tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67116937562249706482024-02-08T10:29:32.817-08:00Watch watchlevi9909http://www.blogger.com/profile/10553481056544494411noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6711693756224970648.post-31061319385995272112012-01-01T04:18:00.000-08:002012-01-05T09:31:05.241-08:00Harry's Place, Finkelstein and the holocaust<br />
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<a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2011/12/31/norman-finkelstein-on-the-holocaust/" rel="bookmark" style="color: #444444; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; text-decoration: none;" title="Norman Finkelstein on the Holocaust">Norman Finkelstein on the Holocaust</a></h2>
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<span class="author" style="font-weight: bold;">Joseph W</span>, December 31st 2011, 6:00 am</div>
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Norman Finkelstein was recently hosted by <a href="http://www.leedspsc.org.uk/norman-finkelstein-in-leeds/" style="color: #fa4949;">Leeds PSC</a>, whilst on a UK tour with the Palestine Return Centre (PRC). The PRC is a<a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2009/03/06/london-hamasniks-and-interpal/" style="color: #fa4949;"> Hamas front</a> network who have <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/15/krisztina-morvai-london-conference-ban" style="color: #fa4949;">previously courted</a> Hungarian fascist Krisztina Morvai.<strong><a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2011/11/09/finkelstein-and-the-hamasniks/" style="color: #fa4949;"><strong>Finkelstein toured with the pro-fascist London Hamasniks of the PRC</strong></a></strong>.</div>
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Finkelstein has previously been hosted by the PSC in the UK. I saw him appear in Leeds in 2009, in a talk in which he praised the “heroic resistance” of Hezbollah to Israel. Unsurprisingly, on the night, Finkelstein did not deal with a question about whether <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/5780/samir-kuntar-and-the-last-laugh" style="color: #fa4949;">celebrating child-murderer Samir Kuntar</a> could really be described as part of a heroic resistance.</div>
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Previously Finkelstein has favourably <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bDe65-nF3FQ" style="color: #fa4949;">compared</a> Hezbollah with the French resistance against the Nazis.</div>
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Finkelstein’s website is <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/jewish-nazis-at-work-again/" style="color: #fa4949;">full</a> of <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/what-nazis-thought-after-service-in-the-jewish-ghettos/" style="color: #fa4949;">casual</a> and <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/the-ultimate-mission-join-real-life-nazis-as-they-starve-jews-in-warsaw-help-a-nazi-shove-an-elderly-jew-into-an-oven-set-fire-to-a-crematorium-and-watch-the-ashes-of-a-jewish-newborn-come-out-th/" style="color: #fa4949;">nonsensical</a> <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/jewish-torah-nazi-ss-knows-it-best/" style="color: #fa4949;">references</a> to <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/shocking-manifestations-of-italian-anti-semitism-they-consider-that-jews-are-rich-and-powerful-jews-use-the-shoah-to-justify-israeli-policy-jews-talk-too-much-about-their-own-tragedies-di/" style="color: #fa4949;">Jews as Nazis</a>.</div>
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Here’s the thing.</div>
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Finkelstein is presented as an expert on the Holocaust, because he has noted that there are Holocaust survivors who do not receive payments, and many of the money intended for Holocaust survivors does not end up in the right place. This is not an observation unique to Finkelstein – but he blends his writing on this theme, with his antizionist politics and his love of antisemitic terrorists.</div>
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Is though, Finkelstein an expert on the Holocaust?</div>
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Does he understand what the Holocaust was?</div>
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When German publication <a href="http://www.paulbogdanor.com/antisemitism/finkelstein/interview1.html" style="color: #fa4949;">Die Welt</a>, said to Finkelstein:</div>
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“You call the holocaust an ideology”</div>
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He replied,</div>
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“To be more precise, <strong>an ideological construction</strong>, that originally served the interests of the Jewish elite in America and has now degenerated into<strong> a money-making instrument. It has become a extortion racket</strong>.”</div>
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Here there was no distinction between what Finkelstein sees as the manipulation of the Holocaust (“the Holocaust industry” sic.), and the Holocaust itself. Finkelstein commented further,</div>
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<strong>The Holocaust is an ideological club</strong>, used to hold Germany in a vice like grip. This routine is just a cheap opportunity for us to escape our moral responsibility.</div>
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The worrying thing is, Finkelstein speaks about the “ideology” of the Holocaust, and how dangerous that is, before actually discussing the facts of the Holocaust itself. And on the facts of the Holocaust, Finkelstein can even appear deferential to Holocaust deniers.</div>
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He has <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/remembering-raul-hilberg-2/" style="color: #fa4949;">written</a>:</div>
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<strong>The hysterical allegation of Holocaust deniers lurking in every corner is apparently also contrived to justify the endless proliferation of Holo-trash</strong>. [...] It is indeed easy for the non-expert to be tripped up on the details especially when on crucial matters like the gas chambers (a favorite target of the deniers), there exist, as historian Arno Mayer noted, “many contradictions, ambiguities, and errors in the existing sources,” none of which however “put in question the use of gas chambers in the mass murder.” <strong>On a personal note I myself vividly recall reading Arthur Butz’s <em>Hoax of the Twentieth Century</em> and not being able at the time to answer many of his simplest challenges</strong>.</div>
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If Norman Finkelstein finds it tricky to answer Arthur Butz’s simplest challenges, he is no expert on the Holocaust.</div>
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There is also <a href="http://www.engageonline.org.uk/journal/index.php?journal_id=14&article_id=58" style="color: #fa4949;">this</a>:</div>
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Were it not for the fact that my late parents passed through the Nazi holocaust, I myself would probably would be a skeptic by now. Who can any longer believe a single word coming out of the Holocaust industry?”</div>
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What did Jews “<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7WBHdI00OiMC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA193&dq=%E2%80%9CThe+Zionists+indeed+learnt+well+from+the+Nazis.+So+well+that+it+seems+that+their+morally+repugnant+treatment+of+the+Palestinians,+and+their+attempts+to+destroy+Palestinian+society+within+Israel+and+the+occupied+territories,+reveals+them+as+basically+Nazis+with+beards+and+black+hats.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=nTQzsQ_yZQ&sig=Kw8AqE_2JI6nb2ux8K00BitRS1w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UWT-Tr_DK8a2hAeuweGlAg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CThe%20Zionists%20indeed%20learnt%20well%20from%20the%20Nazis.%20So%20well%20that%20it%20seems%20that%20their%20morally%20repugnant%20treatment%20of%20the%20Palestinians%2C%20and%20their%20attempts%20to%20destroy%20Palestinian%20society%20within%20Israel%20and%20the%20occupied%20territories%2C%20reveals%20them%20as%20basically%20Nazis%20with%20beards%20and%20black%20hats.%E2%80%9D&f=false" style="color: #fa4949;">learn</a>” from the Holocaust?</div>
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“The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats.”</div>
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What does Finkelstein think about people who align themselves with Holocaust deniers, such as the <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/neturei-karta-delegate-to-iranian-holocaust-conference-i-pray-for-israel-s-destruction-in-peaceful-ways-1.209305" style="color: #fa4949;">Neturei Karta</a>?</div>
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Here is Finkelstein <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/im-not-religious-neturei-karta-is-in-my-opinion-sometimes-kooky-but-at-least-their-hearts-havent-been-poisoned-and-their-souls-arent-diseased-as-for-the-rest-of-the-israelis/" style="color: #fa4949;">on</a> Neturei Karta:</div>
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I’m not religious, Neturei Karta is in my opinion sometimes kooky, but at least their hearts haven’t been poisoned and their souls aren’t diseased. <strong>As for the rest of the Israelis…</strong></div>
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Finkelstein then <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/im-not-religious-neturei-karta-is-in-my-opinion-sometimes-kooky-but-at-least-their-hearts-havent-been-poisoned-and-their-souls-arent-diseased-as-for-the-rest-of-the-israelis/" style="color: #fa4949;">reproduces</a> an article by Rabbi Meir Hirsh of the Neturei Karta, which states:</div>
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We beseech G-D to quickly save the Palestinian people and its leaders from the claws of the Zionist monsters and strongly await the day when the legitimate rule over all of Palestine will return to the later with Al-Kuds as is capital and <strong>all the Zionists will be driven out of the land by G-D’s hand</strong> and we should see with our eyes G-D’s the crystallization of G-D’s promise to his faithful prophets to reign over the entire world in His Holy Kingdom and then all Nations shall serve Him together.</div>
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This article is meant to complement the sentence “<em>As for the rest of the Israelis…</em>”</div>
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Finkelstein even appears to be opposed to Holocaust education in Gaza. Linking to an article on the subject, Finkelstein <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/goebbels-to-teach-jews-in-warsaw-ghetto-history-of-german-persecution-by-mongols/" style="color: #fa4949;">comments</a>satirically:</div>
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<strong>Goebbels to teach Jews in Warsaw Ghetto history of German persecution by Mongols</strong></div>
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This is deeply wrong on many levels, and obviously downplays the horror and scale of the Shoah.</div>
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In <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcWIaYJGlOQ" style="color: #fa4949;">this clip</a>, Finkelstein compares the ADL’s Abe Foxman with Adolf Hitler, then smirks:</div>
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“At least Hitler didn’t do it for the money.”</div>
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When the filmmaker takes offence at this comparison, Finkelstein becomes hysterical, telling him angrily:</div>
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“You come from a society in which everyone calls everyone a Nazi, right? They call Rabin a Nazi, Ben Gurion called Jabotinsky a Nazi, Jabotinsky called Ben Gurion a Nazi, Begin called Ben Gurion a Nazi. Each of them said one is worse than Hitler, that’s the whole language of your society.</div>
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It’s also the language I grew up with, you know, everything in my house. The food? Worse than Auschwitz! The clothes? Worse than Auschwitz! That’s the house you grow up in. And all of a sudden, you get so pious when I go like that. Your whole society is like that!”</div>
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In the same clip, Finkelstein says of American Jews:</div>
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“The best that could ever happen to Israel, if they get rid of these American Jews who are war mongers from Martha’s Vinyard, and they’re war mongers from the Hamptons, and they’re war mongers from Beverely Hills, and they’re war mongers from Miami. It’s been a disaster for Israel. It’s the best thing if they can ever get rid of American Jewry. It’s a curse.”</div>
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Norman Finkelstein claims that the Holocaust is an “ideological club” and an “ideological construction”, “a money-making instrument” and an “extortion racket”. Finkelstein’s heroes are Jew-hating terrorists.</div>
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He is toured around the UK by fascist-loving antisemites in the PRC, then hosted by Leeds “<em><a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2011/09/12/york-psc-and-leeds-psc-pushing-them-all-into-the-mediterranean-now-not-an-option/" style="color: #fa4949;">pushing all Israelis in to the Mediterranean is now not an option</a></em>” PSC.</div>
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Noxious – but not to the PRC or the PSC.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>M*o*r*g*y</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 7:24 am</td></tr>
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Whither Matt Hill now?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Roscoe Turi</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 8:15 am</td></tr>
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From renowned Holocaust scholar (he practically invented the field of Holocaust Studies) and lifelong Republican Raul Hilberg:</div>
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Q: What are your thoughts on the current debates over how to interpret the Holocaust and its legacy in the work of people like Norman Finkelstein or Daniel Goldhagen?</div>
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Hilberg: Well Finkelstein is now maligned all over the place. There were obviously lobbies who tried to dislodge him from his position. Finkelstein is a political scientist. I believe he has a PhD degree from Princeton and, whatever you may think of Princeton, this is a pretty strong preparation to be a professional political scientist. He wrote to me a couple of times. He was the first one to take Goldhagen seriously. He attacked Goldhagen in a very long essay which I could never have written because I would have never had the patience. Goldhagen is part of an academic group that in my kind of research is a disaster…</div>
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Q: Why is that?</div>
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Hilberg: Because [Goldhagen] was totally wrong about everything. Totally wrong. Exceptionally wrong. In other words, this whole fury of his anti-Semitism was, at the root, that it was especially eliminationist anti-Semitism, was totally absurd. He talks about anti-Semitism among Germans, Estonians, Ukrainians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, but where did this unique eliminationist anti-Semitism come from? It is just totally absurd. I mean, totally off the wall, you know, and factually without any basis. Finkelstein took this seriously. I took it less seriously, but I was a latecomer in attacking this Goldhagen fellow.</div>
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Now Finkelstein had a second point, which, in my opinion, was one hundred percent correct and that is that the response to the issue of the Swiss banks and German industry, which had coincided during the War, was not only coercive on the part of the Jews who mobilized, but also on the part of all the insurance commissioners, the Senate, the House, and the critical committees. The only thing they could not break through was to the courts, which still have independence. So they lost at court, but they threatened people like Alan Hevesi in New York. They could make threats because Swiss banks wanted to expand here. For Finkelstein, this was naked extortion and I’m not sure who agreed with him except for me and I said so openly. In fact, I said so to the press in maybe seven countries.</div>
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The press did not expect my answer. The World Jewish Congress was led by a man who was appeared to be from his own autobiographical statements to be totally, not even average, but like a child almost. What this tycoon, who took over the World Jewish Congress, was saying was totally preposterous. The claims lawyers, joined by the World Jewish Congress, made an incredible display of totally inappropriate behavior.</div>
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Now when he talks about the Arabs, some Jews feel that he is also anti-Zionist, that he is anti-Israel; that he seems to always emphasize the suffering of the Arabs. I do not join him in this particular venture because I have my own view, but you cannot say he is altogether wrong either. Would you like to be an Arab citizen in Israel? Think of the doors that are closed. You may eat better and have a better income than if you lived in a slum in Cairo. The great irony is that the economic condition of Israeli Arabs is considerably better than the proletariat in some other Arab countries, but a person needs something more. A person needs a feeling of dignity. Think of the security check points. It is a life that certainly something ought to be done about it in one way or another. This particular battle cannot be fought forever. It cannot be. The Israelis will tire of it. The Israelis will simply tire of mistrusting people. It is not possible to go on this way forever. Finkelstein has the corner on the germ of correct vision in these matters because he is pretty sharp. More often than not, especially with regard to these other matters like Goldhagen and the Swiss banks he has been right.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>DogOfTears</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 8:49 am</td></tr>
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One of the nonsensical (I prefer “noxious”) references to Jews as Nazis on his site:</div>
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The ultimate mission: Join real-life Nazis as they starve Jews in Warsaw. Help a Nazi shove an elderly Jew into an oven. Set fire to a crematorium and watch the ashes of a Jewish newborn come out the chimney. Then travel with the Wehrmacht to the Russian front and watch the Nazis exterminate Slavs. (And I do so hope, sincerely and truly, that when these tourists look out over a Hezbollah position, a Party of God missile dispatches them to their Maker.)”</div>
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This man is not well.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Bandwidth</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 8:54 am</td></tr>
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Agreed.</div>
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He needs help.</div>
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Can someone not find him a good psychiatrist?</div>
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Preferably not Jewish …</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 8:59 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W, thanks so much for your nailing of Finkelstein (Something that Gene has pointed-out on another thread is a consistent policy at HP) . Its clear that he is an antisemitic, Jew-hating bastard. Little different from the beliefs and preaching of Qaradawi against the Jews and in denial of The Holocaust, no different from the views of Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah. No different from Abbas, leader of the Palestinians who wrote a thesis based on his own Holocaust denial.</div>
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I salute HP on its consistent exposure of the hate-monger Finkelstine and those who give him any atom of support or who find some truth in his words.</div>
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Its what I call the “Hitler wasn’t a complete monster” syndrome whereby someone would argue that because Hitler was kind to dogs he can’t be all evil.</div>
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Its the “Yes, but”‘ers.</div>
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I can guess what is about to follow…………..</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Andy Gill</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:07 am</td></tr>
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Finkelstein is a brilliant man who is unfortunately quite deranged. His extraordinarily vicious hate-filled writings suggest he has some sort of mental or deep emotional problem. No normal academics shriek and scream their heads off like he does.</div>
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If he’s consorting with nonentities like Leeds PSC, he’s clearly on his way down. He is widely loathed, discredited by US academia, and his future looks gratifyingly bleak.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.joanne-gerber.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Joanne</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:14 am</td></tr>
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@Roscoe Turi</div>
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Where did this interview with Raul Hilberg come from? I wouldn’t mind seeing the original.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.joanne-gerber.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Joanne</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:17 am</td></tr>
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I think that Finkelstein’s mother may have been encouraging him in all this. Didn’t she ask a question at one of his talks, not letting the audience know who she was?</div>
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If this was the case, what a disfunctional family this must be!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:25 am</td></tr>
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Thanks Joseph – and DogOfTears for highlighting that particularly hateful example. (The link for that is under ‘nonsensical’ in Joseph’s post BTW).</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:28 am</td></tr>
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Some people passing opinions on the I/P conflict find a degree of merit in Finklestine’s point of view.</div>
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<i>“Why shouldn’t I read Norman Finkelstein? …….As I’ve said, Finkelstein is by no means one of my main influences.” (ergo Finklestine IS an influence but not a main one)</i></div>
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<i>“In other words, no matter how great a people’s suffering, it remains answerable for its own crimes. In a debate so often marred by relativism and special pleading, Finkelstein’s moral axiom (in short: two wrongs don’t make a right) is as unimpeachable as his rhetoric is exhilarating.”</i></div>
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Those are quotes of a leftist blogger from “Muddle East” who has guested at HP. He factors what he thinks of Finkelstine’s writing into his opinions about Israel and The Palestinians I wonder if such (apparent) respect shown to some of Finklestine’s views merits exposure and helps our understanding of the moral standpoint of the blogger. After all, when the likes of Sizer endorse the writings of antisemites and Holocaust deniers we don’t hesitate to condemn and characterise their moral standpoint.</div>
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Its the “He isn’t ALL bad” argument. When core beliefs start to leak you can only wonder what else is inside.</div>
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I feel sure that Joseph W’s excellent thread is a response to the argument he had with said blogger on the “Books” thread.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Yohnitzl</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:39 am</td></tr>
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Let me declare my support for Goldhagen and all his works! I’ve now read all his books: <i>Hitler’s Willing Executioners</i>, <i>A Moral Reckoning</i> and <i>Worse than War</i>. I don’t agree with all his conclusions in all the books, but I’ve never found obvious errors of fact. <i>Willing Executioners</i> was some of the most <i>salutary</i> reading I’ve ever done: rather than the awful “latent savagery of Man” or “we might all have done the same” stuff that Marxists and other determinists purvey (even William Golding’s <i>Lord of the Flies</i>belongs to this school), it pins the blame squarely and rightly on an increasing obsession among the Germans of the time that the Jews were pseudo-humans responsible for all the Germans’ (and probably mankind’s) real or imagined woes, even that the War was principally one against the Jews, and that killing little Jewish children was like disinfecting bacteria for the benefit of mankind. That’s of course why they often made strategic mistakes on the Eastern Front: their most urgent priority was not to defeat real Soviet units, but to send in <i>Einsatzgruppen</i> to find and kill any local Jews as soon as possible. (This nowhere implies that other nations weren’t antisemites also, indeed collaborators with the German genocide effort; but I’m more than a little tired of the position that the Germans were normally a “civilised” people, that the real antisemites are Slavs, and even, as per Karl Popper, that the worst Germans were Prussians and that they are Slavs really.)</div>
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As an academic linguistician, whose non-Chomskyan department was eliminated from the campus against a background of funding cuts by Chomskyan intrigue (“Professor M [my department head, a Dutch Catholic] has no international reputation”) emanating from the Chomskyan psycholinguists of the university psychology department, I’ve always been allergic to Chomsky and anyone who works with him, as Finkelstein very much has done.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Roscoe Turi</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:01 am</td></tr>
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@Joanne<br />
<a href="http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_6.1-2/hilberg.htm" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_6.1-2/hilberg.htm</a></div>
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Yes Finkelstein says he got his sense of moral outrage from his mother who got it from watching her first husband and family die during the Holocaust.</div>
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I will admit that Finkelstein has unfortunately seem to have gotten more willing to say outrageous things. Then again he had his academic career destroyed unlike no one else in since McCarthyism. There are professors who support biological racial differences or think Stalin is a swell chap that never had to endure what Finkelstein has. This is now just a full blown character assassination based on ill advised comments.</div>
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“If Norman Finkelstein finds it tricky to answer Arthur Butz’s simplest challenges, he is no expert on the Holocaust.”</div>
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Butz’s Holocaust denial rag came out in 1976. Finkelstein got his MA in 1980, and has done a lot of research since then. So just how is his work on the Holocaust somehow suspect after years of academic research? How is it suspect when the leading scholar of the Holocaust has supported Finkelstein?</div>
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Even Finkelstein’s supporters have said his sense of moral outrage can be too much sometimes. But to argue that Finkelstein is insensitive to the Holocaust given both his parents were survivors is as bad as what you accuse Finkelstein of. Let’s look at what he also says in the same article the comment about Butz’s book comes from: “It should go without saying that whether the figure is closer to five than six million is of zero moral significance – except for a moral cretin, who could utter ‘only five million?’” The article is his obit for Hilberg. In it he notes that Hilberg was brave for researching the Holocaust, despite objections from other academics and backlash from the Right Wing. Hardly an example of Finkelstein playing down the Holocaust. It’s how it is used is his main point of contention.</div>
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His outrage over the Israeli-Palestinian issue is that he feels that an event in which if family suffered greatly in is being used as an excuse to cover for Israeli’s occupation. If you want to blame anyone for encouraging Finkelstein’s worldview, go ahead and blame his Jewish mother who survived and watched her family die Holocaust. I dare you. If you want credibility why not actually post a debunking of his academic work and might as well go after Hilberg too, on the Swiss Banks since he supports that perspective. I’m not even as critical as Finkelstein is about Israel, but I feel he was persecuted over his academic works. All HP can provide are a few ill advised comments. Anyone with any notion of logic knows that does not automatically make his books wrong.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:09 am</td></tr>
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I think they amount to rather more than ‘a few ill advised comments’. He may be extremely sensitive to the Holocaust in one sense, yet still trivialise it, or indeed deploy it to make an antisemitic point (it seems to me), in another sense/context.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Yohnitzl</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:24 am</td></tr>
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I’ve never been a member of what this horrible man calls the “Holocaust Industry”. I’ve just had to ask “Why didn’t I have a grandfather, any aunts or uncles, or any first cousins?”. If Israel had existed, I would have done.</div>
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Probably all I work with, several former friends, even some members of my family, believe that the remnant of the continental-European Jews were taken by the Americans from DP camps to a Palestine inhabited entirely by a nice bucolic authentic “Palestinian” population descended from the Philistines or some other ancient people – the Jews may never have lived there, because “the only evidence” that they did is the Bible and the Bible is “a faith book”, not history – and that these nice authentic Palestinians were hoofed out, probably in scenes of great cruelty including massacres, to make room for these Jewish refugees.</div>
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Anyone who’s read any Greco-Roman, medieval or Ottoman history, let alone what’s clear as daylight from 20th-century media, knows that this is all poppycock, in detail as well as in the broad picture. Indeed, it’s very much a Goebbels-style Big Lie: if you say something sufficiently outrageously untrue, people will start to think there’s something in it.</div>
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This is the real industry of falsification. Finkelstein has clearly been part of it. If people concerned for the truth, which Zionism has on its side, have not been very receptive to granting Finkelstein tenure or too much of a platform, this is not “persecution”. And even if it were, I’d be with it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>thomask</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:30 am</td></tr>
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Invoking Raul Hilberg in this context is a misuse of authority imo.<br />
Hilbergs support for Finkelstein relates to his dispute with Daniel<br />
Goldhagen and to the Swiss bank issue.Subjects of little relevance to this post.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Roscoe Turi</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:39 am</td></tr>
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Sure I disagree with his hounding of Abe Foxman. He seems to relish the battle while I don’t think he needs to engage with him to get his point across. Well in his mind he’s not trivializing it though that is not a defense. I certainly do not consider that he uses it in an anti-Semitic fashion. We could debate that issue for hours, and no one’s minds will be changed.</div>
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No Jewish friends of mine have called me an anti-Semite for reading Finkelstein. Some of them read him too. Then again they are part of that young cohort critical of Israel that HP pretends doesn’t exist or are at best written off as a bunch of campus radicals and at worse called self-hating.</div>
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I mention this because this is related to the quality of this piece. This is a hit piece, nothing more based on Finkelstein’s stupid stubborn comments. He clearly has the kind of personality where feuds consume him. No I don’t think he should be associating with some of these groups if HP’s allegations are true about them and from what I’ve looked at they seem to be. I think some of Finkelstein’s stupid moves and “alliances” result from the scrutiny he has received that ruined his career. Again not an excuse but I’m trying to put things in context that he is not some rabid self-hating anti-Semite that wants to see all the Jews thrown into the Sea. What he has written is quite different that Atzmon and Shamir. Anyway getting back to the quality of the piece is that it’s a weak attempt to link Finkelstein’s poor judgment to his scholarly work. Where is the strong well research to Finkelstein’s work? I’d be impressed if HP can provide one. The defending Israel’s actions and denouncing its critics as anti-Semites has become increasingly hard to do, so all we see now are smear pieces. No serious engagement with the issues. Like I mentioned before I know many young adult Jews, proud of being so but are not taking the Hasbara seriously at all. The Israeli government knows it, Israel’s defenders know it, so we end up with crap like this post that avoids the actual issues. Uncritical defenders of Israel must love Finkelstein, he shoots himself in the foot enough to avoid actually engaging his work.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Michael rabins</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:51 am</td></tr>
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Yes, but as Matt h points out, holocaust schmolocaust, his grammar is perfect and his eyes are rather beautiful in the right light. Oh, and Hezbollah rock!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>dirigible</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:53 am</td></tr>
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<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fcfbf9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(222, 213, 190); border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-left-style: double; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-right-style: double; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(244, 241, 233); border-top-style: double; border-top-width: 1px; font-size: 11px; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0.5em; padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">
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The Holocaust is an ideological club</div>
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ffs.</div>
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Uncritical defenders of Israel must love Finkelstein, he shoots himself in the foot enough to avoid actually engaging his work.</div>
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Uncritical supporters of Finkelstein must love HP, it shows Finkelstein shooting himself in the foot enough to give them a reason to leap to his defence.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>mattG</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:03 am</td></tr>
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I first came across Finkelstein when his ‘Holocaust Industry’ book was being lauded in a 4 page special in The Guardian’s G2 section. Must have been a decade ago or more, I cannot remember. I took the trouble to read it too.</div>
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He has always appealed to people who could never forgive jews for the holocaust.</div>
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When someone speaks reverentially of the man or his views I move on. It marks them out as an utter fool and someone who has a problem with jews (whether they are aware of it or not). Its quite similar to the Gilad Atzmon test which so many ‘right on’ people failed so very miserably.</div>
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mattG</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>unbelievable</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:09 am</td></tr>
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He’s in many ways a narcissistic fool who has said many imprudent things. But the reason he’s hated around here is because of the forensic work he did to expose Joan Peters, Alan Dershowitz and Daniel Goldhagen. It really is a simple as that.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Roscoe Turi</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:09 am</td></tr>
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dirigible when was I uncritical of Finkelstein? I want to see his work engaged not his horrible choice of venues and hosts used to dismiss what he has written.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:18 am</td></tr>
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unbelievable – I once invoked Joan Peters’ ideas (unwittingly), though not with anti-Palestinian intent, and was politely corrected by someone who is very much an HP regular. There must be quite a lot of possible middle ground between her and NF.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Yohnitzl</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:18 am</td></tr>
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<i>Hasbara</i> is not a derogatory word. It is merely telling the truth about Israel, which is constantly lied about by its exceptionally hate-filled and merciless enemies.</div>
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As a democracy and a particularly lively open society, Israel couldn’t sustain co-ordinated favourable lies about itself, or its foundation or its background. People of good faith and good will would simply say “I like the supportive intention behind what you’re saying, but unfortunately it just isn’t true.”</div>
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So what emerges in apparent dissent from a favourable account of Israel’s present reality, its history and its pre-history tends to emanate from people of bad faith and/or ill-will. (For instance, it now seems that at least some accounts of the supposed massacre at Deir Yasin originated in accusations made by the Labour-Zionist Haganah to discredit the Revisionist Irgun.)</div>
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One problem that a blog like HP faces is that there isn’t the space to tell the whole story. One knows that there was an ancient kingdom of Israel (later split into North Israel and Judah); that no descendants of an earlier population are known to have outlived it so as to survive to the Persian, let alone the Roman period; that there has never been a time when at least the major towns – Jerusalem, Hebron (yes!), Gaza (yes!), Tiberias, Tzfat, etc – did not have a substantial Jewish population; that nomadic Arab tribes and later neo-Arabic-speaking small farmers or farm labourers came to settle there, perhaps even before the first Caliphate but not much earlier, and continuing into the period of the British Mandate, and that “Palestinian” is a name for their descendants conceived by 20th-century propaganda; that modern Zionism dates from the 1880s, and had already settled hundreds of thousands of diaspora Jews in the land on the eve of WW2; that the extreme (often Nazi-inspired through Mufti Amin al-Husaini) hatred and intransigence of the Arabs led to constant attacks, culminating in declaration and prosecution of war in 1948 against the Jewish entity by all the surrounding Arab states; that Jews held out and won; and that this is the basis of the current situation.</div>
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What there isn’t space for is “documentary proof”, which frankly shouldn’t be necessary. Obviously you can get it from a near-infinity of sources. As for me, I’m 54 and was well aware of the news and its background as far back as the JFK assassination. I see no evidence that the radio and TV news, e.g. those of the BBC, were slanted in Israel’s favour at the time of the 1967 or 1973 wars – or even that classic Zionist films like <i>Exodus</i> or <i>Cast a Giant Shadow</i>were other than dramatic depictions of what was essentially an accurate narrative, both in denotation and in connotation.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>j.r.</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:20 am</td></tr>
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Why is Finkelstein doing a speaking tour for PSC? What is the connection between Finkelstein’s subject – the holocaust, and the Palestinian situation? I would suggest the only connection is a rhetorical one that essentialises Jews. It depicts them as prisoners of their own history who are morally flawed as a result. This dishonest pseudo-history peddled by political fanatics is the thing that really brings Finkelstein’s reputation as a historian into disrepute. Israelis do not persecute Palestinians in a Nazi-like way and justify it because of their own treatment by the Nazis. Who could claim that this is any sort of historical analysis?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:36 am</td></tr>
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<i>Israelis do not persecute Palestinians in a Nazi-like way and justify it because of their own treatment by the Nazis. Who could claim that this is any sort of historical analysis?</i></div>
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There certainly are people who do. Its been alluded-to on HP threads that some people who support the Palestinians believe there is some historical truth in it and that even today The Holocaust is used to attack Israel’s nervousness at the threats around it.</div>
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One could easily demonstrate that the inheritors and propogators of the Holocaust rhetoric are the Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians of the ME region by charter, policy and public statements. They also use The Holocaust to state that this is why Israel exists which is to provide a fig-leaf that the reason is because they hate the Jews so much that the UN created a partition plane with statehood to be confered on Israel in 1948, and they created The Jewish National Home in 1922.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:04 pm</td></tr>
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Roscoe’s absurd apologia can be boiled down to:</div>
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<i>But to argue that Finkelstein is insensitive to the Holocaust given both his parents were survivors</i></div>
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This is a complete non sequitur. His words and his actions, as quoted by Joseph (unless you are accusing him of lying, to which you come close by calling this rational expose ‘character assassination’) prove his insensitivity, his utter pathological vileness. Relying on his parents’ personal history to excuse his antisemitic screeds is utterly pathetic.<br />
A pox on Finkelstein and all his admirers, incl. on other threads (cf. DCook – that was a very astute observation, if you don’t mind my saying so, D.).</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:10 pm</td></tr>
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<i>the forensic work he did to expose Joan Peters</i></div>
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He did no such thing. You keep peddling this nonsense, but it’s still nonsense.</div>
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<i>has said many imprudent things</i></div>
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The fact that this is your characterisation of F. in defiling the memory of millions of Holocaust victims – the murdered and the survivors – tells us all we need to know about the moral sewer you inhabit.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:14 pm</td></tr>
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<i>This is the real industry of falsification. Finkelstein has clearly been part of it. If people concerned for the truth, which Zionism has on its side, have not been very receptive to granting Finkelstein tenure or too much of a platform, this is not “persecution”. And even if it were, I’d be with it.</i></div>
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Very well said. It needed saying, and thank you for doing so.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://twitter.com/guvno0or" style="color: #fa4949;">Alex bee</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:16 pm</td></tr>
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Finklestein is one sick puppy.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Naeem Malik</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:25 pm</td></tr>
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[Finkelstein even appears to be opposed to Holocaust education in Gaza. Linking to an article on the subject, Finkelstein comments satirically:]<br />
Let me be a little satirical and ask the question do they teach The Nakba in Israel from the Palestinian perspective? –</div>
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I admire Norman’s analytical approach to a very difficult and emotive subject the conflict presents, so why attack him?</div>
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He has many qualifications, his books are well read and his lectures well attended – He presents the most cogent arguments for the peaceful solution to the conflict in the Middle East based on international consensus. Every other option is going to bring about catastrophe to the region and the wider world.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alec</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:42 pm</td></tr>
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<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fcfbf9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(222, 213, 190); border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-left-style: double; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-right-style: double; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(244, 241, 233); border-top-style: double; border-top-width: 1px; font-size: 11px; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0.5em; padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">
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But the reason he’s hated around here is because of the forensic work he did to expose Joan Peters, Alan Dershowitz and Daniel Goldhagen.</div>
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Substantiate that or withdraw it.</div>
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~alec</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:49 pm</td></tr>
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<i>do they teach The Nakba in Israel from the Palestinian perspective</i></div>
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They tend to concentrate on facts, unless its a class on mythology.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>j.r.</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:54 pm</td></tr>
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<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fcfbf9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(222, 213, 190); border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-left-style: double; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-right-style: double; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(244, 241, 233); border-top-style: double; border-top-width: 1px; font-size: 11px; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0.5em; padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">
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do they teach The Nakba in Israel</div>
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Which Nakba – Arafat? Abbas?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Yohnitzl</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:54 pm</td></tr>
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See above for my substantive agreement with Goldhagen. I’ve read Dershowitz’s <i>The Case for Israel</i>, though nothing else by him; and yes, I’ve read Joan Peters’s <i>From Time Immemorial</i>, which I regard as slightly too loose in its claims to be strictly refuted, or for that matter corroborated – its usefulness is mainly in presenting for the first time a possibility (indeed likelihood) that hadn’t previously been considered, i.e. that there was at least as much Arab immigration into Mandate Palestine as Jewish. How does the word on the street claim that Finkelstein has “exposed” them? What could be his “forensic work”, given that even he must consider himself mainly an ideologue?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Bandwidth</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 12:57 pm</td></tr>
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Yohnitzl</div>
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Excellent comments.</div>
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May I urge you to develop these slightly into a complete post entitled: ‘Israel and the Jews: Myth and Reality’?</div>
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Or something like that.</div>
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You have expressed the position with honestly and power.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Harvey</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:14 pm</td></tr>
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Inevitably this can only be settled by a<br />
‘celebrity wrestling death match up ‘ between finklestein and Atzmon . The loser dies and the winner gets to keep the crown of biggest antisemite<br />
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lynne T</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:14 pm</td></tr>
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j.r.<br />
31 December 2011, 11:20 am</div>
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Indeed, there is a symbiotic relationship between a rightly failed academic like nutty Norm and an organization that does more harm than good to the cause it ostensibly embraces.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>unbelievable</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:21 pm</td></tr>
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What do you want substantiated Alec? It is a conjecture, nothing more, though, I think, a plausible one.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alec</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:28 pm</td></tr>
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No, Unbelievable. You did not say “a reason”. You said “<strong>the</strong>reason”; so, by extension, disgust expressed by <em>HP</em> stalwarts to Finklestein’s wretched comments are not sincere. It only is ‘cos of his views towards Israel.</div>
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There’s a word for people who suggest that accusations of antisemitism are used as cynical political ploys by Jews. Just as there is for people who make emotion-driven comments which reflect their entrenched opinions of what [they think] a blog represents instead of engaging with any recognized rules of debate.</div>
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~alec</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Yohnitzl</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:37 pm</td></tr>
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Bandwidth, Peter: I’m very flattered. It’s just that the subject of this post seems to combine 2 of my pet hates: (1) perpetuating the ever-more-widespread myth that Israel was created in 1948 by totally expelling an ancient and exclusive indigenous population to provide room for European Jews; (2) using the network of Chomsky admirers to intrigue behind the scenes against the “narrative” provided by the open media and objective record – claiming, of course, that these are no such thing, as Marxists (whether Trotskyists like Finkelstein or Council Communists like Chomsky) would of course claim. I don’t know how to graduate from commenting on a post to “blogging under the Harry’s Place banner”, as seems to be suggested. But thanks!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>unbelievable</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:40 pm</td></tr>
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Alec: there are zillions of people out there with opinions about Israel that are offensive to the proprietors of Harry’s Place, Finkelstein is just one of of them. However, unlike most of those people, Finkelstein has some genuine and serious research that discredits some of the propagandists on “your” side. Hence the importance of slinging mud at him here.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alec</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:49 pm</td></tr>
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Does “zillions” indicate a tangible number?</div>
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Don’t try to wriggle out of it now. You did not say that <em>HP</em> merely is implacably opposed to Finklestein’s views (which, insofar as a corporate position exists, is broadly accurate).</div>
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You said that it is entirely based on whatever he said about those on some laundry list you’ve compiled – without associated links to approval of them on <em>HP</em> – and that any so-called disgust towards his comments regarding events with predate the founding of Israel are insincere and simply political cynicism.</div>
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Hence the importance of slinging mud at him here.</div>
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You said it, boy!</div>
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~alec</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>unbelievable</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:59 pm</td></tr>
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As I just said on another thread, Alec, your conduct here as a moderator is a disgrace.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alec</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 2:15 pm</td></tr>
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And as I said to you, you’re a whining Flashman-wannabe who doesn’t have the necessary courage or strength of character.</div>
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A wise old man once said to me that the sign of intellectual inquiry is to read a newspaper you don’t agree with or engage with opponents in an argument whom you disagree with.</div>
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All life is on <em>HP</em>, which is why you despise not being able to control it.</div>
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~alec</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Beakerkin</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 2:22 pm</td></tr>
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Correction Finky is a Maoist who presently calls himself a Green. In person he avoids any mention of his Maoism. He also leaves out the fact that his mother was a Stalinist. He presents her as an ordinary apolitical Holocaust survivor. His ordinary Jew outrages by Zionism is part of the Communist stoking populist Jew hatred Industry,</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abtalyon</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 2:23 pm</td></tr>
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For me, the most cogent comment on Finkelstein’s book is that from Professor Omer Bartov, who reviewed the first edition in the New York Times.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/books/a-tale-of-two-holocausts.html?pagewanted=4&src=pm" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/books/a-tale-of-two-holocausts.html?pagewanted=4&src=pm</a></div>
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This adverse review provoked the usual torrent of invective from Finkelstein from which logical rebuttal of the criticism was notably absent.</div>
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The German reparations were a vital factor in keeping Israel afloat during the hard years of the fifties and helping resettle Jewish refugees from all lands. Overall, a sum of 3 billion D-marks was paid out, a modest sum indeed.</div>
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How big a contrast with the fact that only last year, the Germans completed paying out a grand total of 22 billion GB pounds reparations laid down in the Treaty of Versailles over 90 years ago, money that was to be used to correct the devastation of Holland and Belgium in the First World War. I don’t think I’ve read that Finkelstein has accused the current Dutch and Belgian governments of playing the “victim card.” Has anyone?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>James</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 3:11 pm</td></tr>
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Interesting exchange at<a href="http://www.paulbogdanor.com/antisemitism/finkelstein/scholarship.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.paulbogdanor.com/antisemitism/finkelstein/scholarship.html</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Yohnitzl</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 3:17 pm</td></tr>
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Beakerkin, thanks for the Trotskyist->Maoist correction about Finkelstein. It actually makes a lot of difference: while Trotsky personally probably didn’t have too much blood on his hands, and his distant disciples include some quite decent Shachtmanite epigones like Sean Matgamna and his Workers’ Liberty – Mao not only never broke with Stalin, he vastly exceeded even his mentor in mass slaughter and cult of personality. For someone today to choose Maoism, out of all the far-left shades of opinion accessible and affiliable, says all that needs to be said about his values.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 3:32 pm</td></tr>
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Abtalyon,<br />
The reparations did, indeed, help a lot of the victims throughout their lives, including in old age when due to losing their earning potential as a result of physical and mental trauma in the camps, and having only a minimal state pension, they would otherwise have had to live on a pittance. They deserved the reparations several times over, and they went only a tiny way towards compensating them for their sufferings. Anyone begrudging them this is beneath contempt.<br />
As to the banks, insurance companies etc: there is persuasive documentary evidence that they did hold huge amounts in funds robbed from Jews, in dormant accounts, and in insurance policies. From the little evidence I have personally seen, I have no doubt that not of all it was ever repaid or likely to be repaid.<br />
Finkelstein is not motivated by the truth or by scholarship. He is an evil man, and apologists like Naeem, Malik, Roscoe and unbelievable are rooting for a moral black hole.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 3:34 pm</td></tr>
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I meant to say Naeem, M. Hill, Roscoe and unbelievable.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lamia</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 3:56 pm</td></tr>
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<i>It’s the best thing if they can ever get rid of American Jewry.</i></div>
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The great irony being that this is a comment by yet another loudmouth – like Richard Silverstein and Judith Butler – who derives their ‘authority’ from being Jewish and their ignorance from being part of a cossetted ‘progressive’ section of a society that safeguards its citizen’s rights better than pretty almost any other in the world, but which they persist in childishly likening to a fascist state, while swooning over actual fascists like Hamas. Parochial, self-loving fools.</div>
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Yes indeed, some of ‘American Jewry’ is undoubtedly an almighty pain in the arse. But I wouldn’t go so far as to advocate ‘getting rid’ of Silverstein, Butler, Finkelstein et al.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Yohnitzl</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 4:11 pm</td></tr>
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I <i>like</i> American Jewry. I wish I belonged to it, frankly. And when I see <i>Friends</i> – most of the actors, almost all of the scriptwriters Jewish – accidentally left on as video Muzak (the channel unswitchable) in my computer-support office, and colleagues try to outdo each other with their remarks about how they can’t stand the people, “Do <i>you</i> feel you’ve anything in common with them?”, “Can’t stand how they all talk at the same time”, “Can’t they stop waving their hands around all the time?”, and “Why are they all so whiny?”, I know exactly where they’re coming from.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Kyle</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 4:35 pm</td></tr>
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Finkelstein’s fans often refer to his “debunking” of Dershowitz, but like Finkelstein’s historical “scholarship”, it is non-existent. He has<b>never</b> published any sort of historical article in any recognized scholarly journal (and has even admitted as much). For a while Finkelstein and his fans were trying to get Dershowitz labeled as a plagiarist but that effort soon collapsed. The bottom line is that Finkelstein is no historian and his views on the Holocaust, the Jews and Israel are utterly perverse, an extreme variation on the “asajew” position. Whatever kernel of insight he might have had regarding Goldhagen, for example, has long been interred under propaganda for Hezbollah and its ilk.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 5:19 pm</td></tr>
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I hate Finkelstein’s writing for two reasons. One, because it’s polemical rather than historical. Roscoe Turi, you can accurately say that Finkelstein is right about many things. He is. He’s also a smart guy. However, as a historian, your allegiance should be to the truth. Not 75% of the time, but 100% of the time. Finkelstein deliberately misleads in order to get his point across. That is unforgivable.</div>
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The second reason I dislike him is that Finkelstein is the type of writer who is read by people who have already made up their minds and want that confirmed. He’s not a primary source historian, he’s someone who takes work already done by others and interprets it in his biased way. If you want to know the history surrounding 1948, you can read Benny Morris who painstakingly goes over every document and account he can. If you want to learn about the Holocaust industry, you can read Peter Novick. It’s like saying “I want to learn about Jewish history so I read Shlomo Sand instead of dozens of other writers who have much more knowledge on the subject”.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Ignorance is bliss</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 5:22 pm</td></tr>
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Yawn,<br />
Roscoe’s defence of Finklestein is that because he is critical of Israel, he is ’smeared’ as an antisemite and he should know because he has Jewish friends!<br />
Hilberg, and other legitimate scholars, rightly defended NF in his tenure struggles, that Roscoe re-imagines as McCarthyism.</div>
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‘The Holocaust Industry’ is a tawdry piece of work that lacks all the sublety of the seriously flawed, Novick’s ‘The Holocaust in American life’. Mind you, when it comes to Israel, Jews and Palestine, subtlety is the first casualty.</div>
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As is so often the case, people like Roscoe think NF is great because he appears to challenge orthodoxy whilst in reality, he merely repeats the most reactionary of views when it comes to American Jews.</div>
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“If you want to blame anyone for encouraging Finkelstein’s worldview, go ahead and blame his Jewish mother who survived and watched her family die Holocaust. I dare you.”</div>
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Jaqueline Rose has made a career out of such a ‘dare’.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>mel photo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 5:35 pm</td></tr>
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Here are some links I saw on a previous thread provided by DavidS</div>
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I have not read all the comments that have been posted since you asked for the source for Novick’s comments on Finkelstein but, in case no one has provided it yet, here it is. The comments were in a review by Novick of “The Holocaust Industry” that was published in “Sueddeutsche Zeitung” on 7 February 2001. The full review is available here:<br />
<a href="http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/div/racket/holindustry/novickeng.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/div/racket/holindustry/novickeng.html</a><br />
I found the link to the full article in a long collection of documents related to the conflict between Alan Dershowitz and Finkelstein here:<br />
<a href="http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/depaulletter.htm" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/depaulletter.htm</a><br />
The specific quotation that I copied into my comment, with the ellipses, comes from Dershowitz and is found in a number of places in his writings on Finkelstein. I believe that I copied it from here:<br />
<a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/dershowitz/statement.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/dershowitz/statement.html</a></div>
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interesting info re debates on finklestein</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>left liberal hawk</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 5:54 pm</td></tr>
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“so why attack him”</div>
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Because he is a sh1t, an unbalanced sh1t at that, whose central thesis:-</div>
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1. fails completely to understand the huge significance of the holocaust for Jews, and all of humanity</div>
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2. trivialises the holocaust and insults the memory of its victims</div>
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3. and uses the biggest tragedy of the Jewish people to make an attack on Israel and Zionism has ism which is partly false, partly dishonest and utterly baseless (not that there are no valid substantive criticisms of Zionism and the conduct of the Israeli state/ governments)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 5:54 pm</td></tr>
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<i>If you want to learn about the Holocaust industry,</i></div>
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So, according to Gabriel a “Holocaust industry” exists. Can you provide any clues as to where one can find it Gabriel?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.boycottscotland.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Thank God I’m An Infidel</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 6:04 pm</td></tr>
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Naeem Malik,</div>
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The term “Nakba” was coined to describe the FAILURE of 5 Arab armies to invade and murder every Jew they could get their hands on, just 3 years after the end of WW2 and the Holocaust.</div>
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Happy Nakba Naeem Malik to you and yours forever more!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 6:08 pm</td></tr>
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<i>. I see no evidence that the radio and TV news, e.g. those of the BBC, were slanted in Israel’s favour at the time of the 1967 or 1973 wars – or even that classic Zionist films like Exodus or Cast a Giant Shadow were other than dramatic depictions of what was essentially an accurate narrative, both in denotation and in connotation.</i></div>
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I’m with you on this and you highlight a VERY important point. Some people, for example a 27 year old leftist idealist with muddled ideas about the I?P conflict, are no match for someone of 54 who has lived through some of the important history and retains contemporary facts rather than second-hand opinions and filters.</div>
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I also endorse the film <i>Exodus</i> as retaining some very important historical facts about the formation of Israel untainted by the filter of lies that people today base their historical perspective on. I always quote that “Exodus” establishes the very important fact that “The Palestinians” were the Jews of Palestine and that the tag “Palestinians” was gathered by Arafat and placed upon the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza after 1967.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 6:09 pm</td></tr>
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“So, according to Gabriel a “Holocaust industry” exists. Can you provide any clues as to where one can find it Gabriel?”</div>
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Not according to me, it very clearly exists. An “industry” in this sense does not mean a secret cabal, but there are people who have very clearly profited off of the Holocaust (while the actual survivors often suffer. More than a quarter of survivors in Israel live in poverty.) Any time there is big money involved, there will always be people who find a way to get a chunk of it.<br />
(like thus: <a href="http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=21795&pageid=16&pagename=Opinion)" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=21795&pageid=16&pagename=Opinion)</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 6:26 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Not according to me, it very clearly exists. An “industry” in this sense does not mean a secret cabal, but there are people who have very clearly profited off of the Holocaust</i></div>
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Do you have a factual link that an “industry” exists? Posting a link that has the word “Opinion” as a search phrase is, er, an opinion. That’s like you having an opinion and pointing to another opinion as evidence. Name someone who you claim has “profited from The Holocaust”.</div>
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<i>Any time there is big money involved, there will always be people who find a way to get a chunk of it.</i></div>
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I’m at a loss to understand how to make money from The Holocaust. Please enlighten us. I can certainly see how some people have made their careers from denying and minimising The Holocaust. So, do you mean Finkelstine who says there is a “Holocaust Industry” because he is part of it? Hence, he is criticising himself.</div>
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I’m kind of guessing that you mean that the Arabs and Muslims are diving in there to make money out of The Holocaust. That would be a bit racist. Maybe I’m wrong though and if so I 100% apologise. I’m just trying to guess who these chancers are. Wondering if I might know who they are. Maybe you don’t have any particular people in mind who are attracted to “big money”. Its usually bankers and financiers who come to mind. Is that who you had in mind?</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 6:33 pm</td></tr>
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“I’m at a loss to understand how to make money from The Holocaust. Please enlighten us.”</div>
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Did you click on the link? I doubt it because if you had, you would have read that it was someone’s opinion based on factual events. Since that level of reading comprehension is obviously beyond you, here is a link directly to the news story.<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8123929/FBI-charges-17-with-stealing-42-million-from-Holocaust-survivors-charity.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8123929/FBI-charges-17-with-stealing-42-million-from-Holocaust-survivors-charity.html</a></div>
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There isn’t some secret Elders of Zion-like cabal out to misuse the Holocaust for profit, but to pretend that everyone ever involved with reparations had only the purest of motives and nobody has ever used the Holocaust for personal financial gain is obviously ridiculous.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 7:21 pm</td></tr>
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Where’s Matt Hill to remind us that Finkelstein has friends who have friends who are aren’t anti-semites therefore only the most disreputable low slinking Shylock would stoop to sully his shining reputation.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>boyinthebubble</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 7:21 pm</td></tr>
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I’ve always been sceptical of Finkelstein’s basic thesis that it’s possible to attribute any kind of personal syndrome to a nation state or a global organisation. It’s not possible for a nation state to suffer from a psychosis, or guilt complex, the way an individual can. To say they can is a supposition based on a fantasy he merely wants to be true. The problem with Finkelstein is that he reads history through a lens of his own making and castigates anyone who disagrees with what he sees as true.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 7:26 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Did you click on the link? I doubt it because if you had, you would have read that it was someone’s opinion based on factual events. Since that level of reading comprehension is obviously beyond you, here is a link directly to the news story</i></div>
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Strange how you accuse me of lacking comprehension but you clearly don’t know the difference between an “Industry” and “A single criminal act of stealing money”. In your loose World of definitions each act of robbery is an “Industry”. Show me where this “Industry” is situated?</div>
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You failed to answer the points I made.</div>
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<i>There isn’t some secret Elders of Zion-like cabal out to misuse the Holocaust for profit, but to pretend that everyone ever involved with reparations had only the purest of motives and nobody has ever used the Holocaust for personal financial gain is obviously ridiculous.</i></div>
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I never said that. You made it up as a straw man argument to disguise the fact that you couldn’t respond to telling us where this “Holocaust industry” is located. All you did was tell us about stealing money from a Holocaust survivors fund.</div>
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I would conclude, therefore, that your denial above is a contradiction to the statement that there is an “industry”, isn’t it?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Kyle</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 7:42 pm</td></tr>
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Anyone still unconvinced of Finkelstein’s mendacity ought to follow the link provided by Mel Photo above. Here it is again:</div>
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<a href="http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/depaulletter.htm" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/depaulletter.htm</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 7:50 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Strange how you accuse me of lacking comprehension but you clearly don’t know the difference between an “Industry” and “A single criminal act of stealing money”. In your loose World of definitions each act of robbery is an “Industry”. Show me where this “Industry” is situated?</i></div>
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Thank you Dcook that was a pretty good attack on one of semantic slippages that is being used here to minimize the holocaust and attack the victims. Surely Finkelstein didn’t have any actual crimes in mine when he called the Holocaust an industry. Finding one and using as an excuse is to substitute one meaning for another. It’s a trick akin to defending antisemitism by pretending that it means “hating semites” instead of “hating Jews”</div>
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No one should be allowed to get away with these dishonest slippage tricks just so they can wallow in the muck with the Jew haters.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 8:39 pm</td></tr>
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“I never said that. You made it up as a straw man argument to disguise the fact that you couldn’t respond to telling us where this “Holocaust industry” is located. All you did was tell us about stealing money from a Holocaust survivors fund.”</div>
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Oh, I love this “show me where” stuff like this. Want an address? Here’s one for you.</div>
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1359 Broadway, Room 2020<br />
New York, NY 10018</div>
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Here’s a good article on Ynet (<a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3338282,00.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3338282,00.html</a>) showing how people are making millions of dollars off of the Holocaust while the actual survivors get very little. This is just like some of the most rabid attackers of The Israel Lobby who pretended as if the lobby is insignificant or doesn’t even really exist and exactly why it’s so hard to pay attention to those people. To try to pretend that there isn’t a Holocaust industry is just ridiculous.<br />
You can also read about it and follow the links on Wiki.<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claims_Conference#Criticism" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claims_Conference#Criticism</a></div>
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The Claims Conference and Israel have received something like $80 billion in total restitution. $80 billion which is hundreds of thousands of dollars for each survivor. Yet, somehow survivors in Israel are starving while executives for the Claims Conference are getting paid millions. No, no corrupt industry there.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>mel photo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:07 pm</td></tr>
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Gabriel at the beginning of a new year to play games with the meanings that finklestein has used is frankly both amusing and despicable. I refer you to the links DaveS provided that aim some very big questions at the door of finklestein. (I provided those links above)<br />
I find the idea of a holocaust industry offensive. That there may be a load of fiddling going on but that is no more than all sorts of monetary irregularities from MP’s fiddling their expenses to bankers creating financial instruments that cause a worldwide recession.<br />
Finklestein uses the idea to say much much more and you know it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:26 pm</td></tr>
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“Finklestein uses the idea to say much much more and you know it.”</div>
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Here we go again. I can make myself explicit and half the people here pretend I am saying something else entirely. I don’t like Finkelstein at all and have said so (and why) very clearly on a number of occasions. Does that matter? No! Of course not. However, there is a Holocaust industry and the fact that you don’t like that is irrelevant. In fact, you, DCook (why do I ever respond to him??) and others are doing exactly what Finkelstein does wrong. You are ignoring facts because they don’t suit your beliefs.</div>
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“No one should be allowed to get away with these dishonest slippage tricks just so they can wallow in the muck with the Jew haters.”</div>
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There should be an award on every thread on HP about which post does the most to dilute the meaning of anti-Semitism. Josh Scholar, as he often does, wins on this thread.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:53 pm</td></tr>
