This is a different kind of Hamas. It knows it cannot win by destroying its enemy, but by letting its enemy destroy itself – which Israel is doing – socially and morally.
There is so much in your piece I appreciate, agree with, just as an exploration of the reality without the din of the various jingoisms, which are really not so various since we have heard nothing from the Hamas/Palestine side. Only the usual projections and their protesting proxies chanting Free Palestine! They have my sympathy but at some point both sides will need to chant “love and negotiate with thine supposed enemy and we will al be free!”
As a tangent to your gist: how demeaning is it for a people to rely, constantly, on a sugar daddy? Apart from the corruption of always doing US bidding, Israel might have been more Socialist than it is, for instance, instead of Right wing zealots in government, had they not needed to please and appease the US.
I am reading a fascinating, very abrupt history of Russia by Geoffrey Hosking. In the second paragraph he describes the 9th Slavs centered in kyiv conferencing and deciding, since they could not control tribal strifes, infighting and fratricide they should ask the Vikings to rule them. Vikings to keep the peace! And once this plan showed predictable cracks they decided to ask the Mongols to take over. I was in Kyiv in September and there was something disturbing in their otherwise lovely countenance: some submissiveness, best I can do to describe. A total monoculture, harsh racists. Perhaps a reality, a psychological truth of a people always depending on a more thuggish outsider to sustain them.
"Good and evil are not equal. Repel evil with good, and the person who was your enemy becomes like an intimate friend." (41:34) (Qu'ran .
I like your use of the word "monoculture". I live in Japan which is supposed to be one such culture – but in reality Japan is heterogenous. . Kyushu is not Honshu. Tokyo is not Osaka. Over the centuries, the Japanese have worked at creating unity over top of diversity. But the diversity of the Japanese people is still there – even if they pretend it isn't. The Japanese are very good at achieving a balance.
Ukrainian nationalists our driven by the retrograde and regressive worldview of the Galician peasantry-- with an attempted monoculture. But Ukraine is not one country. Not one culture. I do broadcast regularly for Southfront and I notice that I can pronounce names of places in Ukraine any number of ways.
And it's all okay-- because there any number of pronunciations. Everything is dialectal.
Great. Ukrainians and Poles seemed almost oppressed by their cultures, Which they cling to fiercely no doubt. Psychological truth I guess: the devil I know. Terrific work. Keep it up!
As you said, one huge factor in the history of this whole conflict is the financial and military backing for Israel from the US. This is one of the things that people need to continuously put immense pressure on the US government to stop immediately.
The problem is how to put pressure on the government. I'm Canadian. But it doesn't matter who you vote for. All the parties basically share the same policies. To change the government, you need to change public consciousness.
In my opinion, changing public consciousness requires a bottom-up approach, in that there needs to be a dedicated grassroots movement(s), that meets with, raises awareness, and organizes communities to rise up and challenge the government on their various harmful, self-serving policies and actions.
No doubt, this requires a lot of hard work and dedication from such grassroots-oriented groups and NGOs, but I do feel that in many existing political systems, this is truly the only real, effective approach to bring about change; that is, through changing people's mindset, and peoples' power through mobilization.
Cause otherwise no real change will take place, especially not from the political system, who're benefitting and getting wealthy from the status quo. And I agree with your point, in that, I feel that in many countries around the world today, all mainstream political parties do indeed essentially practice similar political ideologies.
Very in-depth article. I agree with what you say about the "winning by not losing" strategy. It's how the Vietnamese dealt with the US. It works, but boy, is it ever hard on the civilian population.
In modern wars, it is always the public that suffers. That started in World War I. Not that people at home suffered so much with the thousands and thousands of young men who went to the trenches to die – an entire generation-- did. And that changed everything. The Vietnamese had no choice. Palestinians have no choice. Israel and the US have choice.
Netanyahu - "Jewishness is not his problem; sociopathy is."
I'd argue that a little differently, in that the sociopaths, narcissists and parasites don't really have a problem. It's not something they are going to fix or care to fix. The rest of the world, however, does have a problem: them.
