Martial Law: Imminent Arrival?

[Lauren Johnson]

In order to hold up mythologies, one must tell lies. Usually they are whoppers. "Did you know Deir Yassin never happened and if it did -- so what?

Giving up those lies is painful.

There are some who will cling to those lies like grim death, refusing to now accept that what they have been told most of their lives was bullshit.

Pipes claim that in 1948 most Arabs simply left and 'exceedingly few' were driven off the land is such exquisite bullshit.

Men, women and children were brutally murdered if they couldn't get away.

The genocidal cruelty has continued to this day. God's chosen people indeed.

Actually Mark, trying "make somebody see the point" regarding Israel for the most part a lost cause. Why? (First, I admit that I did what I normally don't do -- I called his Greg's position with regard to Israel "dumb." I know better.) With regard to Israel, it is just useless. One either gets it or not. There is just too much cultural narrative (mythology) involved. What is at stake? Well, choos from among the following binaries: civilization vs. barbarism, humanness vs. animality, light vs. dark, the true god vs. false gods, reason vs. irrationality, capitalism vs. socialism, Christianity vs. Islam, God's chosen people vs. Untermensch and so on. Then you have the myth of the righteous few against the barbaric hordes, and the brain has been captured.

My only answer is that everything I have said also applies to me. I could raise hell about the stupidity of someone's position about Israel, but then I know full well that I live in a land that is built on genocide. Pipes is correct on that point. None of us is righteous. But then his position is something like: Sure, we conquered the land; everybody does it. So what? The IDF is the most moral army in the world. End of subject.

I suppose, the opposite to being captured by the pro-Israel myth is to be captured by its opposite: to believe you can identify evil and point it out: it's the Israelis. Then you start seeing Israel's hand in everything, everywhere. Then the holder of this view feels righteous because he knows who is wrong and has the courage to point it out.

One story: I was conversing with this very pleasant dual citizen Israeli-American. After conversation went for a while, I talked about my travels to Palestine, and it didn't take long before I was saying something like: Surely, you can't mean that! with regard to Palestinians. Yep, she did. The were animals, the were swine, they were filthy, and WHATEVER the IDF would chose to do to them, she would support. Then she went on to all of Islam. She essentially was saying a large portion of the world's population should be eliminated. Surely you don't mean that. Yep, they are vermin. At that point, the only thing that changed in the conversation was the volume.