Easy your life.

Update History

17 June 2012

A Stone’s Throw From Jerusalem

As a bleeding heart liberal lunatic, I am supposed to support Palestine over Israel. I understand why. Palestine is the downtrodden underdog. Liberals are supposed to support the underdog. But I see Israel as the underdog. Palestine is much smaller than Israel, but Israel is much smaller than its Arab neighbors. And they have all invaded Israel. Some of them want to see Israel completely obliterated. Israel has expressed no desire to wipe any Arab states off the map. A fifth of all Israelis are Arab. What percentage of any Arab state is Israeli?

The more you look at it, the more lopsided it all is against Israel. The United Nations, with sixteen or so Arab members and only one Jewish member, has passed about 150 resolutions against Israel and no resolutions against Palestine. There have been more condemnations of Israel for violating human rights than there have been for every other nation in the world combined. According to the UN, Israel is a greater human rights violator than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, Rwanda, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan, Pakistan and every country where women are property. Israel’s great violation of human rights, according to the UN, is that Palestinians have been evicted and foreigners must pass through checkpoints to enter Israel. Apparently this is worse than mutilating little girls and executing people with opinions.

Going through an Israeli checkpoint is far easier than entering most nations. You stop and answer questions. If you seem suspicious, they ask more questions and search you. If something does not seem right, they go with their instinct and training. This is not a violation of human rights. This is good security. If not having open borders is a crime, most of the world is guilty.

Palestine, under the control of Fatah and Hamas, has no freedom of speech, press or religion, discriminates violently against women, arrests, tortures and executes people without trial. These are all violations of human rights according to the UN. These are all far worse crimes to a true liberal than forcing foreigners to pass through checkpoints.

Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that is ranked favorably by organizations that rank human rights and freedom of the press.

To their credit, Kofi Annan, Ban Ki Moon, and representatives from the EU, US, Netherlands, South Africa and Canada have condemned the UN’s “disproportionate obsession” with condemning Israel.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs have left Israel willingly or been forced to leave since 1948. There are many UN resolutions condemning this. There is not a single resolution condemning the hundreds of thousands of Jews that willingly left or were forced to leave Arab states since 1948. There are several resolutions calling on Israel to let all Arab refugees and their descendants return to Israel as citizens, no questions asked. There is not a single resolution calling on any Arab state to let any Jews or their descendants return to those states.

The most noticeable difference between Jewish and Arab refugees is that Israel lets any and all Jews become part of their society. Jordan is the only Arab country that has ever allowed some Arab refugees to become citizens. Other Arab states keep them locked up in refugee camps. There have been no UN resolutions condemning this inhumane practice.

The Second Lebanon War ended when the UN, Israel and Lebanon all agreed that Israel would end its blockade of Lebanon while Lebanon disarmed Hezbollah and UN security forces ensured that everyone did what they promised to do. As soon as the blockade was lifted and Israeli soldiers went home, the UN announced that it had no mandate to do much of anything, despite its mandate. Lebanon and the UN quickly announced that they were not going to bother disarming Hezbollah. There were no UN resolutions condemning the UN for ignoring its promise.

The UN condemned Israel for the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. A lone Israeli nutjob went apeshit and shot a bunch of Muslims at a mosque. The attack was condemned by Israel’s prime minister, government, religious leaders and Israeli society as a whole. And by the UN.

But the UN has never condemned any nation for any of the thousands of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, schools, hospitals and synagogues. Palestinian leaders often praise the terrorists who kill the most Israeli civilians. Palestinian children are told to dance in the streets when Israelis die. Any real liberal would have a problem with this.

The UN has condemned Israel several times for defending itself against military aggression and for initiating that Suez Canal invasion. They have never condemned any of the nations that have invaded Israel. They have never condemned any of the nations that allow terrorist groups to operate in their borders. They have never condemned any of the nations that supply weapons and money to terrorist groups that attack Israel. The UN has condemned Israel several times for the thousand or so Palestinian terrorists and uknown number of Palestinian civilians killed by Israel. The UN has never condemned Palestine for the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed by Palestinian terrorists.

