Did you even read the link Glenn posted? Let me summarize:
Paid members of the Palestinian Authority (and religous figures to boot -- talk about no separation of church and state) give nationally televised sermons advocating the murder of Jews.
Stuff like this used to piss liberals off. Now they just get pissed off that people outside of their political orbit are pointing out that it's going on inside one of their pet causes.
Why does everyone make it so difficult to support both Palestinians and Israelis? Both groups of people consist of hero/ines and rogues, just like every other group of people in the world. They just happen to be living way too close to each other, and as a Palestinian friend of mine said, they've been fighting for 9000 years over the same bit of land, some of their holiest of holy places.
The only way there will be peace is if they can co-exist in the same place. That might mean that the answer is for there to be one state of Palestinians and Israelis (which is sort of happening already, not by force or resistance, but because there are Arab people who live in Israel peacefully and are slowly becoming a larger and larger part of Israel). The situation may sort itself out in 100 years. It might mean that there will be no Israel as we know it today, though. But it doesn't have to mean that Jews won't live in that state in peace along with Muslim people.
That is probably not the answer that many people want to hear. Fortunately, I'm not the one that makes policy for the world, so you can totally ignore what I say. I do know that I want Jews to live in peace wherever they may live. I'm not a big fan of creating states for a single ethnic or religious group, so I don't know what to say about a Jewish state. I don't believe that Islamic states are in the best interests of humankind either. But I don't get to make the rules, so what do I know?
Paid members of the Palestinian Authority (and religous figures to boot -- talk about no separation of church and state) give nationally televised sermons advocating the murder of Jews.
blah. and the jewish propoganda dehumanizes the palestinaians as well. Just looking at the numbers we see that 2 palestinians are killed per jew. So you want to pick propganda solely from the losing side to justify the aggressors?
This is an important point I think gets glossed over - Palestinians suicide bomb, Israelis don't. I would think it takes a lot to get someone to blow themselves up. Apparantly, the P's have the grievances to drive that kind of angst, the I's don't. Most of the Jews I know personally are academics, and, right or left, they're very unsympathetic to Israel.
I personally tend to think both sides have their share of assholes. But I also think Israel is treated with undue sympathy and support in the news media.
I've never thought about Native Americans as a paradigm for the whole Middle East problem, but it's very apt.
I don't undertsand your almost grave general respect for Glenn... I have a certain fondness for him because that was the first blog I really read, but either his views have drifted way to the right or mine have drifted way to the left, and we're not talking much these days...
Paul Wrote:
"I have a certain fondness for him because that was the first blog I really read, but either his views have drifted way to the right or mine have drifted way to the left...."
I feel much the same way, though I think it's more "republican" than "right." It seems to me much of what he does nowadays basically apologizes most anything the Bushies do, and slams the dems for lesser crimes.
With, of course the occasional "See, I'm not a fundie" post thrown in.
K
Actually, as long as we're characterizing, I'd say he's much more angry with the left than sympathetic to the right (or Republicans). I think his position as blogger central (and the adulation and animosity that comes with it) has seriously skewed his view of the political landscape.
I emailed Glenn, though I doubt I'll get a response. My point is that he's confusing the horrible Palestinian leadership -- which deserves punishment and anger -- with the general population, which is also a victim.
On a general, Glenn-note, I read him mostly because he might often have a good link. His set-up is also nice. But when he puts up updates by readers who compare him to Nazis, and calls those readers the voice of the peace movement, it bothers me. You'd think someone as intelligent as he would have better sense.
Oh well.
>But when he (Reynolds) puts up updates by readers who compare him to Nazis, and calls those readers the voice of the peace movement, it bothers me.
I have quite a few times expressed the opinion that I don't give much credence to what I refer to as "vanity blogs," that is blogs that don't provide for comments. Such as Reynolds's. This is the primary reason why. I have had a few email exchanges with the likes of Andrew Sullivan and Eugene Volokh, neither of which provide for comments, taking issue with, not their opinions, but their assertions of fact. And I have provided evidence that refutes--or at least places into question--their assertions of fact. But Volokh largely ignored that. Indeed, subsequent to our email exchange, Volokh repeated the "fact," without acknowledging the problem with his asserted "fact."
Don't believe everything you read. Not even from Volokh.
>You'd think someone as intelligent as he would have better sense.
Um, why? The fact is that, when purported posters liken (not "compare," "liken") him to a "Nazi," that makes people who read him sympathize with him. I have no idea whether there are actually people who email him who liken him to a Nazi. But, let's get real. One of the silly mantras in the "blogosphere" is that the first person to claim that another poster is a Nazi or Hitler or whatever has lost the discussion. So, who do you really believe that Reynolds would give evidence to? Someone who has a rational discussion. Or someone who says that Reynolds is a Nazi?
Give me a frigging break.
I neither know nor care what Reynolds is advertising with his blog (or Volokh, for that matter), but it seems to me that more than a few of these blogs are nothing more than advertisements for something.
While I have some sympathy for the Palestinian people and support a two state solution, a comparison with US treatment of Native Americans reflects poorly on the US. Since this could be a doctoral dissetation I'll make two brief points:
1. Native Americans were "transferred" by the US government multiple times. You'll find the Delaware Indians living in Oklahoma today. Israeli Arabs are not compelled to live on reservations, and despite the unprecedented security issues Israel has faced, transfer is not supported by the vast majority of the Israeli populace.
2. Native American population rapidly declined in the 19th and 20th centuries, due to a host of factors including disease, displacement from land and yes slaughter by agents of our government. Israeli Arab numbers have grown since 1948. This is certainly not the demographics of ethnic cleansing.
Indeed I'm hoping the demographic reality will lead to a "Zionism of numbers" and not a "Zionism of borders". Ohmert's recent acknowlegement of the obvious is hopefully an emerging trend on the Israeli right.
There is no real moral equivalence between the Israelis and Palestinians in the present conflict. The Palestinian leadership, and some large proportion of the Pal population, wants to kill all the Jews, or at least drive them entirely out of Israel. The Israeli leadership, and most of their population, wants to live in a country with a Jewish majority that's not under constant attack by the Arabs.
The Israeli aims are moral, the Palestinian aims are not. One cannot safely compromise with people who aim for genocide, one can merely defeat them. Only when the genocidal leadership of the Palestinians is defeated, and new leaders arise whose aims are not genocidal or unreal, should there be any US sympathy or support for the Palestinians.
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