Downgrading Gandhi

As the Wall Street Journal reports on a new biography of Gandhi (the respective quotes that follow are from that review), he was "the archetypal 20th-century progressive ­intellectual, professing his love for ­mankind as a concept while actually ­despising people as individuals." Regrettably, the progressives (aka leftists, aka socialists, aka communists - with various degrees of totalitarianism in their ideology) have not changed in the third millennium. It has been known for a long time that when Karl Marx was told, "I cannot think of you in a leveling society, as you have altogether aristocratic tastes and habits," Marx replied, "I cannot either.  That time will come, but we will be gone by then." (Unfortunately, some of us were not so lucky). Gandhi was not alien to luxury either, when he could afford it, adopting his simplicity principle only upon return to India where it would be good for his public image.

It is something new though, when we learn from Great Soul that Gandhi "advised the Czechs and Jews to adopt nonviolence toward the Nazis." His realism and humaneness come clear from his opinion that "'a single Jew standing up and ­refusing to bow to Hitler's decrees' might be enough 'to melt Hitler's heart.'" It is particularly striking that "he advised the Jews of Palestine to 'rely on the goodwill of the Arabs' and wait for a Jewish state 'till Arab ­opinion is ripe for it.'" The Jews knew then and know now how long they would have to wait for that opinion to ripen. What is really amazing, however, is that the world still relies on the expectations of the "good will of Arabs", so generously promised by that "mortal demigod". The one who turns out to be - according to this sympathetic biography - another fallen idol, a great deceiver and racist, who called Hitler "My friend".

A perfect metaphor

This is what happens (or finally should) when Israel reaches its limits of patience:

State oracles

Reportedly, Hillary Clinton has said, "We couldn't have predicted Mubarak's downfall". That is no surprise and no reason to write anything about. After all, the State Department could not predict the downfall of the Soviet Union either, a much more important and expected event, about which generations of Americans dreamed and President Reagan tirelessly worked on. What is surprising is Ms. Clinton's chutzpah in admitting her and her department's utter incompetence and lack of elementary work effort. Obviously, this is not about predicting some event that may or may not happen, anything at least as uncertain as the demise of the Soviet Empire. The only way the State Dept. could not have predicted Mubarak's downfall is if a former president's wife (it's difficult to find any other credentials that were supposed to qualify H. Clinton for her current post) and her subordinates were certain about Mubarak's immortality. The pharaoh is 82. Even if he were to live a long and happy life, it would still not prevent him from retirement in a very foreseeable future. Foreseeable, that is, if you are a sane person rather than Ms. Clinton who could not have imagined she would have to part with the dictator whose pockets she was so lovingly lining, and whose country she was supplying with weaponry that can be used only against Israel. If it were not for Israel's military superiority, the worthless piece of peace paper, for which Israel paid with Sinai's oil, would protect Israel as well as it has against rabid antisemitic incitement in Egypt. The only thing that was needed to predict Mubarak's downfall was to find out how old he is. One wouldn't even need to know, as has become suddenly known immediately after the "downfall", that both the army and Mubarak's own party had called for his resignation.

There is a good Russian saying, "Беда, коль пироги начнет печи сапожник, а сапоги тачать  - пирожник" - translated, it would be bad if a cobbler started baking pies and a baker making boots. This is what we get with the current administration of dilettantes led by a man whose relevant credentials hardly amount to a line in a resume.

Some time after

Let's just think for a moment what would happen if the "Palestinian" state were created as a result of current talks. Besides a couple of new Nobel peace prizes. Let's think of the "best-case" scenario, when the "refugee" problem is solved (I put the word in quotes because few if any of those people are actual refugees), the borders are mutually agreed on, and Jerusalem is not an issue. The disemboweled Israel has finally conducted another ethnic cleansing of its own loyal citizens, depriving them of their homes, land and life they have invested into their fields, vineyards and the Zionist idea. There is nobody left with whom that idea would have any physical traction anymore. The Judenrein Judea and Samaria emerge as "Palestine", named after the ancient enemies of Jews who never lived on that territory. Plishtim, as their Hebrew name was, the Philistines, whose name has come to stand for rude and uncultured ignoramuses, 3,000 years ago occupied part of the Mediterranean coast and had nothing to do with the Arabs. Mahmoud Abbas is enthroned as the President - finally, not of some "Authority" but a state. He has a new kunya perhaps, Abu Filastiniya. He sits in Ramallah, or even Jerusalem - behind the presidential desk under the portrait of the great Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, aka Yasser Arafat. Al-Husseini is also the name of Arafat's revered relative, Haj Amin, a good friend of Hitler and Eichmann and the first leader of "Palestinians". Wikipedia lists "Yasser" within that long train of names, but Arafat took it only when he studied in a university in Cairo. In Cairo he was also born, that great "Palestinian", who adopted the tale of his Jerusalem birth under the direction of his KGB handlers. But I digress.

