Richard Hall Sees Weird

geoffff

geoffff 10.09.12 at 2:58 am

Earl is exactly right.

The war technology will keep on spiralling with all the genius of our kind until something in us has changed. With respect I thought that was where your profession comes in.

Liberal democracies never choose war. This is proven by anyone who needs to even think about it by the fact that there has never been a war between them and that such a war is unthinkable.

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Richard 10.09.12 at 8:43 am

You appear to be saying that whatever weapons we can make, we should make. Needless to say, I disagree. Your contention that “liberal democracies never choose war” is fatuous. Even the contention that liberal democracies never choose war between themselves is contentious, but in this case it is irrelevant.

I’m surprised at the degree of interest that you’re taking in this blog. By my count, nine of the last ten posts at your blog have been about something posted here. Isn’t that a bit weird?

No Richard. I am saying that whatever weapons we can make we will make until something about else has changed. And you're not helping.

You know the routine Richard.  I will answer your question here but likely those who wish to see it rather than the clipped version you prefer to engage will have to go to my blog. 

There is no mystery about my interest. Don't take it personally because it is not. You count the posts because you think this is  about you. I'm hoping that your readers will read the posts and see that it is not. Even less is it about me.

I look at your blog and it is just like a thousand others. The obsessive almost insane focus on Israel and  the "Palestinians" to the almost complete exclusion of any interest in the bleeding human condition anywhere else in the world.

Is there is anything on your blog about the Darfur genocide or the atrocities in Tibet, Sri Lanka, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, the Caucasus, Afghanistan and a hundred other places ? Is there anything on your blog about the plight of asylum seekers who put their lives in grave danger to get away from these places?  Anything  about African asylum seekers robbed raped and left to die in the Sinai or used as bait to ambush Israeli soldiers who go to their aid?

Here's a comment by someone who also has been counting posts on a CNN thread about the drone incursion in Israel a couple of days ago picked up by Israellycool.








Apparently the count is over 4000 now.
As Judge Dan says:

"The article has, at the time of this post, 3669 comments, and as expected, a fair amount are off topic, anti-Semitic or conspiracy theories. The disproportionality between any Israel related topic and other, far worse events, is mind boggling.

"4 killed in Bagdad attack is fit for just 4 comments, and the continuous slaughter in Syria has made people indifferent.

"Mention Israel in a title, and you’ve got yourself a winner"

I think that's a bit weird.

Here's a recent post by a Sydney Anglican priest explaining why he initially accepted an offer to address an Al Quds antisemitic rally.

"Some months ago I was invited to attend the Al Quds rally in Sydney and to say a few words in support of our Palestinian sisters and brothers. I readily accepted the offer as I feel that there is no group of people in the world today who have suffered so brutally as have the Palestinians people in this generation. Indeed, I take every opportunity I can to express my concern for their suffering and my prayers for an end to the 45-year-long Occupation of their land." [my emphasis]

I  think that is pretty weird. Sick weird.

And yesterday you published an overt and undisguised antisemitic smear on your moderated  blog on the  same thread where I have been banned for saying antizionism is antisemitism.

I think that you did this because the moral structure that the West frames Israel and the "Palestinians" has so badly rotted that you and other guardians of the moral order  are unable to recognise naked antisemitism when you see it.

That's the weirdest thing of all.

That's why antizionism is the new antisemitism.

Update

Richard responds

Richard 10.09.12 at 10:50 pm

At the risk of appearing childish: Whatever.

But despite my little blog being ‘just like a thousand others’, this is the one you single out for your attention. I’m deeply touched.

I’ve been blogging a long time now so yes, most of those other subjects you mentioned have come up in one way or another. The funny thing is, Israel/Palestine wasn’t a subject I blogged about much until very recently, and that was more about an attempt to clear up some misunderstandings about a decision that the Methodist Conference had made. I’ve never claimed to be very systematic about my blogging. I don’t even necessarily post about what’s most important to me: I blog about what catches my attention. But I repeat what i’ve said elsewhere: I challenge you to justify your claim that my posting about Israel has been obsessive. Do the work. Go through my archives (all the way back to feb 2002 and justify your claim with something other than your imagination.

geoffff

Not childish at all Richard. I use the word all the time.

I did scan survey your blog  a while back but only the last few  years and my focus is almost entirely confined to politics.  I take no interest in pastoral or religious topics except to the extent that they inform opinion on Israel and its conflict over the land with Arab Muslims. 

I can see why you feel this is a small part of what you do. Yet when you do turn your attention to the state of the world the matter of Israel and "Palestine" looms huge  like a trick mirror in a carnival maze. It is out of all proportion  and is as unbalanced as your apportionment of the blame that you splash around  liberally but mainly on one party. 

The Western and especially the  liberal/left's  focus on the plight of the "Palestinians" almost to the point where all other people in the region most of whom are in far direr straits are ignored. The  resolute determination to overlook who and what are really to blame for the misery of the "Palestinians" so as to blame Israel alone. The near hysterical attacks on Israel from the left always spilling over into attacks on the legitimacy of the state and the people with naked antisemitism in its crudest forms always always just one click away if that. 

This is sinister. There is no question about it.

But you are right about something  and it would be churlish for me not to say so. There are many blogs out there that are far worse and increasingly the mind is closing.  They have no interest at all in any other point of view. It has become a matter of faith.  Also I think you and your readers  are more important than perhaps you realise. Christians are too important to be left to the likes of Stephen Sizer and Fr David Smith both of whom I am certain are very nice men. They always are.