The world is now split between those who want Israel to go on existing and those who do not. That’s just how it is, and to go on proving that this is the case is a waste of time. We need to focus on how the situation can be fixed. Obviously no matter what Israel does militarily or politically, the country will be hated by the rest of the world. Obviously, as appealing as it is to say, so what, let the world think what it wants, modern weaponry being what it is, it might be better if we could all just get along.
So here’s my plan for Israel’s PR: The country needs to emphasize the fact that even if it is politically aligned with the United States, it is culturally far more similar to the non-American or anti-American world. My knowledge of culture in Israel is, of course, limited, but my sense from hanging around enough Israeli expat cafes in NYC is that the “arsim” look Laya mocks is popular one. It’s hard to tell, in NYC, if a given hangout is Israelitrash or Eurotrash. I can only tell apart a group of, say, Italians and a group of Israelis by language. Both cultures seem so different from that of the United States, with people so much slimmer and so much more willing to empty bottles of hair gel. I’m with Laya, the hairstyles are a bit much, but aesthetically, the look is at least marginally better than whatever the men of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue have come up with.
But more importantly,the existence of “arsim” is proof, without a doubt, of Israel’s existence. Leave aside Zionism, religion, the need to respond to thousands of years of oppression–there’s now a country where people look a certain way, eat a certain way, and just generally have a certain national lifestyle. Israel is no longer an experiment, and what better proof than a unique, nationally-specific type of bad fashion? We in America have mullets and Abercrombie, the Germans have the hetero-but-butch look for women, the French have the messed-up hair and overuse of scarves, so let Israel have its own special blend of tackiness.
- The Zionist Left - 7/18/2008
- In defense of secularism, shirts - 7/18/2008
- Ashkenaz - 7/1/2008
OK, one last point:
“I mean nobody likes war and constant fighting doesn’t help Israels standing in the world.”
Now tell me, is this Israel’s choice?!
One other thing: I read the link inthe above posting, which led to an article in New York Magazine by a Kurt Andersen. He states plainly that the founding of Israel was a mistake. It was carved out of Arab land and it was a mistake. Whether a moral mistake or a strategic one is left unclear, but the implication is that is was both. And this is stated in language that positively praises Israel and the Jewish people. He presents another version of the argument that the UN was wrong to establish Israel, but now that it’s here we should support it. That doesn’t exactly warm the cockles of the heart.
The problem is that there seems to be an “original sin” aspect of Israel’s founding. The Jews really had no right to the land, they had no right to a state there. None. It was founded because of a sympathy for the Jews after the Holocaust and a callous disregard for the “natives” already there. Given this view, which seems well disseminated, Israel’s full acceptance will never really happen.
And how do you explain that the Jews had at least some claim to the land? It would take a knowledge of Middle Eastern history that most people don’t have.
Depressing.
“Jewish culture will always survive. It will have different tastes and flavors but will always be around.”
I know, I know. The story here is that the Jews have survived for thousands of years without Israel, and have overcome many adversities. So they’ll continue to survive. Sorry, but I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that a strong Jewish culture would survive without Israel. And while Jews would not face the enormous persecution that they did during ancient times and the Middle Ages, they would gradually fade away as a people and as a culture.
You’d end up with pockets of Hasidim, who would be a tiny group of curiosities, like the Amish. Plus–maybe for a few generations–snippets of Hebrew culture would survive for awhile, but these would fade under the pressure of assimilation in Europe and North America. Sure, maybe some people would follow the Jewish holidays half-heartedly. Or they might retain some aspects of Jewish culture, like some favorite Jewish dishes, or a fondness for Yiddish humor, or Jewish “values,” but even these would probably only be part of a mixed Jewish-Christian heritage. And a mixed Jewish-Christian heritage would just become a Christian heritage after a few more generations.
The Jews survived throughout the ages in part because they held themselves apart from others in order to follow their religion, and in part because the surrounding majorities in Europe or the Middle East would not allow them to assimilate (barring conversion). Also, the Catholic Church did not want them totally obliterated. Jews were to survive, but not thrive, living in a humiliating fashion as an embodiment of the fate of those who rejected the divinity of Jesus.
Oddly enough, the freedom brought on by the Enlightenment posed its own dangers to the Jewish people. As the Comte Auguste de Clermont-Tonnerre said during the French Revolution, “Give the Jews every right as individuals, but none as a nation.” So, emancipation often meant emancipation from being Jewish, not freedom to be fully Jewish and equal to others.
It was especially when Jews were doing well in Western and Central Europe–in the late 19th and early 20th centuries–that there were lots of conversions among assimilated Jews. Many of them were leaving the fold out of ambition, or out of indifference or contempt towards their background. The number of Jews in these parts of Europe was replenished by continued Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. Otherwise, the Jewish people would have declined faster there through assimilation.
Nowadays, the Jewish religion would certainly decline, not from discrimination but because religion in general is declining in the West (except for right-wing Christianity in the U.S.). But unlike Christianity in Europe, Judaism is a minority religion, and so will not survive even as major cultural underpinning of Western civilization.