Now, the "Palestine" of this sweet dream is surely a democratic state. That is, if Abbas, or whoever may dethrone him, does not decide to become a life-term president, which any other self-appointed Arab leader would do, especially given support of his multiple American-taught "security" forces. Is Gaza with its Hamas government part of that state? Hamas's Charter does not allow it to recognize or conduct negotiations with Israel. Thus, whether Gaza is not in that state, or is accepted as an entity within it, it has nothing to do with any agreements. How long will it take for an independent Gaza to start lobbing rockets at Israel again? Alternatively, how long will it take for Hamas to be elected to rule over the united "Palestine" and denounce these fabulous "peace" agreements or simply disregard them? Even before that, what will force Abbas to prevent murders of Israelis committed by "his" citizenry, if he is naming city squares after the terrorist murderers? As happened after the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, it will be immensely more difficult for Israel to protect itself against terror, capture terrorists, or retaliate, if Israeli troops are not deployed in "Palestine" anymore. How long will it take for its terror gangs to get equipped with weaponry readily provided via Jordan, which would likely soon become united with its long-suffering brethren into a terrorist fuehrer-led democracy, getting rid of that old import from Mecca, the Hashemites? There will be people willing to remind Abdullah of his father's Black September and of his own stripping them of their long-held Jordanian citizenship and rights. Whatever illusions may have existed before Israel's self-defeats in South Lebanon and Gaza, following the same pattern again is madness. Don't tell me how well it worked with buying peace from Egypt - does anybody doubt that only Israel's strength has protected it?

Squeezed tightly between the terror states of Jordistine and Hizballon, with the antisemitic "international community" guaranteeing "peace", that is, Israel's non-response to terror attacks for which those states would always have plausible if absurd deniability - with whom will Israel negotiate away the rest of its minuscule land? This time, for safe conduct?

What peace?

Another "Peace talks" charade has just started. Charade, because it makes no sense. Peace talks assume there is a war and there are warring sides, states. One cannot call "war" attempts of a terror gang (PLO, Fatah, Hamas, etc.) to kill Israelis and blackmail them into accepting the Arabs' desire to destroy Israel.

There is no war. There is continuous unrest and terror acts of the Arabs, which are ideologically motivated and can cease only if the ideology has no support. A nationalist ideology could be satisfied by attaining statehood if that ideology included the idea of Israel as a Jewish state. It does not seem to, as it is not a truly nationalist ideology. This ideology, from the start, has been focused not on the creation of a state but on the elimination of Israel. PLO was founded in 1964, before any "occupation" excuse for its terror. If Arabs had a goal of creating a state, they would have done that by now, taking one of the many opportunities they have had and rejected. The Islamic ideology, both embedded in the Palestinian Arab "nationalism" or in its pure Hamas form, in general predominant, does not allow a Jewish state at all, inasmuch as "Palestine" is Islamic waqf. There is nobody on either Fatah or Hamas side both capable and willing to suppress either ideology. Any "peace" they may achieve will consist, as usual, of Israel's irreversible tangible concessions and reversible and non-enforceable empty Arab promises. Non-agreement is fraught with Arab violence. Agreement is fraught with Israeli losses and Arab violence. I'd be happy if proven wrong.

Suppose, however, that this is a war. Isn't it the same war wherefore the Oslo accords were supposed to bring peace? That was the only justification for reimporting the career terrorist Arafat and his coterie, Abbas included. Evidently, it has not worked, if "peace talks" are needed again, after Oslo and all the rest of later talks. What would make anybody think it will work this time?

Oslo accords as well as all the later "peace" negotiations with terrorists have failed for the same reason as the most famous negotiations of this kind, Munich 1938. The "land for peace" principle did not work then and only stoked Hitler's ambitions. That should have been enough to condemn and forget this approach, particularly when dealing with spiritual descendants of Hitler. Instead, it is history that has been forgotten.

Finally, Abbas does not represent even the "Palestinian authority" (that's why he mentioned PLO and only PLO in his speech) and is nobody's "president" as of January 2009. Hamas holds sway over Gaza and over the minds of Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Both Hamas and Abbas's Fatah are terror groups committed to Israel's destruction. The way they compete for hearts and minds is by indiscriminately killing Jews. Those, however, are just small details for "peacemakers" of the Quartet, traditionally antisemitic Russia and the UN, the Arab-appeasing EU, and the US of Reverend Wright's capable pupil.

"First we take Manhattan...."

