Settlements: The Myth of Natural Growth PLUS Video Showing Palestinians Are Lost Tribe Of Israel
Moshe Yaroni is doing the best writing I've seen lately on President Obama's call for a settlement freeze.
In this piece in Jewcy, Dr. Yaroni debunks the whole natural increase myth (the argument that a settlement freeze will prevent settler families from having kids) and explains why a freeze is worth the political capital it will cost Obama to achieve it.
It is worth a read. Obama is under pressure from the Likudniks in Israel and the neocons here. Here are the facts.
And here is an amazing video from Israel that shows that Palestinians are Jews who stayed put when the other Jews went into diaspora. It is definitely worth watching especially for those who might doubt how utterly absurd the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Note: the film can easily be used by those who argue that all of Israel-Palestine should be one state. But whose?)
Analysis my Tuchus.
June 24, 2009 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you like to sit on your tuchus in California and spout off on thing. Easy to advocate stuff from a distance, isn't it? Never put your own sorry arse on the line, though, do you?
And never a reasonable question, never a thoughtful comment, never anything that could be characterized as a clear, intelligent thought. Just bile. Just nonsense. Just bitter, foul-tempered crap.
And you have the colossal nerve to disparage any other posters or commenters here? What do you add? What do you bring to the table?
Nothing. Nothing at all. You bring nothing, save your own massive, delusional pile of blather.
June 24, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ordinary - Is there anything specific that you disagree with in the article? Do you disagree that a significant percentage of the population growth in the settlements is from Israel proper and Aliyah? I can testify from my own aliyah encounter the tremendous pressure and incentives to move to the West Bank. If you disagree, what is your basis?
Do you disagree that there are plenty of empty apartments in the settlements? If it were untrue, why all the big enticing real estate ads in the Hebrew press? Do you believe that settlement Jews have a G-d-given right to housing in the town of their choice when life circumstances change? Do Jews in Israel have the same right?
Rather than exchanging pithy comments with mythbuster why not expound with some analysis?
June 24, 2009 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you follow the link to Yaroni's piece you'll find a critic who's answered all your questions. He's titled his criticism "Analysis my Tuchus".
Without a great deal of research I'm not in a position to say who's right...but I've found that if Alfred E. endorses something it's certainly wrong.
June 24, 2009 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
1)Who is 'Alfred E?'
2) The writer of analysis my tucchus, makes a series of seemingly factual statements. The underlying assumption seems antinomian: if it's 'good' for the settlers, or they like it, it's good.
June 24, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know whether the factual statements actually are so...but the writer is obviously intimately familiar with the situation. Might even be a settler, himself.
Why is "if it's 'good' for the settlers, or they like it, it's good." antinomian? It seems to be the writer's point of view, and he supported it with whatever arguments he thought proper.
June 24, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Alfred E. is short for Alfred E. Newman, my - rather complimentary - characterization of M. J. Rosenberg.
June 24, 2009 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, stop with the ad hominem on MJ. If you disagree, say why. No need to so randomly attack MJ.
June 25, 2009 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I'm with Golis. Your attacks get old fast and are not useful. Please stop.
June 25, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you agree with this commenter?
I'll just address (c), which is based on racist assumptions about "Israeli Arabs." As Adalah well documents, the Government of Israel has not only "asked" such of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel, but has a long history of demanding that they move from their homes and farms, "for security reasons." It also has refused them building permits not only to erect new buildings on property they own but also to accomodate natural growth within their families by adding rooms onto existing structures. The homes and villages in which their families have lived for generations (and Palestinian Christians have long claimed that some of their ancestors were among the first Jews who were Jesus' followers) are not "settlements."
June 26, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
jdledell: I always love the decency of your posts. Imagine a solution that involves a mutual recognition of Palestinian and Israeli humanity.
June 25, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ, write about Israeli policies that encourage people moving to the Territories, pls.
June 25, 2009 2:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
One state, but whose? Why, whoever wins the election, that's who. That's why they call it democracy.
June 25, 2009 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
The relationships between the Abrahamic religions, the two later forms being responses to the scandal of Judaism ("If we're God's chosen people, how come we're always getting the sh*t kicked out of us?"), are ever intriguing.
Pauline Christianity solves the problem by becoming gnostic and otherworldly. Islam solves the problem by taking over the world.
Note: Islam began in Palestine in the 7th century among resident Monophysite Arabs and Jews who were living in an unstable power vacuum resulting from the preceding Byzantine-Persian wars which had left each empire too weak to assert control over the peoples of the Levant.
June 25, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I maybe missing the point here? Or it might help to expand your point?
Is the point: "Islam solves the problem by taking over the world." Period.
So, are you trying to say the sole aim of the Palestinians is to take over the world, even Israel, because they practice Islam? If so, I think you're giving them too much credit -- I think all they're concerned about is having the chance to exist on this planet.
Also, isn't the extreme faction of Christianity trying to do the same thing -- noting devout Jew Sen. Lieberman is teaming up with this guys?
Annoying as it is when those evangelicals turn up at our doors to try and convert us, and try and elect politicians that want to change the Constitution to say that we should be under Gods Law -- I think it's far more worrying when these guys are being recruited into our armed forces to hand out christian bibles in the Middle East and whose ultimate aim is to convert Jews, blow up Israel so that Jesus will take over the world?
June 25, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Evangelicals and Protestants, in general, are a return to the earlier Jewish explanation ("God loves us but is punishing us for our sins").
See, Luther on Suleiman the Magnificent as God's scourge.
June 25, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
In case anybody is interested, this website appears to be written by "Ordinary." I base this on the use of tuchus as analytical term and if true, explains quite a lot.
http://www.myrightword.blogspot.com/
June 25, 2009 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Yisrael Medad peddles the eternal, unchanging Arab stereotype. It's much easier than dealing with them as real human beings.
June 25, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
"And here is an amazing video from Israel that shows that Palestinians are Jews who stayed put when the other Jews went into diaspora."
In the final scene of Holy Wars, as Arafat is about to destroy Darth Vader Sharon, Darth removes his mask, looks into Arafat's eyes, breathes heavily, and says 'shhhhhhhhh I'm your brother'
June 25, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the link to the video, MJ. Another bit of evidence, for those who still need it, of the futility of this conflict.
I recall the heady days post-Oslo, when the Palestinians took to calling Israelis "the cousins." Tsvi's mission -- to convince both sides that even that was an understatement -- cannot help but open minds and soften hearts.
June 25, 2009 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink