JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

09/22/09 09:17 PM

Uriel Heilman rants about Walker’s supposed defense of terrorism. For the reader interested in seeing for himself what Alice Walker’s “offense” actually consists of, you can read her essay here:

http://www.alicewalkersblog.com/2009/07/overcoming-speechlessness-poet.html

I wonder if it was this passage that so upset Heilman:

I was moved to tell her of the effort it took, even for someone so inherently non-violent as me, to contain myself during seven years in Mississippi when it often appeared there were only a handful of white Mississippians who could talk to a person of color without delivering injury or insult. That if we had not been able to change our situation through non-violent suffering, we would most certainly, like the ANC, like the PLO, like Hamas, turned to violence. I told her how dishonest it seems to me that people claim not to understand the desperate, last ditch, resistance involved in suicide bombings; blaming the oppressed for using their bodies where the Israeli army uses armored tanks.

What’s not to understand? Apologies to my Quaker friends, but non-violence has its limits. Israel can only push Palestinians so far and not expect them to push back. Hamas is the perfect illustration of what happens when you push people too far.

Heilman’s comments on headscarves seems incredibly catty, as if she had decided, like Geert Wilders or Robert Spencer, to the the arbiter of what is appropriate for a foreign nation’s women to wear. Myself, I find the notion of a shadel rather strange, but I don’t go around telling Jewish women what to wear. I’m surprised Heilman hasn’t commented on Mormon underwear or weighed in on thongs.

09/23/09 12:55 AM

<<<Israel can only push Palestinians so far and not expect them to push back. >>>

Give it up already. The PLO was founded by Arafat in 1964 when no Palestinians were under occupation. The Palestinian press has done nothing but vilify Israel and, especially, Jews.

The Palestinian leadership and most Palestinians - and you can search out references for yourself since there are so many - consider ALL of Israel and ALL of Jordan as Palestine and won’t rest until the Jews and Hashemites are gone.

Hamas was given a golden chance when Israel moved out. Their isolation happened a year AFTER they started their missile campaign.

Ehud Barak gave away 93% of the West Bank and all of Gaza to Arafat at Camp David 2000. Arafat said no, so they met again in Elat and Barak gave 100% of the territory by giving part of Israel to make up the last 7% and Eastern Jerusalem - as the Pals wanted - for their capitol.

There have been many myths and number manipulations around these proceedings, but in the end Arafat admitted during his hold-out in Ramallah that had he agreed with Barak he would have been assassinated. Palestinians want 3.5 million Palestinians to move “back” into Israel as part of an agreement. Not monetary compensation. People in Israel.

The modern times killing of Jews by the Arabs began in the late 1800’s as Jews started to move to the Palestine Mandate. The Saud family for one realized that the intent was to someday form a Jewish state and the raids and killings and terrorism started. The British, with a long history of Anti-Semitism and wanting in on Arab oil - supported the Arabs and prevented Jews from moving in.

Up to the 1967 War the estimated death toll from terrorism since 1948 was about 25,000. Hmmmm. And the Jews did WHAT to deserve this?

Well, David, Israel has been pushed to within a billionth of an inch from the brink. Iran has no justification for attacking Israel - the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Center in Argentina has been undeniably proved to be done by Hezbollah supported by Iran.

Persians and Jews had a very long history of getting along. Persians still have a hard time hating Israel and Jews because their government makes no sense in this regard. But Iran has sent 40,000 new missiles into Lebanon via a willing Syria directly under the watch of - yup, you guessed it - the UN.

So get off your low horse and stop looking at the poooor Palestinians as unwitting victims. They HAD a state given to them in 1948. Instead, six Arab countries answered by trying to eliminate Israel. Israel lost 6,000 dead and tens of thousands wounded - and only a few years out from the Holocaust.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem overtly supported Hitler’s Final Solution and even marched next to Hitler in a parade in Berlin.

