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Again this is more complicated than just that. The great bulk of responses and opposition to Zionist and Israeli policies comes from the Arab and Muslim world.

by netcan 15y ago

Again this is more complicated than just that. The great bulk of responses and opposition to Zionist and Israeli policies comes from the Arab and Muslim world. Since this opposition is shared by many westerners, I think a lot of westerners assume that it is shared based on similar reasoning. Human rights, international law, national freedoms. But the reality is that a substantial portions is nationalist/religious/xenophobic/nationalistic/scapegoating. Belief in arab countries that Israel was behind 9-11 or some other local event (eg shark attacks in egypt)* is very common. Lots of easily verifiable made up stories are common knowledge. A lot of the old anti-semetic propoganda is distributed in the greater Muslim world via mainstream local media (I saw an article about the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' a Czarist propoganda document that has a special place in most Jews consciousness, discussed in an Indonesian magazine. It's also in the Hamas charter document* . A lot of the complaints that are interpreted as objections to human rights violations or similar are (when seen in context) really objections to non Muslim rule in 'Muslim Lands' (as opposed to lands where muslims live) or various conspiracy delusions. I'm not trying to justify Israeli policy. I think it's immoral and stupid. But the type of objection to it do not make me think that changing policy will result in substantial changes in attitude, though they might provide an incremental improvement. http://blogs.news.sky.com/middleeastblog/Post:2c6bf5da-e006-4bab-84ee-c72a5845f2a8 http://blogs.news.sky.com/middleeastblog/Post:2c6bf5da-e006-... * *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter

kamaal 15y ago
Extreme forms of Antisemitism existed long before even Muhammad was born. You are probably referring to the outcome of a half a century long conflict. Yes there is a lot of anti-Jew factor in the Muslim world(I am a Muslim my self). But there is also a lot of anti-Muslim factor widely prevalent in the west too! Every bit of people on this earth have suffered with that problem. The Muslim world looks at these problems from their own view. Think of it this way, there was no signs of Israel in the Arab world around a century back, the settlements start. There are splinter groups. Slowly albeit steadily a vast majority of the native population was displaced to settle new set of people. A new nation is declared, backed by most powerful nations on earth. What was your country yesterday is not today and you are mercilessly kicked out. Now what sins did the natives do to deserve that? On top of loosing their lands, there is huge under development and humiliation since decades. How do you expect them to react? To quote Ben Gurion himself: I don't understand your optimism. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So, it's simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out. - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion Tomorrow if some state like California is invaded by some one, existing citizens of the state thrown out. How will those people react. Will they laughingly walk out of their homes, stay in tents and welcome the invaders with Garlands? And business goes around normal? There isn't a community on earth today which is different than any other community. People everywhere are just the same. When these sort of things happen friction is but natural but to take place. All nations and their people on earth or same, Jews, Muslims and Christians. No one is different. Now there is also a clash of cultures. Others like their culture as much as you like yours. To assume everybody must follow your way of life is unacceptable to any community on earth. I come from a nation(India) which hasn't attacked/invaded any country in thousands of years. We even got our freedom through complete non-violence. For thousands of years we absorbed other religions, cultures and languages and their people with open arms. Tolerance is not everybody's cup of tea. Friction will remain, the way out is tolerance and respect for others.
- netcan 15y ago
  Like I said, I have no wish to justify Israeli policies and there are many genuine reasons to object to them. History I don't even think it's possible to justify. I was commenting though on different types of objection though. Objections based on delusions, nationalism and religion. Jews absolutely do not have a monopoly over these. Anti-muslim sentiment in the Europe is largely xenophobia and in the US its mostly nationalism. These (as I'm pretty sure you agree by reading what you wrote). But the scale and flavour of some of the delusions directed at Israel from what are in the Muslim world, non marginal sources are uncommonly fantastic. I participated in a Syrian-Israeli dialogue once where we answer each others' objections to peace. We found that the majority of Syrians believe that the stripes on Israel's flag represent the sea and the euphrates, Israel's ambition to conquer all of modern Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. They referenced a nonexistent map in the Israeli Parliament, nonexistent speeches by early leaders, etc. These were not hawks by any means. They doctors and engineers and teachers that wanted peace and were actively pursuing it. They basically wanted a guarantee that Israel will give up these ambitions. All fantasy. There are some insane surveys from various countries (Egypt, most commonly) about what the average person believes. Americans can be delusionaly racist and nationalistic to. But, you can't sell the idea that shark attacks were orchestrated by from Iran or anything like that.
  - kamaal 15y ago
    But, you can't sell the idea that shark attacks were orchestrated by from Iran or anything like that. You can't sell that kind of an Idea to any people in any part of the world. But you see you can always tell there are Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and go and invade them. Virtually tear their national infrastructure to shreds. Scare away investors and prospective companies from investing and forbid any sane economic growth in the foreseeable future. And Americans did buy that idea. Although no WMD's were found in Iraq. Do you still expect Iraq and their neighbors not to have sane opinions about America. Now come to think of it. Iran has been repeatedly harping that they have no intentions of producing nuclear weapons. What guarantees do we have from the US that they are right and Iran is wrong. After all there wasn't a shred of truth Iraq WMD thing. Why should they even trust you? I am not blaming Americans for this. But if you repeatedly demonize a set of people no matter who they are, after a some time no matter how absurd the argument vast majority of people will begin to believe in those lies. That's how Hitler managed to commit and get support to committing worst genocides in human history. People in the arab world, heck every in the world are just like Americans. They have families, every day lives to live and businesses to run. Just like you.
Duff 15y ago
One of the benefits of a long-standing, distinct Jewish culture, IMO, is that their cultural stability avoids many of the negative affects of decisions made by the broader culture in which they live. In the Middle East today, the relative prosperity of Israel relative to its neighbors is a good example of that. Abandoning science and reason has a negative affect on a society, and blaming your neighbor for your misfortune is easier than dealing with that.
- _delirium 15y ago
  That comparison is a bit tricky to localize to specifically Jewish culture, versus the other ways Israelis on average differ from their neighbors. They are also more European, for example, in the sense of having a significant proportion of the population who in fairly recent history had lived in Europe for generations, and in many cases participated closely in European institutions (e.g. pre-WW2 German and Polish physics research). Especially the first post-'48 generation had much of its science/technology leadership driven by people who had been prominent scientists/technologists in Europe before the Nazis forced them out.

