The Good Society
During the recent elections in Israel, I heard a lot of talk about Israel's trampling the voting rights of the Palestinians. In particular, more than 4 million Palestinians. Which, let's face it, is a lot of Palestinians! I have to admit, when I read the article written by an Israeli Jew, I stopped to reconsider my pro-Israel position—for all of about thirty seconds. Then I remembered that there are less than 9 million people living in Israel, of which about 6 million are Jews, another million or so represent Jewish offshoots, leaving about 1.6 million Arabs and 350,000 members of other groups, most of whom are Christians. And, being a reasonably bright guy, it didn't take me long to realize that there weren’t 4 million Palestinians living in Israel. So, how could they be denied voting rights? Easy! There are approx. 4 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. Territories that were acquired by Israel after they were attacked by their Muslim neighbors in the 1967 war. This was intended to drive Israel and it's pathetic little non Arab democracy into the sea. Are we clear on that! Israel didn't attack their neighbors, their neighbors attacked them. So, after decades of negotiations and hundreds of terrorist attacks by the Palestinians, Israel gave back the land in the hope of peace—tentatively, at first (what do you expect) but, just to be safe, Israel erected a barrier between the two territories and stopped the free movement of the Palestinians, carefully controlling what came into and went out of these same territories, but only on the Israeli side. To do otherwise would be tantamount to allowing ISIS to move freely across the Mexico/U.S. Border. Which, now that I think about it, may be happening, even as we speak.
Egypt, which controls the other Palestinian border, didn't want mass Palestinian migration either, in spite of having promised this loose aggregation of people that the West refers to as Palestinians their right of return. All they had to do was wait until Israel was destroyed, every man, woman and child, and then they could go back home and rebuild with the aid of the surrounding Muslim nations.
Unfortunately, for the many Jew-hating cultures in the Middle East and abroad, it didn't happen. Israel won and the Palestinians were left, stuck in a small geographic area, with a rightfully hostile Israel on one side and Egypt, their unwelcoming and alleged ally, on the other.
In 1948, at an early stage of this decades long conflict, as many as 700,000 Palestinians fled Israel, some were driven out, many left with promise they could return after Israel was crushed. Depending on who you ask, this was either ethnic cleansing or a reasonable response to the very real threat of an anti-Zionist fifth column living in Israel. In retaliation, the surrounding Arab countries expelled their Jewish population. Israel responded by welcoming these disenfranchised Arab-Jews home. No such welcome was ever extended to the Palestinians in the neighboring Arab countries.
Much later, in the aftermath of the 1967 war—and, after decades more fighting and terrorist attacks—the Palestinians rebelled against their increasingly circumscribed lot and duly elected Hamas, a global terrorist organization to lead them out of their dire circumstance. This led to another lengthy round of brutal attacks and war against Israel, resulting in thousands of rockets being launched into Israel's civilian population. Any Palestinians bold enough to reject Hamas's brutality were summarily executed. Hamas, being the humanitarians that they are, quickly hid their newly acquired weapons caches (acquired mostly from Iran) in the middle of Palestinian civilian hospitals and schools, just daring Israel to strike back. Emboldened by all the positive press generated by Hamas's suicidal tendencies, they continued firing hundreds more rockets at Israeli civilian targets, while simultaneously digging tunnels into Israel in an effort to sneak up and kill as many Israeli citizens as possible. Apparently, this was done because Hamas cares deeply about Palestine's struggle against tyranny. Not as much as they care about their rockets, but hey, you have to draw a line somewhere! With a rising Palestinian civilian death toll, the international Leftist outrage commenced against the only democracy in the region, screaming “We need proportional death, in order to keep things fair!” “It just isn't right that Israelis kill a lot more Palestinian's, without Israel allowing equal numbers of Jews to be slaughtered in reverse.”
After the carnage and all the bad publicity fostered by an eager, antisemitic global media, the Israeli people went to the polls to elect a new leader. Not surprisingly, they elected a leader with some balls. Given the circumstances, who wouldn't? Thus, we have members of the press, including some Jews inside Israel, who think that 4 million Palestinians, who are not—let me stress—are not Israeli citizens, should be allowed to vote in an Israeli election. What could go wrong with that? I mean come on, every truly enlightened progressive country should be willing to destroy their own culture in an act of suicidal political correctness.
Behind the layers of concerned rhetoric is the true agenda (and not just in Israel.) That being, that ethnic identity and race are merely illusions, fostered by greedy capitalists. The solution; elevate race, religion and ethnic identity to places of such prominence that they define the parameters of every debate. And, by doing so, this duly empowered government get's a range of spiffy new powers to determine who gets what's coming to whom, based on race, religion and ethnic identity, of course.
Does this sound reasonable? Maybe, if you're an idiot it does. For the rest of us, though, it's like playing a free jazz as a lullaby to an infant. Imagine, Albert Ayler for toddlers. Or, Pharaoh Sanders for newborns! Why not! “Who's to say what infants really like or need anyway?” If they cry incessantly and develop into warped sociopaths as the result, who's to say this isn't good?
