I'd click on this link if you're very interested in what's going on in the Israeli situation, on a day to day basis. VERY good information here. (thanks, Dick, for the link!)
OKAY...HERE'S MY QUESTION:
WHY DOES THE RIGHT CHAMPION ISRAEL MORE THAN THE LEFT?
Go for it......... I've got my own guesses, but I'd REALLY like to hear yours. Thanks.
56 comments:
Interesting question and I have thought about it some. Once upon a time the Left was very pro-Jewish. Israel was a struggling nation that had come up through hard times and suffering to build a state in a desolate wilderness. The Left can appreciate suffering and hardship.
But the Left can't tolerate success, because socialism can't tolerate success. They live to eliminate all success from the world. Israel is now a prosperous self-sufficient and powerful nation despite its geographically precarious situation.
The Left hates power. It is synonymous with oppression to them. They can't imagine benign or benevolent power, so they can't imagine the United States either with our historically benevolent power. Their minds are locked up tight in the irrational box of socialist definitions. Success is evil, power is evil, prosperity is evil. Israel is therefore evil and is always to blame for all the conflict in the region according to the Left. They can't get out of that socialist box to breathe the air of reality.
There's also of course the evangelical influence on the Right, the recognition that Israel is at the heart of Biblical prophecy and that fulfillment of major prophecies is very close. The Left with its socialist and "rationalist" identity scoffs at such things.
There are a lot of global Leftist speakers and groups like Noam Chomsky, ANSWER, and others who are virulently antisemitic. Leftist activists embrace them rather than repudiate them. In contrast, conservatives have repudiated the antisemites, and have left the neo-nazis in the wilderness.
With the exception of Pat Buchahan. Too many conservatives still like him. Even though Pat Buchanan is a tireless defender of Hitler and the Nazis. He has always claimed that conservative icon Churchill was the true victim of WW2, and recently wrote a book claiming that the Allies caused the Holocaust with D-Day.
The reasons lefties align themselves this way is similar to why they praise Castro and condemn Bush. They are constantly putting the burden of peace on "the good guys" rather than on those who are the true warmongers.
They also justify their support by clouding the debate with propagandized history.
(From an old post of mine on the subject)
I think that conservatives find it easy to identify with Israel and not just because of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Israel is the only middle eastern nation that shares our basic values and our idea of freedom . We are two nations which were founded by a persecuted people who had no where else to go. We both arrived at a desolate place and have built societies that are envied by our neighbors.
When the conservative looks at Israel we see someone we can relate to and there is a natural brotherhood found in our pursuit of self preservation. Conservatives understand that our countries were not given to us, we had to conceive of them and then put that idea into practice.
Israel is the historical homeland of the Jews and they have lived there in succession for centuries. Even since the destruction of the Temple by Rome in the year 70 many Jews remained, although others were forced to disperse through out Europe and the middle east.
They then found themselves forced out of their homes with no where else to go but to return to their ancestral home land. Israel belongs to the Jews for the same reason America belongs to us... we built it, they built it, it's ours.
We both hold the same basic values and have the same interest in the middle east. We both stand against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by rogue states, state sponsored terrorism, and the spread of the evil of Islam. We have much in common.
On a more practical note, the area needs Israeli technology to supply food to the region. The Arab nations ought to emulate the Jews proficiency in growing food from a desert, rather than continue to destroy everything others develop. Israel also provides homes to many unwanted people from other countries. Jews are unwelcome in most Arab states but are welcome to return to Israel.
Also, Israel is our only truly trustworthy ally in the region that will step up to the challenge of defeating terrorism. And last, but not least, Israel was promised to the Jews by God and He keeps His word.
That is why THIS conservative supports Israel.
DMarks,
In many ways, counting Pat Buchanan as a right-winger is like counting Rush Limbaugh as a radical leftist - there is no good reason to do so.
When Moonbat Pat left the Republican Party, he wanted to take conservatives with him. No conservatives noticed he was gone.
As far as why the left hates Israel, well duh, that's where the Jews are. Read Marx, read Proudhon, read Bakunin, read Hitler.
Leftists hate Jews.
The Left believes that it can create a UN governed peaceful global utopia, and Israel's conflicts expose the utter vacuuity of the underlying premise... that disparate people with ingrained conflicting ideologies can cede their national sovereignty and/or maintain their individual identities whilst "rationally" and "democratically" settling ALL their arguments. Jews are a distinct minority in the Middle East and the world and would eventually lose any "democratically" settled argument. Superior Israeli military power is necessary for the continuation of an unoppressed and distinctive Jewish identity.
In other words, democracy is just another name for a tyranny of the majority.
The Right usually equates justice with applying the same rules to everybody. If Israel tries to mitigate collateral damage while the Palestinians espouse terrorism, the Right would side with Israel.
The Left usually equates justice with equal outcomes rather than equal rules. If Israel is prosperous and Palestine is poor, the Left would consider aiding Palestine to be the just thing.
