Here are the last few paragraphs of Ed Husain's attempt to equate "Zionism" and "Islamism":
"Just as Israel is an expansionist state which remains in occupation of the Golan Heights, Islamists plan for a state that would have an occupying army to support ever-expanding borders (see Hizb ut-Tahrir's draft constitution). Just as Zionists claim territory based on notions of "Jewish land" and God-given rights, Islamists wish to reconquer India and Spain as "Muslim land", once ruled by Muslim monarchs.Zionists have achieved their state; Islamists are busy trying out every conceivable option to bring their dream Zion to fruition. For centuries, Jewish people said "Next year in Jerusalem", and for decades for now, Islamists have been repeating "Caliphate by next Ramadan". I did this for three Ramadans before realising I had been sold a pup and so abandoned Islamism, and slowly rediscovered Islam. There is a world of difference between Islam and Islamism, as there is between Judaism and Zionism.
While millions across the world make the distinction between Zionism and Judaism, to date that distinction is not yet clear for most of us when it comes to Islam. Islamism is not Islam, regardless of the claims of "Muslim spokesmen". To condemn Israeli excesses is not anti-semitic; and to criticise Islamism is not to be Islamophobic.
Among my closest friends, I count American Jews. As a Muslim, I see Jews as cousins-in-faith, the descendants of Jacob. In The Islamist, I denounce suicide bombings and support a two-state solution to the question of Palestinian nationhood, as endorsed by Muslim scholars at al-Azhar in Egypt. So I don't come to this as an enemy of Israel.
My problem lies with marketing political ideologies as religion. Whether it is evangelical Christianity in the United States and their religious support for rightwing Republicans, or Zionism posing as Judaism, or Islamism masquerading as Islam - all three are equally guilty of misleading people, creating conflicts and corrupting three of the world's greatest religions.
Note that Zionists are depicted by Ed Husain as religious fanatics. But Herzl, Max Nordau, and other early Zionists, and those who came later, such as Chaim Weizmann and his associates, or the incomparable Jabotinsky, writer, feuilletonist, boulevardier, and orator (Nabokov, the uncle of the writer, who as the Russian Ambassador to Great Britain heard Jabotinsky speak, and declared him to be the greatest orator he had ever heard) were all secular, worldly, thoroughly assimilated. They could have done nothing, continuing in their successful careers without giving a thought to the tragic condition and situation of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe.
Then there are those whom Ed Husain absurdly calls "Islamists," failing to realize that their goals are nothing but standard Islamic doctrine, even if their currently chosen means are, it seems, exclusively violent. (That in itself is strange, given that there are so many other instruments of Jihad -- the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa in the Bilad al-kufr, and of course slow and inexorable demographic conquest of those Lands of the Infidels.)
The "Islamists" do not read a different Qur'an, or consult a different set of "authentic" Hadith, or have a different version of Muhammad's life, from the Qur'an and Hadith and Sira consulted by those "moderate" Muslims whom Ed Husain allows himself to believe exist, or better, pretends to allow himself to believe exist.
He is alarmed about Muslim violence, one suspects, because he is alarmed about the position of Muslims in the West, and their continued ability to remain in that West, and to flourish -- as he so obviously does. His very slight disaffection, at the edges of Islam, should not relieve or satisfy anyone. For it is prompted neither by a keen recognition and keen analysis of the nature and permanent menace of Islam, nor of its persistent hold over the minds of men (Islam is primitive, but most men, in most times and places, are very primitive). He is no Wafa Sultan, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or Ibn Warraq. He represents a snare and a delusion.
He might only ask himself this: suppose the "Zionists," as he calls them, were to hold on to every inch of land they now possess? After all, the Jews have a considerable historic, legal, and moral claim to that territory. It comes from the exact terms of the Palestine Mandate itself, which was set up for one purpose: to encourage Jewish immigration into Mandatory Palestine, and to facilitate "close Jewish settlement" on the land. The claim is further buttressed by the relentless siege by the Arab Muslims (supported by other Muslims), of the Zionist settlers, and then of the Jewish state. That siege is prompted by Islam, and that constitutes what can be called a Lesser Jihad. Some local Arabs who are islamochristians provided, for a time, a useful facade for what was always a Muslim campaign. And Ed Husain knows very well that that campaign is not going to end no matter what further surrenders of territory and of rights the Jews of Israel make. For those Arab Muslim gains will merely be pocketed. And then the complaining and the pressure -- diplomatic, economic, and whenever possible military -- will continue, will continue to the end of time. For it is absolutely intolerable that an Infidel nation-state, and still more humiliating one controlled by the long-despised Jews, should exist on land once part of Dar al-Islam.
And when Ed Husain writes of the desire of "Islamists" to recapture other lands -- Spain (Al-Andaluz) and Sicily, for example -- that were once under Muslim rule, he does two things, both of them bad. First, he implies that the desire of Muslims to re-possess lands once in Muslim possession is limited to those he calls adherents of "Islamism." Not at all. This is standard, mainstream Islam, and Ed Husain surely knows it. And then he further implies that the desire of Muslims (or, in his misleading presentation, "Islamists") is limited to the recapture of territories once under Dar al-Islam. This does, admittedly, cover a lot of territory. It includes Israel, and Spain, and Sicily, and a few other Mediterranean islands. It includes Greece, and all of the Balkans, and Rumania and Bulgaria and much of Hungary. It includes an enormous swathe of Russia. It includes most of India, and part of western China.
