Today at Moon of Alabama, b wrote an excellent recap of the Palestinian Crisis, “Netanyahoo's Strategic Dilemma” which follows in whole. I then wrote my own comment while awaiting my flight back to Tennessee to be with my daughter for the birth of her child.
PS: Jews NEVER had a right to a state based on land theft and expulsion of the indigenous population and citing 2000-year old scripts in the Old Testament, as a rationale for the creation of a settler state on stolen land, is ludicrous! I know my Russian-Jewish grandparents never supported such an obscene scenario.
I'd give up atheism if it meant that I could claim Washington as my religious birthright. I'd deny the politicians equal rights and paint the White House black. If the UN backed me, it would have to be seen as sane and logical.
I found atheism wasn't tenable because it's as unprovable as theism. I opt for Nature but then need to argue against those that say it's sentient. However, the Vatican/Roman Church proved its Anti-Human nature long ago and quite often enough to tell any informed person it's just another institution of Plunder.
You will never catch up to a grandchild! Ha ha. Yeah, on what you meant. I awoke from a 1.30am dream, with some real facts, wherein I was about to be arrested. Midday now. Promised myself to slow down so I'm going to escape with a Korean apocalypse movie.
Hmmm... it's my understanding that the first country to recognize the newly proclaimed state of Israel was, ironically, the Soviet Union and no doubt, Stalin had a reason to do so, largely I suspect, a geostrategic one, which backfired badly with the Nakba and Russiia's continued schizophrenic relationship with Fascist Israel is no doubt in part due to the vast number of former Soviet/Russian citizens living in Israel (whether they're all actually Jews is debateable) and of course, as ever, the Cold War. But for how much longer can Russia maintain this balancing act with an increasingly reactionary fundamentalist Israel, now run by manic (mostly US) racist fanatics, who view Palestininans and by extention, all Arabs as cockroaches that need to be exterminated? Frankly, Russia has to get off the fence and put its money where its mouth is.
Agreed. Pepe Escobar wrote about that dynamic and issue recently. As for Stalin's reasons, that deserves some deeper investigation than I can accomplish now, and would probably take a major book to do it properly.
Putin has had many relations with leaders who turned out to be crap leaders, like Merkle, Macron, etc,. and did what he needed to do to further Russia's interest at that time. Yes, IMO he was a bit naive in his trust, but that's certainly no longer the case. Netanyahu was the last to finally show he's unredeemable as a decent human being. IMO, there's going to be a huge Sea-Change in relations between Russia and Occupied Palestine that will also involve China. We need to be patient and attentive to see what they'll do.
And what might be remaining of Israel as we know it (if) a Fatwa is called by the Shia Clerics, where it is well established the Zionest entity are removed from the map, "Dezionized" as you put it. This course the resistance movement has taken to date has been planned and set in stone some decades ago as I'm certain your aware as Putin and Russian 5th column.
And on a personal note, congratulations and Mazel Tov! to Karlof1 on the arrival of a new grandchild! Go Grandaddy! And heartfelt thanks for the light you bring to those that despair the times to ( maybe) com.
I think that the Czechs, who also supplied most of Israel's arms, were the first to recognise the state. Stalin, at the time saw the Jewish question as one in which the Soviet Union, both as Concentration Camp liberators and as equal victims with the Jews of Naziism, led the world against the antisemitism that he, genuinely and consistently, detested.
It is sometimes forgotten that, in 1948, antisemitism was rife in the imperial ruling classes: Jews were subject to discrimination throughout American society, for example.
Whereas, in Britain, not only were the ruling class antisemitic but the Arabs, with their oil and strategic alliances, were seen as favoured over the Zionists.
Remember the long reign of terror in Palestine against the British army- the bombing of the King David Hotel, the killing of Lord Moyne in 1944, the hanging of the Three Sergeants etc) .
It is a mistake to ante-date current a Suez era attitudes to 1948.
To return to my point: the cause of Israel was seen by Stalin and indeed most left socialists in the UK as being preferable to the discredited views of the ruling class in the West.
Of course things changed. And are quite different now. But in those days the nascent Israel was a popular cause.
There's the entire history of the Mandate Era that continued through WW2 that nobody says anything about, but is when the groundwork was laid in Palestine.
De-Zionized, hmmm. That terms does not sell anywhere as well as de-nazification.
Soup-nazis, etc. have ensconced that in human memory. Need something better than Zion. De-colonization is better but still might not be a big seller. Indigenous Arabs? Goes with Columbus Day.
Don't leave out the blind fanatical support of Israel is also based on religious fervent of the End of Days and the Second Coming of Jesus. That requires a final war, usually stated as starting in the Middle East, to leave Satan as winner. Thereupon, Jesus will return to save the Faithful. This is the belief of the pulpit thumpings of the rightwing Christians. We have lots of those even in Singapore which religiously supports Israel and any public signs of sympathies for Palestine formally declared as "anti Singapore" elements. Even pro Israel regulars on social media are threatening anyone who dares to voice sympathies for the Palestinians or attempt to provide a proper context and perspective of the history of anger.
