ISRAEL HAS MURDERED THE PALESTINIANS’ NELSON MANDELA. I hope you will share this, so people in the West can get to know who Ismail Haniyeh was, and the utter tragedy of what Israel has done.
I hope for some commentary here or elsewhere (anywhere) about a phenomenon that I have seen orchestrated and pulled off by the demonic Colonial Zionists too-too many times in my 60 years of observing the number one menace to world harmony: The Colonial Zionists "never miss an opportunity to exploit an opportunity" -- and one opportunity that appeals to them is the US periodic electoral cycle, when US political parties and their dumbed-down followers are distracted and extra vulnerable to being treated as 'Israel's' obedient servant. I've seen variations on this theme sooooo often. One is the 2007-8 POTUS cycle: between election day (11-03) and Obama's inauguration on 1-~20-'08, the Zionist horde unleased a massive assault on Gaza. It proceeded for 21 days starting in December, and -- like magic -- was turned off after those days of hell on earth for Gaza, o/a 1-18-2008. So the sadistic Colonial Zionists had made their point: outgoing Dubya could do nothing, incoming Obama could do nothing. It's same 'ol same 'ol here in 2024! Can anyone develop and confirm my analysis? -- it's "merely" the latest sordid chapter of the crazed Zionists' playbook/lust to control anything and everything ... worst, at this point in time, Colonial Zionist Israel's psychopathic Prime Monster Netanyahu is losing in Gaza and is determined to get US boots on the ground in Iran...thus, Lebanon/Hezbollah Syria/Golan Heights; Yemen's Houthis; now ASSASSINATION in Tehran of PhD Haniyeh, a man for whom I have utmost respect and solidarity. C'mon America (and the world): WE'VE BEEN HAD BY COLONIAL/GENOCIDAL ZIONISM! (Thanks for reading...Viva Palestine!--Hamas and ALL of Palestine!)
Well, when you assassinate someone who is a lead negotiator, it certainly sends a very clear message about what outcome you want. It has been infuriating that Biden consistently gave his unwavering "ironclad" support to Israel, while it annihilated entirely innocent Palestinian men, women, children, and babies, as well as aid workers and journalists, and it's deeply disheartening to learn that Harris, too, is willing to support Israel, unless she only says that now, because she thinks the election will be close, and she's afraid to alienate any anti-Palestinian Americans. (It's too bad people like Biden, Harris, and others, apparently didn't read JFK's "Profiles in Courage.") But even if that's temporary, every day the US continues to support Israel is another day innocents, and negotiators, get massacred.
I should add that I grew up Jewish. I gave it up because there is no such thing as "god," so I don't have the entry criterion to be part of any religion, and because it became increasingly clear in my Jewish education that Jews focus intently on the Holocaust. Several of their other holidays are about other victimizations. It seemed that being Jewish was about feeling like a victim. So between one thing and the other, I quit. I am also virulently anti-religion. If anyone is personally spiritual, and likes whatever spirituality they adopt, that's fine. But imposing it on other people is, and always has been, deeply divisive and uncivilized. In any event, I appreciate why Israel was created, and I have no complaint about it. I have no complaint about Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, black people, women, or anyone else. But Israel is where it is because Theodor Hertzl lobbied hard for that area, and it was not a barren area. 1M Palestinians were displaced to make room for the Israelis. The Palestinians were given the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the Israelis have never stopped illegally invading these tracts, creating illegal settlements, and attacking Palestinians. Netanyahu is a true criminal, and he could not have been given a more welcome gift than he got on October 7. It has been his sustained excuse for a genocidal land grab: "from the River to the Sea."
Given your other very good and relevant words, I cannot understand why you write "...I appreciate why Israel was created, and I have no complaint about it." Don't you think that the Colonial-oriented Balfour Declaration (1917) [et seq] was an abominable affront to the indigenous Palestinians and the world?
