Israelis Are Living High On US Expense Account

[Purveyor]

JAN 17 — There's a memorable scene in the Stephen Spielberg film “Munich”. After the 1972 Munich Olympic Games killings of Israeli athletes, Prime Minister Golda Meir tells confidants she wants to show the plotters that killing Jews "is expensive". She then organises for the assassination of each of the plotters.

Today, it is Israel itself that has become expensive. Most directly, it is very expensive to the US, which subsidises and arms it.

But Israel's utter inability to transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends has imposed big costs on us all. We have paid for Israel's failure with bombs on London public transport, bombs in bars in Bali, and even the loss of the World Trade Centre towers in New York.

It is not true that these outrages have occurred because certain Islamic fundamentalists don't like Western lifestyles and so plant bombs in response. Rather, it is Israel — or more correctly the treatment of the Palestinians — that is at the nub of these events.

The world's Muslims have no head: no overarching caliph or pope equivalent exists — no single power source with whom to negotiate. Instead, Islam is remarkably decentralised. So, how extraordinary that Israel and the West have managed to unite this headless, diverse, dispersed grouping without any institutional framework, around just one issue — anger at the treatment of the Palestinians.

MORE...

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/br...

[LeftishBrit]

1. Whatever one thinks of Israel's own actions...

it is not responsible for everything bad that anyone does anywhere in the world.

E.g. the London bombers were not Israeli - or for that matter Palestinian, or Middle Eastern at all. Their actions were due to a combination of problems in community relations in Britain, the Iraq war, and the influence of a particular faction of religious nuts - and of course their own decisions.

[shaayecanaan]

9. I agree...

a fairly silly article. It seems as though newspapers don't know quite where to strike their editorial line on the issue, and because of that some quite disparate articles are getting published. On most other issues (eg tariffs, welfare, Iraq, industrial relations, education, health) the goalposts are quite clear, and you generally only see POVs within that fairly narrow band of opinion.

Most European media, and increasingly North American media, have become much more sympathetic to the Palestinians in the last fifteen years from a traditional position that was much more favourable to Israel. Support for a Palestinian state was once considered to be a radical position - it is now considered doctrinaire, indeed opposition to a Palestinian state is increasingly considered "beyond the pale".

I suspect many newspapers have tried to move with the flow whilst trying to find a "safe" position - but havent found it yet.

[Laughing Mirror]

2. Good article

Thanks!

[DavidDvorkin]

3. What vile garbage.

[GoesTo11]

4. The Malaysian Insider is world renowned for its insight

They have a very tall building in Malaysia too!

[Turborama]

5. "Jews and Muslims have lived in peace for hundreds of years in many parts of the Islamic world."

I think people need to remember that this animosity is a contemporary issue and not something that is endemic in the region.

OT question. I notice this has 3 recs but when I tried to rec it I'm told I'm not allowed to. Where did the 3 recs come from?

[cali]

8. I think you need to read some history

Relative to European mistreatment of the Jews, the treatment of said ethnic group in Muslim countries was much better, but Jews in Muslim countries were long subject to the indignities of a codified second class citizenship and periodic massacres.

[Turborama]

11. What do you suggest reading that covers this?

"Jews in Muslim countries were long subject to the indignities of a codified second class citizenship and periodic massacres"

I have an open mind and am always up for learning more...

BTW this Rabbi seems to concur with the quote I used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9OIqy6md9w

[cali]

12. I'd start here. It's a pretty good article with lots of footnotes and references

to some good books on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_...

[Turborama]

13. Thanks, I'll check it out n/t

[oberliner]

6. More on this author: Backman sorry for hurt caused by Age article

THE author of a controversial article in The Age newspaper has apologised for “any hurt and distress” caused to the Jewish community.

Michael Backman, a London-based columnist with the Melbourne paper for almost 10 years, blamed Israel for global terrorism and criticised Israelis, who he said were “rude and arrogant”.

Critics in the Jewish community called the article “blatantly anti-Semitic” and “hate speech against Jews”

http://ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=6970

[cali]

7. it says qute a bit about anyone who thinks this article is praiseworthy

and what it says is ugly indeed. Not to mention that the idiot who wrote this can't write logically. What does Munich have to do with what he's writing about? Oh, that's right, nothing. He just wanted to get in the bit about "expensive".

The accusation that Israelis are responsible for every act of terrorism is absurd. Could one say that the I/P is a contributing factor? Sure, but that's not what this asshole says.

And yeah, there's blatant anti-semitism in this piece.

Shame on you for posting it.

[Shaktimaan]

10. That article answered so many questions.

Now it's clear that we have terrorism because Israel exists.

Otherwise dispersed groups of Muslims do seem to feel for one another in a way that Christians and others do not.

This is true in a sense. As long as you include "hatred" among those other feelings. The Israelis haven't killed nearly as many Palestinians as the Arabs have. Actually, if you're a Palestinian living in the Middle East your best bet by far would be to live in Israel. It's the only state around there which actually gives them equal rights.

All I'm saying is that the Muslims seem to kill each other a lot more often than, say... the Jews do.

Jews and Muslims have lived in peace for hundreds of years in many parts of the Islamic world. When Catholic Spain and Portugal expelled its Jews, the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul invited them in. It is the Palestinian issue that has ruined all this.

So the anti-semitism that's rampant throughout so much of the Muslim world is actually Israel's fault too? Huh. Those Arab countries sure showed the world how tolerant they are by expelling their Jews to pay for Israel's crime. Seriously, if that's all it took for every Arab state to go totally apeshit and permanently expel all their Jews then perhaps it wasn't quite as solid a peace as some people say.

The author doesn't mention what sparked this conflict between Jews and Palestinians in the first place. Apparently, too many Jews were moving to Palestine. When they got close to ten percent the Muslims living there decided to begin killing and ethnic cleansing them. So that famous peace really wasn't all that rock steady anywhere. I guess the author thinks that this whole thing could have been avoided had the Jews not become so uppity.

Rather, they say that the young Israelis are rude, arrogant, and argue over trifling amounts of money even though they clearly have means.

Well duuuhhhh. That's not an Israeli thing, that's a Jewish thing. Oh wait... money... Israel... oh! Maybe they're bargaining!? Isn't that a MIDDLE EASTERN thing? (It is!)

Incidentally, I've been to Nepal and everything he said is true. No one likes the Israelis because they will bargain all day over 2 cents. Obnoxiously too. But the only reason they dislike the Israelis more than other backpackers is because so few people from other Middle Eastern countries go backpacking in Nepal. I've been to a few of these other countries also. No one who lives there is perceptibly nicer or freer with their money than the average Israeli backpacker. Actually, the average carpet merchant in Fez makes even the worst Israeli trekker look like Captain Manners.