Our Malay minority have been repeatedly warned to think "logically" and not react based on emotions or religious sentiments.
So much for "freedom of speech" in Singapore; which we never factually have since independence.
I know the point you're raising, but it's all BS as Jesus was NEVER the son of any god. He was just a radical rabbi wanting to restore Mosaic Law and its Jubilee Year. Almost all of the new testament is BS, contrived to support the new institution, for which there's lots of supporting evidence
Agree completely. Christianity was founded by Paul, a Roman double agent who saw an opportunity to found his own religion. Jesus' own brother told everyone in Israel not to listen to him. A group of Jesus' followers reportedly swore never to eat, drink or sleep until they had killed Paul. Paul had to be escorted out of Israel by a troop of Roman soldiers to save his life. Then he goes to Rome and founds this "Jesus cult" which is denounced as evil by the Romans until for reasons I forget a Roman emperor decided to adopt the religion (note: he didn't convert, he remained a Sun worshipper, he just adopted Christianity as well.)
The idea that Jesus wanted to found a new religion, still less one that would persecute his own people for the next two thousand, is ludicrous. Would be one of the big jokes of human history if it hadn't resulted in the slaughter of the "heretical" religions, the pagans, and the Jews.
Oct 21, 2023·edited Oct 21, 2023Liked by Karl Sanchez
Yesterday I read that Israel has ordered the Qud (?) Hospital to evacuate its 10,000 patients or be bombed.
They admit to having bombed the Greek Orthodox Church.
They also initially admitted to the hospital bombing, trying to take it back only after the degree of carnage was seen.
I agree with the moa reader who speculated that the hospital bombing on the eve of Biden's visit was intended to force him into "you're with us or against us."
The impression I get is now they will use his acquiesence to raze hospitals, mosques, churches & cultural landmarks to render North Gaza as uninhabitable with nothing of the Palestinian's history to salvage.
I agree that as much advantage will be taken as possible, but IMO what decent rep the Zionists had within the Global majority is now all gone and condemnation is now the rule. To take Yahweh's view, the abomination is bigger than anything they could have accomplished, and the Jews will never be provided with their home as Torah stipulates. IMO the last bit of good will Russia had is also now destroyed. But the problem still must be resolved.
Nov 3, 2023·edited Nov 3, 2023Liked by Karl Sanchez
I agree with the conclusions of the essay. And think it is never likely going to happen. If it is true the Chinese (deliberately) commenced to printing maps of the world with Israel missing I think they probably got it right. Israel has to go.
I don't know how that happens though.
What sensible person would want to live there after this, anyway?
Isn't it time the Jews overhauled their Bronze age religion in the light of 21st C science and spiritual knowledge - in the case of the latter i.e. NDE accounts ?
The problem is the lack of "sensible" people. The so-called Settlers are die-hard fanatics who are egged on by other die-hards. If you've kept up with Crooke's writings over the years, you'll know this goes back to the founding of Zionism. There's a very peculiar insanity that goes with the acceptance of the idea that a certain set of humans are "chosen"--exceptional--over all others. But look at the Outlaw US Empire's long held beliefs on the matter and how they've been promoted as a "civic religion" with Manifest Destiny leading the way. Indoctrination into zealotry--look at the rise of Nazism. Orwell tried to examine it in 1984 via its Two Minutes of Hate. Asimov in his Empire series went at it from a different angle with Hari Seldon's Psychohistory idea. The Catholic Church also sold something very similar where only certain Christians were regarded as humans so all others--all humans--could be exploited. What was the Inquisition if not the Church's version of Nazism?
Science and rationality have pushed back against the fanatics who have used the Abrahamic Religions as tools to enrich themselves at the expense of their societies, but humanity still has a long road to travel to overcome that burden. There are some who believe Humanity will never accomplish that task. And in our current world, one can only be optimistic.
Nov 3, 2023·edited Nov 3, 2023Liked by Karl Sanchez
I absolutely agree the problem is 'a lack of sensible people'.
But I have this belief/hope that being 'sensible' might suddenly sweep across the peoples of the world (more particularly the West) almost overnight by virtue of the internet and the smartphone in the same way that popular memes sweep through their consciousness.
In the same way that popular misconceptions sweep through their consciousness.
It does seem to me that the human masses today have so much previously impossible potential that it is the sheer size and nature of it that stops it being realised. A bit like perhaps how a child needs persuading to jump in the pool for he can't believe that he can actually, float.
Given this tool: the internet together with its indispensable access tool: the smartphone - the human masses actually become a quite different organism. It is literally a 'nerve structure' implanted in them so to speak that makes of them one living organism.
I will not labour the point. I find people either see it or they don't.
That organism is capable of thinking, creating a thought and in an instant communicating it to every 'cell' of its body (i.e. every human).
When it becomes self aware then it will begin to operate.
Seems to me this is fundamentally and basically true to such an extent that at any time I expect to see initiatives from govt and the powerful to more or less switch off the internet, deny the masses their connection, thus 'switching off' this new 'mass brain' of theirs. Performing a lobotomy.