But that is not all it includes. For Islam inculcates not only the idea that once under Islam, forever to be, or to revert to the condition of being, under Islam, but that the whole world must ultimately come under the sway of Islam. And by telling us only about the places that were once part of Dar al-Islam, and even then carefully limiting how many such places he lists, Ed Husain causes unwary Infidels to breathe a sigh of relief. "Whew, at least thank god I live not in Spain or Sicily or Israel, but in Paris or London or New York. For a minute I was worried there."
I suspect that Ed Husain is on to a good thing, a gravy-train, as a professional "moderate" who offers "hope." It is a false hope, and a dangerous hope. Those who are subsidizing him, possibly believing in the old theory that "he's the best till the best comes round," should stop. There are those who tell the truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth, about Islam. They are both ex-Muslims, and non-Muslims. Support them.
You can start, by the way, with this website. It needs all the help it can get.
There are some key differences between Zionists and Islamists:
* Zionists want one little sliver of land that they can call their own; Islamists want the whole world.
* Zionists recognize and grant rights and dignity to non-Jews. Islamist do not recognize and do not grant rights to anyone except their kind of Muslims.
* When Zionists kill non-combatants, it is known as collateral damage; when Islamists kill non-combatants, it is known as the primary purpose of their campaign. (In other words, Zionists try to avoid killing non-combatants; whereas Islamists purposely kill non-combatants.)
* Zionists kill who they have to, and then stop. Islamists butcher everyone in sight.
* Zionists will care for their enemy if he is injured; Islamists will kill and torture their enemy if he is injured.
* Islamists will stick a gun to your head so that you will choose their religion; Zionists will let you practice your own religion, as long as you aren't bothering anyone.
* Zionism fosters a culture of life; Islamism fosters a culture of death.
* Zionism teaches their children to respect those of other faiths; Islamism teaches their children to hate and to kill those of other faiths.
I could go on and on and on.
How in the world can any thinking person equate Zionism and Islamism?
Nabokov was Jabotinsky's uncle? Now, THAT I didn't know.
No, "the writer" referred to is, of course, Vladimir Nabokov, the Russian and American writer, and there is no ambiguity in my sentence above. Nabokov, by the way, was always an unswerving admirer of Israel, expressed his delight at Israel's victory in 1967, was eager to visit Israel (an invitation had been extended to him by the Israeli ambassador in Switzerland, and indeed, donated money to an Israeli charity). His affection and admiration for Israel were two of the few things he shared with Igor Stravinsky and Jorge Luis Borges, though their names do come up, sometimes, for other reasons when Nabokov is being discussed.
Though it is true that Jabotinsky was a writer, he was clearly not being referred to in my sentence above. In Russia he had translated many writers, including Dante and Poe, for the last producing versions superior to those of Bal'mont. Later, living in Western Europe, he worked as a jouralist in Italy, writing under the name "Altalena" ("swing" in Italian, and also the name of a well-known pensione in Florence).
Incidentally, his rarest work (only 100 signed copies were printed, and probably fewer than ten still exist) was his memoir about the "Palestine Legion" that consisted of Jewish volunteers, and who were organized and trained by Colonel John Henry Patterson. He titled that memoir, written in Russian, "Slovo o Polku." A most witty title.
Don't you agree that's brilliantly witty?
And could you explain to me why that title is brilliantly witty?
Thank you.
...I was under the impression that Stravinsky was somewhat less-than-stellar when anything Jewish was concerned.
"Slovo o Polku." Never heard of this particular work, I must admit. Not sure why it's witty, though I must admit I'm a total ignoramus when it comes to wit of any kind. The title could be translated as "A Word About the Regiment," or just "About the Regiment." Not sure if "Regiment" and "Legion" are the same thing.
See the Stravinsky-Craft diaries, when they get to Stravinsky's visit to Israel where he conducted the orchestra and spent time with musicians. Craft reports him as describing Israelis as the "most egalitarian, and also the most aristocratic, people in the world." That sounds like high praise to me.
When you have Borges, Nabokov, Stravinsky, and others of that level in your corner, admiring you, rooting for you, then who needs Desmond Tutu, or the entire U.N.?
As for "Slovo o Polku" not ringing any bells in your belfry, I take it your instruction was in language, and never proceeded to the stage of literature? Or do I misunderstand?
"As for "Slovo o Polku" not ringing any bells in your belfry, I take it your instruction was in language, and never proceeded to the stage of literature? Or do I misunderstand?"
I was born in Russia (Vladivostok) and spent the first twelve years of my life there. So while I know the language, my knowledge of Russian literature is limited at best--much to my great shame. (Dostoyevsky and Chekhov are more or less the only ones I've read extensively in Russian). So I suppose you're not far off the mark.
(you may be surprised to know that I've met Naum Korzhavin, whom I recall you mentioning in a post a while ago. He lives, or lived, in the Boston area, as do I, and is a friend of a friend of my parents. Frankly, I'm just shocked to know that a Westerner knows the name.)
I agree with most everything Hugh wrote - particularly paragraph five.
But I do have a question that begs to be answered:
What is to become of the 2 million stateless Arabs living on the West Bank? Are they to exist in a perpetual limbo as non-citizens?
(not sure if my previous post got through, so I'll rewrite it--apologies if I end up double-posting)
"As for "Slovo o Polku" not ringing any bells in your belfry, I take it your instruction was in language, and never proceeded to the stage of literature? Or do I misunderstand?"
