Tag Archives: Israel

Some lessons learned from the 20th Century

Posted on June 25, 2014 by | 3 comments

Hi readers.  If we didn’t learn anything from the 20th Century, it wasn’t from lack of opportunities. 

For instance, 

  1. we should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances, or trading partnerships with Japan.  We tried all three and each one ended a step closer to our economic destruction.  The US prospered until it became involved with Japan.
  2. We should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances or trading agreements with anyone on the Korean peninsula.  The US prospered until it became involved with people living on the Korean peninsula.
  3. We should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances or trading agreements with anyone in the Middle East.  Too confusing.  The US prospered until it got involved with people living in the Middle East.
  4. The US needs to prohibit more things and criminalize more things.  Many currently wealthy families, such as the Kennedys, arrived at wealth and power through the manufacture, transport and sale of prohibited substances.   Prohibiting things is win/win for the worthy who have the courage to break the laws, take the risks, and do a little discrete killing when needed.  The US prospers when the people who matter profit.  Prohibiting things raises profits similarly to the way wars raise profits for people who matter.
  5. Finally, we need to recognize once and for all we’re God’s Chosen People.  I wrote about this almost a year ago, but little has changed since then.  Why the Jews used to be God’s Chosen People but aren’t any more.  The time has definitely come to assume the crown, take responsibility for the burden we bear, and invade Mexico.

Remember where you heard it first.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2014, America

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Funny thing about genocide

Posted on June 19, 2014 by | 6 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

I watched Hotel Rwanda and a couple of other Netflix Rwanda movies lately and it got me trying to do some heavy thinking about genocide.  I did a websearch on 20th Century genocides, and while there’s a middling sufficient list, a lot happened that were just too small to mention because they were overshadowed by the bigger ones.  Kurds, for example.  And Ebo tribesmen.    Various Amazonian tribes.  Et al.

Here’s one list I found, and I’m using it because it provides the overall picture without getting too lengthy.

The term ‘Genocide’ was coined by Polish writer and attorney, Raphael Lemkin, in 1941 by combining the Greek word ‘genos’ (race) with the Latin word ‘cide’ (killing). Genocide as defined by the United Nations in 1948 means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, including: (a) killing members of the group (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Recent to Past Occurrences

Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1992-1995 – 200,000 Deaths
Rwanda: 1994 – 800,000 Deaths
Pol Pot in Cambodia: 1975-1979 – 2,000,000 Deaths
Nazi Holocaust: 1938-1945 – 6,000,000 Deaths
Rape of Nanking: 1937-1938 – 300,000 Deaths
Stalin’s Forced Famine: 1932-1933 – 7,000,000 Deaths
Armenians in Turkey: 1915-1918 – 1,500,000 Deaths

Sooooo.  You might be wondering by now what’s funny about genocide.  Well, first off, funny might be a poor choice of words.  Strange would be better, if the phenomenon were strange, but it isn’t.  In fact it’s almost as un-strange as war.  Happens so damned frequently it doesn’t even qualify as an anomaly.

A lot of chest-pounding and hand wringing by the outside world tends to happen when genocides occur, a lot of after-the-fact guilt by peoples who didn’t do anything to interfere with it when they could have.  Nations sitting by, fully capable of stopping it, and deliberately not doing so.

You’ve got to admit there’s something funny about that.

Question:  Who didn’t do anything to stop that Turkish killing, for instance, of Armenians? 

Answer:  Everyone on the planet.

Question:  Who didn’t raise a lot of dickens about Stalin’s famine?

Answer:  Surviving Armenians and everyone else.

Question:  Who didn’t do anything about the Rape of Nanking?

Answer:  Well, lessee.  There’s the Armenians, the Russians, and everyone else.

Question:  Who didn’t do anything about Hitler’s holocaust [accepting the fact all the disclaimers about not knowing are unadulterated BS]? 

Answer:   Well, there’s the Armenians, the Russians, the Chinese, and everyone else.

Now it becomes peculiar.  Or more peculiar.  Inscrutable. 

Question:   Who didn’t do anything about Cambodia?

