That’s the New York Post headline, but the New York Daily News has more details:
“If they have a Zionist or Israeli background...they are all mad at me,” said Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-trained neuroscientist charged with attempted murder....Siddiqui, 37, is accused of picking up an M-4 Army rifle and firing two rounds at a team of Americans who tried to question her in Afghanistan on July 18, 2008.
Prosecutors argue she screamed, “Allah Akbar” and vowed to kill Americans before she was wrestled to the ground. She allegedly had two pounds of poisonous sodium cyanide and hundreds of pages of notes and documents on how to build chemical and biological weapons.
The terror guides featured targets including the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, prosecutors said....
Oddly enough, Siddiqui was quite willing to get a Ph.D. from Brandeis. Thanks to Opher for the pointer.
Arkady says:
See the wiki page, Aafia Siddiqui. It’s a pretty tangled story.
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January 16, 2010, 5:51 pmArkady says:
Just a point about usage: Ordinarily, scare quotes are used to signal that, in the mind of the person using the quotes, something is off-kilter in the quoted material. So, if the authors are using scare quotes for terrorist whatever, that would mean they find something not quite right with the whatever.
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January 16, 2010, 6:32 pmArkady says:
Ah, my bad, I misread you. Sorry.
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January 16, 2010, 6:38 pmneurodoc says:
That award comes with a cash stipend to fund research by MIT students abroad. Great to know that my alma mater did its part in preparing Siddiqqi for her terrorist future.
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January 16, 2010, 6:54 pmmethodact says:
Not unlike points made in NEUROPOLITICS by Dr. Timothy Leary
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January 16, 2010, 7:21 pmBill Poser says:
Interestingly, she doesn’t really seem to making an argument about potential bias but rather is expressing her racism: according to several news accounts, including thisone,
she is demanding genetic testing to determine if jurors are Jewish.
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January 16, 2010, 7:51 pmBill Poser says:
EV,
Care to comment on the prospects for her to argue self-defense or justification? Given the documented abuse of detainees by the US in Afghanistan, it seems to me that even a perfectly innocent person would have had good reason to fear armed American agents and to have fired on them to avoid capture. (This is, of course, one of the practical reasons that torture is bad policy.)
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January 16, 2010, 8:00 pmleo marvin says:
And adding insult to injury, she’s a (Ph.D.) neurodoc!
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January 16, 2010, 8:14 pmBill Poser says:
Thomas Andrews@
I agree, there’s a lot more to this story than her attitude toward Jews, but much of it is not especially legal in nature, so I imagine that’s why EV picked up on her concern about Jews in the court. And unless she can show that she was running a gold mine, its hard to imagine what explanation she can offer for possessing a kilo of cyanide.
But, I don’t know if she is really deranged in the M’Naghten sense used in US federal courts. It seems likely that she knew perfectly well what she was doing and that it was contrary to law — she may well be “deranged” only in the sense in which many religious extremists are deranged, that is, in holding “deviant” views of what is moral.
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January 16, 2010, 8:16 pmNI says:
Going back to the legal issue, if someone is charged with commiting a hate crime, does (or should) one have the right to exclude from the jury members of the targeted group? That is, if a Klansman is on trial for firebombing the local NAACP headquarters, should he be able to exclude blacks from the jury on the grounds that they will be more likely to be biased? I know that Dan White, the guy who shot Harvey Milk, succeeded in getting the judge to exclude gays from the jury.
Al Quaeda has never been bashful about openly proclaiming that exterminating Jews is part of its agenda. At first blush, excluding Jews from the jury trying an al Quaeda member seems to have some plausibility.
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January 16, 2010, 8:42 pmCareless says:
That’s a lot of work when it looks like EV was just after a pun
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January 16, 2010, 9:09 pmOff Kilter says:
The post is interesting, but the post’s title is nothing short of brilliant.
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January 16, 2010, 9:11 pmYet another infidel says:
Dan White didn’t shoot Harvey Milk for being gay. But being gay is something the Islamists oppose. Being gay, being Jewish, gambling, being Christian, earning interest, drinking, reading Harry Potter, or being a woman and showing your face. A lot of things.
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January 16, 2010, 9:14 pmjccamp says:
NI —
Interesting question. I think the answer is “no.”
From a discussion of Batson (in an 11th CCA decision):
“Since Batson, the Court has reaffirmed the central meaning of Batson in holding that while “[a]n individual juror does not have a right to sit on any particular petit jury, ... he or she does possess the right not to be excluded from one on account of race.”
From the same case:
“A defendant’s misuse of the power of the court to deny a citizen her right to participate on a jury because of race is as reprehensible as a prosecutor’s.”
Batson has been expanded to include a juror’s sex. I presume excluding based on an identification as “Jewish” would also apply, in the sense that the word “Jew” identifies as an ethnic or cultural tag rather than as a member of a religion (the religion is Judaism, do I have that correctly?). The distinction may be meaningless within the context of this discussion, since excluding based on religion may be covered by Batson or it’s progeny too.
Which all seems right in a common sense way too, since excluding from the jury pool anyone who may have been affected by a hate crime would render the victim group essentially powerless within the court system. Expanding on that logic, would all Americans be subject to challenge from the jury pool if O B Laden ever went on trial?
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January 16, 2010, 9:27 pmRowerinVA says:
WOW. That is a deceptively difficult question. I’ll have to think about it. For now, just kudos, great question.
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January 16, 2010, 9:33 pmOren says:
When the story first broke I went down to the ‘deis library to take a gander at her dissertation. From what I read, it was a technically competent and well-thought out thesis (granted, I didn’t go through it with a fine-tooth comb) obviously written by someone with reasonable scientific aptitude.
Now, if only someone was going to expend some intellectual effort on exploring how a relatively smart (at least in a technical sense) individual can come to such violent and irrational views, that would be a welcome change from the normal narrative.
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January 16, 2010, 9:58 pmD says:
From an evidence perspective, on what basis would chemical explosives and printed terrorist “how-to” manuals be excluded from trial? The Al Qaeda link I can understand keeping that out, but explosives and documents in her possession or at her home? That sounds like good evidence to me.
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January 16, 2010, 10:15 pmSarcastro says:
So she’s a mad scientist? What a twist!
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January 16, 2010, 10:19 pmjccamp says:
D–
I think she is only charged with attempting to shoot the U S Army and FBI personnel (and associated ‘using an automatic weapon in the commission...’). The chemicals and the printed book sections were probably deemed prejudicial, and not directly probative of guilt or non-guilt in the charges of trying to shoot the agents/soldiers. The hand-written notes are being admitted, presumably as showing a state of mind consistent with trying to kill American government employees (or maybe just Americans in general). But you get the rough idea.
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January 16, 2010, 10:30 pmNI says:
JCCamp, I think you’re probably right as a practical matter that the courts would hold that a defendant charged with a hate crime has no such right. I’m still unsure whether, as a policy matter, that should be the answer.
My hypothetical Klansman on trial for firebombing the NAACP would almost certainly be able to exclude members of the NAACP, and would especially be able to exclude members of the NAACP who were actually inside the building at the time he threw the bomb, on the grounds that since they were the intended victims, they would be at risk for bias. Well, how much of a leap is it then to say that blacks as a group were the intended victims since it was really an attack on their civil rights, and that there is therefore a heightened risk of bias?
On the other hand, attacking a particular group and then complaining that group is biased against you does sound a little bit like murdering your parents and then asking for mercy on the grounds that you’re an orphan.
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January 16, 2010, 10:31 pmSoronel Haetir says:
I just read the linked article and find myself troubled by this whole thing. Setting aside that she attended school in the US at some point, is she in fact Afghani? If she is then she should not be subject to US civil court jurisdiction. Either the Afghan government should have jurisdiction or some form of military tribunal with a limited set of options. In a war of our choosing subjecting citizens of a non-occupied (since we’re there at the Afghan government’s invitation, however fictional that status may be) country to our civilian criminal courts is just wrong. Shooting at military personnel under these circumstances, while potentially “wrong”, should not be criminal.
