On correcting the “corrector”:
Bela Suhayda, in his infinite wisdom, has presented us with an historical perspective which he believes is politically correct. There is, however, another historical perspective which he dares not to enunciate because he believes it is politically incorrect and hence would cause him great harm if he dared.
The Chas, on the other hand, has spent his literary life daring to go where few others will. He cares not for political correctness, but only for historical correctness. Hence, the following.
Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism. Look it up in your dictionary, dear reader.
Zionism is a late 19th-Century philosophy which states that, because modern-day Jewish people are the descendants of the ancient Israelites of the biblical Old Testament, they are entitled to take possession of the land formerly occupied by the Israelites and displace, or at the very least subjugate, the current occupants, i.e. the Palestinians.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Modern-day Jews are religious Jews only, not ethnic Jews. They descended from an eastern European people, and they look like any other Europeans. Their ancestors converted to Judaism as a matter of practicality.
The true Semitic people are the Arabs, the Syrians, the Jordanians, and, yes, the Palestinians. The charge of anti-Semitism is wholly misplaced; it is used by the modern-day Jews to silence the critics of their rude behavior in the so-called “Holy Land.”
We have witnessed yet another clash between the occupiers and the occupied because, as I have stated in a previous essay, some people do not wish to negotiate. They find that ethnic cleansing is much more satisfying, especially since their side has the world’s sympathy. And so, we hear the tiresome old refrain that, “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
No, it doesn’t.
The Israelis are the occupiers, illegally and immorally, and do not belong there, unless they agree to a unified republic shared by Jews, Muslims, Christians, and whomever. Otherwise, it’s the Palestinians who have the right to defend themselves. Sadly, they have been made the villains in this drama – an unwanted people in their own land.
Even though the attack by Hamas was born out of exasperation by Tel Aviv’s refusal to negotiate in good faith, it was ill-advised. They played into the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu, who used the attack as an excuse to launch his own attack and reduce the numbers of Palestinians with massive and indiscriminate bombing. Hamas forgot the “rule of thumb” that the Israelis follow – for every Israeli death, 10 Palestinians must die, regardless of gender, age, or status. Netanyahu also delivered arms to the settlers and gave them the green light to shoot any Palestinian they felt like shooting. Who grieves, dear reader, over those nearly 16,000 deaths? They can’t all be “terrorists,” can they?
Once Gaza has been ethnically cleansed and made ready for more Jewish immigrants, Netanyahu plans to turn his attention to the West Bank and further his goal, “from the river to the sea” (to coin a phrase), of solving the “Palestinian problem” once and for all. And the major powers, including the U.S. of A. and the “United” Nations, will wring their collective hands and cry their crocodile tears
As any Spiderman fan knows, “with great power comes great responsibility.” America has shown bloody little responsibility for the past 75 years. It has given money, weapons, and moral support to Israel and turned a blind eye to the Israelis’ rude behavior. Yet, it could get Netanyahu to the negotiating table in a New York minute with a few whispered statements in his ear.
The Chas stands for the Palestinians. His philosophical god-father is the 18th-Century French philosopher, Voltaire, who once famously said, “I have come into the world to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” And so it goes.
Bela Suhayda may rant and rave until he is blue in the face and slurp up Zionist propaganda until it runs out his nose. But he doesn’t understand history at all. He has never heard of the concept of cause-and-effect. He believes that all historical events operate in a vacuum.
For that, he gets a Chas-sized raspberry.
Just a thought.