Phyllis Chesler at FrontPage highlights the cultural conflict that is a growing aspect of the global jihad, and to which few have given any attention:
Are we winning the war against terror or more precisely, against the death-cult ideology of extreme hate that employs terror as one of its weapons? America, Britain and Israel have all committed significant sums of money to fight back militarily and to ensure civilian safety. However, we must fight another very hot war, one which will ultimately decide whether Western Civilization lives or dies. This is a war we are not winning and some argue that it is a war we have not yet even begun to fight.I am talking about The Culture War, the war that must be fought to oppose the campaign of lies and propaganda that Islamists and western Stalinists launched against the West, beginning with Israel, arguably anywhere from forty to seventy years ago.
The Culture War is a very hot war: no prisoners are taken, no mercy is shown. And there are now penalties for trying to tell the truth about the danger of jihad or about the barbaric and pathological nature of militant Islam today. Indeed, if you try to discuss the Islamic religious and gender apartheid and its dangerous proliferation into Europe and North America (i.e. there have been honor killings in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Jersey City, Toronto, as well as all over Europe and in the Muslim world), this is what will happen to you:
If you tell these truths in the Arab and Muslim world, you’ll be beheaded, probably tortured, certainly jailed, exiled if you are lucky. Many Muslim and Christian dissidents have suffered precisely this fate. There are no more Jews there, the Islamist Caliphate has rendered the entire Middle East Judenrein long ago. Try to say this in Europe and you might be butchered, as Theo Von Gogh was, or simply imprisoned in purdah, veiled, or threatened, forced to go into hiding, or honor-murdered as so many Muslim girls and women are.Try to tell the moral tragedy that the United Nations represents, or the even greater tragedy that the word “Palestine” has come to represent objectively, and therefore in a non-politically correct way, on European and on North American campuses, or on the increasingly left-dominated liberal media airwaves, and you may not be shot on the spot, but you will be slandered and called a “racist” and a “fascist.” I have been called both.
If you are a North American intellectual, you may not be imprisoned or be-headed but you will be heckled, mocked, and shunned. You might need security in order to speak. If you’re a feminist, you will no longer be taken seriously as an intellectual, nor will you be “heard.”
Expose the permanent Intifada against Western Civilization and against the Jews and you will be sued and driven into exile, as Oriana Fallaci has been, or sued and prevented from traveling to certain countries, as Rachel Ehrenfeld has been. You will be sued and silenced in all those places where you were once published, even lionized. Dare to say that the torturer and genocidal tyrant, Saddam Hussein, is on trial today only because of America and Iraq’s sacrifice and their bold vision of democracy and you will be called a reactionary, a liar, a fool, and the worse epithet of all: a conservative.
Both Western leftists and Islamists brandish many tools against America and Israel in this war. Their first weapon is the systematic misuse of language. Mainstream and liberal newspapers write about “insurgents,” not “terrorists,” whom they describe as “martyrs,” not “killers, and as “freedom fighters,” not as “well educated evil men.”
Anti-American and anti-Israel demonstrators, who are clearly and visibly filled with hate and rage, are described as “peace activists.” Anti-Semitism is legitimized, while the slightest criticism of Islam is banned because of the disallowance of “Islamophobia.” Telling the truth has become an offense which is unprotected by free speech doctrines, which instead protect the telling of lies.
I was once held captive in Kabul, Afghanistan. I experienced, first-hand, what life is like in a Muslim country, one that has never been colonized by the West. I learned that it was both foolish and dangerous to romanticize Third World countries. And, I learned first-hand, that evil and barbarism exist a priori, and are not caused by western imperialism or colonialism or by the “Zionist entity.” It’s where I also learned to reject the doctrine of multiculturalism, that teaches that all cultures are equal, formerly colonized cultures even more so. This leads to isolationism and non-interventionism and condemns millions of civilians to Islamist torture, terror and genocide.
Although, to their credit, a handful of feminist activists and journalists have sounded the alarm, once America invaded Afghanistan, these very activists, all Democratic Party operatives, swiftly opposed the military routing of the Taliban. And why? Because the expedition had not been undertaken, apparently, with women in mind. It’s as if they did not think that bin Laden’s terrorism kills women too.
I hold the Western academy, including the feminist academy, which has been utterly Palestinianized, responsible for failing to expose and condemn the realities of Islamic gender apartheid. I know feminist graduate students who are busy “de-constructing” the veil, polygamy and arranged marriage as possible expressions of feminist or female power—no different than the bikini. None have congratulated President Bush on his excellent choice of Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State and none have given her the slightest credit for her pro-woman, pro-human rights and pro-Israel speeches.
The number of lies being told in the Western academy and among western activists are literally beyond belief. Here’s one: Mohammed was really great to women, especially to one Safiya bint Huyay whom he married—even though she was Jewish. Yes. But first he beheaded her father and her husband and exterminated her entire village. And then he forced poor Safiya to convert to Islam before he married her. This disinformation campaign leaves me speechless.
Our own intelligentsia—our professors—are so politically correct and so multi-culturally relativist, that they refuse to call “barbaric” the act of stoning a woman to death because she was raped or because she refused to marry her first cousin. Nor will they denounce subjecting women to genital mutilation and public gang-rape as “barbaric.” Nor did American media commentators who showed the Palestinian lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah in 2000 describe the event, which they played over and over again, as “barbaric.”
The intelligentsia did not describe what was done to us on 9/11 as “barbaric” either. Indeed, I know American and European intellectuals who are convinced that America and Israel are the greatest barbarians of all, and that we deserved 9/11. According to Islamists and Western academics and journalists, Bin Laden is not an “Islamo-fascist." To them, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are the “Nazi fascists.”
And then there is that vast industry of Palestinian, Arab League and United Nations funded and distributed doctored footage and fake film massacres, fake gun battles, the faked death of Palestinian children at Jewish and Israeli hands. Our Islamist opponents have turned out this propaganda nonstop around the world.
As propagandists, they are far more sophisticated than Goebbels, and far more patient. We cannot afford to underestimate their skill at telling Big Lies. Islamists understood that if they funded madrassas in the East and Middle Eastern Institutes in the West, and if they funded the total Palestinianization of the United Nations and of every international human rights groups that in thirty to fifty years, they would have brainwashed generations to see things their way.
Islam is sacred -- it cannot be insulted. Imagined slights are as important as real slights. Lies have as much weight as the truth. Whether American military forces did or did not flush a Koran down the toilet does not matter. What matters is that Muslims thought they did. No penance is good enough to atone for this crime.
Millions of people have been systematically brainwashed against America, against Israel, against Jews, against women and against the western concept of truth, objectivity, truth-telling, and independent thinking. All are under siege.
We have a serious fifth column in our midst, one that has made common cause with Islamists against us, one that has been well funded by Arab oil billionaires for more than forty years. Now, George Soros too, a fifth column General who, for a variety of reasons, has actually been leading the cultural war against the West. They are fools—but they are dangerous fools. Do they think they will be spared because they are so politically correct? Do they think that they would enjoy the same freedom of speech in Mecca or Tehran that they enjoy in the West?
What must we do in the face of this tyrannical threat? We must rescue language. It must bear some relationship to the truth and morality. Everything is not relative. It is not all Rashomon. We must not allow our media or academics to continue to insist that Islam is not the problem, but that even if it is, that we cannot say so, lest we be deemed racist. We must teach the history of jihad against infidels, and the history of how infidels (Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians) were treated under Islam. We must insist that criticism of America and Israel be balanced, not pathological, obsessive and cult-like as it is now. We must insist on civility in public discourse. We must model it for the coming generations.
