Posted on 05/07/2002 8:00:14 PM PDT by krogers58
Israel is completely selfserving. I just think the US should be too!
For someone who claims to have spent a lot of time there, your post is astounding. Israel is fighting for its life and has had to do so for 50 years. It is poor country, with no natural resources and an economy that suffers every single day due to terrorism. While it started out trying to implement the socialist dream, it has gradually been moving to the right -- but you can't expect miracles when they are so preoccupied with just staying alive against constant attack. How can they have the luxury of reforming their economic system in this situation?
To compare with the US is just ridiculous. We are fat and happy and, until September 11, were war-free on our own territory.
As for the Sudanese, I regularly point out that situation (as well as the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria) whenever the opportunity arises. To criticize Israel for not stepping in is, well, I can only think of the word demented, but I don't want to make a personal attack. Cricizing Israel for this omission to take up the Sudanese cause is based on a form of utopianism, a very dangerous philosophy that says, if something is not perfect, it is therefore bad.
That's the liberal way. Let's not go there.
Let's see. Imagine yourself in your own home, trying to make a life for yourself, and your neighbors next door, in front, behind, in the next communities as far as the eye can see, are trying to kill you at every opportunity. YOu can't go out of your home without them throwing bombs at you, you can't go to your job, you can't open your mail, etc. Let's see how far along you get in your career. "Double standard" my eye. Your logic is again all or nothing. You are a utopian in disguise. If anything, you are imposing a double standard on Israel. You are expecting them to do things you wouldn't be able to do, given the same circumstances.
Apparently you don't know about Trotsky's opposition to Zionism on Marxist principles, or the virulent Israel-hatred of present-day Trotskyism, the most influential contemporary ideology of hard left radicalism.
Here is what Trotsky himself had to say about the Jews and Zionism: On The Jewish Problem
Here are two typical examples of contemporary Trotskyite attitudes to Israel:
10 things you should know about israel & zionism
Furthermore, Israel's social democratic past is hardly what the hard left calls real "socialism." And in any case, socialism has been losing ground in Israel since the 1980's as this article points out.
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