To: FReepers; everyone; All
Posted on 11/14/2011 11:03:16 AM PST by ventanax5
The idea that the problem is Israel, that the problem is the Jews, protects Palestinians from having to confront that inferiority or do anything about it or overcome it. The idea among Palestinians that they are victims means more to them than anything else. It is everything. It is the centerpiece of their very identity and it is the way they define themselves as human beings in the world. It is not an idle thing. Our facts and our reason are not going to penetrate easily that definition or make any progress.
“The question is, how do they get away with a poetic truth, based on such an obvious series of falsehoods? One reason why they get away with it in the Middle East is that the Western world lacks the moral authority to call them on it. The Western world has not said ‘your real problem is inferiority. Your real problem is underdevelopment.’ That has not been said, nor will ever be said – because the Western world was once colonial, was once racist, did practice white supremacy, and is so ashamed of itself and so vulnerable to those charges, that they are not going to say a word. They are not going to say what they really think and feel about what is so obvious about the circumstances among the Palestinians. So the poetic truth that Palestinians live by carries on.”
(Excerpt) Read more at hudson-ny.org ...
As I read the first paragraph I ventured the thought of an overlay with the black community in the U.S.
The speaker assumes that colonialism was a bad thing. In fact, colonialism, on the whole, allowed backward countries the opportunity to leap over the centuries of hard work that Christendom endured to reach an advanced civilization. Colonialists were no more “racist” than anyone who would admit the truth: cultures in the Middle East, Africa, etc. are inferior. Consequently, it is hard to see how the author thinks he is any better than the colonialists when he says it should be admitted (but we won’t) that the culture of the Palestinians or blacks is inferior.
Don’t forget Shelby Steele is himself Black.
I know he is black, or partly so. It point is the same, however.
That victim-hood and its perpetuity have served the purposes of those who created and supported it - those seeking the destruction of Israel, by one means or another; those outsiders seeking to use Palestinian victim-hood for their own internal domestic, and international political ends; those seeking to enrich themselves via the aid mechanisms established to assist the Palestinian “victims” and “refugees”.
What it has not served well is the Palestinian people or Peace between the Arabs of Palestine and Israel.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Any culture anywhere which practices gender apartheid, still continues beheading as appropriate puishment for crime or for prisoners of war...etc. IS inferior, and will remain so until it discontiues these backward and barbaric practices.
We are superior to them because we DON’T do what they do!
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