Dear Jonathan,
You wrote 4/11 17:35 +0200:
"As to Wim (Hi Wim), he is a well-intentioned European liberal
who
refuses to see Israel's problem in existential terms. Wim, you
say that
there is no legitimizing killing, but killing goes on whether or
not it
is legitimized or not. A nation cannot stand by quietly and
allows its
own citizens to die at the hands of attackers. There is no
question that
when a terrorist group launches an attack, someone is going to be
killed. Personally, I prefer that it is the terrorists."
Seems like a fair assessment of my position.
I do recognize Israel's existential problem, however (as I also
recognize that the USA can hardly avoid reacting in the way they
do on the 11/9 attacks). Israel is just a part of a social
pattern of values. In the context of that pattern its behavior is
moral. No more, no less.
I don't refuse to SEE existential problems, but I DO try to
refuse to act (and write) according to the social patterns of
values around me and to follow Dynamic Quality instead when
possible. As we are only talking about "patterns" and not about
determination (causation), I do have some freedom (I hope) to do
so. Even if I am only the exception that proves the pattern, I am
safeguarding some maneuvering space for Dynamic Quality. Maybe
non-violence (Gandhian satyagraha) will never be more than that
till the next level provides a new type of static latch for
Dynamic Quality.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Jonathan B. Marder <jonathan.marder@newmail.net>
Aan: moq_discuss@moq.org <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Datum: zondag 4 november 2001 16:56
Onderwerp: RE: MD Logical Conclusions Anyone?
Dear Jae, Rasheed, Platt, Rob, Wim and all.
First, a welcome to Jae. Jae is right to point to Kabala (in
his second
post), since some of the metaphysical issues we deal with in
this forum
are strongly related. I just spent a pleasant weekend in
Safed, the city
with which the Kabala is most closely connected, and
naturally, Kabala
was one of the topics of discussion for the group I was with.
Maybe I'll
have some comments on that in future.
For now, I'd like to remind Jae that Jewish tradition holds
that a man
shouldn't study Kabala till he reaches the age of 40 (by
which time he's
supposedly gained wisdom and a full knowledge of the Talmud).
The only
reason I bring this up is that there is a tendency in
discussions like
this to jump on themes and trivialize them - call it the
impetuousness
of youth.
Jae, I certainly do not intend to put you down - just to SLOW
you down.
Till now, I've been the only Israeli in this forum, and have
learned to
tread VERY VERY carefully. On the one hand, I don't want to
see this
forum degenerate into a slanging match on Israel. On the
other hand, I
like to say enough to show people that they might be wrong
(you can look
back in the archives for my various comments, e.g. look at
September -
http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/0109). That is
why I am now
making one of my occasional replies to this thread. You will
see that I
address this to a number of other people:
Rasheed (Hi Rasheed!) is a Muslim living in the USA. Not
surprisingly,
he has a natural sympathy for the Palestinians. It wasn't
hard to get
Rasheed to come out against the sort of terror now wrought by
various
Palestinian groups. He has already learned that things are
not so
simple. Rasheed and I already have a friendly private
correspondence,
which is as it should be, even if we do have strong
disagreements.
Platt is a right-wing American republican - not something I
like about
him, but his pragmatic approach happens to be sympathetic to
Israel and
its hard line against Palestinian terror. Besides that, we
probably
disagree on absolutely everything else (right Platt ;-)).
I don't know Rob yet, but can see that he has a lot to learn.
Rob (and
Rasheed), did you know that the USA embargoed arms sales to
Israel until
1973!!! Israel was already the "bad boy" long before that as
far as the
United Nations was concerned. Israel is used to frequent UN
condemnations, but every Israeli Government sees its prime
duty as
protecting its citizens, not pleasing the UN.
We all know about what happened to small E. European state
that bowed to
international pressure in 1938 and accepted the infamous
Munich
agreement. As for Arab hostility against Israel, that goes
back even
further. If we look at Palestine some decades before Israel
was even
created, the victims were mostly Jews. For some of the Jewish
communities (e.g. Hebron, Gaza), the murders were followed by
eviction
- all this under the generous protection of the League of
Nations,
represented by the British Mandatory government. It is thus
hardly
surprising that Israel today is not particularly obsessed
with pleasing
the rest of the world.
As to Wim (Hi Wim), he is a well-intentioned European liberal
who
refuses to see Israel's problem in existential terms. Wim,
you say that
there is no legitimizing killing, but killing goes on whether
or not it
is legitimized or not. A nation cannot stand by quietly and
allows its
own citizens to die at the hands of attackers. There is no
question that
when a terrorist group launches an attack, someone is going
to be
killed. Personally, I prefer that it is the terrorists.
Jae, and everyone who missed it, you might like to look at
the Bob Dylan
poem I posted here recently.
(http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/0109/0172.html,
or
http://www.farbrengen.com/).
Best regards to everyone,
Jonathan
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
[mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk] On Behalf Of
Gendo138@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 2:23 PM
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: Re: MD Logical Conclusions Anyone?
Uh, I have been out of the scene for a year, but I have an
intimate
knowledge
of the Palestainian-Israeli conflict (I live in Israel) and
of MOQ, so
could
someone brief me about this arguement before I jump in?!
Jae Angel
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