JB Globe

Your post is almost entirely off-topic, considering not once did you address the future of Zionism, or reference the article in my original post. I'll respond to some of your questions, but in the future please try and mention the topic at hand at least once . . . I've read a great deal about how religious minorities are treated in post-colonial nations, Muslim nations included. My conclusion about the founding of the state of Israel was that it was a colonial enterprise, because it used classic colonial justifications for the seizure and settlement of indigenous land and involved a mass migration of foreigners to run the new government, which was once based primarily on a religious identity not shared by most of the indigenous population. I don't have the same view of the founding of various Muslim states in the world because for the most part they were created artificially by the colonial powers who dominated them at the time. I have read quite a bit about Jewish life in Christian Europe, but to compare it to the experience of black South Africans would be inaccurate. Racism was obviously a primary factor - but the circumstances were much different (Jews were a migratory minority in Europe, whereas blacks in South Africa were the oppressed indigenous population). Okay, can you explain? Which categories? We're on the same page here. The thing is, there are different forms of Zionism, and it means different things to different people. Your definition isn't the same as someone who votes Shas in Knesset elections. The whole point of the article was that if Israel continues to pursue policies which most liberal Jews find repulsive in an effort to get the votes of the increasingly influential hardline/religious segment of the Israeli population, liberal Jews will start to abandon the Zionist political movement, because it will no longer represent their values, and will even go against them in some cases. Then the void will be filled by hardline religious Jews, and Christian Zionists, and the Zionist movement will become radically different. And for the record, I don't think Zionism is by nature racist, like many ideologies, if you apply it in a certain way to certain situations, it can be used to justify racism. And of course, I have no problem with any of this, no argument here. While the desire for a Jewish homeland for Jews post-WWII is totally understandable, it is still difficult for someone like myself who has studied colonialism in-depth to rationalize the founding of Israel, even considering the Holocaust. There simply is no moral justification for foreigners setting up a nation on indigenous land based around their religious/cultural identity - no matter how traumatized they were. I disagree. When you arrive on someone else's land with the aim of creating a nation for yourself, and you do not include indigenous people in the process in any significant way, than you are essentially saying that your concerns are superior to any other, because they are the only ones that matter enough to be considered. Complete disregard for the human rights of another person is a tacit admission of a superiority complex on your own part. Ctd below . . .

To go back to the point of the article - Zionism won't die, it will just change, most likely for the worst. The Zionist movement will loose it's liberal Jews who become increasingly disgusted by Israel's behaviour and they'll be replaced by Christian-Zionists (who want to bring about Armageddon) who will join orthodox Jews in promoting a purely irrational, militant, Imperialistic and racist form of Zionism which will cause much greater instability in the region. And if the US is onboard with supporting this move to the fringe, expect a lot more animosity coming it's way.

I went to York, and at that time it was just as heated, if not more so - eventually debate on the Israeli-Palestinian issue was banned from the campus while I was there because of a small brawl of about a dozen people that broke out. I'm sure things haven't changed that much since then, mainly that: there are some incredibly dumb thugs on both sides of the debate that don't really care about discussing issues, but have such a seething hatred for the other side that they're just looking for any excuse to start a a ruckus. Frankly, you'd hear disgusting and stupid garbage coming out of both sides. The problem with the debate at York wasn't that one side was worse than the other, it's just that both sides acted like 14-year-olds that had just downed 4 cans of Red Bull prior to the discussion.

Are you saying you have never met a Jew who is opposed to the separation fence, and West Bank settlements? I find that extremely hard to believe. Even middle-of-the-road Jews look down on those things. But besides that, there's definitely a marked decline in support for Israel from decade to decade. One study that I saw tested the same young age group for the past several decades and found Jews with a positive image of Israel has declined by about 8% each decade. I disagree - the declining support is directly related to the occupation of Palestine. It is a policy which forces Israel to commit acts which are repulsive to most Jews. Some Jews can rationalize some of this away by invoking tribal loyalty or by claiming it's self-defense, but this decade we're seeing Israel do things which really can't be justified by anyone who is truly committed to human rights or democratic freedoms - case in point: the separation barrier - there is simply no other explanation for not building it on the border other than it was a land-grab that aimed to sieze territory and make settlements permanent. And now Jews who are told to support Israel have to bare witness to IDF soldiers firing tear gas and beating back groups of women who are trying to stop bulldozers from tearing up their olive groves. That's not exactly an image you want going out to the world if you want to increase support for your nation. True, but I've always believed that by most Western standards, Israel is not that liberal due to the amount of influence religious authorities (ie - the Chief Rabbinate) have within civil society. It shouldn't be surprising however that nation founded mainly by Europeans bears a closer resemblance to European government than it does to Arab governments. But frankly, for a nation that projects itself as a shining light of liberalism, Israel has failed to live up to it's aims. But there has been a marked decline in how liberal a state Israel is as religious conservatives have gotten more and more influential in determining domestic and foreign government policy. And this has filtered out into public life as well. Whereas a woman wearing jeans would never be harassed a few decades ago, some areas of Jerusalem are no-go areas for women do to verbal and even physical harassment from religious extremists, unless they dress according to orthodox standards. Also, not many liberal nations deny property rights to people based on their religious background. And it's these realities which young Jews find increasingly hard to ignore in the face of pressure to support Israel.