-Tio Bowser
Good morning,
CJ, I think you're right on the money, only I'd dare to add that the left (as we know it today) was not only "pro-Jewish" at one time, it was PREDOMINANTLY Jewish. Which is not to say that ALL Jews were leftists --- only that the majority of hardcore, Marxists were in fact Jews in the early days of the movement.
The Frankfurt School, and names like Samuel Gompers, Emma Goldman, and Saul Alinsky should bear this out, although Antonio Gramsci, an Italian intellectual and social misfit, probably should be credited with developing the demonic tactic called Critical Theory, which was enthusiastically adopted and further developed by Georg Lukacs and Theo Adorno of the Frankfurt School along with the depraved Hungarian leader Bela Kuhn (i.e. Cohen), who were aggressive advocates among other things of sexual license as a primary means of destabilizing "Bourgeois" nations, thus gaining control by rotting them from within.
Also, CJ, I don't agree that the left hates power. They LUST for power like no one else. They just do not want anyone other than themselves to wield it.
Marxists, which is what the left is today, are born DICTATORS. They know what's best for everyone, by Heaven, and they are going to TELL you and FORCE you to accept THEIR dogma --- on pain of DEATH, if necessary.
I have to say that I find the concept of "anti-Semitic Jews" wryly amusing. I think it would be more accurate and more appropriate to call them anti-ZIONIST Jews.
Although, most of conservative Jewry wants to see anti-Zionists as anti-Semites, I don't think the concept is founded in logic.
Mr. Marks, your characterization of Pat Buchanan seems grossly overstated and unfair to me. Buchanan has written a good deal of material that well serves the tragic truth about what is happening to Western Civilization.
I'm sorry, but just because Pat Buchanan may not be ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT supportive of EVERYTHING Israel does, does not make him "a virulent anti-Semite."
Also, I think your sentiments that advocate
indiscriminate death for everyone in Gaza --- and probably ALL of Israel's opponents by extension --- is de facto barbarism. Much to her credit, Israel, herself, has never wanted to stoop that low.
Israel might gain "the world" with such an approach, but surely she would "lose her own soul" on the process, and deservedly become a pariah. No good could come of that.
Jungle Mom, I am in harmony with most of your post, but wish you --- or anyone --- could explain to me in some detail precisely what Israel has done FOR us in that benighted region other than stand for basically Western Values in a determinedly backward part of the world brutally hostile to freedom and democracy?
I admit to ignorance on this question and would love to be enlightened.
Thank you, Z, and all for this opportunity,
~ FreeThinke
Well, are you referring to the Pat Buchanan right?
Okay, now that the point is made we can talk about why portions of the right support Israel.
1. Eschatology - And America is the "chosen" nation stand in until the Temple is rebuilt.
2. The right is really scared of Muslims and they buy into this clash of cultures thing.
3. Since Israel is our ersatz weapons dealer they are really, really good for our economic interests. Armaments are recession proof.
4. The right values guns over brains.
Freethinker,
I always say Pat Buchanan is a figure in metamorphosis. You can't pin down what the man believes because even he doesn't know for sure.
Throughout his career he's made three hard-right turns.
In any diagram of his course, that puts him on the left.
Z,
Here's Michael Ledeen, pointing out the obvious.
(Warning: Michael Ledeen is rather hostile towards the left's favorite anti-Semites, the mullahs of Qom that control Iranian-occupied Persia)
I think the reason is multi-faceted.
As CJ said, I think most on the right tend to be of faith and recognize Israel's place in prophecy, whereas most leftists are secularists and could care less.
Also, as Beamish said, reading leftist material clearly illustrates the left's hatred of Jews. I don't even know if they really understand their hatred. I suppose most bigots don't.
Finally, leftist love to blame the victim. Just look at our criminal 'justice' system. Victims often have less rights than violent offenders... If a thief trips over your coffee table and breaks his ankle he can sue you for it.
If you injure an assailant YOU can be liable for his injuries despite the fact that he attacked you first.
The left seeks to disarm law-abiding citizens while gun control laws do nothing to stop criminals from obtaining and using guns... You are to wait like a sheep for the police to arrive if you are attacked.
The situation is a reflection of Israel and Psuedo-stein.
Israel is given less rights as a victim of violence than the aggressor Palys in the international eye.
When Israel is attacked, she mustn't defend herself even when attacked first because if a few violent terrorists get hurt she is held responsible.
Leftists want Israel to wait patiently while being attacked for the UN to show up... And that's a long wait for a train that won't come.
Also, as Beamish said, reading leftist material clearly illustrates the left's hatred of Jews. I don't even know if they really understand their hatred. I suppose most bigots don't.
-----------------
Brooke will now look up the word, irony.
When Israel is attacked, she mustn't defend herself even when attacked first because if a few violent terrorists get hurt she is held responsible.
-----------------------
Actually Brooke, that's nonsense.
The question here isn't Israel's right to respond but Likud's abject stupidity in thinking the military action will do anything but harden resistance.
