Ever since speculation began, suggesting that Israel is the source of the Stuxnet malware, there has been a buzz of excitement in the Zionist corner of the blogosphere. The DEBKAfile — trusted source for pro-Israel fantasists all over the world — declared that if it turns out that millions of Iranian industrial units have been hit, “this cyber weapon attack on Iran would be the greatest ever.”
Glee at such a prospect is not shared by observers who lack the Zionist pathological obsession with Iran.
Stephen Spoonamore, a veteran cybersecurity consultant interviewed by NPR said: “I can think of very few stupider blowback decisions” than to release code that controls most of the worlds’ hydroelectric dams or many of the world’s nuclear plants or many of the world’s electrical switching stations.
The fallout from Stuxnet is clearly going global.
AFP now reports:
The Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc in China, infecting millions of computers around the country, state media reported this week.
Stuxnet is feared by experts around the globe as it can break into computers that control machinery at the heart of industry, allowing an attacker to assume control of critical systems like pumps, motors, alarms and valves.
It could, technically, make factory boilers explode, destroy gas pipelines or even cause a nuclear plant to malfunction.
The virus targets control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities.
“This malware is specially designed to sabotage plants and damage industrial systems, instead of stealing personal data,” an engineer surnamed Wang at antivirus service provider Rising International Software told the Global Times.
“Once Stuxnet successfully penetrates factory computers in China, those industries may collapse, which would damage China’s national security,” he added.
Another unnamed expert at Rising International said the attacks had so far infected more than six million individual accounts and nearly 1,000 corporate accounts around the country, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Jeffrey Carr, author of “Inside Cyber Warfare,” describes what he believes is the first example of Stuxnet’s destructive power: the loss of India’s INSAT-4B communications satellite which shut down in July. The satellite’s control systems use Siemens S7-400 PLC and SIMATIC WinCC software, both of which are targeted by Stuxnet.
If speculation that Stuxnet was created by Israel has been driven by the circumstantial evidence that Israel’s nemesis Iran appears to have been the primary target, there is now some subtle but concrete evidence again pointing in Israel’s direction.
Computerworld reports:
Buried in Stuxnet’s code is a marker with the digits “19790509” that the researchers believe is a “do-not infect” indicator. If the marker equals that value, Stuxnet stops in its tracks, and does not infect the targeted PC.
The researchers — Nicolas Falliere, Liam O Murchu and Eric Chen — speculated that the marker represents a date: May 9, 1979.
“While on May 9, 1979, a variety of historical events occurred, according to Wikipedia “Habib Elghanian was executed by a firing squad in Tehran sending shock waves through the closely knit Iranian Jewish community,” the researchers wrote.
Elghanian, a prominent Jewish-Iranian businessman, was charged with spying for Israel by the then-new revolutionary government of Iran, and executed May 9, 1979.
Earlier, the New York Times reported:
Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.
That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment.
Not surprisingly, the Israelis are not saying whether Stuxnet has any connection to the secretive cyberwar unit it has built inside Israel’s intelligence service. Nor is the Obama administration, which while talking about cyberdefenses has also rapidly ramped up a broad covert program, inherited from the Bush administration, to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. In interviews in several countries, experts in both cyberwar and nuclear enrichment technology say the Stuxnet mystery may never be solved.
There are many competing explanations for myrtus, which could simply signify myrtle, a plant important to many cultures in the region. But some security experts see the reference as a signature allusion to Esther, a clear warning in a mounting technological and psychological battle as Israel and its allies try to breach Tehran’s most heavily guarded project. Others doubt the Israelis were involved and say the word could have been inserted as deliberate misinformation, to implicate Israel.
The same report cites Shai Blitzblau, the technical director and head of the computer warfare laboratory at Maglan, an Israeli company specializing in information security, who said he was “convinced that Israel had nothing to do with Stuxnet.”
“We did a complete simulation of it and we sliced the code to its deepest level,” he said. “We have studied its protocols and functionality. Our two main suspects for this are high-level industrial espionage against Siemens and a kind of academic experiment.”
Did Blitzblau present his findings at this week’s VB Conference in Vancouver where Stuxnet was the focus of attention? No — which is not surprising given his vacuous claim to have studied the code at its deepest level while other experts say it will take months to penetrate the thousands of lines of code contained in a 500kB piece of software.
As for why Israeli programmers would have inserted clues about about authorship deep inside the malware, the most obvious explanation would be the most prosaic: pride.
Even when the utmost secrecy is called for, there are those who cannot resist the temptation to leave their mark.
As for the significance of another finding — June 24, 2012 is the “kill date” after which the worm will refuse to execute — again, we can only speculate.
Is this the cut-off point for Israel’s campaign of cyber warfare against Iran after which will come the time for real war? Right in the run up to the 2012 US presidential election.
Wow very interesting stuff. Yep all fingers appear to be pointing at Israel. Not much other countries that are eager to knock out Iran facilities while also leaving a phase from the Torah and a date of an Israeli execution. Certainly places them as the prime suspect.
Iranian leaders regularly call for the destruction of Israel, the death of all their people. Perhaps we have become so used to this type of talk that it doesn;t have much effect on the rest of the world. These senitments don’t go unnoticed by israeli leaders as they watch the military power of iran expand with each passing day. Given Israeli history, would anyone be surprised if it is proven to be an israeli cyber attack?
The iranians have stated that it has only done minor damage and has only effected some lap top computers so according to the iran, there is nothing to worry about. The mullas have everything under control.
Note: That’s 500kb of code for the worm, not 500Mb. #correction
Thanks for the correction on the worm size. A number of sources have reported 500MB but 500kB is correct.
“Glee at such a prospect is not shared by observers who lack the Zionist pathological obsession with Iran.”
Mr. Woodward, how are we to account for the fact that a person of your obvious intelligence makes the above very stupidly biased remark. Pay attention to what Charlie said above. Those of us who are Holocaust survivors and their children see Iran’s erstwhile little Hitler and recall how people with a bias like yours didn’t take the original Hitler seriously either.
Stuxnet could keep corporate lawyers and court systems busy for years if anyone succeeds in pinpointing the creators of this malware. Seimens must be boiling over in fury and it has the resources to sue either Israel or the US if the perpetrators can be traced to them. India and China will be co-plaintiffs if it can be linked to technology failures in those countries.
The other industry that stands to make a mint are the computer anti-virus software makers, who will likely be producing code to protect all the other industrial control devices. I suppose we’d better steel ourselves for the Y2K disaster hype all over again.
So, Iranian threats and efforts to go nuclear are a non-issue that should be managed through never-ending diplomatic talks? Iranian subversion in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian lands is just a matter of tactical training and weapon business? Oil price subject to Iranian manipulation is a good idea?
Clearly, if any party is trying to stabilize the Middle East without using bombers and missiles, it is saving lives.
As for the hints in the code, information warfare is more effective if psych ops are boosting political pressure and the ensuing change.
Whomever sent this software, they must have added as many confusing pieces to the puzzle as possible…
RE: “Given Israeli history, would anyone be surprised if it is proven to be an israeli cyber attack?” – charlie
SEE: “IDF Cyber Warfare Unit 8200 Press-Ganged Felonious Hackers and Pedophiles for Service”, By Richard Silverstain, Tikun Olam, 10/01/10
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/09/30/idf-cyber-warfare-unit-8200-press-ganged-felonious-hackers-and-pedophiles-for-service/
P.S. Israel is an existential threat to all of us.
It never ends! And of course it’s all because “never again” the Holocaust.