I was born in Russia (Vladivosok) and spent the first 12 years of my life there. So while I know the language, my knowledge of Russian literature is shamefully limited. (Dostoyevsky and Chekhov are more or less the only ones whom I've read extensively in Russian; I read Tolstoy but didn't like him much). So I suppose you're not far off the mark.
(You may be surprised to know that I've met Naum Korzhavin, whom you mentioned in a post a while ago. He lives, or lived, in the Boston area, as do I, and is a friend of a friend of my parents. Frankly, I'm shocked to see a Westerner who knows the name.)
Ed Husain spent his early years wandering randomly all over the Islamic ideological landscape, driven it seems (from his book "The Islamist") more by whose protective wing he happened to come under than by any rational process in his search for identity and meaning.
Marriage, a steady job, re-acceptance by his family, rejection of his former radical friends and associates - all feature prominently toward the book's end and we are asked to believe that he has now become a Safe Muslim.
While the book offers some interesting insights, it fails to convince that the author has achieved true independence of mind. His Guardian piece on Zionism and Islamism merely reiterates what I am facing increasingly in my meetings with self-styled Moderate Muslims - an almost immediate denigration of Jews and of Israel, especially if I have first given to understand that I might have Christian leanings.
Bat Ye'or has been consistently and insistently warning of these Muslim attempts to drive a wedge between Judaism and Christianity, including what might be called a Palestinianization of Christ (see for example Chapter 14 of "Eurabia").
Patrick Sookhdeo perceptively analyzes this Islamization of Christ and Christianity in this very recent response to the October letter of 138 Muslim scholars:
http://www.barnabasfund.org/news/archives/article.php?ID_news_items=342
Ed Husain spent his early years wandering randomly all over the Islamic ideological landscape, driven it seems (from his book "The Islamist") more by whose protective wing he happened to come under than by any rational process in his search for identity and meaning.
Marriage, a steady job, re-acceptance by his family, rejection of his former radical friends and associates - all feature prominently toward the book's end and we are asked to believe that he has now become a Safe Muslim.
While the book offers some interesting insights, it fails to convince that the author has achieved true independence of mind. His Guardian piece on Zionism and Islamism merely reiterates what I am facing increasingly in my meetings with self-styled Moderate Muslims - an almost immediate denigration of Jews and of Israel, especially if I have first given to understand that I might have Christian leanings.
Bat Ye'or has been consistently and insistently warning of these Muslim attempts to drive a wedge between Judaism and Christianity, including what might be called a Palestinianization of Christ (see for example Chapter 14 of "Eurabia").
Patrick Sookhdeo perceptively analyzes this Islamization of Christ and Christianity in this very recent response to the October letter of 138 Muslim scholars:
http://www.barnabasfund.org/news/archives/article.php?ID_news_items=342
Ed Husain spent his early years wandering randomly all over the Islamic ideological landscape, driven it seems (from his book "The Islamist") more by whose protective wing he happened to come under than by any rational process in his search for identity and meaning.
Marriage, a steady job, re-acceptance by his family, rejection of his former radical friends and associates - all feature prominently toward the book's end and we are asked to believe that he has now become a Safe Muslim.
While the book offers some interesting insights, it fails to convince that the author has achieved true independence of mind. His Guardian piece on Zionism and Islamism merely reiterates what I am facing increasingly in my meetings with self-styled Moderate Muslims - an almost immediate denigration of Jews and of Israel, especially if I have first given to understand that I might have Christian leanings.
Bat Ye'or has been consistently and insistently warning of these Muslim attempts to drive a wedge between Judaism and Christianity, including what might be called a Palestinianization of Christ (see for example Chapter 14 of "Eurabia").
Patrick Sookhdeo perceptively analyzes this Islamization of Christ and Christianity in this very recent response to the October letter of 138 Muslim scholars:
http://www.barnabasfund.org/news/archives/article.php?ID_news_items=342
To RoobartSbunsar,
Slovo o Polku is a pun on Slovo o Polku Igoreve (usually translated as "The Tale of Igor's Campaign"), the most famous work of medieval East Slavic literature. The jeu des mots is lost in translation, though.
"To RoobartSbunsar,
Slovo o Polku is a pun on Slovo o Polku Igoreve (usually translated as "The Tale of Igor's Campaign"), the most famous work of medieval East Slavic literature. The jeu des mots is lost in translation, though."
Aha, ok, I see now. Wow, do I ever feel like an idiot.
I actually considered taking up Slavic Studies. Instead, I went for the money and took up Middle East Studies. Speaks volumes about my intelligence--or lack thereof. It's a miracle I haven't forgotten Russian yet.
I recently saw a pie-shaped graph of the world's religions which depicted Christianity as the largest, with Islam gaining ground rapidly. Judaism (and Hinduism, Taoism, etc.) were miniscule slivers of the pie!
The mental picture of this gigantic bully (Islam), determined to destroy tiny little Israel, reminds me of David and Goliath. For all the giant's posturing and bragging, armour, and experience, David defeated him!!
Also, an eye-opener in Walid Shoebat's "Why I Left Jihad" was his thorough study of the Bible. Brought up from the cradle to believe the Jews were pigs, apes and had started all the wars, Walid was dumbfounded to discover that the many wars in the Old Testament were started by others and that the Jews only fought to defend and protect themselves!!!
read some of the comments to this piece
scary
makes me sick, actually
"Walid Shoebat's "Why I Left Jihad""
I read a part of that book and didn't like it very much. He essentially seemed to be saying, "Christianity good, everything else bad." He went from being a Muslim fanatic to being a Christian one--which is better than his former designation, by far. Even so, I don't like people like him all that much.