Trying to defend indefensible, The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof has become telepathic. He has penetrated the mind of al-Awlaki, and discovered that the Muslim terrorist "must be cheering the Republicans on as they demagogue against the mosque and feed into his terror recruitment narrative" (I guess, Harry Reid is a closet Republican).  This is in Kristof's blog, and a similar connection - between Muslim terrorists and Republicans - is made in his op-ed in the paper. To prove to the non-telepathic part of the population that building that Islamic center will be "force for moderation", he tells us that we already have strip clubs and liquor stores nearby, that Crusaders burnt Jews while singing, and that in Pakistan he knows a woman who fears of honor killing by her Christian brothers. Irrelevant as all that is, she is fortunately alive though, in contrast to so many Muslim women killed by their Muslim fathers, brothers and husbands. We do not know how Mr. Kristof knows of those brotherly intentions, but with his telepathic talents there is no need to doubt his knowledge. Instead, we should confidently rely on his "hunch... that the violence in the Islamic world has less to do with the Koran or Islam than with culture, youth bulges in the population, and the marginalization of women." Now, it is surely common knowledge, isn't it, that "the Koran or Islam" cannot be part of culture, and marginalization of women has nothing to do with Islam. What can Islam have in common with culture when it regulates every single moment of a believer's life? There is simply no room left for culture. Projecting his powerful telepathic probe into the feeble but evil minds of his true enemies, Kristof finds that "many Republicans are prepared to bolster the Al Qaeda narrative, and undermine the brave forces within Islam pushing for moderation." Those must be the very same forces that bravely want to rub this moderation into the wounds of those whose loved ones were murdered by the cultureless 9-11 shahids.

Arguably, the objections of even a single survivor of a victim of the 9-11 Muslim terror should be sufficient to stop the construction, if the Golden Rule still means anything in our culture. In Mr. Kristof's bright mind's eyes, however, such sensitivity to these survivors' anguish would be "just like [that of] the Saudi officials who ban churches, and even confiscate Bibles". Now, it is common knowledge, isn't it, that banning churches in Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with Islam, even though that is done in accordance with Muhammad's prohibition of any faith but Islam in the land of Arabs. Mr. Kristof knows better. The brave Mr. Kristof even brought a Bible with him on his trip there - not because he needed it, but "to see what would happen". His courage, however, went only so far and did not extend to showing it to the customs officer, who did not check our hero's belongings. Nothing happened. Not sure what this proves, but Mr. Kristof got his pointless experiment that may get the customs guy fired if his superiors read the Times, and nobody will be able to bring any Bibles there anymore. Even the curious Mr. Kristof, who thinks that Saudis do that "out of sensitivity to local feelings", not because of the Saudi law. See, the law is Shariah, Islamic, which does not quite fit into Mr. Kristof's "hunches".

But the most interesting piece of Mr. Kristof's convoluted logic is related to Israel's wishful thinking regarding Hamas: "Israeli officials thought that if Gazans became more religious, they would spend their time praying rather than firing guns." The rationale for that, as Kristof recognizes, was the idea that "Palestinian violence has roots outside of Islam". Obviously, but imperceptibly to Kristof who still thinks that to be true, history has shown that to be a grievous mistake. The religious Hamas-led Gazans chant "Allahu Akbar" that surely has nothing to do with Islam, sending rockets to Israeli kindergartens.

I could never understand what that Leonard Cohen song exactly was about. It does not say it clearly, and I am not telepathic. Then again, maybe it's contagious - now, I think, I have a "hunch". With people like Kristof forming the public's opinion, any terrorist can sing, "You know the way to stop me / But you don't have the discipline." Kristof did not have to exercise his telepathy. Like he, Mahmud Zahar of Hamas approves of the 9-11 mosque and thinks that "Muslims have to build everywhere".  As I said before, why not right where the Twin Towers stood? It'll show them...  moderation, Hamas/Kristof style.

Aesopian media and the Pollard-Dreyfus Affair

Somebody may think that either my paranoia grows or I am becoming too painfully nostalgic about the Soviet Union. You can decide whether it is either, both, or something else entirely. Here is the preamble to the story.

It's no news that in the Soviet Union a writer would seldom attempt to publish anything openly against the regime in the open media. It would be unreasonable: the media was completely state-controlled. Nothing would be published, but the writer would be ruined. Those who could not take it anymore had three options. The easiest was to write "into the desk", with no hope for that to be published. Another was to try to somehow publish a disloyal piece abroad. That was difficult: one had to have means of transporting the manuscript.  Contacts with a foreigner who could potentially take the manuscript out of the country were risky for both him and the writer. The writer had to be well known indeed for such an attempt to justify the effort and risk, which was exceedingly seldom. Smuggling out and publishing an openly critical piece abroad could end the writer's career in the USSR. Exile abroad would then be the best outcome, but not necessarily so good for the writer whose main audience and perhaps livelihood would be left behind. Samizdat and Tamizdat did help in keeping such a publication from being self-defeating, but not entirely: very few people had access to either. Also, one had to, again, be famous enough to be exiled rather than imprisoned or subjected to "psychiatric" treatment and forgotten, if not simply killed by the KGB. The other possibility, especially for well established authors, was to use the so-called Aesopian language or some such subterfuge that formally was not an overt anti-Soviet offense. Those works would be published in some journal targeting mostly intelligentsia, both because nobody else could understand the complexities of the writer's thinking, metaphors and allusions, and because, to do its job, intelligentsia needed some valve to let out steam that accumulated in any sentient being in a totalitarian state. This would both flatter the said stratum of the socialist society and give it an illusion of freedom and a pleasant feeling of being in opposition, but safe. "Кролики и удавы" (Rabbits and Boa Constrictors) by Fazil Iskander comes to mind, published in the journal "Юность" (Youth), one of such safety-valve journals. It was, however, 1988 already, perestroika, when the moribund trinity of the Party, State, and KGB was hardly trying to maintain what was left of the Communist anti-utopia. It had been published in 1982 in America, probably after sitting for some time in Iskander's desk, but being truly an Aesopian allegory perhaps did not qualify as an openly "anti-Soviet propaganda" to criminally persecute the well-known author.