Somehow, THE COUNTRY THAT IS TOTALLY on welfare can use that money the way drug dealers use their welfare checks; well, not quite, as the welfare recepients us the money to buy guns while Israel uses it to sell guns so I guess it is exceptional!
But, bottom line, it always sets the bar for international criminality that the drug cartels desperately try to match. But that’s different because of the Holocaust!
Charlie,
the issue is not cyber warfare but the EXCLUSIVITY with which Israel behaves as a reckless global criminal and then yells “Holocaust” as excuse. I find that an insult to Holocaust victims, especially as Zionists slandered them as “parasite Jews” and made deals with the Nazis to be paid for every German Jew that went to Palestine. It seems that these days the same guys who used to write the hasbara for Stalin are writing it for Israel.
RE: “Given Israeli history, would anyone be surprised if it is proven to be an israeli cyber attack?” – charlie
SEE: U.N. Report finds Israel “summarily executed” U.S. citizen on flotilla ~ Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 10/01/10
Hard as it might be for some people to grasp, there’s a difference between calling for an end to Israel and calling for the death of all Israelis. Ahmadinejad has said that he thinks Zionism will destroy itself in the same way that the Soviet Union collapsed. In other words, he’s posing an ideological challenge to the idea of Jewish supremacy in a Jewish state. No doubt he and other Iranian leaders use inflammatory language but the parallels to the rise of Hitler are frankly an insult to the victims of the Holocaust.
Hitler became Chancellor of Nazi Germany in 1933 and within a decade had taken control of most of Europe. Neither since the Iranian revolution over thirty years ago, nor since Ahmadinejad was elected president, has Iran used military force to expand its power. It has certainly expanded its regional power in recent years but this is mostly as a result of the United States’ own disastrous military interventions.
Even if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, Israel with a nuclear arsenal of about 200 weapons, will retain its military supremacy.
As Ret. Gen. John Abizaid, former commander of CENTCOM, said, the world can learn to live with a nuclear Iran. But here’s the irony: if the US and its allies were more serious about learning how to live with a non-nuclear Iran, those inside Iran who might see nuclear weapons as necessary for Iran’s defense would have a much more difficult case to make.
As for the idea that Iran wants to destroy Israel through a nuclear attack, not even Netanyahu thinks that’s a likely scenario.
“Those of us who are Holocaust survivors and their children see Iran’s erstwhile little Hitler and recall how people with a bias like yours didn’t take the original Hitler seriously either.”
Leonard, in the past 60 or so years we have seen an avalanche of alleged Hitlers. Nasser was Hitler, Arafat was Hitler, Saddam was Hitler, Anwar Sadat was Hitler, even assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhaq Rabin was Hitler. Now, since no age can be without its very own Hitler, I guess it is Ahmadinejad. So please forgive us if we’ve become a little jaded, after seeing all these Hitlers. Hitlers apparently are a dime a dozen.
And do understand the following: when you say that Iran is as bad as Nazi Germany you are by implication saying that Nazi Germany was no worse than modern Iran. Do you really wish to make such a statement?
It should be noted that Carr argues in his article about the Indian satellite that it proves there are “more and better” theories to explain Stuxnet than the Israel-Iran connection. Clearly, he believes China could be a culprit since it competes w. India’s space program. I think this explanation is lame.
// his vacuous claim to have studied the code at its deepest level while other experts say it will take months to penetrate //
It could be true if he was involved in prpducing it
DE Teodoru and Paul both of your remarks to Charlie are well spoken and appreciated. How is that the “those of us who are Holocaust survivors” can be so blind to similar atrocities being carried out today by Israel in the occupied territories and Gaza?
Lysander- am I to understand then the following:
when from I have read and viewed about the treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories and blockade of Gaza that Israel has both the mind set and is doing much the same to the Palestinians(Golda-whatPalestinians?)as Nazi Germany treated the Jews; am I by implication saying that Nazi Germany was no worse than modern Israel? Excluding the fact of the holocaust I do in my own thoughts often lean toward making such a statement.
Didn’t Ahmadinejad call for the end of Zionism rather than Israel, carefully differentiating between the two? Given the constant sabre-rattling and threats of pre-emptive strikes against Iran by Israel and its history of strikes against its neighbours in the Middle East demonstrating an arrogance and a willingness to go beyond mere threat,who could blame Iran for wanting to develop a means of defence against a proven aggressor?
I really don’t like the statement that “Israel is an existential threat to all of us.”
The current Israeli regime is indeed completely undamped and keeps making enemies of countries that might be neutral or allies if they weren’t being constantly kicked in the bollocks for no apparent or good reason.
If this worm was meant to attack just one nuclear facility, it could, with ease given its sophistication, have been made not to do generalized economic damage, or, just as easily could have been designed not to infect machines that appeared to be outside Iran.
It has caused generalized economic damage, not only in Iran, but in India, China and Indonesia. Given that the firm that appears to have been duped into spreading it is Russian, one cannot rule out damage in Algeria and Morocco, too, as well as Russia herself.
Few things are dumber than starting a cyber war with three of the world’s most powerful countries. And Indonesia is one of Asia’s rising economic powers, too. Indeed, the national economies affected so far were the ones the western world were counting on to help power the world out of recession.
This means that Israel’s leadership has damaged the global economy, and that will rebound on all of us, including Israel.
It should be noted, though, that many Israeli citizens are effectively victims of the regime and are not its supporters, as the electoral system has a centre-right party kept in power by smaller extreme right parties, so almost nobody in Israel has voted for this.
Israeli political parties, too, of all political complexions, tend to regard the rights and interests of any individual as secondary to whatever their cause is. The key point about Richard’s article, which most of you are missing, is that very few of Unit 8200’s personnel were given any choice as to whether they joined this enterprise or not. That might explain why the code is full of subtle little clues as to where it came from.
For the educated readers who treat Ahmadinejad as-if the person is a saint. The guy hosted a holocaust denial conference in Iran. He’s continuing to deny the holocaust. He vowed to destroy Israel off the face of the earth. He’s spreading terror to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. He’s claiming that 9/11 was an inside job. The person is delirious on Jew hatred and hatred of the west. And yet, it’s Israel that has a “pathological obsession” with Iran. Such warped logic.
I guess that for Richard Silverstein, “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. Yes. I know that you’re Jewish. So is Neturei Karta and Noam Finkelstein. That doesn’t mean you can’t be pumped up on anti-Jew/Israel/US pills.
Yotam, an Israeli. A sane one.
// experts say it will take months to penetrate //
The vancouver conference has these listed talks listed, [given by now]
http://www.virusbtn.com/conference/vb2010/abstracts/LastMinute7.xml
Last-minute paper: An indepth look into Stuxnet
///report on the conclusions from our extensive analysis //
http://www.virusbtn.com/conference/vb2010/abstracts/LastMinute8.xml
Last-minute paper: Unravelling Stuxnet
// unravel the malware, component by component //
The register has a minor note on the first talk & links to analyses [& some possible biblical allusions in the code]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/01/stuxnet_china_analysis/
Lysander,
I’m sorry I didn’t make myself clearer. I do not believe the Iranian people or even the Iranian nation are the equivalent of Nazi Germany–Yet. I think the majority of the Iranian people are opposed to Ahmadinejad and The Revolutionary Guard, who are the erstwhile Nazi’s. And while I think some of the people commenting above and those who are quoted by them are anti-Semitic, I certainly don’t think being critical of Israel in itself is of that nature. But below I’ll list some of the things written which raise the hairs on the back of my neck, a source of information worth paying attention to in addition to disinterested analysis:
“SEE: “IDF Cyber Warfare Unit 8200 Press-Ganged Felonious Hackers and Pedophiles for Service”, By Richard Silverstain, Tikun Olam, 10/01/10”
How does Silverstain know that? Does Tikun Olam do any fact checking. Does anyone believe, once they think about it, the absurd notion that Israel makes public the information about who is doing their top secret work. And if they have not thought about that question, why not, why do such statements evoke eager consumption? What is the hunger that causes some to swallow them whole? And don’t be fooled by the names “Silverstain” and “Tikun Olam”. The truest form of pathology affecting some Jews, a result of centuries of persecution and the well known phenomenon of “identification with the aggressor” is anti-Semitic Jews. A whole discussion in itself.
