“The Horror, the Horror” on the High Seas
Jun 2, 2010
David P. Goldman
Suicide, or as the participants doubtless dubbed it, a “martyrdom operation,” was the evident goal of the Hamas supporters on the Mavi Marmara. It is hard to draw any other conclusion from the available facts, including the Israeli military’s video footage of the raid. If you attack soldiers with deadly weapons, you expect to be shot. Instead of suicide by policeman, this was suicide by Israel.
The decisive issue in the Gaza flotilla affair is that without the bloody shirt to wave, the incident would have passed without mention. The overriding fact as far as most of the world is concerned is that there are nine corpses on the deck of a ship. In retrospect, it seems clear that the object of the exercise was to produce these corpses. The Mavi Marmara incident was an exercise in the theater of horror, one suicide attack in long and sickening series of suicide attacks.
Never in the history of warfare has a combatant culture found so many prospective martyrs. As of early 2008, 1,121 people have blown themselves up in Iraq alone, and 156 Palestinian terrorists blown themselves up in Israel. According to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 1,944 suicide attacks took place between 1981 and June 2008.
One purpose of suicide attacks is to terrify the prospective victims. But there is a larger purpose, and that is to horrify the world. That is the Achilles’ heel of the West. Israel lives in the cross-hairs of Islamist terrorism, but even the advisors of Prime Minister Netanyahu do not understand the Islamist strategy. If they did, a handful of lightly armed commandos never would have been sent to help the prospective martyrs of the Mavi Marmara accomplish their mission.
Ten years ago, I began writing the “Spengler” essays in order to warn the West of its susceptibility to horror. I wrote on Oct. 12, 2001, just after the attacks on the Twin Towers:
The grand vulnerability of the Western mind is horror. The Nazis understood this and pursued a policy des Schreckens (to cause horror) and Entsetzens (terror, literally: dislodgement). Horror was not merely an instrument of war in the traditional sense, but a form of Wagnerian theater, or psychological warfare on the grand scale. Hitler’s tactical advantage lay in his capacity to be more horrible than his opponents could imagine. The most horrible thing of all is that he well might have succeeded if not for his own megalomaniac propensity to overreach.
America, as Osama bin Laden taunted this week, lost in Vietnam. But it was not military setbacks, but the horrific images of Vietnamese civilians burned by napalm, that lost the war. America’s experience in the war is enshrined in popular culture in the film Apocalypse Now, modeled after Joseph Conrad's story, The Heart of Darkness. The Belgian trading company official, Paul Kurtz, sinks into bestiality and dies with these words: ‘The horror! The horror!’ It was a dreadful film, but a clever reference. At the close of World War I, T S Eliot subtitled his epitaph for Western civilization, “The Hollow Men,” with a quote from the Conrad story: ‘Mr Kurtz, he dead.’
From America’s moral collapse in the face of the horror of Vietnam, there arose a repudiation of classical Western culture unlike anything seen previously in the English-speaking world. The West nearly threw up its hands in the face of the challenge from the Soviet Union in the late 1970s.
Muslims comprise just over a fifth of the world’s population, and no Muslim-majority country has shown itself capable of engaging modernity. Despair takes many forms. One is refusal to reproduce: the average Iranian woman grew up in a family of six children and will bear one or two. Another is suicidal rage: Die on your feet rather than live on your knees. A culture that offers up so many young martyrs is overcome with nihilism.
It is quite possible that the Muslim world will fail, and that the result will be a prolonged period of chaos, bloodshed and depopulation, punctuated by terrible wars fought with nuclear weapons, when available.
The Western mind recoils at the prospect. Those who recoil most are the Europeans, who do not need to send to know for whom the bell tolls. At present fertility rates the number of German speakers will fall by 98 percent over the next two centuries. But most of Western foreign policy for the past decade arose from an hysterical aversion to facing the great problem of cultural failure. The Bush administration’s hope of promoting democracy and nation-building in the region was failed exercise in social engineering. President Bush drew on the advice of the Israeli political leader and former Russian refusenik Nathan Sharansky, who argued that democracy would solve all the world’s problems.
Then there are the Turks, whose open sponsorship of Islamist terrorism is the immediate cause of the Gaza crisis. As Caroline Glick observed in the Jerusalem Post, a previous, secular Turkish government had banned the IHH—the organization that outfitted the “aid” flotilla—from participating earthquake relief a decade ago given that organization’s well-documented ties to Hamas.
Two years ago, only a handful of voices warned that Turkey was sliding into Islamism—among them Daniel Pipes, the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin, and this writer—and we sounded petulant and shrill. The consensus in Republican Washington held that Tayyip Erdogan represented a moderate and distinctly Turkish brand of Islamism, a benign variant that would help inoculate the Muslim world against the more virulent strain of the disease. Even the staunchest advocates of what used to be known as the Global War on Terror could not wrap their minds around the possibility that “moderate Islamism” was an oxymoron. Now that Erdogan has allied openly with Iran and sponsored a martyrdom operation by Iran’s ally Hamas, there is no question about his intentions.
Even the government of Binyamin Netanyahu appears oblivious to the nature of the Islamist assault. At least until Sunday night, it remained under the delusion that its relations with Turkey might be salvaged, while Turkey was setting in motion a provocation intended to cripple Israel’s ability to defend itself. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon removed Israeli forces and Israeli settlers from Gaza in 2005 as a purely unilateral gesture of good will to the Palestinians. He told a senior aide at the time that if Gaza turned into a terrorist nest, the world would see at last that Israel was right.
Just what does the world see? The facts are not in dispute. Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally; Hamas terrorists took control and turned it into a platform to fire missiles at Israeli cities; Iran has been caught red-handed shipping missiles to Gaza; Israel is blockading Gaza to prevent Iranian weapons from reaching Hamas. There never was a less-unambiguous case of national self-defense.
Nonetheless “world opinion” demands that Israel end its blockade of Gaza, which is to say to give up its right to defend itself against terrorists firing missiles at its cities. And the ground for this demand is the unambiguous fact of nine corpses on a ship’s deck. It is not just the nine “martyrs” who sought death at the hands of Israeli soldiers that transfixes the world: It is the likelihood that an arbitrarily large number of deaths will follow.
Cleaning up the mess left by the Bush administration and exacerbated by the Obama administration will be unspeakably horrible. If simpering, cowardly Western opinion turns green at the nine corpses on the Mavi Marmara, consider what will happen if Iran obtains nuclear weapons. Iran intends to use nuclear weapons as a shield for aggressive unconventional warfare in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon, and perhaps also in northern Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. If Israel is compelled to clean out the missiles held by Iran’s proxy Hizbollah, a million refugees from Lebanon’s Shi’ite south will pour into Syria, as they did briefly during the 2006 war. This time most of them will not return, for there will not be much left of southern Lebanon. Israel will lose perhaps 3,000 infantrymen; Israeli and Lebanese civilian casualties will be in the thousands; and Lebanon will descend into chaos. If Syria intervenes, the resulting Israeli-Syrian war will be unpredictably brutal. It seems likely that the conclusion Israel will draw from the disastrous consequences of its own obtuseness is that it had better fight now while it still can.
That does not take into account the possible replay of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, which left a million dead. Today’s version would take the form of a civil war in Iraq. The American “surge” strategy consisted of paying the Sunni resistance to stockpile weapons and train a disciplined militia, rather than engage in random suicide attacks against the Shi’ite majority. Now that the American military has created the so-called Sunni Awakening, the Sunni and Shi’ite camps in Iraq are equally matched. America’s military presence has kept them from fighting; as American forces withdraw over the summer, the likelihood is that a civil war will commence in which neither side can prevail, but both sides are prepared to fight to the death.
The compounding errors of a decade of American foreign policy culminate in the worst error of all: President Barack Obama’s insistence that America treat as legitimate the grievances of the Muslim world. These grievances cannot be assuaged because they arise from a collision with modernity. But Obama’s outreach to the Islamists persuades the Iranians, the Turks, and other contenders for Islamist leadership that America is weak. For the first time in modern history the United States has cast its vote against Israel in the United Nations—in a resolution singling Israel out as the Middle East’s nuclear-arms miscreant and in a second resolution to condemn Israel over the Gaza flotilla charade.
