Posted on 08/06/2006 6:23:12 PM PDT by goldstategop
One of my favorite all-but-unknown books is The Heart Of Princess Osra, written by Anthony Hope in 1896. Hope hit the big time with The Prisoner Of Zenda and its boffo sequel Rupert Of Hentzau, two rip-roaring yarns in which an English dilettante twice contrives to save from usurpers the throne of Ruritania.
The Heart Of Princess Osra is also set in Hope's fictional Mitteleuropean kingdom, but this time a century and a half earlier - the 1730s - and it's not a rollicking adventure but a series of ill-starred romantic vignettes featuring King Rudolf III's younger sister and various unsuitable suitors. Yet it does make you appreciate how fully the author conceived his fictional landscape: Ruritania wasn't merely the setting of a thriller, so why just use it as such? Hope knew its history, its rulers and its laws long before the events of The Prisoner took place. As evidence of that, look no further than chapter one, page one of Princess Osra:
"Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!"
The impatient cry was heard through all the narrow gloomy street, where the old richly-carved house-fronts bowed to meet one another and left for the eye's comfort only a bare glimpse of blue. It was, men said, the oldest street in Strelsau, even as the sign of the "Silver Ship" was the oldest sign known to exist in the city. For when Aaron Lazarus the Jew came there, seventy years before, he had been the tenth man in unbroken line that took up the business; and now Stephen Nados, his apprentice and successor, was the eleventh.
Old Lazarus had made a great business of it, and had spent his savings in buying up the better part of the street; but since Jews then might hold no property in Strelsau, he had taken all the deeds in the name of Stephen Nados; and when he came to die, being unable to carry his houses or his money with him, having no kindred, and caring not a straw for any man or woman alive save Stephen, he bade Stephen let the deeds be, and, with a last curse against the Christians (of whom Stephen was one, and a devout one), he kissed the young man, and turned his face to the wall and died.
Therefore Stephen was a rich man, and had no need to carry on the business, though it never entered his mind to do anything else...
THAT'S PRETTY darn good. There's not another single reference to Ruritanian Jewry in any of Hope's writing, but he's thorough enough in the conception of his fairytale kingdom even to know what the anti-Semitic property restrictions are. The author located Ruritania somewhere between Saxony and Bohemia, though, thanks to the movie versions of Zenda, we tend to think of it as being in the Balkans. But it doesn't matter where you put it, the likes of Lazarus the Jew are long gone from Strelsau's bustling streets. In Romanian Journey, Sacheverell Sitwell recounted his visit in 1937 to the Bukovina, formerly the easternmost province of the Habsburg Empire, then part of Romania, now in the Ukraine. Its capital, Czernowitz, was a melange of Romanians, Ruthenians, Poles, Germans, Armenians and Swabians, but, as Sitwell couldn't help noticing, you'd never know that from a stroll down Main Street: "There is not a shop that has not a Jewish name painted above its windows. The entire commerce of the place is in the hands of the Jews. Yiddish is spoken here more than German."
Not anymore. The Jews of Czernowitz are dead or fled, as they are from a thousand other cities across Europe. For centuries, the rap against the Hebrews was that they were sinister rootless cosmopolitan types unbound by allegiance to whichever polity they happened to be residing in. So, after the Second World War, the ones who were left became a more or less conventional nation state, and now they're hated for that.
But all the hoo-ha about Holocaust denial (and granted, from President Ahmadinejad to Mel Gibson's dad, there's a lot of it about) has obscured the fact that the world has re-embraced, with little objection, an older form of anti-Semitism. Israel is, in effect, subject to a geopolitical version of the same conditions endured by Lazarus the Jew in Anthony Hope's Strelsau.
The Zionist Entity is for the moment permitted to remain in business but, like Aaron Lazarus, it's not entitled to the enforceable property rights of every other nation state. No other country - not Canada, not Slovenia, not Thailand - would be expected to forego the traditional rights of nations subjected to kidnappings of its citizens, random rocket attacks into residential areas, and other infringements of its sovereignty. This isn't about who's right and who's wrong: there are regional flare-ups all over the map and, regardless of the rights and wrongs, for the most part the world just sits back and lets them get on with it. There are big population displacements - as there were, contemporaneous to the founding of Israel, in Europe and the Indian sub-continent - but one side wins and the other makes do with what it can get and the dust settles.
