16 thoughts on “Trump and the GOP: Words Will Kill – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. How is their incitement worse than the one you preach yourself for years?

    120 Palestinians murdered? Many of them were killed while trying to murder peaceful civilians. Abu-khdeir murderers up being trailed and Dawabsha murders are investigated with suspects civil right been dismissed in order to break open the case.

    You basically give Palestinians ‘license to kill’ but attack Israelis even in cases where they self defenses themselves.

    Self righteousness is something that runs deep in liberal circles!!

  2. “…This has undergirded the political supremacy of the Israeli extreme right, which has controlled national politics, with a few brief interruptions, going back to 1977. In order to retain its grip on power, the rhetoric has grown progressively more heated. As a result, we’ve entered a new Intifada…”

    @Richard- How do you know you have not reversed cause and effect? Why are you so sure that the right in Israel hasn’t gained power because of persistent Palestinian violence and rejection of offers to end the conflict?

    Sometimes populist rhetoric doesn’t stoke viiolence, it is the response to violence.

    1. @Yehuda: Unlike you I don’t seek to blame the sins & dysfunctions of Israeli society on others/outsiders. It hardly matters why the right has a stranglehold over Israeli politics. It does. Deal with that.

      Further, rightist control will end up destroying Israel. Its external enemies won’t destroy it. It’s own internal divisions will.

  3. ” Unlike you I don’t seek to blame the sins & dysfunctions of Israeli society on others/outsiders. It hardly matters ”
    But that’s exactly what you do with the Palestinians. Palestinian corruption, violence, incompetence and extremism is reflexively blamed on Israel and the occupation.
    We could play a blame game on why Oslo failed. Suffice it to say that both sides becamed disillusioned, with justification. So both sides retrenched into hardline positions. Its not so hard to understand. Ignoring why the right has become dominant in israeli politics is burying your head in the sand. Counterfactuals are always problematic, but I can say with virtual certaintly that if buses did not start blowing up after Oslo was signed, the right would have kept quiet and most Israelis would have supported continuing the peace process.

    “Further, rightist control will end up destroying Israel. Its external enemies won’t destroy it. It’s own internal divisions will.”
    Well, I wouldn’t be so hysterical about it. Many democratic countries have gone throught spasms of political upheaval and swings towards the extreme right or left, and they survive. That’s because neither the far right or left actually have practical solutions. People get fed up and want change. And internal divisions existed whether the right or left was in power.

    1. @ Yehuda:

      Palestinian corruption, violence, incompetence and extremism is reflexively blamed on Israel and the occupation.

      Um, yeah. Until you permit a Palestinian state free from Israeli control there is no conceivable way you can blame Palestinians for anything. You control Palestine. The residents are rats living in a cage you made. Open the cage, let them run their own country. Then if you choose to blame them, your views would have at least some resonance. For now, they have none.

      We could play a blame game on why Oslo failed.

      Yes for you it is a big game. People die on both sides because your country rejects compromise & lives in a world of make-believe. And it’s all a game in which you move the pieces around a chess board of your own making. The Palestinians were perfectly willing to compromise after Oslo. But your countrymen murdered the PM who sought to compromise and that was the end of things.

      As for the terror that followed, gimme a break. After Rabin’s murder, which Bibi incited btw, there was no hope for peace. Peres botched things by waiting too late to call the next election. Hamas terrorism was merely the icing on the cake of this disaster. Israel made the cake itself.

      Many democratic countries have gone throught spasms of political upheaval and swings towards the extreme right or left, and they survive.

      There is no swing toward the “extreme left” or even the left or even the center. There has only been an increasing rise of fascism beginning in 1977 & continuing virtually unabated till today.

      neither the far right or left actually have practical solutions.

      The far right runs the country so of course the have practical solutions. More of the same mess they got us into in the first place. The left has no practical solution because it doesn’t exist.

      I’m invoking my three message rule because you’re monopolizing the comment threads. No more than three comments posts in any 24 hour period. Respect this rule.

