- Jeff -
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- Zionists claim superior DNA for Jews. I would say: Jews
have SELF-selected themselves over the past 2000+ years (you can always
stop being a Jew by converting or assimilating) as hate-driven outsiders,
usurers, etc. In a sense they are 'superior' but from (dare I say) the
devil's point of view, rather than God's.
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- Excerpts from 2 pieces by Michael Neumann on CounterPunch.org:
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- What's So Bad About Israel?
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- By Michael Neumann Counterpunch.org July 6, 2002
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- ... In short, by the mid-1970s, Israel's crimes were
no longer the normal atrocities of nation-building nor an excessive sort
of self-defense. They represented a cold-blooded, calculated, indeed an
eagerly embraced choice of war over peace, and an elaborate plan to seek
out those who had fled the misery of previous confrontations, to make certain
that their suffering would continue.
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- So Israel stands out among other unpleasant nations in
the depth of its commitment to gratuitous violence and nastiness: this
you expect to find among skinheads rather than nations. But wait! there's
more! It is not just that times have changed. It also has to do with the
position Israel occupies in these new times...
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- What Israel does is at the very center of the world stage,
not only as a focus of media attention, but also as representative of Western
morality and culture. This could not be plainer from the constant patter
about how Israel is a shining example of democracy, resourcefulness, discipline,
courage, toughness, determination, and so on. And nothing could be more
inappropriate than the complaints that Israel is being 'held to a higher
standard'. It is not being held to one; it aggressively and insolently
appropriates it. It plants its flag on some cultural and moral summit.
Israel is the ultimate victim-state of the ultimate people--the noblest,
the most long-suffering, the most persecuted, the most intelligent, the
Chosen Ones. The reason Israel is judged by a higher standard is its blithe
certainty, accepted by generations of fawning Westerners, that it exists
at a higher standard.
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- Other countries, of course, have put on similar airs,
but at least their crimes could be represented as a surprising deviation
from noble principles. When people try to understand how Germans could
become Nazis, or the French, torturers in Algeria, or the Americans, murderers
at My Lai, it is always possible to ask--what went wrong? How could these
societies so betray their civilized roots and high ideals? And sometimes
plausible attempts were made to associate this betrayal with some fringe
elements of the society--disgruntled veterans, dispossessed younger sons,
provincial reactionaries, trailer trash. If these societies had gone wrong,
it was a matter of perverted values, suppressed forces, aberrant tendencies,
deformed dreams. With Israel, there is no question of such explanations.
Its atrocities belong to its mainstream, its traditions, its founding ideology.
They are performed by its heroes, not its kooks and losers. Israel has
not betrayed anything. On the contrary, its actions express a widely espoused,
perhaps dominant version of its ideals. Israel is honored, often as not,
for the very same tribal pride and nation-building ambitions that fire
up its armies and its settlers. Its crimes are front and center, not only
on the world stage, but also on its own stage.
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- Israel stands right in the spotlight and crushes an entire
people. It defies international protests and resolutions as no one else
can. Only Israel, not, say, Indonesia or even the US, dares proclaim: "Who
are you to preach morality to us? We are morality incarnate!" ...
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- Israel has pioneered the science of making life unlivable
with as little violence as possible. The Palestinians are not merely provoked
into reacting; they have no rational choice but to react. If they didn't,
things would just get worse faster, with no hope of relief. Israel is an
innovator in the search for a squeaky-clean sadism.
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- The worse things get for the Palestinians, the more violently
they must defend themselves, and the more violently Israel can respond.
Whenever possible, Israel sees to it that the Palestinians take each new
step in the escalation. The hope is that, at some point, Israel will be
able to kill many tens of thousands, all in the name of self-defense.
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- And subtly but surely, things are changing still further.
Israel is starting to let the mask drop, not from its already public intentions,
but from its naked strength. It no longer deigns to conceal its sophisticated
nuclear arsenal. It begins to supply the world with almost as much military
technology as it consumes. And it no longer sees any need to be discreet
about its defiance of the United States' request for moderation: Israel
is happy to humiliate the 'stupid Americans' outright. As it plunders,
starves and kills, Israel does not lurk in the world's back-alleys. It
says, "Look at us. We're taking these people's land, not because we
need it, but because we feel like it. We're putting religious nuts all
over it because they help cleanse the area of these Arab lice who dare
to defy us. We know you don't like it and we don't care, because we don't
conform to other people's standards. We set the standards for others."
