Posts Tagged ‘Israel’

What’s Anti-Semitic and What’s Not

Posted: November 15, 2023 by datechguy in culture
Tags: , , ,

Ok let me start this post by noting two things up front:

  1. I am an unabashed supporter of Israel’s response to what Hamas has done and am horrified that anyone believes that
    • Hamas’ attack on Oct 7th can be justified
    • That Oct 7th was a false flag (yes there are some of those)
  2. Looking back at History over the last 75 years I conclude that other than the Jews there are no people the Arab/Muslim world hates more than the Palestinians. Consider:
    • They have been used and exploited by the Arabs since the first day Israel existed
    • They have been used as a wedge both by the eastern bloc during the cold war by Arab states against the Jews ever since.
    • Their own leadership (and others) have used them as a cash cow to wealth & power while letting them stay poor.
    • Countries like Iran have used them as expendable in order to advance their agenda
    • In every Arab country they have settled in they are treated at best as 2nd class citizens at least when they’re not being slaughtered
    • Any one of them who would actually be willing to make peace would have the life expectancy of a Jew in Gaza with no IDF.

Frankly if I was raised a Palestinian I’d be damn angry too.

Ok so let’s cut to the chase of this post. The word “anti-Semitic” has been out there a lot lately and if people want it to avoid it becoming as meaningless as the left has made the word “racism” it’s important to use it correctly and acknowledge that there is a difference between something or someone being “anti-Semitic’ and something or someone being “wrong” about something.

To this end I have made a small but likely not complete list:

  • It is a legitimate opinion that Israel’s response to Hamas’ Oct 7th attack is the wrong one. Holding that opinion doesn’t make one either a Jew hater or anti-Semitic. Now I myself think such an opinion is about as idiotic as the no cash bail business in US cities which reward bad behavior and create more of it, but that doesn’t make one anti-Semitic, it makes one, in my opinion a fool, but not anti-Semitic.
  • It is a legitimate thing to hold a march in favor of the Palestinians and rallies in support of same with speeches and signs both on campus and in large cities provided said marchers:
    • Obey local laws
    • Do not commit vandalism
    • Do not commit violence
    • Do not call for the extermination of Jews or the destruction of Israel

(If anyone sees the supports of the Palestinians manage these four things please let me know as that would be breaking news).

  • It is a perfectly legitimate opinion to argue that the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was either a bad idea or caused more problems for the world then it solved. To argue that the Jews had no more right to a Jewish state in the land they were practically erased from 2000 years ago then the Aztecs have a claim to Mexico city because they had an empire there till the 1500’s is not anti-Semitic.

I don’t hold that opinion and one can no more predict an alternate past then one can predict the future. I can only note that for the Jewish people having a homeland in their ancestral lands has been a plus in terms of racial and cultural identity and given the horrors of the holocaust it has given them the power to ensure their survival as a race. That seems like a pretty strong case for the state of Israel, particularly when you consider how Arab Israeli’s have done, seemingly a lot better than those around them (at least those who don’t have oil).

That opinion btw crosses the line into antisemitism when it becomes an excuse to attempt to wipe out a firmly established internationally recognized state and slaughter the people in it.

  • It is not anti-Semitic to argue that the Arabs who have been in the land that is now Israel were there for hundreds or even thousands of years and while there have been multiple empires ruling over them from the Romans to the Byzantines to the Ottomans to the Brits to even the Crusaders for a time that their attachment to the land is just as legitimate as anyone else.

This frankly is the strongest point in favor of the Palestinians and one that I believe is not resolvable without their consent because they can argue that the UN mandate was carried out without their consent. It’s basically an eminent domain case.

  • It is not anti-Semitic to note that because the Muslim Arabs in the middle east have a different culture than the west it is perfectly legitimate for them to look Israel in general and all of these thing in particular in a different light than a person with a western culture and a part of western civilization does. That in itself is no more anti-Semitic or evil then a Hindu in India circa 1845 looking at the British rule differently than the west did.

Now once that cultural difference becomes an excuse to slaughter Jews in their sleep or murder them with impunity then I would argue that not only does it become anti-Semitic but both the west in General and Israel in particular have the right, indeed the obligation to treat such actions in the same way that Sir Charles James Napier treated the practitioners of Suttee in India.

  • It is certainly not anti-semitic to call for a Palestinian state not named “Jordan” which was to be the original Arab state established by the UN mandate. In fact given the way the Palestinians have been treated by all the Arabs in the area a state separate from both Israel and the Arab states that surround it might be the only solution for them to get a fair shake, provided those in charge of such a state are not either kleptocrats who rob their own people blind or killers who want to use such a state as a staging ground for attempt to destroy Israel or both

If you can explain any way to avoid having such people in charge let me know.