I do, but given the Jews' history, even if you they brought some of it on themselves, they needed a safe homeland. Palestine was tricky, because there were people living there. Many of them were nomads, but this was their home. The Jews, by the way, love to talk about the Holocaust, and about the 6M Jews the Nazis killed. True, but the Nazis killed 12M people, half of whom were not Jews. In any event, choosing Palestine for the Jews could have been workable, with the Jews getting Israel, and the Palestinians getting the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but the Israelis did not respect the boundaries (or the Palestinians), and have never stopped making illegal incursions and trying to take it all. There are Hamas and PIJ leaders who will tell you that Palestinians don't have anything against Israelis and Jews. Their complaint is against people who mistreat them and steal their land. Zionists are fine, like Americans, French people, or anyone else who has a homeland and is proud of it. The problem, as you say below, is the colonizing part. That never had to happen, except some Israelis wanted more. And today, there are many Israelis who disagree with Netanyahu, and many who have recently been leaving Israel because of him. One of the most Jew-tolerant populations on earth now is the Germans. It wasn't Germans as a group who were the problem. It was Hitler. In Israel, it's more complicated, because illegal settlements in Palestinian territory, and attacks on Palestinians, have been going on for several decades, and not one Israeli government has intervened. So Netanyahu is particularly bad, but he's by no means the only one. And he and the Israelis have largely had the US to back them. There have been rare exceptions, of a sort. Carter negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, and Clinton negotiated peace between Israel and the PLO. Biden has set the whole thing back badly.
And Trump got this moving, and emboldened Netanyahu, by moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thus challenging the prior arrangement of Jerusalem as an international city that belonged equally to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
Fred, I'm puzzled. You say you quit Judaism because you don't believe in God. Why quit? Aren't a large number of Jews also non-religious like you but still identify with Judaism? In my readings, Judaism cannot be defined as solely a religion or culture or a cult or a nationality, etc.. It's a conglomeration of all these things, and each Jew has their own reason to identify with Judaism.
It seems however that one universal ethos among Jews is that The Tribe must survive forever. This is maybe the strongest ethos and I believe it's at the root of the Arab-Jew conflict and the Conquest of Palestine. A rival ethos - or maybe not a separate ethos - is the belief/support of Israel/Zionism; i.e., the idea that European diaspora Jews had the moral right to the land of Palestine, more so than the indigenous Palestinians. You said you were in that last category. I thus ask you whether you still regard yourself as part of Judaism?
Jim, let me take the liberty to correct a few things you said. First of all, I did not say I don't believe in "god." I said there's no such thing as "god." (If I didn't believe in "god," it would mean there's such a thing as "god," but I just can't bring myself to believe it. If there's no such thing as "god," it means that anyone who thinks there is is making it up. You know there is neither proof nor evidence of "god." You know that religions are called "faiths" and "beliefs." That's because you just have to have faith in them, and believe them, if you want to. And if you do, you confront a very slippery slope regarding which religion, which scripture, do you choose to think is right. Some of them compete with each other. (And the OT is internally inconsistent and contradictory.) If people get to decide that there's such a thing as "god," but there's no son of "god" or Messiah, or there is a "god" and a son of "god," but Mohammed is not the Prophet of "god," or that there is a son of "god"/Messiah, but it didn't come out as promised, so we're now waiting for a "second coming," but some of us don't agree with the Rastafarians that Haile Selassie is the "second coming" -- if people get to make those decisions -- then people are the real "god," because they know what's true and right. Second, you're right to say there are levels of observance and identification, and I said I don't identify with any of it. Frankly, and I'm sorry to be harsh about it, but I think it's pathetic to be part of a group whose important identification is as victims, of lots of other people. The ancient Egyptians enslave them, they get converted or thrown out of Spain in the inquisition, Shakespeare makes fun of them in "The Merchant of Venice." As a side issue, many Jews bring this on themselves. I don't observe any of it, because I don't have any feeling for any of it. If you're right that each Jew has his or her own reason to identify with the group, for the list of categories of reason you gave, I don't have any of those reasons. I have no feeling for religion at all (except I think it's the cause of intense and sustained misery and has been for millennia, I don't know what the culture is, apart from victimhood and jokes told be people like Jackie Mason, I'm not available for any cult (following all cults is blind and mindless), and Judaism is in no way a nationality.
I have no interest in whether or not the "Tribe" survives. As I said if individuals derive what personal benefits they experience from belief in some religion, I have no complaint. That's good for them. I see religion, or the thought that there's such a thing as "god," as offering three things. One, it gives people some fantasy about what happens to them after they die. Two, it creates for people who need a concept of it some sense of what life and the universe are about. (I think religion is for people with no imagination and an inability to tolerate anxiety.) And three, thinking there's such a thing as "god" that will judge you in some way is some people's reason for being decent people. (Although many militant believers are extremely indecent.) When I die, nothing will happen. I'll decompose, and that will be the end of it. I don't know what a "soul" is, but I'm not coming back. The universe, and life, are products of physics and chemistry. I treat people very well, and I don't need to feel threatened to do it.
