tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post6414119697726862294..comments2023-10-26T06:29:39.824-07:00Comments on The Magnes Zionist: David Shulman on Moshe Halbertal on the Goldstone Report on the NYRB BlogJerry Haberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173892714754718716noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post-62669589736537028752009-11-23T08:59:49.931-08:002009-11-23T08:59:49.931-08:00Dear Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf,
Czarist government respon...Dear Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf,<br /><br />Czarist government responsibility in pogroms is far less clear than you apparently believe.<br /><br />I recommend that you read <br /><br />1. <i>Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews, The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia, 1823-1855</i>: <a href="http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/03/drone-attacks-buenos-aires-jcc.html" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow">Drone Attacks, Buenos Aires JCC</a><br /><br />2. <i>Zionism and the Fin de Siècle, Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky</i>: <a href="http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/04/followup-ii-origins-of-modern-jewry.html" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow">Followup (II): Origins of Modern Jewry</a><br /><br />You seem to be indoctrinated in a possibly Zionized pogrom and persecution version of Jewish history.Joachim Martillohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00121944171459090792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post-48934240529832520842009-11-22T09:16:03.642-08:002009-11-22T09:16:03.642-08:00I object to Israel's responsibility in Sabra a...I object to Israel's responsibility in Sabra and Shatila being described as "indirect." Calling it so requires granting the Jewish state a huge benefit of the doubt that goes beyond reasonable levels.<br /><br />It's like saying that the Russian government had "indirect responsibility" for the pogroms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<br /><br />Political correctness should be dropped once and for all in addressing the issue.Ibrahim Ibn Yusufhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09839484683464457225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post-13352197203323089652009-11-19T11:51:38.976-08:002009-11-19T11:51:38.976-08:00Joachim, not this progressive "Zionist"....Joachim, not this progressive "Zionist". I am perfectly aware of Leibowitz's flaws. He had virtually no concern for the Palestinians; he certainly didn't demand withdrawal to the 67 border lines because he thought that this was a way to peace and justice. He didn't want Israel to become an occupier but he didn't really care much about the occupied, and he made condescending remarks about them. H<br /><br />All that having been said, he was a moral voice that bugged the hell out of different groups of Israelis. So yet, feet of clay, but a lot more than the feet. <br /><br />He also had negative feeligns towards Christians and Christianity.Jerry Haberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15173892714754718716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post-196061805909027982009-11-19T11:06:14.568-08:002009-11-19T11:06:14.568-08:00After talking with Yeshayahu Leibowitz at Harvard,...After talking with Yeshayahu Leibowitz at Harvard, I developed a much lower opinion of him than progressive Jewish Zionists typically have.<br /><br />Anyway, I put up related videoclips of Leibowitz and Talal Asad: <a href="http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/11/yeshayahu-leibowitz-versus-talal-asad.html" rel="nofollow">Yeshayahu Leibowitz versus Talal Asad</a>.<br /><br />In a weird way they may represent a Litvak-Galitsianer divide.<br /><br />I am quite serious about this observation.Joachim Martillohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00121944171459090792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post-19491227498661254422009-11-19T04:38:48.500-08:002009-11-19T04:38:48.500-08:00Donald's comment that it is easier to confess ...Donald's comment that it is easier to confess another man's sins is well taken. While the biggest demos were in response to Sabra and Shatilla rather than the shellinng of Beirut, the mass protest movement in Israel began with Israel's invasion of Lebanon. <br />I think there is another distinction. In the past a fair minded Israeli could come out strongly against certain excesses by Israel and still retain the belief that our boys are doing a fine job. Now, with the internet and cellphones, it's impossible to hold that line. Israelis are blocking out Gaza because they haven't got a way of accepting some responsibility without their national identity crumbling, or so they feel. Similar problem for American Jews vis-a-vis the Gaza war.Elliotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post-47556865028839194732009-11-18T12:47:58.331-08:002009-11-18T12:47:58.331-08:00I'm with Donald, but I have further troubles w...I'm with Donald, but I have further troubles with the characterization of Israel's responsibility for Sabra and Shatila as being "indirect" or as Jerry put it, "a massacre in which the IDF did not even take part!"