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January 16, 2010, 11:07 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » “No Trial By Jewry” -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bill Giltner, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: “No Trial By Jewry”: That’s the New York Post headline, but the New York Daily News has more details:“If they have... http://bit.ly/692A8s [...]
Brett says:
I love that picture of her portrait in court. Her defense lawyer has the sort of “Shut up. Just shut the f**k up, you idiot” look on her face.
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January 17, 2010, 12:42 amTwirip says:
There’s nothing unusual about it. Many of the Nazis were highly intelligent men of science also.
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January 17, 2010, 12:57 amBill Poser says:
Soronel Haetir@
She’s Pakistani, not Afghan.
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January 17, 2010, 1:08 amjccamp says:
“Shooting at military personnel under these circumstances, while
potentially“wrong”, should not be criminal.”Precisely the point many on the right have been making regarding Holder’s decision to try detainees in civilian courts.
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January 17, 2010, 1:23 amorca says:
Wikipedia says she was turned over to the court in New York on August 4, 2008...Holder had nothing to do with that decision I presume.
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January 17, 2010, 2:28 amCaptainchaos says:
“Oddly enough, Siddiqui was quite willing to get a Ph.D. from Brandeis. Thanks to Opher for the pointer.”
Oddly enough, Brandeis was quite willing to get his law degree from Harvard, despite the fact that Harvard was home to that old boys’ WASP network of muted anti-Semitism. Fortunately for WASPs, Jews like Brandeis paved the way for WASPs to become their better selves by being relentlessly browbeaten and propagandized into giving away the country their ancestors built (it is to the moral credit of WASPs that they eventually capitulated to the demands of their Jewish betters, unlike the Krauts, who would not hear of the defilement of their Fatherland, not for an instant) whilst Jews remained steadfast to their vision of a homeland of their own — a Zionist state. I get misty-eyed at the thought.
And as it so happens what was inevitable was in the end for the best, after all, minds such Bradeis’ and Kallen’s are rightly viewed as superior to the likes of Heidegger and Schmitt. Or so masochists whose heads are filled with the ‘correct’ thoughts believe.
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January 17, 2010, 3:46 amPatrick says:
The story is a bit of a mess, but it does present some interesting questions on equality in America. I read this other blog post that was similar in vein, though it was about same sex-marriage: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/01/15/same-sex-couple-and-surrogate-mother-involved-in-custody-dispute/
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January 17, 2010, 4:38 amAriel says:
This is pretty hard to square with a desire for genetic testing.
Further, I’ve seen articles saying she thinks Israel was behind 9/11 and that she does is particularly concerned with having Israelis or Zionists on her jury. I haven’t seen ones saying she there are good Jews that she likes.
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January 17, 2010, 6:24 amLTC John says:
Ariel,
Simple. You look for A, C, G, T...with “T” being “Torah”!
Somehow I knew people would try to turn this into “AMERIKKKA’S FAULT!!1!” GIVE THE WOMAN HER KIDNEYS AND PART OF HER SMALL INTESTINE BACK!!
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January 17, 2010, 9:07 amJim Jinkins says:
“Given the documented abuse of detainees by the US in Afghanistan, it seems to me that ...”
And the woman’s statement is accepted uncritically as more “documentation”. Please note the scare quotes.
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January 17, 2010, 9:35 ammemomachine says:
Hmmmm.
I wonder if a Christian could get funding for a treatise on “How a painful imminent death affects attitudes amongst abortionists”.
Sure that’s crazy. Is it any crazier than the funding this would-be terrorist got?
Except of course the Christian wouldn’t be funded and would likely be thrown out of college.
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January 17, 2010, 9:41 amrrr says:
Unbelievable that at least two people actually cite Wikipedia as being a reliable source. That’s like me quoting the back of my Kix box–which I just happen to be munching–as an authority on what mothers approve.
I would have thought folks realized that . . .
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January 17, 2010, 9:54 amME says:
I have one simple question. The answer for which will either legitimize her concern or belay it. “Why is the venue for her prosecution in New York?”
She was arrested in Asia. It would seem to make sense that the venue would be in either a District Court within the Ninth Circuit or Washingon, DC. A New York venue doesn’t make sense. Along those lines that is what was wrong with Timothy MCveigh’s conviction. He was tried in a state in which 25% of the people receive checkes from the Treasury Department. The Federal Court in which McVeigh was convicted sat in a city where the largest Federal Mint is in operation. I suspect the jury pool there was in excess of 45% of the people receiving a paycheck from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In short, we must keep a close eye on venues in these Federal cases.
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January 17, 2010, 9:58 amPaul A'Barge says:
Au contraire, give her to the Jews.
Remember Eichmann.
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January 17, 2010, 9:58 amjccamp says:
orca —
I was probably being too subtle. I was not commenting on the decision itself, only on the irony of a post here that suggested “some form of military tribunal with a limited set of options...subjecting citizens of a non-occupied (since we’re there at the Afghan government’s invitation, however fictional that status may be) country to our civilian criminal courts is just wrong...”
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January 17, 2010, 10:21 amDG says:
Wow, any post on Jews and the nuts come out. I count at least three in this thread.
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January 17, 2010, 10:38 amBohemond says:
Couple of points:
1) She was not “trying to evade capture.” She was already in custody, and had been for some days. She took the opportunity of a security brainfart to grab a rifle from one of the guards, not unlike the courthouse shootings we see occasionally.
2) She was detained on the basis of conspiring to commit terrorist murder in the United States– a crime which gives the Federal courts jurisdiction no matter where the defendant is actually captured. The same applies to bin-Laden, KSM etc. In any event, she’s not an Afghan but a Pakistani; and as an al-Qaeda member in possession of weapons, she qualified as an enemy combatant.
3. I really dislike using “insane” as an excuse for individuals who suffer from a perverted moral sensibility. Charles Manson was not insane, nor Tim McVeigh, nor Herr Schicklgruber, nor this hideous woman.
4. I cannot believe, truly am gobsmacked, that people here are actually repeating the foul organ-harvesting riff on the ancient Blood Libel.
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January 17, 2010, 10:52 amJLan says:
From NI:
Except that this is not the case: she wasn’t shooting at Jews, or even at Israeli soldiers, rather, she was shooting at American soldiers. This isn’t a Klansman firebombing the NAACP headquarters and excluding blacks; it’s a Klansman firebombing an NAACP headquarters and excluding Catholics, on the grounds that Catholics are wary of and have often been attacked by the Klan.
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January 17, 2010, 10:59 amD says:
Certainly prejudicial if you want to say that she has a tendency toward violence, however it has a permissible use showing motive for shooting soldiers if she had it in her possession and thought they would be discovered if the people searched her.
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January 17, 2010, 11:19 amjccamp says:
D -
The printed material and the chemicals had already been discovered when she was arrested by Afghan National Police. (She was in ANP custody when the U S agents came to interview her.) The U S District judge ruled that the (chemicals and printed) material was prejudicial in that they had insufficient bearing on the charges of trying to shoot U S personnel. The handwritten material was material in that it showed her state of mind — i.e., she was of a mind to commit acts of violence against Americans. The chemicals and the printed material (about bomb-making or whatever they were about) had no direct connection to the shooting or to an specific intent to harm Americans. Or something similar to this line of reasoning.
It’s not my argument, but the judge’s ruling. It seems correct to me from past experience, but IANAL. I may have missed something here.
DG —
I’m with you. I’m starting to hear THIS as I read.
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January 17, 2010, 11:38 amorca says:
If you have some info that proves it wasn’t a Republican administration that decided to try this person in civilian court, let’s see it.
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January 17, 2010, 11:50 amGary Rosen says:
“Wow, any post on Jews and the nuts come out. I count at least three in this thread.”