I recently saw a pie-shaped graph of the world's religions which depicted Christianity as the largest, with Islam gaining ground rapidly. Judaism (and Hinduism, Taoism, etc.) were miniscule slivers of the pie!
The mental picture of this gigantic bully (Islam), determined to destroy tiny little Israel, reminds me of David and Goliath. For all the giant's posturing and bragging, armour, and experience, David defeated him!!
Also, an eye-opener in Walid Shoebat's "Why I Left Jihad" was his thorough study of the Bible. Brought up from the cradle to believe the Jews were pigs, apes and had started all the wars, Walid was dumbfounded to discover that the many wars in the Old Testament were started by others and that the Jews only fought to defend and protect themselves!!!
read some of the comments to this piece
scary
makes me sick, actually
read some of the comments to this piece
scary
makes me sick, actually
Zionists as religious fanatics...
I suppose some are. But then some famous Zionists aren't (or weren't, as the case may be) even particularly religious, such as Albert Einstein. Real lunatic, hmm?
Zionists as religious fanatics...
I suppose some are. But then some famous Zionists aren't (or weren't, as the case may be) even particularly religious, such as Albert Einstein. Real lunatic, hmm?
"Zionists as religious fanatics...
I suppose some are. But then some famous Zionists aren't (or weren't, as the case may be) even particularly religious, such as Albert Einstein. Real lunatic, hmm?"
As I understand it, none of the major players in the Zionist movement--Jabotinsky, Weizmann, Ben Gurion--were religious. Guys like Yitzhak Rabin started out as Marxists.
This same Ed Hussain was loudly feted for coming out of the Islamist closet, and declaring that it was not Islam but the Wahhabbi form of it that was giving a bad name to Islam - a variant of the "This is not Islam.." excuse.
Ibn Warraq, a well versed scholar on Islam, had this to say, "there maybe be moderate Muslims but there is no such thing as moderate Islam". The late Anwar Sheikh recognised Islam as an ideology for Arab imperialism, and racism particularly against blacks, is endemic in Islam. Ed Hussain should know that Wahhabi Islam is the Reformed version of Islam, i.e., it is going back to its fundamental and core beliefs.
The question is, Ed Hussain must know all this, and so why does he try to convince the reader that Islam is benign and it is Wahhabism that is a perversion. Surely the Imams in Saudi Arabia and others, and even a man as learned on Islam as Ayatollah Khomeini, would have known that they were misinterpreting the teachings of Islam.
There is a lot of misinformation on Islam being put out by committed Muslims, as they realise that the truth of Islam is steadily coming out.
Ed Hussain is merely doing what is necessary - darura.
Roobart!
Hadn't thought of Shoebat that way and your point is well taken. Anyone who has the courage to defy Islam has my admiration, but I agree that we all need to curb self-righteousness and give other religions a place in the sun even if we don't agree with them. (Given the hatred and vituperation and murderous intent of Islam, however, I expect they would try to convert the sun!!)
Don't get me wrong--I think it took enormous courage for Shoebat to leave Islam. I just wish he didn't swing so far in the other direction by embracing Christianity with such militancy. But maybe that's normal at first. I don't know. He'll probably "mellow out" somewhat as time goes by.
What I see in Islamists vs Islam is just a failed attempted to create a straw man. Unfortunately that is the official position of this government.
OT but inferred on this thread and others.
I have a problem of what has been referred to as Muslim fanatic and Christian fanatic being equally bad.
For the record and what I understand about Islam. If you are a devout Muslim and follow the Koran and Mohammad's teaching to the letter you will be a jihad's and a terrorist.
If you are a devout Christian you will be a forgiven sinner. Your source of instruction will be the Word of God and prayer. With His power in you, you will reflect Christ qualities and virtues to others.
Now if those two definitions are close then what some people are calling Christian fanatic do not know what true Christianity is all about. I for one abhor the many terrible things that people have done in the name of Christianity, but that is not what true Christianity is.
John 15:18-20
If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before {it hated} you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, A slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
جون 15:18-20
واذا كان العالم يكره لكم ، وانت تعرف انه مكروه لي قبل (انه يكره لكم). لو انك كنت من العالم ، لكان العالم المحبة الخاصة بها ؛ ولكن لانك لست من العالم ، ولكن اخترت لكم من أصل العالم ، لأن هذا العالم يكره لكم. تذكر كلمة ان قلت لكم ، 'عبدا ليست اكبر من بلدة رئيسية. اذا كانوا اضطهاد لي ، كما أنها تضطهد لكم ؛ اذا ما أبقى كلمة بلادي ، وسيبقون لك ايضا.
Alright, not to leave Hugh's request dangling:
Slovo = (modern) word, or (archaic) tale
Polk = (modern) regiment, legion, a large military unit, or (archaic) military campaign.
Slovo o Polku Igoreve = Tale of Igor's Campaign, a Russian medieval epic, according to Nabokov (the writer of "Lolita" et al., who also translated the piece, I think) about the only worthwhile piece of Russian lit before 19th century.
Jabotinsky's pun is on the modern vs. archaic meaning of "polk".
Roobart -- a) as far as I know, Shoebat is in the evangelical milleniarists camp, which is pretty far out, but one could do worse.
b) the whole jihad business would indeed be simply a source of ennui to a thinking person if we could be sure that our Dar al Harb is invincible against it. But it is far from it, so counterjihad must be kept up.
