Who Is IOZ?: Okay, So, Like . . .

Friday, February 29, 2008

Okay, So, Like . . .

NOW can we compare them to the Nazis?

31 comments:

switters said...: Not really. To the best of my knowledge, I've not read any accounts of Jews in Poland firebombing Lutheran Churches in The Greater Chnsknchski Metropolitan Area or sending little Isaac into a crowded Dresden train station wearing live grenades. Not that we know of, anyway.

But it could just be me.

Nice to see you.; 4:16 PM
Ashley said...: Don't know about that but at the very least they've been Holocaust deniers for as long as they've enjoyed good relations with Turkey.; 4:28 PM
Anonymous said...: switters: Maybe they should have?; 5:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Maybe?

I'm not sure what's more chilling - the Israeli minister, or switters up thread.

Chilling, but hardly surprising.

One would, however, expect some action to be taken against the minister for accidentally speaking the truth.; 6:03 PM
switters said...: Chilling, indeed. A tiny country barely 60 years old, surrounded on all side by countries that acknowledge her existence only long enough fire upon her and blow up her discos and cafes, daring to defend herself where failure means non-existence? Chilling.

I suspect if Canada were to lob a couple few rockets over Niagara Falls into Upstate New York, I'm not convinced the good citizens of Bedford Falls wouldn't want to scramble a F-17 or two to get to the bottom of things.

But, then again, as you may or may not be aware, I'm one of those rabid Zionists just left of center you hear so much about. Which means I can say things like people predisposed to wanting to blow themselves up just may not deserve the liberties Israel's more than willing to grant them under reasonable circumstances. I.e., the species just got stronger.; 6:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Switters: So you're ok with genocide then. Cool, good to know. I'll be sure to update my "Who's Pro-Genocide?" tables.; 6:36 PM
ran said...: yes.; 7:40 PM
Anonymous said...: as you may or may not be aware, I'm one of those rabid Zionists

Thanks for the clue. You hide it well!

I'm one of those lib-soc whackos that think there's no good guys in the whole "Holy Land" fuck-all - with the exception, of course, of the innocent people on both sides just trying to live their damn lives.

I have enormous sympathy for Israelis, especially those who came to build a country where they could live in peace. A lot of the early Zionists were wacko libertarian socialists I'd gladly have stood round upon round of beers for. Met a bunch of Israelis and to a one they are cool, funny, tough people.

But here's the thing, see. I also have enormous sympathy for a tiny country that's not even a country, surrounded on all side by a somewhat larger tiny country only 60 years old, who acknowledges its existence only long enough to wrap her in walls and strafe her with jet fighters and crush her with tanks and humiliate her people in checkpoints and reserve their highest outrage for the people who fight back because they fight dirty.

I had sympathy for the "poor defenseless Israel" shtick before they beat the shit out of every neighboring country and built a nuclear arsenal. You can be the baddest motherfucker on the block or a trembling maid. Trying to be both just makes you look silly.; 7:43 PM
paolaccio said...: IOZ is like the Crrazy Old Uncle of the Blogs - he can just say shit you think sometimes, but would never say out loud.

je voudrais porter un toast à vous, Monsieur.; 8:12 PM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: Switters, I'm only surprised you didn't call it the tiny DEMOCRACY instead of the tiny country. After all, true lovers of freedom know that you have to ethnically cleanse 3/4 million towelheads before you can have a DEMOCRACY. Why don't you go and fuck off with a shovel,say, right now?; 8:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Ans. Yes.

But, then again, as you may or may not be aware, I'm one of those rabid Zionists....

Shirley you jest.

may not deserve the liberties Israel's more than willing to grant them under reasonable circumstances

I would tell switters to go fuck off with a shovel but I'm too polite.; 9:04 PM
TGGP said...: I'll wait until they actually carry out a genocide. Then I'll give them high-fives.
I argued with another person comparing the Holocaust to a genocide that hasn't actually happened here.; 9:54 PM
Anonymous said...: The first sentence in the article quotes some Israeli Official saying the Palestinians are bringing this on themselves. What kind of shitstorm would be unleashed if someone said that of the Shoah?

In the last few days, Israel has launched attacks killing over 30 Palestinians, at least four of them children.

Here

Six month old Mohammed al-Borai obviously forced the Israelis to retaliate on him.

Hope those Palestinians get the message this time.

Switters, your dead wrong on this one.