Why, one might ask, am I rehashing the Soviet experience? Definitely not nostalgically. One reason is that The New York Times published a book review today with a sentence in it exactly like those you could see in one of such journals. A single sentence. The book is about Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus, a French army captain and a Jew, was in 1894 wrongfully accused of treason, dishonored and imprisoned on Devil's Island, a penal colony where most of the prisoners died of diseases and hardship. I have not read the book and do not know whether it discusses one of the outcomes of the Dreyfus Affair - Theodor Herzl's understanding that Jews needed a state of their own to survive. The review does not mention that. What it does mention in that one sentence is that Dreyfus's "prosecutors claimed, as more recent governments have done, that national security forbade them to reveal secret evidence that would have been decisive if known, and he was convicted all over again." This vague "more recent governments" begs the question which ones. And about whom and what - it seems unlikely that it's still about the Dreyfus Affair. And why not respond to these obvious questions right there, in the review. All that seems to be left to anybody's guess.

In the Soviet Union, it would be for intelligentsia to read between the lines, admiring the courage of the writer who managed to get a "seditious" statement through censorship unnoticed and unmolested. Intelligentsia was supposed to critically evaluate the actions of the government - emphasis on "critically". I am not certain if there is a similar, however vaguely defined, wide social group here in the US. People of the so-called intellectual occupations here tend to unquestioningly support the Democratic Party, hence the respective governments, and frequently focus on non-political matters otherwise. The uncritical loyalty to the Party, combined with hatred toward anything perceived to be "the other", is sometimes terrifying. Politically, their general orientation is overwhelmingly to the left, which is alike that for "intellectuals" in the pre-Bolshevik Russia, but rather unlike that in the post-Lenin/Stalin Russia. Those who lived there have already been to where the left direction takes the nations. In fact, the demagoguery that the Party employs is also often reminiscent of the pre-revolutionary Russian left's: Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader (the one who has been satisfied that Obama is "light-skinned" and has "no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one"), freely injects in his speeches the classic Communist class struggle language - "rich and powerful" vs. "the masses".

Being on the left calls for supporting everybody "poor" against the "rich", which includes "Palestinians" against Israel. It does not matter why they are poor, and whether they are even really poor. Inasmuch as Israel is capitalist, rich and powerful, she is the predator and the Arabs are the prey to care about or, rather, to feel good about caring. Israel is at fault regardless of history, facts and logic - unsurprisingly, just like the Jews... I was going to say, "used to be", but not really. It's quite easy to see, without invoking Occam's Razor, that "Israel" is a useful substitute for "Jews" in this modern progressive climate. Not only "Israel" makes antisemitism "legitimate", it allows full participation in Jew-bashing for the self-hating left-leaning Jews without the need to join the Communist Party, as they had to before. To be sure, atheism, particularly anti-Judaism, usually remains de rigeur, as it was with Communists.

Hatred for Israel, the cover for antisemitism, is where the left and the right converge, like Chomsky and Jim "f... the Jews" Baker. You still wonder whom the "more recent governments" treated about as horribly as the French did Dreyfus? I hope it will not be a surprise that the name I read between the lines is Jonathan Pollard. An Israeli spy who stole for Israel secrets from the US Navy Intelligence for which he worked. Neither the author of the review nor I are first to draw this comparison. An article did that in 1991. Yes, there is a difference: Dreyfus was absolutely innocent, but Pollard did indeed engage in espionage. There is, however, another difference: in contrast to Dreyfus, who did have a trial, however unfair, Pollard was never tried. He pleaded guilty in passing information to an ally with no intent to harm the US. The US government horribly violated that plea agreement. Dreyfus had been accused of treason - Pollard never was. Dreyfus had been accused in spying for an enemy - Pollard spied for a friend, after its friend refused to give Israel information it was entitled to. Israel was not being informed of Iraq's poison gas supplies. When Pollard asked why, the response was, "Jews are too sensitive to gas." 