Since you mentioned the Jesus vs Pharisees etc kerfuffle - it led into my bailywick - the big picture ongoing war which started as described in Genesis and runs as a thread all the way through Revelation, and is literally still being waged as we speak - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2021/03/in-essenceit-always-wasand-still-isa.html?m=0 - history confirms this, if one is paying attention to history. Unfortunately, most folks are as ignorant of history as everything else.
Today's Israel, for all intents and purposes, is yesterday's Pharisees, Sadducees etc - their bible is the Talmud and NOT the Old Testament.
Another interesting 'coincidence' - those religious leaders of ancient Israel used the services of DaRomanEmpire to have Jesus crucified........sorta like today's Israel is using Uncle Sam's services to fight its enemies.
For anyone who has not yet read it, may I warmly recommend Shlomo Sand's book "The Invention of the Jewish People"? He has a very good argument about how "nationality" is manufactured for political purposes.
This book this book is widely supported outside of Israel and the Zionist community by legitimate scholars and historians. It is difficult to find fault with any of its assertions, which rely on documented historical fact.
The downtrodden and persecuted are often the harshest to anyone they consider even weaker. Like the poor whites in the Old South, who rarely made common cause with the black people but were notoriously first to abuse and mistreat them. Perhaps there is some relief in knowing there is someone you can kick, in the intervals between being kicked yourself.
Tom answered that for me. I had thought of making a comparison between Arabic Jews and poor whites, but I left it out of the article because it leads in another direction – that of social psychology. An abused child often becomes an abuser, a bullied child becomes a bully. A discriminated social class discriminates. This is partly how all hierarchical societies maintain their verticality – the pyramid structure that is the essence of hierarchy. Since we evolved to live in egalitarian societies, and hierarchical societies are an unnatural adaptation enforced by climate change 10,000 years ago-- these behaviors are retrogressive, having more in common with chimpanzees than human beings.
I disagree with your final sentence, Julian. From what I have read, chimpanzees and gorillas live in very hierarchical societies. (Bonobos are considered much more egalitarian - definitely the woke ape species).
As far as I know, any healthy chmipanzee troop has one definite leader. Sometimes leadership may be shared, but that's unusual. And the leader reminds everyone of his authority from minute to minute, with a repertoire of demonstrative behaviour from actual blows to taking food or actually pissing and defecating on others.
It's a delicate balance, as strong authority is essential; but too heavy a hand often drives subordinates to band together and stage a coup.
"Winning by not losing" was also the strategy of the Vietcong & Taliban. Insurgencies are notoriously difficult to fight, as long as they have the will to keep it going, which is in abundance here. As you suggested, Israel is one of the American Empire's forward bases, and these are increasingly besieged.
Julian, I tried to reward you for your excellent article and my card was declined. I have tried in the past with the same result. I don't know why it happens because it works for other sites.
"Though Liberty was severely damaged, with a 39 ft wide by 24 ft high (12 m × 7.3 m) hole and a twisted keel, her crew kept her afloat, and she was able to leave the area under her own power. Liberty was later met by the destroyers USS Davis and USS Massey, and the cruiser USS Little Rock. Medical personnel were transferred to Liberty, and she was escorted to Malta, where she was given interim repairs. After these were completed in July 1967, Liberty returned to the U.S."
Yesterday I was visiting my brother for Thanksgiving. I had been sharing my views and facts I've learned over time. He told me I was hopelessly propagandized. He gets all his information from FOX News. Who's propagandized?
Not to trivialise your experience, Longtrail, but I was reminded of this very recent xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2858
As I have come to see it, in society today we see two main types of people. Our type - the type who eagerly rush to read Julian's every word - is mainly concerned to know the truth. The other type considers it far more important to be safe, which it thinks can best be done by staying right in the middle of the herd. Which is done partly by watching Fox (or whatever other tripe outlet) and echoing whatever it says.