Kuffirs of the world, unite!
Everybody here who is a Christian, a Jew, or other non-Muslim of good-will - do please follow the link that MBR gave above, to Patrick Sookhdeo's article about the 'letter from the Muslims to the Christians', and read the article.
He deconstructs it masterfully.
BRRRR.
If you are a Christian, and your priest or pastor, or someone in your church, is foolishly enthusing about that Muslim letter, print out Bishop Sookhdeo's letter, with its step-by-step analysis of what is REALLY being said, and give it to them.
I will be printing off a copy of both - the original Letter from the Muslims, and Bishop Sookhdeo's masterly response - and giving them to MY parish priest.
Indeed, Patrick Sookhdeo's Reply to the Muslims, should be nailed up on every church door throughout the non-Muslim world, published in every Infidel newspaper side-by-side with the Muslim letter to which it responds, and circulated amongst the Jews as well.
On topic. Just to reveal how utterly ridiculous, bizarre, mind-wrenching is the attempt, by the Muslims and their Useful Idiots, to equate Zionism (the return of Jews from all over the world, to the land of Israel) with Quranic Muslim [Arab] imperialism (the attempt to physically conquer the ENTIRE PLANET and subject it to the insane bizarreries of Muslim despotism forever), here are a few facts, for contrast and comparison.
Total land area of modern Israel, including the Judean Hills and Samaria - 27 540 square km.
Total area of Spain (which the Muslims desire to reconquer, after their first conquest of it got unceremoniously ended by the native inhabitants) - 504 783 square km. We're talking half a million sq km as opposed to a paltry 27 000.
And the Muslims don't just want Spain! They want Greece, too - 131 957 square km (more than four times the size of Israel).
And they want to get back Yugoslavia (102 173 sq km), with Croatia (56 438 km, and even tiny Croatia is twice the size of Israel), and Macedonia (25 713 sq km). They've already got Bosnia.
Now throw in Bulgaria (110 912 sq km) and Romania (237 500 sq km) which also suffered the seven hells of Muslim Turkish invasion and viciously cruel occupation.
They're after ALL of India, the entire subcontinent - THREE MILLION, one hundred and sixty six thousand square km. Just Jammu and Kashmir, which they've nearly managed to steal from the native Indians, is 222 000 sq km - at least nine times the size of Israel.
On the one side: about 13 million Jews, nearly half of them in a teeny tiny country one can hardly see on a standard-size globe of planet earth, who are content to live in other places and 'pray for the peace of the city', but have never been interested in sovereignty anywhere other than in that 27 000 sq km of eretz Israel.
On the other side, the black flag of Jihad, and about 1 billion deeply self-absorbed, violent, DEVOURINGLY GREEDY, Arab and Arabised imperialists who want to steal the world and feed it to their Lords of Misrule - and it SAYS SO, in their sacred texts, and way too many of their theologians tell them they can do so by all means necessary.
No equivalence. None whatsoever.
And yet it's the one billion greedy so-and-sos, rolling in petrodollars, already possessing millions of square km of planet earth from West Africa to Sudan and the oilfields of the Middle East, Sudan and Nigeria and the untold riches of Indonesia, with their black flag, who DARE to accuse the Jews of Nazism and Imperialism.
Excuse me while I vomit.
"the untold riches of Indonesia"
Not sure what riches these are, but aside from that I agree with everything you said.
"Guys like Yitzhak Rabin started out as Marxists."
I don't think one could call Rabin, even in the Labor Party as it once was, a "Marxist." The closest thing to that would be the terminally trusting and cracked Shimon Peres, who somewhere writes about how he used to to court his wife by reading from Marx.
Hugh,
I would not have known that "Altalena" was the pen name of Vladimir Jabotinski, that the word means "swing" in Italian, or that it names a lodging in Florence; I would know that a ship of that name was at the center of the "Altalena Incident," in which Irgunists clashed with the nascent Israel Defense Force during Israel's War of Independence. Now I know why the ship was named Altalena.
"Altalena..."
There's a book about the whole miserable episode, written by Eliyahu Lankin, who was, I think, possibly captain of the Altalena. Avraham Stern, of Lehi fame (the so-called "Stern Gang"), was killed by the Haganah during the Altalena incident. His widow later came to America, and married an art dealer, with a line in Henry Moores. One day, idly flaning up and down that famous avenue on a rare trip to New York, and stopping in every gallery just for the hell of it (I had no intention of getting into mischief or starting a slight rebellion off Madison), I walked into the Weintraub Gallery, and started to talk to the owner and his wife, and found out about her connection to the Altalena incident and to history. Amazing the things you can find out just by walking around, trying only to kill some time before, or possibly after, lunch.
I was wrong, I now realize, to have written that there was also a pensione in Florence called the "Altalena." No such pensione. It was called the "Annalena," and went from the Arno to the Porta Romana. NOthing to do with the "Altalena" or with Jabotinsky or anything else. However, I think the owners rescued people, by hiding them, during the war. The pensione no longer exists. My memory never ever used to let me down. Now it does.
If one believes that a jewish state in palestine has no right to exist, but one does not hold that same standard to an albanian state, an armenian state, a polak state, a czech state, a serb state, ...ect or any other state carved out of a larger defunct empire with borders and citizenry defined by ethnic and tribal heritage...
then you are an anti semite.
Hugh,
You may justly say that you have forgotten more than most of us will ever know.
Hyperbolically speaking, that is.
