This article was written 38 years ago!!! Some things never change.

Eric Hoffer was a Non-Jewish American social philosopher, and he made his living as a longshoreman in San Francisco and was a member of the Longshoreman's Union. He was born in 1902 and died in 1983, after writing nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic.


ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer
(originally published in the LA Times 5/26/68)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia
did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese-and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal
refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab.

Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he would have wiped Israel
off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.

There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him. The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic
relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.

like where it was that Toynbee made this statement, and exactly who "everybody" is.  

This issue of "everybody" sounds too much like people crying about liberal or reactionary media - (a) who the hell are they talking about exactly, and (b) so what?  Is there proximate cause to justify limiting the 1st amendment?   Or are we just sharing?

In the course of comparing these forced migrations, I think it was scriptfixer who alleged a couple weeks ago that the displacement of American Indians was a terrible atrocity.   I asked him to compare and contrast that with a bunch of other, ah, displacements.   Haven't heard from him yet.  I'm sorta interested in his take on how the injuns fared next to the Pallies and why, and a few other situations.

The fact is that a lot of these things happen, and there are all sorts of rationalizations, and some of them draw attention, and some don't; and different people feel differently about them, sometimes for reasons they don't know.  

This particular one tends to draw more attention for a number of reasons, because it's been the center of media attention for about 4,000 years, ever since the media was a fucking town crier with a clay tablet; and for better or worse, these groups have been at the center of western culture for as long as there's been such a thing.

The Israelis and the Arabs are going to wind up either accomodating each other or staying the fuck away from each other, and where you have 2 peoples whose religions are something that they cannot set aside in dealing with their neighbors, you have a recipe for trouble - which, all other things being equal, I would just as soon stay the fuck away from.

You should count yourself fortunate that the people who are causing you the most trouble these days are making such obvious jackasses of themselves.   It wasn't always that way.

And you might note that Hoffer was writing about a year after the Liberty was attacked.   As I have pointed out to X, the Japs were our staunch allies less than 10 years after they Pearl Harbored us, and we Hiroshimaed them back; but it could also reasonably be asked what has changed in the mideast in the last 40 years.

Come with me and peer into the Xiaoming crystal ball :


Tehran, Iran  --  August 31, 2055


Israel today announced that it had conducted large-scale aerial strikes against terrorist bases on the outskirts of Islamabad, Peshawar, Khandahar, Rawalpindi, and Kabul, as well as in the breakawy Chinese province of Xianjiang.

These strikes were undertaken, per the Israeli Ministry of Defense, in retaliation for recent terrorist activities directed against IDF occupation forces in Tehran.

The Ministry did not indicate if further airstrikes were planned, and, if so, whether these airstrikes would be followed up by ground assaults.

In Iraq, the US occupation, now in it's 52nd year, noted from it's headquarters in Baghdad that the country was generally calm in the aftermath of the Israeli actions, with only a small number of verified reports of unrest in the Sunni Triangle and Basra.

The US occupation authorieties in Afghanistan, in conjunction with he NATO ocupation forces, likewise noted no mass unrest, but also noted that the airtrikes against Kabul came as a complete surprise and will constitute yet another difficulty for the central gov't in Kabul.

Quiet and calm was reported in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.  

Quiet and calm was also reported by the Israeli occupation authorities in Egypy, Libya, Morrocco, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Saudia Arabia and Kuwait.

In Washingtom, US administration officials were reluctant to go on record.  US President Tiffany Rice-Bush had no immediate comment.  At the US Department of State, Secretary of State Chelsea Clinton was likewise unavailable for comment.

In Washington, DC and Paris, the American-Isreal Public Affairs Committee and the European Union Israeli Public Affairs Committee issued a joint statement in support of Israel's actions, noting that "All peace-loving persons must applaud the Israeli action as the first step in the final chapter being writen The War On Terror."

On Capitol Hill, raction was favorable in the extreme.  US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Andrew Guiliani said "Excellent, excellent.  This is just like how my dad dealt with the squeegee man threat in NYC way back in 1994.  No mercy.  Just totally drive them out. And this is what he would have done had he been elected President in 2008, 2012, or 2016."  Senate Majority Leader  Michael Powell was likewise supportive, if less vocally so.   Speaker of the House Tom Delay III also voiced assent as he left the feeral courthouse where he is under investigation by a grand jury for the solicitation and acceptance of illegal campaign contributions.

In Geeva, at the UN, reaction was less favorable...



Another Xiaomong contest  -- this is a shameless ripoff of a column written [in 1982?] by a nationally syndicated columnist.  This fellow is well-know and still active, so, for 1 [one] Xiaoming-free day on the Politics Board, name the columnist.  If you can link the column, I'll make it 3 [three] Xiaoming-free days.

If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources.  [Would be that ir were! Ever hear of AIPAC, the Presidents Conference, Americans for A Safe Israel, the US Congress...?]

Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. {Talk about an oldie BUT NOT a goodie.  Christ, I wish i had copyrighted this line.  I could buy out Bill Gates a dozen times over with just my pocket change. This wouldn't be a cash cow -- it would be a cash herd].

And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. [Inasmuch as the USSR went kaput on Christmas Day 1991, would a quote a little more historically accurate  or relevant be in order here?]

I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us. [Me too, but for some very different reasons  - that Samson analogy Israel's most hysterical evangels like to reference from time to time.  Save us or we'll take you with us?  Hmmm.]

Poor Toynbee  -- despite millions of wrtten and spoken words, all but forgotten except for that one less than worship comment about Israel.