It is hard to see what sequence of events might prevent a horror beyond the worst imagings of the Western public. That is the Islamist trump card. Even if the West wins, the Islamists believe, it loses, as America did in Vietnam and France did in Algeria. The cost of victory will be a wave of horror and revulsion that destroys Western morale. And they well may have judged us aright. If we are incapable of distinguishing our culture from the failing culture of death that has empowered itself in so much of the Muslim world, we will not survive.
The West has lost a series of battles, but not necessarily the war. Islamism also has its Achilles heel. I wrote in 2004:
The West cannot endure without faith that a loving Father dwells beyond the clouds that obscure His throne. Horror—the perception that cruelty has no purpose and no end—is lethal to the West. Europe is dying slowly from the horror of the twentieth century's world wars, ending the way T. S. Eliot foresaw in the poem cited above, ‘not with a bang but a whimper’. Despite its intrinsic optimism, America is vulnerable as well.
The Islamic world cannot endure without confidence in victory, that to “come to prayer” is the same thing as to ‘come to success’. Humiliation—the perception that the Ummah cannot reward those who submit to it—is beyond its capacity to endure.
Radical Islam has risen against the West in response to its humiliation—intentional or not—at Western hands. The West can break the revolt by inflicting even worse humiliation upon the Islamists, poisoning the confidence of their supporters in the Muslim world.
Israel, the stone that the builders rejected, yet may be the West’s cornerstone. An Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program, if it humiliated Iran sufficiently, might change the equation.
David P. Goldman is senior editor at First Things
Comments:
6.2.2010 | 7:00am
brettongarcia says:
When I lived in Turkey c. 1962, Turkey was very conscious of being founded as a secular state by Kemal Ataturk. It was secular to the point that it even outlawed the wearing of the religious fez, or the scarf, in most situations. Though often women were allowed to wear the long mauve robe & scarf in public. But then, with Reagan, later with Erdogan, the secularity of Turkey began to change.
Reagan, while not a liberal in general, did however begin to espouse a mild kind of religious relativism. His and others' message of tolerance for other religions like Islam, were heard around the world - and in Turkey, unfortunately.
The liberal, well-intended extension of support to Islam would have been good, if it had merely extended an understanding hand, to those who felt alienated. But actually, unfortunately, it was read as giving a new dignity to Islam; including radical Islam. Thus Islam began to have a new popularity. Notably, in Turkey.
If contemporary religious relativism has a flaw, it is encouraging radical Islam. Though even 1980's "conservative" Republicans encouraged this, inadvertantly. So that ironically, the resurgence of Islam in Turkey, is partially the fault of America; which encouraged Islam in both the Democratic AND Republican parties, in the Reagan era.
Is it just the fault of America? To be sure, there are geographical factors: with nations like Russia, Iran and Syria and Iraq right on its borders, Turkey has oftern had to make certain political adjustments; especially if Iran is going to be a nuclear nation.
How to fix this? In part, we need people to understand that to date, probably most of the few Muslims that are beginning to move in Turkey, against Christianity, Israel, are a new breed of mild-mannered Muslims, women; they are the Muslims trained by liberalism; liberal Muslim, sailing in the spirit of Greenpeacenicks, in the interest of frees-speech and so forth.
These new liberal Muslims are not quite - yet - the radicalized, fully militant Muslims we are used to. But a little too much rough handling - as well as too-liberal lack of any control at all - could radicalize some of them.
How to fix this? Turkey was founded by Ataturk, as a secular country. And most Turks are moderates, and secularists; if we stop pimping Islam, and encourage THAT modern, secular tradition, Turkey might well stay within sane boundaries.
Reagan, while not a liberal in general, did however begin to espouse a mild kind of religious relativism. His and others' message of tolerance for other religions like Islam, were heard around the world - and in Turkey, unfortunately.
The liberal, well-intended extension of support to Islam would have been good, if it had merely extended an understanding hand, to those who felt alienated. But actually, unfortunately, it was read as giving a new dignity to Islam; including radical Islam. Thus Islam began to have a new popularity. Notably, in Turkey.
If contemporary religious relativism has a flaw, it is encouraging radical Islam. Though even 1980's "conservative" Republicans encouraged this, inadvertantly. So that ironically, the resurgence of Islam in Turkey, is partially the fault of America; which encouraged Islam in both the Democratic AND Republican parties, in the Reagan era.
Is it just the fault of America? To be sure, there are geographical factors: with nations like Russia, Iran and Syria and Iraq right on its borders, Turkey has oftern had to make certain political adjustments; especially if Iran is going to be a nuclear nation.
How to fix this? In part, we need people to understand that to date, probably most of the few Muslims that are beginning to move in Turkey, against Christianity, Israel, are a new breed of mild-mannered Muslims, women; they are the Muslims trained by liberalism; liberal Muslim, sailing in the spirit of Greenpeacenicks, in the interest of frees-speech and so forth.
These new liberal Muslims are not quite - yet - the radicalized, fully militant Muslims we are used to. But a little too much rough handling - as well as too-liberal lack of any control at all - could radicalize some of them.
How to fix this? Turkey was founded by Ataturk, as a secular country. And most Turks are moderates, and secularists; if we stop pimping Islam, and encourage THAT modern, secular tradition, Turkey might well stay within sane boundaries.
6.2.2010 | 7:57am
John Wickey says:
The clearest understanding of a potential future that I have read.
6.2.2010 | 8:19am
Matt says:
>>Suicide, or as the participants doubtless dubbed it, a “martyrdom operation,” was the evident goal of the Hamas supporters on the Mavi Marmara.
6.2.2010 | 10:05am
Spencer says:
I had high hopes that Israel would be stronger with the return of Netanyahu to power. The Israel - Lebanon war of 2006 showed the Israelis to be suffering from the same disease afflicting the U.S. -- warfare as a P.R. exercise. Israel was more worried about looking bad to the world while prosecuting the war than achieving its goals for the war. And in the end, they still managed to look bad in the world's eyes. However, Netanyahu only has a coalition government which ties his hands. I'm betting the paintball guns were not his idea.
Until Israel and the West come to grips with the seriousness of the situation, and that will be impossible while President Obama is in office, Mr. Goldman's scenario seems strikingly valid.
Until Israel and the West come to grips with the seriousness of the situation, and that will be impossible while President Obama is in office, Mr. Goldman's scenario seems strikingly valid.
6.2.2010 | 10:46am
John Trimbach says:
The West's kowtowing to the world's most dangerous and outdated religion has been writing on the wall. For decades, the morally numb "hope and tolerance" culture, now fully entrenched in Washington, has called on our leaders to dutifully look the other way while our "friends," Saudia Arabia for example, teach their children to hate the infidel. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
6.2.2010 | 12:08pm
jason taylor says:
"Actually, the relief from horror will be found in the establishment of a single Palestinian state in which Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists live together as brothers. "
At best that is like saying "the relief from mankind's difficulties is the perfection of mankind", and about as helpful.
At worst it is saying "The relief from horror will be found in the abolition of Israel." In fact as the whole point of Israel is for it to be a home for Jews, you are arguing exactly that.
And what makes you think that Jews, and Christians let alone atheists will "live together as brothers" in a state dominated by a Muslim majority? For the matter of that, what makes you think they will "live together as brothers" at all? They certainly do not do so in the United States. They simply don't kill each other which is all very well but not living "as brothers". Palestinians today have nothing preventing them from "living as brothers" with "Jews, Christians, and Atheists" in their midst. They do nothing of the kind within the territory they already have. What makes you think they will do so if they manage to subjugate Israel? If anything Israelis do better at "living together as brothers" then they do.
Appealing to what you consider to be an ideal situation has no place in political calculations if in fact such a situation is impossible to arrange. That is like saying that "the relief from the problems of life is to find a genie to give three wishes".
At best that is like saying "the relief from mankind's difficulties is the perfection of mankind", and about as helpful.
