The Right to Exist: Who Has It? Where Is It? Why?

Does Israel Have a “Right to Exist”? Do We?

It’s a shibboleth of the Zionist entity: “Israel has the right to exist!”

But what is this “Israel”?  What is this “right to exist”?

Where is it written?  Is it in Holy Scripture?  “The Song of Songs”?  “The Book of Job”?  “Proverbs”?  “Ecclesiastes”? 

Is it written in stone on two tablets by the finger of God?

What does it mean when a people declare that they have the “right to exist” as they please because they are a “democracy,” but other people have no such right?  I solemnly declare my elections legitimate — the will of my people –, but …  it is obvious that you people over there (in Gaza, in Turkey, in Iran, etc.) do not have the capacity to choose leaders who can represent your true interests! 

What does that mean?

Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas — will not recognize the political leadership that the Palestinians chose in internationally monitored elections — because, Israel declares, Hamas will not recognize Israel’s “right to exist.” 

And why should Hamas recognize that “right”?  What is always unspoken are the words, “the right to exist as we are now, as we have been, and as we shall become.”  Recognize me, and suffer all my faults!  Recognize my right to exist as I am, have been and will be —and forfeit your right to challenge me legally for illegal seizures of property, for expropriations and appropriations, for illegitimate detainments, incarcerations, torture, homicides.

In effect, Israeli commandos unilaterally declared that Aid Activists on a flotilla in international waters had no “right to exist.” 

When Ahmadinijead of Iran quoted the Ayatollah Khomeini that the Zionist entity would wither away and disappear from the page of history, the entity and its media stooges in the U.S. and elsewhere accused Iran of threatening to “wipe Israel off the map of the earth.”  Israel declared Iran an “existential threat” and threatened, in turn, to destroy the Iranians with the 200 nuclear weapons that they will neither confirm nor deny possessing (even though everyone knows they have them!).

Orthodox Jews, including the ultra-conservative Hasidim, are among those most loudly proclaiming that the state of Israel has “no right to exist.”  Their viewpoint is hermeneutical: they believe that Israel will be established among the nations after the Mashiach (the Messiah) comes.  They believe it is heretical for politicians to reverse the process.  First the Mashiach, then the state.  That’s the way they read the Hebrew.

Then, do Orthodox Jews have the “right to exist”?  (At last report, Israel had not threatened them with its nuclear bombs).

 “We the people”, in the infant republic of the United States, did not think much about the existence of Native Americans, women or slaves.  Some three score years after our founding, we did not think Mexico had a “right to exist” north of the Rio Grande.   We did not think Hawaii had the right to exist as a sovereign nation.  Nor, in spite of promises made at the time of the Spanish-American War, did we think the Philippines had the “right to exist” as anything other than a U.S. colony in Asia (we needed the coaling stations!). 

Is it simply power that determines the “right to exist”?    

During the Cold War, the US and its allies decided the Soviet Union had no right to exist.  We were prepared to obliterate the world to prove our point — certain nutjobs among us were.  One of our soldiers, a Lieutenant Calley, thought he was “just following orders” when he decided that hundreds of villagers in a hamlet called My Lai in Vietnam—unarmed men, women, and children — had no “right to exist.”  He “wasted” them.

Does the U.N. determine who has the “right to exist”?  Does Tibet have that right?  Does Palestine?  Does Kurdistan?

Suppose the good people of Vermont decide that they are sick and tired of bank bail-outs, oligopolies, kakistocracies, phony American elections, our media of the absurd, oil-slick corporations with more legal rights than “persons,” and artery-clogging, greasy fast food?  In a sterling, transparent, democratic election, the vast majority of the state elects leadership that claims its place among the nations of the world as “The Glorious, Independent, Technicolor, Outstanding Republic of Vermont” (which a media wag soon dubs the “GIT OUT of “R” Vermont republic).  Does the Glorious, Independent, Technicolor, Outstanding Republic of Vermont have the right to exist?

The Zionist state demands the right to exist as a Zionist state — a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, bristling with nuclear weapons.  Did Yahweh come out of the clouds and declare that this state alone can break all the rules of international decorum with impunity, without censure?

When did Yahweh make that announcement?  Was it on the Rachel Maddow show?  Was it on Larry King?

If there is a “right to exist,” is there not an equal right to resist–occupation, oppression, thievery, rape, duplicity?

Suppose we started from the other end?  Suppose we assumed that no one had the “right to exist,” but that everyone — and every species — could enjoy the “privilege” of existence?  How would we order the world then? 

The Zionist zealots ask, Why don’t the Palestinians produce a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King to lead them?  But where is the Zealots’ Martin Buber — a Jew who exhorted the Jews, and all humankind, to live in harmony with others — with different species, too — with God, too —in an “I and Thou” relationship? 

The Zealots have raided the Kingdom of Heaven.  Like Lucifer, the Angel of Light, they will be transmogrified by their pride and arrogance, and lust for power.  And … they will fall, corrupted from within.

Poet-playwright-journalist-fictionist-editor-professor, Dr. Gary Corseri has published work in Dissident Voice, The New York Times, Village Voice, CommonDreams and hundreds of other publications and websites worldwide. His dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta, and he has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library. Gary can be reached at gary_corseri@comcast.net. Read other articles by Gary.

62 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. bozh said on June 5th, 2010 at 8:40am #

    An hasid or orthodox person from poland, ukraine, estonia, US may oppose establishment of the state of israel by seculars, but negate that belief by living on lnad stolen by bloodleting and expulsion of the owners of that land.
    If in their eyes israel is not yet existing, why are they settling in expalestine?
    Why are they denying palestinian right to exist?

    I suggest to people not to be caught in cobweb of words. That includes the saying that israel has the right to exist. Don’t explain; don’t try to educe or squeeze out an elucidation from it.

    Such a saying is far from reality. But reality can be seen in a blink of an eye.
    And people who wish palestinians ill, do not show us what is going on; they control all TV, press, schooling, etc.

    That doesn’t mean that we cannot trust other eyewitnesses who reveal to us what ‘jews’ are doing to us here and pals in their land.
    We have, as far as i can see, only to propositions to evaluate for veracity: ‘jews’ are either very gifted or are so ‘successful’ because they behave in a criminal way! tnx. Also spricht bozhidarevski!

  2. Max Shields said on June 5th, 2010 at 8:43am #

    Gary, of all the contributors to DV, you are the one I find both most interesting and compelling.

    Best to you!
    Max

  3. lvig said on June 5th, 2010 at 9:16am #

    Great article Gary, but one thing:

    Please demote Martin Buber from the Ghandi-esque stature you (and many others) have accorded him. He is the original faux hippie, a charter PEP-er, Progressesive Except for Palestine. All that I and Thou stuff is nothing but a a bunch of phony rubbish.

    After having a rental disagreement with Edward Said’s father over their house in Jerusalem, he threatened that he would come back and take over the house one day which indeed he did after 1948. (quoted in Uri Davis’ Apartheid Israel).

    He also famously excused the Zionist theft by these immortal words from his autobiography:

    “Where a command and a faith are present, in certain historical situations conquest need not be robbery”.

    There is not now nor has there ever been a Zionist Ghandi. And there never will be.

  4. Kim Petersen said on June 5th, 2010 at 9:54am #

    Bozh, don’t forget that we — who are non-indigenous to Turtle Island — are also “living on land stolen by bloodletting and expulsion of the owners [ownership of land is not something I subscribe to] of that land.” We — who are non-indigenous to Turtle Island — do not have a morally solid base from which to criticize non-Mizrahi Jews in Israel.

