Ironic Surrealism II

This comment was left on an apologist’s blog.

The topic a video titled ‘Not so cool facts about Israel

First off the video.

What do you all think? Bias? Distortion of facts? Overt exaggeration? At the very least slanted? Israel is not among my more knowledgeable subjects. Opinions?

Allow me to side step for a moment. Squeedle noted that the video “Not So Cool Facts About Israel” is no longer available.

By the way, I tried to view that video and YouTube says it is no longer available.

The blog owner “Attending the World” explains the unavailable video thusly.

As for Youtube video, it’s no longer available because of the power of.. you guessed it, ADL, AIPAC, Camera, etc. No one is allowed to criticize Israel. After all, consider the response to Carter’s book PALESTINE, PEACE NOT APARTHEID.

By golly, it is available, as I have proved. Nope, no ‘Zionist’ conspiracy at play.
What should we expect from a defender of Dhimmi Carter.
Sloppy coding, or…falsehood?

Now for the comment. I’m afraid you will need to visit the linked ‘apologist’s blog’ to be able to put this together in any sort of context.

None the less, I found squeedle’s thoughts compelling. As a stand alone statement it holds it’s own weight.

21. squeedle - September 7, 2007

There are many periods where Jews thrived under Muslim rule (e.g. Maimonides was a royal physician), but there are many periods in between where Jews were enslaved, driven out, heavily taxed and otherwise oppressed. It was under Muslim rule that Jews first had to wear special clothing to identify them, and regardless of what the Koran says, like pretty much every other religion, the religion of practice and the religion of theory often don’t match. Forced conversion to Islam has been just as much a part of Islamic history as Christian history, almost from its inception. Killing innocents/non-combatants is also wrong in Islam. Unfortunately some leaders condone this behavior and others follow their lead.

Dana I don’t know where you’re getting your information on Sephardic Jewry, but it’s not nearly the rosy picture you seem to have in your mind. Please do some more reading about Moroccan, Yemenite, Egyptian and Spanish Jews.

The Wikipedia article on dhimmis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi) has a lot of (translated) quotes from the Koran about how People of the Book are supposed to be treated. Historically this has varied widely in interpretation and application: at times it has taken the form of enslavement, prohibiting publicly visible religious ceremonies, denying land ownership. And yes, at times there have been periods of prosperity. Many people allege that European treatment of Jews was far worse and that Europeans “invented” the concept of Jew-hatred; I can’t say as I’ve never made a tally - it seems a highly subjective statement anyway.

Iran is a complex case to me. Persian Jews have been in that area for 2500 years. Persian Muslims identify strongly with being Persian more than Iranian (this is what I’ve read and heard from Persians), and have a lot of pride about their history - including about Cyrus the Great who also freed the Jews from Babylonian rule (some of this was in a recent article I read about daily life in Iran, sorry don’t recall the source). Additionally, in present-day Iran, Jews are ruled by Muslims, whereas in Israel it is the other way around, and Islamicists regard that as an affront to God because Muslims, and by implication Islam, should never be in a subordinate position to non-Muslims - particularly not in the Middle East and especially not in Jerusalem which is a holy city to Muslims. If you don’t believe the goal of militant Islamicism is to literally bring the world under Sharia, then you need to read “Journey of the Jihadist” by Fawaz Gerges. Gerges conducted interviews with militant jihadists around the Muslim world. Militant Islamicism is a serious movement and I feel that the support for it is way underestimated, and that this movement poses a danger to democratic societies everywhere (which I obviously think is better than Sharia). I will cite one other source I read, a comment an English Muslim posted on the BBC website: “if you are not supporting Sharia you are not defending Islam.”

As an example of the wide support for this, last month there was a gathering of 70,000 Indonesian Muslims and they rallied for worldwide Islamic rule (no I am not saying they are militants, but they are clearly Islamicists).