The energy expended by the world in denying this particular regional crisis the traditional settlement is unique and perverse, except insofar as by ensuring that the "Palestinian question" is never resolved one is also ensuring that Israel's sovereignty is also never really settled: it, too, is conditional - and, to judge from recent columns in The Washington Post and The Times of London, it's increasingly seen that way in influential circles - the Jew is tolerated as a current leaseholder but, as in Anthony Hope's Ruritania, he can never truly own the land. Once again the Jews are rootless transients, though, in one of history's blacker jests, they're now bemoaned in the salons of London and Paris as an outrageous imposition of an alien European population on the Middle East.
Which would have given Aaron Lazarus a laugh. The Jews spent millennia on the Continent without ever being accepted as European. But no sooner are the Continent's Jewry all but extinct than suddenly every Jew left on the planet is a European.
In her Impressions From The Road, With Historical Essays (1903), Elizaveta de Vitte witnessed the same phenomenon in the Bukovina Sacheverell Sitwell later noted, but blamed the success of the Jews for the poverty of the Russians: "Out of the 600 students in the Chernowitz University, only 50 are Russian! It is true that admission to the University is open to everyone, but the actual enrollment happens in the following way: on a set day, Jews block the doors of the University..."
The Zionists' "disproportionate" response in Lebanon is merely the latest version of the famous Jewish pushiness.
With hindsight, even the artful invention of the hitherto unknown ethnicity of "Palestinian" can be seen as the need to demonstrate that where there is a Jew there is the Jew's victim.
It's a very strange feeling to read 19th century novels and travelogues and recognize the old psychoses currently reemerging in even more preposterous forms. These are dark times for the world: we are on the brink of the nuclearization of ancient pathologies.
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Very well said.
Upwards of 75% of American Jews voted against George Bush and for John Kerry. Even the nominally "pro-Israel" (at least in their press releases) liberal Jews like Dershowitz work tirelessly for anti-Israel candidates like Hillary Clinton.
And by anti-Israel, I mean those pols who might cluck and shake their heads over Man's Inhumanity to Jews...and then will shrug and cavil when Israel really needs our help.
"Are you dropping dead? You poor dear....... I'll attend the Blue Ribbon panel sometime next year."
Delay was the strongest, most passionate pro-Israel rep in the House. Did he get any help from even the conservative Jews? Delay was that unforgiveable thing...one of those embarassing evangelicals. Not our kind, deah.
Look at what is happening to Lieberman--that he is a Jew and pro-Israel is the elephant in the room that no Lamont supporter will discuss. Look at his blogs and notice all the "code language" that is supposed to enrage Jews and fill them with "never again" passions. Not a peep about it. Not a darned peep.
Benign neglect is just another kind of antisemitism, and almost all US Jews are foursquare behind these pols. It's beyond bewildering to me--more of a self-destructive pathology, based on the Joy of Spite. The joy of spiting the Christian...behold that outpouring of spite here on FR when Mel disgraced himself. Resentment Unmasked.
Which brings us to policy, and the future of US support for Israel. Given that the religious right is probably the only reliable and strongest support for Israel (to the fidgets, blushes and cringes of the few urban Jews who do try to support Israel), how long will the ship of state sail to Israel's aid? The religous right cannot fight all of Israel's political battles, particularly when conservative Jews are too shy to be seen sitting at the same table as the evangelicals.
When a pro-Israel pol like Delay finds himself in need of a few warriors to keep himself viable, there is no reciprocity. How long will pols like Delay rise to serve Israel's interests?
I don't think there'll be many more. If Lieberman is brought down, pols are going to notice that there isn't much in the way of political goodies for those who support Israel.
Ping!
Pokey78, thanks for the ping.