Which I'd hope would be a futile exercise for once the genie is out of the bottle....
But yes, I see this 'new organism' as manifesting in completely new ways and capable of self organising and improving as never, ever before and such illnesses as those of which you speak: the die hard fanatics, the manic beliefs it will deal with, they will not prosper.
Number one insanity that will not prosper is the insanity of the people killing the people at the urgings of manipulative 'governments'. In quotes because they don't so much govern as control, manipulate, exploit, torment and even murder as in Kiev Ukraine today.
Keeping up with Crooke is something I have not done. I was unaware of him until recently. My habitual interests during my life having been in other directions. Yes, right now I value Mr Crooke as one of the very few sensible and trustworthy informative voices I can find.
You're just pussyfooting around. 'De-Zionised' means 'De-religioned'. It means secularised. Secular 'jews', 'jews' by genealogy, are potentially fine. Sectarian fundamentalist Jews are maniacs like all fundamentalist religiosi.
The answer in Israel is to 'second class citizen' the religiosi, religion itself. Separation of Church and State. It must be clear that all ownership, the whole State, is secular and religion exists within people's heads as their own belief system no one is going to argue with as long as they don't interfere with the State.
The is no conflict between Palestinians and Israelis per se. The conflict is between religious zionists and fundamentalist Islamists when we get to the sticking points.
Pussyfooting around. The problem is religion.
No one has the courage or intelligence to face the problem, address it, deal with it.
They are frightened of it. Think it intractable. Insoluble. Maybe because that is our experience in life when trying to deal with religious bigots everywhere.
But it is quite tractable, quite easily dealt with.
Just stick with the core message, insist upon it, it works for religion and for State:
'love is all'.
Tell the religious to sit down and shut up because the core of their religion is love and via equitable treatment of all that is what the State is practicing.
Of course the core of Judaism and Islam is not love: it is hate, hate for everyone not of their faith. But that doesn't matter because they themselves are quite ready to insist they have a 'loving faith' and often have done so.
The State can manifest the core of their religions: Equity.
The fine details of how many angels can dance on a pinhead can be left for their 'intellectuals' and theologians to discuss in the privacy of their own homes.
They get out of the way of the State.
You are religious? Good. Go sit in the corner, either that or walk with the rest on strictly equal terms and practice 'love' simply by tolerating, sharing, helping, liking.
Oct 21, 2023·edited Oct 21, 2023Liked by Karl Sanchez
I don't think it's as black-and-white as you make out, i.e. religious vs secular. Most Jews even in Israel self-identify as 'secular' i.e. not all that religious. However, culturally most Jews, even American Reform Jews of several generations do tend to believe that there is something exceptional about being Jewish and thus do tend to regard Jews as different from non-Jews. This provides a seedbed of separatism preventing assimilation over the long-term and non-assimilation is evidence right there of the Jewish Identity coming before local and host national identities. And from that seedbed grow gardens or jungles that spread and end up damaging the host countries which they always seem at some point to want either to take over or to bring down (same thing, different approach).
It's a conundrum. Most individual Jews are fine people but the collective agenda somehow ends up being demonic because it is based on putting Self over Other, or in this case one's own Tribe over, or at least apart from, all other Tribes. It's a form of supremacism which always leads to bad ends. In the Buddhist tradition they say that all demons are from the same root, namely the Demon of Ego, which identifies with Self over Other. This group supremacist, or exceptional, dynamic is that same type of collective Demon.
So just nixing religion is not the answer alone, Plus, no matter what the answer is, Jews themselves, especially those in Israel, have to willingly and sincerely change. Such things usually start with leadership. Such a change is unlikely.
But as Karlof recommends, rather than change the Jews, instead the RoW can change the situational dynamic by proactively supporting Palestinian rights and security, which has not been done in over 70 years, by helping to establish a proper State for them with a properly configured territory (i.e. NOT 1947 which was a bad idea) but something that works, something that borders Egypt, Jordan and Syria and which the regional powers commit to protecting and supporting until it is fully self-supporting. The U.N and the US won't do it so they need to set up a regional Authority and do it for themselves.
"most Jews, even American Reform Jews of several generations do tend to believe that there is something exceptional about being Jewish and thus do tend to regard Jews as different from non-Jews."
In other words, typical primate tribal behavior. This is why human society will never be peaceful, no matter what institutions are imposed.
Read my lips! NO ONE IS SPECIAL! Humans are all monkey-ass chimpanzees at heart. Act accordingly.
I don't maintain it is black and white. What's 'it' anyway? I'd suppose you mean the solution to everything. I don't propose a 'solution to everything'. My outlandish proposal is simply what I see as a necessary step before any progress can be made.
I say again: it is the supposed underpinning of all our modern States: separation between church and State. So we can see I don't so much propose any 'outlandish change' as it might be supposed but rather simply a return to and acknowledgement of the supposed status.