Here’s an example of another eagerly consumed kind of information that ignores the credibility of the source:
“(excerpt)…As Gareth Porter documents in an excellent article at The Huffington Post, the report “shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.”
The Source is the so called “Human Rights Commission of the UN.” On the basis of their activities this organization exists for what is nearly the sole purpose of condemning Israel any time they get the chance. The precursor of the HRC was disbanded by the UN in 2006 because of its blatant bias and then reconstituted in the same way by the same parties that operated it before, countries with such sterling records in human rights as Sudan. Quoting Wikipedia on the commissions immediate predecessor:
“The UNCHR was criticized for failing to apply the charter’s standards to all-member states. When issues such as the stoning of women, honor killings, mutilations, and the apostasy death penalty were raised during the 60th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2004, Muslim officials rejected “any criticism as interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”[13][14]”
The organization hasn’t changed. It devotes a grossly disproportionate amount of its activity to Israel. How about waiting for the findings of the investigation carried out by the commission appointed by the Secretary General of the UN to investigate this event. They were appointed because any findings such as those quoted by the Huffington Post, another bastion of balanced reporting, are tainted by the bias of the Islamic world that, as before, still controls the commission.
Here’s one that boggles my mind:
“…when from I have read and viewed about the treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories and blockade of Gaza that Israel has both the mind set and is doing much the same to the Palestinians(Golda-what Palestinians?)as Nazi Germany treated the Jews; am I by implication saying that Nazi Germany was no worse than modern Israel? Excluding the fact of the holocaust I do in my own thoughts often lean toward making such a statement.”
“Excluding the Holocaust!!!” Interesting form of analysis. And I don’t recall the Jews in Europe bombarding those civilians living near them with about 8000 rockets, mortars and other forms of attempted lethal greetings. And the invention of Ghettos in Europe culminating in the Warsaw Ghetto where the Germans crushed it and killed nearly everyone for daring to resist the systematic murder awaiting them while nearly no one in the world lifted a finger to even protest. How dare you compare that to the conduct of Israel in relation to groups in power who are openly committed to their destruction and who hide among their own civilian population and fight from behind their own children. Am I angry about such anti-Semitic drivel, you bet I am and more than just a little.
Lysander, if you have read this far, I don’t get an anti-Semitic feeling about you, but please consider the following in relation to your statement just below:
“Leonard, in the past 60 or so years we have seen an avalanche of alleged Hitlers. Nasser was Hitler, Arafat was Hitler, Saddam was Hitler, Anwar Sadat was Hitler, even assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhaq Rabin was Hitler. Now, since no age can be without its very own Hitler, I guess it is Ahmadinejad. So please forgive us if we’ve become a little jaded, after seeing all these Hitlers. Hitlers apparently are a dime a dozen.”
Lysander, only “wing nuts” would say Sadat or Rabin are Hitler like. To me and most Jews I know, Sadat and Rabin are heroes who gave their lives resisting fanaticism. Though Nassar and Arafat wanted to destroy Israel it wasn’t in the service of either the hatred of Jews like it was for Hitler, nor in the furtherance of something like a world wide Reich lasting 1000 years. No, Hitlers are anything but a dime a dozen. What the leadership of Iran has in common with Hitler is an Islamic Imperialism that compares to Nazi Imperialism and getting nukes would give the Iranian version the military ability to cause the kind of damage, beyond Israel, that the Nazis caused leading to and in WW II. I don’t really know if Ahmadinejad hates Jews, I don’t know how anyone can know anything about what he really thinks and feels. The man is a pathological liar. But I do know that the hatred and destruction of Israel is the emotional fuel that drives the engine of Iranian Imperial ambitions.
And to those of you who write here, how in heavens name can Israel be destroyed without destroying about half the world’s Jews who live there. The same proportion of Jews then in existence that Hitler murdered. And given the virus, sometimes dormant but always alive, of anti-Semitism evidenced here among some who write, I hate to think of what would be loosed in the western world if Israel went down. (I’m a psychologist, for whatever slight credence that may lend to my diagnosis.)
A regime like that of Iran that would stone women to death, hang teen aged boys for homosexuality and crush the yearning for democracy in their own people by brutal and deadly force and that glorifies death is every bit as dangerous as was the Third Reich. And an Israeli cyber attack to slow and hopefully deny such a regime nukes, is a far more humane approach than bombs and missiles.
I hope it was the Israelis who loosed the worm that, according to the incredibly deep analysis by Symantec, (check it on Google) has done relatively little collateral damage as the particular controllers used widely by Iran are not widely used by others.
if you were as near as clever as you all claim
you would have convinced us with your words
you have not
you are wrong
it’s out there now
for all to see
PS
Paul, you wrote:
“Hitler became Chancellor of Nazi Germany in 1933 and within a decade had taken control of most of Europe. Neither since the Iranian revolution over thirty years ago, nor since Ahmadinejad was elected president, has Iran used military force to expand its power. It has certainly expanded its regional power in recent years but this is mostly as a result of the United States’ own disastrous military interventions.”
Paul, for crying out loud, don’t you see that you contradict yourself above. It expands it’s regional power mainly by using it’s resources to build up terrorist and otherwise brutal and repressive powers in the region, not only in Gaza and Lebanon, but in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have others do their dirty work. And they are trying to expand everywhere else they can in the Islamic world. They are the new Imperialists. Think what would happen in the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt, and the other African nations with significant Islamic populations if Iran got Nukes. Ahmadinejad recently has said that Lebanon is Iran’s border with Israel and he is probably going to that border for 2 days in less than 2 weeks. And if it’s only for defense, why do they need missiles that can reach Europe today and us tomorrow.
Yes it’s true that overt European and covert US imperialism has played a role, but that was then and now is now and we have a president who has owned our past. That’s why it’s important that we get out of Iraq, to show the Islamic world that we are changing.
estebanfolsom October 2, 2010 at 5:48 pm
“if you were as near as clever as you all claim..”
Who are “you all”? The Jews? Frankly I don’t care a wit if you are convinced, words cannot cure a disease.
well loenard
since you addressed me by name
i will reply
i was speaking to all that think
they can get their way by force
be it military – cyber- intel – drones – etc…
[oh yeah forgot- torture-]
as for the ‘jews’ that you mentioned
i suggest they sort it out amongst themselves
[zionism-israel / whatnot]
their present path is ill-advised
Leonard: Here’s a challenge that I hope you’ll appreciate since you’re a psychologist.
If you are convinced that Ahmadinejad is a pathological liar, why do you believe without question any negative statements he makes?
You asked: “[H]ow in heavens name can Israel be destroyed without destroying about half the world’s Jews who live there?”
Ahmadinejad himself answered that question. He pointed out that the Soviet Union was wiped off the map without a single Russian dying.
