By Ted Belman
I hooked up with Michael Totten today and we headed to the Old City to talk to some Arabs. Michael, as you may well know, is a well know ME journalist who writes for the likes of Commentary, Pajamas Media, City Journal and others.
As it turned out we only had time to converse with one souk merchant. This is what he had to say,
America supports Israel and as long as that is the case, nothing will change in the ME. I argued to the contrary that the State Department has always been dedicated to pushing Israel back to the green line. He answered that Israel is still in the Westbank and America gives her billions. But America, I said, gives to both Hamas and the PA hundreds of millions. This he knew nothing about. Here was his bottom line, if Obama can’t force Israel back, nobody in the US can. He is not hopeful at all. “The israrelis will never give us anything.”
Then he gave me a history lesson. In ’47 Israel got 80% of Palestine and the Palestinians got only 20% (his words). And now he says that the Israelis want us to compromise on the remaining 20%. No way. As much as he wanted all of Palestine (Israel included), he would settle for 20%. I couldn’t help but feel that getting Palestine would not end the matter.
I didn’t have the time to give him a history lesson as we were there to learn what he thought.
Story continues below…
He had great respect for Hezbollah and Hamas because they were “men”. i.e. they stood and fought. They have integrity and stand by their principles. He admires them. He was particularly excited that Hezbollah beat Israel into submission in the 2006 War. Israel begged the US to get them a political solution. This gave him great pride..
It was clear that the Sunni/Shiite rivalry interested him not. His world was divided between fighters and appeasers.
He thought that the Gazans were suffering from the blockade and rejected the truth when I tried to inform him.
In line with the recent polls, he wants Iran to get the bomb even if it means that she will bomb Israel. He said he would gladly die so long as Israel is destroyed.
Truth never changes. It is liberals who flip-flop, say one thing, then contradict themselves, apply judgments differently based solely on biased whims, and so on.
One thing about saying the same thing a hundred thousand times is that at least it is consistent—unlike liberals who will say a hundred thousand different things that when all put together are incoherent nonsense.
Martel
* Be civil. No foaming at the mouth. No name-calling. No libels. No nasty insinuations.
** Don’t just recycle the same old things that have appeared in the comments a hundred thousand times already. Everyone just reads past that stuff.
…you are emulating a tired old outdated Xerox machine, a lot of sound and fury signifying zilch.
He is a Muslim.
Interesting, because liberals accuse conservatives of being too black and white, while they live in shades of gray. Yet, if conservatives approach the borderline of any gray area, they are characterized as racist. Certain truisms are off limits for discussion.
We do have to be careful, but the only way to be careful enough to please the left is to shut-up altogether. They will mischaracterize whatever you say, no matter how you say it, if they don’t like it. So, either you don’t say it, or, you say it and don’t give a flip. I prefer the latter. The left has won too many battles by name calling and intimidating their opponents into silence.
After having read several intelligently-written commentaries today, my conclusion is that the Islamists (including Obama, apparently their top supporter) feel they’re on a roll. What would bring them down to earth, so to speak, would be an uncontestable defeat, a defeat of incredible magnitude.
Many if not most of old city Arab merchants were Christian. At least they were when I used to hang out there.
RandyTexas, I agree with you but in dealing with the left who see the world in simplistic bipolar terms and do not trust themselves or others to control their primitive impulses, we have to be careful when speaking in shades of gray.
Why would you assume he was Christian? Muslim arabs certainly aren’t shy about expressing their hatred toward Jews and Israel.
Europeans were barbarians. As they developed a moral code, Europe changed and became the center of civilization. As they have now throw out their morality in exchange for a Godless relativism, they are becoming barbarians again.
Intellect is related to morality. Where morals are virtually corrupted, intellect cannot long survive.
Encyclopedia Judaica
The doctrine in Judaism (also known as election) that God chose the people of Israel from among the nations. The doctrine of the chosen people is closely related to the notion of Covenant, the contract between God and Israel.
The concept originates with the Divine choice of Abraham and his descendants as recounted in Genesis. God’s first communication with Abraham already hints at a unique relationship with God that has implications for the rest of mankind: “I will make of you a great nation … and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you” (Gen. 12:2-3). God’s covenant with Abraham is narrated in Genesis 17, and the contractual agreement in which the people of Israel agree to keep God’s law (Ex. 19-24) is foreshadowed in God’s musing: “Since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation, and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him; for I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord, by doing what is just and right” (Gen. 18:18-19).