Prof. Challenger; 10:17 PM
steveb said...: Later in the day, a Palestinian rocket killed an Israeli civilian, a 47-year-old father of four, in Sderot.
Since Wednesday, 32 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli missile strikes...

I don't think even the Germans managed to match Israel's impressive 32 to 1 kill ratio.

They might want to focus-group a new national motto: "Like the Nazis, only more efficient."; 11:02 PM
Homsar said...: I came across this random quote today in my web travels, apropos of nothing...

"But it is distressing to see the [English] press grovelling in the gutter as low as Goebbels in his prime, shrieking that any German commander who holds out in a desperate situation (when, too, the military needs of his side clearly benefit) is a drunkard, and a besotted fanatic ... There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done."

- JRR Tolkien; 11:29 PM
Dylan Hirsch-Shell said...: Switters said:"
people predisposed to wanting to blow themselves up just may not deserve the liberties Israel's more than willing to grant them under reasonable circumstances. I.e., the species just got stronger."

In a causal universe, it's important to first determine what your desired outcomes are, and then to evaluate the likelihood that each of your possible actions will keep you on the path to achieving your previously determined desired outcomes.

Keeping that framework in mind, ask yourself: (1) What are Israel's desired outcomes (or your desires for Israel's future)?; and (2) What actions should Israel take to achieve those outcomes?

If your answer to (1) is "To teach those fucking Palestinians a lesson," then by all means the answer to (2) is to "Unleash a shitstorm on those poor, stupid bastards, who don't really deserve to live anyway since they're made from inferior genetic material."

On the other hand, if the answer to (1) is "To bring an end to the bloodshed and to foster an environment in which Israelis and Palestinians can live together in harmony as brethren," (This, by the way, is the objective that I believe Israel should desire, and it's the one I personally desire), then the answer to (2) becomes much more complicated. To answer it well, in fact, requires a careful consideration and synthesis of the history of similar conflicts, the psychology of hate and conflict, modern conflict resolution techniques, etc. While I cannot claim to be an expert in the necessary research fields, I would wager a guess that the key to bringing about a sustainable peace does not involve anything close to threatening another Holocaust.; 11:56 PM
steveb said...: Dylan:
You just don't understand. This time, massive force will work. The Palestinians will finally learn their lesson, and settle down to a happy life as fifth-rate citizens under Israeli occupation. I'm sure of it!; 10:18 AM
Comandante Agí said...: Come on, IOZ. They're talking about a small h holocaust, not a Holocaust.; 10:57 AM
IOZ said...: Because of the Provocations of Stateless Persons: The Sequal; 12:29 PM
The Promiscuous Reader said...: switters, if you're rabid, they have shots for that. As for the rest,

"A tiny country barely 60 years old, surrounded on all side by countries that acknowledge her existence only long enough fire upon her and blow up her discos and cafes, daring to defend herself where failure means non-existence?"

Now think of the original 13 US states in, oh, 1800, a country barely 24 years old, surrounded on all sides by countries that barely acknowledge her existence only long enough to set the "merciless Indian salvages" on her innocent women and children, daring to defend herself where failure means non-existence.

Like so many Zionists, rabid or not, you're conveniently forgetting that Palestine was not a land without a people, just as the Americas were not. In both cases the invaders' aim very soon morphed into ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people where they couldn't be subjugated into hewers of wood and drawers of water, driving them (in the Indians' case) literally across the continent and nearly into the sea. In the case of Zionism this meant also collaborating with anti-Semites, including Hitler, to try to force Jewish refugees to migrate to Palestine rather than the US where most of them wanted to go. (In the US, American Jews even collaborated with local anti-Semites to limit Jewish immigration.) It also meant terrorism, not only against the locals but against the British, without whom the Zionists wouldn't have gotten their enterprise against the ground to begin with. Benjamin Netanyahu still celebrates the Hotel David bombing, crowing about its glory as he execrates Palestinian terror from the other side of his mouth.

I don't believe, by the way, that "failure means non-existence" for Israeli Jews. Many of them were American citizens recently enough that they could probably be repatriated, but that bunch seems to be disproportionately ultraorthodox terrorists and I'm not sure they should be allowed back here. They are largely responsible for the rotten situation in Israel today. But in any case, no, failure does not mean non-existence, except of the State of Israel, an abstraction like any other state, whose survival I am not invested in, especially as it sinks ever deeper into the mire of terror and aggression and repression.

