פרודיה

Welcome to the era of revolution! It is the era of breaking through all barriers, and finally reaching a sense of 'good' for all humanity. It is the era of 'all good' and the era of revival for the trash we humans have succumbed to being. Welcome! Welcome!

You there! Yes, you; Peasant! You've been subjected and subdued to such tremors by the apathetic. You've been so exploited and exposed!

Do you remember? Think of how they made you run by the horse, then wash it and care for it too. Think of how annoyed you were, next to the horse, but rarely mounting it. And think, friend! No one put you on that horse! There were only straddles and saddles. No one lifted you up on them!

Well friend, it's all over now. There will be no more grief construed upon you. No more. No more.

Because today, friend...

Today's the day of revolution.

Today friend; today's the day we'll shoot the horse.

Now you can walk on your own.

Guess what's not making the NYT front page?

"Pakistan to fence part of Afghan border
Fri Feb 2, 6:39 AM ET
Pakistan is to fence 35 kilometres (22 miles) of its northwestern border with Afghanistan to restrict the movement of Taliban militants, President Pervez Musharraf has said.
Musharraf said he had ordered the action after western allies had failed to offer solutions to the problem, but added that Pakistan had deferred a plan to mine the frontier due to international concerns.
"We are doing it (fencing), we have decided, the movement of logistics has taken place," Musharraf told a press conference at Camp House Friday, his official military residence in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
The president said the erection of the fence "will take a few months to execute."
"The area we are fencing at the moment is about 35.2 kilometres in all, they are in seven or eight different pieces," Musharraf said.
Pakistan also planned to fence 250 kilometres (155 miles) of the frontier in the southwestern province of Baluchistan at a later date, he added.
Mining the border -- as Pakistan has threatened to do -- was still under consideration, Musharraf said.
"A minefield is easier, fencing is more difficult," he said. "But we are conscious of the sensitivity of the international community, therefore we thought in phase one let's only fence it."
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said last month that it had "strong reservations" about the plan to mine and fence parts of the frontier.
Musharraf said "this is my solution" and accused NATO and US-led forces in Afghanistan of failing to come up with any other ideas.
He said Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay, who visited Pakistan last month, had promised to bring up the matter with the Canadian military "but he didn't offer anything. We are waiting but nothing has come."
Afghanistan says it has written to the new United Nations chief to express "deep concern" over the plan as it disputes the current border with Pakistan, known as the Durand Line, saying it cuts off part of its territory.
The Durand Line was drawn up in 1893 by British India, which once included Pakistan, to divide the powerful Pashtun tribes.
Musharraf rejected Afghanistan's complaints.
"If we get involved in these petty differences there will be no action (against militants), we will never succeed," he said.
"Having said that, the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan is very very clear and let no one doubt that.
"Pakistan will never, never allow any change of that border."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070202/wl_asia_afp/pakistanafghanistanunrestfence_070202113912;_ylt=AmgdT_UBFgb0os2arpbgsBrOVooA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

And guess what Jimmy Carter isn't going to write about...
HM.

I absolutely love the apartheid claim. I love how people apply totally irrelevant diagonals and analogies to dramatize their pleas.
I've read a lot of critiques about Carter's book - and many defenses (and when I say a lot/many, I mean so many I don't want to hear about it anymore).
What I haven't heard being disputed much, however, was the term apartheid in itself.
Here are some parallels I just don't get:
1) When using the term 'apartheid' the common association is that of the South African apartheid, this is undisputed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe the the black Africans who were discriminated against and poverty-stricken in their isolation were actually part of South Africa.
Palestinians have not, are not, and will not be part of Israel so long as it exists. Israel has no desire for this (neither do they according to popular consensus and maybe the fact that they continuously cry for the destruction of Israel), therefore making a border between Palestinian territories and Israel is not in any way isolating and excluding a part of the nation.
RATHER, since the Palestinians are so keen on building their nation, the wall serves as a separation of what ideally would be two separate nations.
Obviously, there are problems with this, because having a solid border provides a feeling of permanence, and a separation from the land of Israel itself. That is to say, it means that the Palestinians must suck it up and create their state on the land they have, rather than keep crying that Israel stole their land (not that the wall has caused a reduction in either this or aggression and violence against Israel). More so, a substantial separation implies that Israel is not theirs, which as both the Fatah and Hamas charters both state (ask me for sources if interested).

According to all internationally acclaimed documents, Israel is a real existent state. If it is wrong for Israel to put up a wall at its borders, it is just so for Pakistan to put up a wall at its borders, no?

Arguments can fly in a million directions. You can say that the problem isn't as much in the wall as it is in the borders, which are 'illegitimate'. I'm not going to waste my time arguing this claim. If you're interested, I can recommend dozens of written responses.

