In the Three Kingdoms we are able to watch parliamentary proceedings on Television (Proculvision? Teleopsis?). I have just been watching our Islamic members of the Lower House lining up to dissociate themselves, their Religion, and their Culture, without any Ifs or any Buts, but with great conviction and eloquence, from the psychopaths who murdered the Paris Blasphemers (my word, not theirs).
It does them all the more credit because, when the Zionist Regime was making its most recent attack on Gaza, I do not recall there being a long queue of Jewish MPs fervently striving, one after another, jumping up and down like phrenetic jacks-in-a-box, to catch Mr Speaker's eye so that they could dissociate themselves from the actions of the Israeli Government. (The Palestinian deaths, I believe, amounted to something like a thousand, while less than a dozen Israelis were killed by Hamas activity.)
It would be very wrong to smear Jewish MPs; I have particularly in mind the great Sir Gerald Kaufman. His record in 'rights' matters is exemplary and puts pretty well everybody else to shame. I'm sure many other Jewish MPs and members of their Lordships' House, do put a great deal of pressure on Mr Netanyahu, and, possibly, by doing it behind the scenes, have a great effect. Good for them.
But I couldn't help noticing ...
Calling the Israeli government a ‘Zionist Regime’ reveals the strange worldview that seems to be so common among Traditionalists. It is a blot on their record, including Father Hunwicke. It is also ironic in light of the warm invitation to visit the Vigil Mass of such people in the previous blog entry. How would a person, who wanted the democratically-elected Israeli government to be accepted, even welcomed, in the Middle East by other nations, be greeted at such a Mass?
ReplyDeleteDear Robert
ReplyDeleteI am very happy to confirm that I greatly desire a democratically elected Israeli government to be accepted .... nay rather, welcomed ... by all the other Middle Eastern nations, within her internationally legal (1967) boundaries. I would go further. I would love to see the whole Middle East, from Iran to Tel a viv, a nuclear free zone.
I hope that clarifies matters.
Fr Hunwicke, I suspect if the whole Middle East became a nuclear free zone, Israel wouldn't exist for long.
ReplyDeleteIsrael's borders were extended, in my understanding, because they beat the socks off an invasion on three different fronts and repelled the invaders, who had intended taking Israeli territory, in the process occupying some of the land of the invaders. This seems fair game to me. Otherwise, should we not be calling on the Poles, Czechs and citoyens of Alsace-Lorraine to return their territories to Germany?
The inconsistency of approach does not go unnoticed especially by unemployed young Muslims from the banlieues of Paris who, for whatever reason, find themselves turning to religion in a search for meaning to life. Moreover, the concern is that this double standard is the FIRST thing they notice ...
ReplyDeleteI would be interested to read what actual words our Islamic MPs used. They may dissociate themselves from various things, but they cannot dissociate their religion any more than we can dissociate from any aspect of Catholicism.
ReplyDeleteThen there is the question of definitions. The murderers of the “Paris Blasphemers” may or may not have been psychopaths, (whichever definition you use) but they were acting within the various exhortations of their religion. You could argue they were just orthodox Muslims.
But you are right to raise these matters Father. We must now stop being nice, and tactful and careful, and frightened, (as have our papers and “Auntie” BBC today) with our words whenever we discuss Islam - or else the murderers will have won!
ps
And by the way, whatever else they are, or do, Jews or Zionists do not intend one way or another to take over mankind and subject them to their religion, or else!
There should be a clear separation between discussion of terrorists (Hamas, or al Qaeda in Paris) murdering civilians and governments defending against terrorists. The first should be unequivocally condemned, while the second urged to proceed with prudence and criticized when imprudent -- not minimizing the serious, often tragic, consequences of failures of prudence.
ReplyDeleteThe government of Israel is mired in a conflict with an adversary that delights in the propaganda value arising from the death of their human shields: thus almost any action Israel takes will result in civilian casualties. They go to great lengths to avoid the deaths of innocents; this choice should be lauded and an extended policy of concern for innocent human life encouraged.
If Israel had a choice, or a path, to be welcomed by all the other Middle Eastern nations, within her (1967) boundaries I'm confident she would take it. But the solutions of the international community have failed again and again, and I don't see any likelihood of it outside a massive conversion of heart.
I certainly have no objection to anyone's calling the government of Syria a 'Baathist Regime,' even though I prefer Mr. Al-Asad to his enemies and consider his administration the closest thing that Syria has to a legitimate government.
ReplyDeleteMichael Leahy might like to explain to Palestinians the justice in their expulsion from their ancestral homes in 1948.
ReplyDeleteLet us just note that a Muslim policeman defending the Charlie Hebdo staff (journalist would not be the right term) was killed and another protected customers in the grocery store. Now others of that faith condemn the killings.
There are also Israelis who try to defend the lives and properties of Palestinians.
