Israel's Right To Exist

[woodsmoke]

I agree. But what can we do about it now?

 

I say we just pull out. End all ties, funding, and involvement with the entire Middle East, focus on our own country and on improving our own defenses, our economy, and anything else we need to, and make sure everyone in the Mideast understands that if anyone should not leave us alone and attack us, we'll attack back - and indeed spare no one in doing so.

 

There's no easy way out, so we can only do what's best for ourselves right now. And also learn a lesson about not getting involved with other nations' affairs in the future.

 

Agreed. 100% agreed.

 

Scrap this Project for a New American Century bullshit along with all other foreign "policy" and adopt a new one of national self-interest. Make our only major dealings with other nations legitimate trade and focus all our efforts and resources on recreating the U.S. to live up to the image it's given in all those sappy patriotic songs. Tap into that "rugged individualism" we're supposed to be so full of and fueled by and tell the rest of the world "get along or don't, we're not going to bother with you anymore."

 

Yeah, it's cold, calculating and just this side of isolationism, but it can't possibly be worse than our current state of disaster. Switzerland and most of Scandinavia, some of the most advanced and wealthiest nations on Earth, have been doing it for years.

 

The world doesn't need a savior. Even if it did, it's a fucking thankless job which we're not suited for anyway.

[Shawn]

This post is crying out to get down to brass tacks. I can't help but want to ask, what is the "right to exist?" What I mean to say is, if Isreal can exist then it does exist, right? Or is that too close to "might makes right"?

 

Might *always* makes right. If Germany had won WW II we'd be reading about how the evil zionists and their pawn allies (USA/Britian/USSR) were thrown down and crushed. We'd had never heard about the extermination camps either.

 

If Israel can hold it, then I guess it's right. As long as the USA doesn't keep bleeding for them and throwing billions into their coffers every year.

 

"Zeig Heil!" Opps! I mean, "Spread Democracy!"

[Warrior_of_god]

If Israel can hold it, then I guess it's right.

Yes but they got the land through terrorism of British troops and now someone wants to get the land through terrorism of the Israeli's. Is there not a right way and a wrong way to try and accomplish this?

[Shawn]

If Israel can hold it, then I guess it's right.

Yes but they got the land through terrorism of British troops and now someone wants to get the land through terrorism of the Israeli's. Is there not a right way and a wrong way to try and accomplish this?

 

Some may not enjoy this, but yes...

 

WAR.

 

The only way to solve the whole thing. Police actions and minor skirmishes accomplish zero for anyone. And seeking international approval is pointless, through the UN or anyone else. The UN only exists to keep current borders and a semi-standard of order. The USA tells Israel to hold, as the US has it's own interests in doing so. If you go back into the history of how Germany was created from the smaller states, it was by warfare and intrigue by Otto Von Bismark, who totally fooled the French into a war. Israel is seeking to do something similar, to take what it sees as it's rightful land and consolidate it. But it's hard to do when the world has it's magnifying glass on you and your enemy is allowed to exist.

 

I'm not for either side really, but Israel is the only one who has enough force to get what it wants and end this. This will go on forever as long as a Palestinian state exists. And Israel has enough excuse for a full war, they have taken enough flak without being able to retaliate as they should. There are those who say "Well, the Palestinians have the right to be there". Well, the Israelites trashed them thousands of years ago and held the whole place totally without dispute until Rome destroyed them in 70 AD for rebelling against them. King Saul, King David, King Solomon, ect...historically speaking, Israel has more rights to the whole place. People don't seem to know the Jews used to have a small empire, just like the Assyrians, Babylonians, ect...

 

Kind of like in 10 years when the USA is filled with angry Muslims and they decide to start a civil war (count on it). So should we allow a Muslim state in the US then, maybe after a 'cease-fire' and an agreement? Why not just give 3/4 of the USA back to the Native American Indians. I'd be cool with that, alot less BS.

 

That's my nickel.

 

 

State of Palestine: This is why they keep fighting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine

[pitchu]

Islamic Apostates' Tales

By Andrew G. Bostom

FrontPageMagazine.com | July 21, 2003

 

A review of "Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out," edited by Ibn Warraq.

