Shaul Mofaz told a Cabinet meeting today that it is very likely that Strella missiles have been smuggled into Gaza under the PA’s watch. He also indicated that while the PA had uncovered 17-20 smuggling tunnels, he has information that PA agents have been involved in other, successful smuggling operations.
This “lull” seems to be nothing more than a respite from the successful IDF hounding of the Palestinian leaders and their terrorists and militants. They are getting a break, and apparently also regrouping. These Strellas are shoulder held missiles that have a range of almost 2 miles and can target aircraft effectively by tracking their heat emissions. While there are some methods of confusing their sensors, virtually all civilian aircraft do not carry these defensive measures aboard and would be in danger.
So far, the only Israeli response has been to delay the handover of security and control of Qalqiliyah to the PA. That is a meaningless gesture and will be interpreted as such.
Thank you great post.
You know, T_M, you really ought to read what Farouk Kaddoumi said about Oslo. It was a setup from the beginning, and Arafat and his gang of bloodsucking scum never had any intention whatsoever of honoring a single jot or tittle of it.
Yes, I think Rabin went into it with his eyes open. However, why people like you insist on keeping your eyes shut, now that it is clear what they were really after, really mystifies me.
Wake up.
Anyway, I am not going to bother to post on this any more. I am sure you are as sick of my repeating myself as I am.
Ephraim, even if the Palestinians fully believed from the beginning that it was a Trojan horse, something which makes them into geniuses, that doesn’t mean the process couldn’t have worked. The idea was that a series of steps would gradually bring enemies together for a final compromise. Nobody assumed they were friends all of a sudden. Remember Rabin’s profound hesitation before shaking the hand of the snake? The idea was that a series of steps would lead to an inevitable peaceful conclusion. Unfortunately, there were enough disruptive influences and disruptions to ruin the process. That’s not to say that Israel didn’t give it one last great shot in 2000, but it is to say that people went into this with their eyes open.
No, no, no, T_M. Oslo never had a chance because it was a Trojan Horse from the very beginning. Until you accept this basic fact, all of your analysis will be wrong.
I didn’t think I passed any judgement on it. It is what it is and it exists. It’s clear that every Israeli leader has to deal with it, as does the entire country.
In any case, back to Oslo. We have no idea how it could have turned out and we are not blameless about its failure. On the other hand, we did offer the Palestinians a state and in return got this war…
Yeah, right, “relationships”.
Outside leaders have the same relationship with Israel that Don Corleone had with all of the people to whom he made offers they couldn’t refuse.
The goyim are strong and Israel is weak. And the goyim suck up to the Arabs and their oil. So when it comes time to put pressure on someone, it is not the lying, treacherous, murdering paleostinians who must be made to pay the price for their murder and terrorism, it is Israel, whose only crime is to defend itself against modern-day Nazis who have sunk so low that they sacrifice their own children just to kill one more Jew.
Yes, I recognize that Israel, even though it is in the right, must sometimes kowtow to powerful, yet craven and opportunistic, countries who mistakenly think that sucking up to the Arabs while bashing the Jews is the way to make “peace”.
But the least you could do is not dignify this kind of unlubricated reaming that Israel must constanly undergo, even from the US sometimes, as somehow right, proper and only to be expected.
Not always, Ephraim.
But at least you recognize that all of Israel’s leaders realize the importance of maintaining some relationships with outside leaders.
Oslo didn’t have a chance because Arafat was lying through his teeth from the very beginning and was planning on war all along. The settlements are incidental.
Oslo was a con game from the beginning: Arafat never abandoned terrorism, so it was heads he wins, tails Israel loses. If Israel gives in to all of Arafat’s demands (total evacuation and acceptance of the “right” of “return”), he wins without firing a shot, since Israel would either be sufficiently weakened over a period of years to be successfully attacked, or he just waits until there are enough Arabs that they breed and/or vote Israel out of existence.
If Israel doesn’t bend over and grab its ankles, he has a ready-made excuse about Israeli “intransigence” and the fact that the “occupation” and the “humiliation” makes “resistance” inevitable. The threat of violence was always there, to be used whenever Arafta thought it suited his interest. It is astounding to me that anyone, especially a Jew, could have ever fallen for his “good cop/ bad cop” charade.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
But, hey, at least you realize that the successive Israeli capitulations are not the result of any particular sagacity on the part of Israel’s leaders but nothing more or less than the result of brutal, naked browbeating and arm-twisting carried out even by Israel’s supposed “allies”.