At worst it is saying "The relief from horror will be found in the abolition of Israel." In fact as the whole point of Israel is for it to be a home for Jews, you are arguing exactly that.
And what makes you think that Jews, and Christians let alone atheists will "live together as brothers" in a state dominated by a Muslim majority? For the matter of that, what makes you think they will "live together as brothers" at all? They certainly do not do so in the United States. They simply don't kill each other which is all very well but not living "as brothers". Palestinians today have nothing preventing them from "living as brothers" with "Jews, Christians, and Atheists" in their midst. They do nothing of the kind within the territory they already have. What makes you think they will do so if they manage to subjugate Israel? If anything Israelis do better at "living together as brothers" then they do.
Appealing to what you consider to be an ideal situation has no place in political calculations if in fact such a situation is impossible to arrange. That is like saying that "the relief from the problems of life is to find a genie to give three wishes".
6.2.2010 | 12:31pm
Roger says:
Mr. Goldman,
How correct you are in your description of terror as a weapon and how islamists are using it as did Hitler before them. Our current blindness as to the real nature of islam has parallels: Neville Chamberlain seemed unable to grasp the nature of the person and regime he was dealing with, he wasn't alone. Almost uniquely Winston Churchill understood enough not just to confront Hitler but to call on the people of the Allies "to bear any burden, pay any price". He wasn't just referring to the punishment that NAZI Germany would undoubtedly mete out to its enemies, Churchill was also calling for otherwise sane and civilised people to commit the most appalling acts in order to achieve victory. An example; during the Hamburg firestorm air raids approximately 38,000 German civilians, mostly women and children, were first asphyxsiated then cooked to jelly while they sheltered from the attack. The pilots who were dropping the bombs, while probably not aware of the details, must have been aware of the carnage they were causing.
Now we imprison soldiers for carrying out lawful executions of enemy combatants and are, as you say, "horrified" by a bloody shirt.
Islamic societies are absolute cesspools of ignorance, mental and physical poverty and pits of envy and resentment. The awful lives of the populations and their refusal to address the root cause of their misery;islam, causes the hatred they have of the West. Also they correctly percieve us to be weak.
Even Israel, which has decisively defeated the Arab states in five wars has always recoiled from the logical final act; kill them all.
We are coming to a choice soon, either we have the guts to do the necessary or we are defeated.
I have argued against a first strike against Iran, because I believe the Iranian people, if given a real choice, would join the West. I do not feel the same about the anotolian Turks, or the vast majority of Arabs. Islam and the Western enlightenment are irreconcilable, one side is going to win, us or them, our choice.
How correct you are in your description of terror as a weapon and how islamists are using it as did Hitler before them. Our current blindness as to the real nature of islam has parallels: Neville Chamberlain seemed unable to grasp the nature of the person and regime he was dealing with, he wasn't alone. Almost uniquely Winston Churchill understood enough not just to confront Hitler but to call on the people of the Allies "to bear any burden, pay any price". He wasn't just referring to the punishment that NAZI Germany would undoubtedly mete out to its enemies, Churchill was also calling for otherwise sane and civilised people to commit the most appalling acts in order to achieve victory. An example; during the Hamburg firestorm air raids approximately 38,000 German civilians, mostly women and children, were first asphyxsiated then cooked to jelly while they sheltered from the attack. The pilots who were dropping the bombs, while probably not aware of the details, must have been aware of the carnage they were causing.
Now we imprison soldiers for carrying out lawful executions of enemy combatants and are, as you say, "horrified" by a bloody shirt.
Islamic societies are absolute cesspools of ignorance, mental and physical poverty and pits of envy and resentment. The awful lives of the populations and their refusal to address the root cause of their misery;islam, causes the hatred they have of the West. Also they correctly percieve us to be weak.
Even Israel, which has decisively defeated the Arab states in five wars has always recoiled from the logical final act; kill them all.
We are coming to a choice soon, either we have the guts to do the necessary or we are defeated.
I have argued against a first strike against Iran, because I believe the Iranian people, if given a real choice, would join the West. I do not feel the same about the anotolian Turks, or the vast majority of Arabs. Islam and the Western enlightenment are irreconcilable, one side is going to win, us or them, our choice.
6.2.2010 | 1:08pm
Gene says:
In May 1985 Ronald Reagan participated in a ceremony at Bitburg, even though some of the graves in the cemetery were of SS troops. Pres Reagan's plans to do so caused an angry outcry.
After the event, Irving Kristol summarized his own view of the affair by saying (approximately) "When a friend makes a mistake, the friend remains a friend and the mistake remains a mistake."
That sentiment has broad application.
After the event, Irving Kristol summarized his own view of the affair by saying (approximately) "When a friend makes a mistake, the friend remains a friend and the mistake remains a mistake."
That sentiment has broad application.
6.2.2010 | 1:09pm
Timothius says:
Like:
The article sheds light on "big picture" issues, core issues, and issues that are going to take - not years but generations - to change.
Dislike:
The statement at the end; "An Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program, if it humiliated Iran sufficiently, might change the equation."
Additional Comments:
Do you mean Israel attack Iran's nuclear installments now? Does Israel have sufficient evidence to justify and convince that such a preemptive attack is absolutely necessary? At this point in time, such an attack would not "humiliate Iran sufficiently." It will enrage them.
Granted we are more certain of nukes in Iran, than we were of nukes in Iraq, eight years ago, but the preemptive argument came up short for the US. A good number of the American people today, and the world for that matter, still wonder what the "real reason" was.
Israel must walk the tight line of being just, and reasonable. Israel must state it's nation objectives openly, and live up to them. It was a wise move on Israel's part to video-record the flotilla encounter.
I don't mean this as criticism of Israel. All good nations and sects, should behave this way. The peaceful, just, and good have nothing to hide, and they should "spell it out" as they go.
Somehow, someway, the world needs to figure this "pluralistic thing" out. It really is the world we want.
The article sheds light on "big picture" issues, core issues, and issues that are going to take - not years but generations - to change.
Dislike:
The statement at the end; "An Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program, if it humiliated Iran sufficiently, might change the equation."
Additional Comments:
Do you mean Israel attack Iran's nuclear installments now? Does Israel have sufficient evidence to justify and convince that such a preemptive attack is absolutely necessary? At this point in time, such an attack would not "humiliate Iran sufficiently." It will enrage them.
Granted we are more certain of nukes in Iran, than we were of nukes in Iraq, eight years ago, but the preemptive argument came up short for the US. A good number of the American people today, and the world for that matter, still wonder what the "real reason" was.
Israel must walk the tight line of being just, and reasonable. Israel must state it's nation objectives openly, and live up to them. It was a wise move on Israel's part to video-record the flotilla encounter.
I don't mean this as criticism of Israel. All good nations and sects, should behave this way. The peaceful, just, and good have nothing to hide, and they should "spell it out" as they go.
Somehow, someway, the world needs to figure this "pluralistic thing" out. It really is the world we want.
6.2.2010 | 1:44pm
Matt says:
>>>Suicide, or as the participants doubtless dubbed it, a “martyrdom operation,” was the evident goal of the Hamas supporters on the Mavi Marmara.
6.2.2010 | 2:36pm
David Goldman says:
Roger,
"Kill them all" -- now, that is a thought that horrifies me, and should horrify everyone. God forbid. My view is that a strike against Iran's nuclear capacity might constitute a humiliation sufficiently devastating to demoralize Iran's minions in Hamas, Hizbollah, and so forth (although it might have to be followed by a costly and bloody infantry campaign in southern Lebanon, for example). The whole point of taking decisive action now is to avoid bloodshed on a greater scale--for example, an eventual nuclear war in the region.
Nobody has better things to say about Arabs as individuals than the israelis. If you want to study classical Arab music, the only really professional program is at the Jerusalem Music Center. And if you want to study classical Arab literature, you are better off at Hebrew University than anywhere else. Take Arabs out of oppressive, tyrannical, theocratic Islamic regimes and let them breathe free air, and they do splendidly. And I hardly need at that the Arab Christian diaspora has been a success story all over the world. Most American Muslims are law-abiding, hard-working, decent citizens, despite the high-profile eruptions of jihadism.