If “Israel” simply meant the people who inhabit the territory internationally recognized as Israel, then Israel could not be destroyed without killing its inhabitants. But Ahmadinejad and most of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East are quite explicit in saying that their opposition is to Zionism, not the Jewish people.
Zionism is an ideology and it is an ideology that many Jews do not support. Even among those who do support it, many express that support in an ambiguous way. They profess the necessity for a Jewish state yet no necessity to live there themselves.
The most transparent description I’ve ever heard of what Zionism means is that a Jewish state is a state in which Jews are in charge.
Twenty-five percent of Israel’s population isn’t Jewish, yet they are expected to accept the idea that they are citizens in a Jewish state in which they must also accept second class status. Indeed, if Avigdor Lieberman gets his way, then they will have to pledge their allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state if they want to retain their citizenship.
This might be one way of sustaining Zionism, but it isn’t the way a democracy works. 78% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Would American Jews tolerate being told that they needed to pledge their allegiance to America as a Christian state? I hope not.
Leonard, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not, Israel came into existence through the expulsion of Palestinians. That is an inherently destabilizing act. Israel can continue to act as if that fact never happened. It cannot expect others to also pretend it didn’t. While you have accused many on this board of antisemitism (excluding me, at least for the moment) I would like to ask your opinion on the fact that a Jew from Russia is entitled to full citizenship, while Palestinians with documented history in Palestine can never return? And that Palestinians living in Jerusalem can be expelled from their homes to make way for those Russian immigrants? Is that fair, in your view? Is it antisemitism to think it isn’t?
“What the leadership of Iran has in common with Hitler is an Islamic Imperialism that compares to Nazi Imperialism and getting nukes would give the Iranian version the military ability to cause the kind of damage, beyond Israel, that the Nazis caused leading to and in WW II.”
Of all the acts of Islamic Imperialism (can I call Israeli actions Jewish imperialism?) that Iran has committed, which ones strike you as most Nazi like? Is arming Hezbollah like the invasion of Poland? Is Iran’s actions to ‘destabilize Iraq’ comparable to Dachau? Are they even comparable to America’s invasion based on a contrived pretext?
I’m sorry Leonard. Maybe you didn’t mean it this way, but I’ve heard the Nazi Germany analogy made with so many Arab or Muslim leaders and countries that I’ve grown weary of hearing it. Someone who knew nothing of history would get the impression that the Holocaust happened in Iran at the hands of the Palestinians. Or, even worse, they would get the impression that Nazi Germany was no big deal since so many countries today can be compared to it.
The Holocaust was a horrible crime that happened in Europe, by Europeans, against other Europeans, with the complicity or connivance of still other Europeans. Please do not try to pin it on the Muslims.
PPS
Paul, the worm has a kill date of June 2012, that is, the worm drops dead.
Paul and Lysander.
I have not said that I think either of you are anti-Semitic. I hope for a rational discussion with integrity. Is there a way to change the font here for ease of conversation?
Leonard: Here’s a challenge that I hope you’ll appreciate since you’re a psychologist.
Paul, I’ll take on the challenge but sometimes responsibilities will delay my responding and that doesn’t mean that I’m not interested. And I will take the liberty of challenging right back. I appreciate the apparent respect that is in your challenge. I hope you can also appreciate that I’m kind of like Daniel having wandered into the lions den and am not feeling secure that you want to engage me in true dialogue rather than eat me–if you get my drift. Please understand that my initial response was to the headline calling Israel “stupid.” Not very respectful. If the commentary of your board or whomever is respectful and not dogmatic in distinction to critical the conversation is worthwhile and I will respond in kind. That said, when I wrote mu first response to you Paul, I wondered if I would be allowed into the conversation. So far so good. Let’s get started.
PWasked:
If you are convinced that Ahmadinejad is a pathological liar, why do you believe without question any negative statements he makes?
LS
Because the violent statements towards Israel are consistent with the behavior of Iran. The behavior is obvious please don’t ask me to enumerate.
PW asked:
“[H]ow in heavens name can Israel be destroyed without destroying about half the world’s Jews who live there?” PW responded to LS’s question” Ahmadinejad himself answered that question. He pointed out that the Soviet Union was wiped off the map without a single Russian dying.
LS
The situation and meaning of the Soviet Union to its citizens is very different than the meaning of Israel to 80% of its citizens and a comparison of the situations is obvioulsy innappropriate. The Soviet Union awas alcohol soaked and crumbled from within. Hardly true of Israel. Why do you take such junk logic from Ahmadinejad seriously. That’s my challenge to you Paul.
PW:
If “Israel” simply meant the people who inhabit the territory internationally recognized as Israel, then Israel could not be destroyed without killing its inhabitants. But Ahmadinejad and most of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East are quite explicit in saying that their opposition is to Zionism, not the Jewish people.
LS
It’s Jews they have been trying to kill and all to often succeeding by targeting civilians. They haven’t done to well in killing Zionism and I wonder how that’s done, killing an ideal that is . Paul, can you tell me how you can kill Zionism without killing Zionists? My challenge to you.
PW:
Zionism is an ideology and it is an ideology that many Jews do not support. Even among those who do support it, many express that support in an ambiguous way. They profess the necessity for a Jewish state yet no necessity to live there themselves.
LS:
True enough Paul. Before the UN resolution in 1976 saying “Zionism is raceism” I did not call myself a Zionist, even though I had lived in Israel for extended periods. That was because I didn’t agree with what used to be a Zionist tennant that all Jews SHOULD live in Israel. After the UN resolution I, a former Congress of Racial Equality sit in in the 60’s, started calling myself a Zionist. Paul, do you live in Washington DC? If not, does that mean you don’t validly hold that our nations capitol is a necessity. And don’t go into dual loyalty because if you do it will be because you don’t understand what it means to most of us be a Jew. I don’t expect that you do, and having that discussion now is premature because it’s deep. If our conversation continues I’ll take a crack at explaining it when I feel it may be heard and understood. As for there being many Jews who don’t agree with the idea of the necissity of Israel, well not all of us are well informed either, the vast majority do believe that and materially support Israel because we do, and third and last, “Two Jews, three opinions.”
PW:
The most transparent description I’ve ever heard of what Zionism means is that a Jewish state is a state in which Jews are in charge.
LS: Paul, that kind of simplistic statement does not become you and from your context I take it by “transparent” you mean an explanation that when you look through it you will find what your predjudice leads you to expect to find. Paul for crying out loud look at tautalogical nature of your statement. Is there anything wrong with an American State being one in which American’s are in charge, or having Muslims in charge in The Islamic State of Iran? By the way being prejudiced towards Jews is a necessary but not sufficient condition of being anti-Semitic. I hope it doesn’t sound condescending but I sincerely have hope for you two guys.
PW
Twenty-five percent of Israel’s population isn’t Jewish, yet they are expected to accept the idea that they are citizens in a Jewish state in which they must also accept second class status. Indeed, if Avigdor Lieberman gets his way, then they will have to pledge their allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state if they want to retain their citizenship.
LS: It’s 20% and not 25. Arabs, Muslims and Christians who make up most of the 20% non-Jewish population are not second class citizens, they have full citizenship rights. I am not confusing that with being treated equally in many ways outside of the legal rights of citizens. The inequality is an area in which Isreal will grow if the Arab nations will truly make peace with Israel. How long did it take us in the US to get as far as we have and is there true cultural and social equality in this country when it comes to African Americans and Hispanics? What % of our population think our President is a Muslim Manchurian Candidate. Hey Paul what are you doing to bring about true equality in our own country, let alone Saudi Arabia where a church or synagogue is not allowed to be? Another challenge for you.
