Good Gaza!

[Lightning Rod]

Good Gaza!
for release 01-04-09
Dallas, Texas
by Lightning Rod

Israel and I were born in the same year. It was the same year that Mahatma Gandhi died, 1948.

When I was a young history student it used to amaze me how a war could go on for 30 years or a hundred years. It was beyond my imagination that a conflict could go on that long. Yet in my lifetime I have seen a conflict continue for sixty years. I'm talking about the Palestine/Israel conflict.

I stayed up last night watching the bombs burst over Gaza. This has been going on for my entire life.

I love the idea of Israel. I've read all of Leon Uris' books. I appreciate the fact that the Jews have been persecuted historically and the idea of the 'promised land' is quaint and heartwarming. But it's also a pain in the ass.

America can't get too self-righteous about this subject. After all, when we established our democracy here in the land of the free, we first had to subjugate and ghettoize the indigenous population. We still have Indian reservations. This is the same thing that Israel has done to the Palestinians, subjugated and ghettoized them.

It reminds me of the theory of child abuse, the one that says that if a person has been abused, then he will in turn be an abuser. Israel has been treating the people of Palestine in much the same way as the Nazis treated the Jews or that we Americans treated the Indians.

The Poet's Eye has observed in the past that a simpler solution to the Israel/Palestine problem would be to give Wyoming to the Israelis and transport them all there in a modern airborne Exodus. They would have mobetta land and we would lose a headache.

"The seacoast shall be pastures,
With shelters for shepherds and folds for flocks.
The coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah;
They (the remnant of the house of Judah) shall feed there flocks there (coastlands of Gaza);
In the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down at evening.
The the Lord their God will intervene for them,
And return their captives."
(Zephaniah 2:1-7)

[one of those jerks]

<center>

War makes good TV. Almost better than watching football.


I would have to say that this is one of the dumbest* columns you have ever written. But you have not written many dumb columns. I give you that. Not as many as I have by a far lot. In fact I can only think of one maybe two other columns that I disagreed with more. But you know I am one of those jerks.

I will have to google dumb*, see if that is a poor word choice. Ignorant of the facts, specious argument, or misinformed. Perhaps sophistry would have been a better word choice.

On the same subject kind of:
Did you watch the final episode of Boston Legal? Interesting bit at the end, a conversation between a Catholic Priest and a Rabbi about Israel.


</center>

[roxybeast]

Wyoming? Are you kidding? .... Better plan would be to give them Alaska. Alaska is actually closer to God. Besides, if we give them Alaska, they'll inherit Sarah Palin ... & maybe they'd convert her to Judaism! Oy vay.

[Nazz]

However... Wyoming is not the Promised Land.

Where's your sense of apocalyptic blood sport? Let's fight it out. Let's just fight it out, see where it goes. It's all in the Bible you know.

And your abuse comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany...
hmm, not really seeing that one. Well ok sometimes when Israel decides to retaliate massively. It is wrong, and I call the bastards on it. But what Nazi Germany did to the Jewish people.. orders of magnitude worse. We still can't figure it.

[mtmynd]

nazz : "Where's your sense of apocalyptic blood sport?"

those last 3 words paint quite a picture. First a book, then a screenplay and then -
<center>the movie

~ APOCALYPTIC BLOOD SPORT ~
* * * * * * *
Let's fight it out.
Let's just fight it out,
see where it goes.

YES!

It's all in the Bible you know...

Don't miss the Premier Opening
in the most sacred
HOLY LAND
At War
NOW!!!</center>

[Lightning Rod]

The obvious argument against the Wyoming idea is the same argument that the Palestinians have against the Israelis. If we moved the 5 million or so Israelis to Wyoming, would the displaced citizens of Cheyenne form a political party like Hamas and strafe the usurpers?

[Nazz]

Yes, Cecil. Hollywood will be all over it. Then again, Hollywood has kinda done the "apocalypse thing" to death by now. Seems to "put asses in the seats" though, as Singlemalt used to say.

Yeah, the frustration of all of us watching the cliff-bound train with no brakes that is the interminable Arab-Israeli conflict and its repercussions for instability radiating outward, lends itself to sarcasm, or even just plain poorly-delivered dark satire at times, doesn't it? It's all in the Bible.

Of course political scholars know better. They know that militarized conflicts really boil down to such mundane things as economics and resources, with noble rhetoric and "God" conjured by the interests involved to "justify" them. And indeed in Gaza one can point to specific resource-related things (beyond Hamas' chronic intransigence) that helped fuel the latest round of war-- eg Israel's blockade, etc.

But the Israeli-Arab impasse at times seems more of an actual religious conflict than most others. In making a new homeland after WW2, why did it have to be Palestine? Prophetic reprisal of the books of Exodus and Joshua perhaps? And what part does U.S. military might play? What part does U.S. Christian evangelical "Zionism" and End Times doctrinal belief play in terms of that unwavering (and often uncritical) military support?

I mean, in Sunday school I was taught that whole bit about Israel's return to Palestine as fulfilling O.T. prophecy and setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to the great tribulation and Christ's return, etc. etc. Yeah, my loving church elders were big on all that End Times stuff. God bless America! Oh, and Islam has its own End Times stuff too! Lovely. Just lovely.

