On Bush’s recent visit to Israel he alienated the entire Arab world, by re-declaring this mystical American - Christian / Israeli - Jewish affinity. Here’s an excerpt from the Reuters report:
Bush, who steps down in January, made little reference to the peace negotiations or to the Palestinians at all while in Israel.
Many Palestinians were dismayed by a speech to Israel's parliament in which he spoke of a shared divine providence uniting American Christians like himself with Israel's Jews.
Bush called Israel a homeland for God's "chosen people" and pledged Washington would remain its "best friend in the world".
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL161725720080516?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
Divine Providence?? Exactly wtf is that all about?
Some time ago in chat a new guy came into the room. His first words were "Shalom!”. Strange, I think, considering this is a "Christian Debate" room, frequented largely by atheists, pagans, and Christians.
Bush, who steps down in January, made little reference to the peace negotiations or to the Palestinians at all while in Israel.
Many Palestinians were dismayed by a speech to Israel's parliament in which he spoke of a shared divine providence uniting American Christians like himself with Israel's Jews.
Bush called Israel a homeland for God's "chosen people" and pledged Washington would remain its "best friend in the world".
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL161725720080516?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
Divine Providence?? Exactly wtf is that all about?
Some time ago in chat a new guy came into the room. His first words were "Shalom!”. Strange, I think, considering this is a "Christian Debate" room, frequented largely by atheists, pagans, and Christians.
I check his profile - he’s got an Irish last name, and lives in Arkansas. Based on years of experience I deduce that the likelihood of a Jew having that last name and hailing from Arkansas is somewhere between little and none. So, I ask if he's Jewish. He says "No, I'm a Christian Zionist." To be honest, I'd never heard the term before. But I knew immediately where this was leading.
So I challenged him: I ask if being a Xtian Zionist is just another way of saying he supports Israel because he believes that it will bring about rebuilding of the Temple, et al, which would lead to the fulfillment of the "End Times" prophesy, the 2nd coming, the Rapture, the end of the world as we know it? And isn't this "shalom" bullshit, and his support for Israel, and his use of the term Zionist, just a thinly veiled disguise for this fundamentalist insanity?
He is shocked and taken aback. He demands to know what right I have, and who gave me the "freedom" to attack him this way?
Not to be diverted from my inquisition, I ask him to deny that what I say is true. Instead, he becomes agitated, and threatens to leave the room. My invitation for him to do so calms him down and declares he will not be run off. He offers this: that Israel is the only real democracy and friend of the US in the Middle East, thus he supports Israel.
I offer that I support Israel too...but I don’t go around saying "shalom" to total strangers, much less call myself an "Atheist Zionist". And that I demanded he come clean, again repeating my request for the real intent and meaning of "Xtian Zionist". He left in a huff.
Here's the bottom line: Xtians like these have no more love of Jews or interest in seeing the state of Israel thrive and prosper for the long term than they want to see Satan win the battle of Armageddon. Fundie Christians, like Bush, or Hagee, or Robertson, or Falwell, who declare a strong affinity with the Jewish people and Israel are hypocrites and frauds. To them the State of Israel, and the Jews, are simply a means to an end, a tool, a catalyst by which their insane End Time prophecies of "Revelation" will be brought about.
What’s more... most of them are too embarrassed to admit it.
Crazy Fundie bastards.
Crazy Fundie bastards.
Hump,
ReplyDeleteYou poor camel. You keep running into fundy nutjobs from Arkansas. Do you wonder why I'm sane?
Oreo
Oreo!!
ReplyDeleteI'm not only surprised you're still sane living down there, I'm amazed they actually let you live!!! ;)
Oreo,
ReplyDeleteHow do you do it?
As a teen in the 1980's, I lived in Wichita KS. Once the teen fundies (and a few teachers also) figured out I was "Jewish" (really an atheist, but hey, you couldn't make them understand the difference) I became their favorite prositlization object.
I stayed sane (and relatively happy) because I was able to hang with friends (mostly transplants from east/west coast) who didn't give a rat's ass about religion as well as a great supportive parents and siblings.
- fastthumbs
Could you comment, whether my details are correct in my essay in
ReplyDeletehttp://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-Jews-statistics.htm ?
