Joseph Darwish, why don’t I see Jews talk about other genocides, why must they always talk about theirs?

Hope you get what I just wrote, or else…

When I wrote this, I was replying to Joseph Darwish’s comment, basically I was telling him to stick to Ray’s article and not bring in some irrelevant stuff to it.

If someone is talking about Christians being abused by Israel, talking about Jews being abused by other Arab countries does not make a valid argument. If you do this in university, you will get a really big F on your papers. Use that logic here also, will alleviate a lot of problems.

That aside, I agree with a lot of what is being said, but guess what, all this talk, even though it is extremely important, will not bring peace. We have to find a way to move from the talking phase, to the doing phase.

It is natural to defend yourself, and to blame the other. It is unatural to blame yourself, even though as we all know, it is sometimes necessary. But it doesn’t feel right. It probably relates back to the days we lived out in the wild. We had no choice but to defend ourselves against the ravages of nature. And those ravages were made worse by the ravages we suffered at the hands of our fellow man. So the instinct to defend oneself, and one’s group, is probably hardwired into us genetically.

But we are approaching a time when it will not be enought just to be right. Even if you believe you’re right, and even if by all means of measure you are right, it is still not enough to be right. And in fact, if you keep on insisting that you are right, the natural course of events will still take you down. There are too many people out there who think they are right, and who are willing to take everyone else down with them just to make the point.

This is the time to try something else. This is the time, to get over ourselves and beyond our differences. This is the time to create realities on the ground which speak louder than words. This is the time, before time runs out, to dream the impossible and to make the impossible come true.

Am I a tree-hugging hippi? I don’t think so. I do love trees, but I’m too square to be a hippy. I was in college during the hippi days, and all I could do every weekend was go back home for a nice home-cooked meal, and a pleasant weekend with my parents. How boring is that? I can’t look at myself in the mirror.

I love the website because in certain ways it imitates the reality of the situation. We yell out at one another, bolstered by the moral outrage we feel. And sometimes we get carried away buoyed by a sense of rage. We go too far at times. We say more than we should. But at least it’s all out there in the open, and it’s still only about words, and not about blood on our hands. In a way, it’s a good model to emulate in the real world.

But sooner or later, God willing, we will find it within ourselves to do even more: to talk to one another with common sense and with a sense of personal dignity, to invest in one another with jobs that inspire hope and that protect the environment, to sell each other on a vision of hope-a vision of peace, prosperity, and freedom, to sustain the hope with public diplomacy, and to fight against extremism but within a vision of hope- to elevate the fight on the ground to a higher moral plain by giving the fight a moral clarity of purpose.

Let me ask you this, do you think our words here could take us to where we need to go?

As for Gila, I don’t know if as someone said she was injuredin a suicide blast … that is terrible and I am glad she is alive. But, she’s no different than the many Palestinians who have been involved in Israeli military strikes … regardless, the violence on both sides sucks …

But that’s the point missed here. It’s about PRINCIPLE. I don’t hear Gila criticizing Israeli policy. All I hear from her is her criticizing the Palestinians, and those defending her, criticizing the Palestinians. You are NOT A MODERATE and NOT SOMEONE WHO SUPPORTS PEACE if all you do is take ONE SIDE and apply principle to yourself but deny principle to the others. It’s just the facts of life. Gila should be distressed not about being the victim of a Palestinian suicide bombing but rather the violence on BOTH SIDES, Palestinian and Israeli — and please don’t give me that crap that the Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians is somehow not morally equivalent because they “don’t intentionally target civilians the way Hamas does.” Baloney.

When YOU KNOW there are civilians in a home, and you strike that home with a cluster bomb, a missile or a tank canon, you are INTENTIONALLY killing civilians.

As toJGina generalizing using the term “Jews” it’s a non-issue. They call their state a Jewish State. I don’t see any issues with her comments at all. Israelis generalize all the time. How else can we discusses Arab-Jewish relations if we don’t address Arab and Jewish issues. The issue is a distraction … move on

Peace means criticizing your own, not just the other.

But back to the topic: Christians are being persecuted … by Israel in and outside the occupied territories, and by Muslim extremists … to different degrees and on different issues and levels of live. The challenges the Christian Palestinians face is different with the Israelis and different with the Muslims. There are MANY Muslims who acknowledge these problems, but very few Israelis and Jews who acknowledge what Israeli policy is doing to the Christians as well as to the Muslims.

Ray Hanania
http://www.RadioChicagoland.com

I’ll just go back to something simple, like peacemaking.

I think it’s both incredibly naive and impossible to claim being a “peacekeeper” if certain issues are constantly ignored. I think this is what people really misunderstand about this website, we are not here to be hippies and not talk about anything controversial at all for fear of offending others. Dialogue is hard and people get offended, I think this is a necessary step that everyone must take for the sake of understanding. To jump from war to hippy tree-huggers is just impossible and even quite lame.

My first comments were in direct response to the post. Okay.

The next comment was in response to the whole “Holocaust” thread which started out as a comment from Jina:

Joseph Darwish, why don’t I see Jews talk about other genocides, why must they always talk about theirs?

(The irony here, of course, is that Joseph Darwish was not referring to the Holocaust but rather the matter of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who were expelled or otherwise forced to flee, often losing everything. In the eyes of many, this is a matter which would need to be addressed at the same time as any discussion of the Palestinian refugees—there were two groups of refugees created due to the creation of the State of Israel, and not one.)