What must be defeated is political Islam. Whether Islam can survive as a personal religion of conscience rather than as a state religion of conquest is for Muslims to determine--I wish them well, although I am skeptical about the prospects for such an enterprise.
But -- "kill them all"? A hideous thought. Act now to pre-empt more bloodshed later.
"Kill them all" -- now, that is a thought that horrifies me, and should horrify everyone. God forbid. My view is that a strike against Iran's nuclear capacity might constitute a humiliation sufficiently devastating to demoralize Iran's minions in Hamas, Hizbollah, and so forth (although it might have to be followed by a costly and bloody infantry campaign in southern Lebanon, for example). The whole point of taking decisive action now is to avoid bloodshed on a greater scale--for example, an eventual nuclear war in the region.
Nobody has better things to say about Arabs as individuals than the israelis. If you want to study classical Arab music, the only really professional program is at the Jerusalem Music Center. And if you want to study classical Arab literature, you are better off at Hebrew University than anywhere else. Take Arabs out of oppressive, tyrannical, theocratic Islamic regimes and let them breathe free air, and they do splendidly. And I hardly need at that the Arab Christian diaspora has been a success story all over the world. Most American Muslims are law-abiding, hard-working, decent citizens, despite the high-profile eruptions of jihadism.
What must be defeated is political Islam. Whether Islam can survive as a personal religion of conscience rather than as a state religion of conquest is for Muslims to determine--I wish them well, although I am skeptical about the prospects for such an enterprise.
But -- "kill them all"? A hideous thought. Act now to pre-empt more bloodshed later.
6.2.2010 | 2:48pm
Sagee says:
If we would let ships come to Gaza without inspection. There would be a constant flow of surface to surface missiles (scoud for example) which will be aimed to Tel-Aviv Jerusalem and all Israeli civilines. This will mean a terror missle Iranian base 30 miles from Tel Aviv. This means Hamas will have what Hizzbala already have, because the international community did not enforce UN resolutoin 1701. This means tenth thousends of war heads in the hands of a terror organisation which did not heasitate to blow up school buses and shoot missles to the heart of civilane population (Bear-Sheeva Shderot and more). Launching the missles from hospitales, schooles houses etc. Please show the movies showing 10th of militants attacking a soldier coming with paint ball gun - http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3898241,00.html. Please show how the Jihadist tried to through a soldier with a paint ball to sea and to attack hom with knives: http://tbk.mako.co.il/article/856090. Please show that 4 of the people that attacked the soldier expressed the wish to die as martires in a suicide mission. (shown by turkish TV). Please send people to talk on "talk of the nation etc. in NPR" to try to comvey this message !!! Thank you again
6.2.2010 | 3:35pm
Robert Hill says:
Israel should not shy from defending itself. Nor should we. The West comes across as increasingly pathetic, as it's moral anchor disintegrates. Showing weakness to wild beasts or madmen has inevitable consequences. My aggressive side says that Israel has lost its mojo. They need to re-read their Joshua. Rather than paint-ball guns, they should have used a torpedo, with an Iranian flag on the casing, of course.
But this isn't a videogame—we are truly judged in the end. And we must fear God and his perfect justice. We must, hard as it usually is, emulate Jesus (or at least Aragorn), not Churchill (impressive as he is justifiably considered in relative or worldly terms). Israel (and the West) must be guided by the (much discussed by nevertheless poorly defined concept) of proportionality. God help them.
But this isn't a videogame—we are truly judged in the end. And we must fear God and his perfect justice. We must, hard as it usually is, emulate Jesus (or at least Aragorn), not Churchill (impressive as he is justifiably considered in relative or worldly terms). Israel (and the West) must be guided by the (much discussed by nevertheless poorly defined concept) of proportionality. God help them.
6.2.2010 | 4:03pm
Roger says:
Mr. Goldman,
Thank you for your response to my post.
“Kill them all” is indeed an appalling and horrific attitude. Unfortunately the World is not populated by David Goldmans. Were you to sit across the table from Hassan Nasrallah, you would not be dealing with a person in any sense similar to you, you would be dealing with a reincarnation of Reinhard Heydrich, but with the self serving cynicism replaced by religious fanaticism.
If the IDF were to be defeated, and God knows anything is possible in war, then the streets of Israel would be knee deep in Jewish blood. Israeli Arabs, Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, etc. would all joyously join in the massacre of Jews. This is not some ghastly fantasy, this is the reality that Israelis face, and incidentally what Arabs repeatedly declare for all to hear.
Coming to grips with the implications of this seems to be extremely difficult for Jewish people, because Jews are rational above all, they harbor no dreams of annihilation. In my experience (I am not Jewish) Jews seek only to prosper in a mutually respectful world.
This is nothing to do with morality, justice or legality. The choice facing Israelis is this: 1. Kill, and live.
2. Refuse to kill, and die.
Thank you for your response to my post.
“Kill them all” is indeed an appalling and horrific attitude. Unfortunately the World is not populated by David Goldmans. Were you to sit across the table from Hassan Nasrallah, you would not be dealing with a person in any sense similar to you, you would be dealing with a reincarnation of Reinhard Heydrich, but with the self serving cynicism replaced by religious fanaticism.
If the IDF were to be defeated, and God knows anything is possible in war, then the streets of Israel would be knee deep in Jewish blood. Israeli Arabs, Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, etc. would all joyously join in the massacre of Jews. This is not some ghastly fantasy, this is the reality that Israelis face, and incidentally what Arabs repeatedly declare for all to hear.
Coming to grips with the implications of this seems to be extremely difficult for Jewish people, because Jews are rational above all, they harbor no dreams of annihilation. In my experience (I am not Jewish) Jews seek only to prosper in a mutually respectful world.
This is nothing to do with morality, justice or legality. The choice facing Israelis is this: 1. Kill, and live.
2. Refuse to kill, and die.
6.2.2010 | 4:18pm
jeff.davis says:
We often hear the phrase "Israel's right to
exist" and along with it, "Israels' right to
self-defense." Notwithstanding the faux-
legitimacy given these concepts by decades of
repetition, there is another, truth-based,
ethics-based point of view.
In 1917, the British imperial executive (the
Foreign Office) and the World Zionist
Organization colluded in a criminal conspiracy to
steal Palestine from the 95% Arab population who
had lived there for 70 generations, and to give
it to the Jews/Zionists. This "plan" was a crime
then, as it is a crime now. A crime is still a
crime, despite control and censorship of the
media. A crime is still a crime despite 90
years of impunity from prosecution or 90 years of
propaganda. NO AMOUNT OF TIME CAN CHANGE A LIE
INTO THE TRUTH; NO AMOUNT TIME CAN CONVERT A
CRIME INTO A LEGAL ACT.
The Zionist entity called Israel is nothing less
than a geopolitical crime-in-progress. This is
reality.
So when next you hear about Israel's "right to
exist", consider: no crime has a "right to
exist", no criminal enterprise has a "right to
exist". Correspondingly, no criminal has a
"right to self-defense". No criminal has a right
to commit violence in the furtherance of a crime.
No criminal has the right to fight back against
the lawful authority that arrives to halt the
crime and arrest the criminals.
Israel, the Zionists, their enablers, and their
supporters are criminals: thieves and murderers
on a global scale. They have no "right to exist"
(as criminals) and they have no "right to self-
defense" as they commit their crimes.
But they do have rights. They have the right to
surrender to a competent authority. The right to
a fair trial. If found guilty, the right to a
proportionate penalty. And once the offending
parties have "done their time", the right to
rejoin society and resume a peaceful cooperative
existence.
exist" and along with it, "Israels' right to
self-defense." Notwithstanding the faux-
legitimacy given these concepts by decades of
repetition, there is another, truth-based,
ethics-based point of view.