European diaspora Jews, or any Jews, did not have a moral right to Palestine. After WWII, the world community considered a few different places, mostly in the Middle East and Africa, to set aside for the Jews so they would have a safe home. As I said Theodor Hertzl lobbied hard for Palestine, although it's not clear why, since the Jews had been defeated there and thrown out of there a few or several times over the past few millennia, and the world community, which had already reboundaried and created several new countries after WWI, agreed to give them the Israel part of Palestine. Yes, there were indigenous Palestinians, whom everyone chose to ignore. (I read one book that described Palestinians as "the niggers of the world.")
I'm not sure I understand your last question. I already said I don't. I'm very content outside what I consider to be that nonsense. Nor am I looking for any replacement. Are there questions about the universe and life that I can't answer (and neither can anyone else at present)? Sure. But that's OK. I just read something yesterday about certain mathematical and physical "constants" (gravity, speed of light, etc) that investigators have been trying to specify, and that have changed over the past 100 years or so, if slightly, according to who's trying to measure them. Wonderful. Keep at it. So interesting that the "constants" turn out not to be so constant. I don't need the exact answer to everything. I'm a psychiatrist. It's very hard work. It's like the target is always moving, and the patient and I are not always on the same page. I love it.
Jim, I forgot to address one comment you made. You said "a large number of Jews [are] also non-religious." Whether or not you think there's such a thing as "god," Judaism is a religion. It's one of several prominent ones. You can't be a "non-religious" Jew. Perhaps what you meant was that there are various levels of observance. And I would agree with you there. You can be ultra-Orthodox to Reform. There are some Jews who consider themselves "secular Jews," whatever that means. There are "Jews for Jesus," whatever that means. (If you're Jewish, you're waiting for the Messiah, and you don't think the Messiah has come. So if you accept Jesus as the Messiah, then you're no longer waiting, which means you've "evolved" to being Christian. Then, you have deal with the problem that the OT says what the world will be like when the Messiah comes, and it wasn't, and isn't. So now, the Christians have recalculated or recalibrated, and are waiting for a "second coming," but even though they were wrong once, they don't want to agree with the Rastafarians that Haile Selassie was it. I fully agree to let that be their problem, as long as they agree that the fact that I know there's no such thing as "god" is my problem. We'll all stay in our lanes. What a great idea the First Amendment was.) If what you think you know leads you to imagine that Jesus was a really nice, caring, thoughtful guy, there are and have been plenty of nice, caring, thoughtful people, and there's no reason to single out Jesus. By the way, if you never saw the documentary called "The 'God' Who Wasn't There," I recommend it. The guy who made it gets himself mixed up at the end, because he's just really still angry with the Christian school he attended, but it makes some very interesting points, like about all the other available Messiahs who were rejected as having been somehow "false."
But I just mean to say that religion is an unmanageable mess, and apart from the fact that it makes some people feel good, or less anxious, it's been destructive to society for a very long time.
"You do you," as they say, and don't worry about me. I'm fine.
Here in the UK if you support peace for the Palestinians stuck in Gaza and want to see the ICC and the ICJ issue Warrants for Netanyahu and his Zionist Genocidal Government, you can be arrested for supporting Terrorism apparently? How can fighting for your freedom be Terrorism? How can Biden, or Starmer Justify supporting Netanyahu knowing that it was their predecessors in the 40's up until today that allowed the Israeli atrocities to carry on? How can any sane person or Government continue to Enable this murderous maniacal Government and its murderers who have the gall to call themselves "Soldiers? The IDF are not Soldiers! Soldiers do not kill Women and Children nor do they deliberately kill any Civilians! The IDF appear to relish the thought of their next Victim. No Soldier would attack a Hospital or a school knowing that there were innocent civilians within them. No Soldier would brag on any social media platform about killing anyone never mind Women and Children! Killing is something No one not even a real Soldier "Wants" to do, they would Rather peaceful or non fatal resolutions! The WW11 Hague/ Nuremburg trials the claim of " I was only following orders" didn't work then and I hope to Heaven that it will be the same when those within the idf are tried ! This whole sh*storm should never have happened and without the Countries like the UK and USA support Would not have been Possible. All those supplying arms and funding are Complicit to Enabling this Genocide and potential WW111. A sickening time a Sad time. I hope ( Yes I still have "HOPE") that Kamala and Starmer change the the outcome by banning arms sales and funding to Israel until Netanyahu and his thugs are handed to the ICC, perhaps then the icc may be more lenient on Biden,Sunak,Starmer and all the other so called Leaders who have been Enabling the destruction of Gaza and the Genocide of the Palestinians! May Your God Bless those Demanding PEACE ! And may He/She strike the War mongers down.
