tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34135100.post3413929109280496477..comments2024-01-21T02:42:13.447-05:00Comments on Middle East Reality: Conspiracies somehow involving Israel or Jewish peopleArnold Evanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11445744338502151561noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34135100.post-48951297912844451302009-12-25T22:24:14.104-05:002009-12-25T22:24:14.104-05:00Well put Lidia!Well put Lidia!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34135100.post-67290620274032213142009-12-25T02:47:06.053-05:002009-12-25T02:47:06.053-05:00Arnold, to be called A-S by a Zionist means one is...Arnold, to be called A-S by a Zionist means one is in a good company (as a matter of fact it usually means you are right).<br /><br />Now, I cannot got the badge of honour, being only "self-hating Jew" :)<br /><br />Now, NF could shop for more suitable grounds for his Zionist prop - for ex, Christian Zionists - they ARE anti-Semits, but they are Zionistslidianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34135100.post-50284811510332281432009-12-25T00:51:40.304-05:002009-12-25T00:51:40.304-05:00Oh, and by the way, I never said that people in th...Oh, and by the way, I never said that people in the Middle East are going to accept Israel. That may or may not ever occur. <br /><br />My comment is that Middle East countries do not matter all that much because the whole of the Middle East, apart from Israel contributes very little and what is contributed is found in the ground. When that substance in the ground runs out, unless the Arabs grow up and learn to live in the world as it is, which includes Israel, they will fall even further behind than at present.<br /><br />In any event, the future belongs to those with intellectual assets. The Arabs might consider how foolish they are to hold a grudge against people who are advanced in that regard.N. Friedmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34135100.post-67620125075103547352009-12-25T00:48:56.922-05:002009-12-25T00:48:56.922-05:00You think I'm simplistic, ahistoric and the ot...You think I'm simplistic, ahistoric and the other things. That's fine. When you accuse me of believing in conspiracies, the accusation of anti-Semitism has to be put onto the table. If once it's on the table, you deny that you ever were insinuating that, I accept that. I'm fine as long as we have an open statement of whether or not you're calling me anti-Semitic.<br /><br />I don't think my previous post was nonsense, or that you showed it to be nonsense, or that you showed much about it at all. Anyone interested can see for themselves. But as long as you're not calling me anti-Semitic, we can agree to disagree.Arnold Evanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11445744338502151561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34135100.post-83061525760058629052009-12-25T00:37:36.263-05:002009-12-25T00:37:36.263-05:00Arnold,
I did not accuse you of being an Antisemi...Arnold,<br /><br />I did not accuse you of being an Antisemite. Had I wanted to do that, I would have said so. <br /><br />To read your comment, however, I frankly think you have no idea what Antisemitism is about. It is not a simple hatred. It has rather often been a movement among intellectuals who deny a personal animus against Jews. Note the cry, some of my best friends are Jews. Bernard-Henri Lévy mimics the Antisemite in his recent book, <i>Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism</i>: "We have nothing against the Jews, nothing at all; except this terrible crime they have committed, this bad deed, this nasty habit, etc." That, in fact, is pretty much the accusation made by many on the far Left against Zionism, namely, that Israel committed some horrible crime in its birth and efforts to maintain itself while denying any hatred of Jews. <br /><br />So, let's not mince words. Had I wanted to accuse you of Antisemitism, I would have. But, I had something different in mind when I wrote what I wrote.<br /><br />What I said is that you believed in the conspiracy that things in the Middle East revolve about Israel - or, to be simpler, you hold an Israeli-centric view of the Arab regions. That view only appeals to people who believe in conspiracies because there is no substance to it. <br /><br />That I showed your comment to be nonsense is, perhaps, why you manipulated my comment to be one about Antisemitism, which was not what I was thinking and certainly not what I wrote.<br /><br /><br />For the record, I think your ideas are simplistic, ahistoric, ill-considered and naive but that does not make them Antisemitic. Antisemite is a comment I would reserve only to extreme cases of bigotry. You, by contrast, seem obsessed by anti-colonialism, which to me is a theory which adds something but not as much as you think to understanding the Arab regions. Unfortunately, people like you have jumped to shortcuts, seeing Israel as an example of colonialism when, in fact, Jews manipulated the colonialists to permit migration and then expelled the colonialists - the opposite of what real colonialists would do.<br /><br />And, by the way, my comment on the other post responded rather precisely to what you wrote in that article. Read what I wrote again.N. Friedmannoreply@blogger.com