WHY?

The first post tells why. It may be too little, but hopefully not too late.

Friday, April 15, 2011

A familiar death

Arrigoni and Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh Photo: EPA
I read books about how and why people become terrorists. I've not seen any about how one becomes a supporter of terrorists, like these ISM people are. This is not quite true, though. These supporters remind me the stories about vampires and their human familiars. These familiars are in thrall to their lords, and follow all their commands. They also gain some benefits, picking up crumbs from their lords' tables, if not literally then by vicariously exercising power over other humans and perhaps hoping themselves to be turned. They also die in their lords' fights.

Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian member of the International Solidarity Movement, lived in Gaza. He called the phrase "How can a man without a heart have a heart attack?" - about Mubarak rushed to the hospital - the "most astute comment discovered on the network." This was followed by "Stay Human Stay Human Vik da Gaza city. Vik from Gaza City",  the exhortation that concluded each post of his on Guerrilla Radio, his blog. Happy about Israel boycotts. Regretful that "The sporadic firing of homemade rockets of the Palestinian guerrillas, now did not cause casualties in Israel, nor even less substantial property damage". "Vik" called Goldstone's mealy-mouthed admission of his blood libel of Israel's intentionally killing civilians "another green light for more massacres." He was "disgusted" - not by his friends shooting rockets at Israeli towns with the goal to kill and maim Israeli children, from among the Gazan women and children, but by the Israeli response to terror, in which, unfortunately, somebody else in addition to terrorists sometimes dies. That blood, as befits vampires, also feeds them, used for getting more sympathy to their cause and more hate toward the oh-so-hated Jews. Which calls for more Jewish blood. And if my rare reader thinks I am being too dramatic and the vampire comparison is far-fetched - it is not mine, but the Hamasniks' themselves: "We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."

It is easy to guess why one gang of Gazan terrorists, Tawhid wal Jihad, Wahhabi vampires, kidnapped Vittorio Arrigoni as a hostage to make another gang, Hamas, release Tawhid's leader. On the one hand, "Vik" was a valuable asset for Hamas as the rulers of Gaza: not so many Westerners like Arab terrorists so much as to live in Gaza and share, as he did, the vampire lords' convictions. So there was indeed a good chance Hamas could agree to that demand. On the other hand, if Hamas did not, their vampire competitors in the fight over the Jewish blood could make good on their promise to kill "Vik" without extra risk they would incur if they kidnapped and killed a Hamasnik. So they murdered Vik - a familiar outcome of a close encounter of this kind. As with other kinds of gangs, this murder probably also raised Tawhid's status in the terrorist-approving society.

What is not so easy for me is to understand what makes one become a familiar. Is it possible not to know that there would be no "suffering" and "massacres" of Gazan Arabs if they did not incessantly try to murder Israelis? Is it not clear that Hamas and the rest of Gazan bandits commit a double crime against humanity every time they shoot a rocket or a mortar at Israel: by trying to indiscriminately kill, and by using their own women and children as human shields? It can't be just ISM's or Hamas's blood money: however strong that or other temptation might be, the stench of violence that is in the Gazan air must be overwhelming for somebody who has not been raised in that culture (for lack of a better word). Is the Jew-hatred of "Viks" as strong as to mislead them into trusting their vampire lords' protection?

No wonder he had to remind himself to "stay human", living among vampires. He could have tried harder - by staying away from them. He would still be alive.

Monday, March 28, 2011

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".

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A perfect metaphor

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

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Fair militancy

Militant atheism is frequently selective - not in its deity-rejection but in its militancy. For instance, even though Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all "three anti-human religions" for Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), they come from "a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament". The latter, "known as...", of course, only to Christians (it's Tanakh for the Jews, without the changes introduced by the Christians), is, of course, responsible for everything, being a "tribal cult of a single fiercely unpleasant God." Definitely more unpleasant to Dawkins than the deity of his own religion, in whose hands he was molested as a boy - after all, that was for him only "an embarrassing, but otherwise harmless experience". Judaism is somehow to blame even for the death penalty for blasphemy practiced in Pakistan. As if penalties for blasphemy did not exist in other religions entirely independent of Judaism, and Islam did not contain enough violence that is unique to it.