Answer: Well, there’s those Armenians, the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis and worldwide Jewish communities.  And everyone else.  Same as before but now with a Jewish component.

 Question:   Who didn’t do anything to stop the genocides and atrocities in Rwanda?

Answer:   You guessed it.  The French supplied them with weaponry so’s they wouldn’t have to use machetes, but otherwise it was the usual suspects.  The Armenians, the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis and the international Jewish community, the Cambodians, and, of course, everyone else.

 So we’re left with only one conclusion:  human beings, despite all their sweetness and light protests, are only mildly opposed to genocide unless it’s happening to some group they, personally belong to.  And frequently they’re wildly enthusiastic about it when it happens to someone they see as an enemy of their group.

Not all that different from war, and one hell of a lot more efficient.

Something worth thinking about when you begin hearing the next genocide’s gearing up.  Listen to what the Armenians, the Russians, the Cambodians, the Jews and Israelis, and the Rwandans are saying.  And watch what they do to intervene.

Old Jules

Afterthought:  There’s a bit of indignation these days about ‘Holocaust Deniers’.  People who say they believe Hitler didn’t kill as many Jews, Gypsies and whatnot, as other people calculate he did.  But nobody much denies what happened in Rwanda, Cambodia, all over the place.  Maybe because nobody much feels guilty about it. 

There was a serial killer named Henry Lucas housed in the Williamson County Jail in Georgetown, TX, when I worked in the building next door.  I used to see them taking him out looking for buried bodies, or returning.  Henry had a partner named Otis Toole, who was in prison in Florida.  The authorities arranged for a reunion between them so’s they could remind one another where they left bodies, who they’d killed and forgotten to mention.

I watched a Williamson County Sheriff’s Department video of when Otis and Henry met in Florida.  Henry had murdered Otis’ sister, or Otis had murdered Henry’s.  The one who did it said tearfully to the other, “I’m so sorry about your sister.”

“It’s okay, Henry [or Otis].  Her time had just come.”

Seems to me Henry Lucas and Otis Toole captured something qualifying as a deeper human character truth in that exchange.  J

6 Comments

Posted in 2014

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Israeli standup comedian in the United Nations

Posted on October 2, 2013 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  I had to throw this in because it’s so outer space.

Hotshot Israeli talking to the United Nations had them all gasping with laughter yesterday when he, with a perfectly straight face, told them all they couldn’t trust Iran.

How the hell do they come up with this stuff?

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues

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Old Sol: “Quit trying to play God!” – “Move Israel to Puerto Rico”

Posted on August 24, 2013 by | 3 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

This pre-dawn Old Sol laid it on fairly thickly.

Old Sol:  With this procedure I’ll be going through I need some quiet time.  I don’t need any unexpected emotional upheavals nor any drama to add to the stress.  I’m depending on my Chosen People to keep things settled down.  You don’t have anything in the works to rattle things do you?

Me:  I don’t think so.  The Japanese seem to have the Pacific Ocean fairly well taken care of so you won’t have to concern yourself with it much longer.  I suppose Israel might nuke someone and get itself wiped off the map, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise.  They’ve been working on that fifty years.

Old Sol:  I swear!  Things were calm in the Middle East for almost a thousand years.  Then you people and the British had to play God.  Moved those people back there and I haven’t heard about anything but trouble there for half a century.

Me:  Just trying to do what was right.

Old Sol:  What was right?  If I wanted those people living there making trouble I’d never have allowed the Romans to run them off.  If you wanted to give them a homeland why there, where they were sure to make trouble?  Why not Puerto Rico?  You OWNED that.  Water on all sides.  Nobody to piss off except the people already there.

Me:  They didn’t want Puerto Rico.  They thought you wanted them where they used to be.

Old Sol:  Why would they think that?  I haven’t even hinted they’re Chosen People since a long time before the Romans ran them out.  If they want to be Chosen People they need to be in the US or a US territory.  Give them Puerto Rico.  They’ll be part of the Chosen People again.  Part of the United States.  And the only borders they can violate will be salt water.  End of problem.

Me:  But what about the Puerto Ricans?  They think they already own the place.