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<i>To try to pretend that there isn’t a Holocaust industry is just ridiculous.</i></div>
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Maybe you have an SIC code for it. Do you know if they are hiring at the moment? Is there a convention I can attend? Do they have a franchise program?</div>
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Isn’t Finkelstine a prime mover in this “Industry” since he seems to be making a living by describing something called “The Holocaust Industry”.</div>
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The idea I think that Finkly is trying to impart is that Jews and Israel use The Holocaust to gain some political/emotional advantage by referring to it. One must avoid the elephant in the room because it is so inconvenient.</div>
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When you describe Holocaust survivors being ripped-off you are describing classical fraud and nothing more conspiratorial.</div>
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<i>xxx Broadway, Room yyy<br />
New York, NY zzzzz</i></div>
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How would I address my letter? To “The Holocaust Industry (New York Division)”?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:15 pm</td></tr>
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I can’t understand why we’re not taking Finkelstein’s concern for Holocaust survivors seriously.</div>
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Perhaps he and that man he admires, Hassan “I’m glad all the Jews gathered in Israel so we can kill them all” Nasrallah can make an advert imploring the remaining few Holocaust survivors not to be taken in the the “Holocaust Industry”</div>
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I note that the ynet article Gabriel linked to is disputed by people in the comments who say it’s a smear job because WJC is not CC money, ie it’s not holocaust funds that are being wasted.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:35 pm</td></tr>
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Out of curiosity of the use of the phrase “Holocaust Industry” I googled it.</div>
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And this one from a google cache of “blood and honor world wide” (there are sites I won’t go to directly)<br />
<i>“David versus Goliath II! or Or David Irving versus the Holocaust Industry! David Irving the worlds leading historian on the Third Reich is engaged in the biggest legal action involving Real History that has ever been fought. … On the one side, skulking in the darkness, are the massed battalions of the old version of history, as propagated by the traditional enemies of truth…”</i></div>
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Nice to finally be able to agree on terminology with the Nazis. Building bridges with former enemies eh?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:38 pm</td></tr>
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“When you describe Holocaust survivors being ripped-off you are describing classical fraud and nothing more conspiratorial.”</div>
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I never said it was a conspiracy, in fact, I said the opposite. Those are your words. Systemic diverting of millions of dollars from survivors to unrelated groups and to executives is exactly the type of thing I am talking about. That’s people who are not survivors and who shouldn’t be getting the money profiting off of the Holocaust.</div>
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There are many other links of people talking about the corruption. Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz sums up one of the big issues well:</div>
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“In addition to the money going to survivors, the conference distributes tens of millions of dollars annually to a long list of organizations loosely involved in Holocaust commemoration and education. Many of these institutions are subsidiaries of the organizations represented on Claims Conference board of directors. They are not interested in altering this cozy arrangement, despite claims by survivors’ groups that in the final years of survivors’ lives, every spare cent should be going to their welfare.”</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:48 pm</td></tr>
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“Out of curiosity of the use of the phrase “Holocaust Industry” I googled it.<br />
And this one from a google cache of “blood and honor world wide” (there are sites I won’t go to directly). Nice to finally be able to agree on terminology with the Nazis. Building bridges with former enemies eh?”</div>
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On what, the tenth page of google? Every page I can see is about Norman Finkselstein’s book (reviews, reference, etc…). Why would you go looking for neo-nazi sites Josh?</div>
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(And BTW, even though I dislike Finkelstein and but I am aware that there is a Holocaust industry, that makes me an anti-Semite/.Nazi-lover/etc… Raul Hilberg actually liked the book. What does that make him? Scum of the earth? Worse than Hitler? When you start off with ridiculous hyperbole, you have nowhere to go. Also, amusing is the people who attack Finkelstein for his weak scholarship but like people like Daniel Goldhagen who is even less respected by other historians.)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:02 pm</td></tr>
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Heh, I googled “Holocaust Industry” David Irving because when I hear that phrase I think of Nazis like him ranting about Israel.</div>
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It’s amazing how hard it is to tell left Nazis from right Nazis these days, but at least they’re calling the whole population of Israel Nazis for resisting being driven off the earth, so at least I can tell ordinary citizen Nazis from the left and right ones.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:05 pm</td></tr>
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Once again, why doesn’t Norman make an anti-holocaust industry advert along with his we-will-finish-the-holocaust heroes? Won’t everyone appreciate their concern?</div>
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Also, why are YOU concerned with defending this ahem, man.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:07 pm</td></tr>
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Let’s be clear,there’s no difference between Finklestein, the Hezbollah fan and David Irving the Nazi. They’re on the same side and they use the same terminology.</div>
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So Norman Finkelstein wrote a long wink of a book to get a bunchy of lefties screaming “Holocaust Industry” along with the Nazis and it doesn’t make you feel dirty at all to scream along with them. How sweet.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:14 pm</td></tr>
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“Also, why are YOU concerned with defending this ahem, man.”</div>
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I am not defending him. I don’t think he’s a good historian and I think he’s actually deeply troubled. DCook just took a phrase I used and tried to twist it into being an anti-Semite (which he does with everything.)</div>
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I also dislike the attacking of Finkelstein’s scholarship by people who revere Robert Spencer, Goldhagen, Joan Peters, etc…It’s like listening to Syria criticize someone else of human rights violations.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:38 pm</td></tr>
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And you assume I revere these people?</div>
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Really?</div>
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I must I guess, I’m attacking that man you don’t like and I don’t have the appropriate pedigree as a Jew Hater.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 12:01 am</td></tr>
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<i>like listening to Syria criticize someone else of human rights violations.</i></div>
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Jesus Christ.</div>
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One, you’re absolutely disgusting. Two I don’t support those people. Three, you should learn that a tu quoque always fails to excuse the user, only men who are hysterical beyond all reason fall for a tu quoque.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alec</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 12:27 am</td></tr>
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I just have had to Google for Joan Peters. Previously, on seeing the name, I’d think of that gal who went hammer ‘n tongs at Darcus Howe. I really would.</div>
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I don’t think he’s a good historian</div>
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He’s not a historian fullstop/period. He’s a mouthy political scientist.</div>
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~alec</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>mel photo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 2:20 am</td></tr>
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Why do you continue to call it a holocaust industry. The holocaust happened and a lot of people died especially Jews. Part of the reason for its specificity is the way the German government defined jews and their goal of a final solution. The industrial efficiency factory like was another part of what was different about this killing. To use the word industry to describe the attempts to get reparations for Jews and to recover their assets from institutions like the swiss banks is offensive. It offends me. I have the feeling that finklestein used the word industry to offset what was special about the holocaust. Lets look at it the other way around. How about all the attempts not to give jews back their assets. Where did all the teeth, the hair, the cases, the paintings,the property go. I repeat the use of the word industry is offensive. How about focus on the people who stole all these assets in the first place.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 3:42 am</td></tr>
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<i>“Why do you continue to call it a holocaust industry.”</i></div>
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Nazis and other anti-Semites use it in order to show their resentment and disregard for the surviving Jews and their descendants. Finkelstein no doubt uses it because he also resents the existence of Israel, he reveres Hezbollah and other Jew haters and it must feel awfully good to him to fool progressives into accepting the terminology of Nazis. He’s building a bridge between his two sides.</div>
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Sometimes words live for their connotation not their denotation.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 10:01 am</td></tr>
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I just love the way the shill for Islamist clerical fascism and proven liar, Naeem Malik, refers to Finkelstein by his first name.</div>
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He’s a mate of yours, then, Malik?</div>
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Telling.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 10:34 am</td></tr>
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So, a few crooks stealing money from charities = Israel/Jews systemtically abusing the Holocaust in order to oppress the Arabs?<br />
Weak, very weak, even by Gabriel’s standards.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 11:06 am</td></tr>
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An industry is usually an enterprise grouping designed to make money. The only “Holocaust Industry” are people like Finkelstein who make money from The Holocaust.</div>
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His meaning is probably that there are people, Jews, who use the Holocaust to promote some political concessions. He suggests that the memorial of 6m Jews slaughtered by Hitler is something to be criticised. Its Holocaust denial and minimalisation of the worst kind. Its a bit like “hey, it wasn’t so bad” and “so what, it was so many years ago”.</div>
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It was Gabriel who translated the political use of The Holocaust into money. Gabriel writes about people cynically making money from The Holocaust. You have to wonder what Gabriel’s inner motive is for introducing this and illustrating it with an alleged crime of stealing based on a Holocaust charity.</div>
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I went along with Gabriel and parodied HIS concept of Industry. He said this:-</div>
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<i>Not according to me, it very clearly exists. An “industry” in this sense does not mean a secret cabal, but there are people who have very clearly profited off of the Holocaust (while the actual survivors often suffer. More than a quarter of survivors in Israel live in poverty.) Any time there is big money involved, there will always be people who find a way to get a chunk of it</i></div>
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<i>big money</i>?</div>
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From what protocol does that derive?</div>
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Finkelstein chose the word “Industry”, one suspects, because of the mimicry of the industrial-like scale of The Holocaust and as a taunt.</div>
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Gabriel sees that it “clearly exists” and his example is <i>big money</i>and monetary fraud.</div>
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He accused ME of lack of comprehension? Yeah, sure!</div>
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Finkelstein gives support for antisemites.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 11:17 am</td></tr>
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@ Josh,</div>
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<i>Nazis and other anti-Semites use it in order to show their resentment and disregard for the surviving Jews and their descendants</i></div>
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Following Finkelstein’s offensive “Holocaust Industry” you see the Arab/Muslim/Palestinian World use it.</div>
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We have the invention of the “Nabka” which the Muslim Council of Britain used in their refusal to acknowledge Holocaust Memorial Day since “The Nabka” wasn’t being recognised.</div>
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In a cheap and offensive way its as if the Palestinians had to have their own “Holocaust” because they thought it would give them some equal status with The Holocaust.</div>
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We have some UK Muslim leaders invoking that the plight of Muslims in Europe is just like what happened to the Jews in Europe, ignoring that some Muslims in Europe are responsible themselves for the rise in antisemitism.</div>
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We have the Palestinians asking “Why should WE pay for The Holocaust?” when they aren’t. (To which one answers “Well, your leader Al Husseini was an instigator of The Holocaust – Nuremburg trial)</div>
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To insist that the “industry” exists means that someone is also insiting that it is the Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians who have propogated The Holocaust into theoir own political engine.</div>
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But Gabriel can only identify that as a charity allegedly ripping-off money designated to Holocaust victims.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 11:53 am</td></tr>
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Dcook</div>
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We have the Palestinians asking “Why should WE pay for The Holocaust?”</div>
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This from a <i>Der Speigel</i> interview with Yasser Arafat in 1979, Arafat is talking about the Holocaust:</div>
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It is regrettable only because others [the Palestinians] must now foot the bill.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 11:55 am</td></tr>
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The whole interview, in which Arafat discusses – inter alia – the recent Iranian Revolution, Khomeini, Black September and various other issues (including the Holocaust) can be had here (unfortunately in a very poor photocopy of the original magazine):</div>
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<a href="http://www.labourhistory.net/raf/browse-15.php#" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.labourhistory.net/raf/browse-15.php#</a></div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
(in German) PDF<br />
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 4:41 pm</td></tr>
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I find it amazing that so many here are denying that victimization narratives are used for political advantage and even financial gain.</div>
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That is the backbone of the modern Left coalition. Victimized minority groups.</div>
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Then again, maybe I dont find it amazing that Leftwingers choose to deny any of that.</div>
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But they sense something isnt quite right because the Islamists are now following the playbook to power, influence, payouts and wealth.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Smirker</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 5:04 pm</td></tr>
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As with most of what Finkelstein does, the Hezbollah / French resistance comparison is offensive and hyperbolic.</div>
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However it does touch on a problem Israel faces, which is that Hezbollah has been extremely successful in positioning itself as a cross-cultural, national resistance movement, rather than an extremist, Islamist group.</div>
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The latter is still very much there, but given the prominent support they get from Maronite Christians, they’ve done well to present their cause in a less divisive way.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 5:36 pm</td></tr>
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Smirker</div>
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Sort of… the Maronite elite have their own particularist reasons for lining up beside Hizbullah at the moment… not least because they perceive Hizbullah as carrying the Shi’a constituency which is a counterweight to the claims of the Sunni and other confessional minorities who are mightly fucked off with the continued power and influence of the Maronite minority..,</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Tony Greenstein</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 7:56 pm</td></tr>
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Finkie of course is not the ONLY Jewish-born Holocaust Denier. There is of course Gilad Atzmon, but also the Israeli Neo-Nazi Neve Gordon, and the American bloggrer for the Hamas and Neo-Nazi Richard Silverstein.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alec</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 8:22 pm</td></tr>
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Tony, you’re quite welcome to comment here, even though the same courtesy may not be extended to critical commenters on yer blog. That said, I think you’ve put your foot in your mouth re Gordon and _definitely_ Silverstein.</div>
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Now, as you’re here, I’ve run into difficulties before when describing summat which happened <em>c.</em> 1982 in which you – in your mid 20s – are said to have had words with an early teenage girl who was wearing an Israeli badge-pin.</div>
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What did those chaps who approached you – as one of their girlfriends led the lass away – say to you? I know what the girlfriend is [alleged] to have said.</div>
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~alec</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 8:55 pm</td></tr>
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[I'm not completely sure this is TG. Apologies, TG, if it is.]</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Ignorance is bliss</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 9:26 pm</td></tr>
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The term ‘Holocaust Industry’ is an illegitimate term. It is used by those who believe, as does NF, that Jews exploit the Holocaust for their own narrow and often malicious purposes.<br />
Gabriel misuses it.<br />
He is also wrong to speak of ‘the’ Israel Lobby.<br />
Gabriel misuses this term also.<br />
There are many organisations relating to Holocaust reparations. He is right to say that there are problems with some of them in terms of who is getting the money.<br />
He is right to note the existence of lobby groups who advocate for Israel in the US and elsewhere.<br />
He errs when he reduces these multiple bodies and institutions to single entities, as in ‘the’ Holocaust Industry and ‘the’ Israel Lobby.<br />
It is the type of slippage that many make but who do not fully understand the implications of their error.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>mel photo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 10:14 pm</td></tr>
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ignorance is bliss I like your post of 9.26</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lamia</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 11:18 pm</td></tr>
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@ unbelievable</div>
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<i>the reason he’s hated around here is because of the forensic work he did to expose Joan Peters, Alan Dershowitz and Daniel Goldhagen. It really is a simple as that.</i></div>
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As Mel Photo’s link demonstrates in some detail, Finkelstein’s ‘forensic exposure’ technique often appears to consists – like that of his hero Chomsky – in provably lying about what his targets have said. He distorts information and completely invents quotes. Novick, whom Finkelstein himself cited as a major influence, has rejected Finkelstein’s work as inherently untrustworthy:</div>
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<i>Among his more startling claims is that the treasury of the World Jewish Congress has “amassed no less than ‘roughly $7 billion’ in compensation monies.” Finkelstein’s source for this startling revelation is an article in FAZ which reported the very unstartling fact that the WJC was holding discussions about how such monies might be distributed IF AND WHEN THEY WERE RECEIVED. This is not just carelessness on Finkelstein’s part, since he KNEW when he wrote the book that the WJC had not received ANY such funds: deliberate deception. (Examples could be multiplied. No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate, without taking the time to carefully compare his claims with the sources he cites.)</i></div>
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<a href="http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/div/racket/holindustry/novickeng.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/div/racket/holindustry/novickeng.html</a></div>
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And here once again is the link given by Mel Photo and then Kyle:</div>
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<a href="http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/depaulletter.htm" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/depaulletter.htm</a></div>
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It’s quite an eye-opener, and I recommend it. If only a fraction of it were true it should be grounds for Finkelstein never being allowed inside a university or school again. Someone who simply invents quotes and provably distorts texts is not a scholar at all, but rather a fraud and an enemy of truth and learning.</div>
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Some of Finkelstein’s defenders have cited ‘freedom of speech’. no academic has ‘freedom of speech’ to invent quotes and provenlyand maliciously lie about the wording of texts they claim to be writing about. Any ‘academic’ doing so deserves to be shot.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 3:40 pm</td></tr>
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<i>I find it amazing that so many here are denying that victimization narratives are used for political advantage and even financial gain.</i></div>
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So the Holocaust is a “victimization narrative”? What a disgusting statement.<br />
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 5:19 pm</td></tr>
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‘Whither Matt Hill now?’</div>
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Ha. Hello – sorry to keep my fans waiting for my thoughts. I’m planning to write a longer, more considered piece on Finkelstein. I admit some of these links give me some pause, and they’ve certainly complicated my views on NF, which were previously fairly positive (with caveats). Now I think he’s a more complex case. I think some of the remarks Joseph has posted here are nowhere near as bad as he seems to think – ‘The Holocaust is an ideology…’ obviously is a way of speaking that anyone in academia and most normal people should be able to understand, and doesn’t in any way imply it’s ONLY or primarily an ideology, as opposed to an event in history. Also the comment about not being able, immediately, to refute some cruxes in a Holocaust denialist argument – again, that’s pretty weak; he’s not in any way endorsing denialism, merely pointing out that it sometimes requires some sophistication to refute. (As Saul Bellow said: ‘a great deal of intelligence can be invested in stupidity when the need for delusion is deep’.) I agree with some of the comments of some of the posters here who’ve stuck their necks out and tries to provide a different view, and I appreciate the fact it’s not me getting stick from all sides for a change. However I’m afraid I’m going to keep my counsel for now as I plan a more detailed piece that takes into account all NF’s work. This piece is more of a hit-job, and while it provides a useful service in some ways, it doesn’t really take the full measure of the man and his work. Even monsters – if you think NF is one, though I don’t – need to be understood.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 5:35 pm</td></tr>
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‘I find it amazing that so many here are denying that victimization narratives are used for political advantage and even financial gain.’</div>
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Peter: ‘So the Holocaust is a “victimization narrative”? What a disgusting statement.’</div>
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That’s not what s/he said, Peter. Surely if we’re going to talk about the Holocaust with due seriousness, we shouldn’t be playing these games where we seize on someone’s statements and twist them into something we can get outraged about.</div>
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Here are some obvious facts. 1 The Holocaust happened. 2 It was the most appalling single crime in history. 3 Some assets of Holocaust victims were kept by European banks. 4 There are Jewish organisations who stand to benefit if they can persuade the world that those assets are extremely valuable and that the banks acted improperly in seizing and keeping them. 5 A campaign was launched to precisely this effect, leading to the banks turning over millions of dollars. 6 It is worth investigating how proper this whole process was, whether the banks indeed were hoarding the assets claimed, what subsequently happened to the money and whether this was in accordance with the promises of those organisations. 7 Indeed, investigating these events, if done properly, is a valuable service to the Jewish community, the victims of the Holocaust, and anyone with an interest in historical truth and justice.</div>
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Would anyone like to contest any of these claims?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alec</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 7:34 pm</td></tr>
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Peter, perhaps if you were not – as you accused another commenter – so quick to abuse other posters, you’d be more likely to have all your comments approved.</div>
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~alec</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 8:40 pm</td></tr>
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Ah, so that’s why Peter went to my blog to post his vitriol.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 2:52 am</td></tr>
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Yohnitzl,</div>
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‘even some members of my family, believe that the remnant of the continental-European Jews were taken by the Americans from DP camps to a Palestine inhabited entirely by a nice bucolic authentic “Palestinian” population descended from the Philistines or some other ancient people – the Jews may never have lived there, because “the only evidence” that they did is the Bible and the Bible is “a faith book”, not history – and that these nice authentic Palestinians were hoofed out, probably in scenes of great cruelty including massacres, to make room for these Jewish refugees. [. . .] This is the real industry of falsification. Finkelstein has clearly been part of it.’</div>
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Total nonsense: Finkelstein has never said anything of the sort.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 2:57 am</td></tr>
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thomask,</div>
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‘Invoking Raul Hilberg in this context is a misuse of authority imo.<br />
Hilbergs support for Finkelstein relates to his dispute with Daniel<br />
Goldhagen and to the Swiss bank issue.Subjects of little relevance to this post.’</div>
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Not true. See here:<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2007/5/9/it_takes_an_enormous_amount_of" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.democracynow.org/2007/5/9/it_takes_an_enormous_amount_of</a>.</div>
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I’ve said elsewhere I’m not an enormous fan of Finkelstein, and believe he’s said some absurd, stupid and offensive things. But anyone who thinks only a fool or a bigot could support him must explain why Raul Hilberg – the acknowledged authority on the subject of the Holocaust and a great scholar of modern times – must deal with his praise for the man.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 3:02 am</td></tr>
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Michael Rabins,</div>
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‘Yes, but as Matt h points out, holocaust schmolocaust, his grammar is perfect and his eyes are rather beautiful in the right light. Oh, and Hezbollah rock!’</div>
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None of this even has a vague relationship with anything I’ve said. It’s as though we were having a discussion about whether Operation cast Lead was morally right or wrong, and I said: ‘Yes, but as Michael rabins points out, who cares about 1400 dead Arabs! The only good Arab is a dead one!’ It’s pathetic and it’s offensive.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 3:12 am</td></tr>
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(I’m restricting myself to correcting some of the sillier untruths on this thread – picking some of the low-hanging fruit as it were. I won’t be dragged into a detailed debate about Finkelstein, other than to say I think he’s a complex case, a brilliant scholar in many ways who has a habit of saying absurd, stupid and ugly things. I also think it’s impossible to present a plausible analysis of him without reading his books, which so far as I’m aware nobody here has done. I’m planning a longer piece on him that will explain my views further.)</div>
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j.r.,</div>
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‘Why is Finkelstein doing a speaking tour for PSC? What is the connection between Finkelstein’s subject – the holocaust, and the Palestinian situation? I would suggest the only connection is a rhetorical one that essentialises Jews. It depicts them as prisoners of their own history who are morally flawed as a result. This dishonest pseudo-history peddled by political fanatics is the thing that really brings Finkelstein’s reputation as a historian into disrepute. Israelis do not persecute Palestinians in a Nazi-like way and justify it because of their own treatment by the Nazis. Who could claim that this is any sort of historical analysis?’</div>
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You postulate some kind of historical theory which exists only in your imagination, and then claim it brings Finkelstein into disrepute. I’ve never heard Finkelstein saying anything that resembles this business about Jews as prisoners of their history. And the fact that you’re actually totally ignorant of Finkelstein’s work is proven by the fact that you’re clearly not aware he is very much a scholar of the Israeli-Arab conflict and not just the Holocaust. Does that explain why he talks about the Israeli-Arab conflict?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 3:37 am</td></tr>
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Dcook,</div>
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‘Some people, for example a 27 year old leftist idealist with muddled ideas about the I?P conflict, are no match for someone of 54 who has lived through some of the important history and retains contemporary facts rather than second-hand opinions and filters.<br />
I also endorse the film Exodus as retaining some very important historical facts about the formation of Israel untainted by the filter of lies that people today base their historical perspective on.’</div>
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Brilliant! My understanding of history is being questioned by somebody who doesn’t read books and proudly announces it, and think ‘Exodus’ is history! The chutzpah!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 3:41 am</td></tr>
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boyinthebubble,</div>
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‘I’ve always been sceptical of Finkelstein’s basic thesis that it’s possible to attribute any kind of personal syndrome to a nation state or a global organisation. It’s not possible for a nation state to suffer from a psychosis, or guilt complex, the way an individual can.’</div>
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Where does Finkelstein advance this thesis? I believe this is the thesis Finkelstein refutes in Goldhagen’s case; I’m not aware that he ever diagnoses a nation as suffering from a psychological syndrome.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 3:49 am</td></tr>
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Josh Scholar,</div>
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‘Let’s be clear,there’s no difference between Finklestein, the Hezbollah fan and David Irving the Nazi. They’re on the same side and they use the same terminology.’</div>
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This is just one of your more baffling shrieks about Nazism, anti-semitism and so on. If you really cared about anti-semitism, you’d be a bit less liberal in your use of the phrase, which simply trivialises and dilutes it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 3:56 am</td></tr>
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mel photo,</div>
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‘he industrial efficiency factory like was another part of what was different about this killing. To use the word industry to describe the attempts to get reparations for Jews and to recover their assets from institutions like the swiss banks is offensive. It offends me.’</div>
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Well this is a good example of why it’s important to be free to offend people. So because the Holocaust killed people on an industrial scale, the word ‘industry’ is offensive in conjunction with the Holocaust?</div>
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I’ve never even heard this kind of argument before. The logic of it is quite amazing. So because a word could conceivably be used to describe the Holocaust, it should be banned in discussions of the Holocaust? How on earth will we ever discuss anything?</div>
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Personally I find the title of Primo Levi’s book ‘If this is a Man’ offensive, because the Holocaust killed several million people of whom you can say ‘this is a man’. Just reading that phrase upsets me due to its connotations.</div>
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Barmy…</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 4:09 am</td></tr>
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I’m just going to sign off by saying that my comments here shouldn’t be taken as defences of Finkelstein. I confess threads like this have complicated my view of the man, who I only knew through his books previously. He is a rather more temperate and scholarly character in his books, even if his views are rather fanatical and uncompromising for my tastes. In interview he is clearly prone to making ridiculous, offensive and nonsensical remarks, and he’s obviously someone who is consumed by his feuds and has the mistaken notion that the more outrageous his comments are, the braver he is. He’s clearly, to some extent, a bit of an egomaniac: he seems to have the sense that he’s in a personal, lone battle for truth against powerful interests, and that the fate of Middle East peace depends on his courage to say the first thing that comes into his head, no matter how nasty or puerile.</div>
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However it’s important to note that a piece like this is of rather limited value. It doesn’t engage with any of Finkelstein’s work (indeed the author has made no secret that he hasn’t read any of Finkelstein’s books). Of course, nobody is obliged to read through the work of someone they’re almost certainly bound to disagree with and dislike. But then anyone who’s not prepared to try and understand him a little better must accept that their opinions of the man as a whole aren’t very valuable. Most of the commenters here are quite obviously not interested in understanding Finkelstein; their purpose is to feel confident in dismissing him or to enjoy a satisfying bit of outrage.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 4:23 am</td></tr>
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Let me make the key distinction. On the basis of a few isolated quotes, you’re free to say ‘these quotes are awful and loathsome and stupid’. You’re also free to say ‘a man who says these things isn’t a man I want to know more about’. But you can’t say something like ‘on the basis of these remarks I think *** about Finkelstein’s scholarship, I think *** about his psychological profile, I think those who disagree are ***’. You’d need to read a more representative sample of his writing before you did that.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.tv-replay.co.uk/" style="color: #fa4949;">Watch online</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 9:05 am</td></tr>
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Hi! I can`t say I am a Holocaust expert, actually I just left the school bench but I payed attention to the History classes and at no point we talked money when referring to what those people went trough. I know that the Holocaust was real … I see it as a complex combination of actions, ideas, events and situation where people were hurt buy other people.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 9:43 am</td></tr>
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What do you expect, when you talk about things you know nothing about and insult my murdered and surviving family members in the process?<br />
There is no ‘victimisation narrative’. There is no ‘Holocaust industry’. Those who survived the camps and lost everything, their lives ruined, their families murdered, left literally penniless, with no health, no earning capacity, were entitled to every penny they got.<br />
This I know first-hand: many powerful insurance companies, with batteries of expensive lawyers, spent decades refusing to pay out on life policies taken out on the survivor’s spouse because the claimant had no certificate to present. Yes, well, when you are rounded up at night and sent to Belsen, you don’t take your insurance certificates with you and keep them through all your time in the camp.<br />
These are the people you insult when you talk about compensation in such snide terms. I am not the one debasing the terms and the discussion: you are.</div>
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<i>Most of the commenters here are quite obviously not interested in understanding Finkelstein; their purpose is to feel confident in dismissing him or to enjoy a satisfying bit of outrage.</i></div>
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And you know this because …? Are you a psychologist? Have you examined them on the couch?</div>
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<i>Personally I find the title of Primo Levi’s book ‘If this is a Man’ offensive, because the Holocaust killed several million people of whom you can say ‘this is a man’. Just reading that phrase upsets me due to its connotations.</i></div>
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What an absurd statement. You have not understood the book at all. Each person is a man, ‘a whole world’.</div>
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<i>If you really cared about anti-semitism, you’d be a bit less liberal in your use of the phrase, which simply trivialises and dilutes it.</i></div>
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This is the usual lazy thinking: you musn’t never talk about any specific and concrete instance of antisemitism, because it ‘trivialises’ the phrase. You have never suffered from antisemitism: it’s highly insulting to tell its victims how to feel about it and how to talk about it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 1:26 pm</td></tr>
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Naive! Insulting! and just plain WRONG!!!!</div>
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Matt Hill:</div>
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<i>There are <b>Jewish </b>organisations who stand to <b>benefit </b>if they can persuade the world that those assets are extremely valuable and that the banks acted improperly in seizing and keeping them. 5 A campaign was launched to precisely this effect, leading to the banks turning over millions of dollars. 6 It is worth investigating how proper this whole process was, whether the banks indeed were hoarding the assets claimed, what subsequently happened to the money and whether this was in accordance with the promises of those organisations.</i></div>
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Benefit??!!!!</div>
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You slaughter my family and steal all my assets and YOU seem to think that getting them back is a BENEFIT!!??</div>
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I call it Justice.</div>
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Perhaps you will now demonstrate how this is a “Holocaust Industry”. Maybe you think the parents of Stephen Lawrence (Rest his soul) were engaged in a Stepehen Lawrence Industry because of the spin-off charities and organisations.</div>
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<i>sorry to keep my fans waiting for my thoughts</i></div>
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Delusional on many fronts.<br />
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lamia</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 3:58 pm</td></tr>
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Sore head this morning, Matt?</div>
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<i>I also think it’s impossible to present a plausible analysis of him without reading his books, which so far as I’m aware nobody here has done.</i></div>
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I think we can make a reasonable estimation of him based on the link I provided, which has plenty of material that shows him hanging himself with various lengths of ropes. It is not surprising that you have a more indulgent view of Finkelstein based on reading his books alone. You may as well base a defence of Noam Chomsky’s reliability as a scholar on the evidence of his own books alone.</div>
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From the material Dershowitz cites – not just his own words, but those of other critics – it is plain enough that Finkelstein is a seriously dishonest writer who should not be teaching in any institution. If he were a student where I taught (one of the oldest universities in the world) he would have been liable for expulsion long ago. Those examples aren’t just a list of teensy oversights or errors, they indicate deliberate fabrication and misrepresentation of his opponents’ arguments.</div>
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That’s lying, Matt. It’s a no-no in academia. It’s fundamentally opposed to the spirit and purpose of universities, which is about honest learning and the propagation thereof.</div>
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If you can’t grasp that, then your forthcoming ‘analysis’ of the ’scholarship’ of Finkelstein won’t be worth much.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 8:21 pm</td></tr>
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<em>Personally I find the title of Primo Levi’s book ‘If this is a Man’ offensive, because the Holocaust killed several million people of whom you can say ‘this is a man’. Just reading that phrase upsets me due to its connotations.</em></div>
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Really???</div>
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</div>levi9909http://www.blogger.com/profile/10553481056544494411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6711693756224970648.post-37712060996615884312012-01-01T04:02:00.000-08:002012-01-04T07:07:57.650-08:00More HP, F and the holocaust<br />
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joe</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:25 am</td></tr>
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Matt, I haven’t got any further time to engage in discussion at this time, however,</div>
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1) Thanks for you summary of the argument against Peters.<br />
2) WRT point 3, I did add the caveat that there is a difference between the right to self determination, i.e. the establishment of another Arab State in Greater Syria, and the right of enfranchisment for the Arabs living under Israeli political and administrative control. I agree that any solution must give these people those rights, without any forced population movements.</div>
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3) <i>It doesn’t oblige Israel to settle the territories or install a military dictatorship, with no rule of law or basic freedoms. </i>yes but Israel created the PA, and imported the PLO to assume the adminastrative responsibilty. (Now my personal opinion of this was that this was the first mistake Israel made -importing the PLO- in trying to achieve peace.) Most (all?) Arab residents of the West Bank live under PA rule.</div>
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Also this point simply ignores the reality of why the military situation exist, and postulates that Israeli military rule simply exist to torture Arabs. This assumption alone marks you as misunderstanding or misrepresenting the situation as it stands.</div>
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4) <i>It doesn’t oblige Israel to settle the territories or install a military dictatorship, with no rule of law or basic freedoms. That is what’s at issue here.</i> Well no it is not, it is your holiday reading list (trying to inject some humor). But I assert, that the issue is Arab intransigence and everything else that happens is a consequence of that.</div>
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Let me ask you an honest question, what is the Palastinian incentive to end the conflict by affirmatively accepting an end of conflict and an end of claims?</div>
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5)<i>Why inevitable? This is an excellent example of the claim that the Palestinians are forcing Israel to oppress them, which underpins all pro-Israeli polemic.</i></div>
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Let me help you here: Failure to disarm <i>militant</i> groups that assert their own foriegn policy. Ramping up civil unrest as a political tool (intifada 2 as an example). Failure to act punitively against terrorist in their midst (and to forstall your response, Israel should use every means to insure that terrorist from the Isaeli population are brought to heel and subjected to leagal punative punishment). Failure to renounce terrorism. Refusal to accept Israel as a “Jewish State”.</div>
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So yes, Israeli response to Palestinian policy is the rational and inevitable consequence of the Palestinian actions! Some people might even call it self defence.</div>
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6)<i>but since then the Palestinian leadership has been the much more willing side to negotiate peace.</i> True or false (and it is false), clearly the Palestinian leadership are also far less willing to impliment a negotiated peace. Where is the Palestinian “withdrawal from Gaza”? Where do we see the Palestinian leadership willing to battle its own people inorder to bring about the conditions necessary to peace? You yourself say that they speak dupliciously, so how can you know what the PA leadership is saying in honesty.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:48 am</td></tr>
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Paul M,</div>
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I didn’t mean to suggest you think I’m contemptibly stupid – you’ve disagreed with me respectfully, which is all I ask.</div>
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And I won’t accuse you of comparing the Palestinians to dogs, because I understand your analogy perfectly well. (Personally I would avoid making the reverse analogy at this site, because it is a 100% certainty someone would claim I thought Israelis were dogs.)</div>
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I do disagree with your analogy for several reasons though. Again, the whole question of who is most to blame for the failure of the peace process is too big to get into here, so I’ll just say this. The argument that Israel cannot dare to release its stranglehold on the West Bank and Gaza because the Palestinians despise them so much and want to kill them has one plain advantage: it generates its own justification. In other words, every time Israel humiliates an old Palestinian man at a checkpoint, or kills another Palestinian child, the Palestinians hate them a little more. By your reasoning, this makes the occupation – which seems to entail the daily humiliation and near-daily killing of Palestinians – more necessary. It’s a bit like tying someone up – someone who attacked you first, let’s say for the sake of argument re. 1967 – giving them daily beatings, and then refusing to let them go because they hate you for doing it. And when they claim they’re ready to be reasonable and renounce revenge, you say: ‘Sorry, that’s not what you said yesterday; for the sake of the safety of me and my kids, I can’t let you go.’</div>
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‘I’ll kill you for this, you monster!’</div>
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‘See! See how he hates me! He’s an animal. How can I dare let him go? It would be irresponsible!’</div>
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Let me put it this way. I can imagine a scenario in which it was necessary for a country to keep millions of its neighbours under strict occupation for an extended period after a military defeat. But in that case it would still be incumbent on the occupier, for the sake of humanity and democracy, to do everything in its power to foster coexistence and to coax the other side into an agreement. I’m not sure that’s best achieved by settling hundreds of thousands of people on that people’s territory, ruling over them with measures like indefinite detention without charge or trial, military courts with no appeal, systematic and legalised torture (or let’s agree on ‘coercive interrogation methods that sometimes kill people’), exploitation of those territories’ natural resources – in short, a system that steals from millions of people control over their own lives. The debate over the two sides’ conduct in negotiations since 1993 (as I’ve said, I agree the Arabs were intransigent before then) is another one altogether, but I don’t think figures like Netanyahu and Sharon have been working hard to find peace, which is the minimum I’d expect from the leaders of a country ruling over another.</div>
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Anyway, have a good rest and thanks for engaging with me thoughtfully and respectfully.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:01 am</td></tr>
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Matt, you say:</div>
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I’m afraid this won’t satisfy you, Joseph W, but I’m trying to be honest about how I see him.</div>
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<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Not about me or you, it’s about Norman Finkelstein.</div>
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I do think you’ve made some good points in your last post, thanks for clearing that up.</div>
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You also say:</div>
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However, there are complicating factors in the overall assessment. Finkelstein remains committed to the two-state solution, which makes his relatively moderate in the current pro-Palestinian movement.</div>
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If you can condemn Finkelstein for supporting Hezbollah, how can you also say he’s relatively moderate?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:02 am</td></tr>
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Joe,</div>
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Thanks for your thoughtful and intelligent comments. I hope it’s clear I’d much rather engage in these kinds of discussions than talk about myself. The whole reason I post here is to have this type of debate. And even if you and others disagree strongly with me, I hope it’s also clear my views are sincere, that I’ve put at least some thought into them, and that they’re not hateful or bigoted. I’m going to answer your points now but I thought I’d say this before you left.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:03 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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Sorry, I should have been clearer. I mean he’s relatively moderate when it comes to his views on the peace process.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:05 am</td></tr>
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Matt, re:</div>
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Where I do disagree strongly with Finkelstein’s thesis is when he argues that the Holocaust only became a large part of Israeli life around 1967. The implication is obvious: that Israel began exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to underwrite its colonisation of the West Bank. But the scant evidence Finkelstein provides for this daring claim is deeply unpersuasive. There are several reasons why in the mid-60s the Holocaust started to play a bigger role in the national discourse: the Eichmann trial, the fear that Nasser was plotting another Shoah, the fact that many survivors were genuinely too traumatised to speak about their experiences for some time. The 1967 claim is bollocks, and quite offensive. And it is on this scanty basis that Finkelstein builds an unconvincing and slightly paranoid case that the Holocaust is being cynically and systematically manipulated.</div>
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Very nicely said Matt.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Me</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:08 am</td></tr>
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<i>The argument that Israel cannot dare to release its stranglehold on the West Bank and Gaza because the Palestinians despise them so much and want to kill them has one plain advantage: it generates its own justification.</i></div>
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Your argument is only true if you ignore the facts:<br />
1) Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, leaving behind infrastructure to guarantee its future viability.</div>
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2) Palestinian controlled Gaza unilaterally lobed thousands of missiles into Israel.</div>
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3) Palestinian controlled Gaza held captive an Israeli soldier. This soldier was kidnapped from inside Israel and held without any access to international law for several years.</div>
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4) It ignores the cultrue that facilitated and nurtured Saeed Hotari, and assumes that Israeli action directly precipitated his murderous activities.</div>
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5) That Israeli checkpoints, the “Wall” etc are a consequence not a cause of Intifada 2 and the terrorism that came with it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:16 am</td></tr>
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Hill says,</div>
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<i>I’ve seen readers here hang, draw and quarter PA officials for making stupid and <b>uncharacteristic</b> anti-Israeli remarks</i></div>
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Would you Adam and Eve it. He just won’t listen and learn, will he?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Ben</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:16 am</td></tr>
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Matt wrote: “…The argument that Palestine was relatively unpopulated – truly a ‘land without a people’ – before the Zionists arrived…”</div>
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By any objective standards this argument is true. In 1917 the population of the territory west of the Jordan river was around 700000, of whom 100000 were Jews. In 1947, it was 2000000, of whom 600000 were Jews; for every 5 Jewish immigrants there had been 3 Arab immigrants. Today it is around 11000000, of whom 6000000 are Jews.</div>
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One of the arguments used by the British to limit Jewish immigration into Palestine was that the territory could not absorb people economically in large numbers. They shut off Jewish immigration, just as the Germans were preparing to conquer Europe and wipe out its Jews. Millions of Jews perished who could have been saved, including Finklestein’s family. The Zionists were too weak to confront the British in 1939, and noone else cared a whit about the fate of Europe’s Jews.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:18 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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I’ll repeat and amplify what I said before. I would write the Finkelstein piece differently now. I’m tempted to remove it, because I’m a little embarrassed at the praise I directed at him alongside the criticism. But I don’t want to be accused of removing evidence of my views. I suppose the best way to disown it would be to write a better, more considered and thoughtful piece. I may get around to it, but I’d feel the need to do some research first.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:26 am</td></tr>
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Ben,</div>
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Do you have a source for those figures? I would have to check them myself, but I would point out that one of the cruxes of the case against Peters is that she misrepresents Arab population growth as a result of immigration, when the evidence suggests it was due to the high Arab birthrate.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:36 am</td></tr>
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<i>If my views are so simplistic, it should be easy for you and others to explain where I’ve gone wrong</i></div>
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We have been doing this for, what, 3 threads now? Or is it 4? You simply retreat into your complacent bunker, where you are ‘pushing 30′ (err, no, you are not: you are 27), and from where you flatly reject Joe’s arguments, and refuse to see the clear evidence presented to you, by which it’s the Palestinian leadership that’s been blocking progress by refusing to negotiate in good faith.</div>
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Incidentally: it’s been you who introduced Harrow into the discussion, along with your ’shit-hot academic qualifications’. So yes, it’s you who wants to talke about ‘me, me, look at me’.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:45 am</td></tr>
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Thanks Matt, I think that would be constructive, and interesting to read.</div>
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Have a look here at Finkelstein saying it doesn’t really matter that he and others have a “queasy feeling about Jews”:</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcWIaYJGlOQ" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcWIaYJGlOQ</a></div>
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You need to watch to the end.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:58 am</td></tr>
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@Matt Hill 30 December 2011, 12:35 am</div>
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Well, I credit you for turning and I credit several posters at HP in helping you see some new realities. May you continue on your path. Which doesn’t mean you will get an easier ride when you screw up!</div>
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Now say “Thank You for beating me Sir!” :)</div>
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(Tom Brown’s Schooldays)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:59 am</td></tr>
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Matt – thanks for your long comments after your work break, and to everyone else who made the discussion which followed so interesting, informative and (tensely!) civil.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:03 am</td></tr>
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Dcook,</div>
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Please, never say anything pleasant to me again. You’re completely fucking with my head!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:06 am</td></tr>
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<i>The more controversial claim, which is a small part of the book, is that the Holocaust has been, and is, used to mitigate or distract from Israel’s crimes. I don’t think many would disagree that the Holocaust HAS been misused in that way. Take the absurd comments of Israeli PM Menachem Begin before the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, where he constantly compared Arafat to Hitler and said the Jewish people had a chance to kill Hitler once and for all. In fairness, Begin was starting to lose his mind at this point, and was always deeply traumatised by the Holocaust which claimed much of his family. And the Israeli public was largely horrified by such language.</i></div>
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Hang On!!!!!</div>
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How dare YOU tell people who are in their 50’s to 90’s about the meaning and effect of The Holocaust? You can’t possibly understand the psyche of those people. You haven’t been in the same room as Holocaust survivors (as I have) and seen their hollow eyes, serial number stamped on their arm and still undernourished bodies. You have absolutely NO yardstick to judge and your opinions and/or conclusions don’t stack up against people who know and who have suffered.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:10 am</td></tr>
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Phew… what a relief, to get back to being angrily attacked by Dcook!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:11 am</td></tr>
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Here’s my biggest problem with Finkelstein’s book <em>The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering</em>(2003):</div>
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“The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats.”</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:16 am</td></tr>
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<i>My response is to say: what does this change? Does it make the decades-long rule over 3.7 million people legitimate? If a people had to pass a virtue test before they gained statehood, there’d be few countries in the international community. The reasons the Palestinians deserve sovereignty and justice isn’t that they’re humans, it’s that they’re angels.</i></div>
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If the “Palestinians” (Arabs of Palestine) hadn’t been so war-like and attacked Israel so many times, including the time when they were granted a state in 1948 these self-harming Palestinians would have had independence by now.</div>
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Take two parallels:-</div>
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Germany attacks Europe (wants the World). Gets defeated. Agrees to be good boys. Gets their independence back after occupation by the Allies.</div>
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Japan attacks USA. Gets defeated. Gets partially occupied by USA and agrees to be good boys. Then become a major nation.</div>
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But, Palestinians (Arabs) attack Israel. Get defeated. Refuse to be good boys, maintains their beligerence, maintains their claim that all of Israel is theirs and you blame the victim, Israel.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:19 am</td></tr>
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Dcook, you misunderstand me. I would never tell anyone how to feel about their experiences in the Holocaust. I have spoken with Holocaust survivors, and the experience is crushing. I won’t try and describe how upsetting it is for me to read books like If this is a Man, or watch films like Shoah, because it would be crass of me to try and advertise my sympathy. My point is not to dictate to people how they should relate to their own suffering. It is to say this: objectively, Arafat is not Hitler. Objectively, Israel was not facing another Holocaust in 1982. To use such language was not just a misleading analogy with potentially dangerous consequences for Israel. It was considered offensive – by Holocaust survivors, as well as by most of the Israeli public. I’m not criticising Begin for his subjective feelings about the death of much of his family. I’m criticising him for basing and justifying Israeli government policy on those grounds. In the same way, I would never criticise a rape victim for being deeply traumatised by her experiences. But if she happened to be in charge of the criminal justice system, and she advocated castrating all men accused of any sexual offences, I would strongly condemn it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:19 am</td></tr>
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Here’s the thing about Finkelstein. You get the sense, it’s more about his family than anything else.</div>
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After comparing Abe Foxman to Hitler, saying “at least Hitler didn’t do it for the money”, Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir suggests to Finkelstein off-camera, that he’s being a bit extreme.</div>
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Finkelstein then tells Shamir:</div>
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“You come from a society in which everyone calls everyone a Nazi, right? They call Rabin a Nazi, Ben Gurion called Jabotinsky a Nazi, Jabotinsky called Ben Gurion a Nazi, Begin called Ben Gurion a Nazi. Each of them said one is worse than Hitler, that’s the whole language of your society.</div>
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It’s also the language I grew up with, you know, everything in my house. The food? Worse than Auschwitz! The clothes? Worse than Auschwitz! That’s the house you grow up in. And all of a sudden, you get so pious when I go like that. Your whole society is like that!”</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:21 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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Is that a quote from the Holocaust Industry? I don’t remember it, but I suppose it’s possible it’s there. I agree it’s an awful analogy, and an example of Finkelstein’s tendency to resort quickly to Nazi analogies, if it is indeed a Finkelstein quote. Do you have a reference? (I don’t have the book with me at the moment.)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:26 am</td></tr>
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<i>Dcook,</i></div>
<i></i><br />
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<i>Please, never say anything pleasant to me again. You’re completely fucking with my head!</i></div>
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I only complimented you on turning. I realise your education isn’t complete. I guess HP posters realise that by constantly correcting you its possible that you will turn a little further. Leakage shows there is still work to do.</div>
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BTW, I’m not ATTACKING you. I think you’ll find the HP Banner explains the rules of engagement and since you put yourself up for a thread then you must expect some criticism and push-back.</div>
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Your idea about there being some truth in the concept of evoking The Holocaust unfairly is something, as a young person, you cannot be expected to have an affinity with. I am giving you a perspective you can’t possibly have. That means you can learn something you were unable to synthesise.</div>
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Also, Matt, as someone approaching thirty don’t you accept that people (maybe double your age) have some knowledge and experiences you don’t have. You can read about the pivotal 1967 War and Res 242 but some people here lived through it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:28 am</td></tr>
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I took the quote from Adam Garfinkle’s Jewcentricity, but unfortunately I don’t have a page reference to hand.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:29 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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I can’t watch that video in the UK. Where is it from? Is it available elsewhere?</div>
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Yes, I remember that comment, from the film on Finkelstein, American Radical, I think it was. The obvious retort is that the way you talk to your family over dinner isn’t an appropriate or responsible guide on how to carry out public debate on sensitive issues.</div>
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You see, this is why it’s useful for us to engage with each other, rather than shouting each other down. I’m now making a note of that comment for a possible future article on Finkelstein. I can see why it enrages people and if I get around to writing about it, I’ll definitely make the point that such rhetoric quite understandably makes people deeply reluctant to engage with his other arguments. It is a stupid thing to say, no doubt about it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:31 am</td></tr>
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Finkelstein on the video, re. American Jews:</div>
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“The best that could ever happen to Israel, if they get rid of these American Jews who are war mongers from Martha’s Vinyard, and they’re war mongers from the Hamptons, and they’re war mongers from Beverely Hills, and they’re war mongers from Miami. It’s been a disaster for Israel. It’s the best thing if they can ever get rid of American Jewry. It’s a curse.”</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:33 am</td></tr>
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It’s from the documentary “Defamation” – itself pretty controversial.</div>
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This video might work:</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwsUT3YAgRc" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwsUT3YAgRc</a></div>
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Just type “finkelstein defamation” into Youtube.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:38 am</td></tr>
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These quotes too, in “The Holocaust Industry”:</div>
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Not only does the ‘6 Million’ figure become more untenable but the numbers of the Holocaust industry are rapidly approaching those of Holocaust deniers.” …<br />
“Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud.” …<br />
»Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg cast a plague on both sides, sneering that “it’s not about justice, it’s a fight for money.”« …<br />
“In recent years, the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket.” …<br />
»In what has become a mantra of the Holocaust restitution racket, this constituted “the greatest robbery in the history of mankind.”« …<br />
»”If everyone who claims to be a survivor actually is one,” my mother used to exclaim, “who did Hitler kill?”«</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:39 am</td></tr>
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Die Welt interviewer: You call the holocaust an ideology.</div>
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Norman Finkelstein: To be more precise, an ideological construction, that originally served the interests of the Jewish elite in America and has now degenerated into a money making instrument. It has become a extortion racket.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:42 am</td></tr>
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I think I might write up my thoughts on Finkelstein too…</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:42 am</td></tr>
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‘I guess HP posters realise that by constantly correcting you its possible that you will turn a little further. [. . .] I am giving you a perspective you can’t possibly have. That means you can learn something you were unable to synthesise. [. . .] Also, Matt, as someone approaching thirty don’t you accept that people (maybe double your age) have some knowledge and experiences you don’t have.’</div>
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Sure. All this is fair enough. But I am much more likely to change my mind when people engage with me directly and explain why they oppose my views, rather than simply denouncing me.</div>
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‘I think you’ll find the HP Banner explains the rules of engagement and since you put yourself up for a thread then you must expect some criticism and push-back.’</div>
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Believe me, I’m under no illusions that I can expect plenty of criticism when I post here! Equally my detractors can expect push-back against the push-back.</div>
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‘You can read about the pivotal 1967 War and Res 242 but some people here lived through it.’</div>
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True. But people on both sides lived through it, and have very different views on it. That’s why we have history books, to synthesise first-person accounts and draw a narrative from them. You’ve said yourself that you’ve never been to Israel. If, as I’ve said, I ‘lived through’ the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, will you agree to defer to my opinions about it? I doubt it. One’s first-person experiences can provide all kinds of insight, but they’re unlikely to be much good without proper study to set them in context.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:44 am</td></tr>
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<i>I’m not criticising Begin for his subjective feelings about the death of much of his family. I’m criticising him for basing and justifying Israeli government policy on those grounds</i></div>
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Israel is 100% correct to base its policies on the possibility of an existential threat as articulated by the Hamas charter, the statements by Hezbollah and the statements by Ahmadinejad and its nuclear ambitions to “wipe Zionism off the map”. “Never Again” is the only policy to protect Israel from the Jew-hatred that drives people to want to wipe them out.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:51 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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How would you feel about the two of us having a kind of email exchange about Finkelstein, on the basis that we have differing views with some overlap, and we seem able at least to credit each other with sincerity? We could then edit it to a publishable size and post it, either here or somewhere else? Just an idea – not sure if it would work.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:54 am</td></tr>
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I would need to go through Finkelstein’s books with a pencil and watch Defamation, which I’ve found on youtube (thanks)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 10:01 am</td></tr>
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Perfectly willing to have email exchange, probably better to write separate pieces.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 10:02 am</td></tr>
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Dcook,</div>
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‘Israel is 100% correct to base its policies on the possibility of an existential threat as articulated by the Hamas charter, the statements by Hezbollah and the statements by Ahmadinejad and its nuclear ambitions to “wipe Zionism off the map”. “Never Again” is the only policy to protect Israel from the Jew-hatred that drives people to want to wipe them out.’</div>
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Sure, it is 100% right to take all those things into account when it decides policy. But I’m reminded of some word Amos Oz wrote around the time of the Lebanon invasion:</div>
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“You [prime minister Begin] display an urge to resurrect Hitler from the dead so you may kill him over and over again each day… Like many Jews, I feel sorry I didn’t kill Hitler with my bare hands. But there is not, and there never will be, any healing for the open wound. Tens of thousands of dead Arabs will not heal that wound. Because, Mr Begin, Adolf Hitler is dead. He is not hiding in Nabatiyah, in Sidon, or in Beirut. He is dead and burned to ashes.”</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 10:06 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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Perhaps we could have a private exchange first, and then write up two pieces about Finkelstein in the light of it. It would certainly help me, because you’d be helping me do my research by bringing to my attention lots of his more objectionable statements.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>NicoleS</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 10:45 am</td></tr>
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Abu Faris: I didn’t know that about the Papal Bun, thanks. However, I don’t see either Widmerpool or Matt Hill as enormously fat. It is not a perfect fit, of course, but Matt does reveal more Widmerpoolesque features with every comment. Eg <em>This is childish and beneath you, Abu Faris.</em> I’m pretty sure Widmerpool rebukes Jenkins for being childish during their schooldays.</div>
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Paul M: <em>Matt’s worst sins mostly come down to naivety and youth… </em>No, I’m afraid it’s worse than that and Matt is irredeemable. Oh well, I expect the lad will go far.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 10:49 am</td></tr>