    Denounce Zionist crimes, denounce the occupation of Palestine, but to derive moral legitimacy for such denouncements, modern-day colonizers/progeny thereof/settlers of Turtle Island must also denounce the crimes against the Original Peoples and the occupation of Turtle Island.

  5. Stephen Zielinski said on June 5th, 2010 at 9:57am #

    The right to exist is a moral right that one species on the planet can recognize as an inherent feature of every living being. Conflict is inevitable, of course. And such conflict does not undermine the idea of a universal right to exist which can be assigned to all living things. It only means that that there are times which these rights come into conflict.

    Legal rights and institutions are just devices which one species uses to manage these conflicts. But they are derivative entities; they suppose a set of basic moral rights, including the right to exist.

    Some Israelis and defenders of Israel can claim that the Israeli state has a right to exist. They would be justified when making this claim. Israel and its citizens have this right. What they cannot justly claim is that Israel’s right to exist also includes a right to annihilate others since those who would be exterminated also have a right to exist. This is not a conflict of two moral rights per se, although it is that. It also includes a conflict between Israel’s asserted legal rights and, say, the stateless Palestinian’s moral rights. There is, of course, no reason to prefer the moral right to exist attributable to the Jews who happen to be Israelis and the Palestinians who happen to be stateless. However, were either group to make a claim to have a right rid itself of the other group, the group making that claim would thereby forfeit any just demand to be given the benefit of the doubt in this or in related matters. Ridding oneself on another groups is a crime against humanity. Genocide and genocidal cleansing are attacks against a fundamental condition of life, especially human life, namely, life is plural and lived in common.

    Legal rights and rules ought to recognize and protect this more elemental feature of human existence and the moral rights attributable to human beings and other living things.

  6. bozh said on June 5th, 2010 at 10:15am #

    Kim, yes,
    One can’t own land. We can love, till, and use it! Yes to the fact that i am a land robber to some degree or even responsble for oil gush.
    I may point out tha some canadian indians welcome us in canada; so, that helps us a lot.
    Natch, nobody welcomes own children being taken away to our schools or being forced into a different kind of living.

    Yes, we have a car! Thus wife {my small head} and i also are responsible for oil spills and warming-pollution.
    According to CNN {which i don’t often watch. I do now because of oil gush} BP is solely responsible for the gush; prez, congress, drivers, flyers, army 0% guilty.
    How’s that for realistic thinking? Or is it, deceiving? Deliberately? tnx

  7. Don Hawkins said on June 5th, 2010 at 10:55am #

    BP is solely responsible for the gush; prez, congress, drivers, flyers, army 0% guilty.
    How’s that for realistic thinking? You know I wondered about that myself Bozh and Gary one hell of a write.

    Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. … I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends … and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it. –John Lennon

    Not insane but nut’s when I think of Israel my first thought is usually location, location.

  8. hayate said on June 5th, 2010 at 11:58am #

    “Does Israel Have a “Right to Exist”?”

    No, they are war criminals, as a government and collectively as a nation. With 94% both approving the Gaza war crime and the terrorist pirate attack on the Gaza convoy, this is confirmed.

    “Do We?”

    Yes. Well, I do, I cant speak for everyone else here ;D . I’ve committed no war crimes. In fact, jay walking is my major criminality as of late.

  9. hayate said on June 5th, 2010 at 12:03pm #

    BTW, I assume the “we” refers to the usa. In which case, the usa, as a nation, does not have a right to exist due to its genocidal beginnings and continuous history of war crimes since.

  10. Gary S. Corseri said on June 5th, 2010 at 12:21pm #

    Much thanks for all the comments–which I am digesting.

    lvig–thanks for the elucidation of Buber’s darker side. I read “I and Thou” in my late teens or early 20s and was very moved by it. It’s always a bit of a Zen slap in the face to learn that our heroes have feet of clay like the rest of us. Then again … people change. … The shine wears off our highest thoughts and actions. It’s okay to hold our heroes’ feet to the fire, I think–as we should hold our own there, too.

  11. MichaelKenny said on June 5th, 2010 at 12:28pm #

    The problem is not Israel’s “right to exist” but the unspoken and un-self concious master race assumption that underlies the use of that expression, namely, that Jewish rights take precedence over the rights of non-Jews. That leads to a relativist morality that sees anything that advances the Jewish cause as justified, even if others might regard it as immoral, dishonest or a lie, and conversely, is incapable of imagining that others might have rights which hinder the Jewish cause.

  12. Stephen Zielinski said on June 5th, 2010 at 1:22pm #

    Michael Kenny wrote:

    ” The problem is not Israel’s “right to exist” but the unspoken and un-self concious master race assumption that underlies the use of that expression, namely, that Jewish rights take precedence over the rights of non-Jews. That leads to a relativist morality that sees anything that advances the Jewish cause as justified, even if others might regard it as immoral, dishonest or a lie, and conversely, is incapable of imagining that others might have rights which hinder the Jewish cause.”

    Like the United States, Israel seems to believe it is exceptional. The country not only exists in a continuous state of emergency, but also that any act it chooses to take is legitimate per se. But it often refuses to engage in meaningful negotiations with its putative enemies. Hence the reprehensible claim that the Freedom Flotilla meant to delegitimize. Actually, the state of Israel has only the barest amounts of the thinnest forms of legitimacy. It has the support of its citizens, but only because it has implemented ethically and exclusionary forms of citizenship. It’s practices in the occupied territories are not only based upon conquest, but are also kinds of genocidal cleansing. These can have no legitimacy whatsoever save for the kind of legitimacy generated by whatever mass support it enjoys among Israeli voters. It lack moral and legal legitimacy. Finally, it has that minimal form of legitimacy generated by a state that is unlikely to change in the near- or even long-term. To undo this odd form of legitimation would require another genocidal attack, this time on the Jewish inhabitants of Israel. It goes without saying that genocide is a morally, legally and political dubious strategy to adopt with respect to Israel.

    I would argue that Israel, like the United States, is not exceptional save for the kind of exceptional existence created by a state when it poses a mortal danger to others.

  13. dan e said on June 5th, 2010 at 2:22pm #

    Hold on there, Zielinski! Nice try, but no cigar.

    But I gotta hand it to you, for one of the slickest pieces of pro-Zionist sophistry I’ve so far encountered. Talk about the Long Slow Curve followed by the Fast Break!

    You had me reading & nodding my head to your listing & descriptions of Zionist criminality, when all of a sudden you started getting shaky, telling us that Israel DOES have some form of legitimacy after all!

    And you follow that up by claiming that any attack on Israel must necessarily be “genocidal”, therefore any military action against the Zionist state is a priori morally wrong.

    The logical conclusion, if we accept your argument, is that since it is morally wrong to oppose Israeli violence with counter-violence, the only thing for Palestinians or anybody else to do is sit back & watch the Izzys do whatever they want.

    Which is crazy.

    “Israel” is not a country, it’s an abomination. Just like the Third Reich, the Confederate States of America, South African Apartheid, it has to go. It must be abolished, its power destroyed.

    The kindest thing we can do for Jewish citizens of the Zionist Entity is let them know that they’ve been living in a dreamworld, that they have been participating in enormous crimes, and they need to wake up, stop being accomplices, and start disempowering the Zionist-Militarist bigshots who are dragging them to hell.

    This is one reason I find Chomsky’s rap so reprehensible: he’s always talking about how rightwing leaders like Bibi & their policies are “harming isreal”, thus lending legitimacy to Jewish Isreali illusions, keeping them in their dreamworld, confirming their belief that they live in a country like other countries.

