A pogrom on Israeli Jews by Arabs on Yom Kippur.

This is not good. For us secular Jews and atheistic city dwellers, Yom Kippour has become a celebration of Freedom, the only day in the year in which our kids can make full use of the streets and the roads without fear of getting run over: a Day Without Cars!

If I had seen a driver using his car on that night to threaten my children, I would have thrown rocks at him too, or worse. We were all over the Tel-aviv area on our bicycles for most of last night and all of today, and had a really great time just enjoying this rare release from the tyranny of that modern Moloch, the automobile. Tel Aviv is really roomy and nice when the air is clean and these @#$%!^ machines aren't moving, and the weather was great too!

If I had been in 'Acco, I would have thrown the bike and the camera aside, and gone for a weapon. 

 

Here's the Jpost report too. Coexistence? It has probably always been in our heads only. Reality sucks, especially when something everybody has come to expect really starts happening.

 

As in past correspondence with Shirrush discussing the Arab Israeli, the problem itself points to the larger problem in Israel. That problem is the secular zionist ideology that has been abject failure to address the intensifying problems facing Israel today. From bottom-up there is a cultural malaise found on the Israeli street that has been reinforced and inversely prolongs the myopia found in Israeli leadership.

 

It is no small coincidence that the problem of the Arab minority in Israel points to the heart of Jewish secularism's failure. The inability for Israel to resolve cogently political membership with the Jewish nation-state speaks volumes. The Jewish secular, denies the obligations of its ancestors. It looks at history as a scientist, without emotion without fidelity. It is in the obligation to its history it can provide no future. So when today you have a Jewish state that instead of developing its unique solutions to democratic governance and institutions that protect the Jewish people, the secularists provided european enlightenment philosophy into Jewihs governance....problem here is Jews aren't europeans, there identities are different, with different values, traditions and HISTORIES. The JEws are a 4000 year old people. So what will define membership into a jewish polity will not be the same as the political membership found within switzerland.

 

The point here is that enlightenment philosophy has much to bear, but the secular israeli mimickry on all levels of western culture will nto solve all its problems. It should in my opinion fused with Jewish philosophy...but it is in the mimicky the Jewish state has suffered. The denial of the seculars theistic root as a son of abraham, Isaac and Jacob will man he will at most utilize one hemisphere of his brain. I am the type where the Jewish identity is that of ethno-religous classification..due to its ancient roots. Not many peoples share this uniqueness because must people have faded into the dustbin of history. The Jew survived and part of that miraculous survival was because of "the book". It will be in the embrace, the reconciliation, the synthesis that Israel will solve problems like muslim extremism on the streets of Israel and in the Knesset.

 

The Jewish people must first recognize who they are before they can embark on establishing the filtering process in who is a trustee, a member within the Jewish nation-state. I am of the opinion that citizenship is not a right but a priviledge! 

Hatzkel, your efforts at being coherent and consistent are not, I'm afraid, overly successful.

All you can think about in reaction to this Jihad attack on 'Acco's Jews is to diss Israeli democracy, nothing else! Now, really, you should stop davening for a little while, and make some time for you own THINKING!

Else, make alyiah, and see that horrible secular Zionist society for yourself.

Avoid rabbis as much as possible, and start taking interest in, er, girls...

 

What happened on that holiest of all nights (to the religious and to the cyclists alike!) was that the local police station was staffed by Arab policemen, who were naturally required to fill in for their Jewish colleagues on leave. The local Jihadis knew that, and that these cops would do nothing to endanger themselves and their families.

The government's response so far has been a mixture of appeasement babble and rule-of-law declarations. The crowd control measures seem to have been used on the angry Jews only, and you can see that on today's photos on MPnet. There will probably be a few arrests in the near future, which will be dealt with in a very lenient manner by the local, Arab-dominated district court, except for any Jews caught in the act of defending their kin and property of course. The State is wary of making the October 2000 mistakes again, in which 13 Arabs were killed by our ineffectual and unskilled police. This has been very costly in terms of lawfare and political damage ever since, and, understandably, the powers-that-be are not too eager to make that worse.

All this padded velvet glove treatment, I'm afraid, will be quite useless in preventing further riots everywhere the Arabs have the numbers on their side and brand-new, Saudi-financed mosques. 

I, for the moment, have no clue on how to make myself and my family safe from the coming violence, and I still do not have an opinion on how we should handle this situation. Should we part with the Jewish principles of avoiding injustice and bloodshed, and forget to treat the Stranger in our midst the way we would have liked to be treated when we were Strangers in Egypt?