One state. As the 'State Israel' obviously is a failed state, this state would be Palestina (or whatever name the citizens of this new state would agree on.)
One state getting reparations.
One state getting acknowledged his losses in more than 70 years of oppression.
One state free of apartheid.
One state with the same laws, the same rights for all its inhabitants.
One secular and multiethnical and multilingual state.
We have to look in new directions. Israel had it chance and quite more than its fair share. Now is the turn of the Palestinians.
Arturo - one state will wipe out all the Palestinians. They would end up like the indiginous people of the US - living in closed reservations where they are permitted to live. Two states will give the Palestinians a small but independent, sovereign country. No states in the world wants the one-state solution. The Israelis least of all. And it's also a question of realism. My mother used to say: "Hope in one hand, spit in the other, and see what you get the most in". I have met many Palestinians hoping for the one state. Those who want it the most are Palestinians who are born and have grown up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. They have never been to Palestine. They have of course never been to Israel. They carry old keys from 1948 - and hope. And they dream of the day when they can finally put their feet in the little village where their ancestors lived and were thrown out of. Wherever the little Palestinian village was back then, there will be a huge, modern Israeli city there now. And Israelis. Before any Palestinians should make the choise in a future vote - one or two states, they should be given a touristic tour of Israel. It would shatter their dreams very rapidly, but then they would stand more firmly behind the one solution that can actually bring about freedom and a sovereign state, welcoming all Palestinians from all over. That is the one within the recognzed 1967 borders. With East Jerusalem as the capital for Palestine.
arturo, Israel, too, wants a one-state solution. They want to eliminate/annihilate the Palestinians, and Israel will be the one state. They have refused very consistently to make room for two states, "one" of which would be the West Bank on one side and the Gaza Strip on the other. With the other state -- Israel -- in the middle. No, Israel wants it all, "from the River to the Sea."
Arturo, I respect but cannot share your optimism for a single, or even a two-state, solution. Honestly, do you really think that Israel, having been recognized as a legitimate state by all Western countries for decades now, and being financially, politically, and militarily supported by said states, will give up its plan to consolidate its geopolitical, national, and cultural supremacy and accept the “Aravî” it deeply dehumanizes as its equal citizens?
Do you actually expect the two peoples to come together to sing cumbayá in a single state when Israel doesn’t have to share anything, and after a decades-long genocidal history, and one that’s perpetrated now in real time and plain sight?
Or are you forgetting that Israel has the “iron clad” support and empowering license to actualize its extermination plans of no less a power than the USA? And in what sense is Israel a “failed” state when the Israeli governments of all times define success in terms of their ability to grab land and exterminate its Palestinian native population? That’s what matters to them, to the Israeli society and to the Western and especially American colonialist project to tighten their grip on and control of the region and its resources. They have been successful so far.
Sorry, arturo, I am not into wishful thinking.
For a free Palestine, the entire western world, the people, not the AIPAC-sold politicians, should be up in arms and protest vigorously, and sacrifice their luxuries and screen time, and so on. This ain’t happening now.
Marianne, what a thorough and informative post. In addition to the numerous and longstanding insane depravities of nazisraeli, the bloody hands of their amerikkkan backers and facilitators must always be acknowledged.
I live in Norway, where the people are ok, the government half ok, and the press are imbesiles - all around. One of the largest newspapers in Norway yesterday compared Ismail Haniyehs death to the US killing of Bin Laden. I want to stay here in Doha, where the world is normal!
I recently emigrated to the Czech Republic and have found the situation to be entirely the same with regard to the mainstream press, i.e., populated entirely by imbeciles and constantly pushing the most absurd, mainstream narratives. It's less obnoxious than American MSM, but every bit as stupid and void of truth content.