    Most “whyt” Americans also live in a false reality, & it’s something activists need to address. But illusory as notions of “America” are, they aren’t as farfetched plain nutty as the idea Isrealis have that they live in a country properly known as “Israel”.

    I remember when I was a kid, I thought I lived in a certain kind of place. Later I found out I’d been living in a bubble. I’m grateful to the people who pulled my coat to the fact the Korean war was just more colonialist aggression instead of the noble Crusade For Democracy my school teachers talked about. I could go on listing lies I accepted because I didn’t know any better, in that Jim Crow HUACized world.

    It’s a shame that people will suffer because they believe fairytales enough to inflict violence on people who don’t accept the same fairytales, but that’s reality. Are we to let murderers continue to murder because the only way to stop them is to shoot them?

    Naw man, you ain’t maken sense.

  14. Stephen Zielinski said on June 5th, 2010 at 2:52pm #

    Re: dan e

    There are multiple forms of legitimation available to a regime. Israel is legitimate according to some of them. It is neither legally nor morally legitimate in the fullest sense of those terms. And it lacks international political legitimacy.

    Yet. a Carthage option for Israel would be a stupendous wrong. And the regime does enjoy the support of its citizens, although this support is limited in the way that I noted above.

    You state:

    “And you follow that up by claiming that any attack on Israel must necessarily be “genocidal”, therefore any military action against the Zionist state is a priori morally wrong.

    The logical conclusion, if we accept your argument, is that since it is morally wrong to oppose Israeli violence with counter-violence, the only thing for Palestinians or anybody else to do is sit back & watch the Izzys do whatever they want.

    Which is crazy.”

    I never claimed that any attack on the state of Israel would be a form of genocide. My claim: Any action meant to eliminate Israel and its citizens would be a form of genocide. It would be an instance of genocidal ethnic cleansing.

    And genocidal ethnic cleansing is wrong if its intended victims are Israeli Jews or Palestinians living in the region near to Israel.

  15. dan e said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:01pm #

    Clarification: IMHO the best thing people not under IOF occupation can do is support the BDS campaign, Boycott Divestment & Sanctions.

    But Palestinians, Lebanese and others who find themselves living under the heel of the Zionist Order have the right to resist Zionist rule, by any means they find necessary.

    The decision of which means to employ in order to resist oppression is of course up to the oppressed themselves.

    For myself, I do not see that a Palestinian who shoots an Israeli is thereby a criminal because I view 99.99 pct of Israelis as murderous felons. There may be a handful of Isreali Jews who are totally innocent, but so few as to be insignificant, and those few are unlikely to put themselves in a location where they are likely to be targetted by the Palestinians attempting to resist occupation.
    Oh yes, as far as I’m concerned ALL of Mandate Palestine is under military occupation. Zionist control is not legitimate in any part of it.

  16. kalidas said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:01pm #

    “— with different species, too — with God, too —in an “I and Thou” relationship?”

    You know what else is an abomination?
    The killing/slaughtering/murdering of billions upon billions of animals on the modern day endless assembly lines from Hell.

    How very compassionate of Gary to speak words of acknowledgment for these dear living feeling beings who 99.9% of the time suffer and die unnoticed.
    And to have the audacity to mention them along side of God..

    I hear hoots and moos and baas and squeals and clicks and clacks of thanks to Gary!

  17. bozh said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:04pm #

    ‘I think ‘jews’ need enemies. Enemies are always made; never JUST ARE. By ‘jews’, i mean their clerico-noble class. W.o. enemies, their cult wld undergo serious loss in numbers of the cultists or wld dissapear in decades.

    So, this ‘elite’ [the greatest torturers of these cultists] has to scare them to death in order so that they wld not to leave the cult.
    W.o. cultists, rabbis, priests, muftis-amirs are gone. Thus, maintaining the scare of best humans we have.

    Ok! “best humans” might not fit reality; perhaps, i shld have said, people who best see naked reality.

    In fact ‘godful’ people apear to me by far more dangerous than ‘godless’ people.
    [ Words under single quotes indicate their false symbolic values]
    Asocialists[ root of alll evil] go to churches; socialists don’t or shldn’t.

    Dichotomizing people into ‘godful’ and ‘godless’ people represented one the greatest crimes perped against both ‘classes’ of people.
    Yet neither god [god=a bag of ideas u self put in] nor nature; or if one likes, godnature, creates categories.

    The categories are invented ?solely by sorcerers, charlatans, shamans, or priests. And we all know why! We cld even posit the notions that sorcerers were made and over millennia perfecting their crafts; with no one noticing what was going on [a la the frog in a pan; which fried in it, not noticing anything wrong as heat was turned up verrry slowly]

    The same sorcerers-torturers are still torturing us today. And they will never stop unless we deem selves fisrt of alll humans; equal in all ways on social level.
    Then we cld unite. We wld then see changes.

    Of course, western nations; most of which are led by greatest criminal minds, also must make enemies in order to remain our masters.
    So, this not solely a ‘jewish’ trait. tnx

  18. Hue Longer said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:04pm #

    Stephen,

    Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Chomskyite party of the Glorious Non-Confederate Union of The United States?

  19. Deadbeat said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:08pm #

    I guess Hue being a racist is OK with you.

  20. Stephen Zielinski said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:09pm #

    re: Hue Longer

    I admit to admiring Chomsky. I wouldn’t know whether my admiration makes me “a member of the Chomskyite party of the Glorious Non-Confederate Union of The United States.”

  21. Deadbeat said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:11pm #

    Otherwise you would not be so defensive of der intellectual leader of the Left — a practicing Zionist. You’d be seeking to improve the situation rather than be supportive of it.

  22. bozh said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:22pm #

    Elimination-expulsion with murder of palestinians was genocidal; elimination of israel ought not to be called or deemed a genocidal act.
    Expulsion with murder of the shemites [mizrahim; possibly many shaphardim], if it is ever carried out, shld be deemed a genocidal act.

    But comparing a nonevent or an invent that might happen with an event that happened does appear a sleight-of-hand.
    Israel is both an illegitimate an amoral country. Explanation? We’ve never ever lived in a lawful society, but in lawlessness or under fiats of the clerico-noble class of people.

  23. t4too said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:39pm #

    Kalidas, thank you for reminding us of the larger context in which our human squabbles take place. Thanks also to Gary Corseri. The piece by Jas Keye is also praiseworthy.

    With considerations in mind similar those mentioned by the above, I try to be a vegetarian, to keep my footprint on the planet as small as I can. Alas I don’t seem to be able to do without a car; I have four cats who are not vegetarians; choosing between the snails and the flowers… I asked the Buddhist priest; he said “Be realistic”.

    So I try to do what I can in small ways. But I think something much bigger is required. I have no idea what that might be, except that it probably won’t originate within the USA…?

    While I’m logged on here, …oh wait, I’d better start a fresh post…

  24. Ismail Zayid said on June 5th, 2010 at 3:43pm #

    Gary Corseri illustrates clearly the duplicity of Israel and its Zionist supporters. We are told Israel is a democracy, regrdless of the expilcit racism that its leaders and its policies clearly demonstrate on a daily basis. Israel will not recognise Hamas, though freely elected by the Palestinians, because Israel says Hamas must recognise Israeli existence. But Israel will not tell anyone which Israel are they required to recognise. Israel is the only state in the world that remains with no defined borders. Some of its leaders claim that it must control all of the land of historic Palestine. Others extend their claims to Syrian, Jordanian and Lebanese territory. There is a simple Palestinian demand, tell us which Israel are they recoquired to recognise.