At Sinai, the entire people of Israel is invited to affirm the covenant and enter into a special relationship with God: “Now, therefore, if you will obey Me faithfully, and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; but you shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation …” (Ex. 19:5-6). Israel, in agreeing to these terms (Ex. 19:7, 24:3, 7), reconfirms Abraham’s covenant and renders it binding upon all future generations. Lest the people forget the experience, Moses, shortly before his death, reminds them: “For you are a people consecrated unto the Lord your God, and the Lord your God chose you from among all other peoples on earth to be His treasured possession” (Deut. 14:2).
The doctrine of the chosen people is presumed throughout the Bible, although nowhere does it receive systematic elaboration. No clear reason is offered for Israel’s election: on the contrary, “The Lord did not set His heart upon you or choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples—indeed, you were the fewest of all peoples—but it was because the Lord favored you …” (Deut. 7:7-8). Here and in the above citations, the Bible reiterates the unique situation whereas although the Lord is God of all the nations, Israel is nevertheless singled out. God tells Moses to inform Pharaoh that the Jewish people is His first-born, not His only child (Ex. 4:22; see also Amos 9:7 and Mal. 2:10). Although the perception of a special relationship with God was at the very least a source of pride (Num. 17:6), the Bible does not spare its rebuke of the people of Israel for their transgressions, and informs them that, “I have known only you of all the peoples of the earth; therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Chosenness implied responsibilities towards the other nations (e.g., Gen. 12:3; Ex. 19:6; Deut. 4:6-7; Isa. 49:6), even suffering on their behalf (Isa. 52:13-53:12).
HWSNBN
As usual, you miss the point. Islam is a religion, i.e, a belief system and thus, to be critical of Islam is not being “racist”.
Er, no; that’s your perverted definition — and a straw man.
Pointing out that the Jews gave mankind the Torah is akin to pointing out that the Greeks gave mankind geometry or the Eskimos gave mankind the igloo. It’s a truism. If the Greeks or the Eskimos wish to consider themselves “chosen” for their gifts to mankind, it’s perfectly okay with me.
Only a self-hating racist like you would persecute the Jews for taking credit for their gift.
Racism according to the left:
Leftists sophistically widen the meaning of racism to accuse the detractors of their pet nations of immorality. By the current standard of racism, books written before the 1960s are generally racist, and the leftists have already censored The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Arabs exploit popular unwillingness to assert their intellectual inferiority.
Generalization about Arab intellect is presumed immoral, but leftists generalize the other way in presuming Arabs to be good and smart. Generalization and arguing from absence of evidence are accepted scientific methods. We don’t care that the Arabs could have achieved decent intellectual results if they had been forced to attend universities from seventh century onwards; absent positive evidence of their achievements, it is logical to presume them stupid.
Groups, including nations, are different from each other. Their competition fosters social evolution and progress. In the process, some groups die out. Oil purchases artificially keep the Arab hordes alive.
While this is not true in every case, it is also not untrue in every case. There is overwhelming data to prove that, generally speaking, some races excel in some areas, while others may do better in other areas.
I believe this phenomenon has much to do with diverse conditions various groups of people have adapted to over generations. Regardless, it is a fact that there are measurable differences between different groups, and that some of the differences cannot be made up for in one generation. What do we do with that fact? Nazis made a false secular religion based on lies of white supremacy; liberals close their eyes and pretend no differences exist, while practicing a veiled racism under a pretense of equal rights.
I don’t believe genetics makes us of good or bad character, choice does. But, do we have to pretend, as do liberals, that every group is the same? If so, may that cosmopolitan mind-set be the reason globalists hate the existence of a state that is characterized as being Jewish?
Y
Ted, while you’re with Totten, see if you can persuade him that the Balkans will not be much different.
Ted you met an honest Arab, was he Christian?
I have had hundreds of similar conversations with Arabs so his opinions seem to be quite typical.
You learned something our leaders forgot if they ever learned it in the first place.
As Kahane once said “the Middle East is not the Middle West”
Welcome to the Middle East.
QED for my 8 years posting on Israpundit.