Really interesting read. It deals with the US, but I think you could apply it to Canada as well. On a personal note - I read a history of South Africa and the justifications colonists used to displace and oppress indigenous peoples for a class. Then on my own time I went and read a standard mainstream history of the creation state of Israel. I was pretty shocked to see a lot of the same arguments being used. A lot of Jews my age are open to at least discussing this, the few times I brought this up with people from my parents' generation it got ugly, fast, and more often than not ended with me being shouted into silence or a "you should be ashamed!" There definitely is a generational change afoot. I for one, can't wait until mainstream Jewish organizations stop subscribing to groupthink and asking Jews to check their deeply held commitments to causes like human rights at the door when it comes to dealing with Israel.

JB are my initials, the "globe" bit comes from an old blog I used to write. Frankly when people like yourself read my posts, and then look at his in-direct responses, it's pretty obvious that he's using the "JB Globe is a troll" line to avoid having to deal with my arguments. I'm not surprised - generally posters who make grandiose statements about topics they have never studied HATE it when people who do know a little about the topic hold them accountable to their claims. I've told JBG directly before - if you make ridiculous claims about subjects you don't know anything about, someone is going to make you look like a fool - so do what I do and stick to subjects you know, and ask questions about subjects you don't know - that's how you learn.

If that's the case than how come Britain and Spain were able to prosecute the culprits of their bombings successfully, safely, without any circuses to speak of, all while keeping sensitive information classified? Either their justice system and security apparatus are superior to the US, or you're just wrong. Clearly they are bent on living out pretty mundane, normal lives. I mean really - do you really think that the entire Muslim world is simmering with aggression towards the West? Do you have any idea what the world would actually be like if 1 billion people were itching for a war? It sure as hell wouldn't be as quiet as it is now.

Accidental Post, deleted

To boot, the organization behind it seems all over education, tolerance, respect, and understanding. People aren't really thinking this one through too much . . . Al-Qaeda and it's sympathizers love to talk about how the US is against all Muslims. What better concrete example to prove them wrong than to say "If we hate Islam so much, how come there is now a shiny, brand new mosque at the WTC? These Al-Qaeda guys just don't know what they're talking about." It's a rather brilliant concrete example of religious pluralism.

Well, isn't the whole point of this woman's argument that there shouldn't be a mosque near the former WTC because Islam is the religion that Al-Qaeda professes to? You even said: Let's just say there was an incident whereby a black neighbourhood in the south was burned down by a group of whites, Let's keep in mind that there are still many churches that cater either only to blacks and whites in the south to this day . . . What would you think if a black man said: "While all bigots aren't white people, all white people aren't free of bigotry, therefore, white people other than non-racists could very well be attending that church, a church that was made possible by racist white people" And the man used this as justification for his opposition to any white churches in the area. How does that make you feel? Kinda makes you feel that you're being punished for the actions of people you yourself despise, and perhaps even that some folks don't see too much of a distinction between you and those people, right?

One shouldn't be surprised that indigenous people push back at a colonial enterprise. What would you do if a foreign colonial power allowed foreigners to set up shop in your home and their population was twice the size of yours? I mean - look how freaked out you are that 1 million Muslims have settled in Canada at the request of the Canadian government. Imagine if the US was our overlord and decided to move in 60 million Muslims. You'd be running for your rifle in a second - now you know how the Palestinians must have felt in 1948. So they subcontracted war to paramilitary groups and ruthless dictators who promised lucrative access to oil fields. Hold on . . . Munich was done by the PLO to get Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza. The bombings of La Belle in Berlin and Lockerbie in the 80's were a Libyan government response to various attacks on Libyan ships in the Gulf of Sidra. 9/11 was carried out by Al Qaeda in response to the presence of Western troops in the Middle East. Only the later was carried out by an Islamist group. The fact that the actors in all cases happened to be Muslim isn't proof that "Islam is the problem" - especially they were all carried out for different reasons, and in the case of Libya and Palestine, were carried out for explicitly nationalistic reasons, not religious ones. You might as well make a connection between the Crusades, the Napoleonic wars and WWI because all of the actors happened to be Christian - so therefore they are examples of Christian aggression. Talk about moving the goal posts. Initially you listed all attacks by "Islam" against Western targets until 9/11 because you needed material to tar and feather Islam with. Now that you want to prove that Bush's time in office was successful against terrorism, you're only talking about "attacks on US soil" so that you can conveniently leave out the bombings in Madrid and London which happened under Bush's watch. But never mind that - how are you going to mention the "panty bomber" of 2009 as evidence Obama is failing and ignore the "shoe bomber" of 2001? (Richard Reid)??? No really - they were both members of Al Qaeda, they both failed to ignite their explosives in-flight. The only difference is one hid the bomb in his undies, and the other in his shoes. Oh, and one happened under Bush and one under Obama - but of course, that has nothing to do with the fact that you're ignoring one and mentioning the other, right? This is the clearest example yet of your selective memory and reading

