I suppose after this sabbatical they will be back… refreshed.

do you consider the teenage female bomber a civilian or an enemy combatant?

Asked & previously answered. Why do you repeat questions I’ve already answered in replies to yr own comments here? Is this some kind of test you’re trying to get me to fail? You mean you don’t see a distinction betw. an unarmed Palestinian woman standing in front of a mosque & a young female suicide bomber?

As for your supposed enormous experience with Muslims & Islam, I wouldn’t say any of yr rather limited experience gives you the right nor authority to make sweeping generalizations about all Muslims or all of Islam.

The goal of Zionism is to take the whole world of Jews and put them into a tiny footprint in the middle east; the goal of Islamists is to take a tiny footprint in the middle east and turn the whole world into Muslims.

Utter nonsense. The majority of Muslims neither want to turn the entire world into Muslims nor do they have even the remotest capacity to do so. You are a raving doomsayer deserving of no attention.

As for the goal of Zionism–from even the moderate Arab perspective (& not without some measure of truth) Zionists want to bring 9 million more Jews to Israel, settle them on Arab land, and take over some of the most holy places from their Muslim religion. In addition they wish to displace most or all of the 1.5 million Arab citizens living within the State. This is not the innocent little project you make it out to be. Whatever the justifications may be for Zionism, & there are justifications–yr. description of it is completely tendentious & designed to cast Islam in the worst possible light & attach no share of fault to Israel. It won’t wash.

Zionists hope to keep Jews from turning into non-Jews;

Not really. Most Israeli Zionists don’t really care much for Judaism or Jewishness except as a corollary of their main project. They want a Jewish nation, one that is strong & can demolish any opponent. Judaism is actually something that is anathema to many Zionists (though not the settler movement of course) since it represents Diaspora thinking & reminds Zionists of the time when Jews were supposedly powerless.

And as I say, you’ve left out oh so many other Zionist goals that are not so flattering. The goal of eradicating or submerging the Arab minority. The goal of expanding the Israeli footprint by assuming control (i.e. stealing) of Palestinian land through settlements. The goal of eradicating any Arab neighbor who stands in its way. The goal of being able to drop a nuclear weapon on any Arab neighbor who threatens it. Not quite as pretty a picture is it?

I say all these things as a progressive Zionist. So above I’m not criticizing the entire Zionist movement, but only those who represent an expansionist, triumphalist version of it. But no doubt they are in the majority & so deserve opprobrium for their policies & views.

Whay are your true feelings on this matter? It’s ok to say you despise the Jews in Israel,

This passage was not only stupid, but deeply insulting. I do NOT despise Jews or Israel. To even imply otherwise is a calumny. I lived in Israel for two years. I speak fluent Hebrew. I’ve studied sacred text for decades both in academia & personally. I studied at a Jewish theological seminary. I’ve worked for Jewish communal institutions. Why in heaven’s name would I say I despise Jews? You’re lower than the belly of a cur dog to even hint that I might.

As for my solution to the conflict, I’ve only written it here 10 or 20 times both in posts & comments. It’s very simple: return to 67 borders. Create an international monitoring force to secure the borders. Demand Arab recognition of Israel. Jerusalem becomes the capital of 2 states. Law of Return is amended to allow compensation instead of physical return.

1965-1967 Jerusalem – I lived in Moshav Germanit (heavily Moroccan – 10% Muslim) also studied at the Hebrew University – took courses on Islam alongside Muslim students.

July-Sept 1967 Paris. I bunked with a Muslim for 3 months while we both studied at the Alliance Francaise at the Sorbonne. He then moved to another dorm because he finally found it too difficult to sleep so close to a Jew.

1970-1975 Had a Muslim partner in vending business.

1985-1986 Had a Muslim roommate.

1994-1998 Muslim partner in Egyptian Telecommunications business in Brooklyn

2000-2005 (Different) Muslim Partner in Queens TV station

I went to their homes, drank irak with them.

There are also quite a number of Muslim phonecard distributors who I do business with and with whom I have contracts that do not expire for a number of years. When they do expire, I will not be renewing them as my view of Islam has changed rather dramatically these past few years. I was not born an Islamophobe and only came about from realization that Islam is in fact a violent political ideology rather than a religion.