Admittedly, my 1930's-40s Holy Land history needs bolstering if I'm going to participate in too many more of these discussions, but from what little I recall reading, Israel's land and statehood was at least in part forcibly seized, primarily in 1947-48, and Jewish terror groups (or freedom fighters, if you prefer) were involved. There had already been a slow, scattered Jewish migration (mostly peaceful) back into Palestine for quite awhile before 1947-48, but the abomination of the holocaust infused new urgency. It's a rather grim stretch of history to even begin to ponder.

Too many injustices and questions. Too few answers. Or from a religious slant, perhaps too many answers. Well, that's enough for now.

[one of those jerks]

Admittedly, my 1930's-40s Holy Land history needs bolstering if I'm going to participate in too many more of these discussions,

No please don't bolster your history. It is much more fun to bullshit your way through it.

[Nazz]

Yes it is.

I can see you're a fan of that too! Seems like you're all fired up to go to war.

[one of those jerks]

Perhaps I should have used an emoticon.
We have had this discussion many times
You go back to the 1930's and 1940's
I try to see it in context
Okay forget about 1917 and the Balfour proclamation.

Btw Clay the original choice was Uganda as homeland for the Jews.

Ok mnaz forget about anything that happened before 1940.

The bombing you referred to was the King David Hotel.
They say that human behavior is over determined there were probably other reasons for the attack on that hotel where the British military was headquartered. But one of the reasons at least was that Britain was restricting the immigration of holocaust survivors. The boats were being sent back to Europe.

I am sure you believe that the holocaust ended with the fall of Germany. Right?

news of a massacre of 40 Jews in a pogrom in Poland reminded the Jews of Palestine how Britain's restrictive immigration policy had condemned thousands to death.

Irgun leader Menachem Begin stressed his desire to avoid civilian casualties and said three telephone calls were placed, one to the hotel, another to the French Consulate, and a third to the Palestine Post, warning that explosives in the King David Hotel would soon be detonated.

On July 22, 1946, the calls were made. The call into the hotel was apparently received and ignored. Begin quotes one British official who supposedly refused to evacuate the building, saying: "We don't take orders from the Jews."1 As a result, when the bombs exploded, the casualty toll was high: a total of 91 killed and 45 injured. Among the casualties were 15 Jews. Few people in the hotel proper were injured by the blast.2

[Nazz]

Yes, forgot about Balfour and British restrictions, important factors that I left out in my "synopsis". And I never said the holocaust ended with Germany's fall. Post-WW2 Europe was almost as horrific as during the war. You've got more of the particulars and I need to tread lightly here. Yes, the more serious Zionist movement was a longer process than I suggested above, and I didn't know about Uganda as a proposed homeland, but is my larger picture take on it all completely off-base? Well, I hope not. In regard to asking questions about how US military support and evangelical Zionism fits into the picture, I don't think I'm off base. That seems awfully relevant to the ongoing conflict.

[Lightning Rod]

Just as an historical observer, I can't tell one whit of difference between the Irgun and the Haganah and Hamas and Hezbolla and Fatah and the IRA or al Qa'ida. They are all extreme resistance/nationalistic organizations. Oh yeah, throw in the Minutemen.

[one of those jerks]

That I am a dinner jacket guy from Iran has one good point at least. This is a European problem. That is all I got to say. I am too dumb to understand, I have no idea what needs to be done. I guess basically somebody in Europe needs to give a shit.

I don't think the USA can play the honest broker anymore.
I spent hundred of hours on this even before the present bloodshed. THe worst part is trying to figure out where I am getting my information from. What is the agenda of the website, whose side are they on.


Realy this all goes back to world war one
these are still the after shocks
world war two was really just World War one continued.

More people killed in the war in the congo last week. Nobody gives that any ink.

I suppose it is not good television. They need better production values.

[one of those jerks]

I am obsessed with it Clay
I am first generation born in america
of refugees from the pogroms in Russia and Poland
I am a real live nephew of my uncle Phil from Kracow.

I don't know anything either.

I would make that clear.

Israel is just a foreign country, but I wish it well. I may have family there. One of those relatives we have not heard from in sixty three years may still be there. maybe they made it there. But seems like they would have wrote.

I don't know why I should believe the Israeli government anymore than my own government any other government for that matter

Oh lordy
the bloody holy land
you would think they could drill for blood there
so much spilled on the desert sand
probably soaked down into an underground resevoir.



It is all Holy land to me.
Bexar county texas is holy land


Minutemen they were freedom fighters sure
But I wish they had lost
I think we would have been better off as Canadians.

[Nazz]

Btw, I admit that I'm not the biggest fan of studying a lot of history, and yes, it's a weakness of mine, or maybe it's "just how I am" about things. Likely both. Seems my outlook is mostly focused on trying to deal with the now, to understand some of the larger forces at work therein. But of course you can't completely ignore temporal and cultural context of "now events" either-- one needs some understanding of past events and attitudes that influence current ones.

I could do better in that sense, I suppose. But in general (not thinking of anything or anyone in particular) even those who speak history fluently seem to have either revised it a bit more to their liking and/or will repeat its mistakes in some form at some point anyway. So it is at all times to be taken with "a grain of salt". (Where did that expression come from?)