I hope for some commentary here or elsewhere (anywhere) about a phenomenon that I have seen orchestrated and pulled off by the demonic Colonial Zionists too-too many times in my 60 years of observing the number one menace to world harmony: The Colonial Zionists "never miss an opportunity to exploit an opportunity" -- and one opportunity that appeals to them is the US periodic electoral cycle, when US political parties and their dumbed-down followers are distracted and extra vulnerable to being treated as 'Israel's' obedient servant. I've seen variations on this theme sooooo often. One is the 2007-8 POTUS cycle: between election day (11-03) and Obama's inauguration on 1-~20-'08, the Zionist horde unleased a massive assault on Gaza. It proceeded for 21 days starting in December, and -- like magic -- was turned off after those days of hell on earth for Gaza, o/a 1-18-2008. So the sadistic Colonial Zionists had made their point: outgoing Dubya could do nothing, incoming Obama could do nothing. It's same 'ol same 'ol here in 2024! Can anyone develop and confirm my analysis? -- it's "merely" the latest sordid chapter of the crazed Zionists' playbook/lust to control anything and everything ... worst, at this point in time, Colonial Zionist Israel's psychopathic Prime Monster Netanyahu is losing in Gaza and is determined to get US boots on the ground in Iran...thus, Lebanon/Hezbollah Syria/Golan Heights; Yemen's Houthis; now ASSASSINATION in Tehran of PhD Haniyeh, a man for whom I have utmost respect and solidarity. C'mon America (and the world): WE'VE BEEN HAD BY COLONIAL/GENOCIDAL ZIONISM! (Thanks for reading...Viva Palestine!--Hamas and ALL of Palestine!)
This was a very sharp analysis! And no doubt you're right. Which just makes it all a little bit more scary.
Well, when you assassinate someone who is a lead negotiator, it certainly sends a very clear message about what outcome you want. It has been infuriating that Biden consistently gave his unwavering "ironclad" support to Israel, while it annihilated entirely innocent Palestinian men, women, children, and babies, as well as aid workers and journalists, and it's deeply disheartening to learn that Harris, too, is willing to support Israel, unless she only says that now, because she thinks the election will be close, and she's afraid to alienate any anti-Palestinian Americans. (It's too bad people like Biden, Harris, and others, apparently didn't read JFK's "Profiles in Courage.") But even if that's temporary, every day the US continues to support Israel is another day innocents, and negotiators, get massacred.
I should add that I grew up Jewish. I gave it up because there is no such thing as "god," so I don't have the entry criterion to be part of any religion, and because it became increasingly clear in my Jewish education that Jews focus intently on the Holocaust. Several of their other holidays are about other victimizations. It seemed that being Jewish was about feeling like a victim. So between one thing and the other, I quit. I am also virulently anti-religion. If anyone is personally spiritual, and likes whatever spirituality they adopt, that's fine. But imposing it on other people is, and always has been, deeply divisive and uncivilized. In any event, I appreciate why Israel was created, and I have no complaint about it. I have no complaint about Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, black people, women, or anyone else. But Israel is where it is because Theodor Hertzl lobbied hard for that area, and it was not a barren area. 1M Palestinians were displaced to make room for the Israelis. The Palestinians were given the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the Israelis have never stopped illegally invading these tracts, creating illegal settlements, and attacking Palestinians. Netanyahu is a true criminal, and he could not have been given a more welcome gift than he got on October 7. It has been his sustained excuse for a genocidal land grab: "from the River to the Sea."
Given your other very good and relevant words, I cannot understand why you write "...I appreciate why Israel was created, and I have no complaint about it." Don't you think that the Colonial-oriented Balfour Declaration (1917) [et seq] was an abominable affront to the indigenous Palestinians and the world?
I do, but given the Jews' history, even if you they brought some of it on themselves, they needed a safe homeland. Palestine was tricky, because there were people living there. Many of them were nomads, but this was their home. The Jews, by the way, love to talk about the Holocaust, and about the 6M Jews the Nazis killed. True, but the Nazis killed 12M people, half of whom were not Jews. In any event, choosing Palestine for the Jews could have been workable, with the Jews getting Israel, and the Palestinians getting the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but the Israelis did not respect the boundaries (or the Palestinians), and have never stopped making illegal incursions and trying to take it all. There are Hamas and PIJ leaders who will tell you that Palestinians don't have anything against Israelis and Jews. Their complaint is against people who mistreat them and steal their land. Zionists are fine, like Americans, French people, or anyone else who has a homeland and is proud of it. The problem, as you say below, is the colonizing part. That never had to happen, except some Israelis wanted more. And today, there are many Israelis who disagree with Netanyahu, and many who have recently been leaving Israel because of him. One of the most Jew-tolerant populations on earth now is the Germans. It wasn't Germans as a group who were the problem. It was Hitler. In Israel, it's more complicated, because illegal settlements in Palestinian territory, and attacks on Palestinians, have been going on for several decades, and not one Israeli government has intervened. So Netanyahu is particularly bad, but he's by no means the only one. And he and the Israelis have largely had the US to back them. There have been rare exceptions, of a sort. Carter negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, and Clinton negotiated peace between Israel and the PLO. Biden has set the whole thing back badly.