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<i>“You [prime minister Begin] display an urge to resurrect Hitler from the dead so you may kill him over and over again each day… Like many Jews, I feel sorry I didn’t kill Hitler with my bare hands. But there is not, and there never will be, any healing for the open wound. Tens of thousands of dead Arabs will not heal that wound. Because, Mr Begin, Adolf Hitler is dead. He is not hiding in Nabatiyah, in Sidon, or in Beirut. He is dead and burned to ashes.”</i></div>
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Said in 1987 (according to your timeline above).</div>
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In 2011 we know that “Hitler” is NOT dead in the sense that Arabs still evoke the memory of Hitler in stating that he should have finished the job, that Mein Kampf is still sold in the Arab World and that the Genocide against Jews is still in the hearts and minds of Palestinians, Hama, Hezbollah and Iran. Its also in MB’s spiritual leader Qaradawi who evokes hatred towards the Jews and praises Hitler (see Youtube for speeches).</div>
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So, Hitler and The Holocaust rightly resurface TODAY when Arabs resurrect him.</div>
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<i>He is not hiding in Nabatiyah, in Sidon, or in Beirut</i></div>
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No, but his memories and deeds are very much alive in the Arab world..</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 11:16 am</td></tr>
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Yes I do need to calm down and yes I am very stressed at the moment. I am presently without work and skint and I have just had to turn down a job because I cannot even afford to get to the fucking place of work. So I am a bit fucked at the moment… however, there is some light at the end of the tunnel…</div>
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Apologies.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 11:41 am</td></tr>
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Abu Faris,</div>
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I’m definitely guilty of taking these kinds of debates far too seriously at times, and I’ve said all kinds of things I don’t like to recall.</div>
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And my girlfriend tells me I can be an insufferably arrogant shit sometimes, so I apologise for conducting myself less than admirably at times.</div>
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I really hope you manage to get yourself sorted soon. I’ve always thought you were one of the more intelligent and well-informed posters around here; someone with your talent is bound to get some luck sooner or later.</div>
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You live in Egypt, am I right? Have you ever thought of emigrating?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 11:43 am</td></tr>
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Abu Faris,</div>
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Would you email me at matthewrowlandhill at gmail dot com? I have something I’d like to talk to you about briefly (don’t worry, it’s not Israel-Palestine and it’s not a proposition).</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 11:57 am</td></tr>
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[Joseph W - perhaps, if you are happy to correspond with Matt, you could also note his email?]</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 11:59 am</td></tr>
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Thanks Sarah, have done.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Vivo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 12:04 pm</td></tr>
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My earlier comment that Hill reminded me of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh was a brief throwaway and didn’t contribute to either the discussion or the book list. But now I’ve read the whole discussion (phew!), I think I can contribute to the book list and suggest Winnie-the-Pooh seriously. Hill clearly has the energy and sense of ‘involvement’ to blog about Israel/Palestine for many years to come. So even at the tender age of ‘27-going-on- 30′, he, and we, could benefit from his exploring his own psychopathology so exemplified by WtP’s Tigger.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 12:18 pm</td></tr>
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Vivo,</div>
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re. my ‘energy’ – yep, I always win every debate I ever have, or at least have the last word, due to my absolutely insatiable appetite for debate. Unfortunately my unusual stamina is restricted to intellectual debate, as my girlfriend has often lamented.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 12:21 pm</td></tr>
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“He is cheerful, outgoing, competitive in a friendly way, and has complete confidence in himself.” (Wiki entry on Tigger)</div>
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Matt is certainly demonstrating a Tigger-like refusal to be unbounced!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lbnaz</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 12:33 pm</td></tr>
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Would I be very mistaken to assume that Matt Hill would give more credence to Clayton Swisher’s, (a glorified security guard who was not privy to a single meeting between Israeli and Palestinian Arab negotiators), published account of supposed overwhelming Israeli intransigence during negotiations, than he would to then US envoy Dennis Ross’s published account?</div>
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Would I be very mistaken to assume that Matt Hill would find ex-President Jimmy Carter to hold reasonable, sincere and moderate views of the conflict?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:48 pm</td></tr>
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Lbnaz,</div>
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I haven’t read carter’s book so I wouldn’t know if his views are reasonable. Though I would say he’s done more for peace in the Middle East than all other presidents put together, so I’d hesitate before condemning him as an enemy of Israel.</div>
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re. clayton Swisher. Well, now. His and Dennis Ross’s books are both histories of sorts. So I apply the usual standards of evaluating history to them both. Normally we don’t simply assume that players in historical dramas write the most reliable accounts afterwards. In fact, there may be reason to approach their accounts with skepticism, for obvious reasons, no? Both books are valuable, but they diverge seriously when it comes to explaining the failure of camp David. Whom are we to believe? Well, it’s too early to say for sure. But Swisher’s book is based on interviews with dozens of all the major figures as well as his own research – not his experiences as a ‘glorified security guard’ – so it has a great deal of value in bringing a lot of other views to light. Whether you find his overall thesis convincing depends on a lot of things. When he is able to quote several different top-level sources in the various delegations by name, all giving roughly similar accounts of the same events, I’m bound to find him persuasive. And it is Swisher’s book rather than Ross’s that, on some key points, is supported by the other serious accounts of camp david: Israeli minister and negotiator Shlomo Ben Ami’s in Scars of War, Wounds of Peace, and charles Enderlin’s in Shattered Dreams.</div>
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You’ve read both books I take it? What do you think of them?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:56 pm</td></tr>
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“But I am much more likely to change my mind when people engage with me directly and explain why they oppose my views, rather than simply denouncing me”</div>
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Matt – the latter part of this statement is rather unfair.</div>
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Most people have set out to engage with your comments, to explain directly where they think you are in error and generally to offer up either interesting ideas or envidenced critique. However, it is sometimes the case that your responses do not engage with those ideas/evidence and you return to the same perspectives regardless – as if you had never read the evidence or considered the ideas.</div>
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Some – myself included – take yet more time and attempt to repeat the notions or evidence, but the same thing happens. As this is a written discussion there’s also the matter of time taken to type and open up other windows/documents in order to provide you with linked evidence. Thus, in my view, it is not that people denounce you or harangue you: they’re just so, so frustrated with this!</div>
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I say this not to add my number to the ‘denouncers’ but as positive criticism.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 2:18 pm</td></tr>
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Penny, thanks for the ‘positive criticism’, but I don’t think anyone could read this thread and say I’ve failed to engage with criticisms. I’ve gone to great lengths, clearing time in my diary, to answer every comment, even remarks that were rather personal and insulting. could it be that if I ‘return to the same perspective’ it’s not that I haven’t have ‘never read the evidence or considered the ideas’ but that I don’t find it convincing? could you point me to some evidence or ideas that you think are so persuasive that only stubbornness can explain my failure to adapt my views? Either on this thread or some new evidence or argument you think I should pay attention to? I’ve mentioned some of the ways Harry’s Place has caused me to change my views or complicate them; I’m sorry if in other respects I’m yet to be persuaded after all of six posts over a few months.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 2:29 pm</td></tr>
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And Penny, I didn’t claim EVERYONE simply denounces me – I said I have learnt from some valuable criticisms. But you can’t deny there have been some posters who have simply resorted to cheap attacks. It’s those I refer to. All I was saying is that I’m more likely to be persuaded by constructive criticisms. I find your comments articulate and reasonable in general, so I wasn’t including you amongst the denouncers.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 2:30 pm</td></tr>
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Do you have any favourite books on the Middle East, Penny?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 2:41 pm</td></tr>
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I wonder what those who strongly support Israel do for history. Most of the more famous Israeli historians lean to the left. There’s Avi Shlaim and Tom Segev, both of whom I think are great. Not such a fan of Ilan Pappe, who I think fits his history to an agenda; the same goes for Ephraim Karsh on the other side, for me.</div>
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Benny Morris is an interesting case. The content of his history is similar to Shlaim’s and Segev’s, but his policy prescriptions and political views are hawkish. I admire that: he stares the reality of Israeli actions full in the face, rather than trying to turn history into advocacy. So he admits many Palestinians were basically forcibly ejected from the country in 1948 and describes the process in great detail; indeed he’s the authority on the subject of the ‘transfer’ of Palestinians. He dismisses the propagandistic claim that the Arabs all left because their leaders order them to. But he argues the process, while regrettable and inhumane, was necessary for the foundation of the state, and even argues Israel should have gone further and expelled all Arabs. It’s rather appalling and racist if you ask me, but it’s very honest.</div>
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Who else is there? There’s Van creveld, but he’s only written a little about Israel. colin Shindler? Martin Gilbert? Arno J. Mayer is very leftwing. Shlomo Ben Ami leans leftwards even though he was a cabinet minister. I haven’t read Baruch Kimmerling but I understand he’s extremely leftwing.</div>
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I’d actually like to read some more history from writers outside the New Historian mold, if anyone can recommend some.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 2:52 pm</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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This is my overall view and, judging by some comments here and in the course of debating your earlier articles, the ‘frustration’ element is not limited to me.</div>
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It isn’t a matter of ‘if in other respects I’m yet to be persuaded’ either. It isn’t that others keep thumping an insubstantial table, pushing points that. in your view, are without strength and merit. It’s rather more than that.</div>
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I’ve tried to point you towards what I perceive as the issue that takes us away from debate and into the unfortunate realms of the personal. If you can’t see it, Matt, then you can’t. As comments are removed after a fairly short period of time it’s not possible to trawl back over them and show you specific examples – and even if these comments were still there I would suggest that this is not my task to undertake, but yours.</div>
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Something keeps going awry, Matt. This personal element happens again and again and it really isn’t the case that every person who comments on HP is somehow at fault. I’m only positively – and with good intentions – giving you my view of why it happens.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:04 pm</td></tr>
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“Do you have any favourite books on the Middle East, Penny?”</div>
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Some that have already been named, Matt. I’m currently making my way through the not-insubstantial ‘Oslo Syndrome’, written by historian and psychiatrist, Kenneth Levin. The mix of history with behaviour is, thus far, interesting and worthy of recommendation.</div>
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However, although I find books valuable insofar as they have provided me with the information and opinions required to understand and keep abreast of the issues, I don’t see them as the definitive tool in the box. They provide you with straight lines to read, but not necessarily the ability to see what’s between those lines.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Think of England</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:07 pm</td></tr>
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I do have a problem with someone who considers the works of anti-Semites (like Finkelstein) not in toto but in pieces; who tries to explain away praise for groups like Hezbollah and Hamas (as just freedom fighters, but, sure, they do bad things too, right?) and then asks implicitly to be treated as a decent person. I don’t have to spent my precious time reading Finkelstein and others like them, in the hopes that they have something to tell me. I can stop at their love of Hezbollah and condemn the entirety of what they write because of that alone. It’s exactly the same as saying, sure the Nazis did bad things but they ran orphanages too, so we got to grant them that, right? No, we don’t. Who cares if the serial killer down the street helps old ladies with their groceries? It doesn’t mitigate anything.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:12 pm</td></tr>
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“I wonder what those who strongly support Israel do for history. Most of the more famous Israeli historians lean to the left”</div>
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And introduce an immediate bias! As would any writer with a political bent be they left, right, centre or half-way round the corner. As I said before, Matt, I’ve spent too many years in this particular arena and find having to align ones opinions to any political party not only restrictive but dull, stupefying and leading to dangerous habitual responses and stagnation. To say nothing of occasionally challenging the integrity. That’s my inside and personal opinion – which I know is rather different from other considerations.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>son</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:14 pm</td></tr>
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Matt Hill @ 30 December 2011, 6:09 am<br />
‘So Khartoum quite clearly no longer applies. It’s true the Arab world has a history of rejectionism with regard to Israel, but I don’t think it makes sense to quote resolutions adopted 45 years ago as some kind of ‘gotcha’ proof that the Arab world rejects Israel’s existence’.</div>
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Really, the Arab world does not reject Israel’s existence? Big news, I must let all of Israel know this! Matt, go away and read all the books you want, who knows, you may learn something but from your responses here, I have my doubts whether all that reading will truly bring about in you a deeper understanding.</div>
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And BTW, 45 years is not even a blip in the ongoing struggle.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:16 pm</td></tr>
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Oh, I see. You’re one of the posters who’s tried to psychoanalyse me to understand how I could come to such eccentric views and express them in such a way. Forget what I said about your posts being intelligent – I must have been mistaking you for someone else. You wouldn’t pay any intention if I tried to teach you important truths about yourself that had so far escaped your grasp, and neither will I listen to you if you do the same. You can call this pig-headedness; I would simply say that, knowing very little of me indeed, you’re unlikely to be able to discover very much from a few hundred words every couple of weeks on Israel-Palestine. In fact, that you should presume to try and do so strikes me as rather hilarious. Not only that, but it quite frankly has fuck all to do with this subject. Attempts to infer some profound truths about me that myself and my friends and family have missed are not ‘rather more’ than a discussion about Israel, but a great deal less, Penny. I think the moment things go ‘awry’ is when you log onto the internet and somehow mistake yourself for my psychoanalyst or social worker. If you are truly able to psychoanalyse people on the basis of a few online comments, I would urge you to put this almost preternatural talent to good use, and take up analysis as a profession. Or perhaps horoscopes would be more suited to your skills. If you read my posts and think my psychology is the real issue at stake here, I respectfully suggest that you try and extend your imagination a little to conceive of how perfectly ordinary people can come to conclusions different to your own. Not everyone who is less than enthusiastic about a 45 year military occupation over 3.7 million people is necessarily a mental health case, incredible though it may be to you. And I say all this with all due respect, which is not very much, quite honestly.</div>
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Feel free to amuse me by psychoanalysing the preceding. Or you could try something really exotic and stick to the matter at hand.</div>
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I’m normally pretty civil round here, but give me a fucking break.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:17 pm</td></tr>
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That was re. Penny.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:25 pm</td></tr>
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Think of England</div>
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‘I do have a problem with someone [. . .] who tries to explain away praise for groups like Hezbollah and Hamas (as just freedom fighters, but, sure, they do bad things too, right?)’</div>
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are you referring to me here or Finkelstein?</div>
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‘I don’t have to spent my precious time reading Finkelstein and others like them, in the hopes that they have something to tell me. I can stop at their love of Hezbollah and condemn the entirety of what they write because of that alone.’</div>
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I agree you don’t have to read him but I disagree you can condemn everything he has to write on that basis. If you choose not to read him, that’s absolutely fair enough, you will just have to restrict your comments to what you do know of him.</div>
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‘It’s exactly the same as saying, sure the Nazis did bad things but they ran orphanages too, so we got to grant them that, right?’</div>
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I’d say it’s more like saying that Nietzsche was anti-semitic but produced some work of value.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:28 pm</td></tr>
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Penny,</div>
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‘although I find books valuable insofar as they have provided me with the information and opinions required to understand and keep abreast of the issues, I don’t see them as the definitive tool in the box. They provide you with straight lines to read, but not necessarily the ability to see what’s between those lines.’</div>
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Yes, instinct and blind prejudice are so much more useful than knowledge, aren’t they? It reminds me of what a taxi driver once said to Stewart Lee: ‘Well, you can prove anything with facts, can’t you?’</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:30 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Unfortunately my unusual stamina is restricted to intellectual debate, as my girlfriend has often lamented.</i></div>
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If this is an example of a thread that isn’t about you, I shudder to think what it would be like if it were about you.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:33 pm</td></tr>
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Penny,<br />
Well said. You have put your finger on what’s wrong with Hill’s entire approach: he reads books, he has a little learning, but he hasn’t experienced any of it. That fact notwithstanding, he thinks he can lecture from the pulpit to those who have.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:33 pm</td></tr>
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‘And introduce an immediate bias! As would any writer with a political bent be they left, right, centre or half-way round the corner.’</div>
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So a political ‘bent’ undermines authors who write about politics? can you name me any writers on Israel-Palestine or any other political issue that AREN’T left, right, centre or half-way round the corner, as you put it?</div>
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I’m arguing with someone who thinks s/he knows all about me from reading a few blog posts, that books get in the way of learning, and that people who write about politics shouldn’t have any views on politics. I suddenly feel it’s a bit unfair to carry on.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:33 pm</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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An over-reaction I think.</div>
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Where have I tried to psychoanalyse you? Show me ONE – just ONE – instance.</div>
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This has NOTHING to do with psychoanalysis, Matt. You keep getting attacked on a personal level. Not something I like. I’ve tried to tell you why I think this is and I’ve named it. Look back at that first comment, Matt. I’ve NAMED the reasons and not a one of them is remotely psychological.</div>
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I can’t point out examples because they don’t exist anymore. And even if they did, do you not think it’s a little high-handed to expect ME to give up tons of time and trawl back over them to show you? Jesus, Matt. You’ve done this before and I’ve said this already but you and I are not Jeeves and bloody Wooster.</div>
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You’ve really over-reacted here and accused me of whatever is in your mind – but certainly was NEVER in mine.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:36 pm</td></tr>
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I’ve had several people here try and tell me exactly what my problem is. I’ve been told I suffer from narcissistic personality syndrome in a previous thread, that I may be autistic, that I like diaspora Jewish culture because unconsciously I want Jews to be weak, and so on. I thought you were telling me you were responsible for some of those posts when you said you had strayed into the realm of the personal. Is that so?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>son</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:37 pm</td></tr>
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A wise Proverb (ch.26, v4):</div>
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Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.<br />
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.</div>
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Shabat Shalom everyone and all good wishes for a peaceful 2012 year</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:43 pm</td></tr>
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Abu,</div>
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Sorry to hear you’re down on your luck. I really hope it turns around soon.</div>
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(I hear there’s an opening for someone who can both think and write, over at Vanity Fair and Slate.com…. :-)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:47 pm</td></tr>
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Penny, if I was mistaken and it wasn’t you who was responsible for diagnosing me with autism and NPS and anti-semitism, I apologise. I seem to have gone a bit batshit on the wrong person. Reading back over your post it seems you were saying that you’ve tried to tell me why things get personal here, whereas I misread you as saying you’ve personally tried to help me by going into the realms of the personal – which caused me to mistake you for someone else who is constantly trying to tell me I’m mentally ill. It seems it was a mistake and I apologise – also for the snarky and uncalled-for tone of my last few posts. I think I’m pretty civil round here normally but I do resent it when it gets personal. I made a mistake and directed some comments at you that were meant for someone else. Hope you accept my apology.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:49 pm</td></tr>
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Matt – I don’t *think* Penny ever said anything like that – I know you have had some very unpleasant things said to you before both here and elsewhere, so some over reaction/sensitivity is quite understandable.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:49 pm</td></tr>
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Nope. Nothing remotely personal, Matt. Nothing whatsoever.</div>
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Nothing psychoanalytical – I’m not that bloody pompous.</div>
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Some things were just obvious to me: you put out the question, you say you want feedback, you’re tired of the personal attacks. I offered up an opinion but it was NOT personal and has nothing to do with any trait you’ve mentioned in your comment of 3.36</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:50 pm</td></tr>
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Ah – comments crossed.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:50 pm</td></tr>
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‘If this is an example of a thread that isn’t about you, I shudder to think what it would be like if it were about you.’</div>
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Well, I’d have preferred to keep to talking about books but it was derailed some time ago. Sorry you didn’t like my little joke. Do you have any books to recommend, Peter?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:55 pm</td></tr>
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Actually I quite enjoyed both Matt’s joke and Peter’s reply.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:55 pm</td></tr>
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Penny – sorry – I originally said I think you’re reasonable and thoughtful and then I thought you were identifying yourself as the other of some of the more loathsome things that have been said about me. I see now I was wrong so nothing I said a moment ago relates to you. My other posts were also unfairly snarky.</div>
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This thread became quite interesting for a while so it’d be good to get back to reasonable discussion.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:04 pm</td></tr>
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One thing I would say: I also write quite regularly for Liberal conspiracy, which has a similarly large readership and feisty comments threads. And over there the comments are never personal. They’re often nasty and accusations of anti-semitism are thrown around like confetti. But nobody ever wants to talk about me over there. Which as an incurable narcissist obviously upsets me a great deal!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:07 pm</td></tr>
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“My other posts were also unfairly snarky”</div>
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Yes, they were, Matt. And crammed with stuff I’ve never said nor, I believe, can be inferred from anything I’ve ever written. But let’s move on.</div>
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How about straightening out this rather unfair swipe “that books get in the way of learning, and that people who write about politics shouldn’t have any views on politics”?</div>
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Of course, I didn’t say that, but, as I said, let’s move on from the ‘he said, she said’ thing. Do you not think that books can only take you some of the way, Matt, and that other factors then come into play?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:23 pm</td></tr>
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Yes, fair enough Penny. As I said, I was being snarky because I briefly mistook you for one of the worst trolls around here. It’s true, of course, like horses and water, you can lead a student to a reading list, but you can’t make him or her understand anything. There are some subjects, like physics or geography, say, where learning (from books or the lab or the field) is all you need. But in others, to varying degrees, you need to understand people and human affairs. Literature is a good example of a subject where you won’t get anywhere without some understanding of people. Politics and history to a large extent too: Finkelstein strikes me as a good example of someone who may lack understanding of human psychology. Then you need moral courage and, most importantly I think, the humility to accept you’re probably wrong about a lot and have plenty to learn, whoever you are, and that the guy who disagrees most strongly with you often has the most to teach you. You also need a certain amount of steely determination to cut through the crap and understand anything – as Orwell says, it takes a constant effort just to see what’s in front of your nose. So I agree: book-learnin’ ain’t everythin’. Then again, it helps a lot. It’s a necessary but not a sufficient condition of a real understanding of a given topic, if I can put it in terms that I read in a book not so long ago.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:27 pm</td></tr>
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I think for most people, as I was saying to Sarah AB recently, opinions are like marriage: most people have a few wild, promiscuous years in their youth, but sooner or later settle down with the ideas that feel comfortable and reassuring, and then tend to stick faithfully to them, no matter what – barring the odd midlife fling, soon repented. It’s a real challenge to stay open to different ideas; loyalty may be good for spouses but bad for thinkers and writers.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:30 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Forget what I said about your posts being intelligent – I must have been mistaking you for someone else. You wouldn’t pay any intention if I tried to teach you important truths about yourself that had so far escaped your grasp, and neither will I listen to you if you do the same…….. Feel free to amuse me by psychoanalysing the preceding. Or you could try something really exotic and stick to the matter at hand.</i></div>
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<i>I’m normally pretty civil round here, but give me a fucking break</i></div>
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Exceptional rude arrogance from a playground kid who, granted a priveliege of threads amongst the adults at HP then seeks to belittle anyone who dares argue with him. You lack manners and a disregard for your elders and betters (im metaphorical and actual senses).</div>
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There is no need for anyone to psychoanalyse you when you present us with such an explicit print-out.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:35 pm</td></tr>
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” loyalty may be good for spouses but bad for thinkers and writers.”</div>
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And politicians.</div>
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I speak from personal experience of knocking on doors and being a) accused of every wrong committed by Maggie Thatcher, Tony Blair and Charles Kennedy. Which was….interesting. I’ve also knocked on the doors of people who haven’t got any interest in the current political climate but will vote nonetheless. I say without any exaggeration that I’ve had way too many instances of being told “I’m voting for X party – like my father and his father before him”<br />
Even if X Party is about to run a motorway across the bottom of their garden, you can’t change their minds.</div>
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Taught me a lot about the need to audit perceptions on a regular basis!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:39 pm</td></tr>
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<i>it wasn’t you who was responsible for diagnosing me with autism</i></div>
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It wasn’t me either even though I have an interest in autism. If you had an autistic spectrum diagnosis its nothing to worry about. It has nothing to do with intelligence and ability. High functioning autism, for example, relates usually to personality and an inability to respond to nuance cues that most people would respond-to and in other cases respond and interpret where most other people wouldn’t.</div>
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I’d be fairly sure that some HP posters would diagnose as having an autistic spectrum. Being a “Spectrum” rather than an absolute most people will on the scale.</div>
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So, if you feel bad at carrying that tag or having the tag thrown at you then there is no need to. Its a “so what”?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:42 pm</td></tr>
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Dcook,</div>
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I retracted that statement and it’s simply untrue that I belittle anyone who argues. I get annoyed when people make personal statements and irrelevant criticisms. But I relish serious debate and whenever I post here I take time out to answer every comment.</div>
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Penny,</div>
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What many of us who are into politics forget is that most people only think about politics about once every two years. In fact that’s sadly the most important lesson most politicians need to understand. It doesn’t matter what they do – most people will vote the way they do because they like their tie, or because they think the other guy looks suspicious.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:44 pm</td></tr>
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Dcook,</div>
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I have an interest in autism too for reasons I won’t go into here. But let me say that it’s not so much I consider telling someone they’re autistic is the worst thing you can say to them. It’s more that I resent the attempt to analyse my personality from what I write – it’s insulting, irrelevant, patronising, pointless and bloody annoying.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alec</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:49 pm</td></tr>
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Are people trying to make this thread a 1,000 comments one?</div>
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~alec</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:52 pm</td></tr>
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“I think this is a fair explanation of events up to 1993, but since then the Palestinian leadership has been the much more willing side to negotiate peace”<br />
What?! Who walked away in 2000 and started a terror war instead of a counter offer? Who has never responded to Olmert’s offer? And who refuses to sit at the negotiating table to this very day? This statement alone shows your pattern of inability understand the basic facts. As for Sharon taking no steps toward peace, he is the one who despite a history of staunch support for the settlement enterprise, decided to unilaterally disengage from territories in Gaza and the West Bank. That is, when it was clear there was no one to negotiate with, he took a (clearly in retrospect) HUGE risk on his own! Also you claim that Israel rules over another country… what country is that? Next you say that Israel’s presence should be more benign. Implying (as you have before and still haven’t answered to) that rather than there being an actual terror threat that requires checkpoints and the like, this is simply a sinister system put in place to allow soldiers and settlers to act out their masochistic fantasies. What would this benign system entail? The removal of vast numbers of checkpoints within the constraints of security? Afraid Netanyahu has already done that, but being on the Israeli side it won’t gain him any credit from the likes of you. Instead you’ll continue to praise the Palestinian leadership for saying things that your magic decoder ring seems to imply a willingness to accept peace, while their words to their own people continue to make this an impossibility. If Abbas were to sign over the RoR for “peace”, and elections were then held, wouldn’t the desires of the Palestinian people required that they elect Hamas? And then what would that piece of paper be worth? Would you support a reoccupation for security purposes? What would have been gained through the use of this decoder ring that deprives the people of a voice and makes Palestine the inevitable next domino in the Islamist spring?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:53 pm</td></tr>
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“It’s more that I resent the attempt to analyse my personality from what I write ”</div>
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I don’t think that’s really happened, Matt. Some may have thrown out the odd apparently-psychological term, but I don’t think it was with any serious notion of a diagnosis.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:54 pm</td></tr>
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I’m sorry, I said masochistic fantasies when I meant sadistic. Masochistic would be my insistence on continuing to read your posts.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:54 pm</td></tr>
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Alec, I have the day off work and this one turned into a meandering chat a long time ago, with its ups and downs, peaks and troughs, insults and apologies, angry fights and tearful reconciliations, all interrupted by short bursts of argument. I’m not going out – it’s NYE tomorrow. There are worse ways to waste an day.</div>
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~matt</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:56 pm</td></tr>
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Penny,</div>
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‘I don’t think that’s really happened, Matt.’</div>
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Elsewhere, not here.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:59 pm</td></tr>
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To be honest I was really impressed by all the changes in positions that you said you’d made, though you were loathe to admit them at the time. But by insisting on conforming your preexisting beliefs to these new realizations (eg. yes I realize that the Palestinians are against giving up RoR, but I am somehow certain that their leaders are for it, so I can still say that this is the side that is pro-peace despite claiming to be for democracy and the will of the people) you have actually made no progress at all, clinging to these preconceived notions on new even more shaky foundations. If that’s a psychological diagnosis, I apologize, but I’m pretty sure it stands up.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:02 pm</td></tr>
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I’ll add one more. If you admit that the border will not be the 1949 armistice line, why should Israelis not live there – especially in the settlements that any peace deal would most assuredly leave on the Israeli side? Regardless, why would Israel not settle there? If this land wasn’t considered Palestinian before the 1967 war, couldn’t it be said that they are trying to gain territory through a war? The only difference is that the land would be going to the losers of the war rather than the winners.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:08 pm</td></tr>
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<i>I’ve gone to great lengths, clearing time in my diary</i></div>
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That’s big of you. Actually, it’s more narcissism. You’ve asked for help, and now you want a pat on the back for deigning to reply to criticisms of your position.<br />
And actually no, you have not replied to all points levelled at you.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Think of England</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:21 pm</td></tr>
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<i>I’d say it’s more like saying that Nietzsche was anti-semitic but produced some work of value.</i></div>
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Maybe you should read Nietzsche again; he wasn’t anti-Semitic at all. Used by anti-Semites, but not himself. In any event, in discussing philosophy, assuming that a person’s views concerning a particular group of people clearly has no relation to their views on other matters, say, physics, or Chinese history, or programming, then those racist type views would be irrelevant in judging the worth of that person’s writing. However the writings of someone like Finkelstein, who is clearly a Jew-hater, since they are in the area of mideast politics, can be wholly dismissed. You will never, assuming you want to, disentangle his statements from his Jew-hatred and, frankly, for a gas bag like him, why bother? I suppose in his matter, Chomsky is a better example as he, unlike Finkelstein, has actually made contributions, albeit in a different field. He’s a well regarded linguist but a rabid Jew hater; so I’d study is work on linguistics (but also there to ever mindful of his bias) but would not bother reading anything he has to say about Israel, Jews, Muslims, the mideast.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:21 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Do you have any books to recommend, Peter?</i></div>
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Archaeology books about the excavations at Qumran, Masada, Meggido, and of course Jerusalem – written by the excavators themselves. Yadin, obviously, and all the others. Unless you get to understand the continuity of Jewish history in Israel, which I don’t believe you do, I don’t think you can grasp why we feel such resentment at being told we have no business being in Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Shchem, even Tiberias and Safed.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:23 pm</td></tr>
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BTW, how does this quote jive with your peaceful leadership:<br />
“If you [Arab states] want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don’t have the ability to do it.”<br />
-Abbas</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:33 pm</td></tr>
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‘Who walked away in 2000 and started a terror war instead of a counter offer? Who has never responded to Olmert’s offer? And who refuses to sit at the negotiating table to this very day?’</div>
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I don’t agree with this representation of events. Have you read Ross, Swisher or Enderlin on camp david? And what do you mean by Olmert’s offer? There was the 2007 Annapolis conference where the two sides were quite close. There have been offers on both sides – see the Arab League peace plan – but frankly since 2007 the ‘peace process’ has turned into a propaganda war where both sides attempt to blame the other for the lack of progress.</div>
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‘This statement alone shows your pattern of inability understand the basic facts.’</div>
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I understand but don’t agree.</div>
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‘As for Sharon taking no steps toward peace, he is the one who despite a history of staunch support for the settlement enterprise, decided to unilaterally disengage from territories in Gaza and the West Bank. That is, when it was clear there was no one to negotiate with, he took a (clearly in retrospect) HUGE risk on his own!’</div>
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The Gaza withdrawal was simply part of a plan Sharon was unable to complete, with the aim of redeploying from the major population centres in the territories and therefore shoring up Israel’s rule over the rest. Sharon figured Israel would lose little by giving up a poor strip of land full of refugees. The idea was the give up Gaza and to keep most of the West Bank, leaving its residents in disconnected semi-autonomous little enclaves. The removal of the settlers was just theatre for the watching world – Sharon could have just told them they could no longer count on IDF protection from a certain date, and the lot of them would have ‘redeployed’ pretty quickly.</div>
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Anyway, the ‘withdrawal’ has hardly been a boon to Gazans. Unemployment and poverty are up due to the blockade. Israel continues to control borders, sea and air. It continues to enter and attack at will. It’s still an occupation.</div>
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And I’m not ignoring the role of Qassam rockets fired at Sderot and Ashkelon in all this. Targeting civilians is always wrong, and the fact that few casualties result compared to the casualties Israel inflicts is not due to Hamas’s superior virtue but its inferior weaponry. The rockets are a disgrace to Hamas and a defilement of the Palestinian cause. There is talk that Hamas are largely abandoning armed struggle – I hope that’s so, and that Israel responds positively if it turns out to be true.</div>
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‘Also you claim that Israel rules over another country… what country is that?’</div>
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Are you going to say the West Bank and Gaza aren’t a country because they’re not a state? Whatever: 3.7 million people and their land, which is 22% of mandate Palestine.</div>
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‘Next you say that Israel’s presence should be more benign. Implying (as you have before and still haven’t answered to) that rather than there being an actual terror threat that requires checkpoints and the like, this is simply a sinister system put in place to allow soldiers and settlers to act out their masochistic fantasies.’</div>
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No: I think the reasons for the occupation are complex, and have nothing to do with Israel being inherently nasty. I think the reasons are a complex mix of accident, thoughtlessness and messianic fervour post-1967; realpolitik on the part of governments faced with anti-democratic, expansionist parties following Jabotinsky or the Bible; security concerns, to a large extent understandable; and several other factors. Gershom Gorenberg’s book ‘The Accidental Empire’ is my Bible on how the settlement project came about.</div>
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‘What would this benign system entail?’</div>
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A Palestinian state. Or, failing that, the end of the settlement project whose overriding purpose is to make the relinquishment of the territories, and therefore peace, impossible.</div>
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‘The removal of vast numbers of checkpoints within the constraints of security? Afraid Netanyahu has already done that, but being on the Israeli side it won’t gain him any credit from the likes of you.’</div>
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No, you’re right, Netanyahu will have to do a bit more than that to get praise from me! What do you want, for the Palestinians to fall over and thank him for his merciful, enlightened rule?</div>
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‘Instead you’ll continue to praise the Palestinian leadership’</div>
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I criticise them all the time. When the last serious proposals were made, at Annapolis, neither side made an offer I thought was truly reasonable, but they were getting close.</div>
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’saying things that your magic decoder ring seems to imply a willingness to accept peace’</div>
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Just look at the Palestine Papers – it’s been said openly that the PA isn’t claiming a RoR, and this is in the public domain.</div>
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‘If Abbas were to sign over the RoR for “peace”, and elections were then held, wouldn’t the desires of the Palestinian people required that they elect Hamas?’</div>
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I don’t understand this question.</div>
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‘Would you support a reoccupation for security purposes?’</div>
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If Hamas were elected as government of a future Palestine? Well, I assume any peace deal would disarm all Palestinian militias and make adequate provisions for Israel’s security. But I support Israel’s right to defend itself like any other state. It would depend on what happened – I wouldn’t rule out a reoccupation if it was the only way for Israel to protect itself.</div>
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I don’t agree with your points but thanks for expressing them reasonably and for engaging substantively.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:41 pm</td></tr>
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‘I’ll add one more. If you admit that the border will not be the 1949 armistice line, why should Israelis not live there – especially in the settlements that any peace deal would most assuredly leave on the Israeli side?’</div>
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Ok, if you think the 1967 line is meaningless, are you ok with Palestinians settling in ‘Israel’? Of course, they may have to impose some pretty draconian measures on surrounding Israelis for their own security, but that would be fine with you, right? Or is the border only porous one way, for you?</div>
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The reason the border will have to be changed is because some elements in Israel want to make it as hard as possible to achieve peace by handing back the land. It’s a shitty fact but we have to live with it; we can’t uproot all those people. If there’s a way to keep them in their homes, they should stay and the Palestinians should be compensated with equal land. Those deep in the West Bank will have to go, or there’ll be no peace – which is, of course, the whole reason they’re there.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Think of England</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:42 pm</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.israellycool.com/2010/07/20/a-taste-of-concentration-camp-gaza-the-grand-palace-hotel/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">Here’s</a> an example of the poverty in Gaza. There are many more like this hotel; riding stables; amusement parks; cars, many cars. In many ways, it’s much better off than other parts of the Arab world.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:50 pm</td></tr>
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Peter,</div>
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‘Unless you get to understand the continuity of Jewish history in Israel, which I don’t believe you do, I don’t think you can grasp why we feel such resentment at being told we have no business being in Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Shchem, even Tiberias and Safed.’</div>
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I don’t say Jews have no right to live in those places. They do – there’s no reason to bar anyone from living anywhere on the basis of ethnicity, especially if they have a historical link to those places. But the towns you mention in the West Bank must form part of a future Palestine if you believe in one at all, and if you don’t, what are you going to do with 3.7 million Arabs and counting? I’m in favour of Jews being offered residency or citizenship in a future state of Palestine, with appropriate security guarantees. It may not be possible at first but it’s an important principle and I condemned the Palestinian movement for planning to exclude Jews in a post at Liberal conspiracy.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>davem</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:51 pm</td></tr>
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<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fcfbf9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(222, 213, 190); border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-left-style: double; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-right-style: double; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(244, 241, 233); border-top-style: double; border-top-width: 1px; font-size: 11px; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0.5em; padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">
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Anyway, the ‘withdrawal’ has hardly been a boon to Gazans. Unemployment and poverty are up due to the blockade. Israel continues to control borders, sea and air. It continues to enter and attack at will. It’s still an occupation.</div>
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The blockade didn’t occur until after Hamas took power (first by elections and then by throwing Fatah members from the roofs)</div>
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news bbc co uk /1/ hi/ world/ middle_east/ 7545636 stm</div>
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The strip was out under a heightened Israeli blockade since the militant group Hamas seized control in June 2007. Israel wants to weaken Hamas, end rocket attacks from Gaza and get back captured soldier Gilad Shalit.</div>
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then</div>
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And I’m not ignoring the role of Qassam rockets fired at Sderot and Ashkelon in all this. Targeting civilians is always wrong, and the fact that few casualties result compared to the casualties Israel inflicts is not due to Hamas’s superior virtue but its inferior weaponry. <b>The rockets are a disgrace to Hamas</b> and a defilement of the Palestinian cause. There is talk that Hamas are largely abandoning armed struggle – I hope that’s so, and that Israel responds positively if it turns out to be true.</div>
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The rockets are a disgrace to Hamas? Surely their Charter is a disgrace to Hamas. (specifically articles 7,17,20,22,28 – the Rotary Clubs one – and 32) Hamas are a disgrace, as they’re fascists. Their charter reads like something from a Combat 18 website. Simple really.</div>
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Either Hamas are abandoning armed struggle or not. Largely abandoning armed struggle makes no sense. Plus whatever this talk is, it sure isn’t emerging from Ismail Haniya.</div>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/ZBFPVwh1h_Y" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://youtu.be/ZBFPVwh1h_Y</a></div>
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Ismail Haniya: This is the message of Hamas. This is the identity of Hamas. This is the very being of Hamas. Today, Hamas marches along parallel tracks: the track of da’wa and education, the track of resistance and Jihad, and the track of rule and of politics. This is the best response to those who think to themselves, or imagine, that Hamas has withdrawn from the line of resistance, and has withdrawn from the confrontation with this enemy.</div>
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Today, we say, in a clear and unambiguous fashion: The armed resistance and armed struggle are our strategic choice and our path to liberate the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, and to drive the usurping invaders out of the blessed land of Palestine.</div>
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The Hamas movement, which was born in the first Intifada, and lived through the second Intifada, with the grace of Allah, and with the help of this people and all its free man, and with the strong-willed resistance factions of the people, will continue to lead one Intifada after the other, until we liberate Palestine in its entirety, Allah willing.</div>
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Crowd: Allah Akbar. Allah be praised.</div>
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Allah Akbar. Allah be praised.</div>
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Allah Akbar. Allah be praised.</div>
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Ismail Haniya: The rally bears the title: “Jerusalem, We Are Coming.” Indeed, we are coming. Everything that the enemy is doing in Jerusalem – Judacizing it, establishing settlements in it, destroying the Mughrabi Bridge, closing the Mughrabi Gate, expelling the Palestinian MPs and ministers from Jerusalem, and the excavations [under] the Al-Aqsa Mosque… All these things are futile, and cannot change a thing. Jerusalem belongs to us, not to the oppressors. Jerusalem is Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic. I don’t mean only East Jerusalem. Jerusalem in its entirety is the capital of the state of Palestine, Allah willing.</div>
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Therefore, in an effort to strengthen the bond of the Islamic nation and the capitals of the Arab revolution to Jerusalem and to Al-Aqsa, we issue a call from this place, from the heart of glorious Gaza, from Jerusalem and its environs to establish the “Army of Jerusalem” in the Arab capitals and the capitals of the revolution, in order to take action to liberate Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, Allah willing.</div>
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[…]</div>
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The principles [of Hamas] are definitive and non-negotiable: Palestine means Palestine in its entirety, from the River to the Sea. There will be no concession of a single inch of the land of Palestine. The fact that Hamas, at one stage or another, accepts the goal of gradual liberation – of Gaza, of the West Bank, or of Jerusalem – is not at the expense of our strategic vision with regard to the land of Palestine. We will work with our people with regard to the things upon which we agree politically, and we will exert all our efforts and our power of resistance to achieve this common goal. However, we maintain two conditions – as I am sure do many of our people, as well as the factions of the mujahideen and the resistance: first, that we will not concede a single inch of the land of Palestine, and second, that we will not recognize Israel.</div>
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[…]</div>
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<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Here’s a simple rule for looking at what goes on in the ME.</div>
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What’s said in Arabic > What’s said in English.</div>
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Every single time.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:56 pm</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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You have just provided me with an example of what I meant in my first comment:</div>
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“There have been offers on both sides – see the Arab League peace plan..”</div>
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You have mentioned this before – I know because I replied, asking to what extent the AL was trustworthy and able to exert any influence anyway, given their extremely late response to events in Syria and – to date – the lack of outcomes in this country. How many thousands died before the AL were provoked into a comment? What good are they doing now?</div>
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If you were in a position of government in Israel and seeing this example of Arab League involvement play out in front of you, would you really be willing to put your trust in the AL to swiftly resolve any deviation from their peace plan? Bearing in mind that you are responsible for 7.5 million lives?</div>
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I believe Abu Faris added to my perspectives on the AL. We argued a point that is clearly current, valid and grounded in evidence but received no response. When you bring it back again but have ignored previous arguments, it becomes frustrating.</div>
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I hope you can see that example, Matt.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:56 pm</td></tr>
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‘BTW, how does this quote jive with your peaceful leadership:<br />
“If you [Arab states] want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don’t have the ability to do it.”<br />
-Abbas’</div>
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What a stupid thing to say. What’s your source (I’m not doubting you)? Obviously he said it because he knows it will never happen, but it was still stupid. Yes, I understand why many Israelis and their leaders distrust Palestinians when they say things like this. I may write something about it to post at a more lefty website. It’s stupid and irresponsible and it doesn’t help the peace process at all. Then again, Israel is occupying half the Palestinian territory, remember. It invaded the other half in 2008-9. What’s more aggressive – a threat to invade/occupy your neighnour, or actually invading/occupying your neighbour?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:03 pm</td></tr>
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‘Hamas are a disgrace, as they’re fascists.’</div>
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Sure. I bow to no man in my loathing of Hamas.</div>
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‘Either Hamas are abandoning armed struggle or not. Largely abandoning armed struggle makes no sense.’</div>
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Well, presumably it means greatly reducing attacks on civilians. I hope so, anyway, though I’m not holding my breath.</div>
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‘Plus whatever this talk is, it sure isn’t emerging from Ismail Haniya.’</div>
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No, it’s coming from his boss, Khaled Meshal. See this from Haaretz:</div>
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‘The announcement of the new mode of struggle sparked a series of angry reactions by senior figures in Hamas’ political wing in Gaza; they, who had been considered more pragmatic, perhaps even moderate in their approach, endorsed a much tougher approach than Meshal’s. However, this was not a case of a conservative ideology flying in the face of the new line articulated by Meshal: What really irked the Gaza officials, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, Interior Minister Fathi Hamad, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar and others, was that they were not consulted before the announcement of the new policy was made.’</div>
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<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/is-israel-witnessing-the-rise-of-a-kinder-gentler-hamas-1.404543" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/is-israel-witnessing-the-rise-of-a-kinder-gentler-hamas-1.404543</a>(informative article)</div>
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Before I’m misinterpreted, I’m not complimenting Hamas for announcing that it may be about to stop murdering people. I just hope it means something and that it’s positive, though I’m not holding my breath.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>davem</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:04 pm</td></tr>
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Not just that but Israel doesn’t control the Rafa border crossing. Egypt controls it.</div>
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Israel doesn’t enter Gaza at will, it responds to being attacked.</div>
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So if a blockade is the same as an occupation then by that logic the USA occupies Cuba, and the EU occupy Northern Cyprus.</div>
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Matt, you can’t play around with the definitions of words, expanding them and making them vague to move the goalposts at will. You have to be precise.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:13 pm</td></tr>
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Penny,</div>
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‘If you were in a position of government in Israel and seeing this example of Arab League involvement play out in front of you, would you really be willing to put your trust in the AL to swiftly resolve any deviation from their peace plan? Bearing in mind that you are responsible for 7.5 million lives?’</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Welcoming the Arab League peace plan and taking it as an encouraging basis for further negotiations, rather than ignoring it as Israel did, doesn’t require Israel to trust the League utterly. I’m not saying the Arab League should be given the code to Israel nuclear weapons. Someone said the Arabs have proposed nothing; I was merely pointing out this was untrue.</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
‘I believe Abu Faris added to my perspectives on the AL. We argued a point that is clearly current, valid and grounded in evidence but received no response.’</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Sorry. I have responded this time. My point was simply to contradict somebody’s point that the Arabs have not made their own offers. That was my purpose in raising the Arab League plan on this occasion. I don’t say the plan was any kind of golden key to unlock the gates of peace; but it proves the Arab world has moved a long way from Karthoum.</div>
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Whether you like this reply or not, I hope it goes some way towards assuaging your frustration at my perceived failure to respond to reasonable criticisms. I’ll try and respond reasonably to any more while I’m here.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:28 pm</td></tr>
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davem,</div>
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‘Not just that but Israel doesn’t control the Rafa border crossing. Egypt controls it.’</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
And until now, with rare exceptions, it has done so in such a way as to please Israel.</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
‘Matt, you can’t play around with the definitions of words, expanding them and making them vague to move the goalposts at will. You have to be precise.’</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Fair point. It’s not an occupation anymore. But it is a stranglehold, and it’s just as bad or worse.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.towardsanurbanism.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Kieran</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:29 pm</td></tr>
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<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
I realize I am swimming against the tide here but surely one fault of modern political discourse is that it obsesses too much on one theme, namely the Israel-Palestinian conflict.</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
What about other human-rights issues in the Middle-East?</div>
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What about Turkey’s treatment of the Kurds for instance?</div>
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Turkey waged a brutal campaign against , mostly in the 1980’s and 90s. The oppression seemed to be on such as scale over 30,000 Kurds had been killed, thousands of Kurdish villages destroyed and perhaps up to 1 million Kurds had been turned into refugees. These events were scandalously under-reported in the Western Media.</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Can anyone recommend any good books on this subject?</div>
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Coptic Christians in Egypt are discriminated against. Al-Azhar University may be the only University which fully bars Copts from attending but it also seems that other Universities place a quota, allowing only 1-2% Copts to attend despite their actual number being about 15% of the population.</div>
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We know that Copts are often not allowed to build churches and that they are forced to live in what are basically ghetto-type areas of cities like Cairo. I have also read that they face huge discrimination in employment when they try to join state institutions such as the Army, Police or Civil Service. There is a widespread campaign of forced conversions aimed a Copts mostly women which involves kidnap, rape and forcing them to marry Muslim men. Egypt’s Parliament has just two Coptic elected representatives out of 444 total representatives. It ought to be remembered that in 1991 during Mubarak’s rule, Egypt signed the Cairo Declaration for Human Rights stating that their understanding of human rights was different to that conceived by the UN. The discrimination the Copts face may be get even worse now that regime change seems inevitable.</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Can anyone recommend any good books on this subject?</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
What about Turkey’s illegal invasion and occupation of Cyprus?<br />
There is, of course, Christopher Hitchen’s book on the subject of Cyprus which I intend to read one day.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>davem</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:43 pm</td></tr>
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<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fcfbf9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(222, 213, 190); border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-left-style: double; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-right-style: double; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(244, 241, 233); border-top-style: double; border-top-width: 1px; font-size: 11px; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0.5em; padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">
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And until now, with rare exceptions, it has done so in such a way as to please Israel.</div>
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<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
That’s not what it says here <a href="http://bit.ly/w0oh0G" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://bit.ly/w0oh0G</a></div>
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<div style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Haniya leaves Gaza for first time since 2007</div>
<div style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
(AFP) – 5 days ago</div>
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GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Hamas premier Ismail Haniya left the Gaza Strip for a regional tour on Sunday for the first time since Israel and Egypt imposed a siege in 2007, his office said.</div>
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Sources in Haniya’s office told AFP that he would visit Egypt and Sudan, after which he plans to go to Qatar, Turkey, Tunisia and Bahrain.</div>
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The primary purpose of the trip was to obtain “help and aid” to rebuild Gaza City, but Haniya was also likely to address the issue of Palestinian reconciliation in talks, they said.</div>
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Haniya entered Egypt through the Rafah crossing, recently opened after remaining largely shut since June 2006 when Israel imposed a blockade after militants snatched soldier Gilad Shalit, who was freed in October in a prisoner swap.</div>
<div style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
The blockade was tightened a year later when the Islamist Hamas seized control of the territory, ousting forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.</div>
<div style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Egypt had largely complied with the restrictions, although it occasionally opened Rafah — the only Gaza crossing that bypasses Israel — to allow aid in and students and medical cases out.</div>
<div style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<b>In May, Egypt officially reopened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza, more than three months after Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak resigned, allowing people to cross freely for the first time in four years.</b></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Haniya’s regional tour begins three days after Palestinian factions, including Hamas, met in Cairo to thrash out implementation of a surprise deal they signed in April.</div>
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The two factions had previously been at loggerheads ever since Hamas seized Gaza in 2007, leaving the Palestinian territories with rival administrations.</div>
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On Thursday, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Syria-based Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal discussed reforming the the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in a bid to allow the Islamist movement and 13 other Palestinian factions to join.</div>
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But cracks have emerged lately between the Damascus and Gaza branches of Hamas regarding future strategy.</div>
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Last month, Meshaal voiced support for “popular peaceful resistance,” which presumes that Hamas would ultimately renounce armed struggle against Israel.</div>
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He also said he was open to the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including the West Bank and the Gaza strip with east Jerusalem as its capital.</div>
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Such a strategy in effect calls for a Palestinian state next to, and not in place of, Israel, and would be a departure from the position held by Hamas since its founding 24 years ago.</div>
<div style="font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved</div>
</blockquote>
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“Fair point. It’s not an occupation anymore. But it is a stranglehold, and it’s just as bad or worse.”</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
It can’t be a stranglehold if the border with Egypt is officially open.</div>
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This from Almasry alyoum from 22 Oct 2011</div>
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Rafah border crossing reopened after weekend closure</div>
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The Rafah border crossing, between Egypt and Gaza, was reopened on Saturday after the weekend closure.</div>
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A security source told MENA that a number of people from each side flocked to the crossing and authorities are currently carrying out the required procedures so they can cross.</div>
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The Rafah crossing was opened on 28 May this year. The number of people who entered Egypt since then through the Rafah crossing has reached 72,111, while those crossing into the Gaza Strip reached 68,221.</div>
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The total number of people crossing therefore stands at 140,332.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:58 pm</td></tr>
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@Matt Hill:</div>
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This will make excellent reading for you:</div>
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<a href="http://www.gloria-center.org/2011/12/assessing-the-surge-in-iraq/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.gloria-center.org/2011/12/assessing-the-surge-in-iraq/</a></div>
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By all means contribute your thoughts here.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:09 pm</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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“Welcoming the Arab League peace plan and taking it as an encouraging basis for further negotiations, rather than ignoring it as Israel did, doesn’t require Israel to trust the League utterly.”</div>
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That’s not how politics works, though, Matt, especially in that region. If Israel saw from the get-go that this was not going to fly then what would be the point? Such a gesture could even cause more tensions, more animosity and more complications.</div>
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‘Encouraging’ is surely patronising and tends to give credence to the notion that the Palestinians, the AL, and ME politics, pronouncements and actions in general are to be treated as if coming from slightly wilful children who don’[t mean a thing they say.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:22 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Ok, if you think the 1967 line is meaningless, are you ok with Palestinians settling in ‘Israel’</i></div>
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They do! They are Israeli Arabs. Arabs live in Israel therefore Jews can live in West Bank. Obviously. Maybe you have some argument that Jews aren’t allowed to live in West Bank.</div>
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If Arabs are allowed to live in Israel then Jews are allowed to live in West Bank.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:41 pm</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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I wish you well with your reading and your education, but I don’t have the patience to argue with you any more. Your thinking, for now at least, is stuck in a cul-de-sac of your own making. Every concession, every olive branch, every positive step Israel takes is waved away, or discounted as insufficient because elements of Israeli control still remain. Anything that indicates the Palestinians still cling to dreams of ultimate victory, any statement that the only permissible solution to the refugee problem will be a “return” to Israel, or that all the land <i>“from the river to the sea”</i> is Palestinian by right — all of that is merely a negotiating position, or pap for the masses, not meant to take in people who really understand realpolitik. Palestinian hate and violence is only to be expected in consequence of Israeli oppression (in other words, ultimately it’s just “resistance” as Hamas says). I don’t buy into any of that — none of the people arguing with you here do — but I don’t think I can talk you round and I can’t find the energy to try.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:45 pm</td></tr>
