There have been two historical hells which the re-establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Israel has helped to alleviate. It is true that the founders of modern Zionism were European, and they were not aware, or little aware, of the Muslim attitude toward Jews. The mistreatment of Jews in Arab and Muslim lands was less evident by the late-19th century, and less ferocious because of the pressure of Europeans. This was true except in places remote from the Europeans, such as Yemen, where the condition of the Jews was particularly bad, though some Yemenis recognized and even took pride in a connection between Yemen and Jews from ancient times.
For example, the loi Cremieux in 1870 lifted from Jews in Algeria the burden of having been subject to Muslim law; now they would be subject to French law, which gave them a legal equality impossible for non-Muslims under any Muslim legal system. Furthermore, the steady pressure by the European Great Powers on the Ottoman government led to a series of laws, beginning with the Tanzimat reforms of 1839, that were at first honored in the breach, but over time did lead to better conditions for non-Muslims -- though that did not prevent, the old attitudes and unequal treatment (as in the taxation, during World War II, of non-Muslims alone) of non-Muslims, from continuing even in modern, Kemalist Turkey.
It is a staple of Arab propaganda that Israel was founded "as a response to Europe," or, still more specifically, "to the Nazis, and why should the Arabs pay for it." But this is nonsense. The Jews who bought land -- and remember, not a single inch of land was taken by Jewish settlers prior to 1948 and the Arab attack, and very little afterward. Nearly 90% of the land of Mandatory Palestine was state and waste land, which is not surprising, because most of the land elsewhere in the Ottoman domains was also owned by the state. As the natural successor to Turkey, the Mandatory Authority in Palestine took control of these waste and state lands. The Mandate for Palestine was set up (just like the Mandates for Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq) with an express purpose, and in the case of Mandatory Palestine that express purpose was "the establishment of the Jewish National Home," when after the British left, and Israel declared its independence, it rightly inherited those state and waste lands.
The local Arabs who left did so, beginning in late 1947, because they were told that war was coming, that the Arabs would not let Israel survive, and they believed it. They are no more entitled to our sympathy than any others who might leave in such a situation. And they are certainly not owed any preferential treatment, as they have received for 50 years, to the great detriment of real refugees, not political pawns, in such places as the Sudan, or the Kurds who fled from Saddam Hussein into the mountains, or the millions of Hindus who fled Bangladesh during and after the 1970-71 war between Bengalis in what was then East Pakistan and the army of West Pakistan. Many of the world's largest refugee problems have been caused by Muslim or Arab mistreatment of non-Muslims or, in the case of Darfur and the Kurds, of non-Arab Muslims (for Islam is a vehicle of Arab supremacism). Yet they have not received the attention due to them because of the way in which local Arabs in Gaza and the "West Bank" and in those so-called refugee camps elsewhere (the ones with the Internet cafes and the DVD stores), have managed to virtually monopolize the attention of the U.N.'s refugee agency, and to have most of its money directed to its, at this point, undeserving Arab recipients. The Arab Muslim nations in OPEC have received, since 1973, ten trillion dollars in oil revenues, entirely as a result of an accident of geology -- yet it is the world's Infidels who are asked to pay for the so-called "Palestinian" refugees who, at this point, and for several decades, have come to believe that they are entitled to remain on the Infidel world's permanent dole, and to use much of that money to prepare for, or to conduct, warfare as part of their contribution to the without-end Lesser Jihad against the Infidel state of Israel.
All aid from Infidel lands to Muslim states and peoples should be ended -- beginning with those trans-national transfers pushed by the U.N., as with UNRWA (which should have been shut down fifty years ago at the latest), an organization now staffed almost entirely by "Palestinians" who have turned much of the U.N. refugee effort into essentially a private agency for the nearly-exclusive benefit of other "Palestinian" Arabs. And so too should the other two great transfers of wealth from Infidels to Muslims: the enormous sums that Infidel taxpayers in Western Europe give to Muslim immigrants who do not wish them or the Infidel nation-states in which those Muslims now reside well, but who receive -- not gratefully but as if by right -- as many of the benefits as they can possible squeeze out of those nation-states, and then some. And finally, there is the vast transfer of wealth from Infidel oil-consuming nations to the Muslim oil states, which transfers must and can be diminished by clever and relentless self-taxation (on gasoline for example), and a war-footing project, to diminish the use of fossil fuels. And of course that will mean a diminishment of OPEC revenues and perceived (though entirely factitious) power.