    As to what is the basis that entitles Israel to expel the indigenous people of Palestine and take over their land, the Zionists tell us that God promised this land to the Jews. I say that I was not aware of God being a real-estate agent who can apportion land to those He favours. We are also told that it is written in the Bible, and I say I was not aware that the Bible is a Registry of Deeds.

    To sum it up the call on Israel is to comply with international law and the basic elements of justice in resolving this conflict so that Muslims, Christians and Jews can live in peace and security in this tortured land.

  25. Angela said on June 5th, 2010 at 4:12pm #

    Gary: I am glad you broadened your article to other parts of the world as well. Our world is in jeopardy! Countries are falling apart, including my own, the USA. All our corrupt governments have sold their people to Corporate Entities who care less about any of this. They do not care if Israels and Palestinians kill each other off any more then all the slaughter that people are suffering all over our world.

    Dan, I also am a great fan of John Lennon. “Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. … I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends … and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it. –John Lennon.

    My son when he was 16 (1987) said almost the same thing to me as I was typing my letters to everyone/anyone I could think of to get America to wake up before it was too late. He knew I was very open and verbal against injustice of every kind all over the world and was afraid the “government” was going to hurt me somehow. He begged me to stop “because no one cared anyway”. I told him I would continue to the day I die so when I met “my God” I will be at peace with my soul.

    I live in Florida and now am fighting to save the Gulf of Mexico. I am amazed how so much of America does not seem to understand exactly what has just happened.

    Somehow, someway we MUST unite as one world, one people where we all have the right to live in safety, peace and harmony. We all have the right to pray or not; believe in our own God without being afraid. And we must start uniting for Animal rights. I am told this is “childish thinking” maybe it is.

    If not, we will all peril.

  26. t4too said on June 5th, 2010 at 4:17pm #

    My attention is snagged by Mr Zielinski’s argument in rebuttal of “dan e”‘s.

    Let me see, you say “a Carthage option for Israel would be a stupendous wrong.”

    hmm, who is it that has been advocating a “Carthage option for Israel”? Has “dan e” been proposing it? If so, can you locate where he said it, copy & paste it on this thread so I can evaluate his idea “verbatim”, as it were?

    “Carthage Option”: hmm, has a certain ring to it, but I don’t remember coming across the term until now. Is it in common use somewhere? I do recall talk of a “Samson Option”, is there a link between the two?

    I see that you believe Israel not to be “legitimate” by certain criteria, but that it IS legitimate according to other criteria. I wonder if you might be good enough to list what those “other criteria” might be?
    Other than the one you do mention, the fact that the State of Israel is supported by its citizens; this gives me some problems because I’m reminded by “dan e” of the Hitler regime. Would you contend that the 3rd Reich was in some degree legitimate because it had the support of the majority of Germans at the time?
    Or that the Confederacy was legitimate because most US Southerners of the time saw nothing wrong with chattel slavery?
    Later you say: “My claim: Any action meant to eliminate Israel and its citizens would be a form of genocide.”

    I’m sorry, but I find this proposition to be a classic example of the Fallacy of the Poisoned Well. The way you state the proposition would leave an onlooker to believe that “dan e” or somebody else has proposed or advocated an attack meant to eliminate all or nearly all the citizens of Israel. My review of previous comments by “dan e” failed to produce anything about eliminating Israeli persons, but did produce a lot of verbiage about abolishing the State of Israel as an institution and a legal system.
    So it looks to me that you have inadvertently fallen into the error of conflating a call for the elimination of the Israeli state with a call for elimination of Israeli persons. Are the two necessarily linked in your mind? If so, please explain?

    It wouldn’t make much sense for “dan e” to advocate elimination of all citizens of Israel, since there are a sizable number of Palestinians still living in the areas taken over in 1948 who enjoy Israeli citizenship, elect representatives to the Knesset etc, since “dan e” seems to present himself as friendly to the Palestinian cause.

    It all seems pretty confusing. I’d be grateful if you could take time to explain it so I can understand it all?

    Thanking you in advance,
    T

  27. kalidas said on June 5th, 2010 at 4:19pm #

    t4too, your Buddhist friend IS realistic, of course. The bigger thing which you mention is easily accomplished and you most likely are already avoiding complicity with the demonic modern day assembly line slaughter houses where this inhuman activity occurs.

    Nobody said it was or is easy, but hardly anything worthwhile is.
    And like most things, practice makes perfect and it’s not all one sided. The benefits are significant. Life sustaining even. Your heart and your mind will feel and be healthier and you’ll notice.

    As for your cats they’ll eat whatever you give them, within reason, if they’re hungry. And if you’re not satisfying them well enough, there’s always snails and such. They are cats.

  28. Stephen Zielinski said on June 5th, 2010 at 4:45pm #

    Re: t4too

    You asked:

    “Let me see, you say ‘a Carthage option for Israel would be a stupendous wrong.’

    hmm, who is it that has been advocating a “Carthage option for Israel”? Has ‘dan e’ been proposing it? If so, can you locate where he said it, copy & paste it on this thread so I can evaluate his idea ‘verbatim’, as it were?”

    Dan e wrote”

    “’Israel’ is not a country, it’s an abomination. Just like the Third Reich, the Confederate States of America, South African Apartheid, it has to go. It must be abolished, its power destroyed.”

    He just made an ambiguous call for the elimination of Israel, a project which includes genocide as one option. It does not help that he claimed Israel is not a country, for it is indeed a country, and that it is an abomination, which it is not.

    You asked:

    “’Carthage Option’: hmm, has a certain ring to it, but I don’t remember coming across the term until now. Is it in common use somewhere? I do recall talk of a ‘Samson Option’, is there a link between the two?”
    I first came across the term Carthage Option with respect to Germany after the Second World War. Some believed FDR considered turning Germany into a wasteland so that it would never again attempt to conquer Europe. With respect to Israel the term suggests any genocidal option including the use of nuclear weapons to destroy the country and to render the land inhospitable for an indefinite future.

    You wrote:

    “I see that you believe Israel not to be ‘legitimate’ by certain criteria, but that it IS legitimate according to other criteria. I wonder if you might be good enough to list what those ‘other criteria’ might be?

    Other than the one you do mention, the fact that the State of Israel is supported by its citizens; this gives me some problems because I’m reminded by ‘dan e’ of the Hitler regime. Would you contend that the 3rd Reich was in some degree legitimate because it had the support of the majority of Germans at the time?

    Or that the Confederacy was legitimate because most US Southerners of the time saw nothing wrong with chattel slavery?”

    Like any state, Israel can claim to be legitimate if it has democratic procedures and the support of its citizens. So, yes, the Third Reich enjoyed legitimacy in this sense during its history as did other authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. These legally and morally illegitimate regimes also were legitimate insofar as those subject to their institutions believed that they had no other choice but to submit to a form of rule that they otherwise abhorred. Legitimacy in this sense means the propensity to behave in ways that affirm the domination of the regime in question.

    You wrote:

    “Later you say: ‘My claim: Any action meant to eliminate Israel and its citizens would be a form of genocide.’

    I’m sorry, but I find this proposition to be a classic example of the Fallacy of the Poisoned Well.”

    I did not poison the well; I addressed an ambiguously stated point.

