Every year around this time we Jews celebrate the fact that some of our ancestors participated in a sucessful insurgency. Israel had come under the control of a Western power (the Greeks through a Syrian puppet) and were imposing a set of then Western values upon our ancestral tribe. A campaign began to drive off the Western power. At first it was through terrorism, killing those who were cooperating with the Westerners or taking on their values, and it soon evolved into a more traditional war. They won, probably just by convincing the Greeks that it wasn’t worth their on-going effort. Counter-insurgencies tilted the balance a few times after but finally those who believed in the autonomy of the native culture (“the pious”) prevailed. Of course within a couple of generations they were Hellenized and corrupt and barabarically evil and invited the Romans in to settle their own squabbles ending the Kingdom of Israel.
Of course since it was us and our right to have our own culture we lionize these brave soldiers and their insurgent hammer-strikes.
Any parallels with today in the Arab world, at least as seen through their eyes? No, the West is not scarificing pigs in holy mosques, but the perception is that the West is imposing its values and culture upon the Arab world, albeit in more insiduous ways. We must realize that the terror and insurgent groups percieve themselves cast the same as the Maccabees, but in much more interconnected world.
Well, it wasn’t “the Greeks through a Syrian puppet”. It was an independent kingdom, founded by one of Alexander the Great’s generals, Seleucus, whose capital was in Syria (Antioch) And Judea had been part of the Seleucid Empire for 160 years by the Maccabee revolt. Also, the Maccabee revolt was just part of a whole series of revolts and incursions against the Seleucids.
This ground has been plowed before, for example there’s and essay by PJ O’Rourke, titled something like “Our 2,000 Year Old Middle East Policy Problem.” I think its in Give War a Chance.
Why even look so far as the Macabbees? How did we win the American Revolution? With guerrila warfare (we practically invented it and it was considered distinctly unsporting), economic terrorism (shipping unsound goods to England, such as faked nutmegs), and the inherent advantage of fighting on home soil against a foreign army – which was under the orders of a leader that took the conflict just a little too personally.
Curse you, Captain Amazing! You got here with the nitpick I was going to make first. Just for that I will, in the spirit of vengeance, nitpick your nitpick :).
Actually the area of Judaea had been a Ptolemaic possesion from at least 301. It only was taken definiteively by the Seleucids after Antiochus III’s victory at Panion in 200. So at the time of the Jewish revolt it had been in Seleucid hands some thirty-odd years.
No. The French defeated the Royal Navy in the Chesepeake, cutting off Corwallis and allowing his army to be cornered by Washington in a conventional battle.
Guerilla warfare has been around ever since there were organized armies for unorganized foes to fight against. I twas at best a minor part of the American Revolution and played little part militarily in wining against the British. It may have done a fair amount in rousing and keeping up anti-British support by civiliains while the conventional army was working at getting up to par.
Well, personally I’m waiting with glee for the day when DNA analysis gets sophisticated enough to tell EXACTLY who people’s ancestors were. I mean come on, Islam hasn’t been around all that long in the grand scheme of things, so Saddam’s ancestors may very well have been Jewish, no?
The greeks offended by the ancient Jews by sacrificing pigs on holy sites, and preventing the locals from carrying out their culture. American soldiers are *allowing]/i] the locals to choose their own culture.And millions of Iraqis participate in the elections, proving that the majority want to take an active part in determining their culture.
Unlike the story of Chanuka–The insurgents aren’t defending their country’s freedom against a western attacker. They are trying to prevent their country from winning its freedom to determine its own culture, and return it to Saddam’s tyranny.
I would be very odd if some of his ancestors were not Jewish. But it’s unlikely that he has unbroken maternal line leading back to that most recent Jewish ancestor.
Damn straight.
The only question is WW’s I and II.
Either the Kaiser would be buried outside a retirement home in Miami and Hitler living in an Austrian Old Painter’s Home, or the remaining world would all speak German.
Other than providing money, the guns, the gunpowder, clothing, food, direct military and naval intervention, diplomatic intervention encouraging various other European nations to aid us, taking military actions in alternate theaters that more directly threatened critical British interests - the sugar islands in the Caribbean, Gibraltar with Spain, what contribution did the French really make to the American Revolution?
No, it’s not all about France v. Britain round 4, but the American Revolution without France is kind of like WWII without the USSR.
