Letters to the Editor
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I have a question...
Why is Israel and it's problems any of America's business? Why is it our job to fund them and supply them with weapons? I would be very surprised if anyone can give a non-religious answer.
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just curious
rakhia--
As one admittedly ambivalent about Israel, I'm curious to hear your solutions to the following hypotheticals:
What course should Jews have adopted immediately post-WWII? If Zionist Israel were to dissolve or disband, what course should Israeli Jews adopt?
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thinking back on my visit to israel
twenty years ago, i remembered something. when i came back here i walked down the middle of the sidewalk, like i owned it. if you wanted to pass, *you* stepped aside. this is *not* like me and after a week or so i went back to my more civil ways. (or more sensible, since i'm 5'7" and 160). when jews are in israel it's like the stevie wonder song, "For once, I can say, this is mine, you can't take it". we/they won't let you. the arabs will never be able to and whether america helps (for its own reasons) or not, won't affect it. israel's there for good and so are jews - no matter if half marry out, there will always be jews. as the expression goes, get used to it. or not. it doesn't matter.
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A few thoughts
Boy where do I begin, I read thru a lot of great opinions on both sides. My take on AIPAC is the same for any foreign lobby, the US must be highly critical of their efforts when it becomes apparent that its meant to further the foreign powers' agendas and not that of the US. Also, I would argue that these politicians are whores to where the money is, and its not just in AIPAC - they'll spout any convenient garbage to get it - and later deny it or say it was taken out of context when it no longer suits their purpose. As in Watergate - follow the money!!!
As for anti-zionism = anti-semitism, I personally don't see it, but from some of the posts that I've read many Jews and Christians feel that zionism = jewishness. For me it would be the same as saying that you hate all [insert racial group of choice here], just because you deplore the policies of the government of their native country or that of their parents, et al. Some Jews may say well you don't understand the sublties of the relationship of a Jew to Isreal, maybe not, but it's policies are erily similar to that of the Nazi government (minus the gas chambers and overt call to kill the "sub-humans" that live around them). I guess it was no different than Joshua deciding that it was in "God's best interest" to wipe out all men, women, and children in the land of Milk and Honey who were not of the chosen people. Maybe the story was allegorical, but when you use a document that was written a couple of thousand years ago as a document for a Bill of Sale, then everything in the Jewish testament can be read as truth. Funny, how the definition of tolerance is slowly coming to mean - just wack the other guy, it's easier in the end.
It's not the truth, justice, and the American way that I believe in.
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"Help, my son the doctor is drowning!"
Who controls the media, banking, the military-industrial-entertainment complex? Rich people. Those SOBs really stick together, I'll give 'em that. And boy, do they network! And send their kids to Ivy League schools. Can't stand 'em. But I sure wish I had their money! It kind of sucks to be lower middle class, i .e., barely scraping by. But at least I'm not rich! Then I'd have a hard time getting into heaven, according to that Jewish guy Jesus.
I'm sorry, this debate devolves so quickly into ad hominem (if you argue that you are a _____; therefore your argument is not good)--I feel my only recourse is to make jokes. That way, I feel as if I am, somehow, in control. Instead of dirt on the sandle of a nonexistent god.
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zionism is a liberation movement
and like all liberation movements it has its "pot callers". blacks get called racist, mothers get called anti-family, jews get called nazis. gays are accused of having an "agenda", jews of having an "aipac conspiracy". what caught me off guard was that it was coming from the left - but then, stalin was a lefty too.
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sweet baby Jesus was born and raised there!
sweet baby Jesus gave his life for us Americans!
America, fuck yeah!
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AIPAC etc.
You don't really need subtle cultural understanding and penetrating text criticism to dismiss out of hand the racial and theological myths of zionism. It's amazing it's even discussed seriously. One writer comments at length and eloquently about the nature of the Hebrew covenant with God: what possible use is it to draw any conclusions from ancient fantasies about how to organize and sustain people who actually have to live in that region today? The population of Israel is diverse, and has large portions of Russian and other emigrants who have no real connection to that land, though they can be forgiven if it represents freedom from a variety of oppressions they suffered where they came from. But unforgivable are certain groups of American Zionists, from the raving and rabid Brooklynites who pour into occupied lands like Gold Rush settlers to stake their real estate claims, to more privileged and cynical Jews in higher media and government positions who treat Israel like their Petit Trianon, where they can get hard-ons watching their macho fantasies of conquest and nation building carried out by less privileged and more desperate co-religionists.
AIPAC represents the most sordid and pornographic American fantasies of Judaism, and American politicians should be as ashamed to attend their gatherings as they would be meetings of Opus Dei, the Moonies, or Branch Davidians. But they go anyway.
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The Israel Lobby
One more reason not to vote for Hillary Clinton.
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thanks for lightening it up, Rizzo
fuck YEAH!
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Walt and Mearsheimer's initial report and debate
London Review of Books
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
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King and Israel
Thank you Shaun Narine. You have done a great service by providing this URL, http://www.blacksandjews.com/Israel.MLK.html.
I have looked into it and the essay appears to be quite correct. There is no proof that King made or wrote a statement equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.