Opinion
Light versus darkness
Uri Orbach
Published: 30.11.08, 19:38
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31. stroke
(12.01.08)
there have been at least eight major terrorist attacks in India within this year, and all were initially attributed to Islamic terrorists. However, upon further investigation all the incidents turned out to have been perpetrated by radical Hindu extremist groups led by radical priests.
32. Just Because Jewish Terrorism...
Terry ,   Chicago, IL   (12.01.08)
no longer works (in a non-institutionalized way) doesn't mean that Jewish "Soldiers of God" haven't used violence to fulfill so-called prophecies. The Haganah, Palmach, Irgun and Stern gangs were all terrorists in their own right, and the State of Israel would not exist had it not been for their massacres and persecution of the Palestinians. Now, not to say that the terrorism in India can be justified in any way, shape, or form. That was a horrendous act, and I apologize in the name of all humanity for this horrible sequence of events. However, I find it hypocritical when Jews or Christians look so shocked when faced with the notion of terrorism- since we were the first to use it. The fact that we no longer need terrorist acts to fulfill our violent desires- and can instead rely on massive armies- does not make us any more commendable. So spare me this "Big bad Muslim" vs. the "Poor, innocent Jew" comparisons- they've run old.
33. There is nothing noble about getting killed.
Frank ,   USA   (12.01.08)
The Jews must fight the enemies and stay alive at all costs.
34. The Jews in Mumbaai were tortured
russel ,   tlv   (12.01.08)
Of course its a war betweeen The Light and the Dark: The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said. Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said. http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/30mumterror-doctors-shocked-at-hostagess-torture.htm
35. Israel turns back Libyan ship bound for Gaza
(12.01.08)
36. Light versus darkness #3
Alan D. Dale ,   London   (12.01.08)
The "guilt" is spread all over you O people of Israel like butter on toasted bread! As usual you practice the best defence: attack who ever he/she is not 100 % behind your own evil policies and practices! You starve Gazza, so does Egypt; egyptians are muslim. Does it make you better them them? Lets correct it than: egyptian and israelis are starving 2 million people: egyptians are evil because they are muslim but israelis are not because they are jews! Satisfied? Is this the "light" who will chase the "darkness" or is it the darkness itself? By the way, it now appears that some of the attackers in Bombay were wearing yellow and red wrist bands, a sign of hindu religious affiliation and religious ikon... It looks like an other one like M.Atta's passport found on the rubble of twin towers in N.Y. after their collapse. Ask your spoon bending friend how can somebody throw a passport out of a window from a flying aircraft and we will all condemn the dum muslim terrorists! We did not forget how your people were rejoicing and jumping up and down on their car's bonnet after 9/11 when arrested by N.Y.P.D. Yes, the philistines were also rejoicing but at least they have the decency to admit that they do not like us because... our government supports Israel, their torturers. You call us "goyims"; can anybody "enlighten" me what really does it mean?
37. #28 "Islam advocates freedom, dignity and sacrifice"
Tahl ,   Israel   (12.01.08)
Freedom? Dignity? Really? Exactly which freedom and dignity do we see in any of the Muslim countries? Women being stoned to death in Iran for charges of adultery? Homosexuals hanged on the streets? Suppression of any media which does not say what the totalitarian leader agrees to? Shooting on the streets? Countless bombings? Female circumcision? But you're pretty much right about the last part, "sacrifice" - we've seen plenty of this "sacrifice" from Muslims when they blow themselves up and sacrifice their lives, just to kill innocents!
38. The light will win only when the Jews defend themselves
Vlad ,   USA   (12.01.08)
39. #6 Unbalanced view. Totally ignores the complexities
Australian Guy   (12.01.08)
The Pals are their own worst enemy. There are so many examples of their of their own stupidity and are barbaric, primitive behaviour that I'm not going to bother even to begin listing them..If Mr Dale is unaware of what I'm referring to...is a fairly good indicator of how he, like many just like to use the pal issue to mask their anti-semitism.
