Israel and the territories it has been occupying have been governed with very little if any thought of integrating or accommodating its current occupants. There seems to have been always an assumption that they could be made to “disappear” somehow, when it is convenient for Israel. This assumption remains in place still: everyone, not just Israelis, seem eager to assume that with a few words here and there, Palestinians can be made to disappear and can be safely ignored.
Although in jest, it is an amusing thought: what if the Palestinians proposed to become secular Jews en masse, on the condition that they are to be, collectively, accepted as equals by the Israeli society? At least that would make them difficult, if at all possible, to ignore.
The Palestinians could disappear tomorrow but the religious war will not end. The analogous war did not end until the Kingdom of Jerusalem was destroyed by Salah al Din.
” Personally I can’t see any relevance when it comes to genetics.”
Neither can I and no one really cares about Jewish genetics except the Jews themselves.
All the babble about what Jews are or aren’t is a distraction from The Problem.
The Problem isn’t complicated either…The UN gave the Zionist 51%
of Palestine, they have now stolen another 30% of Palestine.
If say Texas or Virginia had been the Jews promised land Israel would be the shortest footnote in the dust bin of history.
TV, Matthew,
(reply to comment 49 and comment 58)
Everything I know about Buddhism I learned at Cox’s Bazar.
catherine,
( reply to comment 86)
Well . . . Richard Steven Hack cares about it. He cares enough to have followed the studies for some time now.
Also, is there any evidence that the Jews viewed Jewness as a genetic thing? If there is, and the Jews did . . . how would the Jews have reconciled this genetic theory of Jewness with a history of accepting converts at times and even seeking converts at times . . . and merging these convert-delivered genetic input streams into whatever genetic basis you are saying the Jews really care about?
How is all this to be integrated together?
One could see this as evidence of a genetic view of Jewishness. A very first half of the 20th century-like policy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gave-birth-control-to-ethiopian-jews-without-their-consent-8468800.html
Poul,
( reply to comment 89)
I had not read about this before now. It is interesting, in a depressing sort of way. And one could indeed see it as evidence of such a genetic view on the part of the people who thought up and applied the policy.
I wonder if the people who invented this policy were proportionally descended from all the major-presence ethnic-cultural ancestry Jewish immigrant groups in Israel or only descended from the Yiddish-ancestry group. And even more narrowly from the Labor-Left oriented Sabra-self-imagining subset of the “founders” of present day Israel. It certainly seems more self-consciously Modernizing policy based on an early 20th century attitude. It seems out of step with what I would understand to be an older non-modern and pre-modern Jewish understanding of Jewishness formed before the days of popularized genetic and eugenic “scientismic” beliefs.
Interesting that it happened in Israel. Would diaspora Jews anywhere else be involved in such a program based on such concepts?
I would bet on the European Jews and their descendants as the driving force behind such views.
You had similar problems when the Arabic Jews arrived in Israel. Hopefully time will weaken the strength of such ideas, but that is an internal Israeli matter.
https://972mag.com/the-roots-of-anti-mizrahi-racism-in-israel/114424/
There were extremists when it came to who was a proper Jew.
I can’t remember if it was Gelblum who got a book banned in ’49-50 for its vitriolic hatred of Arabic Jews.
Addendum to comment 91.
https://972mag.com/the-roots-of-anti-mizrahi-racism-in-israel/114424/
Quote:
“This is a race unlike any we have seen before. They say there are differences between people from Tripolitania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, but I can’t say I have learned what those inferences are, if they do, in fact, exist. They say, for example, that the Tripolitanians and Tunisians are “better” than the Moroccans and Algerians, but it’s the same problem with them all… The primitiveness of these people is unsurpassable. As a rule, they are only slightly more advanced than the Arabs, Negroes and Berbers in their countries… The [North] Africans bring their ways with them wherever they settle. It is not surprising that the crime rate in the country is rising… above all there is one equally grave fact and that is their total inability to adjust to the life in this country, and primarily their chronic laziness and hatred for any kind of work.” Arye Gelblum, Haaretz, April 22, 1949.
EO (#70)
I’d echo your sentiment re the important distinction between academic discussion – in this case on quantifying the authenticity of ‘Jewishness’ – and the far from academic practical issues surrounding the Palestinian Question. The former should have no bearing on the latter.
Re your second point, just yesterday I had a discussion with an influential proponent of the idea that Jews should, in fact, be collectively held accountable for the policy of the State of Israel. The argument being that by failing to speak out against the more odious aspects of it, they could be deemed to be tacit supporters. I argued that this approach would likely be counterproductive, as well as making it more difficult for those who already do speak out. We agreed to disagree, but I did have some sympathy for my protagonist’s argument that such an approach would at least force conversation on the topic more into the open – the last thing Israel would want.
To be fair, since Louis Brandeis & Rabbi Stephen Wise formed the American Jewish Congress in 1918, the zionist project has seen almost exclusively green lights, with a few cautionary interludes that zionists switched out by means of terror.
Trump’s only innovation is not to “put things on the table” but to shine a spotlight on the table settings.
The most prominent founders of zionist Israel were eugenicists —
Max Nordau and the Making of Racial Zionism https://tinyurl.com/ybrzqe3k
Max Nordau, Co-Founder of the World Zionist Organization with Theodor Herzl
From Degeneration to Regeneration http://www.jewishmag.com/180mag/max_nordau/max_nordau.htm
Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture by Etan Bloom
https://www.scribd.com/document/93755279/Etan-Bloom-Arthur-Ruppin-and-the-Production-of-the-Modern-Hebrew-Culture
(According to Bloom, Ruppin was an award-winning scholar of eugenics and practitioner of applied eugenic theory in the selection and formation of “human material” into the “new Jew” that would populate Israel.)
Poul,
(reply to comment 92),
I will venture to guess that such attitudes came specifically from the Labor-Left side of the East-European derived Jewish community in Israel. The Arab Jews were very aware of this attitude. I believe they attributed it to the Labor-Left side . . . the Kibbutzists and etc. Begin was able to get the vast majority of their votes on the basis of being hated and despised by the same people who hated and despised them.
But that is all based on things that I read, and I don’t know how it would be there these several decades later.
Sounds like the converse of the Racialist theories of Count de Gobineau and his ilk, another product of European Intellect when God died there.
Israel has long pursued a quiet final solution by overpumping the Gaza aquifer, causing it to fill with seawater; bombing and destroying water processing and sewage processing; and denying the electricity supplies to run what’s left. 97% of water is undrinkable. That’s when it runs, perhaps one hour a day. No water means no flush toilets, means human waste literally builds up in cess pits, which then seeps into what’s left of the groundwater. 80% of Gazans depend on aid, including water trucked in at expensive rates. 60% are unemployed. 50% are under 18. The U.N. projects Gaza will be uninhabitable before 2020, but aid workers project 2018. Gaza is one embargo or one epidemic away from a 1M children genocide.
https://972mag.com/gaza-will-be-unlivable-next-year-not-2020-as-the-un-says/128598/
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57157#.WnFK3ainE2w
https://unsco.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/gaza_10_years_later_-_11_july_2017.pdf