In 1917, the British imperial executive (the
Foreign Office) and the World Zionist
Organization colluded in a criminal conspiracy to
steal Palestine from the 95% Arab population who
had lived there for 70 generations, and to give
it to the Jews/Zionists. This "plan" was a crime
then, as it is a crime now. A crime is still a
crime, despite control and censorship of the
media. A crime is still a crime despite 90
years of impunity from prosecution or 90 years of
propaganda. NO AMOUNT OF TIME CAN CHANGE A LIE
INTO THE TRUTH; NO AMOUNT TIME CAN CONVERT A
CRIME INTO A LEGAL ACT.
The Zionist entity called Israel is nothing less
than a geopolitical crime-in-progress. This is
reality.
So when next you hear about Israel's "right to
exist", consider: no crime has a "right to
exist", no criminal enterprise has a "right to
exist". Correspondingly, no criminal has a
"right to self-defense". No criminal has a right
to commit violence in the furtherance of a crime.
No criminal has the right to fight back against
the lawful authority that arrives to halt the
crime and arrest the criminals.
Israel, the Zionists, their enablers, and their
supporters are criminals: thieves and murderers
on a global scale. They have no "right to exist"
(as criminals) and they have no "right to self-
defense" as they commit their crimes.
But they do have rights. They have the right to
surrender to a competent authority. The right to
a fair trial. If found guilty, the right to a
proportionate penalty. And once the offending
parties have "done their time", the right to
rejoin society and resume a peaceful cooperative
existence.
6.2.2010 | 4:37pm
Peter Leavitt says:
The view that America is vulnerable to terrorism is mistaken. Despite the spineless left and isolationist right, so far in our history when seriously tested we have stood up and fought. Hitler and Stalin after all were ultimately defeated. Just now, even under a feckless president we are engaged in a serious war against terrorism that was initiated by the Bush administration.
Pres. Bush well understood the advice of Natan Sharansky and Bernard Lewis that the best hope in the long run against radical Islam was to try to establish an Arab form of democracy in Iraq in order to counteract Iran, Syria, et al.This still has a chance of succeeding despite the apocalyptic view of David Goldman. Of course, it could, also, fail despite the realistic and noble effort. One can fully understand the lethal threat of radical Islam without despairing of the American effort in Iraq.
In the long run America and Israel will find a way to deal with this egregious threat, just as America and Britain did with a similar threat some seventy years ago. This is not the time to take counsel of apocalyptic fear.
Pres. Bush well understood the advice of Natan Sharansky and Bernard Lewis that the best hope in the long run against radical Islam was to try to establish an Arab form of democracy in Iraq in order to counteract Iran, Syria, et al.This still has a chance of succeeding despite the apocalyptic view of David Goldman. Of course, it could, also, fail despite the realistic and noble effort. One can fully understand the lethal threat of radical Islam without despairing of the American effort in Iraq.
In the long run America and Israel will find a way to deal with this egregious threat, just as America and Britain did with a similar threat some seventy years ago. This is not the time to take counsel of apocalyptic fear.
6.2.2010 | 4:49pm
Ibrahim Miles says:
This action by Israel clearly breaks "International Law". By blocking aid to people of need is against the "Geneva Convention". Where is the UN????? Why is there a double standard? Every time Israel does something wrong they get let off the hook and know body has the balls to stand up to them. Does the UN starve North Koreans because they don't like the North Korean government? Does the UN starve Iranians because they don't like the Iranian government? the answer is NO because its against "International Law" therefore why is it that Israel can do what they want when they want to do it??????????? We set laws, we have to follow the laws and if we cant follow the laws then how do we expect anyone to trust or believe that the law makers are in the best interest of the public?
6.2.2010 | 4:53pm
Roger says:
jeff.davis;
What court has declared the founding of the state of Israel a crime?
You are aware that Israel was founded by resolution of the UN?
You are aware that Israel has been home to Jews for thousands of years?
You are aware that land was legally purchased for the settlement of Jewish immigrants, and that no Arab was ever forced from their property by Jews until the war of annihilation started by Arabs in 1948?
I hope you are aware of who you are allying yourself with in this struggle.
Don't get caught wearing ladies clothing on the way out.
What court has declared the founding of the state of Israel a crime?
You are aware that Israel was founded by resolution of the UN?
You are aware that Israel has been home to Jews for thousands of years?
You are aware that land was legally purchased for the settlement of Jewish immigrants, and that no Arab was ever forced from their property by Jews until the war of annihilation started by Arabs in 1948?
I hope you are aware of who you are allying yourself with in this struggle.
Don't get caught wearing ladies clothing on the way out.
6.2.2010 | 5:19pm
Timothius says:
@jeff.davis
You make a good point. I'm sure people were displaced upon the formation of the nation Israel.
I'm interested now to learn the whole history of this displacement. I hate that this is how nations are so often formed.
The US displaced many Native Americans to acquire it's region/borders. You mention 70 generations. I have no idea how many generations of Native Americans roamed these lands, prior to the arrival of whitey.
I'm sure that there are Native Americans alive today that are not happy about the formation of the US.
As well, you do know that the state of California "rightfully" belongs to Mexico. (I'm being sarcastic.)
You mentioned 1917 as a significant date. It would be interesting to compare a map/list of all the nations, regimes, and governments of 1917, and compare it to today. I bet a lot has changed.
As I've said, you make a reasonable point, but there comes a point where "righting the wrongs" of our forefathers becomes unrealistic and irrelevant.
You make a good point. I'm sure people were displaced upon the formation of the nation Israel.
I'm interested now to learn the whole history of this displacement. I hate that this is how nations are so often formed.
The US displaced many Native Americans to acquire it's region/borders. You mention 70 generations. I have no idea how many generations of Native Americans roamed these lands, prior to the arrival of whitey.
I'm sure that there are Native Americans alive today that are not happy about the formation of the US.
As well, you do know that the state of California "rightfully" belongs to Mexico. (I'm being sarcastic.)
You mentioned 1917 as a significant date. It would be interesting to compare a map/list of all the nations, regimes, and governments of 1917, and compare it to today. I bet a lot has changed.
As I've said, you make a reasonable point, but there comes a point where "righting the wrongs" of our forefathers becomes unrealistic and irrelevant.
6.2.2010 | 5:44pm
mike gunderson says:
What court has declared the founding of the state of Israel legal?
Are you aware that the new country has been home to the Native Americans for thousands of years? Do we turn over the country to them?
Are you aware that the embargo of Gaza includes donkeys, meats, necessities of life in general and not just armaments?(McArdle of Atlantic)
The boarding took place in International waters.
Are you aware that the new country has been home to the Native Americans for thousands of years? Do we turn over the country to them?
Are you aware that the embargo of Gaza includes donkeys, meats, necessities of life in general and not just armaments?(McArdle of Atlantic)
The boarding took place in International waters.
6.2.2010 | 5:46pm
Scott S. says:
I wish Mr. Goldman would stop repeating the untrue, though widely accepted myth, that America 'lost the Vietnam war'. We did not lose that war. When we withdrew our combat troops in 1973, there was still a South Vietnam. That country had taken on the task of fighting the North Vietnam invaders.
Congress, controlled by Democrats, cut off funding to the South Vietnamese military. That ensured that country's defeat.
If anything, it was the Democrat party that lost the Vietnam war, at least for the Vietnamese people.
Congress, controlled by Democrats, cut off funding to the South Vietnamese military. That ensured that country's defeat.
If anything, it was the Democrat party that lost the Vietnam war, at least for the Vietnamese people.
6.2.2010 | 5:58pm
Peter Leavit says:
Ibrahim, the Hamas rulers of Gaza have launched some 7,000 rockets against Israel, proving to be an enemy. Under international law enemies may be interdicted in international waters. The radical Islamists on the Mavi Marmara in brutally resisting the lawful Israel Navy Commandos got what they deserved, the propaganda of the Western left and radical Muslims notwithstanding.
6.2.2010 | 6:36pm
49erDweet says:
jeff.davis apparently prefers everything "Palestinian" to revert to pre-1917 boundaries. Why stop there? Was a century or so of Ottoman rule before that some kind of "golden period" of Islamic governance? Nah. Not hardly. Or does the idea simply support Herr Davis's politics?
