I was not planning on posting today, but I got the following from alert reader Randolph Addison:
I have the impression that Arab news was, unsurprisingly, duped. Best of the Web Scroll down to "The Cynthia McKinney Fan Club" (4th entry). [The Chinese recently reported an article from The Onion as legitimate US news and then vilified The Onion, stating that they were purposely put out propaganda to trick people. Uh huh.]
When doing my fisking, I also thought this was too good to be true. And usually, if sumpin' sounds too good to be true, then by golly it is too good to be true. I also thought Democrats.com was too good to be true. Since, I have absolutely no journalistic integrity, not to mention being very lazy, I did not check out the veracity of the Ode to Cynthia Even, if it wasn't true, it still offered me an excellent opportunity to have a little fun. Well, boys and girls, I did a little Google (Every time I use Google, I always think of Carl Sagan. He used a term in Cosmos called googleplex.) search on Israel Shamir and here is what I came up with. Excerpts follow.
Israel Shamir is a leading Russian-Israeli intellectual, writer, translator and journalist.
Don't forget Palestinian apologist.
After returning to Israel in 1980, Shamir wrote for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz and Al Hamishmar newspapers and worked in the Knesset as the spokesman for the Israel Socialist Party (Mapam).
Aha! A socialist. That's why he likes Cynthia McKinney and Barbara Lee.
He also translated selected chapters of Joyce’s Ulysses, (into Russian)
Joyce's Ulysses is dull and boring enough in English. Imagine how dull it must be in Russian.
His most popular work, the Pine and the Olive, the story of Palestine/Israel, was published in 1988. Its cover carried a painting by the Ramallah painter, Nabil Anani. As the first Palestinian Intifada began, Shamir had left Israel for Russia, where he covered the eventful years 1989-1993. While in Moscow, he reported for Haaretz, but was sacked for publishing an article calling to the return the Palestinian refugees and the rebuilding of their ruined villages.
See. Even back then he was an Uncle Yasser.
He wrote for various Russian newspapers and magazines, including Pravda and Zavtra weekly. In 1993, he returned to Israel and settled in Jaffa.
Wouldn't it be ironic if he got nailed (pun intended) by a homicide bomber?
In response to the second Palestinian uprising in thirteen years, Shamir has
temporarily abandoned his literary occupation and resumed his work as a propagandist journalist. In the midst of all the endless talk of a "
Two State solution", Shamir, along with Edward Said, has become a leading
champion of the ‘One Man, One Vote, One State’ solution in all of
Palestine/Israel.
Which, anyone with half a brain would realize, that would sound the death knell for Israel. There would be a mass expulsion of Jews. Can't you just imagine Cynthia McKinney screaming to high heaven if we had a massive influx of Jewish immigrants.
His most recent essays have been circulating widely on the Internet
And providing blogging fodder for people like me who just love to ridicule loonies.
and are now posted on many prominent media sites.
Which makes 'em easy to find. Just Google Israel Shamir.
With every new article, Shamir is establishing himself as a propagandist journalist whose work speaks to the aspirations of both the Arab world
Israelis and the Palestinians.
Mass suicide for the Israelis. Killing and looting by the Arabs.
His most recent works include Acid Test, Rape of Dulcinea, Galilee Flowers, Joseph Revisited and Kid Sister.
I'll have to see if Amazon carries 'em. Must be fantastic reading.
Shamir (50) lives in Jaffa, he is father of two sons.
Izzy. Stay away from the bombers.
And now, another example of the wit and wisdom of Israel Shamir called Why I Support the Return of the Palestinians (or Why I Support Israeli Suicide).
Palestine is not a dead object, it is a living country.
Full of suicide bombers.
Palestinians are her soul.
Some soul. A people with unbelievable hatred for another race. We haven't seen hatred like this since Nazi Germany. And we want to give these people a state? We fought WWII to defeat a state like this. Palestinians are soulless nihilists.
Palestine is what Palestinians are re-creating in real time,
Hatred and killing.
in the same way that France is what the French create and re-create every day.
Now there's a great comparison. The French? If only the Palestinians were more like the French. Here Mr. Sharon. Here's all of our bombs and weapons. We surrender. Please don't hurt us. Have some cheese.
It is a vast confusion of mind, to presume one can love France and abhor French,
I don't know. I have no problems with that. The French abhor us, and many of us abhor them. Ever been to Paris? Neat city. Rude inhabitiants. Sacre bleu! Ze Americans zey are barbarians.
as what kind of France would exist without the French soul.
A nicer place to visit?
Only silly tourists from rich countries, pestered by beggars, prefer to stay in reclusive posh hotels where they can enjoy the country without encountering the natives.
In France this would be a bad thing because...
It is like loving a beautiful lady but hating her character and her very essence. To love a country and wish away her inhabitants is the kind of romance that can only appeal to those who have a passion for necrophilia.
No, actually that's the way it works in France. At least in Paris. When ya get outside of Paris the French are not nearly as snotty. And the Palestinians love the land that Israel sits on and have spent the last 54 years wishing the Jews away.
The late Russian thinker Lev Gumilev described a country as a symbiosis of people and landscape. Palestine and Palestinians are inseparable, the peasants and their olives and springs of water and the mountains and the domes of the ancestral sepulchres on the hill-tops need each other and have grown to complement each other.
He left out the bombs and the AK47's. Hold on, we're getting to the good parts.
The Palestinians are not an obscure mean folk.
No. They're a bunch of cowardly murderous bastards.