We must fund seriously a collective effort to combat vulgar lies and vilification, the propaganda against us which has brainwashed countless generations.
We need a War Room effort to counter the Big Lies. We need international radio and television channels to educate people. We need to teach people about intellectual diversity and tolerance.
This country has birthed two significant waves of feminism. We must now take that feminist vision global. We need our foreign policy to contain serious provisions about women’s rights abroad. Otherwise, democracy cannot and will not evolve or flourish in Muslim countries.
The way I see it, everything is at stake. This is a time when we must all be heroes. We must all stand up to evil in our lifetime. We must acknowledge that Islamist terrorism is evil and has no justification. We must teach this to our children. We must support Muslim and Arab dissidents in their fight against Islamic tyranny and gender apartheid. We can do this. We must do this. Otherwise, we will die, and our history and our values and our entire way of life will die with us. If we fail, we will betray all that we believe in as a free people.
REFLECTIONS, SELF-CRITICISM & THE CASE FOR PALESTINE
by Cornelius Boza Edwards
This is a cautionary tale, not just for the internet commentator, but for anyone engaged in adversarial discourse under any circumstances.
Pride, ego, stubbornness, personal animus…one must be ever-vigilant, for these can sneak up on a man and steal from him his perspective, his sense of fairness, his intellectual integrity. A good fight is nothing to be avoided…as long as there is a relevance of purpose; you have to have something real to say.
It can be challenging, can force you to think on your feet, can compel you to reach inside yourself and cut through the fog of information and disinformation that inundates us all in this age…and pull out of yourself a wisdom and vision that would otherwise lie dormant. But it can also render you exposed, an ugly spectacle of human frailty.
So it is that I succumbed to my own such frailties in a recent exchange with Hugh Fitzgerald and a contributor named Del on the pages of DW. It was an important lesson for me and one that I thought was worth sharing with any of you so inclined to want to keep reading.
HUGH
As most of you know, Hugh and I have locked horns repeatedly over the issue of Iraq. While I’ve been supportive of his essays and commentaries about the larger issues of Islamic intolerance and Muslim encroachment on the West, I’ve strenuously disagreed with his calls for disengagement from Iraq.
Our disagreements are more about substance than anything else, but a mutual antipathy has been developing between us over the weeks as we‘ve hashed out our respective arguments. Hugh’s contributions to this antipathy are not the subject of this essay. My objective here is to hold myself up to critical scrutiny and to come clean about the ways that I’ve screwed up and let emotions cloud my judgment.
I’m certain about one thing: I haven’t been very fair to Hugh. The tone of my opposition to his views has been unquestionably confrontational. I think some of this is due to personalities…principally, my reaction towards what could be described as Hugh’s “abundance” of self-confidence. More than anything else, I interpret this as a reflection of my own ego and a sublime compulsion for dominance.
Much of it is also due to the fact that ever since 9-11 and its aftermath, my tolerance for the views of others that conflict with my own has become quite constricted. Liberals in particular evoke such an automatic contempt in me that I’ve allowed life-long friendships to become strained over political issues. Just as the discourse in the nation at large has become shrill, so has my own approach towards those with whom I find myself in disagreement.
It’s funny how one’s perception of another’s talents are affected by the personal. The same qualities that I admire in Hugh when I read him dispassionately, the stylish flair of his prose, his effective use of language…morph into a perception of verbosity, of outright pomposity, when we are locked in disagreement.
Such is human nature. The truth is, Hugh is who he is, to be admired or not depending on the tastes of the reader. Personally, I think the substance of his writing far transcends in importance and weight any afterthought about style. He’d probably agree.
PALESTINE
The issue de jour was Palestine. It began with an admonition from Hugh that I not violate the terminology of an emerging political correctness among anti-Islamists. Apparently, the words ‘Palestine’ and even ‘Palestinian people’ are to be eschewed in order to avoid conferring legitimacy on the very existence of these people and their cause.
On this occasion, I felt - perhaps wrongly - that Hugh’s lecture of what is terminologically acceptable in the political lexicon of our “community” was gratuitous and stultifying. Thus, the stage was set for an exchange that accentuated the personal animus that had been developing between us and that brought about my descent into a display of obstinacy and incoherence that has been quite humbling in retrospect.
So did he have a point about the use of language? Upon reflection, I think so. The liberal/Left has effectively expropriated so much of our language in order to empower itself for the battles raging in our culture wars that the point must be acknowledged: Words do matter. “Social justice” for example, has become the moniker of the liberal/Left, even though the policies they advocate are more often than not an impediment to its actualization.
Another example would be the reactionary label of “Contras” describing the camposinos in Nicaragua who were fighting against the Sandinista dictatorship during the 1980s. It was a pejorative denoting reactionary, and it stuck; even conservative supporters of the movement used the term. There are dozens of other examples one could cite.
So Hugh was right on principle, words do matter. But was he right in terms of the specificity of this particular reference? I had described a Muslim acquaintance as being from “Palestine.” Of course, there is no such place as Palestine in the world today, so on the surface, the correction was certainly valid.
But he went on to expand the scope of suggestive self-censorship to include the term “Palestinian people”…because to Hugh, there is no such thing. This became the locus of our disagreement. I emphatically insisted that the three million people living on the West Bank and Gaza do exist, that they don’t reside in either Israel or Jordan and therefore cannot be designated as Israeli Arabs or Jordanian. Hugh was content to label them with the generic moniker “Muslim Arabs.”
He went to considerable effort to make his case. He cut-and-pasted documentation from different sources, the most telling of which was the Palestinian National Charter. In it, the organic link between Palestinian and Arab is repeatedly affirmed.
This is where my own pride and obstinacy came to fore. I actually referred to Hugh’s efforts to document his position as “tiresome cut and paste.” In retrospect, as I read the unfolding discourse, I was appalled at my dismissive attitude towards what was a well-presented argument.
If I had it to do over again, I might point out that the Charter was written in 1968, when Nasser was still President of Egypt and Pan-Arabism was at its apex…that the linkage was a deliberate attempt on the part of Palestinians to invest the Arab world in their struggle. But even if all this is true, the Charter says what it says. It may not de-legitimize the “Palestinian people” existentially, but it does put a context that cannot be negated; Palestinian is synonymous with Arab.
Additionally, Hugh made an excellent argument about the conferred legitimacy of the ‘League of Nations’ mandate that specifically called for the establishment of a “national home for the Jews” because it was formally incorporated into the UN Charter. And while I emphasized the later UN resolution partitioning ‘Palestine’ into Jewish and Arab halves, my argument was undercut by the fact that the Palestinians themselves explicitly declared this resolution “null and void.”
At this point, I want to bring in the contribution of Del. His involvement began as an benign attempt to mediate between Hugh and myself. Later, I challenged Del’s assertion that the modern Palestinian link to the biblical Philistines was non-existent. My argument was based on a hypothesis that may or may not have merit, but for which I could offer no proof whatsoever. Once again, my ego and obstinacy clouded my judgment. My apologies Del…and thanks for trying to set me straight. Your moderate tone was and is appreciated.
Hugh persisted in making his case that there is such thing as a “Palestinian people.” In response, I introduced the issue of the Khazars to accentuate what I believed to be the hypocrisy of his position. The Khazars were a Turkish people bordering the Black Sea who in the 8th or 9th century converted en mass to Judaism. They had no ethnic link to the ancient Hebrews. Slavic-speaking (as opposed to Yiddish) Jews of Southern Russia and the Ukraine are believed by many to be the descendents of the Khazars. Many of these eventually settled in Israel/Palestine. I don’t accept the arguments of Muslims and even some Jewish historians that the Khazars represented the bulk of European Jewry (Ashkenazi); only that they existed and that some of their descendents eventually found their way to Israel.
