Answers to Andy: Arab and Israeli Fascisms? (April 2009) And other queries.

Query: Isn't the ultimate Palestinian goal "to wipe out the State of Israel from the map and create the twenty-second Arab State." As Arafat put it: Our nation is the Arabic nation that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and beyond it…The PLO is fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism…" (1970). All minorities living within the Arab world are under siege. Tunisian human rights activist Muhammad Bechri has traced this to the "twin fascisms" – his term – that dominate the Arab world, Islamism and pan-Arabism. The first promotes murderous intolerance of religious minorities. It helps explain why Christians are under siege across the Arab world and why Sudan enjoyed broad Arab support as it killed some two million non-Muslim blacks in the south of the country. Pan-Arabism translates into endorsement of murderous policies toward Muslim but non-Arab groups and accounts for Arab support for Saddam Hussein as he slaughtered 200,000 Kurds in Northern Iraq, as well as backing for Sudanese policies toward the Muslim but black population of Darfur. The Arab world is not about to make an exception for the Jews. This broad intolerance of minorities is further evidence of how unlikely it is the Arab world will accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state in its midst any time soon. (Read more here) Reply: In general the writer is calling the cards right. Doing so, he strengthens the analogy between these "twin fascisms" and the Israeli Garrison State as governed for half a century. "A plague on both your houses!" The Palestinian elite is no better than Judaeo-Israelist extremists who urge the imperial "Greater Israel" – just immensely weaker at present. In the Canaan alternative, the Palestinians will no longer have any reason to feel threatened by Israel, as they are now, or by any other Arabs, and the American threat will be converted into an ultimate sign of equality and brotherhood with the USA.   Query: Come off it! You assign 165+ rogueries to the Israelists while only 12+ to the Palestinians. Are we that bad? Reply: Of course not! The variety and number of rogueries are highly correlated with the ability to commit them. Also, I have pointed out time after time, that intense Israelists are more subject, through their world-certified mythology and the recently grave trauma of the Shoah (as it is sacralized), to psychologically projecting Nazi aggressiveness onto much less guilty Palestinians (and others, including Americans). Like punch-drunk prizefighters, they are hitting out at anybody around. Given their poor capabilities, anti-Israelist and anti-semitic Arab and Islamic groups profusely issue imaginary Intifadas and punishments upon Jews and Christians. Query: The Palestinians are poor and therefore objects of scorn and blame. Right? Reply: Correct. Since their intelligentsia and upper classes have been largely dispersed and incapacitated by the Israelists, most Palestinians are in the condition of the Ashkenazi Jews of a century ago, of the shtetl and ghetto, who were often caught amongst marauding armies and gangs. Perhaps 80% of the Palestinian people of today are poorly educated, jobless, generous, ritual-ridden hicks. (A hick is a free rural peasant of America. There are fewer in the States now [several millions] because small farming and villages have given way to urban industrial society and industrial farms. There are more Palestinian farmers, adding in refugees, than American farmers. There are more urban Jews in America than farmers. We should not spend too much time casting blame. We are designing the future, remember? If you insist upon enumerating rogueries of Islam and Palestine, you will find a bewildering, frightening list by  clicking here . Both for Israel and for the Palestinians, the  lists of rogueries are compressed. The rogueries may be singular, like the sinking of the SS Liberty, or grouped, like the hundreds of thousands of exasperating and humiliating delays at check points. Actually the Liberty case could be grouped with the roguish sinking of Palestinian, humanitarian, Jewish, and other craft, as "sea sinkings." (By the way, the unarmed Liberty amazingly did not sink, owing to the heroic efforts of the decimated crew, solid construction, incompetence of the Israeli navy and air force attackers, and their final withdrawal in fear of rumored rescuers and disclosure. Congress should erect a memorial to these Americans and their ship; I would feel honored to write their epitaph. I would also sponsor a Joint Resolution of the Congress condemning and regretting the actions of the Israeli government and the coverup by the American President (Johnson), the Secretary of Defense, and the U.S. Navy chiefs who should have resigned rather than sacrifice their integrity and honor.) You might, if you will, send this message to President Obama, Speaker Pelosi of the House and Majority Leader Reid of the Senate. PS: President Obama has since approved that a Silver Medal be given to a veteran of the USS Liberty. Query:  Won't American crime rates jump with all the new Arab and Jewish Americans? America has already the highest crime rates of the developed lands of the world. Now we are thinking of adding maybe 10 million more Americans, half Arabs, half Jews. What will happen to our crime rates? Won't they soar? To the contrary. Nothing to worry about. The rates in Israel and Palestine now are confused, given several different police forces, divided localities, the general alarm and the frequent state-directed  violence both in Palestine and Israel. But they do not appear to be any higher than the American rates and actually may be lower. There may be a problem with recent Russian-Israelis; Russia's rates are high. Palestinian crime rates appear to be lower than Israeli rates. More American men are killed (per 100K) than Israelis (even counting the attacks by Palestinians).  (The US today has the world's  highest homicide rate and highest incarceration, parole and probation rates – 1 in every 40 adults). Southern American states and cities are likely to frighten an ordinary Canaan, if he simply looks at the rates. New York City, for instance, where so many Jews and Muslims congregate, has safer conditions of person and property than Houston or Los Angeles or Chicago. Canaan State itself, when conditions settle down, will likely be a haven of security in the USA.

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