Ping
BTTT
Is there anything this man can't deeply analyze?
Old saying, "They live like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans." I know young Jewish families who thought it was anathema to vote for Bush's re-election.
Thanks for the ping. Steyn nails it again, in remarkably few words.
Steyn:
It's a very strange feeling to read 19th century novels and travelogues and recognize the old psychoses currently reemerging in even more preposterous forms. These are dark times for the world: we are on the brink of the nuclearization of ancient pathologies.
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okie01:
This piece was like the movie which leaves the audience stunned and speechless at the end, resulting in a palpable pause before the audience starts to file out...silently.
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Chilling conclusion, which should be repeated daily to anyone who wonders what the "war" is about.
It's rather complex but I think you have to look at it generation by generation and social movement by social movement.
Nearly all immigrants embraced FDR and that included the Jews and their children who came over before (or were raised through) the Great Depression. They shared common cause on the New Deal and, FDR was (relative to today) a conservative that Jews from Europe, Catholics from Ireland and Italy could embrace. On the principles he led us into a righteous war which they supported.
The children of those immigrants - the boombers - with the New Deal already a part of society, turned to social activism. They made common cause with other minorities, supported equal rights, civil rights etc. Understandable, really. To a degree politics confused them as those they supported really simply used the issues without really seeking realistic long term solutions. The southern democrats were not the same as the northern democrats at all. But since most Jews were and are cosmopolitan (city dwellers) those they supported were democrats (they would not have supported most southern democrats). Here it becomes tricky at that time you couldn't really associate an ideology with a party. Most democrats were segregationists, so there was fighting within the party at that time. It was a fight within the party and they took a side inside that party (eventually winning) and became embedded thereafter. They worked within the party and won, so that is the basis of their attachment to it.
Bush Sr. set back the GOP's relationship with the Jewish voters. Reagan had begun to make strong inroads but there was a big distrust of Bush Sr. which turned into distaste during his term. He came across as elitist, which Jews don't tend to like, and then in office came down strong against Israel while his Secretary of State essentially said "F the Jews". No surprise then that over 90% of the Jews voted for someone other than Bush Sr. in his run for a second term. I personally voted for Bush Sr. in 1988, I voted for Browne in 1992.
There remains skepticism about making common cause with Fundamentalist Christians. I think over time this concern will erode as replacement theology erodes. But among the Generation X Jews there is a growing tendency to see the GOP favorably.
One of the features of the neo-Marxist influence on European popular culture is a rejection of Europe's own colonial past as oppressive and immoral - this, however valid, has been projected onto Israel and Israel's European roots dismissed as a relic of a bygone age. That's a problem, because resistance to an aggressive, militant Islam was also one of those roots that is being marginalized in the same fashion. The result is the sort of sticky multiculturalism that has proven so vulnerable to Islamist incursion, blameless because it rejects its own history, virtuous because it blames its vices on the past, and triumphant because it has yet to fight.
I do not see how Europe can resist being absorbed if this particular political and cultural fad persists. And a U.S. equally under its sway will be equally vulnerable.
He makes the point that ancient anti-Semitic bigotry is breaking out like a cancer that has metastasized and is now in the process of killing the victim. But in this case, the victim could be all of Western civilization because the cancer now has nuclear weapons.
Hey, Lurker!! Always good to see you. I've always enjoyed our camaraderie on the Libertarian threads, and you'll be happy to know I'm starting to take my armed-citizen responsibilities more seriously than in the past; I've still only one gun in the house, but I've upgraded to .380 ACP. (Okay, stop laughing. I'd rather have a 380 and not need one, than... etc.)
With respect, Israel does have some responsibility here.
If modern Israel is founded upon the ethnic and religious heritage of Ancient Biblical Israel as the religious Zionists claimed, AND/OR if it is founded upon the Legal Rights granted to the "Jewish National Home" in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 as the secular Zionists claimed (read all about it in my Essay, A HISTORY OF BETRAYAL: The Zionist Establishment of Israel), then Israel already enjoys an established Legal Right to Judea and Samaria (i.e., the so-called "West Bank")... and what was good enough for Jordan in 1949, should be good enough for Israel post-1967: ANNEXATION.