My point was not to de-legitimize the right of Jews who had no ethnic link to the ancient Hebrews to immigrate to Israel. It was only to offer the countervailing argument being presented implicitly by Hugh and explicitly by so many others that the Arabs currently living in the West Bank and Gaza have no historic right to be there. In the end, the Philistine (non)connection and the Khazars were diversions that only succeeded in obscuring the argument and should never have even been broached. Yet it was me who introduced them both.
Trying to return to the crux of the matter, I asked Hugh repeatedly, “even if you deny the Palestinians their name, what do you propose we do with the 3 million souls who inhabit the West Bank and Gaza? Should they be granted Israeli citizenship? Should they be left in a perpetual stateless limbo? Should they be expelled en mass? ”
Surprisingly, Hugh couldn’t answer me. The man who writes so prolifically about every facet of our civilizational battle with Islam, could not give me a straight answer.
And this is where I made my most egregious error. I attributed his inability or unwillingness to answer my question to…careerism…to a desire to avoid the stigma of extremism that might hurt his future employment prospects as a writer.
I was completely out of line here. I don’t have a clue what motivates Hugh Fitzgerald. To project like this was unpardonable. As I read what I’d written after the fact, I was embarrassed and ashamed.
And so I reiterate the apology I already offered to you Hugh. I don’t expect a response. Suffice it to say that anger and animus just got the better of me.
RESOLUTION
I offered explicit ideas on how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. I wrote about my belief in the two-state solution as spelled out in the so-called ‘roadmap.’ It is an imperfect plan, but it’s the only one that entails mutual concessions. This is a quote from my final posting:
“This conflict is like a festering boil afflicting the entire world…we have to lance that boil and burst the bubble of the Muslim victimization psychosis.”
Part of weaning the Muslim world away from its pathological essence is being objective enough to concede that some Muslim grievances do have merit. The stateless status of Palestinian Arabs living on the West Bank and Gaza is a perfect example of this.
The fault is overwhelmingly Arab; they refused to recognize the UN partition in 1948 that would have given the Palestinians a state of their own. And over the years they’ve recklessly pursued their fixation with terrorist violence which has only served to militarize the conflict and preclude its resolution.
Hugh expressed an open antipathy for the Palestinians, something I ridiculed at the time but for which I know in my heart I share. I remember writing as much in a dialogue with a Palestinian apologist on another web-site last year.
But emotions aside, the fact remains these people are stateless. It is a phenomenon that is unique in the world. For all the depredations suffered by the Kurds for example, they are citizens of whatever country (Turkey, Iraq, etc) that they reside in. And the few formal colonial entities still existing today are uniformly voluntary associations.
While the tribes people of Darfur, the white farmers of Zimbabwe, and many others around the world suffer oppressions that transcend anything endured by the Palestinians, it is only the latter that live in a legal limbo, denied even the formalities of citizenship.
I’ve always fought vigorously against any attempt to contextualize and thus legitimize terrorism and I’m not about to abandon that principled stance. But in an honest quest for answers, one would simply be derelict not to acknowledge that the grotesque pathologies so readily apparent in Palestinian society are at least partly due to the prolonged frustration of its national aspirations. I believe this is why Sharon withdrew from Gaza…as a desperate attempt to break the impasse.
I believe that the two sides will never reach an agreement without the active intercession of the outside world. I believe that US diplomatic engagement is the key to the process, something that has been sorely lacking throughout the Bush years. I also believe a solution may have to be imposed on the parties by the world and that Palestinian society is so dysfunctional that an international presence may be needed for a time to re-order it.
So there it is. I’ve offered my ideas, for what they’re worth. I could be wrong. I’m not a fountain of wisdom, but I am wise enough to know that I don’t have a monopoly on the truth.
Anyways folks, for all intents and purposes, I‘ve been declared persona non grata here. I’m going to miss contributing to the comments section. I think JW/DW is a fantastic web-site and I wish Mr Spencer, Hugh, & Rebecca all the success in the world.
Cornelius,
I personally don't see you as persona non grata at all. If there are differences of opinion between you and Hugh, then also so be it. No one is beyond question nor debate in a pluralistic society.
Put another way: you're a far more stimulating writer and even opponent than the idiot trolls that graft about here, blind men in the kingdom of the fully eyed.
Prophet Geoff
BBUH
They are fools—but they are dangerous fools. Do they think they will be spared because they are so politically correct? Do they think that they would enjoy the same freedom of speech in Mecca or Tehran that they enjoy in the West?
Yet, they (LLLeftists) hate the US and all we stand for. It is truly frightening how blind they are, it is like the spiritual blindness spoken of in the Bible. The revisionists have stripped the Christian-based beginnings out of our country's history...and they truly believe their lies. If you are as old as I am you would remember how we were taught that George Washington was a devout man who prayed many hours a day, his Christianity was never doubted. We were taught about the Mayflower and the importance of those brave people's faith. It is sad that the education that our kids will receive is a distortion .
Cornelius, don't stop posting. Is there not room for all points of view here? I enjoy reading what you have to say.
Cornelius, you are one of the posters that I value reading on JW/DW, I happen to read most of your posts.
People like you posting in the Comments section, plus of course the information from this site is what keeps me coming back, I really enjoy reading what you have to say.
And your post above was very brave, I admire people who can admit that they made a mistake and apologise, I wish more people could do this, especially our foolish elites.
Cornelius,
Wow - I guess I missed the fireworks, but I'm very glad to have read what you wrote here this morning. We should all be humbled by the enormity of the task before us, as I think you are.
I, naturally, disagree with your assumption that the answer for the "Palestinian Muslim Arabs" is statehood. If it were up to me, expulsion would have been high on the list long ago.
Islam has no place for the concept of the nation-state - that great guarantor of internal peace, stability and even freedom. Islamists envision a stateless world, just like other utopians, but the fact is, without the state there exists only anarchy, whether Islamic or otherwise.
Chesler is absolutely right about the need for genuine feminism to emerge right now. Feminists must stand for monogamous marriage or else leave the field. Dingbats.
Cornelius I'm surprised at you! Perhaps you just need a little encouragement -- and by the way I agree with your conclusions about Iraq but I digress...
I also sometimes allow emotions to cloud my own posts, and sometimes must be reminded to think more, feel less in my dealings... Whether it was Cornelius's combative tone, or Hugh's willingness to counter attack ( in somewhat belittling tones I might add...) surely the larger issues on which there is agreement should hold sway over your decision to go or stay...!?
Perhaps lessons learned won't make Cornelius conclude that leaving is the right course... I hope he decides to accept the privilege of posting at this truth-telling forum! not just 'accept...' REVEL in the privilege!
Our endeavor, the fight against the Great Jihad, requires a passion and intensity to counter that of our foe -- This is especially true when so many, who should know better, who should be on our side, display such a complete lack of conviction -- Don't allow your well placed passions to make this happy band fewer by your leaving!
Cornelius
Your post shows strength of character. Keep posting.
FYI, Warner Independent Films is about to release a movie entitled "Paradise Now", about suicide bombers in "Palestine".
You were never declared persona non grata. In that thread, mostly about the origins, and use, of the phrase "Palestinian people," I became exasperated and furious. That's all. I get exasperated and furious several times a day. It puts a smile on my face, and a bounce in my step. It keeps me in fighting trim, and in good humor. Nothing held back, no anger management classes, no psychiatric care -- no slip twixt mental cup and fingertip lip.
