If Israel shouldn’t exist….

……neither should Pakistan. BOTH states were founded after World War II by followers of a specific religion who wanted to establish a society in which that religion would dominate it. Pakistan excluded Hindus and remains a hotbed of Muslim extremism to this day (which is why it was stupid for President Bush Jr. to accept Pakistan as an ally in his “War on Terrorism”, when in fact Osama Bin Ladin was hiding out in Pakistan for years until President Obama finally had him killed). And Israel continues to violate the rights of Palestinians by building and keeping Jewish settlements on the West Bank, thus stealing land the United Nations said was not theirs in 1947. Yet the United States also continues to support Israel, no matter what. Why is Jewish extremism more acceptable than Muslim extremism? Either accept both and the states made from them or condemn both and the states made from them. Not only one or the other, unless you are a religious bigot.

This understanding came to me after reading this:

http://skepchick.org/2013/03/whitefeminism/

While other countries are “Muslim” or “Islamic” because they just so happen to have a large Muslim population, Pakistan was founded by Muslims as a Muslim country in rather deliberate fashion.

I replied as follows:

Likewise, Israel was founded by Jews as a Jewish country in rather deliberate fashion. If one is illegitimate, so is the other. Can you discuss this too?

The blog author replied:

That isn’t at all part of my focus or within my scope as a blogger. There are plenty of critics of Israel and Zionism who can speak to such matters better than I can.

I then said:

I understand. My actual point is that I know of no anti-Zionists that also attack Pakistan for its existence as a Muslim state founded to separate its people from mostly Hindu India. Proving that they are more biased towards Islam and against Jews than any just person should be.

As an non-theist, I’m one of those “a plague on both your houses” people that gets it from both sides.

How Christian bigots make the peace process of Israel and Palestine impossible

After all the killings and destruction since 1948 in the “Holy Land”, we must do all we can to undo the systematic brainwashing of the American people that has been done for many decades by Christian fundamenalist leaders and propagandists. As far as I’m concerned, they are mass murderers by proxy!

First, they claim that Israel’s founding was a fulfilment of Bible prophecy and thus will lead to the return of Christ and the establishment of God’s kingdom. They must claim this because so many prophecies in the Old Testament referring to Israel were NOT fulfilled in ancient times, therefore, they assume that these prophecies will be fulfilled in modern times with the new state of Israel. But that is nothing but a rationalization.

Second, if you read what Jesus actually said in the Gospels about his return, then certain events were supposed to take place, then he would return while the generation that saw him alive still lived. Indeed, the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70 and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 could be seen as fulfillments of what Jesus said…….but he did NOT return. So why would some Christians still be waiting for his return nearly 2000 years later? And linking his return to the JEWISH state of Israel is absurd, period!

Third, and worst of all, many Christians see what has happened in the Middle East since 1948 as a reenactment of the ancient wars described in the Bible, where many atrocities were also committed. Indeed, the Book of Joshua describes a long campaigne of conquest and genocide that would be compared with what the German Nazis did if it happened today. And that is the main reason most fundamentalist Christians are not bothered by the wrongdoings of Israel because they think, “Such things were done in Biblical times and were said to be God’s will, so why not let them happen again?” That’s a bit like expecting a teenager to wear diapers long after he has outgrown them and been potty trained. This is one reason why I am sometimes so contemptuous of religion: It actually prevents people from growing up spiritually and morally.

And Palestinians, you are not blameless either! You, just as Israel, have murdered far too many innocents in the name of your religion and your nationality. If I had my way, I’d sweep both you AND the Jews off the “Holy Land” and allow that land 100 years of healing before I ever allow any people to live there again. And then only atheists and agnostics, who would treat the land and its history more objectively than any Jew, Christian, and Muslim would.

If you want to see just how stupid the mentality I described just above can get, just go to a library and check out The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, and its several sequels that this despicable fraud wrote in the late 1970s and 1980s. He was using religion to promote hard-line Conservative politics, and for that alone I will spit on him forever!

Is Israel trying to start another WAR?

That is what one would think, based on this news story:

Report: Israel to build settlement in West Bank

Israel radio reports that Israel has given preliminary approval for the construction of a new Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

It would be the first new settlement established by Israel in several years.

The report says a committee has given the approval for the construction of 20 housing units in Maskiot and that Defense Minister Ehud Barak is slated to grant final approval soon.

Calls to Israeli spokespeople requesting comment were not immediately returned Thursday.

The news is certain to anger Palestinians just as the sides try to work out a final peace agreement by the end of the year.

