Friday, March 07, 2008

blood and circuses

Most of you have read by now, how an Israeli-Arab resident of East Jerusalem, murdered 8 young Jewish seminary students in cold blood. Apparently, the murderer worked formerly as a Yeshiva driver and his family has hung out the family flag for his nefarious act of barbarism.

I often hear/read excuses for Palestinian terrorism, wherein the official apologistas crowd reckless harp on the so-called demonization or de-humanization of the Palestinian people… but the cause of the so-called de-humanization process more often than naught - lies with their own realm of conduct. Case in point – this Toronto Star article:
In Lebanon, Hezbollah's Al-Manar satellite TV station said a previously unknown group called the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh and Gaza was responsible for the attack. The claim could not immediately be verified. Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah commander, was killed in a car bomb in Syria last month. Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the assassination.

Hamas stopped just short of claiming responsibility for the Jerusalem shootings. "We bless the operation. It will not be the last," Hamas said in a statement sent to reporters by text message. t mosques in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, many residents performed prayers of thanksgiving, only performed in cases of great victory to thank God.

About 7,000 Gazans marched in the streets of Jebaliya, firing in the air in celebration, and visited homes of those killed and wounded in the last Israeli incursion. In the southern town of Rafah, residents distributed sweets to moving cars, and militants fired mortars in celebration.

I could understand if the Palestinians were celebrating a day when statehood was finally proclaimed and actually meant something. I could understand a day of celebration if a Palestinian won a Nobel prize for science, economics or even literature or an Olympic medal. I could understand if a celebration was held because a peace accord was signed and a day of peace and security was rising in the eastern sky. I can understand all these things but what I cannot fathom is the sheer joy these people take in the slaughter of Jews civilians for the sake of spilling Jewish blood. And I just refuse to reduce my humanity to their level to do so.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your last paragraph borders on racism, or at least racial superiority.

The 'us' and 'them' nature of you entire blog borders on racial hatred.

K. Shoshana said...

You are utterly and succinctly correct; it is all about us and them. It is about those who consciously choose to side their humanity for good over those who expend their humanity by doing evil. Furthermore, I apologize to no man, woman or child for choosing to spend and extend my humanity on those humans who choose not to take part in national celebration which revolves around spilling the blood of others.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Yes, Kateland, unfortunately this is the way it goes with Hamas. Remember the 9/11 celebrations? No surprise, then...

Anonymous said...

"The 'us' and 'them' nature of you entire blog borders on racial hatred."

For simpletons like you, anon., every point of view you don't comprehend verges on "racial hatred". It's just easier to think that way than to actually think, isn't it?

Occam's Carbuncle

K. Shoshana said...

Normally, I would not respond until at least Sunday, but I was checking my email on another matter and I saw your response and did not want it to stand unanswered.

At my age, I find it a tad tiresome for the King David Hotel and the Irgun to be brought up - as in, like - to infinity and beyond. And it was not 100 but 91 people were killed. Stageleft, once again, you leave out the little details like the calls to the King David hotel, the Palestine Post and the French Consulate warning the British to evacuate the building, oh, and how can I forget the Arab kitchen workers who were told to flee and did so. The fact the British didn’t evacuate had more to do with their own low opinion of Jewish competence than anything else.

Then of course, there was the matter of the small bomb placed down the road to divert civilian traffic away from the King David hotel before the main bomb exploded…tell me does any of this strike you as even close to the scenario that occurred at Merkaz Harav Yeshiva? Bona fide military headquarters versus seminary of religious students.…uhmmmm….military men and diplomatic versus mostly teenage boys…I am just not feeling the moral equivalency here. But maybe Merkaz Harav Yeshiva is unfair, how about comparing the King David Hotel and say, the Ma’a lot attack or the Passover Massacre? I have to confess, it is still not working for me.

“I would suggest to you that what is also being celebrated is a blow stuck against an oppressor”,

You see, this is why you and I will never agree. You wrap up this conflict up in classic Marxist terms of a class conflict between oppressor and oppressed. While I perceive this conflict in terms of a religious struggle between conflicting and competing religious ideology - with a strong cultural bigotry mixed in for good measure.

