I listened the other day to another right wing Israeli commentator, an aide to Sharon. He kept carrying on in his glib, confident Israeli way about living in the real world. To him, only ferocity is realistic. Any other approach to life is liberal or Western or just plain ignorant of the situation.
Yet, strangely, he didn't cite any facts in his long diatribes. One sees this often with the war mongers. They claim to be in the real world but don't cite facts. This one talked about his grandfather coming from Poland with a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. Kept talking about his grandfather, over and over. And I couldn't help but wonder how at the same time he could claim to be living in the real world as he waxed poetic about his fantasies about the chaluztim. The other mythology which is positioned as realism is that all the Arabs want to kill us. One never hears facts. This utterance is put forth as fact even as Egypt and Jordan are sitting on a 40 year peace with Israel. Even has the number of terrorists is a fraction of the 5 million Palestinians. If there are 500 a year attempted, that's 500 divided by 5 million, a 10th of a percent, or .001.
And most of these acts are committed on solders in the territories. Is that terrorism or self-defense against an occupying army? Was the French underground against the Nazis in Paris a terrorist group?
And how about the illogic? Israel is supposed to be allowed to defend itself but the Arabs aren't. In 1948, the Arabs numbered 1.2 million and the Jews 600,000. Yet, the UN committee, which had never been to Palestine, gave the Jews 56% of the land. And our portrayal of the Arabs is that they won't let us live. How would we respond if 4 million Chinese settled in the State of Israel and the UN gave them 56% of the land?
What these guys do is talk so forcefully that they steamroll their logic and fact even as they claim to be democratic and open to all opinions. I guess the world for this is rhetoric, not a pleasant type, but a crass, demagoguery.
It's a pretense of living in the real world. Actually, these people live in a fantasy world of the worst sort, the fantasy world that murderers live in.
Norman Finkelstein debated this guy but Norman was unusually placid. I fear that Norman is suffering from a feeling of defeat now that AIPAC ruined his academic career. They won it seems. They won't win forever. That we know from history.
Yet, strangely, he didn't cite any facts in his long diatribes. One sees this often with the war mongers. They claim to be in the real world but don't cite facts. This one talked about his grandfather coming from Poland with a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. Kept talking about his grandfather, over and over. And I couldn't help but wonder how at the same time he could claim to be living in the real world as he waxed poetic about his fantasies about the chaluztim. The other mythology which is positioned as realism is that all the Arabs want to kill us. One never hears facts. This utterance is put forth as fact even as Egypt and Jordan are sitting on a 40 year peace with Israel. Even has the number of terrorists is a fraction of the 5 million Palestinians. If there are 500 a year attempted, that's 500 divided by 5 million, a 10th of a percent, or .001.
And most of these acts are committed on solders in the territories. Is that terrorism or self-defense against an occupying army? Was the French underground against the Nazis in Paris a terrorist group?
And how about the illogic? Israel is supposed to be allowed to defend itself but the Arabs aren't. In 1948, the Arabs numbered 1.2 million and the Jews 600,000. Yet, the UN committee, which had never been to Palestine, gave the Jews 56% of the land. And our portrayal of the Arabs is that they won't let us live. How would we respond if 4 million Chinese settled in the State of Israel and the UN gave them 56% of the land?
What these guys do is talk so forcefully that they steamroll their logic and fact even as they claim to be democratic and open to all opinions. I guess the world for this is rhetoric, not a pleasant type, but a crass, demagoguery.
It's a pretense of living in the real world. Actually, these people live in a fantasy world of the worst sort, the fantasy world that murderers live in.
Norman Finkelstein debated this guy but Norman was unusually placid. I fear that Norman is suffering from a feeling of defeat now that AIPAC ruined his academic career. They won it seems. They won't win forever. That we know from history.
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