by netcan 15y ago

kamaal 15y ago

Extreme forms of Antisemitism existed long before even Muhammad was born. You are probably referring to the outcome of a half a century long conflict. Yes there is a lot of anti-Jew factor in the Muslim world(I am a Muslim my self). But there is also a lot of anti-Muslim factor widely prevalent in the west too! Every bit of people on this earth have suffered with that problem. The Muslim world looks at these problems from their own view. Think of it this way, there was no signs of Israel in the Arab world around a century back, the settlements start. There are splinter groups. Slowly albeit steadily a vast majority of the native population was displaced to settle new set of people. A new nation is declared, backed by most powerful nations on earth. What was your country yesterday is not today and you are mercilessly kicked out. Now what sins did the natives do to deserve that? On top of loosing their lands, there is huge under development and humiliation since decades. How do you expect them to react? To quote Ben Gurion himself: I don't understand your optimism. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So, it's simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out. - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion Tomorrow if some state like California is invaded by some one, existing citizens of the state thrown out. How will those people react. Will they laughingly walk out of their homes, stay in tents and welcome the invaders with Garlands? And business goes around normal? There isn't a community on earth today which is different than any other community. People everywhere are just the same. When these sort of things happen friction is but natural but to take place. All nations and their people on earth or same, Jews, Muslims and Christians. No one is different. Now there is also a clash of cultures. Others like their culture as much as you like yours. To assume everybody must follow your way of life is unacceptable to any community on earth. I come from a nation(India) which hasn't attacked/invaded any country in thousands of years. We even got our freedom through complete non-violence. For thousands of years we absorbed other religions, cultures and languages and their people with open arms. Tolerance is not everybody's cup of tea. Friction will remain, the way out is tolerance and respect for others.

netcan 15y ago
Like I said, I have no wish to justify Israeli policies and there are many genuine reasons to object to them. History I don't even think it's possible to justify. I was commenting though on different types of objection though. Objections based on delusions, nationalism and religion. Jews absolutely do not have a monopoly over these. Anti-muslim sentiment in the Europe is largely xenophobia and in the US its mostly nationalism. These (as I'm pretty sure you agree by reading what you wrote). But the scale and flavour of some of the delusions directed at Israel from what are in the Muslim world, non marginal sources are uncommonly fantastic. I participated in a Syrian-Israeli dialogue once where we answer each others' objections to peace. We found that the majority of Syrians believe that the stripes on Israel's flag represent the sea and the euphrates, Israel's ambition to conquer all of modern Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. They referenced a nonexistent map in the Israeli Parliament, nonexistent speeches by early leaders, etc. These were not hawks by any means. They doctors and engineers and teachers that wanted peace and were actively pursuing it. They basically wanted a guarantee that Israel will give up these ambitions. All fantasy. There are some insane surveys from various countries (Egypt, most commonly) about what the average person believes. Americans can be delusionaly racist and nationalistic to. But, you can't sell the idea that shark attacks were orchestrated by from Iran or anything like that.
- kamaal 15y ago
  But, you can't sell the idea that shark attacks were orchestrated by from Iran or anything like that. You can't sell that kind of an Idea to any people in any part of the world. But you see you can always tell there are Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and go and invade them. Virtually tear their national infrastructure to shreds. Scare away investors and prospective companies from investing and forbid any sane economic growth in the foreseeable future. And Americans did buy that idea. Although no WMD's were found in Iraq. Do you still expect Iraq and their neighbors not to have sane opinions about America. Now come to think of it. Iran has been repeatedly harping that they have no intentions of producing nuclear weapons. What guarantees do we have from the US that they are right and Iran is wrong. After all there wasn't a shred of truth Iraq WMD thing. Why should they even trust you? I am not blaming Americans for this. But if you repeatedly demonize a set of people no matter who they are, after a some time no matter how absurd the argument vast majority of people will begin to believe in those lies. That's how Hitler managed to commit and get support to committing worst genocides in human history. People in the arab world, heck every in the world are just like Americans. They have families, every day lives to live and businesses to run. Just like you.

Duff 15y ago

One of the benefits of a long-standing, distinct Jewish culture, IMO, is that their cultural stability avoids many of the negative affects of decisions made by the broader culture in which they live. In the Middle East today, the relative prosperity of Israel relative to its neighbors is a good example of that. Abandoning science and reason has a negative affect on a society, and blaming your neighbor for your misfortune is easier than dealing with that.

_delirium 15y ago
That comparison is a bit tricky to localize to specifically Jewish culture, versus the other ways Israelis on average differ from their neighbors. They are also more European, for example, in the sense of having a significant proportion of the population who in fairly recent history had lived in Europe for generations, and in many cases participated closely in European institutions (e.g. pre-WW2 German and Polish physics research). Especially the first post-'48 generation had much of its science/technology leadership driven by people who had been prominent scientists/technologists in Europe before the Nazis forced them out.