  29. bozh said on June 5th, 2010 at 5:23pm #

    Germans had moral and legal right to live in their germany. Many ‘jews, have no moral or legal right to live in palestine.
    It had been unfortunate for world that germany had been ruled from ’34 to ’45 by nazi party.
    Comparison btwn germans and their right to be in germany AD 600 or 2010 with ‘jews’ [a nonpeople] living all over the world until ’22 is OK if all salient facts are posited.
    But of course the new trolls wld not ever do that. This latest one cannot fool us. tnx

  30. bozh said on June 5th, 2010 at 5:34pm #

    Being slavic and germans looking dwn on us and at times demonizing us i still say that germans have never conquered europe. Napoleon came close!
    Prussia had defeated french for alsace-lorraine province which was binatonal.
    However, german lands were not united until the 19th century.
    In ’18 they were defeated; losing land; which was one cause for ww2. I doubt that FDR said germans shld be eliminated or that they will never ever conquer europe! tnx

  31. hayate said on June 5th, 2010 at 5:45pm #

    Some “friendly advice”.

    Stealth zionists do love obfuscation and misdirection. After outright lies, it’s their main tool. Rather pathetic, though, since that added layer to their co-option shenanigans inevitably gives their game away. They should just follow every one else and denounce israel without the “qualifiers”, and then like the professional zionist co-opters posing as progressives and leftists, wait till something important happens and go into shill mode then. That way they will have built up a credible posting history and their slight of hand will appear less obvious.

    ;D

  32. Stephen Zielinski said on June 5th, 2010 at 6:46pm #

    re: dan e:

    “It turns out that Mr “Z”s definition of legitimacy includes the third reich and the erstwhile slavocracy:)”

    That’s right. It does include those two regimes, and a lot more to boot. And it should include them. Or, it should if one wants to have terms that permit descriptively accurate analysis of stuff in the world. Of course, if one needs a ten-penny word to help you stand straight and tall when you declare mass murder wrong and mass murders bad, well….

  33. mary said on June 5th, 2010 at 8:51pm #

    So many words!
    Meanwhile, in Gaza…….

    Irish Times, 5th June 2010.
    What is not Allowed:
    Richard Tillinghast

    No tinned meat is allowed, no tomato paste,
    no clothing, no shoes, no notebooks.
    These will be stored in our warehouses at Kerem Shalom
    until further notice.
    Bananas, apples, and persimmons are allowed into Gaza,
    peaches and dates, and now macaroni
    (after the American Senator’s visit).
    These are vital for daily sustenance.
    But no apricots, no plums, no grapes, no avocados, no jam.
    These are luxuries and are not allowed.
    Paper for textbooks is not allowed.
    The terrorists could use it to print seditious material.
    And why do you need textbooks
    now that your schools are rubble?
    No steel is allowed, no building supplies, no plastic pipe.
    These the terrorists could use to launch rockets
    against us.
    Pumpkins and carrots you may have,
    but no delicacies,
    no cherries, no pomegranates, no watermelon, no onions,
    no chocolate.
    We have a list of three dozen items that are allowed,
    but we are not obliged to disclose its contents.
    This is the decision arrived at
    by Colonel Levi, Colonel Rosenzweig, and Colonel Segal.

    Our motto:

    ‘No prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis.’
    You may fish in the Mediterranean,
    but only as far as three km from shore.
    Beyond that and we open fire.
    It is a great pity the waters are polluted –
    twenty million gallons of raw sewage dumped into the sea every day
    is the figure given.
    Our rockets struck the sewage treatments plants,
    and at this point spare parts to repair them are not allowed.
    As long as Hamas threatens us,
    no cement is allowed, no glass, no medical equipment.
    We are watching you from our pilotless drones
    as you cook your sparse meals over open fires
    and bed down
    in the ruins of houses destroyed by tank shells.
    And if your children can’t sleep,
    missing the ones who were killed in our incursion,
    or cry out in the night, or wet their beds
    in your makeshift refugee tents,
    or scream, feeling pain in their amputated limbs –
    that’s the price you pay for harbouring terrorists.
    God gave us this land.
    A land without a people for a people without a land.

    Richard Tillinghast is an American poet who lives in Co Tipperary. He is the author of eight books of poetry, the latest of which is Selected Poems (Dedalus Press, 2010 ), as well as several works of non-fiction

  34. Rehmat said on June 5th, 2010 at 9:07pm #

    Arthur Koestler ( an Ashkenazi Jew himself) in his famous book The Thirteenth Tribe has also proven that the western Jews (Ashkenazi Jews occupying Palestine) are not the Israelites, but Turkic people who converted to Judaism during CE 740s.

    Jesus’ few dozen Apostles (disciples), who belonged to Israelite’s Essenes order and spoke in Aramaic or Hebrew – used to call themselves ‘Nazarenes (Nasara)’, who after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, made their headquarters in Alexanderia (Egypt). These people followed the teachings of the Gospel of St. Barnabas, until Roman King Constantine destroyed them, together with their cononical Gospel (an Italian translation of which could be seen in theViennese Museum in Austria). St. Barnabas is described in Acts 11:24, “for he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and faith.” It was Pope Gelasius, who issued a Bull (492 CE) – giving orders to destroy all copies of Gospel of Barnabas, which had survived the ravages of Constantine, and to replace it by the corrupted copies of the Constantine Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of 325 CE.

    Now, an Israeli historian, professor Shlomo Sand (Tel Aviv University), has claimed in his book titled “Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi?” (“When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?”; that the present-day Jews are not descendents of the Hebrew tribes of Israel, exiled from the kingdoms of Judia or Israel by the Babylonians – but ancient pagans, mainly Berbers from North Africa, Arabs from south of Arabia and Turks from Khazar empire in Asia – who converted to Judaism between the fourth and eighth century CE. According to professor Sand, the Palestinians are probably the descended from Hebrews who embraced Islam or Christianity.

    Israeli-born writer and musician, Gilad Atzmon, in his article The Wandering Who? elaborate further the myth of Jewishness as the community of the “People of Book” – “Astonishingly enough, in spite of the fact that Sand manages to dismantle the notion of ‘Jewish people’, crush the notion of ‘Jewish collective past’ and ridicule the Jewish chauvinist national impetus, his book is a best seller in Israel. This fact alone may suggest that those who call themselves ‘people of the book’ are now starting to learn about the misleading and devastating philosophies and ideologies that made them into what Khalid Amayreh and many others regard as the “Nazis of our time”.

    It is an established fact that not a single Jewish history text had been written between the 1st century and early 19th century. The fact that Judaism is based on a religious historical myth may have something to do with it. An adequate scrutiny of the Jewish past was never a primary concern within the Rabbinical tradition. One of the reasons is probably the lack of a need of such a methodical effort. For the Jew who lived during ancient times and the Middle Ages, there was enough in the Bible to answer most relevant questions having to do with day-to-day life, Jewish meaning and fate. As Shlomo Sand puts it, “a secular chronological time was foreign to the ‘Diaspora time’ that was shaped by the anticipation for the coming of the Messiah”.

    http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/who-were-the-people-of-the-book/

  35. AaronG said on June 6th, 2010 at 3:59am #

    Great article, Gary.