Individual Jews would survive if Israel goes, and many would thrive. But it would be the death knell for the Jewish people. The first blow was when Hitler destroyed the major centers of Jewish civilization in Eastern Europe, leaving only remnants of the formerly major Jewish communities in Poland, Lithuania, etc. The destruction of Israel would be the second–and lethal–blow. Many in Israel would die, some would get out, but you cannot build a Jewish civilization based on only assimilated American Jews and a very limited number of assimilated European Jews.
Israel is the one place in which the Jewish people can realize itself as a nation, with its own political, social, governmental, academic, cultural, even agricultural institutions that allow it to achieve a level of self-determination and self-expression not available to minorities, even minorities in the most democratic of democratic states.
‘kay.
‘kay.
Kelsey/Pseudo-Neo, you are right and I apologize to you and other Jewschoolers. I’ve modified my original comment.
Hey, thanks for the lead! Jewschool is a bunch of kikes, but I like it here way better, because I like straw man arguments, and anyone willing to suggest Jews are like nazis is a friend of mine.
So I consider you my buddy, since you do that a lot.
It is very telling that TM both compares Jewschool posters to neo-nazis (as he has consistently done in the past), and now is actually directing neo-nazis to our site to harass us.
I hope Jewlicious readers will note this.
DK, did NeoNizzle at least go to visit your site? You can have him.
TM,
Your suggestion that realpolitik concerns of conflation of U.S. and Israeli interests are problematic are not, in fact, argued by the vast majority of Jewschoolers. Many of the Jewschoolers who are critical of U.S. policies in the Middle East do so out of moral concerns, either religiously left or secular left, not realpolitik.
I believe I am the only one who has voiced concerns from a realpolitik perspective.
So if you are interested in portraying such a concern as the same as a neo-nizzle or neo-nazi perspective, I am the one to point to, not anyone else at Jewschool. Just me.
And I maintain that there are, in fact, profound differences between myself and the neo-nizzles of the world. Beyond the last paragraph.
Phoebe: sorry, but three cheers for the German hetero-but-butch look– brought to you in part by a Jew, the late Helmut Newton.
There is some truth to phoebe’s post. Most of the world does not know anything about Israel. They see it as a land colonized by Europeans,led by religious fanatics. Just look at Gaardner’s recent article. He misses the point that most Israelis and Jews are secular and don’t kill Lebanese on religious dictum. Perhaps they think since the Arab world is full of violent theocracies, Israel would be the same.
These people are idiots. And their idiocy is extremely dangerous.
As for Israel, I mean, come on. The truth is Europeans are worthless and their anti-Israelism doesn’t matter. The US will always support Israel, Arabs will always be a lot of talk, and Israel will last a very long time. Jews are not strangers to miracles
Isreal needs a product the world can’t live with out. We all hate the French, but we love their wine, cheese and scarves. We hate the Germans, but we can’t live without our Traifmobiles. We hate America, but we love our iPods, Levis, Tom Cruise movies, Big Macsm fries and Cokes. “The Free World” is about capitalism. Capitalism is about stuff. What Isreali stuff can pierce the heart and stay there?
themiddle… uncool and unfunny.
There’s a sincere difference between questioning and alternative zionist viewpoint, there’s another in saying that the jewschool posters are anti-semites.
Come on. A little derech eretz please.
Hm got to this page by accident and started reading so naturally i have to reply 🙂
now i ain’t jewish and i ain’t american
“Because so much of the world hates Israel. They believe that if it crumbles, there goes a lot of the Muslim’s insatiable rage. Is this true? Probably not. Terrorism isn’t going to disappear.”
See this is why people hate americans(doesn’t matter age, race, sex or religion). Terrorism. I really really hate that word.
Now terrorism as the americans know it doesn’t exsist. Why? It’s a matter of perspective. Let’s take Palestine suicide bombers for instance, who are regarded as terrorists. They kill innocent jewish people. Now why do they do that? Apparently they are fighting for something which the whole muslim world supports and are regarded as heroes. Now Israeli troops kill “terrorists” and a bunch of civilians and are at home and in America regarded as heroes whilst in the muslim world they are the terrorists. So please stop with the whole “hollywood terrorist come to take freedom away from america”.
And no the world doesn’t want Israeli to crumble, but it would be nice if we could all just get along. But we don’t. Why? Because everybody is blind-sighted by terrorism and Iran nuclear missles, that nobody does anything. Nobody is looking at the root of the problem!!! I understand Israelis(is that correct?) have to defend themselves but they take things too far. I mean nobody likes war and constant fighting doesn’t help Israels standing in the world.
As for America it is a clueless country. The media is subjective as hell and people think that America is the greatest place on earth. Please… The thing i find most ridiclious is the freedom part. America free? Are you kidding me? Yes it is free if all you know is what you get from CNN.
I watched a news report about Arnold the California governor (see the movie Hercules in New York and than think “man thats the governor of Cali) holding a rally to support Israel. At this rally there was a interview with a woman who said: “The world needs to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. And Israel is one of the good guys because they are not a terrorist state.”