6.2.2010 | 10:25pm
ferdigrofe says:
Mr. Goldman ignores that the purpose of the blockade of Gaza is to punish the Palestinians when they voted Hamas into power. I view this attack which is piracy under international law (an attack on a Turkish ship is an attack on Turkey) as simply another step in Israel's march of folly to self-destruction. The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with a passionate intensity. Israel needs an Old Testament prophet to call it to repentance for its treatment of the Palestinians. I cannot imagine any Talmudic logic that could construe wheel chairs a threat to Israel's existence.
6.2.2010 | 11:15pm
Jan Krikke says:
David, I always enjoy reading your articles but your pieces on Israel and the Middle East have a common thread: They always ignore to deeper causes of the conflict. Just one example: Why did Iran become an enemy of the US? Is not the policy of the US (and the EU) toward Egypt and some other Arab countries very similar to their policies toward prerevolutionary Iran.
I recommend you read Khaled Hroud recently article for Project Syndicate entitled "Deterring Arab Democracy" (http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/hroub1/English). Please refute his arguments if you think it can be done. In my opinion, nothing better summarized the essence of the danger to Israel that Hroud's article.
Jan Krikke
I recommend you read Khaled Hroud recently article for Project Syndicate entitled "Deterring Arab Democracy" (http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/hroub1/English). Please refute his arguments if you think it can be done. In my opinion, nothing better summarized the essence of the danger to Israel that Hroud's article.
Jan Krikke
6.2.2010 | 11:54pm
David Goldman says:
Mr. Krikke,
Perhaps the reason that the Arab world never has created a democracy is that it is prone to conspiracy theories, e.g., Khaled Hroud's allegation that "The lack of democracy in the Arab world results from an unholy alliance between Western interests and local autocrats, justified by what both sides claim to be the region’s 'cultural specificit.'" The democratic opposition groups to which he refers always have been anemic, and the fact that none of them ever has made a go of it is hard to blame on external manipulation. There always are local autocrats and nasty foreign influences but somehow other parts of the world have managed. My view is quite different: Western democracy is an abnormal, special case brought about in the US with distinctive religious foundation, and became so successful that everyone else felt compelled to emulate it.
Ferdigrofe,
Do you really think that the blockade of Gaza has nothing to do with Iran's well-documented efforts to ship missiles to Hamas? If so, could you recommend the alcoholic beverage of your choice? I'll have a double. BTW under international law, a ship that has declared its intention to run a blockade may be boarded prior to crossing into domestic waters -- the US does such things all the time.
Perhaps the reason that the Arab world never has created a democracy is that it is prone to conspiracy theories, e.g., Khaled Hroud's allegation that "The lack of democracy in the Arab world results from an unholy alliance between Western interests and local autocrats, justified by what both sides claim to be the region’s 'cultural specificit.'" The democratic opposition groups to which he refers always have been anemic, and the fact that none of them ever has made a go of it is hard to blame on external manipulation. There always are local autocrats and nasty foreign influences but somehow other parts of the world have managed. My view is quite different: Western democracy is an abnormal, special case brought about in the US with distinctive religious foundation, and became so successful that everyone else felt compelled to emulate it.
Ferdigrofe,
Do you really think that the blockade of Gaza has nothing to do with Iran's well-documented efforts to ship missiles to Hamas? If so, could you recommend the alcoholic beverage of your choice? I'll have a double. BTW under international law, a ship that has declared its intention to run a blockade may be boarded prior to crossing into domestic waters -- the US does such things all the time.
6.3.2010 | 1:06pm
Jan Krikke says:
Mr. Goldman, you are right to point out that autocrats and foreign influences are factors throughout the world. But the Middle East is a special case in that it has vital energy supplies.
What would happen if countries like Egypt, Algeria, and Jordan and perhaps even some golf States had free and fair elections? Would the current rulers survive. Not likely. That's what I believe Khaled Hroud referred to when he used the phrase unholy alliance. The West is supporting regimes that would not survive free elections.
The circumstances that led the the Islamic revolution (autocratic rule supported by the US) are very similar to current circumstances is Egypt. To me, the biggest danger to Israel is an Islamic revolution at its doorstep. Western policy toward the Middle East does not take the principle of cause and effect into account and increases the danger of more Islamic revolutions in the region.
What would happen if countries like Egypt, Algeria, and Jordan and perhaps even some golf States had free and fair elections? Would the current rulers survive. Not likely. That's what I believe Khaled Hroud referred to when he used the phrase unholy alliance. The West is supporting regimes that would not survive free elections.
The circumstances that led the the Islamic revolution (autocratic rule supported by the US) are very similar to current circumstances is Egypt. To me, the biggest danger to Israel is an Islamic revolution at its doorstep. Western policy toward the Middle East does not take the principle of cause and effect into account and increases the danger of more Islamic revolutions in the region.
6.3.2010 | 1:59pm
Ed Snyder says:
Addressing jeff.davis' concern for legality is this article from Reuters.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65133D20100602
CAN ISRAEL IMPOSE A NAVAL BLOCKADE ON GAZA?
Yes it can, according to the law of blockade which was derived from customary international law and codified in the 1909 Declaration of London. It was updated in 1994 in a legally recognized document called the "San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea."
Under some of the key rules, a blockade must be declared and notified to all belligerents and neutral states, access to neutral ports cannot be blocked, and an area can only be blockaded which is under enemy control.
"On the basis that Hamas is the ruling entity of Gaza and Israel is in the midst of an armed struggle against that ruling entity, the blockade is legal," said Philip Roche, partner in the shipping disputes and risk management team with law firm Norton Rose.
WHAT ARE INTERNATIONAL WATERS?
Under the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea a coastal state has a "territorial sea" of 12 nautical miles from the coast over which it is sovereign. Ships of other states are allowed "innocent passage" through such waters.
There is a further 12 nautical mile zone called the "contiguous zone" over which a state may take action to protect itself or its laws.
"However, strictly beyond the 12 nautical miles limit the seas are the "high seas" or international waters," Roche said.
The Israeli navy said on Monday the Gaza bound flotilla was intercepted 120 km (75 miles) west of Israel. The Turkish captain of one of the vessels told an Istanbul news conference after returning home from Israeli detention they were 68 miles outside Israeli territorial waters.
Under the law of a blockade, intercepting a vessel could apply globally so long as a ship is bound for a "belligerent" territory, legal experts say.
And those "Christians" who think the Turks hold us blameless because we're not Jews might want to read this from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37487272/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
ANKARA, Turkey - A Roman Catholic bishop has been stabbed to death in southern Turkey, a government official said.
Luigi Padovese, the pope's apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was attacked in his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun.
[SNIP]
The killing is the latest in a string of attacks in recent years on Christians in Turkey, where Christians make up less than 1 percent of the 70 million population.
In 2007, a Roman Catholic priest in the western city of Izmir, Adriano Franchini, was stabbed and slightly wounded in the stomach by a 19-year-old after Sunday Mass. The young man was arrested.
The same year, a group of men entered a Bible-publishing house in the central Anatolian city of Malatya and killed three Christians, including a German national.
The five alleged killers are now standing trial for murder.
The killings — in which the victims were tied up and had their throats slit — drew international condemnation and added to Western concerns about whether Turkey can protect its religious minorities.
In 2006, amid widespread anger in Islamic countries over the publication in European newspapers of caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, a 16-year-old boy shot dead a Catholic priest, Father Andrea Santoro, as he prayed in his church in the Black Sea city of Trabzon.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65133D20100602
CAN ISRAEL IMPOSE A NAVAL BLOCKADE ON GAZA?
Yes it can, according to the law of blockade which was derived from customary international law and codified in the 1909 Declaration of London. It was updated in 1994 in a legally recognized document called the "San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea."
Under some of the key rules, a blockade must be declared and notified to all belligerents and neutral states, access to neutral ports cannot be blocked, and an area can only be blockaded which is under enemy control.
"On the basis that Hamas is the ruling entity of Gaza and Israel is in the midst of an armed struggle against that ruling entity, the blockade is legal," said Philip Roche, partner in the shipping disputes and risk management team with law firm Norton Rose.