It is thus comforting when an atheist is at least fair in his militancy. This is the case with Bill Maher. He is derisive of Christianity and Judaism, as he is of anything he dislikes. In his fairness though, interviewing Keith Ellison, a congressman and a Muslim convert, he called the "holy" Koran a "hate-filled book", where "Islama bin Laden" (must be a slip of the tongue) takes his instructions. Unapologetically and matter-of-factly. He sees a greater threat from Islam than even from the "right-wing" and the KKK (which would not say much if he did not consider everything on the right of Marx to be equal to KKK). There is no need to transcribe the short dialogue - just watch it.

What is interesting in that dialogue is not Maher's mumbling attempts at critiquing Islam, fair as they are - unusually for this self-styled "comedian", - but Ellison's helpless response. The only Koranic quote Ellison was able to produce to contravene Maher's "hate-filled book" statement was deceptively incomplete: "anyone who takes the life, it's as if he killed the whole world". That's what you usually hear from Islam's disingenuous apologists. What they never say is that the complete quote of this Koran 5:32 verse is, "Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors." So yes, there is a belief that murdering one human is like murdering the whole humanity, but this is a Jewish belief, indeed found in the Talmud. It is referred to as a Jewish belief in the Koran. Nowhere is it seen that Islam accepts it. What it does accept is Koran 9:5, "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war." Then again, Ellison, who referred to the eternal Koran as "compiled" and stated that he accepts "non-believers", may have not done his conversion right, or perhaps has forgotten what it was since he was 19, and there is a hope for him yet.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Talking tough

Remember courageous Mr Kristof? The one who took a Bible to Saudi Arabia with him - not because he needed it, but "to see what would happen"? You can feel how Mr. Kristof is excited about his bravery in his new piece now: wow, he got enough of it to ask "a politically incorrect question: Could the reason for the Middle East’s backwardness be Islam?" (I like that preemptive recognition of "incorrectness" - Allah forbid somebody decides he does not understand how severe that thoughtcrime is). 

Nah, don't worry, surely this question is only to dismiss it with alternative balanced views, the best of which he finds to be that it's all because of "various secondary Islamic legal practices that are no longer relevant today", not because of Islam. One wonders, however, why those "secondary practices" are still working today well enough to keep 1.3 billion people in "backwardness". And how, if those practices are Islamic, is there no connection between them and Islam. Well, it's the same Mr. Kristof, after all, who thinks that Saudis ban Bibles from their country not because of Islam, but "out of sensitivity to local feelings". Where do those "feelings" come from, I wonder, if not from Mohammad's ban on any religion but Islam in Arabia? You can imagine what the chances are for realization of Kristof's "hope we'll have some tough, honest conversations on all sides about what went wrong". Perhaps the Muslims would be talking tough. One could even risk a guess, they already are. "We" - won't.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

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.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Playing with totalitarian symbols, or Why I quit the American Association for the Advancement of Science

12-10-2010. - Today is a sad day. After being a member of the AAAS  for many years, I have decided not to renew my membership upon receiving the notice that it has expired. Although the $146/year membership has not provided me with a tangible benefit, with Science magazine it publishes available to me online through my University's subscription, that is not the reason for my saying 'No' to the last and "Urgent!" AAAS Membership Renewal Certificate. I have felt fine supporting the Association, even though I have not needed any of the benefits of individual membership. I do not know exactly what it does, apart from publishing Science, but that was not an issue either. I have been satisfied with its general description as an "organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association". I no longer am. I no longer feel it can do that service well.

Strange as it may seem, my dissociation from the Association results from the call to renew my membership. Not from its simple substance, which is donating money to some science-related activities and staff supporting them, but from the form. And from the results of my discussion of that form with individuals who are responsible for it - Mr. Ian King, the AAAS Director of Marketing, and Dr. Alan Leshner, the CEO of the AAAS. The contents of that discussion are presented below. I wish my concerns were shared by the community, but I see no reason not to believe Mr. King, the marketing director, who said I had been the only one to raise them. Nevertheless, don't hesitate to comment this way or another.