Zola's letter helped to liberate Dreyfus, but no author, including juridical celebrities like Dershowitz, has been able to do anything for Pollard - the US republic seems to be less sensitive to protestations than the French democracy. People of conscience in the whole world, including Russia, commiserated with Dreyfus, but nobody hears about Pollard, forgotten as are other Jews in captivity (Gilad Shalit's name was hardly mentioned when the Gazans' culinary "sufferings" were recently lamented by the world community). No other spy caught at working for an ally in the US has ever got anything close to Pollard's life in prison - many of those who spied for enemies received shorter sentences and more lenient treatment. 

Pollard's imprisonment was the result of an event identical to what had happened during Stalin's purges: Pollard was buried by the fiat of the Politburo, namely Caspar Weinberger, a true criminal, whose secret memorandum was the only grounds for that. Nobody still knows what was in it - for the "reasons of national security", just like with Dreyfus. The promise of freedom for Pollard has served the Clinton government to extort concessions from Israel that were harmful to her - the promise, on which the US again reneged, like it did on other promises to Israel (e.g., understandings between Sharon and Bush that, according to the current openly anti-Israel Obama government, never happened). Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Williams famously wrote his dissent about "a fundamental miscarriage of justice" in Pollard's case. It seems, however, that no justice was carried at all nor is expected to be. The meek Soviet-like hints at the continuing injustice is the only thing the mainstream "intelligentsia" media is apparently capable of. In the Soviet Union, such hints were bravery. In America, they are closer to disgrace.

Dershowitz's choice

I have again come across a pre-election piece by Alan Dershowitz, placed by him in Huffington Post, and thought that it is helpful to understand the convoluted rationale of well-intended people who elected Barack Hussein. It shows how wrong assumptions and unidimensional thinking can drive one to wrong decisions, and, at the same time, help explain the problems we suffer from these decisions.

Let's suppose Dershowitz was indeed so credulous as to decide that Obama "strongly supports Israel" based on the information that "[d]uring the debates each candidate has gone out of his and her way to emphasize strong support for Israel as an American ally and a bastion of democracy in a dangerous neighborhood". Considering that pre-election verbiage is well known to be unreliable, mildly put, while Obama's associations with antisemites and Israel-haters had been well known, Dershowitz would have to be daft to buy it, which he is not. He must have known - but disbelieved - that Obama's professed love for Israel is opportunistic and false. It was and is true, however, that, as Dershowitz wrote, "Obama's views on Israel will have greater impact on young people, on Europe, on the media and on others who tend to identify with the liberal perspective." That's exactly what Obama's views, turned into his anti-Israel policy, do now, supporting the rise of antisemitism on campuses and in the world. It is because of his policy that his support in Israel dropped to the unprecedented 4% - not because of his middle name as he put it, slandering Israelis as racists.

The problem with Dershowitz is that the falsity of attributions and predictions that he made was obvious at the time when he wrote his Huff piece to anybody whose critical abilities were not suspended. It is unfortunate that they were suspended in so many, and so many usually smart and well-informed people were and are guided by the left ideology and wishful thinking. Then again, whole nations were blinded by them, leading from one disaster to another.

Yahoo divided Jerusalem

As brought up by HonestReporting, Yahoo has engaged in the political SimCity game and created two virtual cities, "East Jerusalem" and "West Jerusalem". The weather data for them are grabbed from the real Jerusalem, Israel,  weather station, and duplicated under the two respective headers. The city of Jerusalem, the holiest Jewish city (some people say it even means something to Christians and Muslims), known as such for 3,000 years, and the capital of Israel, has ceased to be - in the Yahoo universe. To be sure, the data for the virtual cities are identical, underscoring that the city is one. Perhaps the next step for Yahoo will be providing that weather report in Hebrew for the "West" one, and in Palestinian... oops, there is no such language or nation, for that matter - in Arabic for the "East J".

Or Arabic will be used for both: in Yahoo's opinion, according to its directory, the City of Jerusalem is under the "Places in Palestinian Authority". Thank G-d, it is still listed among Israeli cities as well - for how long will it remain so?

PS. June 16, 2010. - Sometimes truth prevails!

Gazans' spices crisis

Reena Ninan, reporting from Israel for fair and balanced Fox News, is another member of the glorious journalistic profession. Her main interest has always seemed to be in unmasking Israel's horrific behavior violating the inalienable rights of brave terrorists and those who elect them to rule. Nevertheless, telling about cruel Israelis who just boarded another "aid ship" (whose organizer, Greta Berlin, had informed everybody who could hear that it's not for any aid but for breaking the blockade), Ninan somehow could not understand why Israel does not allow deliveries of  cardamom and coriander (cilantro, as she made sure to clarify) to Gaza. Doesn't she know that  Gazans starve (see the facts here), after they righteously destroyed the revolting Jewish hothouses, and spices induce appetite and make you even hungrier? What hypocrisy, to pretend she cares, while inviting torture of Gazans! (Or perhaps, worse even, she wanted to insinuate that she could not find any food shortage, except for spices, while the goal of the heroic flotilla is to stop starvation, as Berlin said?) Even Israelis, in all their cruelty, could not devise such a dastardly brutal plan.