Personae non gratae consist, or should, of those who cast their halal seines far and wide and occasionally pull up a good catch, or those who make genocidal remarks of any kind. This is essentially a peaceful site, a site where alternatives to large-scale war are constantly being presented. Understood rightly, this site will be seen as one devoted to figuring out ways to minimize death and destruction, by promoting mass education about the theory and practice of Islam, its tenets and history, and the diffusion of useful and necesary knowledge. Only when there is such widespread, even if at first begrudging, nolens-volens understanding, will a sufficient number of people in Europe and North America and elsewhere in the Dar al-Harb will necessarily arrive at intelligent, and even imaginative ways, to divide and demoralize, to constrain and contain, Islam, its power, its grip on its own followers, its ability to project itself, its ability to undermine the customs, laws, manners, and ways of the Infidels in what are still their own lands. And within the Dar al-Islam, the effort will be directed at creating, or doing nothing to prevent the creation of, such conditions as will force Muslims themselves to begin to make the connection between their own political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures, and the teachings, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam itself. This connection was made early in the last century by Ataturk. Unfortunately those who most benefited in Turkey from his attempts to contain and constrain Islam were not sufficiently grateful, and therefore did not work to extend further the Kemalist program, and have proven insufficiently cunning and ruthless to withstand the return of Islam.
In the Infidel lands, Infidels will have to topple in the temples of their own minds various gilt-painted Mental Idols of the Age. These include, but are not limited to, such soothing bromides as: Everyone Is Basically the Same, All Cultures Are Equal, the Three Great Abramic Faiths All Amount to the Same Thing, Anything Called A Religion Must Be Good, Any Religion That Can , and so on. However outraged, or phonily outraged, people at first appear when one suggests that this or that course of action (in no case involving loss of anyone's life)might be considered when they find it "unthh is simply "unthinkable," and then at least the thought has been openly thunk, and examined, and explained, and cannot any longer be declared "unthinkable," and that already is a considerable advance. No one in Europe, not Javier Solana, not Dominique de Villepin, not Chris Patten, not Romano Prodi, or any of the others in up to their necks either in the "deux-rives" project (the two banks of the Mediterranean, supposedly together again at last, for what divided the two sides of the Mediterranean, we are urged to believe, is "only" by the sea itself, and nothing more), can deny the truth of the following observation:
The large-scale presence of Muslims in the countries of Western Europe has led the indigenous Infidels to lead lives that are far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically insecure than they would be, without such a presence.
Nor is this worsening of conditiions limited only the indigneous Infidels, but also affects those Hindus and Sikhs and Buddhists and Confucians -- who are now also threatened by the Muslims in the supposedly free and tolerantWestern world. They may be even more horrified, and worried, because they know a bit more about Islam than the complacent Westerners, cushioned by distance, by history, by power, for so long from the reality of Islam.
So we are now free to start slugging again over Iraq (I'm sure you will, and I'm not leaving it until the last American soldier gets out of that godforsaken place). What will it take to get you see why exploiting the natural fissures, sectarian and ethnic, within Islam, that Iraq so wonderfully presents, is not to be ignored? Wolfowitz remarks about how "everyone wants freedom." So does Bush. What does this mean? What kind of "freedom"? It isn't true, in the first place. Plenty of people love to be regulated and ordered about, to be part of a group, a team, an umma. The need for hierarchy, and community, and fear of freedom, may be stronger than that supposedly universal impulse the messianic makers of this Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project ever considered. And Islam in particular may not prevent democracy, but in essence the letter and spirit of Islam can never accept the idea that legitimacy of a government comes from the expressed will of the governed. It doesn't. It can't. Not for True Believers. Legitimacy comes not from any Social Contract, from Hobbes to Locke to Rouseau, or Tinkers to Evans to Chance. No, it comes only from whether or not that government acts according to the dictates of Allah, Allah along with, of course, the example of, the deeds and sayings of, Muhammad, uswa hasana, Best of Men, Who Was Never Wrong.
Thank you Hugh for being magnanimous about this. I do appreciate it.
And thanks to the rest of you for your encouragement. I wasn't expecting the response.
Regarding Ms. Chesler's article at Frontpage --
Overall many good points are made, but I am struck by some intellectual collisions in her commentary:
"I hold the Western academy, including the feminist academy, which has been utterly Palestinianized, responsible for failing to expose and condemn the realities of Islamic gender apartheid."
and "This country has birthed two significant waves of feminism. We must now take that feminist vision global."
It seems to me that if the 'Western academy' is so severely tainted, then the idea of championing a major subverter of that selfsame academy is suspect. As Ms. Chesler maintains (and I agree!) the intellectual community is stained with Marxism, anti-Semitism, radical feminism, radical environmentalism, rampant apologetics for fascism, rampant philobarbarism... Our house is not in order -- This doesn't presuppose the idea that we are being forced to act against the Jihad, even if our solutions arent' perfect ones -- perhaps this is Ms. Chesler's point? But I don't think so... I still feel the question 'what do we do' is not being fully vetted. Instead we have a steady stream of ill-advised, half baked ideas proffered up by people who need to do a little more homework before they 'profess.'
It seems as if Ms. Chesler is advocating foisting on the Muslim world one of the same mechanisms which gave rise in America to rabid form of anti-Americanism...
I have a whole bunch of questions for Ms. Chesler...
Is this wise?
What evidence is there that this notion has any currency in the Muslim culture?
Is there any evidence that such a thing will work?
Has such a thing ever worked in the Muslim world before?
If the proposition is doomed to fail, like attempting to graft a species of plant into a completely alien and hostile environment -- does it really do more to obfuscate and postpone than anything... ?
What evidence does Chesler have that a Western brand of "Feminism" will do ANYTHING to ameliorate the fundamental aspects of what appears to be an immutable 'religion?'
Ms. Chesler is not alone in putting glaringly contradictory claims forward as panaceas in this war. Her notions, while very different in content, seem similar to the exhortations by Reuel Marc Gerecht, who assures Western readers and audiences of the absolute necessity of encouraging and even abetting the most reactionary and recidivist forces in Islam. He makes this preposterous argument (and I'm paraphrasing) to help Muslims get through this difficult phase in their progress towards reformation.... Hmm... Would that be anything like suggesting that to address the Nazi's insuperable hatred, violence, and supremacist fantasies, one should abet them -- encourage them -- fund them if necessary, to help them work their way through their 'terrible twos' phase of cultural evolution.... IT IS PATENTLY ABSURD.... SILLY!
Ms. Chesler's ideas are as not quite as suspect sounding to me as Gerecht's preposterous claims but I am unconvinced...
I am struck by the internal flimsiness of both of their ideas -- the on-the-face-of-it contradictions which both embody --and I am dumbfounded that these ideas have the currency they do in the discussion about 'what to do about Islam...'
Cornelius:
Hey dude - welcome back! ;-)
This is our strength, that we can agree to differ.
"What will it take to get you see why exploiting the natural fissures, sectarian and ethnic, within Islam, that Iraq so wonderfully presents, is not to be ignored? Wolfowitz remarks about how "everyone wants freedom." So does Bush. What does this mean? What kind of "freedom"? It isn't true, in the first place. Plenty of people love to be regulated and ordered about, to be part of a group, a team, an umma."
I don't argue that this approach may in the end prove the best we can come up with but...
Wouldn't you agree that this partially characterized our approach beginning on Nov. 5, 1979 (the day after the Iranian hostage taking in Tehran?) Perhaps more accurately it began on Sept. 22, 1980 when Reagan chose to back Saddam against the Mullahs in Iran... and reaped all that has ensued...
This decision to foment Muslim on Muslim violence exploiting existing fault lines MIGHT be credited with the following developments:
The most unified, reinvigorated Islamic resurgence against the non-Muslim world in 300 years...
