A Middle Eastern Contrast

Two stories that appeared right next to each other today at Yahoo.

First, this one, about Israel:

"How This Tiny Country Sustains its Huge Reputation...Even as a country with less than 8 million people, Israel maintains roughly 4,000 startups today. The New-Jersey-sized country's venture capital per capita is 2.5 times greater than that of the U.S., and 30 times greater than Europe's, making Israel the largest startup ecosystem outside of Silicon Valley. Considering Israel's political and social climate, this is an incredible feat."

And next, this one, about Syria:

"Air Raids in Northern and Central Syria Kill and Wound Many...Opposition monitoring groups say airstrikes on markets in northern and central Syria have killed and wounded dozens. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air raids on a market in the northwestern town of Ariha killed 12 people, including three children. It says air raids in the central town of Rastan killed 16 people. The Local Coordination Committees, another activist network, says nine people were killed in Wednesday's attacks on Ariha, in the insurgent-held Idlib province. It says the air raids on Rastan killed and wounded dozens. Idlib borders Turkey and is a stronghold of the Fatah Army, a coalition of militant groups including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front."

And yet a major part of the world seems to be determined to turn Israel into one more Syria, one more war torn Arab dictatorship, as if there are not enough of those already.  Can anyone imagine that this could possibly  benefit the two million Arabs in Israel, who enjoy a standard of living vastly better than minorities in any Arab country, and have far more political and civil rights?  In order to appease the hatred of Muslims around the world, people are ready to turn a modern democracy into a war zone in which religious killing is an everyday affair, and dictators fight with fanatics for control, while their people flee in the millions, or live in misery.

The willingness of the nations of the world to descend into the most abominable behavior to allow this to happen is certainly highlighted by this story:

"The Unesco World Heritage Committee is about to do what even in the annals of the UN is unprecedented. It is going to vote on a Palestinian-Jordanian resolution bluntly stating that the Old City of Jerusalem and Temple mount have no historic ties to the Jews"

Continued slaughter and genocide, justified by an utterly malignant rewriting of history that no one on earth believes, but which serves the purpose of promoting the destruction of a decent state and replacing it by one more terror riven Muslim killing machine.

Comments

Joseph Kerr said…
I commend you on your commentary.

Israel shouldn't be singled out.

While the violation of human rights is the norm rather than the exception in the Arab world, the spotlight is focused on Israel. The claims of racism, ethnic cleansing, etc. are a most effective part of a campaign to play on Western guilt and to condition hatred for Israel. While it is true that there are some things wrong in Israel, the facts are sensationalized and distorted. A cheap political campaign is to get Muslim and well-meaning Jewish liberal votes (such as Sam's) is being run by using the Jewish "racist regime" in Jerusalem as a unifying issue.

Contrary to popular belief, the Jews did not take the country from the Arabs. When the Zionists arrived, they found a barren, largely unpopulated land. They built a dynamic society there.

Contrary to myth, the "Palestinians" were never run off their land. When the Zionists came, the Arabs had no technological knowledge and no cure for infectious diseases. The economic activity organized by Jews drew Arabs out of their tribal ways into the modern economy and Yeretz Israel.

Sam claims that she wants a better life for the people of Palestine. She thinks that Zionism will never provide a decent life for the millions of gentiles who live under it.

Yet Arabs in Israel possess one of the highest living standards in the Middle East. Although their living conditions cover a wide spectrum, the best is unequalled anywhere else in the region. Few Arab states can boast such heights. Education his highly valued, in contrast to the worship of the military in the Arab countries. The prosperity of Arabs in Israel is rarely mentioned.

The Arab states have disintegrated into political, social, and economic nightmares. The ones that don't produce oil are beggar states, despite their agricultural pasts and manpower. Adding to their problem, the Middle East's population is mushrooming. They are headed for mass war and starvation.

Some of them had one man, one vote - but only once. Those elections, as in Syria or Libya, were followed by one-party rule or military dictatorships. Across the Arab world, it is impossible to vote the top leaders out of office. Any opposition always somehow just seems to disappear. The people are absorbed by the institutions of the ruling party.

There are few checks on arbitrary action by rulers, and corruption generally prevails because some of the major guarantees against public malpractice - a strong opposition and a free press - are largely absent. Such is the case with George W. Bush's friends in Saudi Arabia, who have run an absolute monarchy since establishing the kingdom.

There are endless lists of human rights violations - mounting atrocities of Arab against Arab. There is torture in Algeria. There are hundreds of thousands of slaves in Qatar and the UAE. ISIS is known for torture, in many cases until death. The list goes on and on, and yet it never seems to get the attention of the media or the anti-Israel campaigns.

Palestinians from the West Bank work in Israel because their own Arab-ruled economy cannot support them. Their wages provide much needed money for them.