    Actually, it’s funny that you mention Yahweh making annnouncements about Israel. Because of the Jews’ continual on-again-off-again unfaithfulness (for 400 years), stubbornness, and their participation in the neighbouring countries’ child-sacrifice religious practices he made a very clear and final announcement when he allowed the Jews to be taken captive by Babylon in 607BCE (ie he removed his protection). His son also made an announcement that the kingdom would be taken away from them and given to one producing fruits (Matt 21:43). And after the Jews cheered for Jesus’ blood in lieu of a known murderers’, the curtain in the Temple was torn, symbolically making another announcement that God no longer favoured this nation. So fast forward 2000 years and it’s amazing that we’re actually debating this very point. Israel has had plenty of announcements in front of their nose. It’s clear: Israel has NO right to exist. To extend my point, no nation has a right to exist in God’s eyes. Dan 2:44 makes it clear that nations (kingdoms) based on imaginary lines on a map, nationalism, religion, greed, war etc will be “brought to ruin”.

    So God’s pattern of dealing with this unfaithful nation went like this:

    Patience……….warning of consequences………..patience…….more patience…….THEN…….Last chance, time’s up, clear, swift, final act. This pattern is sobering for our current situation in 2010.

  36. jon s said on June 6th, 2010 at 4:37am #

    I would turn it completely around : ALL nations have the right to exist, non have more rights, or less, than others. To say otherwise is tantamount to promoting genocide.

  37. bozh said on June 6th, 2010 at 5:41am #

    I know of few women with alzheimers who ask, When can i go home? Can u imagine what some 300k pal’n women say now? Many still keep keys to their homes!
    And one thinks, that criminals who have done this to them shsd be rewarded for that? tnx

  38. yossi said on June 6th, 2010 at 5:46am #

    As in many other occassions, Gary’s article contains much that is new and much that is true. Unfortunately, that which is true – is not new, and that which is new, is not true.

    Take, for example, this statement:

    ‘In effect, Israeli commandos unilaterally declared that Aid Activists on a flotilla in international waters had no “right to exist.” ‘

    What is the meaning of “declaring in effect”? Had anyone actually declared anything, anywhere, there would be no need for the modifying clause “in effect”, would there? but it is there. Why is it there? I shall come back to this later.

    What is the purpose of the word “unilaterally”? Did those Israeli commandos who were savagely attacked by pre-meditated armed men who got on the Flotilla under special instructions of Turkish officials – did they actually vote on the need to defend their lives? Did the young Israeli soldier whose battered head and face appeared today on a major Turkish newspaper, did he get a chance to contribute his share to unilateracy?

    So why, what are those strange words doing there? They are there because the learned author- in a way not dissimilar to many of the commentators above– wishes to take a stand, express his beliefs, present his point of view. Yes, there is of course the truth; it must lie somewhere beneath who knows how many falsehoods, who can count haow many carefully chosen delibarte inaccuracies, who knows how much ill-reading and writing; it surely must lie somewhere but let it there remain; for ‘there is no truth anymore’, as Denny Crane observes in Boston Legal, ‘there is only good and bad fiction’.

    Bad fiction it is. In a world where human life is way underestimated in favor of power and wealth, who is the person who really cares about truth? At the end of the day, it is all a matter of what you choose to believe, and what you choose not to.

    We, the people of Israel, regardless of pseudo- religous ridicule being insinuated upon us all, religious and secular alike, have a right to live in our homes as anyone else has. No less than the right of the people of Kansas, Arizona and Missouri to peacefully live in the land that they forcefully took from natives after murdering and expelling them, no more than the right of the people of Gaza, who chose (or have they really?) to elect for government a party that does not recognize
    woman-rights of their own people, have their political opponents thrown
    off buildings, shot dead or otherwise eliminated, leaving dozens of widows and orphants along the way, which on top of it all declare in writing, in a very clear fashion, that they do not recognize that very same right of their Jewish neighbors, for the sole reason of them being so.

    So, YES. Israel has every right to exist, and it will exist long after nobody will read bad fiction anymore.

  39. Don Hawkins said on June 6th, 2010 at 6:10am #

    Oh yossi have you ever heard the expression nature of the beast. In your dot on Earth how’s water looking to you? Getting a tad bit stretched is it and in the coming years will that water come back to normal, no. Building desalinization plant’s are we to share with say the people in Gaza. The States you mentioned
    Kansas, Arizona and Missouri guess what a little longer no much but water or lack of it the norm. Ever hear of working together any thought’s on that how about tear down those wall’s any thought’s on that. In reality do you know what those wall’s are made of well it’s a prison for your mind just as much as the people on the other side of those wall’s. Get it.

  40. Don Hawkins said on June 6th, 2010 at 6:41am #

    I forgot the wall’s are made of what well it’s called pure unadulterated bullshit. So far the systems we human’s have made for ourselves does appear to require bullshit to keep going and as we see it’s not going to well. We either tear down those wall’s a prison for the mind or there will be just more wall’s for a few and the story of the human race will do what? Does it have to be this way of course not but thinking in that prison for mind to put it in very simple terms is like real boring not to mention all the death and destruction it causes. Nice cup of coffee game of checkers. Just maybe it’s time to change the system and soon.

  41. yossi said on June 6th, 2010 at 7:19am #

    Truly sorry, Don, but I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.

  42. yossi said on June 6th, 2010 at 7:20am #

    BTW, I recommend to all the good people here the following clip:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGG_osOoVg

  43. Don Hawkins said on June 6th, 2010 at 8:08am #

    The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

    Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. Sagan

    Do you understand any part of that yossi?

  44. Don Hawkins said on June 6th, 2010 at 8:17am #

    Oh my God that was amazing to watch yossi the video I mean is this what we have become.

  45. Don Hawkins said on June 6th, 2010 at 8:41am #

    It took me a minute or two too understand what I just saw on that video and by the way what monsters have been created so this is what we have become oh well. Such arrogance imagined self-importance, the delusion is far beyond many could have ever imagined.

  46. Maien said on June 6th, 2010 at 9:16am #

    To Yossi. I’ve seen the video a number of times on various sites. the clear message i have received from the video is that anyone can now say what they want about the Israeli people…and NO ONE should be stopped from speaking.
    I have not watched anything so vile, racist . It is the quality of dumbness that one expects from children under the age of five.
    I guess all those anti-semite laws need to be disposed of across the world. Even if they are not legally… this video is like an invitation to an angry world to ‘fight’.

    And … yeah… once again I am wondering how it is that Iraeli occupiers of Palestine believe that they are better, when their actions betray the limits of their existence, so brilliantly.

  47. Don Hawkins said on June 6th, 2010 at 9:32am #

    We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

    Make that after what I just saw a very very very new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. I wonder will the other side come out with a video it could be like American Idol sort of the battle of the video’s. Truly sorry, Don, but I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, I’ll bet you don’t. Can you imagine being in that room as that video was being made then after word’s that was wonderful that should piss them off. After watching that video pissed off is not what I felt but a sick feeling. You know Mulga I get it far far from home to say the least.

  48. Don Hawkins said on June 6th, 2010 at 11:32am #

    June 6 (Bloomberg) — Israel turned down demands for an international probe of its raid on a ship bringing aid to the Gaza Strip, which left nine dead, saying it would launch its own investigation.

    “We are rejecting the idea of an international commission,” Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. said, speaking on “Fox News Sunday. “We are discussing with the Obama administration the way in which our inquiry will take place.”

    Two key words here Fox News. Launch its own investigation talk about nut’s on the third planet from the Sun. Who made up these rules anyway I’ll bet Bozh knows. Any openings for rule makers is there any money in it? The video and the people who made it am trying to understand there thinking. Although horror movies is not my first choice. I wonder what the people who did the video are like at say a coffee shop in a town square playing a game of checkers and just some conversation. Do they do that kind of stuff? One thing for sure I would not turn my back on them no no no. It’s Sunday oh did anybody here a Nuclear power plant had to shut down today a tornado. Hay there would be a good movie atomic tornado. Rather warm for the first of June don’t you think. Probably just me.