Myself, I think the action is as much about the coming elections as anything else, sort of like Bush's Great Iraqi Adventure (soon to be bettered by Obama's Great Afghan Screwup)
The right has such a love affair with the WORDS "Freedom and Democracy" (words, not meaning) that they can't break away and take a look at the complexity of these events and our complete inability to force some imaginary idea on a people.
Ducky, it's hard to even contemplate what you say because it's so mean spirited and, frankly, uninformed, but tell me:
If Israel is "overdoing it" (I guess you're one of this "disproportionate war isn't right" fellows who feels we need to count the hits on israel and then only afford israel the same amount back, right?), then what do you suggest.
EVERY peace treaty Israel's entered into has been broke by the PA's..........
What would YOU do to get a group to stop firing missiles into an innocent country that's legally there and has already given away land from their original manifest?
Everybody, great responses, thanks so much. I had no idea Buchanan has gone that far, but I know I haven't been able to stand him the last five years or so.
I believe it has a LOT to do with the silly lefty thing of "the underdog's always right"...it's so stupid but so common; you read pieces that say "A strong country like Israel, so rich and so well armed, mustn't...." But, you never heard "that PA area which has never been able to stop warring long enough to make an economy is hitting Israel again..."
Yesterday, I heard this on an ABC news snippet "Today, the tiny area of Gaza is beseiged on 3 sides by powerful Israel in its attempt to.."
Ya, no bias, RIGHT?
Ducky just illustrated the leftists failure to understand the Second Amendment, which is a really good illustration of the situation over there.
You have a violent neighbor. You have tried placating him with money, services, even given him some of your yard. He still beats you up every time he sees you.
You get a restraining order but also a gun because you know that a piece of paper won't stop someone hell-bent on hurting you from doing just that.
You mind your own business, but sure enough the guy comes after you again, so you shoot him.
Your elitist neighbors tell you you should've given the guy your living room and maybe he'd have been happy...
See, those on the right understand that self-defense is a God-given right.
Ducky, what "imaginary idea" are you talking about? Freedom? Democracy? Christianity? The right of Israel to exist? Our Constitution? Our Declaration of Independence? Please elucidate.
As I said the other day --- and have been saying for many years --- ALL advances, products, and cultural developments including man-made disasters had and continue to have their start in someone's IMAGINATION.
We are creatures programmed to act on INTUITION and VISION. Those of us with guts, faith and hope for a better future play our hunches, and sometimes win big, but more often seem to lose, because we can't LET GO of the notion that WE are RIGHT and everyone ELSE is WRONG. When I say "we" I mean ANY of the many identifiable cultural, political religious and ethnic factions in the world. It's a problem common to ALL humanity --- not just the people we instinctively don't like and can't agree with.
I believe in the metaphysical concept that God is MIND (combined with other essential positive attributes I've listed many times). If that is true, then ALL of Creation began in the Mind of God. God is the Source of all phenomena.
Also, Ducky, how could you DENY that "culture clash" is a vivid part of reality -- and always HAS been? There's nothing new about it, and it's certainly not peculiar to the Middle East.
Please don't get annoyed at a metaphysical interpretation of essential motivation, it's just a way of looking at reality that makes sense to me --- and a LOT of other people. And for those who would insist on labels there's nothing "New Age" about it. If anything the New Agers stole or borrowed the concept from the ancients and have made of it a travesty in my never humble opinion. Anything that becomes popularized through promotional gimmickry inevitably becomes a travesty.
Oscar Wilde would he agree. He said, "Whatever is popular is wrong."
And again I disagree that Pat Buchanan is a "moonbat" just as I strenuously disagree with those who gave Ron Paul a similar label. Buchanan is not one of my heroes, but I respect his opinions --- and reserve the right to do so, until they no longer resonate with me.
Just because some people see things differently than we do doesn't mean they are crazy, irresponsible or dangerous.
I hate the left, but like Voltaire would "defend to the death" their right to speak openly. Our Founders and Oliver Wendell Holmes were of the same opinion.
Thomas Jefferson said, "I am opposed to every form of tyranny over the mind of Man." Me too!
Where I draw the line on "freedom" is when certain fractious elements move in the direction of first CENSORING, then ELIMINATING all opposition. That's where the left is headed, so they must be checked.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely --- even in the hands of devout, sincere, well-meaning Christians.
That's why God created POLARITY, I suspect.
~ FreeThinke
The only thing Ducky said that I agree with is that some on the Right (read "Bush") think Freedom and Democracy can solve everything. I don't think it's some imaginary concept, but in relation to Islam it might as well be. Bush's naivete about Islam, and the whole ridiculous Road Map to Peace concept that goes back before Bush, are to blame for a lot of Israel's predicament.
If the US would stop doing this to Israel, and if the world at large were on the right side of the conflict, there would be no hardening of resistance with military action, as Ducky believes. Muslims are pragmatic when the chips are down. When they know they're beaten they pull back and lie low. With the world goading them on they will continue to resist common sense until we're in the middle of WWIII.
Brooke, I said nothing about that train wreck of a sentence, the second amendment.