  • Finally it is not anti-Semitic to deny the existence of the God of the Jews or consider the Jewish religion as bunk. In fact there are plenty of Jews who think this is the case (the old Joke goes “Jews are a people who believe in one God or less”) Now as a Christian in general and a Catholic in particular I say such a denial is not only bunk but a great danger to the soul but having that opinion is no more anti-Semitic then saying that Mohammad is no more a prophet of God than my older brothers are is anti Arab.

Well this is my list, if you want an easier guide to if someone is anti-Semitic or someone just holds a different opinion I have a really simple rule of thumb.

If someone is lying to your face about things like:

  • Jews are colonizers and were never in Israel
  • there was never a Jewish temple in the holy land
  • There are no hostages being held by Hamas
  • The Jews are committing genocide against the Palestinians

Odds are you won’t go too wrong thinking “anti-Semite” although given what I’ve seen of students today if you want to go with “ignorance” you likely aren’t doing bad either.

Finally the discloser bit. I’m not a Jew, I’ve never considered becoming Jewish and my only connections to Judaism are:

  • 1/8th of my nieces and nephews both from blood and marriage are married to Jews (both nephews who married Jewish women).
  • My Catholic faith is completely derivative of Judaism. My God is the Jewish God and I state that his son is the Messiah of the Jews. Or as I like to joke: The difference between Christians & Jews is:
    • Jews think we’ve jumped the gun
    • We think they’ve missed the boat.

So if you are Jewish and think I’m wrong about these evaluations of what is anti-Semitic and what isn’t feel free to leave your opinion in comments or write a post rebutting me at your site.

Rewriting History’s Unintended Consequences

Posted: November 10, 2023 by datechguy in culture, Israel, middle east, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

Lt Harry Welsh: [watching Dutch women being shorn of their hair] What did they do?

Van Kooijk: They slept with the Germans. They are lucky. The men who collaborated are being shot.

Band of Brothers Replacements 2001

One of the things we have seen a lot from the left in general and our Arab friends in particular is the re-writing of history when it comes to Israel and the Jews. This consists of both the rewriting of the ancient history of Jews in Israel to the rewriting of the events of Oct 7th last month.

This lie is not only designed to justify themselves but to avoid the uncomfortable truths. You see if the Jews have been in Judea since the days when Abraham was still called Abram and if they are not the oppressors that they claim then the Arabs have to see what they’re doing in the light of truth and then the decision to slaughter Jews in any way possible becomes not a righteous cause but a choice between good or evil and while many might well decide is it “good” claiming an religious imprimatur, other might see things as they are and repent, and we can’t have that.

Put simply it’s more comfortable living with history’s re-write than dealing with the uncomfortable realities of history

But while this rewrite of history is the Arab dilemma, our response to this and unwillingness to deal with it properly comes from a re-write of our own. A rewrite accidently illustrated by these words from of all people Nathan Sharansky:

Sharansky, an Israeli human rights activist who spent years in a Soviet gulag, said schools such as Harvard and Yale have become bastions of support for terrorism—a big difference from World War II, when the vast majority of the Western world opposed the Nazi regime.

“All the world was against the Nazi regime, and nobody was sorry with [it] being destroyed,” said Sharansky during a discussion with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America on Wednesday. “Today, the legitimacy for the regimes like Hamas is coming from Oxford, from Harvard, from Yale, from Penn, from all these centers.”

Emphasis mine

In a lot of books, movies etc these are the words of the west not only about how World War 2 was fought but what people thought of the Nazis and of the extermination of the Jews.

It’s not.

Before the start of World War 2 the Nazi regime was much admired by many in the west. Time made Hitler their man of the year. There were big fans of both Hitler and Mussolini in the US in both academic and political circles not to mention among the many German and Italian American communities (as a rule the Sicilians didn’t care for Il Duce as he cracked down on the Mafia but that’s another story…).

In fact I remember watching one of the Charlie Chan Movies: Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937) where his oldest son qualifies for the US Olympic swimming team for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and on the trip there is a mystery involving a murder and a stolen device made for the US Military. In the Germany Chan teams with a German police inspector Inspector Strasser to find the murderer and recover the equipment. All throughout this movie you see lines like this when Chan beats the steamship to Germany and he along with Inspector Strasser meet the ship :

Inspector Strasser: Exactly! You see Mr. Chan, German methods are very thorough.

Charlie Chan: Have greatest admiration for well known efficiency

And as there are a series of thefts, assaults’ and more there is a line constantly repeated by the inspector:

Inspector Strasser: It’s impossible! Things like this can not happen in Berlin!