I think this post is a stellar example of confirmation bias and I'll begin by demonstrating several blatantly false statements and huge gaps of time that JBG has glossed over, pretending they never happened . . . A ridiculous sweeping generalization that spans dozens of civilizations and thousands of years, easily disproven . . . All of those regions were major centres of civilization for most of their history. Many of those civilizations were pioneers in the rule of law in government for their time. Examples - The Babylonians and Hammurabi's code of law, the Maurya Empire in South Asia and Ashoka's edicts for human rights and religious freedom If JBG has examples that back up his claim, I'd love to see them. I'd love to see this claimed backed up as well . . . Islam was borne out of a mercantile tradition - Mohammed was a caravan trader, after all. So it makes sense that Islamic states saw the value in facilitating trade on routes like the Silk Road. They understood that guaranteeing protection for caravans, road maintenance, and supplying food & water were services that caravans would gladly pay a premium for. It was certainly more profitable for caravans to take a route through the Persian Samanid Empire in 800-1000 CE, for example, and pay the road tolls, and not have to worry about bandits, and get to your destination quicker. I don't call that extortion - I call that good business sense: provide a service that people are willing to pay a lot of money for. What brought about periods of low trade wasn't "Muslim exploitation" but rather political instability where dynasties broke up along the route, leaving some sections civil war zones, case-in-point: the breakup of the Mongol Empire. Also no one wanted to trade with Europe during the black plague for obvious reasons. And even if you were to call it extortion - how would that be any different than say, Britain's attempts to dominate the world's cotton market during the colonial period? If Islam is evil for "extorting Silk Road Trade" - what does that make Britain? Or are different rules applied to different societies depending on if they're "more or less like us?" Did you just really try to generalize Al-Andalus, the Ottomans, and the Mughals into one single entity based entirely on the fact that their religion was Islamic? That's like saying that Axumite Ethiopia, the Novgorod Republic, and 15th century Portugal were one in the same because they were all Christian, even though the were radically different from each other in terms of culture, political structure, and yes, even religion. And that means that they dealt with the political and economic realities of their times in different manners, and they can't be painted with the same, crude brush. Perhaps it's better to gloss over these differences because acknowledging them would ruin the "all Muslim civilizations are savage and evil" narrative that he's going for here. The Crusades were primarily about gaining control of the Silk Road (for which, the port of Acre was the western terminus at the time) and setting up a lucrative pilgrimage system to the Holy Land. But it wasn't this Imperial motivation that made the Crusaders look bad in comparison to the Muslim coalition at the time - it was what they did while in the Holy Land (see: various massacres of civilians) that has caused modern historians to not look on them as shining examples of Christian history. Seeing as how the Ottomans were part of the Ummah, I suppose that Europe was in fact concerned with a chunk of it . . . The Ottoman Empire was the biggest power in the region until it was surpassed by France. And huge swaths of modern-day Istanbul were trade districts for merchants from Venice, Genoa and others desperate to get their hands on Silk Road goodies.

Co-sign. I was in Egypt recently and many folks there were able to distinguish between Judaism and the actions of the state of Israel. If they're sophisticated enough to make that distinction I don't really think folks in the US or Canada have any excuse to not recognize that Al-Qaeda and Islam are not one in the same.

Well, apparently the US Census bureau disagrees with you, so I guess they don't know what they're talking about. (apparently you missed this link when American woman posted it previously)

And if he did, you'd say: "Obama needs to make up his mind!" - let's not kid ourselves, you'd have a problem no matter what he filled out. But listen - the census asks you to list the group (s) you identify with personally - Obama doesn't identify as white, therefor he doesn't have to check it off. End of story. He has his personal reasons for why, and they're his own personal reasons and frankly some white guy who harbours a degree of xenophobia and knows jack-all about dual identity doesn't really have any clout to analyze them. If it asked you to list family heritage, that'd be a different story and I can guarantee you he'd check off "white". But that's not what the census is for. Using your logic I'd have to check off 8 boxes, so would most people - because they had a great grandfather from Bulgaria and a grandmother from Ukraine. The data would be ridiculous - it would tell you people's family history, but you'd really have no clue how people actually identify in real life, which is the entire point. I just don't think you have any idea how and why government collect census data, and how it's used. Otherwise you wouldn't be complaning.

