Posted on 07/31/2006 7:45:54 PM PDT by dennisw
A friend just emailed me (Michael Ledeen) this, a comment from Eric Hoffer in 1968:
The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese-and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace .
Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967] he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on .
There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him. The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us.
Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.
I mainly pinged you because it was Hoffer.
I agree with you. This war is a litmus test, and almost every country is failing it. The moral issues couldn't be more clear, and it astounds me, but no longer surprises me, how few people understand it. A goodly number of Americans and Israelis do, but beyond these two countries almost no one, it seems.
And even in these two countries there is almost an irresistable urge to appease the killers of women and children; what were the nineties but a non-stop effort to buy off the killers, which was repaid by non-stop intifada, non-stop suicide attacks on civilians, unending pain as teenagers in pizza parlors, kids on school buses, shoppers sipping their coffee were splattered into bits?
The only thing that finally stopped the carnage was the wall, and Israel was endlessly condemned for the wall.
Now that kamakazi attackers can't get at them, Hamas and Hezbollah have upped the ante, sailing hundreds of missiles into back yards. These are attacks that are guaranteed to hit civilians, but thats not new, every Hamas attack and every Hezbollah attack is aimed at civilians. They have always been aimed at civilians primarily. It is a rare attack that aims at soldiers, their victims are an endless parade of moms and kids.
This war is the necessary outcome of Oslo, and a decade of appeasement. If they stop short of the complete defeat of Hezbollah and Hamas, you can call it a truce, you can call it a cease-fire, anything you want, but the war and the killing will continue. It will only get worse.
This says it better than I could -
"Zechariah 12:3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it."
I find it interesting that Hoffer quotes Arnold Toynbee.
...Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis...
After all, Toynbee hated the Jews at least as much as Hitler did and maybe even more so.
BTW, I've read Toynbee too for what it's worth. I say save your time. He's not worth reading.
I'm not sure of the exact quote by Toynbee but it was something like "The Jews are the fossils of history".....
A people who are dead but just too stupid to get in their graves........
I wish we had a few "Eric Hoffers" around nowadays.
Outstanding. Thank you very much for posting this.
Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. It pulls and whirls the individual away from his own self, makes him oblivious of his weal and future, frees him of jealousies and self-seeking. He becomes an anonymous particle with a craving to fuse and coalesce with his like into one flaming mass... Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil... Common hatred unites the most heterogeneous elements. To share a common hatred, with an enemy even, is to infect him with a feeling of kinship, and thus sap his powers of resistance... We have it from Hitler... that the genius of a great leader consists oin concentrating all hatred on a single foe. [pp 85-87]
Eric Hoffer Revisited"The intellectual craves above all . . . to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history... [the intellectual] craves a social order in which uncommon people perform uncommon tasks every day. He wants a society throbbing with dedication, reverence, and worship.... The elimination of the profit motive in Communist countries has not made people less greedy and selfish... From all that I read it seems that the attitude of every man for himself is more pronounced in a Communist than in a capitalist society."
by Stephen Miller
Toynbee.... never read his books so you have saved me the trouble. Not that I haven't heard of him
Eric Hoffer's last sentence goes beyond prescient; its prophetic. In 1968 when it was written, Israel was in her youth - the country was exactly 20 years old. Islamofascism lay far in the future. And yet - Israel's fight for survival is also the West's fight for survival. If Israel was destroyed, the West would soon follow. It may begin with the Jews but it rarely stops with them. The Iranian mullahs are determined to destroy America as well as Israel and that is exactly why they want the Bomb. If we do not stop them, we will not be around to read our own obituary.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
bump for later
1Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.2For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
3They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:
6The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.
9Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison:
10Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.
11Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna:
12Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
13O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.
14As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire;
15So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.
16Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O LORD.
17Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish:
18That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.
Good Post.
Funny thing is, I have not read Hoffer. (How can that be????) Seems like I've been missing some marvelous work! Please recommend a title?
I'm on my knees .30Carbine, humbled before the glory of the Lord! Thank you from my heart for posting this glorious psalm! Pray for Israel.
It is a false position to compare Turkey throwing out Greeks or Algeria throwing out Frenchmen to Israelis throwing out Palestinian Arabs. A fairer comparison would be to compare Greeks throwing Turks out of Turkey or if the French threw Algerians out of Algeria.
There's only One reason to support Israel, and it is identical to the One reason the world exists, the One reason murder is objectively wrong, and the One reason to get up out of bed every morning.
That being said, Hoffer made some valid points. Unfortunately, his perspective undermines them.
The hatred of the Jews over millennia years is irrational, visceral, obsessive. And they have survived and thrived. How could anyone doubt that God has blessed them and has a purpose for them?
ping to myself
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