40. Re:#32 On Jewish Terrorism
Oneg ,   Ramat Gan, Israel   (12.01.08)
Dear Terry, My mother and her siblings lived in the Land of Israel in the 1920's. Native-born Americans, they were children of a Zionist father and mother. My 10 yr old uncle was walking down a street in Petach Tikva when an adult Arab male grabbed him and with a knife to my uncle's throat, pulled him into an alley, intending to murder him and mutilate him. No, the boy was not throwing stones or commiting an violent act. The year was 1925; no State of Israel, no IDF, no protection from the British soldiers. My uncle did not guess that, as a jewish boy he was targetted by his Arab neighbors. He bit the man's hand hard and escaped. Do you think the attempted murder was a result of Jewish Persecution? Or do you think he lied to me and his rabbi in San Diego, the rabbi who repeated this story at his funeral.? I doubt that members of your family lived in the British mandate during the '20'. to tell you their stories.
41. Until the West will put pressure....
Ram ,   London   (12.01.08)
on the so called "moderate Muslims" to act in curbing their fundamentalists from multiplying, the butchery will carry on. The pressure has to come in many forms, not excluding threats of retaliation. After all the terrorists are being funded and sheltered by the so called moderates. Sadly the righteous are whistling in the wind and will carry doing so until a string of major catastrophes will take place to convince the warped minds of the liberal apologists. So far this is a one way war that uncompromising Islam is fighting full blast against an enemy that will not fight back.
42. Religion as a justification for evil.
Chaim ,   New York   (12.01.08)
I agree with Majeed from Somalia that most religion (with the possible exception of Satanism, and in that case the evil is deliberate) isn't inherently good or bad, it depends how it is used. Anything can be used to justify terrorism. The Crusaders used Christianity, the Jihadis use Islam, the Sicarii used Judaism, and the IRA used Irish nationalism. That doesn't necessarily invalidate the general ideology used as a justification (e.g. Islam), only the way that the terrorists interpret the ideology (e.g. Jihadist Islam). There are Muslims who condemn terrorism based on their interpretation of Islam. Is their Islam invalidated by that of the terrorists? Is Judaism ch"v false because of the crimes the Sicarii comitted in its name?
43. #32 Terry
Chaim ,   New York   (12.01.08)
Incorrect. The state of Israel could just as easily have existed had the Arabs accepted the partition plan and not started a war. The Jews and Arabs might even have lived side by side peacefully. In fact, had the Palestinians not used their towns as military bases, those towns might even still be there. After all, towns that weren't used in that way still are (e.g. Abu Ghosh).
44. Light versus darkness #4
Alan D. Dale ,   London   (12.01.08)
Same old story:the evil arab trying to kill your uncle (#40) makes all the muslims criminal! Perhaps the bastard was a simple thief after your uncle's money? Even they must have learned by than the jews had the money! Nobody explains how, if the sionist lies and fabrications are true and muslims hated the jews,so many of them "survived" for 14 centuries in muslim lands when no body could do anything to defend them? It is us the europeans who made jews "un-human/unter-menchen", killed and exiled if not all, most of the educated ones. It is still LEGALLY forbidden for the jew to live in the UK as the royal decree of King Edward Longshank chasing and banning all jews from returning to his kingdom is still valid and legally binding! Why do you think that at least 3 attempts to lift this decree failed in the parliament within LAST 100 years or so? We also have long memories and eventually apply our laws and royal decress... Anybody "returns" 2000 years later and asks the present landlords to leave because it was their home 2000 years ago would get the same if not worst reception than you guys got from the arabs. Why can't you see that your "return" is a ploy by us to get rid of you? Believe me most europeans do not like arabs but they like you even less. By locking you up in Israel, we emasculated the arabs and by extension the muslim world, got rid of you and watching from afar "semite eating semite"... In the meantime, whatever atrocities are committed we blame you and them in alternating terms and re-inforce our hold on the world.When we get too sympathetic with your lot, we remember you guys breaking the arms and legs of muslim youth by stones whilst held down by your soldiers and it does the "trick" and we say: "If this is the "light" these jews will export to the world, thank you but no thank you! " Everybody gets the enemy they deserve; your deserve is the arabs... what can we say? By the way, when your time will come, we will remember also all your wrongdoings and atrocities and the bill will be put in front of you for settlement. As we say here in England: " let the poor sod pull his rope as far as he can `till we hang him with it"... So, pull your rope israelites, pull your rope... and demonise and weaken your only natural allies in this world so that when we come for you, there will be nobody to defend you.
45. #36 What a lot of garbage you write.
