Very true, and yet the ungirded loin is a vulnerable loin.
Indeed, amongst us pirates, the rallying cry often heard is
“Sharpen your cutlasses and tie up your balls;we’re goin’ to work…”
that said, for the ritual schtupping, a free-hanging duo (pace, Lance Armstrong…)
is doubtless best.
I am again confused.
Are you not making the case for a separation of church and state, pursuant to which one would, I think, have to look very carefully at the premises underlying discriminatory practices surrounding access to public benefits
(like, for instance, a license to dig a well.–it has always struck me, maybe because of too deep an attachment to Frank Herbert and his works, that once some poor son of a bitch has actually found water in the desert and dug a well, pouring concrete into it is probably a prescription for a lifelong enemy.
btw, I don’t think defining Israel as a semitic, rather than jewish homeland, would have vitiated one bit the holocaust prophylaxis.;
I think we can count on the latter day Hitler Juniors to round up the arabs along with the jews; also, if it is holocaust prevention and remediation we seek, Israel should also be a homeland for gypsies, since they have no other, were just as much in Hitler’s sites, and experience today a greater measure of racism than the remaining jews in Europe.
We’re a complicated country, but no one understands us but our women.
Can you dig it?
btw, I don’t think defining Israel as a semitic, rather than jewish homeland, would have vitiated one bit the holocaust prophylaxis.;
I think we can count on the latter day Hitler Juniors to round up the arabs along with the jews; also, if it is holocaust prevention and remediation we seek, Israel should also be a homeland for gypsies, since they have no other, were just as much in Hitler’s sites, and experience today a greater measure of racism than the remaining jews in Europe.
Alaric is confused? Oh. Another surprise.
I’ll try again for you.
Israel is the most democratic and secular country in the ME. No where else is close. Few in the ME even dream of other countries becoming anything close to Israel’s level of democracy and rights. Arabs in Israel have more rights than Arabs in most other lands.
For most ME countries the goal is to have a culturally/religiously centered (Arab/Islamic) country with at least some democratization and rights for all citizens. By these standards, Israel is a beacon. Still, it is important for Arab leadership to vilify Israel. As long as attention is focused on the evil that is Israel, it is not focused on the abuse of Arabs by their own.
This may be a poor standard to judge by however. Israel putatively holds itself to be secular. Yet even in comparison to most of Europe’s and even America’s treatment of minority populations Israel does fairly well.
“So what?” I still say. Israel can and should do better. Israel is not perfect and it should hold itself to the highest possible standards. And raising the standard of living and education of its Arab minority serves selfish purposes as well. But it is still amusing to see Arabs and well intended fools vilify Israel above all others. Not naming names mind you.
Now, one state vs two state? Truth be told I am in favor of a one state solution of sorts, eventually. In a few decades maybe, I dream of a federation between a functioning autnomous Palestine and a functioning autonomous Israel collaborating on issues of security, tourism and industrial development, upper level education, etc… long term this will be in both populations best interests.
Alessan, no, I don’t dig it. Trite and superficial I expect from another poster. You I think have the capacity for a more intelligent reply.
DSeid - Trite and superficial are all the OP deserves. I was not responding to your post - I was concurring with it. I apologize if you took it the wrong way.
Yes, after the Arab-Israeli conflict, the tension between the Jewish nature and the democratic nature of my country - which is closely related to the conflict between religious and secular - is the most important problem we have to deal with. It is incredibly complicated, and trying to pick it apart in a thread such as this is a task doomed to futility. Just explaining all the factors involved (political, historical, ethnic, religious, economic) is pretty much beyonnd the capabilities of one such as myself. It would be like solving gun control, abortion rights, Affirmative Action, campaign contributions and the problems inherent in the First Amendment all in one thread. Can’t be done.
Can Israel be both a Jewish state and a democratic state? I think that’s pretty much impossible, but we’ve gotten this far and nobody thought that was possible, so who knows? We don’t have to do six impossible things before breakfast - two or three will be enough.
Good 'nuff. Sorry if I got … whatever. Thanks.
this statement, bleak though the vista it describes may be, is certainly unarguable.
That said, (the dubious example of the USA comes to mind…) it turns out that democratic and secular urgings are no guarantee against militarist and triumphalist tendencies overwelming the people of good will within the ruling circles of any particular country.
