Sorry but this whole obsession with "Zionism" is a way to justify hatred of Jews. It is an example of one of those words that I talk about in my essay here, that people now repeat over and over because they have been conditioned to do so. Regular Jews who are willing to submit to being eliminated are okay, Jews who dare to fight for thei…
Sorry but this whole obsession with "Zionism" is a way to justify hatred of Jews. It is an example of one of those words that I talk about in my essay here, that people now repeat over and over because they have been conditioned to do so. Regular Jews who are willing to submit to being eliminated are okay, Jews who dare to fight for their existence are Zionists. I am a Zionist. Yes, a Christian Zionist, if you will. Although I do not like labels, but I guess this is what I will now be labeled. You will be more polite than to say I support genocide, but calling someone a Christian Zionist is just a polite way of labeling them as monsters, in the same pot as Jewish Zionists. I stand by Israel's right to exist and to fight for its existence against enemies who want to eliminate every Jew.
This is not a "narrative", nor does it have anything to do with corrupt governments. That is another topic all together and one I have dealt with multiple times in other essays. All governments are corrupt, so this is a nonargument. If you want to make such an argument, then please start with the corruption of your own government before you move on to condemn other nations.
And no, this defense of Palestinian isn't an "awakening". It is just another tool used to manipulate people. That is why Hamas calls those who fall for it "useless idiots". I am not sure why people don't find that a problem and think maybe they should reevaluate their position. If anti-Israel protestors really care, truly care about Palestinians they will listen to the words of Hamza Howedy, who tells them that they are hurting Gazans and helping Hamas. But they aren't interested in the truth, as I write about here and in other essays. Nor are they really committed to any cause. It is just the next thing on the list because they have no deep convictions of their own and they are easily swayed by every new fad. It is no different from Black Lives Matter, it is the same MO. The only thing is that the hatred is escalating. And it is manifesting itself in hatred against Jews.
Everything is now reduced to a "narrative". This is very convenient because it means there is no truth, everyone has their own truth, built upon narratives and one truth is as good as another--except when it comes to Israel, then there is only the truth that Zionists are evil. Unlike any other nation in the world, Israel has no right to exist. Every wrong its government has ever committed is used to justify its destruction.
Interesting how no one answers my question of why they do not protest in their own country about stolen land, and the arrogant hypocrisy of judging another country that they have no ties to, nor any understanding of what it means to live there. It is a mystery why they don't protest much worse atrocities, such as what has happened and is still happening to the Kurds. Why this obsession with Israel.
As for the difference between Jews and Muslims or Christianity and Islam, it is not a narrative to say that Islam is built upon the notion of killing all Jews. It is not a narrative to say that the religion is so extreme that Muslims are killed if they dare to leave Islam. I heard this with my own ears from men in Luxor. It was not a big deal to them. It was an accepted fact. It is not a narrative when people are tortured and killed for being gay in Muslim countries. These are not "narratives" to the people who experience it. October 7th was not a narrative. No. But narratives are being created to justify what happened.
I really get frustrated by this whole narrative thing. I can tell you; it is not a narrative when I say as a woman, I would be very happy living in Israel (I visited friends there, both Arab and Jewish), but I would never live again in a Muslim country. I say this through personal experience.
We can make choices, and one choice can better than another. One choice can be for freedom and the other choice for slavery. One choice can be right, and the other choice can be wrong. Not a narrative. We can stand up for freedom in America, despite its corruption, because we still have the ability to do so, unlike any Islamic country in the Middle East. Of course, nothing is completely free, no nation is without corruption. But really, there is no comparison between the United States and Israel and a country like Saudi Arabia or Egypt.
As somebody married to a Jew for 30 years who I have learnt so much from and who is in complete agreement with me, I find this reply of yours concerning Zionism extremely dismissive and offensive. Just as I find your dismissal of Max Blumenthal offensive. Why don't you just go ahead and include Sands, and Peled, and Mate and countless other Jews, academics, writers, historians, educators etc all of whose views on the nature of Zionism are similar? You will NOT get away with conflating all Judaism with this terrestrial materialist acquisitive racist brutal Zionism. And I have lived around Israelis for a long time - albeit not in Israel. I also say what I say through deep personal experience too.
I will not change my opinion just because of your doctrinaire and extremely distorted attack on Islam. Built on killing Jews, eh?
By 'imminent scholar' you probably mean eminent scholar. Any commentary or testament that Christopher Hitchens might have praised about Islam is not something to which I would even give the time of day. That creep sold his soul when he backed the Iraq war. He sold out to US militarism and rabid self-interest and narcissistic arrogance. Exactly what might have induced that shift in him we can only speculate about now......