Even if there were no problem with the worldwide menace of Jihad, with its various instruments (Da'wa, demographic conquest, the money weapon) the environmental crisis will demand, from those who pay no attention to that menace or are unconcerned by it, the same kind of energy projects, leading inevitably to the same results as those ardently desired by those who do recognize the menace of Jihad, in its larger sense and through all of its varied instruments, and are not indifferent but permanently alarmed.
Good points by Hugh. Also, aid often ends up as a war on equilibrium within the recipient society. If the international aid agencies had come to the rescue of King John, there would have been no Magna Carta.
Aid agencies are bureaucracies that want to displace the middle class in the countries they target. Aid agencies often undermine middle class values and prop up dictatorships or bad ideologies from the consequences of their bad ideology. It takes the failure of an ideology for many years for the people to recognize that its false.
How could an "advanced civilization" such as any of those spawned by and inside Islam be in need of even a small portion of the massive amounts of "aid" funneled to their nations (or actually into the pockets of their "leaders"). The muslim continually talks about the advanced nature of his culture and society yet endlessly displays that these are incapable of technological, industrial, economic, scientific, etc., advancements (excluding those "creative advancements" in the endless variations of the methods of murder and terror a la islam (pun intended)) that would make them even moderately self-sufficient - ?
Additionally -all of what Mr. Fitzgerald writes above is correct - except the use of the term "aid".
Is it truly "aid"? Or more accurately - it is a term used to cover what is really happening - global scale theft of the wealth of "infidel" nations and blatant extortion by and for the world's most corrupt officials and organizations(non-islamic as wells as islamic) and ultimtely into the "Swiss-type" bank accounts this "aid" flows.
Hugh Fitzgerald for US Secretary of State '08
It's time to end Palestinian "welfare" as we know it.The money given to Palestinians in particular and Muslims in general has not brought peace and prosperity to its recipents. Let alone gratitude or friendship to the infidel donors.Rather it has engendered a spirit of entitlement in the Palestinians along with continued resentment and hostility toward the wealthier and more successful infidel donors. It's time that the "welfare" end, as infidel taxpayers owe Muslims nothing.Imagine a world where Palestinians actually had to try and build an economy and/or depend on their Arab and Muslim "brothers" for survival?
Why there should be no aid to the "Palestinians"
Is there really such thing as "Palestinians"?
Imagine what things will be like when these fools run out of oil.
It would be so much easier for the general public to 'imagine' a lot of things wrong with islam if the msm would actually do it's job as 'journalists' and properly seek scholarly research instead of politically editorializing events/fantasies and printing it as 'news' (take for instance CBS' Blackstone, Couric, Rather)
There were at least an equal number of Jews who came to Israel from Muslim countries as came from Europe. In later years, they have come from Ethiopia, South Africa and the Former Soviet Union inter alia (including an increasing stream from France). The Jews have taken care of their refugees. The refugee absorption programs have been leigon. The numbers of new comers as a percentage of the population has been staggering. They are taught the language, given food, shelter and job training. There are neighborhoods of Moroccon, Yemeni, French, Ethiopian and whatever bacground who support each other but also integrate; not perfectly but quite well considering the numbers. The second generation is usually fairly well integrated. It is long past time for the Arabs to step up and take care of their so called refugees, sealed in amber refugees as (amazingly) the Saudi journalist wrote the other day.