There was an interesting article in the NYT the other day http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/arts/31jews.html?ref=arts) about an essay by Alvin H. Rosenfeld of Indiana University upon the topic of how in castigating Israel, liberal "Progressive" Jews are in fact aiding and progressing what is a neo-anti-semitism. This is articulated in not only criticism but denouncing of Israel in its very existence.
The article itself, offered by the American Jewish Committee (ajc.org), is quite intriguing. The beginning of it goes to address the perception of Jews by the Muslim world.
Apparently, Hitler's Mein Kamp is a best seller in Istanbul (and other places in Turkey), as well as Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Needless to say that the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been rather popular across a "wide circulation today in Arabic-speaking countries." Of course, that isn't to disclude Iran, in which, "the Protocols was prominently displayed next to a Torah scroll as one of Judaism's "sacred texts."' (2)

There is mention of television series based on this, and on scenarios of Israelis/Jews are mutilating and abusing Muslim children. This may sound farfetched, but it mentions a video that I, myself have seen, in which a Palestinian girl had her eyes taken out ("stolen") by Israeli doctors, who were to use them for Israeli sick. I'll try to find the video itself, but I'm fairly certain it was offered by the Memri foundation (http://memri.org/)

Anyway, that's not even touching upon the main point of the article (which can be accessed at:http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.2463005/k.FBCD/Progressive_Jewish_Thought_and_the_New_AntiSemitism/apps/ka/ct/contactus.asp?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=2463005&en=5dKHLMNgHaLHIHNfEaKNJMMhHbLOLSMkG7KILSNuEmJTI4J)
What the article mainly does is target left-wing Jews who have the irrevocable notion that Israel does not have a right to exist.
Any pro-Israel advocate will tell you that there is a blunt distinction between being critical of Israel's (individual) policies and being critical of Israel itself, as a being.
Quite frankly, though I won't go into an in-depth analysis of the particular anti-zionists mentioned, including Judt, Rose, Farber, Chomsky, etc. I must say that I find some of the things they said rather appalling.
In fact, the most optomistic words mentioned in the entire article were probably Chomsky's (aginst whom I have a moral stance), which accepted the right of Jews to have an Israel, but as a binary state with Arabs.
Let's be practical here - that means no Israel.
I showed in a previous post the attitude of Arabs in Israel now - and they make up about 20% of the country now. Palestinians are known to have birth rates that dramatically overtake those of Israelis (ultra-orthodox excluded), and within a (fairly short) period of time, the Judaism of the country would disappear. So much for Israel.
Chomsky would rather have Palestine anyway. A binational state would just be the quiet way to get rid of the Jews, as opposed to damanding they simply evacuate.

I understand that there are a lot of questions and accusations and logistics and whatever, but there are a few elementary things that I still can't get.
There are 22 Islamic countries in the world. Many of them are enormous, many of them are affluent to hell. Not one of these 22 countries is willing to take the Palestinian people in.
Not one. It is more profitable and beneficial for them to upkeep a regime of anti-western, anti-israeli terror and hate. It is safer politically.
Yet the world doesn't say a word to Syria, a part of whom the Palestinians claimed to be in 1947, though rejected. It is easier to blame Israel for all the problems that exist; blame Israel for Palestinian suffering, for the civil war on Iraq. According to Rosenfeld's article, Israel/Jews are even blamed for the Tsunami in Asia last year by the Islamic prapogandist media.
If it is a matter of land, there is so much land elsewhere. It's not as if these people would return to their old houses anyway - those probably don't exist anymore. Moreso, Jews (many Israelis) were driven from their homes as well, and I'm not just talking about Europe. Jews in Muslim countries all over north Africa and the Middle East were succombed to abandoning their homes just as much as the Palestinians, and left with nothing but their lives. We don't hear a word about wanting that back, do we? Part of it is certainly that people simply wouldn't want to return. I wouldn't want to go and live in Iraq now, that's for sure. But note also that most of Israel was empty and grazen land leased by abandonee landowners before Israel.
In fact, in a brief argument upon this term with my history teacher, I mentioned that when in the 70's Israel had approximately the same financial position as the Palestinians, Israel had a good deal of international support. He agreed without question.

It's just like a fictional drama.
People like victims.

Even with all this set aside, there have certainly been grievences towards Native Americans. We sympathize, but are we really going to give New York back?

Like I said, I really just don't get it. It seems to me people get so sucked into a detail or an idea that all reason leaves

I don't know. There's been a lot in the news lately. A few things I found interesting:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3361369,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3361228,00.html
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/the-readers-respond-with-a-library-of-ideas/
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamic-mein-kampf/

Eh. I promise I'll write a good post soon. Iran seems to be newsbreaking lately...at least in their claims.
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