You really think that it's only certain Islamic texts that can be found that talk about the slaughter of other faiths? Throughout their histories all three peoples of the Book have had 'teachers', leaders and 'commentators' preaching violence and bloodshed - mostly out of thirst for power and riches.
I don't care that you get frustrated by 'the whole narrative thing..' You peddle them just as much as anybody else. Don't fool yourself.
I did NOT equate defense of the Palestinian cause with awakening, I said for some it is a stage in an awakening process. Not for everybody. But actually it is, it has been for some..
There is a lot more manipulation of people going on the other side of this debate. A lot more. And a lot more lying. A lot more brutal racism and inhumanity. And a great deal more mindless rabid killing.
Inevitably in your shtick, Oct 7 crops up...how could it not? Well we know a lot more about that now, don't we?
Maybe that’s the most important sentence of all your critique - “I have lived around Israelis for a long time, albeit not in Israel.”
Plus I hear so many people comment on how their partner is Jewish and how that somehow elevates them into level of experts into anything, whilst living as a Jew in the Diaspora has been a profoundly different experience than actually living in Israel and the Middle East - with all that it entails. It is as such not quite as deep an experience as you make it out to be. It also a clean way to sanitize away any potential antisemitism accusations… (and I am not saying this is the problem with your critique, it’s a general observation). Equally it is astounding how dismissive people against those who have actually lived the experience of a life under total oppression in Gaza, Iran or elsewhere. Whilst I agree it cannot be used to sanitize Israel as the ‘the ultimate good guy’, you also cannot argue with these accounts by saying “oh but I have so many Arab friends here in NYC and it’s all totally different than what you say!”
You say “terrestrial materialist acquisitive racist brutal Zionism” - but the Chinese have been silently taking over Africa for years with its all its rich resources and their largest religious group are practicing Buddhists. Any words of wisdom on that?
Your sentence “terrestrial materialist acquisitive racist brutal …” - insert here Ottomans, insert here Arabs as colonizer, insert British Empire, insert Indonesia… .
THAT is part of Karen’s point - yours and others innate obsession of making “Zionists” the ultimate bad guys, hyperventilating at every turn and every corner, fueling the flames of Jew bashing for people to exorcise their own demons over the Jewish back by externalising rather than looking at their own individual and collective shadow. This isn’t about “awakening”, it’s shadow projection. But awakening is of course a much cleaner, nicer word and entails less (or no) internal work than shadow work. And the Jews have been the world’s favorite shadow projection field for millennia.
I have lived in the Middle East for several years and Karen’s statement resonates with me deeply - “I would live in Israel any time, but not again in a Muslim country.” This is because it’s impossible to live in a Muslim country as an unmarried woman. This is also why almost all of my Palestinian female friends have fled to the UAE or Dubai or the USA - because they wanted a half normal life as a non married Arab-Muslim, Arab-Christian woman. And I say that by knowing that Israel can be deeply racist, is deeply flawed, and people are extremely desensitized through years of warfare to the extreme. It’s not an easy country to live in.
But I also know the many beautiful souls there who have busted their ass to create different outcomes for everyone and who cherish life and freedom, who are way past living by the Old Testament accounts of Never-ending warfare to ‘preserve their faith and role of the chosen people’.
So when you talk about “Shtick of Oct 7”, are you referring to the lovely theories such as ‘Israel allowed it to happen’, ‘Israel knew…’, ‘Israel killed all of its own people’, and so on and so forth? Coz if that’s the case you have completely outed yourself in terms of having blinders on and going down the ‘Israel always lies’ route and that’s the equivalent of ‘all Jews lie everywhere all the time’… I know more than one case of a family who had family members kidnapped, killed by Hamas AND killed in “friendly” fire by the IDF in a botched rescue attempt out of a house. It is a matter of this AND that and not this OR that.
Victims can be perpetrators, perpetrators can be victims. Yes you could even argue that Hamas are victims - of their own religion and doctrines… that doesn’t make them less accountable. If does not make Israel less accountable either.
People make this about geopolitics. It isn’t. It’s about the cosmopolitical level having arrived full force in our planetary existence and how our ‘belief systems’, regardless what names they carry, are quite literally ‘coming to light’, and what can and what can’t be brought forward into the future. There cannot be freedom in human existence for as along as any culture anywhere holds on to beliefs that you must kill another because.. And this is why the Middle East conflict is not a territorial conflict, but a spiritual one. It always has been.
Your post makes all kinds of interpretations of my statements and claims of my meaning that are completely unfounded.