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Dcook, I agree Jews should be able to live in the West Bank, but those who aren’t annexed to Israel in land swaps will have to choose whether to accept Palestinian residency or citizenship. It is their right to so choose and they should be protected.</div>
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The question is, though, would you be happy with the Palestinians occupying parts of Israel, under PA control, just as Israel occupies parts of the West Bank?</div>
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Penny, that seems a rather weak and confused justification for the fact that Israel ignored a plausible offer. But anyway, my point, again, wasn’t that Israel ought to have accepted it in full. It’s that you cannot claim the Arab world has made no peace moves, as was originally claimed and which prompted me to mention it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:48 pm</td></tr>
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Paul M,</div>
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Fair enough. But those are not my views. Especially the bit about terrorism as resistance or only to be expected! I endlessly condemn terror in the strongest terms!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:49 pm</td></tr>
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Anyway, have to go now. Thanks all.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:27 pm</td></tr>
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” It’s that you cannot claim the Arab world has made no peace moves, as was originally claimed and which prompted me to mention it.”</div>
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Perhaps you’re confusing me with someone else, Matt. I never made any such claim: I simply said that judging by the AL’s current performance regarding Syria, I would not trust them to manage a peace plan. Thousands seem to die before they even raise the energy to voice a comment much less intervene.</div>
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“Penny, that seems a rather weak and confused justification for the fact that Israel ignored a plausible offer”</div>
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But it clearly wasn’t a plausible offer, Matt. You might think it was but believe me, in the political world negotiating or ‘encouraging’ something you know full well can never work is foolish – to say nothing of leaving the politician/party/government in question wide open to all manner of consequences.</div>
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You can consider it (or my comment, I’m not sure which) weak and confused, but that’s another argument for another time. Perhaps.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Uncle yo-yo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:35 pm</td></tr>
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I agree entirely with Paul M.</div>
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It is no use trying to reason a person out of a position he was not reasoned into. Matt’s positions are not based on careful analysis any more than David Irving’s positions on the Holocaust are based on careful analysis, or a 9-11 Truther’s position is based on careful analysis. In all three instances, their positions are as faith-based as any religious believer, and they will merely accrete those facts that support their conclusions, while ignoring or belittling anything that contradicts their conclusions.</div>
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Maybe I will check back with Matt in five years when he is 32. Until then, might as well stop wasting my time.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:49 pm</td></tr>
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One last point… I understand your frustration, Paul, and you’re not obliged to debate me. But surely you must see that some of the things you describe – like the fact that none of Israel’s concessions strike me as sufficient – are just an inevitable result of my whole pont of view, i.e. that the occupation is unjust and that it’s incumbent on the occupier to find a way to end it as soon as possible. Of course I don’t think limited concessions are enough – that’s my whole point. I don’t believe there’s any justification for ruling over 3.7 million foreign people unless you have no choice. The only conceivable way I could support it as a temporary measure would be if Israel were doing everything, day and night, o put an end to it. To put it another way, it’s largely Israel’s responsibility to put an end to it – it is the more powerful party and it is the occupier, not the other way round. I understand you can’t make peace with a people that doesn’t want it. But where we differ is that I believe by the late 80s, and certainly by 1993, the PLO was in a position to negotiate the end to the conflict. That’s not to say all the Palestinian people or factions were 100% cheerful about every compromise they’d have to make. But, again, they are the occupied people here. It isn’t their responsibility, primarily, to prove to Israel they have a diplomat’s flexibility on all the issues, that they no longer have any enmity for Israel, that extremists have no support among them. I believe it is a matter of public record that the PA is reasonable on every major issue, and prepared to go beyond its legal obligations, and that the Palestinian people are largely reasonable and want peace, except on the RoR issue – and, well, tough for them, they can learn to live without RoR and they will have to. I’m not saying all Palestinians are reasonable, that there are no extremists or racists or violent idiots among them. But I believe at the very minimum peace is a realistic possibility, and worth fighting for. And given the circu stances it is the occupier and not the occupied who should be making most of the running to put an end to this thing, and I’m afraid I cannot accept this argument that Israel is oppressing the Palestinians, expanding settlements and gradually reducing the land available for a Palestinian state, only with the greatest of reluctance and with a passionate desire to put an end to the situation, if only the Palestinians would stop rebuffing its peacemaking efforts at every turn. That is not a fair appraisal of the situation and, I repeat, that is the only hypothetical scenario in which I consider a military occupation of 3.7 million foreign people justified.</div>
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I realise this view goes contrary to the deeply held views of many people here who will call me stubborn, stupid, ignorant, bigoted, and so on, because it diametrically opposes the foundational beliefs of many people here, who have a strong need to see Israel as the innocent party. when you prod people’s most basic beliefs like this the response is often anger. I would only ask that people credit me with sincerity; understand I am hardly unique amongst people who strongly support Israel’s right to exist and have great admiration and affection for the country, but who think the occupation is a folly; and that I don’t support terrorism, that I don’t whitewash the Palestinians, their leaders or their Arab compatriots; that Im not claiming Israel is worse than other states; that I have no illusions about what the future Palestine will look like (a hardline semi-theocracy I fear); that I understand Israel has legitimate security concerns; that I don’t attribute Israel’s mistakes to evil or malice; that I reject association with many pro-Palestinians with their bigotry and inflexibility; and finally that, although I have arrived at this position using the limited intellectual means at my disposal, and may very well be mistaken, since none of us is infallible, I have at least tried my utmost to base it on facts, very wide reading of different views, and quite longstanding and sympathetic experience of Israeli life.</div>
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What I have just laid out is the mainstream anti-occupation, moderately pro-Palestinian position. I’ve expressed it forcefully, perhaps too forcefully for many people’s liking,and I expect to provoke pure outrage. But it’s what I think and if it’s wrong you should try and convince me otherwise, or give up on me if you think I’m too stubborn to listen. However please not I have not intended to insult anyone, so I would ask you to respond politely albeit as frankly as you wish. Also note this is a moderate position – there are those who are much more extreme than me and think I and Harry’s place readers are indistinguishable.</div>
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And, whatever you say, at least I have the guts to wade in here, express views I know will be unpopular and will provoke loathing, and tried to defend them while remaining civil. I don’t have to do this – there are other, more congenial places for me to post if I like. I do it because I want the discussion . At least hat deserves some credit, even if you dispute every word I’ve written?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:51 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Maybe I will check back with Matt in five years when he is 32. Until then, might as well stop wasting my time.</i></div>
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The opportunity to answer ignorance and naivety isn’t wated.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 8:58 pm</td></tr>
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“Obviously he said it because he knows it will never happen, but it was still stupid.”<br />
Once again, it is only Matt Hill that knows the truth that lies in the Palestinian soul. They can never mean what they say if it is incongruent with what Matt believes.<br />
As for steps toward peace, you still haven’t shown how Arafat’s lack of counter offer and introduction of a terror war was somehow more indicative of peaceful intent than Barak’s offer. Nor how the current state where one side agrees to talk anywhere and anytime (having already conceded on the two state issue and a temporary freeze to get the ball rolling) while the other openly refuses talks shows the Palestinians making more progress toward peace since 1993. By what twisted logic can you look past this very basic reality. As for the disengagement it should be noted that even Rabin never wanted to leave Gaza entirely, but if someone’s Likud it gives you all the excuse to be anti-Israel in your assessment.<br />
Next is your assessment of security needs by the Palestinians and talk of the Cast Lead invasion. This is where it really falls apart, because there has never been an unprovoked attack. Cast Lead followed years of rockets that no other country would have sustained, but in your view, despite small lip service to Hamas’s rockets and no lip-service to their repressive rule which provoked the blockade, this is equal morally to calling for all out war against Israel by all Arab countries. See how hard you try?<br />
“Of course, they may have to impose some pretty draconian measures on surrounding Israelis for their own security” So the losers of several aggressive wars of obliteration should have equal claim to gaining land for security purposes? This is really paper thin, Matt. And if Israel can keep some land, why can’t it put its people on that land? Spite? Have you ever heard of the San Remo conference allowing Jews through out Palestine? Has that ever been revoked?<br />
“I don’t agree with this representation of events.”<br />
Oh… so Arafat didn’t leave without a counter offer and start an intifadah? Am I missing something?<br />
“Anyway, the ‘withdrawal’ has hardly been a boon to Gazans.” Who’s fault are you saying this is? Who destroyed all the greenhouses? Who elected Hamas? Who fired thousands of rockets? The withdrawal could have been a huge boon and gone far to gain international support had it been used peacefully.<br />
In the meantime, aside from the concessions that I’ve already pointed to, what would you require of Netanyahu? More concessions unilaterally? That really got your respect in Sharon’s case didn’t it? What should he do to get your respect that wouldn’t seriously harm Israel’s position, aside from trying to make daily Palestinian lives better and avoiding despite increasing rocket fire another Gaza offensive?<br />
Also, still waiting on your explanation of your charicaturization of settlers and soldiers.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:10 pm</td></tr>
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“…because it diametrically opposes the foundational beliefs of many people here, who have a strong need to see Israel as the innocent party..”</div>
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Oh, Matt. I really do feel like giving up sometimes. You’ve just had your four-for-the-price-of-one pop at me for supposedly analysing you – which I didn’t. Now you’re suggesting that many people who disagree with you do so not from a standpoint of reason, evidence, logic and argument, but because they have a ’strong need’ to see Israel as the innocent party.</div>
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You, on the other hand, seem to imply that Israel must be all wrong because it’s the bigger and stronger of the two parties?</div>
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Just because one man has a gun and the other a pea-shooter doesn’t mean the former lacks justice and morals and the latter has them in abundance.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:21 pm</td></tr>
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Penny – I apologised for that. And I don’t deny people disagree for all kinds of perfectly legitimate reasons. I just know that when I state the core of my position like this, people tend to go pretty apeshit. You watch.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:24 pm</td></tr>
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And no, not all wrong, at all. In a sense I agree Israel has the better morals. It’s a democracy and it has an admirable political system. The Palestinians don’t have a culture of democracy. But again, the Palestinians should have their own state and freedom not because they’re angels, but because they’re human. Everybody deserves that right. Nobody should be denied it. That’s what being a democrat means. So the only reason denying them that right could ever be justified is if Israel had no choice but to do so, despite doing everything it can to end the situation. Do you see my reasoning at least?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:34 pm</td></tr>
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Why should the occupied – the aggressors in each war and the beligerents in wanted to entirely cleanse a region – be the ones to make concessions, at least on that cleansing mentality which would ensure that conflict would continuing regardless of the “occupier’s” actions? Who made these rules? What is it that makes the winner of a war automatically responsible for making dangerous concessions when every indication leads to more death in the event of such concessions? You say these things like they’re known to be self-evident, but that is simply untrue. It is Arab rejectionism that started the conflict and you have no reason to assume that the conflict could end before that rejectionism is abandoned. But instead you continue to ask the stronger party to subjugate itself and kneel (in a region where kneeling is a sign of weakness to be exploited) rather than demanding that the losers in an intollerant and anti-liberal fight change their views and earn the rights they ceded when they started the wars to begin with. Why should Israel give back all the land rather than show that there is a consequence for starting wars? For starting intifadas? For taking Israeli lives? And yet, the borders you propose (including swaps) would do just that. You also have a knack for ignoring the more inconvenient questions. We are up to several now. a) what has shown the Palestinian leadership to be more interesting in peace than the Israeli leadership (and where is this surrender of the RoR of which you speak)? eg. “you cannot claim the Arab world has made no peace moves” Really what concessions have you seen? Why are only Israeli concessions (67 lines, Jerusalem) spoken of explicitly by the entire world while the Arabs must be babied with “code” b) How do you enforce a treaty that doesn’t have the support of the people and how could and civilized westerner in this day and age not require the people’s support? and c) There’s still that depiction of settlers and soldiers despite quite a nuanced depiction of Palestinian society.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 9:41 pm</td></tr>
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Nate,</div>
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I genuinely appreciate the fact that, though you obviously disagree with every word I say, you’re bothering to debate me substantively. Unfortunately I may not have time for a full response. Several points, briefly.</div>
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re. Camp David – the view Arafat turned down a great offer and made no counter offer is not, in my view, supported by the evidence. Your account is the standard self-serving one devised by Barak on the way out of the conference. Even shlomo Ben ami and others in the delegation have said it’s false, that the Israelis never offered anything Arafat could have accepted, and that in fact there was no real offer on the table at all – just ongoing and failed talks on each issue. Have you read Ross, Swisher, Enderlin or Ben Ami on Camp David? At the very least it’s not so simple. You’re just accepting one account, the account pushed by Barak, which is bound to portray him as generous and peace seeking.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gene</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 10:12 pm</td></tr>
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<i>re. Camp David – the view Arafat turned down a great offer and made no counter offer is not, in my view, supported by the evidence. Your account is the standard self-serving one devised by Barak on the way out of the conference. Even shlomo Ben ami and others in the delegation have said it’s false</i></div>
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Excuse me, but that’s bullshit.</div>
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<a href="http://www.weizmann.ac.il/home/comartin/israel/ben-ami.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.weizmann.ac.il/home/comartin/israel/ben-ami.html</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 10:43 pm</td></tr>
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Nate,</div>
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I wish I had time to reply fully because we’re really down to brass tacks now. I must be brief, but y our last post illustrated some big differences between our views. You seem to see statehood as a potential reward for good Palestinan behaviour, and occupation as some kind of comeuppance. I realise that’s not your whole argument, and I understand the instinctive appeal of that view: “these arabs have some chutzpah, trying to finish the job hitler started, and then when they finally see they’ve failed, they come and demand their rights! Plan A – genocide. Plan B – human fucking rights! Well, I’m all for human rights – but for humans! How dare they demand that we take a knife to our own flesh, carve out our beating heart and hold it out to those who came to kill us? Who met us in our homeland with war and hatred! Let them first of all prove that they desire not just their rights but what is right. Then perhaps we’ll search inside our hearts for the mercy they steadfastly denied us when we were fleeing for our lives in search of shelter. Like Joseph, confronted with the brothers who tried to kill him when he was weak and they strong, sparing them in his strength now they come to him in their weakness.’</div>
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It makes a compelling argument but statehood isn’t something you earn through good behaviour. It is every people’s irreducible right. And incidentally occupation may not be conducive the development of moral qualities.</div>
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Imagine if we could devise a test. We would separate two sets of Palestinians, identical in every other respect, in 1948. One group faces refugeehood, occupation, military defeat, dispossession, relative poverty, disenfranchisement, and the denial of rights. The other comes to live in relative peace and security in a democratic state that by and large protects their rights, fosters their material wellbeing, gives them respect and freedom.</div>
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The point of the test is to determine to what extent these two different histories have shaped the behaviour and attitudes of the Palestinians. We will discover to what extent they are unalterably a violent, hateful, conflict driven people, and to what extent such characteristics, insofar as they exist, are a consequence of the abject conditions of their lives.</div>
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Well, history helpfully conducted this experiment. The Arabs of Israel show what the Palestinians would be if they lived in an imperfect but in many ways admirable society. In other words, the occupation fosters extremism and violence. There is no inherent reason why the Palestinians must have the profile they have in the territories. This is grounds for hope, I think, and proof they can live in peace alongside Israelis in the right conditions.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 11:07 pm</td></tr>
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Gene,</div>
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That is a fascinating document I had not seen, so thank you. There is a lo there to digest but in his book Ben Ami said Camp David was not an offer the Palestinians could have accepted. His views there are more compromising. Taba was more promising but Israel ended the conference because of the imminent election. There is much in that interview for me to consider. I agree it is challenging because I admire Ben Ami. I wish he were still in the cabinet in Israel. Of course this is not a definitive account but it is a powerful one which I will study further. In any case even if we discount Ben Ami, other participants have ontradicted Barak’s account, even US and Israeli negotiators.</div>
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Must go. Again, thanks for that one.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:54 am</td></tr>
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Once again, you evade some really important questions that I laid out. But my argument isn’t simply one of punishment and reward. Statehood is not granted to any people who are unwilling to live in peace with their neighbors. This isn’t merely a punishment, or an incentive, but a way of ensuring that power is limited to those willing to live in peace. It is the Palestinians and the Arabs as a whole who must prosecute for peace because a)in history no victor has ever had to beg for peace, much less to give a “people” a state for the first time ever. The victor – especially in a defensive war – has leeway in dictating the rules in the peace treaty. To insist on coddling the Palestinians in this case is simply absurd. Because you are not merely asking that Israel doesn’t punish them, or have mercy, or remove its own heart, but rather that she endanger her own people as every concession does and that she give up valuable land to an enemy that has used all free land to attack her, simply to follow your invented rules of occupier/occupied while demanding nothing of the aggressors – as though by losing, suddenly they could have nothing asked of them, even peacability. And how is statehood earned, by your rules, and what makes it every people’s irreducible right, and what constitutes a people? These are all things that are said as though they are obvious, but they are not and they’re certainly vague. There are actually rules for statehood and there are people who are more or less deserving. What makes the Palestinians a “people” deserving of one, given that they were created (Gingrich was actually right about this) simply as a bulwark to another national movement? As one terrorist said, I went to sleep a Jordanian citizen and woke up a Palestinian refugee. The entire history of Palestinians shows them to be simply Arabs who were given a seperate peoplehood for the sake of destroying Israel. This doesn’t mean that they should remain under occupation indefinitely, but certain this doesn’t represent a kind of good faith that would have the occupation dismantled with much hope for peace. Sure they should be free, but you haven’t yet said why this require all of the West Bank or Jerusalem to be there’s, or why that freedom – lost as a result of their own war – should come at the price of a willingness to end said war. Why shouldn’t the Palestinians have a state in Jordan where they are already a majority? Then you can incorporate the major blocs where they live in the West Bank, without insisting that anything less than 100% of that land is necessary for a Palestinian state. But that wouldn’t happen, because no one cares about “Palestinians” living under Hashemite rule without full rights or Syrians living under Alawite rule without full rights. It’s only when the Jews are in charge that the Arabs simply will not endure the humiliation. Well, if you feel like the west must indulge this culture of humiliation and honor, then that’s up to you, but in no other situation has a winner of a war been forced to kneel down to the vanquished and to give them a mulligan. When, Matt, did that become Palestinian land anyway and why? Perhaps you should spend time writing about Kurds or Tibetans instead – much more legitimately distinct people whose rights and deaths go entirely ignored while the world obsesses over what those Jews are doing to protect themselves. As for your test, it conveniently forgets important facts – as you tend to do. Did this violence not exist before refugeehood, occupation, military defeat, dispossession, relative poverty, disenfranchisement, and the denial of rights? Is this how all other refugee populations have reacted? Or impoverished people? Do they all have a third of their populations supporting the near decaptation of a 3month old girl? Do all populations who have suffered military defeat then lynch people as was seen in Ramallah, with bloody glee? Is this how the denial of rights (until very recently) has been reacted to in the rest of the Arab world and world at large? You pay lip service to things like Hamas rockets and anti-semitism in the Muslim world, but refuse to extrapolate further and see that these represent the true underlying issues – that leaving Gaza proved that a lack of occupation did not make the people peaceful. This is a different culture than yours – one that saw the Israelis tucking tail and running, and decided to double down by destroying greenhouses, electing Hamas, and firing thousands of rockets. As usual you have no problem making excuses for them, instead of holding them accountable for creating their own circumstances, and expecting them to act with any semblance of humanity and compromise. This is part of Palestinian culture- it’s a culture built on little other than victimhood and the destruction of another people. The fact that Israeli Arabs enjoy the comforts of Israeli culture because it is an infinitely more civilized country than any of their own doesn’t mean that it is incumbent on Israel to create the same circumstances for all its enemies, much less to sacrifice itself in the attempt. This must be left to the Palestinians themselves and to the rest of the Arab world, who have continuously chosen the destruction of Israel over their children’s betterment and future, and over the resettling of refugees. I would love to know how you would blame any of these reactions on Israel or explain (without being patronizing to the “other”) why they must constantly be given excuses and every opportunity to kill again without having peace demanded of them. But more importantly, I would love answers to my other stated questions. Because, even if I concede (which I don’t) that Barak, Clinton and Ross’s accounts are wrong, and that Barak’s offer was not a great one (again for any other vanquished people in history it would certainly have been considered a great one) it doesn’t justify the terror war that ensued and certainly doesn’t justify your insistance that Palestinian leaders have somehow been more pro-peace than those of Israel. But I’ll add a new question. On what grounds do you suggest that the aggressors of continued wars of annhialation have similar security concerns to the victors of these defensive wars? And how dare you compare Abbas’s further threats to Israel at pan-Arab hands, to Israel reacting only after years of rocket fire? In fact you do worse, by saying that he only means what he says behind closed doors (although you still haven’t shown what you were referring to. I have seen no evidence at all of him conceding on the RoR even in the Palestine Papers. Care to share?), and that all the horrible things that the PA does and says are simply tactical insincerities, while insisting on the insincerity of Israel’s leaders at every turn, you show either a bigoted cynicism of one side, or a patronizing condescension to the other… or both. It is this equivalence, this insistence on trying so hard to stay right in the face of all evidence to the contrary that makes you so excruciating to every one here.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 3:23 am</td></tr>
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Nate, I know I missed most of your points. As I said, I didn’t have time to answer. I’ll try and answer your latest now. I wish you would use paragraphs more though – just a thought…!</div>
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It’s late so sorry if this is too brief.</div>
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‘It is the Palestinians and the Arabs as a whole who must prosecute for peace because a)in history no victor has ever had to beg for peace, much less to give a “people” a state for the first time ever. The victor – especially in a defensive war – has leeway in dictating the rules in the peace treaty.’</div>
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Several quick points. This sounds dangerously close to might is right. 1967 was a little more complex than a self-defensive war, in several respects; at the very least, you can’t say Israel was forced to occupy all those lands – it had already won the war by the time it did so. I don’t think you can say that because Jordan fired some artillery at West Jerusalem and launched limited attacks there were no moral problems at all in Israel taking the whole West Bank, and insisting 45 years later that the people living on it must somehow make more concessions or allow Israel to dictate terms in a treaty establishing their state.</div>
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‘Because you are not merely asking that Israel doesn’t punish them, or have mercy, or remove its own heart, but rather that she endanger her own people’</div>
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Security arrangement will be at the heart of any deal. The Palestinian state will be essentially demilitarised. The sides will agree to let international forces guard key areas. Israel will have early warning systems in place in Gaza and the West Bank. But more importantly: it is precisely the absence of peace that threatens Israel in the long term. At the moment its actions are underwritten by a fading superpower. The US may not always be able to offer diplomatic, financial, political and other kids of support. A world dominated by the US as first among its equals china, Russia, the EU, Brazil, the UN, may be a very different one for Israel. Eventually there will be another intifada. Eventually Israel’s enemies will have longer-range rockets. They will be unable to destroy it but they may be able to make life there very difficult, especially with the international community keeping Israel on a shorter leash. These are vague, hypothetical but plausible claims, and I make them with no pleasure – I fear for Israel, a country I love and admire in many ways, if it cannot or will not make peace in the long term. In the long term, it’s refusing to make the concessions necessary for peace that endangers Israel.</div>
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‘your invented rules of occupier/occupied while demanding nothing of the aggressors – as though by losing, suddenly they could have nothing asked of them, even peacability.’</div>
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If you want to talk about rules that are more substantial, look at the rules invented by the International court of Justice in its decision on the I-P conflict. The PA has gone further than its obligations as defined by he court. See the Annapolis offer. Look up the Palestine Papers.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 4:21 am</td></tr>
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Still haven’t answered the important ones. Your description of soldiers and settlers. Your insistence that the side that won’t talk, calls for war, and celebrates terror (while unifying with a terrorist entity) is the one more willing to make peace. Your glossing over the fact that Palestinians wouldn’t support the ignoring of RoR. You can look back as I’ve repeated these questions several times. You choose what to believe and what not to in a way that’s most convenient for your views, not in the way that is most practical,<br />
precedented, or secure. You continue to suggest that Israel will not make peace without any proof or any consideration for how peace can be made with a duplicitous other side that is composed of people who won’t give up on RoR and celebrate the most heinous forms of terror and anti-Semetism.<br />
So again, I’ll ask what it is that you are asking of Israel aside from doing something for the sake of doing something. As for might is right, that is not my point at all. My point is that a winner of a DEFENSIVE war of ANNHIALATION, will clearly have security concerns, and in the past, the winners (especially in defensive wars) have always been given some spoils not simply as reward, but in order to avoid a moral hazard.<br />
I’m sure you know that the International Court is merely an extension of the UN and thus is equally influenced by an automatic pro-Palestine majority, but I wish you would clarify what obligations it has gone beyond (and how this goes further than Israel giving up the San Remo convention) and what in the Palestine Papers makes your case so clear. Citations please.<br />
You also haven’t explained how the 67 lines have somehow come to represent Palestinian land and why all of that land (rather than just the parts inhabited by Palestinians) must be the basis of a Palestinian state, or why Jerusalem must be its capital. Because they say so is not a great argument. As for “you can’t say Israel was forced to occupy all those lands”, perhaps you don’t think a need for strategic depth is crucial after three wars, but several desparate situations, this was actually crucial in ensuring that wars wouldn’t have to be fought every few years.<br />
More importantly, though, in your argument that Israel didn’t need to respond by taking the West Bank, you seem to be subscribing to a very fringe point of view that that land was legitimately under Jordanian control, while at the same time claiming that now it should be under Palestinian control… the conclusion: It should not be under Jewish control, but beyond that Palestinian peoplehood is secondary to Israeli illegitimacy. A bigger question: If Israel hadn’t taken the West Bank and Gaza, what would it now be asked to give up in order to finally achieve peace? Also, if everyone including the ICJ is so adamant about 1967 as the border, then hasn’t Israeli already lost it’s main bargaining chip, while no one will actually verbalize the Palestinians doing the same? But somehow this “code” is coddled by you and the rest of the world and we are supposed to expect that the Palestinians will read it in the same way as you and that some Palestinian leader will actually sign an end to the conflict despite having conditioned his population in such a way?<br />
Back to the ones you keep evading a) what has shown the Palestinian leadership to be more interested in peace than the Israeli leadership (and where is this surrender of the RoR of which you speak)? And how do you square this with the words of Abbas, the incitement in all aspects of society and Arafat’s clear links to terror? “You cannot claim the Arab world has made no peace moves” Really? What actual concessions have you seen? b) How do you enforce a treaty that doesn’t have the support of the people and how could any civilized westerner in this day and age not require the people’s support? Don’t know if you’ve been following what’s happening in Egypt, but a piece of paper with no popular support doesn’t lead to real peace… unless a dictator is in charge. c) There’s still that ugly depiction of settlers and soldiers despite quite a nuanced depiction of Palestinian society. If you can answer these and the rest of my questions from the last post which take to task your assumptions about a social experiment and your blaming the circumstances on victimhood without recognizing that the Arab world created these victims, that would be appreciated. Instead you seem to answer what you deem to be the easy issues, but more with truisms than with actual truths -more with interpretations that assume one side to be somehow morally superior or more inherently honest than the other (or at least their “leaders”). If this doesn’t sound right, I’ll ask how you would compare Abbas and Arafat’s records to Olmert, Barak, Sharon, and Netanyahu’s and come to your conclusions (here’s a hint, what they say in secret talks that they must then deny when the details see the light of day, probably shouldn’t be the only things that count in terms of efforts for peace)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 4:33 am</td></tr>
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“and insisting 45 years later that the people living on it must somehow make more concessions or allow Israel to dictate terms in a treaty establishing their state”<br />
What concessions am I asking? That they agree to live in peace? That they agree to settle elsewhere as every refugee population does? That they give up land that they don’t live on and that was never their state in all of history? What concessions am I really asking of these people that celebrate terror, call for another state’s destruction more than they do one of their own, and that have had some of the most vile POPULAR leaders in history from Husseini to Arafat? None that aren’t expected of civilized human beings the world over.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lbnaz</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 4:56 am</td></tr>
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<i>I fear for Israel, a country I love and admire in many ways, if it cannot or will not make peace in the long term. In the long term, it’s refusing to make the concessions necessary for peace that endangers Israel.</i></div>
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What an utter wanker. The people that cannot and will not agree to once and for all end the conflict, end the violence, and abandon the muqawama/resistance as long as there is even a sliver of non-Muslim sovereignty and especially Jewish sovereignty between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River certainly aren’t the Israelis.</div>
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ON the other hand, the coddling and ignoring of Palestinian Arab supremacist intransigence, combined with the spewing off a hackneyed sincerity that claims to “fear” for Israel’s future if it doesn’t just acquiesce to any and all PLO and Ikhwan demands ASAP (sorry Matt Hill, it is a hackneyed trope and are by no means the first to employ it – see JStreet and MJ Rosenberg), betrays a sick bigotry of lower expectations for Arab Palestinians and a willingness to pander to PLO and Ikhwani whose values are liberal and democratic not those</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lbnaz</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 5:11 am</td></tr>
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<i>I fear for Israel, a country I love and admire in many ways, if it cannot or will not make peace in the long term. In the long term, it’s refusing to make the concessions necessary for peace that endangers Israel.</i></div>
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The people that cannot and will not agree to once and for all end the conflict, end the violence, and abandon the muqawama/resistance as long as there is even a sliver of non-Muslim sovereignty and especially Jewish sovereignty between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River certainly aren’t the Israelis.</div>
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On the other hand, the coddling and ignoring of Palestinian Arab supremacist intransigence, combined with the spewing off a hackneyed sincerity that claims to “fear” for Israel’s future if it doesn’t just acquiesce to any and all PLO and Ikhwan demands ASAP because the US is supposedly on its way out and the next global superpower will be some non-democratic and autocratic regime like China, Russia or an Organization of Islamic States led UN, (sorry Matt Hill, it is a hackneyed trope and you are by no means the first to employ it – see JStreet and MJ Rosenberg), betrays nothing more than a sick bigotry of lower expectations that willingly panders to supremacist, PLO, Ikhwani, Salafist and supercessionist Christian Arabs, while tossing unarmed and disorganized secular, liberal and democratic Arabs and secular, liberal and democratic Jewish Israelis under the bus. Shame!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 5:43 am</td></tr>
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‘And how is statehood earned, by your rules, and what makes it every people’s irreducible right, and what constitutes a people?’</div>
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This is, for me, a fascinating question I’ve been giving some thought to lately. I’ve decided to answer it with a new post on my blog.</div>
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‘There are actually rules for statehood and there are people who are more or less deserving.’</div>
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Really? What are these ‘rules for statehood’ exactly? Who decided them?</div>
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‘What makes the Palestinians a “people” deserving of one, given that they were created (Gingrich was actually right about this) simply as a bulwark to another national movement?’</div>
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The Palestinians are a relatively new national group but they most certainly are one now. Look, I’m surprised you contest this. It’s obvious there’s no objective definition of a people, a nation, an ethnic group, even a racial group. These are all constructs. The simplest way of saying it is that if a people see themselves as a cohesive, distinctive group, they are one. Nations are often forged in opposition to an enemy. The people I belong to – the Welsh – is a good analogy for the Palestinians (no, bear with me!). We were never an independent nation. We were always a group of barely connected kingdoms. But in our struggles against the English we began to identify with each other and consider ourselves Welsh. There’s no objective basis for this. But try telling an Englishman who just played a full game of rugby against us at the Millennium Stadium we don’t exist – he’ll beg to differ.</div>
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‘The entire history of Palestinians shows them to be simply Arabs who were given a seperate peoplehood for the sake of destroying Israel. This doesn’t mean that they should remain under occupation indefinitely, but certain this doesn’t represent a kind of good faith that would have the occupation dismantled with much hope for peace.’</div>
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I’m glad you’re generous enough to grant them freedom from occupation, but I can’t make much of the rest of this.</div>
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‘Sure they should be free, but you haven’t yet said why this require all of the West Bank or Jerusalem to be there’s,’</div>
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The 1967 lines are useful because, with some small swaps, they enclose two natural, democratic nation-states, one overwhelmingly Jewish, the other overwhelmingly Arab. If Israel starts eating into large chunks of the West Bank (I support some lands swaps of a few percent, as i’ve said before, to keep most Jewish settlers in Israel) it will end up with lots of Arab citizens, or non-citizens as the case may be. That is why Ben Gurion actually refused to conquer the West Bank at his generals’ urging in 1948.</div>
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‘Why shouldn’t the Palestinians have a state in Jordan where they are already a majority? Then you can incorporate the major blocs where they live in the West Bank, without insisting that anything less than 100% of that land is necessary for a Palestinian state.’</div>
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Yes, this is an ingenious way for Israel to get everything it wants. So you’re saying Israel should get EVERYTHING, except little islands of territory with lots of Arabs, which will be marooned in a sea of ‘Israel’ and absorbed by Jordan. Brilliant! Why this kind of idea isn’t supported by the Jordanians nor Palestinians, nor Americans nor Europeans, nor Israelis (even Arab-lover Avigdor Lieberman considers it too much, as he recently said), nor anyone else – is beyond me. Don’t they see it combines the best of plans where Israel gets all the land, all the water, minerals, fields, etc, and none of the responsibility, problems, etc? Well, the best for Israel anyway.</div>
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My only problem with this plan is that it’s too bleeding heart, too Meretz, too humane. After all, you’ve awarded Israel all the Arabs’ water, lands, crops, roads, etc. But why on earth do they require all the empty space on the pavements in Bethlehem and Jericho, and all the extra rooms in houses in Nablus and Jenin, and so on? I propose that each Arab should be allowed to spin around in his or her hometown, wearing a blindfold. Once they stop, an IDF officer will draw a circle in the ground beneath them, requiring them to stay inside that circle until they grow old and die. All the land in between could be designated ‘Israel’. After all, don’t you know Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran for shipping in 1967? Precisely.</div>
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‘But that wouldn’t happen, because no one cares about “Palestinians” living under Hashemite rule without full rights or Syrians living under Alawite rule without full rights.’</div>
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Somehow I don’t think your concern is for those people either, given what you’ve said. I do largely agree, as it happens. It’s a disgrace that these people are essentially being kept in poverty as a living reproach to Israel. If you’re concerned for them, start a charity and I’ll donate. But if your idea of helping them is to force 3.7 million other Palestinians to call themselves Jordanian while losing all their land, well, I’m slightly skeptical your true motive is humanitarianism and not… a desire to see Israel end up with absolutely everything it can get!</div>
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‘When, Matt, did that become Palestinian land anyway and why? Perhaps you should spend time writing about Kurds or Tibetans instead – much more legitimately distinct people whose rights and deaths go entirely ignored while the world obsesses over what those Jews are doing to protect themselves.’</div>
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It’s the land of the people who have lived on it forever. They now see themselves as Palestinians. It’s very simple. As is your resort to every single far-right, long-dead, Irgun fantasy that Menachem Begin dreamt up for five minutes before an aide politely cleared his throat and explained why the implications were so horrific or downright racist. (I don’t claim you’re personally racist but underpinning all your arguments seems to be the idea that the Palestinians have no real rights and no reason to exist but as an annoyance to Israelis.)</div>
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‘As for your test, it conveniently forgets important facts – as you tend to do. Did this violence not exist before refugeehood, occupation, military defeat, dispossession, relative poverty, disenfranchisement, and the denial of rights? Is this how all other refugee populations have reacted? Or impoverished people?’</div>
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You seem to have misunderstood how an experiment like this works. You have two groups – a test group and a control group. You want to limit all the variables possible, so that you can be sure what’s causing differences in outcome. So in this case the Palestinians who stayed in Israel and those who left, being pretty much identical, are a perfect comparison – every difference in how they behave now can be attributed to their different histories. And what do we find? The people that has been subjected to oppression, dispossession, defeat, etc, are much more violent, fanatic, extreme, illiberal, etc. Those who’ve lived under a democracy, despite beng exactly the same people in 1948, are basically peaceable, relatively liberal and secular</div>
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‘As usual you have no problem making excuses for them, instead of holding them accountable for creating their own circumstances, and expecting them to act with any semblance of humanity and compromise.’</div>
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Nonsense, I condemn them all the time.</div>
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‘they must constantly be given excuses and every opportunity to kill again without having peace demanded of them.’</div>
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Oh, nonsense.</div>
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‘But more importantly, I would love answers to my other stated questions. Because, even if I concede (which I don’t) that Barak, Clinton and Ross’s accounts are wrong, and that Barak’s offer was not a great one (again for any other vanquished people in history it would certainly have been considered a great one) it doesn’t justify the terror war that ensued’</div>
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I never claimed a poor offer at camp david justified the crazed bloodletting, the lunatic bloodletting, of the Second Intifada.</div>
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‘But I’ll add a new question. On what grounds do you suggest that the aggressors of continued wars of annhialation have similar security concerns to the victors of these defensive wars?’</div>
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I just don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s as though your understanding of history is derived from an IDF pamphlet for teenagers, with respect. Which wars of ‘annihilation’ are you talking about? The only example where you may have a case is 1948. That was a brutal, existential war, which ended up with up to 750,000 Arabs fleeing their homes. There was no Arab blueprint for the annihilation of Israel or the Jews. There were some massacres – Kfar Etzion on the Jewish side and Deir Yassin on the Arab. The Arab purpose was to prevent the establishment of Israel, but if you mean annihilation of the people – well, it’s unclear what an Arab victory would have meant. You’d probably have to extrapolate from what happened to the Jewish populations that did fall to Arab forces. There is no indication, so far as I am aware, that the Arabs engaged in systematic attempts to kill Jews off the battlefield. So while this war was intended to thwart the creation of Israel, its perpetrators didn’t plan to murder Jews.</div>
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As for the other wars. Israel cynically and rather shamefully attacked Egypt in 1956.</div>
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1967 is more complex; I would rather refer people to Tom Segev than get bogged down here over who was the aggressor (neither was, in short) and who was responsible (both were). In any case, no attempt to annihilate Israel was ever made; the extent of Nasser’s aggression was to deploy troops along the border and close the Straits of Tiran – he never got a chance to do anything else but flee the Israeli tide. Again, he would have liked to annihilate Israel, but he never exactly planed or tried to do so because he knew better than most how ludicrous an idea it was</div>
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1973 is the one unambiguous Arab attack on Israel but actually here the aim was to reconquer occupied territories. It was supposed to e a limited war at best, and all the fighting took place on occupied territories. No attempt, plan or hope of annihilation.</div>
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2006 Lebanon – Again, the problem in a nutshell. Is it possible to wage a war of annihilation with katyushas? Is it possible for a paraplegic man to be guilty of attempted murder against Mike Tyson with a foam cricket bat?</div>
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2008-9 Gaza – And again. Without discounting the psychological impact of Qassams, to speak in terms of annihilation is rather absurd because it was simply not possible. You could say that of all the wars – even 48, and certainly 73 – that the Arabs might have liked to annihilate Israel if possible (as in overthrow the regime), and some Arabs have made some nauseating remarks about murdering many or all of its Jews. (can it be a threat if both sides know it’s impossible?)</div>
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And how dare you compare Abbas’s further threats to Israel at pan-Arab hands, to Israel reacting only after years of rocket fire? In fact you do worse, by saying that he only means what he says behind closed doors (although you still haven’t shown what you were referring to. I have seen no evidence at all of him conceding on the RoR even in the Palestine Papers. Care to share?), and that all the horrible things that the PA does and says are simply tactical insincerities, while insisting on the insincerity of Israel’s leaders at every turn, you show either a bigoted cynicism of one side, or a patronizing condescension to the other… or both. It is this equivalence, this insistence on trying so hard to stay right in the face of all evidence to the contrary that makes you so excruciating to every one here.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 5:59 am</td></tr>
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NOTE: LAST PARAGRAPH IN MY PREVIOUS POST WAS NATE’S, NOT MINE. I reply here.</div>
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(I actually forgot 1982 – the most egregious and unnecessary Israeli war – in my roster above. That’s an open and shut case. Unfortunately the occupation it precipitated wasn’t – it only ended after 18 years.)</div>
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I’m never persuaded when either side claims a particular aggressive act is simply a response to previous attacks from the other side – and therefore, of course, since the other side started this particular round of violence, it’s their fault. In a war like Israel-Palestine there will always be a previous incident to point to and claim the latest act of violence is merely a response. It’s bullshit when Hamas do it and when the IDF do it. So Hamas fires Qassams, not because of Israeli strikes but because of the whole conflict and everything it includes. And it is wrong because it is indiscriminate.</div>
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And it is wrong Operation cast Lead was a reprisal after years of attacks that provoked no response. Look at the casualty figures leading up to it. More Palestinians dying at Israeli hands than vice versa. As usual, very large numbers of women and children. The tit-for-tat was going on for years – Operation cast Lead was a major escalation. You may justify it on security grounds, but not in that way – by claiming it was just an exasperated action after years of patience.</div>
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So I’m sorry, I do think invading someone is worse than threatening to. It’s a rather topsy-turvy world if you think otherwise. But if Israeli invasions aren’t really invasions in your head, I suppose it makes some sense. The problem is, the victim of an Israeli bullet isn’t any less dead because it was an Israeli bullet.</div>
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If you say I’m excruciating to everyone here, I guess I’ll take your word for it. But self-evidently I’m not doing this for popularity. I guess I do it for the debate, for the opportunity to learn, to sharpen my responses, and who knows, maybe even get some people to complicate their views. In any case, Nate, I would hope some HP readers will read some of your mad ideas about Palestinians and their rights and be rather taken aback.</div>
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Thanks for engaging substantively, as ever.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 6:05 am</td></tr>
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Nate, I’ve enjoyed this and I’ve tried really hard to be complete in my answers, but I’m going to have to let this discussion go now, and wait until another thread. Perhaps we tried to cover too much ground here. It became extremely wide ranging. It lacked specificity and detail at times. Anyway, still, enjoyable and I salute your energy. I must sleep and tomorrow I should socialise, and after that the blog will be on its way out. So I’ll read over the last few but I think this is me done! All best and good morning.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:35 am</td></tr>
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when the conflict will resolved :(, really waiting for that day</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lbnaz</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:18 am</td></tr>
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Matt Hill – please, for the love of Jesus, quit with the hackneyed and nausea inducing bullshite protestations of deep “concern” for Israel’s supposed doomed future, should it not acquiesce to any and every PLO and/or Ikhwani demand ASAP as a precondition to negotiations.</div>
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Just be the best Arab nationalist and anti-imperialism of idiots ideologue you can and want to be and you won’t come off so much as the two-faced, snake oil hawker and self righteous twat that you did on this and many, if not every single other HP thread you’ve turned up on.</div>
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I have no idea why anyone at HP (save Brownie) would imagine your speculations posing as facts and bullshite make for good posts at HP unless it’s for the wind-up factor where you fill a niche that could as easily been filled by others who used to comment here such as The Irie, Hasbara Buster and a really swell guy from Greece whose name thankfully escapes me at the moment that share many of your views, if not your style.</div>
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I would imagine that you’d fit in very well on a J Street blog, but I would strongly suggest instead that you take your self absorbed drive to “sharpen your responses” and “get people to complicate their views” to blogs such as Richard Silverstein’s Tikkun Olam, the Angry Arab and Mondoweiss and give HP readers a break from your all important ego for a while. Thanks in advance.</div>
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And never forget your credo Matt: the Israelis may be human but they are always far more at fault for the prolongation of the conflict than the Arabs who are poor victimized lambs who can’t really be faulted all that much for sometimes making little mistakes (like rampant corruption, tolerating honour killings, persecuting gays and lesbians, inculcating both Jew hatred and a desire to eradicate and supplant the neighbouring Jewish state with an Islamic one in each new generation, etcetera,) that supposedly damage their cause (in the eyes of some secular liberal democrats from the West), but which would all go away if only they weren’t under OCCUPATION.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lbnaz</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:31 am</td></tr>
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<i>There was no Arab blueprint for the annihilation of Israel or the Jews</i></div>
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Matt Hill gem #5768: There were no moon landings either. But seriously, everyone knows that Haj Amin al Husseini and Gamel Abed Nasser were just kidding around, just like Mahmoud Achmadinejad and Ali Khameini are today.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:47 am</td></tr>
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OK, I give up. Hill’s capacity for obfuscation, denial, evasion and playing fast and loose with the facts exceeds my stamina for trying to argue with him in good faith. So no more. What’s the point? He will forever be motivated by his shrill anti-Israel agenda. Better posters than me have tried and failed to make him see sense, look at the historical facts and blame the guilty party instead of the victim, on the laughable basis that the victim happens to be strong enough not to have died under the assault.<br />
His response to my book recommendation is a classic: deliberate misunderstanding, deflection and a complete failure to look at the complete historical picture. His empathy and sympathy are firmly on the Arab side, for some sentimental reasons that we cannot fathom although we can make reasonable guesses at: utterly deluded Western ‘anti-Imperialism’, absurd feelings of guilt where ‘brown’ people are concerned, ignorance of Jewish history, ignorantly seeing Jews as ‘white European colonialists’, refusing to allow Arabs grown-up agency.<br />
When you add to this his blatant distortion of the facts, e.g. that Nasser had no intention of attacking Israel with genocidal intentions, that closing the Tiran Straits was not an act of war, that Israel was the aggressor in Gaza and Lebanon, that evacuating Gaza was an underhand Zionist plot; you end up with a thoroughly toxic mix.<br />
So, I’ve had enough. Hill is irredeemable.<br />
And everything Lbnaz has said in his several posts above.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 1:55 pm</td></tr>
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Ref: Arafat rejecting Camp David:</div>
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<i>That is a fascinating document I had not seen, so thank you</i></div>
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My guess is that there are a large number of enlighetning documents you haven’t seen.</div>
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Then there is the position that Arafat had no offers he could accept. So what? Even if its true then you have to recognise that the Palestinian have nothing to offer anyway so making unreasonable demands is just a way of creating straw-man arguments.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gene</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 2:36 pm</td></tr>
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<i>That is a fascinating document I had not seen, so thank you. There is a lo there to digest but in his book Ben Ami said Camp David was not an offer the Palestinians could have accepted.</i></div>
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I once held Ben Ami in a great deal of respect, but if he has radically changed his version of what happened at Camp David, I’ll have to withdraw that. When the same person offers two totally different accounts of the same events, I tend to believe the first one.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 3:45 pm</td></tr>
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I don’t even know where to begin. You take a hypothetical question that’s meant to raise the idea of where certain rights are derived from, and take it to it’s most fascist and absurd conclusion, but unfortunately you ignore a lot of area in between… A LOT.<br />
As for Israel having no right to launch an offensive to prevent its people being constantly barraged by missiles and rockets, I’m afraid this is the kind of moral equivalence that truly puts Matt beyond the pale.<br />
I just hope everyone got to read this little gem: It’s the land of the people who have lived on it forever. They now see themselves as Palestinians. It’s very simple.” Wow, a true student of history. Not only does this ignore when the Arab conquest actually took place, but it also ignores the great waves of immigration that took place around the same time as the Jewish ones beginning in the 19th century. But somehow an Egyptian who came in the mid-19th century has been there “forever” while Jews who legally purchased land through out the West Ban and Gaza around the same time, must be less legitimate. Perhaps Matt agrees with Areikat who recently wrote in the Post that “We lived under the rule of a plethora of empires: the Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Israelites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Mongols, Ottomans and, finally, the British”. Of course this is nonsense, but when you invent a people you can just as easily invent its history.<br />
Or perhaps he agrees with Diliani’s statement that “The Palestinian people descended from the Canaanite tribe of the Jebusites that inhabited the ancient site of Jerusalem as early as 3200 B.C.E” This would certainly put them pretty close to “forever”, but unfortunately, being admitted Arabs, this one doesn’t stand up to basic facts either.</div>
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“Nonsense, I condemn them all the time.” Really? Isn’t this what your social experiment was about? Completely ignoring the effects of a certain culture and instead placing the blame on the conflict? Or suggesting somehow that Israel is responsible for creating democracy in its neighborhood or else sitting on its hands while it’s attacked?</div>
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“They must constantly be given excuses and every opportunity to kill again without having peace demanded of them.’<br />
Oh, nonsense.”<br />
Is it nonsense? You suggested that since Israel is the occupier it had to make the concessions and it was uncouth to demand that the Palestinians at least agree to live in peace.</div>
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What’s most amazing though, is that you clearly read my three questions that I have continued to ask, but have continued to ignore them, so I’ll ask them again so that people will see those questions that Matt can’t quite answer:<br />
a) what has shown the Palestinian leadership to be more interested in peace than the Israeli leadership and how do you square this with the words of Abbas, the incitement in all aspects of society and Arafat’s clear links to terror and the second intifada which you admit couldn’t have been justified by Barak’s offer?<br />
b) How do you enforce a treaty that doesn’t have the support of the people and how could any civilized westerner in this day and age not require the people’s support? And what would stop an incensed Palestinian population from then electing Hamas in order to recoup RoR, thus making any Israeli concessions from the treaty worthless?</div>
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c) There’s still that ugly depiction of settlers and soldiers despite quite a nuanced depiction of Palestinian society. Matt told a story about a hypothetical boy in Hebron who wouldn’t drop the demand for RoR despite not being a refugee because of the harassment that he saw his sister go through at the hands of soldiers and because of the settlers that humiliated him. Now if this Hebron boy (might not be an altogether impoverished boy since Hebron produces a third of the West Bank’s GDP) is somehow representative of the typical Palestinian, as this example was meant to suggest, then for it to hold as an example, these mean and capricious soldiers and settlers must be equally representative. So… How does Matt defend this depiction of soldiers and Settlers?</div>
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Finally I’d love to go into this discussion of nationhood. Rather than the Welsh who saw themselves merely in more tribal identities until they banded together, Palestinians actually were part of something far greater, whether it be the entire Arab nation or the nation of Greater Syria. So it wasn’t a banding together to compete with an enemy, but rather the splintering off to invoke human rights to defeat said enemy. And how do we know this? Several ways,<br />
Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, the Syrian Arab leader told the British Peel Commission in 1937:<br />
“There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. ‘Palestine’ is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it.”<br />
or<br />
Zuheir Muhsin, then military commander of the PLO and member of the PLO Executive Council, said helpfully:<br />
“There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity… yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.”</div>
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Most importantly the 1964 founding charter of the PLO explicitly excluded the West Bank and Gaza (including East Jerusalem). So there was nothing Palestinian about these lands EVEN to the Palestinians, until Israel got a hold of them. So… why is this now unquestionably Palestinian land, Matt?</div>
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Also, I think you used the word “annihilation” as a cop out. As usual I believed what the Arab leaders were saying and you choose not to because it simply can’t be true, but the point gets ignored when you find a chance to go off on a tangent.</div>
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“What are these ‘rules for statehood’ exactly?”<br />
Finally, statehood requirements are that said state have defined borders and population (Israel had this at the time of its establishment while Palestine certainly does not), that it have a government (Palestine’s has splintered into two seperate governments warring with each other, that can only function off hand outs and that cannot seem to hold scheduled elections) and finally that said state be “peace-loving”. Hmmm, that might be a tough one. Going into existence already in conflict and insisting on continuing said conflict certainly doesn’t sound “peace-loving”.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 4:01 pm</td></tr>
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And while the 67 lines are indeed convenient for some, they are certainly not the final word on what a state must look like that encompasses the Palestinian population. Why not, say, 90% of that land? Or 95%? Why land swaps when 242 didn’t call for them? What makes 100% of that land mass the bare minimum for a Palestinian state? That was why I brought up Jordan, but the idea isn’t tiny islands of Palestine… just less than 100% of the West Bank… which has somehow become sancrosanct.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 4:34 pm</td></tr>
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Also I never said the Palestinians have any rights. They have the same human rights as anybody else.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>amie</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 4:51 pm</td></tr>
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Matt I note you keep referring admiringly and reverentially to Avi Shlaim in the chain if approbation which you argue reflects well on Finkelstein. Have you read my link to the post about Shlaim on Point of no return I posted way up thread. if so you have not acknowledged or commented on it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 6:15 pm</td></tr>
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amie,</div>
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In the article you link to, Shlaim downplays every Arab wrong and plays up every Israeli one. Overt, endemic bribery in Baghdad? That’s just an old Arab “culture of compromise”. But a bounced cheque in Ramat Gan? That’s an Israeli “badge of honour” and it killed his father’s business (not, apparently, the absence of that “culture of compromise”). There was no antisemitism in Iraq: The Farhud, Jewish flight and expulsions blossomed on previously sterile ground, caused by alien influences — the horrors of British rule and, especially, Zionism. Overall his attitude reminded me irresistibly of Matt, for whom Palestinian naughtiness is a distraction from the evils of a bafflingly irrational (because unnecessary) occupation.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 7:18 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Also I never said the Palestinians have any rights. They have the same human rights as anybody else.</i></div>
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I know that everyone who opposes Matt’s points of view also agree with that statement. I have no disagreement that the Palestinians should govern themselves but having human rights is not the same as a right to self-government and independence. They should have a state because I see no reason to oppose one and because they identify that they don’t want to be Israelis and Israelsi don’t want them to be either. Hence, the only option is self-government (or become a region of Jordan)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 8:47 pm</td></tr>
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Good point. That should have been “I never said the Palestinians DON’T have rights”. But even if self-governance was an actual human right, it would in no way require the ceding of part of Jerusalem or ALL of the West Bank in order for that right to be fulfilled.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 9:26 pm</td></tr>
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Hi folks. Before this thread disappears and I go out, sorry for not answering every point. Remember you’re all debating one person but I’m debating 20. There’ll be time for all these points to be raised again and again. Even though there’s a lot of frustration and antipathy here, I’m grateful that we’ve been arguing about substance at least.</div>
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Happy new year.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 10:42 pm</td></tr>
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Happy New Year, Matt. Make 2012 the year you get your head on straight. (Yes, I know. Can’t help it.)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 31 December 2011, 11:50 pm</td></tr>
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Paul M,</div>
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Thanks. I think my journey since my early 20s shows I’m prepared to change my mind. I’ve always been a humanist, a democrat, a liberal and a secularist. In my early 20s I believed these principles demanded uncritical anti-Zionism and pro-Palestinianism.</div>
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Since then I’ve moved to a position where I support two states for two people, an Arab state and a Jewish state. I’m very much opposed to the one-state solution, the comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa, and attacks on Israeli democracy (whether from western anti-Zionists or ultra-nationalists in the Knesset). I strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself against loathsome, theocratic terrorists who are systematically defiling the Palestinian cause. I strongly oppose, and have condemned at sites like Liberal Conspiracy, the view that Jews should be excluded from the West Bank on principle, and therefore support a peace deal where most of the settlements can stay, and other Israelis can remain in their homes as residents of Palestine, their safety guaranteed. I support unequivocally Israel’s right to exist like any other state. I believe much of the historical blame for the conflict lies with native Arabs who responded to Jewish immigrants, many of them fleeing for their lives, with hostility, violence and war, and believe large-scale conflict could have been avoided if both sides had made efforts at coexistence (and I don’t exclude the British from blame). I condemn the long history of Arab rejectionism, from the 1937 Peel Report, the 1947 UN plan, through the 20th century until Oslo. I condemn the Arab tendency to resort to terror, war and violence in opposition to Israel, from Husseini through Nasser to Arafat. I recognise enormous problems with anti-semitism amongst Palestinians, the wider Arab world, and the pro-Palestinian movement, both in the past and today. I consider Hamas evil murderous necromaniacs. I believe the PLO and PA are deeply compromised by their links to violence, their incompetence, corruption and authoritarianism. I recognise huge problems with parochialism, racism, chauvinism and violence in the wider Arab world, and I have no time for western relativist who make excuses for it. I have huge admiration for the pioneering spirit, intellectualism and feminism of early Zionist culture.</div>
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I have huge affection and admiration for Israel – the land, people, society, the democracy, the freedom of its press, its intellectual culture. Israelis like Oz, Grossman and Segev are among my favourites from all over the world. Those who think my stated affection and concern for Israel is insincere should recall that my parents have lived there for some years, that I’ve been spending months at a time there since i was 14, that many of my best friends are Israelis and my first girlfriend was Israeli, that it’s only in recent years that I started making friends in the territories, that I have many cherished memories in Haifa, Jerusalem and Nazareth especially, that I knew and loved Israel as a second home for many years before I even became political.</div>
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All this is absolutely true. My views on the occupation no more impact on my view of Israel as a country, its people or its right to exist than my views on colonialism and the Iraq war impact on my love of Britain, my home.</div>
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And since I’m not Jewish or Arab, and my connection to Israel is close but not based on race or religion, I have no real emotional investment in either side, apart from my investment in what I believe to be right and good for the people of Israel and the territories. So I could change my mind about the occupation without any great emotional or psychological wrench.</div>
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So I’m flexible, sincere and prepared to change my mind. And my views are based on wide reading and hard study. That is very much why I started this thread – I want to read more of the other side of the debate. I’ll be posting a list of the orders I’ve made from Amazon soon.</div>
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What’s more, I’m the kind of person who sits upstairs enumerating his positive thoughts and feelings about Israel while all his friends and flatmates are downstairs getting drunk and celebrating the new year! I don’t know if this is worrying or encouraging… anyway, I really better be off! Happy new year all!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 12:12 am</td></tr>
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Matt: I will continue to hold out hope for you.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 1:17 am</td></tr>
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But Paul, in all sincerity, what do you hope for me? That I’ll come to support the continuing occupation of 3.7 million people? That would be tantamount to abdicating my support for Israeli democracy. Can’t you see why I think support for Israel, in the medium-to-long-term, actually entails support for the END of the occupation? As Amos Oz has said, ‘even an unavoidable occupation is a corrupting occupation’. Why does support for Israel need to entail support for rule over another people? Isn’t the debate here basically analogous to the traditional debate between Likud and Labour? Going back further, it’s the argument between Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky. Ben Gurion was urged by many of his top advisers to conquer the West Bank in 1948. He could easily have done so, but said it would place an intolerable burden on Israel to rule over so many Arabs. He said it would impose a choice between being a Jewish state and a democracy. That is basically the argument I’ve been making on this thread. When did it become radically anti-Israeli to oppose the Jabotinsky view?</div>
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I suppose your answer will be that a realistic assessment of the situation shows that, historically and for the foreseeable future, Israel’s security can only be guaranteed by maintaining the occupation. Perhaps the best way of reframing the debate would be like this: what is the best way of guaranteeing Israel’s future? Must it abandon its commitment to democracy to ensure its security? Can it still call itself democratic if the occupation is permanent? How liberal or benign can Israel afford to be towards its neighbours and its occupied subjects without compromising its security? What kind of future can supporters of Israel (amongst whom I count myself, but let’s leave that aside now) expect and hope for it? What should Israel aim for? Where can and should it hope to go, and how will it get there?</div>
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Would you consider that a legitimate and reasonable discussion to have?</div>