Remember that simply by allowing Israel to go on existing, which even Hamas seems to be willing to do, the Palestinians are making a compromise. (And remember that Hamas was originally supported by the Israeli government, to make trouble for Arafat. Chickens coming home to roost, anyone?); 1:25 PM
Brian said...: promiscuous, not to steal thunder from our worthy host, but can I just say your posts, both here and your blog, are wonderful pieces of clear logic!; 2:45 AM
Jon said...: Promiscuous Reader,

"you're conveniently forgetting that Palestine was not a land without a people, just as the Americas were not."

There are many differences and few similarities.

North America was not a "land" in the sense of a nation. There were people living here but they made no claim on the entire body of the land. And the population density was very low. There were no cities or even buildings that the new settlers moved into. It was essentially wilderness.

Another difference is that the American settlers had a pretty clear mission from the very beginning that they were going to settle the entire continent. The 13 original colonies, as you may know, had no Western boundaries when they were created... they stretched to the unknown Pacific, just waiting to be explored. You can't say that Israel has, at its very lowest level, that same outlook.

Finally, let's revisit this conversation IF Israel does in fact start a campaign of genocide. They obviously have the means of carrying it out, yet there are more Palestinians every year. Either the Jews are incredibly inept or you're just wrong.

The rest of your argument does a good job at pointing to the hypocrisy in the situation. Why do you appear to hope for the establishment and survival of a Palestinian State over an Israeli State? If Palestinians "compromise" by "allowing" Israel to exist, then don't Israelis compromise by allowing Palestinians to exist?

"Chickens coming home to roost, anyone?"

The same could be said of the Palestinians. They weren't totally innocent with their dealings with the Jews even before Israel was established. It's useless to talk about chickens coming home to roost in just about ANY real world international situation.

Unfortunately the same can be said of hypocrisy. Why SHOULD the Jews get a country and the Palestinians not? There is no answer, but at the same time there's no reason for the opposite and there's no reason for maintaining the status quo. It's a silly question to even ask.; 11:11 AM
Anonymous said...: "Finally, let's revisit this conversation IF Israel does in fact start a campaign of genocide. "

Yes. You see, when they actually START a campaign of genocide, then we can talk. Not yet. You gotta wait. It's not genocide yet, just a carefully restricted and controlled attempt to drive a whole people out to the sea, punctuated by episodic, but totally justified instances of ethnic cleansing.

WHEN and not BEFORE it happens, then we'll discuss it at length. Because what's really important is the conclusions that we reach from our lofty, privileged vantage point.

Care to discuss the accuracy of the Holocaust dead count over tea and cookies, Jon?

Pepito; 12:35 PM
TGGP said...: Pepito, like jon said, if this is a genocide the population figures on the Palestinians indicates it is the most incompetent one ever undertaken.; 1:49 PM
The Promiscuous Reader said...: tggp, that works both ways. If the Palestinians want to drive the Jews into the sea, they're doing a pretty half-assed job of it. Palestinian casualty figures are far higher than Israeli; does that make you feel better?

Jon, I'm already too long-winded here, but two (I hope) brief points. The first English settlers did not find a wilderness. They found towns and cultivated fields, but most of the people were dead thanks to European diseases that had already decimated the continent. (Not intentionally, but very conveniently.) The Pilgrims robbed Indian graves to get tools, bowls, and useful stuff, too. If they'd actually had to clear the "wilderness," they wouldn't have made it. And they almost didn't, as it was. Brush up on your American history, ok?

The early Zionists knew full well that there were people in Palestine, and they knew from the beginning that they'd eventually drive them out of it. Population transfer would be less messy than exterminating them, but they were ready to do what they had to do. I take it you'd have no objection, then, if the Palestinians simply expelled the Israelis, without wiping them out? I mean, that wouldn't be genocide.

Oh, and a third point, what the hell. No, the Israelis are not compromising in the same way that the Palestinians are. If the Russkis had invaded the US in the 1950s and established colonies here, would they be compromising if they stopped killing us and just let us have a few scraps of desert surrounded by a security wall, run by an American Authority with high-caliber leaders like, say, Ronald Reagan?; 7:12 PM
IOZ said...: The Promiscuous, of course, means only to highlight the greatest work of pro-terrorist agitprop in the history of cinema.; 7:18 PM
The Promiscuous Reader said...: Someday I should see that.; 7:44 PM
IOZ said...: It's like a plane crashing into a train wreck de-railing onto a highway with a 50-car pileup. You can't turn away.; 8:11 PM
Anonymous said...: WOLVERINES!