  49. JE said on June 6th, 2010 at 1:35pm #

    Abe Foxman err I mean Yossi is nothing more than an ADL stooge.

    I’m supposed to sympathize with armed commandos who illegally boarded the Mavi Marmara in international waters. Woops some of them got beat down. Now they know who 1.5 million Gazans feel every day of the wretched existence they are forced to eek out thanks to Ziofascists.

    His rant on unilateracy (is that a word?) is incomprehensible.

    And stating you have a right to commit genocide (live in our homes) based on what happened in the US 200 some years ago is not exactly a cogent moral argument. Out of one side of his mouth he argue for Israel’s right to self determination but then attempts to delegitimize their gov’t and their right to self-determination. Besides if we want to be “technical” Hamas was created by the Mossad to counterbalance Hezbollah (it was Haaretz in 72) . So if this was conspiracy behind Hamas coming to power one can be certain the Mossad had a hand in it.

  50. JE said on June 6th, 2010 at 1:47pm #

    Addendum: A nation-state is an institution and no institution has a “right to exist.” None. The burden of proof is and should be on any institution to justify it’s utility to the people it effects. ( a sort of paraphrase of Chomsky).

    So screw all nation-states…especially the genocidal supremacist state of Israel…Orthodox, Hasidim, Conservative, Secular…does matter. They’re all Eichmann. I’d LOVE to see how all these parasites would fair without the unconditional support of the US taxpayer.

  51. Stephen Zielinski said on June 6th, 2010 at 3:58pm #

    Re: JE:

    “Addendum: A nation-state is an institution and no institution has a ‘right to exist.’ None. The burden of proof is and should be on any institution to justify it’s utility to the people it effects.”

    Well, if, as you claim, any institution (state) lacks a right to exist but then, as you demand, goes on to justify its utility to those it effects, then the justification it successfully made will also have established its right to exist. But, a justified institution, one that has a right to exist, could not also be an institution that lacks a right to exist.

  52. AaronG said on June 6th, 2010 at 11:41pm #

    The above post by “yossi”, and the subsequent posts by others expressing incomprehension and frustration with his ideas, is an individual example of secular thinking vs religious thinking.

    If there is a conflict (individual or national) the secular mind has the capacity to use reason and negotiate an agreement to sticking points eg “I’ll give you 40% and I’ll take 60%” (or vice versa) because land/possessions etc, although important to the (possibly greedy) secular mind, can always be traded. Or “I see your point, OK you can take that part of Jerusalem (because it’s just a chunk of dirt, after all) and I’ll have this part”. The secular mind will negotiate based on what revenue Jerusalem can make and will therefore choose the better land for agriculture/making money etc, whereas the religious mind will only beLIEve the mantra that God promised this city to us and therefore it is not up for sale.

    The secular mind worships money only and the religious mind worships money + much more that makes reason and negotiation impossible. Saeb Erekat has made a career out of it!

    The religiously tainted mind has pre-conceived boundaries in which to discuss/negotiate/engage with other people.

    In other words, the religious mind is not good for business……….

  53. yossi said on June 7th, 2010 at 3:22am #

    Abe Foxman, no less! I am truly flattered..

    I have a confession to make: I was expecting a somewhat higher level of discussion ethics in this site, which boasts to call itself “dissidentvoice.org”. Isn’t this a one place where people may actually beg to dissent and not get foulness thrusted upon them in return?

    Now, I am honestly disappointed: the only reactions that my note above was able to elicit are an attempt to portray me as an “ADL stooge”, a pick on my jazzy language (what part of unilateracy didn’t you get, JE?) and a question of my identity by writing the dubious “yossi” instead of just plain yossi. Nothing better demonstrates mind-poverty and heart stiffness than
    non-arguments; i.e., arguments that dart their words directly to a person, a people, in a more-often-than-not feeble attempt to de-legitimize them altogether, while repeating over and over again dis-informed slogens.

    My name is Yossi. Yossi Lonke. Go ahead and google me. I am a mathematician and a jazz-pianist. I am a proud Israeli citizen and a proud Jew. I work in Tel-Aviv as a quantitative analyst for a major bank. I am no less real than any of you, no more.

    I believe that most people of the world know very little about the way we live here, in Israel. I was 16 when I arrived to London, England to spend a year there. My classmates inquired how many camels did my family own. True, this was interent-free late 70’s, but come on – there must be natural borders for ignorance, shouldn’t there. Later, having completed my Ph.D in Jerusalem, I spent three years in CWRU, Cleveland, OH, as a visiting assitant professor in the mathematics department. I can tell you this: by the time people turn 40, their ideas are more or less fixed, their view of the world changes very slowly, if at all – and they are more or less a done-deal of what life has instilled in them. You can see this phenomenon clearly here, in this ” dissenting ” site: people, places and nations are judged through obtuse lenses, prejudices and false facts*. A bunch of people solemnly discussing whether Israel is a nation or an institute… as if there are no common international definitions for what a state is, as if there is no UN, no resolutions, no stringent OECD that accepted ISRAEL just a month or so ago to its members. Israel is an “institute” and _I_ am been scorned at as an ADL stooge? Someone has gotten their logic all mixed up.

    I will admit: it angers me to see how people in all dead seriousness discuss
    ways to “legally” eliminate my country. I would expect a similar sentiment had the situation been reversed, and some Frenchman, say, would bump into a seemingly liberal site managed in Tel Aviv where people are discussing legal ways to waste France.

    JE: Please evacuate your home on the legal grounds of robbery, slavery and genocide.

    *Someone quoted Professor Sand on the origin of jews, claiming that
    Ashkenazi jews are not really jews, etc. That bad fiction of the honorable
    Professor is refuted in this month’s Science magazine, where it is proven that the three main groups of Diaspora jews are genetically related to each other.

  54. yossi said on June 7th, 2010 at 3:23am #

    Here’s the Science-magazine link:

    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/06/tracing-the-roots-of-jewishness.html

  55. hayate said on June 7th, 2010 at 3:30am #

    Posted as a public service for israel’s hasbarats like yossi. A handy list they can use….

    Defending the indefensible: a how-to guide

    Posted By Stephen M. Walt Wednesday, June 2, 2010 – 2:55 PM

    Powerful states often do bad things. When they do, government officials and sympathizers inevitably try to defend their conduct, even when those actions are clearly wrong or obviously counterproductive. This is called being an “apologist,” although people who do this rarely apologize for much of anything.

    Some readers out there may aspire to careers in foreign policy, and you may be called upon to perform these duties as part of your professional obligations. Moreover, all of us need to be able to spot the rhetorical ploys that governments use to justify their own misconduct. To help students prepare for future acts of diplomatic casuistry, and to raise public consciousness about these tactics, I offer as a public service this handy 21-step guide: “How to Defend the Indefensible and Get Away With It.” The connection to recent events is obvious, but such practices are commonplace in many countries and widely practiced by non-state actors as well.

    Here are my 21 handy talking-points when you need to apply the white-wash:

    1. We didn’t do it! (Denials usually don’t work, but it’s worth a try).

    2. We know you think we did it but we aren’t admitting anything.

    3. Actually, maybe we did do something but not what we are accused of doing.

    4. Ok, we did it but it wasn’t that bad (“waterboarding isn’t really torture, you know”).

    5. Well, maybe it was pretty bad but it was justified or necessary. (We only torture terrorists, or suspected terrorists, or people who might know a terrorist…”)

    6. What we did was really quite restrained, when you consider how powerful we really are. I mean, we could have done something even worse.

