Whenever I meet someone who is a physician but doesn't know that I know he's a physician, I do a little test to see how long it will take him to notify me of the essential information of what he does for a living. I know the professions of very few people as most don't tell you. Engineers often do as do lawyers. Physicians, it seems, always do. They find a way, usually within 10 minutes. Sometimes they are indirect. When I was in my residency -- that's a common one. Sometimes they'll drop the word patient or patients. Or they might say I'm on call. They find a way.
I promised myself that one of these days I'd respond by saying, "Why do I need to know that you are a physician? Are you planning on taking a biopsy?"
So the other day, I had my chance as I was talking privately with a person who happens to be a physician and there was no chance of embarrassing him in front of others. He responded very quickly, "I didn't say it. He did," referring to a mutual friend that had introduced us. That was true actually, but this physician did proceed to wax on about the subject. Then after I chided him, he started to tell me of the position he had at Harvard University.
I thought to myself, that's a double whammy. He has no chance of surviving this. If a person tries really hard his ego can survive either being a physician or studying at Harvard, but not both. It ruins the best of people.
And this brings me back to subject of Zionism. I often wonder why staunch defenders of the IDF and the Israeli government don't entertain natural doubts. If the entire world is criticizing you, shouldn't you listen. If your mother, father, brother, sister, spouse, children, coworkers, neighbors all tell you that are an alcoholic or that you are annoying, you think maybe you should listen? Likewise, if you are walking around with an attitude of meglomaniacal superiority, you think maybe there could be a problem with that? What did the Nazis do? They viewed themselves as a superior race and the Jews as sub-human. They didn't say we are going to do evil. They said, we are going to do good by killing those who are not good. Interviewer Larry King once asked kidnap victim Patricia Hearst what her kidnappers who were also bank robbers and killers thought of themselves. She said, "Oh, they thought they were just wonderful."
So normal human beings have self-doubt. That's a good thing. Staunch defenders of the State of Israel do not. They won't listen to anybody. They won't even listen to Israelis, to military men, to former military men, who tell them they are being too aggressive or too violent. Even experts on Israeli history become instantly discredited the moment they violate the mantra. And what is the mantra: all the goyim want to kill us, especially the Arabs, and we need to kill them first, now that we have the ability. Anybody who disagrees with this is either an antisemite, a self-hating Jew, or the victim of propaganda by an antisemite or self-hating Jew. And what else do they hold in their hands, a view that they are the most moral, intelligent, perfect, wonderful, capable people on the planet.
It's very unhealthy to walk around thinking like this. This does not lead to humility and humility is very important. The way I see it, Zionism is 24-7 training in arrogance. I'm great because my group is great. We are the greatest. We are fantastic. This is essentially the Zionist's view of himself.
I have to think it affects every other area of life. And certainly I see this in Israelis who are always right, always pushing, demanding, arguing, taking. The arrogance is palpable. I suppose the arrogance feeds and is fed by the outlook of moral and physical superiority. Even when I kill I'm moral. That is psychotic. But that is typical of many Israelis today and also just about every Jew I know that blindly defends anything done in Israel. It's all arrogance.
Zionism isn't just a side topic that one needs to get straight. It's an attitude about one's own group that is soul destroying. Usually. There can be people like Shlomo Ben Ami, the Israel Foreign Minister under Barak, who describes himself as being a Zionist but approaches it with humility and openness. I'm sure there are others. But usually, the whole thing is an exercise and training in arrogance.
How crazy does it get? A friend of mine once met a lady who claimed that the Kinneret was the largest fresh water lake in the world. How could she say such a thing? The Kinneret is 64 square miles and has an average depth of 84 feet. Lake Superior is 31,000 square miles and has an average depth of 484 feet. The entire State of Israel is 8,000 square miles so Lake Superior is several times the size of Israel.. Her comment was so stupid. But it comes I believe from this Zionist arrogance. She was an American living in Israel by the way. No matter, anything Israeli has must be the greatest thing in every way. I have heard many other crazy claims. Israel has the best medical care in the world. The best economy. The best military. It's all groundless. You can almost hear a German making such claims based on arrogance but also on no small set of facts. But here it's all assertion and I believe our endless bragging and bloated self-appraisal feeds it. It could be that American Zionists are the most annoying because they start with an American arrogance and pile all this on top of it. Whatever it is. It is just unhealthy to be a stone to criticism, to refuse to look in the mirror for blemishes, and to be just so sure that the people you are killing deserve it.