What do you expect from a coward?

Well I think you're overlooking the fact that the Muslim nations (which is beyond the Middle East) don't just supply oil to the US, they supply oil to almost all of the US' major trade partners, and without that oil fueling their economy, the global economy would tank. I mean gas jumped about $50/barrel when one refinery in Texas went offline a few years ago - what do you think would happen if the US went to war with most of the world's biggest oil suppliers? It's a lose-lose situation.

Cosign.

When the hell has Obama ever denied that his mom is white? He talks about having a white mom whenever he talks about his family. You mean - you want the census to reflect YOUR reality, not the person filling out the form, right? What type of narcotic are you on? The man wrote volumes about his white mother and his ancestry in his books. He's spoken about her many times in speeches. Where are you getting that he doesn't acknowledge his mom is white? Just because I don't check the box on the census that says "Russian" doesn't mean I'm in denial that my great-grandparents were born in Russia. It means I don't consider myself to be Russian. What the hell is your background anyways? What would you check off? You have a Swedish great grandfather? You gonna check off Swedish? No? Then you're in denial about yourself according to your own BS logic. Can you imagine how long people's hyphenated descriptions of themselves would be if they followed your logic in 50 years time? People would apparently belong to 20 different ethnic groups due to all the intermarriage. People get to define their own racial/ethnic identity, end of story. If you want to call yourself Chinese, go ahead, no one will believe you because there's no Chinese in your ancestry. But no one has a problem with Obama calling himself African-American - except for far-right troll posters who seem to try to turn everything he does into a stab at him. No really - if this is such an outrage, show me anyone who cares who isn't a quasi-racist far-right blogger. Most of us who actually speak to black folks on a regular basis are completely unphazed by any of this. Maybe you need to get out of your trailer park more often. Obama has white skin? Apparently you can't see or reason.

You're serious about this? You're serious that it's a good idea for the US to go to war with all the world's Muslims? Have you thought this one through? Let me know if this is a joke or not before I take this one apart with a few obvious setbacks that you're probably completely unaware of.

You're not dictating how biracial people construct their identity . . . You just want them to check the boxes that you want them to check, because you know them better than they know themselves. Right. Obama isn't pretending anything - he's choosing a term to describe himself that he's most comfortable with. Biracial folks spend their whole lives half-belonging and belonging no where at the same time, that quite frankly they've earned the right to label themselves, and to hell with anyone else trying to define them. Obama has done more deep introspection about his ancestry and identity than pretty much any other politician in recent history. There is nothing disturbing about someone taking the time to look in the mirror and deep within themselves and come to a conclusion about who they are and where they stand in the world. He is completely comfortable in his own skin, and has never had an issue talking about his identity and ancestry or writing huge chapters in books about them. You certainly can't say the same thing about Bobby Jindal - who squirms every time it's brought up that he's of Indian ancestry.

Enlighten me

200 000 women and girls have been raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone as rape has become an actual terrorism tactic used by militia groups . Most of these cases involved gang rape. In some cases family members were forced to rape their mother/sister/daughter at gunpoint or face the alternative of the whole family being shot. A lot of the women became pregnant as a result of the rape. Are you against giving a woman who's been gang raped the option to terminate the pregnancy? Are you for forcing her to carry the baby to term? What about a barely pubescent girl who was raped by her brother at gunpoint? If she's forced to give birth, I don't sleep better at night - do you? This s*** isn't as simple as you think it is - abortion means something completely different in conflict zones than it does here in Canada. Especially when forcing these women to carry the child often means getting illegal abortions in dirty back-alley clinics which can kill them. OR having (another) mental breakdown because the child is a reminder of their rapist(s), and attempting to remove the baby themselves with a kitchen knife while having a psychotic episode. But hey, don't worry - I'm sure you'll find a way to filter this into your narrative somehow - you just might need a hell of a f***ing sieve.

You support taxes that go to Canada's socialized military. You're a commie. Why don't you just get out of our country and go have a geriatric tryst with Fidel?

You know, even if that bomb went off, you could probably argue that the recent Wall Street scandals would have killed many times more people indirectly due to the millions of families who lost their health insurance when they lost their jobs. Random little known fact - terrorists would have to blow up a plane every week for terrorism to be as dangerous to US citizens as driving their frickin' car. But no one's shitting their collective pants about driving to Wal-Mart, are they? +9 Years in and people still don't know jack about how terrorism works - they have no idea how terrorists are pulling their puppet strings by getting them to freak out over something that is less likely to kill you than a lightning strike. They have no clue that when we change our daily lives, our national policies, and ditch our values that we're actually giving terrorists what they want. And I hate giving those buggers what they want.