Old Sol:  Send them to Texas.  Put them to work in all those new oil fields I just gave you.  No trouble.  Those Zionists will have a homeland and get to be part of the Chosen People again, and the Puerto Ricans will have jobs.  Besides, I always intended Texas to be mostly for Mexicans.  Puerto Ricans are mostly Mexicans.

Me:  I’ll pass this on, but nobody’s going to like it.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Astronomy, Current Issues, History

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Israel and Ireland Boundaries – A cause for Non-Zionist Confusion

Posted on August 20, 2013 by | 4 comments

Reference the preceding post:  I was probably negligent by not pointing out part of the reason for sustained peace in Ireland is the respect for established borders.  Borders between Ireland and Northern Ireland haven’t changed significantly since they were agreed to by both sides.  No understanding would be gained by posting a map of Ireland.

Israel is a comparatively young, new nation.  Zionists evidently tend to harken back to Biblical times when they consider boundaries.  They probably don’t understand that the older, more mature nations take borders seriously.

And the borders of Israel haven’t changed since 1966.  The Palestinians own East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  Syria owns the Golan Heights.  However, 300,000 Israeli settlers occupy the West Bank.  200,000 Israeli setters live in East jerusalem. 

map israel UN partition 1947

On the other hand, here’s a map of Israel when it was established by the UN in 1947, and recognized by the US in 1948.

map israel pre 1967 borders

Here’s a more detailed map of the pre-1967 borders of Israel with later claims by Israel shown in red.

Here’s Israel and the occupied areas today.

Map israel and occupied territories

 In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza.  But it maintains a strong security force in both places.

Every country probably wishes more land was contained within its borders.  However, most modern countries recognize if they attempt to occupy territories belonging to other countries they’ll draw criticism from some quarters.  Often the people living in the areas being occupied.

Israel could make a far stronger case for being a peace-loving country, a more believable case in the eyes on non-Zionists, by withdrawing to areas the world recognizes are contained within its established borders.

Otherwise it will forever having to fall back on the argument that everyone just hates Jews is the only reason for all the problems with neighbors.    An outward sign of a desire for peace sometime during the past 50 years might have gone a long way toward achieving it.

Some strategy along the lines Ireland’s used, maybe.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, Communication, Government, History, Human Behavior, Politics

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The Irish and the Jews – Ireland and Israel

Posted on August 20, 2013 by | 11 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

I was trying for the past few days to think of a modern ethnic analogy to Jews, searching my mind for something to compare Israel to in modern and less-modern times.

Finally it dawned on me.  The Irish and the Jews have a surprising similarity in history.  Pre-diaspora Jews revolted, revolted, revolted against the Roman Empire occupation.  And for 500 years the Irish revolted, revolted, revolted against the British depredations of Ireland.

Both groups have profound ethnic identification, geographic identification with ‘homeland’, and conspicuous religious doctrinal loyalty.  Both groups have been reduced by starvation, by ethnic bigotry from ruling governments, by slaughter.  Both have been endlessly persecuted by those with the power to persecute them.

For 500 years the British did everything a civilized power could do to empty Ireland of Irish and for 2000 years the European states and Russia did everything they could do to rid themselves of Jews.

All that ended with the Irish independence resulting from the last revolt in 1922, and the creation of the State of Israel following WWII.

During the decades following independence Ireland flourished for the first time in its history.  Became, over the decades, the seventh most developed country in the world and among the wealthiest in GDP.  Probably the most peace-loving country in the modern world in the 5/6th of the island where British no longer rule.

Israel flourished, too, though it couldn’t be accused of being peace-loving.  Almost every moment of Israeli history includes brink-of-war scenarios.  The early 20th Century British clich’e, “The Irish brought most of their troubles on themselves,” found its way into Israeli explanations of their difficulties with their own Irish/British analogy.

In view of the similarities that contrast between warlike and peace-loving is surprising.  Rhymes more with relations in Northern Ireland and with the British.  Religious partisans might suggest it’s the difference between the Old Jehovah and the New Jehovah.  But history argues otherwise. 