Notice anything out of order? Perhaps you can't clearly see the image I scanned. The renewal certificate offers an incredibly attractive deal: in addition to Science, some bonus subscriptions and member savings on the AAAS annual meeting I've never attended, I'd get - for 2-year membership - a "FREE Darwin T-shirt!" I cannot know if Darwin would be thrilled by knowing that his likeness serves as a marketing tool, even though his known modesty makes that doubtful. We can, however, safely guess that he, who considered belief in G-d "ennobling" and connected the Golden Rule as the "foundation of morality" with natural human social instincts (see The Descent of Man), would not want to be associated with the bloody revolutionary, Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

These thoughts forced me to send emails to the AAAS staff, the last of which was to its CEO:

Alan I. Leshner
Chief Executive Officer
Executive Publisher, Science
American Association for the
Advancement of Science
Voice: 202-326-6639
FAX: 202-371-9526

11/23/2010 7:33 PM

Dear Dr. Leshner:


As many others, I have received a promotional AAAS membership renewal
certificate, including an offer of a "FREE Darwin T-shirt" bonus. The
T-shirt bears a picture of Darwin on it, which is fashioned after the
well-known portrait of Ernesto "Che" Guevara with a paraphrased slogan
related to the same portrait, "¡Viva La Evolución!".

I doubt this allusion is appropriate for a non-political scientific
organization such as AAAS. Whatever romantic qualities might have been
ascribed to Guevara by pop culture, he was a brutal Communist
revolutionary who ordered executions of, personally executed and
tortured his alleged "enemies". Placing Darwin in any connection with
Guevara is as fitting as adorning him with Lenin's cap or Stalin's pipe,
and is an insult to Darwin who is unable to object personally. It is in
bad taste, to put it mildly, especially for those who, like myself, have
had experience with Communist regimes. In the Soviet Union, we could not
read Science in the original. I am not sure whether its publishers and
authors were aware of that, but Science was reprinted, with all articles
that could offend a Soviet censor removed and their titles blotted out
in the table of contents. This is, of course, nothing compared to "Che"
Guevara's crimes.
I have attempted to receive AAAS's reassurance that this T-shirt was a
mistake to be corrected and is not indicative of the society's position
on totalitarian ideologies. The Society's Marketing Director, Mr. Ian
King, was kind enough to reply to my request and discuss the issue with
his colleagues (I am not sure with whom). The decision they took was
"phasing out the Darwin T-shirt, beginning in September, meaning [they]
will no longer be offering it in [their] renewals, or from [their] trade
show booth for new members". Nevertheless, they did not accept my
request to make a public announcement regarding that, e.g., on the AAAS
website, indicating that the use of Guevara imagery was erroneous. I
still think, however, that it is important not to be silent and merely
withdraw the shirt, which could be done with any marketing device, never
noticed by anybody. The image, which has been seen by many, suggests the
AAAS's sympathies toward totalitarian regimes and their symbols such as
Guevara, or at least readiness to popularize such images by using them
as marketing tools - impressions that I am sure are both unwelcome and
false.

Until the public announcement is made admitting that marketing error, I
cannot in good conscience renew my AAAS membership, due to expire soon.

I would greatly appreciate your response on this matter.

Sincerely, etc.

The response that followed was prompt:

From: Alan Leshner <aleshner@aaas.org>;
To: Michael Vanyukov <mmv@pitt.edu>;
Date: Nov 24 2010 - 2:13pm
We can certainly understand and sympathize with your perspective. We in
        no way meant for this t-shirt to be construed as an endorsement of the
        policies or practices of Che Guevara. Indeed our human rights group here
        at AAAS is well aware of the oppressive nature of the former communist
        regimes, a practice which we know continues in those remaining communist
        countries today. As you may know we no longer distribute this t-shirt.
        We believe to call attention to this product on the web site now and
        revisit the "Che" symbol would be counter-productive to your overriding
        concerns. It is our belief that the t-shirts, like the "Che" character,
        are best left to fade away.

        We hope you will reconsider your membership as we value your opinions
        and unique point-of-view

        With best wishes,

        Alan Leshner


Obviously, I  disagree that somebody should know better what better serves my "overriding concerns" while I am still sane. This is especially so when this judgment is offered by people who have been willing - for two years, by Mr. King's admission - to use an image of a mass murderer who has long been a symbol of communist regimes. Despite the AAAS human rights group's alleged awareness of communist oppression. One of those overriding concerns of mine is exactly that my point of view is considered "unique". In fact, the image of Guevara is so popular in the US universities that the AAAS decided, in the words of its marketing director, "to play off of the Guevara T-shirts that one often sees on college campuses and other places. It was intended to parody that piece of pop culture while serving as a statement of support for the continued preeminence of Darwin's theories." The AAAS's mindless willingness to employ the Guevara chic and laissez-faire attitude to its meaning will contribute to the perpetuation and rise of his popularity, with his and Darwin's images now merged thanks to the AAAS t-shirt. 