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- And the standards it sets continue to decline. Israel
Shahak and others have documented the rise of fundamentalist Jewish sects
that speak of the greater value of Jewish blood, the specialness of Jewish
DNA, the duty to kill even innocent civilians who pose a potential danger
to Jews, and the need to 'redeem' lands lying far beyond the present frontiers
of Israeli control...
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- As Israel sinks lower, it corrupts the world that persists
in admiring it. Thus Amnesty International's military adviser, David Holley,
with a sort of honest military bonhomie, tells the world that the Israelis
have "a very valid point" when they refuse to allow a UN investigative
team into Jenin...
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- http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann0706.html
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- American Power and Jewish Power
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- By Michael Neumann CounterPunch.org January 7, 2003
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- ...That Americans have let the Jews have their way doesn't
mean that reporting on Jewish activities in America should stop. But what
is needed is not yet another list of the Jewish court jesters hired by
the American establishment, or the groups that lobby for policies the US
government anyway wants to promote. Nor do we need more dark hints based
on collections of scattered facts rather than serious comparative data.
Far more revealing and just as damning would be the story of how ordinary
Jews either applaud the worst Israeli crimes, or deplore them and support
Israel anyway, or denounce them with rhetoric that somehow never gets around
to advocating anything that would stop them. It is a story that just lies
there, ready and waiting to be told.
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- Jewish tribalism is real and strong, but it does not
enslave Americans. For all its prestige, it is not something 'special'
or specially powerful. It is just another instance of the ordinary, vulgar
racism and nationalism found all over the world. It is immoral, but not
as contemptible as the whining of those who supposedly want to do something
about Israel, yet are astounded to encounter Jewish opposition and slink
off, muttering about 'being in the grip of Jewish power'. These people
should themselves get a grip, and do something about it.
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- Do what? How about an experiment? It involves an unprecedented
and essential first step towards real change in America's Middle East policies--actually
asking for measures that would hurt Israel.
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- Right now, what passes for radicalism is a call to stop
military aid to Israel, despite the fact that hardly any country in the
world is more capable of doing its killing unaided. That this represents
the most daring opposition to the American-Israeli alliance is both shameful
and absurd. It all but proclaims to the whole world that even the American
left would rather moan about the agony of the Palestinians than try to
stop it. Publishing something like the following statement would test for
the presence of a backbone among American radicals:
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- Israel has, on many well-documented occasions, committed
war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has violated international law
and defied numerous UN resolutions. It manufactures chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons, as well as a sophisticated technology for delivering
them anywhere in the world. Its settlement policies in the illegally occupied
territories endanger the continued existence of the Palestinian people.
For all these reasons, Israel is a rogue state and should be treated accordingly.
We therefore demand that all nations should:
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- * immediately cease all assistance to Israel, military,
economic, and 'humanitarian';
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- * impose a total trade embargo, including a ban on all
transfer of funds to Israel;
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- * freeze all Israeli accounts abroad;
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- * sever diplomatic relations;
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- * cut air links;
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- * and cut all cultural, academic, and scientific exchanges.
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- In addition,
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- The United States should inform the Israeli government
that any use of nuclear weapons, strategic or tactical, will be met by
an overwhelming response in kind.
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- The United States should form a coalition including Arab
and Muslim states to contain Israel along the lines of the coalition to
contain Iraq during the Gulf War.
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- Notice how moderate this is: nothing questioning Israel's
right to exist, nothing about the Palestinians' right of return, nothing
about prosecutions for war crimes, no endorsement of Palestinian violence.
How many leftish Jewish notables would sign such a statement? My guess
is two, at most. But how many non-Jewish notables would do so? My guess
is ten, proportionately fewer than among the Jews. If so, it is a testimony,
not to Jewish power, but to American insularity, laziness and cowardice.
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- Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent
University in Ontario, Canada. He can be reached at: mneumann@trentu.ca
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- http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann01072003.html
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