Sickening events in Seattle, where a Muslim-American man killed one woman and wounded five other people, because he was “angry at Israel.” The Arab-Israel conflict is not a Muslim-Jewish conflict, and it should not be turned into one.
0 thoughts on “How hatred breeds hatred breeds hatred”
I agree Issandr! This shit should NOT happen! Other troubling reports were coming few years ago about Muslim youth attacking synagouges in Europe. This should cease immediately. Arabs and Muslims should not fall into the trap of putting Jews and Zionists in the same basket, and stop targeting those religious sites
I very much appreciate the sentiment of this post, and agree with it in part. However, it is hard to deny that a majority of Jews are Zionists in one way or another. Even those that do not support the actions of the IDF in Lebanon still support the continuation of a Jewish state. There is a small contingency that does not support a Jewish state in Palestine. One such group is a break off from the Satmar Chasidim. called the Neturi karta. Yet the average American Jew does support the existence of the Jewish State.
The Heretical Jew makes an interesting point, one that I’ve often pondered on. Needles to say, that is also the impression of various ideologues of militant Islam.
I think that despite the flare-up of emotions that coincide with wars, the majority of Arabs are also in favor of the existence of Israel. Most of if not all Arab governments recognized this in the 2002 Beirut Declaration of the Arab League, polls say most Palestinians want to see a two-state solution, and even Hamas has implied that it is amenable to a negotiated solution that would create a viable Palestinian state alongside a Jewish one. So the majority does not dispute Israel’s right to exist, and I certainly don’t. The question is how to delimit Israel — where you draw its borders. I’m afraid there is a lot of alarmism about Arab attitudes towards Israel, compounded by Olmert’s (and many pundits) talk of an existential crisis for Israel, which is patently ridiculous when there is no state or group capable of wiping it out or even aiming to. This false idea also exists among American Jews because it has been spread around to encourage support for Israel.
Hasma is amenable to a temporary two-state solution, which they base on an Islamic concept of pragmatism. But the nitty gritty jurisprudence of the matter for Hamas and most Islamists is that no one, no individual or state can renounce land like that.
So I’d have to disagree with you Issandr, and say that many Arabs, particularly Islamists, want Israel wiped off the map, regardless of how long that takes, and how realistic it is as a prospect.
I remember being surprised to read in American opinion polls in 2002 (shortly after the second intifada broke out) that American Jews were more likely to support a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state than the American population as a whole, and the report on the survey suggested that this was because they were likely to be better informed about the conflict. But there were also stronger feelings in this group in favour of Israel, of course.
It’s people like the psycho in Seattle and crazy religious settlers and those who insist god gave the land to only one group and those who feel that the opponent must be crushed thoroughly or else their own existence cannot be secure that feed the cycle of mistrust and the idea of a battle of all against all.
I think Ed Said had it right towards the end when he said that the best solution was a binational state in which Arabs and Jews had equal rights and no one ethnic group was allowed to have a quota to ensure its domination.
But don’t you understand that the `resistance’ groups you are supporting see the conflict in precisely these terms — a Muslim Jewish war? La haoul wa la Quaoh illa biallah!
Well you comment is a pitty…what more is there to say?
As much as i am for a two state solution I first think that a Palestinian state that is divided by a Jewish state is absurd.
My dream solution to the problem would be a one state solution where Arab and Jew lived together under one democratic state even if that means that Jews are the minority. What we as Jews need is a safe haven if another Hitler were to come to power in some part of the world. So long as that one state was willing to be that haven then I could not care less if the Arabs were in the majority. To one again have Isaac and Ishmail living side by side…..what more can one hope for?.
The Ed Said solution is probably the best solution, but by now it may be an impossible one. (Mind you, I can imagine Hamas and Shas forming an alliance against Meretz and the PFLP, with a central Labor-Fatah bloc — presumably Likud would no longer exist in a binational state.) I’m just content to have an end to the conflict and a two-state solution. I then suggest they leave each other alone for a generation to give time for wounds to heal.