the Palestinians are something dreamed up by the Arab nations would Israel kicked their butts in 1947 war and the Arab refugees and refuse from that war are being used as a political weapon and now the Arab nations are pushing for the right of return for this refuse knowing that given how they breed like rabbits they would swamp of the population of the people of Israel and turn it from a Jewish state where the Jews are a majority and the Muslims are a very whiny minority in the state where the Muslims are a majority and could or should force Jews back into dhimmi status in their own land all because Muslims believe because Islam does not permit a non-Muslim sovereignty on land that was once controlled by Muslims, and while ultimately the whole world must be subjugated to Islam ("Islam is to dominate and is not to be dominated"), in the Muslim view those lands that were, for whatever length of time, under Muslim rule -- not only Israel, but also Spain, Sicily, Greece, the Balkans, Bulgaria and Rumania, even southern Hungary, much of Russia, and almost all of India --
Hugh,
you are unlikely to get any support from most of your own loyal readership on your proposals to reduce Western consumption of oil.
That's because you're advocating using less oil, not just drilling more oil in the West. And the exact same conservatives who come to Jihad Watch/Dhimmi Watch to hear you and Spencer dump all over Islam and tell them how threatening it is, are the exact same conservatives who insist that you can have their Hummer only when you pry it from their cold dead fingers.
Because of their emotional and psychological ties to conspicuous consumption (a side-effect of "supply-side economics"), and because of the oil industry's heavy political contributions to Republican political candidates, there can never be a comprehensive solution to America's oil dependence coming from the conservatives in America. If there is to be any progress on that front, it will have to come from liberals and Democrats--who aren't the natural constituency of your blog.
By the way, for those who think the U.S. can drill its way to energy independence, may I remind you that the U.S. only has some 2% of the world's proven oil reserves. Yet we consume some 20% of all the oil produced in the world. Thus, we could drill and refine all the oil we have within our borders and we still couldn't come anywhere close to achieving oil independence.
I've long since given up trying to convince conservative Republicans of this.
Steven L. good points. But if you define conservative as wants to stop all legal immigration, how does the response change?
Why do you assume that all those who come to this website are unwilling to be persuaded by the evidence of anthropogenic climate change? Most of those now so alarmed, including the climatologists who only gradually came to accept the evidence, as it mounted up, and mounted up, had at some point to yield to that evidence, and the conceivable explanations for it, and those that made no sense, or far less sense.
I don't use words such as "conservative" and "liberal" very much because they are such a mishmash, and mean so many different things, and there is such a difference between those of sense, but who identify themselves as belonging to this side or that side, and those who make non-sense, and do the same, that it gets in the way by contributing to, or reinforcing, steretypical ideas.
For example, some self-identified "conservatives" have decided to believe that no matter what the evidence to the contrary, they must support Bush and his obstinate and at this point, unforgivable refusal to allow the sectarian and ethnic fissures in Iraq to work to weaken the Camp of Islam. And some self-identified "liberals" apparently think they are not permitted to come to their senses about Islam, and to think of it as a kind of Fascism, in posse if not always in esse, and a danger to all free societies that put a high value on the rights of individuals.
But this website has none of that automatic loyalty to Bush -- and has never had it.. And that is why, among those websites treating of Islam, it is the only one thatwhen the fiasco in Iraq becomes completely clear, will have nothing to be embarrassed about, no mea maxima culpa to utter, no need to silently let drop previous positions or prefabricated phrases of the "moderate-Muslms-are-the-solution" type. When the bleak realization comes to the last holdouts that the Light Unto the Muslim Nation project is and always was hopeless, who will then have earned the right to continue to be heeded? Those who placed their hopes and dreams in Bush, and assumed that somehow he he must know what he is doing, and that if only the Americans hold on somehow something will happen in Iraq that, in a way that is never explained, will cause the islamization of Europe to halt, will make the position of non-Muslims in Bangladesh or Sudan or Egypt better, will offer the alternative of Shi'a-ruled Iraq as a model for Sunni Arab countries.