The emergence and proliferation of new, more agile, more hate filled, better financed Jihadi entities PAN ISLAM --
The hardening of the Islamic heart against any moderation... especially if it implies alignment and accommodation with the West, or America in particular...
The commensurate targeting of America as the Great Satan PAN ISLAM... Shiite, Sunni, what have you -- they hate our guts beyond all reasoning...
New and envigorated traction for the greatest of Muslim pretexts "JIHAD" ... Being able to point at our actions and have crediblity claiming "Islam is under attack !!! Oh ye faithful -- let's put aside our grievances and cut some infidel throats! It will be fun!"
Make no mistake: I HOLD MUSLIM RESPONSIBLE for their abominable behavior -- the more I learn, the more I despair of them and for us... But if our actions play into their fantasies about Jihad, is it wise to continue engaging in the selfsame activities?
Nevertheless, exploiting sectarian schisms may eventually be best... It may be our only real option that doesn't include some fairly nasty implications... I don't know. But I think a first approach, one which offers the real possibility of hope, and a genuine hope for a better future is worth a try anyway. It may be in vain... It may be naive. It may be dangerous. But if worse is inevitable, in order to be able to claim the moral high ground in later times -- Isn't it better to go down the path of offering true hopefullness first?
If the Iraqi project is doomed, and if Muslims continue on their current trajectory -- it WILL be necessary to do some very bad things to them -- I want to get there with circumspection...
As a secularist, I have sometimes mused on the psychological messages embedded in John's "Revelation" and the story of Armageddon... The thought has occured to me that there lies deep within the human heart a belief that civilization may eventually be confronted with an enemy so horrific, that he must choose between losing his humanity, tainting and destroying his civilization but thereby surviving, and choosing not to sacrifice his humanity and thus perishing... This battle with the blight of Islam may end up being such a choice for us...
I had a rare pleasure in corresponding with an eassayist at American Thinker, James M. Arlandson, who wrote on writing on the Internet. Below is a link to his work.
(If I screwed up the link it's worth trying it independently.)
http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4747&search=jamesmarlandson
Jsla - like the dog in the joke that does something men can't do, Muslims now go in for jihad because they can. They 'hate us' because that's what they do.
The only thing holding them back, pre-oil, was the fact that Islam, with its backwardness contains the seeds of its own destruction. Now a large part of the Muslim world can buy what it could never invent.
It doesn't matter how nice we are. They'll still hate us and try to destroy us.
jsla - I agree with you, but point out that the main thrust of what Chesler is saying is that Western feminists are the ones obscuring the issue by "experimenting" mentally, (and in the name of freedom, I might add) with such preposterous notions as polygamy and the veil. She has pointed out repeatedly how "third world empathy" on the side of western feminists has translated into a flood of Palestinian propaganda innundating every meeting they have now. It's ridiculous.
I suppose they're intimidated into total submissiveness by this time - those fiery, afraid of no man, women. They're afraid of the Muslim women, though. What wooses, or is it woosies?
This is somewhat off-topic.
But, I would really like to see a debate on some news channel where a respected moderate imam and someone critical of Islam (like Fitzgerald or Spencer) would discuss the pros and cons of Islam.
I would like to see Questions such as:
If Islam respects the rights of women why do Islamic states force women to where full body coverings in public?
Why can't women in Saudi Arabia drive cars?
What about verses that demand the death of those leaving Islam?
I just hope it does not degenerate into a shouting match or a verse against verse match where one part of the Quran advocates violence and the other part advocates peace and tolerance.
This debate would have the viewing audience calling in half the questions and the other half made from a survey from the American public.
One question per person would be the rule.
If there has been such a debate, I haven't heard of it and would be very interested in obtaining a copy of said debate.
oops late posting - jsla, I meant I basically agreed with your first post, not the second one.
Wussy. :o)
oops -- late posting -- Rebecca-- I was spellling 'wussy for you, not accusing you of being a 'wussy' for not agreeing with my second post!
Lol
Western feminists are the ones obscuring the issue by "experimenting" mentally, (and in the name of freedom, I might add) with such preposterous notions as polygamy and the veil.
Rebecca, if you can stomach it, read this pile of crap in The Guardian, supposedly a progressive newspaper, about how liberating polygamy is. And then there are all those dozy bints like Yvonne 'Stockholm syndrome' Ridley, who bang on about how liberating the veil is.
Here's a quote:
Too right it doesn't sit comfortably with our Western sensibilities. Because it belongs in the desert and the jungle, that's why. Morons.
Cornelious...we dont have to win all the battles as long as we win the war. Your contributions are valuable...stick around...
I have determined that Jihad Watch Board of Directors Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald is actually Baby Stewie from Family Guy--hence the daily descent into furious exasperation. You doubt me?
Watch this:
"Hey Hugh, the House of Saud is our staunch ally in...The War on Terror!"
sonofwalker
Thanks for the link - where I came across this article. It is in keeping with this thread.
The treason of the intellectuals
and “the undoing of thought”
http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/
and for the whole essay
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/11/dec92/treason.htm#
Interested,
Seems like allah screwed up badly on this one. For this polygamy thing to work, and I mean long AFTER all the infidel men have been slaughtered and their wives and daughters have long since been consigned, and all the world is muslim or dead, wouldn't there have to be 4 female babies born for every male? What did doctor mo say about this? Something having to do with who climaxed first? Anyhow, I don't think the math works out. Lotta muzzie males gonna have to do without.
>i>"Palestinian society is so dysfunctional that an international presence may be needed for a time to re-order it."
There is no "international presence" that is sufficiently balanced in their approach to Israelis and Palestinians. Not even the US. This imbalance, cultivated over years through soft racism by condescending, weak Nations, gives Palestinian terrorism the seal of approval, wide berth, a wink and a nod, a slap on the wrist and lots, and lots and lots of money. Poor thing, he can't help it, can he? Israel has a right to defend itself, but ...
Allowed to flourish are the myths: Israelis have tanks and gunships. Poor Palestinians only have sticks and rocks. Jewish soldiers looking through their gun sights at a Palestinian weeping on the rubble of what used to be his/her home. Do you know what was on the front page of my local newspaper after the last homocide bombing in Israel? A huge picture of the bomber's father weeping with one of the bomber's siblings!
Their propaganda has been profoundly destructive. Our media is practically useless as it has become fellow travelers with the "cause."
If many other peoples have survived transfer, including 9,000 Jews last August, then yes, Palestinians who want to continue to kill Israelis must go. Those who want a "buyout" should take it and go. They have been allowed to behave so badly they truly believe they are entitled to kill Jews with impunity.
Do they deserve a State? No, they do not. They don't deserve a State until they honor their agreements, change their schoolbooks, media and disarm their terrorists.
They should not be rewarded for failing to live up to the standards they are signing on to. Until then, they can go to hell.
Interested,
Great link. It's interesting to see Muslims confront a moral issues like this - one can almost observe the ground crumbling beneath their feet. Completely lost, with no hope of rescue and always the same lame excuses, "Islam mandates all the wives should be treated equally." Geeeooodddd!!!!
Geeeooodddd!!!!
For the benefit of British readers, this translates approximately, allowing for American hyperbole, as: 'this really isn't quite cricket'.
Quite right. Makes you want to 'bust their ass' or whatever it is you do when you're cross.
Just because a person uses the word liberating does not make them a leftist or feminist. The whole idea of slavery is freedom, or submission is freedom is actualy at root hard core religious conservativism and Orwellian.
Submission to men is liberating, so sayeth St Paul.
Submission to god is liberating is not just a muslim doctrine, it is also a traditional Christian tradition.