Jimmy D:
Right on!
Every other irredentist claim is obsolete, out-of-date, or anachronistic--EXCEPT Muslim claims, for in the pan-Islamic imagination, time stands still, and past is juxtaposed with present.
When I said, 'the untold riches of Indonesia', I was thinking of abundant rain and fresh water, rich soil replenished by the many volcanoes; coral reefs; ancient tropical forests packed with biodiversity; minerals; fisheries; and oil. I call that riches. Remember, that region used to be called the East Indies, the Spice Islands.
Of course, all of this is under full-scale Muslim assault at the moment. Give it Islam, more and more Islam, more misrule, more corruption. More shariah, more inshallah fatalism, rampant overbreeding. Kill off the Christians and the Chinese and the non-Muslim indigenous people. Watch the Muslim Lords of Misrule sell off the endangered species, rip the guts out of the forests (thus helping to stymy the entire monsoon cycle for south-east Asia), overfish the fisheries and steal the neighbours' fish as well, sell off the oil and the timber and the minerals and the fish and spent the money either on Jihad or on personal self-indulgence.
And voila - in another fifty years or so, maybe a hundred at most, instead of the rich and lovely Spice Islands, yet another ghastly Mohammedan desert. Social, political and ecological collapse.
Holy God [NOT allah, but the Biblical God], Holy and Mighty, Holy and immortal, have mercy on us all.
The Elon Plan.
Manhigut Yehudit's Plan.
Frankly, they can all move in to Condoleezza's house, for all I care.
Cornelius and the bleeding hearts:
Why should we care? Are they not Arabs and do they not belong to the ummah Islamiyah, that great brotherhood? Do they not have all of Arabia already? Do their rich Arab cousins not have an obligation to take them in and make them welcome?
Why should this overbreeding rabble, this fanatical lot of maniacs be our problem?
Honestly, Corni, I don't think you are for real. Don't you think there is some sly disingenousness in your posting?
Cornelius and the bleeding hearts:
Why should we care? Are they not Arabs and do they not belong to the ummah Islamiyah, that great brotherhood? Do they not have all of Arabia, North-Africa, parts of Europe and Asia already? Do their rich Arab cousins not have an obligation to take them in and make them welcome?
Why should this overbreeding rabble, this fanatical lot of maniacs be our problem?
Honestly, Corni, I don't think you are for real. Don't you think there is some sly disingenousness in your posting?
Hugh, you are amazing.
I had noticed that RoobartSpusbar had more faces than Eve, but how did you get to the Russian connection?
All over the place in it's postings, now incredibly sensitive to insults, while hurling insults and then either not getting the insults or not caring. Knowledge of something one post and complete ignorance the next. Is it a group?
Do you have a special program that ferrets this stuff? Out side of your incredible mind that is.
"Roobart Sbunsar" was the one who first mentioned his Russian connection, though I nudged him along a bit after that, and then he proceeded to tell us of his first dozen childhood years in sunny Kamchatka. He's the one who mentioned the poet Naum Korzhavin. Speaking of whom, I just caught sight of Korzhavin walking on the Arbat, accompanied by his wife (he has lost his vision but his amazing knowledge -- with so much recallable by heart, long ago learned naizust'--of Russian poetry remains intact) and admirers. He must be on a visit here from his home in New England.
Why am I on the Arbat, you ask? Well, I came to the Millionaire's Fair to try to sell stock in myself, but had no takers. Turns out Russians do not see the Islamic handwriting on their southern wall. And I'm not turning out to be good at this game of self-fundraising that everyone else seems to be a past master at. I tried to explain, to at least one person in the hall, that I'm a good investment, with lots of upside potential, and while Kleiner, Perkins might not see what I meant by that, free-spending Russian ought to be able to, and if if they knew what was good for them they'd buy a share or fifty or a hundred, of me. But those who came to this grotesque event were not like the Russian rich in olden days, the Prince Bolkonskys or Volkonskys, chudaks who would willingly support on the estate or in town into a private theatre, or even a private orchestra (of serfs, bien entendu). No, these latter-day Russian rich were all too busy kicking the tires of the private planes and the Porsches. Hardly the maecenases of yore, the Shchukins and Morozovs and, in emigre exile, the tragic Fondaminskys, the wife dying before the husband, and the husband then murdered by the Germans. I once held in my hands a private memorial volume that Fondaminsky had put out in honor of his wife, a volume owned and signed by Bunin, part of the stock of the book-dealer Aleksey Struve, brother to Gleb and son of the Legal Marxist Ptyor. Alas, I couldn't afford it. That volume has, no doubt, ended up in the clutches of the relentless collector Guerra, like so much else, unless Guerra himself has now died.
Maybe I'll pitch the woo that went over so badly here at the Millionaire's Fair in Moscow back in the United States, or possibly right at this site. For all I know, a visitor here, or a relative of that visitor who has been properly alerted, will find the notion appealing. So Sergey Brin won't be visiting, but what about Sergey Brin's intelligent parents, who ought to teach their son about where to put his money? Okay, here goes.
So here's the IPO. Only $500 per share, and bound, like shares in Google, to go ever upwards. And just think, you can even give a share, or ten or a hundred shares, as a Christmas present. Or as a wedding gift, the kind never to be listed on those wish-lists provided by brides-in-waiting as visions of light-blue Tiffany boxes dance in their heads. Or it could be a cadeau de rupture, and you know that Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. Or possibly for a young girl, in her Confirmation Dress, or a boy, as a Bar Mitzvah gift. Yes, instead of "My son, today you are a fountain pen" you can say, especially if you are a lawyer, "My son, today you are, in pertinent part, Hugh Fitzgerald." He won't understand at the time. But someday he will.