The same attitudinizing goes on with energy. Some people, without considering any of the evidence, merely assume that nuclear power is bad, and dangerous, because, very often, they consider themselves "liberal" or on the left, and therefore, it doth follow as the night the day, that they must be opposed to nuclear power. The same thing happens, but with solar and wind energy, with those who call themselves "conservatives" and who therefore have come to believe they cannot possiby be enthusiasts for renewable energy sources.
It's all a big game at Summer Camp. You join a team at the beginning of the summer, either the Liberals or Conservatives, and that will determine your entire camp life, from what you do in Archery class, to what you do in Crafts.
It's infuriating.
I agree with you, Hugh. Aid to 'Palestinians' is money straight down the drain. The Western and Israeli governments should just turn off the tap, full stop. And dismantle UNRWA.
As for NGOs: the one and only body that I, as a charitably minded Christian, would support is the Palestinian Bible Society whose members, despite multiple death threats in 2005 and 2006 and the vandalising of their premises by Islamists, persist in offering to denizens of Gaza, and other such places, an alternative narrative of the world.
The Bible Society is OK. But not the WCC. With regard to Israel: if anyone here (not just Christians, either) wants to get a handle on the sort of propaganda that has been peddled in the churches world-wide for years, go to the World Council of Churches web-site, look for the eappi ('ecumenical accompaniers for peace in palestine and israel') and read three or four years' worth of 'reports' [2002-2007] by these earnest Useful Idiots who volunteer to be Accompaniers. The recycling of all manner of ancient anti-semitic tropes (plus all the nasty anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish canards invented by the Soviets in the 1950s) has to be seen to be believed; likewise the breathtaking whitewash job on the 'poor Palestinians', and the TOTAL SILENCE about unpleasant topics such as Dhimmitude, or the contents of the Hamas Charter, or of the Qur'an. (I am currently writing a stiff letter to my national Anglical archbishop concerning this material and asking him, as my rep on the WCC, to Ask Questions about the nature and aims of the eappi project). Anyone here who has an academic interest in the nature and techniques of propaganda - especially if you've done any work on the staples of anti-semitism - should do a deconstruction job on those eappi reports. You'd get a conference paper out of it at the very least. (And if a churchgoer, you could try writing coolly logical letters to Higher Ups, as I am doing).
And they [the WCC/ eappi] totally ignore the awkward fact noted by Papa Bear: that far from being some sort of alien 'Western European' invasion, a very large proportion of Israel's current Jewish population derives from the vast influx of Jewish refugees from Islamised lands that poured into Israel from the early 1950s onward. Not to mention that many of Israel's Jews are now born from INTERMARRIAGES of Ashkenazi and Sephardi/ Mizrahi.
I may add that, thanks to Spencer and this site, having learned about the hudna, and some other things about Islam, the whole chaotic mess of the so-called 'peace process', and every aspect of 'Palestinian' behaviour from the 1930s onward, suddenly MADE SENSE to me and I am no longer surprised or shocked by the goings-on in Gaza, etc.
Few people have seen more of that than I, Hugh. Even counterjihadists seem to take any move toward less oil consumption as a move toward the leftie-greenies (watermelons), and either a compromise of all of their principles (whether they really thought them through or just adopted the package), or something that might get them drummed out of the country club (in which everybody has to drive, dress, and speak the same or risk their membership).
I think that's the problem. It's something people do to belong to the group. Unless the leaders of the group change their message (and the implicit requirements for membership), the sheeple at the grassroots won't make waves.
This is too serious to be a game, but people play games with it anyway. It ought to be a no-brainer on which we all agree, like government keeping up the roads. Why are we even arguing about it? Why not co-opt the left's issue and use the unity to cut the money weapon off at the knees?
The best way to reduce dependence on COMBINATION of different sources, such as nuclear power, Canadian shale, liquified coal, and more oil drilling in the west. The underlying economics behind these technologies make them not only viable, but also economical. Every Conservative I know supports increasing energy from all of these sources. It is the "hug a tree" left that is against nuclear power and liquified coal---two domestic sources of energy. The left is also against off-shore drilling by the US, but not Cuba which will use Chinese contractors to extract oil within 100 miles of Miami. It is the left that puts the U.S. in the position of buying oil from countries that don't give a damn about the environment (or human freedoms--yes there is a correlation there).