In fact on other forums I have been lectured by traditional catholic women, that the only freedom is in submission to god and men.
And I have had heated arguments with a "Pro LIfe" activist, herself a traditional Catholic, that sees in Muslims a natural ally and friend.
Any woman who would chose the veil and/or polygamy is not a feminist, but a fallen away ultra conservative Christian.
And how do I know, because I know. Chesler and other "conservatives" can't bring themselves to sit down with, much less talk to a feminist.
I have, and no self respecting feminist would
adopt the vail, embrace the misogyny of Islam or suffer polygamy.
And here is a dilemna for conservatives.
Islam is, amongst other things, an ideology of ultra conservative family values.
And until 9-11, (and even after) The agenda of "conservative America" is really no different than that of an Islamic society. Anti Feminist, anti abortion, patriarchial family unit, submission of women to rule of and authority of men, and religion at the forefront of public and private life, One Nation under God here, One Ummah under Allah there.
A few notes. I agree largely with Pat Chesler. However, the Caliphate did not render the ME Judenrein "ages ao" (or whatever choice of words). Jews were numerous in the Maghreb, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey until the late 1940's. Even now, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey have living, but shrinking and embattled, Jewish communities. Yemen and Iran retain a few as well.
Cornelius: I hope to remain on the good side of both you and Hugh, whose views I respect even when I disagree.
BTW, re the Khazars, the Jews of southern Russia and Ukraine were mostly Yiddish-speaking, not Slavic-speaking, until the 20th century. It is the Turkic-speaking communities such as Karaim and Krymchaks who are supposed to be Khazar heirs. Still, I am suspicious of the Khazar hypothesis. Its main use has been to tell virulent anti-Semites that the Jews are also "Aryan" (since the Nazis weren't trying to kill the Finns, Magyars, Turks, and Tatars); or as further proof that the Jews are "Asiatic" invaders of Europe. It had been a mainstay of anti-Zionist polemics as well (and I am only lukewarmly supportive of Zionism myself). Further, genetic studies of the Y chromosone have shown that Jewish fathers of communities as diverse as Morocco and Lithuania are genetically closer to peoples of the fertile crescent than to those of the lands of exile--although the mothers of Jewish diaspora communities seem highly diverse (so, proselytism of women took place).
In any case, being of ethnically checkered famliy myself, I put little stock in "pure race" theories of any kind.
Bullshit.
Nariz - you should not equate Christianity with Islam. Christ treated men and women as equals. Christians, including Paul, who do not, are going against Christ's teaching. Mohammed, by contrast, was a rapist and a paedophile, whose words and actions specifically condone barbaric treatment of women.
Moreover, the secularism of Christianity explicit in Christ's teaching ('Render unto Caesar...'), and the adaptability of Christianity that derives from its very vagueness and other-worldliness, mean that now it is no threat at all in comparison to Islam, with the latter's strict rules for every aspect of life.
Christ's kingdom is not of this world. This doctrine has been honoured more in the breach than the observance, but it holds good. Mohammed's kingdom is of this world - all of it. This doctrine is honoured in the observance wherever possible. So it must be made impossible.
Nariz writes:
"And here is a dilemna for conservatives.
Islam is, amongst other things, an ideology of ultra conservative family values."
Not much of a dilemna for me, a conservative, at all. I think however that we might have vastly different ideas on what conservativism is. At
least in the US, there are several streams of
thought of conservativism, and only one of them,
"religious conservatives" *perhaps* could be said to share values with mohammadans. And, to be clear, there are religious people, who happen to also be conservatives, who are not "religious conservatives" in the sense I mean above.
Most of the religious conservatives I know would
not make alliance with muhammadans. Maybe you know
a different set?
I doubt I'd class William F. Buckley with the
mohammadans, for example. And there were certainly
Democrats (not just yellow dog Southern ones) who
may have been "progressive" on one axis and "conservative" on others, just like most people.
The true Tao of Conservativism is to trust the
accumulated wisdom of the ages, which of course is frustrating to progressives when that wisom is wrong. The religious connection seems more recent.
Sorry to go "off topic", but the amount of useless
partisan bickering (fiddling while Rome burns) on
the forum is a bit annoying. I'd vote for a left
winger like Orianna Fallaci in a second, even if
we disagree on much, because she clearly gets the
big one right. I would prefer to engage my fellow
citizens (and citizens of other Unislamic countries too!) on this issue and leave friendly debate about other issues for other venues.
Nariz, you got it all wrong.
"And until 9-11, (and even after) The agenda of "conservative America" is really no different than that of an Islamic society. Anti Feminist, anti abortion, patriarchal family unit, submission of women to rule of and authority of men, and religion at the forefront of public and private life, One Nation under God here, One Ummah under Allah there".
If you dont get it now; I wonder whether trying to explain it further will do any good to a person such as you; who cannot think out of the 'box'. Conservatives are not anti-feminist, where did you hear that? Yes, some of them believe that abortion should not be tolerated, but there are two sides to it. They dont belong to patriarchal family units. There is no submission of women to the rule and authority of men as in Islamic societies.There are many single parent families headed by a woman. There are many conservatives who do not belong to any religion. Last but not least we believe in a United America, not a world ruled by Islamic thugs and killers who believe that Mohommed was a prophet when in reality he was a murderer, rapist and a pedophile. Please read the quoran, hadiths and the sira.
cornelius
you hang loose right here, bra!
or we might trak ya down and haul ya back..
And until 9-11, (and even after) The agenda of "conservative America" is really no different than that of an Islamic society. Anti Feminist, anti abortion, patriarchial family unit, submission of women to rule of and authority of men, and religion at the forefront of public and private life, One Nation under God here, One Ummah under Allah there.
Posted by: Nariz at October 31, 2005 07:31 PM
Giaour, I am a Conservative and YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT!!!!
"Islam is, amongst other things, an ideology of ultra conservative family values."
That makes it even odder, funnier and sadder that it has been, by and large, American family-values conservatives who have had little problem educating themselves about, criticizing, and condemning Islamic ultra-conservative family-values; while American & Western Leftists in general, by and large, are the ones embracing an idiotic paradox of whitewashing the very Islam that represents a monstrously magnified version of their American Evangelical bogeyman.
Western Leftists who claim to be against jihad should be ashamed at their passivity, ambivalence and denial with regard to their inability to condemn their majority pro-Islam Leftists -- just as ashamed as the so-called moderate Muslims should be who seem unable to squarely condemn their immoderate brothers and sisters.
Instead, we usually see from types like Nariz (who represents a tiny sub-minority among Leftists made no larger by his frequent reference to a handful of poster boys & girls (the usual suspects: Christopher Hitchens, Pym Fortuyn, Oriana Fallaci, etc.)) quibbling and waffling and reprimands against "neo-cons" -- when they should be turning their critical acumen inward at their own Leftist culture which for the last few years has been outrageously remiss in coming to terms with the problem of Islam.
"Christ treated men and women as equals. Christians, including Paul, who do not, are going against Christ's teaching." - Interested
Exactly!! And the fact that he appeared to Mary Magdelene FIRST upon His resurrection was a deliberate statement about the worthiness of women.
Of course, when she told the male Apostles, they didn't believe her and she knew the reason why.
The women didn't desert Him and the women didn't betray Him.
And for that reason also, Rebecca, we are being forced to fight a battle on another front, while islam continues its war: That of people like giaour, who will insist that Christians tend towards Paul instead of Jesus.
Susan! Stop holding back! :P
My professor of the history of the New Testament (at a non-religious state university in the USA), himself a liberal Christian from the South, told our class that most scholars believe Paul's admonition to women was a specific, concrete admonition to a particular community where the women happened to be disruptive; not a generalizing admonition of all women.