Think about it. You know that wolf that keeps hanging round my kitchen door? I'd like to send him permanently packing.
And you know how some of those IPOs pan out, don't you?
I know what you mean. I've had a shortage of millionaires myself lately.
A few years back it was a lot easier for an artist to make a living.
Oh how that old wolf growls lately.
NEWS BREAK Man with supposed bomb strapped to chest at a Clinton campaign office. Has hostages and wants to speak to the Senator.
Yes, I'm thinking of going on strike. But no one would notice. And besides, I just can't help myself, and wouldn't be able to refrain from pounding the tastiera. Like the fabled sweet-tempered girl who just keeps giving it away for free, though she may be superior to those who charge for the same thing, but she just doesn't know quite how to ask.
I don't know what the solution is.
""Roobart Sbunsar" was the one who first mentioned his Russian connection, though I nudged him along a bit after that, and then he proceeded to tell us of his first dozen childhood years in sunny Kamchatka. He's the one who mentioned the poet Naum Korzhavin. Speaking of whom, I just caught sight of Korzhavin walking on the Arbat, accompanied by his wife (he has lost his vision but his amazing knowledge -- with so much recallable by heart, long ago learned naizust'--of Russian poetry remains intact) and admirers. He must be on a visit here from his home in New England."
You could just come right out and call me a liar--it would take up fewer lines.
...again, if you doubt my "Russian Connection", as you call it, feel free to give me some more tests, I'll be perfectly happy to answer.
And Naum Korzhavin does live in the Boston area, or did until recently. The last time I saw him was around 2004, at a dinner in my grandfather's honor in Brighton. My father spoke to him several times since then; I haven't.
...also, a relative of his (wife or sister, I was never sure which) owns--or owned--a small Russian bookstore in Cambridge that I sometimes frequented.
...well, no matter. It's Friday. Only one thing to do on a day like this. *Raises glass*
...and just to make it my customary four posts in a row: Hugh, you might enjoy this one--
- Ваш любимый поэт?
- Владимир Владимирович Маяковский
- Ваш любимый писатель?
- Владимир Владимирович Набоков.
- Ваш любимый политический деятель?
- Ну ты достал!
...or, since we're on the subject of literature:
Hовый русский приходит в книжный магазин:
- У вас книжки есть?
Продавец:
- Конечно.
- Мне нужна книга "Тридцать щенков".
Продавец все каталоги перерыл:
- Нет, такой у нас нет.
- Ну как же, мне тут дочь написала..
- Дайте посмотреть... А, так вам Зощенко нужен.
Oh, what the hell. Here's more.
Ты ушла рано утром, собралась в один миг,
На подушке остался, твой зеленый парик.
Ты оставила зубы, не взяла в этот раз,
И контактные линзы, и искуственный глаз.
Две руки из пластмассы, два протеза ноги,
Две груди надувные, и вставные мозги.
Уши, брови и ногти, аппарат слуховой...
Я сижу размышляю, до меня вдруг дошло:
Если это осталось - ТОГДА ЧТО ЖЕ УШЛО?
...huh. Seems like this threat is dead & headed for the archives.
In that case, I'll sneak in a few more of my
favorites:
Незалежна Украина. Город Киев. Стоят два мужика. Подходит к ним прохожий и спрашивает как пройти на Крещатик. Ему в ответ:
- Шо?
Повторяет вопрос на английском.
- Шо?
На немецком.
- Шо?
На французком.
- Шо?
Не получив ответа прохожий идет дальше. Один мужик другому говорит,
- Дивысь Петро, яки умный человек, сколько много языков знает!
- Ну и шо помогло це ему?
Cyberspace can sometimes be a lonely place, Roobart.
BTW, how is it that your nom de plume is that of our Beloved Peerless Leader, Anticaliph and Captain of Infidels? (And can I really be sure that the man is wrong about you being GetBornAgain? LOL!--Have another swig of Johnny Walker, for friendship's sake.)
Deus vult!
"You could just come right out and call me a liar..."
-- from a needlessly taking-offense poster above
?
This makes no sense. I never questioned or doubted you in what you said about Korzhavin. Why would I doubt that? For god's sake. I merely picked up the theme, and ran with it all the way to the Arbat, just for fun. There was nothing implied. implication.
As to your stories, anekdoty, I'd consult "Russkij Anekdot" which contains hundreds of them, one after the other. I suspect it's put out by Russica Publishers, but could be wrong. I was hoping for a slight hint of Raikin mixed with a whiff of Il'f and Petrov, the kind of anekdot in which one "starij evrej" meets another on Deribasovskaya -- voice of the comic now grading into Odessa Jewish -- or perhaps something even older and even less ethnic, from Koz'ma Prutkov, the very mention of whose invented name causes a certain friend of mine to instantly get a smile on his face, as he recalls, in his initial Pninian "cosy mute mirth" and then develops into a humor-fed heaving, which does not stop until he manages to deliver himself not of one or two but pf three, four, five stories remembered from Koz'ma Prutkov. Meanwhile, there I am, trying to understand everything he says, sometimes asking him to slow down, or to explain what a certain unfamiliar word means. But the worst thing is always with the punchlne. He says it. I don't always quite understand, and then I ask him to explain the line to me, which is to say -- explain the joke. He does so. And then, in a delayed-time reaction, I try to laugh or at least indicate my amusement. The amusement is real, but somehow has to be backdated to the time that the line was first delivered, not to the time that he explains it so that I can appreciate it properly. So I offer a laugh, a real life, but it must necessarily sound like a phony one. I don't know why he keeps putting up with me. But he does. Perhaps it's because he loves Koz'ma Prutkov so much. A good sport.