To reduce oil consumption without increasing something else sounds very noble, but it is a wrong-headed "austerity" in my view.
Destroying our economy is not the way to fight Jihad. How does one reduce energy consumption---either by regulation or taxation. Make the price of gasoline effectively $10/gallon through taxation and you will destroy our prosperity. Make gasoline unavailable to the population at large will be even worse, because elites will get special treatment, and the productive aspects of the economy will get even less energy than under a taxation regime.
Its a lot easier to fight Jihad when you can spend 4% of a growing GDP than by spending 10% of GDP in the middle of an economic depression. Capitalism is an economic framework for freedom. It is one of our most powerful tools.
By all means cut all "aid" to these monsters. But please, don't destroy what is one of the West's best weapons---and make people even more distracted from the real threat as they complain about the inability to heat homes, travel, etc.
The argument for some type of forced austerity sounds a lot like the argument in favor of the military draft. Many think it is a good idea to force austerity on our society because that will force us to confront the issue. We do live in a spoiled society---so there is some appeal to this argument.
In my view, this is putting the cart behind the horse. If the West were sufficiently unified to simply agree not to purchase ME oil, we would be able to destroy Jihad without the self-inflicted economic wound.
I personally don't believe in or practice conspicuous consumption. I don't drive SUVs, and my little 1994 Ford Escort gets better gas mileage than any hybrid. I work from my house, so I don't commute on a daily basis like many people. If I want to buy an SUV, thats my business.
Don't mess with the golden goose laying the eggs.
Let me add my voice to the fray here concerning energy consumption and global climate change. I promise to be brief.
Firstly, the world is awash in hydrocarbons; there is no shortage of energy sources, although the most accessible sources, such as Arabian light sweet crude, are cheapest. But the tar sands of Alberta, according to John Stossel, contain enough oil to satisfy global (yes, global, not merely the USA's) demand for a hundred years. This source is harder to refine than light sweet crude, and it costs more to do so. But oil is currently over $60 a barrel, and has been higher. And the USA itself has vast coal reserves. Coal gasification, which converts coal to petroleum, becomes cost-effective when crude is at $35 per barrel. Our coal reserves alone can make us energy independent for decades, at least. But it's easier to develop oilfields in the Persian Gulf, Nigeria, Sudan, etc. So the oil companies opt to risk our survival by entering into vital economic partnerships with our existential enemies. This must be stopped, but no president seems to have the guts to do so.
Secondly, there will always be changes in global climate - the Earth is a living, dynamic planet, and climate change is a given. Whether, and to what degree, human activity is responsible for this change is not, and probably cannot, be known with any degree of confidence. Were any of you taught - as I was - in elementary school (I'm going back fifty years now) that in circa 900 A.D. the Vikings, under Erik the Red or Leif Eriksen, established a self-sustaining colony in Greenland? The colony was able to sustain itself because FARMING AND AGRICULTURE WERE POSSIBLE ELEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO IN WHAT IS NOW INHOSPITABLE TUNDRA. Do you understand the significance of this? It means that the climate of that part of the world, now virtually unihabited and under permafrost, was much warmer a millenium ago than it is today. There were no internal combustion engines a thousand years ago, no heavy industry with factories belching smoke. But crops could be grown in Greenland (at least where the Vikings settled) nonetheless. While much of Greenland was not really verdant, Eriksen dubbed it Greenland to encourage more settlers to join and expand the colony, which did not survive because in time the climate grew colder, and agriculture was no longer possible. But it was, at least for some years. I am astounded that no one seems to remember this.
Should we thank or curse commonsense and JSobieski for providing textbook examples of the denial which paralyzes our engineering/economic response as surely as the multi-cults paralyze our social response?