I don’t know what else to write. I mean good guy, bad guys like in some crappy summer blockbuster starring Vin Diesel or someone similar. The woman here has reduced the whole world, countless souls, religions, cultures etc. to good or bad. I mean i hope someone else can see why I am getting so worked up about this. To describe a culture as being bad, a culture that is 10 times as old as the American way(i don’t belive America has a culture).
Now let me explain the reason for this. the US has about 300 mil. people. And you need to give all these people something so they will stick together. It used to be the USSR but since it’s gone the new hot ticket is terrorism. They are out to get us. Who’s they? Nobody knows. So american stupidity comes from american propaganda.
Now back to Israel. As most of you know it is placed in probobly the worst posibble location. Why? Read “The crusades through arab eyes”.
I don’t know try to work with the muslims and try to start getting along.
Actually I don’t have a solution except that jews, americans and all people get educated and start seeing the world through their own eyes. Draw their own conclusions. People should respect diffirent cultures and views on the world and not think their is the best. Of course you think its the best, but how can you know if you don’t have something to compare it to.
That’s why I hate the war in Iraq, Afganistan and i hope Castros Cuba stays the way it is. They are all uniqe places in the world and diffirent from ours. And that doesn’t make them “bad”.
Sorry for any mistakes but english isn’t my native language and sorry for going a bit of topic.
I also didn’t want to offend anyone except maybe neonizzle
Getting back to the original post…
Jewish culture will always survive. It will have different tastes and flavors but will always be around. Take for instace you are speaking Hebrew. If just the language, holidays, and customs could survive 2,000 years of wandering, then certainly other traditions in Israeli culture will survive in peace or war.
NeoNizzle, there’s a website called Jewschool. Try it, you might like it. Bye.
Set off a nuke in your own backyard? Smart.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right in that the Jews don’t have a Messianic dream of creating a Greater Israel and purifying all the subhuman Arabs, a million of whom, as one rabbi put it, are “not worth one Jewish fingernail” and collectively yield “no innocents in time of war,” according to yet more rabbinical wisdom.
But the main point here is that we American goyim who are suckered into fighting Israel’s wars in the Muslim world (eg: Iraq, Afghanistan) who themselves became a target of Islamic retribution by taking sides with Israel in the age-old blood feud between Jews and Muslims become at risk of terrorism as Israel does what it does. Americans surely would be just as “anti-Semitic” as Europeans if we didn’t have the control of the media in a handful of mostly Jewish CEOs, bought-and-paid for Zionist politicians and Judeochristian preachers. Hell, even German goyim are involved with their financial aid through Holocaust-reparation extortion racket and the U-boats they kindly provide.
If it weren’t for western involvement, we would have no problem letting the Muslims and Jews fight it out and letting superior force decide the victor.
But why bother? Why not just come back to civilzed Europe and leave that miserable plot of sand? Surely the Germans, still very full of guilt, could put up some room and board for you, converting their Holocaust museums, libraries and Jewish cultural centers and institutions into apartment space.
Actually dung heep neonizzle the opposite is true.
What does Hizbollah your idols do, they hide behind civilians, and then shoot Iranian Yemach Shemam, rockets, at civilians. This is quite brave for you.
The Israelis, the army that is, did very well.
The plan was to minimize their casualties, something you wouldn’t care about.
I happen to think the Israeli Army did a lot of good. They killed Hizbollah mafioso, by the truckload, they destroyed alot of weaponry and bases, offices, contact points, etc.
The Hizbollah is weakened military. This is a military accomplishment.
Israel’s aim was to minimize loss of life. You may not put a value on this, but that is the facts, Israel does. Personally, and this is highly bizarre, I agree w/ you from a philosophical perspective. I would have nuked the Iranians right from the get do, then if they still didn’t stop their cowardly rocket lynching, I would have then nuked southern Lebnanon. But I have to give credit where credit is due, Israel doesnt see things the way I do. They have concern for a shem tov, a good name and moral backbone.
Why don’t you go ahead and blow yourself up now, neonizzle? Or would you like me to take care of this for you?
Hey! I just saw your troops walk pathetically out of Lebanon. Hezbollah really held their own and all you could do was bomb neighborhoods and kill civilians. That has little military value!
How could a bunch of poorly equipped Arabs give you such a run for your money? Jews can’t fight!
Sorry to be first of all off-topic and second of all the Captain Obvious, but the Captcha (the numbers you have to enter while posting) you have here isn’t really good. It’s easy to OCR by spambots.
Oh. And if you’re somehow feeling inferior with regard to your national fashion appearance, just drop by in Finland and I guarantee the feelings of inferiority will quickly dissolve into perplexed fragments of disbelief mixed with amused superiority.
Will Israel live on, you ask? . . . maybe . . . but in the long run, probably not. Why not? Because so much of the world hates Israel. They believe that if it crumbles, there goes a lot of the Muslim’s insatiable rage. Is this true? Probably not. Terrorism isn’t going to disappear. With Israel wiped out, this may give a decade or 15 years of reprieve (to some extent) until the Islamo Fascists rear their ugly heads again
It’s kind of funny, if you talk to Muslims from any country, they talk on and on about Palestein being their second home. But what would happen if it all became Palestein again? Would it become the paradise they all yearned for? If it didn’t, and its government proved corrupt, what then?