It is not at all unconventional, according to the Canonical Rules for Just War, for a Victor of a Defensive War (Israel in 1967) to annex such territories from the Aggressor as are necessary to prevent an Aggressor from initiating War again; this is especially true when the Defender enjoys prior Legal Right to the territory in question, as Israel already does due to the Paris Peace Conference allotments.
By her short-sighted failure to formally ANNEX Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank"), Israel has actually contributed to her own military and public relations problems over the long term.... rather like a cancer patient refusing to undergo Chemotherapy because of the (admittedly brutal) short-term effects, while the malignant tumor grows, and grows, and grows. As long as Judea and Samaria are classed as "occupied territories" (rather than simply Annexing the territories, as did Jordan in 1949), Israel is allowing the fiction of a "Palestinian Nation" to gain international credence and support... year after year, 39 years and counting.
Israel needs to ANNEX Judea and Samaria, and I mean do it tomorrow. Preferably, the day before. Or better yet, 39 years ago. And if she is unwilling to face the international outcry from doing so (if perhaps she has now allowed the "palestinian" tumor to grow too large), then she needs to finish building the Security Wall around the main Jewish settlements and FORMALLY ANNEX at least that portion... and then cut the rest off, period.
The Philistines of the Gaza Strip have, currently, about the same population of Hong Kong Island, with five times the land area. They can either follow the Hong Kong route ("hey, everybody... we're peaceful economic-libertarians -- come do business here!") and survive and prosper, or they can die on the vine.
Israel shouldn't care which... they should "cut and run", walling off Gaza and leaving it to its own devices; and, if the Arabs of the West Bank are unwilling to live with the Jews, then Israel should do the same there.
As long as Israel leaves the Legal Status of the "West Bank" unresolved, her problems with the "West Bank" will also remain... violently, bloodily, unresolved.
Best, OP
Excellent points.
There is extreme international pressure now that would prevent annexation.
I expect it could have been accomplished after the 7 days war, or even after the Yom Kippur War, but to do it now would not work.
I believe they still control Golan (formerly Syrian?), and they were wrong to leave their strip in Southern Lebanon on the promises of the UN. The UN is a failed organization and an effort at world socialism, which I hope will be seen for the utter failure that it is, and that socialism has always been shown to be.
I agree that "There is extreme international pressure now that would prevent annexation"; I'm just saying that's a damn shame.
I agree with you that in '67 or '73 Israel could have "bit the bullet" and Annexed Judea and Samaria and ended this problem; my own research tells me that up until the 1987 intifada, most Arabs living in Israel considered themselves "Israeli Arabs", not this imaginary "Palestinian" ethnicity. Israel could have dealt with the problem then, and incorporated the people of the so-called "West Bank" as "Israeli Arabs".
Unfortunately, she did not. Ergo (and sadly), I think that the best option for Israel now is to ANNEX the major Jewish settlements of the West Bank (which are mostly adjacent to Israel anyway), and then leave the rest of the "Palestinian" Arab areas to "sink or swim" on their own.
Israel should CUT OFF the "West Bank" (aside from the major Jewish settlements, which I think she should Formally Annex), and leave the Palestinians that choice -- Peace, or Starving to Death. Hey, Moslems -- make your choice!!
The same goes for Gaza, of course; while my Essay establishes that the Israelis have a precendent Legal Right to the Gaza Strip due to the Paris Peace Conference, I personally believe that on pragmatic grounds Israel should cut them off to "sink or swim" also. A few (a very few) American Christian Fundamentalists like Pastor John Hagee believe that Israel should not relinquish the Gaza Strip (since it was tributary to King Solomon or whatever), but I personally think that Israel needs 1.3 million recalcitrant Gaza-Strip Arabs like the USA needs another 100 million or so Illegal Aliens (proportionately). Hey, why don't we just all shoot ourselves in the head, and save our enemies the trouble? No. Cut 'em off, Sink or Swim.