E.g. "It is USA that profits from Israel, rather than the opposite. Israel gets nearly 2 billion euros from USA almost every year, that is true. But. US demands that Israel is not allowed to stop brain drain from Eretz Israel to the USA. Before the Second Intifada, there were 200 Israeli companies listed in the US High Tech Nasdaq, after the Intifaca the count had dropped to 70. At the moment, the number is back in 100, which is still greater than from all the European countries combined. Dollars are green since the yankees pull the down from the tree when still raw and fresh. Israel has not been allowed to let any of its companies to be scaled up in their homeland but most are imported straight from the garage. The scaling up of industrial production would mean jobs, to both Jews, Arabs and other ethnic groups. Israel is ordered to stay as some kind of innovation laboratory only, as the 51. state.
Astonishing number of 25% of the Israeli researchers have moved from Israel to the United States - and this figure does not yet even include the people with double citizenship! The next largest brain drain of researchers to US are 12.2% from Canada, 4.3% from Netherlands, and 4.2% from Italy.
One of the secrets of innovative success in Israel is the fact that cheating is minimized in the public funding: Money is not delivered according to research plans but steady income and thus the market analysis is emphasized. The support is designed so that the first 2-10 years a startup company does not have to pay taxes. But no direct funding without compensation is offered. Today, Israel draws Venture Capital (VC) more than the Europe.
A novel phenomenon is the strategy by which Israel has been able to claim victory over China and other Far-East countries regarding the most modern High Tech factories: As an example, the supranational Intel transferred the mass production of Centricon-processors to Israel, where 25% of citizens possess a higher decree from the university but where people respect patents and are not plagiating every item they produce for others. (China is a great country of thieves. The Empire of Pirates steals every moving article in your machine.) Intel was also offered an overall tax rate of 10%, which is about three times lower than that of US.
Also, the biggest generic drug factory in the world was recently established in Israel. Over half of the export from Israel are High tech products, compared to the 25% which is the average in the OECD countries.
Although the export of the agriculture has remained constant past the last 30 years, its relative amount has dropped from 70% to 3%. Out of the 3000 companies in Israel 80% are less than ten years old, and the average failure rate of these start ups is very low, less than 50%. In biotechnology and drug development, about 400 experimental drugs have been approved or accepted in clinical phases. The greatest portion of funding of research per capita is found in Israel. Israel also has the greatest ratio of researchers per square meter or population in the face of the world, far exceeding I.e. Japan: http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Indicator.htm"
Pauli.Ojala@gmail.com
Helsinki, Finland
Biochemist, dropout (evolutionary critic)
PS. The Palestinian life expectancy increased from 48 to 72 years in 1967-1995. The population of the Palestinian Arabs has increased tenfold (10x) in 57 years, which might be the world record after the WWII. The death rate decreased by over 2/3 in 1970-1990 and the Israeli medical campaigns decreased the child deat rate from a level of 60 per 1000 in 1968 to 15 per 1000 in 2000. (An analogous figure was 64 in Iraq, 40 in Egypt, 23 in Jordan, and 22 in Syria in 2000). During 1967-1988 the amount of comprehensive schoold and second level polytechnic institutes for the Arabs was increased by 35%. During 1970-1986 the proportion of Palestinian women at the West Bank and Gaza not having gone to school decreased from 67 % to 32 %. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in West Bank and Gaza increased in 1968-1991 BKT from 165 US dollars to 1715 dollars (compare with 1630$ in Turkey, 1440$ in Tunis, 1050$ in Jordan, 800$ in Syria, 600$ in Egypt. and 400$ in Yemen).
The Second Intifada is called the Oslo War. Israel has been forced to damage the very infrastructure she has constructed and administrated while hunting the weapons from the milittant "freedom fighters". Between 1967-1993 roads, system of siewers (gutters, ditches), electricity supply, water supply, schools, health care system, and social welfare system to the West Bank and Gaza.
Pauli,
ReplyDeletewell..that was, uh...long.
Sorry, I don't have any comments / feedback for you. My blog post wasn't directed to political, economic nor social aspects of Israel. It was entirely a discussion on American Christian Zionist fanaticism and their crazy prophesy as a basis for support of Israel and Israeli Jews.
I will say that without foot notes supporting the aleged factual statements you made, your document cannot be verified / corroborated for accuracy.
If you have any religiously inspired input, feel free to post again.
Thanks.