Antisemitism isn’t about Jews, it’s about antisemites. They are nitwits, misf*cks and born losers who don’t have the gumption to own up to their own failures and shortcomings so they blame everything on da Jooooos.
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January 17, 2010, 11:52 amJust Dropping By says:
Along those lines that is what was wrong with Timothy MCveigh’s conviction. He was tried in a state in which 25% of the people receive checkes from the Treasury Department.
As someone who lives in Colorado, I’d just like to point out that nowhere near 25% of the state’s population is employed by the federal government, so assuming the 25% figure is even accurate, you have to be including Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid/WIC/etc. recipients, in which case I doubt very much that you could find any state with a significantly lower percentage of the population who “receive checkes [sic] from the Treasury Department.”
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January 17, 2010, 12:02 pmTo Hayek With You says:
If we are to believe these sorts of stories then somewhere there is a giant Israeli warehouse full of kidneys and fava beans. Seriously, what use would anyone have for her kidney? I think a lot of people simply haven’t heard of the blood libel and they are so willing to believe the worst to advance their political views that they will literally believe anything.
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January 17, 2010, 12:05 pmYankev says:
Do they miss you over at Storm Front and Huffington?
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January 17, 2010, 12:09 pmYankev says:
But if you had been paying attention to Captainchaos and others, you would have realized that the American soldiers were doing the work of their Zionist masters bwaaahaaaaah!
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January 17, 2010, 12:13 pmLou Gots says:
Some have suggested that the defendant should not be prosecuted at all becuase of her status as a priviliged belligerant, what some call a lawful combatant. That’s wrong. At the time of the aleged crime, she had been a prisoner in custody, a protected person under international law. She was not subjected to harm as an enemy combatant, and she was not allowed to harm others unless and until she might be restored to combatant status, as by exchange of escape.
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January 17, 2010, 12:14 pmPhil says:
the link you referred to has been hacked by “Palestinian Mujaheeds(sic).”
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January 17, 2010, 12:22 pmOren says:
And there’s precious little decent work on explaining how otherwise intelligent people end up believing batshit insane political/religious/racial philosophies.
I think this is an important missing component of our GWoT (or whatever it’s called). Liberals like to spout that it’s about lack of economic opportunity in the ME, NeoCons like to spout that it’s about lack of political freedoms in the ME — both are contrary to the data that terrorists are quite often highly wealthy, highly educated (double plus engineers) and highly connected.
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January 17, 2010, 12:34 pmYankev says:
Not exactly. According to a report on Israel TV, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir in the 1990s harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers. The practice was halted more than a decade ago, as soon as it came to the attention of Israeli legal authorities. The pathologist responsible faced criminal charges for a time over his activities but there is a dispute over whether in fact permission had beeng granted. According to an article in the Washington Times, complaints came from relatives of Israeli soldiers and civilians, as well as Palestinians, and the bodies belonged to people who died from various causes, including diseases, accidents and Israeli-Palestinian violence.
I am not aware of any credible reports that Israel harvested organis specifically from Palestinian prisoners, and in fact that the family who supposedly made that charge to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladt says they never made those charges, and the Swedish reporter who wrote reported the charges later admitted that he knew of no evidence to support them.
My belief is that she isn’t the only one.
What shall we discuss next? The Israeli gum that turns Arab girls into sex fiends? Israeli products that make Arab men sterile? Israeli doctors who inject AIDS into Arab babies in Israeli hospitals?
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January 17, 2010, 12:52 pmKen Arromdee says:
There was an organ harvesting scandal, but it didn’t involve
– killing Palestinians for the purpose of getting their organs
– targeting Palestinians (or prisoners) specifically rather than affecting all people regardless of ancestry
Calling this “harvesting Palestinian prisoner organs” is like reading a newspaper article about a sewer main bursting in Israel because of bad maintenance and saying “Israel infects Palestinians with sewer bacteria” on the grounds that there were some Palestinians living on that street and some of them (as well as some Israelis) got infections.
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January 17, 2010, 12:54 pmYankev says:
It also wasn’t recent; the practice stopped more than a decade ago. Similar scandals have occurred, I believe, in the US and elsewhere.
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January 17, 2010, 12:56 pmChris Travers says:
Doesn’t seem that unusual. Although I will admit that the woman in question here may not be of the same league either in intelligence or depravity.
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January 17, 2010, 1:05 pmYankev says:
Plenty of the land had been purchased by Jews from the lawful Ottoman title holders. Plenty of terrorism stemmed, before creation of Israel, from Arabs who did not like the idea of Jews having the right to own and work land, worship and live as equals and not at the sufferance of Muslims. Before that, plenty of violence was aimed at Jews who had lived for centuries in the area, and whose presence pre-dated Islam.
It was the Arabs, not the Israelis or even the British who herd[ed]thousands into refugee camps and who made those camps permanent. Israel, at great cost to itself, absorbed nearly a million Jewish refugees who were driven peniless out of Arab countries after the 1948 war of independence. The Arab countries, with all their oil revenues, preferred to keep nearly a million Arabs who fled Israel in permanent refugee status. The Arabs who fled Israel got shafted and so did their descendants. The people who did the shafting were Arabs, not Jews, and are playing the time honored strategy of shifting the blame and evading the consequences by stirring up murderous hatred toward Jews.
If you think the bombing of British military HQ in the King David Hotel is even remotely similar, please tell me of a single anti-Israel or anti-Jewish bombing where the Arab bombers phoned before hand to warn of the bomb and tell the targetted people to evacuate.
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January 17, 2010, 1:06 pmBozoer Rebbe says:
Some of the most lethal ideas in history have come from smart people. Many Nazi concentration, labor and death camp commandants held PhD and MD degrees. Dr. Mengele was not the only German doctor of death.
Intelligence or education is no guarantor of morality.
Look at how highly educated the 9/11 hijackers were. Bin Ladin has an engineering degree. And then there are all the jihadi physicians of death (courtesy of Debbie Schlussel’s site — yeah all the usual caveats but the list is accurate and I don’t want grief from DS about not giving her credit):
* Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri–Al-Qaeda planner and Osama Bin Ladin’s #2 man.
* Dr. Mohammad Rabi Al-Zawahiri–Ayman’s father, Muslim Brotherhood leader, pharmacologist and professor at Ain Shams Medical School;
* Dr. “Abu Hafiza”–Al-Qaeda master planner who was the brains and commander of the Moroccan cell that provided logistics for the 9/11 attacks, and he recruited Qaeda insurgents for battles in Fallujah, Moroccan psychiatrist;
* Dr. Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi–Late HAMAS leader, pediatrician;
* Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahar–HAMAS co-founder and leader, surgeon and lecturer at the Islamic University in Gaza;
* Dr. Fathi Abd Al-Aziz Shiqaqi–Late founder of Islamic Jihad and active in Fatah, physician;
* Dr. George Habash–Founder and chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), pediatrician ;
* Dr. Wadih Haddad–2nd in command of the PFLP, with Dr. Habash, and the mastermind of all of its armed terrorist operations.
There’s also
* Dr. Bashar Assad–President of Terror-sponsor state Syria, welcoming home to every Islamic terrorist group imaginable, ophthalmologist;
And then our homegrown and imported physician jihadis. Nidal Hassan was not the first.
* Dr. Rafiq Sabir–Boca Raton emergency room physician convicted in Al-Qaeda terrorist plot;
* Dr. Wameeth Fadhli–A University of Texas medical doctor in the Galveston/Dickonson, Texas area, he sat in his vehicle, last summer, and shot several times at a random, 22-year-old infidel bicyclist. The male bike-rider, shot in his chest and shoulder, was in critical condition. Dr. Fadhli awaits trial, now scheduled for July 30th;
And in the UK where doctors were behind gas canister bombing plots in both London and at the Glasgow airport.