And Trump got this moving, and emboldened Netanyahu, by moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thus challenging the prior arrangement of Jerusalem as an international city that belonged equally to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
Just about the 'germans' ... You are not allowed to speak your mind about Israel/jews/judaism im Germany. Keep that in mind ...
Arturo, do you mean you can't criticize and blame them, or you can't even speak positively about them, either?
Fred, I'm puzzled. You say you quit Judaism because you don't believe in God. Why quit? Aren't a large number of Jews also non-religious like you but still identify with Judaism? In my readings, Judaism cannot be defined as solely a religion or culture or a cult or a nationality, etc.. It's a conglomeration of all these things, and each Jew has their own reason to identify with Judaism.
It seems however that one universal ethos among Jews is that The Tribe must survive forever. This is maybe the strongest ethos and I believe it's at the root of the Arab-Jew conflict and the Conquest of Palestine. A rival ethos - or maybe not a separate ethos - is the belief/support of Israel/Zionism; i.e., the idea that European diaspora Jews had the moral right to the land of Palestine, more so than the indigenous Palestinians. You said you were in that last category. I thus ask you whether you still regard yourself as part of Judaism?
Jim, let me take the liberty to correct a few things you said. First of all, I did not say I don't believe in "god." I said there's no such thing as "god." (If I didn't believe in "god," it would mean there's such a thing as "god," but I just can't bring myself to believe it. If there's no such thing as "god," it means that anyone who thinks there is is making it up. You know there is neither proof nor evidence of "god." You know that religions are called "faiths" and "beliefs." That's because you just have to have faith in them, and believe them, if you want to. And if you do, you confront a very slippery slope regarding which religion, which scripture, do you choose to think is right. Some of them compete with each other. (And the OT is internally inconsistent and contradictory.) If people get to decide that there's such a thing as "god," but there's no son of "god" or Messiah, or there is a "god" and a son of "god," but Mohammed is not the Prophet of "god," or that there is a son of "god"/Messiah, but it didn't come out as promised, so we're now waiting for a "second coming," but some of us don't agree with the Rastafarians that Haile Selassie is the "second coming" -- if people get to make those decisions -- then people are the real "god," because they know what's true and right. Second, you're right to say there are levels of observance and identification, and I said I don't identify with any of it. Frankly, and I'm sorry to be harsh about it, but I think it's pathetic to be part of a group whose important identification is as victims, of lots of other people. The ancient Egyptians enslave them, they get converted or thrown out of Spain in the inquisition, Shakespeare makes fun of them in "The Merchant of Venice." As a side issue, many Jews bring this on themselves. I don't observe any of it, because I don't have any feeling for any of it. If you're right that each Jew has his or her own reason to identify with the group, for the list of categories of reason you gave, I don't have any of those reasons. I have no feeling for religion at all (except I think it's the cause of intense and sustained misery and has been for millennia, I don't know what the culture is, apart from victimhood and jokes told be people like Jackie Mason, I'm not available for any cult (following all cults is blind and mindless), and Judaism is in no way a nationality.
I have no interest in whether or not the "Tribe" survives. As I said if individuals derive what personal benefits they experience from belief in some religion, I have no complaint. That's good for them. I see religion, or the thought that there's such a thing as "god," as offering three things. One, it gives people some fantasy about what happens to them after they die. Two, it creates for people who need a concept of it some sense of what life and the universe are about. (I think religion is for people with no imagination and an inability to tolerate anxiety.) And three, thinking there's such a thing as "god" that will judge you in some way is some people's reason for being decent people. (Although many militant believers are extremely indecent.) When I die, nothing will happen. I'll decompose, and that will be the end of it. I don't know what a "soul" is, but I'm not coming back. The universe, and life, are products of physics and chemistry. I treat people very well, and I don't need to feel threatened to do it.