My reading of ATW’s translation of the Iranian President’s speech is that it is still an extremely thinly veiled statement that achievable and desirable goals (not desires, goals, something that you try to achieve through your action) for the Islamic world are that Israel and the United States fall, just as Saddam Hussein did, and just as the USSR did, and just as the Shah did. As the quoted section that ATW pasted was exceedingly difficult to read, I grabbed one from informationclearinghouse.com with fewer inserts and more like the real speech:

”They [ask]: ‘Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?’ But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved. “‘When the dear Imam [Khomeini] said that [the Shah’s] regime must go, and that we demand a world without dependent governments, many people who claimed to have political and other knowledge [asked], ‘Is it possible [that the Shah’s regime can be toppled]?’ That day, when Imam [Khomeini] began his movement, all the powers supported [the Shah’s] corrupt regime and said it was not possible. However, our nation stood firm, and by now we have, for 27 years, been living without a government dependent on America. Imam [Khomeni] said: ‘The rule of the East [U.S.S.R.] and of the West [U.S.] should be ended.’ But the weak people who saw only the tiny world near them did not believe it. Nobody believed that we would one day witness the collapse of the Eastern Imperialism [i.e. the U.S.S.R], and said it was an iron regime. But in our short lifetime we have witnessed how this regime collapsed in such a way that we must look for it in libraries, and we can find no literature about it. Imam [Khomeini] said that Saddam [Hussein] must go, and that he would be humiliated in a way that was unprecedented. And what do you see today? A man who, 10 years ago, spoke as proudly as if he would live for eternity is today chained by the feet, and is now being tried in his own country. Imam [Khomeini] said: ‘This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.’ This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise. Is it possible that an [Islamic] front allows another front to arise in its heart? This means defeat, and he who accepts the existence of this regime [i.e. Israel] in fact signs the defeat of the Islamic world. In his battle against the World of Arrogance, our dear Imam [Khomeini] set the regime occupying Qods [Jerusalem] as the target of his fight. I do not doubt that the new wave which has begun in our dear Palestine and which today we are also witnessing in the Islamic world is a wave of morality which has spread all over the Islamic world. Very soon, this stain of disgrace will vanish from the center of the Islamic world - and this is attainable.”

How can I read this, and taking the entire text into account, think that the Iranian President does not intend to affect “regime change” in Israel? He gives as the first example how the Shah was overthrown by the Iranian revolutionaries, and although he uses passive tense when describing the “Zionist regime”, it is the same tense and the same phrasing used to describe the overthrow of the Shah and the Soviets pulling out of Afghanistan. When he said, “and this is attainable,” do you think he meant that it’s just going to naturally happen? No, because then he wouldn’t have mentioned the Iranian revolution in the same statement, using such words as “toppled”. To me it is no exaggeration to read this as an *indirect* threat. And if there is “regime change” in Israel, who do you think he has in mind to replace it? Surely not more Jews - aren’t any Jews who want to live in Israel by definition Zionist? He also talks about how you have to go to the library to find information about the Soviets and even then it’s hard - when he said “wiped from the pages of time,” what else does that mean, but Israel should fall, Muslims take over and all memory of a Jewish state disappear? See my statement above about how for Islamics, Muslims must never be subject to rule by non-Muslims. In my opinion, summarizing that speech as “Israel should be wiped off the map” is not entirely unfair.

Certainly, it would be foolish, to our way of thinking, for Iran to mount a nuclear attack on anybody; but I think the mistake we make is to assume that others follow our way of thinking. Based on what I’ve read, I think militant Islam is a creed that focuses on “God’s will” and the reward of the afterlife and does not place much value on physical existence. The people who engage in suicide bombing aren’t trying to save lives, but souls, and also to help their family financially in the interim. I really hope I’m wrong about Iran’s intentions but the rhetoric, policies and hosting of the Holocaust denial conference suggest otherwise, to me. It may be that they really are just developing nuclear power but I seriously doubt it. It may be that they want nuclear weapons for the same reason most everyone else does - to keep from being pushed around. But I don’t trust that government at all, and I am extremely concerned that any nuclear weapons that any predominantly Muslim country has will be turned on “infidels” should a fanatic ever take power.

HOW DO I KNOW? THE QURAN TELLS ME SO @ Dr. Sanity

The President of Iran is counting on his mathematical skills (and Allah, of course) to prevent American’s from raining on (and reining in) his nuclear ambitions:

Stupid is as stupid does. Nothing from nothing equals nothing.
I did the math.

Is “Not So Cool Facts About Israel” a slam reply to this, Cool Facts about Israel - New & Update Version? I’ll take a shot in the dark and say yes. I may be wrong though, it could of been the other way around. Which would be ‘cooler’.

Relaxation OpenTrackback Weekend @ Woman Honor Thyself

Open Trackback Weekend @ 123beta

Run, Fred, Run @ Dumb Ox Daily News