* Dr. Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Asha–a 26-year-old neurologist who was arrested and is in custody as a suspect in the attempted London bombings. He was born in Saudi Arabia, is of Palestinian origin, and has a Jordanian passport. His 27-year-old wife, a medical assistant, was also arrested for the foiled bombings;
* Dr. Bilal Talal Abdul Samad Abdulla–an Iraqi from Baghdad who attempted the Glasgow International Airport bombing;
* Dr. Mohammed Haneef–an Indian Muslim arrested as a suspect in attempted British terrorist bombing ;
Good is good and smart is smart and they aren’t the same thing.
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January 17, 2010, 1:20 pmleo marvin says:
Why? Just because Obama wasn’t yet nominated, much less elected or inaugurated?
How naive do you think we are?
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January 17, 2010, 1:43 pmChris Travers says:
That’s probably a can of worms that should not be opened. I would not consider Irgun or LEHI to have entirely clean hands where terrorism is concerned. Heck LEHI was eventually dissolved because of CONTINUED terrorist activity even AFTER independence was won. Irgun at least abandoned the worst of their tactics after they won the war.
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January 17, 2010, 1:47 pmBozoer Rebbe says:
The Irgun did not attack tourists at a hotel nor were civilians the target. The British occupation and military headquarters, located in the King David Hotel, was bombed, after a warning was phoned in to evacuate the building. The bomb was located in the basement under the wing used by the British and the vast majority of the casualties were British officials, soldiers or employees of the secretariat.
The Brits were essentially waging war against the Haganah, Irgun, Lehi and other Jewish paramilitary groups formed initially for defense against Arab attacks, later these groups fought the British occupation. The Brits seemed more interested in arresting Jews for defending themselves and in keeping Jewish survivors of the Holocaust out of Palestine than in restraining Arab violence.
Since you’re so concerned about Jews killing Brits, and since you asked about how much unrest and violence existed before the UN partition plan in 1947, there was an Arab revolt against British rule in Palestine in the 1930s. There were riots, guerrilla attacks on British forces, and bombs thrown at Jews (about 900 Jews were killed during the “revolt”). It seems that the Arabs were unhappy about no longer being together with their brother Syrians, who came under French rule following World War One.
Interestingly, Arab nationalist writers in the 1920s and 1930s used the word “nakba”, catastrophe, to describe how the League of Nations had separated them from their Syrian brothers. Of course back then the term “Palestinian” most often referred to a Jewish resident of Palestine. The creation of the political fiction known as the “Palestinian people” wouldn’t happen until the 1960s. Back in the 1930s, though the Arabs resented the Jewish return to the land of Israel, many Arabs in Palestine still recognized that they, too, were relatively recent immigrants, their families having moved their from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt as the Zionist enterprise thrived and the local economy picked up.
Of course today the term Nakba is used to refer to 1948, when the Arabs of Palestine ran away, hoping to return after armies from five Arab countries crushed the Jews.
The “Palestinians” and their lapdogs like you can’t even keep their narratives straight.
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January 17, 2010, 1:52 pmOren says:
Oh no, absolute not unusual in the least. Unfortunately, the prevalence of the highly intelligent* among terrorist wackos defies current explanation and seems to be not-at-all interesting among those debating how we should conduct the GWoT.
* In the academic/rational sense of the world. Obviously in some other ways they are seriously intellectually defective. I think it’s clear what is meant.
Bozoer Rebbe, the fact is well conceded (don’t know why you have to trot out a long list of supporting information for a conceded factual point). The question is why the over-representation of the intelligent* among terrorists. After all, in the Jewish tradition, reason is supposed to lead to more righteousness, not less (as contrasted with, for instance, the solea fide tradition of Martin Luther) so it’s a tough position for a Rebbe to be in — here it seems that more reason is correlated with outright depravity!
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January 17, 2010, 2:19 pmChris Travers says:
Sure there’s a link. Unfortunately neither side is particularly blameless.
The problem is that most people who bring up such a link do so for one-sided reasons. The truth is unfortunately quite two-sided.
On one hand, there IS a valid concern that some groups within the Israeli government (particularly some parties such as the BY forerunners) have made a goal of driving Palestinians from the territories so that they will be demographically safe to annex. Some center-left politicians have even advocated “transferring” Arabs of Israeli citizenship to other countries to avoid demographic problems in Israel later, so this isn’t just the extreme right (it seems to be the extreme right and the center-left against the center-right which seems honestly more sane).
On the other hand, there is real concern that many in the Middle East feel that Islam requires that no land which has ever been part of the Muslim world ever be allow to revert to other hands. This is a real problem, but it is unevenly applied (one currently does not see the rhetoric applied similarly to Spain, for example).
If there is to be a solution to the problems then two things will need to happen:
1) the Islamic world will need to recognize the right of self-government for the Israelis.
2) Some equitable settlement will need to exist for the territories. This could include a final settlement based on one, two, or three states. (For example, the territories could be annexed and all residents given Israeli citizenship, or Gaza and the West Bank could be separate countries with full rights.)
Do you disagree? I don’t think you can get from “there is a link” to “it’s 100% Israel’s fault.” It might be 100% the fault of the UK, but that is a very different perspective.
And YES there was a lot of terrorism on many sides before the Israeli war of Independence and during it.
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January 17, 2010, 2:38 pmChris Travers says:
Maybe ’cause the smart, nerdy kids are often the ones who are victims of bullying?
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January 17, 2010, 2:42 pmOren says:
Daniel, I don’t know where to begin responding. Let’s start by clarifying what I said:
(1) I don’t think she’s insane, I think she has adopted an insane political/religious ideology that is outside the boundaries of rational discourse. There are many political matters on which reasonable people can disagree but deliberate attacks on civilians is not among them.
(1b) I am interested, as a psychological question of how an intelligent* and otherwise rational person (including but not limited to her) could have come to those political/religious beliefs.
(2) I have no idea when she came to believe those things and therefore whether they were present while she was here at ‘deis or whether they developed later.
(3) I have no idea if she was the “grey lady” imprisoned in Bagram (or if such a person exists). I don’t know why you think I would have a judgment on such a factual question for which there is little hard evidence.
(4) Likewise I have no idea if her kidney was removed, a factual question for which there is little hard evidence. As I understand, the Magistrate in charge of the trial had ordered her to be seen by a US doctor who would be in a position to confirm or deny this.
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January 17, 2010, 2:44 pmSammy Finkelman says:
Love.
Or maybe we could say sex.
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January 17, 2010, 2:46 pmOren says:
Can I call this the dodgeball theory of violent extremism?
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January 17, 2010, 2:47 pmChris Travers says:
BTW the point of my above posts is that mutual recriminations regarding terrorism and Israel is probably going to solve nothing and the more important question is what a final settlement would look like. However, that is wandering way off topic.
If Israel were to become a territory of Syria tomorrow would be be looking back to 1492 as the beginning of all the world’s problems?
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January 17, 2010, 2:49 pmOren says:
Bin Laden has several wives and ~20 kids, so he’s not lacking in the porking dept.
fake-edit: Perhaps porking is the not the culturally sensitive word to use here.
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January 17, 2010, 2:49 pmorca says:
Sounds like Aafia Siddiqui, like almost all captured (alleged) terrorists, has always been mentally ill.
Not much war profiteering to be made in providing mental health services, though.
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January 17, 2010, 2:55 pmChris Travers says:
Well, I am not even saying that being the victim of bullying is necessary all bad. However, I do think that generally smart, nerdy kids tend to be socially in a different position in school and this leads very often to both a cynicism regarding society generally and also a strong sense of independence. In essence I think the basic building blocks are there for truly heinous acts.
The thing is that those are also the same building blocks that allow individuals to question conventional wisdom, drive the sciences and humanities forward, and contribute to society.
I think the social ostracism and bullying helps ensure that smart, nerdy kids (who are already talented) are better able to stand apart from society and this can be for good or ill. Whether it is for good (Fred Hoyle, Albert Einstein, Paul Graham) or ill (Unabomber, Jeff Skilling) may depend on a number of factors including inherent disposition of a person (psychopathy scale, etc), family life, economic and academic opportunities, and so forth.