**Well, I for one, am greatly relieved…
***Sadly, it appears that the 50% bump of the USPKF promised by your induction will be postpone This is especially as we were planning a fund-raiser to mark the reissue of membership card #3 (we took it off Benny after the purge)
You, in particular, were going to be honored by being assigned the largest fund-raising quota, in keeping with obviously high social status. Oh well… We will have another bake sale, but if Noam eats all the brownies again before we get a chance to sell them, and then insists on singing that wretched version of Hava Nagila that he set to the Internationale, I swear we may be on the verge of total semitic disunity…
We do not have a “federal” caucus–it’s a one semite/one vote kinda thang.
I’m glad we were able to achievarity, if not consensus…
In the year (of some lord or other), 2005, religious affiliation ought not buy political squat ,
(ed note:more negatives there than at the spring “repledge yourself to virginity; it’s never too late…” High School Prom)
One more thing:
I may not be all that well-meaning; I aspire to arm the secularists among the Jews, and the secularists amoung the 'rabs, and turn them loose on the assorted loonies of both sides.
Bring it on, (as the wise man once said…)
Or,
“When I hear the word theocracy, I reach for my gun” (Bob Dylan said that…)
“achieve clarity”
if not consensus
(I’d settle for achieving comprehensibility…)
Hey, the rest of us would like you doing that too!
As to your thoughts about secularists and all that…
Identity in the ME is not so simple a matter as nationality or religion. Things there, for Jew and Arab alike, are of a more ancient stripe. Identity is tribal. Many problems of the region originate with arbitrary impositions of nation-state borders on tribal groupings.
Religion is part of it, for some more than others, but it is far from the only factor. Secularists may be even entirely areligious yet still have a strong tribal identification. And when the tribe’s survival is threatened, or percieved as threatened, most will rally. Your posts with their ill considered genocidal references only serve to polarize.
I will rise to object to the use of “genocide”
Deicide, maybe. Never genocide.
Alas, it remains obscure to me how the religious nuts are to driven back into their caves witout resort to defensive force, if nothing stronger…
And although you are quite right that humans are perfectly capable sorting themselves into mutually homicidal groups witout benefit of religious imprimatur, there really is nothing quite so satisfying and exciting as Murdering for Yahweh (wasn’t that a Michael Moore film…?)
Moreover, whilst tribes at least have the decency to recognize tribal borders, only the religious think it is their fucking duty to impose their neuroses on total strangers who live around the corner and out of sight.
That genotypes indistinguishable in the laboratory nonetheless erect medieval categories of ideological purity to empower their desparate flight from the ordinariness of the human condition merely speaks to the necessity of upgrading the biology curriculum in Junior High School.
We are all the Olduvai Tribe–the rest is commentary.
When the little green men get here (Hasten the day!) that may finally become apparent.
I suppose my objection to the concept of a “jewish state” is founded in revulsion at the conflation of religious practice with an ethnicity susceptible of discrete catgorization.
And, as well, if the Holocaust is to be the rationale for carving out a territory where jews can be “special”, perhaps a more appropriate venue would be Berlin.
(credit to Fran Leibovitz for this provacative suggestion which has the advantage of recognizing that, mirabile dictu, Hitler was not Palestinian.)
You may be right.
I have been canvassing for a consullar official to accept my renunciation of a burden I never signed for–I wish to ritually piss on my “right of return”, and then hand the sodden document over for processing.
Frankly, the only homeland to which my return is possible or relevant is Brooklyn–don’t know much about Tel Aviv.
I feel like the lucky recipients of Mormon post mortem conversions. (many dead jews will be surprised to discover that they have been involuntarily converted when the Kingdom come…)
I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want it. I can’t use it.
And post Sabra and Chatilla, I vomit on it.
I don’t know how to respond to this.
Not because I can’t come up with a cogent response, but because I honestly no longer have a clue what the hell you are trying to say. Each post of yours in this thread is increasingly disjointed from the OP and is rapidly approaching borderline gibberish.
Are you OK? (I’m being sincere here).
One always welcomes the concern of onlookers…
Let me deconstruct.
You offered me the option of “staying off the side” of my JBII.