While I am supposed to side with the disenfranchised Arabs over those Jews who control the world, I have a hard time favoring oppressive dictatorships over an open democracy. Israel is far more liberal than any Arab state, in every possible way. All Israeli adult citizens can vote, regardless of gender, religion, race or sexuality. Most people living in Arab states have never voted in a democratic election. This is mostly because there are no Arab democracies.

All adult citizens of Israel have the same rights, regardless of gender, religion, race or sexuality. Women in most Arab states are property. Most religions are either illegal or violently discouraged. Not being Arab in an Arab state is worse than being Arab in the United States. You might as well be a black man in China.

Israel is more open to homosexuals than is most of the world. Adam and Steve cannot marry in Israel, but if they are legally married elsewhere, it is legally recognized in Israel. Not only is their marriage not recognized in any Arab state, but they would likely be executed in most. Homophobes might like that idea, but few people get off on the fact that heterosexual women can be executed for having heterosexual sex in some Arab states.

Women can be executed in all Arab states for a wide variety of supposed crimes that are not illegal for men. Many Arab states, as well as China, the United States and Iran, execute children. Israel executed no one. Except in 1962. But that guy was asking for it. The UN passed a resolution against that, too. This is disproportionate bias at its best. The UN passed a resolution condemning Israel for executing a high ranking Nazi, but has passed no resolutions against Texas or China for executing children or the mentally unbalanced. On the other hand, if Texas were not allowed to execute the mentally unbalanced, who would they execute.

I understand why Republicans support Israel. It is the sole democracy surrounded by often brutal dictatorships. I have no idea why Democrats hate Israel so much. Yet in the United States, Jews are far more likely to vote Democrat than Republican.

A lot of people have been trying to bring peace to the area for quite some time. Israeli leaders have agreed to hold negotiations almost anywhere at any time. Arab leaders have always only agreed to participate with preconditions, many of which would only cause Israel’s destruction. Israeli leaders have agreed to cede large chunks of Israel in exchange for an absence of terrorist attacks. Every time they give up more land they are thanked with even more terrorist attacks. Arab leaders have never agreed to give up one inch of land and have never taken any responsibility for any of the terrorist groups operating within their borders.

Every Israeli prime minister has recognized the right of its Arab neighbors to exist. About two Arab leaders have recognized Israel’s right to exist.

What we always hear now from Arab states is that Palestine should be an independent nation and that Israel is to blame for every effort that Arab leaders have made to stop this from happening. While the West Bank was under Jordan’s control from 1948 to 1967, absolutely no effort was made to create any Palestine. Israel offered most of the West Bank and all of Gaza to a future Palestine in 1991, 2000 and 2005, the only conditions being that Palestine recognize Israel’s right to exist and stop firing rockets. Arab leaders refused each time.

Today’s version of Israel was born in 1948. There could have just as easily been a Palestine, but the Arab League refused to allow it and immediately invaded Israel. Since then various Arab states have invaded Israel with the goal of driving the entire Jewish race into the sea. Israel has initiated a few reactionary invasions over the years, but has never made any attempt to destroy any of its neighbors.

Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel off and on since the dawn of time. In the middle of the twentieth century someone decided that Jerusalem should be the capital of some future nation called Palestine. Apparently no one found it questionable for a state that did not yet exist to take the capital of a state that already was. When the city was divided and Jordan took control of the Old City, Jews and pretty much everyone else were denied access to the holiest sites in Judaism, as well as many important Christian sites. Desecration was the order of the day and half of all Old City synagogues were destroyed, along with countless graves and important religious buildings. There were no UN resolutions condemning any of this.

Under Israeli control, the Old City is open to everyone, except for areas under Arab control. Anyone can go to the Western Wall (as long as you put on a hat) and Church of the Holy Sepulchre (as long as you take off your hat), but the Dome of the Rock, under Arab control, is generally closed to infidels.

