Not Your Average Jewess

Hello Maria,

I wrote two weeks ago this small text on disengagement. I see you are anti-disengagement.
I am pro, so here are a few arguments to think about...

http://kantor-blog.blogspot.com/2005/06/countdown-to-disengagement.html

Maria, thank you for the kind post, I am so very flattered. You're one of my favorites, too.

Kantor, I see that you have inserted a link to your opinion on the dis-engagement as a response to this thread. Oddly misplaced, it is, but I imagine that was your intent. I haven't read your opinion on the dis-engagement and I won't; I personally don't care what you think. However, since Maria's particular post had to do with what I wrote, I find it appropriate to respond:

STOP the disengagement - if for no other reason than that the international press is waiting for pictures of the Israeli army in action against *unarmed* Israeli civilians.

The Jew-hating press will expect horrific photos of Israeli soldiers struggling with women and children.

These photos will “prove” the accuracy of their previous stories of Israeli brutality, thus milking even MORE sympathy from the uneducated international community for the poor "palestinian people."

In all likelihood, the photos will be edited to show that Israeli soldiers are worse than Arab "freedom fighters". Readers will, in the future, believe any story that the media fabricates about Israeli soldiers.

No democracy removes 8,000 of its own law-abiding citizens from their homes, in order to appease their enemy.

The IDF’s reputation will be reduced to an all time low and these photographs - the real ones and the touched up ones - will immemorialize the horror of the disengagement for eternity.

Those are a few arguments that you should be thinking about.

Smooth: sad, but so true.

Kantor: I'm sorry but you're barking up the wrong tree..

Maria and Smooth:
I don't think Kantor meant to 'bark' att all. You are both obviously very bright (one just has to have a look at your blogs to realize that), so even if you disagree with Kantor on this topic, you should realize that there are pros and cons with the disengagement. If the pros have less weight than the cons, or vice versa, is a matter of dispute.

Debates tend to get very heated in Israel and among its friends (not to mention between us and the anti-Israel mafia *shiver*). Sometimes I get really embarrassed, like when I hear Israelis compare other Israelis to Hitler and Nazis. It's better when our enemies do that, because then they make fools out of themselves.

I'm not at all saying that you in any way are bringing the discussion to such a low level. I only want to warn everyone - our enemies just love the spectacles we offer by being too narrow-minded in our internal fights.

My personal view on the disengagement, you might ask? Well, not a clear view. I do think that disengaging Gaza might be a good thing as part of a final peace agreement. Since I don't see such an agreement on the horizon, I suspect the timing is awful. Still, I must say I have great respect for the Israeli government, and they are definitely in a better position (military and political advisors, etc) than I am to judge the situation.

Torbjörn: Mazal Tov again. I agree with what you say about internal debates. I also respect the fact that you don't rush to form a clear view on the Disengagement. I think, however, that you have a very common and dangerous mistake: "I have great respect for the Israeli government, and they are definitely in a better position (military and political advisors, etc) than I am to judge the situation."

This is something we have been telling ourselves many times, and it didn't always prove to be correct (I mainly refer to the Oslo Accords of course). "The Israeli goverment", in this case, refers to Ariel Sharon and his environment. It doesn't mean that they are wrong. However, if Sharon would, instead, decide to annex the West Bank and Gaza, he would probably gain similar support of politicians who fear for their chair (only this time the US would object).

"The goverment" here is, very sadly, not a group of people who are committed only to the well being of Israel. On the other hand, there are many military and political experts who warn that the disengagment would be a disaster. I really am aware that we, as non-experts, have limited capabilities on these issues. However, I don't think we can say that some experts are better than others only because they express the opinion of the current government.

Well, it is amazing such a big hostility towards no more than a debate. I fully understand hostility against antisemitism or anti-Israel people. But, the goverment of Israel and more that a half of the people are pro-disengagement!

Disengament is on one hand a moral question, on the other a pragmatic one.

Chutzpah! That is the word for having all answers
even before the questions are proposed. But anyway, I like (even I envy?) that (sometimes misleading) passion.

Torbjorn, I don't quite know how you arrived at your conclusion about my anti dis-engagement views, but I will never submit to a request to shut up simply because someone else is afraid of how my opinion might excite my enemy. I don't give a crap if a palestinian or some other unevolved backwoods barbarian just read what I wrote about how I feel about the disengagment. In fact, I am ever more compelled to write about my view on the disengagement, because if one of Israel's enemies should happen to read what I wrote, they'll know that not all Jews are cowardly patsies. We don't all roll over on our backs waiting for our enemies to gut us, like a fish. If you're embarassed by what I wrote, then you have a problem, not me. Moreso, my opinion here is hardly an example of "in-fighting". Jewish in-fighting is when one Jew betrays another publically. I've betrayed no one. I have devoted the past 7 years of my life defending Israel's right to exist; I've gone head-to-head with fascists, neo-nazis, klansmen, islamists and their apologists. I've been threatened and I"ve been impugned by some of the lowest life forms on earth, yet I was never hurt by someone's words more than by a Jew who defended a terrorist. THAT's in-fighting. THAT's gut-wrenching. What I wrote above is hardly that so let's not over-react. As for that old mantra "well, I don't live in Israel, so I can't have an opinion" or "the Israeli government has more expertise that I do so I can't judge" is a bunch of bullcrap also. Are you going to tell me that during WWII, when Jews were being slaughtered by nazi scum, that other people in the US should not have had an opinion?? What kind of idiocy is that? If more people would have more pride about being Jewish and less shame, we would have been in charge of the Temple Mount back in '67, instead of handing the keys over to the waqf, and we would have held onto world opinion, instead of being referred to as "zionist cancers" in the arab media. Think about what image you yourself are projecting and how your comments are affecting the enemy.

You're not making sense right now, Smooth:

"I don't quite know how you arrived at your conclusion about my anti dis-engagement views"

What conclusions? I drew no conclusions at all!

"I will never submit to a request to shut up"

Noone has put forth such a request.

The rest of your post seems to be a lengthy attack/defense against what you *think* I meant (which I didn't).

Here is what i *did* mean:
People here have different opinions about the disengagement. When Kantor posted a link to his/her arguments, you dismissed him with the remark

"Oddly misplaced, it is, but I imagine that was your intent"

Maria said

"you're barking up the wrong tree.."

I found both these remarks slightly (yes, just slightly) rude. My post was a request to stop the rude comments. Nothing else.

The expression "to bark up the wrong tree" does not indicate that a person is angrily shouting or going berserk. What I meant was simply that Kantor's efforts to persuade me that disengagement is a positive thing, are in vain. I hope that Kantor did not think that I meant to be offensive, or that I didn't appreciate his comment. (Kantor, I like you! ;=)

Torbjorn, your saying to not dispute a subject is the same thing as saying don't discuss it.

Rudeness, whether actual or imagined, and in your case you imagined I was rude, is often a by-product of passionate discussion.