Of course there is some exceptional about being Jewish. Just as there is something exceptional about being black, say, or almost anything else: all largely dependent on context as we'd expect from the very word 'exceptional'.
As a sort of 'universal' or general 'exception' that doesn't depend upon context (beyond planet earth) we have the Jews own insistence that they are exceptional.
I see little 'demonic' in their 'putting self over other' unless you're going to concede that 'demonic' is the norm for isn't 'putting self over other' the default for Western civilisation at least per the notion of capitalism elevated to a philosophy and a religion?
The whole western world and quite possibly the whole world is now in dire peril and a horrible insane mess simply because of the American penchant for 'putting self over other' . An attitude they are so steeped in they truly see nothing at all wrong with it and are proud to make claims such as 'money well spent' to see half a million Ukrainians die for the benefit of US profiteers.
The declare this with pride. Pride.
And "keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down" mutated to keep Russia out is similarly proudly and unashamedly proclaimed everywhere.
I don't suggest 'nixing' religion.
I suggest nixing it's hold on the State, divesting the State of the impediment and crippling factor that it is and doing that by quite simply declaring the State to be secular and all decisions on who goes where and what belongs to whom being State decisions.
There's a contradiction in your text where you say most Jews are secular and the later say its unlikely the Jews will change - the change in question being this very move from sectarian to secular.
I'd maintain that yes, most Jews are secular. As most people in the world are secular. Most often caught willy-nilly with this or that 'religious' affiliation by virtue of birth, custom and/or State diktat rather than by any desire to be that way.
And therefore think it likely they'd be happy to adopt an overtly secular State and leave the arguments about sacred sites and posturings etc. to those with curly hair or whatever.
I think people all over the world always sincerely want change and are willing for it. But we have a simple historical normal human situation wherein the masses are without agency.
They cannot easily communicate with each other. They do not have access to the best information no matter what the subject. They cannot spy on their rulers though the rulers spy on them and they cannot hide. They are easily persuaded and coerced into fighting each other and do it in blind ignorance of the nature, the hearts and minds, of their enemies. 'Enemies' we might say, in quotes, because they are 'enemy' only because the rulers said they are and made them attack you.
BUT: ALL of that is changed today. Or everything is set and in place for it to change. Everything. With the internet and the ubiquitous smartphone ALL the people are interconnected for the first time every in history.
The people can get the news before the rulers do.
The people can communicate with each other quicker than the rulers can communicate with each other.
The rulers can only communicate via the people where in the past it was the reverse (and they try to keep it so) Humble telecomms operators and computer programmers today potentially rule everything.
There is no ruler can hope to keep himself hidden in any respect at all from the people if the people choose to reveal him.
No one has any wealth today when all wealth is represented by numbers in computers that is not vulnerable to the will of the people who can reveal it and even cancel it, transfer it away, at the press of a key.
A couple of short generations ago most of the world was even illiterate. Today there are vast numbers of highly literate computer programmers and programme users of all kinds: banking programmes, insurance programme, govt. department book keeping programmes and on and on.
Everything is in the computer and who staffs and mans and understands the computer? The rulers? Nope. The people.
A meme can and does spread across the world today in an instant. We have seen examples. Not very nice ones. Covid insanity spread like lightning. Global anthropogenerated warming unfortunately spread, too. Stuff like that. All sad.
BUT: as they spread so too could enlightenment spread equally suddenly and the people suddenly become aware of themselves as an entity.
And inclined to do simple things such as communicate via the web with the soldier on the other side and ascertain the truth of the matter.
And that's it: the time has come when the people can ascertain the truth of the matter.
They just don't know it yet.
But when the penny drops: that'll be the game changer to change all games.
My 'it' was your making a hard line about religion and my reply tried to show there are non-religious fixations that end up being just as sticky as overt religious ones. Sorry that wasn't clear.
Let's NOT forget that Jews still believe they're God's elected class which they bring to the public in the bible as the message of God which is another invention by the JEWS!!
That is incorrect Ed. Many menial jobs in agriculture, service industries, labouring jobs mainly are done by imported labour from under developed countries. Thais, Indonesians, Phillipinos, and more.
PS: Jews NEVER had a right to a state based on land theft and expulsion of the indigenous population and citing 2000-year old scripts in the Old Testament, as a rationale for the creation of a settler state on stolen land, is ludicrous! I know my Russian-Jewish grandparents never supported such an obscene scenario.
I'd give up atheism if it meant that I could claim Washington as my religious birthright. I'd deny the politicians equal rights and paint the White House black. If the UN backed me, it would have to be seen as sane and logical.
I found atheism wasn't tenable because it's as unprovable as theism. I opt for Nature but then need to argue against those that say it's sentient. However, the Vatican/Roman Church proved its Anti-Human nature long ago and quite often enough to tell any informed person it's just another institution of Plunder.
I expanded my response at https://mikehampton.substack.com/p/red-cow-god-war-middle-east-al-aqsa
Clever folk have been known to torture themselves into paradox :)
Agreed.
Happy, Grandad day!
Thanks Mike! It's 3am here and I'm almost finished catching up.