As Robert heinlein's character Lazarus Long says, "You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once".
Yes, the liberty vs security paradox. Those who yearn for security gladly give up their liberty. We are America home of the scared and land of the sheep ruled by Neocon Nazis and Zio-Nazis. I was so angry about the implementation of the DHS and Patriot Act.
> Between 1945 to 1948, the Zionist population of Palestine was mostly Ashkenazi Jews from Europe.
As a related side note ...
Ashkenazis are Jews by faith, more or less. But they are NOT Semites.
In fact, they are Khazars - an empire that converted to Judaism in the 8th century, by decree of their king (or "Khan"). There goes the justification for an alleged "land promised in the bible" .
And if you look up where Khazaria was located and how it ended, you get the feeling that all of what happens lately is no coincidence ...
Israel has just over 7 million Jewish citizens. (The Gentiles don't count - as far as the israeli government is concerned they are a perpetual threat, not an asset).
An army of 500,000 out of a population of 7 million... Take away the 1.25 million ultra-orthodox, who don't fight (or do much of anything except pray), children, the old and infirm, and you are down to maybe 4 million or so. Many fewer, if you didn't count women - which of course Israel does.
What does it do to a country's economy when over 10 percent of its potential soldiers are in arms, ready to fight? Nothing good.
There is also about 1.25 million Russians who are nominally Jewish, but regarded as second-class citizens regarded as second-class citizens. How eager they are to fight, I don't know
There is so much in your piece I appreciate, agree with, just as an exploration of the reality without the din of the various jingoisms, which are really not so various since we have heard nothing from the Hamas/Palestine side. Only the usual projections and their protesting proxies chanting Free Palestine! They have my sympathy but at some point both sides will need to chant “love and negotiate with thine supposed enemy and we will al be free!”
As a tangent to your gist: how demeaning is it for a people to rely, constantly, on a sugar daddy? Apart from the corruption of always doing US bidding, Israel might have been more Socialist than it is, for instance, instead of Right wing zealots in government, had they not needed to please and appease the US.
I am reading a fascinating, very abrupt history of Russia by Geoffrey Hosking. In the second paragraph he describes the 9th Slavs centered in kyiv conferencing and deciding, since they could not control tribal strifes, infighting and fratricide they should ask the Vikings to rule them. Vikings to keep the peace! And once this plan showed predictable cracks they decided to ask the Mongols to take over. I was in Kyiv in September and there was something disturbing in their otherwise lovely countenance: some submissiveness, best I can do to describe. A total monoculture, harsh racists. Perhaps a reality, a psychological truth of a people always depending on a more thuggish outsider to sustain them.
"Good and evil are not equal. Repel evil with good, and the person who was your enemy becomes like an intimate friend." (41:34) (Qu'ran .
I like your use of the word "monoculture". I live in Japan which is supposed to be one such culture – but in reality Japan is heterogenous. . Kyushu is not Honshu. Tokyo is not Osaka. Over the centuries, the Japanese have worked at creating unity over top of diversity. But the diversity of the Japanese people is still there – even if they pretend it isn't. The Japanese are very good at achieving a balance.
Ukrainian nationalists our driven by the retrograde and regressive worldview of the Galician peasantry-- with an attempted monoculture. But Ukraine is not one country. Not one culture. I do broadcast regularly for Southfront and I notice that I can pronounce names of places in Ukraine any number of ways.
And it's all okay-- because there any number of pronunciations. Everything is dialectal.
Great. Ukrainians and Poles seemed almost oppressed by their cultures, Which they cling to fiercely no doubt. Psychological truth I guess: the devil I know. Terrific work. Keep it up!
Very insightful article.
As you said, one huge factor in the history of this whole conflict is the financial and military backing for Israel from the US. This is one of the things that people need to continuously put immense pressure on the US government to stop immediately.
The problem is how to put pressure on the government. I'm Canadian. But it doesn't matter who you vote for. All the parties basically share the same policies. To change the government, you need to change public consciousness.
Yeah, definitely.