About the first one, with Nabokov and Mayakovsky. Perhaps you have heard about the open letter that a dozen or two dozen Russian emigres wrote to the French press, a letter prompted by, and taking issue with, the high praise for Mayakovsky in the obituaries that appeared in France after he died in 1930. I don't know who signed, but assume that the list of signatories included curlicuing Remizov and Khodasevich in Paris, Bunin in Grasse, Berdyaev in Clamart or Petit Clamart, possibly Mark Vishniak and Gessen, and from Berlin, the literary critic Averbach (unless he had already been run over by a tram), and others of that rank. And I think, but may have misrembered, that Nabokov also signed that letter, even though he never was the signing kind.
The Russian letter made the point that those who did not know Russian, but only French, had no right to pass judgment on the quality of Mayakovsky as a poet, and that they, the Russian writers in the emigration, did not value his work highly, and didn't care for that poet as Chtets-Deklamator, nor did they admire his praise of Bolshevism, Lenin, and so on. Grib, grab, grob, grub. The letter began, in an uncompromising de-haut-en-bas tone, with something like "Nous, les ecrivains russes en France..." The Russian writers then proceeded to let the French press, and those marxisant French critics, have it right between the eyes, just behind their very Cartesian pineal glands.
Nabokov and Mayakovsky are alphabetically just one letter apart, so it's fortunate that there are all those other writers -- Mandelshtam, Nekrasov -- to keep them apart on the shelf. Sometimes one feels that one class of Russian readers might consist of those who would be happy to remove the works of V. V. M. permanently from the library shelves, while leaving the works of V.V. N. permanently on it, and a second class consisting of those who would do the reverse. If you had been walking around Moscow this past week, you might start thinking that there now exists a third class of Russians, consisting of those who ask "Why should we bother to read the way our grandparents or parents did? What good did it do them?" That's the class that in present-day Russia seems to be expanding like nobody's business -- or, more accurately, like everybody's.
And now I think you and I should go back to Islam, and leave Russia out of this and all other threads. It's rude to keep it up. Please.
Hugh,
I know next to nothing about belles letres, French or things French, or Russian emigres in France ("We, the Russian writers in France..."), and have had only a fleeting interest in things Russian; still, I get a kick out of flitting around this site, finding an engaging thread to latch onto while it's still warm, and thinking that I might make a contribution (however small)to The Cause of [Counter]jihad.
Not to mention, ingratiating myself (not grating on) my illustrious betters (not bettors); so, while money is tight for me also, I wonder if you can put me down for 5(five) shares of your IPO.
BTW, I still think Hugh Fitzgerald Enterprises (however styled) needs cachet and brand ID--you don't suppose you can devise a trademark logo posted for all to see; like a ravenous wolf, say, with a stick propped between his jaws, or even devouring an hapless appropriate victim--think Visconti heraldic serpent, devouring a human victim--most fitting.
Now, if you just direct your prospective investors (not bettors) where to put up the dough, we can get aboard for the ride.
Yours in the Cause of Allah, I am,
Rev. Imam Fitralum B'subiya Nasby [Cf Rev. P. V. Nasby]
[You don't happen to have a Swiss bank account, do you, Mr. Fitzgerald?--Imam Nasby.]
[Excuse, please--that's 5(five)M shares; 5 grand, as you Amerike say (5000)--Nasby.]
PS: About that Visconti thing, reminds me of Ferrari (must be the Milano connection). Now, talk about cachet!
[PPSss: Shall I tender, Mr. Fitzgerald, this draft to you payable in dollars, Euros, pounds, Saudi riahls, new Iraqi dinars sans Saddam, or in Afghanis?--Imam Nasby.]
"An hapless victim"--Inshallah, I've made a pun! How you say, a bon mot? "Annapolis," get it? Annapolis victim! The Zionist Entity, of course!! Inshallah!
Imam Nasby
[Mustn't let go of my cover--Errr, public posture, I MEANT the poor oppressed Palestinian People, victimized by the occupying Zionist Entity, of course--Imam Nasby.]
As a non-linear (and quite possibly non-algebraic) descendant of Petroleum V. Nasby, I am delighted to accept your offer to invest in the proffered IPO. You only need send a check or money order, in dollars, payable to Hugh Fitzgerald, and you will then become the possessor of five shares (or however many you decide to purchase) of same. As a ground-floor investor in this IPO, you will also receive a token of our appreciation – a book in the petroleum-v-nasby vein. A first edition of “Bill and Boomerang” by a similar author, from the same period, Bill Nye, is likely to fit the bill. But please let us know if you happen to already own a copy.
Hugh,
No, I do not now possess this book; surely it must be out-of-print and difficult to obtain.
I shall be most pleased to receive this jiz--errr, token; and, Inshallah, reciprocate with a fitting gift of our own, an heirloom jeweled Yemeni dagger many generations in our family; finely crafted of recently-poached rhinocerus horn.
And may there be many and multiple felicities upon you, Inshallah.
Yours in the Cause of Allah, I am,
Rev. Imam Fitralum B'subiya Nasby