You will never catch up to a grandchild! Ha ha. Yeah, on what you meant. I awoke from a 1.30am dream, with some real facts, wherein I was about to be arrested. Midday now. Promised myself to slow down so I'm going to escape with a Korean apocalypse movie.
Hmmm... it's my understanding that the first country to recognize the newly proclaimed state of Israel was, ironically, the Soviet Union and no doubt, Stalin had a reason to do so, largely I suspect, a geostrategic one, which backfired badly with the Nakba and Russiia's continued schizophrenic relationship with Fascist Israel is no doubt in part due to the vast number of former Soviet/Russian citizens living in Israel (whether they're all actually Jews is debateable) and of course, as ever, the Cold War. But for how much longer can Russia maintain this balancing act with an increasingly reactionary fundamentalist Israel, now run by manic (mostly US) racist fanatics, who view Palestininans and by extention, all Arabs as cockroaches that need to be exterminated? Frankly, Russia has to get off the fence and put its money where its mouth is.
Agreed. Pepe Escobar wrote about that dynamic and issue recently. As for Stalin's reasons, that deserves some deeper investigation than I can accomplish now, and would probably take a major book to do it properly.
you can add Putin into that Israel Love fest too.
Putin has had many relations with leaders who turned out to be crap leaders, like Merkle, Macron, etc,. and did what he needed to do to further Russia's interest at that time. Yes, IMO he was a bit naive in his trust, but that's certainly no longer the case. Netanyahu was the last to finally show he's unredeemable as a decent human being. IMO, there's going to be a huge Sea-Change in relations between Russia and Occupied Palestine that will also involve China. We need to be patient and attentive to see what they'll do.
And what might be remaining of Israel as we know it (if) a Fatwa is called by the Shia Clerics, where it is well established the Zionest entity are removed from the map, "Dezionized" as you put it. This course the resistance movement has taken to date has been planned and set in stone some decades ago as I'm certain your aware as Putin and Russian 5th column.
Not any more I'd wager. And maybe not since they shot down the Russian intel plane in Syria.
And on a personal note, congratulations and Mazel Tov! to Karlof1 on the arrival of a new grandchild! Go Grandaddy! And heartfelt thanks for the light you bring to those that despair the times to ( maybe) com.
Peacenlovenlight to us all...
Thanks very much! Unfortunately, we'll be travelling while the child is excavated, and he has medical trials ahead already.
My prayers are with you and yours- have faith in your healers - they will do their best!
I think that the Czechs, who also supplied most of Israel's arms, were the first to recognise the state. Stalin, at the time saw the Jewish question as one in which the Soviet Union, both as Concentration Camp liberators and as equal victims with the Jews of Naziism, led the world against the antisemitism that he, genuinely and consistently, detested.
It is sometimes forgotten that, in 1948, antisemitism was rife in the imperial ruling classes: Jews were subject to discrimination throughout American society, for example.
Whereas, in Britain, not only were the ruling class antisemitic but the Arabs, with their oil and strategic alliances, were seen as favoured over the Zionists.
Remember the long reign of terror in Palestine against the British army- the bombing of the King David Hotel, the killing of Lord Moyne in 1944, the hanging of the Three Sergeants etc) .
It is a mistake to ante-date current a Suez era attitudes to 1948.
To return to my point: the cause of Israel was seen by Stalin and indeed most left socialists in the UK as being preferable to the discredited views of the ruling class in the West.
Of course things changed. And are quite different now. But in those days the nascent Israel was a popular cause.
There's the entire history of the Mandate Era that continued through WW2 that nobody says anything about, but is when the groundwork was laid in Palestine.
Donuts may taste great but after 56 years of them, you may need a crane to carry you in your bed to the hospital.
right on karl... get the usa out of israel... that would go a long ways to improving things on the ground..
De-Zionized, hmmm. That terms does not sell anywhere as well as de-nazification.
Soup-nazis, etc. have ensconced that in human memory. Need something better than Zion. De-colonization is better but still might not be a big seller. Indigenous Arabs? Goes with Columbus Day.
i think this is because most people don't know the political agenda of zionism very well..
Yes!! Absolutely james!! That's why the context Crooke provides is so damn critical, and why I've highlighted it as much as I have.
Don't leave out the blind fanatical support of Israel is also based on religious fervent of the End of Days and the Second Coming of Jesus. That requires a final war, usually stated as starting in the Middle East, to leave Satan as winner. Thereupon, Jesus will return to save the Faithful. This is the belief of the pulpit thumpings of the rightwing Christians. We have lots of those even in Singapore which religiously supports Israel and any public signs of sympathies for Palestine formally declared as "anti Singapore" elements. Even pro Israel regulars on social media are threatening anyone who dares to voice sympathies for the Palestinians or attempt to provide a proper context and perspective of the history of anger.
Our Malay minority have been repeatedly warned to think "logically" and not react based on emotions or religious sentiments.
So much for "freedom of speech" in Singapore; which we never factually have since independence.
Even Thailand have pro Palestine protests.
