BigMike wrote:
I've never seen a post that had so much right and so much wrong in it at the same time! :?
I don't know it that's a good thing or a bad thing-we can't agree 100% 100% of the time.
Some of content of that post is fact but much is just conjecture. I live in an extremely diverse community and see the interactions between different groups the dynamics of the talk and actions made by each group.
The issue of the African Americans' desire to have their past recognized and possibly financially reimbursed for past wrongs seems to get the the crawl of some white people. I was merely pointing out the American Jews, who used the long history of anti-Semitism in general and the Holocaust of European Jews by the Nazis, have used the collective guilt of Europe and, strangely, the United States, to be a lion's share of US foreign aid, military and civilian as well as statehood for land that they claim is historically Jewish. How does the American Jewish population exert so much power of US politics? Why do some remain silent on Israel's money and power grab but yet will go up the walls should any African American even mention reparations. .
Why? Because of a slick pubic relations campaign and the collective power lobbying efforts by AIPAC. We have acted against our own self-interest in the Middle East to please a small segment of the US population. Starting with Suez in 1955, Israelis have been a disruptive force in Middle Eastern geo-politics. Now Israel claims it will not abide by any agreement we make with Iran despite the fact that Israel refuses to acknowledge it's own nuclear arsenal.
Iran has never gone to war with Israel. (it has used proxies) Iran has had it's democratically elected government overthrown by the US and Britain. The Shah, who was the choice for taking the place of Mossedgec ( a secular liberal who was elected in free and fair elections) was the Shah, who ruled with terrible cruelty. The Iranians threw the Shah out and we punished them buy holding billions of Iranian funds in US banks, some of the money we still hold today. And we wonder why the Iranian's hate us. Or why Iran wants a a nuke, with neighbors like Pakistan (nuclear armed) for Soviet states on it's north border (which may have nuclear weapons,) and Israel, which holds nuclear weapons and has taken considerable effort to sabotage anyone else in the region with a nuclear aspirations, who can blame them?.
Our hypocrisy is so obvious-Israeli's have a deep abiding fear of being overrun by more populous Arab neighbors, or anyone else, a fear that is well founded. But if Israel is allowed to skip out on international conventions prohibiting development of a nuclear weapons, and engage in significant nuclear espionage here in the US, why are we so hard on the Iranians, who do belong to the UN Nuclear Proliferation Convention ? Iranians are also afraid of their Arab neighbors (Iran is Persian, not Arab) . They were nearly overrun by a US-supported Iraq not 30 years ago. How do we justify giving more than 25% of all foreign aid to a nation that is an international nuclear scofflaw? Nothing against the Jews, but the right wing over there is just as crazy and immoveable as the right is here. Compromise is seen as a weakness. And Israelis left and right, have a fear of being exterminated, something that does have a solid historical context. I doubt if Israel will ever give up its nukes.
Hey, Israel can do whatever it wants. It's a free country, at least until the Orthodox rabbinical is considered. But why my tax dollar is being used to prop up an increasingly theocratic nation that refuses to abide by any rule of law on what it does. This is a debate the goes on in Israel; the Israeli left is a REAL left-wing group unlike the left is here. The Israeli left has a peace effort that would put to shame anything here in the US. Some in Israelis see the US aid as something that puts them in a difficult place and there is actually a movement to refuse further US aid. But, hey, three + billion bucks is three+ billion bucks. Hard to turn that down.
Maybe African Americans should hire the same pr firm the early Zionists used in lobbying the UN for statehood.