PW:
This might be one way of sustaining Zionism, but it isn’t the way a democracy works. 78% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Would American Jews tolerate being told that they needed to pledge their allegiance to America as a Christian state? I hope not.
LS:
Right Paul we wouldn’t and one of the great things about America is that our founders made sure of the separation of church and state. But there has been no American Diaspora, no centuries of American persecution in the world. And being an American does not suggest any religion. Israel was founded on an entirely different historical basis, and something I can see is very difficult for non-Jews to understand is that being a Jew is not only far more that a religion, one can be a Jew and not have a religion per se. I know Jewish Buddhists, and the former Arch Bishop of Paris, Cardinal Lustinger was born a Jew and after his Bar Mitzvah he also became a Catholic. I say “also became” because he always said he remained a Jew, and I think he did too. So you can see there is a lot of complexity here. I hope you become interested as well as challenging. That’s another challenge to you Paul.
Lysander October 2, 2010 at 7:32 pm
LS: Lysander, I’d like to know you a little better. My full name is Leonard Schwartzburd and I live in Berkley CA. How about at least your initials? I hope you don’t feel disregarded but my wife wants me to come and cuddle and watch TV. I will respond to the challenges you pose below tomorrow. So good night for now.
Leonard, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not, Israel came into existence through the expulsion of Palestinians. That is an inherently destabilizing act. Israel can continue to act as if that fact never happened. It cannot expect others to also pretend it didn’t. While you have accused many on this board of antisemitism (excluding me, at least for the moment) I would like to ask your opinion on the fact that a Jew from Russia is entitled to full citizenship, while Palestinians with documented history in Palestine can never return? And that Palestinians living in Jerusalem can be expelled from their homes to make way for those Russian immigrants? Is that fair, in your view? Is it antisemitism to think it isn’t?
“What the leadership of Iran has in common with Hitler is an Islamic Imperialism that compares to Nazi Imperialism and getting nukes would give the Iranian version the military ability to cause the kind of damage, beyond Israel, that the Nazis caused leading to and in WW II.”
Of all the acts of Islamic Imperialism (can I call Israeli actions Jewish imperialism?) that Iran has committed, which ones strike you as most Nazi like? Is arming Hezbollah like the invasion of Poland? Is Iran’s actions to ‘destabilize Iraq’ comparable to Dachau? Are they even comparable to America’s invasion based on a contrived pretext?
I’m sorry Leonard. Maybe you didn’t mean it this way, but I’ve heard the Nazi Germany analogy made with so many Arab or Muslim leaders and countries that I’ve grown weary of hearing it. Someone who knew nothing of history would get the impression that the Holocaust happened in Iran at the hands of the Palestinians. Or, even worse, they would get the impression that Nazi Germany was no big deal since so many countries today can be compared to it.
The Holocaust was a horrible crime that happened in Europe, by Europeans, against other Europeans, with the complicity or connivance of still other Europeans. Please do not try to pin it on the Muslims.
Leonard – I’m not going to attempt to respond to every single challenge you made.
There’s an overarching issue here which is this idea of Iran as an imperial power. The only way it’s possible to sustain this image is by glossing over the complexities of regional power dynamics and by seeing groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas as mere proxies of Iranian power.
Take for instance the relations between Iran, Turkey and Syria. They each have cordial ties but pursue their own interests without any being subservient to the others. Turkey’s close diplomatic relations with Iran could in fact be much more useful for the West were it not for the constraints being currently being imposed by fear-mongers.
You ask whether there’s anything wrong with an American state being one where Americans are in charge. The analogy to that would be an Israeli state with Israelis in charge — without making any distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis.
You claim that 80% of Israelis are Jewish. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics puts the figure at 75.5%.
You point out correctly that the Soviet Union crumbled from within but seem to think the same fate is unimaginable for Israel.
“The breakdown of public morality, in my view, poses the greatest single existential threat to Israel.” That’s the assessment made by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the US — and a more stalwart cheerleader for Israel you’ll never find.
The irony is that an ever present and ever dangerous nemesis is what keeps Zionism alive. Solidarity built on an obsessive focus an the enemy produces the weakest form of social cohesion.
Paul. You speak of the “Zionist” society with such confidence, claiming that what keeps it going is an obsessive focus of the enemy. Israelis are not “obsessed” with the enemy. We go about living our lives like normal people. What keeps Zionism alive is not our fear from the enemy – but rather our desire to have our own country where Jews can live their lives peacefully after years of pogroms, persecution and one big genocide. Are we not entitled to our own Jewish country? Israel isn’t perfect. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve sinned. And still, we are not the monsters many people make us to be. Like many Israelis, I am an avid supporter of the two-state solution. I belong to the liberal left, and I am very critical towards my government: the current one and previous administrations. However, that does not change the basic fact that I believe that Jews are entitled to their own piece of land.
Israel is facing many threats to its existence – but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a leading country in many fields – medicine, computer science, literature, agriculture, gay rights, women rights, etc’. It is a productive country that is giving a lot to the world – certainly more than any other country threatning to destroy it.
It seems to me that you know very little about Israel or the Israeli society. You have created a warped perception of what Israel really is. I suggest that you visit us. If you are able to discard your inherent anti-Zionism, you’ll discover that Israel is a positive country, doing a lot of positive things.
Also, it’s not Israel that’s threatning to destroy other nations – those are Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah and the groups which you seem so forgiving of.
Checking for responses before I respond to Lysender
Yotam Rubin,
Your comment was very welcome for it opens the issue of Iran as a threat or as a tool. Israelis are Israelis, probably far more politically apathetic than most Americans. Proof of that is how un-hesitating they are in moving to the West if a good opportunity comes along. Generally, I find Diasporics far more obsessed with Israel than Israelis….and still they wouldn’t move their as they too like their Diasporic lives too much. Some Israeli authors openly look at the settlements as a way of maintaining a dissipating elan: Zionism and some strange notion of Judaism that is as racist as it is materialistically influenced. They fear that if any resolution happens, without constant aggressive expansion and threat of retaliation, they feel, Israel will “normalize” and will be “Israel,” not the land of the Jews that forces the aliyah– in-gathering. I find that most Sabras who visit the West get kind of upset with the image some impose on them as pioneers. They’re just people trying to make it like everyone else!
You are the victim of a minoritarian vision that is imposed on a mass Jewish majority. That’s why a resolution soon is vital so a normal Israel that is a Mideast state– as President Peres used to call for– will guarantee your Normal life and possibly make it richer and fuller. so Shalom, my friend, I wish you that more than anythting else in the world!
DE Teodoru.
A few comments, based on my perspective as an Israeli Jew who has lived in Israel his entire life.
“Israelis are Israelis, probably far more politically apathetic than most Americans”
Israelis tend to be very passionate about politics, and from what I’ve seen, far more vested in it than most Europeans or Americans. I think that is to be expected since Israeli politics often involve life-and-death issues and matters that pertain to the very existence of Israel.
“Proof of that is how un-hesitating they are in moving to the West if a good opportunity comes along” – Some Israelis move away. Most don’t. Some are reluctant to emigrate, some are not. The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews, however, have a strong connection to the Jewish people and to their home – Israel. It is certainly a home for me, and I don’t imagine leaving it. To portray Israeli Jews as a bunch of wishy-washy opportunists does poor service to the truth.