In the images actually taken from the film of the Olympics there are crowds of people giving the Nazi salute as the Olympic torch is brought in and the flame lit with no thought at all that it might be controversial to moviegoers worldwide and of course the German police arrive just in time to save the day.

As for Antisemitism it was prevalent in a portion of the population, many of them elite in what would become the allied countries as well as in Germany.

When war with Germany came first to the UK and then the US (which interned plenty of Germans and Italians as well as Japanese but that gets little press as it doesn’t serve the left’s narrative) suddenly admiration of the Axis was no longer chic (In fact in the US the left embraced the Nazis after the non aggression pact with Soviets and didn’t reject them until Hitler invaded Russia) and once the horrors of the death camps was not only exposed but were shown to troops en masse and to dignitaries so they could not be denied, open antisemitism was unthinkable.

Thus came the mutually beneficial myth that all were united against the Axis as it gave cover to many whose real opinions and sympathies might have been an embarrassment and it not only allowed a sense of unity to take place but allowed international stances against many of the horrors that had been common to humanity for thousands of years to be advanced and codified into international law at a time when those who might have objected were not only be isolated in their defense but might want the financial aid of the very rich proudly Christian US who along with Canada and Australia (both still highly Christian and proud of it) who were advancing these ideas.

And thus came the myth of the unity against the Nazis and against the horrors and evils they advanced.

And because of this myth many who held these views needed a release for them, and thus came the alliance of the anti-Semites with the Marxists and the Arabs who didn’t want any part of the Jews.

That’s the real secret here. The antisemitism was always there, but because of the comfortable illusion of unity people let it be.

I’m sure they thought it was a good idea at the time, but we’re paying for it now.

Yes You can Blame the US and the UK and Australia and Yes Even Israel in a Fram Oil Filter sort of way

Posted: November 7, 2023 by datechguy in culture, Israel, Israel vs Hamas, middle east
Tags: , , , , ,

King Richard (Disguised): Oh, now I remember. How does your loyalty to Richard set on a killer of knights, a poacher of the king’s deer and an outlaw?

Robin Hood: Those I’ve killed died from misusing the trust that Richard left them. And the worst rogue of these is the king’s own brother.

King Richard (Disguised): Oh, then you blame Prince John.

King Richard (Disguised): No, I blame Richard. His task was defending his people instead of deserting them to fight in foreign lands.

The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938

Since the beginning of the Israel Hamas War I have seen a concerted effort to blame Israel and the west:

  • For the Hamas Attacks
  • For the Reactions on Western Campus
  • For the Response to Mass Protests
  • For the open antisemitism in the west

Now of course Hamas did the attack and the slaughter than brought this all on but when it comes to blaming the west let’s to the chase. They have a point.

  • I blame the west for ignoring the problem of Radical Islam in General and Hamas in particular.
  • I blame the west for allowing illegal migration bringing supporters of Jew slaughter to their lands
  • I blame the west for not enforcing their own laws against those who came illegally or even legally.
  • I blame the west for punishing those who objected to these double standards.
  • I blame the west for silencing any who warned about what was happening (see Spencer & Geller et/al)
  • I blame the west for attacking their own civilization for trifles (see microaggressions) but ignoring actual crimes of others.
  • I blame the west for letting their educational systems be taken over by those who hate us.
  • I blame the west for letting themselves be paid off
  • I blame the west for playing the “moral equivalence” game
  • I blame the west for funding the Palestinians in general and Gaza in particular without control or audit of the funds or materials.
  • I blame the west for not supporting those opposing the Mullahs in Iran
  • I blame the west for not taking out the Mullahs when they had armies both to the east and the west of them
  • I blame the west in general and the Biden Administration in particular for funding Iran
  • I blame the west for pressuring Israel to stop fighting back for the sake of peace and quiet.

And most important of all

  • I blame the west for doing all these things while there was still a chance of stopping this at a low cost.

And I don’t leave out Israel from the blame game

  • I blame Israel for deluding themselves that you could contain Hamas
  • I blame Israel and Israelis for pretending that the Palestinians want peace
  • I blame Israel for giving back Gaza, legitimately won in war with Egypt, to the Palestinians.

But most of all

  • I blame Israel for not finishing the job nine years ago when Hamas hit them or frankly any of the other dozen times that Hamas attacks and they let it go.

I actually had “giving Egypt back the Sinai” on this list but you can argue that an active peace with Egypt was worth it of course actually given Israel’s nuclear deterrence and active peace with Egypt was going to be the norm anyways, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt here.