By the way, virtually every point you make in your comment, is a point that I make or have made in discussions about this situation. The points I don’t make are about how Jews are self-defeatists and walk around not understanding how badly they’re being treated. Generally, however, we agree on a lot of points.
You don’t address the key issue, however, which is that we did something that may have undermined Oslo, and therefore cannot know whether Oslo had a chance. It isn’t always about whether they “want” peace or not, it’s how far up against a corner you can push them so that they’ll have no choice. That’s how Clinton forced Netanyahu to sign the Hebron Accords.
T_M, I think you are certifiably out of your mind
And I think your brain development was retarded at an early age.
Nice , huh?
Is this any way to talk to me?
T_M, I think you are certifiably out of your mind. You absolutely refuse to look at what is staring you in the face and instead get all maudlin about the “Oslo dream”. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, WTF cares?
Only a Jew can be bombed, shot, murdered, humiliated and otherwise treated like shit and somehow think it is all his fault.
Just to make it clear, I think Yigal Amir should be executed, so don’t mistake me for a fan of his. Killing Rabin was a great crime, no question. It may very well have been that with Rabin in charge, instead of the feckless, pusillanimous Shimon “Please Love Me, Yasser!” Peres and the arrogant and hihg-handed Barak, things would have been different. I would like to think that Rabin would have had the sense to cut his losses and carry the fight to the paleostinians instead of what has happened now, but we will never know.
But it is typical of people like you that all you can see is Jewish culpability instead of the real reason this is happening: the unwavering paleostinian desire to wipe Israel off the map.
Your mistake is thinking that Arafat really wanted peace and that the only thing that prevented this was Israeli obstinance. This just isn’t true.
We know now that the “initifada” was planned all along and that Arafat was just waiting for his chance. Sharon’s stroll on the Har Ha Bait could be seen as 1) deliberate provocation, or 2) stupidity. I would like to think that Sharon gave Arafat the excuse he wanted so Israel could get the show on the road while it was at less of a disadvantage, but only Sharon knows what he was thinking.
War, was, however, inevitable, and it has, and never has had, anything to do with the post-’67 settlements. The paleostinians adopted the “Strategy of Stages” for the destruction of Israel in 1974 and they have never wavered from it. If you think Arafat really wanted to compromise and make peace, then nothing he or the paleostinians have done makes any sense whatsoever. If, however, you believe, as I do, that the paleostinians are following the strategy mapped out in ’74, everything becomes crystal clear. It is like a decoder ring which explains everything: the establishment of a “fighting authority” on “liberated” “paleostinian” land and the continuation of the “armed struggle”. Looked at this way, everything falls into place: the terrorist camps, the hijacking of the entire “educational system” to teaching state-sponsored anti-Semitism and raising a new generation of maniacal homicide bombers; the embezzlement of funds for arms instead of using it for creating infrastructure; the Karina-A, etc. These are not the actions of a clueless, incompetent and corrupt thugocracy; they are the actions of a group of committed pogromchiks with a detailed plan from which they have never wavered. The PA is the way it is because that’s the way it was intended to be from the very beginning, not because Israel did or didn’t do this or that.
And Israel, desparate for peace, believed Araftat and walked into his trap.
You couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal a clue even if you were an alpha male Clue drenched in Clue pheronomes in a field full of rutting female Clues during the height of the Clue mating season.
Actually, Ben David, I DARE you to explain to me why the Palestinians would acquiesce in any way if we’re building settlements while on a track to peaceful resolution. I’m not talking about their violence or anything else here, merely about one issue: settlements were supposed to stop growing in number, and they didn’t.
So how can you know what would have been and how they would have behaved otherwise? You don’t know and have no idea. You’re guessing because there is no evidence that we can present objectively.
How do you know what would have happened had the Israelis not pulled a Spain by electing Netanyahu after the string of bombings just prior to the election where he beat Peres? Netanyahu purposely put the Oslo process into slow motion.
You have no idea what would have happened had the process proceeded as intended. Sadly, I believe there really was only PM who could have pulled it off and it was Rabin. Peres was too forthcoming, and Netanyahu played right into Arafat’s hands.
When people talk about Oslo as a collossal mistake, they are not talking with the benefit of hindsight obout something obvious. They are talking about a process that was undermined at every turn by those who wanted to harm or kill it. In that respect, at least, Yigal Amir was unfortunately too successful.