No wonder the evolutionary theory - the guiding light of biology - scares those who have not got a chance to get higher education. Education does not make one immune from moral confusion, and sometimes is associated with arrogance preventing timely correction of moral lapses. Neither this confusion nor "the 'Che' character" are likely to "fade away" soon.

Friday, November 26, 2010

British Anti-Zionist Committee

As reported in the Jerusalem Post, the "leadership" (for what it's worth) of the British Jewry has been "de-Zionized". In other words, it has consistently taken a "critical" position towards Israel (quote marks, because it is consistently one-sided and calumnious). Worse even, the head of its self-appointed Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), Mick Davis, has suggested that Israel's policies should be corrected because they poorly reflect on him, thus repeating one of the main antisemitic ideas, according to which the Jews bear collective responsibility for actions of fellow Jews, whether real or imaginary, just as they have had for the slander of deicide.

This reminds me of my home country. In the Soviet Union, antisemitism was officially banned but its official expressions were well understood by the population from the incessant "criticism" of Israel, with printed propaganda including cartoons hardly different from those in Der Stuermer. Everybody could readily connect this "criticism" and its fluctuations with the official and not so secret policy regarding hiring Jews, accepting them to universities, and allowing them emigration. In the antisemitic Soviet Union, there used to be "Anti-Zionist Committee" comprised of famous Jews - actors, writers, lawyers, scientists, and headed by a general, a World War II hero. The AZC, "voluntary" as it was called, was created in 1983 by the KGB and the Propaganda Dept. of the Party (basically the same animal). It was popularly known as the "Antisemitic Committee". Its goal was to malign Israel with the added legitimacy of "Jews themselves" doing that, and to convince the "abroad" - whoever would need such a pathetic pretext, particularly in the USA and Israel, - that the Soviet Jews needed no Israel and there was no antisemitism in the USSR. Needless to say, if anybody thought to organize a Zionist committee, he would see the other side of the KGB in no time, as people like Sharansky did indeed. Those AZC members were partly duped by the continual Communist (anti-capitalist and anti-Israel) brain-washing, partly scared of the KGB for themselves or for family members, partly the official and popular antisemitism had brushed off onto them. I do not know how many well-known Jews were approached and rejected the KGB's kind offer to join. I am not sure how many of the members were "invited" by the KGB rather than volunteered, but there were those among them who did the latter, ashamed of fellow Jews and vocal in "criticizing" Israel. That was nothing new. Right after the Bolshevik revolution, young atheistic Jews had created "Yevsektsiya" (Евсекция; the "Jewish Section" of the Communist Party), whose function was eradication of the Jewish religious and national culture - following Marx's suggestions on the Jewish emancipation by emancipation from Jewishness.

As in the USSR, the "Jews themselves" argument attaches - in the eyes of so many willing beholders - additional legitimacy to slander and antisemitic canards about Israel in the old tradition of blood libel. That's why the Jewish slanderers of Israel - Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Steven Rose - are so popular among neo-Nazis, white supremacists and Muslims, as well as the antisemites of the Left. Under strong pressure, traitors appear with regularity, and provide the ever-interested public with all needed argumentation for why their enemy is right.

I am not sure how strong the pressure on the Jews is in England. I appreciate the possibility that some of them have been brain-washed by the increasingly antisemitic environment in Great Britain into seeing the root of the Arabs-Israel problem in Israel's attacking innocent Arabs rather then in the sworn rejection of Israel's right to exist by Arabs. I do know, however, that compared to the Soviet Jews imprisoned in the Soviet Union, the British Jews and their "leadership" have an additional and much nobler option than slander and betrayal: emigration - to Israel. Instead, they have succeeded - without any KGB pressure and truly voluntarily - in organizing "Anti-Zionist" antisemitic committees. Mazel tov.