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January 17, 2010, 2:58 pmJoseph Somsel says:
Whether her current legal nationality is Pakistani, her last name is derived (I suspect) from a formerly ruling clan (Saddozai) of the Durranis of the Afghans. These are part of the Pushtoons. The Durand Line cut in the late British Empire off from Afghanistan was made without tribal boundaries in mind.
In other words, I suspect that she is ethnically more Afghan than low-land Pak.
Tell me again WHY she is being tried in any US court?
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January 17, 2010, 3:03 pmsgi says:
Oh, here we go. The “reason” there is terror against the US is because the UN created Israel.
Oren, I think Jamail Jamai is a perfect example of why intelligent people can and do justify terror. Even intelligent people can rationalize their depravity. And it may be true that highly intelligent people who have no morals are capable of even more depravity than people of average intelligence with strong morals.
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January 17, 2010, 3:08 pmOren says:
Because President Bush (either directly or through his Attorney General) decided that was the best course or action. Are you inquiring as to the thought process of that decision maker?
But that just pushes the question back to how he came to the “depraved” point of view to begin with, which was my original inquiry.
That is, it’s easy enough to rationalize some view once you believe it and there is no shortage of relevant neuropsyche research on the various mechanisms (confirmation bias, etc..) by which we are irrational about our own views. The hard question is how we come to the view in the first instance, not how we justify it post-hoc.
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January 17, 2010, 3:33 pmBozoer Rebbe says:
You’re moving the goal posts. If you want us to stick with the question, you’re going to have to stick with it too. Your original question was not about terror towards the US, but rather about terror and violence in the region.
Stop moving the goal posts. Your question was fully answered.
I’ll ask you a question myself.
Why did the Arabs of Hebron massacre 69 elderly, non-Zionist Jews in 1929? Were they upset over the creation of Israel in 1948 or of the occupation of 1967?
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January 17, 2010, 3:39 pmBozoer Rebbe says:
In the Jewish tradition it also teaches that righteous people also have an evil inclination that equals their inclination to act righteously. Remember, the beginning of wisdom is awe of God not a high IQ. I think many of the examples cited are of people who see themselves as either replacing God (in the case of the Nazis) or acting as God’s agent on earth (in the case of the jihadis).
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January 17, 2010, 3:51 pmBozoer Rebbe says:
Actually, Bin Ladin’s statement immediately after 9/11 whined about “Andalusia”. If I’m not mistaken, the only large scale jihadi attack on the continent of Europe (or at least Western Europe if you’re going to count Chechnya) was the Madrid subway bombing.
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January 17, 2010, 3:55 pmOren says:
Daniel, if you want to quibble about my wording, feel free but it’s not adding anything substantive. “Terrorist wacko” is usually accepted shorthand for “otherwise intelligent person that has signed onto a political/social/religious ideology that advocates the killing of innocents”. That, she most certainly is.
She is alleged to have devised and planned terrorist attacks. Normally, those people are considered terrorists along with the actual assailants. If you RTFA, you would see that she “allegedly had two pounds of poisonous sodium cyanide and hundreds of pages of notes and documents on how to build chemical and biological weapons.”
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January 17, 2010, 3:59 pmChris Travers says:
Why does 7/7 not count?
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January 17, 2010, 4:04 pmOren says:
As I understand, that was (putatively) in retaliation for British troops inside the Caliphate.
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January 17, 2010, 4:16 pmChris Travers says:
Interestingly I think the quote was from 2004.
But anyway, it could be worse...
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January 17, 2010, 4:18 pmChris Travers says:
It is still a Jihadist attack in Western Europe.....
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January 17, 2010, 4:19 pmorca says:
He wanted the U.S. to get its troops out of Saudi Arabia...which it did.
No attacks since.
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January 17, 2010, 4:32 pmChris Travers says:
Ah, so you understand why Iraq was the central front of the war on terrorism....
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January 17, 2010, 4:34 pmleo marvin says:
It’s interesting, but I’d say not particular to violent extremists. The difference seems only one of degree between that and all sorts of mind-bending nonsense smart people say 24/7 on blogs of every persuasion. I think the definitive boundary is between those who do and don’t believe their ideology trumps the social contract. But while believing it does has extraordinary moral implications, it’s hardly the most irrational belief held by people on either side of the divide.
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January 17, 2010, 4:35 pmorca says:
I just assumed the Saudis control the Republican party and they wanted Saddam gone for some reason.
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January 17, 2010, 4:39 pmAriel says:
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January 17, 2010, 4:40 pmAriel says:
I don’t see how the Neo-con theory is contrary to the data. If you’re a highly educated engineer and, as many of them are, exposed to the West through education abroad, or television, or trips, and there’s no way to channel your education, no way to improve the lot of your people, no democracy, no free speech — in short, you might be upper class in your society, but you can never become a political leader in it, but you have the leadership bug. There’s nothing for you to turn to. So you turn to terror. I think that’s the neocon theory. And I don’t think the data cuts it out, at least that I have seen.
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January 17, 2010, 4:43 pmChris Travers says:
Hmm... I am not entirely sure what to think on that. However, I am fairly sure that remaking the Middle East in the image of Middle America will not solve any issues.
Consider the case of Sayyid Qutb, for example. Here is a man who came to the US for a while, went back, and eventually concluded that government was Unislamic, and that furthermore, that it was fundamentally necessary to abolish government as a normal way of working in the Middle East. His ideas have become quite at home in the Salafist movement.
So here you have the most radical of anarchists justifying his belief based on religion.
As a side note, I DO think that corrupt, unaccountable governments in the Middle East is a big part of the problem. I am just not sure that this necessarily supports a view that a lack of political freedoms creates the problem.
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January 17, 2010, 4:57 pmneurodoc says:
I’m not clear what the “insult to injury” is, unless you mean that she went into the neurosciences. Her sister F. Siddiqqi is a neurologist who worked at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, the hospital I was born at?!
I think it ironic that she wants no Jews on the jury, since her best chance of a hung jury might be a “progressive” or two among them, and “progressive Jews” are no rarity. Imagine a Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein.
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January 17, 2010, 5:15 pmYankev says:
Neither do I but the fact remains that there is not even a remote comparison with the bombing of British HQ at the King David Hotel and the various bombing attacks perpetrated by the various Arab and Muslim terror organizations. I stand by what is in my post, and see the post by Bozoer Rebbe that immediateley follows yours.
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January 17, 2010, 5:17 pmOren says:
I see a fundamental difference in kind between a pothead that believes that he has the right to toke contrary to the social contract and Kazinski or McVeigh. Or even MLK or Gandhi that sought to rewrite the social contract on the grounds that it was defective (after a fashion).
This would work if the terrorism was aimed at the institutions that you identify as “holding you down”, not terrorism aimed at Manhattan, Madrid or London. If the Nigerian underpants bomber was frustrated that he had no political power in Nigeria (that he intended to wield to better the Nigerian people), why would he bomb and airliner on the way to Detroit?
Obviously, on some level, political activities are a luxury good. The masses of humanity that live hand to mouth are apolitical out of necessity. That would connect affluence with some desire for political activity but doesn’t explain why it should manifest in such a violent and anti-social manner.
But there appears to be no correlation between the corruption of the government and the tendency towards terror. Pakistan is relatively less corrupt that Saudi Arabia and yet they both have AQ hanging around.
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January 17, 2010, 5:17 pmYankev says:
Sorry, misunderstood the question. You had aksed about terror in the region, without specifically mentioning the US.
Is it relevant to you at all that the US had very little presence in the area until after WWII, when the influence of the French and British declined, rivalry with the USSR increased, and the USSR instigated and trained terrorist groups and encouraged attacks both on the US and on Israel as the US’ proxy? The popular narrative is that the Arabs hate the US because of Israel, but it’s at least as likely that they hate Israel because of the US.