Seems a lot more likely that, while Ireland is strictly neutral, Northern Ireland is still aligned with the British and by extension, the US.  So is Israel.  And while Ireland is finally completely free of British oppression, Northern Ireland isn’t, and by contrast adopted something akin to Zionism in an attempt to rid itself of Britain and the British.

Terrorism, intimidation and threats.  All the usual suspects from the bad old days.  Jews and Irish.  Israel and Northern Ireland. 

Something to ponder.

Old Jules

11 Comments

Posted in 1940's, 2013, Education, Government, History, Human Behavior, Military

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Bigotry, counter-bigotry, and civility

Posted on July 21, 2013 by | 31 comments

Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I stirred up a nest of hornets with the last two posts, the first being an attempt at unbiased observations concerning everything I’ve understood through observation during my lifetime, as well as extensive reading on Jewish, Christian, western civilization, Moslem, and ancient history.  The post wasn’t intended as an attack against the state of Israel, an indictment of Jews, anything of the sort.  Even in the re-reading of it I can find nothing to support such a claim.

Nevertheless, wossname, leanpower,  a man with strong Israeli ties who, himself, is in the business of designing, manufacturing and selling war weaponry, accused me of something considerably stronger than simple anti-Semitism.  I responded in anger, and for that I apologize.   That second post.

The issue of whether or not I’m an anti-Semite is of no importance.  The larger question of whether the viewpoints I expressed in the first post are an indictment of anti-Semitism against the holder of those views, however, is indeed an important question in the modern world.  Though not to me, personally.  I have no investment in modern Israel and my views are of zero importance to anyone.

But I’d offer the suggestion that the responses to what was said in the first post contained evidence that, if I don’t fully understand the issues [and provided my views are the result of a lack of information, as opposed to being a result of a bias against Jews in general] I’m in good company among a lot of other people within the US and elsewhere.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that only a tiny piece of the western world has ever read Biblical texts, know nothing of the times surrounding the Jewish Revolt, know nothing of the times preceding WWII when the discussions began concerning a Jewish state in the Middle East.  Know nothing about the floods of Jews fleeing Germany and its neighbors during the 1930s into Spain, Portugal, the Middle East, anywhere willing to accept them.  Know nothing of the starving hoards of Jews begging all the great powers to give them refuge, and the trickle of acceptance.

The miniscule dribble of acceptance by the powers for thousands of Jews without homes, many without money, food and clothing, asking for help.  And a response amounting to refusal by default.

Seems to me the post-war context for the formation of the Israeli state is trapped within that pre-war reality, and the post-war general recognition of what had come to pass in Germany, Poland and other Axis-occupied areas  for those who didn’t flee.

Given the ignorance and horror of all that within the general non-Jewish population, the acute awareness, on-the-other-hand, by Jews, it’s not difficult to understand why discussion of the issues become heated.  If modern Israel and its behavior as a nation weren’t so crucially involved in US foreign policy, the entire matter would be better left alone.  Better left to be settled by Israel and the surrounding countries.

From my perspective, that is not the case today.  Even with the care I take to isolate myself from world news I frequently see Israel threatening to bomb, say, Iran.  Bomb it whether the US approves, or disapproves.  Which would almost certainly expand to US involvement, and quite possibly a lot of other countries.

Which is to say, evidently modern Israel is willing without the consent of the US to lead the US by the nose into conflicts the US mightn’t find to be within its own best interests.  Or to allow Israel to be destroyed without the support of the US, which Israel is acutely aware won’t happen.

In that context is it acceptable for a US citizen to have viewpoints differing from those manifested in the behavior of the modern Israeli state?  Is it possible to examine and criticize, even wrongly, the policies of Israel if that examination leads to a conclusion that Israel has other alternatives than constant war?

Is it possible to examine and express these views, even if the views are developed partly out of ignorance, without being a Jew hater?  An anti-Semite?  A follower of the beliefs of the ELDERS OF ZION lunatics?

What I believe is of no consequence to anyone.  Israel and Washington DC don’t call me for advice on these matters.  So the post, whatever I might have said in it, was of zero value except to arouse an Israeli militarist to play the race card to stifle any expression of perspectives other than the Israeli one.

