Leftist Anti-Semitic Double Standard Hurl Alert!
Although I am not familiar with the author, I asume he is a respected Isreali politician with no particular axe to grind, although the Arab American Institute has labelled him a racist for remarks made on Thursday, August 2,on "Nightline" (so I would take it he is unlikley to be labelled a Palestinian sympathizer or dupe). Regretfully, I believe he makes much sense. I am posting this for the benefit of those who have not had the opportunity to consider his opinions rather than to argue the issue with those who disagree.
You assume wrong. He is a bitter, angry old leftist who is still seething that his party was knocked out of power after the Oslo debacle.
It's not a new view and it belongs in the same category as "9/11 happened because America is mean."
It's a pathetic, childish argument no matter what rehtorical flourishes it is couched in.
Leftist Anti-Semitic Double Standard Hurl Alert!
I completely disagree with MK Burg's assessment of the state of Israeli society and Zionism. In my view both are alive and healthy. Most Israelis, and most Americans who are in Israel often, seem to be very optimistic about Israel's future. The pessimism comes from two corners: the left wing, who no longer has the influence it once had, and indeed very little influence at all; and American and other diaspora Jews who have not been to Israel lately and make their judgements based on what they see on CNN and the nightly news.
I agree with Avraham Burg on only one fundemental point: there must be a separation between Palestinians and Jews. This does not require "transfer", the mass expulsion that Burg talks about and National Union advocates, nor does it require adandoning all of Judea and Samaria.
Prime Minister Sharon has said that Israel cannot rule over 3.5 million Palestinians, and he even dared use the Palestinian's favorite word: occupation. That does not mean that Israel must succumb to terror.
I have long been an advocate of separation, or as then Prime Minister Ehud Barak put it, "Us here. Them there." However, that has never meant a retreat to 1967 borders. IMHO, those in Labour who advocate separation, including Mr. Burg, fail to realize that any unilateral redrawing of Israel's borders must be done in a way that will not be seen as weakness by the Arabs. Weakness, as President Bush said in his speech, invites more terrorism.
Similarly, the right doesn't get it either. They read the biblical promise and history and assume that the Jewish people have a G-d given right to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Look at those biblical maps again. Most of Gaza isn't included, and staying there serves little purpose other than to create a flashpoint. Judea and Samaria, as well as parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon were promised to the Jewish people, and will be Jewish when meshiach comes, not because we put up settlements next to Arab cities.
I believe Prime Minister Sharon must finish the security fence. It should take in settlements that were built for security reasons along the green line, major blocs of Jewish population, and all of Jerusalem. Unlike Mr. Burg I believe that the IDF can seriously damage the terrorists' ability to strike Israel. Once that is done and the fence is completed we can leave the Palestinians in their walled-in pseudo-state to do whatever they will so long as they do not threaten Israel. The IDF will, of course, deal with any threats.
Once the Palestinians are walled in and basically powerless perhaps they will see the value of compromise. In any case, Israel will no longer be ruling over them, nor will we be providing services to them as we do now. Whatever the fate of the Palestinian Arabs, it will be their own doing.
I must ask US admirer: Have you been to Israel lately? Have you lived in Israel? What is the basis of your agreement with MK Burg?
Sometimes I think I should give up my career and start a new, centrist political movement. Then I realize that nobody will listen to me anyway :)
Maybe that's why Israel is in such trouble?
The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership.
Wrong. Judaism has these as pillars. The Zionist "revolution" (not a complete misuse of the word: there was no revolution; there was a movement; the man can't think) was about creation of a home for the Jewish people. Once created, of course, that homeland was desired to be just, fair, etc. Just as our own Founding Fathers, just as any society being reborn, they were concerned about the nature of the society being reborn in Palestine and then Israel. But that was NOT the "pillar."
Diaspora Jews for whom Israel is a central pillar of their identity must pay heed and speak out.
This moron should speak for himself. I am a Jew, and Israel is NOT a pillar of my identity. Surely, Israel is very important to me --- as a hope that my almost continually endangered people will survive. Israel is important to me because it is comprised of so many survivors of the Holocaust, in which a large part of my own family has perished as well. But Israel is not a "pillar of my identity."
We are traded on the NASDAQ. But is this why we created a state? The Jewish people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer security programs or antimissile missiles.