 So, Hatzkel, isn't it time for you to make alyiah and join our posse? We're short on these American organizing skills here!

 

You need two fools for a foolish argument.

There are two problems here.

1. Israeli Arabs shouting "death to Jews", throwing stones and smashing windows.

2. Israeli Jews shouting "death to Arabs", throwing stones and smashing windows.

 

I understand it was mostly policemen who got hit by the stones. It's no use saying "but he started". I get that all the time from my four year old twins. I tell them, I don't care who started, I care who stopped it.

 

Co-existense is to riots here as polished steel is to rust. But I suppose that if these people had the sense to get on with their neighbours for everyones own good, they would have enough sense not to live in Acco.

 

Ezekiel - It would appear to me that it is far more likely that the secular Jews would be able to accept Arabs as neighbours than non-secular. I doubt that a "secular" Israeli society is the root of the problem, rather it stems from the ultra-orhodox view (which I have heard with my own ears spouted from someone who denied that he was racist) that the Arabs - or non-Jews in general - have no right to live within the borders of the "land of Israel" (as opposed to the international borders of the "state of Israel").

Of course, only "secular" Moslems accept Jews as neighbours, and there is mighty little secularism in Islam.

I understand it was mostly policemen who got hit by the stones. It's no use saying "but he started". I get that

Shirrush,

 

Your response doesn't surprise... The riots in Akko are symptomatic of a bigger problem going on inside Israel. And it was this larger issue that I was addressing. The Argument I am making is that the Jewish States concept of Political Membership fashioned from Western ideal's established by Israel's early secular establishment laid the seeds and groundwork for the discord we see today.

 

The subject of the thread is consistent with similar remarks I have made in other threads when those threads covered the same problem. Your remark over my living situation does not deter the cogency of the argument I am making. If my argument goes against your western sensibilities this I'm afraid does not suffice to make the argument weaker, whether I speak to a rabbi, a monk or whomever the issue still stands.

 

The Israeli Arab represents a clear and present existential threat to Jewish governance. Whether we look at the Arabs in the Knessets now standing at 14 (lest we forget Bashara), to the cultural leaders, down to the most elementary factor...the street. One finds a burgeoning Arab community that is a) growing at twice the rate of the Jewish population b) evincing a brand Arab nationalism and c) as we see in Akko a intensifying determination that allows for confrontation and violence against a Jewish.

 

To disconnect the event from the cause (Akko to Arab political membership within the state) is at best obtuse and at worst willful ignorance. In order to find an ethical solution to the problem the Israeli Arab points with all its might to western style citizenship within a particular Jewish state . Being Jewish, to put it quite simply is not only blood lines, but values and abstractions. Thus one see's black jews, white jews, oriental jews, eurasion jews... if it is Jewish beliefs and purposes that define political membership and not blood, and not skin color...then this is an ethical and practical approach to solving a fifth column found within Israeli citizenry. The secular jew of course will play no part in it, he wants to live in a schitzophrenic state Hebrew speaking portugal, that accepts the peopleness aspect of the Jew, but denies its theistic root (exodus/sinai). It was this denial that I believe is the cultural root to the problem today in Israel, why you have a disenfranchised community, b/c no matter how educated and wealthy they become cannot understably pledge allegience to the star of David, the Ha'tikvah that speaks of a hope of 2000 yrs to return, or a right of return that only applies to one segment of a supposed multi-cultural political membership. Western democray is by nature a universalistic concept of man, where zionism talks of a PARTICULAR people. This here is the root of the problem...the Jews are 4000 yrs old and thus have an identity that is less universalistic then western man, and here lies the rub, for the secular jew who denies the particular aspect to a great degree personally and by extention desires as much for the Jewish state he/she lives. But you can't have your cake and eat too! This ideology has shown itself to be wholly inadequate for state of Israel, as we see today.

 

What needs to happen is that the moderate elements in both Jewish communities needs reconcile, and fuse their beliefs together, in order to  define political membership, because it is only through the traditions that lies an ethical solution that will also protect serve to protect Jewish Sovereignty today....and most importantly, for the israeli generations to come. On this particular issue the compromise will obviously have to be made Israel's secular community, but part of compromise is that the secular if they were smart could get something in return....and thus it gets the ball moving to reconciliation and unity...Instead or recrimination and division with Israel's Jewish majority, and intensifying violence and democratic subterfuge of Israel's Arabs.

 

So no I do not want to kick 1.2 million away from their homes, but at the same time I do believe & affirm that a sovereign people have every right to have a sovereign political culture, representing its differances and values. This political sovereign cultural, naturally extends to what such a people determine as to be its determinate factors in the Political membership within its society. This cultural sovereignty, by the way, has been stated by the philosopher Habermas, a progressive european philosopher. google him if you think I dubious.