T_M wrote:
We will never know what Oslo could have been. Don’t forget that Israel also broke the agreements by continuing to grow and build settlements. However, I cannot argue that in 2000, after Camp David proved that the Palestinians were playing all along, it became evident that the king had no clothes.
– – – – – – – – –
um, could you re-punctuate that last sentence?
and just before, he wrote:
It can’t be that all of them are wrong: Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu (yes! Who signed the Hebron Accords and took us out of Areas A?), Barak and now Sharon.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Well, which one is it? Were the Palis playing all along – and Rabin et al were dupes – or are they heroes, and “we’ll never know what Oslo might have been” because those wicked Jews started defending themselves after several years of pretending they weren’t bleeding.
Your last two posts are an object lesson in just what I am talking about: the facts of a geopolitical conflict are flooded by the leftie Jew’s own anxious wish to be with “the right people” and espouse “the right opinions”. It’s all there:
– the irrational lurching between an idealized Oslo and the undeniable reality of its failure
– the inability to draw conclusions from reality, and change course from the “dream”
– the blaming of the Jews no matter what the facts are
– the rejection out of hand of the notion that the Israelis are justified in “hitting hard” and “waiting them out” (= not voluntarily surrenduring) – that is, that the Israelis can legitimately stop appeasement and use the same tools as any other nation to defend itself
… so many conversations with liberal Jews get swamped by their own emotional baggage, just like this. Millions of Israelis must live – and have died – with the decisions made. Whether the actions taken “make you look good” is a secondary (!) concern.
I DARE YOU: take the fragments you just posted and string them into a cogent, rational thread, like this:
Did Oslo fail because of the Jews, or primarily because of the Palis?
What does Pali behavior in the last decade+ of “peace” say about their motives and aims?
What does that say about Rabin et.al – heroes or dupes?
What does the continued behavior of the Palis (re-read the lead article of this thread if you need to) indicate – is resumption of Oslo-style concessions by Israelis rationally defensible?
I DARE YOU: stick with the facts of the conflict and string them together. Cause and effect. Just once. Without romanticising the Palis as Noble Brown Skinned Natives. Without knotting the thread with your own hangups about how Jews should behave in the world.
Ben-David
We will never know what Oslo could have been. Don’t forget that Israel also broke the agreements by continuing to grow and build settlements. However, I cannot argue that in 2000, after Camp David proved that the Palestinians were playing all along, it became evident that the king had no clothes.
Actually, I think Peres and Barak are both not only incredibly stupid, but are dangerous lunatics who should either be put in jail for treason or be put in an asylum where they can’t do any more harm. They are stupid as only highly intelligent people can be. I cannot for the life of me understand how either of them can show themselves in public, much less say anything. I do not understand why Peres, especially, does not just drop dead of sheer shame, or, at the very least, get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness from the people of Israel for the unmitigated disater he foisted on them. Oslo has been a total failure from every point of view. Allowing Arafat and his gang of murderers back into Yesha was a collosal blunder of absolutely galalctic proportions which will go down in history as one of the most egregious political failures of all time. With Peres’ wild-eyed dreams of some Gan Eden just waiting to happen, Arafat was able to play him like a violin. He was had, just like a common, garden variety sucker.
Once Oslo set the stage, everybody since then has been forced to fight a desperate rearguard action under unbelievable pressure from Israel’s “friends”, the US included. I hope things will stabilize to Israel’s advantage, but Sharon is only playing with the hand that Peres and his gang of retards foisted off on him.
Ephraim, I may be dreaming, but in all of the discussions we’ve had, have you or those who agree with your perspective offered a single alternative to the status quo other than the mystical, “we’ll wait them out or hit them harder?”
Take a look at how effectively Sharon handled…well, virtually everybody. He took on other parties, his own party, his competitors and threaded his way through every obstacle to emerge victorious. You’ll note that many of the steps he’s taking are in agreement with what I’ve been saying. I can’t be sure where he will ultimately take this, but even you have to acknowledge that as a strategist, he is second to none. Is he dreaming as well?
Maybe you’re dreaming? Maybe the collective sacrifice Israel is making to enable the settlements to grow and survive is making you think that they can exist alone or without this sacrifice? It can’t be that all of them are wrong: Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu (yes! Who signed the Hebron Accords and took us out of Areas A?), Barak and now Sharon. Not one of them was or is stupid, Ephraim. And yet, in one way or another, they have all moved in the same direction. Is it possible they see a bigger picture that you do not?