And cruel they are. As Greta Berlin let another honest source of information, The New York Times, know, Israeli commandos "opened fire on sleeping civilians at four in the morning”. Now that everybody has seen the videos,

it is certain: these civilians were tight asleep, albeit sleepwalking with their kitchen knives (to cook their breakfast) and metal rods (for supporting themselves).  Suddenly woken up by Israeli paint balls, they could not help their reflex response, and hit those Israeli pirates with whatever they had in their hands.

Unfortunately, even the Rachel Corrie, another ship just intercepted by Israelis, did not carry cardamom, coriander and curry, which may be Greta Berlin's oversight or perhaps they knew that Israelis again would not allow those spices. And that is because Israelis know that cardamom is a necessary ingredient of Arabic coffee. And coffee is needed to keep vigilance while working on a bomb or a suicide jacket, to prevent "work accidents". Although it's OK when the bomb-maker dies in the explosion, immediately getting to Paradise and the 72 virgins, many a bomb-maker are maimed and lose their extremities. At least the Rachel Corrie is bringing wheel-chairs to take care of them.

PS. Uh-oh, Hamas does not allow the wheel-chairs in! No cardamom, no wheel-chairs - where are human rights organizations when an honest bomb-maker needs them?

PPS. June 21, 2010. I shouldn't have worried: not only spices but other materials too will now be allowed into Gaza, relieving terrorists' sufferings and providing them with much needed means to keep construction of bombs going. I wonder how much coriander Gilad Shalit gets.

“Scientific” Atheism

The popular (bestselling!) book, “The God Delusion”, tells more, and definitely more convincingly, about its author, Richard Dawkins (and so many others of his mindset), than of its purported subject. Inconsequential as it is from the enlightenment standpoint, it is definitely not The Guide for the Perplexed. If anything, it may add to the confusion of Dawkins's audience, adolescents, who are biologically driven to distance themselves from parents and therefore their beliefs. Because of that, and since nobody asked me to write a formal review of this book (no surprise here), I’ll just have some thoughts about and around it.

Scientists are primates (in case you had doubts)
Scientists' supposedly high intelligence is but a thin veneer on their human, primate, nature, sometimes making that nature shine all the brighter. As other humans, they are often vain and petty - and not just with their pet theories, which are proffered with intensity fitting a prophet, regardless of how small their impact could be. My statistics professor found nothing better on which to focus than on his long-lasting conflict with a colleague, who, in his obstinate benightedness, used x bar to denote average, whereas our esteemed teacher wisely used capital M. Talk about Lilliput and the Big- vs. Little-Endian conflict. Methods in research, when only possible, are as subject to fashion as dimensions of pants at some royal court, which everybody was supposed to maintain if he were to have a chance of being 'in'. I’d list some funny examples of the changing vogue from genetic research, my field, if they were not so boring and banal at the same time. A researcher's attainment of a position in academia frequently imbues him with the sense of infallibility - not just in his scientific judgments, but in anything where a lack of knowledge may pass unnoticed among the like minds - e.g., politics, international relations, religion. (Yes, I may be afflicted as well).

Dawkins the prophet

Which brings me back to Dawkins. Rarely have I seen such sincere and unchecked infantile messianism as in that book of his. It does not matter whether the new prophet rejects "religion" (it's his business); what matters is that he "hope[s] that nobody who reads this book will be able to say, 'I didn't know I could'." Oy-vey! This is the same  hope, nay, confidence, that Muhammad had - you remember, the one whose pictures may leave you headless. Surely, in that other "prophet" case the repercussions for humanity have been more drastic: because it is not possible, after he blessed humankind with the Koran, to say, "I didn't know", there is no other way than the global acceptance of Islam. Muhammad's jihad against non-believers is certainly deadlier than Dawkins's disdain for them (oops, his non-believers are "religious"). This, however, doesn't change the essence of this primate behavior: the desire to dominate - if not over body then over mind. Any doubts are verboten.

As would any "prophet" who has just been blessed with epiphany, he demands of his followers purity of the doctrine, relegating, as did Muhammad, the rest to the hypocrite category. The only options he entertains for those infidels are either their lack of intelligence, or their acting cynically to get the Templeton prize (as Dawkins half-jokingly cites a half-joke of Dennett that he should do that if he falls on "hard times"), or, at best, their self-deception while deceiving others. The first option becomes less likely if you are in the select group of "elite scientists". But then you simply are a statistically negligible case, still likely to merely "sound Christian" while most likely being atheistic in reality. In any event, Dawkins knows better: he even "satirically" imputes thoughts to Dyson, one of the "elite", who had the dishonesty or stupidity, if you believe Dawkins, to accept the prize (Dawkins condescends that "Freeman Dyson is way above being corrupted", clearly meaning the opposite).