Prof.; 9:34 PM
TGGP said...: I agree, the Palestinians are no existential threat to Israel. I think their Ka-douche-ya rockets have killed a grand total of one or two Israelis. Scary. The last time anybody seriously thought of "driving the Jews into the sea", Nasser was running Egypt. Though the media focuses obsessively on the area, it really is the Middle Eastern powder-thimble.; 10:10 PM
Dylan Hirsch-Shell said...: Jon said: North America was not a "land" in the sense of a nation. There were people living here but they made no claim on the entire body of the land. And the population density was very low. There were no cities or even buildings that the new settlers moved into. It was essentially wilderness.

Jon, please do brush up on your early North American history. If you don't want to read any books on the subject, then at least start by browsing through these Wikipedia articles:

Native Americans in the United States
Indian Removal Act
Trail of Tears

As the Promiscuous Reader points out, the numbers of Native Americans were initially drastically reduced as a result of infectious diseases unintentionally carried by Europeans to the New World. Because there were already extensive trade networks in place between many native groups when Europeans arrived, the infectious diseases were able to spread throughout the North American continent so that many groups were severely compromised or even extinguished before Europeans ever made contact with them.

Even so, the number of native people still left after the epidemics was significant enough that we can't simply dismiss them as a ragtag group of people barely taking up space and not really laying claim to the land. You are right that there were no buildings that the new settlers moved into. But that's just because the settlers maintained their European cultural mores and wouldn't think of occupying a longhouse, wigwam, teepee, etc., because these would not be "civilized" dwellings.

Interestingly, some native groups (particularly those patronizingly referred to as the "Five Civilized Tribes") were able to establish good relationships with Europeans and eventually adopted many European customs. For example, by the time the Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress in 1830 and the Cherokee were forced to walk the "Trail of Tears," they had already established a Supreme Court and developed an alphabet which they used to write a Constitution. In other words, we are not talking about a small band of savages living as hunter-gatherers in shelters made of leaves. (And even if we were, that would still not excuse their being killed or forcibly removed from their land by the encroaching American settlers.)

Now, given that a large number (approx. 100,000) of non-Europeans were "voluntarily" removed from all territory east of the Mississippi River as a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, I think it's fair to say that the United States government perpetrated one of the largest campaigns of ethnic cleansing in the history of the world.

Most Americans today don't have any idea of the magnitude of this tragedy (if they know it happened at all). Their vague idea of American history goes something like this: "the Pilgrims established Plymouth Rock to escape the religious tyranny of the English, and they met some Indians who helped them survive the winter and they became friends and had Thanksgiving dinner together; the 13 American Colonies fought a war to rebel against the political and economic tyranny of the English, and thank God they won; after we Americans were freed from our English overlords we could finally get to the important work of taming the uninhabited wilderness of our great land and occupying our rightful place as the sole beneficent Superpower of the world (after vanquishing the evil Nazis and winning the Cold War because of Reagan, of course)." Any additional knowledge of Native Americans after the first Thanksgiving dinner is usually limited to what we know from Westerns (Cowboys and Indians fought a lot, and Indians often shot white settlers with arrows and scalped them) or from equally ridiculous romanticized accounts of how all the Indian tribes were perfectly peaceful before the white man came and they were environmentalists who wisely only took from the land what the land could give.

Before I end the longest comment in the history of Blogger, I want to also take issue with your assertion that "the American settlers had a pretty clear mission from the very beginning that they were going to settle the entire continent." You cite as proof of this that "the 13 original colonies ... had no Western boundaries when they were created." While it might be true that the British Crown laid claim to virtually all of North America after Virginia was established, it was a ridiculous claim which could not be enforced and which completely ignored the Spanish and French settlements that already existed on the continent. Furthermore, these original claims, and expectations of settlement throughout, were eroded by many factors culminating ultimately in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which recognized certain rights of indigenous people to the lands they occupied and limited settlement by whites to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains.

Of course, if royal decrees didn't stop Americans from declaring their independence from the Crown then they certainly weren't going to stop American settlers from occupying lands west of the Appalachians in the absence of effective enforcement (and obviously, after the War for Independence, anything King George III said could be safely ignored anyway). But my point is simply that the intentions of Americans to settle the entire continent "from sea to shining sea" and the drawing of territorial boundaries by royal mapmakers are two very different things.; 10:32 PM

Friday, February 29, 2008

Okay, So, Like . . .

31 comments:

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