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January 17, 2010, 5:22 pmDG says:
My question: are people like captainchaos and Jamal Jamai white supremacists in the US who glom onto the Israel/Palestine conflict as an avenue of bigotry, European leftists who have luckily found a way to express their loathing of jews while cloaking it as anti-zionism, or Arabs or Pakistanis who have read the protocols of the elders of zion a few too many times?
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January 17, 2010, 5:23 pmAriel says:
Because it’s the only thing he could do? The Saudis, or the Nigerians, are not that kind to the family of the folks who do these kinds of things. We have that “corruption of the blood” thing, and don’t have the family in our custody. Moreover, these folks get propagandized to that they should attack us, and there is no other outlet. That’s the root of the neocon theory — that there is no outlet for these frustrated, educated folks, and they have to push in the one direction that is allowed: Islamism.
This reminded me of the one study that has found something correlated with propensity to be a terrorist. It came out a few years ago, and was by a liberal (i.e., non-neocon). He found that the degree of freedom in a society was correlated to being a terrorist. The most free societies were least likely to produce them, as were the most suppressed. But the ones that were in an intermediate state had the highest propensity.
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January 17, 2010, 5:27 pmYankev says:
Where do you get that idea? First, Torah study, not wisdom generally, is supposed to lead to more righteousness (and to more wisdom). Second, knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing. Both wisdom and secular knowledge can be used for good or for ill, just like physical strength or wealth. Pharoah was no ignoramus, neither were many of the Ceasars and a host of other yemach sh’mam. Confusing Torah with education is a malady peculiar to American Jews, and has about as much basis in “Jewish tradition” as Hanukkah bushes, and chrismukkka.
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January 17, 2010, 5:29 pmorca says:
Sounds like her best chance is to have the Afghan police who were there testify against the folks who allege she shot at them:
“Afghan police in Ghazni however, told a different story. They said officers searched Siddiqui after reports of her suspicious behaviour and found maps of Ghazni, including one of the governor’s house, and arrested her along with a teenage boy.
U.S. troops requested the woman be handed over to them, but the police refused, a senior Ghazni police officer said.
U.S. soldiers then proceeded to disarm the Afghan police at which point Siddiqui approached the Americans complaining of mistreatment by the police.
The U.S. troops, the officer said, ‘thinking that she had explosives and would attack them as a suicide bomber, shot her and and took her”. The boy remained in police custody.’
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSISL107305
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January 17, 2010, 5:55 pmOren says:
But this makes no sense if we are under the assumption that the perp is rational. Hmm, I can’t blow up those responsible for keeping me down (for whatever reason) so I’ll just blow up some random other country instead? Nor does the propagandizing explanation make sense (to me) for the same reason — these guys are smart, why would they believe that?
I’m not saying that you are wrong, exactly (because I cannot offer a better explanation) but I am expressing my skepticism.
I’d love the cite if you can produce it!
The Rambam said that when we study science and mathematics we are studying God’s work and are drawn nearer to him. This is not a substitute for but complementary to and actually essential for religious study both because it develops the intellect required and because it allows one to identify which passages are to be interpreted figuratively and thus hold deeper secrets (“without the succor of demonstrative science one is condemned to misinterpret much of Scripture”).
Empirical knowledge is necessary, not sufficient for moral knowledge.
Because European Jews were long alienated from scholarly learning and considered it contrary to God’s will? Are we even talking about the same people?
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January 17, 2010, 6:27 pmChris Travers says:
For different reasons though.
There are parts of Pakistan which are beyond the general reach of any semblance of Pakistani law enforcement with real criminal investigation capabilities. Same with Yemen.
I would look first at lawless zones then at corrupt governments.
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January 17, 2010, 6:28 pmAriel says:
Oren,
Here’s a link to a description of the study. I’m not sure how to get to the actual study itself, but this discusses the key finding.
W/r/t the neocon explanation: It’s not that these people are not smart. It’s not that they are not rational. It’s that the scope of their choices has been narrowed such that terrorism is the rational choice. If you want to express yourself politically, in one of these states, it is punishable by death if you speak ill of the government. But speaking ill of the Great Satan is not a problem. If you’re frustrated, that’s the only channel that’s open to you. That’s why the educated upper class go that way.
On another note, and because I remember you saying you were from Mass. some time back, go Scott Brown! I’m voting for him on Tuesday, anyway.
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January 17, 2010, 6:41 pmChris Travers says:
My main concern here is if we start recounting atrocities from British Palestine, we get back to balancing Dair Yasin against some other issue, the confiscation of Arab land and exile of Arabs against the exile of Jews, and so forth. We can spend all year arguing and we end up no closer to a long-term solution. It is just not a very productive discussion to have UNLESS one is putting forth concrete proposals, like asking every nation in the region to donate $100k per person who was exiled due to religious or ethnic cleansing in the region to address the circumstances now. Yet that will never fly because, in part, neither the Israeli nor the Arab governments want to even admit what HAPPENED or own up to what they or their predecessors did.
The vague proposals of “transfer” if Israeli Arabs (iirc some unofficial Beduin communities) to the PA under Ehud Barak are really pretty good evidence, though, that the past is still present in the eyes of what some people want to accomplish. Indeed, I may be all alone in this assumption but I think the Likud party is probably the only one at this point that can be expected to make ANY major steps toward real resolution of the issues. Certainly Labor and Kadima are not very credible in this area and seem about as likely as BY to actually allow facts on the ground to be resolved.
Even so, I think it is better to focus on the facts on the ground today instead of the history of the region since WWI and the effect the collapse of the Ottoman Empire had on the region.
(My sense is that Labor and Kadima talk peace but in practice take a VERY hard line, while Likud talks tough but negotiates well, even if this is not what the Israeli people are told. See the flap about Netenyahu trying to negotiate peace with Syria during his last stint as PM.)
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January 17, 2010, 6:45 pmjoe says:
interesting points
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January 17, 2010, 7:11 pmorca says:
Wikipedia helpfully supplies a list of some of the terrorist attacks carried out by the Irgun, here’s a small sample:
1938, July 25 — 43 Arabs were killed by a bomb at a marketplace in Haifa.
1938, August 26 — 24 Arabs were killed by a bomb at a marketplace in Jaffa.
1938, February 27 — 33 Arabs were killed in multiple attacks, incl. 24 by bomb in Arab market in Suk Quarter of Haifa and 4 by bomb in Arab vegetable market in Jerusalem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks
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January 17, 2010, 7:17 pmOren says:
Eh, both candidates are insipid.
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January 17, 2010, 7:38 pmCaptainchaos says:
The genetic test would be to establish one’s Jewish ancestry, or proportion of Jewish ancestry as a more stringent criterion for Israeli citizenship, halfwit. Even the alleged ‘anti-racist’, Jew Jared Diamond, author of the social constructionist farce Guns, Germs, and Steel, hinted at his support for genetic testing as a measure for granting Israeli citizenship in the November 1993 issue of Nature. Just another in the long line of Jewish race-denying ‘scientists’ which includes Boas, Gould, Tooby and Pinker. Lying, genocidalist, anti-White filth all.
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January 17, 2010, 8:40 pmleo marvin says:
I don’t know any potheads who think they violate the social contract because their ideology demands it. Anyway I was trying to make two points. The first, responding to yours, was that nutty beliefs by smart people are ubiquitous. The second was that nutty beliefs, in and of themselves, are unobjectionable. It’s the moral choices, some good (Gandhi and MLK), some evil (Kazinski and McVeigh), and most perfectly rational, that have consequences worthy of our attention. But our obsession with the beliefs seems to validate the claims of the actors that that’s where the good and evil resides, not in their choices.
Example: Person A believes those from outside his tribe are spawns of Satan, deserving death or worse, but tells no one, and like everybody around him treats outsiders with dignity and respect. Person B believes everyone deserves dignity and respect, but says and does nothing while those around him enslave and torture outsiders who wander by. Two people with beliefs known only to themselves, and I hope we’d agree the person with the irrational, obnoxious beliefs is more commendable than the person with the enlightened ones.