In my opinion, changing public consciousness requires a bottom-up approach, in that there needs to be a dedicated grassroots movement(s), that meets with, raises awareness, and organizes communities to rise up and challenge the government on their various harmful, self-serving policies and actions.
No doubt, this requires a lot of hard work and dedication from such grassroots-oriented groups and NGOs, but I do feel that in many existing political systems, this is truly the only real, effective approach to bring about change; that is, through changing people's mindset, and peoples' power through mobilization.
Cause otherwise no real change will take place, especially not from the political system, who're benefitting and getting wealthy from the status quo. And I agree with your point, in that, I feel that in many countries around the world today, all mainstream political parties do indeed essentially practice similar political ideologies.
Very in-depth article. I agree with what you say about the "winning by not losing" strategy. It's how the Vietnamese dealt with the US. It works, but boy, is it ever hard on the civilian population.
In modern wars, it is always the public that suffers. That started in World War I. Not that people at home suffered so much with the thousands and thousands of young men who went to the trenches to die – an entire generation-- did. And that changed everything. The Vietnamese had no choice. Palestinians have no choice. Israel and the US have choice.
Netanyahu - "Jewishness is not his problem; sociopathy is."
I'd argue that a little differently, in that the sociopaths, narcissists and parasites don't really have a problem. It's not something they are going to fix or care to fix. The rest of the world, however, does have a problem: them.
A very good point. Thank you for this.
Since you mentioned the Jesus vs Pharisees etc kerfuffle - it led into my bailywick - the big picture ongoing war which started as described in Genesis and runs as a thread all the way through Revelation, and is literally still being waged as we speak - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2021/03/in-essenceit-always-wasand-still-isa.html?m=0 - history confirms this, if one is paying attention to history. Unfortunately, most folks are as ignorant of history as everything else.
Today's Israel, for all intents and purposes, is yesterday's Pharisees, Sadducees etc - their bible is the Talmud and NOT the Old Testament.
Another interesting 'coincidence' - those religious leaders of ancient Israel used the services of DaRomanEmpire to have Jesus crucified........sorta like today's Israel is using Uncle Sam's services to fight its enemies.
There are no coincidences!
For anyone who has not yet read it, may I warmly recommend Shlomo Sand's book "The Invention of the Jewish People"? He has a very good argument about how "nationality" is manufactured for political purposes.
This book this book is widely supported outside of Israel and the Zionist community by legitimate scholars and historians. It is difficult to find fault with any of its assertions, which rely on documented historical fact.
A good point. The Talmud and the Torah are different . Much as the Koran and the hadiths are different.
How did the Mizrahim go from victimized (by Ashkenazim, if I understand correct) to far-right?
The downtrodden and persecuted are often the harshest to anyone they consider even weaker. Like the poor whites in the Old South, who rarely made common cause with the black people but were notoriously first to abuse and mistreat them. Perhaps there is some relief in knowing there is someone you can kick, in the intervals between being kicked yourself.
Tom answered that for me. I had thought of making a comparison between Arabic Jews and poor whites, but I left it out of the article because it leads in another direction – that of social psychology. An abused child often becomes an abuser, a bullied child becomes a bully. A discriminated social class discriminates. This is partly how all hierarchical societies maintain their verticality – the pyramid structure that is the essence of hierarchy. Since we evolved to live in egalitarian societies, and hierarchical societies are an unnatural adaptation enforced by climate change 10,000 years ago-- these behaviors are retrogressive, having more in common with chimpanzees than human beings.
I disagree with your final sentence, Julian. From what I have read, chimpanzees and gorillas live in very hierarchical societies. (Bonobos are considered much more egalitarian - definitely the woke ape species).
As far as I know, any healthy chmipanzee troop has one definite leader. Sometimes leadership may be shared, but that's unusual. And the leader reminds everyone of his authority from minute to minute, with a repertoire of demonstrative behaviour from actual blows to taking food or actually pissing and defecating on others.
