Monday, December 15, 2014

When a 'friend' begins to urge genocide

Elliott Abrams wrote an article under the title: “The Scholars Who Ban Disagreement” and posted it on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations on December 14, 2014. That title is a blatant lie because no one is banning disagreement.

In Abrams own words, what happened is this: “A group of academics is calling on the US government and EU to impose sanctions on four prominent Israelis who lead efforts to insure permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and to annex all or parts of it in violation of international law.”

This is what the American academics have said, and what Abrams quoted them as saying. When you look at the matter closely, these people have a good reason for wanting to see their suggestion implemented. It is that the Israeli individuals are advocating at least the cultural genocide of the Palestinian people if not their long-term physical annihilation … which will most certainly happen as it did to other cultures, including some here on the American continents.

In arguing against that suggestion, Abrams does something strange even for a Jew. First, it must be noted that these people are notorious for shooting themselves in the foot every time that they try to have it both ways – which must be said is often. But what this guy has done is to fire at least four bullets into his body. In fact, he mentions Iran, China, Syria and Russia, and laments that the academics who cited Israel, have failed to cite those nations as well for sanction.

Elliott Abrams did all that despite the fact that he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a position that allows him to know for certain that those nations have been sanctioned for activities that come nowhere near being as severe as the Jewish genocide of the Palestinian people. Did he not realize that the mere mention of these nations would destroy the point he is trying to make? Really, this is a strange phenomenon that happens to be purely a Jewish one.

Abrams does another thing that suggests he must be undergoing a serious transformation – perhaps having a bout with male menopause or something. Look what he says: “the brilliant idea of these intellectuals is to ban from the United States democratically elected parliamentarians with whom they don't agree. Or with whom they really, really don't agree, seriously, a lot.” Well, set aside for now all those who were elected in the past, who rose to high positions and then committed horrible acts.

What does Elliott Abrams think of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian members who were democratically elected to their parliaments? Will he urge the Council on Foreign Relations to invite them to America even though he disagrees with them on many issues – really, really, seriously, a lot? Failing this, will he be happy to see someone else invite them? Perhaps to give a commencement speech at some college, or to address the chambers of the United States Congress? Or maybe even promote the idea that America must now drop the sanctions imposed on Iran?

Abrams further demonstrates how much his mental faculties have been affected when he tackles the same subject but from a different angle. He makes the point that what separates the prominent Israelis from the American academics is not that a fundamental principle is involved – given that one side is advocating genocide while the other is abhorred by it – but that a simple disagreement exists between two democratic groups.

Thus, it must be said that according to Elliot Abrams, it does not matter what the disagreement is about because what matters more is that the two sides are democratic. This alone lifts the disagreement from the level of the fundamental – in this case genocide – and places it at the level of the trivial – in this case a simple chicanery about nothing between two democrats.

What we have here is a situation in which someone you know – maybe a close friend, or maybe not so close a friend – doing something you know will hurt him because it happened many times before, and he does not learn from the past. You try to help him but to your dismay, his mental faculties have diminished so badly, he is rebuffing you.