Ben-David, and all of the rest of us, know where you stand, T_M. We just think you’re dreaming.
Oh and Ben David, take a look back a couple of comments to see my first reply to you, it was in the queue for some reason.
As for your second comment, I didn’t see you ask me anything. I saw a presumption on your part as to what I believe and certainly as to why I believe it.
Look around, there are lots of discussions where I express where I stand and why.
What valid points?
I and others have asked him to explain why Israel must continue to ignore the reality of Palestinian intrasigence, and to explain how this repeated self-endangerment will bring security. To explain his assertion in the light of the news item that lead this thread!
No explanation has been forthcoming.
Regarding my hasbarah skills – I work in marketing for a hi-tech firm and have trained in public relations. I regularly talk with groups of Americans and Europeans (Jewish and gentile) who come to visit Israel.
My opinion on the linkage between conflicted Jewish identity and an inability to unabashedly embrace Israel’s legitimacy is born of bitter, repeated experience. All the carefully considered, tightly argued conversations eventually hit a point at which the secular Jew/European leftie says, “well I just think Israel itself doesn’t really have legitimacy”. I have learned to save myself much grief by asking this question up front.
To be sure, there is much room for dissent about this or that Israeli policy. But I am talking about a more fundamental question that often does not get asked – but should: the basic legitimacy of the Jewish people, and of their national movement.
The conversation can be about “the occupation” or any other topic – on the surface: time after time I have seen liberal Jews drawn by the undertow of their own conflicted feelings about Jewish particularity, as embodied by Israel. Israelis are brutes, their soldiers have failed the Jewish people if they don’t wage war like angels – Jews are the worst, the best, but never just normal. The wildest Pali propaganda is accepted, the facts justifying Jewish self-defence hit Teflon indifference. Not because of any factual flaw, but because the cognitive dissonance is to great for the “liberal” participant.
We are talking, after all, about policies that will impact/endanger the lives of millions of Jews. Post-Oslo, there is no rational basis for pie-in-the-sky give-peace-a-chance policies, and considerable room for Jews to justify Israeli self-defence. Those who still embrace these positions, and vilify Israel, seem to be driven by a powerful, tightly wound psychic spring.
There is a direct connection between one’s attitude to the “reality” and “normalcy” of the Jewish people and one’s explanation of the mideast conflict.
Ben-David
Ben David, forgive me but you are full of it.
Where do you get the crap about colonialism and original sin. I have spent more time and words debating those points than most people. In fact, I’m laughing right now because you are so off base.
where do you get that I approve of any Arab violence? Any?
As for support for my assertions, just read some of the discussions on this blog. I don’t have the patience to rewrite the history every time somebody attacks me.
You wrote a whole song and dance about religious Jews being the ones who justify Israel’s existence blah blah blah. As someone who knows that religious Jews were in a significant minority throughout the period beginning from early Zionism to now; that early Zionists explicitly rejected observance and wanted to create a “new” Jew completely unlike what they perceived as a weak observant European Jew; who knows Israel’s early leaders felt fine allowing Orthodox men not to serve in the army because they were such a small number of the overall population; who knows how few of Israel’s leaders were even remotely devout, and in fact mostly came from Socialist backgrounds that had little connection with obervance; who knows that most of the IDF’s leadership and elite soldiers came from entirely secular backgrounds and only in recent two decades are religious Jews joining these units and ranks in sufficient numbers to boast a significant impact on the IDF’s fighting capabilities and leadership…surely you are not making those grand pronouncements seriously.
Instead of doing what ck always accuses me of doing, dividing Israel and the people so they fit your ideology that we should keep hammering the Arabs and those who don’t see it that way are namby pamby Israel haters who are secular, why don’t you acknowledge that the very model of the Jew whom you so admire – the religious Jew who fights bravely in the IDF and pioneers a new settlement in Judea – is based on a secular model of Jew created by secular Zionists 100 years ago. The difference now, is that the religious Jew who looks and acts like that secular Zionist, brings another component to his ideological makeup, that of his faith.
Ben-David: Seriously? Is there no alternative? If someone doesn’t agree with you then they must be a Jew in a struggle with the demons of self loathing? That doesn’t really address the valid points that TM has made. I think your kiruv and hasbarah skills need a little polishing up.