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Another question. Let’s say for the sake of argument that we all agree that, for Israel to guarantee its guarantee its security, it simply has no choice to impose a military occupation over the Palestinians in the territories. Let’s say this is the brutal reality of the situation: that with the very best will in the world, Israel has no choice whatsoever to live in this way. That every concession – as Nate said above – makes it more vulnerable. That history, Arab culture and Islamic belief render any attempt to foster peace naive and dangerous. That the answer to Levi Eshkol’s question – ‘Must we live by the sword forever?’ – is ‘yes’, through no fault of the Jews whatsoever. That seems to be the position of some people here.</div>
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Well, if that’s so, what can we conclude? Remember the point of Zionism was to give the Jews a country like any other country, where they could live ordinary lives rather than worrying about death and persecution. In short, to enable the Jews to wake up from the nightmare of their history. But if the Zionists went to the Holy Land simply in order to live in a sea of hatred on all sides, destined to kill or be killed, factoring the threat of annihilation into the every calculation – well, haven’t the Jews just swapped diaspora life for the world’s biggest ghetto? A pleasant, rich, in some ways very enviable ghetto, to be sure; but a ghetto all the same. In other words, if the occupation is necessary, if the Jews can only escape oppression by learning to be the oppressor – well, hasn’t Zionism failed?</div>
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The original Zionist may have been naive about the Arabs. Those that acknowledged their presence saw them largely as passive, unsophisticated rustics. They would resist at first, but economic growth and social advance would soon reconcile them to Jewish rule.</div>
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Jabotinsky, paradoxically respecting and understanding the Arabs a little better, saw that this would be impossible. That’s why he advocated the famous ‘Iron Wall’ of Jewish security against Arab violence. It’s Jabotinsky’s vision that has dominated Israel’s security calculations for some time now.</div>
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But even Jabotinsky saw the Iron Wall as a temporary measure, not an indefinite basis for Jewish life in Palestine. He argued that when Israel had made its existence inviolable, and defeated the Arabs unequivocally, it would be time to pull down the Iron Wall and make peace with them.</div>
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Surely that day arrived some time ago? Anyone who gets off the plane at Tel Aviv can look around them and see that Israel is going nowhere. It exists, it will exist forever, it is a phenomenal success beyond Theodore Herzl’s wildest dreams. It is the home of great artists and Nobel Prize winners. It now provides refuge to asylum seekers fleeing poverty and violence elsewhere. A million Arafats and Ahmadinejads couldn’t threaten its existence. It has one of the world’s most sophisticated armies – perhaps the most well-trained and battle-hardened army in existence. Its continued existence is guaranteed by the ultimate weapon. Only moral considerations on the part of itself and other countries limit the exercise of its omnipotence in the region.</div>
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Until the Iron Wall comes down, isn’t the Zionist project incomplete? Wouldn’t the early Zionists look at modern Israel and, while marvelling at its achievements, lament its wars, its occupation, its failure – even through no fault of its own – to make peace?</div>
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Have the Jews truly regathered to live amongst their holy places, to root themselves in the soil of the Middle East? Or have they simply imported the shtetl and the ghetto from the diaspora?</div>
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Again, it may be that none of this is the fault of the Zionists: that in their hope and idealism they miscalculated, they failed to see the true nature of the people they came to live amongst and the impact their arrival would have on them. To a large extent I believe that’s true. And yet…</div>
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This may sound like a rhetorical trick, but I mean it in a very real sense. Isn’t it time Israel returned to the hope that Jews could live like any other country? To look for a way to turn swords into ploughshares – if not today, then one day soon? Isn’t it time, in short, for Israel to rediscover Zionism?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 8:46 am</td></tr>
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Jesus, Matt,</div>
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What’s the emoticon for “man weeping and banging head on wall”? What have your mother and I done to deserve this?</div>
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I’m going to make the supreme effort and reply to your latest, which has the emotional overload of Cartland and the length of Tolstoy. (I will take my tongue out of my cheek long enough to credit you with writing emotionally because you actually care.) The best I can muster, I’m afraid, is to go through it paragraph by paragraph or line by line. It’s not the most coherent way to respond, but it’s the easiest and all I have a hope of completing.</div>
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But Paul, in all sincerity, what do you hope for me? That I’ll come to support the continuing occupation of 3.7 million people? That would be tantamount to abdicating my support for Israeli democracy. Can’t you see why I think support for Israel, in the medium-to-long-term, actually entails support for the END of the occupation? As Amos Oz has said, ‘even an unavoidable occupation is a corrupting occupation’.</div>
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Let’s talk about what “support for occupation” means for a moment. I don’t support occupation as a desirable endpoint in which the Palestinians exist as some sort of permanent caste of untouchables, neither free nor equal. But then, contrary to what you seem to think, neither does anyone else I know outside of the political far-extremes. What I, and I think many like me, <i>do</i> support is occupation as a “least worst” measure, to be ended when the Palestinians commit to a peaceful existence alongside a Jewish state. If that can be achieved in the medium-to-long-term, terrific. If it can be achieved next week, even better. But if not, then we may have to wait as long as it takes, because even if we accept Amos Oz as the Embodiment of Truth, what’s the alternative to an unavoidable occupation? Is there some usage of “unavoidable” that I don’t understand?</div>
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Ben Gurion was urged by many of his top advisers to conquer the West Bank in 1948. He could easily have done so, but said it would place an intolerable burden on Israel to rule over so many Arabs. He said it would impose a choice between being a Jewish state and a democracy. That is basically the argument I’ve been making on this thread.</div>
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Deliberately or not, you’re eliding the difference between an occupation (of any length) and an unequal (and so undemocratic) citizenship. This may be a favourite rhetorical tool of the anti-Israel crowd (and no, I’m not accusing you of that), but it’s a falsehood nonetheless. It’s an attempt to convince Israelis that the occupation is more of a threat to them than unconstrained Palestinian rejectionism would be, because if they can be so persuaded then the Palestinians gain everything whilst giving up nothing.</div>
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I suppose your answer will be that a realistic assessment of the situation shows that, historically and for the foreseeable future, Israel’s security can only be guaranteed by maintaining the occupation. Perhaps the best way of reframing the debate would be like this: what is the best way of guaranteeing Israel’s future? Must it abandon its commitment to democracy to ensure its security? Can it still call itself democratic if the occupation is permanent? How liberal or benign can Israel afford to be towards its neighbours and its occupied subjects without compromising its security? What kind of future can supporters of Israel (amongst whom I count myself, but let’s leave that aside now) expect and hope for it? What should Israel aim for? Where can and should it hope to go, and how will it get there?</div>
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The short answer to that profusion of question marks is: You leap far too lightly from “foreseeable future” to “permanent”. Despite everything I remain mostly an optimist where Israel is concerned. I do not know how long the occupation will last, nor how the Palestinians will go about making it unnecessary, but I choose to believe it will happen. I also believe that the quickest way of getting there is to force the Palestinians to the conclusion that there’s no way around a real peace and a permanent end to the conflict. So long as they think that they can get free of the occupation while retaining options for trying to destroy Israel, that’s what they’ll hold out for. What should Israel hope for? It should hope for a Palestinian leader who can break out of the shackles forged for him by his (“her” would be OK too) predecessors. What should it aim for? It should strive to keep the mental flexibility to see possibilities for advance; it should make whatever small progress is possible in the meantime; it should explore any openings the Palestinians present; it should remain permanently willing to negotiate in good faith; and it should stand fast against anything that is not real peace.</div>
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Another question. Let’s say for the sake of argument that we all agree that, for Israel to guarantee its guarantee its security, it simply has no choice to impose a military occupation over the Palestinians in the territories. Let’s say this is the brutal reality of the situation: that with the very best will in the world, Israel has no choice whatsoever to live in this way. That every concession – as Nate said above – makes it more vulnerable. That history, Arab culture and Islamic belief render any attempt to foster peace naive and dangerous. That the answer to Levi Eshkol’s question – ‘Must we live by the sword forever?’ – is ‘yes’, through no fault of the Jews whatsoever. That seems to be the position of some people here.</div>
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Well, if that’s so, what can we conclude? Remember the point of Zionism was to give the Jews a country like any other country, where they could live ordinary lives rather than worrying about death and persecution. In short, to enable the Jews to wake up from the nightmare of their history. But if the Zionists went to the Holy Land simply in order to live in a sea of hatred on all sides, destined to kill or be killed, factoring the threat of annihilation into the every calculation – well, haven’t the Jews just swapped diaspora life for the world’s biggest ghetto? A pleasant, rich, in some ways very enviable ghetto, to be sure; but a ghetto all the same. In other words, if the occupation is necessary, if the Jews can only escape oppression by learning to be the oppressor – well, hasn’t Zionism failed?</div>
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I thought for a moment there was going to be a glimmer of understanding here. It lasted for all of three sentence before I realised where we were heading. Yes, Israel has no choice — for now. But <i>”render any attempt to foster peace naïve and dangerous”</i>? Where does that come from? There has been a century of attempts to foster peace. They continue. They may yet continue for another century, though I hope not. But as far as I’m concerned, the whole point of being a Zionist is to work for the day when the attempts succeed.</div>
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Bearing in mind, then, that you’re the one who postulates an everlasting rejection, not me, I have my own forest of question marks to plant. So, if Arab hate is eternal — what do you propose? That the situation be described as a failure of Zionism, apparently, rather than a failure of the Arabs. But then what? Invite Israeli Jews to kneel down in the sand and offer their throats to be cut? Tell them to see if any country wants to take in 6 million Jewish refugees, then trust to luck that murderous antisemitism ended for all time in 1945? Another conference in Evian, perhaps, though hopefully with better results? Take the cuffs off the Palestinians because the occupation’s not fair and after all, how much worse could things get anyway?</div>
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How about instead fighting to break out of “the world’s biggest ghetto” and in the meantime defending Israel’s corner in every way possible — occupation included? How about demanding that the world take its hands out of its pockets so that Jews have a choice other than to oppress or be oppressed? If, though, you insist that those are the only options, who are you to decide that being the oppressed is the better choice? It may be the choice you make for yourself — what right do you have to choose it for the rest of us?</div>
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And one more thing before I leave these paragraphs, Matt: Higher up this thread you’ve talked about the Palestinian response to the occupation in terms of Why wouldn’t they fight it and what choice do they have? And yet here you can contemplate the idea of an unquenchable Arab hate and all it would mean to you is that Zionism has failed, with the implication of “so what’s the point? Might as well pack it in.” Is that all we get?</div>
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The original Zionist may have been naive about the Arabs. Those that acknowledged their presence saw them largely as passive, unsophisticated rustics. They would resist at first, but economic growth and social advance would soon reconcile them to Jewish rule.</div>
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I’ll skip this bit, thank you. Between “those that acknowledged their presence” and the sweeping generalisations about Zionist views of “the Arabs”, there’s nothing to answer.</div>
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Jabotinsky, paradoxically respecting and understanding the Arabs a little better, saw that this would be impossible. That’s why he advocated the famous ‘Iron Wall’ of Jewish security against Arab violence. It’s Jabotinsky’s vision that has dominated Israel’s security calculations for some time now.</div>
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But even Jabotinsky saw the Iron Wall as a temporary measure, not an indefinite basis for Jewish life in Palestine. He argued that when Israel had made its existence inviolable, and defeated the Arabs unequivocally, it would be time to pull down the Iron Wall and make peace with them.</div>
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Surely that day arrived some time ago? Anyone who gets off the plane at Tel Aviv can look around them and see that Israel is going nowhere. It exists, it will exist forever, it is a phenomenal success beyond Theodore Herzl’s wildest dreams. It is the home of great artists and Nobel Prize winners. It now provides refuge to asylum seekers fleeing poverty and violence elsewhere. A million Arafats and Ahmadinejads couldn’t threaten its existence. It has one of the world’s most sophisticated armies – perhaps the most well-trained and battle-hardened army in existence. Its continued existence is guaranteed by the ultimate weapon. Only moral considerations on the part of itself and other countries limit the exercise of its omnipotence in the region.</div>
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Well here’s a real change. We’ve had hypothetical considerations of Israel’s security needs; Israel-as-ghetto was offered as a dystopian alternate reality, but now were firmly back in the real world: Israel has, of course, actually defeated the Arabs “unequivocally” and will exist forever. A million Arafats and Ahmedinejads, noch, couldn’t destroy it. How about one Ahmedinejad and a few-score serviceable nuclear warheads? How about, more probably, enough terrorists firing enough Grads across enough borders to keep every Israeli within 15 seconds of a bomb shelter? How about new regimes — I won’t say democracies — tearing up peace treaties in Egypt and Jordan? Or Turkey deciding to make it’s presence more definitively felt? Or all of the above. Is being the only country routinely expected to justify its right to exist, the only country not even theoretically eligible to sit on the UN Security Council, and the only country to be a permanent agenda item at the UN Human Rights Council an indication of a secure existence?</div>
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Do you really think moral considerations are the only things restraining Israel? It has been precisely externally-imposed constraints and the concomitant lack of a definitive victory in every war from 1948 to 2008 that has prolonged this struggle — to the detriment not just of Israelis but of Palestinians also. Don’t pretend to be a serious thinker about the conflict if you’re going to come out with this rubbish.</div>
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Until the Iron Wall comes down, isn’t the Zionist project incomplete? Wouldn’t the early Zionists look at modern Israel and, while marvelling at its achievements, lament its wars, its occupation, its failure – even through no fault of its own – to make peace?</div>
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Yes and yes. Shall we just give up, then? Or, if the fault is not ours, perhaps we could be permitted to persevere?</div>
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Have the Jews truly regathered to live amongst their holy places, to root themselves in the soil of the Middle East? Or have they simply imported the shtetl and the ghetto from the diaspora?</div>
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I’m tempted to say “Go to hell” here, Matt. The Jews have done their damnedest to leave the shtetl and the ghetto behind them, from the decision for self-determination to the discarding of Yiddish and even Ashkenazi pronunciation in favour of Sephardic Hebrew. If the ghetto has followed us to the Middle East it will be by the will of our enemies, not ourselves. Lay that charge at our feet and I’ll write you off for good.</div>
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Again, it may be that none of this is the fault of the Zionists: that in their hope and idealism they miscalculated, they failed to see the true nature of the people they came to live amongst and the impact their arrival would have on them. To a large extent I believe that’s true. And yet…</div>
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This may sound like a rhetorical trick, but I mean it in a very real sense. Isn’t it time Israel returned to the hope that Jews could live like any other country? To look for a way to turn swords into ploughshares – if not today, then one day soon? Isn’t it time, in short, for Israel to rediscover Zionism?</div>
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These last paragraphs are in the same turgid and dishonest vein. Israel, to the best of my knowledge, has never lost the desire to live like any other country. If you truly want to contemplate the possibility that it’s not the fault of the Zionists, how about making demands of the Palestinians and other Arabs for a change? Your high-minded plea for “Israel to rediscover Zionism” is you at your most self-important worst and, frankly, nauseating.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 9:24 am</td></tr>
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Matt – I am certain you are completely sincere in all you say in your 11.50 comment, and it seems to me pretty rare for anyone who might be termed ‘pro-Palestinian’ to be willing to say half so much, as I discussed here:</div>
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<a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2011/05/11/palestinian-perspectives/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://hurryupharry.org/2011/05/11/palestinian-perspectives/</a></div>
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I don’t always agree with your critics on these threads – sometimes I agree with you and sometimes I don’t know. But I do agree with quite a bit of what Paul says (though I wouldn’t put it so strongly). One problem I had with your latest comment is that, because attempts to delegitimise Israel either completely and openly, or subtly, are so prevalent, I find anything which even brushes against that kind of discourse seriously unwelcome. I’m sure this is not your intention though!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 10:17 am</td></tr>
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Paul,<br />
Superb, and every single word is absolutely on the nail.<br />
For someone as ignorant and new to the topic as Hill is, and not even Jewish, to demand that the state of the Jews “rediscover Zionism”, a term whose meaning he doesn’t begin to understand, is the very definition of chutzpah.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 10:19 am</td></tr>
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Sarah,</div>
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<i>though I wouldn’t put it so strongly</i></div>
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Surprise us just once, and be unequivocal.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 7:24 pm</td></tr>
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<i>“Sarah … Surprise us just once, and be unequivocal.”</i></div>
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Come on, Sarah, shape up: “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”</div>
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And Peter: Thanks for your kind complement.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 1 January 2012, 11:48 pm</td></tr>
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… or compliment.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Matt Hill</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 4:43 am</td></tr>
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Paul, you’re not the only one who shows restraint in these discussions, ok? The fact I’m polite 95% of the time is partly due to the fact that, as I belong to a minority of one here, there’s really no benefit to me showing my emotions. And why am I in a minority of one? Because I’m pretty much the only person on the whole fucking internet as far as I know who is trying to have a conversation with the ‘other’ side about this. I understand it’s a conversation many people here would rather not have. Of course, they’re free to ignore me. It’s much nicer in many ways just to ignore the fact that many people don’t agree with you. But since there doesn’t seem to me to be an obvious right and wrong side to this discussion, it seems worth having. You may think the question is obvious, but many of the world’s best scholars, leading politicians, and greatest moral voices disagree. I may be a rather paltry representative of all those figures, but since I’m the only person I know who actively seeks out this debate, I would think (considering the motto at the top of every page here) that you could at least acknowledge I’m trying, here.</div>
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To be fair, you’ve at least made great efforts to reply to me – even if your answers are laden with insults and condescension. Fair enough, I can put up with that. It’s better than the endless stream of shit I get from the likes of Dcook (who constantly questions my understanding of history and then, hilariously, says ‘I don’t do books’…!), and it goes with the territory. But if, as you say, you acknowledge I’m honestly misguided and that at least I care – how about a little less of the insults? Or at least, go and post your thoughts on a pro-Palestinian website, endure days and weeks of abuse while you painstakingly trying and force the reasonable posters to have a debate that almost never happens – and then come back and tell me what a shit I am.</div>
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In your long answer – and I appreciate your trying to answer me – you failed to address one of my central questions. Let me put it another way. If, as I’ve said, for the sake of argument, you’re right that Israel is forced to oppress the Palestinians through no fault of its own, and therefore cannot live like any other country as the Zionists hoped – in that case, how long will it be before you say, through no fault of Israel’s, that the Zionists miscalculated, that the Middle East simply isn’t a potential home for Jews due to the character of their neighbours, and that therefore the Zionist project – again, I emphasise, through no fault of its own, is doomed to failure?</div>
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(I should emphasise that I don’t actually believe Zionism is doomed to failure – I’m accepting this premise for the sake of argument.)</div>
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Put it another way. Paradoxically, though Zionism was supposed to make the Jews safe, it’s clear there are many countries in the world where Jews are safer than in Israel. Again, let’s say for the sake of argument that it’s because the Arabs are inherently anti-semitic or violent, and if Palestine had been inhabited by Belgians or Scandinavians they would have welcomed Jewish immigration and everything would have been resolved amicably. What then? You say there’s still hope the conflict will be resolved and the Zionist dream will be realised. My rather Jewish response would have to be: how long? Even if it’s all the Arabs’ fault, and there’s nothing more Ben Gurion and Golda Meir and Begin and Shamir and Netanyahu and Sharon etc could have done to make peace… well, how long must it take, before we accept the original Zionists were misguided in hoping to create a homeland were the Jews can live like any other people?</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 4:55 am</td></tr>
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Peter,</div>
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… ‘and not even Jewish’…</div>
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Good, let’s get the real source of your loathing out in the open, shall we? God forbid that someone who’s not even Jewish try to have a say on what constitutes right and wrong for a country like Israel! Just as only Arabs should ever try and tell the Palestinians what to do, right? And only Americans should have a view on US foreign policy? Oh, and what about the 20% of Israelis who aren’t Jewish? Do they get special dispensation to speak about Israel, or do they fall foul of the race bar too?</div>
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Was it you or your twin Dcook who told me he’d never even been to Israel in between insulting my understanding of this issue?<br />
How far would you like to extend this principle, Peter? Shall we try and think of other cases, past and present, where membership of a racial or ethnic group constrains your behaviour or opinions?</div>
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You make my skin crawl.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 7:17 am</td></tr>
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Matt – Happy New Year by the way – I welcome your willingness to engage, and I acknowledge how difficult it is when you seem to be almost on your own in these debates. As I mentioned on your blog, I think it is very telling that those who might be expected to give your some support fade away (rather) when you come along – both here and on Lib Con – for although the dynamic on HP plots you as ‘pro-Palestinian’ you show up the more usual ‘pro-Palestinian’ types!</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 2:05 pm</td></tr>
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Sarah AB,</div>
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Happy new year to you too. A few comments to try and take some heat out of this.</div>
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Peter, I won’t get a reciprocal remark from you but I’m sorry for that final comment. I do however think it’s dangerous when people start excluding others from discussions on the rounds of identity. I would think my longstanding connection with Israel qualifies me to speak. And though you’ll say I don’t combine it with understanding, I at least have a fairly comprehensive factual acquaintance with the topic.</div>
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Though my views seem to exasperate a lot of people here, who consider them fatally dimwitted or obtuse. Fair enough – nobody is obliged to take me seriously, and though it’s rarely been suggested to me in the course of my life that I’m exceptionally slow, it may well be that I’ve stumbled onto a subject that’s rather beyond me at present. Ok. But here’s one thing I wonder. Since my views and my approach is essentially rather similar to, say, that of serious and celebrated scholars like Tom Segev, Gershom Gorenberg, etc, and nobody ever accuses them of being obtuse or ignorant. What do HP readers think of the likes of them – and David Grossman, Amos Oz, etc, all of whom express more or less my views exactly? Are they all utterly stupid? Have I perhaps failed to make it clear that I’m actually quite moderate on the spectrum of pro-Palestinian opinion (even that I’m not sure I can adopt that phrase)? Or is it less the content of my views than the way I express them that bothers people?</div>
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This isn’t an appeal to authority my views stand o fall on their own – but I wonder if readers are aware that my views are hardly considered radical in the context of political and intellectual debate on this topic. The solution I envisage is the one supported by George w. bush, Obama, barak and Rabin; even Netanyahu pays lip service to it. Our major disagreement is over why there’s no peace already. And essentially this turns on a debate over events from 1993 to today. And even on that issue we’d surely agree on much! It’s not as though I think Arafat and Abbas are great crusaders for peace, and I’m sure many people here are less than enthusiastic about expanding Ma’ale Adumin and Ariel. If we sat down in a room charged with making peace I expect we could come pretty close within a couple of hours. The difference is largely in rhetoric, no?</div>
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I’m not denying there are substantial and important areas of disagreement here, I’m just lamenting the fact that the whole discussion seems to get so personal so quickly. Nobody ever says or implies, ‘I respect your opinion and your willingness to express it to a hostile audience, but…’</div>
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A number of leftists have said to me, ‘why are you trying to get a sensible debate out of that lot? They’re all bigots’. I’ve said I don’t think that’s true, tha there are many reasonable people here, that some of the best debate I’ve seen on the web takes place here, that even those I disagree with usually seem motivated by honourable liberal views, that the subject is too important for both sides to ignore each other. But it seems to me there’s a grave danger that two echo chambers have developed on opposite sides of the debate.</div>
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If we can’t even have a good debate here, how will the two sides ever make peace? I understand it may seem rather grandiose of me to appoint myself the representative of the other side of the debate. But who the hell else is applying for the job?</div>
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Does anyone sympathise at all with any of these sentiments or am I just talking to myself? I know there are many people here who’d prefer it if I never befouled these pages again, but is there anyone who thinks this discussion is worth having?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 2:34 pm</td></tr>
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Two further comments, one serious and one light-hearted. I’ve said this debate is turning into two echo chambers. That this is true is illustrated by the fact that my views are clearly too pro-Palestinian for this site, but also too pro-Israeli for almost every pro-Palestinian site. I have an open invitation to comment at Liberal Conspiracy, which is leftish and widely read. However recently I decided to post only pieces which lean towards Israel there, or what would be the point? Everyone in this debate preaches to the choir. The danger then is to adjust your views to confirm your readers’ views – since, after all, if you’re pro-Palestinian but you think the RoR is a load of crap, say, you may find literally nobody is prepared to listen. Doesn’t anyone else think it’s worth trying to kick against that scenario – that hearing opposite views, even if they’re wrong, can help keep us on our toes now and then?</div>
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It’s occurred to me that one reason supporters of Israel tend to be rather sensitive to criticism may be that debates about Israeli foreign policy are unlike debates about UK foreign policy, for instance, because the question of Israel’s right to exist seems implicit every time. So maybe critics of Israel need to be much clearer that we don’t question it’s right to exist in any way, that we believe it has all the rights – and obligations – of any other state. And we should draw a sharp dividing line between those who are prepared to support Israel’s right to exist and those who aren’t, those who wont tolerate anti-semitism and those who make excuses for it, those who eschew violence against civilians and those who don’t. It certainly seems to me that many in the pro-Palestinian movement for good humanistic, democratic reasons are extremely naive about the nature of the movement they support and the likely shape of the state that will result. Do I get any credit at all for being clear and consistent on these points, or am I indistinguishable from Atzmon or Arafat to everyone here?</div>
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On a lighter note… I’m pleased at least nobody has called me an anti-Semite for a while. I think it’s fairly obvious that’s not fair, that it won’t stick. I’m not exactly sure how a conversation I had with my girlfriend last night relates to that point, but it amused me when she told me about it. My girlfriend noticed I was mumbling to myself at 4am and asked what was the matter. Eyes closed, I said: ‘I’ve decided.’</div>
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‘decided what?’ she said.</div>
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‘I’m going to be a Jew for the next couple of days.’</div>
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Amused, my girlfriend said: ‘you can’t just be a Jew for a couple of days, matt. You have to be born a Jew or convert.’</div>
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Still asleep, I said, a little disappointed: ‘well, I’ll just have to make the best of this i suppose.’</div>
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Make of that what you will!</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 3:16 pm</td></tr>
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Matt, 4:43 am,</div>
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Harry’s is not a very gentle place — except for Sarah AB, who would deliver tea and biscuits with her comments if she could find a way — but I was not all that rough with you. You get credit from me for being well intentioned, which is why, when you posted a comment the length of the New York telephone directory, I devoted a quite a lot of time to giving you considered answers. True, I lost my temper with you toward the end. If you can’t see why, I suggest you keep rereading until you can.</div>
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You say I haven’t answered one of your central questions. I have — with questions back at you. (Some people consider that a very Jewish thing to do.) I have other answers, but I’d prefer it if you made the effort to respond to what I’ve already written.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 3:29 pm</td></tr>
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Hello – yes, I think one reason supporters of Israel may seem highly sensitive is that there is SO MUCH criticism of Israel – and so much of it is, or seems, unfair in some way, to say the least. So even I (not Jewish, views probably not much different from yours) find myself responding suspiciously to pieces which are critical of Israel. They have to be prefaced with some sort of disarming credo such as yours a few comments up, or they have to come from someone who has convinced me over the course of several posts that s/he is basically sound – Bob from Brockley, say.</div>
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Maybe you could do something about Palestinians in Jordan etc for Lib Con? Someone (Penny?) was pointing out on another thread that that was something pro-Palestinians often ignored – and a lot of them do indeed seem more anti-Israel than pro-Palestinian to me.</div>
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Perhaps it is the case that you have fairly average/moderate views (though clearly an above average interest judging from your sleep talking!) in the topic, and that most people who bother to blog about I/P have pretty strong views. I suppose the same is true for me – I don’t think it should be left to people with existing strong views to grumble about the PSC, UCU etc.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 5:19 pm</td></tr>
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Sarah,</div>
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In case it isn’t clear from what I’ve written (I have an unfortunate fondness for teasing people which doesn’t always go over as intended, especially on the internet) I appreciate your calmness and moderation, your willingness to consider all reasoned arguments and your instinct to look for the best in people. Like some of the others here I sometimes wish you would come down from the fence a bit more, but if that’s your worst failing — and it seems to be — you’re a saint compared to the rest of us.</div>
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For myself, I don’t feel the need to see “some sort of disarming credo” before criticism is delivered. It’s usually possible to figure out who is an affectionate critic, who’s neutral and holds everyone to the same standard, whose criticisms have no application in the real world, and who thinks the re-birth of Israel was the worst idea since mankind opted to come down from the trees.</div>
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Matt seems to me to be one of the dreamers, and a fairly benign one — though if he pens any more thousand-word comments I may have to kill him anyway. The limit to Matt’s moderation, though, is that while he may be willing to consider the idea of Palestinian or more general Arab fault, all his solutions require Israel to take the blame, make the concessions and take the risks. And if it were to turn out that peace is not to be had at any price, Matt seems to now be saying that, sad though it would make him, it would be for Israel to admit the defeat of its ideals and then… what? Fade away into the sunset? He doesn’t say.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 6:17 pm</td></tr>
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Paul – thanks – no offence taken in any case. WRT fence sitting – the thing is – I really do have fairly moderate, if slightly left of centre views and I think my Eng lit background has now hardwired me to look at things from different perspectives (not doing that loses you marks). So – it was just an accurate statement for me to say that I had some similar responses as you did to Matt’s comment about Zionism, but didn’t feel so strongly. But, even though I disagree with Matt about some things and even sometimes think ‘Matt noooooooo’ when I read one of his comments – I also remember that he is pretty forgiving of views he must find odd himself!</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 6:27 pm</td></tr>
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Sarah,</div>
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I’ve thought about writing about the status and treatment of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, and about the sheer disgrace of the way they’ve been turned into a standing reproach and human bargaining chip in the conflict, as well as the way in which the issue of Israel is used as an excuse for Arab governments to neglect them and keep them disenfranchised. The issue strikes at the heart of the conflict, and has numerous facets. You can treat it as a humanitarian/social issue; a political/diplomatic one; a historical anomaly; also, most interestingly perhaps, as a moral/ethical issue. Perhaps some people will be surprised if I say I think the LEAST controversial issue here is the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem. I think historical research over the last 20 years has led to a kind of consensus: the suggestion that the Arabs left on the instructions of their leaders is largely a myth; the claim that their expulsion was pre-planned and systematically and knowingly executed simply isn’t supported by the evidence either. In some ways the debate is a red herring, because what is hardly in dispute is that the Israeli authorities blocked their return, and thus actively chose to rid the country of the refugees. However some perspective is in order. The Arabs were the sworn enemies of the new state; to expect Israel to readmit them in their hundreds of thousands in such circumstances displays sheer – perhaps purposeful – obliviousness ti historical reality. Quite a number of countries in the years after 1945 were formed by population transfers, forced migration, whatever you want to call it. The Palestinians are the only case where not only are those people still considered refugees, but so are their grandchildren. It’s patently absurd. The woman I live with has grandparents who left their homes because of the partition of India in 1947; not only is she NOT considered a refugee today, she’s not even considered foreign. Obviously the circumstances are different, but it highlights the absurdity of the Palestinian case. And saying so isn’t to ignore the genuine hardships of Palestinians; it’s to demand they are finally treated properly by the states where they’ve made their home. It’s offensive to see millions of people – many of them still in hardship – used as a stick to beat Israel with, by people who shed crocodile tears for their fate and wouldn’t lift a finger to win them the vote, or even decent housing, in their new homes.</div>
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Ironically, however, if there’s one nation that should have some empathy for people who forever long for their homeland, never feel a sense of belonging where they live, yearning every day to return to where they belong – well, you know.</div>
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None of this is to touch on the political solution, which is simple: no return to Israel; full right of return to the state of Palestine or citizenship in their new homes; a symbolic number of returnees to Israel, up to 50,000 over several years, to recognise the suffering of the Palestinian exile; a large international fund to be established to help the refugees start new lives, compensate them for the wrongs they’ve endured, and basically to buy their cooperation with a peace deal.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>amie</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 2 January 2012, 6:48 pm</td></tr>
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So, nothing to say about the Avi Shlaim link before you go, then Matt</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 1:20 am</td></tr>
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amie,</div>
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re. your Shlaim link. I’m having a little difficulty working out what you want me to respond to here, and what you consider so damning about the post you link to. First of all, let’s recap what I originally said that prompted this link. It wasn’t so much that I thought linking Finkelstein to Netanyahu flattered the former – far from it! I was trying to point out that the guilt-by-association-by-association gambit we see quite a lot of at HP leads to some odd conclusions. In Finkelstein’s case for instance, well, one of his major academic supporters is the historian who’s been called a mentor and inspiration to a man who was one of the top ministers in the government of Ehud Barak, defence minister to hardliner Netanyahu! The chain goes Finkelstein-Shlaim-BenAmi-Barak-Netanyahu. Look at it another way: if Finkelstein’s loathsome anti-semitic nature is so obvious to anyone who knows or reads him, then you’ll have difficulty accounting for the extremely close relationships of trust between all these people. Because if so, Shlaim must be an anti-semite or damnably oblivious to it for supporting Finkelstein so strongly; which means Ben Ami, one of the most trusted ministers (and a head negotiator at camp David) in the government of Barak, defence minister to Netanyahu, must be unable to spot a blatant anti-semite or a supporter of anti-semitism. So why did Barak trust him? It’s not easy to explain, if this guilt-by-association-by-association charge is fair.</div>
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Unless – of course! – Netanyahu is an anti-semite and Israel-hater!</div>
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But seriously. What did I think of the material you linked to? Honestly? I thought it was one of the most baffling attempts to smear someone I’ve ever read. A classic – and embarrassingly poor example of trying to pathologise a dissenting view (as the Bolsheviks liked to do).</div>
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I kept wondering when we’d get to the controversial bit – after all, with someone like Finkelstein it’s normally possible to turn up some pretty loathsome or stupid comments. There’s a bit about his childhood in Iraq and move to Israel. There’s a (false) claim that he’s made a relatively trivial self-contradiction. We’re invited to doubt Shlaim’s quite mild comments about Ashkenazis looking down on Mizrahis – hardly a damning revelation to any student of Israeli soiety – for no real reason. And then – the article end with this:</div>
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‘What are we then to make of Avi Shlaim? How can one explain his Orwellian revisionism of Middle Eastern history? Is he suffering from an Oedipus complex? ‘Stockholm syndrome’? Or has he been terminally brainwashed by The Guardian?’</div>
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This paragraph is so hilariously facile it ought to discredit everything that’s preceded it. Look again. What are we to make of the fact that a professor of history at Oxford University, a Fellow of the British Academy, a man widely regarded as one of the most respectable scholars on the subject in the world – certainly in the top three or four – disagrees with our esteemed blogger? Well, he must be… mentally ill! Of course! Now, the author in question obviously doesn’t know the names of any psychological conditions, so he throws out the two psychological terms everyone knows, proving he doesn’t really understand what they mean:</div>
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- Oedipus complex (erm, because Shlaim mentions his father, and of course suffering from an Oedipus complex would explain why he’s anti-Israel)<br />
- Stockholm Syndrome (right… and who is it that has captured Shlaim? Oxford University? Does the blogger have any intention of making sense at this stage?)<br />
- or perhaps he’s been… brainwashed by the Guardian! of course! now it all makes sense!</div>
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amie, I’ve found your comments intelligent in the past. I would think if you read back over this nonsense you’d see this is one of the most hilariously weak smears out there.</div>
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As for the ’substance’, the blogger identifies two ‘controversial’ claims. One is that there was an agreement between Iraq and Israel for that country’s Jews to leave. That seems eminently plausible, since after all there was even an agreement between the Nazis and the Yishuv for Jews to leave Germany before 1939. I don’t even quite understand why I’m supposed to find this claim prima facie implausible or offensive.</div>
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The second ‘offensive’ claim is that the Arabs have been on the whole more peace minded that Israel since 1948. Now, that is a highly debatable claim. In many ways, decided who is more committed to peace is actually a political, even quite subjective question. Because, of course, everyone wants peace in the end – just on their own terms. Even Hitler wanted peace in 1939. So the question becomes whether the peace terms envisaged by each side are reasonable. I think this explains why the two sides seem to be talking past each other on the question of who’s made the most serious efforts at peace. If you think the Likud vision of an autonomous entity comprising the environs of Palestinian urban areas is a reasonable one, you’ll think Israel has sincerely wanted peace for many years. If you think full Israeli rereat to the 1967 lines, the dismantling of all settlements, and the acknowledgement of the right of return is reasonable, you’ll think the Palestinians have desperately been seeking peace for years. The reality is in between, but it’s still largely a matter of judgement, in my view, whose terms are closest to what’s reasonable.</div>
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One thing I will say, though, is this. If you think Avi Shlaim’s view is esoteric and proof he’s an unserious scholar, you have a distorted picture of what the academic establishment (minus Ephraim Karsh) is saying about Israel these days – even in Israel. There’s a huge range of opinion of course, but Shlaim’s view is by no means outside the mainstream. Of course if you want to write off academia as an anti-semitic cesspit ‘brainwashed by the Guardian’ – nobody can stop you,.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 6:43 am</td></tr>
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Matt – yes the syndrome stuff seems a bit silly, but I can see why people find his narrative of the Iraqi refugee situation objectionable – brushing aside the events of 1941 to emphasise Israel’s (perceived) role as a provocation, even a provocateur. Surely it must have been pretty awful in Iraq for so many people to willingly abandon all their property? I’ve just looked this up on Wikipedia – not very scholarly I know – and it suggests that the Israelis were a bit reluctant, if anything, to take in so many refugees at first. I assume people decide whether they think Zionists were responsible for the later bombs depending on their own political views, to a great extent.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 1:18 pm</td></tr>
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Sarah, I confess I know nothing about the story of the Iraqi Jews. All I know is that I’ve read several Avi Shlaim books and consider him an excellent historian. Also that, since I know nothing of this subject, it will take a bit more to convince me that an Oxford Professor of History who is actually from Iraq should be ignored so blithely. As for the fact that Shlaim notes some believe Israeli agents secretly planted a bomb and blamed it on Muslim extremists, well, I’m supposed to find it offensive that this possibility is raised?</div>
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I think this flags up what’s wrong with a lot of people around here. If someone alleges Israel’s done something that doesn’t fit with its angelic nature, the first reaction isn’t to check whether it’s true but to accuse the accuser of spreading malicious lies. It reminds me of my father’s outrage when he’d get calls from school when I was 14, alleging that I’d been in fistfights. His first response was to hit the roof that anyone would dare accuse his darling son of such a crime. So Israel wouldn’t plant bombs in foreign capitals, blame it on Muslim fanatics, deviously stirring up trouble in other countries’ politics? Well, it would and it has.</div>
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Two words: Lavon Affair.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair</a></div>
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I’m not saying the business in Iraq happened. I’m saying: maybe we should all pause a moment before condemning a world-famous historian who should know a thing or two about the Jews of Iraq, for noting Israel may have done something rather similar to other operations we know for a fact it did.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 5:38 pm</td></tr>
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By the way, Paul M, I’m going to get around answering your long post as soon as possible. And I promise to try and be succinct!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 6:02 pm</td></tr>
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Matt – I think if he’s an Oxford Professor and a Fellow of the BA then it seems reasonable to assume that he is almost certainly a very good historian. But there did seem to me to be a real issue in that post amie linked to, brushing aside 1941 in particular.</div>
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I have of course come across this idea that Israeli agents acted as agents provocateurs. I really don’t know whether, in the Iraqi context, this is a historically respectable, but from a pro-Israel POV, rather unwelcome theory. There seems a clear reason why such stories might be invented or exaggerated. Alternatively – and I think this goes back to the fact Israel is criticised SO much – there may be a very natural urge to overcompensate. It’s much easier for Brits to look at our various wrongdoings in a comparatively relaxed way.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 7:14 pm</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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While I wait for your response to my earlier comment, a word about amie’s link. Who threw a grenade into a shul in Iraq might be historically very interesting, but it’s not of huge relevance to the overall story of Iraqi Jews. What interests me is what seems to be Shlaim’s consistent tendency to downplay Arab hostility and antisemitism — in Iraq as elsewhere — and to emphasise anything that puts Israel in a bad light. As I said somewhere far back in the thread, Shlaim whitewashes the flagrant corruption that made his father a wealthy man in Baghdad as the mere “culture of compromise” and then proceeds to describe a bounced cheque as an Israeli “badge of honour”. For Shlaim, it was the bounced cheque, not the inability to profit from corruption, that doomed his father’s business efforts in Israel, and it is Israel he demeans in the comparison. That’s a minor, personal detail of life in the 1940’s Middle East, but this is a man we’re supposed to trust as our guide to that place and time?</div>
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The other, perhaps more important, point about that article is this: Amie’s link was to a website by and principally for Jews from Arab lands and their descendants. Many of them also “know a thing or two about the Jews of Iraq” and are personally and directly aware of the details — possibly more so than Shlaim, who left Baghdad when he was 5 years old and, by his own admission, never questioned his parents about it. Before you dismiss the article for its lack of penetrating analysis, consider that it was written by and for people who may already know first-hand how poorly it fits what they lived through. Perhaps they did not need to dissect it for each other to know it was wrong.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>amie</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 8:21 pm</td></tr>
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Matt; Paul M makes the point very well about who writes on the site point of no return. you do indeed know very little about the Jews of Iraq or the arab countries generally, and this site should be your first resource of primary sources to educate yourself, instead of arrogantly dismissing it and the people who contribute to it. you will find the agent provocatuer alegation that Israeli agents planted the bombs comprehensively debunked elswhere on the sit</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 3 January 2012, 10:17 pm</td></tr>
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Ok, Paul M, I’m going to go through your last comment now and give it the reply it deserves, since after all you’ve done me the credit of replying at length to me. I’ll probably even manage to write it without insults and personal comments too!</div>
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re. Shlaim. As I said, I really don’t know anything about the Jews of Iraq. I’m simply not in a position to know whether Shlaim’s account is biased. But originally amie was inviting me to dismiss Shlaim as a fatally biased or unserious scholar on the basis of these remarks, and I don’t see any a priori reason to do so here.</div>
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As a more general comment, I’d add that this strikes me as a minor example of a manoeuvre I see employed frequently against critics of Israel. The way it works is this. You start with a blanket assumption that anyone who criticises Israel is guilty of anti-semitism or bigotry until proven innocent. Then all their writing, interviews, articles, connections, etc, are scoured for remarks that could be interpreted as anti-semitic or unreasonably anti-Israeli. The comments are then collected together and posted out of context to create an impression of anti-Israeli bias or even anti-semitism. This encourages uncharitable readings of the remarks in question. So when remarks which in normal circumstances wouldn’t seem suspect in any way are also used, in a rather circular move, they’re assumed to constitute further evidence against the individual in question. Nobody is likely to try and defend such an individual, but if they do they’re condemned for trivialising or excusing anti-semitism – and are therefore guilty by association too. This way all kinds of anti-Israeli authors are blacklisted. Then the fact that another author has some connection or positive words to say about them can constitute further evidence against that author. This way not just individual authors and their entire oeuvres can be condemned on the basis of a few stupid comments, even whole groups of authors or even schools can be condemned – such as the New Historians, all of whose scholarship must be utterly worthless, because Ilan Pappe has said some idiotic things, and therefore must be inherently bigoted, which goes for anyone who endorses his work. Thus the trail of suspicion spreads out rapidly to whole sections of the scholarly community.</div>
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One defence which can never, ever be used when these figures are put on trial is that, yes, these comments are stupid or even nasty, but they must be seen in the context of the whole ouevre. Because why should I invest my valuable time in reading the work of a known anti-semite and anti-Israel bigot? After all, it’s been shown to my satisfaction that this person is unreliable and utterly untrustworthy. That excuses me from the responsibility of learning anything more about them.</div>
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Which, after all, is the whole point – to enable us to evade, with a clean conscience, the responsibility of taking on an author’s work or arguments seriously. This way certain authors can be safely ignored and we’re only obliged to take those with orthodox views seriously.</div>
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This argument becomes almost completely circular in a case Shlaim’s here. Because one of the main reasons I’m being asked to dismiss and condemn him is that he’s expressed a view which runs counter to what all right-thinking people know – that the Arabs have been more peace-seeking than the Israelis. We know Israel has been the more peace-seeking side because this is a view we’ve heard repeated by all approved, kosher authors, and whenever the opposite is asserted it comes from the pen of non-kosher authors. Therefore anyone who says it must be non-kosher and their opinions can safely be ignored. It’s an excellent way of discounting any views that stray from the pro-Israeli orthodoxy.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 1:35 am</td></tr>
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Paul M,</div>
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‘What I, and I think many like me, do support is occupation as a “least worst” measure, to be ended when the Palestinians commit to a peaceful existence alongside a Jewish state.’</div>
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Of course I understand that. The difference between us is that I think Israel could make peace now if it wanted to, and that this has been true for some time. Netanyahu could simply announce: ok, Israel accepts the Palestinian offer at Annapolis. Now we wish to find a way of implementing the agreement and creating a Palestinian state that will live peacefully alongside a secure Israel, empowering the forces of moderation in Palestinian society and ostracising the forces of extremism. I know we’ll differ on this point, but it’s worth spelling it out because it’s the crux of our disagreement: I think this process could lead to a peace both people could accept. Perhaps they won’t be enthusiastic about it and some people will hate some parts of it – for instance, when the Palestinians have to accept there’ll be no RoR. But I believe the Palestinians are ready, or at least they’re ready to be made ready. But instead of cultivating the moderate forces in Palestinian society and cutting off the extremists, Israel is doing exact opposite.</div>
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‘[Israel] should strive to keep the mental flexibility to see possibilities for advance; it should make whatever small progress is possible in the meantime; it should explore any openings the Palestinians present; it should remain permanently willing to negotiate in good faith; and it should stand fast against anything that is not real peace.’</div>
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Very well said. But is this an accurate description of Israel today? Even if I’m wrong and the Palestinians aren’t ready for peace, are Israel’s current actions making peace more or less likely?</div>
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‘There has been a century of attempts to foster peace. They continue. They may yet continue for another century, though I hope not. But as far as I’m concerned, the whole point of being a Zionist is to work for the day when the attempts succeed.’</div>
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Paul, let me say first, though you won’t reciprocate the compliment, that yours is precisely the form of Zionism that I honour and admire. If your form of Zionism were the predominating one, I would proudly call myself a Zionist, because I believe the Jews have every right to a homeland in historic Palestine and every right to live as a Jewish state.</div>
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But I just don’t recognise this ‘century of efforts to foster peace’, even given what I said before about the arguable nature of what constitutes a peace plan. Let’s say that the history of the conflict from 1948-1991 was mainly characterised by Arab rejectionism and even aggression. I’ll confine myself to the Israel-Palestine conflict here because the Israel-Arab conflict is much more complex, and the picture is complicated by the Jarring Mission, the Rogers Plan, the 1982 Lebabon war, and so on. When it comes to the Palestinians, the PLO was officially committed to wiping Israel out from its inception. I’ve no doubt it would still be committed to doing so if that seemed possible, but by the 1980s it was obvious to Arafat he’d have to compromise. By the beginning of the 1990s he’d accepted Israel’s right to exist in principle, and now the story of Arab rejectionism becomes more complex.</div>
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can it truly be said Israel has remained ‘permanently willing to negotiate in good faith’ when Yitzhak Shamir had to be dragged, with desperate reluctance, to Madrid in 1991? Didn’t he try every trick in the book to scupper the talks, delay progress, force deadlock? And when Netanyahu succeeded Rabin, did he ‘explore any openings the Palestinians present’ – or was he caught boasting on tape about how he deliberately scuppered the Oslo Accords? Is he any different now? Isn’t it the case that every Likud government since 1993 has actually worked overtime to STOP peacemaking efforts? And even when Labour or Kadima have been in power, haven’t we seen the ceaseless growth of settlements, whose primary purpose is to make it as hard as possible for Israel to hand back the West Bank and thus create peace?</div>
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‘So, if Arab hate is eternal — what do you propose? That the situation be described as a failure of Zionism, apparently, rather than a failure of the Arabs. But then what? Invite Israeli Jews to kneel down in the sand and offer their throats to be cut?’</div>
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Hardly. When I postulated eternal Arab rejectionism, I was doing so for the sake of argument. It seemed to me that many people here believe the Arabs are irredeemably opposed to peace. I understand now that you’re not amongst such people. But my purpose was to challenge people who believe Israel is forced to oppress the Arabs due to their unalterable nature by confronting them with the logical conclusion of their point of view. I wanted to show that those who claim the Arabs are eternally rejectionist and violent are implicitly arguing that the Zionist dream will never be realised. That if this is true, Israel will never be a country like any other country. My hope was by confronting people with the logical outcome of their position, I’d prompt them to reconsider it. Obviously for my own part I don’t believe any nation or race has inherent qualities that can’t ever change – that would be tantamount to racism, I think, and anyway there’s no evidence for such an extreme view. I hope you see now it was unfair to characterise my argument thus: ‘here you can contemplate the idea of an unquenchable Arab hate and all it would mean to you is that Zionism has failed, with the implication of “so what’s the point? Might as well pack it in.” ‘</div>
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‘If you truly want to contemplate the possibility that it’s not the fault of the Zionists, how about making demands of the Palestinians and other Arabs for a change?’</div>
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Look, I think it’s the fault of both sides. And to be honest, any conflict going back to 1948 is bound to have plenty of fault (and some good) on both sides. And I do make demands of the Palestinians and the other Arabs – I just don’t come here to do it, because what would be the point of preaching to the choir and inspiring a load of head-nodding?</div>
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See my last post at Liberal conspiracy where I condemned the Palestinians for advocating a future state empty of Jews, and the pro-Palestinian movement for their hypocritical attack on the very principle of a Jewish state:<a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/12/07/why-only-a-two-state-solution-is-now-viable-in-israel-and-palestine/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/12/07/why-only-a-two-state-solution-is-now-viable-in-israel-and-palestine/</a>. You won’t like everything I say but my point is to show I do share blame amongst both sides. And I have plenty more criticism to direct towards the pro-Palestinian movement: I’m currently writing a piece attacking the absurd fashion for supporting the one-state solution – but I won’t post it here, because everyone here would just agree with me. (I’m also posting a fierce denunciation of Gilad Atzmon in the form of a review of his awful book, a large part of which is devoted to criticising pro-Palestinian groups for tolerating anti-semitism.)</div>
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So whether you believe it or not, if we were both to go to a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity campaign, say, we’d surely end up on the same side. If I’ve given the impression that I have nothing but blame for Israel and nothing but praise for the Palestinians, I haven’t made myself clear. Where I disagree with the vast majority of HP posters is when they claim that the Palestinians are somehow forcing Israel to oppress them, that Israel is desperate for peace but Palestinian violence and stubbornness renders this impossible (for now, according to you, or for the foreseeable future, according to many others).</div>
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That view just seems incredibly simplistic and would appear implausible to me even if I knew very little about recent history: few conflicts can ever be so simple. It also fails the common sense test to me: why would the Palestinians be blocking moves towards peace, when its they who are occupied, oppressed, disenfranchised and downtrodden? On the other hand, there are certain elements in Israeli society who have a manifest interest in maintaining the status quo.</div>
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And that, ultimately, is the heart of the matter for me. Why is there no peace? It’s not because the Palestinians are malevolent refuseniks committed to violence. Neither is it because Israelis love oppressing other people. It’s because there are powerful forces amongst both peoples who are opposed to peace. On the Palestinian side, that force is obvious: Islamic extremism, represented by Hamas.</div>
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But there are equally, or stronger, forces committed to obstructing peace on Israel’s side, and it’s this undeniable fact that undermines your picture of an Israel desperate for peace but thwarted by the Palestinians. The Likud Party, I will say frankly, doesn’t want a Palestinian state. HP posters are fond of digging up damning quotes from Palestinian leaders to prove their true nature; but there are plenty of similar quotes where Likud leaders (and even the likes of Rabin) claim they’re opposed to the creation of a fully sovereign, independent and viable Palestinian state. What’s more, the Likud charter even says as much, in black and white. Despite reluctant lip-service to a two-state solution, Likud leaders want, at most, a semi-autonomous Palestinian statelet based around disconnected urban areas.</div>
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And even when Israeli governments emerge that are genuinely prepared to create a kind of Palestinian state, like Barak’s and Olmert’s, they are faced with insurmountable pressure from those who oppose the steps that are necessary: a settler lobby, inside and outside the Knesset, comprised of religious Jews and nationalists committed to retaining as much of the West Bank as possible. And partly as a result of Israel’s electoral system, it’s always been possible (thus far) for these forces to ensure peace cannot happen.</div>
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On those relatively rare occasions that Israeli PMs have matched your description – seeking out peace wherever possible, remaining permanently open to talks, etc – they’ve governed in the teeth of furious denunciations from the religious/nationalist right-wing. As a result they’ve been forced to buy their support in the Knesset by letting them have their way on settlements – making peace ever less likely. The Barak government was an excellent example of this irony: he let the right-wing parties in his coalition have everything their own way in the runup to camp David, bowing to their every whim, with the rationale that these concessions were necessary to keep his government together until the last moment, when he’d sign a deal knowing full well his government would oppose it, then he’d present the Israeli people with a historic yes-or-no choice, win their support, and then dare the Knesset to go against the Israeli public with the world holding its breath. It was an excellent strategy, except for one problem: when peace wasn’t signed (partly as a result of the mistrust fostered by those decisions), Barak walked away having tightened the Israeli stranglehold on the Palestinians.</div>
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I present this brief summary of what happened under Barak before camp David to illustrate that I don’t believe Israel is somehow maliciously oppressing the Palestinians for its own sadistic pleasure: there are complex dynamics at work in Israeli politics which ensure that, even when a leader makes a sincere effort to secure a peace deal, there are enormously powerful forces standing in his way. And that’s just on the relatively rare occasions a leader emerges who desires peace: the rest of the time, the obstructionist forces ARE the government.</div>
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In short, there are enormously powerful forces on both sides that don’t want peace. It’s not so simple as to say one side wants peace and the other wants war. The question ‘why is there no peace?’ has a different answer for Rabin’s tenure, for Netanyahu, Barak, Sharon, etc, but in general the odds are stacked against any Israeli PM who tries to make peace. And yes, the odds are stacked against any Palestinian leader who wants to make peace. But it’s my belief that if Israel united behind a leader who was determined to negotiate an end to the conflict and the expansionist right wing could be circumvented, it would be possible to make peace. If the Palestinians united behind a leader who was determined to do the same, I’m not so sure I could say the same. That’s why, on balance, I think Israel has a greater share of the responsibility in the complex answer to the question of why there’s no peace.</div>
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Sorry, I seem to have written another dissertation…</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 2:18 am</td></tr>
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Paul M,</div>
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Unfortunately this thread is going to disappear soon, which is disappointing to me, because it seems that we’ve succeeded in reaching a point where we’re talking about fundamental things. Even if we can’t agree, we’ve succeeded in creating a lot more clarity about how and why we disagree. For instance, I’m glad to discover you’re not amongst those who think the Palestinians are permanently and unalterably opposed to peace, and that you consider the occupation, as it were, a necessary evil. I hope my last post managed to clarify some things for you – for instance, that I wasn’t suggesting Zionism has failed and that therefore the Jews should pack up and leave (I too would be outraged if someone suggested as much). I understand you may find my arguments exasperating or obtuse, but I’m grateful for the lengths you’ve gone to in answering me, and I think this exchange shows it’s possible to make some progress in the discussion when the insults, denunciations, rhetorical traps and general catcalling stops. I think to some extent I’ve given a misleading impression that I’m totally anti-Israel and that I blame it for everything: although my views are quite moderate I don’t express them with moderation. Perhaps also, since most people who come along supporting the Palestinian cause do so in a certain way, and tend to hold a set of standard views, many HP readers have assumed I fit precisely that image. The occasions when I’ve been criticised in terms like ‘the problem with people like you…’ are too numerous to recall. Almost every time I’ve had to point out that it’s not people LIKE me, real or imagined, that’s arguing but simply me. One lesson I’ve learnt is that many supporters of Israel are understandably wary of criticism because it often amounts to criticism of its very existence rather than its actions; so those, like me, who strongly support Israel’s existence but are dismayed by many of its actions, need to be very clear that we formulate our criticisms in terms that make this distinction very clear.</div>
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Indeed, I agree with Shlomo Ben Ami, who argues that making peace with the Palestinians, ending the disastrous West Bank settlement project, and building a Palestinian state is a matter of urgent self-interest for Israel. Forget what’s good for the Arabs for a moment: there are several trends that, I believe, suggest Israel must take the opportunity to reach a deal. Its main ally, the US, will only ever see its global influence go in one direction from here: down. What’s more, the long term regional trend is for ordinary Arabs to have greater influence, and ordinary Arabs are less keen on Israel than their rulers. Other factors may increase the pressure on Israel – the growth of the Palestinian population, the increasing scarcity of water resources in the region as the globe hots up, the possibility that its enemies will acquire longer-range missiles, perhaps threatening Tel Aviv. What all this amounts to is that the long term trend is for the threat to Israel to grow, and its ability to deal with that threat, insofar as it’s currently underwritten economically, politically and diplomatically be the US, seems set to diminish. There’s also the possibility that the Palestinians will despair of achieving their state and launch a peaceful campaign for one-person-one-vote in an expanded Israel, which will be very hard for Israel to deal with, as it’s a very simple and powerful demand; the whole world will understand and sympathise, whereas few will sympathise with or understand Israel’s response. So I think it’s quite possible to argue, from the point of view of self-interest, that Israel should be doing everything in its power to make peace now. You may say: but that’s impossible given the profile of the Palestinian people and leadership. To which I ask: and it’s not even worth attempting? Is Netanyahu (with his sidekick Avigdor Lieberman) working to make this possibility more or less likely?</div>
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can I ask you a direct question: what do you make of the settlements? How do they fit in with your view of Israel as the perennial spurned peacemaker?</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 4:42 am</td></tr>
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I’m sorry Matt, but I can’t continue to do this. You win on volume. I acknowledge your effort and sincerity, and I recognise that you write at such length because you have passionate opinions. I’ve read all your comments and tried to absorb everything you’re trying to say, which is hard when you have so much to say and I have so little time. I disagree with you on much or most of the substance, and I think you’re often your own worst enemy in many of the arguments you choose to make but I don’t have the time or energy to elaborate, or to go more rounds like this.</div>
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I will give you a quickish answer to your final question, though it won’t satisfy you much: My mind is divided on the settlements. I can see the arguments on both sides and am swayed alternately by them. As a matter of justice and principle Jews have as much right to live, work and build in Judea and Samaria (or Gaza, come to that) as Palestinians. As a practical matter I believe that most of the settlements will have to — and will — go when the Palestinians agree to a real peace, but it will be a wrenching business and the PA will have to buy the settlements for a price, not take them as a gift. Right now they’re still testing the possibility that that might not be true.</div>
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As for how they fit into my views of “Israel as spurned peacemaker”, I understand them as first and foremost a response to the Arab intransigence that followed the thwarted Arab aggression of the 1967 war, a riposte to the Three Noes and the Doctrine of Stages, and in some cases a defensive solution to military problems. They have often enough been developed without adequate thought to overall strategy, which has made them, unfortunately, yet another problem to be solved, but they remain Israel’s primary bargaining chip.</div>
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It might help complicate your thinking to spend some time on the proposition that not all settlements are the same, just as not all settlers are the same. And — no matter how assiduously both the Palestinians and the BBC (among others) labour to make the opposite a received truth — no part of Jerusalem is a settlement as far as I’m concerned.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 5:43 am</td></tr>
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Paul M,</div>
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Fair enough. Thanks for engaging. I have an unfair advantage when it comes to the time I have to write these long posts, because I work for myself and can therefore plan my day around posting here if I wish. Another reason I post at such length is that I sometimes feel a little stared of intellectual debate (if that’s not too grandiose a term), since few of my friends share my political interests. Plus I’m applying for postgrad studies on this subject so it dominates my thoughts at the moment. I should learn to be more succinct.</div>