I know the point you're raising, but it's all BS as Jesus was NEVER the son of any god. He was just a radical rabbi wanting to restore Mosaic Law and its Jubilee Year. Almost all of the new testament is BS, contrived to support the new institution, for which there's lots of supporting evidence
Agree completely. Christianity was founded by Paul, a Roman double agent who saw an opportunity to found his own religion. Jesus' own brother told everyone in Israel not to listen to him. A group of Jesus' followers reportedly swore never to eat, drink or sleep until they had killed Paul. Paul had to be escorted out of Israel by a troop of Roman soldiers to save his life. Then he goes to Rome and founds this "Jesus cult" which is denounced as evil by the Romans until for reasons I forget a Roman emperor decided to adopt the religion (note: he didn't convert, he remained a Sun worshipper, he just adopted Christianity as well.)
The idea that Jesus wanted to found a new religion, still less one that would persecute his own people for the next two thousand, is ludicrous. Would be one of the big jokes of human history if it hadn't resulted in the slaughter of the "heretical" religions, the pagans, and the Jews.
"Jesus' own brother told everyone in Israel...."
Shouldn't that read .....in Palestine?
Rowan Atkinson, in his devil skit, said to the Christians, " The Jews were right." That cracked me up.
Yesterday I read that Israel has ordered the Qud (?) Hospital to evacuate its 10,000 patients or be bombed.
They admit to having bombed the Greek Orthodox Church.
They also initially admitted to the hospital bombing, trying to take it back only after the degree of carnage was seen.
I agree with the moa reader who speculated that the hospital bombing on the eve of Biden's visit was intended to force him into "you're with us or against us."
The impression I get is now they will use his acquiesence to raze hospitals, mosques, churches & cultural landmarks to render North Gaza as uninhabitable with nothing of the Palestinian's history to salvage.
I agree that as much advantage will be taken as possible, but IMO what decent rep the Zionists had within the Global majority is now all gone and condemnation is now the rule. To take Yahweh's view, the abomination is bigger than anything they could have accomplished, and the Jews will never be provided with their home as Torah stipulates. IMO the last bit of good will Russia had is also now destroyed. But the problem still must be resolved.
I sure hope so.
Correction to my post above: the hospital has 400 patients but 10,000 are sheltering there
I agree with the conclusions of the essay. And think it is never likely going to happen. If it is true the Chinese (deliberately) commenced to printing maps of the world with Israel missing I think they probably got it right. Israel has to go.
I don't know how that happens though.
What sensible person would want to live there after this, anyway?
Isn't it time the Jews overhauled their Bronze age religion in the light of 21st C science and spiritual knowledge - in the case of the latter i.e. NDE accounts ?
The problem is the lack of "sensible" people. The so-called Settlers are die-hard fanatics who are egged on by other die-hards. If you've kept up with Crooke's writings over the years, you'll know this goes back to the founding of Zionism. There's a very peculiar insanity that goes with the acceptance of the idea that a certain set of humans are "chosen"--exceptional--over all others. But look at the Outlaw US Empire's long held beliefs on the matter and how they've been promoted as a "civic religion" with Manifest Destiny leading the way. Indoctrination into zealotry--look at the rise of Nazism. Orwell tried to examine it in 1984 via its Two Minutes of Hate. Asimov in his Empire series went at it from a different angle with Hari Seldon's Psychohistory idea. The Catholic Church also sold something very similar where only certain Christians were regarded as humans so all others--all humans--could be exploited. What was the Inquisition if not the Church's version of Nazism?
Science and rationality have pushed back against the fanatics who have used the Abrahamic Religions as tools to enrich themselves at the expense of their societies, but humanity still has a long road to travel to overcome that burden. There are some who believe Humanity will never accomplish that task. And in our current world, one can only be optimistic.
I absolutely agree the problem is 'a lack of sensible people'.
But I have this belief/hope that being 'sensible' might suddenly sweep across the peoples of the world (more particularly the West) almost overnight by virtue of the internet and the smartphone in the same way that popular memes sweep through their consciousness.
In the same way that popular misconceptions sweep through their consciousness.
It does seem to me that the human masses today have so much previously impossible potential that it is the sheer size and nature of it that stops it being realised. A bit like perhaps how a child needs persuading to jump in the pool for he can't believe that he can actually, float.
Given this tool: the internet together with its indispensable access tool: the smartphone - the human masses actually become a quite different organism. It is literally a 'nerve structure' implanted in them so to speak that makes of them one living organism.
I will not labour the point. I find people either see it or they don't.
That organism is capable of thinking, creating a thought and in an instant communicating it to every 'cell' of its body (i.e. every human).
When it becomes self aware then it will begin to operate.
Seems to me this is fundamentally and basically true to such an extent that at any time I expect to see initiatives from govt and the powerful to more or less switch off the internet, deny the masses their connection, thus 'switching off' this new 'mass brain' of theirs. Performing a lobotomy.
Which I'd hope would be a futile exercise for once the genie is out of the bottle....