T_M –
If your starting position is that the Jews are basically not of this earth, then the history of Israel is the story of a nation born in colonialist sin, and even if the Arabs engage in the most debased violence – the Jews “deserve” it and it’s always “our fault” – not because of any geopolitical reality or considered moral calculus, but because of the inescapable icky nerdy non-reality of Jews and Judaism.
If your starting position is that the Jews are a people like any other, with a right to exist on earth as independent and sovereign as any other nation, then the history of Israel is the story of national rebirth – and the Jews are justified in sticking their elbows out and taking their piece of a map created with the stroke of a British pen less than a century ago. They are also justified in defending themselves.
You offer no support for your assertion about “the history of Zionism” – just as you offer no support for your assertion that continued craven surrender to thugs will bring security (given up on peace, eh?). No rational explanations are given because these are slogans and stances that spring directly – and fiercely – from your own inner conflict about being Jewish, your own unease with Jews taking up space in the world.
QED
Ben-David
Ben David, that sure was long.
It flies in the face of the history of the creation of the state of Israel and early Zionism. Sorry.
“trying again and again is precisely what Israel must do. The reason, by the way, is that it will lead to greater security.”
This is simultaneously Orwellian and Panglossian.
Sounds nice – I’m sure it feels smooth going down – but it ignores the geopolitical reality, the cultural orientation of our enemies.
It will lead to much bloodshed.
Perhaps you can explain – in the face of the recent posts about unflagging Pali arms smuggling, and the obvious persistence of armed resistance as a culturally popular political marker among them – perhaps you can explain just how there will be greater security and peace after al-Jazeera beams video of Hamas fighters victoriously taking over the villas of Gush Katif.
The state of Israel was established so that Jews, too, could defend themselves by the same rough rules of engagement as any other state. After 2000 years of living on the margins of reality, many Jews have trouble taking the field again. So they continue to demand that Israel somehow float above the dirty work of sovereignty – as if being Jewish meant constantly being an impractical romantic dreamer.
It’s telling that the political fault lines among Jews so closely track the religious divide. In general, those Jews still clinging to unrealistic “give peace a chance” scenarios are assimilated folks who have largely abstracted Judaism into anodyne, undemanding Big Ideas. There is NOTHING the Israelis can do to defend themselves that will not make these people uncomfortable, or demand a “higher moral standard” – because these people are deeply conflicted about the very notion that Jews are a people, that Jews are entitled to take up space here on earth.
Judaism and Jews are fine in theory for these folks – they love to go on about The (nebulous, nonbinding) Jewish Moral Heritage – but Israel’s existence forcefully asserts that the Jews are a matter of fact, here and now. Many secularized Jews cannot reconcile that with the universalist identity they have crafted for themselves. Therefore Israel cannot operate by the normal geopolitical rules – it must be “better” (a plaint that cleverly folds the Jewish Moral Heritage meme around the notion that Jews cannot occupy real space – they must be unrealistically angelic in defending themselves, they must not exist – just as Judiasm itself has been abstracted to the level of unrealistic theory.)
The Rest of Us – the religious and traditional Jews who have absolutely no problem articulating Jewish nationhood, or justifying the continued presence of the Jews on the world’s stage in modern times – well, we also have no problem justifying Israel’s existence, have no problem parsing the falsehood of Palistinian “nationhood” versus our own 3000 year history. We also know our own faith well enough to know that there is more to it than bland abstractions like “Jews are always on the side of the underdog” or self-hating memes that engender more empathy for the Palis than for Israeli victims of terror.
Our ability to call for the Israelis to defend themselves as any other nation would is directly related to our general attitude to Judaism and Jewishness. Jewish morality? The Americans came to us to learn humane methods of house-to-house antiterror fighting. We have nothing to be ashamed of.
Yes, that’s it – for the past year most Jews I’ve met who recited the “sacrifice for peace/we are cruel occupiers” mantra betrayed shame/conflict about their Jewishness. People calling for Israelis to give all the pieces back and try again are people with deep conflicts about Israel’s very existence – and their own Judaism. The religious and Israeli issues are two sides of the same coin.
Ben-David
Josh, are you suggesting that Sharon is a follower?
And that’s what it comes down to:
Suicidal people who try and try again, will eventually kill themselves.
As for ben-da,
I’ve long adopted the schoolyard theory. I’m no shrink like shtreimel, but I think that someone’s personality from elementary school does not change in the essence. And if our ‘leaders’ who we expect to lead us were ‘followers’ in their youth (something that descibes most youth today), then they will continue to be led and try to please the ‘crowd’, instead of being courageous leaders like the world had in the past who at least publicly cared for the interests of the people, and privately were drunkers and womanizers.