Aside: The problem with "common sense" is that the conditions which once applied are no longer true, but it hasn't caught up. Once there were vast schools of cod and other fish in the North Sea and Grand Banks; those fisheries are gone. Once the oceans were full of whales, and whale oil was a major source of lighting; those days are gone too. Once Pennsylvania, and Texas, and Alaska were putting out more oil every year than the last; here's the history on that.
Let me start with commonsense:
You've changed the definition from "oil" to "hydrocarbons". By that definition, coal might well be a hydrocarbon.Several errors in that one sentence:
The soaring expenses have become characteristic of all oil projects, not just tar sands. This is because it takes increasing amounts of energy to run the rigs to get to the deeper and smaller deposits. As the energy return on investment (EROI) goes down and the price of energy goes up, the cost of production rises much faster than a simple analysis would suggest. It also means that the amount we can actually produce is a lot less than the naïve numbers suggest.
That assumes that enough coal can be mined and shipped, the price doesn't go up, and that the consequences are acceptable; all of these assumptions are questionable at best. The USA has already passed the peak of energy production from coal; we've largely exhausted the 30 million BTU/ton anthracite, and we're replacing it with 7 million BTU/ton lignite. More tonnage, less energy.
The reserves are also a lot less vast than "common sense" says. The 250 year figure includes all coal deposits, whether they are thick and shallow enough to produce or not. Recoverable reserves are more like 80 years, and adding CTL conversion for transport to increasing use for electricity could reduce that to less than 30 years. The USA is already a net importer of steam coal and coal reserves are being downgraded around the world.
I don't know why commonsense veered away from petroleum supplies to global warming, but some folks in the know say global warming is a security threat. I haven't read their claims in detail, so argue with them, not me.As long as you're arguing with climate scientists, note that the medieval warm period was not a global event. This current trend goes literally from pole to pole and up to near earth orbit.
But before that, JSobieski wrote:
What's wrong with increasing efficiency? Does everyone need a Hummer to get to work and back? How far is "too far" in moving away from the Hummer model?Is the VentureOne too far? I hope not, because I plan to get one. It looks like a babe magnet to me.
We reduced gasoline consumption substantially once before. Gasoline consumption peaked in 1978 at 7.4 million bbl/day and fell to 6.5 million bbl/day in 1982. We did it without either diesel engines or hybrid vehicles, and consumption didn't pass 1978 levels again until 1993. Today we have a pile of battery technologies just begging to be put into cars that use no oil at all on the daily commute. That would destroy the oil companies, but I don't see it affecting the economy as a whole except positively.Do you seriously think that a huge drop in our oil payments (though lower imports and lower prices for the rest) would hurt the US economy? Man, I'd love some of what you're smoking, but I'd have to make sure I don't use it before blogging!
Now you've shifted the goal posts again, from the US economy to "the West". Heck, if the US had only gotten with the program Europe is on, our average vehicle would get 35 MPG instead of 22 and we'd be using about 88 billion gallons/year of gasoline instead of 140 billion. That's about 3.4 million barrels/day of savings out of about 20.5 mmb/d; at $65/bbl, it would save about $220 million/day or $85 billion/year.If Congress had just refused to cancel the PNGV in 2001, we'd have 80 MPG full-size cars hitting the showrooms about now. Even if the adiabatic diesels hadn't worked out, gasoline engines would probably have gotten 50-60 MPG. Those vehicles would have most of the motors and such for conversion to plug-in hybrids, even as retrofits; that would have let us move the existing vehicle fleet away from petroleum to electricity in a crisis. Would that be bad for the USA?
I'll tell you what's bugging both of you. You're in a camp opposed to "greens" and "lefties", so you reflexively align yourself against anything they're for without regard to the facts. You do this even when it supports the goals of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which wants absolutely nobody to convert away from petroleum as long as they still have any to sell. Your mindless opposition has you supporting jihadis with every mile you drive.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. It's a really hard downer, but you've got to face facts while you can still do something.