Israel is, however, a useful tool for the Arab countries to marshal outside support for their efforts to achieve "equality." There is in fact a direct relationship between the destablization propaganda on the part of the "Palestinians" and the responsiveness of the world in giving them aid.

The western world closes its eyes to the true situation in Africa. All the hand wringing over Israel turns to hand washing when it comes to condemning the Arabs. The West soothes its conscience by giving the "Palestinians" aid. Nobody seems to have noticed that despite the aid, the situation keeps getting worse.

joseph said…
And to be clear, Israel is a socialist country with a top marginal tax rate of 50% on income over $250,000 while the Arab countries use a trickle down economy. And a further rant, Republican support for Israel is a joke. The sole and only unifying principle for Republican elite is money for the rich. Wealth inequality is not a problem for them, it is a goal. Wealth consolidation in fewer and fewer hands is what they crave. That the economy is obviously not sustainable in the long term is irrelevant to them. It worked so well for the French in 1789 and the Russians in 1917.
Green Eagle said…
I just want to thank Joseph Kerr for writing this thorough and well researched comment amplifying what I have had to say. I still find myself stunned almost every day when I see presumably educated people constantly proclaiming that Israel is the worst human rights violator in the world, when things a thousand times worse are taking place in multiple countries immediately adjacent, and throughout the Muslim world. And when Israel is angrily accused of apartheid and genocide toward a group which it has raised far above the status it enjoys in any Arab country.

People just love their hatred, and Jews are a traditional target. We hoped, I guess, that after World War II, people would back off on that, but I guess not.
Sarah Snider said…
"I just want to thank Joseph Kerr for writing this thorough and well researched comment amplifying what I have had to say." - Green Eagle

Joseph Kerr did zero research for the article, and doesn't believe a word he wrote.

In an article about the Middle East, we have the following sentence:
"The western world closes its eyes to the true situation in Africa."

I did a google search, and found where the above sentence first occurred:
South Africa Shouldn't be Singled Out, an article from 1989 by Anne-Marie Kriek defending apartheid in South Africa.

What title did Kerr use for his essay? "Israel shouldn't be singled out."

Joseph Kerr took the racist essay by Kriek and just changed a few proper names. Could it be more blatant what he did?

I also found where the Joseph Kerr name came from. Joe Kerr? Joker?

"And when Israel is angrily accused of apartheid and genocide toward a group which it has raised far above the status it enjoys in any Arab country."

How does what you believe about Israel and Palestine differ from what Kriek believed about South Africa?

Someone has PWNED you, Green Eagle.

-Sarah Snider
Green Eagle said…
Sorry, the comparison of Israel to South Africa is an anti-Semitic racist smear. Things which were malicious justifications for the Apartheid government are actually true for Israel.

I know none of you has ever been to Israel, or had the chance to interact with its Arab population. Is there discrimination against the Arab minority? Yes there is, but far less than there is against Black Americans in many parts of the United States. On the other hand, they have been given full opportunity to participate in the government, and are treated equaly in education, medical care and other things that South African blacks could have only dreamed of. And South Africa's behavior did not come in the face of constant threats from the surrounding countries, financed by rich religious dictators. Comparing Israel to South Africa is only one step away from the disgusting people that compare Jews to Nazis. It is just one more form of barely concealed hatred.
Green Eagle said…
A note: I have deleted some more comparison of Israel to South Africa. I am not going to waste my time dealing with this racist, hateful comparison, which is totally without merit. So you anti-Semitic haters out there who keep pushing this vicious lie might as well just post it on the Vanguard News Service or Stormfront, where it will be appreciated by people like you.
Hans "Grüne" Adler said…
Green Eagle,

I want to thank you for telling the truth about Israel and the Arabs. I know it must be hard having anti-Semites like Sam the Self-Hating Jewish pig pelt you with lies. But I support Israel with all my heart against the Arab threat to Western civilization, and will defend it to my dying breath.

The Jews have reclaimed their historic homeland, and they are making a mistake by letting a fifth column loose in Judea, Samaria, the Galilee, the Golan, and Gaza.

Israel for the Jews, Turkey for the Turks, and Germany for the Germans. Each people to their homeland.

Don't let the anti-Semitic jerks get you down.


P.S. Don't be too hard on South Africa. Rhodesia had a democracy, then the Blacks took over, and Robert Mugabe has been a dictator ever since. This is the threat Afrikaners had to face. They even offered independence to ten different African countries, and four of them (Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda) took them up on the offer and became black-ruled countries. You can even see them on maps of the 1980s. The ultimate South African solution had one countries for the whites, and
ten for the blacks. How's that racist?

P.P.S. I don't know if this posted the first time I tried. I'm trying again.

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