Calling the Israeli government a ‘Zionist Regime’ reveals the strange worldview that seems to be so common among Traditionalists.
ReplyDeleteLet's call that "worldview" by its proper name: Antisemitism.
Surely Father the difference is this viz. the Parisian attackers carried out their atrocities in the name of Islam, whereas the bombing of Gaza was done in the name of the nation-state of Israel i.e. not in the name of Judaism. Thus it is reasonable for Muslim MPs to denounce what has been carried out supposedly in their name and for Jewish MPs to not feel that need. Also there is surely a substantive difference between the two bloodsheds. The Parisian attack was carried out by private citizens with no authority and no right whereas Israel was being fired upon by rockets and therefore had a least a shadow of a legitinate self-defence argument to cling to (although I grant that there actions were massively disproportionate to the threat). Perhaps for this reason also the Jewish MPs were silent.
ReplyDeleteSurely there was a world of difference in the two cases - Gaza and Charlie H. Israel was responding to violent aggression - rockets and infiltration by tunnels. Gaza has not learnt the lesson that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Whether Israel's response was disproportionate is a difficult question to answer.
ReplyDeleteThe disproportion in the casualties is surely irrelevant. Gaza was the aggressor and all they had to do was to stop aggressing. I found the coverage of it all in this country somewhat hypocritical when in the same period we killed a few thousand of the unborn.
Charlie H on the other hand, however reprehensible we may find their magazine, were not engaged in violent aggression that could in any way justify murder. The attack on them was pure aggression and much of a piece with the attitude of Hamas in Gaza. Islam needs reforming.
So the word Zionist is antisemitic? News to me. I thought it was invented, and used of themselves, by the founders of that ideology. Antisemitic? I presume the word is used in its popular sense of anti-Jewish; a sense that puzzles me because the Arabs, too, are semites. But, leaving that aside, I wonder whether it occurs to the irascible commentators on this thread that if I had wanted to be anti-Jewish, I would have referred to Netanyahu's government as the "Jewish regime". By calling it Zionist (would Netanyahu himself object to that description?) I expressed grave reservations with regard to an ideology, not a race.
ReplyDeleteTelling somebody with an anti-Netanyahu viewpoint that he is AntiSemitic, meaning AntiJewish, is dangerous. People might start to believe that they actually ARE what they have been ACCUSED of being.
Rich Leonardi, calling somebody with anti-Zionist views "anti-Semitic" is a cheap shot and so very much in the politically correct milieu. Maybe next time you comment you can call the eminent blog host a bigot, again without clear proofs, and spare us your air of superiority.
ReplyDeleteFather, you may wish to avail yourself of the wonders of Google to inform yourself on the legal status of the "1967 boundaries" (by which I presume you mean the pre-1967 boundaries, i.e. the 1949 armistice lines which, at the insistence of the Arab nations, were specifically not defined as international borders.) The situation is by no means as clear-cut as you seem to think.
ReplyDeleteThe same resource would also quickly show you that the use of the term "Zionist Regime" to describe the Israeli government is confined to such luminaries of reason and bastions of peace-loving enlightenment as the Iranian government and IS/ISIS/ISIL. I regret that you have set yourself in some very unpleasant company.
One further point Father if I may.
ReplyDeleteThe Jews are the chosen people of God. The Catholic Religion is the fulfilment of their Religion, which is why we call it Judeo-Christianity.
Romans, Catholics, Protestants and of course atheists including the National Sozialistischen Partei, have treated them abominably, mainly because of the erroneous belief that they Crucified Christ when it was all of Mankind, including anyone was happens to read this, who did so.
Therefore, the establishment of a state for the protection of Jews, based on their ancient city of Jerusalem, and their homeland is reasonable and was obviously thought to be so by the United Nations in 1947.
Now there still appears to be some disagreement as to where the exact borders should be, but the State of Israel, like the heresy of Islam, and I trust the indigenous Palestinian Christian peoples, are not going to go away!
I had always thought that the UN 1947 plan for the area kept Jerusalem as an area distinct from both the Arab and the Jewish areas. I was only six at the time, so I suppose I have misremembered.
ReplyDeleteI find the tone of some of these comments quite amazing. Must be all these pro-Israeli neocons one hears about.
Yes ... I know ... don't bother to tell me ... I realise that using a phrase like neocons is probably yet another way of getting oneself called a racist. I wonder how these unsavoury characters have managed to create such a clever and sohisticated hermeneutical matrix that pretty well any grammatical statement in any language calling into question any aspect of Israeli history or policy is evidence that the writer is a crypto-Nazi.
I suppose it's the cynical, very clever manipulation of modern history and the Holocaust industry that is to blame for the ostracism of people who question the legitimacy of a Jewish state and anybody who speaks out about Israeli acts of genocide.
ReplyDeleteIsraelis are the real Nazis.