    7. Besides, what we did was technically legal under some interpretations of international law (or at least as our lawyers interpret the law as it applies to us.)

    8. Don’t forget: the other side is much worse. In fact, they’re evil. Really.

    9. Plus, they started it.

    10. And remember: We are the good guys. We are not morally equivalent to the bad guys no matter what we did. Only morally obtuse, misguided critics could fail to see this fundamental distinction between Them and Us.

    11. The results may have been imperfect, but our intentions were noble. (Invading Iraq may have resulted in tens of thousands of dead and wounded and millions of refugees, but we meant well.)

    12. We have to do things like this to maintain our credibility. You don’t want to encourage those bad guys, do you?

    13. Especially because the only language the other side understands is force.

    14. In fact, it was imperative to teach them a lesson. For the Nth time.

    15. If we hadn’t done this to them they would undoubtedly have done something even worse to us. Well, maybe not. But who could take that chance?

    16. In fact, no responsible government could have acted otherwise in the face of such provocation.

    17. Plus, we had no choice. What we did may have been awful, but all other policy options had failed and/or nothing else would have worked.

    18. It’s a tough world out there and Serious People understand that sometimes you have to do these things. Only ignorant idealists, terrorist sympathizers, craven appeasers and/or treasonous liberals would question our actions.

    19. In fact, whatever we did will be worth it eventually, and someday the rest of the world will thank us.

    20. We are the victims of a double-standard. Other states do the same things (or worse) and nobody complains about them. What we did was therefore permissible.

    21. And if you keep criticizing us, we’ll get really upset and then we might do something really crazy. You don’t want that, do you?

    Repeat as necessary.

    http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/02/defending_the_indefensible_a_how_to_guide

  56. Rehmat said on June 7th, 2010 at 4:14am #

    Ari Shavit in his column “Time is working against the state of Israel”, published in Israeli daily Ha’aretz on May 27, 2010. In his Zionist ‘self-denial’ Ari Shavit called four Israeli military humiliations as “the unilateral withdrawals”. He listed his “lamentable events” as Southern Lebanon in 2000, Gaza Strip in 2005, Olmert’s 34-day Lebanon War of 2006 and Olmert’s 23-day war on Gaza in December-January 2009. According to Ari Shavit these events have “strengthened Hizbullah to an unprecidented extent” and have “lead to a dangerous erosion of Israel’s legitimacy”.

    The other threats to the survival of the Zionist entity listed by Ari Shavit are – the militarization of Jew settlers; Palestinians’ lack of interest in the two-state solution and the demographic situation created by Israeli Occupation.

    After listing those realities which are threatening the very existence of the Zionist entity – Ari Shavit discusses the ‘self-denial’ nature of the radical Jewish establishment, which believes that by “putting breaks on Barack Obama’s” Middle East initiatives will give Israel plenty of time to pull out of its current mess. For example, “if we don’t give in, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas, the pesident of the ‘State of West Bank’) will give up” or “Israel was established as a fact on the ground, and will succeed as a fact on the ground”. Ari Shavit concluded that the “illusion that military might and economic prosperity are enough to assure our future” is misplaced and dangerous.

    Somehow, Ari Shavit’s narration of the Israeli situation reminds me of Israel’s second national anthem (first being the Hativkah or ‘The Hope’) since the so-called Six-Day War of 1967, ‘Jerusalem of Gold’, which its writer, Noami Shemer (d. 2004), had plagiarized from a Basque lullaby, Pello Joxepe (listen it in video below), written almost 50 years before the European Jews established their colony in Palestine in 1948.

    http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/time-is-working-against-the-state-of-israel/

  57. yossi said on June 7th, 2010 at 4:25am #

    Oh, How I love American music. It is so original and surprising! Oh, there is NO American Music? oops.. sorry.

    Here is something interesting:

    http://video.foxnews.com/v/4223912/inside-the-freedom-flotilla?playlist_id=87937

  58. mary said on June 7th, 2010 at 5:22am #

    You are having a laugh aren’t you Yossi. You come on here boasting about your academic successes and your job and then put up this Murdoch trash which leaves us is some doubt about your intelligence.

    In no way do you resemble the Tin Man who had no brain at all but you definitely are like the Scarecrow who had no heart. You probably enjoy a good lifestyle within your borderless state but spare some thought for the lives of the children in Gaza. That poem by Richard Tillinghast will give you some clues.

    I would go away and think a while if I were you. Your state’s PR battle is already lost.

  59. JE said on June 7th, 2010 at 2:14pm #

    Steve,

    You’re playing a semantics game. NOTICE I said utility not right to exist. People allow institutions like gov’ts to exist. The “right to exist” is a meaningless phrase when applied to institutions….since both their “rights” and their existence” is predicated on abstraction made by human beings.

    Yossi,

    Yes Abe Foxman the Van Helsing of Anti-Semitism, slaying 89 year old journalists and loose-mouthed gentiles.

    What are “discussion ethics?” Define “discussions ethics” and then we’ll adhere to them. And considering the fact that you’re a troll who isn’t “dissenting” against anything why should we treat you like some sacred cow. Because you’re an Israeli?

    You a banker. Hmmm. I already disdain you.

    You are right though most of the world knows very little of how you live, however, most of the world knows very little about very little. And ironically if they were better informed they would sympathize with you even less.

    And you’re bullshit poorly designed haplotype studies published by third rate Jewish scientists aren’t convincing anyone with a science background (such as myself). Ever heard of circular reasoning?

    And believe me when I say if there was anyone left to give my “land” back to I would gladly do so. Since there isn’t, your comparison is a poor one. The people who’s land you stole probably get your groceries on Shabbatz for you so go get fucked.

  60. hayate said on June 7th, 2010 at 7:00pm #

    I suspect yossi makes for a good representation of israelis. Much like hitler youth made for a good representation of the nazi mindset. There’s really not much difference between zionist fanatics and hitler youth when one thinks about it so it’s useful to have soulless sayanim/hasbarats reinforce that comparison.

  61. Stephen Zielinski said on June 8th, 2010 at 7:09am #

    JE wrote:

    “Steve,

    You’re playing a semantics game. NOTICE I said utility not right to exist. People allow institutions like gov’ts to exist. The “right to exist” is a meaningless phrase when applied to institutions….since both their “rights” and their existence” is predicated on abstraction made by human beings.”

    It’s true that I’m using semantics to state that by “justifying its utility,” an institution establishes its RIGHT to exist.

  62. t4too said on June 8th, 2010 at 9:49am #

    this will be the sixtysecond comment on this one article. Gary you seem to have struck paydirt: “The Right To Exist” turns out to be a great debate topic. Does anybody know what the phrase denotes? What a “right” is in this context?
    Legal rights are definable in lawyer speak; Moral Rights in preacher-speak. But the Torah, New Testament, Quran, Book of Mormon, Lotus Sutra, Tao te Ching, I Ching, Immannuel Kant, the Precepts according to Dogen Zenji & followers, Black Elk, Zarathustra, Baron Ulanov (just to namedrop a few) all have different notions of Morality, with a certain amount of overlap of course, but no two views are entirely identical.
    So what is the frame of reference in which the claim that the “Jewish State” has a “right to exist” makes sense, is a coherent statement of fact that can be verified or is falsifiable?
    My personal opinion is that there ain’t no such, but I’m willing to consider whatever the hasbaristas can come up with:)