Your quick and witty response to this is of course the standard nonsense that this is “just like those who equate Judaism with Zionism”. Not quite. The goal of Zionism is to take the whole world of Jews and put them into a tiny footprint in the middle east; the goal of Islamists is to take a tiny footprint in the middle east and turn the whole world into Muslims.

Zionists hope to keep Jews from turning into non-Jews; Islamists hope to turn non-Muslims into Muslims. Seems to me quite opposite types of political entities.

You still haven’t told me your solution to the crises: should the Israelis stop fighting, should they just leave Israel? Whay are your true feelings on this matter? It’s ok to say you despise the Jews in Israel, after all I admit that I despise Islam.

[you may remove the link if you find it superfluous]

Iran’s competition for cartoons mocking the Holocaust drew a pitiful 204 entries from around the world and although Iranian newspapers announced the results of the competition they barely gave it any decent coverage. Not a single one even bothered to…

I fully believe the words of Muslim leaders when they promise to make the world one Caliphate.

Their words are no more credible than those of MK Bernie Elon when he declares with a straight face that Israel’s Arab citizens must be shipped off to Bulgaria–a statement he made yesterday. The settler leaders want the equivalent of a Jewish theocracy in Israel. Do you really believe they will ever come remotely close to achieving their goal? Of course not. And that’s how close Muslims will come to achieving a Caliphate. The only people in the world who believe this malarkey are you, Dick Cheney & all the other Islam haters in the world.

You know that phrase: “If wishing made it so.” But wishing something doesn’t make it happen.

Islam is rich, has more than a billion adherents, and is on a tear to obtain nuclear weapons.

“Islam” is doing no such thing. Religions don’t “obtain nuclear weapons.” Nations do that. You seem to confuse the two. It makes me wonder how much you really understand about either nationalism or religion.

Islam is just another religion like Judaism; it is not. It is a political system more than anything else. And it certainly not benign.

Balderdash. Islam is no more a “political system” than Judaism is. And if you claim Islam is not benign because it is a political system there are an equal number of Arabs who make the exact same mistake you do by equating Judaism with Zionism (& also equating Zionism with settler extremist ideology/theology). You are both wrong in almost the same ways.

I have lived a number of years with them and among them.

I have no idea what you mean & I’d like you to be more specific about where you lived ‘with them & among them’ & how you came to do so. Yr statement could mean virtually anything.

I seriously doubt you could come up with any passage from the Quran or the Torah, Mishnah, Midrash, Septuagint (which I read in the original Greek) for which I could not give you an erudite and expert analysis.

Which proves precisely what? And why would I want to get into a pissing contest with you to determine which of us has the best or deepest understanding of Judaism, Islam or any religion? There are many human beings who claim to know everything about a particular subject, yet they completely lack any wisdom. So all that supposed knowledge gets them nowhere. If you do know something about the Quran, you certainly know next to nothing about Islam. All you know is propaganda based on prejudice & hate. Anyone can study any particular subject & come out with pre-conceived judgments about the subject finding everywhere along the way proof for those preconceived notions. That doesn’t mean you understand what you study. It just means that you’re a propagandist.

Are you completely sure it was a comment I left?

When people leave pingbacks at my site the comment notification clearly indicates that it is a pingback. Yours did not. It appeared as if it was a comment & not a pingback. But I’ll check with people who know my blog platform better than I to find out if wordpress is handling pingbacks differently than it used to. And if you did send a pingback & I deleted it, I invite you to send another using this link:
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2006/02/27/israeli-anti-semitic-cartoon-contest/trackback/
I promise it will remain on my site & I won’t rebuke you for it. Sorry if I was mistaken. We may disagree about things, but I wouldn’t deny you the right to pingback to one of my posts especially if you did link to one of mine. Anything else would be uncivil of me.

If somehow I was in some stupor and inadvertenly left a comment with a link then I do apoligize. I do not do that unless I am discussing the article and the auther asks for links.

Now I understand your initial complaint and if somehow I left a comment I must have been on autopilot and done it accidentally since my intention was to ping your post. I have over 5000 links from various sites and so I am very aware of how pinging works. In addition, my own comment policy [which I have in my sidebar] has the same rules, for the most part, as you do.