Logic
Dawkins decides which arguments are worth considering, what attributes of God to dismiss, and how this term should be defined for this 'scientist' to better disabuse the public of such a preposterous notion. Intellectual dishonesty is always characteristic of false prophets. Dawkins invited himself to be not only judge and jury, but prosecutor and defense attorney. This allows him to safely but fruitlessly argue without an opponent. This is a game of chess with himself, with the outcome preset. Surely he can defeat any argument of the 'opponent', straw men sitting at the table with red herrings – logical fallacies abound. Among those, there is repeated appeal to authority, i.e., to "elite" scientists, many of whom did not endorse some poll's statement about a personal god. Correlation (of high intelligence with doubts of this nature) does not mean causation and, least of all, objective support for atheism. Not only scientists are prone to mistakes in anything that is not their immediate domain (and in that too, by the way), but they may be more prone to some of them than a common Joe Blow is.

The ability to believe is necessary for information transfer. Those who produce information (scientists nowadays) should be less likely to uncritically accept anything, especially something that they cannot in principle verify by commonly available scientific means. Clearly, the proportion of information producents has always been small - ever since some of them (surprise, priests) separated from the crowd. The role of priests, who were the original scientists (Mendel, the founder of genetics, included :)), was the same as today's scientists'. This is probably why some of the latter, when immature like Dawkins, have Oedipal fantasies toward the “religious” or simply are anxious because of perceived competition.

Rhinoceros horn

Spinning Darwinism to satisfy his agenda, Dawkins applies at will, when it suits him, obnoxiously conceited and banal value judgments to phenomena deserving much better, particularly in the evolutionary context. For instance, the native legend that the horn has aphrodisiac properties is 'fatuous' to him, despite his earlier citings about the placebo mechanisms of homeopathy, which make it thus very different from 'magic' he invokes. Were he not so ideologically engaged, it would not take him much to infer a clear evolutionary benefit to the human ability to employ effective placebo mechanisms in the absence of other means to deal with disease, grief, stress, etc. He would also see that a placebo effect does not rule out the real one, which can be even further augmented by the placebo effect. This, however, would require exercising some logic.

...ex machina
For all the absolute rejection of religion, professed by Dawkins, he could find nothing better to offer than the expression of what he calls "our consensual ethics" (p. 298), which, in his opinion, "has no obvious connection with religion". Well, except for the name, "New Ten Commandments", and a little detail that the first commandment is the negative Golden Rule (do not do unto others...) as formulated by the great Jewish sage, Rabbi Hillel. That was a century before the same rule, but in its positive form (do unto others...), is said to have been pronounced by Jesus. Hillel formulated that rule in response to a question about the essence of Torah (Judaism) as can be taught while the student stands on one foot. "This is the whole Torah," he said, "the rest is commentary. Go and learn."

The "New Ten", written by a plagiarizing "ordinary web logger" (definitely no sage, to see which the reader does not need Dawkins's comment), are either redundant or trivial. Dawkins qualifies as neither a new Moses nor a new Hillel by adding to those ten his own 'progressive' four, the first being his order to enjoy one's sex life. He cautiously (probably so that it would not be perceived as sanctioning rape for those who like it) adds, "as long as it damages nobody else", leaving the reader under impression that one's sex life inevitably damages at least him/her, if not more people.

It is hard to imagine that Dawkins does not know the origin of the Rule, again illustrating his dishonesty or, at best, ignorance. The Bible-plagiarizing Moral Code of the Builder of Communism in the atheist Soviet Union was another example of “consensual ethics”, apparently coming from nowhere. At least the communists did not plagiarize the title.

It is simply not interesting to see his tried and tired and recycled Marxian spiel, his Old Worldian comme il faut derision for America, and newly fashionable antisemitism (the ominous influence of the nefarious Jewish lobby - he does not even attempt to gentrify it by its 'Israel' moniker). In general, unless you are a Dawkins, another man’s faith is not of your concern - as long as it does not drive him to change yours or kill you. Whatever your faith is, mine, Judaism, says it’s the deeds that matter. As Maimonides wrote (translation in Am J Psychiatry, 2008, 165, p. 426),

As for religious commandments, however, the harm and benefit that they bring are not evident in this world. The fool might, therefore, imagine to himself that everything that is said to be harmful is not harmful, and everything that is said to be beneficial is not beneficial, because these things are not clearly evident to him. For this reason religious law compels one to practice good and punishes for doing evil, for the good and evil will only become apparent in the world-to-come. All this is benevolence toward us, a favor to us in light of our foolishness, mercy upon us owing to the weakness of our understanding.

