The definition of joy, Palestinian-style
It’s hard to comment adequately on a tale that resembles something from the Onion.
This story says a great deal, however, about how the thirst for destruction that’s become commonplace in Palestinian society has joined the homicidal and suicidal impulses so closely that the two have become almost as one.
And, in line with that fact, I want to call your attention to an extraordinary article by Richard Landes.
Landes begins with an exploration of the cult of death in Arab Moslem society, ties it into the current war in Lebanon and in particular Qana, and describes the role the unwitting Western press plays in promoting that cult.
His essay is so rich with thought that, once again, I suggest you read the whole thing.
One particularly striking example he gives of the press’s ineptitude (or malevolence–take your pick) is the following truncated quote by journalist William Orme of the New York Times.
Israelis cite as one egregious example [of Arab hated of Jews] a televised sermon that defended the killing of the two soldiers. “Whether Likud or Labor, Jews are Jews,” proclaimed Sheik Ahmad Abu Halabaya in a live broadcast from a Gaza City mosque the day after the killings.
It sounds fairly innocuous: “Jews are Jews.” Who could object to that? What’s all the fuss about?
Here are the Sheik’s actual words–and those that followed them–in his televised “sermon” (and it ain’t no Sermon on the Mount, let me tell you):
The Jews are the Jews. Whether Labor or Likud the Jews are Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They must be butchered and must be killed”¦ The Jews are like a spring as long as you step on it with your foot it doesn’t move. But if you lift your foot from the spring, it hurts you and punishes you”¦ It is forbidden to have mercy in your hearts for the Jews in any place and in any land. Make war on them any place that you find yourself. Any place that you meet them, kill them.
This utterly egregious example of misuse of the truncated quote can’t possibly be the result of ignorance or incompetence. So what is it? Stupidity or malevolence? Take your pick.
both
I use sticky paper to catch mice around my home because I don’t want to hurt them — actually I’m the kind of person that will catch a fly and let it loose outside rather than kill it. For the Islamofascist I think you almost need to shrink back, squeeze your eyes, and fire bomb the whole kit & caboodle and start over … I mean you really need to go in with a flamethrower … man we have a long bloody fight ahead of us. I don’t wish it [to be true] – are their any alternatives? Yes there are – remember the Japanese? They spun their act around on a dime, and were possibly even more culturally and religious fanatic and fierce — and what was a murdering, rapist, genocidal regime developed into one for the greatest democracies in the world. Ignore the Left, stay the course, human beings yearn for freedom, flame-throw the Mullahs that preach hatred and their filthy baby-killing henchmen.
Rather than draw from the rabid writings of a man with an obvious axe to grind – whether political or personal bigotry is hard to determine – I offer you these…
The first is the Prime Minister of Lebanon
The second is somewhat more radical
I will guarantee –
1. That any “ceasefire arrangements” will make no distinction between Lebanon and Hezbollah.
2. That by the time the ceasefire is agreed to by Israel, with the tacit support of the US, “defensive measures” in South Lebanon will be well in place. Those measures will include extensive mine fields, and well defined “no-go” areas for both Lebanese and international forces.
Irrespective of any other measure taken by Israel, the US, Iran, or any of the other puppeteers Muslim Lebanon and Palestine have once again been given their reason for solidarity in the face of a common enemy.
The hopelessness in that last sentence of the Dar Al-Hayat editorial speaks volumes.
Sit in the dust and cry, Lebanon. You are worthless.
If we are worthless, then it it is a profit to take my life and that of one enemy at the same time.
Prob, you really must abstain from spirits before you comment. Even at the best of times you are only marginally coherent and this one only shows that you can use HTML tags while blitzed out of your mind. It is virtually content free.
not exactly content free. it just ignores the problems of a lebanon incapable of preventing so malevolent a movement as hizbullah and a nation as fascist as syria taking over significant portions of its sovreignty. prob’s problem is that he (or she) has bought into the honor-shame solidarity of muslim/arab culture, which has to side with hizbullah against israel since it’s “my side right or wrong” (in this case wrong).
as for neo’s question — stupidity or malevolence — i’d love to hear what Orme has to say about his work. broadly my sense is that the media believe that the public is not capable of hearing the bad news without going right wing, so better keep it from them to maintain a liberal public. at its most fundamental level, this is a) a reasonable fear, b) profoundly undemocratic — it’s for the public, not the media to decide what to do, and c) ultimately self-destructive — you make these things worse thru denial, and how do you eventually tell them what’s happening?
fortunately we have the blogosphere.
When I read the title, I thought it was going to be about the palis celebrating the hezzie rocket that hit Jenin. They were happy because the rocket was intended for the you-know-who people despite falling on them. I marvel, I truly marvel at the restraints that prevent total genocide of the palis and hezzies, I really do.
I’d say it’s you who are stupid, Neo, if you think that the whole article changes the jist of what was said.
It’s the same thing with more brutal rhetoric.
I understand the need for angry, bitter people to have the enemy look as evil as possible – but it doesn’t the point at all.
This is intelligent?
By the way – it’s not like you can’t find scores of examples of racist, murderous comments and diatribes among Jewish extremists either.
Or even from Israeli elites…
Oh the musings of the truly indoctrinated. I feel sorry for your children, I really do….
“This story says a great deal, however, about how the thirst for destruction that’s become commonplace in Palestinian society has joined the homicidal and suicidal impulses so closely that the two have become almost as one.”
Yep. Thats what 50 years of living under a brutal, extremist occupation will do to you.
Try it some time….
Maybe to help with the empathy bit, just think Neo of how upset and brutal you became after 9/11 – and you don’t even live in New York.
In fact most of the families of those who died in New York are against the Neo-facist agenda. Go figure.
But not Neo – 9/11 affected her more deeply than those who had family and friends who died – and ever since(lol)she’s become a bloodthirsty, monolithic savage.
Just like those Palestinians!
Go figure…
Yhamir, why do you continue to come here and read what you so stongly detest? It doesn’t make sense and you certainly are not persuading many to your side and views….I can’t help but wonder if you aren’t biting yourself or maybe cutting your arm with a razor blade?
Yhamir is far from persuasive. I’ve read persuasive arguments that, for instance, Lebanon can’t be blamed for allowing Hezbolla to exist. Persuasive arguments involve the communication of new information and accepting that those you are attempting to persuade are holding rational opinions.
Yhamir’s persuasion is pretty close to what “Mel Gibson” wrote:
“I really hope Israel loses- they started this war by being jews”
Yhamir, the oppressed have a choice: They can either become the same character as the “brutal occupier”, or they can transcend them. The Palestinians are not choosing to transcend them. That is their own choice, and blaming the Israelis for making that choice is reducing the Palestinians to mere marionettes, incapable of doing anything other than respond to Israel. They are better than that; they just need to find leadership worthy of their potential.
Plus, assuming that calls for vigilance and necessary action are hardly the same as being “bloodthirsty”. Bloodthirsty is seen in the rhetoric from Nasrallah, Ahmadinejad, al Sadr… thinking that Neo comes close to that level of bile is, to be blunt, fantasy. You cannot have actually read her posts if you believe that of her.
“Long live Death!” was the war cry of Franco’s Fascists. Their spirit has clearly arisen again in a different guise. The typical American academic, and especially the typical American journalist, is so incapable of abstract thought that he is unable to recognize the similarities becaue certain details are different.
Regarding the “stupidity or malevolence?” question: I think journalists of the NYT persuasion are deeply afraid of the American people, and carefully edit anything they fear might unleash the monsters that they believe we are.
If Neo wants bloodthirsty, she can just post my views and rhetoric.