So if you want to blame the US or blame the UK or blame Australia or even blame Israel, you do have a point in the sense that all of these that have happened were preventable so you are basically making the Fram oil filter argument from the 1970’s ads.

Israel and the west decided they wanted to pay the price later and are now doing so.

Let’s Do the “Enfield Rifles, Israeli Tanks & Palestinian Lies” about Gaza Post Again

Posted: November 3, 2023 by datechguy in Israel, Israel vs Hamas, middle east
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I have this horrible feeling of “Déjà Vu

“Déjà Vu Monty Python’s Flying Circus 1970

It’s been nearly 10 years since my post titled Enfield Rifles, Israeli Tanks & Palestinian Lies” went up on this blog in response to claims by Palestinians that Israel was targeting civilians in their response to another Hamas attack that was immediately followed by calls from the left for a cease fire since Hamas was no longer in a position to effectively kill Jews in safety.

Unlike the last time however there seem to be a massive amount of western students educated by expensive elite colleges that have been getting a lot of fund from Arab states that seem to be making the same claims of “Genocide” and “targeting civilians” that were just as false 9 years ago when Israel wasn’t all in the way they are now.

It appears that these young mush for brains while being instructed on all 387 genders have not been taught anything about simple logic so I will explain to them the fallacy of their position in a way they will hopefully understand.

If you just want to read the original post you can click here as the point as much of the text will be the same but if you want to check out my embellishments read on:

There was a great video of Ben Shapiro answering a lot of nonsense from the “Death to Israel” crowd, a crowd so ignorant at best or mendacious as worst that one actually claimed that England didn’t bomb civilians during world war 2. The Oxford Union doesn’t allow embedding but you can view it here.

It takes a lot of ignorance for people to fall for this line although I suspect it’s more in the sense of a religious belief than actual ignorance, but for all the influences out there parroting the. “Targeting of Civilians” and “Genocide” line there is a witness who can without question prove the falsehood of that claim: The late General Reginald Dwyer.

On  April 13th 1919 General Dwyer led a contingent of about 90 men to Jallianwala Bagh where there was a large crowd of Indians some for protest and some for a local fair.

After deploying 50 of his men armed with bolt action Lee Enfield Rifles (First introduced in 1895) he opened fire on the crowd.  After expending aprox 1650 rounds his troops managed to inflict over 1500 casualties on the crowd with between 379 & 1000 dead depending on whose figures you believe.

Dyer never for one moment denied that he was deliberately targeting unarmed civilians, in fact Dyer actually had armored cars armed with machine guns but he was unable to bring them to bear. At the official inquiry he bluntly stated publicly that had he been able to deploy them he would have used them.

Once again here is the scene from the movie Gandhi that vividly portrayed that scene which is a key moment in the movement for Indian independence known as the Amritsar or the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.  

Now any good anti colonialist likely knows about what happened here and rightly decries it as an evil act. I suspect that if you mentioned it to the students currently marching in favor of Hamas they might have even been taught about this as it rightly portrays a white western colonial power in a bad light.

The problem however for our friends on the left is that this action clearly establishes their claims against Israel and their narrative in Gaza as a lie.

Consider the following:

  • General Dwyer had 50 armed men, using 19th century bolt-action rifles and in only 15 minutes of deliberately targeting a civilian population inflicted 1500 casualties.
  • Israel has called up nearly 400,000 men and women, they have deployed, jets, heavy artillery, tanks and all the weapons that a modern experienced 21st century army has at its disposal. It has been on the ground in Gaza for about five days (as of this writing on Friday morning) t and for several days before this, Israel was launching air and artillery strikes on Gaza.
  • Furthermore they are operating in a very densely populated area. In fact we are constantly told by the defenders of Hamas that Gaza is the most densely populated place there is on earth.

Now think about this for a second.

If we are to believe the Arabs on twitter, the students in universities, the “experts” on various platforms like tic-tok and the Arab media, and those marching in cities in Europe and the US that Israel is and has been deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians since day 1 as part of “genocide” then an obvious question arises:

How is it that the Israeli Army and Air Force, given weeks of time are less efficient killers of civilians than 50 British soldiers armed with bolt-action rifles, introduced when Grover Cleveland was President of the United States, were in 15 minutes?

If Israel was doing what you claim then Gaza would have been depopulated when the first version of this post went up in July of 2014 let alone today.

Bottom line if you are still maintaining that Israel is targeting civilians and committing genocide in Gaza not only do General Dyer, the dead of Amritsar and simple logic call you a nonsensical liar but by speaking this lie you are dishonoring the dead of Amritsar who never even considered the evils that Hamas committed on Oct 7th to begin this war.

Older Entries
Newer Entries