Anyway, somehow, everything moved from the original point of the post to Darfur.

My comment here pointed out that not only are Israeli Jews trying to help the Darfurians, but many Sudanese are trying to make it here. Note that I did not say anything about anybody else; my intent was to respond to Jina’s assertion. Jina said that she does not see Jews talk about other genocides; I disagree with her, and I explained why.

My next comment—in response to Esra was very obnoxious and I apologize. My point, as I intended it, was that I believe that that the Arab leadership hijacks virtually every conference/ UN initiative/ etc and turns it into an Israel-bashing –Pro-Palestinian event…and this at the expense of those who really are experiencing genocide. However I did not think before I wrote and I let my initial flash of emotion do the writing, instead of stopping, thinking and writing intelligently. Again, my apologies.

Okay—and now onwards!

Next couple posts—Esra’a characterizes Jews as follows:

It makes me sick that no one can as much as criticize Israel without it falling under the banner of “anti-Semiticism,” and “oh they want to kill us all.”

I don’t see anyone else posting links to “Muslims caring about other genocides, and here’s proof.” It’s really quite silly that you are competing for “who cares more.”

How many African refugees have “disappeared” since Israel sent them back to Egypt which just shoots the incoming ones? According to my friend Ben from Jerusalem (read my latest post here) Israel has been doing some shooting of their own. And Ben is a Jew by the way, so don’t give me that “omg, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda!”

As for the first—a little experiment, using Esra’a's words from above: “It makes me sick that no one can as much as criticize Arab countries/the Palestinians without it falling under the banner of “rascist,” and “oh they want to kill us all.”

If the above is not offensive to you, then it is okay to use it as it was used, in reference to Jews. If it is offensive, however, I believe it would be proper to ask whether using it in reference to Jews is not also offensive.

As for the second comment, please see my quote from Jina’s original comment about Jews not caring about genocides. She asked a question “why don’t Jews care about other genocides?”. I answered it “we do, and here is an example and some evidence to back it up”.

And again as for the third—I read the article you posted. Olmert made a stupid comment (he does this frequently); but where does the article note that we shot someone? I scanned Haaretz (left-wing newspaper) and did not find anything. Please provide references.

My next comment—again, I wrote when angry (never good) and was wrong to have employed sarcasm. Parts I do stand by:

The pictures of Palestinians handing out candy to celebrate the murder of civilians here revolted pretty much everyone-left wing and right.

Israel is responsible for her actions, and the Egyptians are responsible for theirs.

The fact that information comes from a Jewish Israeli does not necessarily mean that the information is credible and non-biased. For example, I purposely do not read Arutz Sheva and other far-right news sources for this very reason—they are very biased, and therefore not credible. There are, of course, left wing news sources who are equally biased in the other direction, and equally not credible. I will be upfront—the general tone towards Israel expressed in the comments to this post, and the fact that this guy clearly passes muster with Esra’a is enough to make me take him with a grain of salt. His reporting may be 100% accurate…or not.

It is much easier to be open to seeing the good in the other side when you do not feel like you are under attack. If however, you are under attack (Jews are bad, Israel is bad etc)…you stand up in defense.

As for the various references to my blog, I am surprised you would take that view from a reading of my posts. I keep my posts and my blog politics-free and in fact enforce that restriction on commenters as well. I do this for a reason. Suicide bomb and terror attacks are happening everywhere. The news media covers the attack itself-the dramatic part. But it does not end once the reporters go home. I want readers to be able to read about suicide bombings and know what it does to people. At the same time, I do not want to give the reader the opportunity to put this into a political context. My goal is that a reader who reads my blog one day, and the next day reads about a bombing in Iraq or the Philippines or India or England will make that jump, and will understand the price of what happens. I want them to be outraged. I want them to start to believe and to say “There is never any reason for a suicide bombing. This is not a political act, it is a violent one. A crime. This is not okay. This is not justifiable”.

Of course, if you have not read my blog, it might be more appropriate for you not to comment on it….

Oh, and as for my political leanings—I do not believe I have mentioned them…. Nor am I going to. And no, you do not know what they are. Patriotic Israelis and proud Jews come in all political variations.

I will not respond further on this post (just in case anyone responds to this); I think it is best for me to state my position and step aside for now. Again, my apologies for where I was rude. It honestly was not my intent to come across as rascist or bigoted.

Jina: When you write that Jews are that or Jews or this, it comes across as deeply offensive to me.

Greg, I generalized Jews because Gila generalized another group and claimed Jews are somehow doing something better than the other group. So I replied toward Gila’s comment. Take what I wrote under that context and don’t call me bigot because of it.

How would you like it if I were to write something like “ha ha Arabs caring about innocent people being murdered in terrorist attacks”.

Actually, I will agree with this on some way, most Arabs to me don’t seem to not give a damn about innocent people being killed by terrorist attacks.

This website seems to be one of few who actually points the mistakes from all sides and not take sides. This is the only reason I read this website.

I see a very sad pattern on this website when Israel is put in a negative light. When someone talks not so nice things about Arabs, everyone adds to it and Israelis and Americans come here to pat the author on the back, but when crimes committed by Israel is the topic, Israelis and Israeli supporters come here and cry and call everyone anti-Semites because they don’t agree with the point of view of the article. Seen it happen in dozens of threads since I started to read this website. It doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

Also I hope you didn’t assume I am an Arab.