Thursday, April 06, 2006
Read this at someone else's blog and I know it's a bit long but if you're interested in Middle Eastern politics, you'll certainly find this very informative insha Allah.
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I'm talking about how a certain country is ever uncritically treated in mainstream American media. I talked about how whenever even established academics present reasonable, sensible critiques of Israeli foreign policy, the media still doesn't deal with the substance of such critiques, but ends up lamely debating whether or not the charges are anti-Semitic.
So here I am talking about this with a friend and I notice, out of the corner of my beautiful eye, a middle-aged woman who is getting way too interested in our discussion, and I don't mean sexually.
So eventually she waltzes over, leaving her book open on her magenta-top two-seater table, and interrupts me and my friend, and begins to go on this rant about how if Israel is "racist," well then so are the neighboring Arab states, the favorite argument of the type of people who actually have no argument -- their strategy is to talk about other bad stuff that happens in the world, as if this is a reasonable way of discussing an issue. Wimps.
She quoted extensively from Joan Peters' widely discredited though nevertheless widely plagiarized 'From Time Immemorial,' a horrible sham of a book that Alan Dershowitz used for his still more horrible book, 'The Case for Israel,' and by "used" I mean cut+pasted. This is Harvard scholarship, folks -- Norman Finkelstein professionally and pointedly dismantled Dershowitz' every argument, in the manner of a carpet-bombing academic feeling no mercy for the deceptive and downright dimwitty: 'Beyond Chutzpah.' A thrilling read.
Here were some of her arguments, and my rebuttals:
Tiny Israel was attacked by so many Arab countries
Haven't we evolved past the Neolithic? Tiny England conquered 25% of the world; are we supposed to feel like England was outgunned and outmatched and pity them as they slaughtered Native American, Zulu, Indian, Aborigine and the like? Apparently not -- a lot of Zionists use this argument, by way of sympathy, though the fact that Israel won, and handily so, in pretty much every encounter, seems to give the lie to their claim of being surrounded and overmatched. Smells like sheer racism to me. Being surrounded means nothing since the invention of artillery. (Or else, are we supposed to feel bad for tiny Nazi Germany attacking big, bad Russia?)
Jews yearned for Palestine. Palestinians didn't
They didn't until they were kicked out. Thud. After September 11th, the number of American flags in New York seemed to quadruple; probably elsewhere throughout this country, too. Does this mean that before 9/11, New Yorkers weren't patriotic? Of course not. All it means is that, in the wake of a national disaster, we were reminded of our city and our country and of how important those things are to us. Flying the flag was one way of expressing that deep attachment. It doesn't mean it's a new attachment.
Jerusalem is mentioned in the Torah like 300 times. Jerusalem is in the Qur'an maybe what, once?
Indonesia is never mentioned in the Qur'an. Does that mean you can kick Muslims out of Indonesia, because it's not mentioned in the Qur'an? What kind of stupid argument is that? [I actually said this to her. She had no response.] Just because you arguably feel more strongly about something than someone else doesn't mean you can take it by force. I might take better care of my neighbor's house than he does; that does not legitimate my right to just take the damned thing. When the Prophet (pbuh) returned to Makkah, he didn't remove its original inhabitants. He didn't force them to convert. He let them live in peace. That's what an incredible moral person would do.
There was no such thing as Palestine
There was no such thing as Israel before Moses led the Israelites (partway) there. So there. Just because the name of a place changes doesn't mean the people who lived there didn't live there any less so.
Jews built up Palestine
There was nothing there before.If there was nothing there, why are so many Arab cities on the coast bordered by new, Jewish cities? There would be no reason to build a West Jerusalem if there wasn't already an east Jerusalem.
In conclusion, she lost. I expected no less.
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I'm talking about how a certain country is ever uncritically treated in mainstream American media. I talked about how whenever even established academics present reasonable, sensible critiques of Israeli foreign policy, the media still doesn't deal with the substance of such critiques, but ends up lamely debating whether or not the charges are anti-Semitic.
So here I am talking about this with a friend and I notice, out of the corner of my beautiful eye, a middle-aged woman who is getting way too interested in our discussion, and I don't mean sexually.
So eventually she waltzes over, leaving her book open on her magenta-top two-seater table, and interrupts me and my friend, and begins to go on this rant about how if Israel is "racist," well then so are the neighboring Arab states, the favorite argument of the type of people who actually have no argument -- their strategy is to talk about other bad stuff that happens in the world, as if this is a reasonable way of discussing an issue. Wimps.
She quoted extensively from Joan Peters' widely discredited though nevertheless widely plagiarized 'From Time Immemorial,' a horrible sham of a book that Alan Dershowitz used for his still more horrible book, 'The Case for Israel,' and by "used" I mean cut+pasted. This is Harvard scholarship, folks -- Norman Finkelstein professionally and pointedly dismantled Dershowitz' every argument, in the manner of a carpet-bombing academic feeling no mercy for the deceptive and downright dimwitty: 'Beyond Chutzpah.' A thrilling read.
Here were some of her arguments, and my rebuttals:
Tiny Israel was attacked by so many Arab countries
Haven't we evolved past the Neolithic? Tiny England conquered 25% of the world; are we supposed to feel like England was outgunned and outmatched and pity them as they slaughtered Native American, Zulu, Indian, Aborigine and the like? Apparently not -- a lot of Zionists use this argument, by way of sympathy, though the fact that Israel won, and handily so, in pretty much every encounter, seems to give the lie to their claim of being surrounded and overmatched. Smells like sheer racism to me. Being surrounded means nothing since the invention of artillery. (Or else, are we supposed to feel bad for tiny Nazi Germany attacking big, bad Russia?)
Jews yearned for Palestine. Palestinians didn't
They didn't until they were kicked out. Thud. After September 11th, the number of American flags in New York seemed to quadruple; probably elsewhere throughout this country, too. Does this mean that before 9/11, New Yorkers weren't patriotic? Of course not. All it means is that, in the wake of a national disaster, we were reminded of our city and our country and of how important those things are to us. Flying the flag was one way of expressing that deep attachment. It doesn't mean it's a new attachment.
Jerusalem is mentioned in the Torah like 300 times. Jerusalem is in the Qur'an maybe what, once?
Indonesia is never mentioned in the Qur'an. Does that mean you can kick Muslims out of Indonesia, because it's not mentioned in the Qur'an? What kind of stupid argument is that? [I actually said this to her. She had no response.] Just because you arguably feel more strongly about something than someone else doesn't mean you can take it by force. I might take better care of my neighbor's house than he does; that does not legitimate my right to just take the damned thing. When the Prophet (pbuh) returned to Makkah, he didn't remove its original inhabitants. He didn't force them to convert. He let them live in peace. That's what an incredible moral person would do.
There was no such thing as Palestine
There was no such thing as Israel before Moses led the Israelites (partway) there. So there. Just because the name of a place changes doesn't mean the people who lived there didn't live there any less so.
Jews built up Palestine
There was nothing there before.If there was nothing there, why are so many Arab cities on the coast bordered by new, Jewish cities? There would be no reason to build a West Jerusalem if there wasn't already an east Jerusalem.
In conclusion, she lost. I expected no less.
Faraz Ahmed 6:12 p.m.