 

Shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini issued his infamous "fatwa" (decree) sentencing Salman Rushdie to death for the novel The Satanic Verses, in March 1989, London's Observer newspaper published a letter from a Pakistani Muslim. The writer, who remained anonymous, stated, "Salman Rushdie speaks for me," and continued by explaining:

 

"(M)ine is a voice that has not yet found expression in newspaper columns. It is the voice of those who are born Muslims but wish to recant in adulthood, yet are not permitted to on pain of death. Someone who does not live in an Islamic society cannot imagine the sanctions, both self-imposed and external, that militate against expressing religious disbelief. ‘I don't believe in God’ is an impossible public utterance even among family and friends...So we hold our tongues, those of us who doubt."

 

<snip>

"All the testimonies here are witnesses to the authors' courage, for a free discussion of Islam remains rare and dangerous, certainly in the Islamic world and even in our politically correct times in the West. A surprising number of the apostates decided to write under their real names, a triumphant gesture of defiance and freedom. Many, on the other hand have chosen to write pseudonymously, and since this is a fact that seems to irritate many in the secular West, I shall briefly indicate the reasons why. Apostasy is still punishable by long prison sentences and even death in many Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Iran, and as many of our authors have relatives in those countries, whom they regularly visit, it is common sense and simple prudence not to use their real names. "

 

<snip>

And it is the searing testimonies themselves that grip the reader. Apostate Muhammad bin Abdullah’s eloquent, wrenching reflections on the genocidal massacres committed in Bangladesh in 1971 capture the sentiments expressed by many of the contributors:

 

“I saw a well-equipped invading army indiscriminately killing millions of civilians and raping 200,000 women. Eight million uprooted people walked barefoot to take refuge in a neighboring country. The institution of Islamic leadership supported the invading army actively, in capturing and killing freedom fighters and non-Muslims, and raping women on a massive scale. Each of 4,000 mosques became the ideological powerhouses of the mass killers and mass rapists, and these killers and rapists – these Islamists – were the same people of the same land as the freedom fighters and raped women. That was the civilians of Bangladesh and the killer army of Pakistan in 1971. All the Muslim countries and communities of the world either stood idle, or actively sided with the killers and rapists in the name of Islam…The message was clear: something was very wrong – either with all the Islamic leaders, or with Islam itself (emphasis in original).

 

 

”Again and again, Islam was mortgaged in the hands of killer leadership, while the rest of the Muslim world only said “this is not real Islam…All those sweet peace talks of Islam relate to the time and place of weak Islam in early years. But whenever and wherever Muslims were and are strong, they have another set of cruel laws and conduct. Tell me why the national flags of many Muslim countries have swords on them – a sword is not for shaving beards, it’s only for killing….”

 

 

Two especially courageous and articulate female apostates, who chose not to write under pseudonyms - the Iranian Azam Kamguian, and the Tunisian Samia Labidi - focus their testimonies on the blatant abuse of women’s rights in Islamic societies, abetted, Kamguian suggests, by confused (or disingenuous) Western “cultural relativists.” Both women also argue vociferously for complete removal of Islam from the governmental/political domain.

 

 

Azam Kamguian notes that the Koran (in section IV.34) encourages husbands to admonish their wives, then leave them, and finally to physically beat them. She further describes the brutal “sexual apartheid” Iranian women suffer under when subjected to Shari’a law:

 

· - Women are stoned to death for engaging in voluntary sexual relations

 

· - Women do not have the right to choose their clothing; hijab is mandatory

 

· - Women are segregated from men in every aspect of public life. The penalty for breaking the rules of segregation and hijab is insult, cash fines, expulsion, deprivation of education, unwanted marriage, arrest, imprisonment, beating, and flogging. I call this sexual apartheid

 

· - Women are barred from taking employment in a large number of occupations simply because these jobs would compromise their chastity. A married woman can be employed only if she has the consent of her husband. The main duty of women is considered to be taking care of home and children and serving their husbands.

