israel will nuke iran, page-58

Hi Chuck

I really want to conclude that chapter, as it has very little to do with present-day politics, except perhaps explains Israeli paranoia about being safe and needing an arsenal of weapons to do so.

Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, developed his theories in Vienna - I think during WWI. Vienna had a large Jewish population, many of them intellectuals and contributing greatly to European civilization. So did Budapest.

My take is - and I wasn't brought up with anti-semitism - that when times are bad, ordinary people are looking round for someone to blame. In the cities it was the bourgeoisie that still had a life, including property: they dominated the banks, finance, they still enjoyed holidays, sometimes even on the coast in the former crown lands of the monarchy etc. and many of those were Jewish, but not all, while the rest was without jobs. Then Hitler came out with his crazy 'Mein Kampf' which I haven't read and most people haven't either (except maybe after the disaster that was WWII), but they knew, who Hitler blamed and that he would make them (the Jews) do work, ordinary work. They didn't read the small-print. I also think it was a fiendish plot to finance Hitler's war. Jewish property was confiscated and the spoils were divided among the elite of the Nazis. It was a kind of perverted revolution.

Revolution always means distribution of someone elses property, when all the lofty talk is done with.

I am probably the worst person to ask if they're still antisemitic in Austria: I'm sure, some are, but I have met similar people here in Australia, too. The thing is to outlaw this kind of behaviour and yes, even utterances, or to answer back, defend etc. when you hear and see it. Maybe we should just decide that skin colour etc. doesn't really matter, lets concentrate on the person behind it.

Some Jews have moved back to Austria and Germany, so it must be better. Returning Jewish people also were compensated after the war, they were given preferential treatment in every way - again not endearing them to the ordinary, still suffering, citizen.

Deep down, we're all tribal and still have the need to have an inner circle of the ones who belong, and the outer circle of the 'strangers' - and so we discriminate, when it suits us.

I personally feel for the Israelis, in fact if I had a choice of which culture I would rather dominated in the Middle East, I'd say; Jewish culture. It is much closer to ours and we would recognise many more reference points than we would with some of the surrounding Arabs. I would like to make some exceptions: many Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians and Syrians have a modern and western outlook too, but if I needed to choose between Islamic fundamentalism and Israel, I would chose Israel every time.

GZ I agree with you up to a point. My criticism of Israel is that it is not a secular democracy, it is under the total influence of its right-wing religious people throwing their weight around and being as bloody-minded as the far and also religious right is in the U.S.A.
The Americans, though, are the dark horse in this plot - Israel is a kind of fifth column of the U.S.A. in the heartland of oil and Islamism, and the Americans use them. Just think: they'll have someone to blame if the powder keg explodes.
Well that's my opinion anyway.

One thought occurred to me today, whilst I was reading opinions on various threads: if the share market can cause people to get as paranoic and rude as some of the last two days' posts on some threads showed, just imagine what real hardship, sickness, hunger and cold can do to people.

Have a good weekend all

Taurisk