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January 17, 2010, 8:53 pmME says:
Wait a minute. Are you telling me that is the Soviet Union set up a puppet government here in the U.S. and U.S. citizens believe that the Soviet Military personnell were here invading the U.S., it would be against the law to shoot and kill Soviet military personnell. Give me a break. Criminal does not apply in this context. Military law applies. Can someone please explain where the New York District Court gains ANY jurisdiction over this person for acts committed in Asia?
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January 17, 2010, 8:56 pmOren says:
Well, they violate it and they feel quite comfortable violating it because it is, in their minds, an illegitimate restriction. There is a melding of the practical and the ideological
Those that think poorly of others rarely treat other with respect, those that think highly of others rarely enslave them (or allow them to be enslaved). It’s not that ideology cannot get twisted around but there is more often some concordance of belief and action.
Because I’m aware of the evil of (Siddiqui/Kazinski/underwear-man)‘s actions, that’s not interesting, there’s nothing to learn from it. There is little intellectual dispute that those choices are outside the bounds of civilized conduct.
I’m interested in learning how they came to the beliefs that justify or even demanded those actions. That’s interesting, especially when taking into account that these were intelligent and rational individuals with a proven capacity for reason. My interest is not because that belief is morally blameworthy but because it seems to me an essential component of understanding what the heck is going on.
The genetic test would be to establish one’s Jewish ancestry, or proportion of Jewish ancestry as a more stringent criterion for Israeli citizenship, halfwit. Jewish ancestry, Israeli citizenship and Zionism are three distinct things. You will be shocked to know there are Israeli citizens that do not have Jewish ancestry, Zionists that are not Israeli citizens and Israeli citizens that are not Zionists.
You might do well to read more closely before resorting to name calling.
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January 17, 2010, 9:19 pmChris Travers says:
Very good points. The charges in this case don’t seem to match anything that should be a crime.
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January 17, 2010, 9:25 pmOren says:
“Should” is a slippery word. As it happens, her conduct “is” a crime under US law.
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January 17, 2010, 9:33 pmChris Travers says:
What affirmative defences are available from a war zone for shooting at American forces?
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January 17, 2010, 9:44 pmleo marvin says:
I don’t think it’s that simple. There are no doubt plenty of people who can’t be deterred from acting on their convictions, good or bad, but I suspect a lot more submerge their controversial beliefs to social and legal norms.
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January 17, 2010, 10:13 pmCaptainchaos says:
“Jewish ancestry, Israeli citizenship and Zionism are three distinct things. You will be shocked to know there are Israeli citizens that do not have Jewish ancestry, Zionists that are not Israeli citizens and Israeli citizens that are not Zionists.”
No doubt, nor did I say that they were, but to call a spade a spade whilst exulting without any real grasp of the interlocking relationship of said nor the real power and consequence they wield in this world is to betray a pedestrian mind utterly bent towards concentration on trivia. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin, just how shall I place these deck chairs before the old girl goes to the bottom of the ocean, isn’t that about your speed?
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January 17, 2010, 10:16 pmjccamp says:
Me & Chris Travers —
Maybe we can make the analogy a little more apropos:
U S police apprehend a French national, within the U S, carrying pounds of cyanide and documents with detailed plans about terror targets within Great Britain. Great Britain asks for and receives permission to interview the French national, who is still in U S custody. Inside a U S jail, the French national gains control of a firearm from a British agent and opens fire on the British personnel. British law makes it a crime to murder or attempt to murder a British citizen anywhere in the world. GB extradites the French national to Britain to stand trial for attempting to murder the British agents.
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January 17, 2010, 10:33 pmGary Rosen says:
“halfwit”
Talk about projection LOL!
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January 17, 2010, 11:09 pmRicardo says:
Wearing the uniform and being part of the chain of command of a recognized fighting force, in general. Otherwise, you can either be considered a war criminal for violating the Geneva Convention’s requirement to wear a uniform or else you can be considered an ordinary criminal — anti-terrorism laws do not always require you commit the act within the jurisdiction of the U.S.
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January 17, 2010, 11:15 pmGary Rosen says:
“You really can’t completely cover the truth”
OK, here’s some truth, buddarini:
The UN partitioned Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state.
Jews accepted the partition.
Arabs did not and launched an annihilationist war against Israel.
After the war the West Bank and Gaza were still in Arab hands but no Palestinian state was established; instead the areas were, uh, “occupied” by Egypt and Jordan.
So the truth is that the failure for a Palestinian state to come into existence is 100% the fault of Arabs, zero percent the fault of Israel.
PS — prior to the 1967 war Arabs proclaimed they were going to “finish what Hitler started”. But I won’t injure Jamal’s tender sensibilities by calling that “antisemitic”. After all Arabs are Semites too bwahaha.
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January 17, 2010, 11:16 pmAriel says:
Oren,
I’m voting for Brown, not so much because I think he’ll do a good job, but because I think the government does the least harm when it’s shared between two parties.
Captainchaos,
I’m a halfwit because I question whether genetic testing can establish political philosophy. Uh huh. Have you ever seen a psychiatrist? Oh wait, they’re largely Jews too, and probably anti-White. Maybe you should withdraw all your money from the Jew banks, and the Jew stock-traders. You never know where the Jews might get you. After all, if you keep your money in the Jew banks, the Jews might take the money they make, and ’cause they’re all Zionists, send it over to Israel. Did I mention that the CEO of Verizon is Jewish? Oh, and Israel invented the cell phone. Better disconnect your phone, and Internet, and get rid of your cell phone, too. Just to be safe. The Jews might get you otherwise. I’ve heard they’re sneaky.
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January 17, 2010, 11:25 pmOren says:
I would imagine that if she comported herself in accordance with the laws of war (wore a uniform with distinctive markings, reported to a command structure) she might have a case that her conduct was lawful and that she’s a POW.
Unfortunately for her, she is nowhere close to a lawful combatant. At best, she’s a civilian, who are not entitled to attack soldiers (that would be perfidy, a big no-no).
Perhaps, but I don’t think it’s relevant either way. The mental framework for terrorism already assumes that social/legal norms are of no import in the struggle again whatever it is they are struggling against.
And if the UN partitioned Quebec into a French State and an English State, what would that mean for the FLQ? Exactly nothing.
I’m a rather staunch supporter (and citizen) of the State of Israel and I will be damned if her right to exist stems from the ‘vote’ of some diplomats meeting half the world away, mostly from countries with neither stake nor claim. No sir, I think the UN had quite nothing to do with it, TYVM (not that I begrudge their support by any means).
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January 18, 2010, 12:34 amBozoer Rebbe says:
Because I said the European continent. Sorry for not being clearer.
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January 18, 2010, 1:03 amRicardo says:
It’s pretty clear you haven’t actually read Guns, Germs, and Steel as it has nothing to do with social constructionism or with Richard Lewontin’s claim about the lack of scientific basis for racial classification. Aside from this, whether one is Jewish under Halakha law is determined by maternal ancestry so Jewish is not a “race” under any reasonable definition. Just as few people would call the rather pale-skinned offspring of the illicit tryst between Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson “black.”
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January 18, 2010, 3:03 amYankev says:
Isn’t the Rambam talking about secular knowledge studied with the awareness that one is studying the works of the Creator? He does not seem to be talking about secular knowledge for its own sake.
Here we agree.
I think you are overstating your case. Were there not Acharonim and Rioshonim who studied nature in appreciation of the Creator’s works? Were there not gedolim in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries who did the same? Doesn’t Torah U’Madda have roots in the Brisker derech? And I may have overstated my case — I am talking about Jews who think that purely secular learning, divorced from any consciousness of the Creator and any sense of moral values, is a Jewish value.
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January 18, 2010, 9:22 amYankev says:
JJ brought up the bombing of British army HQ and I responded. That’s all that happened.