I promised myself that one of these days I'd respond by saying, "Why do I need to know that you are a physician? Are you planning on taking a biopsy?"
So the other day, I had my chance as I was talking privately with a person who happens to be a physician and there was no chance of embarrassing him in front of others. He responded very quickly, "I didn't say it. He did," referring to a mutual friend that had introduced us. That was true actually, but this physician did proceed to wax on about the subject. Then after I chided him, he started to tell me of the position he had at Harvard University.
I thought to myself, that's a double whammy. He has no chance of surviving this. If a person tries really hard his ego can survive either being a physician or studying at Harvard, but not both. It ruins the best of people.
And this brings me back to subject of Zionism. I often wonder why staunch defenders of the IDF and the Israeli government don't entertain natural doubts. If the entire world is criticizing you, shouldn't you listen. If your mother, father, brother, sister, spouse, children, coworkers, neighbors all tell you that are an alcoholic or that you are annoying, you think maybe you should listen? Likewise, if you are walking around with an attitude of meglomaniacal superiority, you think maybe there could be a problem with that? What did the Nazis do? They viewed themselves as a superior race and the Jews as sub-human. They didn't say we are going to do evil. They said, we are going to do good by killing those who are not good. Interviewer Larry King once asked kidnap victim Patricia Hearst what her kidnappers who were also bank robbers and killers thought of themselves. She said, "Oh, they thought they were just wonderful."
So normal human beings have self-doubt. That's a good thing. Staunch defenders of the State of Israel do not. They won't listen to anybody. They won't even listen to Israelis, to military men, to former military men, who tell them they are being too aggressive or too violent. Even experts on Israeli history become instantly discredited the moment they violate the mantra. And what is the mantra: all the goyim want to kill us, especially the Arabs, and we need to kill them first, now that we have the ability. Anybody who disagrees with this is either an antisemite, a self-hating Jew, or the victim of propaganda by an antisemite or self-hating Jew. And what else do they hold in their hands, a view that they are the most moral, intelligent, perfect, wonderful, capable people on the planet.
It's very unhealthy to walk around thinking like this. This does not lead to humility and humility is very important. The way I see it, Zionism is 24-7 training in arrogance. I'm great because my group is great. We are the greatest. We are fantastic. This is essentially the Zionist's view of himself.
I have to think it affects every other area of life. And certainly I see this in Israelis who are always right, always pushing, demanding, arguing, taking. The arrogance is palpable. I suppose the arrogance feeds and is fed by the outlook of moral and physical superiority. Even when I kill I'm moral. That is psychotic. But that is typical of many Israelis today and also just about every Jew I know that blindly defends anything done in Israel. It's all arrogance.
Zionism isn't just a side topic that one needs to get straight. It's an attitude about one's own group that is soul destroying. Usually. There can be people like Shlomo Ben Ami, the Israel Foreign Minister under Barak, who describes himself as being a Zionist but approaches it with humility and openness. I'm sure there are others. But usually, the whole thing is an exercise and training in arrogance.
How crazy does it get? A friend of mine once met a lady who claimed that the Kinneret was the largest fresh water lake in the world. How could she say such a thing? The Kinneret is 64 square miles and has an average depth of 84 feet. Lake Superior is 31,000 square miles and has an average depth of 484 feet. The entire State of Israel is 8,000 square miles so Lake Superior is several times the size of Israel.. Her comment was so stupid. But it comes I believe from this Zionist arrogance. She was an American living in Israel by the way. No matter, anything Israeli has must be the greatest thing in every way. I have heard many other crazy claims. Israel has the best medical care in the world. The best economy. The best military. It's all groundless. You can almost hear a German making such claims based on arrogance but also on no small set of facts. But here it's all assertion and I believe our endless bragging and bloated self-appraisal feeds it. It could be that American Zionists are the most annoying because they start with an American arrogance and pile all this on top of it. Whatever it is. It is just unhealthy to be a stone to criticism, to refuse to look in the mirror for blemishes, and to be just so sure that the people you are killing deserve it.
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