Secondly, Paul is extremely important to Christianity, and if you start picking out the parts you don't like, then on what grounds do you retain the parts you do like? You'll end up with a "cafeteria Christianity" -- which is pretty much what Christendom has become in the West in the last three or so centuries. A "cafeteria Christianity" -- where anyone just picks and chooses a Gospel According to Me -- I suppose has its merits (for one thing, it helps to hinder, in practical terms, the theocratic tendency); but in this realistic context it becomes sillier for any Christian to pronounce upon what Christianity "really" is, when all around him are the thousand splinters of a no longer united Christianity. Thus, Christianity has become an existential challenge for each individual, best met alone in prayer, not in public declarations. That, in fact, is what makes Christianity -- and the secular West that surrounds the archipelago of a thousand islands of Christianity -- superior to Islam.
Look Nariz, I don't identify as a conservative and never have, but these days it seems that most identified conservatives (Republicans) are much closer to being real small "l" principled liberals, than the "brand name" (Democrat) liberals are.
But then maybe it's been like that for a longer time than we think. Remember the good old segregationist "Dixiecrats"? Not exactly a force for progress, enlightened thinking or empowerment of individuals, were they?
"FYI, Warner Independent Films is about to release a movie entitled "Paradise Now", about suicide bombers in "Palestine"."
-- posted by waterdragon52
We anti-Dhimmis are getteing thoroughly stomped in the modern world's real marketplace of ideas: video.
Major movies, indie films, documentaries, television ads... it all adds up to a good old-fashioned cowboy-style ass-kicking.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
"On this occasion, I felt - perhaps wrongly - that Hugh’s lecture of what is terminologically acceptable in the political lexicon of our “community” was gratuitous and stultifying."
-- posted by Cornelius
Aw, go with your instincts now, Corny. Of course Hugh's stern correction was gratuitous and stultifying!
While I happen to agree with him on the fictive reality called Palestine, I violently disagree with him on Iraq (for reasons different than yours) and anti-Dhimmitude strategy.
So what? You can't leave. If you do that your only alternative is to convert to Islam from what I can see. We're clinging to a pretty narrow bandwagon here. These tricky Moslems are taking over.
Phyllis Chesler was long a leading feminist author. Now she sees that many of her sisters, including the most "militant," are giving up what she thought was feminist ideology in favor of women-oppressing and women-despising Muslims who are falsely alleged to be suffering underdogs. If Lynn Stewart and others can believe that supporting Arab/Muslim terrorism is a way fighting "racism and sexism," then many many leftists, feminists, etc., are simply people with little knowledge who can be easily manipulated by slogans, false arguments, dishonest emotional appeals, TV and film propaganda, etc. If Stewart never asked herself why certain very rich people --and certain capitalists-- give big money to support Arab nationalism against Israel [consider the Ford Foundation, not controlled by the Ford family, as far as I know, but disbursing much money], then Stewart is very ignorant and intellectually shallow. Unfortunately, there are too many like her. The madness/ignorance of the Lynn Stewarts is really dangerous.
As to Cornelius, I don't have time to answer everything you say. But it is a fact that the Arabs themselves did not speak of a "Palestinian people" before the 1960s. The PLO was founded in 1964. Obviously, psychological warfare experts were working on the notion of a "Palestinian people" already in the 1950s if not the forties. Traditional Arab/Muslim geography saw the Land of Israel [the traditional Jewish name for the land] as an indistinct part of bilad ash-Sham, which included --grosso modo-- Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan of today. Even Rashid Khalidi has stated this in the IJMES. The name Filastin was used by the Arab conquerors of Israel before the Crusades to refer to what the later Romans had called "Palaestina Prima," one of three parts of "Palaestina." Palaestina Prima [and Filastin] comprised southern Samaria, the land of Judah, northern Negev, the southern coastal plain. It did NOT include northern Samaria or the Galilee or the Golan Heights. Hence, Filastin did NOT correspond to the late Roman province of Palaestina [the Romans called the land Judea, IVDAEA, in the heyday of the empire until Hadrian provoked the Bar Kokhba revolt]. The Muslim rulers of the land after the Crusades dropped the term Filastin altogether. So there was no Mamluk or Ottoman province or district with the name Filastin or with borders even roughly corresponding to those of Roman Palaestina.
One book to consult on the ancient geographic terms is Historical Geography of Palestine by Michael Avi-Yonah, updated by Anson Rainey. Also see Felix Abel, Histoire de la Palestine; & F Abel, Geographie de la Palestine. Moshe Gil discusses geographic names in his article in The Early Muslim Period [or some such] in the Book of Jerusalem series published by the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem.
On the Khazar claim, nobody serious holds this view. Arthur Koestler [not a historian] tried to argue the point without fully committing himself to it. The fact is that there was Jewish emigration from Israel in the early Arab/Muslim period of rule in the land of Israel, becoming significant towards the end of Umayyad rule and continuing thus through the turmoil of Abbasid, Tulunid, Fatimid rule, etc. The emigration was due more or less to the usual conditions of Muslim-Arab rule over dhimmis. The Jewish community in Germany did not get started until Charlemagne's time, which corresponds to the entrenchment and worsening of Arab-Muslim rule in Israel [some Jews did live in formerly Roman-held areas later incorporated into Germany].
Furthermore, recent DNA research shows that Jews generally, including Ashkenazim [roughly speaking, meaning Yiddish-speaking], are more closely related to Mediterranean peoples, such as Armenians, Lebanese, Greeks, Sicilians, even Arabs, etc., than to eastern European peoples among whom the Ashkenazim were mainly living one hundred years ago. Of course, nobody is pure today. Neither Jews nor Arabs. The Khazar argument is used to justify designating the Jews as alien in the places where they are living [that is, Israel], just as 100 years ago, Jews were depicted as alien, non-aryan, Oriental, swarthy, not truly European, thus alien to Europe, etc. Kant 230 years ago called the German Jews --appreciate the irony, "The Palestinians who live among us." Today, Jews are sometimes designated as Ultra European, whiter than white. To tell the truth, my family, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, were mostly on the olive skinned or swarthy side, if anything. The Arabs as you might expect like to have things both ways. To the West they often claim that today's Jews descend from Khazars. Among Muslims, they claim that today's Jews descend from those who betrayed Muhammad. Further in this vein, Arab governments even lobbied the Vatican in the 1960s, during the Vatican Ecumenical Council, against cancelling the dogma that today's Jews should be seen as killers of Christ. The PLO & yasser arafat in particular have claimed that Jews killed Jesus who was a "palestinian."
In other words, the Jews-are-Khazars claim and the argument that the Jews are alien to the Middle East [also, consider that about 1/2 of the Jewish population in Israel and 1/2 or more of Jews in France, for that matter, are of recent Middle Eastern or North African origin] are just red herrings.
Eliyahu:
A couple of years ago I heard a series of lectures given at the U of Toronto by a visiting Russian-born professor from Israel named Moscovitz which included a discussion of the Khazars and Koestler. The professor said that the only Khazars who converted to Judaism were members of the nobility -- a very small portion of the entire population and any suggestion that all of European Jews are the descendents of these few people was a mathematical impossibility. He also pointed to a population of Kariaite (forgive the spelling) Jews in Central Asia as more probable ancestors of some of the Jewish populations of the more easterly parts of the former Soviet Union.
Way further off topic, if you haven't seen it yet, go see "Everything is Illuminated". I don't want to spoil the movie for you or anyone else who hasn't seen it or read the book, but with the enormous pressures Jews have faced over the ages to renounce their Judaism, we probably lost far more of our numbers to conversion than we gained via conversion.