I'm sure you believe you can put a propositional calculus on it and tell us what it "means".
I can tell you to go read some Russell or Wittgenstein. Meaning is a little more elusive.
Also "Freedom and Democracy" mean nothing outside of context. I do not believe that context is ever fixed. Dialectic, if you will.
If Israel is "overdoing it" (I guess you're one of this "disproportionate war isn't right" fellows who feels we need to count the hits on israel and then only afford israel the same amount back, right?), then what do you suggest.
--------------------
I've mentioned what I suggest. Find out who is supplying Hamas with the missiles and focus on stopping the supply line.
However, if Israel feels it can hold a few million people in a virtual prison without repercussions then I'm afraid we'll find they are about as astute as they were when they invaded Lebanon, i.e. watch this screw up.
Once again, their right to defend themselves isn't in question. They have that right and they also have the "right" to use it to act dumb.
This isn't going to change much. However, I do hope Obama ignores it as best he can. Limit the casualties as best you can and pay attention to Afghanistan because Bush has really put it in the fan there.
Still worried about Bob Jones aren't you Ducky? (he knoes what I mean)
A big "ditto" to CJ's "socialists Box" analogy. Economic freedom is kryptonite to the left.
Lots of good comments.
Ducky, what makes Israeli action "screw up" is the stupidity of the Left that backs their enemies and calls for Israel to back down, cease fire etc. What are their options? Do nothing or fight back. Either way the world is against them and they are the target of the Koran-inspired irrational hatred of the Muslims. In a way it's six of one, half a dozen of the other, but at least if they are attacking they take out some of the leaders of the opposition.
z, I have never voiced support for Hamas in this matter.
However, I voice support for common sense which is sorely lacking in Israel if they think they are getting anywhere.
Remember, there are deficiencies in the Arab psyche ... lack of patience ain't one of them. They can wait this out and do it all again. You need to think of finding a more promising tactic.
Larry Dunham, I'm not worried about Bob Jones, I'm bemused by the mind set.
Cj's right...Israel "screws up" because nobody's there fighting for them. If they back down, it's done for them, in my opinion. Hamas will start again and people like Ducky will say it's Israel's fault for having defended herself...it's a vicious circle.
Ducky, I need to find a more promising tactic? How so?
Now that we're all agreed that Israel has a need to protect herself, all I'm asking is HOW?
If the whole world's anti-semitism, liberal idiocy of 'protecting the underdog whether they're right or wrong' and tweaking the facts of the area, are against Israel, then what?
Hide and hope Hamas grows up and starts to love its kids more than hating Jews?
What then?
I would say, the left doesn't hate power, it hates America's power as it stands now, and hates the West's power in general.
The left hates power except when they are the ones in power, which is what they seek whenever and wherever they can get a foothold, anywhere.
They have used their power in the world and here to undermine and undercut the West wherever possible.
And when the left is in power, they are ruthless, and unforgiving, even brutal. Something Ducky evidently is unable to confront. They use what they perceive to be the underdog, simply for propaganda, to gain in stature, in their quest for power.
I agree for the most part, with others here, except Ducky of course, who continues to enjoy his daily admonishments from we here who have to slap him around in the hopes he will eventually wake up.
Pris
There are no "more promising tactics," that's the problem, isn't it? They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Biblical prophecy suggests that times are going to get worse for Israel and for the whole world before they get better, but that it is all in God's plan, and His plan is to bring the whole world to recognize Him in the end.
I believe it is all unfolding according to plan. Israel's being in this kind of bind with the world against them is the perfect setup for God's purposes because when they can't help themselves He will fight for them.
The main events will probably come on the world quite suddenly. War, then an ersatz peace engineered by the forces of Antichrist, dividing the world between the enemies of God and the remnant of believers, and not long after that the Lord will return.
Israel is a secular state right now but its successes in the teeth of world opposition only demonstrate that God Himself is protecting her. In the end He will defeat all her enemies and the whole world will know it.
Yes, of course they don't hate their own power. If power is in the hands of the Left they are happy, because then it is supposedly serving the oppressed people. But they hate power that doesn't serve their worldview.
Hi CJ - Agreed.
Pris
Of course this may just be a matter of Likud fearing that Obama isn't going to give the carte blanche and wanting to get in a few licks while they have Bush to give them the high sign.
Ya, the rest of the world understands better than we do Ducky; Obama will be dumping Israel in the mud first chance he gets.
Can you blame the Israelis for doing this now, when they might get some help from somewhere?
You ever ask yourself why obama only feels "we only have one president" if muslims are involved? strange, huh?
Ducky:
Please slither back under that rock you crawled out from under.
As regards the question: Simple. The Right is a lot closer to the Truth than the Left is. In fact, it's not even close!
I agree almost completely with Free Thinke.
You're even right about old PJB (Pat Buchanan).