They created the Star of Ghassul,
An eight pointed star unearthed at Ghassul. I looked it up. For more info.
wrote the Bible,
Funny. I thought the Jews did that. At least the Old Testament. Even Christians admit that.
built the temples of Jerusalem and Garizim,
The Jews.
the palaces of Jericho and Samaria, the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and Nativity, the mosques of Haram a-Sharif,
I'll give him that.
the harbours of Caesarea and Akka,
The Romans. 'What have the Romans ever done for us?'
the castles of Monfort and Belvoir.
Thought that was the Crusaders.
They walked with Jesus, defeated Napoleon and bravely fought at Karameh. In their veins, the blood of Aegean warriors, Bene Israel, David's heroes, the first Apostles of Christ and Companions of the Prophet, of Arab riders, Norman Crusaders and Turkmen chieftains blended in the unique composition.
I'm really impressed. Izzy's laying it on real thick.
Its spark did not run out: the poetry of Mahmud Darwish, the wisdom of Edward Said,
The wisdom of Edward Said? What? The freaking wisdom of freaking Edward Said? Excuse me. I gotta take a break before I use foul language or pound on my keyboard too hard.
the perfect olive oil, the fervour of prayers
Death to the Jews!
and the valiant courage of intifada prove it.
Yeah. It takes a lot of courage to shoot an eight year old girl when she's asleep in her bed. Charles Johnson thought this guy was on heroin. I thought he was on LSD. I think he's moved on to some new and different mind altering drug. But wait. It gets better.
Without the Palestinians, Palestine dies.
The Palestinians are doin' a pretty good job of dying with Palestine.
Her rivers run poisoned water,
Yeah. That's what Suhu Arafat said right before Hillary kissed her.
the sources dry out, the hills and valleys are disfigured, her fields are worked by imported Chinese, while her sons are imprisoned in ghetto.
They are only in a 'ghetto' because they refuse to live in a peaceful coexistence with Israel. Over the past 54 years since Israel was created, the sole purpose of the Palestinians has been the total destruction of Israel. It's in the PLO charter. They never got around to changing it after Oslo. Izzy, when you were doing all those translations did you ever read any real history?
The idea of a separate Jewish state collapsed.
Huh? It never collapsed in Israel and the idea never existed in the Arab world so how could it have collapsed?
During last ten years, the mad policies of Israeli
Called self defense.
government imported over a million of Romanians, Russians, Ukrainians, Thai and African laborers.
They can't employ Palestinians. They have this annoying habit of blowing up.
Some of them claim Jewish descent: Peruvian tribes, Indians from Assam and the endless refugees from the Soviet Union moved in.
That's because they were being persecuted were they used to live. Many of the refugees came from Muslim countries where the 'religion of peace' were killin' 'em off. And Izzy, you were born in Siberia. You must be one of the 'endless refugees from the Soviet Union'.
Now the Jewish Agency plans to import a Lembda tribe from the South Africa, in order to ensure the Jewish character of the state.
Goddamn Arabs multiply faster than rabbits. I cannot understand why the Arabs can't be a little more patient. At the rate they're going, the Israeli Arabs are gonna outnumber the Jews in 20 to 30 years. If you're still alive then Izzy, you'll find out how neat it will be to live in a state run by the Palestinians. At least until they take away all your possessions and kick you out. 'But. But. I'm your friend.' 'You're a dirty Jew. Get out of our country.'
Paradoxically, those who still bear some part of the Jewish traditions are isolated in the Jewish state, as late Dr Yeshayahu Leibovich or imprisoned as the Moroccan Jewish Rabbi Arie Der'i.
You got me on these Izzy and I'm too lazy to look them up. Maybe some other blogger will. But, your credibilty is not very good.
The fantasy of the Jewish ingathering has collided with the reality.
Yeah. The Arabs hate the Jews. They want to kill 'em all or drive them into the sea. They've been saying that for over 50 years. Haven't you been listening, Izzy? Those are really powerful drugs you're on. You need to be real careful. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?
We must end the delusion.
Funny that he uses the word delusion, since he, himself is so delusional.
Let the sons and daughters of Palestine come back and rebuild Suba and Kakun, Jaffa and Akka.
They can't. They're too busy making bombs and blowing themselves up.
Instead of consecrating the Green Line, let us erase it and live together, the children of Palestine, of first settlers, of Moroccans and Russians.
Let the lamb lie down with the lion. Give peace a chance. Kumbaya.
We should live in one state, not only because of the blatant failure of Oslo.
He finally got sumpin' right. Not the one state part, as that would be a disaster, but the failure of Oslo. As James Taranto is fond of saying, Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
The very idea of partition is wrong.
I agree. Let's round up the Palestinans and move 'em all to the Gaza Strip. Hey Yasser. Here's your state. Don't forget your baby wipes!
We can follow the example of New Zealand, where the European incomers live together with the native Maori,
Ya see, the Maoris don't blow up. And anyway, that's a bad example. When the Arabs outnumber the Jews, they'll do exactly what they have done in every Arab country. They'll take all their possessions and expel them.
the example of Mandela's South Africa,
Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
the example of Caribbean, where children of Spanish settlers, African slaves and native Amerindians blended into the beautiful new race.
Got some news for ya Ziggy. The native Amerindians in the Caribbean all died of European diseases or were slaughtered by the Spanish.
Let us tear up our Declarations of false Independence and write a new one, of mutual dependence and love.
Of suicide and the total destruction of Israel.
Mr Quisling, Mr Vichy, meet Mr. Shamir. Y'all got a lot in common.
Posted by denny at July 20, 2002 12:08 PM