WHAT ARE INTERNATIONAL WATERS?
Under the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea a coastal state has a "territorial sea" of 12 nautical miles from the coast over which it is sovereign. Ships of other states are allowed "innocent passage" through such waters.
There is a further 12 nautical mile zone called the "contiguous zone" over which a state may take action to protect itself or its laws.
"However, strictly beyond the 12 nautical miles limit the seas are the "high seas" or international waters," Roche said.
The Israeli navy said on Monday the Gaza bound flotilla was intercepted 120 km (75 miles) west of Israel. The Turkish captain of one of the vessels told an Istanbul news conference after returning home from Israeli detention they were 68 miles outside Israeli territorial waters.
Under the law of a blockade, intercepting a vessel could apply globally so long as a ship is bound for a "belligerent" territory, legal experts say.
And those "Christians" who think the Turks hold us blameless because we're not Jews might want to read this from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37487272/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
ANKARA, Turkey - A Roman Catholic bishop has been stabbed to death in southern Turkey, a government official said.
Luigi Padovese, the pope's apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was attacked in his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun.
[SNIP]
The killing is the latest in a string of attacks in recent years on Christians in Turkey, where Christians make up less than 1 percent of the 70 million population.
In 2007, a Roman Catholic priest in the western city of Izmir, Adriano Franchini, was stabbed and slightly wounded in the stomach by a 19-year-old after Sunday Mass. The young man was arrested.
The same year, a group of men entered a Bible-publishing house in the central Anatolian city of Malatya and killed three Christians, including a German national.
The five alleged killers are now standing trial for murder.
The killings — in which the victims were tied up and had their throats slit — drew international condemnation and added to Western concerns about whether Turkey can protect its religious minorities.
In 2006, amid widespread anger in Islamic countries over the publication in European newspapers of caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, a 16-year-old boy shot dead a Catholic priest, Father Andrea Santoro, as he prayed in his church in the Black Sea city of Trabzon.
6.3.2010 | 5:53pm
roger says:
To Scott.S
I do not usually do this as it is off topic, but:
You can personally persist in your delusion that the US "did not lose the Vietnam War" but any intellectually honest appraisal will conclude that the US was soundly and completely defeated in Vietnam (thank God!)
The definition of victory, or defeat, is purely this:
Who of the combatants controls the battlefield at the conclusion of the conflict is the victor.
There was a South Vietnam when the US entered the conflict and there was a South Vietnam when the US was driven out, sophistry about Congress cutting off money is intellectual evasion. Face reality.
I do not usually do this as it is off topic, but:
You can personally persist in your delusion that the US "did not lose the Vietnam War" but any intellectually honest appraisal will conclude that the US was soundly and completely defeated in Vietnam (thank God!)
The definition of victory, or defeat, is purely this:
Who of the combatants controls the battlefield at the conclusion of the conflict is the victor.
There was a South Vietnam when the US entered the conflict and there was a South Vietnam when the US was driven out, sophistry about Congress cutting off money is intellectual evasion. Face reality.
6.3.2010 | 11:45pm
Krakow says:
It would be to our benefit if we accepted God's Battalions by Rodney Stark as being relatively accurate. "Accurate" representation of historical events may be more important to the longevity of Judeo-Christian values than interpretation of current events.
6.4.2010 | 2:42am
Norman Clemo says:
The Dragons of Expectation
By Robert Conquest
From the west I saw fly
the dragons of expectation,
and open the way of the fire-powerful;
they beat their wings,
so that everywhere it appeared to me
that earth and heaven burst.
-from a translation by Thomas Wright (1844) of the Poetic (or Elder) Edda
By Robert Conquest
From the west I saw fly
the dragons of expectation,
and open the way of the fire-powerful;
they beat their wings,
so that everywhere it appeared to me
that earth and heaven burst.
-from a translation by Thomas Wright (1844) of the Poetic (or Elder) Edda
6.4.2010 | 4:20pm
John Cummins says:
Krakow,
Attempted essential and total vindications of the crusades, especially when one of the bolsters provided is western success, obliges Christianity, Christendom and Christians to compete with all others as the best philosophy and religious system for worldly success.
That it is, is far from proven, and to earnestly maintain it and seek its vindication as such indisputably detracts from the true message and power of the Gospel, which is far more than part of the "Judaeo-Christian" tradition and is certainly not a "Western" religion. And it distracts purported followers of Jesus Christ from their true calling.
"Judaeo-Christian", there's a bit of redundancy in that term isn't there? It's might even be a bit hackneyed, though its usage in that sense isn't even 80 years old!
Attempted essential and total vindications of the crusades, especially when one of the bolsters provided is western success, obliges Christianity, Christendom and Christians to compete with all others as the best philosophy and religious system for worldly success.
That it is, is far from proven, and to earnestly maintain it and seek its vindication as such indisputably detracts from the true message and power of the Gospel, which is far more than part of the "Judaeo-Christian" tradition and is certainly not a "Western" religion. And it distracts purported followers of Jesus Christ from their true calling.
"Judaeo-Christian", there's a bit of redundancy in that term isn't there? It's might even be a bit hackneyed, though its usage in that sense isn't even 80 years old!
6.4.2010 | 7:04pm
John Cummins says:
a review of the Stark Crusade book,
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2010/05/gods-battalions-case-for-crusades-by.html
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2010/05/gods-battalions-case-for-crusades-by.html
6.5.2010 | 9:03am
Krakow says:
Dwight Eisenhower promoted the Judeo-Christian term? I wish Adlai's father would have won. http://adlai3.com Tim O'Neill's review certainly rains on the parade but God's Battalions should be read. Thank you John Cummins for the pointers.
6.6.2010 | 8:10pm
John Cummins says:
"Dwight Eisenhower promoted the Judeo-Christian term?"
No. OED'll tell you all about it; if you don't have one, try a library.
Why read journalist/sociologist Stark's book if it's so wrong-headed and error-ridden? To prove O'Neill completely wrong? Stark recycles much the same finely-wrought points about Christianity and the "West" in his "Victory of Reason" and "Rise of Christianity" books, and makes much the same factual and historical mistakes.
For those who relish crusades revisionism, if you take yourself seriously, read "A History of the Crusades" by Stephen Runciman (that's RUN-si-mon). Have you heard of that work? No? Well please suspend your views of the Crusades and stick Stark to the side 'til you've read it, thank-you-very-much. (If three volumes make you faint, try his "The First Crusade".) You can try first-person accounts such as those of Geffroy de Villehardouin and Jean de Joinville (friend of St. Louis) and the chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres.
No. OED'll tell you all about it; if you don't have one, try a library.
Why read journalist/sociologist Stark's book if it's so wrong-headed and error-ridden? To prove O'Neill completely wrong? Stark recycles much the same finely-wrought points about Christianity and the "West" in his "Victory of Reason" and "Rise of Christianity" books, and makes much the same factual and historical mistakes.
For those who relish crusades revisionism, if you take yourself seriously, read "A History of the Crusades" by Stephen Runciman (that's RUN-si-mon). Have you heard of that work? No? Well please suspend your views of the Crusades and stick Stark to the side 'til you've read it, thank-you-very-much. (If three volumes make you faint, try his "The First Crusade".) You can try first-person accounts such as those of Geffroy de Villehardouin and Jean de Joinville (friend of St. Louis) and the chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres.
6.7.2010 | 3:21pm
MarcH says:
A potential figure of 3,000 IDF killed (God forbid) in a new war in Lebanon seems a bit large. Total IDF KIA for the Yom Kippur War are estimated at 2,500 to 3,000. I think it depends on Israeli strategy and rules of engagement (ROE). If Israel strike quickly in a combined air/land offensive and the IDF ROE are limted to the black-letter Law of War the various Hizballah defensive positions might soon find themselves cut off, demorialized and targeted by Israel's precision artillery. Nasrallah would soon high-tail it for Syria once he relaized that Israeli armor and air-assualt units are headed for Beirut and the Bekka. Of course, this assumes that Israel is willing to ignore "world opinion" for a few weeks.