Certainly not. And Israel would not be doing such things had it not been attacked at least once every decade of its existence --- with the purpose not to annex SOME territory but complete and final annihilation of the nation. This purpose is still in the charter of the PLO. Is the author unaware of that? Is there any other nation on earth that does not do the same in similar circumstances? Have we not invested trillions of dollars into our own defense when faced with the danger from the Soviet Union? Not that we have not been attacked: there was only a threat thereof. Israel has been attacked --- on the second day of its existence and repeatedly afterwards. And the author expects him NOT to invest in weapons?
Furthermore, why bring up NASDAQ as a measure of success? Anti-Semites usually do that --- Jews and money, you know. Is the author unaware of the HIGE numbers of persons of Jewish faith and/or upbringing among in the sciences, literature and arts, including so many Nobel Prize winners? Author's retention of information is very selective and prejudicial, wouldn't you say? Incidentally, when speaking of NASDAQ, he should not be using the word "we." This is because (i) the companies created by entrepreneurs are traded on NASDAQ; he has not created anything but trouble, and (ii) if the is successful in rebuilding the Israeli, and world, society, there will be no NASDAQ. Right here you have an explanation for his unduly strong focus on NASDAQ: as a leftist, he hates it as a symbol of productive capitalism. He would rather replace it with a redistributive socialism. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations.
Oh my, I never thought I would hear HIM say that. That is the purely religious, Judaic concept. Ask this Leftists scum when he last set his foot into the synagogue. I mean it, go ahead, write to him, and ask. This anti-religious bigot appeals to religious notions when it suits him. Pure hypocrisy. And you find that he "makes sense?" The Israeli opposition does not exist This is a joke. With the number of parties and coalitions comparable only to Italy, which had 50 governments in 50 years, Israel does not have an opposition?
What he means is that Leftist extremisms is under-represented. American communists and Barbara Lee supporters complain about the same thing: they want to see the red banners on every street an America, and we fail them. We live in a thunderously failed reality.
I wonder whether he has a high school diploma. Failed reality? Perhaps someone should inform the author that reality is what it is --- it's the plans that may fail.
I am willing to respect an opinion that differs from mine if its bearer has arrived at it in an intellectually honest way. As you can see, neither intellectual honesty nor intelligence have not even visited the author of the article. I am really, really sorry that you found sense in his vitriol. Perhaps you should really ask yourself how it could've happened and whether your own opinions have been formed trough an intellectually honest process.
I don't agree with everything that the writer said. Not for one minute do I believe suicide bombers are motivated by despair. On the contrary, they are motivated by peer pressure and religious fanatism.
But, the settlers are fanatics too. Israel should cut them loose.
Case in point: "The Jewish people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer security programs or antimissile missiles."
No, we did not... but, in blaming the victim for arming and defending itself, rather than decently laying down and dying quietly -- instead of the actual, bloody-minded aggressor -- the author gives intellectual aid and comfort to those for whom the very notion of a free and independent Jewish state is anathema.
I do not believe for one second that you are an an Israeli.You are a lying piece of crap.
I believe he makes much sense. I am posting this for the benefit of those who have not had the opportunity to consider his opinions rather than to argue the issue with those who disagree.
You have to be shitting me with this post. I see that there are many others on the thread who have posted before I got here.
I'll see you on the other side of this thread.
Burg, you boob, listen up
I'm an authentic american goy truck driver. You have been, and are, a light to the nations. You're a major means which God uses to bless the rest of us, whether through our Jewish doctor, or our Jewish Messiah, or the ethics and inspiration of our Jewish Scriptures. The state of Israel, too is a blessing. A moral rebuke to the brutal tribal chieftans of the Middle East, a people struggling, however imperfectly to establish justice in a morally savage land. And an inspiration highlighting the creativity that dwells in all of us. You can't help yourself, it's your fate.
The problem for the Israelis, is that the Arabs want what you have, they want your very life. So far, they have, as a whole, shown very little interest in peace, justice or neighborliness. You're old, I guess you're allowed to be tired. But you're wrong to discourage the young in this way. Point to the ideals of Zionism, of the ethics that flow from the God of the Jews, but please stop this "end of Israel" crap
. Thank you,
---your estranged friend, Phil