Thanks Nariz for exemplifying the thoughtless knee jerk myopia of the secular leftist zealot in the West. At least you have enough sense to consider a comparison with Islam to be the height of insult!... But your mode of thinking is COMPLICIT in the threat from Islam with which the West must now contend. But like the Muslim, you're so determined to hew to your tired out party line that you can't see the corruption and harm that is brought about by your own ideology... your own zealous form of religion -- that is -- anti-religion... And though I don't want to wallow in trading 'who's more like the Muslim?' barbs, it is perhaps more accurate to say that your extremist comments about the nature of Christians in the West, and America in particular, is more similar to Islam in its willingness to belittle and dehumanize than those Christians and other Americans which you wish to excoriate...
It is also fair to say that this is a splendid example of cultural relativism, which posits that there is as much menace from the elusive Christian terrorist as there is from the FACTUAL Muslim terrorist. How noteworthy, therefore, that this self-same inability to distinguish between good and bad, reality and dogma, is the EXACT same flaw which promoted and permitted the unregulated influx of Muslims into Western sanctuaries.
This relativim, which believes one culture is roughly similar to another, that the Christian is just as likely to embrace extremism as the Muslim, and that the flavor of these manifestations of extremism will be roughly similar -- IS BUNK...!
Show me, Nariz, the Christian priests exhorting their followers to destroy nations, chop off heads, show me the fervent Christians, in frenzied hatred, trampling on the flags of other nations calling for their annihilation... or the Chrisian maniacs presiding over clitorectomies, conducting hand choppings, tongue cuttings, stone throwings, burials alive, and then perhaps I'll listen to your drivel, and read your blather. Until then, watch, read, and learn. It is best to remain silent when one has nothing worth saying...
Eliyahu,
On the Palestinians, whatever you choose to call these people, they exist....3 million in the West Bank and Gaza. They are stateless. This is a fact. I freely acknowledge that their statelessness is largely a result of their own making. But this doesn't mean the world should remain indifferent. Israel has been suffering all the responsibility of dealing with this pathological society. I think it's time for the world to step in and impose the appropriate medicine. Just my opinion.
The million Muslim-Arabs residing in Israel-proper have Israeli citizenship and thus enjoy rights and perogatives not available to citizens in other Muslim countries (and this is a fact even if Israel Arabs are victimized by a degree of discrimination that has been acknowledged in the past by the Israeli judiciary).
There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians residing in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in the Arab world. If THEY are living in a stateless limbo and denied the rights of citizenship, it is the moral responsibility of the countries in which they reside.
On the Khazars, there is evidence of Slavic-speaking Jews living in the Ukraine and Southern Russia in the 12th and 13th centuries. This preceded the arrival of Ashkenazi Jews from Germany. Their origins are thought to have been Khazaria.
This in no way reflects on the validity of Zionism. I've acknowledged in every instance of the discussion - even in my original introduction of the issue - that the Khazars could not have been a majority of Ashkenazim as is propagated by some historians. The DNA evidence is conclusive.
I'm a bit gun-shy these days, so I suppose this is all I'll have to say about either subject for awhile.
If the "Palestinians" are stateless, let them be welcomed into the Sudan -- surely, there must be large swathes of land freed up by the mass-murder and forced expulsions and migrations of millions of black Africans over the past 20-odd years...
Susan! Stop holding back! :P
Posted by: Gary at November 1, 2005 08:39 AM
Sorry I lost my temper but Giaour enrages me with his false equivalency fallacies and his Marxist mindset.
One pathetic reality that I must concede is the fact that our civilization/culture is under seige not only by left-wing, Marxist diehards but by neo-con universalists like GWB as well.
Multiculturalism, which is NOT a benign form of ethnic diversity, began in America after the passage of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, spearheaded by none other than the king of left-wing, American-hating liberals, Ted Kennedy.
Multiculturalism is an attack on a particular culture and people; it is an attack on Western Civilization. The elitist social engineers who have promoted this inimical concept believe that by incorporating every ethnicity, culture, and religion into Western societies, utopian equality will finally be achieved. Since multiculturalism revolves around relativism, every culture is putatively of equal value but paradoxically, the overwhelming tendency is to dismantle the existing European-based culture of the U.S. in favor of newly introduced cultures.
As more and more disparate groups of people immigrate to America and are encouraged to maintain their native cultures rather than assimilate, it is obvious who is being forced to make all the sacrifices so they will not be "offended." Those people are US. Our time-honored traditions are being slowly eradicated one by one in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism. I don't think it is necessary for me to list them.
Sadly, multiculturalism is promoted by both the left and the right, for different reasons. Certains segments of the right, the neo-cons, are universalists and want open borders and a foreign policy committed to spreading universal democracy by force.
Multiculturalism is a dangerous, insidious, divisive and destructive ideology. We are not all the same. Western culture is founded on individual rights and most other cultures are based on group rights. There are distinct and irreconciliable differences between Western and other cultures. It is utterly impractical and impossible to establish proportional racial diversity in every nook and cranny of society, and it is foolhardy to attempt such inanity.
All aspects of our society have been "diversified", but only the minorities are allowed separate sub-organizations to promote their racial interests. The end result is the marginalization of the majority and the destruction of the very essence of Western people to accomodate third world cultures that have no respect for individuality. Whether promoted by the left or the neo-cons like Bush, it is equally suicidal.
Cornelius and Hugh, you may both have already read this, but there is an article in the September edition of The American Conservative magazine, written by James Kurth entitled: "Splitting Islam." I was amazed at the similarities in Kurth's and Hugh's proposed strategies for dealing with Iraq. Here is a brief excerpt:
"The insurgency in Iraq is doing much to increase the appeal of Islamism and transnational networks of Islamic terrorists. A war between the states in Iraq might render Islamism irrelevant."
It is quite interesting and remarkably similar to Hugh's way of thinking, although Mr. Kurth's writing style is nothing like Hugh's.
Susan~ you are eloquent... which makes up for my dearth of argumentive ability :P Safe to guess which one of us giaour/nose would point to as an example of what he's afraid- even tho as always, he is dead wrong.
I'm far better at science-fiction than rhetoric- but is amusing to put the likes of him or kj into hysterics. Islam is a Huge threat to their Illiberal thinking and hopes for the future and they must defend where possible.
Cornelius,
Yes there were Slavic-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe. That does not mean that they were of Slavic or Khazar origin. Consider that there are English-speaking Black people in Camden New Jersey, and probably in Camden England too. That doesn't make them of English descent nor am I of English descent, although I speak the language. Likewise, there are French-speaking people in Paris who speak perfect French, although they may be of Viet Namese or Chinese or Chadian descent.
Bear in mind two historical facts:
1- there was considerable emigration by Jews from Israel, especially starting towards the end of the Umayyad period when conditions in the country worsened. Jews migrated to various places. And to northern Europe especially after Charlemagne allowed them to settle in Germany, about 800 CE. [Northern Europe was called Ashkenaz in Hebrew, because of the sound resemblance between Ashkenaz (a Biblical place name) and Skandza, a Germanic geographical term from which Scandinavia is derived]. Jews may have migrated to Eastern Europe through the Byzantine empire, Persia, the Caucasus, as well as eastward from Germany.
2- Laws in medieval Christian countries forbid conversion to Judaism. Muslim law forbid apostasy from Islam. Both legal situations tended to preserve Jews as a distinct ethnic group and tended to preserve their blood line. Which is not to say that Jews today are a pure race; likewise the Arabs are not pure in descent.
The claim of Khazar ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews is a red herring, as are so many other claims and charges used against Israel.