“I have lived around Israelis for a long time, albeit not in Israel.” No it isn't the most important statement I made at all, but it's the one you choose to highlight for the benefit of your argument.
'Plus I hear so many people comment on how their partner is Jewish and how that somehow elevates them into level of experts into anything,'
I do not call myself an expert on anything. I simply cite my experience - especially when told my argument is nothing but Jew-hatred masquerading as sociopolitical commentary. That IS offensive.
The Chinese taking over Africa? You're insane and stuffed full of Western propaganda.
My statement about Oct 7 does not make the preposterous claims you accuse me of - it merely points out the difference between the reality of what happened and the distortions and fear porn relentlessly promulgated by Israel to justify their disproportionate response.
Read my first post before leveling all this criticism at me. It's a tragedy for both sides. I make this very clear.
This ME conflict a spiritual conflict? Perhaps for one side - the other is entirely secular, masquerading as spiritual.. Is there a spiritual battle going on within Israelis ? Within some.. Yes.. I believe so.. But they have no voice... Within the rest there seems nothing other than mass psychosis. And that IS a tragedy.
Yes the Chinese have their fingers in many resource pies in Africa… though that’s a whole different story and the point I was making was re ‘materialistic’.
And no, I am not stuffed of Western propaganda, not after years of living in Africa and Middle East, but thanks so much for the insult by calling me “insane”. Guess you ran out of arguments here.
In case you didn’t notice I did not tell you YOUR argument is nothing but Jew-hatred masquerading as sociopolitical commentary. I said it was the case for some. Read again.
By the way the ‘disproportionate’ response was entirely predictable and you cannot argue that Hamas wouldn’t have known about it in advance…?:
No, you didn't accuse me of Jew-hatred.. But the author of this article did.
I do think to imagine that China is 'taking over Africa' borders on insanity. It's wild hyperbole if nothing else.. but many people actually believe it - even my friends and relatives born and bred in southern Africa...It's weird, to say the least to see and hear how gullible they are, how quick they are to parrot the stereotypes which are little more than projection by the usual suspects...
Yes, I accept your argument about Hamas' motives and predictions.. There are very troubling aspects to this.. But could anybody have clearly foreseen just how awful the response, just how complicit the Western leaders have been, just how keen to arm these atrocities? How impotent the international community?
Sorry but this whole obsession with "Zionism" is a way to justify hatred of Jews. It is an example of one of those words that I talk about in my essay here, that people now repeat over and over because they have been conditioned to do so. Regular Jews who are willing to submit to being eliminated are okay, Jews who dare to fight for their existence are Zionists. I am a Zionist. Yes, a Christian Zionist, if you will. Although I do not like labels, but I guess this is what I will now be labeled. You will be more polite than to say I support genocide, but calling someone a Christian Zionist is just a polite way of labeling them as monsters, in the same pot as Jewish Zionists. I stand by Israel's right to exist and to fight for its existence against enemies who want to eliminate every Jew.
This is not a "narrative", nor does it have anything to do with corrupt governments. That is another topic all together and one I have dealt with multiple times in other essays. All governments are corrupt, so this is a nonargument. If you want to make such an argument, then please start with the corruption of your own government before you move on to condemn other nations.
And no, this defense of Palestinian isn't an "awakening". It is just another tool used to manipulate people. That is why Hamas calls those who fall for it "useless idiots". I am not sure why people don't find that a problem and think maybe they should reevaluate their position. If anti-Israel protestors really care, truly care about Palestinians they will listen to the words of Hamza Howedy, who tells them that they are hurting Gazans and helping Hamas. But they aren't interested in the truth, as I write about here and in other essays. Nor are they really committed to any cause. It is just the next thing on the list because they have no deep convictions of their own and they are easily swayed by every new fad. It is no different from Black Lives Matter, it is the same MO. The only thing is that the hatred is escalating. And it is manifesting itself in hatred against Jews.
Everything is now reduced to a "narrative". This is very convenient because it means there is no truth, everyone has their own truth, built upon narratives and one truth is as good as another--except when it comes to Israel, then there is only the truth that Zionists are evil. Unlike any other nation in the world, Israel has no right to exist. Every wrong its government has ever committed is used to justify its destruction.
Interesting how no one answers my question of why they do not protest in their own country about stolen land, and the arrogant hypocrisy of judging another country that they have no ties to, nor any understanding of what it means to live there. It is a mystery why they don't protest much worse atrocities, such as what has happened and is still happening to the Kurds. Why this obsession with Israel.