  4. @Richard

    “rightist control will end up destroying Israel. ”
    “It’s own internal divisions will.”

    This current sniping at the Israeli Left and Rightist populist rhetoric is nothing compared to what the early Zionists did, with their political assassinations, extreme rhetoric, party infighting, ill fated coup attempts.
    You name it.
    And after the formation of the State of Israel, when the leftist Mapai Party was in power, Mapai beat down the Palestinians in Israel.

    But, Israel has survived, if not thrived.

  5. Trump is a demagogue and a bigot. But there is a reason that he gains traction. And that reason is Obama and the left’s culture of political correctness.
    America and Europe have a guilt complex over their past sins, namely from colonialism and racism. This makes these the biggest sins of all, and avoiding them means overlooking other sins. This means that it is verboten to talk about the values of other cultures, and how they might or might not be inferior to our liberal values. Tolerating the other is conflated with tolerating other culture’s values, no matter how much they conflict with our own. So it is forbidden to talk about the possible effects of an influx of Muslim Arab refugees into a liberal Western population. Obama even said that the Syrians are like the Jewish refugees after the holocaust. Such a failure to make even the most basic moral and historical distinction is characteristic of this kind of post-modern thinking– in which political correctness comes before truth.
    So it is in this context a plain-talking Trump comes in and captures people’s attention. If Obama and his democratic allies where a little more open and honest in their discussion about the refugees, Trump wouldn’t even get the attention that he does.

    1. @ Yehuda: Your lopsided analysis of Israeli politics is bad enough. But to have to endure your mauling of U.S. politics is more than I can bear. Please stick to a subject you can at least make a pretence off knowing something about. Blaming Obama for Trump is like blaming the sun for an earthquake.

      Such a failure to make even the most basic moral and historical distinction is characteristic of this kind of post-modern thinking

      You must’ve taken the Im Tirzu degree in “modern post-Zionism.” Please don’t throw around concepts about which you haven’t a clue. It’s terribly embarrassing to read your pretence of intellectual sophistication. There is no historical distinction between Syrian refugees and Holocaust refugees. 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. 200,000 Syrian have died in the past five years. If you think Jews have a moral monopoly on suffering go talk to the Bosnians or the Rwandans or the Cambodians or the Congolese. You don’t have such a monopoly, so stop whining about Jewish exceptionalism.

      I find your Islamophobia repulsive. I’ve warned you about it once. If I see it again, you’ll be moderated.

      a plain-talking Trump

      You just called him a “demagogue and a bigot.” Now he’s a “plain talker.” What is he? Hee can’t be both.

      If Obama and his democratic allies where a little more open and honest in their discussion about the refugees

      You mean if Democrats were a little more racist than Trump, we’d suck some of the wind out of his sails? No thanks. Democrats are perfectly content to see Trump trash the GOP. There are several hundred million sane Americans for the several tens of millions of insane Republicans bigots out there. We’re perfectly happy to see the GOP self-combust & wait for the general election to resume control.

  6. “There is no historical distinction between Syrian refugees and Holocaust refugees. 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. 200,000 Syrian have died in the past five years. ”

    There is a glaring distinction between the Jews who died in the Holocaust and the dead in Syria. About half the deaths in Syria are combatants.
    http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/syria-civil-war-civilian-deaths/405496/
    Were half the Jews who died in the Holocaust combatants? No.

    1. @ Barbar: I see. So if “only” 100,000 Syrian civilians died that creates a distinction that makes them unlike Holocaust victims. Is that your argument? Or perhaps you wish to argue the Holocaust was genoicde but Syria, Rwanda, Congo, etc aren’t? Doesn’t work either since all of them are tribal/religious conflict in which genocide figures quite prominently as motivation.

      Again, you can take your Jewish exceptionalism and…

  7. I don’t know which Jewish refugees Obama likened Syrian refugees to, but I do know that Syrian refugees are the product of a civil war, whereas Jewish refugees fleeing Germany, were not products of a war. They were fleeing the persecution of the pre-war Nazi state.
    After the war had ended, Jews, and many others, were also refugees.