 

As we both know you are not going to address the mainpoints being made here, you will deflect, procrastinate and throw invective, but the truth is the most important value...all else is vain.

 

 

 

You seem to be kind of gloomy lately.

 

One incident does not make an intifada. If I am to understand the situation correctly the palestinians are still too busy fighting to organise one. Also there is a possible mechanism I'm considering that could cause the things to change very fast. 

There is this article by Bernard Levin where he accurately predicted the fall of the Soviet Union in 1977, when we all thought they were going to last forever. He even got the mechanism by which the Soviet Union fell right. Source:

"http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:GhZypfNKG9EJ:davidmc41.googlepages.com/LevinBernard-Onewhogotitright.pdf+bernard+levin+ussr&hl=nl&ct=clnk&cd=22&gl=nl"

 

The charge is there, packed tight, tamped down and waiting. The fuse is laid. All that remains is the match. Nor, as it happens, is it particularly difficult to see who will strike it, and why. I do not know his name or what he looks like, but I know he is there. For do you seriously suppose--now we extend the same questions into another area--that Mr. Dubcek and President Svoboda and Mr. Pelikan and Mr. Goldstuecker and Professor Sik and the rest of the Czech liberationists who led the doomed revolt came up one night like mushrooms, or arrived in a rocket from Outer Space? They came up through the system, through the system installed and maintained in Czechoslovakia, and most carefully monitored, by the Soviet authorities. But no Soviet
tracker-dog could pick up the scent of the contraband they carried, for they carried it in their souls, where no dog's nose is sensitive enough to detect it. And if you tell me that no such figures exist in the Soviet Union, even more completely unknown outside (or for that matter inside) than the Czech heroes were, I shall tell you in return that it simply cannot be so. The odds against such an extraordinary aberration of the human spirit are so preposterously high that the chance can be ignored with impunity. They are there, all right, at this very moment, obeying orders, doing their duty, taking the official line against dissidents, not only in public but in private. They do not conspire, they are not in touch with Western intelligence agencies, they commit no sabotage. They are in every respect model Soviet functionaries. Or rather, in every respect but one: they have admitted the truth about their country to themselves, and have vowed, also to themselves, to do something about it. That is how it will be done. There will be no gunfire in the streets, no barricades, no general strikes, no hanging of oppressors from lamp-posts, no sacking and burning of government offices, no seizure of radio-stations or mass defections among the military. But one day soon, some new faces will appear in the Politburo,--I am sure they have already appeared in municipal and even regional administrative authorities--and gradually, very gradually, other, similarly new, faces will join them. Until one day they will look at each other and realize that there is no longer any need for concealment of the truth in their hearts. And the match will be lit.

 

 

 

Here is an article that sheds light on what happened and the deeper problem I am alluding to in my above comments.

Check it out!

 

Ezekiel, I could not find any point or fulcrum in your lengthy and verbose diatribe. If we do not believe, you can't make us, and as a matter of fact your are not even allowed to try.

Thanks for the Jpost link above. The way to stop SP from messing your links is, very simply, to quit using the appallingly lowbrow Microsoft browser. There is absolutely no benefit in loyalty to Internet Explorer, other than making you look daft.

FJV, I do not understand you either. I do not see any analogy between the present ethnic strife in 'Acco and the factors that brought about the demise of the Soviet Union. Do you care to explain, or do I need to have my head examined for an IQ drop?

What is happening in 'Acco has stopped being an isolated incident since it's been going on for 4 days already. According to the article quoted by Ezekiel, firearms are out in the streets, and firing. Sooner or later, a bullet will hit, and somebody will die. Then, hell breaks loose!

Ezekiel, do you think that if the Arabs weren't full citizens and were relegated to a less-than-equal status, they wouldn't be rioting? Is this what you mean by "Jewish sovereignty"?

Revising eligibility to Israeli citizenship along ethnical or confessional lines would no doubt increase our international popularity to North Korean levels, and solve absolutely nothing.

As to the Knesset members, Arab or not, we could demand that they take an oath of allegiance to the State and its constitution, but first we'd need a constitution that, if it stipulates such a clause, is certain to be voted against by the same Arab MK's. Not that I care mind you, since these 14 Arab MK have never enabled or prevented any legislation: they're transparent, and they don't count for much. If the non-Jewish Israeli citizens really voted for them, there'd be 30 of them, but they don't!

I applaud you for at least attempting a counter weight to my argument...now that is the beginning of a dialogue.