I believe they still control Golan (formerly Syrian?),
Israel controls most of the Golan Heights, except for a UN demilitarized zone between Israeli troop depolyments and Syrian troop deployments.
The Golan is an entirely different case from Judea and Samaria (Legally speaking), because the Golan was ceded from the Palestine Mandate to French Syria in 1923 without much objection from the Zionists. I suppose that one could make, for the Israelis, a weak claim to the Golan based upon the (questionable) Biblical territory of East Manasseh and the 1917 Balfour declaration; however, since the Zionists of 1923 and every Israeli government since then has never entertained any claims to the area, I think it's safe to say that Israel legally acknowledges the Golan Heights to be Syrian Sovereign Territory.
Thus, the possession of the Golan Heights falls under Canonical Rules for Just War: since Israel has not laid claim to the Golan as "Defender's Spoils", it is only appropriate for Israel to immediately return to Syria territory which is rightfully Syrian -- just as soon as Syria formally terminates its State of War against Israel, a State of War which has existed since 1948.
Of course, as long as Syria formally continues to be in a Legal State of War against Israel (as she has been for almost 60 years), then she has no cause to object to continued Israeli occupation of the (Legally-Syrian) Golan Heights.
You have to be at Peace with your Neighbor before you've got any rights to bitch about the fence-posts.
and they were wrong to leave their strip in Southern Lebanon on the promises of the UN. The UN is a failed organization and an effort at world socialism, which I hope will be seen for the utter failure that it is, and that socialism has always been shown to be.
Lebanon is a more tragic situation by far. Unlike almost every other state in the region, as far as I know Lebanon has NEVER declared War against Israel. Lebanon is perhaps the only country in the region with a Christian population large enough to matter in their internal politics (well, there was Iraq... oops... sorry, our "nation-building" in Iraq has worked so well that the Christians are now mostly dead or gone), and has unfortunately been a much-abused Pawn of Arab-Israeli warfare for the last 30 years.
In other words, the People of Lebanon (many of them Christians, many of them who don't "Hate Israel" but who have an understandably-Patriotic objection to any Foreign Occupation) are caught between a Hezbollah which is so violent and incompetent that it fires over 1,500 missiles at Israel causing less than 100 deaths, (only half of them military); AND... an Israeli War Machine which is so ruthlessly powerful it kills hundreds in its path every time it does anything, 90% of the deaths being civilians.
It's not a good situation, period. Israel is defending itself against the Hezbollah terrorist army, and Lebanese civilians are getting caught right in the war-zone and getting butchered like cattle -- women, children, babies.
It's an ugly situation on all sides. That's all there is to it.
Oops. Faux Pas.
What I meant to say was, "Respectfully" (indicating a respectful disagreement), not "respectively" (indicating a logical progression of types).
Mea Culpa.
Incidentally, on the subject of Respect, Xzins -- you have mine, as always, and I am deeply sorry if any prior discussion on Dispensationalism of mine on another Thread turned into some "Godwin's Law" Nazi-flame-war competition. I don't know exactly what happened, as the Religion Thread in question was Pulled before I got back to it a couple days later, so I am just going on what "GOOGLE Caches" I could find.
It seems that accusations of Nazism started getting thrown around, Godwin's Law was invoked, and the Thread got Pulled. At least that's what I can tell from any GOOGLE Caches.
If so, that's never what I intended. In my experience, most Dispensationalists tend to be some of the most earnestly kind-hearted (if misguided, IMO) folks I'd ever hope to meet; hardly candidates for the SS or Gestapo, by any imagination! (Good grief... that's not what I said!) My objection is purely theological; I don't believe that it is Theologically-Right for Christians to ever elevate any one Ethnic Group above any other within the Body of Christ, whether "British-Israelism" or "Identity" or any other theology.
Since the Thread apparently turned into a "Nazi-Godwin" flame war and was Pulled before I had a chance to explain my objections more fully, I'll try to explain them another time, on another thread.
But not here. Thread-Hijacking is bad ju-ju. Some other place, some other time.
Best, OP
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