Jim Dunnigan's Strategy Page discusses a large scale IDF air/land offensive in Lebanon:
StrategyPage.com
Israel Tells Lebanon How It Will Be Destroyed
June 2, 2010: Israel has revealed its plans for a future war with Hezbollah. Israel doesn't want another war with the Lebanese terror organization, Hezbollah. In 2006, the Iran backed Islamic radicals dragged Lebanon into a war with Israel, that left Lebanon a mess. Hezbollah, in typical Arab fashion, proclaimed defeat as a victory. The 2006 fighting crippled Hezbollah military power, destroyed billions of dollars of its assets, and actually improved Israeli combat power. Thousands of Israeli troops gained combat experience in southern Lebanon, and Israeli casualties had no effect on overall Israeli military strength. But Hezbollah is still there, and Iran financed the rebuilding their military strength.
Thus if there's another war, Israel plans to use a larger force (4-5 combat divisions, versus three in 2006, and more than twice as many aircraft and many more commandos.) The next war would involve doing a lot more damage to Hezbollah, in a shorter period of time. The earlier war lasted 34 days. Since 2006, Hezbollah has acquired more power (via its control of about a third of the voters) in the Lebanese government. Thus the new plan involves doing a lot more damage to the rest of Lebanon, and the Lebanese armed forces. Israel wants all Lebanese to know that they are partly responsible for Hezbollah continuing to exist.
Keep in mind exactly what Hezbollah is. It is a radical Islamic organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and the eventual establishment of a world-wide Islamic dictatorship (in cooperation with its patron, Iran). Hezbollah has taken control of about a third of Lebanon, and runs it as a religious dictatorship, a branch office of the similar Iranian tyranny. Hezbollah's power base is the 1.3 million Lebanese who are Shia Moslem (like most Iranians are). The Shia comprise about 35 percent of the Lebanese population, and have long been the least prosperous third of the population.
Hezbollah not only helped defend Shia interests during the 1975-90 civil war, but gave out tens of billions of dollars in Iranian money over the years. In return for all these favors, Hezbollah asks only for obedience, and volunteers for its trained terrorist force of several thousand fighters. Pro-Hezbollah Shia also dominate in the Lebanese army, a force put together since 1990 with the assistance of the Syrians. The Syrians are also allies of Iran, and consider most of Lebanon as part of Syria. France assembled Lebanon in the 1920s, after World War I, from bits of the recently disbanded Turkish empire. Historically, "Lebanon" was a string of coastal cities in what is now Lebanon. The French added some more territory inland, territory that had traditionally been considered part of Syria. The Syrians have not forgotten, neither have the Lebanese.
Hezbollah remains a close ally of Syria, which makes most Lebanese nervous. But most Lebanese are hostile to Israel, that hatred being the only thing that unites Lebanese (who are otherwise divided by religion and politics). Yet most Lebanese also fear Israel. It's taken for granted that the Israelis could conquer the country if they wanted, and certainly demonstrated, in 2006, that they could destroy much of the country from the air. But despite the threat, Israel pleas for Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah have been brushed away. That is largely because most Lebanese are eager to avoid another civil war. Damage from the 1975-90 conflict is still being repaired. But Israelis make it clear that, if Hezbollah attacks again, all of Lebanon will suffer, and quickly.
Jim Dunnigan's Strategy Page discusses a large scale IDF air/land offensive in Lebanon:
StrategyPage.com
Israel Tells Lebanon How It Will Be Destroyed
June 2, 2010: Israel has revealed its plans for a future war with Hezbollah. Israel doesn't want another war with the Lebanese terror organization, Hezbollah. In 2006, the Iran backed Islamic radicals dragged Lebanon into a war with Israel, that left Lebanon a mess. Hezbollah, in typical Arab fashion, proclaimed defeat as a victory. The 2006 fighting crippled Hezbollah military power, destroyed billions of dollars of its assets, and actually improved Israeli combat power. Thousands of Israeli troops gained combat experience in southern Lebanon, and Israeli casualties had no effect on overall Israeli military strength. But Hezbollah is still there, and Iran financed the rebuilding their military strength.
Thus if there's another war, Israel plans to use a larger force (4-5 combat divisions, versus three in 2006, and more than twice as many aircraft and many more commandos.) The next war would involve doing a lot more damage to Hezbollah, in a shorter period of time. The earlier war lasted 34 days. Since 2006, Hezbollah has acquired more power (via its control of about a third of the voters) in the Lebanese government. Thus the new plan involves doing a lot more damage to the rest of Lebanon, and the Lebanese armed forces. Israel wants all Lebanese to know that they are partly responsible for Hezbollah continuing to exist.
Keep in mind exactly what Hezbollah is. It is a radical Islamic organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and the eventual establishment of a world-wide Islamic dictatorship (in cooperation with its patron, Iran). Hezbollah has taken control of about a third of Lebanon, and runs it as a religious dictatorship, a branch office of the similar Iranian tyranny. Hezbollah's power base is the 1.3 million Lebanese who are Shia Moslem (like most Iranians are). The Shia comprise about 35 percent of the Lebanese population, and have long been the least prosperous third of the population.
Hezbollah not only helped defend Shia interests during the 1975-90 civil war, but gave out tens of billions of dollars in Iranian money over the years. In return for all these favors, Hezbollah asks only for obedience, and volunteers for its trained terrorist force of several thousand fighters. Pro-Hezbollah Shia also dominate in the Lebanese army, a force put together since 1990 with the assistance of the Syrians. The Syrians are also allies of Iran, and consider most of Lebanon as part of Syria. France assembled Lebanon in the 1920s, after World War I, from bits of the recently disbanded Turkish empire. Historically, "Lebanon" was a string of coastal cities in what is now Lebanon. The French added some more territory inland, territory that had traditionally been considered part of Syria. The Syrians have not forgotten, neither have the Lebanese.
Hezbollah remains a close ally of Syria, which makes most Lebanese nervous. But most Lebanese are hostile to Israel, that hatred being the only thing that unites Lebanese (who are otherwise divided by religion and politics). Yet most Lebanese also fear Israel. It's taken for granted that the Israelis could conquer the country if they wanted, and certainly demonstrated, in 2006, that they could destroy much of the country from the air. But despite the threat, Israel pleas for Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah have been brushed away. That is largely because most Lebanese are eager to avoid another civil war. Damage from the 1975-90 conflict is still being repaired. But Israelis make it clear that, if Hezbollah attacks again, all of Lebanon will suffer, and quickly.
6.7.2010 | 9:48pm
Margaret says:
>>Under the law of a blockade, intercepting a vessel could apply globally so long as a ship is bound for a "belligerent" territory, legal experts say.
3.21.2011 | 4:44am
Judy Freetage says:
Actually, the relief from horror will be found in the establishment of a single Palestinian state in which Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists live together as brothers. Israel should not shy from defending itself. Nor should we. The West comes across as increasingly pathetic, as it's moral anchor disintegrates. Showing weakness to wild beasts or madmen has inevitable consequences. My aggressive side says that Israel has lost its mojo. They need to re-read their Joshua. Rather than paint-ball guns, they should have used a torpedo, with an Iranian flag on the casing, of course.
4.19.2011 | 6:22pm
Gudat Cartridge says:
"Kill them all" -- now, that is a thought that horrifies me, and should horrify everyone. God forbid. My view is that a strike against Iran's nuclear capacity might constitute a humiliation sufficiently devastating to demoralize Iran's minions in Hamas, Hizbollah, and so forth (although it might have to be followed by a costly and bloody infantry campaign in southern Lebanon, for example). The whole point of taking decisive action now is to avoid bloodshed on a greater scale--for example, an eventual nuclear war in the region. These new liberal Muslims are not quite - yet - the radicalized, fully militant Muslims we are used to. But a little too much rough handling - as well as too-liberal lack of any control at all - could radicalize some of them.
So, given that it was Israeli troops who bloodied the shirt, as you put it, it is because of Israel itself that the attack on the flotilla receives mention?
Actually, the relief from horror will be found in the establishment of a single Palestinian state in which Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists live together as brothers.