European diaspora Jews, or any Jews, did not have a moral right to Palestine. After WWII, the world community considered a few different places, mostly in the Middle East and Africa, to set aside for the Jews so they would have a safe home. As I said Theodor Hertzl lobbied hard for Palestine, although it's not clear why, since the Jews had been defeated there and thrown out of there a few or several times over the past few millennia, and the world community, which had already reboundaried and created several new countries after WWI, agreed to give them the Israel part of Palestine. Yes, there were indigenous Palestinians, whom everyone chose to ignore. (I read one book that described Palestinians as "the niggers of the world.")
I'm not sure I understand your last question. I already said I don't. I'm very content outside what I consider to be that nonsense. Nor am I looking for any replacement. Are there questions about the universe and life that I can't answer (and neither can anyone else at present)? Sure. But that's OK. I just read something yesterday about certain mathematical and physical "constants" (gravity, speed of light, etc) that investigators have been trying to specify, and that have changed over the past 100 years or so, if slightly, according to who's trying to measure them. Wonderful. Keep at it. So interesting that the "constants" turn out not to be so constant. I don't need the exact answer to everything. I'm a psychiatrist. It's very hard work. It's like the target is always moving, and the patient and I are not always on the same page. I love it.
This is brilliant. Thank you so much for this concise summary (of what are my thoughts, too).
Concise?
Yup.
Jim, I forgot to address one comment you made. You said "a large number of Jews [are] also non-religious." Whether or not you think there's such a thing as "god," Judaism is a religion. It's one of several prominent ones. You can't be a "non-religious" Jew. Perhaps what you meant was that there are various levels of observance. And I would agree with you there. You can be ultra-Orthodox to Reform. There are some Jews who consider themselves "secular Jews," whatever that means. There are "Jews for Jesus," whatever that means. (If you're Jewish, you're waiting for the Messiah, and you don't think the Messiah has come. So if you accept Jesus as the Messiah, then you're no longer waiting, which means you've "evolved" to being Christian. Then, you have deal with the problem that the OT says what the world will be like when the Messiah comes, and it wasn't, and isn't. So now, the Christians have recalculated or recalibrated, and are waiting for a "second coming," but even though they were wrong once, they don't want to agree with the Rastafarians that Haile Selassie was it. I fully agree to let that be their problem, as long as they agree that the fact that I know there's no such thing as "god" is my problem. We'll all stay in our lanes. What a great idea the First Amendment was.) If what you think you know leads you to imagine that Jesus was a really nice, caring, thoughtful guy, there are and have been plenty of nice, caring, thoughtful people, and there's no reason to single out Jesus. By the way, if you never saw the documentary called "The 'God' Who Wasn't There," I recommend it. The guy who made it gets himself mixed up at the end, because he's just really still angry with the Christian school he attended, but it makes some very interesting points, like about all the other available Messiahs who were rejected as having been somehow "false."
But I just mean to say that religion is an unmanageable mess, and apart from the fact that it makes some people feel good, or less anxious, it's been destructive to society for a very long time.
"You do you," as they say, and don't worry about me. I'm fine.
Israel is not interested in peace
By assassinating one of the main negotiators for a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip, Israel made its intention to continue and expand the war clear. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/7/31/israel-is-not-interested-in-peace
Here in the UK if you support peace for the Palestinians stuck in Gaza and want to see the ICC and the ICJ issue Warrants for Netanyahu and his Zionist Genocidal Government, you can be arrested for supporting Terrorism apparently? How can fighting for your freedom be Terrorism? How can Biden, or Starmer Justify supporting Netanyahu knowing that it was their predecessors in the 40's up until today that allowed the Israeli atrocities to carry on? How can any sane person or Government continue to Enable this murderous maniacal Government and its murderers who have the gall to call themselves "Soldiers? The IDF are not Soldiers! Soldiers do not kill Women and Children nor do they deliberately kill any Civilians! The IDF appear to relish the thought of their next Victim. No Soldier would attack a Hospital or a school knowing that there were innocent civilians within them. No Soldier would brag on any social media platform about killing anyone never mind Women and Children! Killing is something No one not even a real Soldier "Wants" to do, they would Rather peaceful or non fatal resolutions! The WW11 Hague/ Nuremburg trials the claim of " I was only following orders" didn't work then and I hope to Heaven that it will be the same when those within the idf are tried ! This whole sh*storm should never have happened and without the Countries like the UK and USA support Would not have been Possible. All those supplying arms and funding are Complicit to Enabling this Genocide and potential WW111. A sickening time a Sad time. I hope ( Yes I still have "HOPE") that Kamala and Starmer change the the outcome by banning arms sales and funding to Israel until Netanyahu and his thugs are handed to the ICC, perhaps then the icc may be more lenient on Biden,Sunak,Starmer and all the other so called Leaders who have been Enabling the destruction of Gaza and the Genocide of the Palestinians! May Your God Bless those Demanding PEACE ! And may He/She strike the War mongers down.