I withdraw from the whole affair.

Old Jules

31 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Government, History, Human Behavior, Politics

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ELDERS OF ZION MY ASS!

Posted on July 20, 2013 by | 15 comments

Re: Leanpowers’s comment on my last post:

Modern Israel is a deliberately secular nation.  What is wrong with modern Israel is what is wrong with modern humanity.  It has nothing to do with Jews, nothing to do with Judaism.

Anyone who honestly examines modern Israel and its policies and conduct during the past 65 years, however, will find himself guilt-tripped  by coveys of whining, crying, limp wrist Zionists, find himself accused of being anti-semitic.

BULLSHIT.

First off, every part of the gene pool in the Middle East is semitic.  An anti-semitic would be against all of them.  But anti-Judaism does exist and is an entirely different matter because anti-Judaism is the product of the absolute darkest side of human nature and human history.

Jews and Judaism are an invaluable part of human history and modern humanity.

Zionism, on the other hand, is puke.  The nearest tribal movement in the modern world to NAZIsm re-born, but with Jews wearing the SS insignia.

Zionism is puke.  Fucked power puke with a Masada slant.  The dark underbelly of the ugly side of the nastiest Jews. 

Non-Zionist Jews and Judaism however,  are just like the rest of us on our good days.

Get it?

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in 2013

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The Bible and modern Israel – A study in human reality

Posted on July 20, 2013 by | 15 comments

Hi readers. 

Although I’m not of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious tribe [and sub-tribes] I do love studying the Bible.  There’s a lot of wisdom to be found there, a lot of history, and it’s jam-packed with all sorts of things we humans and products of western civilization probably ought to recognize about ourselves.  At least if we ever aspire to cease being smart two-legged omnivores and become human beings.

There mightn’t be any better case study past/present of humanity than modern secular Israel and the gene-pool of those folks as they behaved in ancient times.  Fact is, OT Hebrews struggled along as bronze-age barbarians killing, robbing, enslaving and generally hating their neighbors for a debatably long time.  Never got along with anyone who wasn’t among their tribes.  And eventually paid the price by revolting against the Romans once too often.

Those miles of crosses along the Appian way outside Rome that Christians are fond of taking ownership of were actually predominantly Jews the Romans managed to catch.  And those they couldn’t catch were scattered from hell-to-breakfast across Europe and the Middle East for the next 2000 years.  The ‘diaspora’.

You’d think a self-defined tribe would learn something from all that.  But those ancient Hebrews weren’t all that different from the rest of us.  So, when the major European powers and the US developed a sentimental kinship for the descendants of the ancient Hebrews and decided to let them return to the Middle East to a formal Israeli nation, the tribe had to fight their genetic cousins of different religious persuasions to take it away from them.

It all might have worked.  accommodations and compromises could almost certainly have been made.  The Muslims had a long history of toleration for their Jewish cousins.  Far more tolerant than Europeans.  As far as I’ve ever been able to discover there was never a single Muslim pogrom, attempt to exterminate Jews on any scale comparable to what always existed in Europe.

Fighting at the beginning was inevitable, but once it was all established a person would assume the modern secular state of Israel would begin battening down the hatches, finding any way it could to keep the neighbors happy, make them happy to have those Jews back in the neighborhood.

But Jews being human beings and a lot of them with a long European cultural history as baggage, spent the next 65 years doing exactly what their ancestors in ancient times had done.  Even though they were badly outnumbered.  They knew they had the upper hand, knew they had friends of super-power status to fend off any new diaspora.

So they flew the ‘Don’t Give An Inch’ flag and went through a series of wars wars wars, same as the rest of us of European stock.  Which we might well have partly learned by venerating their holy book.

The Bible’s been well-studied for 2000 years now, both by Christians and by Jews.  But there’s every reason to believe we haven’t learned a damned thing from it.

Old Jules

From bronze-age barbarian to nuclear warhead rocket-rattler.  Same as the rest of us.

15 Comments

Posted in 2013, Book Reviews, Current Issues, Government, Human Behavior, Spirituality

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