Israeli settlers ramp up attacks on indigenous Palestinians
Posted 12-19-2021 at 09:12 AM by jbgusa
It's not that "Israel does no wrong." It's more that Israel is in the unenviable position of being attacked asymetrically. Israel had many mroe champions when the wars were wars of aggression against Israel, i.e. 1948, or preemptive, i.e. 1956 and 1967. 1973 is a more complicated issue which I will get to shortly.
In the first twenty or so years of Israel's modern existence, Israel was championed by the left, and the right was mixed. Singers such as Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger (with the Weavers) sang Israeli songs such as Tzena! Tzenz! Tzena (link to videos at bottom of post). This was a combination of Israel's underdog status and guilt for the U.S. and the world's inaction on the Holocaust. Since Israel's victory, at a high cost, in the 1973 War, the Arabs have shifted to mostly guerrilla and terror tactics, against which massed armies are useless. Witness the U.S. experience in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. When a bus explodes in Jerusalem or a wedding or Bar Mitzvah is attacked, Israel really can't respond with an army. The world is horrified, though, when Israel assassinates "activists" or blow up the homes of suicide bombers. Thus, no world sympathy. Also, as I'll lay out in the portion of the post below, anti-Judaism with a 3,000 year history mixes in.
Now I'll discuss 1973. Between 1967 and 1973 the Arabs shifted to mostly guerrilla attacks, the Lod Airport Massacre and Olympic Massacre of 1972 being spectacular examples. Also there was a wave of hijackings in 1970, which led to Jordan's "Black September" attack on the PLO, giving name to the group fomenting t he Lod Airport Massacre and Olympic Massacre of 1972. There was some animus against Israel for its responses. Complicating matters further was a tightening oil market in 1973. This created a reaction verging between anxiety and panic. To put it in layman's terms "are the Jews going to make it hard to fill our cars" with gasoline? When the Arabs announced the so-called "embargo" during 1973, the result was utter panic. Oil prices were bid from $3-$4 a barrel to over $12 and the distortions created by price controls created long lines at the filling station. Thus, even though Israel was attacked on the holiest day of the Jewish year, there was little sympathy for Israel's predicament.
Jews have been "the other" for almost their entire existence. The book Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition by David Nirenberg traces Jew-hatred from Pharaoh's time (there is an Egyptian version of the Exodus story to the effect that the Pharaoh kicked the Jews out because they were too much trouble) to the present. David Nirenberg, the author of that excellent book, admittedly a slow read, believed that many who don't like Jews never met an actual Jew. To his mind the phenomena comes from dislike of a strict system of law. To my mind it is more dislike of a people who are perceived as successful and abide by each country's laws. Different minority groups live in slums, and have pathologies such as non-attendance at schools, high dropout rates and crime.
A lot of the world can't wrap their head around the idea of Jews' needing self-determination. That, apparently, is only for "liberation groups" that feed off Western aid.
================================================== ====================
The Left was (once) for Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12FmPyEqXvc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phgiS_slJ_c
In the first twenty or so years of Israel's modern existence, Israel was championed by the left, and the right was mixed. Singers such as Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger (with the Weavers) sang Israeli songs such as Tzena! Tzenz! Tzena (link to videos at bottom of post). This was a combination of Israel's underdog status and guilt for the U.S. and the world's inaction on the Holocaust. Since Israel's victory, at a high cost, in the 1973 War, the Arabs have shifted to mostly guerrilla and terror tactics, against which massed armies are useless. Witness the U.S. experience in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. When a bus explodes in Jerusalem or a wedding or Bar Mitzvah is attacked, Israel really can't respond with an army. The world is horrified, though, when Israel assassinates "activists" or blow up the homes of suicide bombers. Thus, no world sympathy. Also, as I'll lay out in the portion of the post below, anti-Judaism with a 3,000 year history mixes in.
Now I'll discuss 1973. Between 1967 and 1973 the Arabs shifted to mostly guerrilla attacks, the Lod Airport Massacre and Olympic Massacre of 1972 being spectacular examples. Also there was a wave of hijackings in 1970, which led to Jordan's "Black September" attack on the PLO, giving name to the group fomenting t he Lod Airport Massacre and Olympic Massacre of 1972. There was some animus against Israel for its responses. Complicating matters further was a tightening oil market in 1973. This created a reaction verging between anxiety and panic. To put it in layman's terms "are the Jews going to make it hard to fill our cars" with gasoline? When the Arabs announced the so-called "embargo" during 1973, the result was utter panic. Oil prices were bid from $3-$4 a barrel to over $12 and the distortions created by price controls created long lines at the filling station. Thus, even though Israel was attacked on the holiest day of the Jewish year, there was little sympathy for Israel's predicament.
Jews have been "the other" for almost their entire existence. The book Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition by David Nirenberg traces Jew-hatred from Pharaoh's time (there is an Egyptian version of the Exodus story to the effect that the Pharaoh kicked the Jews out because they were too much trouble) to the present. David Nirenberg, the author of that excellent book, admittedly a slow read, believed that many who don't like Jews never met an actual Jew. To his mind the phenomena comes from dislike of a strict system of law. To my mind it is more dislike of a people who are perceived as successful and abide by each country's laws. Different minority groups live in slums, and have pathologies such as non-attendance at schools, high dropout rates and crime.
A lot of the world can't wrap their head around the idea of Jews' needing self-determination. That, apparently, is only for "liberation groups" that feed off Western aid.
================================================== ====================
The Left was (once) for Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12FmPyEqXvc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phgiS_slJ_c
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