Oh, so it isn’t a Jewish-Muslim conflict? Someone should inform Al Manar. Seems they were a tad mistaken then, to present a whole Ramadan miniseries based on the notion that Jews put children’s blood in Passover bread.
I agree Issandr! This shit should NOT happen!
Other troubling reports were coming few years ago about Muslim youth attacking synagouges in Europe. This should cease immediately. Arabs and Muslims should not fall into the trap of putting Jews and Zionists in the same basket, and stop targeting those religious sites
Amen to that.
I very much appreciate the sentiment of this post, and agree with it in part. However, it is hard to deny that a majority of Jews are Zionists in one way or another. Even those that do not support the actions of the IDF in Lebanon still support the continuation of a Jewish state. There is a small contingency that does not support a Jewish state in Palestine. One such group is a break off from the Satmar Chasidim. called the Neturi karta. Yet the average American Jew does support the existence of the Jewish State.
The Heretical Jew makes an interesting point, one that I’ve often pondered on. Needles to say, that is also the impression of various ideologues of militant Islam.
I think that despite the flare-up of emotions that coincide with wars, the majority of Arabs are also in favor of the existence of Israel. Most of if not all Arab governments recognized this in the 2002 Beirut Declaration of the Arab League, polls say most Palestinians want to see a two-state solution, and even Hamas has implied that it is amenable to a negotiated solution that would create a viable Palestinian state alongside a Jewish one. So the majority does not dispute Israel’s right to exist, and I certainly don’t. The question is how to delimit Israel — where you draw its borders. I’m afraid there is a lot of alarmism about Arab attitudes towards Israel, compounded by Olmert’s (and many pundits) talk of an existential crisis for Israel, which is patently ridiculous when there is no state or group capable of wiping it out or even aiming to. This false idea also exists among American Jews because it has been spread around to encourage support for Israel.
Hasma is amenable to a temporary two-state solution, which they base on an Islamic concept of pragmatism. But the nitty gritty jurisprudence of the matter for Hamas and most Islamists is that no one, no individual or state can renounce land like that.
So I’d have to disagree with you Issandr, and say that many Arabs, particularly Islamists, want Israel wiped off the map, regardless of how long that takes, and how realistic it is as a prospect.
I remember being surprised to read in American opinion polls in 2002 (shortly after the second intifada broke out) that American Jews were more likely to support a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state than the American population as a whole, and the report on the survey suggested that this was because they were likely to be better informed about the conflict. But there were also stronger feelings in this group in favour of Israel, of course.
It’s people like the psycho in Seattle and crazy religious settlers and those who insist god gave the land to only one group and those who feel that the opponent must be crushed thoroughly or else their own existence cannot be secure that feed the cycle of mistrust and the idea of a battle of all against all.
I think Ed Said had it right towards the end when he said that the best solution was a binational state in which Arabs and Jews had equal rights and no one ethnic group was allowed to have a quota to ensure its domination.
But don’t you understand that the `resistance’ groups you are supporting see the conflict in precisely these terms — a Muslim Jewish war? La haoul wa la Quaoh illa biallah!
Pitty
Well you comment is a pitty…what more is there to say?
As much as i am for a two state solution I first think that a Palestinian state that is divided by a Jewish state is absurd.
My dream solution to the problem would be a one state solution where Arab and Jew lived together under one democratic state even if that means that Jews are the minority. What we as Jews need is a safe haven if another Hitler were to come to power in some part of the world. So long as that one state was willing to be that haven then I could not care less if the Arabs were in the majority. To one again have Isaac and Ishmail living side by side…..what more can one hope for?.
The Ed Said solution is probably the best solution, but by now it may be an impossible one. (Mind you, I can imagine Hamas and Shas forming an alliance against Meretz and the PFLP, with a central Labor-Fatah bloc — presumably Likud would no longer exist in a binational state.) I’m just content to have an end to the conflict and a two-state solution. I then suggest they leave each other alone for a generation to give time for wounds to heal.
Oh, so it isn’t a Jewish-Muslim conflict? Someone should inform Al Manar. Seems they were a tad mistaken then, to present a whole Ramadan miniseries based on the notion that Jews put children’s blood in Passover bread.