 

· - Woman are not free to choose their own academic or vocational fields of study

 

· - The legal age of marriage for girls is nine years. Women have no right to choose a husband without consent of their father, or in the absence of their father, the paternal grandfather

 

· - Women do not have equal rights to divorce. Only under extreme conditions such as insanity of their spouse can they file for divorce. In the event of divorce, the father has legal custody of boys after the age of two, and girls after the age of seven. The mother loses this minimal right as soon as she remarries

 

· - Women do not have the right to acquire passports and travel without the written permission of their husbands/fathers

 

· - Women have no rights to the common property of the family

 

· - Women are officially declared temperamental. Their decisions are considered to be based not on reason but on sentiments. They are, on these grounds, barred from the profession of law, and deprived of the opportunity to become judges

 

· - In the courts of law the testimony of two women counts as that of one man, and the testimony of any number of women is invalidated in the absence of a minimum of one male

 

She also points out the role of left-wing multiculturalists in enabling this anti-woman agenda, which subjected many (including the author herself) to imprisonment and torture:

 

“When I came to the West in the early 1990s, I was faced with the fact that the majority of intellectuals, mainstream media, academics, and feminists, in the name of respecting ‘other cultures,’ were trying to justify Islam by dividing it into fundamentalist and moderate, progressive and reactionary, Medina’s and Mecca’s, Muhammad’s and Kholafa’s, folksy and nonfolksy. For people like me, the victims of Islam in power, it was suffocating to listen to and to have to refute endless tales to justify the terror and bloodshed committed by Islamic movements and Islamic governments in Iran and in the region.

 

“…particularly after the Iranian experience, the 1979 revolution, I believe that the demand for secularism must be comprehensive and maximalist.”

 

The “apostate” Samia Labidi reiterates her view:

 

“Ultimately the solution lies in separating religion from politics, particularly in that part of the globe that is still suffering from this amalgam between the temporal power and the spiritual power. I know that our task smacks of the impossible since in Arabo-Muslim countries the word ‘secularism’ is hardly pronounced.”

 

<snip>

 

Warraq speaks for truly courageous Muslim intellectuals who support profound reforms of Islamic institutions. These individuals openly acknowledge the ugly living historical legacy of jihad and its corollary institution, dhimmitude, as well as the incompatibility of Islamic Shari’a law with the principles of Western democracy. Sadly, the voices of sincere men and women like Ibn Warraq, who at great personal risk are promoting meaningful reform of Islamic societies, are being ignored in favor of those of disingenuous, politically correct Islamic "revisionists." This is a dangerous phenomenon, which will indefinitely retard any genuine reform of Islamic societies, with potentially catastrophic consequences for tens of millions of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

 

*****************************

 

A societal structure like this must be challenged, not indulged by questioning whether its democratic neighbor nation is at fault in causing problems by merely existing. The problems of Israel and the occupied territories have nothing to do with the eternal and continuing planetary hegemony of Jihad, Shari'a law, jhimmitude.

 

Israel can be confronted about its bad policies and actions, as can, and should be, any nation. But Islam must be more than confronted -- it must be stopped.

 

Peace can best be promoted by encouraging and supporting all apostates of Islam and refusing to give succor or credibility to the untenable horrors of this religion/social/state system.

 

 

The complete review can be found here:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=9000

[Legion]

Thank you for this Pitchu.

 

Israel can be confronted about its bad policies and actions, as can, and should be, any nation. But Islam must be more than confronted -- it must be stopped.

I agree.

 

Peace can best be promoted by encouraging and supporting all apostates of Islam and refusing to give succor or credibility to the untenable horrors of this religion/social/state system.

I agree with this too. I think that ex-Christians and ex-Muslims would make natural allies. I hope that in time we may become ever more familar with one another.

[pitchu]

I think that ex-Christians and ex-Muslims would make natural allies. I hope that in time we may become ever more familar with one another.

Absolutely. There are lots of sites where that can begin. An impressive one is:

 

http://www.apostatesofislam.com

 

If you click on "Meet the Apostates" you'll find some powerful and passionate voices of those who now identify as atheists, agnostics, humanists, and members of other religions -- even Judaism.

 

Don't mean to derail this thread, but I think we're still on topic, if only because you can bet that if Israel were born in the middle of a coupla dozen Buddhist nations the Middle East would be one big yawn.

[Shawn]

Islamic Apostates' Tales

By Andrew G. Bostom

FrontPageMagazine.com | July 21, 2003

 

A review of "Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out," edited by Ibn Warraq.

 

 

Israel can be confronted about its bad policies and actions, as can, and should be, any nation. But Islam must be more than confronted -- it must be stopped.

 

Peace can best be promoted by encouraging and supporting all apostates of Islam and refusing to give succor or credibility to the untenable horrors of this religion/social/state system.

 

 

The complete review can be found here:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=9000

Pitchu, good read! :-)

 

 

Shawn