Saturday, August 05, 2006

Anti-Zionist or Anti-Semite

I don't think I've ever seen this argument boiled down to its fundamentals as well as this. It's truly a fine piece of writing. Once you've finished it, go on to the comments where the Blade in question attempts a response. Instapunk's retort to that is equally well written, if a bit more vicious (not complaining, just pointing it out).
I'd honestly like to see someone else attempt a reasoned response to the questions posed. Like so much of the "loyal opposition" these days, everyone who's against, whatever, Israeli occupation of x (where X can be the West Bank, southern Lebanon, or any square meter of ground in the Middle East), America in Iraq (or America, period, full stop), President ChimpyMcBusHitler, etc., a long litany of perceived mistakes & grievances rolls off the tongue. No solutions beyond present themselves. Unless you take the "run away, hide your head in the sand, give them what they want and they'll go away" approach as a solution.
So, let's review what must be answered:

First, I believe they should recognize that more than other idealists, they have an obligation to describe how, other than via Israel, the Jews might be protected from the multiple cultures and peoples who wish to exterminate them.

Now, personally, I think Instapunk may be on to something here when he suggested that we give them Alsace-Lorraine. Why stop there? Why don't we eliminate two avians with a single UN resolution... Give them France. All of it. Now there's a Jewish homeland and, instead of recalcitrant, whiny, petulant, ungrateful, weak sisters opposing good at every turn, we'd have a second powerful ally in Europe.
...is it somehow possible that a stone-age people in the Americas had more civilization in their wheel-less world than the ne'er-do-wells of one of the world's most prevalent cultures?...
You see, part of the special responsibility of anti-zionists is also to describe the definition of justice that makes it acceptable for a supposedly advanced, civilized, and estimable people to abandon all pretense of ordinary human morality and adopt instead the pursuit of genocidal vengeance so rabidly that it warps even the parent-child relationship into a breeding program for mass-murdering martyrs. How can this phenomenon be excused in any system of morality? And why is it always wrong for the descendants of an historical fait accompli to defend themselves from the terroristic assaults of the descendants of the long-dead dispossessed?

I can try to answer the second question for those to whom it's been presented. Because they don't believe in the simple act of self defense. Or at least they labor under that delusion. These are after all the "I feel your pain" group.
Why, in particular, do anti-capitalists of the Third World and the post-Marxist left make this one spectacular exception to their contempt of the concept of property?

Oooh, good luck on that one guys.
I am looking forward to real answers to these questions. I am not however holding my breath or going on a hunger strike until the answers get here.

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