'Playing with fire' in Middle East

The Oregonian ^ | 3/30/02 | Staff

[Former Proud Canadian]

A friend of mine asked me why the Jews seem to be hated by almost everyone all over the world. I never really thought about it....anyone have an answer??

Let me give it a try. The Jews are reviled for basically the same reason the US is hated. They are successful. Others are jealous.

[MACD]

What you could do -- just go back over all the "Israeli Threads" and you'll get your answer!

[monkeyshine]

it assumes the long-time alliance of the two contries.

It assumes the lack of prospects for peace. To the extent that reprisals may not stop the terrorism, a lack of reprisal wont stop it either. The US is not going to hamstring Israel by forcing her to take hits without a response. That would just be a bad strategy.

It's bad strategy for Israel to pull out of any territory without some kind of security arrangements. There are no assurances that the PA will even accept Israel withdrawing from the 1967 border, or act to prevent assaults from "rogue elements" even if they did. The PA is useless... Israel is on it's own, it has no partner for peace.

[monkeyshine]

anyone have an answer??

Is there a legitimate answer? Assuming it's true, why do you think it is?

[majordivit]

The Jews 'gave' the arabs nothing at Camp David? The land isn't for the Jews, or for anybody else, to give away. G-d promised the land of Israel (From the Tigris to the Euphrates) to the Jewish people for ever and ever. Modern day Israel represents only 10 percent of the size of biblical Israel. If the Jews surrender Judea and Sammaria, Israel will be only 5 percent the size of biblical Israel.

[MACD]

The PA is useless

Quite so . …. can Israel devise it's own solution?
What ever happened to "defense", Israel only uses retaliation. Build the often talked about wall. Stop Arabs from entering or leaving. That stops the suicide stuff. Then work on countering the "over the wall" shots. Or is Israel so spread out with all the settlements that it has no border that’s defensible?

[veronica]

Actually a read of the Israel threads here for the most part would confirm what I said, that Israel and Jews have great support. :)

[MACD]

The question was not about support for Jews - the question was "Why are Jews so hated". This could actually be a neat experiment if SunGirl is sincere. Let her read the threads for the last week, and then she can tell us what she thinks of the Jews based of what they have posted.

[Pharmboy]

A reasonable question (though some will deny the truth of it). And, it should be noted that Jews have lived for generations within other cultures and done very well--and have been quite well accepted (e.g., the US, during the time of the Islamic empire from the 8th to the 11th century, Holland from 16th century to the present, and others).

My take is that different societies have had different reasons for negative feelings about the Jews.

During medieval Christian times in Europe, the Jews were people who lived among them but said, in a way that 1) your food was not good enough for us 2) your children are not good enough for ours and 3) your G-d is also not good enough for us to replace ours (and BTW, it was our ancestors who orchestrated His death).

You want more? OK, here's some more. For the most part they could not own land nor be in a profession; they were thus businessmen, barterers, and moneylenders. Also, governments (notably the Poles) used them as tax collectors. And, they were good at it, acquiring wealth and other people's property when they defaulted on loans or taxes.

Edward I (Longshanks from the movie Braveheart ) fought the Welsh, Scots and Irish. He needed money for these wars of expansion. He borrowed heavily from the English Jews. Rather than repay, he had them all expelled from the country and seized their assets while defaulting on the loans. They did not re-enter until centuries later.

The Germans hated them partly because in some ways it seemed that they out-Germanned the Germans themselves as far as love for the Fatherland (e.g., German Jews had distinguished themselves in WWI) and their love for German Kultur. During the 1920s and early 1930s, German Jews had major positions throughout Germany in the arts, communications, science and academia.

So, in part, envy and jealosy played a role along with the Jews being The Other; i.e., alien, strange and mysterious. It's a complicated story, but at least this is a start. I hope this has been helpful.

[veronica]

As I posted before, Jews are hated by anti-Semites, neo-Nazis and other assorted other cranks. Not too many of those around here. They tend to vaporize...:)

[monkeyshine]

No, I think you are misreading it now. Maybe it was retaliation, in the hopes that the PA would realize that terrorism doesn't pay. That strategy didn't work, so it's on to a new strategy.

They could build a fence, but who would be on the other side? Terrorists who would launch mortars and qassam missiles. And with the fence, they would be free to import all the weapons they wanted.

So it appears that they need to clean up the territories, and remove as many weapons and terrorist leaders as they can. This is the new strategy.

I think the tactic will be to remove Arafat's top advisors; Barghouti, Tirawi, Rajoub and others. These are the masterminds of the terror campaigns, and control a lot. If they are gone, Arafat remains an empty suit. He may (stress the word may) then be able to replace them with people who will actually work towards maintaining order in the PA, rounding up terrorists, acting against terror groups, etc. Arafat may be powerless to stop these men, who may kill him if Arafat appears 'soft'. So taking them out may (may!) help Arafat help the peace process.

Clearly, Arafat can't be killed or arrested for fear of making things impossible to resolve in the future. But taking out the advisors of terror might be a good step.

[Helms]

Actually you are wittnessing the unraveling of the arab terrorist regimes. Bush knows the linkages.

[MACD]

SunGirl didn't ask "who", she asked "why". Maybe she'll read the threads and get back to us.

[veronica]

Why...?

Jealousy. Ignorance. Missing a few chromosomes perhaps...:) All possible reasons. But the whole thing is based on a satirical song about hate and as I stated, Jews are not hated...by normal people. :)

[MACD]

So it appears that they need to clean up the territories, and remove as many weapons and terrorist leaders as they can. This is the new strategy.

I'm not so sure this is anything new, however, it certainly seems to be the plan at the moment. But at the end of the day, you know who will most pleased if Arafat is neutralized? Hamas! And Sharon simply will not have the time it would take to sort through 3 million people, and cut out the terrorist. The longer Sharon and his tanks are in the territories, the more difficult it is for Bush to support him. You keep that stuff on the 6 o'clock news long enough, and support for Israel will fade, and Bush will rush to stay in front of the new sentiment. At this point it has little to do with "righteousness" -- those tanks on TV will sink Israel -- just as the liberals turned against our troops in Vietnam because of what they saw on TV every evening

[Jimmyclyde]

Your lies stink to high heaven.

Even your moon god alah vomits in anger.

You lie, because there is nothing else you can do.

The arabs living on the west bank choose to live the way they do.

They are brainwashed into thinking that AraFAG and his goons will bring peace to them and destruction to the Israelis.

Come out and say it, you want all JEWS in the Middle east dead

It is no wonder that mien kiemf is the best selling book in the west bank and gaza

BTW...6 million Jews died by the hand of the Nazis, NOT ONE arab would die if they choose to live in peace with Israel

I will give you some time to go to Hamas.org to get an answer

NEVER AGAIN!!!

[BnBlFlag]

"The Israelis are playing with fire.".....What are the Palies going to do? Start sending suicide bombers into restaurants? >sarcasm.