It's a delicate balance, as strong authority is essential; but too heavy a hand often drives subordinates to band together and stage a coup.
Many typos. An important one is that you wrote Nov 7 when you meant Oct 7.
Whoops. Thank you will fix
Nice philosophy about apparently “escaping “means you survive.
War isn’t about the Big Moment and far more complex as you say.
The social context, reasons, behind the war is seldom commented upon.
Glad you have.
Perceiving the multitude of connections means your broadminded. It takes time to work it out.
Isreal is an artificial construct up against a real one , vaguely understood life, so once the money is gone it withers and will die.
"Winning by not losing" was also the strategy of the Vietcong & Taliban. Insurgencies are notoriously difficult to fight, as long as they have the will to keep it going, which is in abundance here. As you suggested, Israel is one of the American Empire's forward bases, and these are increasingly besieged.
Julian, I tried to reward you for your excellent article and my card was declined. I have tried in the past with the same result. I don't know why it happens because it works for other sites.
Re: "sinking of USS Liberty"?
It was not sunk.
"Though Liberty was severely damaged, with a 39 ft wide by 24 ft high (12 m × 7.3 m) hole and a twisted keel, her crew kept her afloat, and she was able to leave the area under her own power. Liberty was later met by the destroyers USS Davis and USS Massey, and the cruiser USS Little Rock. Medical personnel were transferred to Liberty, and she was escorted to Malta, where she was given interim repairs. After these were completed in July 1967, Liberty returned to the U.S."
Final fate, she was scrapped in 1973.
Quite correct. The Israelis tried to sink it but it didn't sink
Yesterday I was visiting my brother for Thanksgiving. I had been sharing my views and facts I've learned over time. He told me I was hopelessly propagandized. He gets all his information from FOX News. Who's propagandized?
You wrote a great article Julian.
Not to trivialise your experience, Longtrail, but I was reminded of this very recent xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2858
As I have come to see it, in society today we see two main types of people. Our type - the type who eagerly rush to read Julian's every word - is mainly concerned to know the truth. The other type considers it far more important to be safe, which it thinks can best be done by staying right in the middle of the herd. Which is done partly by watching Fox (or whatever other tripe outlet) and echoing whatever it says.
As Robert heinlein's character Lazarus Long says, "You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once".
Yes, the liberty vs security paradox. Those who yearn for security gladly give up their liberty. We are America home of the scared and land of the sheep ruled by Neocon Nazis and Zio-Nazis. I was so angry about the implementation of the DHS and Patriot Act.
Ah....Heinlein. I love the classics too. I'm Canadian. But as you've noticed, Canada is no better.
> Between 1945 to 1948, the Zionist population of Palestine was mostly Ashkenazi Jews from Europe.
As a related side note ...
Ashkenazis are Jews by faith, more or less. But they are NOT Semites.
In fact, they are Khazars - an empire that converted to Judaism in the 8th century, by decree of their king (or "Khan"). There goes the justification for an alleged "land promised in the bible" .
And if you look up where Khazaria was located and how it ended, you get the feeling that all of what happens lately is no coincidence ...
The Ashkenazi I think intermarried with Jewish people. But genetically speaking , they have about as much Jewish content as I do.
Thank you Julian. Outstanding summary of where we are & why.
(Note: there is an editing error in the sentence with Jesus)
Thank you--I fixed that!
Israel has just over 7 million Jewish citizens. (The Gentiles don't count - as far as the israeli government is concerned they are a perpetual threat, not an asset).
An army of 500,000 out of a population of 7 million... Take away the 1.25 million ultra-orthodox, who don't fight (or do much of anything except pray), children, the old and infirm, and you are down to maybe 4 million or so. Many fewer, if you didn't count women - which of course Israel does.
What does it do to a country's economy when over 10 percent of its potential soldiers are in arms, ready to fight? Nothing good.
Demographic judo.
There is also about 1.25 million Russians who are nominally Jewish, but regarded as second-class citizens regarded as second-class citizens. How eager they are to fight, I don't know