That is the modern Leftist screed “Who's to say what is good?” Maybe there is no good!” Only shades of Grey!” It is Post Modernism run amok and carefully protected by a willful group of pseudo-intellectual apologists, anxiously working to protect an ideology that is really a seething pile of fecal debris. In other words, it is better to be clever and dead, than it is to be boring and right. Ethnic identity, tribalism, race, sex, sexual preference, etc., etc., etc., are the totems of a secular religion and the basis for the good society. But only in their imagination, where all things are possible, no matter how improbable.
That, is the true nature of the debate. A debate founded on the rejection of Western values as an expression of capitalism and colonial domination, very selectively applied, mind you. It is a rejection of prosperity, of descent behavior, redefined to allow for maybes and what ifs. These are the things that form the the basis for the new social order, the newer, better society. That no good society could ever emerge from such profound indifference to reality, is evident by pretty much all of human history. But maybe, just maybe, it could work. I mean who's to say. What if........
Mark Magula
Egypt, which controls the other Palestinian border, didn't want mass Palestinian migration either, in spite of having promised this loose aggregation of people that the West refers to as Palestinians their right of return. All they had to do was wait until Israel was destroyed, every man, woman and child, and then they could go back home and rebuild with the aid of the surrounding Muslim nations.
Unfortunately, for the many Jew-hating cultures in the Middle East and abroad, it didn't happen. Israel won and the Palestinians were left, stuck in a small geographic area, with a rightfully hostile Israel on one side and Egypt, their unwelcoming and alleged ally, on the other.
In 1948, at an early stage of this decades long conflict, as many as 700,000 Palestinians fled Israel, some were driven out, many left with promise they could return after Israel was crushed. Depending on who you ask, this was either ethnic cleansing or a reasonable response to the very real threat of an anti-Zionist fifth column living in Israel. In retaliation, the surrounding Arab countries expelled their Jewish population. Israel responded by welcoming these disenfranchised Arab-Jews home. No such welcome was ever extended to the Palestinians in the neighboring Arab countries.
Much later, in the aftermath of the 1967 war—and, after decades more fighting and terrorist attacks—the Palestinians rebelled against their increasingly circumscribed lot and duly elected Hamas, a global terrorist organization to lead them out of their dire circumstance. This led to another lengthy round of brutal attacks and war against Israel, resulting in thousands of rockets being launched into Israel's civilian population. Any Palestinians bold enough to reject Hamas's brutality were summarily executed. Hamas, being the humanitarians that they are, quickly hid their newly acquired weapons caches (acquired mostly from Iran) in the middle of Palestinian civilian hospitals and schools, just daring Israel to strike back. Emboldened by all the positive press generated by Hamas's suicidal tendencies, they continued firing hundreds more rockets at Israeli civilian targets, while simultaneously digging tunnels into Israel in an effort to sneak up and kill as many Israeli citizens as possible. Apparently, this was done because Hamas cares deeply about Palestine's struggle against tyranny. Not as much as they care about their rockets, but hey, you have to draw a line somewhere! With a rising Palestinian civilian death toll, the international Leftist outrage commenced against the only democracy in the region, screaming “We need proportional death, in order to keep things fair!” “It just isn't right that Israelis kill a lot more Palestinian's, without Israel allowing equal numbers of Jews to be slaughtered in reverse.”
After the carnage and all the bad publicity fostered by an eager, antisemitic global media, the Israeli people went to the polls to elect a new leader. Not surprisingly, they elected a leader with some balls. Given the circumstances, who wouldn't? Thus, we have members of the press, including some Jews inside Israel, who think that 4 million Palestinians, who are not—let me stress—are not Israeli citizens, should be allowed to vote in an Israeli election. What could go wrong with that? I mean come on, every truly enlightened progressive country should be willing to destroy their own culture in an act of suicidal political correctness.
Behind the layers of concerned rhetoric is the true agenda (and not just in Israel.) That being, that ethnic identity and race are merely illusions, fostered by greedy capitalists. The solution; elevate race, religion and ethnic identity to places of such prominence that they define the parameters of every debate. And, by doing so, this duly empowered government get's a range of spiffy new powers to determine who gets what's coming to whom, based on race, religion and ethnic identity, of course.
Does this sound reasonable? Maybe, if you're an idiot it does. For the rest of us, though, it's like playing a free jazz as a lullaby to an infant. Imagine, Albert Ayler for toddlers. Or, Pharaoh Sanders for newborns! Why not! “Who's to say what infants really like or need anyway?” If they cry incessantly and develop into warped sociopaths as the result, who's to say this isn't good?
That is the modern Leftist screed “Who's to say what is good?” Maybe there is no good!” Only shades of Grey!” It is Post Modernism run amok and carefully protected by a willful group of pseudo-intellectual apologists, anxiously working to protect an ideology that is really a seething pile of fecal debris. In other words, it is better to be clever and dead, than it is to be boring and right. Ethnic identity, tribalism, race, sex, sexual preference, etc., etc., etc., are the totems of a secular religion and the basis for the good society. But only in their imagination, where all things are possible, no matter how improbable.
That, is the true nature of the debate. A debate founded on the rejection of Western values as an expression of capitalism and colonial domination, very selectively applied, mind you. It is a rejection of prosperity, of descent behavior, redefined to allow for maybes and what ifs. These are the things that form the the basis for the new social order, the newer, better society. That no good society could ever emerge from such profound indifference to reality, is evident by pretty much all of human history. But maybe, just maybe, it could work. I mean who's to say. What if........
Mark Magula