[lit-ideas] Re: Islam, Israel and the Code of the West

  • From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 18:24:27 +0100

I suppose it's expected now that Lawrence will seek to justify an action by 
referring back to his simplified historical perspective. All too soon, the 
argument degenerates into a muddled discussion about whose view of history is 
correct and meanwhile the original point is forgotten.

So perhaps Lawrence can forget about how miffed he is and answer a simple 
point. 

Is the IDF justified in destroying Lebanon's infrastructure as a means of 
getting back two prisoners of war?

Simon

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Lawrence Helm 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:25 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Islam, Israel and the Code of the West


  LH >> The Christian Crusades were in response to Islamic expansion.  



  OK >*Hardly. The said Muslim expansion took place several

  centuries earlier. They were, rather, a response to

  the European conditions of the time including the rise

  in numbers of dissatisfied nobles who could not

  inherit, the power dynamics between the European kings

  and the Pope etc.



  LH > Not true.  The Muslim expansion had not yet silenced the Byzantine 
Empire and it was calling to the Western Empire for help.  





  LH >>The Byzantine Empire called for help against the Muslims for a couple of 
hundred years before the Western Church responded with a call for a Crusade. 



  OK >*How did the Roman Empire, or the Byzantine Empire

  which was one of its offshoots, have more moral right

  to rule over lands like Palestine, Syria, Egypt, than

  did the Arabs ?



  LH:  Beats me.  This started when Irene said Israel had no moral right to 
"muscle into" the land they now inhabit.





  LH >> The Jews were expelled several times, by the Babylonians, Assyrians, 
and Romans, but they always returned.



  OK >*Yeah, and by the Byzantines too. Under the Byzantine

  rule, the Jews were prohibited from settling in

  Jerusalem.



  
http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History_Part_43_-_The_Jews_of_Babylon.asp
 



  LH > Anti-Semitism has a long history.  I am amazed that in these so-called 
enlightened times Old Europe is returning to it like a dog to its vomit.





  LH >>  They were there when the Muslims muscled in.  



  OK >That is roughly right. "Under early Arab rule, a

  Jewish community was reestablished in Jerusalem and

  flourished in the 8th century."



  http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/jerusalem/jerusalem3.htm 



  OK > Of course, as we know, when the Crusaders conquered

  Jerusalem, they celebrated by massacring both Arabs

  and Jews.



  LH > I've read histories of this period.  No group had a corner on massacres 
-- unless it was the Islamic Turks. Their ruthlessness was legendary.  



  LH >> I don't have anything against "muscle," only when some accuses the Jews 
of being unfair, and muscling into a land belonging to poor defenseless 
Muslims.  



  OK > As I said before, the Muslims did not expel Jews when they conquered the 
land. The Jews did expel the Muslims.



  LH:  But the Muslims tried very hard to expel the Jews when they conquered 
the land.  I don't see how you can take the Muslim failure and make it into a 
virtue.  How knows what the Jews would have done had the Muslims not tried so 
hard to expel them.





  LH  I see you have a Ward Churchill problem with the European movement into 
North America -- muscling into those Indian tribes which had spent their lives 
muscling each other from place to place. 



  OK >*As usually, you grossly simplify things. The Indian

  tribes did have limited wars over land, but this is

  not in any way equivalent to a mass extermination

  program that was undertaken by the European settlers.



  LH: There were no programs of mass extermination except in the imaginations 
of anti-Americans like Ward Churchill.  Settlers moving across the West were 
attacked by Indians who were accustomed to torture and the mistreat prisoners.  
The settlers reacted with extreme anger and hostility: a clash of civilization 
occurred that didn't go well for the Indian.  The Indian was regularly offered 
the opportunity to assimilate, and those who did were treated better than the 
Taliban treated ordinary citizens in pre-liberation Afghanistan.



  Lawrence

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. lit-ideas
  3. Archive
  4. 07-2006