  8. @Richard “Or perhaps you wish to argue the Holocaust was genoicde but Syria, Rwanda, Congo, etc aren’t? ”

    Nice try. Those aren’t the same. Rwanda, and Cambodia were genocides. Armenia was. Syria is not. Look up the definition yourself. While what is happening in Syria is a human tragedy, it is primarily civilian casualties in a civil war. While there are criminal indiscriminate attacks by the regime resulting in mass civilian casualties, they are not trying to exterminate a particular group. Perhaps ISIS would like to commit genocide against Yazidis and Christians, but these are not most of the refugees. Refugees are escaping a war zone. There are not the same as survivors or attempts at genocide, such as the Jews or Armenians.

    What this comes down to is a moral and political argument of what comes first: concerns about your own security or civil/human rights. The left says unequivocally civil rights. The right says security. End of story. Its not about facts or numbers. Its about outlook. Its not about Islamophobia, either. There have been questions about other immigrant groups as well. For example, there have been a number of serious espionage cases involving Chinese Americans. Same for Russians. Not about immigration, there even has been discussion about Jews working in the CIA, about their potential split loyalties with Israel. That’s not antisemitism. I have no problem with this being asked. So its a legitimate discussion to have, how to minimize a potential threat and balance it with human rights, and it shouldn’t be shouted down by PC people shrieking Islamophobia.

    1. @ Yehuda: You are dead wrong. Syria is certainly a genocide as Alawites & Sunnis are attempting to annihilate each other. This is certainly genocide. But that’s not even my point. My point is that the Holocaust is the same as all other historic incidents of mass murder in human history. It is certainly heinous. But you don’t deserve exceptional status for it.

      The Syrian dead, just like the Jewish dead of the Holocaust were civilians casualties. But if you think Syria is a “civil war” with more than ten outside powers butchering and slicing up the country, you’re crazy. A civil war is two sides in an internal domestic conflict. Syria has long ago stopped being that.

      they are not trying to exterminate a particular group.

      So the Alawites are killing themselves? Shiites? Christians? Jews? Buddhists? No, they’re killing…wait for it…Sunnis. And Sunnis are killing? Wait for it…Alawites. So neither one is trying to exterminate a particular group? Is that still your claim?

      Refugees are escaping a war zone. There are not the same as survivors or attempts at genocide,

      Nonsense. Holocaust survivors tried, just as Syrians are now trying, to escape a war zone. There is no difference.

      Its not about Islamophobia, either. There have been questions about other immigrant groups as well. For example, there have been a number of serious espionage cases involving Chinese Americans. Same for Russians.

      Really? So that’s why your comments were entirely aimed at proving the brutishness and incivility of Muslim society??

      I’m glacially tired of your arguments. You’re done in this thread. Don’t return here for further comment.

  9. Right now I cannot remember his name but I believe that there was one Pope who forbade the persecution of Jews (in Europe).
    The first biographer of Hitler, Konrad Heiden, wrote that Hitler proved what all experts had predicted would be impossible namely that one can “unite” a nation that craves for unity with just the right propaganda. That propaganda must be founded on a well-recognizable scapegoat, in his case “the Jew”. Donald Trump may make a serious error of serving up two scapegoats: illegal residents and Muslims. That could be too much variety.
    I am glad that Prof. Lipton mentions Ayaan Hirsi Ali who, together with Theo van Gogh produced a vile anti-Muslim flicks worthy of “Der Jud Suess”. It did not trigger attacks on Muslims in the Netherlands but the murder of van Gogh.
    There are obviously “reversed-attacks” against racist/ethnic propagandists/murderers. The killing of vom Rath in Paris is another example.

  10. A check of the constitutions of the states on the Eastern and Southern borders of the Mediterranean reveals that nearly all (Syria is or was an exception) have an article which makes Islam the national religion. The issue in that region is therefore not democracy vs. dictatorship but secular vs. religion. As long as that is not understood the most secular rulers of the region such as Gadhafi and Assad are targeted for being murdered or otherwise removed.

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