Much is still being made of the Arabs who were moved from the Jewish Quarter of the Old City 45 years ago, even though each family was paid about US$150. Not a fortune, but not bad for 45 years ago. No one ever talks about all of the Jewish families that were forced out and never paid anything.

The issue of Jewish settlers in the West Bank is highly contentious and is almost always one of the Arab preconditions for any negotiation. Israelis have slowly but steadily made their way east and built villages beyond Israel’s borders. The UN condemns this on a regular basis.

The Arab, and UN, position is that those Israelis have no right to be there and should be removed immediately and forever. Yet both groups think that all of the Arabs who flooded into Jerusalem after the Six Day War and during Jordan’s occupation should be immediately made Israeli citizens. There have never been any UN resolutions against attempts to populate Arab-occupied territories with more and more Arabs.

As a liberal lunatic, I am supposed to side with Palestine on every one of these issues since the people of Palestine are oppressed and abused. And they are. When Israel gave control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority in 1993, the people of Gaza lost many of their basic human rights. When Hamas took over in 2006, the people of Gaza lost whatever freedom they had. Terrorist dictators that see you as ammunition and human shields are usually not the nicest overlords. The UN does not seem to have a problem with how Palestinian leaders and terrorists treat the people of Palestine, but any liberal should.

As an American, I am supposed to be endlessly fascinated with the Israeli/Arab situation. This is mostly because Americans love to find a cause that they know little about and take a side without really understanding the people on either side. Since our politics are always a clear case of our side always being right and the other side always being a bunch of mentally unbalanced dullards, we find it very easy to believe that any one side in any complex sociopolitical shitstorm is as pure as a nine-year-old Arab girl on her wedding night.

We liberals are especially guilty of jumping head first into a cause with only our bag of misinformation, disinformation and self-righteous indignation. It makes us feel better about ourselves to talk to each other about the poor huddled masses in Palestine, Tibet and Myanmar without going to these places and learning anything about the people. Like our hippie forefathers, we can say we fought the good fight without actually doing anything for anyone.

Israel is easier for our corporate media to condemn because the people of Israel are mostly middle class, technologically advanced and every bit as developed and civilized as we are. It also helps that the Arab media condemn them every day and Arab textbooks teach their children that Jews are pigs. If we fight in our minds for the people of Tibet, we have to take on the non-white, non-middle class people of China. Siding with the downtrodden of Myanmar requires opposing the equally brown and undeveloped leaders of Myanmar.

Liberal middle class white people are supposed to side with poor colored people in undeveloped backward countries. Siding with liberal middle class people in a developed state would be wrong.

But any liberal that claims to care about human rights has to have a much bigger problem with how China treats Tibet, how Arabs treat Palestine or how Saudi Arabia treats everyone than how Israel treats Palestine. So why do we and our liberal media talk more about Israel than any nation that is truly butchering people and their rights? Is it simply because we hear far more about Israel than about Tibet, or do we simply care more about our own self-interests than about human rights? After all, when China forces a mother to abort her baby, it does nothing to my bank account.

Some people say that Palestinians have as much right to their own homeland as Jews have to theirs. As a bleeding heart liberal, I agree. That homeland is called Jordan. Arabs that we now call Palestinians are genetically the same as Arabs in what we now call Jordan, which is why most of the former British Mandate is now Jordan. Culturally, they are pretty much the same as the Arabs in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, Bahrain, Algeria, Qatar, Oman, Yemen and etc. Ironically, they are all semites. The size of all of the Arab homelands combined is about 600 times larger than the size of the one Jewish homeland.

There is only one reason to keep trying to make the Jewish homeland smaller and smaller. It is also the only reason for our disproportionate obsession with Israel over other conflicted parts of the world.