Australian Guy   (12.01.08)
Upon reading your rant, its plainly obvious why your views are held by the minority. Go and save some truly worthy, innocent people - you're wasting your time on scum who if not killing Jews and gentiles will readily turn on each other....
46. #43 wrong! without Dir Yasin, Israel wouldn't have existed
(12.01.08)
In a response Dayan sent to the chief of staff's bureau, apparently on August 10,1950 under the heading "Destruction of a holy place," Dayan wrote: "The detonation was carried out by the Coastal Plain District, at my instruction." The first words of the sentence have been struck out, but a letter dated August 30 removes all doubt. Dayan replied to a letter concerning "damage to antiquities in the Ashkelon area": "The chief of staff approached me and I gave him my explanations; the action was carried out at my instructions." Of the 160 mosques in the Palestinian villages incorporated into Israel under the armistice agreements, fewer than 40 are still standing.
47. #44
Israel Israeli ,   Tel Aviv   (12.01.08)
Your opinions are fine if they were based on facts and if they were not hypocritical. You legitimize the Arab murder of Jews because the Arabs believe they have been wronged. That is fair, but then you must also accept the Jew's defense against the Arab murderers. You also act as if at some point in time there were no Jews in Israel and it was filled with Arabs. There have always been Arabs, Jews and others living in Israel. Additional Jews started to come back home because they wanted to preserve their culture or to escape racism and oppression in the Europe and the Middle East. In parallel, foreign Arabs, especially of citizens of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq left their countries and moved to Israel to make money. No one disagrees that prior to the rebirth of Israel there were a few Arabs living here just as no one, not even official Arab organizations, disputes that the majority of "Palestinians" are Arabs from neighboring countries who immigrated from about 1920.
48. Light versus darkness #5
Alan D. Dale ,   London   (12.01.08)
#45 Australian Guy:you know that my views are not those of the minority but just the opposite: those of the majority who wants Israel to exist but in a just and acceptable peace with their neighbours. We also know that the para-military wing of the sionist apparatus does do terrorism and faulse flag operations around the world. Many arab looking jewish agents have been caught destroying jewish tomb stones, writing slogans on synagogue walls, to faument discord in the west to gain the support of the public opinion here! I am almost the only person who wrote anything seriously truthful in comments about this article as I am neutral in this affair and will wait until the final investigations regarding who did what in Bombay: first we heard that up to 8 UK muslims from Bradford were involved (look at UK Sunday tabloids) which than have been vehemently denied by Indian as well as UK authorities. How do you explain that "terrorists landing from rubber dinghies found Hemant Karkare,the anti-terrorism chief of Bombay police, who was the first target in a hotel with more than 1000 rooms and killed him instantly? Who knew he was there? How did they recognise him? And why him? Couldn't it be because he was the officer who recently uncovered that the half a dozen or more terrorist attacks in India pinned to muslims in the last couple of years have been in fact committed by indian army intelligence officers also members of the hindu extremist B.J.Party? How do you explain that the terrorists had the hindu version of "martyrdom" wrist bands on their right arms as recorded on many security cameras? Do they also need to carry an effigy of god vishnu on their head so that the world wisens up? No need to shout "your hands are bloody" to muslims whilst blood is dripping from your fingers! You jews you must also wisen up: this is the age of internet and we do not believe a word of sionist controlled western media, not even when they say "g.d is one".... You see what I mean?