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I understand your points about settlements. I agree as a matter of principle Jews have a right to live in the West Bank. In the same way, the French have a right to live in London; but France doesn’t have a right to rule London. The principle should be that Jews will be welcome to live as equal citizens or residents of a future Palestine, obey local laws, and expect full protection.</div>
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You’re a little vague when you say the settlements are a ‘response’ and a ‘riposte’ to Arab intransigence and the three Nos at Khartoum. It sounds as though the settlements are intended as some kind of statement or revenge. Perhaps that’s not what you mean. In whatever sense this is true, mind you, it’s quite a response, since it goes on decades later (even my responses aren’t that long!). As for being a military solution – sure, though if the rationale were purely military it would have been easier to set up a number of military bases over the West Bank and avoid the security risks of settling civilians.</div>
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The whole project itself started more or less as an accident and developed its own momentum. It didn’t have a mastermind with a single purpose; individual settlers and their leaders were motivated by religion or nationalism; some elements in successive governments were happy to sponsor their actions for the kind of reasons you cite; reluctant prime ministers like Rabin and Barak were persuaded to go along with the project for reasons of coalition realpolitik. ABut at some point quite early it became clear that the settlements had another purpose: they were supposed to make it as difficult as possible for future leaders to give back the land. They were designed to make peace unattainable and the occupation permanent.</div>
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This may not have been the only reason for the project but it is a major and quite explicit one. So you must also take into account that since the 1970s every Israeli govt has invested billions upon billions in a project designed to obstruct peace. I know Israeli coalition politics is complex, leading to governments carrying out highly contradictory policies – but it does rather complicate the view that Israel is the perennially spurned peacemaker.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 6:37 am</td></tr>
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By the way, I’m genuinely grateful that despite your obvious annoyance with many of my views you’ve responded to their substance and largely refrained from personal attacks. And as an illustration that I am listening and prepared to change or complicate my views as a result of your posting, I’ll note that I hadn’t thought very much about the settlements as a negotiating card. That is a point that will bear some consideration.</div>
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I’m going to ask you another question you’re free to ignore if you like (I’ve never understood why, but I know a lot of people consider it rather personal). Which party in Israel do you tend to vote for? I’ve just realised I’m assuming you’re Israeli… probably because I assume knowledgeable people tend to be natives. If I’m wrong, is there a party platform you particularly sympathise with when it comes to peace? I set out the (fairly conventional) solution I support here:<a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/2011/12/middle-east-peace-is-still-possible.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/2011/12/middle-east-peace-is-still-possible.html</a></div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 4 January 2012, 2:35 pm</td></tr>
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Every time I think I’m completely done, I find myself writing another reply. This time perhaps it’s the novelty of seeing your very short comment, but this will be the last from me on this thread. You say that you have free time because you’re self employed. Strangely, I have no time for the same reason. I must be going about it wrong.</div>
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Asking someone who they vote for <i>is</i> personal. Have you never heard the expression “That’s between me and the ballot box”? Though, interestingly, you can ask essentially the same thing in the form of “Who do you like best” and be much more likely to get an answer. In any event, in my case the answer is, no, I’m not an Israeli and I don’t follow their domestic politics carefully enough to have a useful opinion. For what it’s worth, I’m not too troubled by Netanyahu’s current approach to peace. For Israel to continually make unreciprocated concessions whilst Palestinian demands continue to go up is a mug’s game.</div>
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Forgive me, but I find <i>“I hadn’t thought very much about the settlements as a negotiating card”</i> hilarious – not as an insult to you, but genuinely funny. It reminds me of the ancient joke about the group of little boys asking each other how many sex positions they know. There’s one child at the edge of the group, jumping up and down and going “37, 37″. One sorrowful kid admits “I only know one, with the man on the top and the lady underneath. It’s called the Missionary Position” — and the boy in the back starts going “38, 38″.</div>
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</div>levi9909http://www.blogger.com/profile/10553481056544494411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6711693756224970648.post-1227204988135176042012-01-01T02:16:00.001-08:002012-01-01T04:00:01.217-08:00Hss<br />
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<a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2011/12/28/help-me-make-a-middle-east-reading-list/" rel="bookmark" style="color: #444444; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; text-decoration: none;" title="Help me make a Middle East reading list">Help me make a Middle East reading list</a></h2>
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<span class="author" style="font-weight: bold;">Guest Post</span>, December 28th 2011, 9:15 pm</div>
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<em>This is a guest post by <a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></em></div>
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Writing about the Middle East at Harry’s Place can feel like putting your hand in a pool full of flesh-stripping piranhas – and I mean that as a compliment. One of the milder criticisms I’ve received is that I may be unduly influenced by authors with a pro-Palestinian bias. Insofar as moderate Palestinians (like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sari_Nusseibeh" style="color: #fa4949;">Sari Nusseibeh</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja_Shehadeh" style="color: #fa4949;">Raja Shehadeh</a>) and liberal Zionists (like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Segev" style="color: #fa4949;">Tom Segev</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Grossman" style="color: #fa4949;">David Grossman</a> predominate on my bookshelves, it’s true they display something of a leftward tilt.</div>
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I’m the kind of person who likes to stay home on Friday night and read (yes, I’m as exciting as I sound), but I still buy books faster than I can finish them. My bedroom looks a bit like a warehouse in a pulping plant. I half expect to end up like Leonard Bast from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howards_End" style="color: #fa4949;">Howards End</a>, killed by an exemplary avalanche of books.</div>
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So I’m planning to use an upcoming spell in Israel as a kind of study break. Fond as I am of my second home, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth" style="color: #fa4949;">Nazareth</a>, it offers relatively few distractions, barring a sudden outbreak of war (not, mind you, an altogether trivial caveat, as I discovered in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Lebanon_War" style="color: #fa4949;">July 2006</a>). A few titles, as they say of footballers vying for a World Cup call-up, have already booked their seat on the plane. I’d be grateful if Harry’s Place readers could help me choose the rest by suggesting some of their favourites.</div>
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I have just two criteria as a reader: hedonism and promiscuity. My first loves were fiction and poetry, and while I no longer spend whole nights tangled in the bedsheets with Philip Roth, my undergraduate passion has ripened into long-term dependency. Meanwhile it’s usually history, polemic and biography that raise my pulse nowadays. Nonfiction may be less sexy and glamorous than its rival, but it has a worldly quality, a frisson of the real, that’s hard to beat.</div>
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So I’m looking for good writing of all kinds, especially history and political argument. My focus is on Israel-Palestine, but I’d like to read more about the wider Middle East too. I’m particularly interested in the ‘peace process’ up to the present day, and the status of Israel’s Palestinian citizens. And it’s axiomatic to me that some of the best books are those you can have a profitable argument with: there’s no point seeking out your own opinions repackaged between two covers. The only blacklisted books should be those that are hateful, or boring.</div>
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So, with those wide parameters in mind, what would you recommend I take to Israel? Which books on the subject do you consider indispensable; have changed the way you see the conflict; or have simply given you the most pleasure? Feel free to explain why, in as much or as little detail as you like.</div>
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I’ll get the ball rolling with some titles that have already claimed a coveted place in the squad. Any views on the following?</div>
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Tom Segev, <em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/05/books/books-of-the-times-of-holocaust-survivors-and-palestine.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm" style="color: #fa4949;">The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust</a></em></div>
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Gershom Gorenberg, <em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/books/review/the-unmaking-of-israel-by-gershom-gorenberg-book-review.html?pagewanted=all" style="color: #fa4949;">The Unmaking of Israel</a></em></div>
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Edward Said, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Place-Edward-W-Said/dp/1862073708" style="color: #fa4949;">Out of Place: A Memoir</a></em></div>
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Robin Wright, <em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/books/review/rock-the-casbah-by-robin-wright-book-review.html?pagewanted=all" style="color: #fa4949;">Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Arab World</a></em></div>
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George Packer, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Assassins-Gate-America-Iraq/dp/0571230431" style="color: #fa4949;"><em>The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq</em></a></div>
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<span class="smallallcaps bold" style="font-size: 10px; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;">KEYWORDS:</span> <a href="http://hurryupharry.org/category/israelpalestine/" rel="category tag" style="color: #fa4949;" title="View all posts in Israel/Palestine">Israel/Palestine</a>.</div>
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Comments</h3>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Greg</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 9:25 pm</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Six-Days-War-Making-Modern/dp/0195151747/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325107216&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">Six Days Of War</a> by Michael Oren. The go-to book on the conflict. You can tell how good it is by the fact the Jeremy Bowen felt compelled to write his own book on the subject with the typical BBC perspective.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Fred</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 9:25 pm</td></tr>
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Karsh’s “Palestine betrayed” and Robin Shepherd’s “A State Beyond The Pale.”</div>
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Not fiction or poetry but you should read them anyway.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 9:34 pm</td></tr>
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The Mandate For Palestine, Resolution 242 & The Hamas Charter. You can read them from the Internet.</div>
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Alan Dershowitz – The Case For Israel.</div>
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Dor Gold – The Fight For Jerusalem.</div>
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Any book by Robert Spencer (because its Islam focus means a history of the Middle East from an Islamic perspective)</div>
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The Koran</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 9:35 pm</td></tr>
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Yes, I’d also add Robin Shepherd’s “A State Beyond The Pale.”</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://warped-mirror.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">PetraMB</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 9:40 pm</td></tr>
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Spyer, Transforming Fire:<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Fire-Rise-Israel-Islamist-Conflict/dp/1441166637" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Fire-Rise-Israel-Islamist-Conflict/dp/1441166637</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>LeeEsq</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 9:48 pm</td></tr>
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Matt Hill, its long and Sacher is not the world’s most engaging writer but his History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Times is the most comprehensive history of Israel available in English. He focuses on all aspects of Israeli history, not just the Arab-Israel conflict. Its in its third edition now.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Naeem Malik</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 9:56 pm</td></tr>
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Matt – This book perhaps will go someway in understanding the conflicts we find ourselves in<br />
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold Wa… (Hardcover)<br />
by Mahmood Mamdani</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0375422854/ref=rdr_ext_tmb" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.amazon.com/dp/0375422854/ref=rdr_ext_tmb</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:03 pm</td></tr>
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Here’s a list of a few titles compiled by the NYT with reviews of the books. Useful as an overview.<br />
<a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/reading-list-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/reading-list-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/</a></div>
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Personally, I’d second both the Michael Oren’s Six Days of War book and Shachar’s “History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Times”. If I had to add one book, it’d likely be Benny Morris’s “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949″ (most Morris if very good.) as histories. Most of the “New Historians” are good with the exception of Ilan Pappe</div>
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I haven’t yet read it, but I have heard very good things about “Once Upon a Country: a Palestinian Life”. The Palestinian side of the story is very rarely told in English.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:18 pm</td></tr>
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Some interesting suggestions already; thanks.</div>
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Personally I think the Oren account of the Six Day War has been definitively superseded by Tom Segev’s magisterial 1967: Israel, the War and the Year that Shaped the Middle East.</div>
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Gabriel,</div>
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I agree about the New Historians, and I agree Pappe is the worst of the lot by some distance. Not only is he politically tendentious, his style is by turns lifeless, pretentious and jargon-ridden.</div>
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As it happens I gave Pappe’s latest book a rather mixed review here:<a href="http://review31.co.uk/article/view/8/strangers-in-their-own-home" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://review31.co.uk/article/view/8/strangers-in-their-own-home</a></div>
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Sari Nusseibeh’s Once Upon a country might be my very favourite book about the whole Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s fucking incredible, pardon me. As it happens I wrote a blog post about my top five books on Israel-Palestine, and the Nusseibeh and the Tom Segev are included. It’s here:<a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-five-top-books-about-israel.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-five-top-books-about-israel.html</a></div>
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I would urge anyone who hasn’t already to give themselves a great treat and buy Once Upon a country. If you don’t think it’s an incredible book I’ll reimburse you out of my own pocket.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>yuval</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:23 pm</td></tr>
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go make an imperialist anthropological study to satisfy your narcissistic needs on someone else</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://twitter.com/guvno0or" style="color: #fa4949;">Alex bee</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:23 pm</td></tr>
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Just finished ‘the unmaking of israel’- loved it, highly recommended. I would give a review, but Jeffrey Goldberg’s in the NYT says everything I would (but better)<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/books/review/the-unmaking-of-israel-by-gershom-gorenberg-book-review.html?pagewanted=all" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/books/review/the-unmaking-of-israel-by-gershom-gorenberg-book-review.html?pagewanted=all</a></div>
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Personally, I think Martin Gilbert- ‘Israel A History’ is the best book I’ve read on Israel. It’s incredibly long, but the most brilliantly researched book you will find.</div>
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Ronen Bergman- ‘The secret war with Iran’ is deeply interesting. You are left with a feeling that they (the Iranian establishment) are utter, utter bastards and very dangerous.</div>
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I’ve started ‘Ben Gurion A Political Life’ by Shimon Peres & David Landau. It’s compelling, but perhaps wait until it’s out in paperback as £15 is a little steep for a 200 page book.</div>
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Enjoy!<br />
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:30 pm</td></tr>
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Alex bee,</div>
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Actually I’ve read a few chapters of the Gorenberg book already – it’s fantastic; I’ll be writing a review soon for the website I linked to above. I pretty much agree with every word he writes.</div>
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Interesting you mention the Martin Gilbert book. I’ve been looking for a one-volume history of Israel – the only ones I’ve read are Avi Shlaim’s and Ahron Bregman’s. I think there are complete histories by Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe and Arno J. Mayer too. Anyone have a view on any of these?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:36 pm</td></tr>
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This is from the Telegraph review of A State Beyond the Pale (as quoted on Amazon):</div>
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“Robin Shepherd…explains that Europe’s pacifism is not, despite what it likes to believe, a symptom of maturity, but of tiredness, nihilism and suicide. Europeans no longer believe in Europe, they are not prepared to fight for it, and they are unwilling to believe that its enemies are willing to destroy it. So had the Nazis not faced the golden generation but instead the bed-wetter generation, how would history have spanned out?”</div>
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I must say I dislike this sort of rhetoric. It’s the kind of bollocks used by US Republicans to insult the European welfare state and to stir up paranoia about a mythical Muslim takeover. Is this an accurate reflection of the book’s content?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:41 pm</td></tr>
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Why should we ‘fight for’ Europe? Who’s attacking us?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>george</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:43 pm</td></tr>
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David, based on your current list of good reads, I’d suggest that for consistencies sake you read anything by Noam Chomsky, Finkelstein, Howard Zinn or Pappe.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:47 pm</td></tr>
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LeeEsq,</div>
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can you help me find that one? Do you have a link?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>sackcloth and ashes</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:48 pm</td></tr>
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Matt, some honest recommends for you:</div>
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Lawrence Freedman, ‘A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East’.<br />
Michael Totten, ‘The Road to Fatima Gate’.<br />
Michael Young, ‘The Ghosts of Martyrs Square’.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Israelinurse</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:49 pm</td></tr>
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Stephanie Gutmann – ‘The Other War’.<br />
Michael Totten – ‘The Road to Fatima Gate’: will help you with the bigger ME picture.<br />
Israel Weisler (Poochoo) – ‘After me in the Wilderness’.</div>
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But – more importantly – get out, go places, talk to people.<br />
You can read books in the UK, but nothing beats actually listening to the people who live here.</div>
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Go to Sderot. Go to Hatzor HaGlilit and Kiryat Shmona. Listen to Ethiopians in Absorbtion Centres, people who live over the ‘green line’, Bedouin and Druze who serve in the IDF. Go to Lohamei HaGetaot, Yad VaShem. Go to Mitzpe Ramon, Yeruham and Ofakim. Learn some Hebrew.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.richardmillett.wordpress.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">richard millett</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:49 pm</td></tr>
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What Zionists Believe by Colin Shindler. Very short and both polemical and historical. (It’s not the same Colin Shindler who wrote Manchester United Ruined my Life).</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dave rich</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:50 pm</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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The Transforming Fire by Jonathan Spyer is very timely, and has the best analysis of the newly emerging national-religious Israeli national identity that I have read anywhere.</div>
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Found Ajami’s Dream Palace of the Arabs is also very thought-provoking and worth a read.</div>
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Have a nice trip!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Israelinurse</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:55 pm</td></tr>
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‘A State Beyond the Pale’ is a very important read indeed.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>cityca</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:56 pm</td></tr>
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Matt Hill</div>
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You ask, ‘why should we fight for Europe – who’s attacking us’?</div>
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Why bother reading when you don’t appear to learn anything?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Ray in Seattle</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 10:57 pm</td></tr>
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Must have: The Six Day War/Oren, 1948/Morris</div>
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Great background on Arabs and Islam: Clash of Civilizations/Huntington, The Closed Circle/Pryce-Jones</div>
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No student of the Arab/Israeli Conflict should be far from these four when participating in a discussion of the conflict or reading someone’s opinions on it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:01 pm</td></tr>
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sackcloth and ashes,</div>
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Very interesting – thanks. Yes, the Lawrence Freedman looks exactly like the kind of concise survey I’d like to read more of about the Middle East. Have you come across Robin Wright?</div>
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Do you have a special interest in Lebanon or was it a coincidence that you mention two books about it. Do you know David Hirst’s book Beware of Small States?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:02 pm</td></tr>
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cityca -</div>
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Educate me, then, please. Who should we Europeans be fighting against?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:05 pm</td></tr>
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Israelinurse,</div>
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Thanks for the recommendations. I do get out, too, don’t worry: I was taking the piss out of myself when I said I stay in reading all the time. I have a lot of friends in Israel and the West Bank. I’d like to go to Sderot this time though. Where do you live, if you don’t mind me asking?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:13 pm</td></tr>
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Israelinurse,</div>
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‘You can read books in the UK, but nothing beats actually listening to the people who live here.’</div>
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I know you mean well when you say this and I genuinely appreciate it. I would probably give the same advice to someone who appeared to be visiting Israel or any other country and planned only to sit at home and read. But my parents both live in Israel. I’ve visited the country almost every year since I was 14. My first girlfriend was Israeli. I’ve watched Israeli friends – Jews and Arabs – grow up, get married, start careers. I speak a little conversational Hebrew, badly – all my friends speak English so I’ve been lazy, I confess. I may try and take a crash course next time I have a few months in the country. The same for Arabic. Israel is a big part of my life. Not as big as yours, of course. But it is truly my second home.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:19 pm</td></tr>
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richard millett,</div>
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I just read colin schindler’s book about Lukud – The Land Beyond Promise. It was an impressive piece of work, so I may very well check out his book on Zionism. Thanks.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alexander</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:35 pm</td></tr>
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If you dislike the leftiness of your bookshelf, why don’t you try traditional right-winged people like Jabotinsky? Or a more religious tone like the great Israeli thinker Rabbi Leibovich?</div>
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Though I honestly suggest, if you like reading on Zionism, to read about Zionist archaeology, which is fascinating. People like Sukenik and Yadin were essencial in their role in the creation of the State of Israel, particularly in their influence on the creation of the very image and identity of the futre, and then born State.</div>
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That’s my suggestion. I have no titles, I know, but I am sure you can find a nice title with a proper search. Good luck!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Uncle yo-yo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:38 pm</td></tr>
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Piety and Power: The World of Jewish Fundamentalism by David Landau.</div>
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Startup Nation by Dan Senor.</div>
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Power Faith and Fantasy by Michael Oren.</div>
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The Prime Ministers by Yehuda Avner (caveat: reading that one now).</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Beakerkin</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:45 pm</td></tr>
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Foxbats Over Dimona the true story of how the Soviets provoked the Six Day War.</div>
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The Judean War by Josephus try any mention of a Palestinian people there.</div>
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Indigenous People Under the Rule of Islam by Fred Isaac. This explains the situation in a larger context.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://mystical-politics.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Rebecca</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:47 pm</td></tr>
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Jerusalem 1913. If you want all the details of the 1948 war, Benny Morris’ 1948. For the Mandate period, Tom Segev’s One Palestine, Complete (you’ve probably already read it). And if you’re interested in Jerusalem architecture, I would recommend any of the books by David Kroyansky, in Hebrew and English. I liked Rabinowitz’s book about the Yom Kippur War. I prefer history to polemics, personally.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Uncle yo-yo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 28 December 2011, 11:59 pm</td></tr>
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How could I forget to recommend</div>
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“Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel’s Wars” by Yaacov Lozowick a historian who curated at Yad Vashem and is left of center.</div>
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Error now corrected</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.rencontrepoursenior.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">rencontre senior</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:06 am</td></tr>
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Recommends for you:</div>
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Lawrence Freedman, ‘A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East’.<br />
Michael Totten, ‘The Road to Fatima Gate’.<br />
Michael Young, ‘The Ghosts of Martyrs Square’.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sick of Spineless Liberals</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:10 am</td></tr>
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David Meir-Levi, History Upside Down –<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Upside-Down-Palestinian-Aggression/dp/1594031924" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Upside-Down-Palestinian-Aggression/dp/1594031924</a></div>
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Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Mohammed (aka The Book of Battles) –<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Muhammad-I-Ishaq/dp/0196360331/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Muhammad-I-Ishaq/dp/0196360331/</a></div>
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Paul Fregosi, Jihad in the West from the 7th to the 21st Centuries –<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jihad-West-Muslim-Conquests-Centuries/dp/1573922471/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jihad-West-Muslim-Conquests-Centuries/dp/1573922471/</a></div>
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I would argue that the Koran is both hateful and boring. Ibn Ishaq is a least a (relatively) cogent narrative, and you get such a beautiful hardback for the price of a few pints (looking through the 30 or so chapters that take their names from battles, you see why the book was also known by that name, and why islam is definitively not a religion of peace). David Meir Levi’s book is probably the most important 125 pages written in the last 50 years.</div>
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Fregosi’s book is humorous (incredible, given the subject matter), balanced and very informative.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:18 am</td></tr>
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Would have been nice to have read up before all the thread-bare posts. And before referring to settlers and soldiers as capricious evil souls who take great joy in humiliating Palestinians.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>zkharya</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:23 am</td></tr>
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Walter Laqueur’s A History of Zionism? (I have David Vital’s three volume work, more recent, but haven’t read it. But I think Laqueur’s very good).</div>
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Children of Bethany, by Said K. Aburish.</div>
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The Siege, by Conor Cruise O’Brien.</div>
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In Search of Fatima, by Ghada Karmi, is useful for information, such as the standing pro-Hitler Arab Orthodox intellectual Khalil Sakakini had in general, though that is likely not her intention.<br />
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:24 am</td></tr>
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Alexander,</div>
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Interesting tip – thanks. I should say that it’s not so much that I dislike the (centre-)leftiness of my book case as that some readers here dislike it. I like it fine – but I also enjoy complicating and challenging my own convictions by reading intelligent, well-informed arguments against them. For instance, I recently read the world-renowned military historian Martin Van creveld’s ‘Defending Israel’, which is about the military logistics behind a possible peace settlement. It really opened my eyes to a lot of issues facing Israel: it brought alive concerns about Israel’s potential vulnerability to attack, its famous ‘narrow waist’, and so on. (Which isn’t to say it repeated the kind of bogus claims you sometimes hear about the ‘indefensibility’ of the 1967 lines – quite the contrary.) It helped me understand what few lefties like to contemplate – that Israel has very serious and legitimate concerns about how a peace deal might impact its security. It also argues, however, that a secure Israel can indeed be established largely along the 1967 lines, under certain conditions. And of course none of this is to say that Israel’s neighbours don’t have, in many respects, precisely the same security issues in reverse. As Moshe Dayan said, in a different context, the road from Beirut to Tel Aviv is just as log as the road from Tel Aviv to Beirut, if you see what I mean.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://warped-mirror.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">PetraMB</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:27 am</td></tr>
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Matt, on Europe:</div>
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<a href="http://warped-mirror.com/2011/12/24/so-hows-europe-doing/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://warped-mirror.com/2011/12/24/so-hows-europe-doing/</a></div>
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– add this:<br />
Autocracy on the rise –<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/autocracy-makes-an-unwelcome-return-to-hungary/2011/12/22/gIQAjcoiHP_story.html?tid=sm_btn_tw" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/autocracy-makes-an-unwelcome-return-to-hungary/2011/12/22/gIQAjcoiHP_story.html?tid=sm_btn_tw</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:28 am</td></tr>
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Uncle Yo-Yo,</div>
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Very interesting choices. I think I’ll take a good look at the Prime Ministers book – looks absolutely fascinating. How are you finding it?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:30 am</td></tr>
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Stop reading Norman Finkelstein.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:30 am</td></tr>
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Rebecca,</div>
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Yes, I’ve read One Palestine, complete. I adore Tom Segev. I think he’s one of the most engrossing history writers from any country I’ve read. I love the novelistic detail of his histories, the way he tells history from the ground up. He’s a true democrat, in several senses.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:36 am</td></tr>
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It’s all about me, me , me… again.</div>
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Tiresome, narcissistic post.</div>
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“Tangled in the bedsheets with Roth”? *Snort*. You wish.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:44 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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I wondered how long it would be before my appeal for book recommendations prompted somebody to start recommending the blacklisting of authors. I was thinking of adding something to my post about how, if you think an author or his/her ideas are foolish, their ideas are bound to wither in the daylight brought by reading them. Why shouldn’t I read Norman Finkelstein? I have no intention to ban him from my shelves any more than I plan to ban Alan Dershowitz, or Efraim Karsh. I also read Gilad Atzmon’s vile, silly book recently, and I’m glad I did. What possible justification could there be to ’stop reading’ any author? Either you’ve read him and concluded his work is worthless, in which case I think I should have the opportunity to come to the same concluson; or you haven’t read him, in which case you’ll forgive me, I’m sure, for paying no attention to your estimation of his writing.</div>
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Do you have a book you’d like to add to what’s already a fascinatig and varied list, or do you want to start your own list of books whose covers should be locked shut, in case their menacing ideas escape like some mad genie?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:53 am</td></tr>
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Abu Faris,</div>
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Read more closely and I think you’ll find this is a post about books. Since it’s a relatively trivial post I didn’t think there was much danger in writing in a self-deprecating first-person voice. I’m glad you found my Roth quip amusing; what amuses me is that you seem not to have realised I was making a joke. Ho hum.</div>
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And look up my previous posts at Harry’s Place and see how many of them are *about* me or even refer significantly to me. My previous one was about the growing role of religion in Israel-Palestine. Before that I wrote about potential details of a two state solution. Before that I wrote about Hisham’s Palace. Before that I wrote about why Israel is unfairly singled out among the world’s nations.</div>
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The only reason we ever end up talking about me is because of posts like yours a moment ago, showing an abject failure to engage with the substance of what I wrote, instead going straight for the ad hominem. I’m flattered you find me so interesting that you want to talk about me, but I’d really rather talk about books. Your contributions are normally admirably thoughtful; I’d stick to what you know about, if I were you: this sub-psychoanalysis clearly isn’t your strong suit. Nor are jokes. (Is this where I say *snort* to indicate that was making a stab at irony, Abu Faris?)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>vildechaye</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:54 am</td></tr>
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I wouldn’t read a book by Finklestein, or Pappe for that matter, but what you read is your own business. This post does seem a bit narcissistic, though.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lamia</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:59 am</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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possibly the most helpful thing anyone today could do for the Middle East and the people inside and outside is to stop paying it excessive attention. It is not inherently more important than anywhere else in the world, and treating it as such just encourages narcissism, bloodshed and an undue sense of grievance. In recent decades East Asia – for instance – has a far greater claim on our attention/sympathy/outrage than the Middle East in terms of the suffering of its people, although the people of that part of the world are possibly slightly the better off for <i>not</i> having everyone else adding their two pennworth. They are not themselves – as a group – quite innocent of the misfortunes that have befallen their people.</div>
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My suggestion is to read up on practically anywhere else in the world <i>but</i> the Middle East: the history of China; Central and South American mythology; Scandinavian pop music; Russian domestic politics; Belgian chocolate.</div>
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Only when the rest of the world stops being fixated on the Middle East and stops living its ideological struggles by proxy of the people there will the place possibly calm down and the world be able to move on.</div>
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I have no intention of ever visiting the Middle East. I feel somewhat sorry for the people living there but there are far more important people and places in the world and it has caused quite enough grief to elsewhere to be going on with.</div>
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To sum up: fuck Bethelehem, fuck Jersualem, fuck Mecca, fuck deserts, and fuck the stupid camels they all rode in on.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:02 am</td></tr>
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Fine okay read him, but then you talk about “Finkelstein’s excellent work in books like Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict and Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History”… it’s not nice.</div>
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That you can write:</div>
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“no matter how great a people’s suffering, it remains answerable for its own crimes”</div>
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just strikes me as a wrong (bit racist even?). I think it’s cos you read too much Finkelstein, and like what he writes.</div>
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Read better & more moral writers than Finkelstein and you’ll get a better perspective on Israel/Palestine, hopefully.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:03 am</td></tr>
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zhkara,</div>
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Someone gave me Laqueur on Zionism for xmas, actually. The Vital looks… fearsome. I’ll add it to a list of aspirations.</div>
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I read Aburish on Arafat. I thought the prose was extremely turgid, but maybe that was the translation.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:10 am</td></tr>
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Lamia,</div>
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That’s your choice – fair enough. The Middle East is just one subject I take an interest in: it just happens to be what I choose to write about.</div>
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It’s not that I feel people ought to have to brandish their credentials before opening their mouth, but my whole family and much of my life is bound up in Israel and the ME. There’s a good chance I could end up living there. That’s one reason why I read a lot about it. Not because I think I’m doing the Middle East a favour. And if I followed your advice and paid no attention to it, I doubt that would make much difference either.</div>
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It’s your right not to find the ME interesting. It’s mine to feel differently. There’s nothing to disagree about here.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>lapsedmethodist</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:12 am</td></tr>
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The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. T.E. Lawrence.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:19 am</td></tr>
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“I must say I dislike this sort of rhetoric. It’s the kind of bollocks used by US Republicans to insult the European welfare state ”</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Matt: check Robin Shepherds area(s) of expertise before you dismiss him.</div>
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In my view, the I/P conflict has to be viewed from many different angles: the wider you go the more you understand. Also, it does no harm for us to audit our perceptions from time to time before they become habitual responses. That way lies stagnation, surely?</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Robin’s book certainly introduces new perspectives. It’s clear, concise and doesn’t try to over-intellectualise human behaviour.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:21 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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Thanks for the advice. I didn’t start this thread because I’ve never read a book about the ME before. The opposite: I read lots about it and I like hearing what other people read. Finkelstein is one writer I’ve read. The post you’re quoting actually condemns Finkelstein for some remarks he made once – you’ve selected the caveat: he’s done some good work, but…</div>
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Do you know what’s inside Truth and Reality, for instance? It’s a series of scholarly, historiographical essays taking issue with several mainstream accounts of Israeli history by Abba Eban, Michael Oren, and of course Joan Peters – the demolition job of a New York Times bestseller that made his name and won him praise from serious scholars all over the world.</div>
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As I’ve said, Finkelstein is by no means one of my main influences.</div>
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As for ‘a people is answerable for its own crimes’ – actually that’s me summarising a point Finkelstein makes, not my own point, isn’t it? And you’re taking it a bit out of context: as I remember Finkelstein was answering what he saw as the implicit claim that because the Jewish people has suffered, criticism of Israeli crimes should be silenced.</div>
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People are indeed responsible for their crimes, no matter how much they’ve suffered – that’s true of a Hamas suicide bomber too.</div>
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Why are we talking about this, Joseph? Must you try and derail this interesting thread?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gene</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:26 am</td></tr>
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Matt Hill,</div>
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I won’t recommend any books, but I will recommend you read the entire series of Harry’s Place posts dealing with Norman Finkelstein.</div>
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<a href="http://hurryupharry.org/index.php?s=%22norman+finkelstein%22&x=0&y=0" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://hurryupharry.org/index.php?s=%22norman+finkelstein%22&x=0&y=0</a></div>
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I’m afraid that if you take Finkelstein at all seriously, I can’t take you seriously.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:28 am</td></tr>
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Penny,</div>
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‘In my view, the I/P conflict has to be viewed from many different angles: the wider you go the more you understand. Also, it does no harm for us to audit our perceptions from time to time before they become habitual responses. That way lies stagnation, surely?’</div>
<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Absolutely. That’s why I was appealing for recommendations of books that may contradict the liberal Zionist/centre-leftist narrative I’m familiar with. I just said that summary, from the Telegraph, sounded like the kind of rhetoric I dislike – the sort of Europe/USA, pacifist/militarist, ’socialist’/individualist binary code that seems designed to kick down a straw man version of the European social democracy I consider a great achievement. And bizarrely, whenever I hear such language, soon the conversation inexplicably seems to turn to Muslims and their nefarious aims to establish a new caliphate.</div>
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Perhaps it’s an unfair/simplistic description of the book though.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lamia</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:32 am</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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I am aware of your personal circumstances, which you have referred to previously. I don’t mean what I say to you in an abrasive way.</div>
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I do feel that on the whole too much attention is paid to the Middle East by people who don’t live and don’t have to live there, and who do more harm than good by their activism, ’solidarity’ etc, rather as the case was with Northern Ireland.</div>
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With the best will in the world, it will take the Middle East generations to move on and improve as a place for all its citizens. I hope they manage it. My part in that, beyond affirming fundamental rights for all sorts, especially minority groups, is to politely keep my nose out.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>davem</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:34 am</td></tr>
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most of these have already been mentioned but are def worth reading</div>
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Terror & Liberalism – Paul Berman<br />
The Strong Horse – Lee Smith<br />
The Truth About Syria – Barry Rubin<br />
The Transforming Fire – Jonathan Spyer<br />
The Road to Fatima Gate – Michael J Totten<br />
The Ghosts of Martyr’s Square – Michael Young<br />
The Closed Circle – David Price Jones<br />
The Secret War with Iran – Ronen Bergman<br />
The Persian Night – Amir Taheri<br />
The Weight of a Mustard Seed – Wendel Stevenson<br />
Israel’s Lebanon War – Ze’ev Schiff & Ehud Ya’ari<br />
The Looming Tower – Lawrence Wright<br />
Killing Mr Lebanon – Nicholas Blanford<br />
Commanding Syria – Eyal Zisser<br />
The Koran (compiled by Caliph Omar if I’m correct)</div>
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and<br />
The Dirt: The Autobiography of Motely Crue – Neil Strauss</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:36 am</td></tr>
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Forgive me for trying to derail this interesting thread entitled “Help me make a Middle East reading list”, by discussing your reading habits about the Middle East!</div>
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Seriously though, here is the reason why I am discussing this with you.</div>
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Your article condemns Finkelstein’s support for Hezbollah, but praises his writings about the way Jewish organisations commemorate the Holocaust.</div>
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You tell me you were just summing up his views.</div>
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But in your original article you wrote:<br />
<a href="http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/886/this-time-he-went-too-far-on-norman-finkelstein" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/886/this-time-he-went-too-far-on-norman-finkelstein</a></div>
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“<em>In other words, no matter how great a people’s suffering, it remains answerable for its own crimes. <b>In a debate so often marred by relativism and special pleading, Finkelstein’s moral axiom (in short: two wrongs don’t make a right) is as unimpeachable as his rhetoric is exhilarating.</b></em>”</div>
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This seems to be an affirmation of Finkelstein’s writing on this subject.</div>
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If now you have rejected Finkelstein’s writings about Holocaust memorial, that’s great. I really hope you have. Say so & explain why, if you have.</div>
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Your article criticising Finkelstein, says nothing negative about his writing on the subject, rather about spoken comments he has made in favour of Hezbollah.</div>
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You write:</div>
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<em>“I don’t believe one mistake – serious though it is – cancels <b>all Finkelstein’s excellent work in books</b> like Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict and Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Self-evidently you can be right about some things and very wrong about others, and I don’t believe in blacklisting authors. But while he continues to make excuses for murder, <b>we’ve lost a courageous and principled moral voice</b>. I only hope we get it back, soon.”</em></div>
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In the light of this, I would recommend that you read this article:<br />
<a href="http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=8&x_nameinnews=169&x_article=985" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=8&x_nameinnews=169&x_article=985</a></div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:41 am</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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I am perfectly aware of your stab at irony. Personally, I would have taken a stab at Roth – possibly one of the worst authors I have ever read.</div>
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And yes, given your response to me, this post was all about *you*.</div>
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Learn by looking and listening to the people around you, Matt, and then write about *this*. I would try to buy good Arabic and Hebrew language guides – you will find that actually getting out and talking to people will do wonders.</div>
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Oh and do not take your style from other writers: it never works, dear.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:42 am</td></tr>
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Gene,</div>
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You can decide whether to take me seriously or not. This isn’t a thread about Norman Finkelstein. Would you, and anyone else who wants to discuss him, perhaps like to direct your comments to the only public post I’ve ever made about him, where I applaud his oratory, but confess I have very mixed feelings about him, argue most of his published work is actually quite dry and detached, and conclude by saying, however, that he does show signs of extremism, and that some comments he made about attacking Israeli civilians were appalling.</div>
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I know that’s too nuanced for some people, who want me to say Finkelstein is a bad bad bad bad man. But I think it’s more complex than that. And I also think anyone who believes that, say, Image and Reality… is full of anti-semitism and extremism simply hasn’t read it. Try it – you’ll be disappointed to find quite a pedantic, scholarly work, full of investigation of footnotes, technical discussion of demographics, etc.</div>
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I could say much more – my feelings have evolved somewhat since I wrote that post, which was amongst the first blog posts I ever wrote. It’s not that I would retract anything – but I think the case is even more complex in some ways than I first thought.</div>
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Anyway, these are my last remarks on Finkelstein on this thread. You can choose whether to take me seriously or not – if you choose not to, I’ll survive. If you’d like to continue talking about this, why not post under my Finkelstein blog post? I’ll be happy to discuss this in more detail.</div>
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Again: I don’t blacklist authors. I read Finkelstein, Dershowitz, Karsh, Pappe, Atzmon, and any number of controversial authors. None of them is my favourite, but, as I said in the post, sometimes arguments with books can be fruitful, and seeking out a reflection of our own opinions is not.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:47 am</td></tr>
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I think Matt’s glowing accommodation of Finkelstein rather says it all.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:49 am</td></tr>
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Abu Faris,</div>
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Matt<br />
‘Personally, I would have taken a stab at Roth – possibly one of the worst authors I have ever read.’</div>
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We disagree on that. Which Roth have you read?</div>
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‘And yes, given your response to me, this post was all about *you*.’</div>
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No, that was my response to your irrelevant accusation of narcissism. But anyway, since we both agree we’d rather not talk about me any further, shall we either talk about something else or stop now?</div>
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‘Learn by looking and listening to the people around you, Matt,’</div>
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Are you a headteacher by any chance?</div>
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‘you will find that actually getting out and talking to people will do wonders.’</div>
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Nothing you ever say will convince me to leave the house and talk to people, Abu Faris.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gene</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:53 am</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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I suggested you read our posts about Finkelstein because you are looking for diverse sources of information about the Middle East (and related to that, Westerners who pretend to expertise on the ME)– and one of those sources, I believe, are the posts we have done about Finkelstein over the years.</div>
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Admittedly it’s not a book, but I think you might find some of it enlightening.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:55 am</td></tr>
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I see I have pricked your ever inflating pomposity again, Matt. Case proven, I think.</div>
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I would recommend, as a book about the dangers of pompous pillocks surrounded by books but entirely lacking the moral discernment and compass to make sense of them, Elias Carnetti’s Die Blendung – you can even get it in English translation.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:57 am</td></tr>
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<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fcfbf9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(222, 213, 190); border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-left-style: double; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-right-style: double; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(244, 241, 233); border-top-style: double; border-top-width: 1px; font-size: 11px; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0.5em; padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">
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‘Learn by looking and listening to the people around you, Matt,’</div>
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Are you a headteacher by any chance?</div>
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‘you will find that actually getting out and talking to people will do wonders.’</div>
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Nothing you ever say will convince me to leave the house and talk to people, Abu Faris.</div>
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What a silly ass, you are, little one.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:57 am</td></tr>
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can anyone explain this to me?</div>
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Norman Finkelstein = well known anti-semite, joke scholar</div>
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Avi Shlaim = renowned historian of Israel; blurbs Finkelstein’s books and praises him highly; therefore cannot be taken seriously; anti-semite enabler; probably racist</div>
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Shlomo Ben Ami = credits Avi Shlaim (unserious scholar and anti-semite enabler) as his main intellectual influence; unable to spot unserious scholarship and probable racism; racist?; minister of defence in government of . . .</div>
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Ehud Barak = somehow failed to spot suspect intellect and opinions of Ben Ami while PM of Israel; perhaps racist?; now defence minister to…</div>
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Benjamin Netanyahu = ???</div>
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What’s going on here? Who’s the fool, the one who’s unable to spot how suspect, unserious and racist his extremely close colleague is?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:00 am</td></tr>
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Gene,</div>
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I followed your link but it led to a list of every article in which Finkelstein is mentioned. If you have links to more specific posts where you reveal things about Finkelstein I don’t know – which is quite possible; I’m not a devotee of his – I’d be interested to read them. He is still a puzzle to me; I’m sorry I don’t see him in such black-and-white terms.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gene</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:08 am</td></tr>
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<i>Gene,</i></div>
<i></i><br />
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<i>I followed your link but it led to a list of every article in which Finkelstein is mentioned. If you have links to more specific posts where you reveal things about Finkelstein I don’t know – which is quite possible; I’m not a devotee of his – I’d be interested to read them. He is still a puzzle to me; I’m sorry I don’t see him in such black-and-white terms.</i></div>
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It won’t take you that long to read them (you can go to each post and search for his name to save time). I have no idea what you know or don’t know about him. But I think at the very least it will give you some idea of why Finkelstein is such a sore point with some of us, even on the left/liberal Zionist side of things.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Beakerkin</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:11 am</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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On the contrary I think you should read the works of Finklestein and Chomsky. It is important to grasp that those who are obsessed with Israel really have another agenda. Much of those who are obsessed with Israel really are equally obsessed with vitriol against Capitalism.</div>
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There is a profound difference in tone between those who are genuinely concerned about Arab refugees and those who are merely stoking populist Jew hatred for political gain.</div>
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Signs</div>
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1) Israel/ Nazi analogies<br />
2) Rationalization of terror<br />
3) Claims Jews are Khazars or no nation of Israel existed<br />
4) Holocaust Trivialization<br />
5) Mania about the USS Liberty and or 9-11 conspiracies<br />
6) Blogs or writtings on little else other than Israel<br />
7) Claims Jews control the media, congress<br />
8) Talk of neocon cabals<br />
9) Any use of ZOG (rare far right nuts)<br />
10) Jews are Edomites ( rare religious Jew haters)</div>
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It is one thing to suport a Palestinian State. It is quite another to foment irrational hatred of Jews for political exediency. When Chomsky talks of NYC as a Jewish run area, he is letting his lack of charachter and political lunacy out in the open.</div>
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I did read Shlomo Sand who spares the reader any doubt of his lunatic fringe beliefs in the early pages of a really bad book.</div>
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It is very important to learn how non Muslims were historically treated by Islam. Thus it is important to read Assyrian, Coptic, Zoroastrian perspectives on a larger issue. History does not start in 1948 because the left deems it expedient. You should also read about how Jews were treated under Islamic rule. Even Palestinian coworkers readily acknowledge Jews were treated much worse in Syria than anything they experienced.</div>
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What you really see on the web is people who have pathological obsessions that actually hurt the Palestinians more than they help them.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:16 am</td></tr>
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Gene,</div>
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Thanks for being civil and for offering me the chance to inspect the evidence and understand your point of view. I’m going to have a look through now. can I ask that, if we’re to discuss this further, we do it elsewhere: perhaps underneath my Finkelstein post on my blog – <a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/2011/10/this-time-he-went-too-far-norman.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/2011/10/this-time-he-went-too-far-norman.html</a></div>
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It’s not that I don’t want to have this discussion – in fact, I would positively like to. It puzzles me a little that reasonable, intelligent people can differ so violently on the subject of Finkelstein that, on both sides, expressing mixed feelings about him simply isn’t tolerated. I think you’ll find I’m neither unreasonable nor slow to admit I’m wrong when it’s the case. I’ll read the material you link to with an open mind, and if I change my mind about NF I’ll write a note under my blog post saying so, with links.</div>
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I actually don’t have much at stake here – NF is hardly someone I have enormous affection or admiration for.</div>
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contrariwise, I won’t hear a word against Philip Roth…!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Christina Rossetti</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:21 am</td></tr>
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You will learn more from the travellers starting with Lawrence but also including Thubron, Theroux and even the younger Dalyrymple at times! Dalyrymple, for instance did a good take on the ongoing current in fighting at the tomb, twenty odd years ago.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:30 am</td></tr>
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Gene (and Joseph W, and Abu Faris),</div>
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I read through all the articles that seemed to be about Finkelstein. If you’d actually like to discuss this at all, let me know, and we’ll repair to the NF thread on my blog. I actually would like to ask a few questions, but it’s up to you. We’re way off topic though so I won’t respond here.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:35 am</td></tr>
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Actually I’m very keen to discuss one or two of the issues raised in these Finkelstein threads – anyone?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:46 am</td></tr>
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“….the sort of Europe/USA, pacifist/militarist, ’socialist’/individualist binary code that seems designed to kick down a straw man version of the European social democracy I consider a great achievement.”</div>
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Well, there are areas open to question, Matt. Nothing is that binary.</div>
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One of Robin’s points which appears on the cover and which I happen to agree with, is that the I/P conflict is a test case for the West and its own ability to stand up for the values it claims as its own.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:49 am</td></tr>
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Which values are those, Penny?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:59 am</td></tr>
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Odd question, Matt.</div>
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We both live in the West so presumably, we know what its values are. Or should be. I think on some issues we struggle.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:23 am</td></tr>
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“One of Robin’s points which appears on the cover and which I happen to agree with, is that the I/P conflict is a test case for the West and its own ability to stand up for the values it claims as its own.”</div>
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I very much disagree. A lot of right-wingers want to frame the I/P conflict in terms of The West versus Islam (or something similar) but it just doesn’t fit. Israel isn’t a Western colonial occupier and it isn’t a bastion of Western civilization either. It’s its own country with some familiar problems and some unique problems. Palestinians are not faceless Muslim extremists, they have their own narrative (and see how many people picked books that tell that narrative) and their own issues.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Shlomo Yosef</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:24 am</td></tr>
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The much too promised land by Aaron David miller if you want a deeper understanding of us israel peace process stuff</div>
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City of oranges by Adam lebor v poetic history of conflict told through real life stories of 10 families in jaffa 5 Arab 5 jewish</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:31 am</td></tr>
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“…A lot of right-wingers ”</div>
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As I’ve said before, Gabriel, not everything can or should be viewed as left-right political issues.</div>
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If I disagree with you, that doesn’t automatically mean I’m taking a political view. I don’t refer to a party line or a set of values before I form my opinions.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:33 am</td></tr>
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Well I guess the values we claim as our own are things like democracy, human rights, the rule of law, universal freedoms, and so on. In fact, these are values I hold dear too. But it’s not quite clear to me how these values should find expression in our attitude towards Israel. For me I guess these values demand that we support the existence of Israel insofar as it’s a thriving liberal democracy based on the rule of law and universal rights. Insofar as it’s not, we should oppose it. So, for me, support for these values mandates support for the Israeli state within the Green Line with its many admirable qualities, opposition to the settler project whose primary purpose is to prevent the end of a military dictatorship over 3.7 million Arabs, and support for moves towards a negotiated settlement. Just as we should oppose the absence of democracy and the rule of law elsewhere in the ME.</div>
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I guess this isn’t what you had in mind. But I don’t see how we can support democracy but oppose it for the Palestinians. I guess now you’ll say Israel wants to give the Palestinians democracy and their own state, but it’s the Palestinians with their violence and extremism who prevent it from happening, effectively forcing Israel to oppress them against its will.</div>
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I respect you, Penny: you always seem articulate, decent and reasonable. But I don’t think we’re going to agree on this, not tonight. I’ve become accustomed to the argument, in these parts, that the continuation of the conflict is entirely the fault of the Palestinians – that Israel wishes it could find a way to stop oppressing them, but is blocked at every turn.</div>
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It’s just that when I look at Israel’s government today I don’t see a group of people leaving no stone unturned to bring an end to the occupation. In fact, I see a government working hard to remove many of the foundation stones on which Israeli democracy, and the other values it shares with Europe, rests.</div>
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And before I’m misinterpreted: first, we’re hardly perfect either; and two, Israel is better than most, even years into a second Netanyahu government. I’m talking about Israel’s relationship to its own democracy, not its relative moral standing.</div>
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Having said all that, I’m not sure about the claim that Israel is some urgent test of Europe’s values. Doesn’t Israel constantly urge the likes of us to stay out of its business? And how often are governments – at the national or the EU level – motivated by values, rather than interests? I think Israel is an urgent test of Israeli values, not European values. Europe has plenty of problems upon which it’ll need to bring all its values and other qualities to bear, if it wants to exist into next week.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Josh Scholar</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:34 am</td></tr>
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I was gonna say Michael Totten.<br />
Besides the Fatima Gate one he has a new book on Iraq I haven’t seen yet and a few pamphlet sized books too.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:41 am</td></tr>
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Back to the subject of books…</div>
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Shlomo Yosef,</div>
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Yes, the Adam Lebor book was quite lovely in parts. If you like that, you might like My Happiness Bears no Relation to Happiness by Adina Hoffman, which tells the story of Palestine/Israel through the life of a poet, Taha Mohammed Ali, who was a refugee in 48, infiltrated back unto Israel, became a celebrity writer late in life, and lived to help the author write an eccentric, heartbreaking, utterly unique book full of warmth and humour and colour and the strange quiddity of human life.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:41 am</td></tr>
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“But it’s not quite clear to me how these values should find expression in our attitude towards Israel”</div>
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The UN springs to mind here, Matt.</div>
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Values are far wider than those you’ve mentioned.</div>
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I’m whacked now – too tired to answer in full – but I can’t abide the hypocrasy that condemns the slightest infringement that takes place in, say, Jerusalem, whilst massive human rights abuses that outweigh the I/P conflict pass with little mention.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Think of England</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:42 am</td></tr>
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Without a doubt this is basically mental masturbation; not always a bad thing. But the approval of Finkelstein exposes the real agenda.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Ben</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:45 am</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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Try:</div>
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From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters</div>
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The Arab Awakening by George Antonius</div>
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The Revolt by Menachem Begin</div>
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Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine by Shmuel Katz</div>
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Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh</div>
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The Israelis: Founders and Builders by Amos Elon</div>
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Berl: The Biography of a Socialist Zionist, by Anita Shapira</div>
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Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 by Anita Shapira</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:46 am</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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Have you read any of the books written by the Jewish refugees from Arab lands? Might those be worth a look?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:52 am</td></tr>
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I was going to comment on how surprised I am that many of the books I value haven’t been mentioned at all; is that because they’re too leftist/liberal? A lot of these must have been very popular:</div>
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Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness<br />
David Grossman, The Yellow Wind, Sleeping on a Wire, To the End of the Land<br />
Shlomo Ben Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace<br />
Raja Shehadeh, Strangers in the House<br />
Everything by Avi Shlaim and Tom Segev<br />
Richard Ben cramer, How Israel Lost<br />
Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire<br />
Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon a country</div>
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Likely to be controversial because it challenges key Israeli narratives, but this is indispensable:</div>
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clayton Swisher, The Truth about camp David</div>
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Some books about the wider ME I’ve loved:</div>
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Robin Wright, Dreams and Shadows: the Future of the Middle East (basically predicted the Arab spring)<br />
Rory Stewart, The Prince of the Marshes (hugely recommended – incredibly gripping)<br />
Brian Whitaker, What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East? (precisely one mention of Israel)</div>
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Also, perhaps the best ‘Israeli’ novel:</div>
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Philip Roth, ‘Operation Shylock’</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:54 am</td></tr>
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How about a psychiatrist’s view?</div>