Most Frequently Used Labels

Most important for honor to making drive with eye close (7) How can it be an accident when they drive like assholes on purpose? (3) Let your family get their own dreams to the reality (3) Police don’t ask me how I feel – I feel fined (3) When you travel to a city with a rich culture and history try to visit its theme parks (3) And I ask myself why were there no strippers at my wedding (2) Get out the way old Dan Tucker (2) Holy Mother tramples the heads of the Earth fire dragon (2) I hate the fact that I need an electronic device in my life (2) I was tired of walking anyway (2) It is indeed like rain on your wedding cake (2) No colors were harmed in the taking of these photographs (2) What the Zagat guide doesn’t tell you (2) Why is not now if it fight? (2) And they don't even hold a grudge (1) Aucune couleur dans la fabrication de ces photgraphs n'a été blessée (1) Brother can you spare a thousand dimes (1) Castle Of The King Of The Birds (1) De Cultuur van Amsterdam is de belangrijkste van Nederland (1) Does one person really need 500 shoes? (1) Dorénavant je ne parlerai pas même Français (1) Everything I know about right and wrong I learned from M*A*S*H (1) From Genesis to Revelation in one run-on sentence (1) Hast du etwas Zeit für mich - Dann singe Ich ein Lied für dich von Wien und Österreich und das sowas von sowas kommt (1) He doesn't care too much for money since money can't buy him love (1) I am tired of typing tiny dirt farm village (1) I knew there was a reason I never go to Dallas (1) I participate in all your hostility to dogs and would readily join in any plan of exterminating the whole race. – Thomas Jefferson to Peter Minor 1811 (1) I think I saw Walt Disney’s frozen head in the popcorn line (1) If I were a half decent photographer anything I shot in Africa would make you say Great Mbleka - this place is awfuckingtastic (1) If Jesus exists then how come he never lived here (1) If Nelson Mandela exists then how come he never lived here? (1) If Rodney King lived here he’d still be alive today (1) If you wish to be starting some thing you have got to be starting some thing - I say if you wish to be starting some thing you have got to be starting some thing (1) If you’ve seen one crowded polluted stinking town… (1) It is make unluck to give a shit (1) It is super and strong to kill the wound dint (1) It’s actually a pretty enormous world after all (1) Keine Farben wurden im nehmen dieser Fotos geschädigt (1) Me no like (1) Most greatest blog post is ever was (1) NOT ALLOW (1) Never trust a man who can only spell a word one way (1) No humans were harmed in the taking of these photographs (1) Not counting the last one (1) Old people got no reason (1) Peace and easy feelings (1) Peter Brown never called me (1) Planes and trains and boats and buses characteristically evoke a common attitude of blue (1) Probably the best time I have ever had at one of my favorite places in the world (1) Red is the color that my baby wore and what's more it's true - yes it is (1) Slap tjips - jy maak my nou sommer lekker skraal mos (1) Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance (1) Suicide is Painless but booking trips at the last minute around here is a pain in the ass (1) The day the music died (1) The lingering acrid scent of $5 whores never impresses the little lady back home (1) The one about my first trip to Amsterdam which doesn’t really say anything about my first trip to Amsterdam (1) The woman who will be the mother of my illegitimate children just as soon as I get that time machine fixed (1) They might as well be dead when the rain comes (1) Think about how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that (1) Those godless French bastards never once offered me any vodka (1) Tiny metal rods (1) To boldly be our guest a long long time ago where no man has gone before under the sea (1) Unfortunately to get to nature you have to go through civilization (1) We’ll kill the fatted calf tonight so stick around (1) What good is a used up world and how could it be worth having? (1) Who is this Red Rose that just walked in the she hot stuff (1) Why Julia Child never lived here (1) You make kill we make kill so all same ok (1) Your lateral cuneiform is full of eels (1) scenic Bali (1) spellcheck this (1)

All content © 2004-2013

myfreecopyright.com registered & protected






















I have no qualms about disseminating creative works for the public benefit when the author is duly credited, but if you use any of the writing or photography contained herein and try to pass it off as yours, that just shows you are a big pussy who is too lazy to come up with your own word usements or shoot your own digital paintings. You should be ashamed of your dipshittery.