The Rhetorical Settlement

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Even after the Cease-Fire brokered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took effect (at a cost of nearly $50 billion in bribes to various tribes), Palestinians were still shooting missiles into Israel.

You keep using that word “Cease-fire” Hillary. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

If this is what “extending the hand of friendship to Muslims” accomplishes, we might as well go back to Bush’s Cowboy Diplomacy. At least our embassies were safe.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

It’s a rhetorical cease-fire.  One that both sides – the US and Hamas, the ones the Administration really cares about – can wave about at the UN.

26 thoughts on “The Rhetorical Settlement

  1. Israel cannot live in peace as a Jewish homeland with special rights for Jews and second-class citizenship (at best) for everyone else. They need to accept as full citizens anyone who will respect and defend a constitution that protects freedom for all and treats all citizens equally, and does not favor one religion. Israel as it is currently constituted will forever be at war. Gaza is just the enemy du jour. The horrible wrongs committed against Jews in the past do not justify the existence of an Israel which cannot meet the most basic standard of liberal democracy, that it treat people equally and welcome all within its borders as full citizens. Yes, Israel must defend itself today against people who fire missiles at it, but the underlying long term problem is Israel itself. An Israeli state which is primarily a Jewish homeland will always be at war. Peace for Israel can only come through fundamental change to the Israeli state.

  2. Israel cannot live in peace as a Jewish homeland with special rights for Jews and second-class citizenship (at best) for everyone else. They need to accept as full citizens anyone who will respect and defend a constitution that protects freedom for all and treats all citizens equally, and does not favor one religion.
    If Israel were to do this, Israel would no longer be a homeland for the Jewish people. It would cease to exist.

  3. “Israel as it is currently constituted will forever be at war.”

    Yes. Your point? Israel, as it was formerly constituted was forever at war. Israel as it is foretold, will be the flashpoint of end times. Don’t agree? Petition God. These silly diplomatic attempts to deny what God has designed is proof-positive we, as a culture, have bit the apple.

    When we deny Israel, we have to understand precisely WHOM we are trying to thwart.

  4. Emery is trying the a variation of the old leftist talking point ” I don’t hate Jews, just Israel”

    Emery; the 2 official languages of Israel are Hebrew and Arabic, there is universal suffrage, 23% of the population is Arab and they are full citizens with equality before the law with seats in parliament, they serve in the IDF, and enjoy freedom of religion. Is it jus sanguins that you object to?

  5. @ Terry:
    Israel is a country founded on the nativist belief that Jews are different than everyone else, and need their own space to live. That is understandable, given their history pre-1948, but that nativist bias to their constitution will eventually tear that country apart, just as surely as slavery threatened the United States. Israel will never be a ‘normal’ modern country as long as they judge people based on their religion and their mother’s religion. And they will never find peace.

    What makes Israel a prosperous free country has nothing to do with Jewishness. Until they open their borders (external and internal) to those who would live by their (secular) rules, they will be forever at war.

    @kel:
    There is a genuine support amongst the American people for Israel and against Arab nations. Israel is associated with liberal democracy and guilt about the Holocaust (why didn’t we do more, etc.). Arabs are associated with terrorism, high oil prices, despotic leaders, Islamic extremism, and hating America.

    Most Americans don’t know about how Israelis treat the people of the West Bank, slowly colonizing through settlements while carrying on a policy similar to Apartheid in the land they control. Most Americans have never met an Arab, and only recently became aware of the desire of Arabs to live in modern democracies, too. It will be a long, slow, change, but a successful democracy in Egypt could help Americans gain a little more perspective.

  6. Professor Emery wrote: “Israel is a country founded on the nativist belief that Jews are different than everyone else, and need their own space to live.”

    You left out about 2000 years of history, Professor Emery. Medieval Europe; Pale of Settlement; blood libels; pogroms; Pact of Omar; Muslim imperialism, conquest, and slaughter; genocide by the National Socialists with collaboration by the Arabs; Ustache death camps.

    Israel is a sovereign nation for the Jews, Judea and Samaria is Jewish land, and it is not open for discussion. Jordan is majority “Palestinian” Arab. Let them fight the Hashemites for their autonomy there instead of being using for cannon fodder for the Muslims in their war against the Jews.

  7. A lot of Jewish Americans are increasingly ambivalent about supporting Netanyahu and his zealots. Netanyahu has taken Zionism further down its logical path without a lot of pretty words to cover it’s ugly heart. He’s practicing a 19th century racial supremest morality, and forcing American Jews to choose between their liberal democratic values and their loyalty to the tribe. Many, to their credit, are rejecting Israel’s current path, particularly the young.