But yes, I see this 'new organism' as manifesting in completely new ways and capable of self organising and improving as never, ever before and such illnesses as those of which you speak: the die hard fanatics, the manic beliefs it will deal with, they will not prosper.
Number one insanity that will not prosper is the insanity of the people killing the people at the urgings of manipulative 'governments'. In quotes because they don't so much govern as control, manipulate, exploit, torment and even murder as in Kiev Ukraine today.
Keeping up with Crooke is something I have not done. I was unaware of him until recently. My habitual interests during my life having been in other directions. Yes, right now I value Mr Crooke as one of the very few sensible and trustworthy informative voices I can find.
Meanwhile, from Singapore with Love. We are the most informed country in Asia.
https://i.imgur.com/KEuB5T1.jpg
And our Parliament will "debate" this hopefully after Israel has got rid of the not humans in Gaza.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/parliament-to-have-full-discussion-of-israeli-palestinian-conflict-in-early-november-pm-lee
Escobar sticking it to Putin's "neutrality" policy.
https://www.unz.com/pescobar/russias-neutrality-ballet-on-israel-palestine/
You must always remember that Russia's a democracy in the real sense of that term, not an oligarchic autocracy like the West's fake democracies.
You're just pussyfooting around. 'De-Zionised' means 'De-religioned'. It means secularised. Secular 'jews', 'jews' by genealogy, are potentially fine. Sectarian fundamentalist Jews are maniacs like all fundamentalist religiosi.
The answer in Israel is to 'second class citizen' the religiosi, religion itself. Separation of Church and State. It must be clear that all ownership, the whole State, is secular and religion exists within people's heads as their own belief system no one is going to argue with as long as they don't interfere with the State.
The is no conflict between Palestinians and Israelis per se. The conflict is between religious zionists and fundamentalist Islamists when we get to the sticking points.
Pussyfooting around. The problem is religion.
No one has the courage or intelligence to face the problem, address it, deal with it.
They are frightened of it. Think it intractable. Insoluble. Maybe because that is our experience in life when trying to deal with religious bigots everywhere.
But it is quite tractable, quite easily dealt with.
Just stick with the core message, insist upon it, it works for religion and for State:
'love is all'.
Tell the religious to sit down and shut up because the core of their religion is love and via equitable treatment of all that is what the State is practicing.
Of course the core of Judaism and Islam is not love: it is hate, hate for everyone not of their faith. But that doesn't matter because they themselves are quite ready to insist they have a 'loving faith' and often have done so.
The State can manifest the core of their religions: Equity.
The fine details of how many angels can dance on a pinhead can be left for their 'intellectuals' and theologians to discuss in the privacy of their own homes.
They get out of the way of the State.
You are religious? Good. Go sit in the corner, either that or walk with the rest on strictly equal terms and practice 'love' simply by tolerating, sharing, helping, liking.
I don't think it's as black-and-white as you make out, i.e. religious vs secular. Most Jews even in Israel self-identify as 'secular' i.e. not all that religious. However, culturally most Jews, even American Reform Jews of several generations do tend to believe that there is something exceptional about being Jewish and thus do tend to regard Jews as different from non-Jews. This provides a seedbed of separatism preventing assimilation over the long-term and non-assimilation is evidence right there of the Jewish Identity coming before local and host national identities. And from that seedbed grow gardens or jungles that spread and end up damaging the host countries which they always seem at some point to want either to take over or to bring down (same thing, different approach).
It's a conundrum. Most individual Jews are fine people but the collective agenda somehow ends up being demonic because it is based on putting Self over Other, or in this case one's own Tribe over, or at least apart from, all other Tribes. It's a form of supremacism which always leads to bad ends. In the Buddhist tradition they say that all demons are from the same root, namely the Demon of Ego, which identifies with Self over Other. This group supremacist, or exceptional, dynamic is that same type of collective Demon.
So just nixing religion is not the answer alone, Plus, no matter what the answer is, Jews themselves, especially those in Israel, have to willingly and sincerely change. Such things usually start with leadership. Such a change is unlikely.
But as Karlof recommends, rather than change the Jews, instead the RoW can change the situational dynamic by proactively supporting Palestinian rights and security, which has not been done in over 70 years, by helping to establish a proper State for them with a properly configured territory (i.e. NOT 1947 which was a bad idea) but something that works, something that borders Egypt, Jordan and Syria and which the regional powers commit to protecting and supporting until it is fully self-supporting. The U.N and the US won't do it so they need to set up a regional Authority and do it for themselves.
"most Jews, even American Reform Jews of several generations do tend to believe that there is something exceptional about being Jewish and thus do tend to regard Jews as different from non-Jews."
In other words, typical primate tribal behavior. This is why human society will never be peaceful, no matter what institutions are imposed.
Read my lips! NO ONE IS SPECIAL! Humans are all monkey-ass chimpanzees at heart. Act accordingly.
I don't maintain it is black and white. What's 'it' anyway? I'd suppose you mean the solution to everything. I don't propose a 'solution to everything'. My outlandish proposal is simply what I see as a necessary step before any progress can be made.
