Comments for Mideast Shuffle

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Calvin L. Smith

Calvin L. Smith — Thu, 24 May 2012 11:25:12 +0000

Oh, is Sandboxer the author of the above essay? If so I’d especially be interested to hear her response to my question.

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Mike

Mike — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:25:21 +0000

Thank you Sharmine but are you able to communicate in terms others than tired, worn-out clichés? Your article is inaccurate from start to finish. Israel is not guilty of ethnic cleansing. Israel is not an apartheid state. The state of Israel has enriched your life and that of its Arab neighbours. If Israel’s neighbours would stop biting the hand that feeds them both they and the friend they hate would be far better off and there would be a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. I think a better online monicker for you would be ‘Shadowboxer’.

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Sandboxer

Sandboxer — Thu, 24 May 2012 09:06:53 +0000

My laptop wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the state of Israel?

Slightly obscene to hear Israelis suggesting that a high-tech industry justifies ethnic cleansing and colonialism.

India and China can cover me just fine…Israel has no right to exist.

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Mike

Mike — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:46:06 +0000

Thank you Ahmadinejad. I can’t tell you how gratified I am to know there are people of Arab/Persian origin like yourself who see through the lies Ms Narwani articulates. God bless you for your courage.

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Ahmadinejad

Ahmadinejad — Wed, 23 May 2012 23:49:29 +0000

Mike,

Great to see your vigorous reaction. It shows that Ms. Narwani was right. The more disgusted you are, the happier it makes me and millions more like me of Arab/Persian origin. Thanks and please remain upset, and, oh get used to it because the people if Israel need peace before reaching inner peace!

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Mike

Mike — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:52:43 +0000

This piece is so wild that I thought Ms Narwani was holding it up to ridicule. I expected that at any moment she was going to begin exposing the extreme and crazy position she was in fact expounding. I could not believe she was serious. I even checked to make sure she had not written it on April 1! I was shocked to dicover that this articulate writer actually appears to believe the poisonous, Pythonesque, deranged stream-of-consciousness that poured from her laptop (the technology of which she would not possess if not for the existence of the state of Israel). If Ms Narwani really believes her own articulate revision of history, she either needs to go back to college or she needs a good shrink.

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Calvin L. Smith

Calvin L. Smith — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:09:49 +0000

Sandboxer, a Jewish history within and claim to the land came long, long before European Zionism. Indeed even in the post-biblical period Jews and Samaritans represented a majority in the land at the time of the Muslim invasion through to the Crusades. So the standard Marxist narrative of Israel as a purely modern colonial transplant simply doesn’t stand up.

Incidentally, this comment of yours interested me: “A Moroccan Jew or Iraqi Jew has no more right to Palestine, than does a European, Russian or American Jew.” By that standard all Palestinians originally of immigrant stock (many also, for example, from North Africa) equally have no right to the land. Or do you only exercise this standard for Jews?

Like I said above, negating one negates the other.

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Sandboxer

Sandboxer — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:49:22 +0000

Calvin, zionism is completely an invention of European Jews – nothing to do with Arab Jews whatsoever, who themselves have no claim to Palestine. Jews living in Palestine prior to the occupation of zionists are Palestinians; foreign Jews (from both Arab and non-Arab nations) are Israelis. A Moroccan Jew or Iraqi Jew has no more right to Palestine, than does a European, Russian or American Jew. All are part of the colonial power and privilege system to ethnically cleanse Palestine of non-Jews indigenous to the land.

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by winston smith

winston smith — Tue, 22 May 2012 00:10:08 +0000

Well written!!! It will be included on my website Wednesday. i have links everyday about the oppression Palestinians are going through. It’s easy to spot, all got to look for is the words “Who are the real terrorists out here?”

I’ve got you bookmarked.

Comment on Excuse Me, But Israel Has No Right To Exist by Calvin L. Smith

Calvin L. Smith — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:38:33 +0000

Sheldon, please read what I said, rather than what you think I said. My point is very simple: the author of this blog seeks to juxtapose the notion of Israeli Jewry as a colonial, external transplant (or European Jewry fleeing the Holocaust) with the displacement of indigenous Palestinians. It is a tired, lazy and unpersuasive argument which goes against the evidence of many hundreds of thousands (if not several millions) of Israeli Jews having being as indigenous to the ME as anyone. I won’t even get into how many Palestinian families trace their origins to North Africa and arrived at the same time as the Zionists, or how many Palestinians acknowledge some Jewish ancestry within their families.

If academics are to contribute seriously to an understanding of the real issues they need to move away from cliches and focus on facts. Here is a fact: Israel is not a wholly external transplant, many of its inhabitants are just as indigenous to the region and land as the Palestinians. You negate one, as the author above does, and you inevitably negate the other. Do you see the point?