One of the primary attacks on Buchanan (who is, like many Libertarians from the Rothbard/Rockwell school, an ardent isolationist opposing Gulf War I and every subsequent U.S. incursion in the Mideast) came from his defense of John Demjanjuk (sounded Dem-UN-Yuk), a Ukranian born, naturalized U.S. citizen who'd been accused and convicted in an Israeli court of being the Nazi Concentration Camp Guard "Ivan the Terrible." John Demjanjuk had been a Soviet soldier captured by the Nazis in July of 1942.
"On April 25, 1988, a Jerusalem district court headed by Judges Dov Levin, Zvi Tal and Dalia Dorner convicted Demjanjuk and sentenced him to death by hanging.[4] Demjanjuk was placed in solitary confinement until August 1993, when five Israeli Supreme Court judges ruled that there was a reasonable doubt raised due to the passage of time and the spoliation of evidence.
"Demjanjuk was released to return to the United States. In 1993, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Demjanjuk was a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, as federal prosecutors had deliberately withheld evidence, and his sentence was overturned."
Sadly, many of those who deride Buchanan for defending Demjanjuk, have done so deliberately and are NOT merely misinformed.
Buchanan defended Demjanjuk over charges that Demjanjuk was "Ivan the Terrible" and that charge has indeed been proven FALSE.
Buchanan was proven right in his defense of Demjanjuk and while he is not a reliable supporter of Israel, the charge that he's held "nazi sympathies" is complete bullshit.
Buchanan has called the nazi Holocaust "one of the horrors of World War II" along with "the collapse of the British Empire, the Stalinization of 11 nations of Eastern Europe, 50 million dead and half a century of Cold War."
In his book State of Emergency, Buchanan blamed Hitler and the Holocaust for contemporary "white guilt" and political correctness. in it, he quoted a number of Jewish voices in support of the melting pot concept, rather than multiculturalism, and gave examples of anti-Jewish sentiment on the part of some Mexican immigrants.
Buchanan has routinely described Hitler as a "monster" guilty of "ugly actions and discriminatory laws".
Buchanan has his flaws, but they are, generally fewer in number and lesser in severity than those of his most vocal detractors.
Oh dear! "Round and 'round it goes. Where it stops nobody knows."
Ducky, I do appreciate what you saId when you featured the word "irony."
If you mean what I THINK you meant (one never can be sure!), with one small word you said a mouthful.
"People" either don't know history, or they want to forget it when it seems to complicate the picture of reality they want the world to accept.
It's a lot like the Republicans starting out as the '"radical" party of reform and change [and BOO to YOU, Abe Lincoln!], and then winding up as the refuge for "arch" conservatives.
Kinda reminds me of a Square Dance:
Swing your partner; skip to the loo! Allemande left, make a big doo-doo.
(:-o
My Civics teacher in high school said it fifty-odd years ago: "The lesson we learn from History is that we learn NOTHING from History."
YUP!
~ FreeThinke
JMK, I am glad to hear you clear up the extreme charges against Buchanan....the Nazi thing in particular is insane. BUT.. I have not admired him much since his stance against the Iraq war, though I'm even starting to rethink that a little. The only thing I'd really rethink is that SHOCK AND AWE should have happened the day after we knocked Saddam's statue over. Not years afterward.
What do you think?
Why do we love Israel?
Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population, can lay claim to the following:
Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.
Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people - as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).
Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US.
Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.
Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.
With an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s, Israel has the largest fleet of the aircraft outside of the US.
Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.
On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups.
Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees - ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland - and 12 percent hold advanced degrees.
Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews at risk in Ethiopia to safety in Israel.
When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.
When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day - and saved three victims from the rubble.
Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship - and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.
Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.
Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."
According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. U. S. officials now look to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.
In 1991, during the Gulf War, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra played a concert wearing gas masks as scud missiles fired by Saddam Hussein fell on Tel Aviv.
Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.
Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.
Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.
Medicine... Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized,no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.
An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper
administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U. S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.
Israel's Givun imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, the camera helps doctors diagnose cancer and digestive disorders.
Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the heart's mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.
Technology... With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world (apart from the Silicon Valley).
In response to serious water shortages, Israeli engineers and agriculturalists developed a revolutionary drip irrigation system to minimize the amount of water used to grow crops.
Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.
Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.
The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.
Most of the Windows NT operating system was developed by Microsoft-Israel.
The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.
Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.
The AOL Instant Messenger was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.
A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device,produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct - all without damaging surroundings skin or tissue.
An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California's Mojave desert."
All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth. This from a country just 55 years young having started off life on a very frontiers-like basis, whose population had mostly just emerged from the devastating World War II years.
Pops..thanks. What a fantastic list.!!
"I have not admired him much since his stance against the Iraq war, though I'm even starting to rethink that a little. The only thing I'd really rethink is that SHOCK AND AWE should have happened the day after we knocked Saddam's statue over. Not years afterward." (Z)
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What the stance of the likes of Pat Buchanan, Lew Rockwell, Ron Paul and others on the Paleo-Libertarian front is that "Dissent has NOT been assailed as anti-Americanism, by Conservatives."