Dawkins will not change anybody’s faith with his arguments, much as he tries. Naïve, they are so much alike those we heard during classes in 'Scientific Atheism', which were mandatory for every student – back in the USSR.
______
03/27/2018. An update: Dawkins has finally been scared by Islam into lamenting Europe's atheism, https://www.christianpost.com/news/atheist-richard-dawkins-warns-against-celebrating-demise-of-relatively-benign-christianity-in-europe-221909/

Peaceful bandits

As Debkafile reports, Erdogan may further escalate provocations against Israel, involving Turkish military, after the Turkey-supported attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade of terrorist Gaza succeeded in having several of suicidal attackers¹ on Israeli commandos killed. It is hard to imagine that Turkey, a member of NATO, would contemplate not only supporting any escalation, but even that "Free Gaza" flotilla, without permission from the US - if not explicit, then inferred from the actions of the US government. The latest such action is the US-sponsored attack on the supposed Israeli nuclear defense. One only hopes that Americans' dislike for Bush, which has brought a nobody, an impostor, to power, will not be sufficient to justify Obama's lethal retreat, appeasement of fascists and help to terrorists. Since Obama is not a madman to act against himself, his policy expresses whom he wants to see as friends and enemies. Perhaps the continued ascendance of the barbarians, which so obviously follows Obama's policy of punishing friends and rewarding enemies, will open eyes and bring about political change  in the US, and in the world. The price for eye-opening, however, is already too high and is going to grow higher.

1. see MEMRI video: "Gaza-Based Yemeni Professor Abd Al-Fatah Nu'man: As Much as the Heroes on the Flotilla Want to Reach Gaza, The Option of Martyrdom Is More Desirable to Them"

Look who is talking

Imagine how American colonists would react if, after they fought Indians, built towns, cultivated lands and raised families, they were told to leave and go where their government would direct them, on the conditions dictated by the government, or be removed by force and punished. Let's assume for a second that the rationale they were given would be that the Indians needed their own state where no whites would be allowed. Keep in mind that the lands the American colonists settled were indeed Indian, with hardly any justification for any settlement there bar the dubious argument of "Manifest Destiny", whereas no renaming can erase the Jewish character of the Holy Land.

The only reason it is considered holy is because it has been holy for the countless generations of Jews. The Arabs in the Land of Israel are recent settlers and descendants of invaders, who never thought about creating their own state there before the Jewish state was reestablished. For that matter, Arabs' nationalism, which has resulted in their having a unique number of 22 states, had never existed before Britain and other colonial powers induced it in order to divide (the Ottoman Empire) and conquer.

The Arab "Palestinian nation" is also unique in that it is the only one in the world that has no self-name and calls itself by the name of a territory, which itself was invented by the Romans in 2nd century CE to replace and erase the name Judea. "Palaestina" was derived by them from the Hebrew name of a tribe of ancient enemies of Jews. The origin is the same as for the word Philistine, meaning, of course, a boorish, barbarian and antagonistic person. Moreover, in the geographic sense, until creation of Israel and even into 1960's, the name "Palestinian" denoted Jews who lived in the Land of Israel as opposed to the Diaspora. The desire of the Arab world to create a 23d state, as Judenrein as is Jordan, and governed by life-long terrorist chieftains and enemies of Israel and the rest of the free world, is understandable, but does not deserve respect. Since 1948, their goal has been not to create a state, but eliminate Israel. There is no reason to think it has changed.

"Arizona to Palestine"

As seen on TV, demonstrators protest the new Arizona “immigration” law. The law, needless as it is if the much stricter federal law were enforced, cruelly says that if you are arrested for some legitimate reason, which appearance is not, you have to produce your documents. They hold the sign, “From Arizona to Palestine apartheid.” The protests are based on the presumption of police’s guilt and Pravda-like disinformation about another evil deed of American imperialists against – who? A new race, “browns”? “Hispanics” are not a race – it is officially classified as “ethnicity”, whatever it means. One can be “Hispanic” while racially white, black, Native American, etc. I know that because in the papers one has to fill out to account for recruitment of participants in government-funded studies there are two ethnicities only, Hispanic and … non-Hispanic, and another classification, racial (white, black, etc.). The sum totals for these classifications should be equal.

No wonder that lies about fascism in the Arizona law are combined with the double lie about “Palestine apartheid”. Double, because the area implied in that phrase is not Palestine by any definition, and there is no apartheid in that area. There is no apartheid, strictly speaking, even in the part of historic Palestine that is called Jordan. It is simply Judenrein: Jews are prohibited from settling there by the country’s fascist nationality law. That law must be a good thing in the eyes of the current US administration, which would like Jews to stay away from Jerusalem as well. No wonder that in the same eyes the Arizona law is bad.