49. Light versus darkness
Alan D. Dale ,   London, Enland   (12.01.08)
#47: Israel Israili. No, I am not legitimising any murder nor playing any hypocritical word games.Just looking at the problem from some distance and trying to see the forest, not just the tree in front of me. You should first start to look at your problems with your neighbours as national and territorial issues without dragging their faith and religion into the picture: because your problem with them is not religious! Not all the palestinians are muslims and the christian palestinians aren't your friends either! They don't want you to become muslims and certainly you wouldn't want them been jews. Between you, me and the gate post, compared to your Talmoud, their Quran is extremely pacifist! So, let's leave these faulse pretences apart. The land you (jews & palestinians) occupy together is too small to divide. Your only chance of survival if the west's supports ever fails -and we all know how the west can be fickle! Just look at the Kingdom of Jerusalem how they abandoned it once the eastern gold stopped to flow west- is to have one country within one single border. Yes, there are terrible logistical, political, psychological, religious dogmatic etc. problems with this solution but the accumulated total of these problems will be nothing compared to what will happen in a couple of decades even if Iran is bombed to submission for a few years. And than? What about Pakistan? And even Turkey, the only muslim state still in sincere dialog with Israel? How long can they keep their own people behind their present policies if they see daily through internet and the media what is going on in the occupied territories and Gazza? You think we will risk London for Ashdod and the americans NY for Tel Aviv? Everybody, muslim, hindu, jew, christian... have to reassess the technological advances -for good and for bad- the humanity is making and adjust their position accordingly. What if tomorrow Ahmadenajad "leaks" that they have soviet made nukes secretly positioned in places in the west? Even the bluff is enough to make us to weigh our national position and decide where our immediate interest lies:we also have women and children to protect, remember? Get real; offer them 1 state for all, guarantee individual parity and equality between arab and jew. Make an agenda and institute quotas taking arabs into the judiciary as well as to the police. Ask them abstention from the military service say for 30-40, perhaps 50 years. They did not do military service under Ottoman rule; so it is a surmountable issue if they see they are true citizen of a Judeo Palestinian state or whatever you call it. You have already spent 60 years in discord and achieved nothing:you all know without at least a couple of billion dollars a month cash injection from the west you can not bake a bread economically! You have the option to give peace a chance and in 60 years time you would be laughing all the way to the bank: no M.E. country can escape from economical dominance of such a judeo-palestinian state. Or, alternatively, you can call us "hypotricals, anti-semites, jew-bashers, arab-lovers, neo-nazis etc..." and lament, whilst we dig deaper and deaper in our pockets to help you so that the arabs do not -unwillingly- complete the ignoble and hateful task the EUROPEAN nazis have started some 75 years ago... because you wanted to keep to the status quo. Your game buddy, not mine;good luck anyway.
50. A good, basic article. More please.
Kev ,   London   (12.01.08)
51. a coherent analysis of the Islamist phenomenon
Noam ,   Middle East   (12.01.08)
Immediately after expressing my frustration over the Mumbai slaughters to a contemporary of mine (an educated Fulbright scholar just out of college), she retorted of how dare I say streams of Islam are more threatening and violent then streams of other religions. She said the usual "all religions have extremists that do horrible things; you can't condemn an entire religion based on the actions of a misguided few." While her statement is true, its dangerously misleading. Mr. Orbach enlighteningly explains why in this article, while carefully not condemning Islam in totality, one religion has the most radical and unhindered stream than all other faiths, qualitatively and quantitavely so.
52. Alan Dale . Jewish terrorists ?
Charles ,   Petach Tikva   (12.01.08)
Only in one case , deir Yassin , where civilians the target . All the others were brish military personnel and places . Don't bring up the King David hotel . The british are guilty of the casualties . Yes , the british commander did'nt want to obey the call he received : in 30 minutes the hotel will explode .
53. the Zohar says
avrom ,   bet shemesh   (12.01.08)
You get more light out of darkness than one gets out of light a practical example of this is 10kg of plutonium produces more light than the biggest power station
54. To Alan D. Dale, London, England
Justice ,   Israel   (12.01.08)
The Land of Israel is the Holy Home of the Jewish People. When the British received the mandate over this part of the Middle East it was in oreder to help the Jewish people develop their Homeland. But the British betrayed the Jewish people. They had their interests in this region, and they did everyting to enlarge the number of the Arabs and to limit the number of Jews. This was done at the price of letting Jews be killed by the Nazis in Europe!!! The British taught the Arabs to fight, and the worst - they gave them the wrong legitimation for their dream of a new invention - a palestinian state! So Mr. Dale in London - you are part of all that fighting that goes on here for the last 80 years, since the pogrom in Hebron in 1927 under the supervision of the British! - if you do not cry out for Justice under the sun! Giving legitimacy to the Arabs you continue the treachery of the British! Speak up for one land for the Jewish nation in their Holy homeland, and let the Arabs enjoy their 22 states and leave us alone!
55. #54 Well Stated
Esther ,   Ofarim, Israel   (12.09.08)
Not only did the British prevent Jewish Immigration during the holocaust, but they also kept the survivors of hell imprisoned in DP camps on Cyprus for 3 years after the war. And after Israeli independence the British kept men of age to fight imprisoned, so they couldn't fight for Israel. We know the true British attitude towards Israel.
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