Lots of Conservatives, including myself, vehemently disagree with Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul and others who've assailed the military WoT.
Buchanan and Paul NEVER assailed the current administration as "the 4th Reich," or called America "the world's biggest terrorist" - THOSE inane lies/charges ARE undeniably ANTI-AMERICAN.
That's why I can respect Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul and KLew Rockwell and their ilk despite disagreeing with them. I CAN'T and WON'T respect anti-American zealots who harbor more hatred for America than for radical death-cultists intent on attacking the West.
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As to the "Shock and Awe"....Hmmm, I’ve always heard of the “Shock and Awe” referred to as the initial pre-invasion bombing, Z, occuring many months BEFORE the capture of Saddam and the toppling of his statue.
One report noted, “Limited bombing began on March 19th, 2003 as United States forces unsuccessfully attempted to kill Saddam Hussein. Attacks continued against a small number of targets until March 21st, 2003, when at 1700 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) the main bombing campaign of the Coalition began. Its forces launched approximately 1700 air sorties (504 using cruise missiles). Coalition ground forces had begun a "running start" offensive towards Baghdad on the previous day. Coalition ground forces seized Baghdad on April 5th, and the United States declared victory on April 14th, 2003.
“The operation "shock and awe" described the initiation of the Iraqi campaign and not the subsequent insurgency.”
Saddam’s military was defeated in about THREE weeks...and the “official” Iraqi War ended on April 14th, 2003.
The subsequent “insurgency" was actually a terrorist campaign against the coalition forces that were helping to REBUILD Iraq.
One report on the Iraq war noted, “Within two weeks of the United States' victory declaration, on April 27th, 2003 the Washington Post published an interview with Iraqi military personnel detailing demoralization and lack of command. According to the soldiers, Coalition bombing was surprisingly widespread and had a severely demoralizing effect. When United States tanks passed through the Iraqi military's Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard units outside Baghdad to Saddam's presidential palaces, it caused a shock to troops inside Baghdad. Iraqi soldiers said there was no organization intact by the time the United States entered Baghdad (in April), and that resistance crumbled under the presumption that "it wasn't a war, it was suicide."
Saddam Hussein wasn’t captured until December of 2003.
Just an observation , but I think the left hates Israel, simply because it disproves their doctrines almost daily.
The give a world a hug crowd is dead wrong about bad guys, see.
There are reasons we call some people-BAD. It is because, they are BAD.
You can't reason with them, they don't care about your modern love your neigbor , let's all get along principles.
Anyhow, that is my take on this question.
Israel does what she must and then by golly, she kicks buttocks.
And the left hates that.
WVDOTTR
JMK; I was pretty sure SHOCK AND AWE was pretty far into the war, rather like the SURGE, but maybe I'm conflating the two..?
Anyway, let's use SURGE...big and tough military action, bigger than what's been done..
I just wish we'd gone in STRONGER at the very beginning...It's not like world opinion could have been MORE nasty towards us.
On the other hand, I know hindsight's 20/20. Easy to say that now. Sometimes I worry that we went easy at the beginning because Rumsfeld, etc., were afraid of the media/left....too much bad press ...
WV...Israel can never do ANYTHING right in the eyes of the world, sadly. Hamas can.
Weigh the miserable things Hamas has done against any terror group and they're right up there with the worst of them, but let Israel fight back and THEY're the BAD GUYS? GO figure.
"You have a violent neighbor. You have tried placating him with money, services, even given him some of your yard. He still beats you up every time he sees you.
"You get a restraining order but also a gun because you know that a piece of paper won't stop someone hell-bent on hurting you from doing just that.
"You mind your own business, but sure enough the guy comes after you again, so you shoot him.
"Your elitist neighbors tell you you should've given the guy your living room and maybe he'd have been happy..." (Brooke)
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BTW, that's a GREAT and very accurate analogy as to how too many Leftists think.
First, gun control is NOT violence control....and secondly, the goal ISN'T the eradication of violence, as that would treat the natural right of violent self-defense the same as it would predatory violence, NO, the goal IS the eradication of predators or "bad guys" as cops tend to call them.
Somehow Leftists never seem to be able to understand that not so subtle distinction between predatory violence and the righteous violence of self-defense (defending life AND property).
GREAT analogy!
"JMK; I was pretty sure SHOCK AND AWE was pretty far into the war, rather like the SURGE, but maybe I'm conflating the two..?" (Z)
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YES, the "surge" came much later, only about a year ago.
The initial pre-invasion bombardment was what they termed "Shock and Awe."
But yes, many have argued we didn't put enough "boots on the ground" at the start and in retrospect, it turns out they were right....they obviously had more than enough to win the war against Iraq's military, but not enough to tamp down the insurgency during the rebuilding process.
Others have argued that short of more troops at the start, they should've considered letting Iraq break into three separate regions along their ethnic lines - the Kurdish north, the Sunni center and the Shiite south, but an independent Kurdistan in the north would've been untenable for Turkey and would've created a lot of new and different problems and if the Shiite south melded in with Shiite iran, as some speculated it would, that too, may have been a regional disaster.