  8. Zionism is the return of the Jews to Zion, the homeland of the Jews.

    “A lot of Jewish Americans are increasingly ambivalent about supporting Netanyahu and his zealots.”

    Israel does not depend solely on the opinions of American Jews for its decisions.

    “He’s practicing a 19th century racial supremest morality, and forcing American Jews to choose between their liberal democratic values and their loyalty to the tribe.”

    If American Jews – specifically Reform, Reconstructionist and “Conservative” – wish to fall away from Yiddishkeit, they will assimiliate into the current iteration of hellenism and disappear into history. “Liberal democratic values” has nothing to do “same sex marriage” or upwards of 50 million abortions during the past 39 years.

    “Many, to their credit, are rejecting Israel’s current path, particularly the young.”

    Wrong again, Professor. Orthodox and believing Jews have the demographics. Support for Israel is a constant. It isn’t going away. The left wing Jew – your “Good Jew” – your prized possession – cannot reproduce above replacement level and have aborted themselves into oblivion.

    Now, Professor Emery, who stated the following racist beliefs:
    1. “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it…”
    2. “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

    If you guessed the Islamic Resistance Movement in Gaza (Hamas), you’d be correct. Why don’t you go and criticize them for a change? Or are you racist enough to believe that Arabs are incapable of being civilized?

    Arabs are treated in Jewish hospitals in Israel by Jewish and Arab Doctors. That did not occur under South African Apartheid. In other words, Emery, you are a liar. Time to get on with your life and stop obsessing about the Jews and a country you can probably walk across.

  9. Sir, I admire your passion, but you lost me at the slurs and name calling. If you’re going to make these numerous long-winded comments, would you at least make a real point or suggest something constructive?

    You do know this is the internet, where you’ve chosen to share comments? It’s not the Algonquin round table.

  10. Emery wrote: “…you lost me at the slurs and name calling…”

    Emery previously wrote: “…policy similar to Apartheid in the land they control”; “…Netanyahu and his zealots.”; and “He’s practicing a 19th century racial [supremicist] morality…”

    *plonk*

  11. To summarize:

    Emery dislikes slurs and name calling, though said commenter asserts the apartheid libel, claims Jews who defend their people and country against genocidal Islamists are zealots and are racial supremacists.

    “would you at least…suggest something constructive?”

    *plonk*

  12. Emery’s Premise: Israel’s democracy isn’t perfect, therefore its neighbors make war on it.

    Emery’s Conclusion: Israel will be forever at war until it changes its internal policies.

    Implicit Conclusion: if Israel changes its internal policies, its neighbors will no longer make war on it.

    Objection: Israel’s neighbors publicly and repeatedly reassure us their long-term objective is to wipe Israel off the map, to drive all Jews into the sea. How can these commitments be reconciled with the Implicit Conclusion?

    Suspected Restated Conclusion: It’s all the Jews’ fault.

    It always seems to come down to that with these guys . . . .

  13. Number of days before Israeli general election: 64

    As the rabbis have been saying for 5,000 years, “Go figure.”

  14. As long as you’re on the subject, I bet you still believe there were no WMDs in Iraq – especially Halabja.

    Right, Emery?

  15. This reminds me of when I posted my support of the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008 on a left leaning site. They called me a racist and a wing-nut. Go figure….

  16. This reminds me of “journalists” or newspapers that claim to be objective when they get “criticized by everyone”.

    You supported Republicans. Your point is…what?

  17. As a general rule of thumb, if everyone is criticizing you, you must be doing something right.

    BTW
    Whatever happened to your so-called *plonk*?

  18. If everyone is criticizing you, you’re playing to both sides of the fence. If you’re taking flak, you’re over the target.

    Before I invoke Godwin’s Law, are you Jewish? Muslim? Arab Christian?

  19. Emery wrote:

    Emery sympathizes with Nazi-like exterminationists.

    Godwin’s Law invoked. End of thread.

  20. Emery wrote:
    *plonk*

    Emery sympathizes with Nazi-like exterminationists.

    Godwin’s Law invoked. End of thread.

  21. Thinking about the problem through the prism of who is at fault for the most recent cease-fire violations or escalation of violence doesn’t seem a terribly useful exercise.

    Both sides have historical claims to land. I don’t care. Trace it back far enough and I have historical claims to land in the Horn of Africa.

    Five year olds argue over who is to blame and who started what.

    Adults sit down and discuss problems and look for a practical solution.

    Israel and Palestine are governed by children. Pity the real children suffer for it.

  22. What is wrong with you? Are you a troll or just another usual idiot?

    To reiterate, from the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement:

    1. “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it…”
    2. “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

    Go negotiate with that.

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