For the context of the following comments please click on the hyperlinks above them.
(Resonding to an article countering the recent Presbyterian Church’s divestment from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.)
Everyone should hold the Israelis accountable for their thuggishness. Which, it seems to me, stems from an abundance of ethnocentric narcissism and neurosis.
Just as we should, of course, hold ourselves accountable for current manifestations of irrational anti semitism.
But, postponing moral action in the here and now, until we also hold ourselves accountable for 2000 years of ancestor stupidity, does not strike me as helpful.
Consider that the disinvestment is a form of atonement. I assume these were lucrative holdings.
Understand that I am not letting the Palestinians off the hook. They have their own version of pathetic to deal with.
But, someone needs to stand up for the simple people who just want to live in peace and prosperity.
No one should be encouraged to profit from, or revel in the suffering of others.
To the degree that we do, we should stop it.
Yonah – “A just response would be that Hamas bow out, and let Israel and Fatah do the deal that they are quite able and willing to do. Both those parties want to negotiate a resolution. Both of their constituencies want it. It’s almost happened a couple times.”
Hamas is a convenient excuse. What do you suppose the real agenda is?
Which constituents are your referring to?
Guest responding to Jim – “You should try reading the Bible sometime. Israel is not going anywhere, ever.”
Yes, leave it to Abrahamic tradition to earnestly spin the wheel of Samsara.
But forever is a big word.
Yonah – “Most Israelis and Jews generally were shocked when Gaza elected Hamas. Since then, they’ve not been able to arrive at your desired point of just accepting that they should self-destruct.
As to constituencies, constructive ones are the centrists ready, willing, and able to make a deal. All political groups have their Tea Parties to control. Extremists have every economic incentive to knock centrists off the peace process.
Now. As to you addressing a Jew with a direction that he out his people’s supposed hidden agenda at whatever neo-blood libel has highest current market value…well, you can just put that on the same plate with a double-bacon cheeseburger taken to the interfaith pot luck and eat it yourself.”
I liked the first two paragraphs. Last one illustrates a large component of the problem.
My hope is that I don’t have much of a tribe other than people who want to see clearly through the fog.
It’s hard to trust anyone who identifies strongly at the expense of another.
Understanding that we create and maintain our enemies until we don’t.
“Neo Libel”, “interfaith pot luck”? Oh, well.
Yonah – “Yes. Jews have always been a ‘problem‘ in the West.”
West of what?
Yonah responding to Joe Catron – “Now. I have to go to my grandaughter’s T-Ball game in Cardington, Ohio….although I know you wish we were in that village across the border.
So. When you ever leave Gaza…would you come to Ohio and maybe kill some Jewish kids in ‘response‘? What’s the big diff?”
If someone laid this kind of deflective nonsense on you, what conclusions would you draw about their grasp of truth and justice?
Oh, right; I must hate Jews for even asking.
Yonah responding to Joe Catron – “..and then for you to throw you moral hands up in the air…wash your hands of the blood by fleeing to the imported karmic religions as an insulation from moral accountability FOR YOUR OWN PERSONAL MORAL EFFECT ON GAZAN YOUTH…Really?”
Not sure if you are getting your own religion right, but I would say, that it is the highest “morality” to recognize wisdom, and choose to serve it.
An “Eye for an Eye” leaves the entire world blind.
A Buddhist understands this. The lesson has been learned.
I would like to think that at least some Rabbi’s get it as well. But, tradition and ethnocentric “self righteousness” has a very strong center of gravity. Who would listen to them?
Well Yonah, I will not go down that blind alley with you. Wasting words back and forth. I have said what I have to say and said it with what skill I have.
If you find it useless tripe, just say that. Why let yourself go off the rails like this. Annotating a phantom conversation with a imagined adversary.
I have read your conversation with Joe Catron and don’t need to repeat it.
My points are still standing unaddressed. We can leave it that way and let others make of it what they will. As you suggest.
It takes a lot of time to write less. Filling the page with words provides too much opportunity to be an asshole.
and…, gives certain readers more minutia to quibble about.
For lack of an adequate term I used “ethnocentric”. The meaning should still be apparent from the context.
Anyway, I’m talking about Israelis. Particularly the West Bank Settlement “nuts”. And hard line Zionists.
It’s not just soldiers who have “bled and died” for their “religious extremism”. We all have to put our hopes and dreams for a sane world on hold, while those folks and their shadow demons, feed the flames of holocaust.
I include the sociopathic elements of Islam in this as well. You seem to have “overlooked” that reference, along with everything else I’ve said. So please knock off the dishonesty.
Yonah – “Who in Gaza’s Palestinian community will say to Hamas leadership ‘We bled and died for your religious extremism?‘
Apparently, it won’t be anyone you support.”
I don’t need to write more to make myself understood. You seem so eager to illuminate the problem for me.
Here is the original comment for those who prefer not to plow back through the mountain of verbiage above.
In the service of Truth. 