“Generally, I find Diasporics far more obsessed with Israel than Israelis”
To label the concern and connection of diaspora Jews with Israel as an “obsession” is rude and offensive. Israel is much a home to non-Israeli Jews as to native Israelis. Considering the history of the Jewish people, I understand the strong feelings of diaspora Jews towards Israel. Would you call an American ethnic German’s connection to Germany an “obsession” as well?
“You are the victim of a minoritarian vision that is imposed on a mass Jewish majority.” – I do not consider myself a victim. I am a citizen of a vibrant Democracy. Anything that happens here is my responsibility as well – nothing has been “forced” upon me. Israel has bled and fought for peace. We screwed up on occasions, but we certainly didn’t give up. I fully support a two-state solution and a withdrawl to the 67′ lines, but the story is a bit more complex than just that.
The efforts to deligitimize the Zionist endeavor, or even portray the settlements as the “only” obstacle for peace impedes our effort to make long-lasting peace. Please remember that this conflict began before 1967, before a single settler set foot in the west bank – and yet Israel was exposed to the same murderous terror as it was after 1967. What I am trying to say is that pinning the entire conflict – and its resolution – on the settlements, is a great simplification of the situation. If Israel is such an expansionist imperialistic state, why did it withdraw from Sinai? Or Gaza? Or many parts of the west bank following the Oslo accords? Why did Olmert propose Abu-Mazen a nearly-full return to the 67′ lines?
In any event, the threats Israel faces from Iran and its bullies – Hamas and Hezbollah, are disconnected from the Palestinians. Israel has a right to defend itself from regimes that call for its destruction – and the destruction of its people. There is a bigger story here, and that is of radical Islam and its desire to destroy the west, beginning with Israel and the Jews. This is reflected in the Hamas charter, Iran’s statements and the statements of radical Muslim clerics.
e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4XH6R8G4Mw&feature=player_embedded
Yotam,
Before I respond to Lysander I want to say something to you. This is not the time to discuss this issue in depth but I have a request of you. Please don’t ever give to anyone the idea that you may be apologizing for Israel and Israelis and Jews for being just human beings like everyone else. We have nothing to apologize for with respect to who we are and what we do to fulfill Hillel’s 3 questions. 1. If I am not for myself who will be for me? 2. If I’m only for myself then what am I? 3. If not now when? There are those who will take a specific expression of a failure to perfectly live number 2 as an apology for who we are. It is in fact an expression of how seriously we take the responsibility and burden of the concept in western religion of being the chosen people, a responsibility we take seriously and as we are only human we cannot but fall short. I understand that you are trying to express the ethic we generally speaking strive for and that we know we fail, but there are those who will seek to exploit those expressions of regret for imperfections and will behave as if they smell blood in the water.
Lysander October 2, 2010 at 7:32 pm
LS: Lysander, I’d like to know you a little better. My full name is Leonard Schwartzburd and I live in Berkley CA. How about at least your initials? I hope you don’t feel disregarded but my wife wants me to come and cuddle and watch TV. I will respond to the challenges you pose below tomorrow. So good night for now.
Lysander asks:
Leonard, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not, Israel came into existence through the expulsion of Palestinians. That is an inherently destabilizing act. Israel can continue to act as if that fact never happened. It cannot expect others to also pretend it didn’t. While you have accused many on this board of antisemitism (excluding me, at least for the moment) I would like to ask your opinion on the fact that a Jew from Russia is entitled to full citizenship, while Palestinians with documented history in Palestine can never return? And that Palestinians living in Jerusalem can be expelled from their homes to make way for those Russian immigrants? Is that fair, in your view? Is it antisemitism to think it isn’t?
LS:
I’m sorry you dont see fit to allow me to know who you are. I don’t know the structure of your blog and what you refer to as your Board, but I have become convinced of only one post as being anti-Semitic. And to use a term I have seen used by one of the posts here, the attempt to rationalize that self-revelatory statement is worse than “lame.” Don’t mistake me, I am claiming the right to be every bit as aggressive here as the general tone is aggressively anti-Israeli. I will also offer the same level of respect as is offered. I am aware that your board has the same power that is complained of in Israel excluding some Arabs, you can expell me from your sovereign territory. So if your members can’t take it they shouldn’t dish it out.
Now to address your challenges.
Israel didn’t come into existence through the expulsion of Palestinians. It came into existance out of our people working to make the desert bloom, through a vote of the UN and through our determination to not allow 5 invading Arab armies destroy us, and through the fulfillment of a dream kept alive for 2000 years to return to our homeland. This is not to deny that there were about 700,000 Arabs displaced. Some were driven out from strategic locations and most left responding to calls from their leaders to evacuate untill the Jews could be destroyed and return afterwards. But by no means did Israel “come into existence through the expulsion of Palestinians.” Recall that Israel accepted the boundries voted by the UN even if they were like 3 sausages strung together waiting to be cut apart. The 5 Arab armies invaded and in the ensuing war the 700,000 left for one reason or another. They would not have been displaced if Israel had not been attacked. It was the surrounding Arab stated that caused the displacement and they have used the displaced Arabs, now the Palestinians as pawns ever since. It is their breathern who have betrayed and victimized them ever since. As a function of that war in 1948 more Jews were driven out of Arab countries then Palestinians were displaced from Israel and were taken in by their brethern. In fact the tragedy here is that two victimized people, the Jews and the Palestinians have been turned against one another by the victimizers. In fact the victimizers are the Arab dictatorships by monarchy, military and theocratic control, and the French and British colonial policies. In a restoration of the Jewish homeland as a refuge for Jews for whom the world didn’t care a wit as the Nazis killed half our number you bet Russian Jews have a right of return. As to the difference between a Russian Jew and the decendents of displaced Arabs having the right of return, it’s a Jewish state. Do you think the Jews should not have a state? There is a great deal in the world that is destabilizing, and the establishment of Israel was a destabilizing event as was the attack on them and so much more as a fact of human existence in the world. And yes there are Arab homes that have been destroyed on the basis of having been built illegally and yes homes for Jewish immigrants from all over are being built in Jerusalem and yes it’s all a big problem that Israel has to solve like we in the US had to solve the problems I was once a sit in to confront. You ask if the situation is fair. What is unfair is that all involved find themselves in the current of history as it makes its way through the rapids. Lysander, if you seek fairness only for one group without considering fairness to the other, when the situation is seen in terms of black and white with the Jews being the ones to blame and the Arabs are simply hapless victims what would you call that kind of onesided view?
So what is your solution to the problem. Should the Jews have to leave Israel? It’s easy to criticize, but how would you solve the problems there?
Lysander:
“What the leadership of Iran has in common with Hitler is an Islamic Imperialism that compares to Nazi Imperialism and getting nukes would give the Iranian version the military ability to cause the kind of damage, beyond Israel, that the Nazis caused leading to and in WW II.”
LS:
A major war pitting the Islamic world against the West, that is, WW III.
Lysander:
Of all the acts of Islamic Imperialism (can I call Israeli actions Jewish imperialism?) that Iran has committed, which ones strike you as most Nazi like? Is arming Hezbollah like the invasion of Poland? Is Iran’s actions to ‘destabilize Iraq’ comparable to Dachau? Are they even comparable to America’s invasion based on a contrived pretext?
LS: You can call Israel imperialist but you would be wrong. Israel, with the exception of areas of the West Bank captured from Jordan in a war of Arab aggression, does not aspire to expand into the territory of others or to dominate them. Iran does. You carry the analogy to Nazi Germany beyond where I took it and build a straw man. However, if given the chance I fear Iran would be no more humane with the Jews or for that matter any infidels than the are with their own people.