The trouble is that there is a simple truth which is that everything is a great deal more complicated than one imagines. But surely Zionism refers to the desire to create a Jewish homeland and thus to describe the Israeli Government as Zionist does not seem inaccurate to me and whether one agrees or disagrees with Zionism to call someone Zionist is not an insult or anti-Semitic. Of course there is much to regret in the history of modern Israel but if you treat people badly they sometimes behave badly in return and often such bad behaviour is misdirected.
ReplyDeleteAs to neocons there is a fascinating account of the life of Irving Kristol, (the godfather of neoconservatism) in the December edition of "Standpoint". I found his views on religions both Christian and Jewish fascinating. Maybe neoconservatism has gone wrong in certain respects as has Zionism but neither are to be dismissed lightly as wholly bad.
Incidentally Chesterton was a Zionist!
Father,
ReplyDeleteA partition was decided on by the UN, with an overwhelming majority, so the principle was established.
It was accepted by the Jewish parties except details (now decided), but rejected outright by the Arabs. The growing civil conflict ended with the invasion of the territory by Arab League Sates in 1947, contrary to the UN, with the intent of eliminating Jewish authority and the Jewish people, a situation the Jews were all too familiar with.
The Jews won that phase and naturally set up their state as in accord with the principle of the United Nations Resolution, but with some border variations as per their original agreement. And that’s it.
The driving force against the Jews is the Islamic heresy and sadly that, the Jewish State, and I trust, Palestinian Christianity, are not going to go away, and I for one can’t blame the Jews, whether I’m a neo-con (whatever that is), or just an ordinary bog standard Catholic in the pews.
Oh we do live in interesting time!
Nicolas Bellord: There is no problem with the use of the term "Zionist" as such. But there are certain phrases in which the word is used exclusively in a pejorative sense: "Zionist regime" (= Israeli Government) is one such, as is "Zionist entity" (= State of Israel). These phrases are widely used by those who are quite open about seeking to wipe the state of Israel off the map. They are a part of standard anti-Israeli rhetoric, never used in a merely descriptive or neutral sense.
ReplyDeleteIf one wishes to write on such delicate matters in a public forum, one really owes it to oneself as well as to one's readers to be aware of the connotations of the terminology one uses. Otherwise people might get the wrong idea as to one's intentions …
The Jews are the chosen people of God.
ReplyDeleteWhat are we, chopped liver?
Our First Pope taught differently:
1st Peter:
9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people, that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his admirable light.
10 Who in time past were not a people: but are now the people of God: who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Patricius: I do not know where you live but to talk of ostracism for critics of Zionism is just ridiculous in the UK. Here, particularly on the left, there are supporters of the Palestinians and critics of Israel and they tend to predominate in the discussion in the UK.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very mixed history with crimes committed on both sides but if you want to talk about genocide it is the Arabs who want to eliminate the Jews and not the reverse. Just listen to the rhetoric coming out of Iran. In 1967 the whole Arab world united to try and destroy Israel but failed. As to Nazis there were many amongst the Arabs who had links with the 3rd Reich.
I wonder what the Jews are supposed to do. Palestine is where they originally came from; there were always some there and it does not seem unreasonable for them to want to return there in view of the treatment they have suffered elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteLook at France - supposedly one of the most civilised countries on this earth - and I am a Francophile. They have the largest Jewish community in Europe and yet apparently most of them are thinking of leaving for Israel. Why? Liberté, Egalité, Franternité - has that not worked for them? When four are killed by terrorists their bodies are promptly taken to Israel for burial. Were those four Zionists or were they people who had hoped to integrate into French society? Is the soil of France so tainted with anti-Semitism that they could not be buried in France?
To my mind all this has revealed something very nasty. And do not let us forget that anti-Semitism in France was very much a Catholic thing from the publication of Drumont's "La France Juive" in 1886 and his foundation of the Anti-Semitic League. Drumont was not a Catholic but he had many Catholic followers; not least amongst the Augustinians whose very successful paper 'La Croix' boasted that it was the most anti-Semitic paper in France. In 1998 at the centenary of the Dreyfus affair La Croix acknowledged that it's editorial line in 1898 had been inexcusable. One might have hoped that things had changed but now one wonders.
It is most certainly true that there were always some Jews in Palestine. Many of their descendants are Hasidic or Mea Shearim or what the journalists call Ultra-Orthodox; and they are very anti-Zionist on principled reasons based on their understanding of Judaism. They are constantly bullied by the Zionist regime to do National Service in the Zionist Army. Being deeply devout, they feel very ill at ease among the secularised and unobservant colonists who've flooded in particularly during the last couple of decades. They deserve our admiration and our sympathy for their steadfastness in their ancient faith.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that if a certain nation held a certain territory 2,000 years ago, those who claim to be their descendants are entitled to walk back into it, strikes me as remarkable.
THIS THREAD IS TAKING UP TOO MUCH OF MY TIME. I AM CLOSING IT.