As for the difference between Jews and Muslims or Christianity and Islam, it is not a narrative to say that Islam is built upon the notion of killing all Jews. It is not a narrative to say that the religion is so extreme that Muslims are killed if they dare to leave Islam. I heard this with my own ears from men in Luxor. It was not a big deal to them. It was an accepted fact. It is not a narrative when people are tortured and killed for being gay in Muslim countries. These are not "narratives" to the people who experience it. October 7th was not a narrative. No. But narratives are being created to justify what happened.
I really get frustrated by this whole narrative thing. I can tell you; it is not a narrative when I say as a woman, I would be very happy living in Israel (I visited friends there, both Arab and Jewish), but I would never live again in a Muslim country. I say this through personal experience.
We can make choices, and one choice can better than another. One choice can be for freedom and the other choice for slavery. One choice can be right, and the other choice can be wrong. Not a narrative. We can stand up for freedom in America, despite its corruption, because we still have the ability to do so, unlike any Islamic country in the Middle East. Of course, nothing is completely free, no nation is without corruption. But really, there is no comparison between the United States and Israel and a country like Saudi Arabia or Egypt.
Please watch this imminent scholar if you doubt me, who will tell you the truth. https://youtu.be/psHAiQyAeIw?si=l4ME9h5Rwt3eU2D7
You can watch this video of one of my dad's talks on Israel. As a Christian, this is Biblical. https://youtu.be/cNuEm_rO0aQ?si=VExXh6W3x2kY_lCN
As somebody married to a Jew for 30 years who I have learnt so much from and who is in complete agreement with me, I find this reply of yours concerning Zionism extremely dismissive and offensive. Just as I find your dismissal of Max Blumenthal offensive. Why don't you just go ahead and include Sands, and Peled, and Mate and countless other Jews, academics, writers, historians, educators etc all of whose views on the nature of Zionism are similar? You will NOT get away with conflating all Judaism with this terrestrial materialist acquisitive racist brutal Zionism. And I have lived around Israelis for a long time - albeit not in Israel. I also say what I say through deep personal experience too.
I will not change my opinion just because of your doctrinaire and extremely distorted attack on Islam. Built on killing Jews, eh?
By 'imminent scholar' you probably mean eminent scholar. Any commentary or testament that Christopher Hitchens might have praised about Islam is not something to which I would even give the time of day. That creep sold his soul when he backed the Iraq war. He sold out to US militarism and rabid self-interest and narcissistic arrogance. Exactly what might have induced that shift in him we can only speculate about now......
You really think that it's only certain Islamic texts that can be found that talk about the slaughter of other faiths? Throughout their histories all three peoples of the Book have had 'teachers', leaders and 'commentators' preaching violence and bloodshed - mostly out of thirst for power and riches.
I don't care that you get frustrated by 'the whole narrative thing..' You peddle them just as much as anybody else. Don't fool yourself.
I did NOT equate defense of the Palestinian cause with awakening, I said for some it is a stage in an awakening process. Not for everybody. But actually it is, it has been for some..
There is a lot more manipulation of people going on the other side of this debate. A lot more. And a lot more lying. A lot more brutal racism and inhumanity. And a great deal more mindless rabid killing.
Inevitably in your shtick, Oct 7 crops up...how could it not? Well we know a lot more about that now, don't we?
Maybe that’s the most important sentence of all your critique - “I have lived around Israelis for a long time, albeit not in Israel.”
Plus I hear so many people comment on how their partner is Jewish and how that somehow elevates them into level of experts into anything, whilst living as a Jew in the Diaspora has been a profoundly different experience than actually living in Israel and the Middle East - with all that it entails. It is as such not quite as deep an experience as you make it out to be. It also a clean way to sanitize away any potential antisemitism accusations… (and I am not saying this is the problem with your critique, it’s a general observation). Equally it is astounding how dismissive people against those who have actually lived the experience of a life under total oppression in Gaza, Iran or elsewhere. Whilst I agree it cannot be used to sanitize Israel as the ‘the ultimate good guy’, you also cannot argue with these accounts by saying “oh but I have so many Arab friends here in NYC and it’s all totally different than what you say!”
You say “terrestrial materialist acquisitive racist brutal Zionism” - but the Chinese have been silently taking over Africa for years with its all its rich resources and their largest religious group are practicing Buddhists. Any words of wisdom on that?
Your sentence “terrestrial materialist acquisitive racist brutal …” - insert here Ottomans, insert here Arabs as colonizer, insert British Empire, insert Indonesia… .
THAT is part of Karen’s point - yours and others innate obsession of making “Zionists” the ultimate bad guys, hyperventilating at every turn and every corner, fueling the flames of Jew bashing for people to exorcise their own demons over the Jewish back by externalising rather than looking at their own individual and collective shadow. This isn’t about “awakening”, it’s shadow projection. But awakening is of course a much cleaner, nicer word and entails less (or no) internal work than shadow work. And the Jews have been the world’s favorite shadow projection field for millennia.