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January 18, 2010, 9:25 amYankev says:
JJ did not ask about attacks carried out by Irgun Tzvi Leumi. He asked specifically about their attack on British army HQ at the King David Hotel. I stand by my response.
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January 18, 2010, 9:29 amYankev says:
Only one of them went out of her way to deny justice to a man who had been framed for child abuse and railroaded into a lengthy prison sentence on the basis of zero evidence, to the extent that a reviewing judge was shocked that the case had even been brought to prosecution.
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January 18, 2010, 9:32 amYankev says:
Welcome to the Storm Front annex.
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January 18, 2010, 9:33 amYankev says:
Captaincahos is clearly smart enough to realize that even the ones who aren’t Jews are plying a profession that is inherently suspect because it was started by that Jew, Freud.
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January 18, 2010, 9:41 amYankev says:
Oren, the only definitions I found for TVYM are
I’m pretty sure none of them are what you meant. Please enlighten?
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January 18, 2010, 9:44 amYankev says:
Okay, I see I scrambled the acronym, but I still don’t know what it stands for.
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January 18, 2010, 9:47 amjcm says:
Not related but
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January 18, 2010, 10:06 amjcm says:
Alexander Volokh
Property Rights and Contract Form in Medieval Europe
Am Law Econ Rev 2009 11: 399–450; doi:10.1093/aler/ahp012.
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/11/2/399?etoc
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January 18, 2010, 10:07 amOren says:
On that we agree — secular learning is complementary to religious learning, not a replacement for (or a divorce from) it.
TYVM is “Thank you very much” almost invariably with the dismissive connotation.
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January 18, 2010, 3:53 pmChrisTS says:
At the risk of being a pain, can you provide a citation or link? I’m interested.
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January 18, 2010, 6:01 pmChrisTS says:
Oren, Leo, ChrisT, Ariel:
I think this question of why ‘intelligent’ — and educated — people are susceptible to fanaticism is important, as Oren suggests.
Many of us believe that education and strengthening the mental muscle militates against irrationalism. In fact, in a general way, I believe this is true. Of course, I have no figures on how many of the fanatical class are intelligent/educated, so it might be true that education and critical thinking are useful in combating fanaticism for the majority of persons.
Still, it is troubling that ‘smart’ and educated people often seem to fall under the spell of blind ideology. I have two thoughts on this: 1) The better educated one, is as compared with one’s cultural peers, the more likely one is to perceive injustice (and to believe it can be remedied?) 2) The more intelligent one is, the less likely one is to be accepting of things as they are. I think these facts account for the tendency of [many] intelligent and educated people to be ‘radical’ and/or activist.
But that such people become fanatics – for whom neither facts nor counter-arguments are relevant –seems to me to be the difficult part to explain. I rather think we could assume a minimum of two circumstances: a) these people are witnesses to or subjected to such [perceived or real] injustice, that any capacity for moderation or reasonableness is overwhelmed; b) that some of these people, however intelligent and/or educated, suffer from emotional/psychological defects.
If I am anywhere close to correct – for these two kinds of cases – efforts to combat fanaticism through socio-political means would likely be effective only in the first kind of case.
Probably the only way to minimize the number of persons, or the severity of their ‘madness,’ in the second type of case would be to minimize exposure to fanatical ideas. But, of course, in this day of the internet and scream radio, this would mean greater censorship as well as more effective education.
So, now I am [further] depressed.
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January 18, 2010, 6:26 pmNickM says:
Perhaps the answer is just that the intelligent fanatics stand out because they are the ones leading movements, while the unintelligent ones are cannon fodder.
Nick
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January 18, 2010, 6:32 pmChrisTS says:
I think there is real truth in this.
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January 18, 2010, 6:39 pmCaptainchaos says:
Kevin MacDonald’s Culture of Critique is a totally damning indictment of Jewish responsibility and intentionality for waging race war via culture war against those of European descent.
That every last one of you would not dream of residing for the balance of your lives in the kind of Third World nightmare that Third World peoples actually produce, and chose to live in White majority societies is all too telling. Yet you ostensibly refuse to make the connection, refuse to bring to the fore the glaring rent between what you profess and what you do. Why is that?
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January 18, 2010, 11:07 pmleo marvin says:
Captainchaos,
I realize it’s early, but have you made plans yet for the first night of Passover? Let us know if you need a Sedar invite. (If Eugene asks you to his house, don’t go. I was there last year, and the gentile blood wasn’t fresh.)
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January 19, 2010, 2:54 amYankev says:
I keep asking myself why Captainchaos is still allowed to post here. Then I realized the answer is obvious — to illustrate why it’s foolish for Jews to advocate banning the lawful private ownership of firearms for self-defense.
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January 19, 2010, 9:35 amChrisTS says:
I’m shocked. I would have thought EV’s gentile blood to be only of the highest quality. How were the organs?
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January 19, 2010, 6:57 pmleo marvin says:
How should I know? You think I stuck around after he screwed up the centerpiece of Jewish cuisine? I was out swindling farmers, suing old Germans for reparations, and smuggling Al Sharpton’s sperm into William Shockley’s sperm bank. And I still made it home in time for my nightly viewing of Schindler’s List.
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January 19, 2010, 8:30 pmChris Travers says:
Doesn’t a competent tribunal have to make that determination before an individual can be tried for crimes, though?
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January 19, 2010, 9:53 pmv says:
前列腺炎
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January 19, 2010, 10:12 pmCaptainchaos says:
Gentlemen (I do not say gentile men), I doubt I am any more strident and forceful in advocacy for my people’s existence than Rabbi Kahane, Ben-Gurion or Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Yet you condemn me and not they. Doing what one must to secure the existence of one’s people is for Europeans sinister but for Jews saintly. Self-evidently, a hypocrisy constructed in the service of Jewish interests. No wonder you will not reply to my substantive criticisms and statement of facts, you cannot. A feeble, smarmy quip is all that is left in your arsenal at that point. I win by relentlessly hammering on the contradictions in the Jewish-European-gentile relationship. Thereby, the edifice is cracked and slowly crumbles, and the well beneath the castle is poisoned, with critique — of course I’m sure you knew that, or at least sense it unconsciously, given the ways of your people recapitulated unto the generations.
This too shall end, as it has every time before. Except, this time, there is no redoubt, which is the most powerful argument one could muster to see you change your ways.
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January 20, 2010, 4:45 amYankev says:
No one can reply to what does not exist.
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January 20, 2010, 9:28 amCaptainchaos says:
That’s right, there are not DOZENS of Jewish organizations with budgets at their disposal that dwarf the GNP of nations who go about squelching with puritanical fanaticism every alleged incident of ‘anti-Semitism’ lodged against the world’s most wealthy and privileged ethnic group. It’s all a lie. However, Jews have been expelled from every country in Europe dozens of times, in some cases from the same one more than once, and in every instance — every one — through no fault of their own. That is true.
The air is thick with cognitive dissonance. No wonder Kevin MacDonald goes on at length about deception and self deception. Why do you guys make it so easy, other than the fact that it is so easy, cuz the lemmings are real dumb?
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January 20, 2010, 10:02 amLou Gots says:
Serveral of us have addressed Chris T’s question about the defendant raising the defense of privileged belligerency. The basic Geneva Convention rules about uniform or equivalent badge and responsible chain of command have been put forth, but the most relevant consideration, that of the Defendant’s status in the LoW at the time of the shooting has been overlooked.
At the time she grabbed a weapon and tried to kill her interrogators, she was a prisoner. Prisoners are protected persons, hors d’ combat. They may not be harmed, nor may they harm their captors, unless and until they have been exchanged or have made good their escape. Once they have gotten away, their combatant status is restored, and they may lawfully kill and be killed an accordance with the laws of war. Hypothetically, a P.O.W. who brains the guard bringing him dinner is guilty of criminal assault and may be tried and punished as a criminal as though he had been a member of the detaining power.
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January 23, 2010, 7:33 pm