Day: August 18, 2014

Oppressed Becomes The Oppressor

Inkwell Institute

Middle East Desk

By this point in your life you have been exposed to the horror of World war 2 and the Holocaust……if not…..where the Hell have you been?

Every time Israel goes into action against the Palestinians we are reminded over and over about the horrors that the Jews were exposed to during the Holocaust…all the death and misery.  And because of the horrors they endured you would expect them to have No toleration for any such actions what so ever…….but you would be WRONG!  Not mistaken but flat out WRONG!

One of the Israeli intellectuals of the founding generation, Yeshayahu Leibowitz feared that a Jewish state would become no better than the oppressors that he and so many others fled from in the days of WW2….he stated………”it would invert the whole history of the Jewish people, turning them into the spitting image of the oppressors whose terrorism from which we fled.”

He also noted that the …..”the entire energies of the Jewish state, instead of looking after the needs of its citizens, would be directing at enforcing “a strange system of political domination”……he was more prophetic than he has been given credit.

Israelis were the victims in the days of WW2….they were imprisoned, lands confiscated, harassed and put to death…….where is that any different than the circumstances with the Palestinians?  They were victims and for that they were basically given a country….the world trying to soothe its guilt….and in doing so have turned the victim into the oppressors they fled from in the past.

The world continues to close its eyes to the horrendous effects that Israeli policy is having on Palestinians….all because the world still feels the guilt of World War 2…..until they break that feeling this sort of murderous outreaches will continue.

The victim will continue to be the oppressor……and the Palestinians must wait for the world to rid itself of a guilty past.

Survivor Makes A Point

We allo have made our opinions on the Gaza War known…….some are solidly in the Israeli camp and cannot see where they are doing anything wrong but “defending themselves”…..and there are those like myself that see it as an abuse of authority….the killing of civilians, in my opinion,, is unacceptable…..the treating of a country’s minority as 2nd class citizens is unacceptable….

I have gone so far (a later post today) to accuse Israel of committing crimes that we have condemned others for committing……and that is where this article caught my eye…….

Newser) – In World War II, a Dutch man risked his life and saved a Jewish boy from the Nazis—a feat that earned Henk Zanoli Israel’s prestigious Righteous Among the Nations medal after the war. This week, the 91-year-old gave it back, reports Haaretz. The reason? An Israeli airstrike killed relatives of his in the Gaza Strip last month. After learning the news, Zanoli went to the Israeli embassy in The Hague and returned the medal, issuing a statement detailing the sacrifices his family made resisting the Nazis during the occupation of Holland. “Against this background, it is particularly shocking and tragic that today, four generations on, our family is faced with the murder of our kin in Gaza,” he wrote. “Murder carried out by the State of Israel.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Zanoli made clear that his problem is with the government of Israel, not the Israeli people. “I gave back my medal because I didn’t agree with what the state of Israel is doing to my family and to the Palestinians on the whole,” he said. Zanoli’s grand-niece is a Dutch diplomat who is married to a Palestinian economist, and an Israeli bomb killed three of the economist’s brothers, along with other relatives. Zanoli said he felt that keeping the medal would be an “insult” to his family.

You may scoff if you will…..but this person knows exactly what genocide and crimes against humanity are all about…….his opinion is the only opinion that should be considered on the crimes that Israel is being accused of from their latest attacks on Palestinians.

Sorry…..but this person’s opinion is the only opinion that carries any weight.

As I have said in the past….it is time for Israel to start acting like a responsible citizen of a civilized world….if they cannot do that then time for them to pay the price as any other depotic regime would have to pay.

The Making Of Martyrs

First of all I want to say that I do not normally write on religious subjects because….well it is my choice…..but I have seen much on the web about the silliness of people dying and becoming martyrs.

The idea of martyrdom has become more closely scrutinized since Islamic extremism has been in the news…..the whole idea that someone in service to God that dies is immediately martyred and goes to Heaven or in Islam’s case Paradise.

I have heard many them call the idea ridiculous and in NO way a duty of the devout.  With that I agree.  A deity that requires me to die to show I am devout is NO deity that I want anything to do with in any way.

With that said….martyrs or the making of martyrs is not an Islamic idea solely…..Christians had their fringe that thought the only way to know Jesus was to be killed so that they could join him in Heaven…..

Ever hear of the Circumcellions?

  1. The Circumcellions were a heretical splinter group of early Christianity circa the fourth century.
  2. They were known for loving them some martyrdom and would go to great lengths to bring about their own deaths.
  3. Circumcellions would carry sticks and blunt clubs to attack unwary people in order to entice said people to kill them.

………real Circumcellions were reduced to jumping out at random travelers on the road, shouting “Praise the Lord!” and swinging large clubs called “Israels.” The aim was to provoke retaliation. With a li’l bit of luck, the traveller would overcome his bemusement and fight back, hopefully kill the circumcellion attacker, making them, you guessed it, a Martyr. If the attackee was a magistrate, so much the better. When this source of martyrdom was cut off, circumcellions were driven to acts of mass suicide. Crowds flung themselves off cliffs, or into the River Chotts. The really radical ones burned themselves alive.

So you see the whole idea of martyring oneself in the name of God is not an exclusive Islamic thing………..like I said….if I must die to prove my loyalty to a deity then it might want to move past me….I prefer to let my actions determine my status.  A true God does not demand the death to prove the devout….that is my opinion and I will stick with it.