I have lived in the Middle East for several years and Karen’s statement resonates with me deeply - “I would live in Israel any time, but not again in a Muslim country.” This is because it’s impossible to live in a Muslim country as an unmarried woman. This is also why almost all of my Palestinian female friends have fled to the UAE or Dubai or the USA - because they wanted a half normal life as a non married Arab-Muslim, Arab-Christian woman. And I say that by knowing that Israel can be deeply racist, is deeply flawed, and people are extremely desensitized through years of warfare to the extreme. It’s not an easy country to live in.
But I also know the many beautiful souls there who have busted their ass to create different outcomes for everyone and who cherish life and freedom, who are way past living by the Old Testament accounts of Never-ending warfare to ‘preserve their faith and role of the chosen people’.
So when you talk about “Shtick of Oct 7”, are you referring to the lovely theories such as ‘Israel allowed it to happen’, ‘Israel knew…’, ‘Israel killed all of its own people’, and so on and so forth? Coz if that’s the case you have completely outed yourself in terms of having blinders on and going down the ‘Israel always lies’ route and that’s the equivalent of ‘all Jews lie everywhere all the time’… I know more than one case of a family who had family members kidnapped, killed by Hamas AND killed in “friendly” fire by the IDF in a botched rescue attempt out of a house. It is a matter of this AND that and not this OR that.
Victims can be perpetrators, perpetrators can be victims. Yes you could even argue that Hamas are victims - of their own religion and doctrines… that doesn’t make them less accountable. If does not make Israel less accountable either.
People make this about geopolitics. It isn’t. It’s about the cosmopolitical level having arrived full force in our planetary existence and how our ‘belief systems’, regardless what names they carry, are quite literally ‘coming to light’, and what can and what can’t be brought forward into the future. There cannot be freedom in human existence for as along as any culture anywhere holds on to beliefs that you must kill another because.. And this is why the Middle East conflict is not a territorial conflict, but a spiritual one. It always has been.
Your post makes all kinds of interpretations of my statements and claims of my meaning that are completely unfounded.
“I have lived around Israelis for a long time, albeit not in Israel.” No it isn't the most important statement I made at all, but it's the one you choose to highlight for the benefit of your argument.
'Plus I hear so many people comment on how their partner is Jewish and how that somehow elevates them into level of experts into anything,'
I do not call myself an expert on anything. I simply cite my experience - especially when told my argument is nothing but Jew-hatred masquerading as sociopolitical commentary. That IS offensive.
The Chinese taking over Africa? You're insane and stuffed full of Western propaganda.
My statement about Oct 7 does not make the preposterous claims you accuse me of - it merely points out the difference between the reality of what happened and the distortions and fear porn relentlessly promulgated by Israel to justify their disproportionate response.
Read my first post before leveling all this criticism at me. It's a tragedy for both sides. I make this very clear.
This ME conflict a spiritual conflict? Perhaps for one side - the other is entirely secular, masquerading as spiritual.. Is there a spiritual battle going on within Israelis ? Within some.. Yes.. I believe so.. But they have no voice... Within the rest there seems nothing other than mass psychosis. And that IS a tragedy.
Yes the Chinese have their fingers in many resource pies in Africa… though that’s a whole different story and the point I was making was re ‘materialistic’.
And no, I am not stuffed of Western propaganda, not after years of living in Africa and Middle East, but thanks so much for the insult by calling me “insane”. Guess you ran out of arguments here.
In case you didn’t notice I did not tell you YOUR argument is nothing but Jew-hatred masquerading as sociopolitical commentary. I said it was the case for some. Read again.
By the way the ‘disproportionate’ response was entirely predictable and you cannot argue that Hamas wouldn’t have known about it in advance…?:
https://newrepublic.com/article/176512/palestinian-people-enraged-israel-hamas
No, you didn't accuse me of Jew-hatred.. But the author of this article did.
I do think to imagine that China is 'taking over Africa' borders on insanity. It's wild hyperbole if nothing else.. but many people actually believe it - even my friends and relatives born and bred in southern Africa...It's weird, to say the least to see and hear how gullible they are, how quick they are to parrot the stereotypes which are little more than projection by the usual suspects...
Yes, I accept your argument about Hamas' motives and predictions.. There are very troubling aspects to this.. But could anybody have clearly foreseen just how awful the response, just how complicit the Western leaders have been, just how keen to arm these atrocities? How impotent the international community?
There are very dark forces at play...