Lysander:
I’m sorry Leonard. Maybe you didn’t mean it this way, but I’ve heard the Nazi Germany analogy made with so many Arab or Muslim leaders and countries that I’ve grown weary of hearing it. Someone who knew nothing of history would get the impression that the Holocaust happened in Iran at the hands of the Palestinians. Or, even worse, they would get the impression that Nazi Germany was no big deal since so many countries today can be compared to it.
LS:
Lysander, I’m sorry but you have taken the Nazi comparison way way beyond where I have.
Lysander:
The Holocaust was a horrible crime that happened in Europe, by Europeans, against other Europeans, with the complicity or connivance of still other Europeans. Please do not try to pin it on the Muslims.
LS:
How have you possibly have come up with “pining the Hoiocaust on the Muslims” from anything I have written? So do you guys respond to challenges or only issue them. Is there reciprocity on your blog?
Paul, you wrote: “The breakdown of public morality, in my view, poses the greatest single existential threat to Israel.” That’s the assessment made by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the US — and a more stalwart cheerleader for Israel you’ll never find.
Please cite your source for Oren’s statement. If he said that I’d like to see it in context.
The Wickpedia site where you got your population stats fully states:
“…Israel is the only country in the world where a majority of citizens are Jewish. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the population in 2008 was 75.4% Jewish, 20.6% Arab, and 4% minority groups.[1] The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2005 was 76.2% Jewish, 16.1% Muslim, 2.1% Christian, and 1.6% Druze, with the remaining 4.0% not classified by religion.[2]”
On another site I found that the Baha’i in israel constitute 0.2 % of the population. So given that there are no other religious groups the question comes down to who are the 4.0% not classified by religion. That seems to me to suggest Jews who do not wish to identify as such. If my speculation is correct that would be about 80% Jews. In any event the Arabs are 20.6% and the 1.6% Druze are well integrated into Israeli society and are considered to be loyal citizens. A Druze in the IDF recently achieved the rank of General.
Leonard – here’s the context for Oren’s statement:
This passage comes from an article he wrote for the neocon magazine Commentary last year.
My source for the Israeli demographics was not Wikipedia but the Jewish Virtual Library — a source that I believe most pro-Israeli Jews would regard as reliable. They do not speculate on whether 4% of Israelis might be secret Jews.
leonard
i will go back and read your last post,
but in the meantime
i would like you to tell me
what is a jew ?
and why is he
any different
than anyone else ?
please put it
in a sentence
or a paragraph
i can only add this:
i’m not sure where to begin
we have the same father our mother is the earth
we are all gods’ children from the moment of our birth
how we treat each other is how we will be judged
you can call yourself whatever you like a point i won’t begrudge
you’ve been given gifts sublime but not for waging war
can’t you see i trust in you to realize what they’ re for?
can’t you see your the hope the worlds been waiting on?
when are you going to cut the bs put an end to the endless con?
when will you find the courage to trust in the good of a man
that you haven’t met and never will if you continue with this plan
how can you judge another and give yourselves a pass
picking off folks helicopter gun ship always seemed a little too crass
if you want to kill a man you must look him in the eye
put your hands around his neck and listen to his cry
listen to his pleading ‘i’m not ready to die’
take his life into your hands and let his spirit fly
then you will see his sorrow then you will see his fear
you should know better after all when death is always near
it’s just a suggestion i’ll throw out and only for what it’s worth
why don’t you give those nukes up save yourselves
and the rest of this earth
and this goes for all of ‘us’
Lysander, Israel did not come into existence by virtue of expelling the Palestinians. Let me educate you a little: in 1947, a two-state solution was proposed; one tiny Jewish state and one much larger Arab state. The Jews accepted partition; the Arabs did not, and the fledgling State of Israel was attacked by five Arab armies the day after the modern State of Israel came into existence.
It is intellectually unsound to fault Israel for having been victorious in 1948 — or in any of the five wars which came thereafter. The Palestinians are a vanquished people. Period. Full stop.
As a Jew who is both a citizen of the United States and a citizen of Israel I can tell you that if Stuxnet is indeed an Israeli creation, I am extraordinarily proud that this tiny beleaguered nation has put an end to the biggest threat to civilization ever — a nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran — and it did so without the loss of a single life. It is time for the world — which is heaving a great big sigh of relief anyway — to step up and express its thanks to Israel. I am reminded of the sanctions and blame that issued forth in the aftermath of Israel’s destruction of the Osirac reactor in Baghdad. It would have been quite a different 1991 Gulf War if the coalition states would have faced a nuclear Iraq, would it not? Think of all those Coalition service men and women who did NOT come home in body bags, thanks to Israel, and show a little respect for this tiny nation that keeps pulling the world’s chestnuts out of the fire.
Paul,
Paul, thanks for the Oren quote, I now recall having read it and I’ll get to it in a bit–well maybe a bit more than a bit.
But first to indulge in a short polemic. You are a darn good researcher. Just to put population in perspective, if we subtract the Druze, Arabs are 19% of the population of Israel and I’m not sure what to do with the 0.2% that are Baha’i. They are one of the groups from which the Iranian government regularly selects individuals to execute. Their worldwide center is in Haifa but I would think the executions have more to do with its “…founder Bahá’u’lláh, a Persian nobleman from Tehran who, in the mid-nineteenth century, left a life of princely comfort and security and, in the face of intense persecution and deprivation, (preached) a new message of peace and unity. B há’u’lláh claimed to be nothing less than a new and independent Messenger from God.” (http://www.bahai.org/faq/facts/bahai_faith. )
I find it interesting that this group, in competition with Islam even to the degree of apostasy, dedicated to the unity of mankind chooses to have its worldwide center in the Jewish State. Do you think there shouldn’t be a Jewish State Paul?
I have some personal comments to/about you that are the central point of this post. I don’t remember the obscure word you used to characterize yourself having to do with being an innovator of contextual content and for some reason I haven’t been able to find the section of your web site where you wrote about yourself using the word. I suspect it’s accurate. Is it anything like being a “sophist”? Sophistry was the crime Socrates was accused and convicted of, resulting in being sentenced to drink the hemlock. The indictment read that he “…makes the worse appear the better cause.” Describes lawyers too and we know that the Bard wanted all of them to drink hemlock or maybe ingest lead, truly not that I wish you dead, the Little Hitler sure, but not you. In other words Sophists collect facts and then arrange them in such an innovative way as to create a context for them that expresses the point of view they held in the first place, not a bad definition of very intelligent prejudice maintenance. (Ahem, I say rubbing my finger nails on my shirt front, ” I’m something of an expert on the assessment of intelligence”.)
Paul, I want to be out front with you as I have been, but now about my take on you— so far. Using the Oren quote to illustrate my meaning may be useful, I hope for you too. I say that because I’m absolutely convinced that you are prejudiced against Israel, and very good at it too. Now be sure to differentiate anti-Semitic from prejudiced. As I said before prejudice is a necessary condition for being and maintaining anti-Semitism but it’s not sufficient in itself to contract the disease. It’s like it is in genetics and certain emotional disorders, if the genetic predisposition is there it takes environmental factors to interact with it for the disorder to bloom. And if the environmental factors are there but the genetic factors are not it may not become anti-Semitism. In the case of anti-Semitism the environmental factor is prejudice, the genetic factor (figuratively speaking) comes from mother’s milk, and it is hatred. Of course prejudice, particularly talented prejudice will draw anti-Semites to it just as your words “stupid”, “pathological” “obsession” activated my anti-anti-Semitism and drew me to your blog, and Paul they were your words.