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The Oslo Syndrome by Kenneth Levin is one such view. I’ve just acquired this book so can’t give you an opinion, but it’s another avenue to explore.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:55 am</td></tr>
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Penny – I think Martin Gilbert has a book called ‘In Ishmael’s House’ – it’s a history of Jews in Muslim lands. That would probably be very interesting and I’m sure 20th century refugeehood would be a big part of that</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:58 am</td></tr>
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The books I was thinking of are more the type written by those who actually experienced an expulsion rather than those writing from an historical perspective.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Shlomo Yosef</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:02 am</td></tr>
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You need to read sari new book what is a state worth</div>
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Also have read lots of the ones you have put up but do look at Aaron David millers book, it’s under appreciated as its short and meant for lots of people but gives you a gret insight into us israel policy relations on peace process in the 90’s and 2000’s</div>
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Also it’s old and hard to get but kissing through the glass, Israelis and Americans gives you a view in how the relationship between both leaders and people was between the 60-90’s amazing to see messages and ideas during pollard and others</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:05 am</td></tr>
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Think of England,</div>
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‘Without a doubt this is basically mental masturbation; not always a bad thing.’</div>
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Sure. But I’m going to end up buying maybe ten or fifteen of these books, reading them, and perhaps reporting back if anyone’s interested. So it will have a purpose.</div>
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‘But the approval of Finkelstein exposes the real agenda.’</div>
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Agenda? Oh come on, be serious. This whole Finkelstein bogeyman business is getting silly. Have you actually read any of his books? I say this with all respect, honestly. But once a consensus forms about someone, it’s very hard for anyone in a community like Harry’s Place to entertain mixed feelings or second thoughts. I felt that as I was reading Gilad Atzmon’s book lately – during the introduction, I started worrying that I couldn’t find any anti-semitism. I was worried I’d be a lone voice standing up for this guy who was already condemned as a racist. It would be difficult to do – I would inevitably have been tarred as a racist had I done so. (Luckily, the anti-semitism turned up in bucketloads by chapter 1.)</div>
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I’ve said I’m actually keen to talk over the whole Finkelstein issue with someone who’s well versed in the subject, because I’m not sure how I feel about him and I’d like someone to try and persuade me he’s an awful anti-semite. But the fact is nobody wants to discuss him – they just want to condemn him and anyone who doesn’t feel exactly as they do.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Lee</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:08 am</td></tr>
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Matt-</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/History-Israel-Rise-Zionism-Time/dp/0375711325/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325131474&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.amazon.com/History-Israel-Rise-Zionism-Time/dp/0375711325/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325131474&sr=8-1</a></div>
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If you want a book on Zionism itself:</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Zionist-Ideology-Tauber-Institute-European/dp/0874518334/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325131677&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.amazon.com/Zionist-Ideology-Tauber-Institute-European/dp/0874518334/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325131677&sr=8-1</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:21 am</td></tr>
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That last paragraph just about sums up the intellectual dishonesty and special pleading that Hill everywhere smuggles into his posts. It is *not* a fact that “nobody wants to discuss [Finkelstein]“. Gene has linked Hill to a plethora of articles on this very site that extensively *discuss* Finkelstein’s views, blow by blow. The fact is that Hill does not want to read them.</div>
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“They just want to condemn him and anyone who doesn’t feel exactly as they do”.</div>
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Bull. Now put away the victim card.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://warped-mirror.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">PetraMB</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:39 am</td></tr>
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It’s frankly pretty pathetic if you still don’t know how you “feel” about Finkelstein. He expressed his solidarity with Hezbollah — saying in effect: I don’t care about their politics, I support their right to resist — some 6 years after Israel had withdrawn to the internationally recognized border, and after some 20 incidents that happened after that withdrawal when Hezbollah violated this border: each and every time an act of war.</div>
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Following the same principle, there were plenty of Germans who said: I don’t care about the politics of the Nazis, but they provided jobs and soup kitchens.</div>
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Your childish “they just want to condemn him and anyone who doesn’t feel exactly as they do” only reflects your pseudo-sophisticated open mind. You want to keep an open mind about somebody who supports reactionary theocrats because they like to kill Jews — suit yourself.</div>
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That’s the very last time I commented on anything you write.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 5:04 am</td></tr>
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I think books and narrative haven’t really been the problem in your analyses nearly as much as basic facts. Ie. read up on what Palestinians mean when they refer to a two-state solution. You can find it in the words of their leaders and in their own words in pretty much every opinion poll. Read up on the history and context of UNSC 242. Read up on the history of Jerusalem under Muslim control and how central (or not) it is to their faith and culture.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Max</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 5:15 am</td></tr>
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<div style="letter-spacing: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
“The Prophet of Doom,” Available online here;</div>
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<a href="http://prophetofdoom.net/Prophet_of_Doom_Islams_Terrorist_Dogma_in_Muhammads_Own_Words.Islam" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://prophetofdoom.net/Prophet_of_Doom_Islams_Terrorist_Dogma_in_Muhammads_Own_Words.Islam</a></div>
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The only “hateful” bits are when it quotes the Koran, Hadith’s etc. It literally changed my perspective about the region and I now realise that Islam is simply an Arab Imperialist ideology used to keep Berbers, Copts, Western Saharans, Kurds, Assyrians, Maronites etc as second-class citizens. The reason Muslims hate Israel so much is that Jews broke out of this Dhimmi Paradigm a situation Muslim’s cannot accept.</div>
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Also, Israel has no “Palestinian citizens” but does have Arab-Israeli’s.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Arnon</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 5:48 am</td></tr>
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“Why shouldn’t I read Norman Finkelstein? I have no intention to ban him from my shelves any more than I plan to ban Alan Dershowitz, or Efraim Karsh. I also read Gilad Atzmon’s vile, silly book recently, and I’m glad I did. What possible justification could there be to ’stop reading’ any author? Either you’ve read him and concluded his work is worthless, in which case I think I should have the opportunity to come to the same concluson; or you haven’t read him, in which case you’ll forgive me, I’m sure, for paying no attention to your estimation of his writing.”</div>
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“Had we but world enough and time….”</div>
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Unless you plan to live for ever I suggest you stop wasting your time on books by deranged people like Atzmon et al.</div>
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I would further suggest that you find a class syllabus by the best pro Israel Professor and the best pro Palestinian Professor around and start with their suggestions.</div>
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I personally don’t care for Segev since everything I read by him stacks the deck for his own pro single State point of view.</div>
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His book on the 67 war was pretty one sided. me thinks.</div>
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I would suggest that for every history book you read you also red some critical but informed reviews.</div>
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For example:</div>
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“THE FAILURE OF ISRAEL’S “NEW HISTORIANS” TO EXPLAIN WAR AND PEACE.”</div>
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“The Past Is Not a Foreign Country” by Anita Shapira</div>
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<a href="http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/courses01/rrtw/Shapira.htm" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/courses01/rrtw/Shapira.htm</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Think of England</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 5:56 am</td></tr>
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I don’t have to devote my (precious) time close reading some anti-Semitic horseshit (i.e., Finkelstein). Matt, I’ve noticed since you’ve been here that you start out with some Pollyannaish, innocent sounding statement, or, in this case, a request, neutral, intellectual, rational, sober, but frankly anyone with those qualities for real would not devote more than a minute to a piece of shit like Finkelstein. If you can’t see what he is immediately, perhaps you are in agreement with him. Now, if you are, that’s OK, just be honest about it, rather than all this pretense.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 6:08 am</td></tr>
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Petra MB,</div>
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Well, that would be a shame because I always thought your contributions were thoughtful, but by all means boycott me if you think, I dunno, it helps.</div>
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I don’t know whether you’ll read this or not but I offer this as a general comment on Finkelstein, since lots of people are upset here.</div>
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comparing me to someone who has an open mind about Nazis because I’ve said I’m not sure I’m ready to condemn Finkelstein in the same terms as you is rather absurd. I’m sure you know that, but you’re angry. I understand. You think basically I’m indifferent to Hezbollah terrorism against civilians because I won’t unequivocally condemn Finkelstein. Once I’ve explained I hope you’ll reconsider that view.</div>
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I’m actually the last person who’s likely to be blithe about Hezbollah attacking civilians, because I could quite easily have been killed by them myself. I was in Haifa in July 2006, unable to leave the city, which was a ghost town, because hundreds of katyushas were raining down from Lebanon. I could pretend I suffered horribly for rhetorical effect; of course I won’t. My level of fear went up and down, depending on where the last rocket landed. Most landed in the sea, but some would crash into buildings in the city. Me and my friend were under no illusions that we were facing possible death. And people did die – 44 ordinary Israelis. I don’t want to go into some of the worst aspects of the situation because I don’t want to be seen to be exploiting the experience for the sake of this argument.</div>
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What’s my point? That I have no illusions whatsoever that if Hezbollah had been able to, it would have sent the whole city up in flames. In my Finkelstein article it’s precisely this point I condemn him for – for equivocating when offered a direct opportunity to condemn the killing of Israeli civilians. I thought that was appalling and, yes, the fact that I’d spent a week in Haifa under the bombs made it utterly real to me.</div>
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I’ve also condemned Hamas every opportunity I get for being depraved sado-masochistic death-cultists with a sordid monomania, defiling the Palestinuan cause with the blood of innocents. I LOATHE Hamas – because they kill people indiscriminately.</div>
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But Hamas and Hezbollah aren’t exactly the same, and even though the latter tried to kill me, it seems important to understand the difference.</div>
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Hezbollah HAS committed quite a few acts of terrorism – as I know full well. But most of its operations have been carried out against military targets in occupied Southern Lebanon, between 1982 and 2000. We don’t need to argue about whether Hezbollah was right to fight back against the occupation, though I will note that a pretty strong case could be made that it was the Lebanese people’s right to act in self-defence against a foreign occupation following an aggressive invasion that brought unthinkable tragedies in its wake. We can at least agree that striking against military targets on your own territory is not terrorism. And we do know that Hezbollah was formed for the purpose of fighting the occupation – not to terrorise Israelis.</div>
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Anyway, unlike Norman Finkestein I will unequivocally condemn any and all acts of indiscriminate violence against civilians. Hezbollah has been involved in hostage taking, was probably involved in some gruesome anti-semitic attacks in Argentina, and continued raids into Israel (albeit almost exclusively against military targets) after 2000, one of which resulted in the 2006 war. All of these actions I condemn equivocally, and not only do I condemn Finkelstein for failing to condemn them, the whole point of my article about him was to condemn him for that.</div>
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So why do I hesitate before condemning Finkelstein utterly? Quite simply, because although I think he’s mistaken and in some ways quite heartless on this issue, I don’t think his reasoning – tragically mistaken though it is – puts him in the category of an evil monster.</div>
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What is his reasoning? Well I happen to know because I’ve spoken to him about this and challenged him in the strongest possible terms, in front of a room of 30 adoring Finkelstein acolytes who frankly looked as though they were going to drag me outside and teach me a less scholarly lesson.</div>
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Remember I don’t agree with this argument – I’m with you, Petra MB, on this, to the extent that I consider him mistaken in all kinds of ways, appallingly mistaken and quite heartless, etc. Where we differ is that you see his remarks on Hezbollah as evidence of evil or psychopathy of some kind; I don’t.</div>
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So I told Finkelstein that I could see Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli military enforcing the occupation could be legitimate on the grounds of self-defence, and I always believed it was an unjustified invasion and occupation. But I could not support kidnappings, terrorism in Argentina, and the continuation of cross-border raids after Israel’s withdrawal in 2000. Why didn’t Hezbollah stop fighting once Israel had withdrawn? Surely at that point it became the aggressor?</div>
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Finkelstein argues it’s naive to see 2000 as the end of the war between Israel and Lebanon. Israel would only coexist with Lebanon on the firm basis that it’s military dominance in the region was unchallenged. Israel would continue to meddle in Lebanon through its christian proxies, as it always had done, violating Lebanese sovereignty. And the threat of another invasion and more devastation would always exist. Therefore, the war continued, and Hezbollah’s raids into Israel should be seen as moves in the context of continued war. As for its involvement in kidnapping and overseas terrorism, he equivocated, seeming to argue it was unproven (strictly true, but implausible), or that the Argentina bombings couldn’t have been authorised at a high level (implausible), and that other acts of violence were insignificant compared to many Israeli crimes (irrelevant), and that given its relative weakness compared to Israel it had little choice but to use dirty tactics, just as all weak parties fighting a behemoth do, like some Israelis militias fighting Mandate Britain using terror (again – irrelevant – there’s right and wrong, even in war).</div>
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In any case, Finkelstein clearly saw the wrong Hezbollah had done as insignificant compared to the good it had done. He argued that making the occupation too costly for Israel to continue saved southern Lebanon from permanent occupation, like the West Bank, perhaps even settlement and eventual annexation. Finkelstein saw them as freedom fighters. I have a slightly more jaundiced view of their resistance to the occupation, but can I say, again, that the people of Lebanon had no right to fight back? Not if I believe, as I do, that the invasion and occupation were unjustified. Again, let me be clear: this in no way excuses or even mitigates, in my view, the vile acts of terror Hezbollah carried out.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 6:24 am</td></tr>
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I apologise for this mammoth off-topic post – but I wanted to have my say on this Finkelstein business once and for all, especially since I’m somehow being accused of condoning terror or condoning someone who condones terror. In conclusion, while I do and have condemned Finkelstein’s ’solidarity’ with Hezbollah, in the London Progressive Journal and to his face. I told him that his support for Hezbollah was an ‘intellectual and moral farce’.</div>
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But what is being demanded of me here isn’t just to condemn him but never to read his books on totally different subjects, never to entertain mixed thoughts and feelings about him, and to write off everything he’s ever said or written as worthless. I could only write someone off in that way if I believed they were pretty much evil. And I simply don’t think that of Finkelstein. I’m sorry. I would like to think you could respect my opinion and consider me misguided and perhaps foolish, but at least sincere and well intentioned.</div>
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There are those, of course, who argue, from the ‘other’ side, that anyone who’d not prepared to condemn certain Israeli crimes utterly, and to write off Israel as an evil and psychopathic state, is compromised in the same way. I say to those people the same that I say to you: sincere reasoning can lead us so far in different directions that we can barely see or hear each other. But most people are trying their best with the brain power and knowledge given to them. I believe that’s true of me, you folks, and Finkelstein too. Even if you don’t believe it of Finkelstein, please give me the credit of believing it of me!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Ben</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 6:36 am</td></tr>
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“…I personally don’t care for Segev…”</div>
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It was Segev who suggested in a NY Times review of John Rothman’s book about Amin El Husseini, Icon of Evil, that it would be better to suppress the historical facts of Husseini’s wartime activities because they make a “peace agreement” harder to attain.</div>
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The man’s books are driven by the same scarcely-hidden agenda – to bring about an agreement that is not a true peace – and are suffused with an unbelievable arrogance and contempt for the truth.</div>
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Avi Shlaim is even worse – a man who shamelessly applies standards to the protagonists arbitrarily, legitimizing and justifying anything if it is the Arab or British who say or do it, and delegitimizing and demonizing, often with insulting and contemptuous ad hominem language, the very same thing if it is the Jews who say or do it.</div>
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Finklestein is emotionally ill and mentally unstable because he is the son of two death camp survivors. Studies in Israel have shown that the offspring of such unions almost always develop badly damaged personalities.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Israelinurse</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 6:38 am</td></tr>
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Matt (11:05) – I’m lucky enough to live in one of the most beautiful places in Israel and possibly the world – the Golan Heights.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Israelinurse</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 6:46 am</td></tr>
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“And we do know that Hezbollah was formed for the purpose of fighting the occupation – not to terrorise Israelis.”</div>
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Another for the reading list: Hizbollah charter – and in particular its definition of ‘occupation’. As has been written several times above, you can’t beat Michael Totten’s ‘Road to Fatima Gate’ for an up close look at Hizbollah.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:04 am</td></tr>
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Nate,</div>
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‘Ie. read up on what Palestinians mean when they refer to a two-state solution. You can find it in the words of their leaders and in their own words in pretty much every opinion poll.’</div>
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Why do you assume just because I don’t share your outlook I don’t know basic ‘facts’? You’re referring to the view that Palestinians see a two-state solution as including full return of the refugees, swamping Israel and effectively ending the Jewish state. Well, opinion polls certainly show that ordinary Palestinians see the right of return as crucial. Their leaders have moved on though. Abbas and PA top brass have been talking about a ‘just resolution’ to the refugee crisis – code for compensation and return to the Palestinian state – for years now. When Sari Nusseibeh argued before camp David that the PLO should just accept that there’d be no right of return and say so publicly in a newspaper article, Arafat collared him and reprimanded him. Why? Because that was ‘our best negotiating card’. Not because Arafat was deluded enough to think Israel would agree to its own dissolution.</div>
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As for 242, you must surely be aware there’s a kind of ‘pro-Israel’ way of interpreting it, based on the argument that Israel doesn’t have to withdraw from the territories unless it has a full peace agreement. Then there’s the pro-Palestinian interpretation, which stresses the inadmissability of aquiring territory by war. And of course there’s the whole definite article crux. I’m not sure I understand the point you’re trying to make this time, or is your purpose just to tell me to look up elementary information, for the sake of patronising me?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:11 am</td></tr>
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Israelinurse,</div>
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The Golan? Oh wow. How about a tour when I’m in town? You can tell everyone here how I turned up in a Norman Finkelstein mask and I’m even more obnoxious in real life than online.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:25 am</td></tr>
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Ben,</div>
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christ, that was impressive. i love the way you had those ’studies’ at the tip of your fingers to back up your diagnosis of mental illness – and even managed to find the cause too, even though you’ve never met the guy. you’re obviously a professional medic; are you in mental health or are you just some sort of polymath?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>John Milton</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:46 am</td></tr>
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Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tracts, and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:50 am</td></tr>
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<i>I must say I dislike this sort of rhetoric. It’s the kind of bollocks used by US Republicans to insult the European welfare state and to stir up paranoia about a mythical Muslim takeover.</i></div>
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As Cityca says, you may have read a lot but learned little. You think in shrill slogans.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nick</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:51 am</td></tr>
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Anything by Robert Irwin. <i>For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies</i> is a smart counterpoint to Edward Said’s<i>Orientalism</i>, written by someone who trained as a scholar of Islamic history and the Arab world.</div>
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He is also a wonderful gothic novelist, which should satisfy your yen for hedonism and promiscuity: seek out <i>The Arabian Nightmare</i>and <i>Prayer Cushions of the Flesh</i>.</div>
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He also written a good introduction to classical Arabic poetry,<i>Night and Horses and the Desert</i>, and an excellent survey of Islamic Art.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:54 am</td></tr>
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<i>It’s not that I feel people ought to have to brandish their credentials before opening their mouth, but</i></div>
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Followed, of course, by brandishing his (supposed) credentials.<br />
I don’t think Hill has the slightest idea how much he sounds like a parody.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:54 am</td></tr>
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I must go over to your blog, Matt, and see if anyone took up the offer of a Finkelstein debate. Although so many people whose views I respect seem to disagree with you on this one that I’d very likely end up thinking they were right and you mistaken – I think you are right to – not stick to your guns, because that suggests you are inflexible – but assert your perspective.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:59 am</td></tr>
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<i>I think Matt’s glowing accommodation of Finkelstein rather says it all.</i></div>
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Even that is topped by MH calling Atzmon ‘controversial’.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>DavidS</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:00 am</td></tr>
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The fundamental problem with trying to understand the Israeli/Arab conflict is the mass of lies and deception that gets published on the subject. It took me years to realize how bad the situation is. Authors like Finkelstein write books that seem rational and well-documented, but the omissions and, sometimes, outright lies are critical to their arguments, albeit difficult or impossible to detect without broad knowledge of the history of the conflict, which is what most readers come to these books for in the first place. Please note that by “omissions”, I mean things that would be as serious as writing a history of the second world war that omitted any mention of the attack on Pearl Harbor, or a history of the American Civil War that made no mention of Abraham Lincoln.</div>
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Frankly, my feeling is that, if you spend your reading time on books by Finkelstein, you will need to spend far more time checking everything he says than reading his books. This problem was described particularly well by Peter Novick, who wrote “The Holocaust in American Life” (which was described by Finkelstein himself as a major inspiration for his book “The Holocaust Industry”):</div>
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“As concerns particular assertions made by Finkelstein . . . the appropriate response is not (exhilarating) “debate” but (tedious) examination of his footnotes. Such an examination reveals that many of those assertions are pure invention. . . . No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate, without taking the time to carefully compare his claims with the sources he cites.”</div>
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If you want to spend your time reading books where you need to do this kind of checking, by all means have at it, but, without the checking, I find it hard to see how there is anything that one can usefully take from such books.</div>
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That said, my one recommendation is Yaacov Lozowick’s “Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel’s Wars”. Lozowick is extremely careful get the facts right and to deal with any substantive arguments against his position — in other words, he is the opposite of a writer like Finkelstein. Whether you wind up agreeing with Lozowick or not, you will certainly learn what the broad center of the Israeli political spectrum believes and why they believe it. This is absolutely vital knowledge for understanding the current state of the conflict and I really do not know of another source that lays it out anywhere close to as clearly Lozowick. If you want to understand Israeli actions in the conflict, read Lozowick’s book.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:02 am</td></tr>
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<i>As for 242, you must surely be aware there’s a kind of ‘pro-Israel’ way of interpreting it, based on the argument that Israel doesn’t have to withdraw from the territories unless it has a full peace agreement.</i></div>
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Err, maybe because that’s what it says.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:02 am</td></tr>
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And it doesn’t say ‘the’ territories. How about arguing in good faith.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:09 am</td></tr>
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Ben, here is the Tom Segev review you’re referring to. He doesn’t argue for suppressing historical facts to advance the peace process. He says the book is of almost no scholarly value and the growing trend of what he calls ‘Arab bashing’ in Israel is bad fpr Jewish-Arab relations. Nowhere does he call for suppressing facts. That was an outrageous bluff.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/books/review/Segev-t.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1325145184-8VprN/K6JQcnyCQFrIHNAQ" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/books/review/Segev-t.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1325145184-8VprN/K6JQcnyCQFrIHNAQ</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:15 am</td></tr>
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DavidS,</div>
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Where did you find the quote accusing Finkelstein of being untustworthy? It’s quite a claim – I’d like to look into that further.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:21 am</td></tr>
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DavidS – that seems a very precise, constructive comment about Finkelstein. It made me think how quickly some people fall apart, even when they seem on the surface very scholarly and academic, once forced to debate. (With someone like Atzmon, he gives himself away without help from anyone else, of course.) I read an online debate between two academics about Yugoslavia. Although I didn’t feel I had a huge knowledge of the topic it seemed easy to work out who was in the right because of internal evidence – I felt I knew who was arguing honestly, and being consistent.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Micha</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:26 am</td></tr>
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Don’t read books!</div>
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All the books just tell the stories that fit their narrative.</div>
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Just use common sense.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Max G</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:32 am</td></tr>
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Abu Faris,<br />
You write that Phillip Roth is possibly one of the worst authors that you have ever read. Which of his books have you actually read?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Alexia</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:32 am</td></tr>
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Top tip: get a Kindle.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:35 am</td></tr>
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Sarah, it may be precise, but it’s just an assertion at this stage. I’d like to see what evidence this chap has that Finkelstein just makes things up. It’s quite a claim to make about a high-profile academic, and if it’s true I wonder why nobody’s questioned Finkelstein’s use of sources before, and why figures like Avi Shlaim – Oxford professor, fellow of the British Academy, arguably one of the two or three most renowned Middle East historians in the world – have endorsed him so effusively. That is not a charge to be made lightly. Especially since Finkelstein’s speciality is to demolish scholarly works via the footnotes (see his famous destruction of Joan Peters, which virtually ended her career).</div>
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Again, I’m not saying it can’t be true. But I’d like to see some evidence. If some suspect footnotes in Finkelstein were pointed out to me, I’d be glad to check them out in the British Library today. It should be relatively easy if Finkelstein simply lies.</div>
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I may be wrong but I would treat that claim with a certain amount of skepticism. If I’m wrong I’ll happily admit it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Max G</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:37 am</td></tr>
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I have just bought ” Egypt on the brink” by Tarek Osman. I think that the country is heading for an Islamist take-over, so I want to gauge what has been going on.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:47 am</td></tr>
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It still might be interesting to read Novick’s article, but this is Finkelstein’s response to Novick:</div>
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<a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=165" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=165</a></div>
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(This is quite typical of Finkelstein the writer: extremely scrupulous to the point, sometimes, of being rather scholastic and dry.)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>boyinthebubble</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:51 am</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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Polemical books about competing narratives rarely engage me beyond processing data. Primo Levi’s, If Not Now, When? reads me as much as I read it.</div>
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In many ways we are what we read.</div>
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Read more poetry.</div>
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Read more poetry.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:51 am</td></tr>
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Matt – sure.</div>
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By the way – this thread makes me feel rather – well very – ill-read, and it’s a good thing I only really post on I/P within a UK based context, eg the academic boycott issue …</div>
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But – I have read Lebor’s ‘City of Oranges’ and wondered whether my sense of it was the default one – it seemed very balanced to me – is that the concensus or is it generally perceived to favour one ‘narrative’?</div>
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Similar – Matt – you have been reading some of Crossing Qalandiya – I thought it was very well balanced – do you – and anyone else who has read it – think the same?</div>
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<a href="http://crossingqalandiya.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://crossingqalandiya.com/</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 9:02 am</td></tr>
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Sarah,</div>
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I thought city of oranges was balanced. This may seem like a rather abstract point, but I’m a bit suspicious when people talk about an irreconcilable clash of narratives w/r/t I-P. It sounds suspiciously postmodern – underpinned by the idea, perhaps, that there’s no such thing as objective historical truth, no possibility of balance or middle ground, no hope of separating fact from fiction. As though truth is something generated within hermetically sealed communities, and each groups own truth floats free of every other’s, and from the meagre constraints of the quote unquote real. That’s not my view of history and truth at all.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 9:12 am</td></tr>
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Matt – Well, I think I agree, but at the same time the truth, or history, is so huge and complex that it’s almost impossible to give a fair and complete version of events. So both sides will see things from their perspective. That will affect which events they talk about as well as how they narrate those events. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth trying to work out what really happened or that what happened has to be right in the middle of the two narratives, or that all narratives have equal worth. The historian Richard Evans has quite a balanced view of these issues, I think.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Chaim Yankel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 9:51 am</td></tr>
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On your original post you mentioned a book by Edward Said – I would go back to one of his earliest – the Question of Palestine – it certainly changed the way I understood the issues. Also going back a bit, Isaac Deutscher’s colection of essays on The Non-Jewish Jew is excellent. A good collection of various critical writers on Zionism and Israel is Prophets Outcast, edited by Adam Shatz.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Michael rabins</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 9:57 am</td></tr>
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Does anyone else feel that Matt is using us in to join in with his masturbatory game. The guy is even weirder than Finkelstein.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 10:52 am</td></tr>
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<i>I’m a bit suspicious when people talk about an irreconcilable clash of narratives w/r/t I-P. It sounds suspiciously postmodern – underpinned by the idea, perhaps, that there’s no such thing as objective historical truth, no possibility of balance or middle ground, no hope of separating fact from fiction. As though truth is something generated within hermetically sealed communities, and each groups own truth floats free of every other’s, and from the meagre constraints of the quote unquote real.</i></div>
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I think you have misunderstood completely what “irreconcilable clash of narratives” means in this context. There is an irreconcilable clash between serious history on the one hand, however much historians may disagree with each other, and pure fabrications on the other.<br />
For example, claiming that Jews are white Europeans colonising a land with which they have no historical connection, which is a charge hurled at Israel all the time in order to delegitimise it, a charge invented by ME-based antisemites and bought and swallowed by what are laughingly called ‘anti-Zionists’, is a narrative, but it’s fiction, a racist lie from start to finish. Every single word in it is a lie, jointly and severally.<br />
So yes, there is a clash between lies and truth. There is nothing ‘post-modern’ about it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:08 am</td></tr>
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<i>I would recommend, as a book about the dangers of pompous pillocks surrounded by books but entirely lacking the moral discernment and compass to make sense of them</i></div>
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Abu, you nailed this for me with that comment</div>
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<i>Does anyone else feel that Matt is using us in to join in with his masturbatory game.</i></div>
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Yes.</div>
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It seems to me to be like this:- Matt Hill gets invited to discuss his opinions of the I/P conflict and gets thoroughly trashed and owned (something he alludes to in his post). He then returns and appears to prostrate himself before the victors in an act of reconciliation, which turns out to be just another way of having an argument and engaging in controversy (Finklestein).</div>
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Its “Yeah, you say I got it so wrong and don’t know diddly-squat. Go on then, recommend me some books that will educate me in what you say I’m lacking”.</div>
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Yet, the idea is a waste of time because Matt isn’t going to read them all, he’s going to select the ones to read anyway and, most importantly, he’s not going to change any of his ideas or opinions because his existing perceptual filter will only use what he reads to re-inforce what he already believes.</div>
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If someone said “I really don’t know anything about the conflict, can someone recommend some books to help me?” it would be different. I define Matt by what he has already written and the opinions he has expressed. What is clear is that he lacks the historical perspective as a foundation. In the reverse pyramid of expanding knowledge he come to the debate far too late to be able to re-construct his beliefs and opinions from a better factual basis. He won’t change in any way other than to seek what re-inforces his opinions. His behaviour is little different to anyone else with opinions. Its the “20-year old who joins PSC and learns that all Israelis are bastards and that the Palestinians are all kind nomads who just want all the land back that was 100% stolen and anyway why should the Arabs pay for The Holocaust” syndrome.</div>
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The only change that Matt can make is if someone proves that something he believes is based on a lie, a decimal point in the wrong place.</div>
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Let me suggest the “Mother of All Posts” for you Matt. Have a think about this one:-</div>
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Give us a thread called “This is what I believe about the I/P Conflict” in the form of a number of sentences of the model:- “I believe xxx because of yyy”, and let people discuss with you whether “yyy” is a a fact or just your opinion. Let us discuss your structure of belief because maybe you made a mistake or two.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>M=o=r=g=y</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:12 am</td></tr>
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He has a hard-on for evil pieces of shit like Finkelstein. When even Gene points out how deluded he is….its time to wonder.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:16 am</td></tr>
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Peter @ 29 December 2011, 10:52 am, you and I, and others, seem to have arrived at the same idea at the same time. The point about believing fiction and using it with a few facts tends to make fiction inseperable from the facts and creates an opinion based on falsehood. That is why I challenge Matt to concisely state the beliefs on which his whole structure of opinion rests and give us an opportunity to examine them.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>unbelievable</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:27 am</td></tr>
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Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Dawoud El-Alami, The Palestine-Israeli Confict: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld).</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:33 am</td></tr>
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Matt, you watched this video, in which a distressed student tells Finkelstein not to make lots of references to Jewish people as Nazis. Considering Finkelstein presents himself as an expert on the Holocaust, this seems to be a fair request. However Finkelstein doesn’t think so:</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O5zgXeCynQ" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O5zgXeCynQ</a></div>
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The student says:</div>
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During your speech you made a lot of references to Jewish people as well as certain people in the audience, not Jewish people in general, but especially in the audience – to Nazis. That is extremely offensive to certain people who are German and also extremely offensive who actually suffered under Nazi war</div>
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Finkelstein replies:</div>
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I don’t respect that any more, I really don’t. I don’t like and I don’t respect the crocodile tears (interruptions) the crocodile tears (clapping and cries from audience) listen sir, allow me to finish</div>
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I don’t like to play to a foreign audience the Holocaust part but since now I feel compelled to – my late father was in Auschwitz, my late mother … please shut-up (applause) my late father was in Auschwitz my late mother was in Mgdonevice concentration camp – every single member of my family on both sides were exterminated, both my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto</div>
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They taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silenced by Israel over their crimes against Palestinians.</div>
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I consider nothing more despicable than to use their suffering and their martyrdom to try to justify the torture the brutalization and the demolition of homes commits against the Palestinians</div>
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I refuse any more to be intimidated to be browbeaten by the tears, if you had any heart in you, you would be crying for the Palestinians.</div>
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You write:<br />
<a href="http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/886/this-time-he-went-too-far-on-norman-finkelstein" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/886/this-time-he-went-too-far-on-norman-finkelstein</a></div>
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His increasingly famous reply (which I urge you to watch, here) is worth quoting. After explaining that both his parents were Holocaust survivors, that they took part in the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and that all his other relatives died in the Nazi camps, he says [...]</div>
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In other words, no matter how great a people’s suffering, it remains answerable for its own crimes. In a debate so often marred by relativism and special pleading, Finkelstein’s moral axiom (in short: two wrongs don’t make a right) is as unimpeachable as his rhetoric is exhilarating</div>
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I would say most of the people you are interacting with on HP, would agree with the points that the student made, for sensible reasons.</div>
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You clearly agree with Finkelstein, that many(most?) Zionist Jews are somehow using their suffering as an excuse to persecute Palestinians.</div>
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If that’s how you really feel, fine. But say so. Don’t be too polite.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>unbelievable</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:35 am</td></tr>
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I don’t much like Norman Finkelstein, btw, but his work in exposing Joan Peters and Alan Dershowitz deserves credit at least.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:44 am</td></tr>
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<i>I don’t respect that any more, I really don’t. I don’t like and I don’t respect the crocodile tears</i></div>
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(Finkelstein on references to the Holocaust).</div>
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But it’s all right for him to reference it by way of calling Israelis ‘Nazis’.</div>
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‘Evil piece of shit’ (cf. Morgy) is way too polite for him. Of course, I strongly suspect that he is seriously not right in the head, just like Atzmon.</div>
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Citing him as any sort of authority on the ME is astonishing lack of judgement, to say the least.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:49 am</td></tr>
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Its great when Matt so easily offers himself to ridicule when he offers us this:-</div>
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<i>As for 242, you must surely be aware there’s a kind of ‘pro-Israel’ way of interpreting it, based on the argument that Israel doesn’t have to withdraw from the territories unless it has a full peace agreement. Then there’s the pro-Palestinian interpretation, which stresses the inadmissability of aquiring territory by war.</i></div>
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(Peter already called him out on it)</div>
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Quite frankly Matt you define yourself in complete exposure of your lack of foundational knowledge and ignorance.</div>
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<i>Then there’s the pro-Palestinian interpretation, which stresses the inadmissability of aquiring territory by war</i></div>
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This is NOT an “interpretation” because this is a phrase that is at the start of Res 242 (and I’m not even going to re-read it as I know it backwards). The “inadmissability of aquiring territory by war” is a preamble to the action that is required to be taken and not a claim against Israeli side. In fact it is ambiguous in the sense that since it was the Arab side that sought to “acquire territory by law” and it could be seen as making sure their attack on Israel isn’t rewarded either. (Anyway, not my main point).</div>
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So, first of all you are factually incorrect because this is NOT an interpretation. The Palestinians don’t have to interpret anything because its what is actually written.</div>
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You make the mistake of writing “the territories”. This is another FACTUAL mistake, isn’t it Matt? It doesn’t say “the” in Res 242. So, you have now ignored a FACT and replaced it with an opinion. You have actually replaced the FACT with what was a Palestinianian OPINION. I’ll bet that you didn’t know that Arafat took the French translation of Res 242 that mistakenly add the word “the” to “territories”. For all legal documents only the English text has any legality as far as the UN is concerned. The Palestinians, presumably, still retain the illegal French version.</div>
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The point is that if Matt believes he is right and confident enough to state falsehoods then how many MORE facts has he trampled on in order to reach his opinions?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:12 pm</td></tr>
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His response seemed cold and hateful – also something of a non sequitur, although I’m not quite sure what the Nazi references consisted of, exactly.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Michael Rabins</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:13 pm</td></tr>
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Matt is a troll, albeit quite a sophisticated one.</div>
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On the one hand he offers the pretence of support, but his real motive is to advance Palestinian conquest. He substitutes sophistry for thought, faux compassion for morality and sloganeering cliche for analysis.</div>
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Do me a favour Matt. Go back to your stinking Euro-lefty chums. Who gives a fuck what you read, or what you don’t read, what you think, or what you don’t think? Not me.</div>
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In fact, I find your little games extremely tiresome. To paraphrase Yuval, take your stupid little imperialist anthropological fetishes somewhere else, you dishonest, mediocre narcissist.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:16 pm</td></tr>
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Along these lines probably:</div>
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<a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/jewish-nazis-at-work-again/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/jewish-nazis-at-work-again/</a><br />
<a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/what-nazis-thought-after-service-in-the-jewish-ghettos/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/what-nazis-thought-after-service-in-the-jewish-ghettos/</a><br />
<a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/jewish-torah-nazi-ss-knows-it-best/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/jewish-torah-nazi-ss-knows-it-best/</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>amie</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:23 pm</td></tr>
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Either Matt is the most amazing speed reader ever, or he is not entirely speaking in good faith when he says: (I wonder if all his reading is done like this0.</div>
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29 December 2011, 2:16 am<br />
Gene,<br />
Thanks for being civil and for offering me the chance to inspect the evidence and understand your point of view. I’m going to have a look through now</div>
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And then, all of 14 minutes later:<br />
29 December 2011, 2:30 am<br />
Gene (and Joseph W, and Abu Faris),<br />
I read through all the articles that seemed to be about Finkelstein</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.oyvagoy.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">OyVaGoy</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:28 pm</td></tr>
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Anything by Daniel Gordis, particularly this one<a href="http://www.oyvagoy.com/2011/06/13/my-top-five-books-number-one/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.oyvagoy.com/2011/06/13/my-top-five-books-number-one/</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>amie</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:34 pm</td></tr>
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Matt: Regarding your admiration for Avi Shlaim as a supporting pillar for your admiration for (parts of) Finkelstein:</div>
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<a href="http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2005/08/inside-mind-of-avi-shlaim.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2005/08/inside-mind-of-avi-shlaim.html</a></div>
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note the comment from the HP comments, fortunately preserved in the point of no return post although vanished from here.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gaby Charing</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:39 pm</td></tr>
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David Fromkin: A Peace to End All Peace concerning British Middle East policy after WWI – absolutely essential if you haven’t already read it.</div>
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Jonathan Israel: The Radical Enlightenment – a wonderful piece of scholarship, immensely readable, unreasonably pro-Spinoza. The best book I’ve read in 10 years.</div>
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Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger – I’m not much of a fiction reader, but this is brilliant, about a part of India (Bihar) few foreigners visit. Sharp, funny, horrifying. I read it by the pool in Kerala after going to a wedding in Bihar, and couldn’t put it down.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:45 pm</td></tr>
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Joseph W – thanks very much – that’s extremely helpful. Completely gratuitous and offensive references to Nazis as far as I could see.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abtalyon</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:46 pm</td></tr>
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Amnon Rubinstein and Alex Yacobson ” Israel and the Family of Nations.” A book steeped in scholarship, not polemic.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Vivo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 12:50 pm</td></tr>
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Michael Rabins, I think you’re right about Hill, especially his motivation. More than anything though, he reminds me of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh … very “bouncy”.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>wardytron</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:04 pm</td></tr>
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I used to have a copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Blame-Israel-Behind-Headlines/dp/1840466243/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;"><i>Why Blame Israel? The Facts Behind The Headlines</i></a> by Neill Lochery. I can’t vouch for whether it’s any good*, but I remember it had a glowing quote on the back from Julie Burchill, and it’s got a 4 star review on Amazon from Michael Rosen. That would suggest a certain amount of evenhandedness. It’s on Amazon Marketplace for £0.01 plus postage & packing.</div>
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*Because I couldn’t be bothered to read it, preferring as I do Wodehouse, Kingsley Amis, Alexandre Dumas, Whizzer & Chips etc.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Micha Sass</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:10 pm</td></tr>
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Someone should archive these comment box discussions. There is an awful lot of written content here that will soon be discarded. Considering the length of some of the comments this seems an awful waste of words. Is it legal for someone to do this (a scripted daily scrape and store) without the consent of HP?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://dieweltohneuns.wordpress.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">jurekmolnar</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:13 pm</td></tr>
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Mathias Küntzel, Jihad and Jew Hatred</div>
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Lee Smith, The Strong Horse</div>
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Dore Gold, Hatred’s Kingdom</div>
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Paul Berman, The Flight of the Intellectuals</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Evan</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:32 pm</td></tr>
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I don’t read many books.</div>
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If an author can’t succinctly express his or her ideas in 30 pages or less, it just becomes a fattening, sedentary waste of time.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sarah AB</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 1:45 pm</td></tr>
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Wardytron – that book must indeed be something if those two both like it!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://warped-mirror.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">PetraMB</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:12 pm</td></tr>
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Matt, just to clarify:<br />
1) I’m not “boycotting” you; but like some others here, methinks that you’re making a lot of points that are either intellectually dishonest or hopelessly naive — and you enjoy the attention you get when people waste their time responding to it — which is a waste of time because you’re then simply restating your views, including some snipe about how those who disagree with you are simple-minded/stuck with their badly thought-through world view etc.<br />
2) You read a lot, but maybe a bit too fast too get what is written: I did NOT compare you with people who justified their Nazi-sympathies with jobs and soup-kitchens, but pointed out that this is what Finkelstein is doing re. Hezbollah<br />
3) You must have written about your experience in Haifa during the 2006 war at least dozens of times; just understand that it won’t strike anyone living in Israel as particularly heroic. One last point, because I have to go out to get our gas masks:<br />
4) I find this talk about Finkelstein being heartless, cold-hearted, evil etc. not particularly helpful. Somebody who declares his support for Hezbollah – while claiming he doesn’t know and doesn’t care much about their politics — is either brainless or thinks his audience is and wouldn’t notice that he endorses a murderous reactionary gang of terrorists because he approves of some parts of their murderous reactionary terrorist agenda.<br />
— OK, off to get our gas masks, which I have to get because of the guys Finkelstein admires so much…</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>sackcloth and ashes</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:20 pm</td></tr>
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‘Do you have a special interest in Lebanon or was it a coincidence that you mention two books about it. Do you know David Hirst’s book Beware of Small States?’</div>
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It’s part of something I’m working on now. Hirst’s book is a poor piece of work – typical Guardianista crap. Even Fisk’s ‘Pity the Nation’ has flashes of excellent reportage, even if it’s tarnished by his Judaeophobia (I still recall his throwaway statement about the IDF assassinating three Palestinians in Beirut in April 1973, without referring to the fact that they were Black September commanders responsible for the Munich massacre).</div>
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I’d also add Amos Harel and Avi Isaacharoff’s book on the 2006 war to the list.</div>
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Freedman’s book comes strongly recommended as a basic primer for anyone who wants to understand the USA’s interaction with the Middle East from the late 1970s onwards.</div>
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If you want stuff on Iraq, I recommend the one volume histories by Charles Tripp and Gareth Stansfield (the latter was also my rowing coach at uni – nice guy). George Packer has already been recommended, and I also recommend Rory Stewart’s account of his time as the CPA governor in Maysan and Dhi Qar provinces, ‘Occupational Hazards’.</div>
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On Iran, Ray Takeyh’s book ‘Guardians of the Revolution’ is a must. Ronen Bergman has also been referenced.</div>
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Yezid Sayigh’s ‘Armed Struggle’ is a beast of a book, but is required reading for anyone who wants to make sense of the PLO’s evolution. It could do with an update, though, as it was published in 1997. Barry Rubin’s ‘Revolution until Victory’ is also worth consulting.</div>
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On military history, Kenneth Pollack’s ‘Arabs at War’ is recommended.</div>
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I’ve got nothing else to add at present, except to encourage you not to read Chomsky, Finkelstein, Pappe or Karsh.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:23 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Is it legal for someone to do this (a scripted daily scrape and store) without the consent of HP?</i></div>
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It’s on the Web. As long as you don’t make unauthorised use of it (which is essential), there is no law against it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.the-arid-zone.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Mel</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:25 pm</td></tr>
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Here are my favorite books on the ME, none related (directly anyway) to the IP conflict:</div>
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‘The Mantle of the Prophet’ – Roy Mottahedeh, one of the best books I’ve ever read.</div>
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‘A House of Many Mansions’ – Kamal Salibi, deconstruction of the various myths which underwrite Lebanon’s multiple identities.</div>
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‘Twice a Stranger’ – Bruce Clark, about the population exchanges between Turkey and Greece after WW1.</div>
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‘The Making of Modern Turkey’ – Bernard Lewis, account of the attempts and ultimate failure of the Ottoman Empire to save itself.</div>
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‘From the Holy Mountain’ – William Dalrymple, travel classic focusing on the decline of the Christians of the region.</div>
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‘Cairo: The City Victorious’ – Max Rodenbeck, brilliant portrait of an amazing city.</div>
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‘The Dream Palace of the Arabs’ – Fouad Ajami, beautifully written account of the aftermath of the failure of Arab Nationalism to solve the region’s problems.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:27 pm</td></tr>
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<i>I don’t much like Norman Finkelstein, btw, but his work in exposing Joan Peters and Alan Dershowitz deserves credit at least.</i></div>
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He didn’t ‘expose’ anything.<br />
And a recommendation from unbelievable, really is the well-deserved ultimate kiss of death, so thank heavens for small mercies.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:33 pm</td></tr>
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Matt, have you anything to say about your inaccuracies concerning Res 242 as I pointed-out earlier?</div>
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Its a fundamental and pivotal point I make about your confusion between facts and opinions. I suggest that often your grasp of facts is thin on Res 242 so perhaps you would like to defend yourself. Have you any defence for your mistakes?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.the-arid-zone.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Mel</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:33 pm</td></tr>
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Ah just saw Fromkin’s ‘A Peace to End All Peace’ mentioned above, I’d also include it.</div>
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And one more:</div>
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‘Islam and the Myth of Confrontation’ – Fred Halliday, a very clear-headed analysis of the supposed Clash of Civilizations (also contains IMO the best critique of Said’s Orientalism) by a scholar who should receive a lot more attention from Harry’s Place than he does.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.the-arid-zone.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Mel</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:37 pm</td></tr>
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Also see this post by Martin Kramer –<a href="http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2006/01/you-say-hourani-i-say-ajami-lets-call-the-whole-thing-off/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2006/01/you-say-hourani-i-say-ajami-lets-call-the-whole-thing-off/</a></div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Penny</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 2:51 pm</td></tr>
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Matt</div>
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“As for 242…” and the two interpretations you mention: Several weeks ago when responding to one of your articles, I sent you a link to the paper written by Eugene Rostow, co-author of Res 242. That should have settled this question of ‘interpretation’ – and more.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:21 pm</td></tr>
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<i>Matt</i></div>
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<i>“As for 242…” and the two interpretations you mention: Several weeks ago when responding to one of your articles, I sent you a link to the paper written by Eugene Rostow, co-author of Res 242. That should have settled this question of ‘interpretation’ – and more.</i></div>
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Penny, you highlight that this thread has been a complete waste of time for participants because we have this fantasy that Matt will read some of our suggestions and come to new conclusions, more in line with the many lessons he has been taught by posters at HP.</div>
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But, your post seems to suggest that the opinion that Matt is so entrenched on a loose structure of misunderstandings that he will fail to recognise facts that destroy those foundations.</div>
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I feel we have been jerked-off by Matt and I sincerely hope we won’t be insulted by yet more of his threads. He has his OWN blog. Why isn’t that good enough?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:43 pm</td></tr>
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DCook:<br />
Seconded. Except that I am not sure MH is jerking us off deliberately. I have a feeling that he is so steeped in his fantasy world, he genuinely can’t see it. For example, he has decided that 242 says XYZ, although you and I know it says ABC. He seems physically unable to read it and see in it anything other than what he would have liked it to say. Similarly for the Hamas charter, and everything else. Moreover, it goes without saying that he has a vastly overinflated sense of his own erudition, wisdom, experience and not least importance. He is a good example of a little learning: he has read a few texts, mostly misunderstood them, and has no feel for the context and the history of the Middle East. On that basis, he feels he is in a position to lecture people who know far more about it than he does, or is ever likely to because he listens to himself narcissitically and blocks out everything else.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 3:47 pm</td></tr>
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I mean, after all, what would the natives know about their own region? It takes a Harrow man to teach them about it.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Sick of Spineless Liberals</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:04 pm</td></tr>
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“I’m a bit suspicious when people talk about an irreconcilable clash of narratives w/r/t I-P. It sounds suspiciously postmodern – underpinned by the idea, perhaps, that there’s no such thing as objective historical truth”</div>
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Postmodernism is the last refuge of the losing side. Brute force is the only response with people who reject the very idea of truth and reason.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:11 pm</td></tr>
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You have decided that a just solution is code, but how could you know that? And you never once addressed that fact that the leadership would never be able to enforce this “code” since they’ve helped educate their people to be violently against any compromise on the matter. As for the “definite article” matter, the history is clear. It was for lack of trying to impose a definite article, but by clear intent. Different narratives are one thing, but different facts are quite another.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:12 pm</td></tr>
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And still no response re: your description of soldiers and settlers</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Gabriel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:12 pm</td></tr>
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Agree with many here that Finkelstein is scum. He’s not a stupid man and much of what he writes is true, unfortunately, it’s that extra bit which turns all of us off. For example, it is true that there is a Holocaust industry that has made millions of dollars off of the suffering of survivors. However, Finkelstein is not interested in writing about that, he is interested in showing some sort of secret Jewish cabal that controls everything so he just leaves out what he doesn’t like, over-emphasizes things that are not important, and comes to a conclusion he already knew he was going to have.</div>
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To me, it’s similar to The Israel Lobby. Instead of writing a serious book about the very real power of the Israel lobby, Mearshimire and Walt wrote a book that made it seem as if the Israel lobby is behind every aspect of foreign policy. It’s this lack of nuance and obvious bias that rightly leads to many dismissing these kinds of writers entirely.</div>
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In general, any time there is an obvious agenda in the writing, it is going to be worse. It’s something I admire about Michael Oren and Benny Morris. They are both Zionists but like all good historians their writing generally attempts to find truth rather than confirm what they already believe. Incidentally, this lack of genuine scholarship is true about many of the right-wing writers listed above. Ephraim Karsh is the flip-side of Ilan Pappe. He’s a polemic not particularly interested in the truth, rather just in blaming Palestinians for everything. (The closest comparison to Finkelstein for me would be someone like Robert Spencer. A bigot who tries to intellectualize his bigotry.)</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:14 pm</td></tr>
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Well said Gabriel.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://www.the-arid-zone.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Mel</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:16 pm</td></tr>
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Keep remembering more. If we include Afghanistan in the Greater ME, well it has inspired some of the very best travel writing, which as someone above pointed out is always an enjoyable way to learn about the region.</div>
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Anyway, there is Robert Byron’s classic ‘Road to Oxiana’, Jason Elliot’s ‘An Unexpected Light’ (written as the Taliban bombarded Kabul in the winter of 1995/95) and of course Rory Stewart’s ‘The Places In Between’ (a walk from Herat to Kabul completed during the winter of 2001/02).</div>
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Others to look out for are anything by Colin Thubron (he’s primarily focused on Central Asia, but his early books were on Cyrus and Damascus if I remember correctly) and Robert Kaplan’s ‘Eastward to Tartary’ which is an interesting read 10+ years on as Kaplan just loves making predictions about the future. Paul Theroux’s ‘Pillars of Hercules’ has some interesting chapters on the ME, although his attitude puts many readers off.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>mel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:18 pm</td></tr>
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Dcook if I wanted to be cynical I would suggest he is using HP as a marketing tactic to develop his own blog. Brand awareness and SEO.<br />
Then again I am not that cynical. Maybe, he is just a nice guy who wants to develop his thinking re the middle east.<br />
What worried me I suppose was when Matt wrote,”It’s quite a claim to make about a high-profile academic, and if it’s true I wonder why nobody’s questioned Finkelstein’s use of sources before, and why figures like Avi Shlaim – Oxford professor, fellow of the British Academy, arguably one of the two or three most renowned Middle East historians in the world – have endorsed him so effusively” Because someone is a ‘high profile academic’ does not prove anything. The same goes for Avi Shlaim. A certain Jazz musician has quite a high profile in certain circles but that does not make him right. Then there there is a world renowned academic whose views on the killing fields in Cambodia were a ‘little’ contentious.<br />
As I write I think Matt that I just don’t feel that you are open and honest in your writing. I think you choose what you are saying to prove your point rather than exploring a set of ideas to move forward. I would add that is a feeling which it is impossible tp prove one way or the other.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:20 pm</td></tr>
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I’d just like to reiterate this point:</div>
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You clearly agree with Finkelstein, that many(most?) Zionist Jews are somehow using their suffering as an excuse to persecute Palestinians.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nate</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:24 pm</td></tr>
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“When Sari Nusseibeh argued before camp David that the PLO should just accept that there’d be no right of return and say so publicly in a newspaper article, Arafat collared him and reprimanded him. Why? Because that was ‘our best negotiating card’. Not because Arafat was deluded enough to think Israel would agree to its own dissolution.”<br />
Where to begin? You’re hero Nusseibeh is vehemently against a Jewish state. Also you make a huge leap as to why Arafat had him collared… could it not be because he disagreed with him? But most amazingly, despite all the terrorism that can be traced back to Arafat’s doorstep and ships loading with armaments, you really seem to believe that Arafat was negotiating in good faith and that he had given up on the right of return when he was talking to his people about the staged plan from day one after Oslo. On what do you base this insistence on giving a terrorist the benefit of the doubt despite his own words? It’s an attempt to create moral equivalence when one doesn’t always exist. What makes more sense? Lying to your enemies and then destroying them? Or lying to your people and ensuring that they hate and turn on you? Seems like a pretty easy one to me.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>amie</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:30 pm</td></tr>
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Micha Sass<br />
29 December 2011, 1:10 pm<br />
Someone should archive these comment box discussions.</div>
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I already thought to myself it would be a very great pity if a thread like this is lost. It deserves to be preserved.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 4:50 pm</td></tr>
