Arab/Israeli Conflict Redux

[iplaw]

I decided to start a new thread because the old one got waaaaay off track.

I ran across this the other day and thought it was an interesting synopsis of the situation although it was spoken almost 3 years ago at a speaking engagement.  How this guy comes up with stuff like this off the top of his head is always amazing.

Dennis Larry Miller on Israel (Thanks to MommaSquid)

"A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need.

Don't thank me. I'm a giver. Here we go:

The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war in 1948, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the Palestinians, weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."

So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death."

I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: Adjacent Jew-Haters. Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel.

They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course -- that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel. Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it -- for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.

It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs ; five million Jews.

Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.

Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea. Oh, that We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea?  Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents?  Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children?  Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations coming up against Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away.

However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight.

We've already lost some. After September 11 our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do th e same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint.

If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan. (Hey, wait a minute, that's actually not such a bad id . . . ooh, that is, what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)

Edit: Punctuation.

[McQ]

Great post, iplaw. Thanks!

[Court]

Awesome post, iplaw.

[iplaw]

It's amazing how certain people can encapsulate ideas so succintly.

[iplaw]

Here is a map that illuminates his analogy of the football field.  Interestingly enough it doesn't include Iran...



Picture comes from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Israeli_conflict

[Asmodean Prime]

Good show, iplaw

Are you a Jew?

[iplaw]

Hmmm....I just used the bathroom about 10 minutes ago and found compelling "tailored" justification to believe I am...or at least that I was jewish a long time ago...but as far as I know I'm as French/Germanic Cherokee as a French/Germanic Cherokee man can be.

[MommaSquid]

This was not written by Dennis Miller.  

It was actually written by Larry Miller: Whosoever Blesses Them (04/22/2002, The Weekly Standard).

Follow the Link

Just click back to p. 1 if you want to read the full article.

[iplaw]

Interesting.  Here is the link where I found the quote.  Seems like many online have made the mistake as I google some of the quotes, anyways it's still good stuff.  BTW, the stuff that precedes the actual quote is golden too.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/11/92981.php

[Big Mac]

Good show, iplaw

Are you a Jew?

No, Jews make good lawyers, and I doubt Tex is a good lawyer.

[Asmodean Prime]

as the newest member of the forum, iplaw, i can say that i am with you. that other thread was hilarious, and also that i have cross-posted that article to my lj so that my college-age friends can be offended and stop reading it, or light a heated debate of my own with less intellectual people.

[AlexZello]

What do you think of Obadiah Shoher's views on the Middle East conflict? One can argue, of course, that Shoher is ultra-right, but his followers are far from being a marginal group. Also, he rejects Jewish moralistic reasoning - that's alone is highly unusual for the Israeli right. And he is very influential here in Israel. So what do you think? uh, here's the site in question: Middle East conflict

[pjkeeley]

Is there no one on this forum that takes issue with the OP's post? I do. I think it is a ludicrous caricature of a very complicated situation, horrendously one-sided, factually misleading in parts, as well as denying the existence of Arabs in Palestine prior to 1948 in a similar way to those who, ironically, would deny the holocaust.

I'm not for one side or the other, becaue in that particular conflict they are both moronic. That's precisely why I can't agree with this crap. It smacks of one-sided bullshit.  :x