From words to action

Alexander the Great conquered the world. Rome imposed the pax Romana. Russia cut the window on Europe. The British empire spanned continents. Napoleon liberated Europe. Europeans pioneered America. Jews restored their ancient state.
The verbs convey a sense of approval. The described campaigns were great and are still admired. But all of them were conducted against the wishes of the local people, often at the cost of their lives. That’s the ethics of history in a nutshell: strangers’ lives can be sacrificed for an aim one considers high.

The suffering of the Palestinians is as unimportant as the suffering of the ancient Persians conquered by Alexander. History doesn’t remember dead masses, but great events only. The Jews’ lenient treatment of the Palestinian aborigines will fall into historical oblivion; think of your school’s course of history; does it mention any ruler for his kindness? Israel’s only chance to enter history is becoming the Great Israel. Regardless of her enemies’ lives.

Danny the Admin 2007 August 09

Natty, I agree with everything you say here, except one thing: we’re first Jews, then humans. You would first care about your family, then about others. Red Indians were also badly treated. States are only created by maltreatment of aborigines. That’s much regrettable, but unavoidable. Israel’s immorality is in prolonging the suffering of Palestinians rather than transferring them to Jordan in one batch, giving them some money, and letting them go on with their lives unhindered.

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Danny the Admin 2007 August 10

Sure, we have to minimize suffering of Palestinians. The question is, should we minimize it at the expense of Jewish state? Obadiah’s point is to make Israel a Jewish state (trnaferring Arabs to Jordan) and minimize suffering of Palestinians as much as possible without compromising on that goal.

Oh, no. The commandment to love the foreigner (actually, refrain from oppressing him) refers to submissive aliens who accept Jewish jurisdiction – not to Amalek, for example. Arabs contest Jewish character of Israel. Now Arabs constitute 34% of Israeli population in 0-9 age group. They heavily influence Jewish politics and seek to excise even the name of Jewish from national anthem.
Normal citizens of democratic country demand their rights to the fullest. That’s what Arabs do and what we refuse to accept. For the state to remain Jewish, Arabs cannot have full democratic rights. Democratically (actually, liberally) speaking, the Law of Return should apply to Arabs, as well. And haTikva should mention Arab soul along the Jewish. And Israeli flag should be one-third green.
I understand your concern over losing Jewish lives in the process, but that’s unavoidable. We lost many Jews in wars. If Jewish lives have priority over Jewish religion and nationalism, then we should stay in the safe Canada. There’s necesssarily a compromise between lives and ideals.

Consider a state’s budget. You can spend more for health care (infinitely more) or allocate funds for infrastructure projects.
Consider firefighters: they risk their lives to save property. The same holds for police on occasion.
Consider the situation when someone attacks your country only to claim a piece of land: if you don’t fight back and expend lives, you would end up without the country.
Germans in World War II didn’t intend to exterminate the Brits, but only wanted to conquer their country. The Brits fought back with massive casualties on both sides.
Human life, as any value, is not absolute. The value of human life is high, but sometimes it has to be sacrificed. A national goal is one likely example.