<br /><br />Israel most assuredly took part. The Phalangist units that did the actual killing were operating under the direct command and control of Ariel Sharon and the IDF, no different than any other IDF unit. That such an act could have been committed without direct orders or the full knowledge of the IDF is inconceivable, not solely because the IDF itself stood guard around the camps as the slaughter occurred, providing illumination, turning back those attempting to escape, and ensuring no outside force would interfere, but, as leaked IDF documents revealed years ago to the tribunal in Belgium, Sharon gave the orders directly himself. I believe the phrase he used was "turn it into a parking lot. You understand me?"<br /><br />Far from a bystander the IDF was instrumental to the act. One should also note that the Commission's report has still not been entirely declassified. Fully half is still under wraps.Grifnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post-54345909024442350862009-11-18T08:12:05.065-08:002009-11-18T08:12:05.065-08:00While it might be true that the perfomanc of the I...While it might be true that the perfomanc of the IDF in Gaza has sunk to a new moal low, I must at the same time say that Lebanon 1982 was a turning point. I have been following this war, first at the desk of my newspaper of the time, Het Parool in Amsterdam, and vividly remember Sharons bombardments of Beirut with which he tried to get the PLO on its knees or to kill Arafat. Whole flatblocs perished in the process, most of the times together with their inhabitants. I also remember one of Sharon's jokes: a sequence of bombing raids at 2.42 and 3.38 hours respectively in honor of the UN Security Council resolutions of the same numbers.<br />Somewhat later, in early September, I visited Lebanon itself and saw some of the things that enraged colonel Dov Yermya so much that he quit. One of these things was the camp Ein al Helweh near Sidon: there were no stuctures left, only walls to a maximum height of some 45 cm.<br />I returned to Beirut on September 19th, that was som two days after the Sabra & Chatila massacre stopped. One of the things I'll remember till I die is the moment I was standing on the roof of thye Kuwaiti embassay, just South of the camps. It had been a lookout of the IDF during the operation of Hobeika's Lebanese Forces. From were I stood I counted the bodies of at least 30 elderly people who were lying in their blood in the corridors of their little houses, three dead horses, one dead donkey and a few dead chickens. Let nobody think that the IDF was INDIRECTLY responsible. It was completely impossible to be indirectly responsible under such circumstances. (And by the way, A.B. Yehoshua made this remark at the time that described the situation very well as far as I am concerned: 'It was us who opened the door of the cage and we blamed the lion.')<br />Which is not to say that in Gaza sme aspects of the conduct of the IDF were worse than in 1982. I just wanted to point out that it might be just one more step in a gradual process of decline (to which, by the way, Ariel Sharon may have contributed more than anybody else). What is happening on the West Bank has also contributed to this process. As a journalist I can tell you that in the 80's it used to be news when a Palestinian was killed in the territories, nowadays it has to be death in greater numbers before it will be printed. But I'm convinced that also this is only a part of an - alarming - step by step development.<br />MartinAbu Pessoptimisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03717200416051685243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7675600882597316438.post-21564625830057032612009-11-17T13:26:24.682-08:002009-11-17T13:26:24.682-08:00I don't know. Maybe Israeli moral feelings ha...I don't know. Maybe Israeli moral feelings have coarsened in recent years, but some of this sounds like people remembering the good old days as being better than they were. For instance, in the 1982 Lebanon War I've read the accounts of Robert Fisk and Jonathan Randal and others, and Israel apparently killed many more civilians with aerial bombing and shelling (possibly in the 10-20 thousand range) than died in Gaza and also far more than died at Sabra and Shatila (even if you accept the 2000 dead figure that some say is the true figure for the massacres).<br /><br />I'm a little cynical about the emphasis on Sabra and Shatila--I think it's a little easier to confess to the crimes of one's allies than to one's own crimes. Did 300,000 Israelis protest the bombing of civilians in Beirut? <br /><br />Americans are the same way, for the most part. Actually, if anything we're worse. Our public intellectuals and pundits (in the mainstream at least) are always bemoaning the fact that we didn't intervene to stop this or that massacre committed by our enemies. We don't hear nearly as much about the massacres committed by the people we support. <br /><br />DonaldAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com