It's pretty easy to me, it's a simple matter of morality. The Israel vs. "paleostinian" question is a simple MORAL question of right vs. wrong or good vs. evil. Almost nothing illustrates this moral duality more than the fight over the land of Israel.
On one hand you have a people who praise and celebrate abject evil committed in the name of allah! They load their own semi-retarded children with c-4 and construction nails and send them into Isreali children to DETONATE! When this "vampirish" act is done, the family of the little murderer is celebrated in the entire West Bank!!!!
The left sees this behavior and seeks to cast blame w/the Israelis, they call it a "land issue." Leave it to a bunch of materialists/atheists to misunderstand abject evil.
The political conservatives understand unspeakable evil when we see it. This is why we support Israel.
This is one of the arguments that stands out for me.
Morgan
Freethinker, I believe you are confusing Lukacs and Marcuse.
Z and Papa Frank....and others--
Thanks for standing up for Israel!
The Egyptian FM admitted the other day that Hamas was intentionally preventing wounded Palestinians from getting medical care, some of which is being offered by Israelis.
Its been reported by Arab media that Hamas executed 35 Fatah members and shot 75 others in both legs.... why? They suspected these people would be collaboraters with Israel. Does this surprise anyone?
Hamas routinely uses women and children and the sick and infirmed as human shields. Hiding explosives in the homes of women and children and hospitals and schools...hence, terrible civilian casulaties are guraanteed. Israel goes to great pains to protect and hide their women, children and elderly from harm while Hamas and the like strap dynamite with nails to their very own children to blow themselves up in the presence of Jews and Christians and even other dissenting Muslims!
People! When will the insanity end? This idea of claiming some kind of moral equivalency between the most evil and barbaric thugs of humanity and those fighting for the very survival and for the values that we espouse. This is one time where it is black and white but you would not know it from most news outlets.
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On Pat Buchanan.....
Yes, I, too, was once a fan of his. He is dispicable! Those of you who love Israel and are sympathetic to her tortured and glorious history ask yourself, could you say some of the following things?
1. "850,000 Jews could not have been gassed in Treblinka because "diesel engines do not emit enough carbon dioxide to kill anybody"; (it may be true that diesels running at idle wont kill, it is definitely true that deliberately mistuned, revd up engines will kill by hypoxia.... dont try this at home!--Rick Allen)
2. he spoke out on behalf of accused Nazi war criminals Karl Linnas and Arthur Rudolph;
3. he described Hitler as "an individual of great courage";
(How and why would anyone make such a statement?!!-Rick Allen)
4. he mocked Holocaust survivors' memories as "group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics." (The New Republic, Oct. 15 and Oct. 22, 1990) In his 1999 book, A Republic, Not an Empire, Buchanan argued that the U.S. should not have gone to war against Nazi Germany.....
Group Fantasies!!!??? Please....
Group Fantasies....the next time you see those documentary black and white photos of dead Jews piled 15 feet deep by the tens of thousands...ask yourself, "Are these the group fantasies Pat Buchanan speaks of? William F Buckley asked himself that question years ago when he had to, regretfully, call Buchanan an anti- semite.
Finally, I would add that my father and his generation fought a war on two fronts. Engaging Fascism and an equally barbaric enemy in the Japanese empire, they persevered and literally saved humanity from sinking into something that would have made the Dark Ages seems like heaven on earth.
This recent book by buchannan, "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecesary War" is most definitely an apologetic for Hitler, in my humble opinion. Yes, I agree, Buchanan is so stupid as to not occasionally mention the evil deeds of certain tyrants, but the gist of this book is to cast blame on Churchill and portray Hitler as a victim who was backed into a corner, reacting, albiet excessively.
Its one of the most shameful books thats been written in recent times because it casts a cloud over those brave and tired heros of WWII, the very few that we still have remaining.
People! When will the insanity end?
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Come on, we know how this ends. Demographics sink the idea of a "Jewish state" in the ever increasingly secular state of Israel.
Pretty obvious. There are never going to be any two state negotiations and Arabs know that time is on their side.
Papa Frank, drip irrigation was initially used in Afghanistan and was moved forward by the development of the impact sprinkler in the US.
Careful how much propaganda you digest.
'ROUND AND 'ROUND IT GOES. WHERE IT STOPS NOBODY KNOWS.
(SIGH!)
~ FT
Rick, welcome to geeeeZ.
Are those points REAL? Buchanan said THOSE THINGS? That's horrid. wow.
Ducky, leave it to you to pick the one inconsistency and harp on it. How's about celebrating the rest?
FT: Truer words were never spoken...especially in the Middle East!
JMK, thanks. I believe our intel was SORELY lacking and we seriously didn't know there would be such insurgency after kicking Saddam out. Who'd have thought muslims would be unhappy to lose a leader who was a mass murderer and that surrounding muslim countries would be furious this horrid man was gone, too?