I would love to do just that, but I find myself constrained by being the involuntary “beneficiary” of a right to “return” (to a place I never left…)
Ever since the massacres of defenseless men, women and children under the careful gaze of That Pig Sharon, I have wondered how I might formally disassociate myself from this rogue nation.
It occurred to me that there ought to be some mechanism whereby people of ashenazic or sepharidic ethicity (with no other connection to the “holy land” than a few micrograms of DNA) could renounce what they perceived of as a burden, not a blessing.
Pondering this, I was unable to discover any such formal route to dis-enfranchisement, and hit upon the urinary demonstration as combining the proper elements of theatricallity, finality, and morality.
As a boy I used to play chess with Larry Peyser, a grand master who frequented the NY Chess Club.
Larry would frequently respond to my “check” as follows:
“I PISS on your check” (slam down piece for emphasis…)
Following in this model, and was seeking a non-verbal means of communicating my feelings about Israel’s behavior, I reduced my attitude to the following.
"I piss on your (actually, on MY) right of return.
It was more under the negligent and careless gaze of Sharon. Sharon didn’t order the massacres or commit the massacres…he just didn’t take proper precautions to prevent the Lebanese from committing the massacres.
Besides, while it’s unfortunate, massacres and atrocities happen in wars. This doesn’t excuse them, but formally disassociating yourself from Israel (a country you don’t really have any association with other than easy emigration there, btw) because of Sabra and Shatilla is like formally disassociating yourself from the US because of My Lai.
Alaric, I’m not a moderator, but your tone and your choice of words seems more suited towards the pit.
“Jew Balls”
“That Pig Sharon”
??
You could talk about these political issues with a little more class.
Hear, hear.
The OP has very little to do with anything you’ve said since; it’s as if this was just a flashy title to attract some comments that you could use as a jumping-off point for your anti-Israel vitriol.
If you have something you want to say, why not just say it? It’s as if you’re afraid of revealing whatever agenda you have in mind and keep beating around the bush with your cryptic rantings, hoping someone will ask the right question or make the proper comment. Speaking of balls, I’d suggest you grow a pair.
gosh, I thought I was uncommonly clear.
Let me try and put it differently.
Israel is a colonial outpost with no greater or less legitimacy than Northern Ireland, Rhodesia or pre Mandela South Africa
UNLESS
a)you choose to accept a “deed” from one Yassir Ahweh
(ed note: “really…”) Sorry, couldn’t resist…
purporting to vest title to the land in the historical progenitors of present day Israeli’s, the said deed more or less set forth in the Old Testament, and upon which document Israel may be heard to rely for what it is worth (and don’t let me be misunderstood, it is worth plenty. The Cuilt of Yahweh has done well for itself, (ironically, the real “producers” in this respect are the Muslims, but I digress…)
or, failing which,
b)you rely upon the UN General Asembly sanctioned partition to legitimize a transfer of sovereignty made without the express participation of people then therein dwelling.
If b, israel is a creature of the UN and has no business treating general assembly
resolutions like they were toilet paper, let alone violating security council resolutions, let alone carrying on in an occupied territory in flagrant violation of international law.
if a), let us refer to the deed.
It appears to run to Abraham and his seed.
Forgive an obtuse old pirate, but I always thought Ishmael was not only Isaac’s brother, but his older brother at that.
So what’s up with the land grab?
Now, the relevance to the much maligned OP.
When what you want is to take the land but not be troubled with the people, you have a “people problem”
How do we solve a problem?
Why, we find a “solution”
as soon as you grant the legitimacy of transferring sovereignty involuntarily (ie, the british partition was not subject to any sort of referendum in situ that I know of, cf, for instance East Timor, the proposed Kashmir referendum, etc.
So anyway, we have a non consensual transfer of sovereignty, from Britain (who received it from the defunct ottomans, who took it by force from predecessor states, but who had no more legitimacy in modern terms than did the brits.) to the state of Israel (which is what happens when Britain decides to walk away from a mess it has made through colonial outdwellings-think communal homicide in the indian subcontinent, circa 1948…)
so having drawn the boundaries, and then expanded them a taste, and having a variety of preferences for jewish as opposed to palestinian branches of the Abrahamic cousins , Bibi wants to kvetch about only having a FIVE TO ONE HEAD START!!!
How much of an advantage should a people need. If Israel is the state that vindicates yahweh’s plan for the land he promised Abe, let Yahweh “get busy”