That Gaza wasn’t razed is a sign of fantastic restraint by Israel. Some on this board see the proportion of deaths - 100:1 in favor of Israel - as proving war crimes. Sorry to all of you. Enough Jews have died over the past 1,600 years to satisfy the blood lust of a billion vampires. And it STILL isn’t enough.

Well, keep ratcheting up the pressure on Israel and keep attacking Jews the world over to “avenge” Israeli “atrocities” that never even happened, and keep 96% to 98% of UN investigative activity focused solely on Israel, and you will soon witness what happens when the 4th strongest military in the world has finally had it.

09/23/09 05:12 PM

I’m gonna throw up

09/23/09 05:21 PM

David --

First, if you defend terrorism (as you do), you are not a civilized human being.

Second, educate yourself about the history of Arab rejectionism—the Palestinians could have had a state in ‘48 (though back then they were just called Arabs) and rejected Israel and turned to terrorism before ‘67.  Have you heard of the three no’s at Khartoum?  (Probably not.) Did you hear about Barak’s offer to give the Pals 97% or so of the West Bank and Gaza and to share Judaism’s most holy city?  The Palestinian response?  A war of terrorism and suicide bombings. 

Go post on some far-left blog where other ignorant people who defend terrorism post.

09/23/09 05:26 PM

To Michael “Slow” Lerner, Alice Walker, David, their staunch defender et al!
Tell me something new. Your responses to anything that smacks of Jewish nationalism and strong defense of Israel, its survival and vital interests is automatically negative. You could program a robot to give your benighted comments. What y’all refuse to see is that since times immemorial only strength counted when survival is at stake. You bleat like ewes from behind your posh desks and expect the enemy to come and kiss you little cheeks, both face and buttocks, because you are sooo peace-loving.
Wake up, you dummy dhimmis! This is not your mamele’s kindergarten, a stage where you have remained fixated for your adult life!
To Thomas Roberts - Yashar Ko’ach!

09/23/09 05:45 PM

Alice Walker’s life formed her worldview, and unfortunately it’s an unchanging, overly simple one.  In her worldview there is the oppressed and the oppressor, the good guy and the bad guy.  The real world is rarely so cut and dried.  Sadly, she seems to only let her worldview be affirmed by all her travels and experiences, rather than leaving herself open to learn something that might actually change her view of the world.

09/23/09 10:08 PM

One reaction: what the hell does Lerner think he’s doing?  Printing Alice Walker’s anti-Israel diatribe is certainly permissible in a democratic Jewish world, but inviting her to spout her venom on our most holy religious service is both a major faux pas and an insult to worshipers.  Lerner may share her obscene views, that’s his right, but surely any Jew who attends a worship service AT A JEWISH SYNAGOGUE comes to pray to God, not hear an attack on fellow Jews.  I had respect for Lerner, with whom I disagree, until now, but his obscene act is beyond the line of political action.  Perhaps he will pray for atonement, he certainly needs God’s mercy this year.

09/23/09 11:13 PM

Are you all just now realizing that Lerner has always been a traitorous JINO disgrace?

09/24/09 04:14 AM

Yes, Walker’s experiences shape her worldview, as was stated, but that is no excuse for ignorance. I admire her as a writer, but that she has not bothered to see beyond the lies and rhetoric, diminishes her in my eyes. A creative writer she may be, but I am doubting, if not her intelligence, her integrity. And Michale Lerner--shame on him! Bringing this to a Yom Kippur service! He’s gone mishuggie. I pity his congregants--they may get a sermon that will leave a bad taste in their mouth at the same time they are fasting.

09/24/09 06:25 AM

Michael will never learn. His past haunts him with rumors of impropriety. His soul is haunted by not being accepted by the far-left non-Jews. Where to go Michael? How about home. It really doesn’t feel so bad being a Jew in Israel. Enjoying the work to improve the society and our people. All of them: Jews and Non-Jews a like. This is tikun olam. Shana Tova

An anti-Semite is anti-Semite, etc etc. I do not love Walker nor do I personally care what she thinks. She is in affect a non-entity for us in Israel.