In 1929, the Arabs of Hebron rioted and killed the religious Jews in Hebron, and the Arab rallying cry was “The Jews are our Dogs”. Surely, you understand the religious significance or lack of – of dogs within Islam. Jews were allowed a place in Arab society as long as they did not aspire to anything which would put them on an equal footing to a Muslim Arab.

In 1929, there was no state of Israel, there were no Jews in power but the idea that the Jews, the dogs of the Arab world, would have the chutzpah to dream or hold aspirations for statehood was simply beyond the pale of the wider Arab Muslim community. Palestinians are despised throughout the Arab world for one reason, and only one reason, because they were the ones who were ultimately defeated by Jewish Dogs or as they say in 2008 - Zionist Dogs.

” and that reducing it to the level of pure hate is unproductive.”

No, what is not productive is for you and others like you, to continue to deny, ignore or trivialize the root of religious hatred which lies at the heart of this conflict. If this conflict was merely about establishing a separate autonomous state for Palestinian Arabs; the Palestinians would annually be celebrating their independence for generations now. This conflict is about establishing the Palestinian state on the ashes of the Jewish state.

This conflict has never been about the establishment of Palestinian statehood per say as much as it has been about destroying the aspirations of the Jewish people.

And until you and others like you, start to acknowledge those facts, we are no where even close to a solution let alone a successful resolution.

Anonymous said...

There are many and varied justifications for the bombing of the King David Hotel, but I note that you decided not to address the second part of what I asked regarding it?

My intent was not to dredge up old history but to note current events surrounding it. That was in fact the part of the comment relevant to your post.

You comments about this being a religious conflict are noted, they are useful tools, and I agree that there is such an element at work on both sides but it remains a matter of opinion whether or not the celebrations surrounding this attack, or those surrounding the commemoration of the King David Hotel bombing, are based wholly in religious hate, or as a result of a blow struck.

(As an aside, I checked the numbers of dead in the King David Hotel bombing, you are right, 91 people were killed, and 45 were injured in the attack.)

K. Shoshana said...

I didn’t address it, as I do my best to ignore any discussion of Bibi “wye, wye, wye’ Netanyahu.

Why Bibi attends or does not any attend any function is really beyond my powers to discern; although, attending a privately sponsored function to commemorate the King David Hotel bombing sixty years past really fails to meet the ‘bona fides’ needed to be classified as a celebration of another’s death. Every year in Israel, there is Holocaust Memorial day, and a far greater number of people attend those commemoration services - held all over the country, but can it be considered a celebration? I think not. Personally, I would have gone if I had been in the country - and not to celebrate anyone’s death but to hear first hand the accounts by the players in their own words.

The Irgun carried out the bombing with a military objective in mind against a legitimate political/military target, and furthermore, the operation was designed to limit civilian casualties. And if Sir John Shaw could have brought himself ‘to take orders from Jews’ and given the order to evacuated the building - there would have been a better than average chance of no causalities. The Yeshiva Massacre was a civilian target without any military tactical or strategic value and was distinctly designed to be carried out to inflict maximize civilian causalities. So yes, there are innate differences between freedom fighters and terrorists.

And in July 2006, most Israelis had greater things on their minds - like staying alive or fighting in a war against Hezbollah than to take the time to commemorate, for good or ill, the King David Hotel bombing. Furthermore, the commemoration was not about the celebrating the actual death of 91 people. Quite frankly, the whole commemoration was not without controversy even within in Israel and on the other hand, the reaction by the Palestinians to the murder of yeshiva students without any military objective appears to have been celebrated by an incredibly large diverse group of Palestinians and with the blessing of 99% of the political leadership and with the full approval of religious authorities within the Gaza Strip. That just didn’t happen with the July 2006 event in Israel.

Okay, at least you concede there is an element of religious overtones to this conflict. I will take this as only the merest glimmer of progress.