It’s too bad you feel that way, Ben David, but I’m afraid that trying again and again is precisely what Israel must do. The reason, by the way, is that it will lead to greater security.
Shouldn’t we have already learned the lessons of the the past decade instead of repeating them?
-and-
you post these articles that support (the Right’s) position, and then you draw absolutley the wrong-assed conclusion from them.
————————————————————————–
Yup. Yup. And All T M can come up with is the old “it’s a complex situation” garbage.
T M – on the NY Times thread you whined that I was aggressive even though you posted things that supported the Right. Well, this is exactly what I was protesting – drawing the wrong conclusions from the obvious fact of Pali intransigence.
This is a geo-political conflict. By the schoolyard rules of such conflicts, it is NOT necessary for Israel to keep on giving back all the chess pieces and letting their enemies have at them again. No, not even the Geneva conventions say that a nation under repeated attack cannot take land – and besides, no nation under such attack pays much attention to the Accords in reality. The notion that international law has somehow preserved all borders under aspic is a folly of the dream-bubble left (and it’s real odd how only Israel is allowed to live up to this totally unrealistic ideal).
See, here in the geopolitical schoolyard, if you attack me – and I win – you lose.
Permanently.
I no longer have any obligation to make the same offer to you that I made previously. Because of your aggression, some things you could once have got by negotiation are now off the table. Territories, freedoms (including the freedom to live in the places from which you attacked me) that you once had/could have gained through negotiation are forfeited.
There are consequences – permanent consequences – to aggression among nations.
But is this *Jewish* – I mean, we’re supposed to be all *nice* and everything. And besides, when those Israelis bomb their enemies it makes me *uncomfortable* when I take out the garbage and meet my gentile neighbors. They don’t like pushy Jews…
Yes, it’s Jewish. The state of Israel was established precisely so that the Jewish people could defend themselves, take the same actions as any other nation in their own self-interest.
Our Bible records our battles, and our prophets promise victory at war as one of Israel’s rewards for keeping its covenenant with Gd. We may be a little rusty, but there is no contradiction between Jewish morality and sovereign self-defense.
In the current situation – we have lost many innocent lives, and taken the measure of the Palestinians. It’s nice that they are so tired and all (not that the NY Times ever devoted such space to Israelis’ feelings) – but the news report leading this thread is just one of many recent headlines that show that the old pattern of Syrian and other sponsors feeding Pali terror cells is far from dead. The Times article shows that the Pali street still wants to kill the Jews.
The notion that the Israelis must still “try again” for peace with this known quantity is a mind-boggling non-sequitir.
Ben-David
TM and CK? The same person. Can’t be. Although, CK himself (or was it TM?) says that it is “very unlikely” that he and TM are the same. But not “impossible…”
Yikes. I’ve got chills. This is just spooky.
Nope. Nice Hebrew Academy boys who’s parents love ’em do not get sent away to Camp Bnai Brith. Though my sister worked there for a bit.
Wow,
a moc. Ever been to CBB?
Josh! How cynical can you be? There was a best seller in France that claimed that the whole Pentagon 9/11 plane crash was a hoax concocted to shore up War fever in the US. What do you expect from a country where people treat a shlub like Noam Chomsky as if he were a rock star.
As for me and TM being the same person… oy. What can I tell you? You ought to know a few things about me – that I am a Moroccan Jew from the same neck of the woods as you. If you know anything about Montreal Moroccan Jews, you would automatically know that it is very unlikely that TM and I are the same person.
That having been said, I ought to tell you that TM and I actually see eye to eye on most things. If you read TM’s comments on Jewschool, where he is considered the guest right-wing Zionist nutbar, you’d kind of understand what I’m talking about.
I wish he’d be just a tad more forthcoming about his private life too. I’m sure even you would find him a bit more admirable. But that’s his choice and I respect that.
Finally, I would think it’s obvious we’re not the same person because frankly, I write better than he does and my arguments are far, far more compelling.
😉
Once, in the beginning,
I thought that ck and tm were the same but just alter egos to post opposing views to generate light traffic on this site to sell some tshirts.
I’ve since lowered that possibility to about 35% of being true.