But, blaming us is about as stupid as blaming Bush for not knowing from the intel that "Osama's going to hit us soon" the when, what and where. It's almost like the Left expects us to have closed ALL AIRPORTS and train stations and freeways indefinitely JUST IN CASE. There's NO other way to explain their stupid "Why didn't he DO something?"
Morgan...exactly. How much more explanation is needed, right?
Hi Z....
Yes, they are absolutely real... here is chapter and verse of just a few:
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In a 1977 column, Buchanan said that despite Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal tendencies, he was "an individual of great courage...Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path." (The Guardian, 1/14/92)
Writing of "group fantasies of martyrdom," Buchanan challenged the historical record that thousands of Jews were gassed to death by diesel exhaust at Treblinka: "Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody." (New Republic, 10/22/90) Buchanan's columns have run in the Liberty Lobby's Spotlight, the German-American National PAC newsletter and other publications that claim Nazi death camps are a Zionist concoction.
Buchanan called for closing the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which prosecuted Nazi war criminals, because it was "running down 70-year-old camp guards." (New York Times, 4/21/87)
Buchanan was vehement in pushing President Reagan -- despite protests -- to visit Germany's Bitburg cemetery, where Nazi SS troops were buried. At a White House meeting, Buchanan reportedly reminded Jewish leaders that they were "Americans first" -- and repeatedly scrawled the phrase "Succumbing to the pressure of the Jews" in his notebook. Buchanan was credited with crafting Ronald Reagan's line that the SS troops buried at Bitburg were "victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." (New York Times, 5/16/85; New Republic, 1/22/96)
After Cardinal O'Connor criticized anti-Semitism during the controversy over construction of a convent near Auschwitz, Buchanan wrote: "If U.S. Jewry takes the clucking appeasement of the Catholic cardinalate as indicative of our submission, it is mistaken. When Cardinal O'Connor of New York seeks to soothe the always irate Elie Wiesel by reassuring him 'there are many Catholics who are anti-Semitic'...he speaks for himself. Be not afraid, Your Eminence; just step aside, there are bishops and priests ready to assume the role of defender of the faith." (New Republic, 10/22/90)
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much more is found at:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2553
when one of your own goes south, it really hurts!
Few men today run down George Bush like Pat Buchanan... check out a typical example from just a few days ago....
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30091
here, he lulls you in with some agreeable statements and then, typically, goes way overboard, completely unbalanced in his treatment of Bush and Israel. Would love your opinion.
BTW, may I say, Thank God for George Bush, the most maligned President in US History! The only world leader to hold firm and strong in his resolve and support for Israel during this life and death struggle!
Isnt it nice that Obama finally came out today...just today and made his first public comment on this conflict! He is "concerned" about civilian casualties! Not a word mentioned about the fact that Hamas was launching mortars at the IDF from inside a school, populated with children!!!!!!!
Here we go again, a complete unbalanced and unfair assessment from a soon to be world leader! God help us and please help Israel!
Nothing ups the ante in the perennial leftist quest to convince people all leftists are imbeciles like Ducky trying to dispense lessons in predicate logic.
Brooke, I said nothing about that train wreck of a sentence, the second amendment.
I'm sure you believe you can put a propositional calculus on it and tell us what it "means".
Let's see if Ducky's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment rules defense spending cuts unconstitutional.
Oh, RICK! And you know Obama means GAZA civilian losses...you KNOW it.
Help us, God! And, oh, is that info incriminating about Buchanan...pretty terrible stuff. Weird the media's not picked it up.
I have mostly positive feelings about Bush, too, but I really have trouble with the newest; giving nuclear 'secrets' to The Emirates...which is close with Iran....saying they're our allies. WHAT??? The Emirates needs nukes for energy like Iran needs it. NOT.
This is NUTS. Oy, I'm starting to believe Lou Dobbs. Help me!
Hey Z..
I wish somehow Bush would have gracefully left office several months ago because, frankly, I have been disappointed with nearly every one of his decisions of late, except standing strong for Israel.
My admiration grew during the Iraq war which I was so intimately bound to because my son, Jason, was with 3rd LAR Marines who were the first ones into Bagdhad. Being a former Marine and believing in the cause of the war (which I still believe in) I respected his resolve and devotion to the troops.
I have heard from several credible sources that Bush has hand written a letter to every single family who lost a soldier or Marine! This is pretty amazing to me. Unlike Clinton who loathed the military, Bush wept many genuine tears at the bedside of wounded vets. That goes a long way with me...it sure doesnt mean the man is always doing the right thing on the homefront.
Your blog is a form of therapy for me, so many wise and Godly people, seems to me anyway, are reassuring me that I am not alone on issues that are very very important, eternaly speaking. Keep up the good work and thank you so much! Rick
Rick, thank you SO SO much for those kind words. I hope you see this comment!! I didn't see yours till this morning.
I hope you come back to my blog from time to time, you've added beautifully to the conversation and that's the point of my blog: good conversation and SOLACE ...
It is nice to know others think like we do, isn't it.
Blessings to you! all the best..z
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