Israel has committed not to establish new settlements in the West Bank, which the Palestinians want to include in a state.

Not only is the building of a new Israeli settlement in the West Bank a violation of the international agreements that allowed Israel to form in the first place, but the peace process can only move forward if Israel agrees to remove any Jewish settlements in Palestinian land that were established earlier.

The Zionist dream of having an independent Jewish homeland has already been fulfilled. But some extremists among the Jews don’t know when enough is enough. And they, along with all their fellow Jews, will ultimately be the losers if they are not stopped from stealing any more Arab land. The Arabs will surely strike at Israel and set back peace in the Middle East by several decades. And the United States needs to stop blindly supporting Israel and put firm conditions on any future aid it may offer any nation in that part of the world.

My recent statement about Israel-bashing

I wrote this during a discussion about a friend of mine:

“I try to make subtle distinctions to be as accurate as possible. I’ve noticed that when I do this, people who think in the opposite way slam me for being inconsistent. Take Israel, for example. Israel-bashers take the real examples of Israel’s dismal treatment of the Palestinians and translate that into outright labling of the Israeli state itself as criminal. When you do that, you are expressing prejudice. So even if the human rights violations by Israel ended, the Israel-bashers would still demand that the Jewish state should not exist because the act of establishing it displaced some Palestinians.

What they don’t tell you is that if Israel had never come into existence, the Jews still living in Palestine would be under ARAB rule and would be subject to whatever treatment the Arab rulers felt like doing. Given that most Arab states even today are either absolute monarchies or military dictatorships, how can efforts to establish a democracy for Jews like what was done in 1948 not be justified?

So I will slam Israel for specific acts that are excessive, but defend its right to exist and protect its citizens within lawful limits.”

And that’s the only decent way to operate. Anyone who takes a different route is a hypocrite, looking for excuses to have a second Holocaust in the Holy Land.

The sad downfall of Silly Old Bear in Care2

Silly Old Bear, also known as Henric Jensen, is one of my best online friends. He is Jewish, Swedish, married, a transexual, and one of the best human rights activists I’ve ever known. He was also one of the most hated people in Care2. Hated because he was a firm opponent of Israel-bashing, which he saw as anti-Semetic, and was just as eager to defending men’s rights even before angry feminists who seemed to have a grudge against all men. Continue reading

An anti-Zionist Jew?

A few days ago, another member of Care2 introduced himself to me as “an anti-Zionist Jew” and he stated that Israel “has been a brutal, vicious, occupying, racist bully since day one.”

Since Jews are not a race (the idea that they are a race cames from anti-Semites, not the Jews themselves), the idea that Israel is in any way a racist state is moot. It does have policies favoring Jews over non-Jews, but likewise most Arab states have policies favoring Muslims over non-Muslims. Yet Israel-bashers never discuss that fact.

I looked at his profile and saw that his religion was listed as “Athiest”.

http://www.care2.com/c2c/people/profile.html?pid=101600802

I would suggest that this person’s hostility to God-centered religions is a bigger factor in his dim view of Israel than anything that Israel might have done in fighting against its Arab enemies. But what do I know? I’m just an agnostic who is wary of all expressions of anti-Semitism.

If the state of Israel had not been founded, the Jews living in the Holy Land would have remained a minority in an Arab dominated state ruling their own ancestral homeland, just as they had been for centuries in the past. Somehow, that makes no sense to me.

Questions Israel-bashers need to answer

If Israel is so evil, and the Palestinians are merely its innocent victims: 

  • Why did the Arabs, and not the Jews in Palestine, reject the UN offer in 1947 to divide the land between the two groups so both peoples could have separate states side by side?
  • Why did six Arab states declare war on Israel as soon as it declared its Independence from the British Mandate in 1948?
  • Why was Israel at its founding the only democracy in the Middle East, while its Arab enemies were either absolute monarchies or military dictatorships?
  • Why does Israel maintain within its borders an Arab minority that lives in peace with their Jewish neighbors?
  • Why, when the Arabs failed to destroy Israel through conventional warfare, did some of them resort to terrorism, including suicide bombers?
  • Why is it OK for Arabs to have several nations of their own in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain, but it is not OK for the Jews to also have a state of their own there?
  • Why did Egypt and Jordan sign peace treaties with Israel?
  • Why, during the war between Israel and Hezebollah in the summer of 2006, did Hezebollah shoot so many rockets at the city of Haifa, which is well known as a place where Jews, Christians, and Muslims live together in peace, as well as the location of the World Center of the Baha’i Faith?

I find it strange that Israel bashers never want to address these issues.