 

I appreciate the points you make though they are general and non descript. Nevertheless you made some relevant issues to a Jewish re-determination to construct a meaningful concept of Jewish political membership within the Jewish State. As for me telling you what to believe this is far from the case, i recognize western thought, I recognize its strengths, but because I recognize certain weaknesses within it (especially when awkwardly applied to the Jewish context)  doesn't make me a denier. That line of thinking is facile and dogmatic. The point is... I ingest these philosophies, I deliberate the various schools of thought and then use judgement (hopefully wisely) to determine a prudent course in a particular circumstance. What I called for was Jewish reconciliation and respectful compromise in order to make Jewish self determination an authentic, cogent and progressive narrative. The Jewish State is still unformed, and thus vulnerable. This vulnerability is most clearly observed in Akko, where you have 20% of Israel's population (the number required tfor a fifth column) that  have any sort of fidelity for the Jewish national cause. This shear number and the arab communities growing aggression points to a very needed solution.

 

Your points:

 

1) if Arab status were changed this would not solve the situation, you would still have an aggressive group within your midst.

 

First this doesn't discuss the most precient issue which is today that Israel has a voting public that can lawfully vote the Jewish State out of existence. The motive is established, all that is missing is time. Tick, tick, tick.

 

The value of providing a cogent institution for political membership is far more important in the longterm, then having a quisling state. I will also affirm that by correctly defining roles in a society will actually alleviate the frustration. The idea that Israel can buy Arabs loyalty, how many times have I heard "they live better hear then in any of their 23 states." This is degrading and borderline racist, to think that his loyalty can be bought. The Arab is proud. By providing him an Iron wall of culture(as I titled my first post) will allow him to realize that his/her community is not part of a Jewish state because of blood, but b/c they have very different values and beliefs. Being residents and not citizens may provide them the stability to contribute to the Jewish surrogate.

 

Just because the Arabs wouldn't have national rights doesn't mean they do not have rights at all. Not having national rights does not preclude not have municipal representation, it does not strip them of their personal rights that an enlightened democracy would of course protect (Habeaus Corpus, Privacy, welfare). Enjoying the amenities of a strong and united Jewish state without having to sacrifice for its upkeep may actually be an attractive circumstance.

 

2) Your second point added up to severe world condemnation.

 

This again does not resolve the greater issue of state solvency. Solving the basic issue of a sovereign polity, answering an essential question... who can be part of it? who is eligible to be a trustee within national governance trumps whether Israel will be popular. It is better to be alive and disliked, then to be dead and martyred.

 

Another problem with this line of thinking, is the belief that the Jews cannot define its own political membership through its traditions and values, even if they go against western sensibilities. The principle still stands, no matter how impopular it may be, that every people have the right to establish norms for political membership within its community. As an Israeli this itself should be enough of a principle to die for. My point here is that....if anything is worth dying for this is one of them. Sometimes nations and peoples in there journey through history have had to face trials. Sovereignty is the clear principle in controversy and thus worthy to defend. Point is there is something worth fighting for, sovereignty is clearly one of them. Ability to define ones own political membership is category within sovereignty.

 

I will quote two verses that deserve mentioning here,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are still not making any point on what needs to be done, nor are you giving any description of what that Jewish sovereignty of yours would look like. I understand you certainly have ideas, but you are still using too many words in order to fail to expose them clearly.

If you want to prophesize, please kindly haul ass o'er here where you'll be heard. Since we have no King, there are positions open for Prophets, and the more the better. You have correctly noted that the Jewish nation-state is still a work in progress. Your job is to contribute to its shaping, that's what Prophets do, even when they're likely to be rewarded with a couple of girders and three large carpenter's nails only!

 

In the meantime, ground-level diplomacy and almost-correct police work have succeeded in extinguishing the 'Acco fires, until the next time. The Arab merchants of the old city of 'Acco have seen their tourism-dependent business dwindle to zilch, and have also moved swiftly to rein in their young ones.

The Jews, on their part, never seethe for long. They're quick to heat up, but they also cool rather fast, the more if there's more pressing business to attend to, such as surviving in this harsh, poor and employment-deprived environment of theirs. I'm still surprised that the Moslem narco-ghettos of Ramleh-Lod and Rahat did not flare up in sympathy though. I guess one Arab fatality in the riots, such as happened in Oct. 2000, would have sufficed to lit a big conflagration. The fuze is off for now, but the keg is still there.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

 

Eye witness reports say that most of the trouble in Acco was caused, and encouraged, by right-wing Jewish religious youths.

Apparently there is a community of them there, eg