So now about Oren’s words. You take it as evidence that Israel is rotting from within. I can see how one might do so, particularly if the words can fit nicely into one’s prejudice. Here’s how I regard Oren’s words. Oren is an American born professor and intellectual who is very articulate and as Israel’s Ambassador to the US is naturally a cheerleader for Israel. So this very high ranking Israeli official is very angry about the kind of human foibles that are found in nearly all nations and governments and when there have been political scandals and during a war some soldiers have failed to behave in accord with the IDF’s ethical standards–and he speaks out very clearly condemning corruption where it’s found and warning of the corrupting potential of that kind of thing becoming wide spread. Now what it’s important to understand is that Israel, regardless of the kinds of tragic events that are inflicted on everyone in war, was founded by idealists with very high ethical principles, so high that no 20-21st century people could maintain them indefinitely, particularly when surrounded by people who not only want to kill you, they try to kill you time and again for about 100 years. So you Paul take the words of this high ranking official and interpret them to mean that Israel is crumbling from within like the Soviet Union did. Where I, having lived there for extended periods of time, see it as evidence of a vibrant culture in which the police can repeatedly question a Prime Minister, (now former) about financial corruption and then indict him shortly after he’s out of office. A friend who lives in Jerusalem where Olmert was mayor at the time told me a long time ago he was corrupt. And you know something Paul, one of the ideals of the founders was to create a place where Jews could be like everyone else. In many ways they succeeded, only they didn’t think about how being like everyone else also meant having a dark side. You see Paul, while we were victims of history and not permitted to be like anyone else, warts and all because we were powerless we didn’t know we had a dark side. So all those centuries when we were kept in ghettos and shtetls we tried to be good to console ourselves for the persecution we suffered and in the hope that G-d would stop being angry with us for –well for only G-d knows why, and we had to deny our own fury at the way we were treated or be crushed. And we walked passively into the gas chambers and we learned, NEVER AGAIN. So now we have some power and for the same reason anyone’s dark side emerges when there is space for it and they have been brutalized sometimes our dark side emerges. And you know Paul, we have done pretty damn well at maintaining our ethics and keeping that human dark side contained even in the face of having been brutalized for centuries and being in danger of being brutalized again, far from perfect but pretty damn well. (And if you label our vigilance as a “pathological obsession” again you’re hopeless.) All the Jews inside and outside Israel who are critical, even Jews like Chomsky and Judit who have their heads screwed on backwards are evidence of how important ethics are in our culture. What would have happened to Oren if he was the Ambassador to the US from the Saudis, from Egypt, Syria, or G-d forbid Iran and he spoke about them the way he did about Israel? It’s not Israel that is decaying from the inside far from it, it is the undemocratic societies of the region that have decayed from the inside from their repressive cultures and they use hatred of Israel to try to awaken themselves. I hope they do awaken, like the people on the West Bank have, for their own sakes and the West.
So Paul how about spending some of your energy and intelligence devoting it to an analysis of what’s wrong with the other side and what to do about it, apart from trying to make Israel and the Jews inside of her disappear.
Paul, you are clearly prejudiced, look at the amount of your energies and the space on your blog go into demonizing Israel. Now here’s what I don’t know. I don’t know if your energy and intelligence is directed against us because like a lover scorned, or like Jews feeling betrayed by our imperfection you are angry at us and thus interpret facts, and some things not so factual into simple prejudice (“stupid”, “pathological obsession” and I’ve seen more looking over your site like an article holding explicitly that Israel has been delegitimized) because you are so disappointed at us not meeting your need for someone to be morally better than humans at our stage of evolution can be, or if you’re angry because we aren’t Christ like and willing to die for your sins, (I say that about Christ with respect, my wife is a ministers daughter) or if your prejudice is combined with the hatred anti-Semites absorb into their cells with their mother’s milk.
Paul you wrote, “Leonard – I’m not going to attempt to respond to every single challenge you made.” Well Paul, you’ve responded to none of them so far so how about only one now.
Here it is: Why don’t you devote some of your energy, intellect and space to an analysis of the dark side of the societies Israel is up against for the sake of their own repressed and victimized people and for everyone else who is stuck with the Middle East? Aside that is, from bad mouthing Israel all the time. Jeeeez!! Oh sorry, here’s one more: Why don’t you take Yotam up on his invitation to visit Israel. I bet he’d take you around. Or even a better idea would be for Yotam and I and our friends in Israel to organize a tour. Call it: “Tour For The Merely Prejudiced “. I’m kinda serious here.
I’m gonna take a break here and await some responsive responding. I’ve got other parts of mankind to attend to.
So I’m being checked again to see if I’m kosher for your site. I was wondering if this would happen.
well leonard
i am serious
i have always wondered
what makes the ‘jews’
think they are so different ?
just ’cause they’ve
told themselves so ?
i don’t expect you
to speak for all of you
maybe you can speak
for yourself
this is not a challenge
it is an invitation
est
Well Paul, if you’re going to censor me I’m gone. So long.
From my perch, right in the center of Israel, I am thrilled at the prospect that our cyber jocks did the deed.Moreover, ANYTHING they do to the Iranian Hitlerite regime is NOTHING compared to their threats to wipe us off the map.
The very fact that we have designated cyber warfare units that are the best in the world-think Unit 8812- is only icing on the cake. I hope that more, not less, clues show the world that they dare not mess with us, lest their systems go crazy.
While our political leadership leaves much to be desired, as they kow tow to international dictates, our military intelligence units are burning the midnight oil-writing lots of code!!
Those who don’t like it are free to go to hell.
Paul, this is puzzling. My long post above was first being considered by the moderator, (you) and then it disappeared entirely and now it’s back in. Is there something about how this list operates that I don’t understand? And do you plan to respond. I’m not taking the time it takes to address these complex issues to read what I write. If it’s not a dialogue what’s the point?
Leonard: “Is there something about how this list operates that I don’t understand?”
Yes, firstly, it’s not a list. It’s a blog on which I provide commentary on news items and readers are welcome to contribute comments. Any comment that contains a link will automatically go into moderation in order to filter spam.
You profess an interest in dialogue yet you’ve suggested I’m a sophist — though reassured me you don’t wish me dead. That’s a strange position to put yourself in — needing to write, “not that I wish you dead”.
Have you ever come across a self-described sophist? I haven’t. It’s a bit like being a self-described liar. And just to be clear: my question is rhetorical. Both you and I know that in this era “sophist” is exclusively a pejorative term.
I saw a recent comment you made in support of Caroline Glick’s op-ed supporting the neo-McCarthyist Im Tirtzu: “Give those academic head up their asses, ass kissing self-hating Jews hell.” If that’s the way you refer to Israeli Jews with whom you have political differences, it would be a tad naive on my part to imagine that you would engage me in an open-minded way.
Lysander:
The Holocaust was a horrible crime that happened in Europe, by Europeans, against other Europeans, with the complicity or connivance of still other Europeans. Please do not try to pin it on the Muslims.
Really? And here I was under the impression that Haj Amin al-Husseini — the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, famous Nazi collaborator and organizer of the massacres of Jews in Hebron and Jerusalem — was a Moslem.
First you get the facts, Lysander, then you post. Okay?
The post appears to be a lot of supposition. To my knowledge have any Siemens control systems malfunctioned causing any downtime or damage related to Stuxnet? I work for a global heavy manufacturing company in information security, and we have seen nothing untoward with our Siemens scada systems.
I would guess that any impact to the targeted nuclear sites has already taken place, maybe. That would be the only industrial sector where a government might cover the fact up.