From: "wayne mcguire" <wayne.mcguire@channel1.com>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: israeli racism
Date: 3 Jan 93 16:55:30 EST
Reply-To: "wayne mcguire" <wayne.mcguire@channel1.com>
Distribution: talk
Organization: Channel 1 Communications

To: Dan Nabutovsky

 DN> No, words "Likud" and "racism" are interchangeable.

Ah, you said it, not me. You may have a point.

 DN> You blamed Itzhak Shamir, so you must prove that you are
 DN> right. Either send any newspaper where his interview was
 DN> published (in GIF format or by surface mail) or send
 DN> audio-file. Or give me a reference to any Israeli newspaper
 DN> which published the interview.

This is an absurd request. I posted an article which quoted
Shamir making racist remarks about Arabs from UPI, one of the
leading newswire services in the world. The ball is in your
quote. Disprove the article by citing well-documented sources of
your own. If you can't, then the UPI article remains
authoritative and believable.

You failed to address the other Shamir quotes I posted, from The
New York Times:

     "If the Arabs of Israel won't come to their senses, reality
     will be harder and laden with impending disaster," Mr.
     Shamir said.  "I am not afraid.  A test of strength between
     us and them is like a contest between an elephant and a
     fly." (The New York Times, March 29, 1988, p. A6)

     Mr. Shamir standing atop an ancient West Bank castle, told
     reporters: "Anybody who wants to damage this fortress and
     other fortresses we are establishing will have his head
     smashed against the boulders and walls."

     ".... And we say to them from the heights of this mountain
     and from the perspective of thousands of years of history
     that they are like grasshoppers compared to us." (The New
     York Times, April 1, 1988, p. A3)

After a deranged follower of Meir Kahane killed a young Israeli
girl at Beita, Shamir exclaimed: "The heart of the entire nation
is boiling.... God will avenge her blood."

The "fortresses we are establishing" refers to the settlements of
Gush Emunim and other extremists.  Anyone who gets in the way of
Gush Emunim and other settlers will get their head smashed. The
talk about "the heights of this mountain and from the perspective
of thousands of years of history" is hardcore messianic sentiment
(and reminds one rather of Hitler declaiming about the ancient
and mystical German destiny). In the killing at Beita, Shamir
failed to condemn the Kahanists who provoked and committed the
act, but instead ranted that God (i.e., Israel and Shamir) will
avenge the victim's blood.

Shamir stated outright that Israel will brutally murder any
Palestinian who gets in the way of Israel's messianic drive to
expand its territory. If it is unfair to characterize these
sentiments as "racist," then how would you characterize them,
Dan?

 WM> I note with interest that the American media continue to
 WM> downplay or ignore this incident and many others like it.
 WM> They are bending over backwards to protect Israel.

 DN> Probably American media ignores this information because it
 DN> is not true. Or because it exists only in your smart head.

No, Dan, the information exists in a UPI article, not in my
"smart head." The other information exists in The New York Times.
It's quite curious that the American media particularly didn't
explore the implications of The New York Times article. I wonder
why, say, Ted Koppel's Nightline hasn't investigated in depth
this and many other examples of extremism in Israeli society?

 WM> >Why do you choose to put my name in the subject headings,
 WM> btw?

 DN> And why do you choose to call your messages "israeli
 DN> racism", btw?

I label those messages "Israeli Racism" which contain evidence of
egregious Israeli racism at the very top of Israeli society and
the Israeli government, such as the intelligence that one of
Likud's cabinet members, Rahavam Ze'evi, advocated the mass
deportation of Arabs from Israel and the occupied territories.
The subject accurately reflects the content of the messages.

Why on the other hand do so many Israelis and supporters of
Israel place in the subject heading, in an obnoxious fashion, the
name of the person they are addressing? It's an ugly rhetorical
pattern that I have never seen used to such an extent by any
other group in any other controversial issues forum. This strange
habit is one of many reasons why Israel is increasingly leaving a
bad taste in mouths of many non-Jews all around the world. It is
not a tactic calculated to win friends and favorably influence
people, or to encourage their enthusiasm for continuing to grant
Israel huge handouts each year.
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