Talking about anti-aircraft missiles, I’ve just been exposed to theory that a Boeing passenger plane never crashed into the Pentagon (apparently, no Boeing plane parts were found on site). Anyways, the actual supposed flight just disappeared and probably shot down somewhere else. Were any bodies ever buried from that plane?
I hope I live until tomorrow…
We read the story of Amalek during Shabat Zachor which always precedes Purim. In keeping with the upside down nature of Purim, we are commanded to both erase Amalek (m’chok) and remember what they tried to do to us (Zachor Et Asher Asa Lecha Amalek). It should also be noted that the people of Amalek descended from the same place we did – we are actually related and thus there’s a bit of Amalek in each of us.
There are many explanations for this strange dichotomy, most of which focus on the notion that the Amalek issue is not one of genocide but rather reflective of a far more important inner struggle each Jew has relating to matters of faith and practice.
I’m no rabbi so I will go no further, but Google zachor and amalek and there are many dvar torahs that pop up that can serve as a great intro to the issue. Seeing the whole Amalek thing as genocidal is a tad simplistic.
Um, aren’t we supposed to be kind of genocidal with Amalek?
Two words, people.
REMEMBER.
AMELEK.
Paleostinians?
Uh, I’m not trying to establish “cred” with the right. 😆
Here’s how it works, Ephraim: no situation is black and white.
This is a complex conflict, with a tremendous number of variables. And yet, there may be a political solution for it and we need to find it. Maybe you’re right that we shouldn’t give them a breather. Today. But then I would give them a breather next year. At some point, if I want peace, somebody is going to get a breather.
As for drawing the wrong-assed conclusions, you are guessing just as much as anybody is guessing. There is no absolute and clear truth here. Sorry.
T_M, are you a schizo or something?
You link to all of these articles claiming how the paleostinians have not given up and now they’ve got heat-seeking missiles to boot and you still say the jews have to do “all they can”.
You seem to think that you are establishing some sort of cred with the Right because you post these articles that support our position, and then you draw absolutley the wrong-assed conclusion from them.
Paleostinians resting, regrouping, rearming, insisting that the Jews ain’t seen nuthin’ yet? Cool, let’s keep retreating! Yeah, that’ll do it.
You ask Josh if he wants perpetual conflict. What about you? You can’t see what is right under your nose.
The way to prevent perpetual conflict is NOT to give these guys a breather when we’ve got them on the ropes. The way to prevent perpetual conflict is to kick the living shit out of them now while we have the chance.
Truth be told, if we keep trying hard enough, we’ll simply save the world the trouble and throw ourselves in the sea!
Josh, did I or did I not post the article from the New York Times that pretty well expresses everything you’ve been claiming?
I’ll admit I’m wrong if I’m proven wrong. We’re not there yet. And yes, we have to keep trying. Do you want perpetual war and conflict?
do the utmost does not mean sacrificing Jews for ‘peace’.
Shouldn’t we have already learned the lessons of the the past decade instead of repeating them?
Remember the attack at the ‘Stage’ Bar? Mofaz/Sharon promised not to go ahead with any handovers ‘unless’ and that lasted a whole week, the shiva wasn’t even over in the homes of the departed.
How far back can we bend? How many times do we have to ‘prove’ that ‘we did our part’? and When do we make them do theirs?
The US is now saying that first we get the ‘disengagement’ out of the way, then Israel can start implementing the Road Map.
T_M,
admit it, you’ll never admit that you’re wrong.
Because you have to give peace a chance. Seriously, any Israeli government that doesn’t is not doing its job. For years we’ve been saying that Arafat is the problem. Well, he’s gone and even if the new guy is a Holocaust denying Arafat lieutenant, he is a different man. It is incumbent upon every Israeli government to do its utmost to achieve a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
the question is why the dumbasses would agree to a lull knowiing full well that this was going to happen
I do have to add that Arabs claimed every war since 1967 as a victory
Hamas will say this. Of course they will say this. And yet, read the article from the NY Times that I posted the other day (agreeing with many of the points you make), it is clear that they’re exhausted and beaten. All the bluster they put out there shouldn’t fake anybody out.
So we should still retreat from Gush Katif and North Shomron?
Israel weaker now than ever, say terrorists
Hamas dude, “All indications show that since its establishment, Israel has never been in such a state of retreat and weakness as it is today following more than four years of the intifada,†he told reporters.
“The withdrawal marks the end of the Zionist dream and is a sign of the moral and psychological decline of the Jewish state. We believe that [terrorism] is the only way to pressure the Jews.â€