And just as Jews were in the forefront of denouncing Apartheid in South Africa - see the obituaries of the late, lamented Helen Suzman this week - so I pray that Jews will find the courage to denounce the hideous cruelties that Israel is now committing in the territories!

The lives of the others

The lives of the sainted

Of course having an emotional attachment to Israel doesn't prove you're wrong. Arguments stand or fall on their own merits, not on the attributes of their advocates.

But, particularly in the U.S., among those who see Israel-Palestine as a clear-cut dispute between one party that is basically good and right (the persecuted), and the other that is basically bad and wrong (the persecutors), the percentage of those with a long-time, deeply emotional identification with one side or the other is extremely high.

That, to me, strongly suggests that people who are clearly on one side or the other are on that side because they were trained a long time ago to identify with one of the sides.

It doesn't mean you're wrong, but I really don't understand how that thought doesn't occur to you: "maybe the reason I think Israel is virtually always in the right is because that's the side with which I was trained to identify -- religious, culturally and/or emotionally."

An important part of being rational and objective, in my view, is to try to bracket out one's own subjectivity and self-interest. I try to avoid opining on issues where, for whatever reasons, I have too much of a personal stake or personal and emotional interest -- or, at the very least, if my views align with my personal/emotional interest on those issues, I try to subject them to a lot more doubt and skepticism, wondering if my views are the by-product of an objective analysis or just my own inability to see things from a perspective other than my own ingrained preconceptions and self-interest.

I rarely see that effort at all being made when it comes to Israel/Palestine, which is why -- so much more often than not, by far -- the hard-core partisans on each side have a deeply ingrained, long-term emotional attachment to the side they relentlessly defend and justify.

"so I pray that Jews will find the courage to denounce the hideous cruelties that Israel is now committing in the territories!"

I think the incursion is a bad idea. Does that satisfy you? And I assume that you, in turn, will denounce the hideous cruelties of Hamas, which are many?

When he and Massala end their friendship, Ben Hur has some choice words to say about the Romans. Those words are applicable to the Israelis today.

When will some Palestinian filmmaker remake that scene and use those words to tell their story?

"Ben Hur", like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" could not be made in today's Hollywood because their messages would be considered "anti-semitic" today because as far as they are concerned, if you are opposed to war and oppression, you hate the Jews.

http://undercoverblackman.blogspot.com/2009/01/helen-suzman-1917-2009.html

GEOFF SIFRIN: How did you relate to the [economic and military] connections between Israel and the apartheid government over the years? It must have been at times a source of considerable embarrassment to you.

HELEN SUZMAN: Well, I took a more pragmatic view about this because, you know, people have to survive.

Read the whole thing.

And I urge you to withdraw your obscene comment.

I'm just curious - at what point will Israel not be seen as occupiers? What are the conditions the world (or you) put on Israel in order for that nation to not be viewed as occupiers? Please provide your definition of Israel's occupation? -- Greytdog

International law defines the end of an occupation as when the occupying power relinguishes effective power over the occupied territory.

Effective control is defined as both military and administrative control.

Relinquishing military control is pretty easy to distinguish, it's when the occupying power withdraws its military.

Administrative control is more difficult. When an occupying power allows the government of an occupied territory to actually perform the duties of government, which includes the day to day functions we are all familiar with, but it also includes the control of the borders of the occupied territory. A government which does not have control over its borders doesn't have full administrative control over the country it governs.

In the case at hand, Israel withdrew its military from Gaza but has not, to this day, relinquished control over the Gazan border. Israel may control its border with Gaza but may not control any Gazan border which is not contiguous with Israel, such as Gaza's border on the Mediteranean Sea. Since Israel has blockaded Gaza's Mediteranean border, it has not surrendered administrative control to the Gazan government and thus it is still an occupying power, subject to the international laws pertaining to an occupation.

I hope that helps answer your question.

Then it stands that I am a loss to understand the prompt for your previously silly comment ('liberal' PC correctness, however wrong and bone-headed at its height a decade and more ago, was never, ever the actual threat to public thought that Patriotic Correctness was and still is)...

Just that Political Correctness and Patriotic Correctness are part of the same philosophy that if you replace nouns with long-winded phrases or abstract generalisations long enough, eventually people will forget that the objects the nouns referred to ever existed.

It just seems to be human nature. Another little quote from Orwell's essay on anti-semitism:

A Jew, for example, would not be antisemitic: but then many Zionist Jews seem to me to be merely antisemites turned upside-down.

i.e regarding your own race/religion as a Chosen People is just as silly as regarding other races as inherently inferior.

And now you can go ahead and explain to the multitudes why they can comfortably discount any opinions I might have, rather than responding to them directly.

I'm sorry, dude. You seem bound and determined to be a poster boy for the exact dynamic described in this post. You have done nothing but "comfortably discount" the opinions of everyone here who does not have the emotional attachment to Israel that you have.

You've repeatedly railed at others for their unmannerliness while at the same time, sometimes in the same comment, accusing your interlocutors of anti-Semitism and bloodthirsty disregard for Israeli deaths.

I'm actually quite interested in your opinions. I don't see how Israel imagines that an air attack and a ground assault will permanently stop attacks on southern Israel. I can't imagine a military solution to this issue, any more than there was a military solution to the conflicts in South Africa and Northern Ireland. You could help me understand that.

If you stepped back from your emotional attachment, just a bit, you might see how you're doing many of the same things you're accusing others of doing. And you might be able to make a contribution to mutual understanding on both sides of the issue.

Up to you, though.