I say again: it is the supposed underpinning of all our modern States: separation between church and State. So we can see I don't so much propose any 'outlandish change' as it might be supposed but rather simply a return to and acknowledgement of the supposed status.
Of course there is some exceptional about being Jewish. Just as there is something exceptional about being black, say, or almost anything else: all largely dependent on context as we'd expect from the very word 'exceptional'.
As a sort of 'universal' or general 'exception' that doesn't depend upon context (beyond planet earth) we have the Jews own insistence that they are exceptional.
I see little 'demonic' in their 'putting self over other' unless you're going to concede that 'demonic' is the norm for isn't 'putting self over other' the default for Western civilisation at least per the notion of capitalism elevated to a philosophy and a religion?
The whole western world and quite possibly the whole world is now in dire peril and a horrible insane mess simply because of the American penchant for 'putting self over other' . An attitude they are so steeped in they truly see nothing at all wrong with it and are proud to make claims such as 'money well spent' to see half a million Ukrainians die for the benefit of US profiteers.
The declare this with pride. Pride.
And "keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down" mutated to keep Russia out is similarly proudly and unashamedly proclaimed everywhere.
I don't suggest 'nixing' religion.
I suggest nixing it's hold on the State, divesting the State of the impediment and crippling factor that it is and doing that by quite simply declaring the State to be secular and all decisions on who goes where and what belongs to whom being State decisions.
There's a contradiction in your text where you say most Jews are secular and the later say its unlikely the Jews will change - the change in question being this very move from sectarian to secular.
I'd maintain that yes, most Jews are secular. As most people in the world are secular. Most often caught willy-nilly with this or that 'religious' affiliation by virtue of birth, custom and/or State diktat rather than by any desire to be that way.
And therefore think it likely they'd be happy to adopt an overtly secular State and leave the arguments about sacred sites and posturings etc. to those with curly hair or whatever.
I think people all over the world always sincerely want change and are willing for it. But we have a simple historical normal human situation wherein the masses are without agency.
They cannot easily communicate with each other. They do not have access to the best information no matter what the subject. They cannot spy on their rulers though the rulers spy on them and they cannot hide. They are easily persuaded and coerced into fighting each other and do it in blind ignorance of the nature, the hearts and minds, of their enemies. 'Enemies' we might say, in quotes, because they are 'enemy' only because the rulers said they are and made them attack you.
BUT: ALL of that is changed today. Or everything is set and in place for it to change. Everything. With the internet and the ubiquitous smartphone ALL the people are interconnected for the first time every in history.
The people can get the news before the rulers do.
The people can communicate with each other quicker than the rulers can communicate with each other.
The rulers can only communicate via the people where in the past it was the reverse (and they try to keep it so) Humble telecomms operators and computer programmers today potentially rule everything.
There is no ruler can hope to keep himself hidden in any respect at all from the people if the people choose to reveal him.
No one has any wealth today when all wealth is represented by numbers in computers that is not vulnerable to the will of the people who can reveal it and even cancel it, transfer it away, at the press of a key.
A couple of short generations ago most of the world was even illiterate. Today there are vast numbers of highly literate computer programmers and programme users of all kinds: banking programmes, insurance programme, govt. department book keeping programmes and on and on.
Everything is in the computer and who staffs and mans and understands the computer? The rulers? Nope. The people.
A meme can and does spread across the world today in an instant. We have seen examples. Not very nice ones. Covid insanity spread like lightning. Global anthropogenerated warming unfortunately spread, too. Stuff like that. All sad.
BUT: as they spread so too could enlightenment spread equally suddenly and the people suddenly become aware of themselves as an entity.
And inclined to do simple things such as communicate via the web with the soldier on the other side and ascertain the truth of the matter.
And that's it: the time has come when the people can ascertain the truth of the matter.
They just don't know it yet.
But when the penny drops: that'll be the game changer to change all games.
That's what I'm talking about.
My 'it' was your making a hard line about religion and my reply tried to show there are non-religious fixations that end up being just as sticky as overt religious ones. Sorry that wasn't clear.
Let's NOT forget that Jews still believe they're God's elected class which they bring to the public in the bible as the message of God which is another invention by the JEWS!!
Selective read, Abraham was to be father of many nations.
Ignore the New Testament and the new cornerstone.
I no longer feel sympathy, now the Israeli actions are dismaying.
Innocent on both sides will be harmed.
Innocents on three sides comrade! The followers of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are also children of Abraham.
War is over. IF you want it. (Praise be unto John and Yoko!)
''Innocent on both sides will be harmed"
Both sides? Is a former European or north American an innocent while occupying a stolen house on illegally occupied land actually an "innocent"?
Not all Israeli's are radical expansionist settlers. Nor are foreigners employed in Israel.
" Nor are foreigners employed in Israel."
That is incorrect Ed. Many menial jobs in agriculture, service industries, labouring jobs mainly are done by imported labour from under developed countries. Thais, Indonesians, Phillipinos, and more.