We must move on then.
No 'two-state-solution'.
One state. As the 'State Israel' obviously is a failed state, this state would be Palestina (or whatever name the citizens of this new state would agree on.)
One state getting reparations.
One state getting acknowledged his losses in more than 70 years of oppression.
One state free of apartheid.
One state with the same laws, the same rights for all its inhabitants.
One secular and multiethnical and multilingual state.
We have to look in new directions. Israel had it chance and quite more than its fair share. Now is the turn of the Palestinians.
Arturo - one state will wipe out all the Palestinians. They would end up like the indiginous people of the US - living in closed reservations where they are permitted to live. Two states will give the Palestinians a small but independent, sovereign country. No states in the world wants the one-state solution. The Israelis least of all. And it's also a question of realism. My mother used to say: "Hope in one hand, spit in the other, and see what you get the most in". I have met many Palestinians hoping for the one state. Those who want it the most are Palestinians who are born and have grown up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. They have never been to Palestine. They have of course never been to Israel. They carry old keys from 1948 - and hope. And they dream of the day when they can finally put their feet in the little village where their ancestors lived and were thrown out of. Wherever the little Palestinian village was back then, there will be a huge, modern Israeli city there now. And Israelis. Before any Palestinians should make the choise in a future vote - one or two states, they should be given a touristic tour of Israel. It would shatter their dreams very rapidly, but then they would stand more firmly behind the one solution that can actually bring about freedom and a sovereign state, welcoming all Palestinians from all over. That is the one within the recognzed 1967 borders. With East Jerusalem as the capital for Palestine.
arturo, Israel, too, wants a one-state solution. They want to eliminate/annihilate the Palestinians, and Israel will be the one state. They have refused very consistently to make room for two states, "one" of which would be the West Bank on one side and the Gaza Strip on the other. With the other state -- Israel -- in the middle. No, Israel wants it all, "from the River to the Sea."
Arturo, I respect but cannot share your optimism for a single, or even a two-state, solution. Honestly, do you really think that Israel, having been recognized as a legitimate state by all Western countries for decades now, and being financially, politically, and militarily supported by said states, will give up its plan to consolidate its geopolitical, national, and cultural supremacy and accept the “Aravî” it deeply dehumanizes as its equal citizens?
Do you actually expect the two peoples to come together to sing cumbayá in a single state when Israel doesn’t have to share anything, and after a decades-long genocidal history, and one that’s perpetrated now in real time and plain sight?
Or are you forgetting that Israel has the “iron clad” support and empowering license to actualize its extermination plans of no less a power than the USA? And in what sense is Israel a “failed” state when the Israeli governments of all times define success in terms of their ability to grab land and exterminate its Palestinian native population? That’s what matters to them, to the Israeli society and to the Western and especially American colonialist project to tighten their grip on and control of the region and its resources. They have been successful so far.
Sorry, arturo, I am not into wishful thinking.
For a free Palestine, the entire western world, the people, not the AIPAC-sold politicians, should be up in arms and protest vigorously, and sacrifice their luxuries and screen time, and so on. This ain’t happening now.
May history prove me utterly WRONG! 🇵🇸
Marianne, what a thorough and informative post. In addition to the numerous and longstanding insane depravities of nazisraeli, the bloody hands of their amerikkkan backers and facilitators must always be acknowledged.
@Marianne is mental illness in real time
This post and article is mental illness in real time
I live in Norway, where the people are ok, the government half ok, and the press are imbesiles - all around. One of the largest newspapers in Norway yesterday compared Ismail Haniyehs death to the US killing of Bin Laden. I want to stay here in Doha, where the world is normal!
I recently emigrated to the Czech Republic and have found the situation to be entirely the same with regard to the mainstream press, i.e., populated entirely by imbeciles and constantly pushing the most absurd, mainstream narratives. It's less obnoxious than American MSM, but every bit as stupid and void of truth content.