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Mel,<br />
Well said about Shlaim. That was a ridiculous argument by MH. But it is all of a piece: someone who supports Finkelstein’s views must be right, according to MH, therefore because he is right he is right. Quite a portmanteau of fallacies there.</div>
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Nate,<br />
Good point. MH wants to believe Arafat, so he believes him. It’s beyond parody.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 5:01 pm</td></tr>
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“Well, opinion polls certainly show that ordinary Palestinians see the right of return as crucial. Their leaders have moved on though.”<br />
So are you in favor of the PA dictators continuing their undemocratic rule by acting against the will of the people? How long would that last?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>vildechaye</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 5:12 pm</td></tr>
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I have been watching a lot of Christopher Hitchens on Youtube since he died. Hitchens wouldn’t take questions from 9/11 truthers. In the same vein, I won’t read Finklestein. It’s possible he makes some good points. 9/11 truthers may, for that matter, make a few salient observations too. That doesn’t mean they aren’t hammered, and, in the case of Finklestein, doesn’t mean he isn’t wicked. So to hell with him and his scribblings.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://markramsden.moonfruit.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Mark Ramsden</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 5:51 pm</td></tr>
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Try this God manual thingie, called the Bible or something similar. The apocrypha’s the best bit. Very trippy.<br />
The Second Plane Martin Amis. Post September 11 musings. Patchy but some superb research into the origins of the idiocy now known as Islamism and, a lot of show off literary writing but…it’s lovely stuff. Very poetic. Funny, too.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Nick Collins</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 6:19 pm</td></tr>
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Recommended books:</div>
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All the Y. Porath books – Emergence of the Palestine Arab National Movement etc.</div>
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All the David Vital books – particularly,<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zionism-Crucial-Phase-David-Vital/dp/0198219326/ref=sr_1_29?ie=UTF8&qid=1325182052&sr=8-29" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zionism-Crucial-Phase-David-Vital/dp/0198219326/ref=sr_1_29?ie=UTF8&qid=1325182052&sr=8-29</a></div>
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All the Benny Morris books and articles</div>
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Land of Dust – Lawrence Friedman<br />
Zionism and History – Shmuel Almog<br />
Imagining Zion – Troen<br />
Zionism and the Arabs – Gorny<br />
The Balfour Declaration – Leonard Stein<br />
Islam and Dhimmitude – Bat Ye’or<br />
Islamic Imperialism – Ephriam Karsh</div>
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Books by Naomi Shepherd</div>
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Palestine 1948 – Yoav Gelber.</div>
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Enjoy.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Uncle yo-yo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 6:21 pm</td></tr>
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I too keep reluctantly coming back to the belief that Matt Hill will never change his mind no matter how much he reads. He still believes that he has the secret to peace in the ME — and the hell with whatever facts disagree with his fantastic plan for peace in our time.</div>
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My guess is that Matt is in his 20s — certainty and narcissism like his usually fades over time.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 6:45 pm</td></tr>
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Has Matt deserted? Gone AWOL? Sleeping? Bored with it all?</div>
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Not even returned to say Thank You for all your suggestions. Not come back to say “Sorry, I was wrong about Res 242″.</div>
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Maybe he’s travelling.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:02 pm</td></tr>
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<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fcfbf9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(222, 213, 190); border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-left-style: double; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(230, 224, 207); border-right-style: double; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(244, 241, 233); border-top-style: double; border-top-width: 1px; font-size: 11px; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0.5em; padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">
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Nothing you ever say will convince me to leave the house and talk to people, Abu Faris.</div>
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I wonder if Matt Hill would like to expand on this?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:07 pm</td></tr>
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Another recommendation I would make would be</div>
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The Orientalist, by Tom Reiss</div>
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Tom even maintains a website dedicated to his worthy obsession with the bizarre life of Lev Nussmibaum:</div>
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<a href="http://tomreiss.info/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://tomreiss.info/</a></div>
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And then there is Nussimbaum’s wonderful book:</div>
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Ali and Nino…</div>
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but that is another story.</div>
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I would also recommend Tom Nashe’s “Unfortunate Traveller”, but I think that would whoosh over Hill’s pointy little head.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:21 pm</td></tr>
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Matt Hill:-</div>
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<i>I’ve become accustomed to the argument, in these parts, that the continuation of the conflict is entirely the fault of the Palestinians</i></div>
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Who’s fault in 1948?</div>
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Who’s fault in 1967?</div>
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Who’s fault in 1973?</div>
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Who’s fault the Intifadas’</div>
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Who’s fault the two wars with Gaza?</div>
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Maybe you could answer just one of those with thesentence model “This wasn’t the Palestinians/Arab’s fault because……..”</div>
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I remind you that Abbas said “I won’t discuss peace until there is a settlement freeze” Israel had a freeze for a year and Abbas still refused to talk.</div>
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All parties settled Res 242 EXCEPT the Palestinian side. Why?</div>
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The Security Barrier was built because the Palestinians who came to work in Israel also used the route for suicide bombers. So, who’s fault is the Barrier?</div>
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In a two-way discussion of course there will be some blame that can fairly be put on both sides but it is NOT equal blame. The Palestinian side is MORE to blame for the intransigence than Israel as demonstrated by the war-like nature of the Palestinian/Arab side.</div>
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How do you end a conflict? You defeat the agressor or the side with most to gain compromises the in order to secure peace for itself and achieve its goals.. That agressor is the Palestinian/Arab side and the side with the most to gain in this case. Just explain to us what the Palestinians have to offer in order to have peace and a state? The answer is zero, actually.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:28 pm</td></tr>
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Dcook</div>
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I think you will find that Matt Hill will now be leaving his responses to Max G…</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Ben</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:46 pm</td></tr>
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Matt said: [re Finklestein]“…are you in mental health or are you just some sort of polymath?…”</div>
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Neither. I did, though, grow up among people who survived death camps, labour camps, and concentration camps. I have observed them, and their children, and have seen what I speak of with my own eyes.</div>
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Many others in Israel of my generation have seen the same phenomenon close-up. Some have actually investigated it in a scientific way. The conclusion that death camp survivors who were imprisoned for some period of time almost all have severely damaged personalities is widely accepted. The prognosis concerning the health of their children when both parents were thus afflicted are also well-attested.</div>
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It is ironic that you should belabour me on this matter in this blog, when others on an earlier occasion have berated me for calling on them to cease piling on Finklestein.</div>
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Matt said [re Segev]: “…He doesn’t argue for suppressing historical facts to advance the peace process…”</div>
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That’s exactly what he argues for. He doesn’t want books about Husseini and WW2 by the likes of Rothman to be published, only books that he writes. And his books, in his opinion of course, do have scholarly value.</div>
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Matt said [re Joan Peters] “… demolished her career…”</div>
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I recommend you read her book if you haven’t (have you?)</div>
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It is not perfect, but her main thesis, that there was massive Arab immigration into Palestine at a time when Jewish refugee immigration was restricted, is incontestable. Gore-Booth, one of the British officials responsible for policy, puts the number at 250000, a conservative estimate. Peters also wrote in this work on the oppression and persecution of Jews in Arab countries in the 20th century and before, and on the criminal activities of the Palestine leader Amin el Husseini in WW2.</div>
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For a scholarly sympathetic appraisal of her work, read Rael Jean Isaac’s article in Commentary magazine.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>NicoleS</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:53 pm</td></tr>
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I’ve suddenly realised who Matt Hill reminds me of. That combination of pomposity, self-absorption, thick skin and touch of creepy masochism – it’s Kenneth Widmerpool. For those who don’t know, he’s a lead character in Anthony Powell’s 12-volume Dance to the Music of Time, another highly recommended read, although it will tell you nothing at all about Israel-Palestine or anything remotely connected with Jews.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 7:53 pm</td></tr>
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You’ve got to love the way the snake seeks to evade being scotched:</div>
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I’ve also condemned Hamas every opportunity I get for being depraved sado-masochistic death-cultists with a sordid monomania, defiling the Palestinuan cause with the blood of innocents. I LOATHE Hamas – because they kill people indiscriminately.</div>
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Sorry, but where is the bit about loathing an organisation because its theocratic ideology condemns an entire people, the Jewish people, to some future genocide, displacement and exile? Where is the condemnation of Hamas as a clerical fascist organisation determined to aid and abet the dismal downward spiral of the entire MENA region into some dystopian vision of 7th Century Hell in which whole peoples, faith groups, women and homosexuals (amongst others) are subjected to a regime of repression and lack of civil and individual liberties?</div>
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What is strikingly telling about the above comment from Hill is his contempt for Hamas’ tactics – but not a peep about the ends for which Hamas fight.</div>
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But Hamas and Hezbollah aren’t exactly the same, and even though the latter tried to kill me, it seems important to understand the difference.</div>
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Here we go again. This is a common sleight of hand played by Hill last on the alleged distinction between Hamas and MB (the latter Hill appears to have some sort of hots for as ‘genuine anti-imperialists’ or some other bull).</div>
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We do know that Hezbollah was formed for the purpose of fighting the occupation – not to terrorise Israelis.</div>
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Hizbullah were formed to gain political power in Lebanon for a strikingly aggressive, militant and frightening variety of Shi’a Islamism and have lined up behind, aided and abetted and supported every variety of Islamist and non-Islamist anti-Israeli movement in the region. They have repeatedly sold Lebanese sovereignty to the Syrian and Iranian regime in return for assistance. They have repeatedly refused to disarm or hand over their telecommunications systems to the Lebanese government, despite the fact that Hizullah control over the machinery of war and its logistics have made them effectively a state within a state seriously undermining Lebanese territorial integrity and political state authority – and all without any reference to Israeli “invaders”. If you are seriously suggesting that Hizbullah cannot be regarded as primarily ant-Israeli then you are either entirely ignorant of Hizbullah’s own published statements, or you are a liar.</div>
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One cannot commit terrorism against one’s own military? Are you for fucking real?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>DavidS</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:06 pm</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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I have not read all the comments that have been posted since you asked for the source for Novick’s comments on Finkelstein but, in case no one has provided it yet, here it is. The comments were in a review by Novick of “The Holocaust Industry” that was published in “Sueddeutsche Zeitung” on 7 February 2001. The full review is available here:</div>
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<a href="http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/div/racket/holindustry/novickeng.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/div/racket/holindustry/novickeng.html</a></div>
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I found the link to the full article in a long collection of documents related to the conflict between Alan Dershowitz and Finkelstein here:</div>
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<a href="http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/depaulletter.htm" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/depaulletter.htm</a></div>
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The specific quotation that I copied into my comment, with the ellipses, comes from Dershowitz and is found in a number of places in his writings on Finkelstein. I believe that I copied it from here:</div>
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<a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/dershowitz/statement.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #fa4949;">http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/dershowitz/statement.html</a></div>
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If you look at the original review by Novick, you will see that the quote is accurate, although the second ellipses join sentences from two successive paragraphs and the first eliminates reference to a specific context that might be taken to limit the judgement somewhat. In any case, the full review, which I have only just skimmed, is full of devastating charges of dishonesty.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:16 pm</td></tr>
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<i>I’ve suddenly realised who Matt Hill reminds me of.</i></div>
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His cousins Harry and Benny?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:54 pm</td></tr>
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NicoleS</div>
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You may be on to something. Widmerpool was loosely based on Powell’s wartime boss in the Joint Intelligence Commitee (JIC), Denis Capel-Dunn, a secretive cove who made Powell’s life a misery (although it appears to have been reciprocated). An enormously fat Catholic, Powell and other subordinates referred to Capel-Dunn as “The Papal Bun”. The one-time British ambassador to Mongolia (God, what a fiendishly horrid posting that must have been in the ’40s!) wrote of “The Papal Bun”:</div>
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“Like Widmerpool, Capel-Dunn was a very fat, extremely boring, overwhelmingly ambitious arriviste. His conversations were hideously detailed and humourless”.</div>
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As I wrote, you may be on to something.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:54 pm</td></tr>
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<i>But Hamas and Hezbollah aren’t exactly the same, and even though the latter tried to kill me, it seems important to understand the difference.</i></div>
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Oh, I see: their military objective was to kill M. Hill. Never mind that their own public statements make it clear that their objective is to kill all the Jews; what we should really, really focus on is that they tried to kill M. Hill. Has there ever been more blatant narcissism.</div>
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And also, M. Hill thinks that because Hezbollah ‘tried to kill him’, he now has some special perspective and knowledge about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Quite breathtakingly naive, or something.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>mel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 8:55 pm</td></tr>
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David S great links</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 9:01 pm</td></tr>
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I suppose the next question should be: is Matt Hill enormously fat?</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 9:51 pm</td></tr>
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I would agree with Nick, up thread: anything by Robert Irwin.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Peter</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 9:55 pm</td></tr>
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Well, he is fat-headed, anyway.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 10:15 pm</td></tr>
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Peter</div>
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Yes, quite clearly Hizbullah were firing tens of missiles in an ultimately futile attempt to kill Hill. That we missed that at the time is quite an astounding oversight on our part. Clearly Matt Hill’s assassination is up there with the killing of countless thousands of Lebanese (therefore not terrorism) committed by Hizbullah and must have something to do with Hill’s adamant lack of support for Hizbullah’s assertions that it wants to drive the Jews into the sea.</div>
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Or something.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 10:17 pm</td></tr>
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Although, I do have to say that I am still roaring with laughter at Hill’s (elsewhere and memorably desperate) comment that Hamas and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood were not connected because</div>
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(1) They had a different name from each other;<br />
(2) he read it somewhere in a book.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Dcook</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 10:25 pm</td></tr>
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Its true that we can drive a coach & horses through many things that Matt has said but we are pi..ing in the wind and just rehearsing what we already know.</div>
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Matt wants books that would help him understand why posters at HP have been pirahnas concerning his opinions. Its a suggestion that Matt wants to change.</div>
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I fear he doesn’t and this thread has gone the same way as every other Matt Hill thread. Entertaining but no suitable conclusion or educational benefit to Matt will ever be achieved.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Uncle yo-yo</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 29 December 2011, 11:59 pm</td></tr>
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Matt has form. When anyone threatens his pet theories, he (1) find things to quibble about rather than addressing any main points; (2) narrows his position to what he thinks is a more defensible position (it usually isn’t), without admitting he has done so; and (3) eventually goes away quietly.</div>
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What Matt HIll never does — no matter the facts or proof sent his way — is (1) simply admit his mistakes, (2) concede in any way that his “Matt Hill Master Plan for Selflessly Bringing Peace unto the Poor Benighted Residents of the Middle East” is flawed, unworkable, and based on demonstrably untrue assumptions, or (3) do anything else that would require either humility or a lack of overweening ego.</div>
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That said, he should really read the Lozowick book I (and someone else) recommended earlier.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 12:00 am</td></tr>
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Matt: To answer your question to me, I am only about 60 pages into the Prime Ministers book (about 700 pages to go), so I cannot say anything else other than “so far so good” and it “continues to look promising.”</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 12:35 am</td></tr>
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‘Has Matt deserted? Gone AWOL? Sleeping? Bored with it all?<br />
Not even returned to say Thank You for all your suggestions. Not come back to say “Sorry, I was wrong about Res 242″.<br />
Maybe he’s travelling.’</div>
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No, I had to take a break and get some work done. I assumed you would cope without me for 24 hours or so.</div>
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I’m going to go through these comments to try an answer them all, but a few words first, in response to the general charge that I’m… well, I’m not quite sure what the charge is, but it seems to be a combination of several claims: that I’m cynical, ignorant, hateful, narcissistic, fat, and, in general, a bad bad man. Maybe not quite as bad as Finkelstein, but pretty bad.</div>
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I’ll go through the specific accusations shortly, but a general point. I don’t even quite understand what people mean when they say I’m ‘using’ HP or that I have some kind of underhand ‘agenda’. My only agenda here is to get some book recommendations, because most of the books I read about the subject have a similar outlook. As someone who sees himself on the centre-left, instinctively I frame my arguments in opposition the hard left. I’ve realised lately that’s something of a limitation. When I started posting here at Harry’s Place, I confess some of the counter-arguments surprised me. As one small example, some people argued that there was nothing undemocratic about the West Bank occupation, because the Israelis could vote in Knesset elections and the Palestinians could vote in PA elections – i.e. there were two parallel more-or-less democratic regimes for two separate peoples on the same territory. I don’t claim everyone believes this – many HP readers share my opposition to the occupation – but it was an argument I’d never heard. That’s just one example.</div>
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So I realised that I should be hearing more counter-arguments from the pro-Israeli side. I read Ephraim Karsh’s book Palestine Betrayed on the recommendation of a reader here. I didn’t agree with its overall thesis but I learnt a lot from the detail. And I realised I would benefit from hearing more pro-Israeli, pro-Zionist views, both to sharpen my opinions if I disagree, or to complicate or even change my views.</div>
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Several people have accused me of being inflexible. But in the short period I’ve been posting here, my views have changed in several respects. In some respects these changes are vague: I strongly symapthise with the argument that goes, ‘How dare the Arabs, after spending decades trying to destroy us, now come and demand their “rights” with talk of peace and justice – when we all know if they had half the chance they’d destroy us! How dare they demand that we take a knife and carve a state for them out of our own flesh – when they as much as say they’ll use it to try and take more, or destroy us?’</div>
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Apart from growing more sympathetic to the emotional appeal of many such arguments, my views have changed in several substantial respects too. Previously I would have balked at calling myself a Zionist. Now I am at least an anti-anti-Zionist, and in a sense I don’t mind saying I’m a Zionist – in that I believe the Jewish people has a right to a state in historic Palestine, and not just a state but a homeland. That is, a state that in some respects serves the world Jewish people, as a defence against persecution.</div>
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This is probably the main way in which my views have changed. I now support Israel’s right to exist AS A JEWISH STATE. That is, previously I believed Israel had a right to exist inside the 1967 lines, but as a purely secular, democratic state, with no national character that discriminated against non-Jewish Israelis. Now I believe Israel can be both a Jewish state and a state for all its citizens. There is no reason Israel cannot have a permanent Jewish majority, a distinctively Jewish public sphere in several important respects, a role as a bulwark against future anti-semitism all over the world and a possible destination for Jews facing persecution – and still meet the standards expected of a democracy, guaranteeing all the important rights of Arab Israelis, and granting them full equality with just one or two small caveats.</div>
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And I consider it the utmost hypocrisy when people argue for the establishment of a Palestinian state WITHOUT JEWS while condemning the Jewish nature of Israel. I support two states for two peoples – one with a Jewish majority, a distinctively Jewish public sphere, and equality for non-Jews; and another with an Arab majority, a distinctively Arab public sphere, and equality for non-Arabs.</div>
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One specific respect in which my views have changed is that I now see that Jews have a historical right to live in places like Hebron – as they did for centuries before the brutal 1929 massacre – and a future peace deal should recognise that right. (There’s no time to go into the details of what this could mean right now.)</div>
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Another way in which my views have changed is that I’ve become much more critical of the pro-Palestinian movement in the west. The fact that some sections of it give a platform to the likes of Gilad Atzmon – whose absurd and vile book I just read while holding my nose – amazes and appalls me, and indicates that there are serious problems with hypocrisy and anti-semitism within the movement. It seems to me that the movement holds Israel to standards it won’t hold the Palestinians to. And the vogue for supporting the so-called one-state solution, or the one-state so-called solution, while a symptom of incredible naivety for some people, looks like a desire to reconquer the whole of historic Palestine for others.</div>
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I have made these sentiments known publicly at sites like Liberal conspiracy, and I will increasingly do so (remember I have only been blogging for about three months). Ironically, at some pro-Palestinian sites I have applied to writer for, I have been told I am not welcome – partly for views such as those outlined above, and my longstanding opposition to the ‘right of return’ – but also because I am now considered ‘Harry’s Place writer Matt Hill’!</div>
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So while I come here and get almost endless abuse – much of it, I feel, unfair – at other sites I am considered tainted by the association. And I should also point out I have publicly defended Harry’s Place against those who have condemned it for being hateful and ‘Islamophobic’ and reflexively and uncompromisingly anti-Arab. I even condemned one blogger who used the treatment I’d received from readers to support his claim Harry’s Place is some kind of anti-Arab conspiracy.</div>
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There are endless other ways in which my views have been complicated by writing here, too many to mention. I’ve been persuaded that the Palestinian people aren’t ready to accept what I consider a reasonable compromise, based on their attachment to the RoR. I am less inclined to condemn Israeli leaders who’ve made stupid anti-Arab comments (ironically because I’ve seen readers here hang, draw and quarter PA officials for making stupid and uncharacteristic anti-Israeli remarks). I have developed a huge admiration for early Zionist culture – its idealism, romanticsm, intellectualism, even its feminism. And yes, I would probably write my pieces on Finkelstein and anti-Israeli prejudice differently now.</div>
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I won’t pretend I’ve had a Damascene conversion and changed my fundamental opposition to the occupation and support for the Palestinian cause. And not all of these issues I’ve mentioned are entirely due to conversations I’ve had at Harry’s Place – I was already in the process of drifting slowly away from the uncritical pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist views of my early 20s (to end speculation that I’m actually 15, I’m 27). But I’ve become much more aware, and sympathetic to, a lot of the sensitivities and arguments of pro-Israeli readers here – even as a lot of them were expressed as attacks on me.</div>
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Look, if someone were posting here in support of the one-state solution, and attacking Israel for being a Jewish state, and making excuses for Hamas, and dismissing claims that the Arab world has huge problems with parochialism and anti-semitism – then HP readers and I would be on the same side. For many pro-Palestinians on the web, I would indeed be, and am, lumped in with Harry’s Place.</div>
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We have serious areas of disagreement, no doubt. I am simply appealing to everyone reading this to credit me with sincerity, a willingness to learn, and an eagerness for debate.</div>
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One more note, on the claim that I’m narcissistic or that it’s ‘all about me’. I have no desire whatsoever to talk about myself. This post was framed in a self-deprecatory first-person voice, because an appeal for books would be boring. But I really just want to talk about books (and in between the raging argument, there have been some fascinating suggestions). It’s never, ever me who makes things personal on these threads. It is a source of great frustration to me that we always end up talking about myself – normally in response to claims that I must be immature, mentally deficient, racist, etc. (The comments here about my being fat, and about where I went to school, are particularly egregious.)</div>
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So I would really like to continue what’s been an interesting chat about books, and jettison the rest. Soon I’ll post a list of the books I’ll be reading on the suggestion of HP readers, and when I go to Israel later in January I’ll post a running commentary on the books I read on my blog.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 12:47 am</td></tr>
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No, you don’t “want to talk about books”; you really want to talk about yourself, how important you think you are, and generally be an annoying squirt.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joseph W</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 12:51 am</td></tr>
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And yes, I would probably write my pieces on Finkelstein and anti-Israeli prejudice differently now.</div>
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What would you now say about Finkelstein?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:04 am</td></tr>
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Abu Faris,</div>
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Well, test me. You stop talking about me, and see if I stop talking about me.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>mel</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:05 am</td></tr>
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Did you read the links from David S at 8.06.</div>
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And the same question as Joseph W</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:08 am</td></tr>
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Erm, Matt are you so dense that you are unaware that your last post failed your own test.</div>
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Honestly, what a bullshit merchant.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:10 am</td></tr>
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And we are now going to be inflicted with what Matt Hill has decided to read from the suggestions above?</div>
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Personally, I think I would rather watch paint dry.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:32 am</td></tr>
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“You stop talking about me” – and exactly who else should we be talking about, Matt – this is, after all, your thread!</div>
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Honestly, you could not make it up.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:45 am</td></tr>
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Joseph W,</div>
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I’m afraid you still won’t like what I have to say, because I still think there is much of scholarly value in his books. But outside his books, I just can’t understand him. It’s not just the remark I pointed out in my post, where he fails to condemn attacks on civilians. The more video footage I see of his trip to Lebanon and his views on Hezbollah, the more baffled I am. I don’t know how he can call Nasrallah a reasonable, thoughtful man – he’s on record as making some astonishingly anti-semitic and stupid comments. And while I could understand it if he restricted himself to supporting Hezbollah’s right to resist Israeli invasion, I think it’s absurd and dishonest of him to say he doesn’t care about Hezbollah’s domestic politics, and to excuse its post-2000 provocations and attacks on Israel. If he doesn’t take an interest in internal Lebanese politics, why does he take such an interest in internal Israeli politics? And how are Hezbollah protecting Lebanese civilians by provoking the superpower next door? There’s so much wrong with Hezbollah – even if, as I’ve said, it arguably had the right to resist the 1982-2000 occupation – that I think Finkelstein was insane to express any kind of support for the group.</div>
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So I would focus more on that. I would call him out on comments like ‘Israel needs to suffer a defeat like Germany in 1945′ – what the hell does that mean? Is he advocating a military attack on Israel? Again, he is so casual about Israeli lives.</div>
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I would have several disagreements with him on issues touched on above: his opposition to a ‘Jewish state’; his failure to acknowledge the history of Arab rejectionism; his failure to acknowledge Israel’s genuine and legitimate security concerns, both now and in a hypothetical peace deal; also his support for BDS (which I’ve always opposed, actually, because it singles Israel out unfairly); his failure to see that Zionism has meant and can mean very different things, some totally benign, and needn’t have entailed dispossession and occupation of Arabs. These are all disagreements I have with mainstream pro-Palestinians I guess.</div>
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I also think a lot of the reason NF is so loathed is the way in which he expresses himself – the speedy way he resorts to Nazi analogies being his worst characteristic. I also think he’s very reckless about the kind of thing that turns up on his website, which is run by students who are clearly very amateur and have a habit of linking to idiotic and nasty material.</div>
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I guess the main issue for most of Finkelstein’s detractors is the whole Holocaust Industry business. I don’t know how many people here have read the book – I understand many people refuse to, because they feel they know enough about him to reject his views. That is fair enough – I feel the same about, say, Nick Griffin. I would say the same about Atzmon, but I’m reviewing his book for another site (and I’ll be opening a can of whuppass on it). That is a rational choice and considering some of Finkelstein’s absurd public comments, I don’t blame people who make it.</div>
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But I feel the Holocaust Industry is a less controversial book than people think. There are two main sections. One is a very dry, actually quite boring investigation of the saga where Jewish organisations claimed money from European banks who were, they alleged, holding looted assets from Holocaust victims. This section is really just an investigation of the various government and corporate reports into the cases, and I think it’s persuasive.</div>
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The more controversial section, and here I do have problems with it, is where Finkelstein attacks some of the various ways the Holocaust has been misused. I agree – and I think most would agree – with him about the schlocky, sentimental books that are 90% trash as history or fiction or whatever they claim to be. I agree a lot of books cheapen the subject.</div>
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The more controversial claim, which is a small part of the book, is that the Holocaust has been, and is, used to mitigate or distract from Israel’s crimes. I don’t think many would disagree that the Holocaust HAS been misused in that way. Take the absurd comments of Israeli PM Menachem Begin before the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, where he constantly compared Arafat to Hitler and said the Jewish people had a chance to kill Hitler once and for all. In fairness, Begin was starting to lose his mind at this point, and was always deeply traumatised by the Holocaust which claimed much of his family. And the Israeli public was largely horrified by such language.</div>
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Where I do disagree strongly with Finkelstein’s thesis is when he argues that the Holocaust only became a large part of Israeli life around 1967. The implication is obvious: that Israel began exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to underwrite its colonisation of the West Bank. But the scant evidence Finkelstein provides for this daring claim is deeply unpersuasive. There are several reasons why in the mid-60s the Holocaust started to play a bigger role in the national discourse: the Eichmann trial, the fear that Nasser was plotting another Shoah, the fact that many survivors were genuinely too traumatised to speak about their experiences for some time. The 1967 claim is bollocks, and quite offensive. And it is on this scanty basis that Finkelstein builds an unconvincing and slightly paranoid case that the Holocaust is being cynically and systematically manipulated.</div>
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One reason for Finkelstein’s paranoia is the fact he’s said he’s a communist. It’s a common habit amongst people on the hard left to see public events being manipulated by shady, semi-concealed forces. This looks a bit like the old anti-semitic trope about a Jewish cabal – but, while he might have taken greater care to disown, Finkelstein has never supported.</div>
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However, there are complicating factors in the overall assessment. Finkelstein remains committed to the two-state solution, which makes his relatively moderate in the current pro-Palestinian movement. I’ve even heard him described as a Zionist by some pro-Palestinians, who (rightly) note that support for two states implies support for Israel’s right to exist. Although this would make everyone from chomsky to Arafat a Zionist! The point is that, when it comes to the peace process, Finkelstein is actually not all that extreme.</div>
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So he’s a complex figure, and there may be more about him I don’t know. I think I might plan a longer piece on him, trying to account for all his different characteristics and understand how they fit together. I’m afraid this won’t satisfy you, Joseph W, but I’m trying to be honest about how I see him.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:50 am</td></tr>
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‘“You stop talking about me” – and exactly who else should we be talking about, Matt – this is, after all, your thread!’</div>
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On the one hand you criticise me for talking about myself, and then you say ‘what else is there to talk about?’</div>
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Talk about I-P books, Abu Faris. That is what the thread is supposed to be about.</div>
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You’re an intelligent man. You can understand the difference between talking about my views, or the subject I have raised here, and speculating on whether I’m fat. Would you like to know how much I weigh?</div>
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If you’d rather watch paint dry than continue with this, can I respectfully request that you go somewhere and watch paint dry. Because this was an interesting thread about books before you derailed it.</div>
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Please, enough. This is childish and beneath you, Abu Faris.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:51 am</td></tr>
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Matt Hill does not want to talk about himself; but read this:</div>
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Soon<b> I’ll</b> post a list of the books <b>I’ll</b> be reading on the suggestion of HP readers, and when <b>I</b> go to Israel later in January <b>I’ll</b> post a running commentary on the books <b>I</b> read on <b>my</b> blog.</div>
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What a tedious, self-absorbed turd.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:52 am</td></tr>
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I tell you what, Hill – what is beneath me is dealing with stuck up little cunts like you; but I do all the same. Silly of me.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 1:54 am</td></tr>
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Patronising oik.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 2:02 am</td></tr>
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Well, don’t then! Please!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Abu Faris</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 3:49 am</td></tr>
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Suits me, you narcissistic, talentless gnome.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Think of England</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:09 am</td></tr>
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Now, now, A.B., he’s not talentless. He got your blood pressure way up. Speaking of stuff, are you safe now? I mean, in a place where you’re safe?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:24 am</td></tr>
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Thanks for your thoughtful contribution.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:44 am</td></tr>
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It does sound as though you’re very stressed out, Abu Faris. I too hope you’re safe where you are and looking after yourself. I’ve always thought your posts were thoughtful and well-informed; I’d much prefer to be having a civilised debate with you.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:47 am</td></tr>
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‘Thanks for your thoughtful contribution.’ – that was to Abu Faris</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 4:48 am</td></tr>
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Jeez, Abu,</div>
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You’re an educated, thoughtful, smart man with a staggering breadth of experience, whose opinions I value even when I disagree with you. And when, as now, you’re an ass, you’re a world class ass. If you don’t like reading what Matt writes, don’t read it. Right now you’re being a troll.</div>
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Matt’s worst sins mostly come down to naivety and youth, but he seems to be trying to expand his knowledge and to challenge his ideas, and he’s brave enough to wade into the bear pit. I think he’s got a long way to go, but he’s trying to get there and I’d be happy if all of Israel’s critics were like Matt. Give him a break. Let him do his summer reading, then perhaps we’ll see if he’s making progress. If nothing else, I should thank him for inspiring a thread of a million good ideas of things for <i>me</i> to read.</div>
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Matt: If you want my take on Finkelstein (you do, of course) it’s this: The loathing of all things Israeli comes first with him, and his concern about the Holocaust “industry” came after. He thinks he’s found a great weapon. He’s decided that remorse, guilt or what have you about the Holocaust shores up Israel’s legitimacy, and he’s made it his life’s work to hack away at it. It’s not so much Israel or Zionists that harp obsessively about the Shoah — if you look around you, you’ll see that few of us use it as a central argument in Israel’s defence — it’s Finkelstein himself. He builds it up so he can knock it down, perhaps without any awareness that he does, but it brings him name recognition and a ready audience so why stop?</div>
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For the rest, you too can be a pain in the arse, sometimes almost up to Abu’s high standard. Good luck with your education: I hope you’re really as open to persuasion as you claim and sometimes actually seem to be, because I have to believe that the more you learn the more you’ll understand that Israel’s is the less sinning side. God knows we could use more articulate, well-read people willing to stand up for Israel and its best ideals.</div>
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Abu: Have a beer. You’ll be a kinder, gentler human being.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:33 am</td></tr>
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Paul M,</div>
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Well, thanks. Obviously I think your remarks about my youth and naivety and ‘making progress’ are a little patronising – I’m pushing thirty! – but I suppose there’s every chance you’re right, and that in a few years I’ll look back on my 27 year old self and feel the same way. (On the other hand, lots of people who are older than me have similar or much more extreme views – I guess some of us never grow up.) If my views are so simplistic, it should be easy for you and others to explain where I’ve gone wrong, of course. I don’t understand, if my writing is so hilariously, contemptibly stupid, why it provokes so much indignation here. Normally if people’s views are beneath my contempt, they don’t bother me much. To your credit, you’ve actually explained why you disagree with me – which is all I ask. How will I ever learn and ‘make progress’ if nobody shares the benefit of their vastly superior wisdom with me.</div>
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I can’t tell you how much I want to thank you for frankly disagreeing with me about Finkelstein and explaining why. So far I haven’t come across anyone on this site who thinks their loathing of Finkelstein requires explanation.</div>
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I think you’re right to a very large extent that Finkelstein exaggerates the degree to which Israel and its supporters depend on the Holocaust to legitimise its existence and behaviour (the Begin example I quoted notwithstanding; Shamir was rather prone to it too). As a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist myself, I think it’s a legitimate state for a very simple reason: it does exist, it has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and it is viewed as legitimate by its citizens. That’s the only grounds on which any state has a ‘right to exist’, as far as I’m concerned.</div>
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So if Finkelstein argues that Israel habitually uses the Holocaust to legitimise its existence and actions, I think you’re right to say he’s mistaken. Only the most simplistic and uneducated advocacy for Israel draws a straight line between the Holocaust and modern Israel. Even the initial establishment of Israel had little to do with the Holocaust, so it’s not true to say, as is often claimed, that the Arabs are being punished for Europe’s sins. I think it’s also true to say he has a loathing of all things Israeli. It clouds his judgement in some ways.</div>
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Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I agree Israel is the less sinning side. It’s true that Israel doesn’t deliberately target civilians. It doesn’t have suicide bombers. It’s a much more liberal, democratic state than Palestine is likely to be. My response is to say: what does this change? Does it make the decades-long rule over 3.7 million people legitimate? If a people had to pass a virtue test before they gained statehood, there’d be few countries in the international community. The reasons the Palestinians deserve sovereignty and justice isn’t that they’re humans, it’s that they’re angels.</div>
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I actually don’t think the occupation started as a cynical attempt at conquest and exploitation. It was, as Gershom Gorenberg says, an ‘accidental empire’. It resulted from the unplanned, battlefield logic of the Six-Day War. But holding on to the territories – for reasons of realpolitik and short-sightedness, not malice – was a disaster for Israel, and every day the occupation continues, it becomes harder to end. This view isn’t incompatible with my strong support for Israel’s existence and security, and my great affection for the land and people.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joe</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:47 am</td></tr>
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<i>I actually don’t think the occupation started as a cynical attempt at conquest and exploitation. It was, as Gershom Gorenberg says, an ‘accidental empire’. It resulted from the unplanned, battlefield logic of the Six-Day War. But holding on to the territories – for reasons of realpolitik and short-sightedness, not malice – was a disaster for Israel,</i></div>
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Lets put aside the fact that you do not understand the text and meaning of SC Resolution 242, which explicitly makes the final border of Israel the product of a “secure and recognised” border with her future neighbour, the answer is The Khartoum Resolution of 1967</div>
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The best remembered action at Khartoum, however, was the adoption of the dictum of “Three NOs” with respect to Israel:<br />
1.NO peace with Israel<br />
2.NO recognition of Israel<br />
3.NO negotiations with Israel</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 5:52 am</td></tr>
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Paul M,</div>
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And by the way, a few posts ago I anticipated your claim that Finkelstein exaggerates the extent to which the Holocaust is used to legitimise Israel – I said the idea that the Holocaust is being ‘cynically and systematically manipulated’ is ‘unconvincing’, ‘paranoid’ and even ‘offensive’.</div>
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I guess the subject being what it is, for many people this is enough to write Finkelstein off altogether – especially when they’re unlikely to find much to agree with in the less offensive parts of his oeuvre. I understand that. But I repeat that the vast majority of content in books like ‘Image and Reality’ is mainstream scholarship, if strongly leftwing and pro-Palestinian. I have a feeling a lot of readers would be quite shocked to encounter this other Finkelstein – a pedantic scholar with a footnote fetish. He’s a bit like the Wizard of Oz: a monster with a fearsome and mythical reputation who turns out to be a skinny little guy shouting through a loud-hailer.</div>
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I’m not discounting the serious issues I recited earlier. But I don’t think he’s a genuinely racist and unhinged individual, like Atzmon. And I don’t think anyone who agrees with me is an anti-semite or stupid or unhinged. Otherwise you have to account for why Avi Shlaim – who praises him effusively, is held in such high regard by Israeli and international writers who most of us respect, including Shlomo Ben Ami, who considers Shlaim his mentor and was interior minister to Netanyahu’s current defence minister, Ehud Barak!</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:07 am</td></tr>
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I have a question. Earlier in the thread Joan Peters book was mentioned, as per usual in a dismissive derrogatory tone. I understand that this book is supposedly <i>debunked</i> famously (initially by Edward Said, hardly an impartial commentator) and more recently by the agenda riddent Finkelstein.</div>
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(Ironically, Matt refers to the extansive bibliography of Finkelstein’s books as proof of their authority. Peter’s book was also very well notated, I have even checked a few of the references and found them to be accurate.)</div>
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Heres my question, what is the basis of dimissing this book out of hand. I remember that Peter’s had several theses;</div>
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1) Historically an independent Palestine (since the end of Jewish Commonwealth circa 70AD) has never existed (barring a period of Christian domination). — If I am not mistaken this is factually true.</div>
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2) Palestine has always been part of a Greater Syria (again factually true)</div>
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3) Jordan was part of manditory Palestine, and was cleaved off to create an Arab state within Palestine. (again factually true)<br />
4) Wilson notions of ethinic self determination was dependent on several factors. The presence of an ethnic group in a geographic area was in and of itself not necessarily reason enough to grant a group a seperate nation/state to one that already existed. The existance of other states that shared cultural/religeous/linguistic/historic ties to a particular group in fact mitigates against seperate self determination. In this context (Peter’s argued) Arab self determination in Israel, Judea and Sumaria are redundant since Lebanon, Syria and Jordan all exist which provide the outlets for self determination in what used to be a single provence of the Ottoman Empire. Israel on the other hand is linguistically, religiously and culturally different. The argument that Peter’s makes is that an independent Palestine is redundant (my word). (This argument makes no statement on the enfranchisment of Arabs living under Israeli control, it is simply an argument against self-determination.)</div>
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4) The continuing refugee crisis amongst Palestinians is political not real. The definition of a Palestinian refugee includes ecconomic immagrants to Palestine in the post war period. These people were not themselves Palestinians, but became refugees by the unique definition of a Palestinian Refugee. To me this was the most tenuous argument in the book, but was it wrong?</div>
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5) Palestinians, particularly in major population centres like Haifa were encouraged to stay in place by their Jewish neighbours. (Factually true), and most of the emigres from places like Haifa left well before the War of Independence, thus, again belying the idea of their refugee status.</div>
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6) A Palastinian Refugee includes descendant of the first genreation of refugees. The refugees are refused resettlement in areas where they share linguistic, cultural and religious identiy with the host. The continueing refugee issue is a political rather than humanitarian problem.</div>
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From the top of my head these are 6 prominant arguements that Peter’s makes. Perhaps someone here can debunk each of them for me.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:09 am</td></tr>
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Joe,</div>
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Two points, in reverse order. First, Khartoum was 45 years ago. The PLO accepted resolution 242 twenty years ago. The entire Arab League offered Israel full peace and normalisation of relations in 2002, and repeated the offer in 2007, in return to withdrawal to the 1967 and a ‘just solution’ to the refugee issue. It was also made clear that this was seen as the basis for negotiations, not a take-it-or-leave it offer. So Khartoum quite clearly no longer applies. It’s true the Arab world has a history of rejectionism with regard to Israel, but I don’t think it makes sense to quote resolutions adopted 45 years ago as some kind of ‘gotcha’ proof that the Arab world rejects Israel’s existence.</div>
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Second, if I don’t understand 242, please explain it to me. Are you arguing it constrains Israel to stay in the West Bank until a border has been negotiated? That until that day, Israel simply has no choice but to occupy the Palestinians? That 242 compelled Israel to settle hundreds of thousands of its citizens in the West Bank? Does that mean the Gaza ‘withdrawal’ was in violation of 242? What do you mean?</div>
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Answer me this: do you think the settlement project and the occupation since 1967 have been conducive to the realisation of the goals laid out in 242, or the opposite?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joe</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:13 am</td></tr>
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<i>Well, opinion polls certainly show that ordinary Palestinians see the right of return as crucial. Their leaders have moved on though. Abbas and PA top brass have been talking about a ‘just resolution’ to the refugee crisis – code for compensation and return to the Palestinian state – for years now. Their leaders have moved on though. Abbas and PA top brass have been talking about a ‘just resolution’ to the refugee crisis – code for compensation and return to the Palestinian state – for years now.</i><br />
Matt Hill 29 December 2011, 7:04 am<br />
But a Just resolution would simply be granting them citizenship in their existing and current place of residence. A Just resolution would acknowledge that the “refugee problem” is a political rather than humanitarian problem.<br />
Secondly, where is this code book that you keep talking about, and who understands this code (other than you)? Clearly this code is meant to deceive the “ordinary Palestinians” that their leaders are holding strong for their interests.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joe</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:19 am</td></tr>
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<i>. Try it – you’ll be disappointed to find quite a pedantic, scholarly work, full of investigation of footnotes, technical discussion of demographics, etc.</i><br />
Matt Hill 29 December 2011, 1:42 am<br />
I guess it would be futile to point out that merely having copious footnotes is itself not proof that the author is fairly or accurately reflecting what s/he claims to be referencing. David Irving was notorious for his copious <i>documentation</i> and referencing, except when placed under scrutiny it was found that he deliberately and mendaciously misrepresented and skewed the interpretation of his documents to fit is preconceived conclusions rather than to honestly represent how the historical documents related to his narrative.</div>
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The point is, of course, mimicking academic style and format is itself not proof of academic critical analysis and honest reporting and representation.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joe</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:26 am</td></tr>
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<i>. The entire Arab League offered Israel full peace and normalisation of relations in 2002, and repeated the offer in 2007,</i></div>
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blah blah blah…</div>
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The point I was responding too was your suggestion that Israeli occupation of Judea and Summaria post 1967 was a planned conquest of those territories. You inferred that Israel could have and should have withdrawn from those territories at that time, rather than create and <i>accidental empire</i>. What has happened post Oslo is irrelavent to that discussion.</div>
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However, what is clear is that Post-Oslo Israel has tried to formulate a peace agreement with the Palestinians, you, however, refuse to accept that the failure to reach such an agreement, and the continued occupation of Judea and Sumaria is at least partially due to a lack of will by the Palestinian leadership to reach such an accomidation. The Arab League offers of 2000 and 2007 are irrelavent since the Palestinians, through their own elected representatives (again post-Oslo) have not themselve commiteed themselves to an end of conflict and an end of claims.</div>
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The true reason why peace is elusive is because the Palestinians do not want to agree to these two points.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:27 am</td></tr>
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Joe,</div>
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Finkelstein’s attack on the book doesn’t relate to those points, which could be found in any pro-Israeli polemic. (Personally I agree with 1, 2 and 6. Your point 3 is not really true – historic Palestine was several things, including an administrative division for various empires, a name for an unspecified portion of land in the lexicon of western christians, and the name for a British mandate. The mandate for Palestine and Transjordan was a single entity for less than a year. You have two points 4. The first one I disagree strongly with, because it seems to me to misunderstand the rationale for a Palestinian state. Simply, the reason the Palestinians should have a state is that a people in any given territory should have the right to choose their own government – and the Palestinians can’t. Put another way, I’d have no problem if the people of the West Bank and Gaza wanted to attach themselves to an expanded Jordan. But if you’re arguing that the Arabs have Jordan already, so Israel should have the West Bank and Gaza, what are you proposing should happen to the 3.7 million Arabs living there? Should they just leave? And how would you achieve that?)</div>
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Anyway, Finkelstein debunked the argument which made Peters’s book distinctive and won it all kinds of accolades. The argument that Palestine was relatively unpopulated – truly a ‘land without a people’ – before the Zionists arrived, stimulating the economy and attracting Arab immigration. He checked her footnotes and saw that she was falsifying the information they contained, and wrote articles demonstrating how. For instance, she would add ellipses to remove information that reversed the meaning of sentences. She utterly falsified what all the important sources for this argument claimed. This would be bad scholarly practice in any case, but in this case it destroyed the argument that made the book a success. Finkelstein proved that Peters had deliberately and cynically concocted an argument for the obvious purpose of claiming that Palestine had no previous owner. He showed that the book was worthless from a scholarly point of view, and now no scholar would quote it and treat it as a reputable source. And Peters has made herself very scarce ever since. Whatever anyone says, for a graduate student to demolish a world-famous scholars career in this way was quite astonishingly brilliant.</div>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:36 am</td></tr>
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Joe,</div>
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‘But a Just resolution would simply be granting them citizenship in their existing and current place of residence.’</div>
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That would be part of it, I agree. The other main part would be the offer of citizenship in the new state of Palestine. I agree that the refugees have been shamefully treated by the Arab world, which has kept them disenfranchised and desperate as a human reproach to Israel. This is no way to treat human beings. And I don’t believe in the right of return, as I’ve said many times.</div>
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‘Secondly, where is this code book that you keep talking about, and who understands this code (other than you)? Clearly this code is meant to deceive the “ordinary Palestinians” that their leaders are holding strong for their interests.’</div>
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You’re right – the PA are too frightened to admit that they’ve effectively abandoned the RoR. It should come clean – it’s unfair to delude a desperate people with impossible fantasies.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:39 am</td></tr>
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‘The point I was responding too was your suggestion that Israeli occupation of Judea and Summaria post 1967 was a planned conquest of those territories.’</div>
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My point was that it was unplanned.</div>
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‘You inferred that Israel could have and should have withdrawn from those territories at that time, rather than create and accidental empire.’</div>
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Are you saying it couldn’t have? What made leaving the territories, or at least administering them without settling them, impossible? Are you saying Israel had no choice but to settle hundreds of thousands of people across the Green Line?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joe</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:39 am</td></tr>
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<i>if I don’t understand 242, please explain it to me.</i></div>
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Your first misunderstanding is to assume that 242 calls for the border to be established along the 1948 Armistice lines. It delibrately does not. It says that the formula for peace will involve the establishent of secure <b>recognised</b> borders, to which Israel will withdraw. It is the land for peace formulation, but it does not and never did anticipate a return to the status quo anti.</div>
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<i>Are you arguing it constrains Israel to stay in the West Bank until a border has been negotiated?</i></div>
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Yes! Israel is the legal and internationally recognised adminstrator of the territories untill such a time as its final status is determined by negotiations.</div>
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<i>That until that day, Israel simply has no choice but to occupy the Palestinians?</i></div>
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No you are right, they could abandon their leagal obligations at any time of their choosing. They could also unilaterally decree where their border is. But, and here is the point, unilateral action will and does only lead to further conflict.</div>
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<i>That 242 compelled Israel to settle hundreds of thousands of its citizens in the West Bank?</i></div>
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No, and I fail to see the sequitour here.</div>
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<i>Does that mean the Gaza ‘withdrawal’ was in violation of 242?</i></div>
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An intersting idea, I had not considered previously. While I thought, at the time, it demonstrated Israels willingness and integriety in the peace process, I have come to believe that it was a tacticle and strategic mistake. Israel is not substantially better off out of Gaza, and the Palestinians are worse off.</div>
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<i>do you think the settlement project and the occupation since 1967 have been conducive to the realisation of the goals laid out in 242, or the opposite?</i></div>
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Answer me this, do you think that Arab foot dragging and diplomatic intransigence has been conducive to peace making. The construction of Jewish/Israeli housing is the inevitable consequence of a lack of good faith by the Palestinians in negotiating a peace, with and end of claims and an end of conflict. If the Arabs had negotiated in good faith for a speedy and precipitous end of the conflict there would have been no time for settlement activity.</div>
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Indeed continued settlement activity should be an incentive for the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table and quickly end the conflict!</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:42 am</td></tr>
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‘However, what is clear is that Post-Oslo Israel has tried to formulate a peace agreement with the Palestinians, you, however, refuse to accept that the failure to reach such an agreement, and the continued occupation of Judea and Sumaria is at least partially due to a lack of will by the Palestinian leadership to reach such an accomidation.’</div>
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You’re right, I refuse to accept this account of events. The evidence doesn’t support it. However I respect your opinion and I agree this is the key issue: who has blocked peace efforts? I plan to write a post on this at some point, so we can debate it there. Or everyone can join together to call me fat, stupid and racist.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joe</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:43 am</td></tr>
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<i>You’re right – the PA are too frightened to admit that they’ve effectively abandoned the RoR.</i></div>
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Again where is this code book that you keep talking about. How can I take a face value anything that the PA says if they are delibrately misleading either me, or their own people? How can you be so certain that it is it’s own people they are misleading? They are afterall talking in tongues.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Joe</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:45 am</td></tr>
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<i>You’re right, I refuse to accept this account of events. The evidence doesn’t support it.</i></div>
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Yes by this evidence is all in code that only you understand. Or comes from sources that contradict the first hand accounts of the events, from source of dubious repute and intent.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 6:54 am</td></tr>
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‘Your first misunderstanding is to assume that 242 calls for the border to be established along the 1948 Armistice lines.’</div>
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I don’t think that and I haven’t said it.</div>
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‘Yes! Israel is the legal and internationally recognised adminstrator of the territories untill such a time as its final status is determined by negotiations.’</div>
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It doesn’t oblige Israel to settle the territories or install a military dictatorship, with no rule of law or basic freedoms. That is what’s at issue here. If Israel ruled the territories in a benign manner until the Palestinians were ready to take over, I wouldn’t complain.</div>
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‘Answer me this, do you think that Arab foot dragging and diplomatic intransigence has been conducive to peace making.’</div>
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I think this is a fair explanation of events up to 1993, but since then the Palestinian leadership has been the much more willing side to negotiate peace. I realise you will be appalled by this claim, and it could prompt a long discussion, which I’m willing to have. But I’m not sure there’s time for the whole thing now.</div>
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‘The construction of Jewish/Israeli housing is the inevitable consequence of a lack of good faith by the Palestinians in negotiating a peace, with and end of claims and an end of conflict.’</div>
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Why inevitable? This is an excellent example of the claim that the Palestinians are forcing Israel to oppress them, which underpins all pro-Israeli polemic.</div>
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‘If the Arabs had negotiated in good faith for a speedy and precipitous end of the conflict there would have been no time for settlement activity.’</div>
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True. And if Israel had dropped an atom bomb on Ramallah in 1975, you could say the same thing. But that wouldn’t make dropping the bomb the right thing to do.</div>
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‘Indeed continued settlement activity should be an incentive for the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table and quickly end the conflict!’</div>
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I suppose in the same way that, if you and I had a dispute over who owned some land outside our house, if I started robbing you it would be a good incentive for you to settle our dispute. But anyone who understood human psychology would point out doing so would make you less forthcoming.</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b><a href="http://themuddleeast.blogspot.com/" style="color: #fa4949;">Matt Hill</a></b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:05 am</td></tr>
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Joe,</div>
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’sources that contradict the first hand accounts of the events, from source of dubious repute and intent.’</div>
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Which sources are you talking about?</div>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"><b>Paul M</b></td><td> </td><td style="line-height: 0px;" valign="bottom"><img border="0" src="http://hurryupharry.org/wp-content/themes/hp-modernist/images/comment-stem.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></td></tr>
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</td><td align="right" style="padding-bottom: 8px;" valign="bottom"> 30 December 2011, 7:15 am</td></tr>
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Matt,</div>
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Yes, I probably was being a bit patronising toward you, though not by intention. Sorry. On the other hand, from a certain perspective 27 is not so old and I’ll be surprised if your opinions don’t continue to change as you approach my advanced age. I hope they do; I wouldn’t wish it on you to be one of the ones who never grow up.</div>
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<i>“If my views are so simplistic, it should be easy for you and others to explain where I’ve gone wrong”</i> Well, no. It’s the simplistic views that are easy to explain; that’s why they’re attractive, and why so many of us start there and have to work our way laboriously out of them. I’m not going to try here to explain everything I disagree with you about. It’s approaching midnight where I am, I don’t have the time or energy, and the thought of taking yet another lap around that track is not appealing. I don’t however, find your writing <i>“hilariously, contemptibly stupid”</i> and didn’t say I do, so if that comment was directed at me please don’t put words into my mouth. And I don’t hold that I possess <i>“vastly superior wisdom”</i> — only that I’ve experienced a bit more of the history as a contemporary than someone of your age, witnessed the process of facts getting rewritten and history being inverted, and seen the unexpected consequences of a number of well-intentioned ideas.</div>
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One point of yours I will pick up: <i>“Does it</i> [Israel's comparative virtue] <i>make the decades-long rule over 3.7 million people legitimate?”</i> Yes, actually, it does — or rather, that rule has independent legitimacy. It is unpleasant and causes some undoubted suffering, humiliation and anger, but it is lawful and it is necessary until the Palestinians agree to an unambiguous peace that protects Israeli rights and needs. I will make you an analogy that will be an open invitation for someone malicious to say <i>“Paul M thinks the Palestinians are like dogs.”</i> Not true: It’s just a simplistic way of clarifying a concept that anti-Zionists would much rather blur, nothing more. Imagine you are locked in a stand-off with a powerful and aggressive dog. You have both hands round its throat and are keeping it, mostly successfully, from doing you serious harm. You would much rather not be holding it. You’d prefer to be as far from it as possible. The dog, for its part, ought not to have to suffer under a choke-hold. It’s a living creature with needs — some would say rights — of its own, but it has given you every reason to believe that, if you release it, it will try and tear your throat out. Do you think I could persuade you that the dog’s right to freedom is the only thing that counts? (The analogy with the Middle East ends there, because dogs have no capacity to use reasoning to overrule emotion. The Palestinians do.)</div>
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Finally, a last comment on Finkelstein. He is despised not just because he accuses others of dishonest manipulation of the Holocaust, but because he himself manipulates it as a tool in the service of his open hatred of Israel. In the process, he shows the way to every reeking antisemite and Israel-hating bigot. Why should I care how many footnotes he uses to do that?</div>
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</div>levi9909http://www.blogger.com/profile/10553481056544494411noreply@blogger.com0